14
Serena and I have a study date Wednesday night to work on our Dracula projects. I’m hanging out in my room waiting for her to come by when the phone rings. I figure she’s calling to tell me she’s going to be late or something (she’s always late, it’s her one big fault), so I answer in my best annoying radio announcer voice.
“Well, hello there, little lady!”
But, of course, it isn’t Serena. “Uh, Mina?”
“Oh, hey, Lorelai. I thought you were someone else calling.” I should really hit my parents up for caller ID and a phone that supports it. At least it wasn’t Nathan.
“Girl, you are whacked out. What was that scene between you and Raven yesterday? I didn’t get to catch you after the session to get the scoop.”
“Nothing much. She’s just such a snotty witch. She was ragging on George for no reason.”
“George, huh? Hmmm.” Hmmm what? Is it my fault I stick up for the underdogs? Someone’s got to do it.
“I noticed you didn’t sit next to Aubrey either.” She continues in an insinuating voice.
“He was over there playing foot solider to Raven. Not the kind of company I keep.”
“Uh-huh.” Obviously, something is clicking and turning over and over in her little cheerleader head.
“Just spit it out, Lorelai. What’re you trying to say?”
“Oh, nothing. I was just wondering if there might be a little Georgey Porgy in your future, that’s all.”
Is she suggesting that I have a thing for George? Oh, come on. He’s a nice guy and everything, but he’s nowhere near as cute as Nathan or Aubrey. Not that cuteness is the deciding factor or anything, but it definitely helps. Even a nun would admit that. Well, maybe. They’re probably more into cleanliness or something. Or, I guess, they wouldn’t really be into anything, being a nun. Whatever.
“George and I are just friends.”
“Uh-huh,” she says again. Grrrr. Know-it-all cheerleaders.
Then Serena comes in after a perfunctory knock, and I tell Lorelai I’ve got to go before she starts accusing me of wanting George’s love child or something.
Serena drops her books on my bed and flops down. “You know someone named Lorelai?” she asks after I hang up. “That’s so cutesy.”
“Well, she is a cheerleader. I met her at the, um, orangutan sex talk.”
She gives me a weird look. Well, who can blame her? I wish George had come up with something more mundane. Like a talk on Picasso or something.
“Seems like a lot of people go to these talks.”
I’ve used the parent excuse already. I have to think of another one for Lorelai. “I think she volunteers at the museum and gets extra credit or something. Anyway, how’s your paper going?”
I guess Serena buys it since she pulls out her stuff, and we get to work. I hate lying to her, but what else can I do? Maybe it will be easier to hide once I’ve actually turned, and I won’t have to be attending these stupid vampire lessons anymore.
Wow, I actually thought “when” there instead of “if.” Is that like a Freudian thing? Have I actually made up my mind? Have to think more on this later after Serena is gone.
We work until Mom calls us to come eat dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs. Good thing Serena isn’t wearing her new dress. Dad asks us how school is going (fine) and what we’re learning these days (not much, especially on my part, but it’s not like I don’t have an excuse), and whether we’re excited about being juniors about to become seniors. (I haven’t even thought about it.) Mom asks whether we’ve thought about prom yet (uh, yeah) and do we know what we want to wear (not a clue) and any idea who we’ll be going with (wish I knew).
We help Mom with the dishes while Dad wanders back to the living room, probably to watch some boring documentary on some dead guy.
“How are your studies going, Serena?”
“Fine, Mrs. H. I’m just glad my mom doesn’t make me go to those weird lectures you’re making Mina go to!”
Mom, of course, is totally like “Huh?” so I jump in quickly with: “There’re worse ways to spend my Tuesdays and Thursdays. They could be making me clean out the basement.”
“Oh,” says Mom. “Well, we just hope Mina is getting something out of the, um, lectures.”
“Very cultural,” I say sagely.
Another disaster averted by the lightning mind of me, Mina Hamilton. Though, of course, I’ll have to explain some stuff to Mom later on. I may leave out the whole orangutan sex part though.
Serena and I head back to my room to do a little more dissection on the old Count. Or would that be vivisection?
