I looked down at my hands. They’d been laced together in my lap to stop them from shaking, but then suddenly Timothy had taken one hand and entwined our fingers. His skin was papery smooth and exactly the same temperature as mine. I felt the warm buzz of energy that happens when one vampire touches another vampire, though this was my first non-familial experience with it.
“Thank you for saying those nice things about me, but you don’t know me very well. We’re just kids,” I reminded him.
“In some ways we’re kids. In many other ways, you’re an old woman and I’m old enough to be your great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather,” Timothy said.
“Are you sure you didn’t leave out a handful of ‘great’s in there?” I said. Timothy feigned shock.
“Don’t disrespect your elders,” he replied, shaking his finger at me jokingly.
I became serious again. “I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just do it for yourself. I mean, it’s … too generous. Insanely generous.”
“It’s not generous, it’s selfish,” he said, pulling closer to me on the bench. “I decided not to do it on my own because I’m tired of being on my own. I’m tired of living like a barbarian who must choose between obtaining sustenance illegally or unethically, but I’m also afraid of changing. So no matter what I am or what I become, I don’t think there’ll ever be a girl who could understand me the way you do.” By the time he finished talking, his face was very close to mine and I could feel his chilly breath on my lips. If I were a regular girl, this would be the point where I would have fallen under Timothy’s hypnotic spell and become powerless over what I was doing, powerless to stop whatever he was doing. But I was not just any regular girl. I was a vampire girl, not helplessly susceptible to Timothy’s charms. So I knew that I was completely in control when I brought my hands up to his cheeks, guided his face toward mine, and started making out with him so hard, it put the bragging girls I sometimes overheard in the locker room to shame. For two vampires with ice-cold lips, it was incredibly hot. Hot, except for how my glasses kept getting knocked askew by Timothy’s nose. If I ever did become human? I was totally getting laser eye surgery.
Before we’d gone our separate ways, I promised Timothy that I’d think about it, but so far the thing I was thinking about most was the kissing. As unbelievable as everything else was, I still couldn’t believe that the kissing had happened! Me. Jane Jones, tenth-grade vampire, had been kissed. And, as far as I knew, it wasn’t even part of a dare!
“Ms. Jones. Ms. Jones!”
I looked up from my daze to see the school secretary staring at me again. “The vice principal will see you now.” I stood up, glad to have that woman’s eyes off me as she busied herself with tardy slips, and I turned the knob to Mrs. Rosebush’s office. On the other side of the door sat Mrs. Rosebush with her brown-and-silver wavy hair swept up with a pencil poked through to create a bun. She had a practiced expression of warmth and acceptance on her face and gestured toward an empty chair between my parents, saying, “Welcome, Jane.” I sat down, apprehensive about what was about to go down.
“Thank you all for coming here today. I would like to start by saying, Jane, we all think very highly of you, and this meeting in no way signifies that you are in any sort of trouble. Rather, I’m hoping to establish a dialogue with you and your parents so that your experience at Port Lincoln High School is a positive …” Blah, blah, blahbitty-blah-blah-blah. After less than a minute, I completely lost the ability, or the will, to listen to what she was saying. It all started to just sound like … sounds. Nonsense syllables that meant nothing. Not to be disrespectful; I’m sure Mrs. Rosebush was a very kind woman who cared deeply for her students. It was because the whole reason I was here was a phony, fake farce and I had a lot of real stuff on my mind!
“So, you can see my concern,” she concluded.
My mother looked nervously from my father to Mrs. Rosebush to me before saying, “Thank you for making us aware of your concerns. We should let you know that Jane—I’m not sure if you have a copy of her record there—” My mother’s mention of my “record” made me slightly uneasy, since it was only a folder with our current address and contact numbers and was otherwise mostly full of false information that we fabricated and sent along to every new school I attended. It made us feel kind of like criminals, the fake histories and identities. Some vampires did it to distance themselves from any strange occurrences or disappearances of their warm-blooded former acquaintances, I’m sure, but most of us did it simply to fit in with mortal society. As it was, I lived in fear of someday running into and being recognized by one of my elderly classmates from the forties or fifties. Aliases were necessary to maintain our anonymity, and though I had most of my faux details memorized, just in case, there was always the danger of slipping up and raising some kind of red flag.
I gave Ma the evil eye, but she continued. “It should say in Jane’s record that she does have a number of food … sensitivities. Allergies, you might call them, which we think explains what you saw … happen … in the bathroom yesterday.”
Mrs. Rosebush picked up the glasses hanging from a gold chain around her neck and slipped them on. She flipped through a pile of folders on her desk, murmuring, “Yes, I think I did see something about allergies in Jane’s file … I just had it this morning. Where is that folder?” She looked up at us and shrugged. “Well, this is strange. It seems like Jane’s records have just gotten up and walked away.” She took one last look through everything, then waved her hand as if she could make the mess on her desk magically disappear. “Oh, it’s fine. I’m sure we shall find it sooner rather than later. Now, other than the minor medical issue, how would you say things are going this term?”
