by Douglas Rees
"Never saw anything like it, Coach," the second suit said.
They were still looking nervously at Charon and Dad, even while they shook Underskinker's hand.
"In fact, Coach," said the first suit, "we have something for you."
He bent over and reached into his briefcase. He took out an ugly, cheap-looking gold plastic statuette. There was a little tag on the bottom, which he flicked off with his pocketknife. The tag went skittering across the floor, and Justin picked it up.
"Here you go, Coach. In recognition," the first suit said, handing it to Underskinker.
"We better be going," the second suit said. "Good to meet you, Coach. Principal Horvath, don't worry about a thing."
"Please allow me to escort you gentlemen off our campus," Horvath said.
Off they went, between Horvath and Charon.
Underskinker looked down at the statuette.
"Dis is duh most beautiful ting I ever saw in my life," he said. "You punks . . . you punks . . ." He turned away and went back to his office.
"Dad," I said. "How?"
"Son, the fact that I am a lawyer does not make me a complete idiot. Remember, I went to law school in this state. And one of my classmates was a jenti girl from New Sodom. She didn't tell me much, and I didn't believe what I heard, but it became obvious even to me that there was more going on here than anybody was willing to speak about openly. I mean, how many towns have a resident population of giants in sunglasses? Well, I was willing to do what New England does best and say nothing. Things were going pretty well, I thought. As long as I was making money hand over fist and you were here at Vlad, I was satisfied. But that day when we went to the movie theater and were treated like visiting royalty—and it was clear to me it was because of you—I knew something was going on. Something that I had to know more about. An-tonescu told me a little. I learned a little more on my own. But it's only today that I've begun to realize how much reason I have to be proud of you."
And he hugged me, even though I was still wet.
After a minute, I thought of something.
"Dad," I said, "quarter grades are out in a week. I don't think mine are going to be very good."
Dad just went on hugging me.
After he left, I hung around a little while longer, hoping for one particular person to come up to me, but she was nowhere in sight. Finally, when I decided she wasn't coming and would never come, I went back into the locker room to change.
Justin followed me back. He was his old self now, dry and shy. But he had a wicked grin on his face.
"Look what was on that trophy they gave Coach Un-derskinker," he said, and held the tag out to me:
to coach. aloysiuis Ryan
and the St. Biailiilplii s Saints
with greatful thanks from the state of Massachusetts
"You sure messed things up for the state," Justini said. "They were all set to start closing us down."
"I guess." I shrugged. Now that it was over, it didn't seem to matter as much. I was still glad that they weren't going to close Vlad Dracul, but now I didn't have anything to think about but Ileana.
We heard a deep snore.
"We should check on Underskinker," I said.
We went back to the office and saw our coach with his feet up on his desk and a peaceful look on his face. The trophy was tucked under his arm like a baby doll.
THE QUEEN OF ILLYRIA
The next day at free period, the natatorium was crowded with jenti. All the little, quiet, brown-haired or blond ones who went through the halls without being noticed were lining up to see if they could turn into selkies when they got in the water. The school had a doctor and two nurses waiting by the pool as the jenti kids eased into the shallow end and slowly put their faces down, while Justin and I stood by on either side of them.
Every one of them changed. Every one of them was a natural swimmer. From now on, Vlad Dracul wouldn't need to find gadje to fake its water sports programs. Their teams would be the best in the state.
Of course, that meant everybody would have to admit that vampires were not something out of folklore or that
Bram Stoker made up. They were just a different kind of people.
After that, it seemed like everything at Vlad Dracul started to change. The jenti began smiling at each other, even waving. And they didn't always wear their sunglasses. They didn't really need them much more than anybody else.
People started coming to me for advice about how to "misbehave in true gadje fashion." That was interesting.
When I described spit wads, two kids in a physics class actually made some. Then they developed a launcher, recorded the flight characteristics, and turned it all in for extra credit.
When I told them in social studies about cutting class, everyone suddenly stood up and marched six blocks away to an ice cream store, where one of them announced, "Hello. We are not supposed to be here. May we have vanilla cones to go, please?"
They didn't really get the point of it, though. They brought Mr. Gibbon along.
Gregor was even sent to Horvath's office for playing a boom box in the student union with the volume turned all the way up. (He'd been playing a Bach cantata, but hey.)
"I was experimenting," he told Horvath. "I had been given to understand it was a youthful gadje behavior."
All Horvath did was ask him not to do it again.
One day, the whole varsity football team turned themselves into wolves and went to class like that. Then they insisted that the name of their team be changed to the Werewolves, and Horvath let them do it. He had new jackets for them the next day.
Because Horvath was changing, too.
He announced that starting next year, Vlad Dracul would be open to academically gifted students from all over the United States, even gadje. If there was enough demand, the school would build a new dorm to handle the overflow.
