Never Bite a Boy on the First Date

by Tamara Summers

  He gave my feet that cute smile. “Man, it’s nice to hang out with someone who isn’t all doom and gloom today,” he said.

  I stopped smiling. “I’m sorry—I didn’t even think. Were you friends with Tex?”

  “Not really.” He shook his head. “We played basketball together sometimes, and we were on the swim team together last year, but he quit this year. He said he wanted to focus on football, which is kind of dumb since the seasons don’t overlap, but it didn’t bother the rest of us. Not to speak disrespectfully of the dead, but Tex wasn’t the greatest swimmer.” He whispered the last part, then glanced over at me. “All my friends have been moping around all day…. I just want to forget about it for a while.”

  “Okay,” I said. “It’s such a freaky thing. I’d never seen a dead body before.”

  “I have,” Milo said, and for the first time I heard something serious and steely in his voice. He glanced at me again. “Sorry, I don’t want to freak you out. Really, this is a great town. You’ll love it here. Please don’t ever leave.” He grinned.

  “You saw another dead body here?” I said.

  He made a face. “A couple years ago. It was my welcome to a new town, too—I guess we have that in common.”

  “Was it also a murder?” I asked.

  “Everyone thinks so,” he said. “But it was never solved. The victim was just a random guy in a dark alley. Whoever did it didn’t even take his wallet.”

  I wanted to know if that was a vampire attack, too, but how exactly would I ask that? Notice any bite marks? Yeah, I didn’t think so.

  “I’m making a great impression, aren’t I?” Milo said. “Don’t think about it. I’m sure all small towns have mysterious murders hidden in their pasts. Think about me instead! Doesn’t my presence make up for a little blood and gore?”

  “I guess it does,” I said, “if there’s really ice cream at the end of this trip. But it sounds like you move a lot. How do I know you’re going to stick around?”

  “We’ll be here for a while, I think,” Milo said. “My dad’s involved in this never-ending project.” Literally never-ending? I wondered. Like, in a vampire way? “Why did you guys move here?” he asked.

  “The weather,” I said.

  He shot me a look. “You’ve got to be kidding. Do you know what Massachusetts winters are like?”

  “My mom missed the seasons,” I said, lifting my shoulders. “My parents both work from home, so we can live wherever.” But I really didn’t want to talk about my family. “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “No, it’s just me and my dad,” he said. “You?”

  Yeah, that change of subject went well. “My older sister, Crystal, and her husband live with us,” I said. It’s funny how easy the lies were now; in Georgia I nearly messed up a hundred times. “And my brother, Zach, is a year older than me.” Well, sort of.

  “Zach,” Milo said, his brow furrowing. “I met a new guy named Zach last week in P.E., but he doesn’t look anything like you.”

  “Yeah, he doesn’t, luckily for me,” I said. “I’m adopted.” To put it mildly.

  “Wow,” said Milo. “Do you know anything about your birth parents? Is that a rude question?”

  “It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t.” That was certainly the easiest answer.

  “Oh,” he said, turning into a small parking lot. There was a barn at one end with a counter sticking out of it, and tables were arranged under a shady overhang. Only one other couple was there, a pair of senior citizens sharing a cup of chocolate ice cream with rainbow sprinkles. They looked sweet together.

  Milo noticed the direction of my gaze. “Maybe that’ll be us in eighty years,” he said. So cute.

  That’ll never be me, I realized. I’m never going to grow old with someone. People will look at me and always see an obnoxious teenager.

  “Wow, it’s nice to know this date is going somewhere,” I joked.

  He blushed.

  Uh-oh. Did I just say “date”?

  “You’re not like other girls,” he observed, turning off the car.

  That is…really true.

  “Sure, I am,” I said, batting my eyelashes at him. “For instance, I really, seriously love ice cream.”

  Although, to be fair, I can eat a lot more ice cream than other girls can. Milo’s eyebrows went up when he saw the triple-scoop chocolate, banana, and peanut butter ice cream I ordered. With chocolate sprinkles on top, of course.