I’m puzzling through a passage particularly thick with Van Helsing’s stupid accent (what exactly was Stoker thinking?) when I hear Serena let out a big sigh.
“I wish I were a vampire,” she says.
Say what?
“Why?” I can’t imagine how this book would make anyone want to be one. Though the women vampires are kind of voluptuous and sexy. But then there’s the whole evil thing. They eat children.
“Well, not like the Count.” Whew. “More like from Interview with a Vampire or Ultraviolet. It would be so cool to be able to travel everywhere and live so long you could see everything. Never running out of time.”
I can see how that would be important to someone who’s always late to everything.
“What about the whole bloodsucking part?”
Serena makes a face. My feelings exactly. It’s one of the biggest things still giving me pause. I did, after all, nearly throw up my first time in a blood bar.
“Yeah, I can’t imagine sucking on someone’s neck. There’d have to be some way to work around that. That part is kind of gross.”
That would be the blood bars and blood mini-marts, but I don’t bring them up. What would Serena say if I did? Would she be grossed out? Intrigued? God, I can’t believe I can’t talk about this with her.
“So you’d really do it if you could?”
“Yeah, if vampires were real,” she says. “In a minute.”
That’s just great. My best friend in the whole world:
a) Doesn’t even believe in vampires, but would be one if she could.
b) Would have no problem whatsoever making the hardest decision in my life, the one that is keeping me up nights and giving me nightmares about Uncle Mortie bellying up to the bar and giant, nonexistent bats.
c) Might even turn with me, if she could.
But the worst thing is, I can’t talk to her about any of this.
15
All day long I can’t stop thinking about what Serena said while we were studying last night. How come she’s so positive she’d do it, but I’m still waffling back and forth? I mean, I’m positive I’m going to do it one minute and then the next minute I’m just not sure. I’m still pissed they’re making me choose so quickly. Life-changing decisions should come with different time frames than normal decisions. This one should be at least a six monther. Maybe even a year. Maybe longer. After all, once you turn, you’ve got all the time in the world.
George and I are once again the first ones at the session, which I’m sure will give Lorelai something to comment about. I briefly consider not sitting next to him but then figure that’s just stupid. I enjoy his company, and who cares what anybody thinks anyway? And besides, I can’t say that I’m really fond of Aubrey lately, especially when he’s being slobbered all over by Raven. I’m not about to sit next to him.
Of course, I could sit by Lorelai when she comes in or by freaky Linda. I suspect I’m thinking about this way too much. I just sit down next to George and say hey.
“Hey,” he says. “Are we all still on for tomorrow night?”
Oh yeah, the thing with Nathan. That’s something to look forward to. “As far as I know. You sure you want to go? It might be boring. I’m not sure what we’re going to do.”
“I don’t have anything else planned. And I can’t think of anyone else I’d rather spend time with than y
ou guys.”
See, that was nice. He’s such a nice guy.
“I think you’ll like Nathan okay. He’s really cool.” I’m starting to think that maybe, just maybe, Serena had a great idea. It’ll be like a double date instead of just a friendly gang. I can totally see Serena and George hooking up, which would make my going out with Nathan even better. I always hated it when I had a boyfriend and Serena didn’t and vice versa. Not that it happened all that often, but still. You feel guilty going out when you know your best friend is sitting at home. And how awesome would it be if my two current BFs hit it off?
Lorelai comes in and gives me a knowing smile that I just ignore. She sits on my other side. Then Aubrey comes in sans Raven and heads right over to me. Lorelai pretends to shuffle through her notebooks, and George just grunts and stares off into space. I need to ask him at some point what it is about Aubrey that he doesn’t like.
“Hi Mina. Lorelai.” I wait for him to include George, but he doesn’t. That’s just so testosterone.
“Aubrey,” I say and just nod casually. “You remember George?”
“Oh, yeah. Hi, George.” Aubrey looks a little uncomfortable for the first time since I’ve known him. George just nods and goes back to staring at the wall.
“Anyway, Mina, I was wondering if your uncle had anything else planned?”
