Vampire Island (5 page)

Hudson

H
udson stuck his note of tips onto the refrigerator for his entire family to see. He had printed up eighty-nine copies (all on recycled paper, of course) as a gift to the kids at school. He’d decided to put them on the desks of third-through fifth-graders only. Second-graders were too babyish, and sixth-graders were on the scary side. Also, Maddy was a sixth-grader—unanimously considered the scariest sixth-grader of all—and Hudson didn’t want her messing with his plan to save the world.

After his night flight with Orville, Hudson had made a decision. If he was destined to be a Protector, he would start immediately. And now that he was training sharper senses on water, air, and land, Hudson didn’t like what he saw. The East River, bottomless and brown as cold tobacco juice. The school bus that belched black smoke. The sidewalks an endless concrete trail of mashed gum and blowing litter.

According to Hudson’s research, even his own school was a waste pit in dire need of Protection. So now every morning when he arrived at P.S. 42, Hudson snapped off the lights in the boys’ and girls’ bathrooms. In the administrative office, he unplugged the copiers and scanners and printers and computers. Time permitting, he sneaked into old Mr. Schnur’s janitorial closet and cut off the heat generator. Hudson bet the heat heist was his biggest eco-save of all, since it took a couple of hours before the complaints about the cold started up, and at least another hour to find kooky Mr. Schnur, who liked to nap in odd places.

Hudson devoted his after-lunch recess to resorting the brimming trash cans, ensuring that all recycling was in the blue bins, with regular trash in green bins.

“Try all you want, but these kids’ll never get their garbage right,” Mr. Schnur once commented, leaning over his mop as he watched Hudson work. “I tell ’em over and over. But nobody cares what I say.”

This morning, after his usual tasks, Hudson slipped from classroom to classroom, folding a helpful flyer into each desk. He hadn’t signed his name to them, because being a Protector was a selfless act. Hudson’s teacher, Mr. Apple, read the tips as he replugged in his computer. “Hudson, my friend,” he said cheerfully, “that’s got to be your handiwork.”

Mr. Apple whistled as he thumbtacked Hudson’s tip sheet to the corkboard. Hudson stayed at his desk, silent with hands folded. He even held off scolding a couple of dimwits who had bent their own precious flyers into paper airplanes. At least Duane acted responsibly, studying the list before he tucked it into his notebook binder.

“Thanks, Hud,” said Duane.

“Why are you thanking me? How do you know who wrote that list?” asked Hudson.

“The
whilst,
” said Duane. “
Whilst
has your name all over it.”

Hudson frowned. He hadn’t meant to mix an Old World word into his flyer.

He waited for Mr. Apple to tell the class they’d be using first period, Social Sciences, to hold an emergency meeting about the environment. Instead, after roll call and morning announcements, Mr. Apple pointed to the whiteboard.

The word on the board was
MEMOIR
.

“Can anyone tell me what this word means?” he asked.

Hudson’s hand shot up. Mr. Apple picked somebody else. “It means a person’s personal history,” said the kid.

“Correct, Marcus. And we are going to use the next couple of weeks of Social Sciences to become personal history detectives. Our mission is to track our own life story. Each of you will create a family project and—yes, Hudson?”

“I’d like to remind my classmates that, when writing their life story, to use both sides of their paper.”

“Right. Thanks.” Mr. Apple’s smile turned serious. “So, take a few minutes to consider yourself. For example, where were you born? Have any of you traveled by plane to visit your relatives? Does your family have a secret cabbage soup or fudge brownie recipe that’s been handed down for generations? We’ll use today to jot down anything we can think of that makes us special.

“We’ll put up our finished projects all over the room so that everyone can learn more about our classmates. This’ll be cool, I promise.”

Hudson didn’t wait for Mr. Apple to call on him. “And, class, no oversharpening your pencils. Our trees are precious.”

Something smacked his ear and dropped to his feet. Hudson looked down. A spitball. How strange. Hudson knew that spitballs were often aimed at irritating, unpopular, or bizarre students. He had always assumed that his class held him in high regard. He was, after all, extraordinarily handsome, and he had entered fourth grade with many centuries of life experience.

He picked it up. Yes, a spitball, crushed up with slimy spit goo. He wiped his ear, then raised his hand to report it. But Mr. Apple didn’t look as though he’d be calling on Hudson again anytime soon.

Hudson checked the room for culprits. Except for Duane, he could never remember the names of any of the young hooligans in his fourth-grade class. He guessed the guilty party was the husky lunkhead sitting behind him on a southwest diagonal.

“Hudson.” Mr. Apple’s voice was slightly strict. “Eyes on your paper.”

