Diary of a Wimpy Vampire

by Tim Collins

  So even if I was remotely interested in football, getting beaten at it by a ten-year-old girl would hardly be my idea of fun.

  SUNDAY 16TH JANUARY

  My stupid sister is upset because she wants to change her name and Mum and Dad won’t let her. Her name is Mavis (and has been since she was born in 1916), but now she’s being teased in school for having an old-fashioned name and wants to change it to something modern.

  Quite sensibly, Mum and Dad have told her that she has to wait until next time we move rather than suddenly announcing to her class that she’s changed her name. They might have been more likely to give in if her ideas had been less ridiculous, though. Her list of suggested names in order of preference was:

  Twist

  Princess

  Jet

  Sailor

  Melody

  Orchid

  Manhattan

  Angel

  Like she wouldn’t draw attention to herself with that lot!

  Anyway, Mum and Dad put their foot down with her for the first time in a century, and now she’s stormed off to her room. I am resisting chanting the name ‘Mavis’ outside her door, because I’m too mature to care. I might just go and shout it a couple of times, though.

  MONDAY 17TH JANUARY

  I sat next to Chloe in the library at lunchtime so I could apologize for dashing off on Friday, but she didn’t say anything about it, so i let it go.

  I wanted to talk to her, but whenever I tried I kept getting thirsty and could feel my fangs growing again. Why does my body insist on betraying me like this? It’s not like I only want to sink my teeth into her neck. I want to get to know her and have meaningful conversations with her and take her for long moonlit walks. Obviously, it would be nice if she let me drink her blood too, but that’s not all I’m interested in.

  I’m so confused by my feelings.

  TUESDAY 18TH JANUARY

  12:05PM

  I’m in the library sitting next to Chloe once again. Perhaps I’m putting her off by smiling too much. I once read that humans are attracted to the smouldering intensity of vampires. I will now make an effort to pout.

  12:10PM

  It’s actually quite difficult to pout. I probably should have practised in front of the mirror.

  Look up from your textbook, Chloe, and see the doomed longing of the decades etched upon my melancholy features!

  Look up from your textbook and yield to icy bliss! Look up from your textbook because my face is starting to hurt now!

  12:15PM

  Chloe looked up from her textbook and asked if I was feeling ill. Pouting attempt deemed a failure.

  WEDNESDAY 19TH JANUARY

  Mum dropped me off at school today and it was a very embarrassing experience. Like all vampires except me, she appears overwhelmingly beautiful to humans. Which is all well and good when she’s catching prey, but not great for me if I want to get through the school day without being teased.

  I told her to stay in the car, but she insisted on kissing me on the cheek in front of everyone. Craig from my class shouted out that he’d like my mum to kiss him on the cheek too.

  By lunchtime, the whole pathetic school was buzzing with the news that I had a ‘hot mum’ and I couldn’t walk down the corridors without some idiot asking if they could go on a date with her.

  It would serve them right if I did set them up with her. They’d be lying in an alley drained of blood after five minutes.

  Why can’t I just have normal parents like everyone else?

  THURSDAY 20TH JANUARY

  Today was cold but bright and I got a couple of unpleasant spots on my chin. It’s sometimes said that sunlight kills vampires, but this is another myth. Bright sunlight makes the skin of vampires burn, but it’s only a mild irritant, not much worse than someone with ginger hair would experience. This is the real reason we avoid hot countries and prefer to go out at night, and the origin of all those silly ideas about us turning to ash if we forget the clocks have changed and open the curtains at the wrong time.

  As usual, I got a particularly bad deal as the sun gives me terrible acne as well as a rash. In the summer, I cover my face in high-factor sunblock every few hours and that gives me decent protection. But there are days like today when rays unexpectedly hit my face and I get a nasty cluster of whiteheads. It’s annoying, but it beats turning into the contents of an overturned ashtray, I suppose.

  I was too ashamed to sit next to Chloe at lunchtime with my hideous spots so I went to the toilets to squeeze them instead. I shall cover them up with white foundation tomorrow.

  Mum barged into my room while I was looking at my Science handout about the heart tonight. I wish she would learn to knock.

  FRIDAY 21ST JANUARY

  Mum and Dad have gone down to London today to do boring bank stuff. Sometimes I go down with them but I couldn’t today because I had school.

  Although London is an exciting city, it makes me feel sad when I see how much it’s changed since we lived there in the thirties. The neon adverts at Piccadilly Circus have changed from Player’s Cigarettes to Cinzano to Skol to McDonald’s. And in all that time I still haven’t got a girlfriend. I need to sort my life out.

  My parents don’t need jobs because we live off the interest of the many bank accounts they’ve opened over the years. However, we’re not allowed to spend too much in case it draws attention to us. I only get ten pounds a week pocket money, which is grossly unfair when you consider I’m the son of millionaires.

  1AM

  My sister is so annoying! She’s got her music on at full blast and she won’t turn it down! Mum and Dad are still out, and she won’t obey me.