Jeez, this lady really liked to get up in your business! Even though I’d never shown any evidence of having telepathic powers, which the rare vampire does have, I tried to shoot my mother a quick mental memo to shut it down now. No such luck.
“Being new in school is difficult, but so far, we’re pleased with how things are going for Jane. She likes her classes and she likes her teachers. She’s doing well and she’s even made some friends. A few. A few friends.”
Thanks, Ma.
“That is good to hear. On that note, I invited one of Jane’s teachers to join us to give her perspective on how things are going with Jane. She should have been here by now,” Mrs. Rosebush said, consulting the clock. “Well, maybe she’s forgotten. Jane,” she said, scribbling on her familiar little pink pad, “please take this hall pass and go remind Ms. Smithburg that your parents are here. She has a free period now, but she should be in her classroom.” I took the pass from Mrs. Rosebush’s hand and stood numbly. The last thing I wanted to do right now was walk into a room and come face to face with Charlotte Smithburg. Never mind having her sit across from my parents while they all talked about me. There are limits to the creepiness that even a vampire can take. As I stepped out of the room, desperately wishing I could turn into a bat and fly away, I heard Mrs. Rosebush say to my parents, “Strangest thing. I bumped into Ms. Smithburg this morning. She was running late, but I made it a point to tell her that you would be here and that I’d like her to come say hello.…”
The school’s administrative offices were on the ground level, and Ms. Smithburg’s room was just up one switchback flight of stairs. The walk certainly wasn’t long enough to think of a plan for getting out of this, and I had already pushed my luck once today. I took the stairs as slowly as I could, then walked stiffly down the hall. I thought about stopping at my locker to kill some time but decided to get it over with. I opened the door to room 217 and went in.
It was completely empty. Ms. Smithburg wasn’t there.
I closed the door behind me and walked past my teacher’s desk to the tiny room that served as an office between Ms. Smithburg’s class and room 219. The lights were off and nobody sat at the small table topped only with an ancient-looking green rotary phone. I stepped back into the classroom and wa
s about to return to the vice principal’s office and suggest they have Ms. Smithburg paged or something, when I noticed a fluttering on her desk. A paper had blown onto the floor because one of the big windows had been left open. Just as I stepped forward to close it, a metallic sound rang up from below, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to bristle. Shielding my eyes against the bright sun and sticking close to the wall to remain unseen, I saw the figure of a woman I thought I recognized wearing big, dark glasses and a long, elegant coat step off the fire escape below the open window. She strode across the teachers’ parking lot and ducked quickly into a sedan. I couldn’t see exactly what model of car it was, but I could tell that it was gleaming and way nicer than most of the rides other faculty members drove to school in. I’m no detective, but I was about 1,000 percent sure I’d just seen my history teacher making an escape. But why?
Figuring that Mrs. Rosebush was enjoying the captive audience she had in my parents, I decided to do a little snooping around before I left. Not that I would find anything. I mean, I was just being paranoid, right? The fact that Charlotte Smithburg had gone from being my favorite teacher to a sort of menacing figure and that I’d witnessed her fleeing the school at the very moment she was supposed to be meeting with my parents was all some kind of crazy coincidence that seemed to be getting crazier by the day. I sat down in her chair and tried the file drawer.
Locked.
I looked in the shallow center drawer. Lots of pens and paper clips and trinkets and doodads, probably confiscated from class clowns. I instinctively avoided anything bright and silvery, just in case. Did I mention that earlier? That silver is one of those things you’ve probably heard about vampires that is actually true? Well, it’s trueish but exaggerated. Just like I won’t instantly burst into flames if I step into the sun, my skin won’t start to smoke if I touch silver. Not right away. Still, I’ve learned to avoid it just like you’ve learned to let a burrito cool before biting into it.
There wasn’t much of interest in the drawer, but I did pick up a small yellow envelope that contained a small dull key. The kind of key that might open a drawer in that very desk. “See,” I told myself, sliding the key out of the envelope and into the lock on Ms. Smithburg’s file drawer, “if she really had anything to hide, she wouldn’t have just left this key.” I wasn’t surprised when the tumbler turned and unlatched the drawer. However, I was quite surprised when I slid the drawer open and saw the sole item it contained.
There, sitting right in front of me, was a manila folder marked with stickers I recognized from the school’s arcane filing system. On the tab was a computer label that said, “Jones, Jane.”
I drew in a long, shaky breath as I picked up the very folder the vice principal had been searching for just minutes ago. I opened the cover and saw that the front page, a form headed with Personal Information, was torn, with most of the personal information ripped away. Now seemed like a perfect time to start talking to myself, so I went ahead and said, “What the—”
“Hello, Jane.” I snapped the folder closed and looked up. Framed in the doorway was Astrid. She stepped in and walked toward the desk, and I noticed her eyes slip down to the folder in my hands. “What are you doing here?”
“I was just … dropping off a makeup assignment. I missed some homework.” I fumbled nervously.
“Missed homework? How unlike you,” she cooed. Something didn’t seem right. Astrid wasn’t in my American history class and now that I thought about it, I couldn’t recall her being one of Ms. Smithburg’s students at all.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, trying to turn the tables and regain the bravado I’d been feeling when I decided to go through the desk.
