Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters Read Online Free PDF Page B

a scream.
    Mrs. Phasis said something I couldn’t quite make out. I thought I heard my name.
    Mr. Phasis kept going. “…real troublemaker…lazy…not even in…GATE program.”
    Something like a cold, hard stone materialized in my gut.
    â€œPhillip!” Mrs. Phasis said in a loud, stern voice. “I will not have you picking on him. That poor child. His mother—”
    â€œIt’s not like I…to his face. Hey, PEYTON!” Mr. Phasis bellowed suddenly. These words went right into my eardrum, loud as a firecracker. “YOU DONE YET?”
    â€œAlmost!” Peyton shouted back.
    Peyton’s father clomped out of the kitchen, with one last comment to his wife. “I can’t wait…Peyton…Army and Navy Academy…away from bad influences.”
    The Army and Navy Academy?
I sat up. Ouch. Bad idea. Wooden board, meet forehead. I slid out from under the bed. “Peyton,” I said breathlessly, “your dad’s sending you to military school!”
    Peyton snapped his quilt high up over the bed and let it float down. “Yeah. For high school.”
    â€œYeah?”
I echoed. “You know?”
    Peyton shrugged. “Yeah. It’s a good school. They have excellent sports programs, and their graduates go to top colleges.” He said it like he was reading from a brochure. “It’ll be fine,” he mumbled.
    My chest clenched. High school without Peyton? That would be impossible. Like, utterly impossible. Everyone from around here had to be bussed to Valley Mountain High. Nine hundred teenagers and one little me. I would perish.
    And Peyton—Peyton was not the military type. He couldn’t even make his bed.
    Peyton’s dad flung open the door, his eyes darting around the room. “What are you boys up to?”
    Irritation shot up my spine. I had a sudden, self-destructive impulse to tell him,
Making your son’s IQ points go down, as usual,
but, thankfully, I managed to say nothing.
    Peyton stood up as if pulled by a wire in the ceiling. “I’m all finished, sir.”
    Yes, Peyton calls his dad “sir.”
    Peyton’s dad glanced sideways at me, and I felt a blush spread over my face.
Little ne’er-do-well
.
Not even in GATE.
I’d never forget that as long as I lived. I wanted to run out of there, but I couldn’t abandon Peyton.
    Mr. Phasis pulled back the quilt and blanket and inspected the sheet. He took a quarter out of his pocket and threw it down on the bed. Peyton and I held our breaths. It bounced up, high. Mr. Phasis smiled and clapped his son on the back. “Finally. This is how a bed should look. I knew you could do it, son. Like I say, all you have to do is put your mind to something. Not give up. Not cry about it.”
    I sighed inside. Great. He was getting ready for a good long lecture.
    Peyton opened his mouth. “Xander actually…”
    Helped.
He was about to say
helped.
“I’ve got to go,” I said quickly. “Peyton really did a good job on that bed, huh, Mr. P?”
    Peyton closed his mouth and shot me a grateful look.
    Mr. Phasis’s face relaxed into a real smile for once. “Peyton, I think you’ve earned a couple of hours of R and R. You can stay, Xander.” He turned and left the room.
    Anyway, that’s why I can’t let Mr. Phasis find out that Peyton is ditching practice today. Especially not to spend time with me.
    Peyton tips the bag of Cheetos into his mouth and we walk up to my house. It sits on top of a hill, set back a half acre from the road. Behind us is the Laguna mountain range, rolling hills of pine stretching out like a sea of trees. Above it is a sky so blue that I’ve mistaken it for ocean. We’re about forty minutes outside of the actual city of San Diego, and one of the few places in the county that actually has seasons—and snow.
    There isn’t very much to the town of Oak Grove, which suits