“Thank you,” I mouthed.
Ned shrugged like a goofy sap. Mall security decided it wasn’t worth its collective while to investigate an empty alley, and they gave up the Abby hunt in about ten minutes.
“Did you see the other vampire?” I whispered.
“If you mean the jet of vampiric mist that flew out of this alley and into the blackest night, well, no.”
I ignored Ned’s humor. It had to do things to your brain, being sixteen for like twenty years. “It was attacking Vince.”
“We should get back in there, make sure he’s okay.” On the roof, Ned examined a locked door. He snapped the padlock that closed the door, but the knob still wouldn’t twist.
“Are you going to kick it in with your vampiric strength?” I asked.
Ned pulled out a wallet, the edges smooth and rounded with age. “Since it’s not a deadbolt, I’m going to pick
the lock.”
“That lacks for style points.”
“Not really.” Ned eased out a smooth plastic card. He jiggled it in the edge slowly, and worked the plastic between the latch and the door. He handed me the card.
“This is your driver’s license.”
“My learner’s permit,” said Ned.
“Ah. Little Ned keeps his permit.”
“Next time, Abby, you pick your own lock.”
By the time we’d returned to the scene, Mom and Mr. Cooper had caught up with Vince and some mall paramedics. Ned and I edged our way to the front of the small but curious back corridor crowd. Vince looked up at us.
“It wasn’t Ned,” Vince croaked from his sitting position on the floor.
“I don’t care who it was!” Well, I did. “Are you okay?”
Mom raised an eyebrow that communicated that classic question every vampire hunter asks her daughter at the mall: “Where were you?”
I pointed at Ned and Mom nodded. She should now feel vindicated if she decided never to go to the mall again. The mall, where all the vampires hang out. Vince did a great job pretending he had been mugged for the paramedics. Mr. Cooper filled out an accident report. After, we all headed to the parking ramp.
“Abigail,” said Mom, “you went after it? The vampire?”
“No ma’am,” said Ned. “I did. I went through the fire door.”
Woah. Why would Ned cover for me? There had to be some ulterior motive, like winning my trust for a nefarious purpose later on.
Mom’s eyes narrowed. “What were you doing here?” Good job, Mom. My question exactly.
“Keeping an eye on Charlie and the kid.”
“You expected a vampire at the mall?”
I expect a vampire everywhere, but I didn’t say that out loud.
Ned shoved his hands in his pockets. “Call it instinct.”
“Did you see it?” Mr. Cooper asked. “Catch it?”
“I saw it,” I said. “It sped past me after Vince put the smackdown on it. What did you use to make it run away
like that?”
Vince held up his wrist. The yellow plastic of a What Would Jesus Do bracelet.
“That’s cool,” I said. “Your faith must be really strong.”
“I think if you grow up knowing what we know,” said Vince, “faith is a necessity.”
“Your mom isn’t going to like this.” Mr. Cooper was opening the car door. Vince eased into the front seat. I really didn’t care what Mrs. Cooper thought, but before I could say something to that effect, Ned said it for me.
“Give the kid a break, Charlie. He wasn’t looking for trouble. He was in a well-lighted mall with you. Nicole’s just gonna have to get over herself.”
Mom’s next nonverbal to me was the kind of expression that was supposed to tell me to get that grin off my face, but really told me she approved of what Ned was saying. We watched the MINI Cooper pull away.
“It’s Ned, right?” said Mom.
“Yes, ma’am. If you’ll excuse me, I need to follow them home.”
“Good idea.”
Ned took off at supernatural speeds. As you do, when you’re a vampire.
“So,” said Mom. “Any idea what that was all about?”
“I swear,” I said to Mom, “the only vampire chasing I’ve done was last weekend. I had nothing to do with this.”
“Put your crucifix away,” said Mom. “You understand I don’t want you looking into this?”
“But I’m supposed to tell you if I see something weird. Yup. Got it. I mean, I wouldn’t want to jump to any
rash decisions about whether these vampires were dangerous or anything. Best leave that to the professionals, like you and Dad.”