  “Don’t be alarmed,” I said with a wicked smile. “My metabolism can handle it.”

  “I’m not alarmed, I’m impressed,” he said. His solitary scoop of blackberry chocolate chip looked lonely next to my cup. I scooped some sprinkles onto his dish, and he stole some of my peanut butter ice cream, laughing when I fended him off with my spoon.

  I couldn’t believe I was on a date. A real date, with a boy much funnier and smarter and cuter than Zach, and therefore the best date I’d had since dying. I didn’t care if my investigation went nowhere right now. Maybe I’d only imagined the look Milo had given Tex’s body. I figured I could investigate Rowan and Daniel later; at that moment it was fine with me if Milo had nothing to do with blood and corpses. I mean, maybe it would be convenient for me if he happened to be a vampire, too, but I’d rather not find out if he had a predilection for eating football players.

  Just as I was thinking that, he leaned forward to steal some more of my ice cream, and under his shirt collar I saw the necklace that I had spotted yesterday. The black leather rope held a small silver pendant with an unfamiliar symbol carved on it. But that wasn’t all.

  There were red beads knotted into the necklace…and one of them was missing.

  Chapter 10

  After Milo dropped me off at home, I hung up my wet clothes and dug my jeans out of the pile at the bottom of my bed. In the left pocket was the red bead I’d found at the murder scene. I examined it in the low light from my bedside lamp. It was a deep, rich scarlet, the color of a drop of blood. And it looked exactly like the ones in Milo’s necklace.

  What does that mean?

  Well, for one thing, it meant I was right to think I should investigate him. So…yay, me?

  Of course, there could be a normal explanation. He could easily have lost it there sometime during the day before the murder.

  Or…he could have lost it during the struggle if, say, he was the murderer.

  But he seemed so…non-murder-y. He was all ice cream and puppies and sexy swimmer’s arms. Why would he kill Tex?

  Why would anyone?

  Was this just a hungry vampire attack? Or did someone have a good reason for killing the school’s star quarterback?

  Maybe I needed to find out more about Tex.

  I fell asleep thinking about this, trying to make my sun headache go away. I dreamed that Milo and I were swimming together, up and down the length of the pool. I beat him to the wall, but when I turned around, Milo was gone and Daniel was floating faceup beside me.

  “Where’s Milo?” I asked.

  He pointed, and I looked up to the windows where Rowan was standing, looking down at us in the pool.

  “That’s Rowan,” I said.

  “Is it?” said Daniel, and then I looked down and realized the pool water had turned to blood.

  I woke up feeling muddled and sticky. It was late at night but not yet midnight. I needed some moonlight to clear my head.

  Bert and Crystal were curled up on the couch in the den, watching a black-and-white horror movie on TV. Zach was sitting at the kitchen counter with a peanut butter-and-blood sandwich on a plate beside him. His calculus book was open and his notebook was out, but he was just staring at the pages blankly.

  “That looks like it’s going well,” I said, grabbing a soda from the fridge.

  “I hate this stuff,” he said. “We’re getting a take-home exam to do over the weekend, and I just know I’m going to fail. It sucks so much—when I was a basketball star, the cheerleaders did my math hom
ework for me.”

  “Really?” I said. “Cheerleaders?”

  “I didn’t say they did it right,” he said with a lopsided grin. Aww, Zach being funny without being slimy. I hadn’t seen that in a while.

  I laughed. “Wish I could help,” I said, “but I can barely handle pre-calculus. Those squiggly things of yours are making me nervous from all the way over here.”

  “Too bad,” he said, leering. “Doing homework together can be pretty romantic.”

  I stuck out my tongue at him and went to find Olympia.

  “I don’t think she’s up yet,” Crystal called when I rapped on the door of Olympia’s office.

  I knocked as I opened the door to the basement—although if they were asleep, I knew they wouldn’t be able to hear me. Wilhelm and Olympia give new meaning to “sleep like the dead.” The wooden stairs creaked under my sneakers as I headed down into the dark. I fumbled over my head as I reached the bottom step and tugged on the pull chain, turning on the solitary lightbulb. It barely lit up the damp concrete corners of the room, stuffed with old furniture and piles of boxes. Olympia had bought most of it just to fill up the space. The hope was that if anyone came down here, they’d be too overwhelmed and discouraged by the amount of worthless old stuff to actually poke around and notice anything.

