by Jeff Norton
Poor dinosaurs, I thought, suddenly remembering I was flying with a flock of vampires.
‘Can you believe we actually did that?’ said Nesto. ‘That was so cool.’
Now that I was safely out of the tin can and flying over the mighty Niagara Falls, it was cool. That’s what I loved about my friends – we did crazy, daring things, things that before, all by myself, I’d have been too scared to even dream about. But we did them.
Together.
We cut the corner of Lake Ontario and pushed north of the suburban sprawl that hugged the lake’s shore. Finally, as we flew over the great expanse of dark wilderness below, the sky was lit only by the twinkling galaxy above.
I tilted my head back and gaped at the constellations. I felt my stomach rise as we began our descent into Camp Nowannakidda airspace.
‘Better close your mouth, Adam,’ said Crash. ‘It’s one of the little tricks you learn the hard way when you start flying.’
‘Good point,’ I said, shutting my fly trapper. I was not interested in ingesting any insects.
Finally, we flew over the fenced-in camp. The vampires descended in the main field in front of the mess hall. All of the campers were tucked up in their tents and as we silently touched down, with not so much as a bump, I might add, I heard the camp counsellors in the dining hall talking and laughing.
I nudged Corina and pointed. ‘They’re in there,’ I whispered.
Corina found Konrad and lowered her head in respect. ‘My elder, that’s an all-you-can-eat buffet in there.’
The childlike vampire elder grinned a predator’s grin. ‘Why don’t you introduce us?’
Corina looked at Nesto and I. ‘Come on guys, let’s say hello and goodbye.’
As we approached the door, I heard old Mrs Lebkuchen: ‘You’ve done well, my children. This year’s batch may be our best yet. The campers are getting fatter, tastier.’
Corina pushed open the door. Mrs Lebkuchen stood, hunched on her cane, talking to the dozen camp counsellors who were spread around three small tables, stuffing themselves on boxes of Can Nibble doughnuts.
Mrs Lebkuchen noticed me and narrowed her sunken eyes. ‘Healthier, I mean.’
The camp staff all turned to see me standing at the doorway.
‘Um, Adam,’ said Growl, ‘the mess hall’s off limits to campers after dinner, you should be—’
‘Save it, Growl. I know what you cannibals are really up to – fattening us up so you can donutify us. Which is really disgusting, by the way.’
They laughed.
‘You’re acting crazy, Adam,’ said Growl.
‘And crazy is rescuing your ingredients,’ I said.
‘Yeah, you and what army?’ asked Duke.
‘You probably didn’t want to ask that,’ I said, stepping aside.
Konrad walked through the door and inhaled. He took a big breath in through his nose and closed his eyes, savouring the smell.
‘We thank you, Count,’ he began, ‘for what we are about to receive. For this bountifully place filled with humans who eat humans.’
Mrs Lebkuchen raised her cane at me. ‘You cannot stop us. There will always be children who wander into the woods, happy to eat our food … to become our food. And people always look the other way.’
‘You’re about to wish we never wandered into your woods,’ said Corina, turning to leave.
I held Mrs Lebkuchen’s gaze. ‘And I’m not looking away,’ I said. ‘I’m looking right at you, and I see pure evil.’
Nesto and I followed Corina out of the door as the waiting vampires filed past us, storming the dining hall for their midnight feast.
We heard screams as the vampires finally got their sacrifice. Corina stood beside me, listening to the howls of horror coming from inside.
I turned to her, transfixed by the sound of the killing, and asked, ‘You don’t want to join in?’
‘I do, but I won’t,’ she said. ‘I want to feed, but I’m going to keep it in check.’
‘We can always stop for doughnuts on the way home,’ I half-joked to try to get a smile from her.
‘Don’t tempt me,’ she said, suppressing a grin.
‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ I said. ‘But we should get home.’
‘Do we have to?’ whined Nesto. ‘I want to say “Hi” and “Bye” to somebody first.’
‘A certain weremoose?’ asked Corina.
