The Little Vampire (9 page)

“Well, what do you think of me?” she tittered.

“You’re O.K.,” he muttered, and felt himself blush.

Her face fell. “Only O.K.?” she said. “I think you’re much, much nicer than O.K.”

She stopped suddenly, and looked as if she was going to cry.

What on earth
was he going to do? The whole conversation had got out of hand, thought Tony, who would much rather talk of less dangerous subjects.

“Where is Rudolph?” he asked hurriedly.

“You only ever think about Rudolph,” she sighed.

“Not at all,” said Tony. “But he is going to pick up the cloak tonight.”

“Was going to,” she said with a sniff.

“Isn’t coming then?”

“No. He can’t. He’s ill.”

“Ill?” Tony
sounded worried. “It wasn’t ... the Nightwatchman?” he asked, with a catch in his voice.

“No,” she said. “Blood poisoning.”

“Blood poisoning?” echoed Tony. That sounded like a very serious disease. “Where is he?”

“In his coffin with a temperature,” she replied.

Tony did not know what to say. Poor Rudolph was lying alone in his coffin with no one to look after him. When he was ill, his parents
sent for the doctor and brought him grapes and lucozade to make him feel better.

“Could we go and see him?” he asked.

“See him?” giggled Anna. “And what if my parents saw you? Or my grandparents? Or my aunt? Or my brother?”

“Yes ... er, well perhaps we’d better not,” agreed Tony, whose hair began to stand on end at the mere mention of the other vampires. “Is he very ill?”

“Are you worried
he might die?” asked Anna. Tony nodded. “Well, forget it! He’s dead already, remember!”

Tony had not thought of that, but he did not think that it made much difference. “Even so, he must be feeling rotten,” he said. “We ought to look after him.”

“What does ‘look after’ mean?” Anna asked. She had never heard that expression before.

“‘Looking after’ someone means you go and see someone and play
games with them and read them a story and make them laugh.” At least, that was what happened whenever he was ill. Tony wasn’t sure what you did with vampires!

“No one looks after us,” said Anna. “My family are either all asleep in their coffins or out and ... well, you know all about that.” She sighed. “Anyway, nobody has any time for us. Nobody has ever read me a story or played a game with
me.”

Poor Anna, thought Tony. It must be really tough being a vampire-kid. He always thought his parents took little enough notice of him, but he had a fantastic time compared to a vampire!

“We could look after Rudolph, as long as your family weren’t there,” he suggested.

“Supposing one of them comes home early?” asked Anna.

Tony waved his hand nonchalantly. “That’s hardly likely,” he said. “Anyway,
I’ve already been to the vault once.”

“What!” exclaimed Anna. “You’ve already been there?”

“Yeah, with Rudolph,” said Tony.

“And no one found out?”

“No. Aunt Dorothy nearly did, but I got into Rudolph’s coffin just in time.”

Anna breathed a sigh of relief. “Aunt Dorothy’s the worst,” she said. “She once had a go at me, even though I’m a vampire too!”

“Ugh!” Tony could not stop himself. He
felt his throat gingerly as he remembered Aunt Dorothy’s strident voice echoing around the vault.

“But she’s nearly always out the longest,” said Anna soothingly. “She’s the greediest, you see. So – when are we off?”

Tony seemed to have lost his earlier enthusiasm. “Do you really think we should?”

“Yeah. Come on! You said yourself that we ought to be looking after Rudolph.”

“O.K. If you’re
sure.”

“Come on,” she urged. “You’ve got the other cloak.” She jumped up and down on the window-sill with impatience. “Rudolph will be surprised,” she chuckled.

“I just hope it’s all right,” said Tony, joining her on the sill with the cloak. And away they flew.

First Aid

T
HE WALL OF THE
cemetery was already in sight. The sky was clear, the moon shining brightly, and consequently the cemetery looked much less spooky and mysterious to Tony than it had the Sunday before. Perhaps it was just that this was his third visit, he thought, as he followed Anna over the wall and landed in the grass on the other side.

“The entrance is just over there,” Anna whispered,
“but we must wait to make sure everything’s quiet.”

Tony nodded. “I know,” he said. “The Nightwatchman.”

“Ssh,” she hissed.

Tony looked around at the tilted gravestones, almost overgrown by the long grass, the rusty old crosses sticking up out of the undergrowth, and the shadowy mass of the yew tree, under which lay the entrance to the vault.

Anna was straining her ears to catch the slightest
sound. After a while she stood up. “O.K.,” she said. “We can go.”

“Why don’t you, er, go first?” suggested Tony, who suddenly felt rather sick, like you do when you have not eaten for a whole day.

Anna looked surprised. “Why? I promise there won’t be anyone else in the vault apart from Rudolph.”

“But you could just make quite sure,” insisted Tony. What if Aunt Dorothy had had another fainting
fit? Or if one of the others had stayed behind to look after Rudolph? Tony shuddered at the thought of coming face to face with Thelma the Thirsty!

“Oh, all right,” said Anna. “I’ll have a look. But you must keep hidden.” She vanished down into the hole, and Tony crept deeper into the shadows.

At that very moment, he heard soft footsteps. They sounded quite a way off, but in the stillness that
enveloped the graveyard, there could be no doubt of their reality. An icy shudder ran through him. It couldn’t be Nigel, could it? But he would never have been able to follow them from the ground. No, there was only one explanation: the Nightwatchman!

By now Tony could make out the figure of a man. He was quite small, and he was moving swiftly but carefully, his head turning questingly from this side to that. As he came nearer, Tony could make out a grey, wrinkled face with a pointed nose and bright restless little eyes, all of which made him look rather like a rat. Then Tony’s gaze was riveted to something else: out of the pocket of his overalls
poked an enormous hammer and some sharp wooden stakes!

