by Mari Mancusi
“No.”
“No?”
“No way. How boring is that? To conform to society’s rigid rules? To be weak and powerless and beaten down and forced to live someone else’s idea of a fulfilling life, only to die, sick and alone, and have your grandchildren fight over your meager life’s savings? Bleh. No thanks. Give me an all-powerful, immortal existence any day of the week.”
Okay, when she puts it that way . . .
“But . . . you have to kill people.”
Rayne sighs exasperatedly. “Yeah. So says Hollywood. In real life, Sun, it’s a lot less barbaric.”
“Oh?”
“Sure. Each vampire is given a stable of donors. People who are willing and able to give a portion of their blood each day so the vampire can survive. Don’t worry, they’re well paid for their services, and they can sever their contract at any time, by giving thirty days’ notice. And of course, they’re completely screened and tested for communicable diseases, drugs, that sort of thing, before being assigned.” Rayne shakes her head. “No one kills people like in the movies.”
“Okay, fine. But what about the sun thing? I can’t go out in the daylight, right?”
Rayne examines her powder-white skin. “Yeah. I’d never have to worry about accidentally tanning. Wonderful.”
She’s thought of everything, hasn’t she?
“What about a boyfriend? You’d never get a boyfriend. You’d never get married. Unless, I guess, you had a night wedding . . .”
“I’d get something better. When someone is selected to become a vampire, he or she is assigned a sponsor,” Rayne explains. “The person who has agreed to donate a drop of his or her own blood to aid in your transformation. Afterward, you’ll share a blood link with that person forever. He’ll be your soul mate. Well, technically your blood mate, as you sort of have to give up that whole soul thing, when you turn.” She pauses, staring into the distance, looking a little sad. “Magnus was supposed to be my blood mate. Now he’s yours.”
Aha! So that’s why she’s so upset. She thinks I stole her boyfriend. Just goes to show, even in the crazy supernatural world, at the end of the day it all comes down to the green-eyed monster we call jealousy.
“Dude, you can have him,” I say, holding my palms out. “I want nothing to do with that jerk.”
Rayne turns back to look at me. “You don’t understand,” she says, her eyes weepy and downcast. “He’s turned you. So you’re connected. Forever. Whether you like it or not.”
“That would be a definite not.”
“You know, you don’t have any clue what a priceless gift you’ve been given,” Rayne says, her voice taking on an irritated edge. “Immortality. The perfect existence. The hottest blood mate to walk the earth. And you’re probably more concerned about whether someone’s going to ask you to the prom.”
“Well, it is this Saturday . . .”
“Man, I can’t believe how much this sucks.” Rayne angrily swipes her face with her sleeve. Is she crying? Oh man. She is crying. She’s so totally whacked.
“Look, Rayne,” I say, for some inexplicable reason actually feeling the tiniest bit bad for her, “once we get this whole thing reversed, I’m sure you and Magnus can continue your sick and twisted relationship. You can become a vampire and live Gothily ever after.”
“I wish.” Rayne sniffs. “But no. Even if the process can be reversed, I’ll have to start all over. Get back on the waiting list. Find a new sponsor.”
“Why?”
“Vampires are allowed to turn only one person in their lifetime. Basically so there’s never a blood shortage like the Red Cross always seems to have,” she explains. “After they turn the person, they’re linked to them forever. Blood mates, until one of them dies.”
“Er, how can you die if you have eternal life?”
“Oh, plenty of ways. Burned by sunlight. Caught in a fire. Stabbed with a wooden stake through the heart, you know. All the tragic things that happen in the movies.”
Okay, let’s take note here: blood-drinking movie clichés, wrong. Methods of killing a vampire, should one be in the position to do so, spot on.
Which brings me to the $64,000 question.
“How do you know all this stuff?”
Rayne shrugs. “Like I said. I’ve studied. Three months ago, when I started my training, I actually created a blog to catalog my research.” She gestures to her computer. “You should probably check it out. I mean, at the very least it’ll outline what you need to know about your transformation. It’s kind of bad how unprepared you are. Everyone else that gets turned goes through an extensive three-month certification program.”
