Many curious glances were exchanged. Silent reading was a very out-of-character assignment to get from Ms. Smithburg, a woman who treated the front of her classroom like the stage of a theater. Still, everyone got out their books and did what she’d instructed. I paused partway into the first paragraph, about the Battle at Chancellorsville, to glance up at Ms. Smithburg, who had stood to hang her coat and stow her bag and was now smoothing her shiny, coppery-red hair in front of her storage closet. Were her hands shaking? As she turned away from the cupboard, I dropped my eyes down to my book and tried to look absorbed. Truthfully, though, the Civil War was losing the battle for my attention this morning. My head was buzzing as I thought about what Ms. Smithburg’s personal matter could possibly have been and why she was acting so strangely. When I got tired of asking myself those questions, I’d switch to thinking about meeting Timothy Hunt for a private conversation instead of going to English class, and then my head would start spinning. Thanks to my double shot of breakfast, it seemed that my brain was able to obsess and freak out even more effectively than normal.
Fifty-four minutes crawled by, and though I looked up at the clock at least once a minute, when the bell finally rang, it still managed to scare me half to life. Despite being nervous about sneaking out to meet Timothy, my strong desire to get out of Charlotte Smithburg’s class had me snatching up my belongings and stuffing them into my bag. Just as I was about to make a dash for the door, I felt a tap on my back. I turned to see Eli Matthews, not smiling so much as grimacing anxiously. “Hey, Jane! I saved a seat for you, but I guess …”
I knew it had been him waving to me, and I felt guilty for ignoring him, but if I had sat next to him and in the path of a bright sunbeam, I would have been feeling a whole lot worse. Not to mention potentially looking like a bubbling cheese pizza. Still, I wanted to put him out of his misery. “Oh, you did? I didn’t see you, I guess. I really need to get my eyes checked, but I’m paranoid that the doctor will tell me I need stronger glasses.” That was at least partially true. I was paranoid of doctors, with their stethoscopes and blood pressure cuffs and scientific knowledge. I was pretty sure that even an optometrist’s instruments would quickly reveal that I wasn’t exactly normal. But my vision was just as good as it had been for the past seventy-five years … which is to say, not very good. I got by with off-the-rack drugstore reading glasses. Not very stylish, but no prescription required.
My half lie did the trick, and Eli’s face brightened noticeably. “Oh. You shouldn’t worry about getting new glasses. You could get some really cool ones. Not that the ones you have now aren’t cool. They are. Cool.” Unsure how to respond to that, I just started walking. Eli kept up. When we got to the doorway and realized we couldn’t both fit through at once, we did an awkward little dance that resulted in Eli holding his arm out to signal me to pass. I thought it was sort of gentlemanly, but I also heard someone behind us snicker. Eli didn’t seem to notice.
I tried to hurry to my locker, but it didn’t feel like Eli was in a big rush to get to his next class. I twirled my combination lock, pulled up the latch, and swung the chipped gray metal door open as he talked.
“I’m just glad you weren’t avoiding me or anything,” he said. “I was worried you thought I smelled bad or something.”
I deposited my books on the shelf and slung my backpack, now empty save for a few pens and scraps of paper, over one shoulder. Eli looked at me hopefully.
“What?” I asked distractedly.
“I was kidding. About smelling. But you didn’t say anything and now I’m paranoid. That I might actually smell.” The corner of his mouth tugged down in an uneasy half frown and his nose twitched. He may have been subconsciously trying to sniff himself. I lifted my hand, then stopped myself, then made myself put my hand on his shoulder. I couldn’t believe I was purposely touching this boy. The fabric of his cotton shirt felt warm and soft, despite being dotted with little linty knobs. He looked at my hand, then back up at me, and I could tell he was flexing his arm for my benefit. I sucked in my lips so I wouldn’t smile.
“You don’t smell,” I said. “Well … you do have a smell, but that smell is okay. A little like cookies and cologne.” What was I saying? All of my efforts to appear normal and I was about to undo everything by telling some kid he smelled like cookies? Suddenly, I became overwhelmingly self-conscious and I snatched my hand away from his shoulder and started walking quickly toward the school’s side staircase that would lead me to the exit doors nearest the stadium.