  For a vampire, her taste in music is an absolute disgrace. She’s listening to some dreadful pop song about how true beauty is on the inside written by cynical old songwriters for a manufactured teen starlet. Vampires are supposed to like funeral marches, dirges and haunting piano pieces. If we must listen to modern music we should at the very least listen to emo, goth or death metal. Teen pop is surely inappropriate for the undead.

  Plus, if these songwriters really believe that true beauty comes from within and not from physical appearances, why didn’t they get someone ugly like Brian’s girlfriend to sing it rather than a sixteen-year-old starlet who looks like she’s been created from scratch by a plastic surgeon?

  SATURDAY 22ND JANUARY

  Mum and Dad are back from London, but they are both unwell. I don’t know what kind of blood they drank down there, but they look pale, even by vampire standards. I suspect they fed on someone with a high level of alcohol in their blood, which we’re supposed to avoid. In theory, the smell of alcohol should have been enough to repel them, but I bet they went right ahead and glugged away anyway, the greedy pigs.

  And what happens to me in these situations? Oh, that’s right, I miss out on meals altogether. They know I’m not strong enough to hunt humans myself, and yet they merrily stuff their faces with dodgy blood, not caring about the consequences. I wish they’d think about someone else for once in their lives.

  SUNDAY 23RD JANUARY

  Mum and Dad are still ill and now I’m feeling weak due to lack of blood. I can’t stay off school next week, as I shall miss the chance to seduce Chloe, and someone will steal her from me.

  Wait, my true love! I shall find my strength!

  MONDAY 24TH JANUARY

  I went into school today, although I’m still weak from lack of blood. If any of the teachers were observant enough to notice my condition, I’d get taken into care.

  Chloe smiled at me in Maths today, but this made my fangs come out so I couldn’t smile back. If only I could express my true feelings for her. I might write a poem.

  2AM

  Dad has finally seen fit to go out and get us some more blood. He even had the cheek to tell me off for not thanking him when he brought it to me. I would have thanked him if I’d had the strength, the selfish old corpse!

  4AM

  I have writte
n my poem now, and I think it shows how deep my feelings are. It’s a symbolic poem as it uses actual light and dark to stand for the lightness and darkness of my moods. I considered posting it to Chloe, but I’ve decided to wait before sharing it. Perhaps I will read it to her on our wedding night.

  I WALK IN SHADOW

  I Walk in shadow

    Shielding my dark desire

      You walk in sunlight

        Your eyes afire

          To join you in the light

            Oh how I long

              But it gives me spots

                And my skin feels all wrong

  TUESDAY 25TH JANUARY

  Mrs Maguire did an assembly about religious tolerance today, and I went home sick.

  She started her talk by showing us a crucifix on the overhead projector, which wasn’t great for me. Although it’s not true that crucifixes make vampires recoil in terror, they can give us headaches. And it’s not just crucifixes either. I can get a stinking migraine from any religious symbol. Which is why I began to feel queasy when Mrs Maguire proceeded to show us the symbols of every other major religion. I got as far as the Star and Crescent and the Yin and Yang before I had to make a dash for the exit, reeling like I was on a ferry in a storm.

  I’ve been lying down for a while and feel better now. At least I’ve got PE to look forward to tomorrow. I don’t think.

  WEDNESDAY 26TH JANUARY

  PE was hell on earth as expected. I didn’t want anyone to notice my pale skin while I was getting changed, so I tried to get into my PE kit really quickly and ended up tripping onto the floor.

  We then had to go to the gym and jump over a vaulting horse. I couldn’t manage it, so Mr Jenkins said I had to do press-ups on the crash mat as punishment. I really hate Mr Jenkins. I hate him more than any other PE teacher I have ever had, which is saying a lot, as I must have had about forty over the years and they tend to represent the absolute lowest form of humanity.

  Luckily for me, Chloe is in a different PE class. If she’d seen my humiliation at the hands of the evil Mr Jenkins, there’s no way she’d ever fancy me.

  THURSDAY 27TH JANUARY

  11AM

  We got our Science homework back today and I got a ‘C’. It’s not a very good mark, but it’s not bad enough to get me put down to the bottom set.

  You’d think that after studying a subject for over eighty years, I’d be better at it. But the weird thing is that I can’t apply myself because I know that soon we’ll move towns and I’ll start the school year all over again and get another chance to learn it. As long as I do enough to coast along, my parents don’t tell me off. I’m pretty good at History, especially the bits that happened in my lifetime. I’m also really good at playing the piano, which I learned before we had a TV, but Dad won’t let me study Music at school in case it draws attention to us. Anyone would think he would be proud of his son’s talent.

  5PM

  Mr Wilson went out of the room in Maths this afternoon and Wayne showed everyone a sexist magazine. It had things about football and fighting in it, but it was the pictures of girls without many clothes on that caused the most excitement. I had a look, but I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. The pictures had been airbrushed so much that you couldn’t even see the veins in their necks. I pretended to be interested nonetheless, so I didn’t get accused of being a weirdo.

