“Velcome to Vampire Vatch,” said the anchor, with obvious distaste. He paused, then looked off camera. “Do I really have to say this every time, Larry?” Viewers couldn’t hear Larry’s reply, but the anchor eventually went back to reading his script, though without much enthusiasm. What followed were endless segments on the police department’s hunt for the Elephant Vampire. They showed clips of embedded reporters who followed members of the SWAT team as they battered down the doors of mausoleums around town, seeking out the vampire’s hiding place. Forensic investigators ran tests on Big ’Un’s empty carcass to find any clue to the vampire’s identity and methods. There was also a story about a copycat vampire: The man had been frightening local residents, until they realized that he was just wearing plastic Halloween fangs. After that, they beat him with rakes and locked him in a shed until the authorities arrived.
Marvin just shook his head. “This is ridiculous,” he said.
Abraham nodded. “Yeah, completely ridiculous. Where’s the National Guard?”
“That’s not what I meant—” Marvin said, but Ahab shushed him.
“The weather’s up next!” he said.
The weather report indicated clear skies for the next week: “Perfect vampire-tracking weather,” the meteorologist said, smiling.
Despite the sunny skies and the police department’s many efforts, it was obvious that no significant progress was being made in the investigation. The experts began weighing in on the continuing danger posed by the apparently untraceable Elephant Vampire. Channel 5 ran a “point/counterpoint” program with two pundits who stood on opposite sides of the debate over how dangerous the Elephant Vampire really was.
“POINT: This Elephant Vampire has proved to be impossible to see, impossible to track, and wholly bereft of the milk of human kindness. It is my scientific conclusion that the Elephant Vampire is going to kill us all.”
“COUNTERPOINT: I disagree. Let’s keep a level head here. I think that only most of us will die at the hands of the Elephant Vampire. A good forty percent of us may survive with some slight to severe mangling. Of that forty percent, half will likely be turned into Elephant Vampires themselves, and feed upon the remainder. So the Elephant Vampire itself will hardly kill us all.”
The public television station ran an interview with a spokesperson from PorkPeace. “We should not be so quick to condemn the Elephant Vampire,” he said. “After all, our industrialized society is responsible for destroying its natural habitat, thereby driving it into our town in search of food. Considering the ongoing decline of the worldwide elephant population, we can only surmise that the Elephant Vampire, too, is on the brink of extinction. Rather than killing this misunderstood creature, as so many in our government are only too eager to do, we should instead capture and tag it, so that we can conduct further study. Who knows? Many plants and animals produce unique compounds that have proved invaluable to medical science. Would we hunt to extinction a being that might hold the secret to curing cancer, tooth decay, or halitosis? Given these facts, PorkPeace is introducing a bill into the state legislature that would declare the entire town of Butcherville to be a protected habitat for the Elephant Vampire, and make any hunting of this majestic, but vanishing, beast illegal.”
There was even a lifestyle piece on one of the cable gossip networks. Entitled “IN or OUT?” it advised viewers on the latest up-to-the-minute trends in the world of fashion, food, and home decorating during what they had enthusiastically dubbed “Vampire Week.”
FASHION:
OUT: plunging necklines, dark colors
IN: turtleneck sweaters, puncture-resistant fabric
TABLETOP:
OUT: blood oranges, plastic forks
IN: roasted garlic, sterling silver knives
HOME DECORATING:
OUT: open windows, fresh air
IN: wrought iron bars, mirrors
All of it was driving the moths to new heights of paranoia. They installed additional locks on the door and on all the windows. In a fit of panic, they had even put locks on the drawers of Marvin’s dresser, which severely limited his fashion choices. The moths had taken to planning for a number of absurd survival scenarios, rehearsing each one in turn, with one of them acting the part of the Elephant Vampire. Only once did they try to enlist Marvin’s help.
