by Adam Selzer
“What?”
“Fred’s been saying he won’t convert me because I’ll end up being just as selfish and dramatic and clingy and whatever else as I am now,” she said, with a roll of her eyes. “So I’m trying to show him I’m totally not selfish, and I know that he’s not going to be my boyfriend for life or anything, by setting the two of you up.”
I looked really hard at her face. She was fake-reading again to keep from making eye contact, so I had to duck down and try to look over the edge of the magazine.
“I overheard Mrs. Smollet saying you were going out with some other guy,” said Cathy, “so I’m prepared to pay you. But I need it to be you. It can’t be anyone else.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because I’ve been so mean to you,” she said. “And I need to make it up to you. Plus, Fred’ll be so impressed that I’m willing to let him go to the dance with my archenemy, he’ll have to be convinced.”
“Archenemy?” I almost laughed. “What are you, nine?”
“You know what I mean,” she said.
I took a sip of my coffee and just nodded. I still hadn’t exactly forgiven Cathy for her stunt with the skates, and I sure as hell didn’t want to do her any favors. But at the same time, the idea that I’d wished for her to be miserable freaked me out so much that I sort of wanted to make nice with her.
And I sure as hell needed that date, even though I didn’t believe for a minute that it would convince Fred to convert her.
“What do you want to be a vampire for, anyway?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t want to die, for one thing,” she said. “Doesn’t everyone want to live forever?”
“Not everyone,” I said. “It’d get old after a while.”
She shrugged. “Don’t you ever worry that you’re just another boring person from Des Moines?” she asked me. “Don’t you want something to make you more … interesting?”
I nodded a little.
Let me just say now, kids, that becoming a member of the undead is not the way to become extraordinary. It’s the way to become a statistic. But I understood what she meant, all right.
And I needed that date.
“Okay,” I said. “But I know he doesn’t like going to dances. How are you going to talk him into taking me?”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “Just leave everything to me. I know exactly what to say to him.”
From the look she gave me, I got the idea that she was going to make what Mrs. Shinn, the character either she or I was supposed to be playing, would call “brazen overtures.” Like, she’d impress him with her selflessness by suggesting he take me to the dance, and then promise him that I’d do all sorts of … unsavory … things to him to seal the deal.
I was not quite comfortable with this, but it was a better way to get a date with him than agreeing to be a helper at Mutual’s diciotto. And all I had to do was get that kiss. I didn’t have to let him go one step farther, even if he wanted to.
Of course, I found out later that wasn’t what Cathy told him at all. I had no idea at the time, but I might as well tell you up front that she did something entirely different to convince him to take me to the dance.
It was always her habit to make things way more complicated than they needed to be—like planning to stay up for three days to look tired and frumpy onstage instead of just acting.
Or becoming a vampire in order to be interesting.
I’ve never found out all the details of what she told him that night. Whenever I talk to someone who knows, they just blush and change the subject. But what I do know is that she told him I had some gross, embarrassing disease. The kind that involves tumors, discharges, scabbing, twitching, and assorted other unpleasant, highly personal things.
Like, sometimes when you go to the drugstore you see some medical devices that make you say, “Man, I’d hate to have to go to the counter with one of those! How embarrassing!”
Well, from what I’ve figured out, the disease she told Fred I had required me to use most of them. The closest I’ve come to finding out exactly was when someone who knew told me I was on the right track when I suggested “exploding butt cancer.”
I do know that she told him it was a miracle I was even still alive, and that what I had to do to stay alive would have killed most people by my age, and that I might not make it much longer. She told him she had found out about it by overhearing the school nurse talk while she was in suspension for throwing a textbook at him.
And that it had always been my dream to be kissed by a vampire.
When Jenny got into her Prius, there was a note taped to the steering wheel from her fairy godmother.
“I have cast you one last spell,” she said. “One last chance for you to make Fred fall in love with you. When you smile at him, he will be totally enchanted with you. And when you talk to him, he will find you totally fascinating. The spell should last long enough for you to get him interested. The rest is up to you! Good luck!”
Jenny wiped her eyes, which were still wet with tears. She had thought that her fairy godmother was all out of magic!
She gripped her steering wheel tightly. This was not over yet!
nineteen
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t really magic that got “Jenny” her date. None of the spells helped at all. Smiling and talking to Fred and seeming confident about herself were all she’d really needed to do all along.
I couldn’t believe girls didn’t see that one coming until I started hearing some of them say things like “I never liked reading until I read Born to Be Extraordinary!”
That explained it. They didn’t see the ending coming because they’d never read a book before!
I guess the master stroke on Eileen’s part, the move that made the book a huge hit instead of just another bad book that no one read, was saying that Born to Be Extraordinary was a true story and sort of implying that I could make other girls princesses, too. I’ve learned that some girls would happily read any piece-of-crap book a million times if it made them believe they could be a princess.
I’m only half kidding when I call you kids a bunch of monarchists.