It was also announced that a nationwide search for a new water-sports coach would be made over the summer. Coach Underskinker would be promoted at the end of the year to a position Horvath was creating, Supervisor of Locker Access. There would be a big pay increase.
Pyrek, Falbo, and Tracy were informed that they had met the requirements for graduation a year or two early and would get their diplomas with that year's senior class. They were offered full athletic scholarships to a huge Baptist college in Texas. I don't know if they went there or not.
And downtown started to change. Not in any dramatic way—unless you knew the history of New Sodom—but at least people started going into each other's stores. I knew things were different the first time I saw a sign in the window of the local jeans outlet: we now stock extra extra tall. Right across from it, Aurari's bookstore was putting in a clear glass window.
All of this was very interesting in a way, but it didn't cheer me up as much as it might have. Because as far as I could tell, Princess Ileana didn't notice.
Then came the last Friday in May.
It was a beautiful day. Everything was blooming, and there was heat in the air. Summer was close enough to touch.
I went to the library and waited for Justin to get done
with his shelving. For no particular reason, I picked up a copy of Dracula and flipped through it. I'd read the book during the winter, and I'd been wondering ever since why Stoker had put everything down so wrong. Jenti had made friends with him, shared things with him. Maybe they'd hoped he'd write a book that would introduce them to the world as they really were, as a first step toward coming out of their shadows. Maybe. But he'd taken every one of the things that made them powerful and special and turned them into evil. Why? What sense did it make?
I wondered if he'd just been jealous.
When Justin was finished, he came over and got me.
"Good-bye, boys!" Ms. Shadwell howled after us. For a librarian, she sure was noisy.
"Come on," Justin said. "I want to go down by the creek."
So we walked across campus in the late-afternoon sun and somehow
, for the first time since I'd come to Massachusetts, I felt I belonged someplace. I wouldn't go so far as to say that I liked it. But so much had happened since that cold January day when Dad and I had driven up that I was part of this school now, like it or not. Of course, it probably helped that the year was almost over and I wouldn't be coming back for three months.
The trees that grew along the creek made it a river of shade now. Anyway, it was a river to a Californian. The green darkness was beautiful, and the light that found its way down the banks was as soft as—well, as soft as Ileana's lips on my cheek.
"That's better," Justin said, taking off the dark glasses he still wore on bright days, like most jenti.
We walked down the creek, me with my eyes on the
trees, Justin looking where we were stepping, until we
came to a big rock. This rock was so big that the creek
had to bend to go around it. It was flat on top, and the
shadows of the trees made patterns on its sides.
Up on top of it was Ileana.
"Hello," she said.
"Hey," I said, trying to sound cool. "How come you don't have a piano lesson?"
"Mrs. Warrener moved my lesson to tomorrow," Ileana said. "What are you doing down here?"
"I don't know." Justin shrugged. "We just felt like coming."
"Perhaps you would like to climb up here with me," Ileana said.
We climbed up the rock and all sat in a row, watching the creek. It was different now than it had been in January, when Gregor and his gang had tried to dump Justin into it. It was wide and fast and sounded happy. The sun glinted off its back like it was smiling.
Justin crawled to the edge of the rock and looked down at it.
"Wonder what it would be like to swim in that," he said.
"You can't. It's too shallow," I said.
"Gets deeper farther down," Justin said. "See you. Won't be long."
And he scampered down the rock and out of sight in a flash.
Which left me alone with Ileana. And her alone with me.
We just sat side by side without looking at each other for a while.
Finally she said, "I asked Justin to bring you here."
"Oh," I said.
"I wanted to tell you that I apologize. I should not have been so angry with you over Gregor. I should have known that you were only defending Justin. You would never hide behind the mark I put on you. It was wrong of me to think that you ever would do something so ignoble."
"No, you were right, I was out of line," I said. "But I have apologized to Gregor."
"I heard," she said. "Of course you would." She sighed and went on.
"You have done so much, Cody. You helped Justin over and over again, and by doing so you have now helped all jenti to feel less afraid. Water is a great terror to us. If even a few of us can live in it, it makes us think anything might be possible. I think you must be the greatest gadje friend the jenti have ever had.
"I am not worthy to ask this," she went on. "But. . . is it possible that we might be friends again?"
And right then, on that rock, with the creek going by, and the frogs singing, and the shadows making the light come and go on the most beautiful face in the world, I had the best moment of my life so far. It was so perfect, I didn't even want to speak. I didn't want to move. I didn't want it to end.
But I had to do something to let her know. So I kissed her. And this time I didn't miss.
"There's one thing you'd better know," I said. "That stuff I read you from my poem that you thought was so
funny? It wasn't supposed to be. That's the best I can do. I'm just not a poet."