She’s got her Vampire Certificate? Is it suitable for framing?
“I can’t believe how organized this whole thing is,” I marvel.
“It’s a multibillion-dollar operation,” Rayne says. “And very high tech.” She jumps off the bed and heads over to her computer, clicking on the monitor. “C’mere.”
I come behind her and peer at the screen she’s brought up. Sure enough, it’s some kind of blog, all Gothed out in black and red. I guess the pastel template on Blogspot.com wouldn’t really fly for a vampire site.
“Boys That Bite?” I ask, reading the heading.
Rayne giggles. “Yeah, I came up with that name. Funny, huh?”
“I guess.” Vampire humor. Hardy har har.
Rayne moves out of her chair and gestures for me to sit down. “Here. Take your time and read. I think you’ll learn a lot.”
As I plop down in the seat, she walks over to her bookcase and pulls out a heavy hardcover text. “I also have the Vampire 101 textbook you can read. Thank goodness I hadn’t returned it to the library yet.” She sets the book down on the desk. “You don’t, um, mind picking up the late fees, do you?”
I look down at the massive tome. It’s got weird carvings on the front and has to be like three thousand pages. “Wow. This vampire thing has a lot of homework involved, doesn’t it?”
“Like I said, it’s a three-month course. There’s a lot to learn. You’re totally going to have to cram at this point.”
As if I didn’t have enough to worry about, with finals next week. I flip through the book. Darn, not a lot of pictures either.
“So is this a correspondence course, or do you have to actually attend classes?”
“Classes. After all, you can’t learn the proper way to administer a safe and sterile blood transfusion over the Internet.”
“Right.” I shake my head, unable to believe I’ve somehow gotten mixed up in this freak show. I turn back to the blog and scroll down to the first entry.
My name is Rayne McDonald. I’m 16 years old and so ready for eternal life. As suggested by my instructor, I’ve created this blog to chronicle my transformation. Hope you enjoy reading it!
Oh, I will. Believe me.
6
Jake Wilder: Sex God and . . . Prom Date?
After reading some of Rayne’s crazy “Boys That Bite” blog and checking out a few links in the vampire Web ring (yes, there really is a vampire Web ring), the bright screen starts giving me a headache. So I say good night to my twin and retreat to the dark safety of my bedroom where I curl up under my duvet and try to go to sleep.
But I can’t. I’m too wired with fear and confusion and God knows what else. Plus the spot where Magnus bit me itches like crazy. So I toss and turn and wonder what I’m going to do.
What if the transformation can’t be reversed? What if in seven days I, Sunshine McDonald, become a vampire forever? That means no finals. No prom. No sunny trip to the Bahamas with my friends this summer. No college. I’ll have to enroll in night school or something. Maybe the vampires have their own university; it does seem like they’re pretty organized. I wonder what the SAT requirements are for something like that.
This sucks. Pardon the pun, but it does. I have this whole life ahead of me and now I may not be able to live it, all ’cause of a case of mistaken identity. Damn
Rayne and her stupid blog and her stupid idea that becoming undead is the stupid secret to life everlasting. What was she thinking? And why did she have to drag me into it all?
I finally manage to fall asleep, just as the sun peeks over the horizon. In what seems like only five minutes later, my alarm blares me awake with the sounds of the eighties. This morning’s DJ chose to wake me with Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
How appropriate.
Groggily, I stumble out of bed and into the shower. It’s freezing in the house and the hot water feels good streaming down my body. I try to decide if I feel any different. If I have any urges to suck someone’s blood. But no, not yet, at least, thank goodness. Willing donor or not, I’d like to hold off on that part as long as possible, thank you very much. Maybe I could become an anorexic vampire? I wonder if that’d help me shed a few pounds as an added bonus?
I get out of the shower and open the medicine cabinet. A dizzying array of sunscreens stares back at me. From tropical coconut tanning lotions to the no-possible-UV-ray-will-come-within-fifty-yards-of-your-skin-for-three-weeks variety. Damn me for forgetting to ask Magnus the proper SPF for school.
In the end, I decide to go for the middle-of-the-road 15 stuff. Who knows, maybe I’ll get a tan out of the deal. Heh. I’d be the first vampire to look like I’d cruised the Caribbean.
