Even though we have a uniform, there is no taboo at Wolcroft about makeup. Being geeky girls, we keep it light. Jo has this golden eyeshadow that makes her look like she’s trying out for a role in a mummy movie, which I kind of like, but I don’t wear much make up myself. I’m a sportiva, so my makeup is a little fruity gloss courtesy of Burt’s Bees, and a light eye shadow courtesy of Marty sometimes.
Coral was not a typical Wolcroft girl. She had a satchel of makeup, which she dumped out of her purse. She spilled the fixings for an entire face out by one sink. “Bev,” I asked, as I stared at the mirror holding my gloss, “can I borrow your compact?”
Snarky giggles echoed around the bathroom. The barbed edge of that laugh was meant to cut me. Bev reached into her schoolbag. The compact was old, inlaid with shiny mother of pearl on the top. I’d seen it before. The compact her grandmother had given her, the one she mentioned in science class. “This, Abby?”
“If it’s okay?” I sounded as humiliated as I could, an easy role under the circumstances.
Coral raised an eyebrow, and Bev converted to the Hulk in her designated role as mind-controlled bully. She covered the floor between us in two wide strides, pulled my lip gloss out of my fingers, and rubbed it all over my cheek.
Not what I’d expected, but I could work with it. I grabbed the compact, and moved to the right angle to see Coral.
Coral did not reflect in the silver mirror. Bingo. I moved it around until I got a glance of the powder puff waving in the air by itself. A mad smile of vindication curled my mouth up at the corners. A good vampire hunter must always trust their gut. This is also sound advice for when you are taking a multiple-choice test.
“Son of a gun,” I said.
Coral condescended to notice me. “Abigail Rath. I’m amazed you came to school today.” The girls giggled at me. Mean girls sucked.
“You’re nothing but an ordinary old vampire, right? Here I thought you might be something special.”
Choruses and snickers of how crazy I was echoed off the walls. I hadn’t forgotten about Bev. She grabbed for the compact and I stepped back. Coral’s bag was reflected in the mirror, but no Coral, and Bev could see that.
“Come on girls.” Coral zipped up her makeup bag. “Time for class. Bev, catch up after you’ve taken care of our little problem.”
Bev and I both watched in the mirror as Coral’s bag floated through the door with no one holding it. I handed Bev back her compact. “Thank you.” The paper towel machine thumped as I rolled out enough towels to actually work with. I wet them and started to squeegee Burt’s Bees off my face. The bathroom was empty except for us, because the bell would ring at any moment.
“Abby?” Bev studied the silver backed compact. “She didn’t—she wasn’t—”
“It’s a silver mirror, Bev. Vampires don’t reflect in a silver mirror.”
Bev shook her head. “Vampires aren’t real!”
I fought for another paper towel, dampened it, and handed it to Bev. Placing a hand on her arm, I let her lean against the counter. “Here. You’ve had a shock.”
“There are no vampires.” Then, Bev turned red. “I…did I hurt you?”
“Oh no,” I lied. She’d hurt me plenty. I never knew Bev had the bullying tendency before. Vampires can’t make you something you aren’t, but they can bring out the unattractive in you. “I didn’t know if shocking you would do it or not. Mostly, I needed to use your mirror. Breaking you out of mind control is an added bonus.”
“Mind control?”
“Yeah.” I threw the towel in the wastebasket. “It’s one of the big vampire tricks. Captivating their victims. You probably won’t find Coral so awesome now.”
“We’ve got to tell someone!”
“Who you gonna tell? Mrs. Cheever? That’ll go over well.”
“What are we going to do? Coral’s a monster!”
“I like the sound of we,” I said. “We’d better get to class. If revealing her true nature worked for you, maybe it would work for other people. Lucky for Wolcroft, I know a lot about vampires.”
“Oookay.”
“You could just stay out of it, watch my back, and let me do my job.”
“Your job?”
“Never mind.” I went out the door.
“Abby, I’m sorry about hitting you. All of it.” Bev followed me into the hall.
