Read Online Slawter by Darren Shan - Free Book Online Page A

will only be filming for a few days. Chai considers himself a
method actor.
    “How are you two managing?” Juni asks Bill-E and me. “Enjoying yourselves?”
    “Totally!” Bill-E gushes. “It’s great. Incredibly invigorating and inspiring. I think I’ve found my calling in life.”
    “Not getting into any trouble, are you?” Dervish grunts.
    “As if!” Bill-E smirks.
    “I was discussing your situation with Dervish earlier,” Juni says hesitantly.
    Uh-oh! It’s never good when an adult says something like that.
    “I’m worried that you’ll fall behind in your schoolwork,” Juni goes on. “Things have been a rush lately — Dervish accepting our offer, bringing you two with him, a crazy first week of shooting. Tutoring arrangements have been made for the other children, but we overlooked you and Bill-E. I think it would be a mistake to let things continue as they are, and Dervish agrees, so...”
    “No!” Bill-E cries dramatically. “You’re going to stick us in a class? Say it ain’t so, Derv!”
    “It’s so,” Dervish laughs. “Juni’s right. We’re going to be here three months, maybe longer. If you go that length of time without classes, it’ll mean repeating a year when we get back to Carcery Vale.”
    “You won’t have to do full days,” Juni promises. “We keep classes flexible, to fit in around shooting, so it’ll be a few hours here, a few hours there, just keeping you in line with what your friends are doing back home. That doesn’t sound so awful, does it?”
    “Too bad if it does,” Dervish interjects before we can reply, “because you don’t have a choice.”
    “Slave driver,” Bill-E mutters, but he’s only pretending to be grumpy. We both knew this was coming. The freedom couldn’t last forever.
    Juni and Dervish start talking to each other again. Juni’s been with my uncle most times that I’ve seen him recently, which is strange, since they can’t have a lot of business together. Dervish is part of the inner technical circle, whereas Juni’s job revolves around the children. There must be another reason why he’s sticking to her like superglue, and I think I know what it is — good old-fashioned physical attraction!
    It seems incredible. If someone asked me a week ago, I’d have laughed and said the bald old grouch didn’t have a romantic bone in his body. But something’s stirring in the hidden depths of Dervish Grady. There’s a gleam in his smile that was never there before. He’s switched to a pungent new aftershave. His clothes are freshly ironed. He’s even started combing the wisps of hair dotted around the sides of his head into place. There’s no doubt about it — he’s trying to impress the cute albino!
    Juni knows that Bill-E and I are friends with Emmet, so she places us in his class. All of the other students are actors. There’s the Kane twins, Kuk and Kik, a boy and girl, small and slender, very alike in looks. They don’t speak much to anyone, going off by themselves whenever there’s a free period. They have big roles in the film, as eerie psychic twins.
    Salit Smit is the main child star of
Slawter.
He’s a bit older than the rest of us. A nice guy but not the brightest spark. He just smiles and nods a lot in class, not bothering to apply himself, convinced he’s going to be the biggest movie draw since Tom Cruise.
    I absolutely despise the other three. A clique of snobs, presided over by the dreadful Bo Kooniart, a girl who was born solely to annoy. She’s been in a few commercials and thinks she’s God’s gift. Always dresses stylishly, like a model. Sucks up to Davida and anyone else with power and influence. Ignores the rest of us, treating us like simpletons or servants.
    Her brother, Abe, is almost as bad. A scrawny, miserable excuse for a child. He’s not an actor, but his father — the loud, obnoxious Tump Kooniart, a movie agent — insisted he be cast if they wanted to hire Bo. From the rumors, Davida resisted,