‘Maybe.’
‘Go find her,’ I said.
Nesto jumped down onto all fours and let out a howl. Within seconds, he’d transformed back into his slimy chupa self. He howled again.
From the trees, a moose call answered back.
* For the unfamiliar, ‘hocking a loogie’ is like preparing and then dropping a saliva bomb. For the record, I do not approve.
29
In Which We Get Our Camp On
Corina and I arrived at the tents where the kids were sleeping. They had no idea that in just a few days they would have become tasty pastries.
‘Should we tell them?’ I asked.
‘Would they believe us?’
‘I’m still not sure I believe it,’ I said. But that wasn’t true. After facing down zealous zombees and cannibalistic camp counsellors, I was starting to think that there was nothing in the world that could surprise me any more.
And then I felt something wet on my cheek.
Corina had kissed me.
‘Thanks for believing in me,’ she said. ‘At the convention.’
I touched my cheek, the sensation of the kiss slowly disappearing, and wrestled with a moral dilemma. Should I ever wash it again? But of course, there was really no question – hygiene first.
‘You believed in yourself,’ I said. ‘And I don’t care what your parents say, everyone listened to you.’
‘You’re a good friend, Adam,’ she said.
Oh come on! Seriously, I thought. Still in the friend zone?
Another howl broke the night-time sound of crickets. Corina pulled me past the tents, towards the treeline. I was hopeful for another kiss, but it wasn’t to be.
‘Shhhh,’ she said, grabbing hold of me and flying us up into the trees.
She popped us onto a branch (I was getting used to this) and pointed down. ‘Now isn’t that cute?’
Below our dangling feet, our friend, the scaly chupacabra, rubbed noses with Melissa the weremoose. Nesto howled gently and she answered back with her trumpet call.
Corina and I giggled.
‘I know you’re up there!’ called Nesto. ‘I have enhanced hearing, you know!’
‘Are you two making out?’ shouted Melissa the moose. ‘Aren’t they cute, Nesty?’
‘This is madness,’ grunted Corina. She grabbed me and we descended in a controlled plummet.
‘Hi, Nesto,’ I said. ‘Hi, Melissa.’
‘Honestly.’ The moose laughed. ‘I think you three can’t be away from each other for, like, five seconds.’
‘We’re a pretty good team,’ I said.
‘I’d say,’ she said. ‘You flew in a bunch of vampires to take out that old witch and her minions. She’s been haunting these woods since my grandmoose was just a calf.’
‘I don’t think you and your herd will have to worry about them any more,’ I said.
‘Cannibals out, vampires in,’ Melissa snorted.
‘She’s got a point,’ said Corina.
‘Of course I’ve got a point, I always have a point,’ Melissa bellowed.
‘I like her, Nesty,’ said Corina.
‘So do I,’ he replied.
‘Melissa, can I ask you a favour?’ I said.
‘I’m not introducing you to my sister,’ she said. ‘I think you’re taken.’ Melissa nudged her head against the fence at Corina.
‘Gross,’ said Corina.
‘Okay, maybe I will,’ quipped Melissa.
With my unbeating heart well and truly crushed, I asked Melissa if she and her father and the rest of the herd would keep their eyes op
en and antlers fixed on the visiting vampires. ‘I don’t know if any of them intend to stay,’ I said, ‘but it’d be great if they didn’t extend their feast to include the entire country.’
‘Think it serves them right,’ said Melissa. ‘The whole country’s been chomping on children for years. Gobbling up their doughnuts and keeping this place going.’
‘She does have a point,’ agreed Corina. ‘Maybe the vampires should stay – take their sacrifice on the people. Every doughnut dipper up here is guilty.’
‘But they didn’t know,’ I said.
‘They didn’t ask,’ said Melissa. ‘They’re totally complicit.’
I thought hard about this – it made my brain hurt. Did she have a point? Everyone was happily eating doughnuts made from people and nobody bothered to ask where the deliciousness actually came from. My dad had always said that ‘ignorance was no excuse’, but I wondered if ignorance of ignorance was. Did they even know how ignorant they were?
