Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters (12 page)
Read Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters Online
Authors: Margaret Dilloway
His wings start flapping, and his body goes horizontal. The wind catches him and hoists him up.
“AAAAUGH!” he yells again as he's borne out over the water like a crazy hang glider. “HELP!”
I run to the prow. “I don't know what to do! Flap them!”
“I don't know how!” he shouts. “They won't flap!”
Inu runs back and forth from the prow to the stern, barking.
Peyton, now high up by the top of the mast, puts his hands together like he's about to dive into a pool. He zooms toward me, plummeting straight down like a cannonball. He's going to go face-first into the wooden deck. “Slow down!” I crouch and wait for the impact.
But then Peyton pulls his shoulders back, making his body vertical. He lands on the deck, his legs windmilling like a cartoon character as he bounces across the wooden planks. He's going too fast to stop. Throwing his body into a base-runner slide, he skitters across the boards and lands in a pile of canvas sacks.
I run over. His body is bent at funny angles, his arms going in a different direction than his legs. “Are you okay?”
Peyton sits up, his hair even messier than it was before. “Dude, that was awesome!”
I almost cry, I'm so relieved. I thought he was going to die and I'd be alone on this ship. “Dude,” I say back. “Dude.”
“Dude.”
We sit and sort of grin at each other for a minute.
“What the
what
. I have wings, dude. Freaking wings.” Peyton flaps them. They blow wind into my face.
I reach out and touch one. Underneath the feathers is hollow bone, just like in bird wings, and I'm afraid I'll snap it. The feathers are iridescent, gold from one angle, deep green and blue from others. The tips are emerald green. They're as soft as my grandmother's silky satin kimonos. “Do they hurt?”
“They feel great. Like I can fly to the moon!” He flaps the appendages. A big smile breaks across his face. “I want to go again.” He flaps them harder and he rises to the top of the mast. “Woo-hoo!”
I sit back and look up at him. Those glorious wings spreading out against the sun.
My best friend just grew wings.
Demons took my father. A professor who's actually a mythical warrior person.
This ship popped out of a tiny sculpture, and California is now an island.
What's going to happen to me?
W
e continue cruising through the purplish water. I try turning the wheel, which does nothing. The ship just stays on its course. I guess I'll have to trust it.
We hang out on the deck and eat some more of the never-ending supply of croissants. (Hey, we're a couple of sixth-grade boysâeating's our favorite hobby.) Inu lies on his back in the sun, his legs splayed out wide like an enormous goofy cat. I scratch under his left armpit, making his back left leg wiggle uncontrollably and drool drip out of his mouth. His “spot,” Dad called it.
Calls
it. I'm going to think about him in the present tense no matter what.
Peyton sits cross-legged, his wings spread out behind him. Occasionally he flaps them, sending my hair blowing back. Show-off.
I bite into my sixth croissant. “How do the wings feel now?” I ask with my mouth full. No grandmother telling me not to do that, either. I wipe my face with the back of my hand.
He unfurls them to their full length. “Like they've always been there. It's weird. I can feel things with them.”
“Like they've got nerves?” I gently bend the end of a feather. “Does that hurt?” Uh-oh. I got chocolate on it. I try to wipe it off.
“Nope. They're more like cat whiskers, I guess.” Peyton wrinkles his nose at the state of his wing. “Xander! Quit messing up my wings!”
“Sorry.” I use the end of my shirt to get most of the offending smears. “It'll wash off.”
Inu leaps up and licks the chocolate, sending spit puddling down the feathers.
“Ugh!” Peyton leans away. “Cut it out!”
“Inu, you're not supposed to have chocolate!” I scold him, and he leans back on his haunches and looks guilty. Then he lets out a loud belch.
Peyton guffaws. “Good one, Inu.”
“At least he cleaned you up.” I consider Peyton's profile. Will he completely transform into a bird, like a man transforms into a werewolf? His hair sticks up like feathersâthey always have. His long nose is what my father calls “Roman,” with a little hump in it. “You know, I never noticed this before, but your nose kind of looks like a beak.”
“Gee, thanks.” Peyton shifts his legs.
I hold up my hand. “I didn't mean that in an insulting way.”
Peyton snorts. “Yeah, that totally came across.”
“But,” I continue, “now that I think about it, you
are
kind of like a bird.”
Peyton cocks his head to stare at me.
“Like that!” I point at him. “And your hair. And your extremely long arms and legs.”
