Secret Vampire (2 page)

"Sort of," she temporized. "But-

That was enough for Poppy's mother. She gave
Poppy a little squeeze and headed for the kitchen
telephone. "I know you don't like doctors, but I'm
calling Dr. Franklin. I want him to take a look at
you. This isn't something we can ignore."

"Oh, Mom, it's
vacation...."

Her mother covered the mouthpiece of the phone.
"Poppy, this is nonnegotiable. Go get dressed."

Poppy groaned, but she could see it was no use.
She beckoned to James, who was looking thought
fully into a middle distance.

"Let's at least listen to the CD before I have to go."

He glanced at the CD as if he'd forgotten it, and put down the milk carton. Phillip followed them into
the hallway.

"Hey, buddy, you wait out here while she gets dressed."

James barely turned. "Get a life, Phil," he said almost absently.

"Just keep your hands off my sister, you deve."

Poppy just shook her head as she went into her room. As if James cared about seeing her undressed.

If only,
she thought grimly, pulling a pair of shorts
out of a drawer. She stepped into them, still shaking her head. James was her best friend, her very best
friend, and she was his. But he'd never shown even
the slightest desire to get his hands on her. Sometimes she wondered if he realized she was a girl.

Someday I'm going to
make
him see, she thought,
and shouted out the door for him.

James came in and smiled at her. It was a smile other people rarely saw, not a taunting or ironic grin, but a nice little smile, slightly crooked.

"Sorry about the doctor thing," Poppy said.

"No. You should go." James gave her a keen
glance. "Your mom's right, you know. This has been
going on way too long. You've lost weight; it's keep
ing you up at night-"

Poppy looked at him, startled. She hadn't told anybody about how the pain was worse at night, not
even James. But sometimes James just knew
things. As if he could read her mind.

"I just know you, that's all," he said, and then gave
her a mischievous sideways glance as she stared at him. He unwrapped the CD.

Poppy shrugged and flopped on her bed, staring at
the ceiling. "Anyway, I wish Mom would let me have
one
day of vacation," she said. She craned her neck
to look at James speculatively. "I wish I had a mom like yours. Mine's always worrying and trying to
fix
me."

"And mine doesn't really care if I come or go. So
which is worse?" James said wryly.

"Your parents let you have your own
apartment. "

"In a building they own. Because it's cheaper than
hiring a manager." James shook his head, his eyes
on the CD he was putting in the player. "Don't knock
your parents, kid. You're luckier than you know."

Poppy thought about that as the CD started. She
and James both liked trance-the underground elec
tronic sound that had come from Europe. James liked
the techno beat. Poppy loved it because it was
real
music, raw and unpasteurized, made by people who believed in it. People who had the passion, not peo
ple who had the money.

Besides, world music made her feel a part of other
places. She loved the differentness of it, the alien
ness.

Come to think of it, maybe that was what she liked
about James, too. His differentness. She tilted her
head to look at him as the strange rhythms of Bu
rundi drumming filled the air.

She knew James better than anyone, but there was
always something,
something
about him that was closed off to her. Something about him that nobody could reach.

Other people took it for arrogance, or coldness, or
aloofness, but it wasn't really any of those things.
It was just
differentness.
He was more different than
any of the exchange
students at school. Time after
time, Poppy felt she had almost put her finger on the
difference, but it always slipped away. And more
than once, especially late at night when they were listening to music or watching the ocean, she'd felt
he was about to tell her.

And she'd always felt that if he
did
tell her, it
would be something important, something as shock
ing and lovely as having a stray cat speak to her.

Just now she looked at James, at his dean, carven
profile and at the brown waves of hair on his fore
head, and thought, He looks sad.

"Jamie, nothing's
wrong,
is it? I mean, at home, or
anything?" She was the only person on the planet
allowed to call him Jamie. Not even Jacklyn or Mi
chaela had ever tried that.

"What could be wrong at home?" he said, with a
smile that didn't reach his eyes. Then he shook his
head dismissively. "Don't worry about it, Poppy. It's
nothing important-just a relative threatening to
visit. An unwanted relative." Then the smile
did
reach his eyes, glinting there. "Or maybe I'm just
worried about you," he said.

Poppy started to say, "Oh,
as
if,
"
but instead she found herself saying, oddly, "Are you really?"

Her seriousness seemed to strike some chord. His
smile disappeared, and Poppy found that they were
simply looking at each other without any insulating humor between them. Just gazing into each other's
eyes. James looked uncertain, almost vulnerable.

"Poppy”

Poppy swallowed. "Yes?"

He opened his mouth-and then he got up
abruptly and went to adjust her 170-watt Tall-boy speakers. When he turned back, his gray eyes were dark and fathomless.

"Sure, if you were really sick, I'd be worried," he
said lightly. "That's what friends are for, right?"

Poppy deflated. "Right," she said wistfully, and
then gave him a determined smile.