Behind me, I heard Eli clear his throat. Then he was jogging up next to me. “Boy, Smithburg really seemed out of it today, huh? I wonder what’s going on with …” Eli stopped walking and talking and looked at me quizzically. “Wait. Where are we going?”
I paused and looked at him. “Where are you going?”
“I was walking you to English because I wanted to talk about last night.… I mean, I wanted to know if you had time to think about it. Our Dust Bowl video. But you’re going the wrong way,” Eli said, jerking his thumb in the opposite direction as if gently pointing out to me that I’d lost my mind.
“Oh. I’m not going to English. I’m—” I looked around to make sure nobody was listening to us. As if anyone would listen to us. “I’m actually cutting class. Because I’ve gotta—I’ve gotta meet someone. He’ll be waiting for me.”
Something flickered across Eli’s face that I didn’t quite recognize. Was it disappointment in my delinquent ways? Annoyance that I wasn’t taking our project seriously? Could it have been a bit of envy for whomever I was stealing away to meet? I hadn’t really ever been in close proximity to jealousy before, so I wasn’t sure I’d recognize it if it bit me on the neck. However, the idea that it could be true? It kind of thrilled me in a sick and selfish way I hadn’t yet experienced. I liked it.
“Okay, well, then … I’ll see you.” Eli started to turn in the direction of the English class he wouldn’t be walking me to, but I reached out impulsively and grabbed his elbow. Realizing that I might be hovering dangerously close to glamouring territory, I tried to hold back my emotions because I wanted our conversation to be real. It felt like holding my breath.
“I’ve thought about it, though, and I’ll do it,” I blurted.
“Do what?” he asked a little sharply. Well, his snappishness confirmed that I wasn’t trancing him, but whether it was through my efforts at control or because I was weak sauce, I did not know.
“The video project,” I said. “I’ve thought about it, and I’ve decided I’ll do it.” I grinned at him and expected him to smile back, grateful for my news, but he still looked kind of pissed. I hated that look.
“Oh, great. I’m glad you decided that,” Eli said. I detected a note of sarcasm in his voice. Actually, it wasn’t just one note. It was more like an entire symphony. Ouch. “I better get to class.” He pulled his arm away from my hand.
“Okay,” I said. “Can we get together later and start writing our script? At lunch?” I was trying to sound enthusiastic, a tone I was unaccustomed to. I worried it was coming out manic and shrill.
“Whatever you say,” said Eli. “You. Are. The boss.” He turned and strode away as the warning bell for second period rang.
“Thanks for walking me,” I called after him. He swung his head back and nodded curtly as he continued on his way. I watched him for a moment as the hallway emptied and students filed into their classrooms. When the final bell rang, I was standing in the middle of the corridor, alone. It was nearly silent. Under different circumstances, I’m sure my heart would have been pounding. I paused at the top of the stairs before hurtling down to the bottom, where I pushed the steel bar that unlatched the door that led outside. I half expected some alarm to go off and alert the authorities that someone was trying to escape, but then I remembered I’d walked out just the day before, and as of yet, nobody seemed to have noticed. I stepped outside and broke into what I hoped was a casual but purposeful trot across the grounds. I tried to
put some distance between myself and the weird feeling I had from the conversation with Eli in the hall.
When I got to the football field it was empty. That was a load off my mind. I had been worried that I’d arrive to find a gym-class game of touch football or a marching-band practice going on, but all I saw was the sun glinting off the field goals, forcing me to shield my eyes with my hand, and a tall bank of bleachers without so much as a soul jogging up or down the stairs. I slowed to a walk so I could catch my breath and not be sucking wind when I came face to face with Timothy. Pitiful. I never thought much about exercising because it wouldn’t do anything to change my painfully sticklike appearance, but now I wondered if jogging might help me build endurance. I’d have to ask Zach about that one. Maybe he’d even have an interesting answer after he finished laughing his head off.