“All right,” Abraham said, draping a dusty plastic cape from some forgotten Halloween costume over Marvin’s shoulders. “We’re not sure if the Elephant Vampire has the ability to transform himself or not, but we should be prepared for any eventuality. In this attack scenario, he turns himself into fog and comes up through the steam pipes, rematerializing in solid form right here.” He indicated an area of the floor with two of his arms. “The countermeasure is this cinder block, which we will drop on top of his skull.” Off to the side, Ahab hefted a large concrete block.
“I need you to play the Elephant Vampire,” Abraham continued. “Stand here, and pretend to be fog. Then, when you’re fully rematerialized, give us a signal, and Ahab here will brain you. Okay?” Ahab practiced lifting the block over his head and swinging it straight down again.
“Yeah, I think I’ll pass,” Marvin said, untying the cape. “I have algebra homework, and I don’t think I can do it without my brains inside my skull.”
“Fine,” Abraham said huffily, snatching the cape back. “Baby. But don’t come crying to me when the Elephant Vampire rematerializes inside your locker and you don’t know what to do.”
At school, the kids were mostly upset about the rigid curfew and the cancellation of the Harvest Festival and Dance—except Marvin. That Friday, Marvin sat in the school library with Fatima during seventh-period study hall, looking forward to a weekend of binge-reading Fearless Phil comics instead of enduring the inevitable embarrassment of the Harvest Dance. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a notebook, along with the latest issue of Fearless Phil, which he laid out on the library table.
“Can I take a look at your notes from science class?” he asked her. “Mine got a little scorched during the experiment.” Their science classes had finally resumed, but not in the lab, whose door had been sealed with airtight plastic sheeting and covered with DO NOT ENTER signs. At first, the school administrators had been concerned that small animals would get in through the broken windows, but none had shown any interest. Marvin and Fatima’s class was meeting in the home economics kitchen, which at least allowed them to use sinks and stovetop burners. There had been a confused moment, however, when the dissection instructions and the braised frog legs recipes had gotten mixed up.
“Here,” Fatima said, sliding her bag across the table to him. “They’re in the black binder.”
Marvin opened the bag, which contained eight identical black three-ring binders. He pulled one out at random and opened it. It was not filled with class notes. In fact, it wasn’t filled with notes at all, but rather pictures of women’s dresses cut out of fashion magazines, fabric swatches, pressed flowers, photos of men’s suits, and pages torn out of Soap Opera Secrets Weekly, with various plot points highlighted and diagrammed.
Marvin flipped deeper into the binder, and was stunned to see several pages of photos—of himself. They had apparently been taken when he wasn’t looking; there were shots of him eating lunch, nodding off in class, and picking his ear. They were tagged with notes like, CON: Talks with mouth full, PRO: Cute face, CON: No butt, PRO: Tucks in shirt, PRO: Good listener, and CON: Makes rude comments about what he just listened to me say.
Then Marvin came across a manila envelope that had been slid in among the pages. On the front it was stamped CONFIDENTIAL: MY EYES ONLY. Marvin slipped the contents out and began reading.
EVALUATION AND PROPOSED ADVANCEMENT
OF QUALITY BOYFRIEND CHARACTERISTICS
IN PREEXISTING SIXTH-GRADE SUBJECT
HYPOTHESIS: Marvin could be a good boyfriend if the following improvements were made:
Hardier exercise regimen. Subject lacks upper-body stre
ngth, as evidenced by performance in “Tarzan” incident.
Dietary and lifestyle changes. Subject appears pale and underrested. Recommend eight hours uninterrupted sleep each night, better nutrition, and more time spent outside of dark attic.
Etiquette training. Subject has adequate personal grooming habits, but is utterly lacking in social niceties. Recommend intense two-day “Sgt. Manners” boot camp.
Motivational training. Subject has no drive or ambition, aside from desire to be left alone. Recommend seminar with renowned motivational speaker Stryker Horsefeed on “Embracing Your Inner Genghis Khan.”
Marvin quietly closed the binder and tried to slide it back into the bag, but a swatch of pale-blue silk fluttered out of the pages and drifted onto the table in front of Fatima. She looked up at him in alarm and rage.
