Challenger Deep Read Online Free PDF

friend. It makes me think about the dolphins I painted on my sister’s bedroom wall. Does she know they may want to kill her? Have they already?
    “Getting along with the crew, the crew?” the parrot asks.
    I shrug. “I guess.”
    “Tell me something I can use against them.”
    “Why would I do that?”
    The parrot whistles out a sigh. “My, my, so uncooperative today.” When he realizes he won’t get anything out of me, he hops back onto his perch. “We’re done for the day, for the day,” he says. “Off to dinner now. Couscous and mahi mahi.”

21. Crew Member Questionnaire
    Please rate the following statements from one to five using the scale below:
    1 strongly agree      2 totally agree      3 agree emphatically
    4 in absolute agreement      5 how did you know?
     
I sometimes worry that the ship might sink.
1   2   3   4   5
My fellow crewmen are hiding biological weapons.
1   2   3   4   5
Energy drinks allow me to fly.
1   2   3   4   5
I am God, and God does not fill out questionnaires.
1   2   3   4   5
I enjoy the company of brightly colored birds.
1   2   3   4   5
Death tends to leave me hungry.
1   2   3   4   5
My shoes are too tight, and my heart two sizes too small.
1   2   3   4   5
I believe all the answers lie at the bottom of the sea.
1   2   3   4   5
I often find myself surrounded by soulless zombies.
1   2   3   4   5
Sometimes I hear voices from the Home Shopping Network.
1   2   3   4   5
I can breathe underwater.
1   2   3   4   5
I have visions of parallel and/or perpendicular universes.
1   2   3   4   5
I need more caffeine. Now.
1   2   3   4   5
I smell dead people.
1   2   3   4   5

22. The Mattress Didn’t Save Him
    My family and I go to Las Vegas for two days while they tent our house for termites. I draw in my sketch pad for the whole drive, and get carsick. One step short of vomiting. Which, I suppose, makes me like everyone else in Vegas.
    Our hotel is a thirty-story pyramid with diagonal elevators. Las Vegans are very proud of their elevators. The glass ones, the mirrored ones, the ones with chandeliers that quiver and tinkle like each rise and fall is a tremor. The hotels are all in competition to see who can get their guests from their rooms to the casino faster. One hotel even has slot machines in the elevators for the people who can’t wait that long.
    I’m nervous for no reason that I can figure. “You need to eat,” Mom tells me. I eat, and it doesn’t go away. “You need a nap,” Dad tells me, like I’m a toddler, but it’s not that either, and they both know it. “You need to get over this social anxiety, Caden,” they tell me more than once. The thing is, I never had social anxiety before—I was always pretty confident and outgoing. They don’t know—I don’t even know yet—that this is the start of somethingbigger. It’s just the dark tip of a much larger, much deeper, much blacker pyramid.
    My parents spend half a day gambling until they’ve decided they’ve lost enough money. Then they argue and blame each other.
    “You don’t know how to play blackjack!”
    “I told you, I prefer roulette!”
    Everyone needs someone to blame. Married couples blame each other. It’s easier that way. The whole thing is aggravated by the fact that Mom broke the left heel of her favorite red shoes, and had to limp back to the hotel, because walking barefoot on the streets of Las Vegas is not an option. Walking on coals would be less painful.
    While our parents console themselves with spa treatments, I go out with my sister and walk along the strip, watching the Bellagio fountain show. I’m kind of bothered to be with Mackenzie right now, because she happens to be sucking on her favorite candy—a blue Ring Pop. It makes her look much younger than almost-eleven, and makes me feel