After applying sunscreen, I realize I’ll also need to address the bruised purple bite mark on my neck. If anyone sees that they’re going to think it’s a hickey and I am so not ready to get teased about my neck-munching secret lover, on top of everything else. I guess I could tell everyone I burned my neck with the curling iron, like Mary Markson does when Nick covers her neck with love bites, but no one believes her either.
I rummage through my closet, realizing I own very little clothing designed to cover up my neck. Most likely due to the fact that, before this morning, I had no reason to keep it in hiding. Finally, in the back of my closet, I find an old black turtleneck. I think it belongs to Rayne, actually, but it’ll do. Of course everyone’s going to think I’m a freak of nature, what with wearing a turtleneck in May. But what can I do? I have become a teenage vampire fashion victim. Ugh.
As long as no one mistakes me for a Goth . . .
School is okay, though I’m so freaking tired, it’s hard to pay attention. And I seem to have become a magnet for teacher questions. I go rest my eyes for one teensy second and suddenly I’m harassed to start calculating pi or something. (Which I can’t even do on a full night of sleep when I’m not transforming into a vampire.)
I eat lunch with a few girls from field hockey, picking listlessly at my salad as I halfheartedly listen to them recount last week’s game. My other teammates are so wrapped up in their tales of opposing goalkeeper Jennifer Jack spraining her ankle in the first five minutes of the game that they don’t notice I’m barely listening. Which is fine by me. The last thing I need to do is draw attention to myself in my current state.
Luckily, my best friend Audrey is away this week at Disney World with her parents. The girl is so scarily perceptive that she’d notice something was wrong immediately. At the same time, she’d never believe the whole vampire thing and would think I had really lost it. So while I’d love to have some moral support (Rayne so doesn’t count!) it’s probably better off I don’t freak out my friends.
I consider skipping drama practice after school, but Magnus has informed me he won’t be up and about till almost eight P.M., so I figure I might as well go and kill time before my big meeting with the head vamp. Besides, this way I can have some quality Jake Wilder spyage time. Bound to make anyone feel better.
Ah, Jake Wilder. How do I even explain the greatness that is Jake Wilder? It’s like he doesn’t belong in a normal, everyday high school. Like, he should have been born centuries earlier, in Roman times or something—driving a flaming chariot with six white horses foaming at the mouth. He looks like a Greek god, with his six-foot-one stance, slender but muscular body, and high cheekbones. Well, a Greek god or Chad Michael Murray, take your pick. He has short blond hair and the deepest, darkest brown eyes known to mankind. I once overheard some girls calling him Bedroom Eyes.
I’d love to see those bedroom eyes actually in a bedroom. Preferably my bedroom. In fact, if I could have me some of that, I’d so retire my Sunny the Innocent status, quicker than you can say “off like a prom dress.”
Problem is, he has no idea I even exist. None whatsoever.
I blame Heather Miller.
You see, Jake Wilder is the leading man, the sexy Conrad Birdie, in our class production of Bye Bye Birdie this year. And Heather is, of course, playing Kim. No surprise there. No matter what play we do, Heather nabs the starring role. Little Shop of Horrors? She’s Audrey. Oklahoma? She’s Laurey. In second grade we performed The Tortoise and the Hare and Jake got the tortoise and she was the hare. She’s Drama Queen with a capital DQ. Beautiful. Blond. Busty. Even brainy, if you can believe that. You’d at least hope she’d be an airhead, but no. No, she’s also president of the Honor Society, which is so not fair to the rest of us mere mortals.
This year, I didn’t even get awarded a small part in the play. Not even some one-line Conrad Birdie groupie role. Nada. Instead, I’m Heather Miller’s understudy. Meaning I have to do all the work, memorize all the lines, and only if Miss Perfect-Attendance-Award is sick do I get to take center stage.
Which is actually not as terrible as it sounds, seeing as I have rather a bad case of stage fright and if I were to be suddenly thrust into the starring role, I’m not positive I could handle it.
For me, drama is all about permission to stare at Jake Wilder for hours on end without anyone thinking me Stalker Girl.