  I wove between two faded russet armchairs and climbed over an upside-down paisley purple couch. In the back corner, where it was most shadowy, I opened a big mahogany wardrobe and tapped on the back wall.

  After a moment, the “wall” slid back and I jumped down into Wilhelm and Olympia’s crypt. I mean, it’s just a room, but it’s decorated like a crypt and it feels like a crypt, so that’s what I call it. Two fat black candles flickered gloomily on a low table between the two coffins. I know, I keep telling them it’s really cliché, but that gets Wilhelm all hot and bothered, and then he yells at me about tradition and respect and whatever. Do what you like, but you’re not going to catch me sleeping in a place like this.

  The walls and floor are gray concrete, but a thick red rug is spread across the floor, so I left my shoes at the entrance before tiptoeing over to Olympia’s coffin. The lid was open, and she was lying faceup with her hands folded over her chest, perfectly still. Her long jet-black hair was spread out in a fan over the white silk lining.

  “Olympia,” I whispered.

  She opened one eye and peered at me.

  “Oh. Kira,” she said. “No need to whisper. He’s awake.”

  I turned and looked at Wilhelm’s coffin, but it was empty. “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t see him upstairs.”

  “That’s because he’s right there,” Olympia said, nodding at a corner of the ceiling. I squinted and saw a tiny, leathery brown bat hanging upside down. I used to think bats were spooky, until I acquired a dad who turns into one all the time.

  “When do I get to do that?” I asked.

  “Most vampires take about three hundred years to evolve that skill,” Olympia said. “Wilhelm is one of the rare few who could do it from the beginning. Some vampires are like that.”

  “So there might be some other neat power I can do already, even though I’m not supposed to yet?” I asked. “Like, say…flying?”

  “I think we’d have noticed if you could fly,” Olympia said dryly. “Can I help you with something?”

  “You’re on good terms with the principal, right?” I asked. She’d made a friendly donation to the school when we first arrived, so the principal tended to take her calls. “Do you think you could get him to switch one of my classes?”

  Olympia looked skeptical. “I’ve told you before, Kira, physics is going to be very useful to you one day.”

  Yeah, right.

  “It’s not that,” I said. “I want to switch from band to art. I hardly think they’ll miss my mad triangle skills.”

  “Art?” Olympia echoed.

  “It’s for my investigation,” I said importantly. Which was true. Getting myself into one of Milo’s classes would totally be useful for solving this mystery. It was not just an excuse to spend more time with him—no, sir.

  I couldn’t do much about the fact that I had no classes with Rowan, since he was a senior like Zach and Tex. But Milo was a junior, like me, and I’d memorized his schedule when I found it conveniently sticking out of his backpack while he paid for the ice cream. Jumping into his fourth period art class seemed like the easiest thing to do. It meant giving up one class with Daniel, but hey, he’d still have me for all the others.

  “Hmmm,” Olympia said. “All right, I’ll call Principal Lovato in the morning and see what I can do.”

  “Don’t change the rest of my schedule,” I said. “Just band to art, fourth period. Make sure it’s Mrs. Malone’s class.”

  “I hope this isn’t another boy thing,” Olympia said, closing her eyes with a sigh.

  Well, that was unfair. I’d only had one boy thing, and okay, it didn’t turn out well, but I thought I deserved a second chance. Besides, if she’d met this boy, she’d understand.

  I padded back to the entrance, but as I slid the door aside, Olympia said, “What’s happening with that Rowan boy? Did you find out anything about him?”

  “I’m working on it,” I said. “He’s not exactly the most communicative soul.”

  “Keep trying,” she said. “I have a feeling about that one.”

  “All right,” I said, climbing out into the wardrobe. As I clambered out of the basement, I realized there was one more question I should have asked.

