This Totally Bites! (4 page)

“I’m a vampire.”

Gabby held open the door to her brownstone, her jaw slack as she stared at me.

I repeated my confession, lifting my chin and trying to keep my voice even.

“I’m a vampire,” I said.

Gabby stared at me for a moment longer, her brown eyes round. Then, slowly, her face broke into a smile.

“That’s such a good idea!” she laughed, bouncing up and down in her Converse sneakers. “A vampire! Why didn’t we think of that before? You’ve got the skin tone, you just need to smear fake blood around your mouth, and get those plastic fangs, and you’ll have the best Halloween costume ever….”

She trailed off when she noticed that I wasn’t laughing. Or speaking. I just stood on her stoop, wearing my big sunglasses and holding my duffel bag.

Back in my room, I’d realized two things: that I couldn’t face Great-aunt Margo that night — what if she knew what I was and wanted me to go hunting with her? — and that I had to talk to Gabby ASAP.

It had been torture waiting for the time to pass, but as soon as my bedside clock struck two thirty, I’d sprung into action. I’d yanked on my jeans, black flats, and gray hoodie, and thrown a bunch of stuff into my duffel bag. Then I’d knocked on the door to Dad’s study and asked for permission to stay at Gabby’s house that night. Luckily, Dad was too distracted by his deadline to ask any questions. He only told me to call him and Mom later to check in.

“Em, are you still feeling sick?” Gabby asked, peering at me with the same worried expression Mom and Dad had worn that morning. She took my arm and pulled me into her house. “We missed you at school today. Do you have the flu or something?”

I shook my head. “I
am
sick,” I whispered, removing my sunglasses with trembling hands, “but not in the way you think.”

Gabby raised her eyebrows. “Em, you’re kind of scaring me.”

You don’t know the half of it.

A loud yell from the living room made me press a hand to my chest. “Who’s in there?” I hissed, peeking over Gabby’s shoulder. I was so panicked that I expected to see a swarm of bats.

“Carlos, of course.” Gabby rolled her eyes as she usually did when it came to her younger brother. “He’s, like, surgically attached to his Wii. Especially when my parents are at work. You’d think he’d let us play
one —
“

“We need to talk,” I interrupted. “In private.”

“O-kay,” Gabby said, still looking at me like I’d sprouted an extra head. She led me past an oblivious Carlos to her small, apple green bedroom, locking the door. I let out a huge breath and dropped my duffel bag on the floor with a thunk.

“What do you
have
in that thing?” Gabby asked as she moved a plate of banana slices — her annoyingly healthy after-school snack — off her bed. “A dead body?”

Which was absolutely the worst thing to say.

I burst into tears.

“Oh no! Em!” Gabby cried, rushing over and giving me a hug. “What’s the
matter?
Please tell me. You’re freaking me out.”

“If — if this — is freaking you out,” I sob-hiccuped into Gabby’s shoulder, “then — then you don’t want to know what — what’s really going on.”

“Shh. Okay. Chill out,” Gabby said soothingly, putting her arm around me and leading me over to the bed. “Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.”

“Oh yeah?” I challenged as we sat down. “It’s worse than bad. And you
have
to promise not to tell Padma or Caitlin or anyone at school.”

Padma and Caitlin are great, but if they knew my scary secret, they’d likely blab about it to their friends on the girls’ soccer team. From there, it would spread to all the other sports teams, and trickle into the academic clubs, and before long, all of West Side Prep would get the bulletin:

EMMA-ROSE PALEY: FANGED AND DANGEROUS!

And what if Henry Green found out? My heart lurched at the thought.

Not that I cared.

Right?

“Of course I promise,” Gabby said, grabbing the box of tissues off her nightstand.

I swiped at my damp cheeks with my hand. “Okay. Remember what I told you on your stoop just now?”

Gabby handed me a Kleenex. “That you want to be a vampire for Halloween?”

I shook my head. “I don’t
want
to be a vampire, Gab. I
am
one.” I blew my nose, then looked steadily at my best friend. “A bloodsucker. Dracula. Bats. You know.
That
kind of vampire. Only … real.”

There. I’d said it.

Gabby bit her bottom lip, then gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “Em, was this another bad dream?” she asked softly.