Maybe instead of unleashing a swarm of vampires on these cannibals of convenience, it would be a lot better to expose the truth.
‘We’re going to stay,’ I said.
‘Yay!’ shouted Ernesto.
‘We are?’ asked Corina.
‘Yep, we’ve got the camp to ourselves for nearly two more weeks and we can make sure everyone knows what was really happening here.’
‘And we can help,’ said a woman’s voice from the darkness. It was Corina’s mom.
‘Are you spying on me?’ Corina asked.
‘We were looking for you,’ said her dad, his one hand holding her mother’s. ‘We wanted to apologise.’
Nesto whispered to Melissa. ‘I didn’t know vampires knew how to do that.’
‘You made us very proud tonight, Corina,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘It was very brave. And I haven’t been very—’
‘Nice,’ said Corina.
‘Understanding,’ she said. ‘It’s hard …’
‘Living with you, sure is,’ snapped Corina.
‘I didn’t want this life for you, and I suppose it’s easier to ignore you than to face up to the fact that you’re inheriting a life neither of us wanted. Your father and I were made vampires – we weren’t born this way. We didn’t even want children—’
‘Thanks,’ sniffled Corina. I tried to put my arm around her, but she shoved me off.
‘Corina, we love you,’ her mother said. ‘We just never wanted this kind of life for you. You’re our beautiful baby girl, and it kills us a little bit every day that you’re growing into the monster that we’ve become.’
‘I’m just me, Mom,’ said Corina.
‘You showed us that tonight,’ said Dr Parker. ‘Like Adam said, you showed us that you’re better – better than us, and better than our fears of what you’d become.’
He reached out his one arm and drew Corina into a hug. Corina let her mom in too, until all three Parkers were squeezed tight like a vampire triple-pack.
‘We have something to show you,’ said Mrs Parker. ‘Children, you may all wish to see this. Especially you, Adam.’
Corina’s parents led us back towards the mess hall. Melissa came too after Corina hopped the fence and carried her back over, in a pretty girl form.
‘I’m fairly sure I don’t need to see this,’ I said, as we approached the scene of the vampire sacrifice.
Elder Konrad was waiting at the door, his hands folded neatly in front of him. ‘There they are,’ he said. ‘The three brave souls who stood up to our kind. And who is this? A female werewolf.’
‘Moose,’ said Melissa. ‘Werewolves are wimps. Moose are mega.’
‘Indeed.’ Konrad laughed, gesturing to the door. ‘If you please.’
I stepped in reluctantly, expecting to see hollowed-out bodies, guts on the floor, and the wood timbers of the building spray-painted in blood. But instead we found our captors on their knees, hands tied behind their backs.
‘You didn’t … sacrifice them?’ I asked.
‘We sure scared them, but we exercised restraint,’ Konrad said, looking at Corina. ‘We tried to be a bit better than our usual selves.’
‘But they’re evil,’ said Corina.
‘And they’ll be punished,’ said Mrs Parker.
‘Once you call the police to arrest them,’ said Dr Parker.
‘I know just who to call,’ said Corina, pulling Officer Bobert Campbell’s card out of her pocket. She looked at me sternly, but a smile won out. ‘Just no more show tunes.’
‘I can’t make that promise,’ I teased.
Konrad approached Corina and said, ‘You’ve given us a lot to think about. You’d make a great elder one day, Corina Parker.’
‘Maybe one day,’ she said. ‘But right now I want to hang out with my friends. Oh, and get these cannibals busted.’
‘That’s my girl,’ said Mrs Parker.
Konrad walked slowly out of the mess hall and rounded up his flock. He rose into the air and the vampires followed him into the night sky. The swarm of bloodsuckers clouded out the stars and disappeared to the south, leaving us to our summer camp.
‘We’ll guard them,’ said Dr Parker. ‘You kids deserve some fun tonight.’
