Read Online Xander and the Lost Island of Monsters by Margaret Dilloway - Free Book Online

Dad’s office, nothing but a pile of books and lumber. My room’s a mess, too. Everything’s fallen off the shelves. A gentle breeze now wafts through the broken windows, and my drawings flutter through the air. Not a single one is left on the walls.
    Obāchan is wedged under a collapsed metal bed frame, with the heavy solid-wood bookcase on top of that. Blood streaks her forehead. Inu licks her face, and she pushes him away with a grimace. “Stop that, you silly dog.”
    I run to her, try to move the bookshelf off, but of course I can’t budge it. “Help me.” Peyton pries up the other end so Obāchan can scoot out.
    I pull her to her feet. She brushes off her polyester pants. Her arm’s bleeding, too. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. Old skin tears easily.”
    I think of Dad, out there in the forest. Which is now water. I shake my head, trying to clear it of this nightmare. “Obāchan…” My throat closes. “Dad’s dead.”
    She puts her hand on my arm, clenches it tight.
    â€œThere was…” I don’t know how to explain the rest to her. “…a big wave. We got flooded.”
    Her small brown eyes lock onto mine, and she lets go of my arm. “Come on. We have to hurry.”
    â€œI better go home and check on my mom.” Peyton starts for the door. “I’ll call 9-1-1, tell them about your dad.”
    â€œNo.” My grandmother grabs my friend’s arm in a death grip this time. “Your house is fine for now, Peyton. You must help.”
    His eyes dart from the door, to the window overlooking the ocean, to me. His tan face is covered in red blotches, the way it gets when Peyton’s trying hard not to cry, like the time his cheekbone was cracked by a stray fastball. I’m glad, because if Peyton starts crying, I will, too, and I can’t do that. I might not be able to stop.
    â€œI promise. It’s all right.” Obāchan’s tone will not be argued with. She’s so sure of herself that Peyton visibly relaxes. She releases him as if she’s letting an unruly Inu off leash.
    Peyton slumps to the floor, Inu flopping down beside him with a loud doggy sigh.
    I turn to help my grandmother, who is now scrabbling through the fallen objects on the floor. “What are you looking for?”
    â€œHere it is.” Obāchan picks up a wooden shoe box with Japanese writing on it. It used to hold candy—now it has Japanese stuff my grandpa left to me.
    She takes off the lid and dumps it out.
Netsuke.
Little carved figurines, no bigger than a man’s thumb, that people used to stick through their kimono ties and attach boxes to. Kind of like super-decorative buttons with dangling boxes that served as pockets. Anyway, they’re really old, and people like to collect them now, as my grandfather did.
    Obāchan’s gnarled hands sift through the figures. She selects three. A tiny sailing ship, made out of dark wood. Second, an ivory octopus, which Obāchan told me was carved out of the tooth of a whale that washed ashore in my grandpa’s hometown when he was a child. It has long, curly tentacles with teensy suction cups on each one. And the last is a wooden monkey with a bare-toothed grin. Each of the netsuke have a small lacquered box attached by a golden thread.
    Obāchan displays them in her palm. “There’s a reason your grandfather wanted you to have these, Xander. How he wished your father would follow him…” She trails off and looks right at me. “But your father had a different way of doing things. He liked to take a more peaceful, intellectual approach. He was trying theories of peaceful resistance.” She shakes her head. “I don’t think that worked very well.”
    Thoughts rush around in my head.
Liked.
She said
liked
, past tense. He
is
gone, for real. Dad, the absentminded professor. Gentle Dad, barefoot, urging a line of ants out