“Just how long would you like to be grounded?” asked Mom.
I stopped talking. Now that we had a vampire infestation, I wondered if Mom and Dad would be too busy to pay much attention to what I was getting up to.
I wondered about William and Coral. They were conveniently absent. But they couldn’t be vampires, because they went to school during the day. If this were a mystery novel, though, they’d be circumstantial suspects.
CHAPTER SIX
The Ice Cream from
20,000 Fathoms
Saturday morning, Vince didn’t come to skate lessons. I got it. If you’d been mauled by a Nosferatu, you might want to take it easy for a while. It was too bad for Marty. I had finally convinced her she might catch Vince’s eye by taking the beginner class. I didn’t know how to spill the beans about Vince’s googly eyes for Coral at the mall.
Dad was my escort for the day. I didn’t argue. Besides, our trip had turned into a little party. I laced my skates. Mel glided across the rink and stoppered himself at the rail.
“Rath,” said Mel. This was the way tough guy monster hunters greeted my dad.
Dad lowered his shield, a book called Hollywood B’s: The Golden Era. “Mr. Lancaster.”
“Hunt anything interesting lately?”
Dad flinched.
I smiled. “Ix-nay on the onster-may,” I said.
Mel scrutinized me like he had never seen me before. “Oh yeah? Something happen?”
“Abigail is currently in disgrace,” said Dad.
I skated away from them. Marty had arrived, and I didn’t need to hear the case against me all over again.
Marty sported a bicycle helmet and knee and elbow pads. “Hey, Abs.”
“Hey. You planning on going out for goalie soon?”
“Ha ha. I’m going to be one big bruise.”
I sat down by Marty on the big bench, avoiding the peeling paint just to her right. “Maybe you should bubble wrap yourself?”
“Funny,” said Marty.
“You’ll do fine. Mel is a great teacher.”
“Where’s Vince?” Marty’s eyes focused beyond me, sifting through the skaters.
“Vince...got mugged the other night at the mall.”
“Is he okay?”
“Oh yeah. He was bruised up, so he’s taking today off.”
Marty sank into the bench, sad and lumpy. I offered a consolation prize. “Dad is taking me for ice cream at Kaplan Kone after. You want to come?”
“I dunno,” said Marty.
“It’ll be fun,” I said.
“I’ll have to call my mom.”
I put my arm around her shoulder. “Vince is meeting us there. Also Coral, and her brother Austin Von Trapp.”
“Oh,” said Marty, her own eyes sparkly. “It’ll be like a double date.”
“Yes! Just like a double date with three girls,” I said. “Let’s get out there.”
I practiced my backwards skating, like the other advanced students. While we weren’t supposed to engage in horseplay at the rink, this was an important skill for competitive skaters to master. Marty fell down a lot, so the goalie gear was looking to be a smart idea. Her mom green-lighted the ice cream experience. After class we bundled into the car with Dad chauffeur style, both of us tucked in the back seat.
Marty decided it would be a good t
ime to talk about my Huck Finn paper.
I am a diligent student. From my mighty vocabulary, you might guess that I am a literature lover, but English is so boring. The teacher, Mr. Stogdill, who everyone calls Stodgy Stogdill because their moms all did, is a boring guy. He always has his own idea of a poem or story, and no one can ever understand it, except for a few students he likes. Jo and Marty get points from him, and I can’t see any difference in the quality of their answers and mine. Except mine come from me. Which might answer my own question.
I’ll admit this much—perhaps the essay I turned in about how The Scarlet Letter had a great deal in common with Puritans of Purgatory was not anything that he was looking for, but I think that the originality of the essay alone should have gotten me more than a C+.
Most of Thursday’s detention I scribbled away on my next English assignment: discuss Huck and Jim’s relationship in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Marty read my paper for me so I could get some pointers from the expert. I helped her with science, she helped me with English.
“He’s not gonna like it,” she pronounced.
“Why?”
“You don’t talk about Huck and Jim at all.”
“I do!”
