Still Sucks to Be Me: More All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire

by Kimberly Pauley

  “What kind of ‘talking’ are we talking about here?” Can I get him to actually come out and say it? He just looks at me. Hard. “Right,” I say. “So you’re worried he might want to ‘talk’ to my dad too?”

  “Yes. I thought if he didn’t go to work today maybe things would blow over. And it’s homecoming, so everyone will be at the game tonight.”

  “They’re all going to the game?” Even the vampires are into football around here, I guess.

  “Yes, even John and Wayne. Well, everyone but Lowell. And Ernie. He never closes the bar. Look, if you can just get your dad to stay out of sight for the next day or two, I think everything will be fine.”

  Huh. Fine for everybody but Dr. Musty. Doesn’t he see the problem with that? But I just say, “I’ll do my best.” Serena picks that moment to let out a ladylike little snore and tilts forward even farther. I grab her before she goes rolling down the bleachers.

  “Maybe I better get her home,” I say. “She didn’t get much sleep last night. Too, uh, excited about homecoming.”

  He looks a little curious, but just nods. “I’ll pick you up before the game? Oh, I forgot to ask what color your dress is. I’m out of practice, I guess.”

  Crapola. Our not-date date. “Um, green.” I guess I can wear my Ella Moss dress.

  I hope George won’t be mad about the neckline.

  I give the school nurse the same excuse about Serena and she totally buys it. I guess everyone really is into football and homecoming here. Kinda weird. I don’t think I even attended a single game at my old school. Not a big deal anyway, since everyone gets a half day today in honor of the big game, so we’re not going to be missing much. Or maybe I should say Big Game, since you can practically hear the capital letters anytime someone brings it up.

  We get home and I put Serena to bed since we’ll need her awake later tonight. She goes without a grumble and conks out immediately. I do miss that.

  “So,” says Uncle Mortie. “We listened, but what’s the deal with all the ‘talking’ going on? Who’s this Lowell character?”

  Oh yeah. I guess all that probably didn’t make sense to them. I never did tell Mom and Dad about my side lessons with Cameron. I’m sure Mom thought I’ve just been practicing my shape-shifting. Which I have been. Just not with Cameron.

  “Lowell is another Carter. He’s the Shop teacher at school and he’s like the Carters’ resident brain shrink, kinda like one of the Vampire Goon Squad. So I’m thinking they’re either trying to wipe Dr. Jonas’s mind or trying to pick his brain to find out exactly what he knows and then trying to wipe it.”

  Dad jumps up. “No! We can’t allow that! Think of all the vital information that could be lost! We have to figure out where they’re holding him and get him out of there!”

  Okay, Dad, dial it back. Wild historian on the loose.

  “He must be at Ernie’s Blood Bar,” I say. “I thought you guys were listening? Lowell, like, practically lives in the back room there.”

  “Then let’s go!” At least he didn’t yell “To the Batmobile!”

  “Dad, it’s probably packed in there right now. It’s homecoming and nobody’s working. It’s like a Cartville holiday. They’re all getting ready to tailgate. And they’re on the lookout for you. If you go rushing in there, they’re just going to turn your brain to mush.”

  “Didn’t that boy say that they were all going to be at the game tonight?” asks Mom.

  “Yes. Everybody but Lowell and Ernie.” I’m still having trouble fitting my head around the idea of a bunch of vampires sitting around watching a high-school football game. Especially if they really are a bunch of blackhearted Black Talons. But there’s no accounting for taste.

  “Seems like that would be a good time to go on the attack,” says George. “Since Mina has to go to homecoming anyway on her hot date”—I frown at him—“she can wear a wire and try to get more evidence on tape. And keep an eye on the rest of the clan to make sure that they stay put at the game. Then we can go to Ernie’s. The four of us should be able to do some damage, especially if they aren’t expecting us.” Well, four against two is definitely better than four against a whole bar full. But I still don’t like it.

  “I’ve got an even better idea,” says Uncle Mortie. I resist the urge to groan. “Ditto on Mina’s mission. It just makes sense. But rather than us all just rushing in there like a suicide squad, how about I go in first and get in position? They’ve never seen me, so they’ll have no idea what I’m there for.”