  FRIDAY 28TH JANUARY

  Mrs Maguire told me off after assembly today for refusing to sing along with the hymns. I wasn’t doing it to break the rules, I was just worried that I would get a bad headache again like when I looked at the crucifix. At any rate, it’s better not to sing at all than to sing obscene alternative words like Wayne and Craig did.

  In the library at lunchtime, Chloe said she admired me for sticking to my principles as an atheist, so at least some good came out of it. She gave me another boiled sweet, and her hand touched mine for a brief, forbidden moment. Like all vampires, my body temperature is very low, and Chloe seemed surprised by how cold my hand was. It’s easier to get away with this in January than it will be in summer, but by then we shall be lovers, and she’ll know of my true nature.

  I need to make a move on Chloe. When I’m back in school on Monday, I’ll invite her out on a date. Or I might wait until Tuesday.

  SATURDAY 29TH JANUARY

  Today we had our annual family trip to Whitby. It’s really boring, and I’ve been there loads of times before. It’s the place where Mum and Dad first lived when they came over from France, so they go back there to talk about dull nostalgic things every year. It’s also the place where Dracula first arrives in England in Bram Stoker’s novel, which has led Dad to speculate that the character was based on him. Personally, I think it’s just a coincidence. Dracula does lots of silly things in that book, like transforming into a bat, a dog and even some fog, so it’s clearly a work of wild fancy written by someone who’s never even met a vampire.

  On the way back from Whitby, Mum and Dad tried to strike up a conversation, but I didn’t feel like talking. I heard them muttering something about how I’m just going through a phase. I was going to explain to them that when something goes on for eighty-five years it hardly counts as a phase, but I couldn’t be bothered. They wouldn’t understand.

  Mum and Dad wanted to play Scrabble when we got back, but I wasn’t interested. They always cheat by making up words like ‘zaqox’ and pretending they were really popular in the nineteenth century.

  SUNDAY 30TH JANUARY

  Today I looked on the Internet for tips about asking girls out, but when Dad saw that I was on the computer, he got really annoyed.

  He thinks that all computers are dangerous, even though he doesn’t understand them at all. He barely got the hang of typewriters before they went out of fashion.

  Dad’s convinced that someone or other is going to trace us all through the Internet. What does he think I’m doing, tagging a photo of him drinking blood on Facebook? And who is he so worried about anyway? He’s always told me that we are the last four vampires left on earth, so it can’t be any of our own kind that he fears. And as for human enemies, anyone he’s offended in the past must surely be too old to be a threat by now.

  I tried to show Dad the fun side of the Internet by showing him a clip of a panda sneezing, but I don’t think he understood it was supposed to be funny. If anything, I think it just made him hungry.

  Dad’s so out of date he makes me cringe. Once, when Mum was planning a surprise party for my sister, he suggested that we get some hunchbacks with bells on to dance for her. I can’t believe he thought that would be appropriate. That’s not been considered an acceptable form of entertainment for centuries now.

  MONDAY 31ST JANUARY

  12PM

  I’ve decided to ask my parents to buy me a car to compensate for the extra speed I should have got when I became a vampire. It’s the least they can do really. I know they can afford it, so they have no reason to refuse me other than spite. Based on observations I’ve made of older boys, I’ve decided that Chloe would be more likely to go out with me if I had a car.

  7PM

  My parents won’t buy me a car, as they say I don’t look old enough to drive it and it will draw too much attention to us. I even offered to wear a false beard every time I drive, but they still refused.

  I told them that I don’t care what they think because they’re not my real parents anyway, and then ran up to my room and slammed the door.

  It’s so unfair. My sister gets absolutely everything she wants, but they refuse me simple requests like this.

  12AM

  I spent tonight feeling really angry with my parents for refusing to buy me a car, but I’ve calmed down now. I know I get annoyed with them, but I should at least be grateful that I’m not one of those vampires with parents who are younger than them.* Then it would
be really annoying if they were strict with you.

  *This might sound impossible, but it’s quite simple really. Imagine if my dad had been born as a human a few years later than me, but not transformed into a vampire until he was in his thirties or forties. To the eyes of a human he would look older than me, but I would know he was younger. And ignore everything he said.

  TUESDAY 1ST FEBRUARY

  10AM

  I looked in the bathroom mirror this morning and noticed that my spots have got worse. Sometimes I wish vampires really couldn’t see their reflections.

  1PM

  Chloe was upset today when the girls from the popular gang wouldn’t let her sit on their table because she reported them for talking in assembly. I agreed that they were being completely unfair, as she was only doing her duty as a prefect.

  We then had a good chat about a ghost-hunting show that was on TV last night. They had some actors from a soap opera staying in an old country house and it filmed them listening to strange noises. Chloe thought it was fake and I agreed with her.

  I can remember getting scared of ghosts when I was at school in the fifties. We used to think that one of the corridors was haunted by a pupil who drowned, and we would always run down it so he couldn’t get us. Looking back, it was a bit hypocritical of me to be so scared of a supernatural entity despite being one myself, but I was much more easily swayed back then.