I shook my head vehemently, twisting the tissue in my hands. “I wish! I know it sounds insane, Gab, but …” I exhaled, trying to compose myself. “Okay. I should probably start from the beginning.”

So I did. I told Gabby everything. When I got to the part about the bat becoming Great-aunt Margo, Gabby looked skeptical, but she didn’t interrupt or question me. And she kept listening as I described the news report and my research on the Internet.

“Don’t you see?” I finished, feeling drained.
“It all fits.
Everything fits.”

Gabby didn’t answer at first. She studied me in her wise way, her tan arms wrapped around her knees. “All right,” she said at last, her voice serious and determined. “Let’s take this step-by-step.”

I nodded eagerly. This was what I relied on Gabby for. She approached everything with a sane, scientific method, while I tended to flail about dramatically. As she stood up and snatched a notepad and pen off her desk, I felt a surge of relief.

“Gab?” I asked as she sat back down. “Does this mean that you … believe me?”

“I know you’re not lying, Em,” Gabby replied, putting on her cute, red-framed glasses. “You have a big imagination, but I don’t think it’s
that
big.”

“Oh, thank you!” I shouted, flinging my arms around my friend. Then, just as quickly, I drew back. “Wait. Do you not want me to hug you? I mean, you’re not afraid I might …
attack
you?” I whispered. The thought made me shudder.

“Hmm,” Gabby said, flipping her notepad to a clean page. “Well, you tell me. Do you
want
to suck my blood?”

I tried to imagine it: my fangs growing longer and coming forward out of my mouth, before sinking into the skin of —

No. No. No.
My stomach turned.

“Absolutely not,” I replied. “I don’t want to suck
anyone’s
blood. But especially not yours!”

“Interesting.” Gabby made a notation in her pad. “Moving on. You’ve never, to the best of your knowledge, assumed the shape of a bat, have you?”

“Not that I know of,” I said, patting my arms to make sure they were still arms and not shiny black wings. “Unless it happens at night while I’m sleeping or —”

“Doubtful,” Gabby interrupted, writing something else down. “We’ve had enough sleepovers together. I’m sure I would have noticed a
bat
at some point over the years.”

“I guess.” Maybe I was one of those non-bloodsucking, non-bat-becoming vampires. If there was such a thing.

“And see?” Gabby prompted, pointing to the many photos of me around her room: me and Gabby on a picnic blanket in Central Park; me grinning and holding up my art award from last year; me with Gabby, Padma, Caitlin, and my parents at my birthday dinner over the summer. “You show up in photographs. You don’t crave blood. You’re not half bat. I don’t want to test this one out, but I’m
pretty
sure you’re not immortal. Em …” Gabby paused, studying her notes before glancing up at me. “The facts speak for themselves. You are not a vampire.”

I let her words sink in. Was Gabby
right?
I’d been so certain of my vampire status, but Gabby sounded even more certain. Had I just been jumping to conclusions? It wouldn’t have been the first time.

“But what about Bram?” I burst out, throwing up my hands. “Why does he hate me? Why do I love meat so much? And what about the fact that I’m
related
to someone we know
is
a vampire?”

As I was speaking, Gabby was scribbling in her notepad, which was getting on my nerves. I heard the front door unlock and Mr. and Mrs. Marquez come in, greeting Carlos. I hoped Gabby wouldn’t share her notes with her psychologist parents. They’d probably recommend I be sent to an institution. Not one for vampires, but for crazy people.

“Okay,” Gabby said, sticking her pen behind one ear. “Remember when you got Bram, when we were seven and he was a puppy? And remember how
awful
you were to him? You were always bossing him around, and shrieking every time he had an accident in the apartment.
That’s
probably why he doesn’t like you.”
“Oh.” I crumpled the tissue in my fist, surprised at the memory Gabby had brought up. I’d forgotten how hard it had been, adjusting to having a new puppy. “That’s a good point.”

“As for the meat thing, you probably have an iron deficiency, and need to eat more meat than most people,” Gabby continued. “Though you could always just take supplements and switch over to being veggie, like me.” She grinned, and I groaned.