“Not that one!” she shouted, snatching the entire bag back from him. “Who told you you could open that one?”
“They—are—all … looking the same?” Marvin stuttered. “Why can’t you be like a normal girl and just draw hearts all over it? Then I’d know not to open it.”
“It’s typical of you to add indecency to humiliation,” Fatima said.
“What are you talking about?” Marvin said.
“It wasn’t enough for you to make Lee smelly, you had to push it all the way and make him untouchable,” she said.
“Hold on a minute—” Marvin said.
“As for me, I’m already an untouchable, apparently,” she said. “I mean, it’s bad enough you never wanted to go to the dance with me, but now you’re invading my secret thoughts.”
“To be fair, your secrets weren’t all that secure,” Marvin said. “Not even well labeled, really.”
“How dare you!” Fatima said, insulted that her organizational skills would be impugned. “Well, it doesn’t matter now,” she said. “The dance has been canceled. Fifty hours of research out the window.”
“Fifty hours of research?” Marvin said. “On what?”
“On the dance!” Fatima said. She slapped the binder. “This is my complete plan of action for the Harvest Dance—what to wear, how to behave, what to do when you come to pick me up, what to do if you”—she looked at the floor and blushed deeply—“kiss me at the end of the night …”
Marvin stared at her, dumbfounded. At that moment, he realized that the passage of time was all a matter of perception. He looked up at the library clock and saw that the hands were no longer moving. The idea that Fatima could consider him to be boyfriend material—it was harder for Marvin to grasp than the notion of giant moths or Elephant Vampires that liquefied and devoured their prey. At least those things had a basis in reality. That long moment of reflection and discomfort—and reflection on the discomfort—seemed to stretch out for an eternity. But then the library doors burst open, and time swung back into full speed.
Charging through the doors came Little Stevie’s mom, Constance Upton, flanked by a half dozen police officers. She clapped her hands for attention. “Children, remain where you are,” she said. “This won’t take long.” She turned to a police officer. “Lieutenant, do your duty.”
The officer nodded, and he and his men fanned out and began pulling books from the library shelves. Mrs. Goudy, the librarian, strode out from behind her desk. “What’s the meaning of this?” she asked Mrs. Upton. The two women stood glaring at each other, nose to nose, Marvin’s aunt in her impeccably tailored pantsuit, rectangular designer glasses, and carefully coiffed auburn hair, and the librarian in a long cotton skirt with a floral print, sandals, and long, roughly braided graying hair.
“Hello, Chrissy,” Constance said.
“It’s Chrysanthemum to you, fascist,” Mrs. Goudy replied. “Why are your goons ransacking my library?”
“They’re protecting the children,” Mrs. Upton said, a triumphant smile creeping onto her lips.
“Against what—knowledge?”
Mrs. Upton looked at her nemesis through narrowed eyes. “Not all knowledge is good,” she said. “And not all keepers of knowledge are good.” Constance pulled a sheet of paper from her designer purse. “I’ve been specially authorized by the school board to provide guidance and leadership in protecting our children’s tender young minds from the corrupting influence of the Elephant Vampire’s radical ideology. As such, we’re confiscating any books deemed harmful to the student body.” She handed the sheet to the librarian. “If you would be so kind as to assist the officers in finding any of the volumes on this list, I’m sure the authorities would greatly appreciate it.”
Mrs. Goudy tore the sheet of paper into tiny pieces, which she let flutter to the floor. She folded her arms and stared at Constance.
Any trace of a smile left Mrs. Upton’s face. “Very well, Chrysanthemum. Your insubordination will be remembered.”
The police officers began filling up wheelbarrows with armloads of books. They started with “occult” titles, such as Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Next came wildlife books on elephants. They pulled the E and V volumes of the encyclopedia off the shelf and ripped pages out of dictionaries.
“To be safe, your men should take any title that starts with an E or a V,” Mrs. Upton instructed the lieutenant.
