Basilisk by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

through his mouth. She opened the drapes, so that the bedroom was a little lighter, but all he did was bury himself deeper under the comforter.
    Usually she would have woken him, but today she decided to let him sleep. He had tried to be philosophical about his gryphon project, but she knew how bitterly disappointed he was, and how much it had taken out of him, both mentally and physically. A couple of hours’ extra rest would do him good.
    After she had dressed, she closed her closet door as quietly as she could, but it still made a sharp clicking noise.
    ‘ Quick ,’ Nathan mumbled. Then, ‘ Don’t want to – no !’
    ‘Nathan?’ she said, but he didn’t open his eyes. She bent over and kissed his stubbly cheek, and then she went downstairs.
    ‘ Hurry ,’ Nathan repeated. ‘ For God’s sake, hurry !’
    In the kitchen, Denver was already sitting at the counter with a bowl of Cap’n Crunch, swimming in almost a half-pint of milk. He was wearing a black T-shirt with I’m Only Wearing Black Until They Invent Something Darker printed on the front. He hadn’t yet brushed his hair so his face was almost completely hidden, except for his nose.
    ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Do you want a ride into school today?’
    ‘’S . . . OK. Taser’s picking me up.’
    ‘Taser?’
    ‘You don’t know him. They call him that because he’s always shocking the teachers.’
    ‘Oh.’
    She took a carton of pomegranate juice out of the fridge and poured herself a large glassful. ‘Are you going to be late for supper tonight?’
    ‘I don’t know yet. We might have a band practice. I’ll call you, OK?’
    ‘How’s the band coming along?’
    ‘It’s OK, but we need a new drummer. I don’t know what’s happened to Chesney. He’s total crap.’
    ‘Chesney’s parents are getting a divorce. You can’t blame Chesney if he’s got his mind on other things, apart from drumming. Like you shouldn’t get so upset if your father doesn’t give you as much attention as you think you deserve.’
    Denver tossed his spoon into his half-finished cereal. ‘I don’t think I deserve any attention, as a matter of fact. At least, that’s what Pops has always made me feel like. I sometimes wish I was a dragon or something. Maybe then he’d look at me, at least. Maybe he’d even ask me how my day was.’
    ‘Your father loves you. You don’t even realize how much.’
    Denver stood up and tipped the remains of his bowl into the InSinkErator. But he dropped his spoon into it, as well as his cereal, and said, ‘ Shit .’
    ‘Here,’ said Grace, opening up one of the kitchen drawers and taking out a pair of tongs. ‘Fish it out with this.’
    But Denver reached his right hand into the InSinkErator as far as his wrist.
    ‘Denver – take your hand out! You should never do that!’
    ‘What, in case I accidentally switch it on, and grind my hand off? Do you think Pops would pay me some attention if I did that? Like, I’d probably scream, wouldn’t I? And think of the blood! He’d have to repaint the entire kitchen. Bummer.’
    ‘Denver, take your hand out of there right now. You shouldn’t even joke about it.’
    Denver gave her a wide-eyed, exaggerated stare, like a mad person, and reached toward the ‘on’ switch. Grace snapped, ‘ Don’t !’
    She remembered a friend of hers at high school, Jill Somersby, who had given her that same pretend-crazy stare, the morning before she had taken an overdose of paracetamol. Grace had found out two weeks later that Jill had been sexually abused by her stepfather ever since she was five. And in later years, during her medical training, she had come to realize that teenagers often pretend to be joking because they don’t know how else to show the world how deadly serious they are.
    Denver took his hand out of the InSinkErator and triumphantly held up his cereal spoon. ‘Did I scare you?’ he grinned.
    ‘No. You just annoyed me.’
    ‘Oh, well. At least I got some reaction out of