Mister Monday Read Online Free PDF Page A

Emily’s team. Arthur had only been a week old when they died. He’d lived through the flu, but he was probably an asthmatic because of it. Besides his parents, he had no immediate family, so Emily and Bob had been successful in their application to adopt.
    It didn’t worry Arthur that he was adopted. But every now and then he would leaf through the photo album that was almost all he had to remember his birth parents. The other thing was a short video from their wedding, which he found almost unbearable to watch. The influenza plague had killed them only eighteen months later, and even to Arthur they looked ridiculously young. He liked that as he got older he looked more like both his birth parents, in different ways. So they lived on in him.
    Arthur had known he was adopted since he was little. Bob and Emily treated all the children the same way, and the children considered themselves all brothers and sisters. They never introduced one another as “half brother” or “half sister” and never explained the fact that there were twenty years between the eldest, Erazmuz (born in Bob’s rock music heyday), and the youngest, Arthur. They also didn’t explain the difference in looks, skin color, or anything else. They were simply all part of the family, even if only the youngest three were still at home.
    The four eldest were Erazmuz, who was a major in the army and had children of his own; Staria, a serious theater actress; Eminor, a musician, who’d changed his name to Patrick; and Suzanne, who was at college. The three at home were Michaeli, who was at a local college; Eric, who was in his last year of high school; and Arthur.
    Arthur’s father, Michaeli, and Eric had already been to see him the night before, and his mother had popped in early in the morning to check that he was okay. Once she was sure of that, she lectured him about it being better to look like a total loser in everyone’s eyes than to be dead.
    Arthur always knew when his mother was approaching, because doctors and nurses would appear from all over the place, and, by the time she arrived, Emily would be trailing eight or nine white-coated people behind her. Arthur was used to her being a Medical Legend, just as he was used to his father being a Former Musical Legend.
    Since all of his family in town had already visited once, Arthur was surprised when two more people came to see him early on Tuesday afternoon. Kids his own age. He didn’t recognize them for a second, since they weren’t wearing black. Then he realized who they were.
    Ed and the girl who had helped him use the inhaler. This time they were in regular school uniform, white shirts, gray trousers, blue ties.
    “Hi,” said the girl from the door. “Can we come in?”
    “Uh, sure,” mumbled Arthur. What could these two want?
    “We didn’t meet properly yesterday,” said the girl. “I’m Leaf.”
    “Leith?” asked Arthur. She’d pronounced it strangely.
    “No, Leaf, as in from a tree ,” said Leaf reluctantly. “Our parents changed their names to reflect their commitment to the environment.”
    “Dad calls himself Tree,” said the boy. “I’m supposed to be Branch but I don’t use it. Call me Ed.”
    “Right,” said Arthur. “Leaf and Ed. My dad used to be called Plague Rat.”
    “No!” exclaimed Leaf and Ed. “You mean from The Ratz?”
    “Yeah.” Arthur was surprised. Normally only old people knew the names of the individual members of The Ratz.
    “We’re into music,” said Leaf, seeing his surprise. She looked down at her school uniform. “That’s why we were wearing real clothes yesterday. There was a lunchtime appearance by Zeus Suit at the mall and we didn’t want to look stupid.”
    “But we missed it anyway,” said Ed. “Because of you.”
    “Uh, what do you mean?” asked Arthur warily. “I’m really grateful to you guys—”
    “It’s okay,” said Leaf. “What Ed means is we missed Zeus Suit because we had something more important to