The bell rang. “Shoot. Science.”
We raced down the hall, and Mrs. Lester let us in before she closed the door. “Under the wire,” she said.
I wouldn’t look at anyone. Sniggering came from the back of the room. A tap on my shoulder. Marty passed me a note. “Hang in there,” it said.
Like I said, vampires couldn’t change your nature. I mouthed “thank you” at her.
Mrs. Lester dimmed the lights while some volunteers pulled the shades. Then, when the film on atomic structure started, she positioned herself leaning on a lab table in the back of the room, right where the people who would have used the cover of darkness to persecute me sat. Mrs. Lester was my hero.
I fell into the film. Another tap, and Marty handed me another note. This one was from Bev. “We have to do something about Jo and Marty,” it said.
It was good to have an ally.
The day became an interesting montage of vampire revelation. Mr. Stogdill gave himself the mother of all paper cuts, which I understand is an occupational hazard for English teachers, and I admit I was petty enough to enjoy that. While Coral didn’t lick her lips or anything cheesy like that, I saw her eyes follow the bloodstained paper as it wandered up and down the aisles between the desks until it reached its owner. That wasn’t a shocking event, because it was unnoticeable to all but the trained eye.
Bev hung out with Coral like usual, but she took Jo to the side from time to time. I didn’t quite get the gist of what Bev was up to, but when Coral wasn’t looking, Jo said a small prayer over Coral’s water bottle in the gym. Nice. Somehow Jo was convinced by Bev to take a closer look, and because Jo, as the child of a pastor, carries some residual religious power, the choice to bless Coral’s water was brilliant. Coral choked and gagged on the water. Jo wasn’t sure, but Bev whipped out the compact at a surreptitious moment. Then we were three.
Unfortunately, the rest of the day wasn’t as great. The girls in Coral’s gang were getting physical and the teachers were letting them. I kept tripping, hitting lockers, having my hair pulled. This couldn’t end soon enough.
I wondered what Coral’s next move would be. She wasn’t stupid. She would figure out Bev and Jo were on my side. She might target them, and they weren’t trained at all. I couldn’t leave them in a dangerous situation.
Monster hunters keep as many potential victims out of the path of the monster as possible. If there were a Godzilla, for example, we would be the people on the front lines launching missiles. We would also be the people getting others to evacuate Tokyo. I’d like to go on the record how I appreciate that Godzilla is fictional. Vampires, werewolves, mummies, those sorts of things, I think humanity might stand a chance. Radioactive tyrannosaurus on steroids? Humanity is toast.
Hockey practice was grueling. While Bev and Jo weren’t checking me, a lot of the other girls were. I was tripped with a stick and Mr. Pruitt benched me after I twisted my ankle. No foul, of course. I limped into the locker room, pulled out the secret weapon I’d brought to school, visited Coral’s unlocked locker and planted my next reveal.
I finished showering just as practice ended. Leaving the locker room early seemed to be the best idea, so I went outside and waited by the doors of the gym.
Marty came out of the main school exit, clutching a stack of books. I stopped leaning against the bricks and dusted off my sweater. “You’re here kind of late. What’s up?”
“I told Coral I’d meet her to help her with math.”
“Marty, she’s using you to hurt me.”
“I know you don’t like Coral, but she’s really nice when you get to know her.”
<
br /> “Sure she is. Marty, do you wonder why everyone likes her?”
“I think—”
Coral came outside with her posse, including Bev and Jo, who exchanged looks none too subtly.
“Hey, Coral. You got a second?”
“Yes, Abby?” Her voice was fake polite.
“How long do you think you can keep all this up? Don’t you think you’re spreading yourself a little thin?”
She flipped a wisp of red hair away from her face. A breeze blew it back again. “This isn’t taxing me at all.”
“I doubt it. What, we’re looking at about forty people under your spell now?”
Coral laughed and twirled her index finger by her temple. “Crazy.”
Marty tugged on Coral’s sleeve.
Coral ignored her. “What’s the matter, Abby? Jealous?”
