But all the while his right hand, the sword, kept growing, growing, the melted fingers flattening first into something like a boat’s paddle that thinned at the edges and glittered as it became, unmistakably, a blade. Now, with startling speed, Justin’s blade hand grew outward, longer and longer till the blade tip sliced straight through the side of the cabin, ripping the aluminum flesh of the plane just below the window as if it were no more substantial than a paper bag.

  “Aaahh!” Justin’s bladder emptied into his ripped jeans, but that was the least of his concerns.

  The window cracked and blew out. A hurricane of cold wind rushed in, grabbing inflight magazines and menus and whirling them around the cabin. And now came more screams, screams of disbelieving panic as everyone in the first-class compartment saw, and lurched up from their seats and backed away, toward the cockpit or down the aisle into coach, piling over one another while the jet shuddered and rocked violently. Everyone was in a panic, rushing to get away, staggering, slipping, shouting, everyone but the elderly couple seated just ahead of Justin and Erin who were either asleep or amazingly oblivious.

  Justin tried to draw his sword hand back, but it was too long (not my fault!), too long to fit inside the plane, and instead of retracting, that blue and coral blade sliced upward (not my fault!), ripped effortlessly through the molded plastic and the aluminum outer skin of the plane, ripped up through the overhead luggage compartment, bisecting carry-on bags, and the plane lurched more wildly than ever and an appalled Justin (not my fault!) saw that the cut he’d made was widening. An inch. Two inches. Three! The plane was breaking apart, and in a few more seconds the rear 70 percent of the plane would break off and they would all die in a fiery crash.

Monster, Chapter 4