  “Won’t they wonder why you’re there and not out at the homecoming game with everyone else?” I ask. “Or why a total stranger just shows up out of nowhere? This isn’t exactly Grand Central Station.”

  “I’ll be a traveling salesman!”

  Well, that’s not a stretch anyway. He used to be one. And it’s believable. Like I’ve said before, Uncle Mortie looks like a traveling salesman. But do they even have vampire traveling salesmen? “Selling what, exactly?”

  “You said it was a blood bar, right? I’ll tell them I’m from Varney Supply Company. It just so happens I’ve got a brand new BloodTender 4000 in the trunk of my car. I picked it up for The Cask and Casket. I can pretend to demo it for him. Then once I’ve got him distracted I can say a code word or something and the rest of you can come busting in.”

  Hey, I think that might actually work. Even if it is Uncle Mortie’s idea.

  35

  Serena wakes up around three and we spend about two hours getting ready. It’s a little weird getting dressed for a date while your boyfriend is sitting there giving you advice about what to wear (he seems okay with the green Ella Moss dress) and how your makeup looks (less eye shadow, he says, since I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea). I guess he’s being a good sport about it though. Kind of. The comment about the eye shadow was a little much.

  Of course, George hasn’t actually seen Cameron yet.

  Serena is wearing an old prom dress that she stole from her mom. Why she even brought it with her, I don’t know, but it’s perfect—for her eighties look, anyway. It’s kind of a Molly Ringwald-style pale pink thing with flounces. (NOT, thankfully, like the dress Molly actually wore to the prom in Pretty in Pink, since that was just god-awful ugly. You know, that reminds me. I really need to find some new movies for Serena to obsess over.) It’s actually kind of cute and the coloring suits her. If Nathan were here, I bet he’d be going ape. I think Serena’s thinking the same thing, since I catch her gazing at her keychain. (It’s a picture from prom of the four of us.)

  Everybody else has been getting ready too, but in the opposite way. I’m not entirely sure what their plan is, other than to rush in on Uncle Mortie’s signal. (He’s going to yell out “Bottom’s up!”) The rest of the plan apparently involves a baseball bat, a pitchfork, some steak knives, and some bungee cords. Our house didn’t provide much of an arsenal for the intrepid ambush crew. I don’t care what Dad thinks, he’s no Indiana Jones. Even if he had a leather whip, he wouldn’t know what to do with it.

  Cameron knocks on the door right at five and George goes to open it before I can get there. He holds the door for a minute, just staring at Cameron. Actually, you could probably say he’s giving him the evil eye.

  I was afraid of that.

  “Hello,” George finally says.

  “Hi,” says Cameron. “You must be Dr. Jonas’s intern? I’m Cameron. I’m here to pick up Mina for homecoming.” He holds out his hand. After a long pause, George shakes it. Serena gives me a look.

  Yeah. We’d better get out of here. The sooner the better.

  “Hey, Cameron,” I say, coming up behind George and giving him a light pat on the back that I hope he interprets as an apology and not a get-out-of-the-way-of-my-date. “I see you’ve met George. Serena’s coming along with us. Hope you don’t mind! She’s my unofficial chaperone.” I try to laugh, but it comes out kind of giggly and high pitched, so I stop.

  “Sure, that’s fine,” he says. Then he
does a double take that I wish he’d kept to a single. “Wow, Mina, you look amazing. Green really suits you.” George clears his throat and I just look helplessly at Serena. Do I say thank you? Ignore it? What’s the least likely to peeve George scenario here? Why does Cameron have to be so seriously smoking hot?

  “What about me?” Serena says, and sashays over and then does a twirl and insinuates herself right in between Cameron and George. “How do I look?” God bless the girl.

  Cameron steps up to the occasion with a big smile. “Just lovely. A vision in pink,” he says. Then he holds out his arms, elbows cocked, one for each of us. Serena slips her arm through his right away. I hover for a moment and then do the same on the other side.