The look on Fatima’s face grew increasingly angry. Finally, she asked Mrs. Upton, “Why are you taking the whole V section? If you’re worried about vampires, just remove the vampire books and leave the rest.”
Constance turned to her. “That V has been a menace to our town for decades—vampires, voodoo, Vlad the Impaler, aka Dracula, veganism … I’m just making sure that it can no longer be a threat to our values—I mean, morals.”
The lieutenant stared at the shelves for a long time. “Uhhh …” he said, “the books aren’t organized alphabetically.”
“What do you mean?” Mrs. Upton snapped.
A wide grin spread across Mrs. Goudy’s face. “Dewey decimals, Constance.”
“That’s another thing that will have to change,” Mrs. Upton said. “No more hiding your filth with the help of some arcane filing system.” She paused and considered the situation for a moment. “Lieutenant,” she said at last, “you can send your men back next week to go through the rest of the Es and Vs. We have enough here for the event tonight. Don’t forget the posters.”
He nodded and signaled two of his men. They went out, then came back with rolled-up posters and an old-fashioned push broom and a bucket of paste, the kind used to hang billboards. They slapped the posters up on the windows and even over a wall mural that had been painted by the students. The mural showed a boy and a girl happily reading, with a large thought balloon coming out of their heads, filled with characters from literature. Books open your mind, it read. A few seconds later, the mural was covered in several places by large black posters with red letters that said:
BUTCHERVILLE UNITED
Rally, bonfire, book-burning, and weenie roast
today at 5 p.m.
Memorial Park
Sponsored by the Pork Loaf
Ladies’ Auxiliary
“Freedom is burning bright!”
Constance nodded in approval, then turned to the students with a smile. “Good news, children. The Harvest Festival Bonfire is back on. As an added bonus, we’ll be celebrating this important moment in your young lives by turning the false and harmful ideas that undermine our common good into ash,” she announced. “Dress appropriately!”
“I’ll be there,” Mrs. Goudy said. “PorkPeace will be there to protest this injustice.”
“Don’t forget to bring some marshmallows,” Constance said, turning to leave. On her way out, she snatched Marvin’s Fearless Phil comic book from the table.
“Hey!” Marvin said.
“Comic books make children stupid,” Constance said sharply.
“Then why did the school board give us all free safety comics at the assembly?” Marvin asked.
Constance simply snorted through her nose and stormed out
the door without further explanation.
“I can’t believe this,” Fatima said to Marvin. “How can someone be holding a book-burning in this day and age? We’re just giving in to the worst elements of mob mentality.” She looked to Marvin for a reply. “Are you even listening to me?”
Marvin glanced up. “Sorry—I’m still in shock.” He looked at the empty place on the table in front of him. “Apparently, the comics made me stupid.” He then looked over and saw Fatima’s Harvest Dance binder poking out of her bag. “And seeing the contents of your kissy-face binder didn’t help, either.”
Fatima scowled and picked up the offending notebook. She walked across the room and flung it into a wheelbarrow full of books destined for the rally as one of the officers pushed it out the door.
“There!” she said to Marvin. “Happy now?”
“I don’t see how anyone could be happy at a time like this,” he said.
“That’s more like it,” Fatima said.
“I mean, you can destroy the binder, but you can’t destroy my memories,” Marvin said.
Fatima frowned. “We’re talking about the book-burning!” she said.
“Right. Of course,” Marvin said. “The rally.” He thought quietly for a moment, his brow furrowing. “Hey,” he said. “If the Elephant Vampire is still allegedly on the loose, isn’t it a little dangerous to be holding it so close to sunset?”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” she said. “I was too busy being outraged to think about the danger.”
“Well, maybe there is no Elephant Vampire, and the only thing you have to worry about is living in a police state,” he said.
“Or maybe there is an Elephant Vampire, and he’s living in your attic,” she said.
“That’s probably not true,” Marvin said uneasily. “I hope.” The class bell rang, and they gathered up their things and left.
Marvin and the Moths Page 11