‘I have just the idea,’ I said, zipping into the kitchen and finding graham crackers, bars of chocolate and marshmallows. ‘Who’s hungry for s’mores?’
The four of us – a zombie, a vampire, a chupacabra and a weremoose – walked down to the lakefront and built a fire. And finally just … hung out with nothing to worry about.
Epilogue
In Which We Drive Home
It turned out that Officer Bobert Campbell knew a guy in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (they had vacationed together once, though not in ’Nam) and after Corina called him, he called in the Mounties.
I was disappointed that they didn’t ride in mounted on horses, but they did show up pretty sharpish in black sedans with flashing lights. They arrested all of the camp counsellors including that old witch Mrs Lebkuchen, who shouted madly in her defence that she really was a witch and that eating children was part of her religion.
With our captors gone, and Corina’s parents as the camp’s new chaperones, we had a campfire every night. One night, we took turns telling ghost stories. Corina told a story of a sect of vampires planning a mass sacrifice and I recounted what Amanda called ‘a preposterous tale’ of the camp that was actually a fattening pen for people.
When the news finally broke about what became known as Camp Cannibal, the rest of the parents, including mine, all drove up to collect us kids and take us home.
On the drive back (completely devoid of show tunes), I noticed that all of the Can Nibble doughnut shops had closed. Those Mounties sure had moved quickly – I was impressed. But outside one shuttered doughnut shop, I spotted a sign that read: ‘Coming Soon: Another Mighty Mooseburger Shack.’
Will people never learn, I wondered.
That night, after a celebratory falafel* pizza (thanks Dad!), I met up with Nesto and Corina in the backyard. Adamini buzzed around, apparently happy to have us back.
‘What are we going to do with the rest of the summer?’ I asked.
‘Actually,’ said Corina, ‘Amanda and I are going to hang out tomorrow.’
What?
I’d faced down cannibals and stopped a vampocalypse, but Corina becoming friends with my sister was more horrible than anything I could imagine.
The End
* I thought that in honour of Corina, I’d give the meatballs a rest for a while.
Acknowledgements
As ever, I need to thank my awesome wife, Sidonie, for her support and encouragement to bring this character to life. Adam Meltzer would’ve remained an idea in my head (or at least a corpse in the ground!) had she not laughed out loud at the first few pages of my very first draft.
It’s been such a great pleasure to get out from behind the writing desk and go into schools and meet the dedicated teachers and librarians who champion reading
for our young people. All writers owe a huge debt to these unsung heroes of our society. If I could hug them all, I would.
I also want to thank the team at Faber Children’s for not only introducing Adam Meltzer to the world in the first place but for publishing this sequel which probably breaks all the rules of children’s books. Leah Thaxton and Rebecca Lewis-Oakes edited Adam’s musings with grace and skill, and Hannah Love has sung his praises so that his tale can be told far and wide. In my mind, Adam’s stories are not so much for kids, as they are about being a kid. I can remember being Adam’s age very clearly, and it’s my creative ambition to channel that still-forming point of view in these books. The world is a complex and confusing place, and Adam is trying his best to navigate through it. He and his friends don’t always get it right, but they’re trying their best.
Lastly, this book is dedicated to my parents who, unlike Adam’s mom and dad, never kicked me out, rented out my room, or signed a release form they didn’t fully read …
… not that I know of.
Dear Reader,
There’s a sequence in the book that’s drawn from an image I saw as a boy. I visited the Holocaust Centre in Toronto on a school trip and was shaken and horrified by the pictures I saw and the stories I heard.
It still haunts me. And as the world becomes more complex, all of us need to be on guard against horrors of the past becoming a reality in our present. As Adam’s dad instructs him, ‘ignorance is no excuse’.
Chances are, if you’re reading this, there is a Holocaust museum or education centre near you. I urge you to visit.
Yours truly,
Jeff
London, March 2015
For Mom & Dad …
… who never rented out my room.
About the author
Jeff took a long time to become an author. He grew up in Canada, worked in America, and now lives in London with his wife and two sons.