  “Bye, Mom, Dad, everybody,” I call out. “Good”—yikes, I guess I better not say luck—“um, night! Have a good night! I’ve got my cell if you need me.” George steps back out of the way and crosses his arms over his chest.

  Well. All in all, that was just really, really uncomfortable.

  It takes all of two minutes to get from my house to the school in Cameron’s car, but I’m still glad we didn’t walk it. High heels are killer, no matter how high your pain threshold is. Baby is still out front and people are still walking by and petting her and feeding her things. The whole campus is absolutely packed. I think everyone in town (other than Lowell and Ernie and my family) must be here. Actually, probably everyone from the entire parish (which sounds kind of like a religious thing, but it is what Louisianans call counties).

  It feels kind of bizarre to be all dressed up for a football game, but most kids are. I’m guessing the ones who aren’t either go home to change or just skip the dance entirely to watch Baby.

  Cameron leads us toward a section of bleachers on the far right. I scan the people around there and it’s vampireless. “We’re not sitting with your family?” I ask. Not that I particularly want to, exactly, but I am supposed to be keeping an eye on them.

  He looks at me kind of weird. “No, they’re up there.” He points at the top of the middle section of the bleachers. “Did you want to sit with them?”

  They look pretty intimidating. There must be about thirty of them up there, maybe more. Probably three or four parishes worth of Carters. You can tell where the vampires end and the people begin too, since there’s like a demilitarized no-man’s zone around them. I think even if people don’t know that you’re a vampire, they still know that something is up, especially if you get a bunch of them together in a group. Especially when they’re all stony faced, pale, and talking quietly among themselves instead of laughing and shouting and throwing popcorn like the people around them.

  “No,” I say. “We’re fine here.” I can actually see them pretty well from down here. Plus they creep me out less from farther away.

  “Great. I’m going to get us some sweet tea. Do either of you want anything else?”

  Serena opts for some popcorn and a hot dog (she’s an eater when she’s nervous), but I just shake my head no. As soon as he leaves, I start scanning the Carter crowd to see what I can learn.

  John and Wayne would be obvious even if they weren’t located smack dab in the middle of the clan. Even sitting down I can tell that they’re way beyond normal tall and they almost look like twins, not just brothers. They both have wavy brown hair with these really shockingly electric blue eyes. One has a small goatee, which gives him a really devilish look that I suspect is on purpose. And they’ve got presence. I now finally understand what my drama teacher back in ninth grade was trying to teach me. Whatever presence is, the Carter brothers have it. Like animal magnetism. I bet that’s where Cameron gets that whole manly-man smell from, which reminds me that I need to try and not breathe tonight. Like, at all. Seriously, I need to get over that.

  Surprise (not): all the Carters immediately surrounding the two brothers are female, though most of the clan (male and female) aren’t stunning beauties or anything. John and Wayne are definitely the stars of the show. A couple of the guys in the second tier of Carters look more or less like Uncle Mortie (paunchy, kinda balding, and very questionable fashion sense—I don’t care if we are in the South, can they please ditch the overalls?). One guy actually has muttonchops, and I get the feeling they’re probably original. He just looks old. I mean, when did muttonchops go out of style? The Dark Ages? Unless you’re in a band, I guess.

  “Uh-oh,” says Serena.

  “What?” Does she see something I don’t see? I count the Carters up and all of them are still there from my last count. Thirty-three total.

  “I think it’s that girl who hates you.”

  “Raven? What? Where?” I turn around but it isn’t Angry Goth Girl headed at us. It’s Angry Skinny White Chick. In the tightest purple sheath dress I’ve ever seen in my entire life. If Kacie even ate a grape, I think you could watch it travel all the way down to her stomach. It’s almost hypnotic, watching her bony hips twitch toward us as she pushes her way through the crowd.

  “So you did decide to come to homecoming after all. I’m so glad. It took a lot of nerve to show up after our little incident,” she says sweetly, hands on those dangerous hips. Our little incident? Huh. I suppose you could call almost running me and Serena over an incident.