Dad parked the car in a parking lot fairly close to the beach. It was the off-season, so we were lucky. When school got out, this place would be packed.
“Okay. You do mention Huck.” Marty opened the car door. “’Why didn’t Huck push the King and the Duke into the water?’”
I had thought that one of my better questions. “I want to know the answer.”
“Abby, it’s not the assignment.”
“What did you write?”
“I wrote about how Huck and Jim were outsiders, and how they only had each other.”
I snorted. “You and everyone else.”
“It’s what he wants. It’s the answer Mr. Stogdill wants. There’s a reason everyone writes about it. It was one of Mark Twain’s main points.”
“I will not sacrifice my originality and spirit of inquiry for a mere grade. Besides, how do you know Mark Twain meant that?”
“Research. You should try it.”
“I am not compromising my work.”
“Suit yourself,” Marty sniffed.
“That’s my girl,” said Dad.
We were across the street from Kaplan Kone. A line snaked out the door, down the block, and onto the pier. I hiked my backpack over my shoulder and led the way to behind the last person. At the end of April, every kid looks forward to the reopening of Kaplan Kone. The current generation of ice cream loving Kaplans is the third. Like monster hunting, running an ice cream shop is a tradition. It’s in your blood.
Most of Kaplan’s business comes in from beach clientele and their drive up window, but there is an old-fashioned ice cream parlor attached. The Kaplans visit their grandchildren in Grand Rapids for the winter, which is definitely the wrong way to do it, if you ask this Californian. Then they only open on the weekends up until Memorial Day while Mr. and Mrs. Kaplan catch up with their friends and stuff.
Vince and I had made the pilgrimage to the first day of Kaplan Kone ever since we were seven. I began to wonder if Mr. or Mrs. Kaplan were monster hunters because we were allowed to come unescorted. Come to think of it, was anyone at Wolcroft in the profession?
Dad poked his nose back in his book. The line went pretty fast. I waved at a couple of guys I recognized from skate night, and then Marty and I were through the door. I didn’t see Vince around, although he could have already got his order and snagged a table. The three of us popped into the shortest counter line. I noted the medium marshmallow shake, the whitest shake of them all, had only gone up twenty cents. It was whiter than new snow in the mountains with the delicious taste of vanilla-y sugar. Yup, I could write dessert menu copy, which could be another choice for a career, now that monster hunting was maybe a no go.
I glanced at Dad. “This is on us, right Dad?”
“Yes. What would you like, Martha?”
Marty swallowed. Another thing that brought us together had been our old-fashioned names, but I liked mine. She did not like hers. “The hot fudge sundae,” she said.
“Good choice,” I said. “Velvety rivers of hot fudge flowing over glaciers of vanilla ice cream.”
“Abby,” said Marty, “that’s goofy.”
“Nope,” I said, “that’s delicious.”
“I’ll have a twist cone,” Dad said.
“Way to get into that first day vibe,” I said.
I scanned the crowd one more time. Vince was here after all. Across from him at the little table in a wire-backed chair was Coral Petrova. The two of them were sharing a soda and two straws. That was sappy and disgusting. What the heck was happening to Vince? This boy-girl stuff might be more dangerous than zombies. I want to emphasize yet again that I do not have a crush on Vince, but I admit I was jealous. Vince is my friend. I don’t mind sharing him with Marty, because she is also my friend, but Coral?
“Hello, Raths,” said Mrs. Kaplan. She was wearing her little Kaplan Kone apron and looked as cute as a button in a drive-in diner kind of way. Behind her, teenagers in Kone t-shirts bounced back and forth creating ice cream perfection. “What do you want?”
“Medium marshmallow shake,” I said.
“There’s a shocker,” she said. “Did you hear about the new bike trail? Good for roller skating.”
“It’s not the kind with that gravel stuff?”
“Honest to goodness concrete overlaid with smooth wood.”
