My FANGtastically Evil Vampire Pet Series, Book 1

by Mo O'Hara

  I turned and looked. The bear seemed stunned, but it was getting up. I had only a second before it would climb out, even madder than before.

  I could see that as the bear stood up in the pit, its head was above the line of the ground. I bent down and put the beanie on its head. What I couldn’t see was the bear’s arm swipe me from the side and knock me forward into the pit. I thwacked onto the ground in front of the bear. This was not part of my mega-evil plan.

  The beanie was in place, but I hadn’t flipped the switch to turn it on. And until it was turned on, it wasn’t a trap, just a bit of bear fashion that wasn’t making him any happier.

  I heard lots of footsteps above.

  “Fang, quick. Bite the switch on the bear hat!!” Geeky Girl shouted.

  I heard another “ReEEEEooooowwwwllll!” from Fang as she landed on the bear’s head and bit at the hat.

  The bear was waving its paws in the air, trying to claw Fang off his head. Then I spotted the budgie dive-bombing him from above.

  It looked like a scene in those old movies where King Kong is being attacked by tiny planes. Well, if King Kong was a grumpy bear and the planes were a little green budgie. Boris was distracting him, but it wouldn’t last long. I had to get up there and help Fang.

  The bear let out a “Rooarrr!” and leaned its head back. Fang nearly fell off, but dug into the bear’s thick fur with her paws and held on. Then the bear flung its head forward, and the motion pulled the goggles down over his eyes. Perfect luck! It couldn’t see now that his eyes were covered, but the goggles still weren’t switched on.

  “The button,” Geeky Girl shouted just as the bear’s paw caught Fang on the side and sent her flying off his head. She tumbled into a pile of leaves and just lay there on the ground. Not moving.

  “Fang!” I shouted. Then the bear turned toward my voice and started sniffing in my direction. It couldn’t see, but it could still smell me. Right then, though, I didn’t care. I was not going to be bear food today, and I was not going to let my kitten be a bear snack.

  I wasn’t thinking. I clearly wasn’t thinking. I mean, what person, who has any kind of thought in their head, jumps on a bear’s back? But that’s what I did.

  The bear reared up again, but I hung on. The bear scrambled out of the pit in a rage. Throwing me right and left, but I hung on. I just had to hit that button. I reached up and whacked the top of those goggles on the bear’s head, aiming for the big red button, of course.

  “Mark!” Geeky Girl shouted. Then everything went kind of quiet.

  I remember falling off the bear. I remember Geeky Girl shouting. I remember Sanj wheezing and hiding behind a bush. I remember being on the ground and seeing a big hairy bear butt heading for me and me rolling out of the way. I think that’s when I started thinking again.

  I rolled out from under the bear just as his tail hit the grassy floor next to the pit. It stopped swatting, whimpered slightly and covered its ears with its paws. And it just stayed there.

  I got up and ran over to Fang, who was still lying in the pile of leaves.

  “Fang?”

  28

  Boris flapped down and started fanning Fang with his wings. I could see a flutter of her eyelids and a twitch of her paw, and then—POUNCE! She was up and just caught the edge of a budgie feather as Boris retreated back to Geeky Girl’s shoulder.

  “Ah, that’s my evil little kitten,” I said, stroking her behind the ears.

  Sanj strode out from behind the bush. “Well, that’s all very touching, but you wouldn’t have needed to do any of that if you hadn’t messed up our animal trap in the beginning.”

  Dustin looked at his watch. “It’s nearly time to show our traps. Maybe we can quickly fix the ray gun and round up some of the smaller animals to do a demonstration.”

  “Give us the Nicifying Helpful Minion Ray, Geeky Girl,” Sanj demanded. “I’ll recalibrate it, and if you’re lucky, we won’t use it on you.”

  “Oh, ummm.” Geeky Girl smiled. “You can pick it up yourself. I dropped it just over there when the bear got out of the pit and was staggering around.”

  She pointed over to where the bear was sitting. You could just about see the nozzle of the ray gun sticking out from under his bottom fur.

  “It might have a few scratches, but you could just ask him to move.” She folded her arms triumphantly and smiled at Sanj.