Uncle Mortie? Oh, he must mean like the blood bar trip. “Probably. I’m not sure. I have to give him a call. He’s not exactly reliable on remembering stuff like that.”
“Oh. Well.” Aubrey shoots a little bit of a nervous look at George again and then seems to regain his confidence. “Perhaps I could go with you and your uncle the next time? My sponsor is out of town for the next two weeks.” He smiles, showing all his pearly whites.
I guess it wouldn’t hurt. And he is drop-dead gorgeous. That doesn’t hurt either. “I suppose so.” Then it occurs to me that I should probably extend the invitation. “George? Lorelai? You guys are welcome to come too. Uncle Mortie’s usually a riot.”
Aubrey’s smile slips a little, but he says, “Great, thanks,” and rushes off to find a seat before either George or Lorelai say anything.
“My sponsor is actually pretty good,” says Lorelai. “But thanks for asking.”
“How about you, George?”
“Actually, that would be nice. My sponsor isn’t bad, but he is a little absentminded. He’s pretty ancient. He’s only taken me out to one of the hidden vampire museums so far. It was okay, but a little boring. Stakes that missed their mark, a collection of tombstones, vampire fashions through the ages, that kind of thing.”
“Cool,” I say, and Lorelai pokes me in the ribs and gives me another “I told you so” look. I ignore her.
Then Raven strolls through the door and right up to my desk without looking to the left or the right. She juts her chin out at me and puts her hands on her hips, like that’s supposed to scare me.
“I thought I told you to stay away from Aubrey,” she snarls.
Uh, newsflash, girlfriend. Aubrey’s the one who’s been coming over to me. I mean, who asked who if they could come over for dinner? But I don’t say that. Instead, I just shrug and say, “It’s a free world.”
Mom says I’m a trouble magnet. If there’s some kind of trouble brewing, chances are it will search me out and try to take me down with it. Dad says I just have a steel backbone and never back down. Me, I think that it’s just that I can’t stand stupid people. They annoy me.
So I’m waiting for Raven to make the first move. I’m pretty sure my casual answer will set her off, since people like her don’t like their ultimatums to be ignored. And sure enough, she’s puffing herself up like a blowfish ready to blow. I imagine she’s not used to people challenging her in all her black-hearted Goth-ness. I stay seated and even pretend to look at my nails (hmmm, I need to put a new coat of polish on them) to show her just how little I care about her temper tantrum.
I know, I know. I should be more grown up. I’m technically almost an adult but I’m about to get into a fight with a Goth-girl over a boy I’m not even sure I like all that much. A really cute boy, but still. But Raven annoys the snot out of me, and I think I could take her. In fact, I’m positive I could. She’s all makeup.
“You think you’re so hot with your vampire relatives,” she sneers at me. “But I’m going to turn soon and then we’ll see who’s hot. Then you’ll just be another face in the crowd.”
I give her a “whatever” look. She’s not making any sense anyway.
“You’ll just be nothing then.” She continues, her finger stabbing dangerously close to my face. If it actually touches me, that’s it. Go time. “And I know some of the Black Talons. So you had better watch your back.” She’s almost shouting by this time. Everyone in the room is staring at us, including Aubrey, who seems oblivious to being the cause of the problem.
Neither of us had noticed G.W. coming in until she lays a firm hand on Raven’s shoulder and pulls her back a couple of feet away from me. Looking at her face, I’m glad I was the one sitting down and looking all innocent and not saying anything.
“Enough!” She gives Raven a shake, and the poor little Goth girl looks like a rag doll in her iron grip. “I don’t ever want to hear that name in here again,” she commands, looking right at Raven, who’s looking just a wee bit terrified now. “Or another threat against a fellow candidate. Do you understand me?”
Raven manages to nod her head and Grandma Wolfington drops her like the piece of garbage she is. Goth girl stumbles a bit and then slinks over to an empty seat.
“I don’t know what that was about and I don’t want to know,” says G.W., looking at me now. I stare back as innocently as I can. I’m not going to piss her off if I can help it. “But I expect to never hear of it again.” I nod and I catch a glimpse of Raven doing the same from the corner of my eye.