Peyton shakes his head. “So? What are you saying? You saw this coming?”
“No.” I examine his face. No feathers there. Unless you count the beginnings of a blond beard on the lower half of his face. Was that there yesterday? I don't think so. “Do you feel any different? Like, don't birds' hearts beat twice as fast as humans'? Is yours? Are you sprouting feathers anywhere else?”
“No feathers so far.” Peyton holds out his arms and turns them over. My eyes widen. His arms are as ropy and muscled as an action figure's. He puts his hand on his chest. “Seems normal enough.”
I put one of my hands on his chest and the other on mine, feeling the
thump-thump-thump
of our respective hearts. “Yep. They're both about the same.” I sit back. It'd be kind of cool if he turned into a real bird. But then again, if he did, he might not be able to talk.
“I do feel stronger, though.” Peyton snaps his wings with such force that I, squatting right next to him, fall backward. Oof. I'm splayed out on the deck. I sit up. He laughs. “Told you I was the bodyguard.”
“Fine. You're the bodyguard,” I mutter. Can someone who's stronger ever really be a sidekick? I guess not. “How about
protector
?”
“Whatever.” Peyton waves his hand around. “It's just a word, Xander.”
But I'm still the one in charge. Still Momotaro. I don't say that aloud, though. Peyton won't like the idea of me bossing him around. I reach for another croissant, but my stomach clenches and I decide that I've finally had my fill.
“So, I'm the pheasant.” Peyton does take another croissant and shoves the entire thing into his mouth. It's his tenth, I think.
I nod.
“I told you.” Peyton slaps my back a little too hard, and I almost choke. “We're the comic! We better finish reading it.” Peyton gets up and runs to the ladder.
“It's not a school assignment, you know!” I call after him. Okay, he was right. It sure seems like we're following the plot, with the ship and the dog and the oni and now Peyton. Could it tell me how to fight like Momotaro, too?
I try again to remember drawing the book, but I can't. Was I asleep? In a trance? You would think that even if I blanked on it, I'd wonder where that block of time had gone, like if I started drawing it at noon one day and finished at four.
And how did that happen? Did my father give me paper and tell me to draw it?
I decide I probably did it when I was supposed to be asleep. That's when I do my best work after all.
Peyton returns with the comic in a flash. He's not even out of breath, and his muscles are all ripply, like he's a comic book character himself. It's disgusting, actually. I fold my puny arms, which actually seem like they've shrunk since yesterday. “Let's read it.”
A few dark gray clouds begin covering the sky like ice spreading across a giant windshield, and a frigid wind cuts across the deck, numbing my ears. I frown. “Hey, uh, how do you know if a big storm's coming?”
“The wind would be stronger than this.” Peyton sticks his finger in his mouth and then holds it up in the air. “And it's coming from the south. That's usually not bad. I think it's just cooling off.”
“But do we even know that south is south here?” I examine the clouds. They're feathery, not super dense like thunderheads, so I guess they're okay.
Inu cranes his neck at the sky, too, and then curls up into a warm ball beside me.
“If it starts raining, we'll go inside. What else can we do? Turn this thing into a submarine?” Peyton sits next to me on the deck and arranges his wings so that Inu and I are protected from the wind. Now that is kind of convenient. He opens
Momotaro
and I read it aloud.
The ship took them to an island with a castle sitting on top of a craggy cliff.
The group walked around the perimeter of the castle, searching for an entrance. They could not find a way in.
They stumbled upon a group of young women washing bloody garments in a pond.
Momotaro called out, “Who are you?”
A maiden stood up. The dress she wore was soaked in blood, too. “This was once our island, but the oni have enslaved us,” she said pitifully. “They have eaten all our people and will eat us very soon. Go, now, before they eat you, too!”
Momotaro crossed his arms. “No. I am here to help.”
“Nobody has helped us for years and years,” the girl said warily.
Momotaro planted his feet. “I am here now. Show us a way inside.”
The women pointed out a hidden passageway. “But you will die, you know!”
“Thank you for your advice.” Momotaro thought for a moment. He recalled the painting he had made for his mother, in which he had painted craggy cliffs very much like these. Perhaps he already knew what to do.
Momotaro sent the pheasant flying up over the ramparts, to distract the oni, and the rest of them went inside.
There they battled the oni with great valor and threw them off the steep cliff. They fought as fiercely as a thousand men.
My blood turns cold. They think I can fight like a thousand men? Try a
thousandth
of a man.