  “Argh!!!!” he shouted.

  Dustin walked over toward the bear.

  “Right. So if you guys have ruined our trap, then we’ll ruin yours.” He was going to take the goggles off the bear! “Besides, I reckon I can run fast enough.”

  “You can’t run faster than a bear,” Sanj said.

  “No, I just have to run faster than you.”

  Suddenly, Boris swooped down and grabbed the whistle from around Dustin’s neck.

  “Hey!” he shouted as the whistle chain slid over his head and into the air.

  Boris dropped it right into Geeky Girl’s hands. “Now what do you think the animals will do when they hear this and they’re not under your control. Hmmmm?” She blew the whistle as hard as she could.

  Dozens of animals all headed for the noise. They did not seem happy.

  A raccoon started for me. He looked a lot scarier than Fang with charcoal on her face. Bigger claws, sharper teeth, more attitude.

  “Maybe blowing that whistle wasn’t such a great idea?” I said to Geeky Girl.

  Then I saw Fang hit the raccoon from the side. It was the best kitten-on-raccoon football tackle in history. It was probably the only one too, but that raccoon was not prepared to come back for more. He ran off into the trees. The other animals were all running around, though, looking confused.

  Some of the squirrels had decided that Dustin’s hair looked pretty good to hide things in and had jumped on his head and started scrabbling for nuts. “Ah, get them off me! My hair!!!” he shouted, but no one was really listening.

  Sanj was too busy swatting at more squirrels and skunks. Now, I know that Sanj is an evil genius and all (he never really let us forget it), but nowhere in that giant evil-computer-genius brain did anything ever tell him maybe it’s not a good idea to make a skunk angry. And I would say flailing at one and shouting, “Go away you ignorant, stripy little beast,” might make it angry.

  The skunk lifted its tail and turned. That was all it took.

  In a couple of minutes, we had gone from near death by bear to watching a very smelly Sanj and a squirrel-infested Dustin running back to camp screaming like—well, I was gonna say like girls, but I think Geeky Girl would’ve hit me, and Dustin couldn’t tell on her out here for unauthorized violence at camp, so I didn’t.

  29

  I finished wrapping the last of the clear tape around the bear’s head, avoiding his claws as they occasionally swiped at something imaginary in front of him and then went back to covering up his ears. I was making sure those goggles were not gonna fall off.

  “It is amazing how many good traps just need a little tape in the end,” I said. Geeky Girl nodded.

  She and I looked over at the bear as he sat and swatted.

  “So,” I said as I leaned in to look at the bear, “what image did you program to trap him, anyway?”

  “Well,” Geeky Girl said, smiling, “we didn’t have any bear-appropriate images, really, so I pulled up some old Star Wars stuff from my image bank.” She paused. “He’s basically being held prisoner by Ewoks with little lightsabers.”

  “And the audio?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to know.

  “Oh yeah. The Ewoks are singing,” she answered. “It’s the best I could do at short notice.”

  “You are seriously one geeky girl.” I laughed. “But you’re also pretty evil when you wanna be.”

  “I guess we should go tell someone about the bear and the goggles and all,” she said, then looked at her watch. “But we’re going to miss the trap demonstrations. There’s no way we can get them all to come down here and see this.”r />
  “So we survived the bear, but we’re gonna lose anyway and be sent home.” I kicked the grass. “Oh man! And I hate canoes too.”

  Then Fang’s ears perked up and Boris fluttered up to Geeky Girl’s shoulder again. I heard some more stomping coming up to the clearing.

  “You don’t think the bear has a friend, do you?” Geeky Girl said nervously as we stared at the edge of the woods. “I hope not, because we only have one set of those goggles.”

  Fang dropped into total attack-kitten stance. I don’t know if she thought she could now take on any bear, but she looked like she was ready to try.

  That’s when we heard the singing. “Urgggh, urghhh, urghhh, urghh, urghhh urgh…”

  “Igor!” Geeky Girl and I said at the same time.