But I did end up finding out that having confidence helped me a lot. Certainly a lot more than anything Gregory did.
And there was a note from my “fairy godparent” taped to my steering wheel the next morning (along with his favorite swear word scribbled over and over on the windows). But it wasn’t exactly an encouraging note.
Hoo hoo!
No luck yet with Freddie?
Never fear!
You’ll love being a vampire!
Why not convince Mutual to be one, too?
Then you can live happily ever after
until you screw up and get yourselves
torn to shreds!
I used the cigarette lighter in my car to set fire to the note and stamped it out in the driveway. And I imagined doing the same thing to Gregory, of course.
I wasn’t going to die. Cathy was going to talk Fred into taking me to the dance. She might have to make a lot of promises to him that I wasn’t about to deliver on, but that morning, I sort of felt like Cathy was the real fairy godmother in my story. She had shown up to save the day just when I was so desperate I was coming up with incredibly stupid plans.
And in between first and second periods, Fred came up to my locker, looking a bit nervous.
This was it. Showtime.
Even though I had no plans to follow through on anything Cathy might have told Fred I’d be willing to do beyond kissing, I gave him my very sexiest look.
Of course, I now realize that I probably looked like I had a twitch or something, and Fred probably thought it was just one of the symptoms of my disease.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hey,” I said.
“Sorry that I disappeared last night,” he said. “How’s your friend?”
“He’s gone into hiding,” I said. “He’s going to hide out in Jason’s house until diciottos are ou
tlawed.”
“That might work,” he said. “I hear it’ll be five, ten years, tops.”
All around us, everyone went about their normal routine, digging through lockers and stuff, but I noticed a lot of people wearing crosses, and I thought I detected a smell of garlic in the air. The closer we got to the dance, the more paranoid people were becoming about Will and his clan.
“But anyway,” he said, “Cathy came by and talked to me last night. She said you two hung out at the Shakespeare Club?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We sort of called a truce.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” he said. “She … told me a few things that sort of surprised me.”
I saw his eyes go down my body. I blushed about a million different shades of red, because I assumed he was checking me out. What he was really doing was checking whether he could actually see the tumors through my clothes, like she’d told him.
“Yeah,” I said. “It, uh, turns out she knew some things I didn’t know she knew about me.”
“Yeah,” he said. “She said she overheard the nurse saying some pretty serious stuff.”
I blushed. I guessed she had told him she heard the nurse talk about me asking about birth control or something.
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s kind of embarrassing to have people know that about me, but … you know. All true.”
“I mean, she told me you were … well … I don’t know how you survive!”
I blushed a bit more now. I guessed Cathy must have told him I’d somehow found a way to do more than other girls could do with him without getting hurt or killed.
There isn’t much vampire guys can do with human girls beyond kissing that won’t kill the girl. To start with, they’re really strong, and in the heat of the moment, they can’t always control themselves. I’m sure you all remember the PSA with that girl who lost a butt cheek.
Fred gave me a nervous sort of smile, and I gave him a wink, which he probably thought was another twitch, and he quickly looked me up and down again. I felt like I was a piece of meat at a butcher shop. It was not a way I was used to being checked out. I decided on the spot that I could live with my weight if it kept more guys from looking at me like this.
For the most part, though, I thought he was being a gentleman. He wasn’t coming right out and asking what it was that I could do with him. He spoke slowly, like he was being careful not to say the wrong thing and seem like he was being too forward.
Of course, he was really being careful not to say anything that might embarrass me or make me think he was only interested out of pity.
This is the most humiliating of all the parts of the story for me to talk about, by the way.
“So anyway,” he said, “she told me she thought I should take you to the dance on Saturday.”
“I know you don’t like dances much,” I said.
“No,” he said, “but she really convinced me that we could have a good time. And I do like you, you know. I think all that stuff you’re doing to help your friend is really … admirable. And brave. You’re totally brave. I like that.”
I smiled. “So, you want to go to the dance?”
“If you think you’re up to it.”
“I’d like that.”
“You’ll have to drive,” he said. “Unless you want to ride on my back.”
He was probably just being practical here, but it sounded a bit too forward to me. I did my best to play hard-to-get rather than turn him down.
“I don’t ride backs on the very first date,” I said in my flirtiest voice. “What do you think I am, some kind of hussy?”
He smiled. “I’ll be at your house at seven on Saturday,” he said. “See you then!”
And I smiled and walked away.
I had done it.
I thought I had just pulled off the greatest acting gig since Viola fooled Orsino.
I was a little embarrassed and all, but the embarrassment and general humiliation were totally overshadowed by the pure elation of knowing I’d pulled it off and I was going to survive the weekend.
By the time I got to rehearsal in fourth period, I was practically dancing my way into the auditorium. In fact, I did dance my way in. I was shaking my hips and pumping my fists, doing high kicks and spinning around. Real dancing. Self-expression. The kind Audrey Hepburn’s character does in Funny Face, the movie where she plays just the kind of artsy bohemian I wanted to be.