  “I’ve got a lot of nerve?” I say. “At least people can’t tell whether or not I’ve had my appendix out.” That makes Serena snort, which probably doesn’t help my case with Kacie. But seriously, I’ve got bigger fish to fry than some spoiled anorexic wannabe Homecoming Queen.

  Kacie, perhaps wisely, just chooses to ignore the comment. She smiles a big crocodile smile at me. I can see all of her teeth. “Grady’s here with me,” she practically coos.

  “I’m happy for you,” I say. “You make a lovely couple.” That’s a lie, but hey. Half the couple is lovely anyway. I wonder if she had to club Grady over the head or what?

  “Thank you. I suppose you’re here with Cameron? Where is he and his hot self anyway?” She bats her eyelashes at me a few times like we’re just big buddies discussing our hot dates. Geez, she’s gotta be kidding me. If all it took to get her off my back was to get Grady to date her, I’d have been working on him even harder. Serena’s blinking at me like an owl. I feel kind of the same way.

  “Um, he’s getting us some drinks.” I wave over toward the concessions. “I’m sure he’ll be back in a minute if you want to talk to him yourself.”

  “That’s not necessary. Oh look,” she says, barely glancing over her shoulder. “I think they’re counting the homecoming ballots now. I’m just gonna go check on that and see how things are going.” She turns to leave and then looks back over her shoulder. “Y’all have a lovely time tonight, okay? I’m sure you will. I know I will.” She laughs her shrill little laugh. Gah. That just gave me goose bumps.

  “Um, thanks,” I say. “You too.” I have no idea what else to say.

  She stumbles a few steps in her too-high stripper heels but keeps walking.

  I think the world just shifted somewhere or maybe those ice-skating demons are building igloos now. I resist the urge to pinch myself.

  “That was weird. Isn’t she the one who almost ran us over?” Serena raises her eyebrows at me and I just shrug. I guess all you gotta do is give a Southern girl what she wants and she’s all sweetness and light.

  I look to see whether Cameron is on his way back from the concession booth yet. He’s still in line, but what I do see makes my stomach clench. There’s Raven, just, like, fifteen feet away from us, watching Kacie walk away with great interest. I can’t believe I let the skinny snot distract me like that. What if Raven had just kept coming instead of stopping to listen?

  I step forward in front of Serena, but Raven just waves at me, turns around, and leaves. Man, I need, like, three sets of eyes. One set to watch out for Raven, one for anymore weirdness from Kacie, and one set for the Carter Clan. Or maybe I just need a swivel.

  “Great people you’ve met here,” Serena says.

  “Other t
han Kacie, they aren’t actually that bad. Most of them, anyway. If you take away the anorexic chicks who usually want to kill me but now apparently just want me to be happy, and the bloodthirsty maniac vampires who want to do away with my dad, the rest of the town isn’t that bad. Really. And you brought the homicidal Goth girl with you, don’t forget.”

  “I don’t think you can blame that one on me,” says Serena. “After all, she only wants to kill me because of you.”

  I guess she has a point there. Sigh. It is all my fault.

  Wait, you know what? I blame it all on the Northwest Regional Vampire Council. If it weren’t for them, I’d never have even met Raven and we definitely wouldn’t be sitting here in Podunk Cartville trying to keep from getting killed. Well, not me, but Serena. But still. Definitely The Council’s fault. Along with just about every sucktastic thing in my life.

  Cameron hands Serena her popcorn and hot dog and passes drinks around when he gets back. The game finally really gets going and we sit and watch. Well, Cameron watches (I guess some things all guys are into) and Serena eats and I mostly hope that Cameron doesn’t notice that I’m spending more time rotating back and forth trying to keep an eye on all my enemies. Luckily, the Carters all seem as into the game as the rest of the crowd and haven’t moved (other than one older guy dressed head to toe in the school colors, and who has been jumping up and down and screaming whenever the ref rules against the home team). I’ve lost sight of both Kacie and Raven since they both disappeared back behind the bleachers somewhere. Right about now X-ray vision would come in really handy.