So with that in mind, I slip into the second-to-last row of the school auditorium and pull out my sketchpad. Back here, no one can see what I’m drawing. I get so much crap for being an artist you wouldn’t believe it. No respect at all.
“Sunshine McDonald? Is that you?”
I look up from my drawing, a rather brilliant sketch of Jake Wilder if I do say so myself. The drama teacher, Mr. Teifert, is down by the stage and motioning for me to join him.
O-kay. That’s weird. I wasn’t convinced he even knew my name, never mind that he’d ever need to get my attention. I slip my sketchbook back into my book bag and trudge to the front of the auditorium, a little wary.
“Sunshine. Thank goodness you’re here,” Mr. Teifert says, rubbing a hand through his wild black curly hair. He’s short and squat and looks like that guy from Animal House. “Heather’s sick. We need you to stand in for her at practice today.”
I stare at him, at first not quite comprehending. The queen has lost her attendance throne? And they need me to step in? Wow. I wasn’t expecting that to happen. Especially not today, when I have so much else on my mind.
“O-kay,” I say, swallowing down the bubble of stage fright that immediately forms in my stomach and starts traveling up my esophagus. “What scene are we working on?”
“The one where Birdie kisses Kim,” says a deep, luscious man-voice behind me.
I whirl around and almost pass out when I realize the delectable Jake Wilder is standing there, in the flesh, not two feet away, actually speaking to me. And using the word kiss in a sentence. A sentence addressed to me.
“Kisses Kim?” I manage to speak in my Minnie Mouse voice. Nice, Sunny. So very attractive and appealing.
“Don’t look so horrified,” Mr. Teifert says with a laugh.
I look horrified because I just sounded like a moron, not because of the proposition of kissing Jake Wilder. That’s not horror. That’s romance. A fantasy dream come true. But I can’t exactly explain that, now can I?
“I’m fine. Let’s do it,” I say, forcing my voice to go back to normal. I hop up onto the stage, my legs literally trembling in a way I hope isn’t noticeable. Jake pops up a moment later and now stands facing me.
“Okay, now the scene is, Conrad and Kim are in rehearsal
s for The Ed Sullivan Show. Sunny, you recite your Conrad Birdie fan club speech, then Jake, you’re bored with this and want to go party, so you interrupt, yada yada yada, then kiss her. Ronald,” Mr. Teifert looks over at the tall skinny boy who’s playing Kim’s boyfriend, Hugo. “You’re on the balcony, glaring at Birdie, really jealous like. After the kiss, Sunny, you collapse in a faint.”
Fainting after Jake Wilder’s kiss? Shouldn’t be too tough to make that look realistic!
Mr. Teifert claps his hands. “Got it? Then places, everyone.”
And so it goes. I pledge my devotion to Conrad Birdie a.k.a. Jake Wilder. And he interrupts, then scoops me in his arms and kisses me, hard on the mouth.
Time seems to stop.
I let out an unwilling gasp as he presses his firm lips against mine. I never, ever thought I’d get a chance to feel what it’d be like for Jake Wilder to kiss me. And it feels better than I could have imagined in my wildest of dreams.
He pauses for a moment, as if surprised about something, then takes advantage of my parted mouth and enters it with his tongue. Aghh! What an incredible feeling. I feel like I’m going to explode, it feels so good. Jake Wilder is kissing me. French-kissing me. Is he even supposed to be French-kissing me for the play? I thought . . . Oh, who cares if he’s supposed to or not. He is, that’s all that matters.
“Hey, guys, okay, already. You’re supposed to faint, Sunny.” Mr. Teifert’s voice sounds a million miles away.
Jake pulls away, reluctantly, it seems. Our faces are inches apart still—I can feel his hot, minty breath in my face. Then he gives me a small grin and whispers, “I think we need more practice,” so softly only I can hear. “Don’t you?”
Then I faint. Or at least I fake fainting, though actually I feel like I could almost lose consciousness for real after what just happened. Jake Wilder, kissing me. Sure, it was just for the play, but somehow it felt like more than that. It felt like he enjoyed it.
I know I did.