Read Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters Online
Authors: Margaret Dilloway
Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters
Text copyright © 2016 by Margaret Dilloway
Illustrations copyright © 2016 by Choong Yoo
Cover illustration © 2016 by Choong Yoo
Cover design by Joann Hill & Sammy Yuen
All rights reserved. Published by Disney ⢠Hyperion, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney ⢠Hyperion, 125 West End Avenue, New York, New York 10023.
ISBN 978-1-4847-4631-8
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About the Author and Illustrator
For Elyse, Ethan, and Kaiya
“See first with your mind, then with your eyes, and finally with your body.”
âYagyÅ« Munenori,
A Hereditary Book on the Art of War
, 1632
The pale old man stands in the middle of the rainy street and watches the boy through the school windows. The classroom faces the road, but it's hard to get a clear view inside. That's fine. He doesn't want the boy to notice him. Not yet.
The boy is in front of the class, one hand fidgeting with papers, the other dipping into his pocket to jingle imaginary coins, then combing through his hair. The whiteboard behind him seems to engulf him, each word on it at least the length of the boy's arm. The old man's used-to-be heart drops in sympathy. He's supposed to be twelve, this boy, but he's no bigger than a seven-year-old.
That's him, all right, the man thinks. Blue eyes, straight black hair. Like his father and his grandfather. But this boy is frightfully weak. The pale man shakes his head. Can the boy handle this?
The old man limps toward the school, hoping for a better view. A monster-size pickup truck passes through him. Neither the pale man nor the driver notices.
The man presses his transparent face to the windowpane. That's better. Now he can see
and
hear. But none of the students see himâthe rain sluices through the old man's face, making it look like a puddle gathered on the glass.
The boy is back at his desk now, supposedly paying attention to the lecture. Which he most definitely isn't. He's drawing. Like he always does. The pale man shimmers in the rain like a waving piece of plastic wrap.
That teacher sounds like a robot. Why, the old man almost drops off just listening, and
he's
already dead. So the old man can't blame (What is his English name? So hard for him to rememberâ¦) Xander for being bored. Xander Musashi Miyamoto. The boy's named after Musashi Miyamoto, one of the greatest samurai and artists who ever lived. The old man calls the boy Musashi in his head. Always has, ever since Xander was born.
We have no choice. He is the one. He must rise.
The pale man exhales a breath that would have sounded like a sigh, had he any lungs.
He goes back to sit on the bench again, waiting for his grandson to notice him.
I
shuffle through my notes once, twice, three times, feeling sweat starting to trickle down my sides and from my palms. I'm standing in front of twenty-five of my fellow sixth graders, in the middle of giving my report, “Snow in Ecuador: How Climate Change Affects the Rain Forests,” which is a really great title, if I do say so myself.
But I've lost my place. Not just a little bit. Completely. I can't remember the last thing I said or what I'm supposed to say next. It doesn't help that I basically copied and pasted my entire report out of Wikipedia and some random guy's blog without reading any of it. I meant to go over it this morning, but I forgot because my friend Peyton got a new app on his phone and we were playing it right up until the bell rang. The worst part is, the appâ
Xoru, Master of Magic
âwasn't even very good. What a waste of time. Whoops. This project is for extra credit, which I desperately, desperately need in social studies, and I'm about to blow it.
I cough and clear my throat. Rain beats in a steady
thumthumthum
against the windows. The whole class shifts around, impatient, starting to whisper.
Clickclickclick.
Someone's taking cell phone photos. I look up, and, sure enough, it's Lovey, the most misnamed person on the face of the planet. The forbidden phone peeks up over the top of her textbook. She didn't even bother to turn off the sound. Sheesh. She looks straight at me and giggles. Fantastic.
Mr. Stedman doesn't seem to notice. He lets out a sigh. “Xander, please continue or sit down. We have a lesson to do.”
I feel like I'm standing in front of the class in my underwear. I look down at my legs, just to make sure. Yup, pants are on. I put my hand in my pocket and rock back and forth in my Converse, stare at the white toe caps.
Come on.
Finally, inspiration hits.
“Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth the subject of climate change.” I sweep my hand around like I'm Abraham Lincoln. The whole class jerks upright, suddenly awake. Peyton flashes me a thumbs-up from his seat in the back. “They kept talking. Nothing much happened. We still drive cars and make smog, and now there's, like, a ton of snow in Ecuador. So, basically, that's it. Let's all stop climate change. Together. Stop using plastic, people. Wake up!”
The class applauds, and I take a little bow and run back to my seat with a grin plastered across my face. There. I've done it. Score. I mean, I might not have gotten full points, but that was good for at least five, right?
Mr. Stedman rolls his eyes. “Thank you, Mr. Miyamoto.” He shakes his head so I can be sure he doesn't mean it. “Everyone, turn to page one hundred and fifty in your textbooks.”
Page 150 again? We've been on this page for a week. I flip open the book and start making a list in my head.
Things I'd Rather Be Doing
, in order of preference:
1. Playing computer games
2. Drawing
3. Drawing pictures of computer games
4. Getting a cavity drilled
5. Walking down the street with no pants on
6. Watching that wedding-dress show with my grandma
And then I tick off the minutes, like this. Like I'm a freaking prisoner in a medieval dungeon cell serving a two-million-year sentence, scratching the years into the wall with my bare fingernail:
Five minutes of class, done! Ten, done!
And I'll keep going on and on and on, until I have twelve setsâit's a block day, which means that some classes are double periods. Today Mr. Stedman has the Social Studies block.
And then the bell rings, and the torture starts all over again.
For some reason, Social Studies seems twice as long as, say, my computer class, the one class I actually enjoy. Why is that? Why do things you love seem to take a shorter time? Seems like the opposite should be true.
Mr. Stedman has started his lecture, but it's the day before spring break, and, therefore, nobody's paying a bit of attention. Everyone's dreaming about sunshine and ice cream and warm beaches and Easter candy. But does Mr. Stedman care? Heck no. And we're all just staring at him, counting the black hairs coming out of his zombie-white forehead (he doesn't have that many hairsâthey look like my number countdown, kind of) and dodging the spit flying off his lips (never sit in the front row of Mr. Stedman's class).
“
Blah blah blah
global warming.
Blah blah blah
fire at the South Pole.
Blah blah blah
tropical hurricane in Maine.
Blah blah blah
super hurricane-blizzard in New York.”
I feel my brain quiver in my skull, probably wishing it could break out and run free. I yawn and stare out the window at the road. Rain's pouring down in sheets, and I hope it lets up before school ends.
The best thing about Social Studies is where the classroom is locatedâthe windows look out onto the street. Sometimes a car goes by, but that's about it. Today just one old man sits at the bus stop. More boringness. What else is new? This place where we live, Oak Grove, is a one-horse town, way out in the boonies of San Diego, so horribly far away from the actual city of San Diego that nobody even calls this San Diego anymore. They call it “backcountry.” Or the mountains, where people go when they want to see some snow and pretend they have a real winter, even though they live in Southern California. It's so small that grades Kâ8 are all at the same lower school, and the entire sixth grade is in this classroom with me.