Hudson glared at the lunkhead. Using his right hand, he wrote:

He stared at his paper and yawned. This morning, the vanilla-coated facts of his hybrid-human life didn’t seem as pressing as what swirled inside his ancient soul. He turned over his paper, now switching to his left hand—bats are ambidextrous—as he began to write his essay again, this time in special Old World calligraphy.

Hudson broke off. The freckly redhead across the aisle had crumpled up her last paper and was starting on a second, brand-new piece. Usually she was sweet as a peach, and last year she’d given Hudson a pink carnation on Valentine’s Day. Too bad she was also a paper-wasting litterbug.

“Attention, freckled redhead girl.” Hudson pointed at her. “Both sides, please.”

The girl blushed red all over. “Hudson, for the zillionth time, my name’s Bethany Finn. And for your information, I did use both sides.”

“A doubtful story. Surrender your paper.” Hudson held out his hand for it.

Up front, Mr. Apple cleared his throat. “You can’t police your fellow students, Hudson. That’s my job.”

“You might need help at it,” said Hudson under his breath.

Mr. Apple had such good hearing, sometimes Hudson suspected a bit of bat lived in him, too. “Hud, bud, maybe you should spend the rest of this class in the library, where our wastefulness won’t disturb you, and where you can concentrate on your notes in peace.”

Hudson smarted at the reprimand. He folded his notes and stood. It was a lonely walk to the front of the room. The eyes of the class watched him go.

In the library, he wrote out his secret memoir and read it proudly to himself before tearing it up into a hundred little pieces. It was a spectacular story, with lots of flavor and drama. What a shame that the Argos would never let him go public with it. Time alone in the library gave Hudson new energy to rally the class at lunch period.

“Know this,” he decreed as he sat down next to Duane at the table. “Plastic utensils bleed our environment like a stuck boar whose fatal cries of suffering go unheard.”

The whole table went very, very quiet.

“Everything you say lately is like a scary warning, Hudson,” complained a kid.

Other voices pitched in.

“Yeah, like the lady with the flashlight at the movies if I put my feet up.”

“Or the substitute bus driver.”

“Or Monsieur Armand, my viola instructor.”

“Or my nana if I wake her up from a nap.”

“I think Hudson gets the point,” said Duane. “But, hey, at least he doesn’t try to trade us for his fruit lunch, right?”

Kids laughed—nice laughs, because everyone liked Duane. But Hudson was disappointed nobody asked any questions about plastic utensils. Instead, kids just talked about whether Mr. Apple would choose the indoor gym or outside tarp for after-lunch recess. Hudson quietly chewed his boysenberries. He usually stored the boysenberry seeds in a plastic bag he kept in his—oh, no! Hudson gulped as he looked around. Here he was, lecturing against plastic, when he himself used a new plastic bag every day. How could he be anyone’s Protector if he couldn’t even protect himself from his own wastefulness?

Down the table, Hudson saw that a lot of other kids were also using cling wrap or the dreaded plastic bags. He stood. “Know this. Every time you use plastics, you are contributing to air pollution.”

From the other end of the table, the lunkhead stuck out his tongue. “Hud, know this—every time you opened your mouth today,
you
contributed to air pollution.”

Kids laughed—and these laughs didn’t sound nice.

“Fie on them,” Hudson told Duane later. “I’ll protect the planet by myself.”

“Sure,” Duane said, “but I think you’d have more clout if kids believed you halfway liked them.”

Hudson shrugged. “I do halfway like them.” Honestly, though, he had never considered them. What did it matter if he liked the kids in his class, halfway or any way? They were, after all, just a bunch of kids.

Four
A.M
. could not come soon enough. The best part of my day, Hudson decided as he soared into the winter sky. It all goes downhill after that. In some ways, thought Hudson, I’m way better at being a bat than a kid.

When he arrived at Orville’s tree, he explained his troubles to him. The sage old hybrid drooped to hear them. “If humans won’t be led by a creature as extraordinary—not to mention as handsome—as you, who will rally them to our cause?”

Hudson’s voice dropped. “Maybe kids don’t see me as a Protector.”

Orville scratched a claw gently against the bald crest of his head. “Because you have no clout?”

That word again! Now Hudson had to ask. “What’s
clout
?”

“Pull and influence.” Orville’s eyes were hard black beads. Something stirred in Hudson’s memory. Where had he seen those eyes before?

Hudson hunched deeper into his wings. “I am afraid, Orville, that you are correct. I am cloutless.”

“Ah, don’t take it so hard. It’s no matter.” They perched for a moment in mutually embarrassed silence. “But perhaps,” said Orville slowly, “you might know somebody who does have power, who could show young people the importance of recycling and preserving natural resources, who could help get our message across?”

Hudson thought. The idea seeped in from the edges. A slow idea, because it was somewhat horrifying. Yet, once it had been thought, it could not be unthought. “Well. I might…know…someone.”