I walked around to the backside of the big cement bleachers. The shade made it instantly more comfortable to stop squinting like a mole and I opened my eyes wide. There, on a built-in bench by the center entrance stairs, Timothy spotted me and waved. Even though the wind was blocked by the walls, I quivered. Weird. I’d read that quivering sometimes could happen at a time like this, but I’d never actually had it happen to me. I waved back, then not knowing what else to do with my hands, stuffed them into the front pockets of my jeans and walked over. Timothy, I thought, looked genuinely glad to see me. Quiver. Quiver. Quiver.
“Jane, you did it!” he said. “Are you sure nobody followed you?”
I whirled around frantically to check behind me before I realized that he was kidding. So dumb! I turned back slowly, and Timothy laughed. His laugh sounded kind of like he was saying, “Ho, ho, ho.” It was low and sure, not nervous and tittery like my laugh would have been at the moment, had I been able to laugh at myself.
“I’m sorry,” he said, making a slightly pouty face at me, like people sometimes do to a little child who’s fallen down. Coming from someone else, I might have taken it as condescending, but when Timothy did it, I found it endearing. Even though we looked around the same age, the truth is that I was probably very young compared to Timothy. I realized that I didn’t even have a vague idea of what his real “age” was.
“Please. Sit,” he said, gesturing to the bench. I took off my backpack, dropping it on the ground, before sitting a full two feet down the bench from Timothy as he reached underneath his soft cashmere coat and into his shirt pocket to retrieve the tattered printout we’d met to discuss. When he noticed where I’d perched, he said, “Jane, come closer. I don’t bite.” Of course, telling someone “I don’t bite” is something people say to each other all the time when they’re trying to be funny, but it never really is funny. It’s just a dumb figure of speech—unless a vampire offhandedly says it to another anxious vampire. Then it’s hilarious. I cracked up, which seemed to delight Timothy, who laughed as well. I instantly decided that I preferred it when he laughed with me, rather than at me. I also instantly decided that he and I laughing together was something I liked very, very much.
“Thank you for sharing this information with me,” he said, noting the article in his thin, white hand. “Do you believe that what it says could actually be possible?”
I took the article from him and looked down at it. Did I believe it was possible? Years of being pragmatic had taught me to approach all things with a certain degree of skepticism. On the other hand, if you’d have asked me in 1936 if I thought it was possible that vampires existed, I would have called you “dingy.” That’s how we talked back then. It meant “crazy.” Now the one thing I was sure of is that you could never be sure of much.
“I want to believe it’s possible,” I said.
“Then … you’d do it? If it were possible? You’d give up everything you have here?” he asked.
“Everything I have? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not really super-wealthy or anything like most of the kids in the vampire community. My dad works in a factory,” I explained, wavering between shame and defiant pride.
“I don’t mean money, Jane. I mean your family. If you could, would you leave them behind to go off and live a whole new life?” he asked. His intensity caught me off guard. “I’m asking, because when I became a vampire, I had to go off and live a whole new life. I’ve lived hundreds of years on my own, and not a day goes by when I don’t think of the family I left behind.”
I had never realized how lucky I was before. I’d never really thought what it would have been like had I become a vampire alone and my family remained mortal.
“But …” He paused, weighing his words. “But it’s been a long time since I could actually remember any of them either. My family. I try, but it’s just … There’s just nothing there anymore.”
Suddenly, I understood what he meant. If it were possible to go back to being mortal, but my parents and my brother did not, there would come a time when they would have to see me die. Maybe in an accident, or by disease. Perhaps I would live another eighty years and die of old age, but sure enough, I would pass away and they would live on. At first, they might remember every little thing about me, but eventually it would be hard to think of what I looked like without consulting a photograph. It would become difficult to remember what my voice sounded like. There would even come a time when the number of years in which they had no daughter far outweighed the ninety or so years I’d been theirs. I gulped hard as I wrapped my mind around the concept.
“It’s a lot to consider,” I admitted. “But if it is real, I’d have plenty of time to think about it anyway. The treatment’s gotta be really expensive. I’d probably have to get an after-school job and save up. Just convincing my parents to let me fill out employment applications might take years … but I’ll bet it’s like … thousands of dollars—”
“It is indeed expensive,” said Timothy, interrupting. “I don’t know of any after-school job that would nearly cover it.”