“Finally, we
don’t
know for a fact that Great-aunt Margo is a vampire,” Gabby said. “It sounds like the Central Park attacks were done by a hawk or something. And maybe there’s a reasonable explanation for why you saw Margo as a bat. There
are
regular bats that live in Manhattan, you know. Maybe one just flew into Margo’s room and in the darkness you got confused. Why don’t you just
ask
her?”

I tugged nervously on my hoodie’s zipper.
Ask her?
That option hadn’t crossed my mind even once during my sleepless night or my frantic day. I pictured myself tapping on the guest room door, and Great-aunt Margo welcoming me in with a warm, “Hello, dah-link!”

What would I say?
Hi, Great-aunt Margo, sorry to bother you, but can you tell me why I saw you in bat
form? Oh yeah, and also why all your stuffed bats are actually alive — or possibly undead?

What if she got angry? What if she … bit me?

I reached up to protectively touch my neck.

“I can’t,” I told Gabby. “I can’t ask her. I can’t even think about seeing her!” I gestured to my heavy duffel bag by the door. “That’s why I dragged that over here. Is it cool if I spend the night?”

“Of course it is,” Gabby said, giving me a quick hug. “As long as you promise not to” — she dropped her voice and shot me a wicked grin —
“attack
me.”

I couldn’t help it; I started laughing and Gabby giggled, too. Suddenly, I realized how silly the whole thing sounded. I wasn’t convinced that Great-aunt Margo wasn’t a vampire, and I wasn’t sure about myself either. But I felt a thousand times better than when I’d first arrived at Gabby’s place. Which is why Gabby’s the
best
best friend ever.

By then, twilight had started to fall, and a cold breeze wafted into the room. Gabby said she was going to let her parents know I was staying over, and I remembered that I had to call Mom and Dad, too.

Gabby left, and I walked over to my duffel bag to get my cell phone. On my way, my eyes landed on one of the photographs on Gabby’s wall. The one of
me, my friends, and my parents at my birthday dinner. Everyone was beaming at the camera, and I was leaning over my red velvet cake, about to blow out the big 12 candle.

12.

My twelfth birthday. In August.

A realization made my skin grow warm and prickly. There’d been something else on the website, something besides the list of traits and the “maternal line” thing. I closed my eyes, trying to remember the words.

… boys and girls of these ancient families begin showing the above traits at the age of twelve, and become full-fledged vampires shortly thereafter.

My palms went clammy. Of course I still showed up in photographs and in mirrors. Of course I didn’t want to suck blood. Of course I didn’t turn into a bat. I wasn’t a full-fledged vampire.

Yet.

How long was
shortly?
I wondered with growing horror. A few months? Another year? I had no clue, but one thing was certain: At any moment, I could become a full-fledged vampire.

And there was nothing I could do to stop it.

I had thought it would be difficult going to school with the knowledge that my great-aunt was a vampire.

But that was
nothing
compared to facing school while knowing
I
might be a vampire, too.

As Gabby and I walked to West Side Prep through the brisk morning air, I let my best friend do all the talking. Gabby discussed her braces, Milo from ballet class, and what she should be for Halloween. She’d planned to be a faerie, but now she was considering a werewolf costume, since there was supposed to be a full moon that night.

I knew Gabby was trying to take my mind off things, but all I could think about were dead squirrels and vampire dynasties.

Last night, I’d decided not to tell Gabby about my twelfth-birthday realization. I knew that she would find some logical loophole again, and I didn’t have the energy for another therapy session. It felt weird, keeping something so major from my best friend. But I figured I could tell her later on, once
I’d
wrapped my brain around the craziness.

When we got to school, Caitlin and Padma were waiting by our batch of lockers. My stomach sank a little. As much as I liked my friends, I was in no mood for chitchat.

“Hey, girls!” Padma cried, shutting her locker door and tossing her glossy dark braid over one shoulder.

“Feeling better, Emma-Rose?” Caitlin asked earnestly.

“Oh, sure,” I replied wryly. “Some might even say I’m fang-tastic.”

“What?” Caitlin’s fine blond eyebrows came together in confusion.

“Nothing, we all know Em has a twisted sense of humor,” Gabby chuckled, elbowing me in the ribs.

“Ow,” I pouted, rubbing my side.