Now I just need to find out who or what the Black Talons are. Not that I think Raven could really do anything. But you never know. It never hurts to be prepared.
“Okay, then.” Grandma Wolfington claps her hands and everyone jumps and then sits at attention. Ha. I can bet there won’t be any note-passing in class today. “Today we’re going to be talking about health considerations and safety precautions that you should take as a vampire in the twenty-first century.”
“We are not invulnerable to attack and some human diseases can also affect us, so it only makes sense that we stay informed and practice safe bloodletting.”
If you think about it real hard, there’s something almost kind of funny about that. Safe bloodletting. Isn’t that like an oxymoron or something like that?
G.W. paces back and forth, probably still a little steamed from the Raven encounter. “AIDS,” she says, so loudly that people jump again. “It won’t kill us, but the HIV virus can severely impair our abilities. In some cases, it has been known to weaken us almost to the point of our prevampire state. In other words, we can become as weak as humans.”
Interesting. I didn’t know vampires could get diseases at all. But I guess it figures that if any disease would affect them, it would be AIDS.
“This isn’t the middle ages anymore, where the worst thing you could get was a touch of the plague, which you could shake off in a week. The point is to know where the blood you’re drinking is coming from.”
She goes on for a while longer about other things to avoid like:
a) Excessive sunlight. Sun doesn’t kill vampires like in the movies, but it can give you a killer headache because of your super-sensitive eyes. Not to mention a wicked sunburn, since your skin goes all pale because of some melanin-draining side effect of vampirism (the same reason your eyes turn blue or green).
b) Jumping off of tall buildings or other stupid MTV-ish stunts. You won’t die, and you will heal after a while, but you’ll be in a great deal of pain before you do. Plus, it brings attention to you that you don’t want. You know, “Daredevil dude jumps off twenty-story building and survives!”<
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c) Crazy people with stakes or hatchets who fancy themselves to be vampire hunters. I think she just threw that one in to be funny.
She goes on and on about good places to get blood (Council-approved blood bars, blood-marts, known human sources—people who actually volunteer?) and bad places (fly-by-night blood bars, dark alleys). I don’t know exactly how you’re supposed to get blood from “known human sources.” What, I’m just supposed to knock on Mrs. Finch’s door and say, “Hey, can I borrow a cup of blood?”
George asks a question about blood types and whether there’s any benefit to drinking one or the other (Just taste, she says. Ew.).
“And I don’t want to hear about any Elizabeth Bathory copycats. Let me just say, once and for all, that bathing in blood has no effect whatsoever and will not sate your hunger.”
Everyone around me is nodding their heads like they understand what she’s talking about.
“Psssst,” I stage whisper to George. “Who’s this Bathory person?”
He doesn’t even miss a beat in his note taking. “Romanian Countess from the 1500s. She liked to kill her chambermaids and bathe in their blood. Thought it made her look younger.”
“She was a vampire?”
George snorts, which I take to mean, No, you silly girl, just a complete wacko, and turns back to listen to Grandma Wolfington.
Good heavens, am I really supposed to know stuff like this off the top of my head? Bloodthirsty countess trivia from the sixteenth century? Do fellow vampires come up and quiz you, or what? And bathing in blood? How gross! She certainly doesn’t have to worry about me doing that.
By the end of the session, I’ve learned way more about blood and disease than I’ve ever wanted to know. There were a few other references to obscure historical figures I didn’t recognize, but I wrote them down to look up later so I wouldn’t look like an idiot. I wonder what Serena would think of all this stuff, if I could tell her about any of it. Would any of it change her mind or would she still want to be a bloodsucker?
I swear I’m going to quiz Uncle Mortie later. I bet that he has never heard of that stupid countess. And I’ll ask him about the Black Talons too. Man, I’m getting quite a list of stuff to ask him. I still haven’t gotten the complete scoop on his turning or what they do to you if you decide not to turn after they’ve let you in on all their secrets.
Sucks to Be Me: The All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire (maybe) Page 11