  Namely: Was this a good feeling or a bad feeling? A Hey, fellow vampire! feeling?

  Or a That one might kill us all in our sleep feeling?

  Chapter 11

  The next day was Friday, which I love just as much now that I’m a vampire as I did when I was human. I take advantage of the weekends to sleep all day. At least, I do when I’m not in the middle of a murder investigation and, apparently (much to my surprise), dating three boys at once.

  It started with Daniel, Friday morning. He was already at his desk when I got to history class, and from the moment I walked in the room I could feel him watching me. I mean, he didn’t take his eyes off me as I came down the row to my desk, and I wasn’t even wearing anything special—just jeans and a sunny yellow off-the-shoulder shirt and ankle boots. And sunflower earrings. And maybe a couple of tiny yellow butterfly clips in my hair. All right, I might have been feeling a little cheerful when I got dressed. Sure, I had been accused of murder by my family and was wrapped up in a bizarre investigation, but there were such cute boys involved. Hey, I try to look on the bright side.

  Plus I thought Milo would appreciate the look…and judging from the expression on his face, Daniel did, too.

  “Morning,” I said, sitting down.

  “It is now,” he said, and then paused, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth. “I mean—oops. I thought you were going to say ‘good morning.’”

  “Well, that’s what I meant,” I said with a smile.

  “What are you doing this weekend?” he asked.

  Solving a murder, I hope. Maybe breaking into Tex’s house. Seducing Rowan and Milo to see if they turn into vampires. And so on.

  “Oh, nothin’,” I said.

  He flipped a pencil between his fingers. “Any chance you’d be interested in dinner tomorrow night?”

  I smiled. “I should play hard to get and tell you I have plans, shouldn’t I?”

  “Too late,” he pointed out. “How about I pick you up at nine?”

  Ooo, a late dinner—after dark. That was thoughtful…or perhaps necessary for him, too.

  “Okay, you charmed me into it,” I said. I scribbled my address on a scrap of paper and passed it to him. “Should I dress up?”

  “Always,” he said with his slow smile.

  Then Mr. Wright rapped on his desk, and we had to pay attention to history for the rest of the period. So it wasn’t until we were walking down the hall to physics that I was able to say, “By t
he way, I won’t be in band today. I’m afraid you’ll have to percuss without me.”

  “What an unfortunate loss,” he said. “Why is that?”

  “Well, actually I’m switching out of the class,” I said, showing him the note I’d picked up from the principal that morning. “I decided I could express myself better with paint than with a pair of cymbals.”

  Daniel examined the note, looking strangely concerned. “You’re leaving the class completely?” he said, like he couldn’t believe it.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve never liked it.” This was true. Musical instruments and I were obviously not intended for each other.

  “I’ll miss you,” he said, handing the note back to me.

  “Only for fifty minutes,” I said. “Then you’ll have me back for English.”

  He nodded, but his smile looked a little forced. “I have bad news, too. I’m afraid I’m going to be busy during lunch today,” he said.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I promised a friend I’d eat with him anyway, so it works out.”

  Now he looked even more disgruntled. Poor Daniel. He acted all mysterious and suave, but maybe he really liked me more than he wanted to let on. After third period, before he went off to do whatever he was “busy” doing during lunch, I tried to make him feel better by touching his arm (well, it sure made me feel better) and then leaning up to give him a kiss on the cheek. To my surprise, he caught my wrist as I stepped back.

  “Kira,” he said in this quiet, intense voice. He pulled me into a doorway, out of the stream of students pouring down the hall. “Be…” He paused.

  “Be what?” I said.

  He laughed ruefully. “I don’t know whether to tell you to be good or be careful.”

  “Daniel, you loon,” I said. “I’m just having lunch with a friend. I think we’ll all survive.”

  “I know,” he said. “Don’t mind me. I just worry sometimes.”

  “Well, don’t worry about me,” I said, squeezing his hand. “I can take care of myself.” I turned to go, but he caught my hand again and pulled me back. Before I knew what was happening, he put his hands on either side of my face and kissed me.