Eileen was in the theater, taking notes and following Gregory around like a puppy as usual. Her face lit up when she saw me and my sweet moves.
“Well, look at you!” she said. “A week ago you were quiet, shy, and awkward, and now you’re almost walking on air!”
I didn’t say anything. I just danced some more.
“He does great work, doesn’t he?” said Eileen. “You’re so lucky to have a fairy godparent!”
“Hoo hoo!” said Gregory from the stage. “What are you so happy about, kiddo? Don’t you know that if you’re happy today, you’ll be sorry tomorrow?”
He seemed genuinely annoyed—which was totally lost on Eileen.
Life felt good.
Not because of my fairy godmother, but in spite of him.
I danced my way to a seat behind Cathy.
“Guess it went well?” she asked.
I smiled and nodded. “I don’t know what you told him,” I said, “but he sure seemed eager to take me to the dance.”
“Just promise you’ll have a good time,” she said. “And let’s keep the whole thing about you and your boyfriend a secret, okay? Definitely don’t tell him I knew you weren’t, like, actually trying to steal him.”
“Deal,” I said.
This was perfect. It would solve the whole problem, and it wouldn’t even make Cathy miserable. Gregory was totally failing.
When the rehearsal got under way, Gregory called me up to the stage and told me to pick up where I’d left off the day before, accusing Marian the Librarian of loaning out dirty books.
This time, my head didn’t get fuzzy when I stood on the stage. I didn’t hear ghostly bells ringing out to say I’d missed a spelling bee word, or feel any flash of fear that anyone was going to put a For Sale sign in my yard if I messed up.
After all, as far as I knew, I’d just pulled off an acting job that took way more skill than some school musical.
“Chaucer!” I said, like it was a dirty word. “Rabelais! Baalllllllzac!”
I spit them all out the way Mrs. Smollet would have said the names of deviant sex acts. I played up the first syllable in “Balzac” like crazy, then paused for a moment before finishing the word.
And when I looked out into the auditorium, I saw that people were laughing.
For a split second I thought they were laughing at me, but then I realized they were laughing because I was doing a good job of being funny. Even Cathy cracked a smile.
“Now sing!” Gregory shouted.
And I started to sing my part of “Pick-a-Little, Talk-a-Little,” and, mysteriously, I nailed it. I was probably pitchy as hell, but I sang it like I meant it, and it worked. I ran around the stage doing the hand motions and all the exaggerated poses the mayor’s wife is always doing.
And I actually had fun.
But it isn’t over for Jenny once she gets that date with Fred in Born to Be Extraordinary. She still has to deal with Mutual and his parents trying every dirty trick in the book to keep her from making it to the dance in the first place. And saving Fred from that rebel group that tries to kidnap him.
And the story wasn’t over for me, either. Not by a long shot.
After the rehearsal, I glided out of the auditorium. Eileen followed me, notebook in hand.
“That was wonderful!” she said. “You were born to play that part!”
I smiled. “I like this acting stuff more than I thought.”
Then, all of a sudden, the tornado siren went off.
In case you’re in California or something and they don’t have these things wh
ere you are, here in Iowa we have alarms that go off in the school when there’s a tornado warning, just like the alarms that go off when there’s a fire. And a couple of times a year, we have tornado drills.
When there’s a tornado and you’re at home, you go to the basement. But if one hits and you’re at school, the thing to do is duck and cover: get down on your knees, bend over, and cover your head with your hands. Honestly, I don’t think hiding from a tornado like that is any better than hiding from a nuclear attack in the same position, but, well, school boards have to tell students to do something or people will say they don’t care about the students’ safety.
All over the halls, people started to get down against the wall, but no one panicked or anything. People who were combing their hair or whatever finished what they were doing first. No one thought it was an actual tornado—everyone knew that we rarely get those in November. But if you don’t participate in a tornado drill, you can get detention.
I was just ducking down myself when I saw Murray appear at the end of the hall.
“What the hell’s happening?” I shouted at him.
“Get down!” he shouted back.
I got down.
For the next couple of minutes, while the siren next to the school blared, I could hear people running around and shouting.
I couldn’t see what was going on, but if Murray was here, obviously the vampire honor guard had been called in. This was no tornado drill.
Then I heard Mrs. Smollet saying, “False alarm.”
“We’re taking every threat seriously,” said Murray.
“Well, this was a false alarm.”
The sirens stopped blaring, and Smollet yelled out, “Back to class, everyone. Nothing happened. Nothing to worry about.”
I got up and walked over to Murray.
“What just happened?” I asked.
“Someone called in a Wilhelm sighting,” he told me. “I figured it was fake, but it was a good drill for us. We were pretty tight, huh?”
“I wouldn’t want to be a vampire attacking this place,” I said.
He smiled proudly and patted one of the other vampires, a guy with a mustache and a flannel shirt, on the back. “Nice work, Vlad,” he said. “You ever meet Jennifer Van Den Berg? She’s in the alliance.”