“I got nothing to be jealous about. You’re the fiendish undead. You cheat.”
“Cheat?” Coral said.
“Fiendish undead?” echoed Marty.
“Just a figure of speech,” said Coral.
Yes. An endearing nickname like Pumpkin or Scooter.
“Cheat,” I said. “Ned told me you cheated at limbo. I didn’t believe him. Did you turn part of yourself into mist?”
“No.”
I was the one with the high-pitched voice now. “I think you did. I think you disincorporated yourself into the
floor. Right?”
“No. I can beat you at limbo anytime.”
“I’ll bet.” Hey, it wasn’t witty, but I was killing time. “Do you smell something burning?” I asked. There was the result I was looking for.
Marty tugged Coral’s sleeve with some insistence. “Coral, there’s smoke.”
Coral looked down at her arm as it become brilliant red, bits of flesh turning dark. “What—what’s happening?”
“Vampire workaround. You use sun screen, right?”
Coral gasped as her arm began to smoke. The girls around us backed away, hands covering their eyes. One screamed.
“You use an incredibly high SPF, but I switched your bottle.” I held out the bottle I’d replaced her sunscreen with. Sunkissed, but instead of a zillion SPF the label read a much lower number. “SPF five, Coral. There’s your problem.”
“You…”
“You’d better get back inside. This can’t be good for you.”
Coral yelled, a cross between panic and disgust. She raced back toward the main entrance of the school. Marty followed. Coral tugged at a locked door, but Marty found one of the four that was unlocked, and pulled her in. The bewildered hockey team ran away.
Jo and Bev stayed with me. Jo was green around the edges.
“Nice, Abby,” said Bev.
I bet I wouldn’t have any more accidents at practice. I had also been banking on Coral getting back inside. Like Mom and Dad said, we didn’t know enough about what Coral wanted yet. I was getting the hang of coexist.
“You guys,” I said. “When you go home tonight, I want crucifixes and garlic on the windows. You call me if anything weird happens.”
Jo nodded. “Bev, stay over with me. No shortage of crosses at my house.”
Of course. Good thinking, Jo.
I popped out my cell phone. Mom answered. I explained my day to her. We mused about whether I should stay home tomorrow, and after I explained what I wanted to do, she agreed to let me go to school, but only if I had back up.
If I’d been Coral, I’d have skipped school on Friday, but she didn’t. She wore long sleeves, an obvious nod to yesterday’s solar damage.
I hid a cross under the top of her desk in science before she came in. She squirmed in her seat until finally she asked to sit somewhere else. After yesterday, not all the whispering in the back of the room was about me.
It was still another crummy day. None of the teachers had seen any of Coral’s weirdness, so they were still under her influence. In history, I received an F on a test because I didn’t read all the instructions. Even though my answers were right, I put X’s on top of the letters, rather than drew circles around them. Mind-controlled teachers can sure be small-minded.
Although I noticed everyone who saw Coral crisp up yesterday afternoon was avoiding her, Coral still had devotees. I was tripped at lunch, which almost sent my tray flying, and later, some genius filled my pencil case with applesauce.
Given that lunch was when almost everyone was gathered in the lunchroom, I figured it would be the best place for a really big reveal. I reached into my backpack and went up to Coral and a batch of her mind slaves who were seated not too far from the teacher lunch table.
“Having a good day at school?” Coral said. Her voice no longer contained that gloaty quality I had come to know and hate.
“The best. You?” My right hand revealed what I had behind my back, a container of rice. I upended it, and tiny grains scattered across the floor, under the tables, under shoes.
Coral snarled. “What have you done?”
Just like Mom said the other night to Mr. Christopher, the true vampire is obsessive compulsive. Coral stooped down and began counting the rice. This is the coolest vampire trick in the book, and one that is much underused in vampire cinema. Scattering rice is a great way to forestall vampiric action when you need to sharpen your stake, or you can’t find your mallet right away. A pound of rice can keep a vampire busy for several hours, and if your vampire is really obsessed with counting every grain, you can do what I just did, which is to make sure that some of the rice spreads under something where the vampire just can’t get it. It doesn’t have to be rice. You can do this with other seeds too. I theorize you might be able to do it with marbles, but I’ve never had opportunity to experiment.