Ileana shook her head. "That book you gave me for my birthday was a poem," she said. "A very fine one. And so was going to Justin and giving him your blood. Vasco would have done so for Anaxander."
And she kissed me back.
We just stayed there, the two of us, until the sun left us and the rock got cold. Then Justin came back, and we went up through the trees back onto the main part of the campus.
Ileana and I were still holding hands.
The lights were on in the dorms and the student union, but the other buildings were dark. Their high, flat roofs stood out against the spring light that still clung to the sky high up.
Charon came toward us out of the shadows, his eyes gleaming. His tail made a kind of swish I hadn't seen before.
But Ileana must have, because she said, "Yes, we are fine, Charon. We were down by the creek. Now we are going home. Good night."
Charon moved off a little but kept pace with us.
"Is he mad?" I asked.
"Not at all," Ileana said. "It's just that Charon's real work starts at darkness, when he patrols the campus all night long. He wants to see us safely off it. He is very responsible. Wolves are often like that."
Justin was walking a little way ahead of us. On purpose, I was willing to bet. Good old Justin. He could play a trick like this on me anytime.
"Right now, this has got to be the most beautiful place in the world," I said in a low voice.
"More beautiful than California?" Ileana asked.
"More beautiful than anywhere."
We stood there and held each other for what must have been a long time.
Charon sat down a little way off. I felt like he was guarding our privacy.
"You must know, Cody, that not all of the jenti are happy with what is happening," Ileana said. "The younger people, yes, but the older ones are frightened. They do not know where it will end."
"You mean, like your parents?" I asked.
"Yes," Ileana said.
"I think there will be no trouble," said a deep voice beside us.
I looked over at Charon. All I could see now was his eyes. And they were slowly rising in the air. In a moment, they were looking down on us from nearly eight feet up. I could hear a leathery rustle that sounded like wings.
Ileana gasped. "What are you doing here?"
"Keeping an eye on my favorite descendant's only child," the eyes said.
Ileana curtsied.
"My mother did not tell me you were watching over me," she said.
"Only Horvath knew," the eyes replied. "That was my intention."
"I wish I had known," Ileana said. "I feel that you think I am untrustworthy."
"Don't be foolish, child," said the voice. "Being a
princess of the jenti is burden enough. If you had known that the founder of your family was living on the campus, that would have been one more reason for you always to be on guard against yourself. I did not want that."
"So, obviously, you're not a Canadian timber wolf," I interrupted.
"No," the voice said. "That was the story I gave to Horvath to tell others. My real name is known to you. I am Dracula."
I didn't say anything. I just looked up at those deep yellow eyes. Then one of them winked.
"Cody Elliot. I have been watching you since you came among us. In your rather silly way, you have shown much courage and generosity. I admire such things. Not since Bram Stoker have I trusted a gadje. But I trust you. I trust you with that which is most precious to me, my many-greats-granddaughter, who is the night rose of her people. The old ways have preserved us in a world that has feared and hated us for centuries. And not without reason. But this is a different country. Things are changing and have changed. And you, my dear boy, have done more to change them in five months than they have changed since I was a very young man indeed.
"Descendant, I am well pleased with this gadje boy," Dracula went on. "You are both young, and much may happen. You may grow together or you may part and go on to even truer loves. I do not know! But you may keep him if you wish."
"Respectfully, ancestor, if you told me I could not, I would do so anyway," Ileana said. "And I would not permit you to prevent it."
Dracula laughed, and the ground shook.
"The answer I was hoping for! You have my blood in rich measure."
Ou
t of the dark, a huge, heavy hand found mine and clasped it.
I felt a thick claw gently scraping a design on my cheek.
"This will save much talk and trouble with Ileana's parents. As for your parents, I'm afraid you are on your own."
"Don't worry," I said.
"I do not," Dracula said. "And now, descendant, good-bye for a while. Now that you know who Charon is, there is no reason for me to keep to that form. And school is nearly out, anyway. I will spend the summer in Carpathia with old friends. In the fall, I will return to see how everything is getting on. Say hello to your parents for me."
There was a breath of air as he spread his wings, and I could hear them growing as he changed shape again.
"Seventeen meters," he announced. "The old bat can still spread."
There was a heavy downbeat of wind, then another, and against the risen moon, I saw one flash of wings.
Finally Ileana said, "We had better catch up to Justin."
LAST CHAPTER
And that was pretty much everything that happened up to this point. It was Ileana who gave me the idea to write it all down and hand it in for a grade in English. She and Justin both helped me with it, remembering everything and typing it up. They helped me a lot with the style, too. But the writing is mine.
It's not an epic, and it's not three hundred pages, not even close, but, Mr. Shadwell, I know you'll grade it as if it was a jenti's work.
Cody Elliot