I stared at him blankly. “What do you mean?” I asked.
“I’ve contacted him, Jane. The man in the article. His name is Dr. Almos Erdos. He’s a professor at a university in Hungary,” Timothy explained. My mouth opened and closed, then opened again but was unable to form any words. Timothy pressed on, “Dr. Erdos says the cure he’s developed is ready and he’ll be able to produce two doses with the money I’ve agreed to pay him. He’s coming, Jane. I guess I should have discussed it with you first, but I wanted to surprise you. You don’t have to give me your answer right now. You still have some time to decide.” My mind reeled. Was he asking what I thought he was asking? Could he be serious? I searched his to-live-for eyes for a clue.
“How much?” I asked. “How much time would I have to decide?”
Timothy took my hand in his and squeezed it excitedly. “He won’t be here until Thursday.”
eight
I sat outside Mrs. Rosebush’s office, waiting to be called. My parents were already in there. I jiggled my leg nervously until I noticed the school secretary staring at me over her reading glasses as she pursed her frosted coral lips. I’m pretty sure the look on her face was disapproval. I wondered for a second if she was somehow aware that I’d skipped out on a class earlier, but then I reasoned that most teachers probably turned in their class attendance sheets at the end of the day, or maybe even the end of the week, if they ever did it at all. Maybe people cut class all the time because it was easy. Or maybe the vice principal was cutting me some slack because of my supposed eating disorder. Maybe this secretary and her frown knew all about why I was there. What a vile woman, scowling at a girl with food issues. I mean, I didn’t actually have food issues, but she didn’t know I was a vampire who had had a bad reaction to a tuna sandwich and was just here because of a crazy mix-up. Screw her.
I had bigger things to worry about anyway. My meeting with Timothy Hunt had left me shaken and confused. I had gone there thinking that Timothy and I were just going to compare teen vampire notes. I mean, he was very smart and to call him the cutest guy I’ve eve
r seen would be an understatement, so maybe I was harboring the tiniest fantasy that we might become BFFs or even decide to see a movie together, but I didn’t actually expect those things to happen. Then, when he’d basically asked me to run away and become mortal with him, needless to say I thought I was being punked. Seriously, I expected Astrid and her friends to pop out from behind a garbage can with a video camera at any second. But they never did.
“The cure is very expensive,” Timothy had said. “But I cleared my accounts and I’ve accepted an offer on my home from a buyer who’s been dying to take it off my hands since it came into my possession.” Timothy had called where he lived a home, but I knew it was a mansion. Fine: I knew it was a mansion because I had done a little cyber-sleuthing one night and was able to find his address. Then I was able to use that address to find an online aerial map. And that online aerial map happened to show a huge castle-like house sitting atop a rocky bluff, overlooking the ocean. That’s how most vampires roll. Prior to our conversation, though, I’d had no idea he was living in that big old house alone, and that he had been alone for many, many, many, many years. Thinking about it made me sad. “After the cost for two doses of the cure,” he’d said, “I would have enough left over to get us started somewhere new. We could even apply to college together perhaps.” He looked at me in anticipation.
“This is really …,” I started, then stopped. Really what, Jane? Unexpected? Unfathomable? Terrifying? Thrilling? It was all of those things, but then Timothy probably knew that. “Why me?” I asked.
“Because … because I’ve been treading this earth for a long time and I’ve met a lot of people—and a lot of vampires who used to be people—but I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re brilliant and you’re funny and you’re interested in things. You’re the most full-of-life undead person I know. Plus, with your allergy thing, it must be more awful for you than it is for any of us. I’ve been hungry and weak before, but I can’t imagine what it must be like to feel that way almost every day. The day we met, and when you were stricken? I can’t describe it, but I felt like I couldn’t breathe either. I’ve always wanted to take care of someone, and from the second I first saw you, I realized that someone was you. So when you shared that article with me, it was something I knew I wanted to do for you. For us.”
Jane Jones Page 7