  Igor stomped out from the trees and motioned back the way he’d come. He mimed a pretty good impression of what must have been Dustin trying to pull squirrels out of his hair, and then just pinched his nose and wheezed for Sanj.

  “Yup,” I said. “They ran back to camp after we totally took down their trap with like a million hypnotized animals all attacking at once and then”—I paused and stepped back to reveal our captured bear—“we totally trapped a bear.”

  “URGH!” Igor said, and fist-bumped me.

  “I know, right?” I said.

  “But that doesn’t help us win the contest,” Geeky Girl said. “I mean, I’m not all about the winning, but it would be nice to show those leaders and the other campers that we did this. And … I sort of don’t want to go home yet, even though I didn’t want to be here.”

  Igor then mimed what I guessed must have been him paddling the Canoe of Shame and sinking. I don’t think he trusted the canoe would last long with him in it.

  They both sighed.

  I stepped forward. “Well, I am all about the winning,” I said. “I want that Evil Emperor of the Week crown.”

  “You know they don’t actually give you a crown, right?” Geeky Girl said.

  Igor mimed holding a certificate.

  “I’m getting a crown!!!!” I shouted. “I don’t care if I have to make it myself, but I’m winning that prize too.” I looked at Geeky Girl and Igor. “We all are. All we have to do is get the bear back to camp,” I said.

  “Igor, how much do you think you can carry? And how heavy is an average bear?”

  30

  You should have seen their faces. Kirsty, Trevor and Phillipe were all on the stage by the front of the campfire and the rest of the campers were all gathered around when we walked up.

  One Geeky Girl (walking a little taller than she had all week).

  One Uber-Tough Bear-Trapping Evil Emperor in the making (you know that’s me, right?).

  And one Igor, carrying a bear in a beanie with goggles.

  Oh yeah, and one small gray stripy charcoal-colored raccoon and one smudgy gray bird. No one noticed them but us, and that’s just the way we wanted it.

  Bob and Diablo were on the stage in the front as well. Kirsty was holding a certificate that said “Evil Camp Emperor,” and it looked like she was about to hand it to them.

  Dustin was sitting off to the side mumbling to himself and scratching his head. It looked like they had to shave off part of his hair. And Sanj was sitting in a barrel of tomato juice to get rid of the skunk smell.

  “There is one more trap to judge,” I said to the stunned crowd of campers.

  Igor walked right up to the center of the stage and sat the bear down on the floor right between Kirsty and Trevor.

  “You trapped a bear?” Kirsty said.

  “That’s our bear!!!” Sanj whined. He shrugged so hard that he spilled about a gallon of juice out the side of his barrel.

  “That is kind of true. They trapped the bear first. Then she untrapped it,” I said, and pointed to Geeky Girl. “Then we retrapped it, only better.” I smiled. “So it’s a double-cross trap that is even more evil than a single trap. So take that.” I fist-bumped Igor.

  The camp leaders all looked around at the bear and the goggles.

  “That’s pretty impressive, but I’m not sure that it would work on all enemies,” Phillipe said.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” Geeky Girl spoke up. “The goggles can be adapted to trap anyone in a virtual prison. They think they are being held prisoner for real, so they don’t try to get away.”

  “Ingenious,” Trevor the Tech-in-ator said. “Evil ingenious.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t have to be used for evil—” Geeky Girl started to say, but I jumped in fast.

  “Thanks, Trevor. May I call you Trevor?” I said.

  “No,” he answered.

  “Right, Mr. Tech-in-ator, I think this is the most evil trap ever, because you have to have some pretty evil programming skills to use it. And you could disguise it as something else and have someone sitting there trapped and no one would see them.”

  Phillipe nodded and smiled.

  “And its kind of eco-friendly because it’s reusable,” Geeky Girl added. They all looked blankly at her as I elbowed her. “But, yeah, it’s totally evil.”

  “Urgh!” Igor agreed.

  “So did Igor plan this trap with you two as well? We heard that his own trap partnership failed,” Phillipe said.

  The Goth girl that Igor was paired up with huffed and threw down a big broken net.

  “Well, Igor didn’t plan it with us exactly…,” Geeky Girl started.