That was good news. Skating under the sun by the surf made me want my summer break more. I left Dad and Marty to collect the ice cream. I wanted to talk to Vince before he subjected Marty to unnecessary heartbreak. I pulled up one of the delicate chairs to Coral and Vince’s table, making sure it screeched. Sitting down, I made my best angry scowl. Vince had messed up our annual thing. No room for anyone else here. I respected tradition. Vince should respect tradition. Now he’d ruined our tradition streak.
“Hello, Vince,” I said, sitting down. “Hello, Coral.”
Vince was grinning like a world class idiot. I don’t think he even saw me. “Guys,” I said loudly, “if you would come up for air, I’d appreciate it.”
Vince stared at Coral like a goon.
Coral looked at me. “Hey, Abby.”
“Because Marty is here,” I said. I said every word with a bullet point. “And she likes you. Remember?”
The effect was instantaneous…on Coral. “Oh,” she said. “Vince, sit back.” She took the second straw out of the soda and pushed it toward Vince.
Two points to Coral. Maybe she wasn’t so bad. “Where’s old Disco Ball this morning?” I asked.
“What?” Coral said.
“William. Because he sparkles like Austin Von Trapp.”
To Coral’s credit, she snorted. “Mom had some things she wanted him to do. He said to apologize to you.”
“Parents,” said Vince.
Coral and I both nodded. The common ground unifying all of us had been commented upon: the irrational behavior of parents. We held a moment of silence.
“That’s too bad,” I said. It was too bad. I noted that Vince was so smitten with Coral, he didn’t get a jab in against William. No love lost there since the mall.
Dad and Marty joined us. Dad handed me winter in a cup. Yum-my. I sucked on my straw. Marty’s ears turned pink. “Hi Vince. Hi Coral.”
Dad pulled over a couple of chairs, and Coral and I moved so we could scootch a couple of tables together. The dining room roared with the talk of ice cream lovers. The second table was a little sticky. Today, no time to clean the tables.
“Hi, Marty,” Coral smiled.
I licked my cold lips and said, “This is my dad, Reginald Rath.”
Coral shook his hand. “I think my brother owns all your films.”
Dad chuckled in that affected way he sometimes does when he meets a fan, or even the sister of a fan. “Oh, wel
l.”
“He’ll be so jealous when he hears I met you.”
“I heard about the mall,” Marty said to Vince. “I hope you’re okay.”
Honestly, Vince’s smile was beginning to remind me of the Joker or something. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
“Oh!” Coral rummaged around in a beach bag. She pulled out two invitations, handing one to me and one to Marty. “Here you go. Will you come?”
“What is this?” Marty asked.
“I thought a good way to get to know everyone would be a slumber party,” said Coral. “I’m inviting all the girls in our homeroom.”
Marty was shellshocked. She was never invited to anything. That made me like Coral a little better again.
“I’ll have to check with my parents first.”
“Of course. Abby, you can check with yours right now.”
Dad glanced the invitation over. “We’ll check with your mom.”
I read the invitation. Two weeks from today. Too soon for the parents to let me go?
“Are you sure you want to go?” I said to Marty. “It’ll be girly stuff. Who wants to sit around all night and braid each other’s hair and giggle?”
“Me,” said Marty.
Which was probably true.
Marty spooned her hot fudge. Coral spent a lot of time talking to her, and Vince didn’t spend time talking to anyone. I bristled. He could be angry with me if he wanted, but that gave him no right to take it out on Marty. Some best friend. I would never forgive him. Never, never. First, he violated our sacred ritual. Just take a pretty face and have it stare at you dreamily over ice cream, and bam! It’s like your best friend never existed in the first place. At least Marty hadn’t noticed his absent behavior. Coral was being nice to Marty, which counted for something.
“Hey, Dad,” I said. “I’d like to check out the new jogging path on the beach.” What I really wanted to do was get away from Vince’s disgusting mooning at Coral. I pushed my chair back.
Dad shoved the last of the ice cream cone into his mouth, muffled crunching coming from his vicinity. Marty started, but I shook my head. “Stay right there,” I said. “Finish your sundae. We’ll be back in a second.”
Abigail Rath Versus Bloodsucking Fiends Page 8