“Ms. Smithburg sent me to pick up some papers she’d left. So, if you’re done there, I’d like to grab them. She’s waiting for me to bring them to her in the teachers’ lounge.”
Well, I knew that was a lie, but did Astrid know I knew it was a lie? Since I’d said I was here to drop something off, I couldn’t walk out with the folder. Besides, I had a feeling my file was what Astrid had come to collect, and she’d caught me looking through it. Even if my file being there was an innocent mix-up and Astrid was there on an innocent errand, I knew she wouldn’t miss an opportunity to share what she’d seen with the proper authorities, aka Ms. Smithburg. Soon I’d be known as a school-skipping breaker-and-enterer. As calmly as I could, which was not very, I put the folder back in the drawer and softly slid it closed. I wanted to relock the drawer, but I wanted to get out of there more, so I decided to just do that. I stood and came out from behind the desk.
“We’ll be seeing you around, Jane,” said Astrid, tossing her heavy hair over her shoulder. I walked quickly past her, out the door and down the stairs, never stopping until I was back inside Mrs. Rosebush’s office. Mrs. Rosebush and my parents all looked up at me, puzzled, probably wondering what had taken me so long and why I’d come back alone.
“She wasn’t there,” I said. “I looked everywhere.”
nine
No matter how many times I would ever walk into that stupid cafeteria, I knew my stomach would never fail to do a sickening flip. When you’re not considered hot or popular or … normal … the classrooms and hallways at school can be difficult enough, but for some reason, when kids are let loose in the cafeteria, they behave like monsters. Don’t think I don’t know how ironic that is, coming from me. I cautiously navigated between a tableful of lacrosse jocks playing keep-away with one poor mathlete’s soup thermos and a gaggle of student-council girls selling red-and-white PLHS buttons. Between the boys and the girls, I was more intimidated by the girls. They looked like if they didn’t raise enough money and school spirit, they’d take all of us down somehow.
Truthfully, even though I hated the caf, I was looking forward to seeing Eli. After the roller-coaster day I’d had so far, I would be happy to just sit and work for a little while with someone who, I was realizing more and more, was always utterly dependable even if he was probably still mad at me. I scanned the tables looking for Eli’s broad shoulders and the top of his gingery brush cut bent over some books. At first, I didn’t see him, but when I looked around again, I spotted him in a far corner of the room, sitting down, looking up into the face of a girl, smiling and chatting. That flip my stomach had done just a minute ago was only a warm-up. Now it was going for a round-off–back handspring with a full dismount. Even at this distance it only took one flick of her gleaming chestnut waves for me to realize the girl he was talking to was Astrid.
We learned in biology about the fight-or-flight response that’s triggered in animals when they are threatened. Right then, I wanted to get the first flight to anywhere else like you wouldn’t believe. I certainly didn’t feel up for a fight. Maybe in vampires, a third reaction exists in which you stare daggers at another vampire and see if they get the hint to go the hell away. I guess I was about to find out. I smoothed my own dull brown bangs down over my eyes as I walked reluctantly toward them.
“Hi, Eli. Thanks for meeting me,” I said.
“It’s lunch. I would have been here no matter what,” Eli responded in a monotone voice, without ever taking his eyes off Astrid. I could tell right away that she’d been trancing him a little because although she had a coat draped casually over one arm, she was touching his shoulder with her free hand.
I pulled out a chair and sat down. I had to get him to look at me, so I picked up his hand and held it in both of mine. It was really big for a kid’s hand. I wondered if he was still growing or whether he’d just stay the same size from now on. Feeling the coolness of my skin, Eli seemed to finally become conscious of the fact that someone besides Astrid was talking to him. What I felt was my own power to glamour a human flowing through Eli and slamming into Astrid’s energy. “Still, I’m glad I can count on you,” I said to him, smiling softly as his eyes adjusted to my face. Astrid looked shocked, and pissed. I’m sure she assumed that because I was blood-intolerant that I wasn’t like n
ormal vampires in mostly every other way. Well, when you assume, Astrid, you make an a-s-s out of u, u, u! I’ll give her credit, though—she was able to recover almost instantly.
“Jane,” she cooed, jerking her hand away from Eli like he was a hot stovetop, “I was just here talking to Eli because I was looking for you! I wanted to make sure you were okay.” She paused for dramatic effect. “I know you had that big … meeting … in the vice principal’s office today.” She scrunched her perfect eyebrows in an expression of affected concern. “I think you are so brave to admit you have this disorder and that you want to get help. Are they going to send you to, like, a psychiatric hospital or something?” Eli looked from Astrid to me, obviously confused.
“How did you know about that meeting?” I snapped.
“Oh, Jane,” she said, “there isn’t much that happens inside the walls of this school that I don’t know about. Or outside the walls, for that matter.” She laughed before leveling her cold green gaze at me. “I work in the office during my study period. In fact, if you play your cards right, today’s attendance sheet from your English class could wind up missing. You’d like that, right? Since you were too busy having a little rendezvous to make it to class?” She winked slyly at Eli, who reddened and lowered his eyes to his notebook.
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