“We have time before the first bell,” Padma said. “Want to get some hot cocoa from the caf?”

Padma, Gabby, and Caitlin love to drink our cafeteria’s hot chocolate in the morning. I prefer a tall glass of cranberry juice.

Which, come to think of it, is red.

Bloodred.

“I can’t,” I blurted, opening my locker and stuffing my duffel bag inside. “I — um, I need to plan out what I’m doing for my art and drawing class after school.”

It was a total lie. From the look she gave me, Gabby knew it was a lie, but I didn’t care. I needed to be alone. So I headed for homeroom, where my teacher was shocked that I was not just on time, but early.

First period was social studies, which is usually one of my favorite classes. Today, though, I barely paid attention to Ms. Goldsmith as she talked about the Internet.

“It’s a great tool,” she said, gesturing with her piece of chalk. “But websites don’t always have the most factual data. Sometime before next Monday, I want each of you to pay a visit to your local library. You need to do some good old-fashioned book research on the country of your family’s origin.”

Thinking about
my
family’s origins, I let out a sound that was part laugh, part grunt. Ms. Goldsmith and Padma both looked at me quizzically, so I tried to cover it up by coughing.

Gym class was always torture, but today I was even klutzier than usual. Whenever the volleyball came sailing toward me, I either missed or ducked. And when it was my turn to serve, I couldn’t get the ball to go even
near
the net.

“Ugh!” cried Eve Epstein after I’d messed up for the thousandth time. She stamped her metallic pink sneakers, like a toddler throwing a tantrum. “What’s the
matter
with you, Emma-Rose? Can’t you ever do anything right?”

“Ugh!” echoed Mallory D’Angelo, another one of Ashlee and Eve’s obnoxious besties. Mallory wasn’t original enough to come up with her own insults.

I glanced at Caitlin, who was also on my team. But my friend could only give me a disappointed frown. Outside of gym, Caitlin is one of the sweetest people alive. In shorts and sneakers, though, the girl becomes an athletic, competitive machine. And I become her embarrassing friend.

I flinched, my throat tightening.
Do
not
cry,
I told myself sternly.

“It’s okay!” Coach Lattimore finally called, coming to my rescue. “Better luck next time, Emma-Rose!”

I could tell Caitlin felt bad about gym, because at lunch she bought me a brownie to go with my roast beef sandwich. But I picked listlessly at my food while she, Padma, and Gabby discussed the Halloween dance. As I was chewing, the tip of my tongue touched one of my incisors. It felt very sharp. Sharper than it ever had felt before.

Oh no,
I thought.
It’s starting.

Soon, I realized with mounting dread, my ears could shoot out to bat-size. My body could shrink upward and crooked black wings could sprout from my back. I could lunge at one of my friends, determined to pierce their necks and drink …

“I — I’ll see you guys later,” I stammered, stumbling to my feet and dashing out of the cafeteria.

Gabby called after me, but I didn’t look back. I knew I was distancing myself from my friends, which made me feel even worse. But eventually, maybe they’d understand that it was for their own safety.

I burst into the girls’ room and ran to the mirror, opening my mouth and checking out my incisors. They didn’t look longer or pointier than usual. My ears looked normal, and there was nothing growing out of my back. It was also a relief that
I
was still there in the mirror. With shaking fingers, I turned on the faucet and splashed some water on my ashen face.

The door to the girls’ room creaked open and in walked Ashlee Lambert, blond hair swinging. When she saw me, she stopped and put one hand on her hip.

“Were you leaving?” she asked me snottily.

Of course Princess Ashlee needed all lowly beings to exit the restroom before she could enter.

“Yes,” I replied as coolly as I could, and swept out. I prayed she hadn’t seen me examining my fangs. I could just imagine her bringing it up at tomorrow’s student council meeting.

As if on cue, Henry Green appeared, strolling lazily down the hall with his books under his arm. When he saw me, a grin spread across his face.

“Hey, Pale Paley!” he called. Instantly, I spun on my heel and marched off in the opposite direction,
my heart pounding.
Pale Paley
took on a whole new meaning now that I knew what my paleness was about.

“Hey!” Henry called again as I picked up speed. I thought his voice sounded a little apologetic, but I must have imagined it.