  “But the plan totally wouldn’t have worked without him,” I said. “He was our evil-plan executor.”

  Kirsty leaned over and waved a hand in front of the bear. “It’s totally trapped,” she said. “This might be the evil trap we’ve been looking for.” She nodded to Phillipe and Trevor.

  Bob and Diablo both reached over to see if they could grab the certificate from Kirsty and make a run for it, but she was too fast for them.

  “Nice try, boys, but no way that you two win Evil Emperor of the Week now. The bear trap wins!” Kirsty announced.

  “Yes!” I fist-pumped the air. In the excitement of the moment, Geeky Girl actually went to hug Igor, but decided on a gentle high five instead.

  Everybody “Mwhaaa-haa-haa-haa-ed” and clapped. Even the kid still stuck in the bubble. Well, you could see him doing it, even if you couldn’t hear it.

  “They can’t win. They smuggled their own pets onto camp. There, I said it. Now you have to send them home.” Sanj splashed more juice out of his barrel as he slapped his hands down in protest.

  “Where are zee pets?” Trevor asked.

  “Well, they were there in the woods. We trapped them, and then they got away, but they were there!” Sanj said. “Dustin—back me up. You saw the pets!”

  All Dustin could mumble, though, was “Squirrels, squirrels. I really hate squirrels” over and over again. Fair enough, really.

  “So who gets sent home in the Canoe of Shame?” Diablo asked.

  “Skunk Kid and Squirrel Boy?” Bob added.

  “Lucky for them we had already picked the worst team of the week,” Kirsty said. “Or they would have been paddling away this afternoon.”

  “This week, we decided to name the submarine trap as the worst team. Mostly because they definitely failed and were already sailing halfway home,” Phillipe said.

  “So ve just stuck a ‘Shame’ sticker on zee side of zee sub and sent zhem off,” Trevor added. “It saves us going and picking up zee canoe later.”

  I could see Sanj sigh and sink back down into his barrel of juice.

  Then the three counselors lined up onstage and called Geeky Girl, Igor and me forward as the evil kid with the piccolo played.

  I could just about see out of the corner of my eye, Fang (aka the raccoon) and Boris (aka nonspecific random forest bird that’s certainly not a budgie) paw and wing-bump as Geeky Girl, Igor and I got our certificates. Result!

  31

  So that’s it. My first week at Evil Scientist Summer Camp was over.

  I thought I would ma
ke a list.

  * * *

  TOP FIVE THINGS I LEARNED AT EVIL SCIENTIST SUMMER CAMP THIS WEEK

  5.  Snakes don’t like me, and I don’t like snakes or real raccoons or skunks, and even the groundhogs looked a bit creepy, actually, and don’t get me started on bears. Basically wild animals are out.

  4.  Sometimes when you pretend something, it comes back to bite you in the butt. Sometimes this happens like a metaphor-type thing. Sometimes this happens for real.

  3.  Geeky Girl has a better evil laugh than most of the kids here (but still not better than me).

  2.  Crowns are always way better than certificates. Why doesn’t anyone else get that?

  1.  Fang is the evilest, most hard-core, snake-knotting, bear-jumping, raccoon-fighting, feet-snuggling vampire kitten any Evil Scientist could wish for (and she still makes Bob sneeze, which is a total bonus), but my fingers are covered in Band-Aids. She’s still kinda bitey.

  * * *

  * * *

  Dear Mom,

  Eco-Scientist Camp is good.

  I’m having fun, but I’m running out of Band-Aids. Please send more.

  Oh, and maybe some Oreo cookies.

  And my latest copy of Evil Scientist magazine.

  And ya know, maybe a crown, if you have one lying around.

  Oh, and you can tell Sami that I actually gave a bear a new hat.

  Mwhaaa-haa-haa-haa-haa.

  Can’t wait until next week.

  Your son,

  Mark

  P.S. Sanj got skunked.

  * * *

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  There is a great British phrase that I’ve picked up living in London: “Having kittens!”

  It means getting upset or stressed about something. So, I want to thank everyone in my life who has kept me from “having kittens” while I was writing about them.