Read Online Monstrum by Ann Christopher - Free Book Online

shout is returned by her mother, and they lapse into excited Spanish as the oarsmen in both rafts maneuver the rafts together until the edges bump. Both groups call out relieved greetings.
    Murphy looks to me and our gazes lock. His eyes crinkle, feathering crow’s feet from the corners, and I smile back. Never in my life have I been happier to see someone than I am to see this crotchety old man, but I don’t reach out to hug him because our relationship doesn’t work that way. When Mona got sick, he pretended he wasn’t looking out for me, making sure I was as okay as possible, and I pretended I didn’t need his gruff attention and advice unless I was in the middle of fencing practice. Now he pretends that I’m not his favorite student, and I pretend not to know that I am.
    I blink back sudden hot tears. “About time you showed up,” I call.
    â€œDon’t think I won’t make you run extra laps for your cheek when we get back, Bria Hunter,” he answers.
    Thus concludes our emotional reunion. Now that I know he’s okay, I swipe at my eyes and look around.
    I’m thrilled to see the others, of course, but I’d had such high hopes when I realized there was another group of survivors. Now my stomach is knotted with disappointment. My desperate head count isn’t adding up to anything close to the nineteen students that were so excited to set out for the Bahamas a week ago.
    â€œIs this it?” I ask.
    Murphy, who’s busy tying the rafts’ ropes together so we won’t get separated, doesn’t bother looking at me. “Lovely to see you, too, Bria Hunter. Always a pleasure.”
    â€œSorry,” I say. “I’d just hoped—”
    â€œYou hoped what I hoped.” He glances up at me with his wizened eyes. “Which was that there’d be a damn sight more heads in this raft. Isn’t that right?”
    I nod.
    â€œWell, this is it, I reckon,” Murphy says sadly. “We’ve circled the area a good bit.” He pauses. “I don’t think anyone in the water is long for this world anyway.”
    I still don’t understand. “But . . . there were so many people in the aisle right after the plane hit the water.” I raise my voice, looking around at the others to include them in the discussion. “They all ran to the back end of the plane, where you guys were. What happened to them? Why didn’t they get into the raft with you?”
    Everyone in Murphy’s raft shrinks a little. They all hunch in on themselves and stare, with glazed eyes, out to sea. It’s like they’re determined not to answer or even hear the questions I’ve just asked.
    I wonder what could possibly be so bad after everything we’ve already endured today, but then the memory of that monstrous scream echoes through my head. Dread crawls all over me, clinging to my nerve endings like sargassum.
    â€œMurphy?” I prompt.
    He turns toward me at last. Hesitating, he runs a hand over his chest, reminding me that he took a medical leave last year after bypass surgery. He should have retired then, but he’s one of those old guys who can’t imagine sitting around the house, doing nothing. His face is ashen and I have a sudden vision of him keeling over from a stress-induced heart attack.
    â€œAre you okay?” I ask quickly, not sure my own heart can survive another trauma. He and I are tight after all my years of fencing, and this isn’t the first time I’ve fluttered around him like a mother hen. “Is it your heart?”
    Murphy looks affronted, as though I’ve wounded his male pride. He straightens his wiry body to its full height, which is way closer to five feet than it is to six. “My ticker is fine, thank you very much.”
    This makes me feel foolish for overreacting, but mostly relieved.
    â€œSo you do have a heart, then,” I say tartly. “Good to