“You witch!” Coral said. She returned to counting, mouthing each number in silence, picking up the grains.
The first bell clanged. “Come on,” said one of Coral’s groupies. “We’re going to be late.”
“Help me!” said Coral. She looked at the groupie and then back at the rice, and then back at the groupie.
“Outta here,” said Coral’s friend.
No Wolcroft girl would want to get in trouble with their teacher by loitering in the hall doing something as weird as counting grains of rice. Coral’s posse didn’t know what to do at first. They hovered, and then they came to a crossroads. On the one hand, they could obey their vampiric overlord and go to the office. On the other hand, they could acknowledge Coral was acting like a weirdo and get as far away from her as possible. Which was it going to be? The posse fidgeted.
“See you in class, Coral.” I didn’t need to look back. The footsteps behind me told me all I needed to know.
In the classroom, I settled on the stool at my workstation. There were four of us in the art room. Mr. Jackson, his
hands covered in plaster of Paris, asked, “Where is the rest of the class?”
The rest of us poured in, lots of skidding chairs, and sliding into seats. The second bell rang. Coral was nowhere to be seen.
Mr. Jackson finished taking attendance. “Has anyone seen Coral? Or Marty?”
“Um…Coral’s in the hall counting rice,” said one of her posse.
“That’s just weird,” someone whispered at me.
Now I knew. Being uncool was, in fact, enough to break mind control.
Mr. Jackson went into the hall. Since I could hardly follow, I had to content myself with listening to the whispers.
“Just weird.”
“Why would she do that? Count that rice?”
“Maybe when she was little she was in some sort of rice accident or something.”
Marty came through the door, glancing over her shoulder.
“Where were you?” I asked.
“I stayed in the hall to help Coral count rice.”
“Why would you do that?” Was Marty still being influenced?
“You were so mean, Abby. She was crying. I left because Mr. Jackson told me to come to class. Coral couldn’
t go.”
“Doesn’t that strike you as odd?” I was smug, my arms crossed.
“Yes it does. But you don’t leave your friends hanging. Everyone else left her. That wasn’t cool.”
“Marty, haven’t you noticed Coral has been using everyone else to hurt people?” What I really meant by that was me, but Marty didn’t need to hear that.
Marty stared at me. “Yeah. But everyone else isn’t worried about what other people think of her. Coral isn’t as sturdy. Coral needs friends.”
“Oh come on, Marty!” I wanted my friend back on my side. “You know, she likes Vince.” A low blow, using the Vince card, but I was angry.
Mr. Jackson walked back into the room without Coral. Marty leaned across the table and whispered, “I don’t care. Abby, you have nothing to fear from Coral.”
Marty was either super stupid, or super cool. She could be the ultimate dupe, or full of insight. I’d think that over.
There was some yelling outside. “I have to count them all!”
Mr. Jackson closed the door.
Viva la bloodless revolution.
Coral got detention.
Getting detention did not help her reputation with the law-abiding Wolcroft crowd. By the end of rice counting day, she had no minions. Students hate nothing more than extreme weird. Whether we admit it or not, we all worry about being too weird.
Teachers hate nothing more than students fighting authority. I started getting approving smiles from the teachers again, and students stopped pretending I was gum under the desks.
Before her detention began, Coral returned to the lunchroom to count more grains of rice before the teachers noticed. Most of the rice had been swept up, and she was insistent that they give it to her in a Ziploc bag, but she knew there was some behind the pop machine, and she’d pulled it away from the wall. Her eyes were red, her nose was raw, and she was jumpy, like she’d had too much coffee. She’d been in the office, and she was supposed to go to the library to serve her time, but she couldn’t stop counting rice.
I would have felt sorry for her if she had been the least bit nice to me this week. Marty’s words aside, I was not a dupe. “No hard feelings, Coral?”
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