Things didn’t get any better as the day progressed. In science, the lesson was on insects, and when my teacher referred to mosquitoes as “thirsty little bloodsuckers,” I wanted to crawl under my desk. In English, the discussion was about the Edgar Allan Poe story. My teacher, Ms. Tiller, paced the classroom, talking about fear.

“The scariest thing a writer can create is the feeling of
waiting,”
she explained. “You know something horrible is going to happen, but you don’t know
when
or
what
exactly it will be.”

I began nodding so enthusiastically that I felt like a bobblehead doll. Ms. Tiller raised her eyebrows at me and I stopped nodding.
Someday,
I thought,
there’ll be a horror story about
me.

The thought of going home was still terrifying, so I was grateful that I had an after-school activity: my Art & Drawing class at the 92nd Street Y. But my vampire fears followed me there. Our assignment
was to draw a self-portrait, and before I knew what I was doing, I had sketched myself with bat wings and bat ears, midmorph. My instructor, Mr. Currin, actually liked my drawing and called it “a fascinating interpretation of the passage from childhood to adulthood.” If he only knew the creepy truth.

I wanted to stay at Art & Drawing forever, but I had to go home eventually. My stomach was in knots as I rode the bus across town. As the bus drove through a pale pink, twilit Central Park, I scanned the sky for bats, but I only saw flocks of birds flying south. This gave me the courage I needed to ride the elevator up to my apartment and walk inside, as ready as I’d ever be to face my great-aunt.

But she wasn’t there.

“How are you feeling, honey?” Mom asked as she and Dad came out of the kitchen. “You still look a little pale. I bet you and Gabby stayed up too late last night. Should I call Dr. Samuels and make an appointment?”

I shook my head, setting down my duffel bag. I could just imagine my kindly, plump pediatrician starting to take my blood, only to shrink back in horror when he realized I wasn’t quite … human.

“I feel fine,” I lied as Bram ran away from me, whining.

“Did you have a good day at school?” Dad asked.

“It was great,” I lied again, glancing around the apartment. “Where’s Great-aunt Margo?” I asked.

“She’s sleeping,” Mom said, coming over to give me a kiss. “She went straight to bed when we got back from the museum. She seemed very tired. Probably jet lag.”

Or she’s nocturnal,
I thought.

“I hope she didn’t catch the bug you had yesterday, Emma-Rose,” Dad added.

“I think I caught
her,
uh, bug,” I mumbled, thinking of bloodsucking mosquitoes.

“What’s that?” Mom asked me, straightening my bangs.

“Nothing,” I replied distractedly. I wondered if my great-aunt was really asleep or doing something else — some vampire ritual — in the guest room. “I’ll be right back,” I told my parents, and started down the hall toward my room.

The door to the guest room was ajar, and I dared a glance inside.

Great-aunt Margo was asleep after all, lying flat on her back with her black hair splayed out on the
pillow and her pale face motionless. There were no bats in the room, so they must have all been at the museum. I pictured them, somewhere deep inside the building, biding their time in their cages. What would happen when night fell? I felt a tremor of fear for the museum’s security guards, whom I’d known forever. Would the bats fly screeching past them into Central Park, or would they use
the guards
for food?

Eek.

I skipped dinner that night.

I also skipped my IM/phone call with Gabby. I still didn’t feel ready to tell her everything. So I sent her a text saying I had a lot of homework to do, and she texted back:
Okay, but did you talk to Great-aunt Margo??
I sighed and texted back,
Not yet
.

My plan was to stay up until Great-aunt Margo awoke. Then I’d sneak out of my room to either spy on her or talk to her, depending on how brave I felt. I also wanted to sneak out to the TV and watch the news for any reports on more animal attacks. Plus, there was more research to be done on the Internet. It was going to be a busy night.

But I was exhausted from my crazy day, and I hadn’t slept a wink on Gabby’s air mattress the night
before. I tried to stay awake as I did my homework, but my pencil kept slipping out of my grasp, and my head kept nodding forward.

I’ll just stretch out for a little,
I thought, flopping onto my bed. And for the first time in a long time, within minutes, I’d fallen fast asleep.

Being a vampire was more tiring than I would have guessed.