"But you're not sick," he said. "It's just something
you need to get taken care of. The doctor'll probably
give you some antibiotics or something-with a big
needle," he added wickedly.

"Oh, shut up," Poppy said. He knew she was terri
fied of injections. Just the thought of a needle entering her skin ...

"Here comes your mom," James said, glancing at
the door, which was ajar. Poppy didn't see how he
could hear anybody coming-the music was loud and
the hallway was carpeted. But an instant later her mother pushed the door open.

"All right, sweetheart," she said briskly. "Dr.
Franklin says come right in. I'm sorry, James, but I'm
going to have to take Poppy away."

"That's okay. I can come back this afternoon."

Poppy knew when she was defeated. She allowed
her mother to tow her to the garage, ignoring James's miming of someone receiving a large injection.

An hour later she was lying on Dr. Franklin's ex
amining table, eyes politely averted as his gentle fin
gers probed her abdomen. Dr. Franklin was tall, lean,
and graying, with the air of a country doctor. Some
body you could trust absolutely.

"The pain is here?" he said.

"Yeah-but it sort of goes into my back. Or maybe I just pulled a muscle back there or something
  

The gentle, probing fingers moved, then stopped. Dr. Franklin's face changed. And somehow, in that
moment, Poppy knew it wasn't a pulled muscle. It
wasn't an upset stomach; it wasn't anything simple;
and things were about to change forever.

All Dr. Franklin said was, "You know, I'd like to
arrange for a test on this."

His voice was dry and thoughtful, but panic curled through Poppy anyway. She couldn't explain what was happening inside her-some sort of dreadful pre
monition, like a black pit opening in the ground in
front of her.

"Why?" her mother was asking the doctor.

"Well." Dr. Franklin smiled and pushed his glasses
up. He tapped two fingers on the examining table.
"Just as part of a process of elimination, really. Poppy
says she's been having pain in the upper abdomen, pain that radiates to her back, pain that's worse at
night. She's lost her appetite recently, and she's lost
weight. And her gallbladder is palpable-that means
I can feel that it's enlarged. Now, those are symptoms
of a lot of things, and a sonogram will help rule out
some of them."

Poppy calmed down. She couldn't remember what
a gallbladder did but she was pretty sure she didn't
need it.
Anything involving an organ with such a silly name couldn't be serious. Dr. Franklin was going
on, talking about the pancreas and pancreatitis and
palpable livers, and Poppy's mother was nodding as
if she understood. Poppy didn't understand, but the
panic was gone. It was as if a cover had been whisked
neatly over the black pit, leaving no sign that it had
ever been there.

"You can get the sonogram done at Children's Hos
pital across the street," Dr. Franklin was
saying.
"Come back here after it's finished."

Poppy's mother was nodding, calm, serious, and
efficient. Like Phil. Or Cliff. Okay, we'll get this taken
care of.

Poppy felt just slightly important.
Nobody she
knew had been to a hospital for tests.

Her mother ruffled her hair as they walked out of
Dr. Franklin's office. "Well, Poppet. What have you
done to yourself now?"

Poppy smiled impishly. She was fully recovered
from her earlier worry. "Maybe I'll have to have an
operation and I'll have an interesting scar," she said,
to amuse her mother.

"Let's hope not," her mother said, unamused.

The Suzanne G. Monteforte Children's Hospital
was a handsome gray building with sinuous curves
and giant picture windows. Poppy looked thought
fully into the gift shop as they passed. It was clearly
a
kid's
gift shop, full of rainbow Slinkys and stuffed animals that a visiting adult could buy as a last-minute
present.

A girl came out of the shop. She was a little older
than Poppy, maybe seventeen or eighteen. She was
pretty, with an expertly made-up face-and a cute
bandanna which didn't quite conceal the fact that
she had no hair. She looked happy, round-cheeked,
with earrings dangling jauntily beneath the bandanna-but Poppy felt a stab of sympathy.

Sympathy
...
and fear. That girl was
really
sick.
Which was what hospitals were for, of course-for
really sick people. Suddenly Poppy wanted to get her
own tests over with and get out of here.

The sonogram wasn't painful, but it was vaguely
disturbing. A technician smeared some kind of jelly
over Poppy's middle, then ran a cold scanner over it,
shooting sound waves into her, taking pictures of her
insides. Poppy found her mind returning to the pretty
girl with no hair.

To distract herself, she thought about James. And for some reason what came to mind was the first
time she'd seen James, the day he came to kindergar
ten. He'd been a pale, slight boy with big gray eyes and something subtly
weird
about him that made the
bigger boys start picking on him immediately. On the
playground they ganged up on him like hounds
around a fox-until Poppy saw what was happening.

Even at five she'd had a great right hook. She'd
burst into the group, slapping faces and kicking shins
until the big boys went running. Then she'd turned to James.