Tony hardly dared to breathe. The deep shadow of the yew tree hid him perfectly, so he felt he was fairly safe, but Anna ... at any moment, she would pop her head up to call him, and the Nightwatchman was only a metre away! He had already turned those piercing eyes onto the darkness under the yew tree!

Tony saw the stone at the entrance
to the vault begin to move, and suddenly he had an idea. He picked up a largish stone from the ground, and lobbed it as far as he could away from the yew tree. The stone landed heavily some way away, and like a hound on the scent, the Nightwatchman hurried off in the direction of the noise, baying: “Now I’ve got you!” Tony watched him start rummaging around in the bushes, brandishing the hammer and
one of the wooden stakes. Tony raced over to Anna and slid down into the vault, pulling the stone over the entrance after him.

“Phew!” he gulped, leaning against the cool stone wall. “That was close!”

“What was?” asked Anna.

“The Nightwatchman,” said Tony, still out of breath. “He nearly caught you moving the stone!”

“The Nightwatchman?” gasped Anna. “Did you see him?”

“Yeah – but he didn’t
see me.”

“Where is he now?”

Tony grinned. “Looking for a stone!”

“What?”

“I chucked a stone to distract him, and now he’s on the wrong hunt,” explained Tony.

Anna breathed a sigh of relief. “Don’t you think he looks like a rat?”

“Mmm,” agreed Tony. “Hideous.”

“I quite agree,” giggled Anna. “We vampires look really quite sweet in comparison. Do you know what his name is? Mr. McRookery!”

“No!” laughed Tony.

“It is!” Anna grinned delightedly and hopped from one foot to the other chanting: “Silly Mr. McRookery. You don’t know where us vampires are, do you?”

A rasping cough from the vault interrupted them.

“Rudolph!” cried Tony. “How is he?”

“Him?” scoffed Anna. “He’s all right. He’s already up and about. But now Gruesome Gregory’s got it.”

“Gruesome Gregory?” Who on earth was
Gruesome Gregory? Of course, their elder brother.

“Does he know that I’m ...?”

“Of course,” nodded Anna. “But don’t worry. We vampire-kids stick together!”

“He ... er ... won’t do anything to me?”

“No!” smiled Anna. “At least, not with us around.”

They went down the steps. One candle was burning, and by its light they could see Rudolph sitting in his coffin reading, while in the coffin next
to him a bigger, stronger vampire was tossing and turning. Rudolph looked up from his book and laid a finger across his lips. “He’s asleep,” he whispered, and motioned to them to come and sit on the edge of his coffin.

“What’s wrong with him?” asked Tony.

“’Flu,” replied Rudolph, “and no wonder, out in the damp air every night.”

Tony looked furtively at the slumbering form. A certain similarity
with Rudolph was unmistakable, but Gruesome Gregory’s face was paler and the hollows of his eyes even more pronounced. “He looks ill,” said Tony.

“Mmm,” nodded Rudolph. “Drained of blood, poor thing.”

A deep growl came from Gregory, making Tony shrink back in fright. He hoped Anna had been right about how harmless her elder brother was!

“I wanted to come and see you, Rudolph,” he explained,
“but since you’re better ...”

“You’re not going already?” cried Anna.

“I-I ought to get back home,” said Tony. “I haven’t got my key.” He had to get out before Gregory woke up!

But already, it was too late. Gruesome Gregory opened his eyes. He sat up, grumbling, and stared at Tony. “Who is this?” he asked in a menacing voice.

“Oh, Greg,” crooned Anna. “This is Tony. Don’t you remember, we
told you about him.”

“Oh, yes,” said Gregory, sounding disappointed. “Tony. I’m hungry.”

“You can go out again tomorrow,” soothed Anna.

Gregory yawned. His mouth opened so wide that Tony could see the rows of gleaming pointed teeth; his eye teeth were over an inch long! Tony shivered. He wished he could get out of the vault, but of course the worst thing he could do would be to show he was
frightened: that would make him easy prey.

Gregory was smiling now. “Don’t come too close to me,” he said. “You might catch something you don’t want!”

“Er – quite,” said Tony, who had no intention of getting any closer to Gregory. “Perhaps it would be better if I went home.”

“Why?” sniggered Gregory. “Don’t you like it here?”

“Y-yes,” Tony protested, stuttering. “Of course I do. It’s just
that I don’t want to get ’flu.”

“Let’s play ludo!” proposed Gregory, and he pulled a long, slim box out of his coffin.

“Yes, let’s!” agreed Anna excitedly. “Come on, Rudolph, help me set up the table.”

They brought a little coffin over from the wall and turned it over so that it made a perfect table between Gregory’s coffin and the one next door. Gregory set out the board with the counters
on it, and they all gathered round, Tony still rather hesitant.

“I’ll be black,” said Gregory.

“Bags I red!” said Anna.

“What colour do you want?” Rudolph asked Tony.

“Oh, er, yellow,” said Tony.

“Who’s going to start?” asked Anna.

“Tony,” said Gregory. “Guests are always allowed to start.” He pushed the dice over to Tony, who shook them and threw. It was a four.

“Bad luck,” said Gregory
with a gloating grin. “You have to throw a six to start.”

Now it was Rudolph’s turn, which gave Tony a chance to look at the board properly. It looked like a normal one, except that the ‘counters’ had pointed teeth.

“How did you get the game?” he whispered to Anna.

“Uncle Theo found it for us,” she replied.

“Found it?” asked Tony in disbelief.