But the worst year of all was the year of the mouse. And not just any mouse. THE mouse. As in red-and-white dress, big black ears, and big, fat feet.
Yes, Minnie Mouse.
And they wound up killing her, too. It was lovely. . . .
"Perfect," Mom said, taking a step back to admire me.
She'd painted blood around my eyes, my cheeks, my mouth.
Albert, the family skeleton, rattled his bones in agreement. "Yep, Claudette, she looks like a winner!"
"A chip off the old block!" howled Uncle Earl from his crypt.
"Nothing scarier than a dead little mouse!" cried Aunt Wilma, her voice rising shrilly with delight.
"Well, maybe a blood-sucking one," said Dad, wrapping Mom up from behind in his long, black cape. Dad was dressed as a phantom, and he was right. I, Little Miss Big Ears, looked more like a flesh-eating cannibal than a dead little mouse. It was truly terrifying, again.
But trick-or-treating was worse.
Mother went as a vampire (she's so creative), and she kept saying, "Aren't we just two peas in a pod?"
I couldn't, wouldn't, disagree. After all, it pays to be polite to a woman with fangs, even if she is your own mother.
The neighbors cringed when they opened their doors, which was what Mother wanted, of course. "What exactly are you?" they'd ask, scanning the darkness, looking for others like me.
"She's Minnie Mouse, and she's dead," Mother answered. She said this happily, matter-of-factly, as if I was one of many roaming streets that night....
But I wasn't. Thanks to the number one family rule--the one about dressing as something dead or scary on Halloween--I was one of a kind....
I'm always one of kind, simply because my idea of a happy-fun costume never passes inspection. This is why I KNOW my idea of getting dressed up in a beautiful way for Woodruff Middle School's Halloween ball will be dead in the water before I can say, "Mother, may I?"
Thus, the new plan.
The one about keeping secrets.
Since I already keep secrets on a daily basis, it may work. After all, I've had lots of practice.
You see, my mother, Queen MV, really is a vampire.
Yep, a vampire. Complete with fangs, black hair, stylish clothes....
Having a vampire for a mother is not the sort of information I can share with just anyone. If I did, there'd be things like holy water, silver bullets, and stakes-through-the-heart to worry about. Not for me--those things probably wouldn't do a thing to me. Well, I guess they would.... Silver or not, a bullet's bound to hurt....
But mix any of those things up with my mom, and it wouldn't be good. And actually, completely unnecessary, because for the most part, she's safe. I mean, she's not active. She doesn't hunt pure flesh and blood. Not entirely--she satisfies that craving with raw meat bought from the butcher. And she doesn't sleep in a crypt like Uncle Earl. She sleeps on a California King with my dad. (He's a big guy.) And she doesn't turn into a bat at night and fly around, but once I did see her fly out the window and catch my brother when he fell from the oak tree.
Me? Despite being born to my mother, I've never flown. Never had an inclination to hunt. And unlike my brothers, never licked a cut or scrape.
Basically, I've shown no interest in anything that turns vampires on.
Even the thought of immortality isn't appealing, because someday, someway, I do want to die, so long as it's WAY, WAY, WAY out in the future. Which for me is a long ways off. Right now, I'm thirteen.
Or, almost thirteen.
In nine months.
And I'm thinking it's about time I remind Mother.
Because thirteen is when I should be able to start doing my own thing, start making my own decisions, start taking control of my life--especially the little things.... Hmmm. Maybe I should remind Father....
After all, thirteen is when grown-ups start expecting you to act like what you're destined to be, or what you want to be, or what others think you should be when you grow up. It's an age all about... it's an age about--Eeeek!--it's an age about DESTINY!
I think I'll remind NOBODY!!!
Cripes. This business about being a vampire--or NOT being a vampire--is really going to ruin my life.
About the Author
Shaunda Kennedy Wenger is a co-author of The Book Lover's Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Celebrated Works of Literature and the Passages That Feature Them. She has also written children's books, such as In Black Bear Country, How Many Muffins? and Caterpillar Can't Wait, for the education market. Her children's poems have been published in Babybug and Cricket magazines. She lives in Utah, where she is perpetually entertained by her children, their friends, and the students that find themselves stuck in her science classroom. This isn't her first middle grade novel, but it came out ahead on the road to publication. To find out more about Shaunda and her other books, visit www.shaundawenger.blogspot.com.
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