by Marissa Moss
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND INCIDENTS ARE EITHER THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHOR’S FEVERED IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY, AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING, DEAD, OR UNDEAD, BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS, EVENTS, OR LOCALES, IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL. NO ZOMBIES WERE HARMED IN MAKING THIS BOOK, THOUGH THE AUTHOR WAS TEMPTED.
LIBRARY OF CONFRESS CATALOG NUMBER 2013038641
TEXT AND ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT 2014 MARISSA MOSS
BOOK DESIGN BY SIMON STAHL
FONTS BY BRADLEY NELSON, RICH GAST, AND RAY LARABIE
PUBLISHED IN 2014 BY CRESTON BOOKS IN BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PORTION OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, MECHANICAL, ELECTRONIC, PHOTOCOPYING, RECORDING, OR OTHERWISE, WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHER. CRESTON BOOKS IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK.
ISBN: 9781939547415
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TO KRISTEN, WHO KNOWS WHAT IT’S LIKE TO LIVE IN TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS, WELCOME TO THE VAMPIRE CLAN!
Contents
Chapter 1
January 1
My name is Edgar and I’m a vampire. Kidding! I just have very sharp teeth. No, that’s not true. Well, it is true, I do have sharp teeth. But that’s because I AM a vampire. Really. Only the thing is, it’s a secret.
Obviously my family knows. They’re all vampires, too – Mom, Dad, Grandmother, Grandfather, Granny, Gramps, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, great-great-great-grandparents (you get the idea), all my aunts and uncles and cousins. But the kids at school don’t know. And according to my parents, they can’t know, not ever.
I’ve heard this lecture for as long as I can remember.
“If a mortal discovers our true nature, there will be a vicious mob at our doors, armed with stakes and torches. It’s happened before and it can happen again. A couple of centuries ago, Cousin Julius bit a dog in the park – the stupid fool couldn’t wait until dark. He was too hungry, and the dog smelled delicious, like the kind you would slurp up slathered with onions and relish.
“A man strolling by saw Julius with fangs bared and raised such a ruckus, you wouldn’t believe! Julius flew home, but it was too late, word was out.
“When it was over, all that was left of Julius was a pile of garlic-covered ashes.”
Grandfather always leans forward and stares at me with his glittering cold eyes whenever he comes to the end of the story.
“And that’s why,” he grills the moral into me, “that’s why we may walk among mortals, but we can NEVER trust them. They’re never our friends!”
The reason I’m writing this stuff down, the reason I’m keeping a diary, which is kind of a human thing to do, is because of my other grandfather, the one I call Gramps.
He’s the one who gave me this book for Winter Solstice. Of course, we don’t celebrate Christmas. Everyone knows what happens when vampires get near a crucifix.
And we don’t care what anyone says, it’s still a Christian holiday, no matter how commercial it’s become. Take away the ribbons, wrapping paper, tree, lights, ornaments, and it’s one big birthday party for Unmentionable. So naturally we avoid it as much as we can. Used to be that’s when vampires would go on holiday, touring bat caves and taking long night hikes, but now that we’re trying to blend in, to be more human-like, we have our own shadow holiday of Winter Solstice.
Plus a lot of vampire kids were feeling left out, like the whole world was having a party except us. Mom and dad vampires worried that their kids would start celebrating Christmas on the sly, making friends with humans so they could help decorate a tree. To lure kids back to the purity of vampire ways, we came up with our own holiday, no fancy lights or ornaments involved.
Instead we get together for a big blood feast, our one time a year when we can drink fresh blood. Not from humans, of course, that hasn’t been allowed since the Edict of 1922. Now we rely on blood banks for human blood, which is still pretty tasty even if it’s been frozen or freeze-dried. I’m not keen on canned blood (that icky metallic aftertaste), but the fresh-from-concentrate (meaning not really fresh at all) is not bad.
For truly fresh blood, though, we can only bite animals, and even that only on special holidays, like Solstice. We gather a big herd of goats, sheep, cows, pigs, maybe a turkey or two. Kind of like the festival of Eid al-Adha in Islam, where every household sacrifices a cow, camel, sheep, or goat in remembrance of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, but in the end killing a goat instead.
Me, I’m partial to pigs. I’ll take a fat, juicy hog over a stringy, tough goat any day. And I’m not a big fan of camel meat, either. Too lumpy.
Lucky for me, this year was a really good year for pigs. There were plenty of them, so I didn’t have to fight off any of my cousins to get one. I got a nice pink piglet all to myself!
And this diary. Giving presents is another human thing, something vampires don’t usually do. But like Gramps says, we want to fit in better with humans, camouflaged in a way, so acting a little human is a good idea. Besides this isn’t really a present – it’s a job, a kind of assignment.
This is what Gramps said:
“Edgar, this is a serious task I ask of you! Vampire life is changing so quickly that we need someone young like you to write it all down, to explain it, so future vampires will understand how and why we’ve adapted to living with humans.
“When I was first a vampire, we bit people and suffered horribly for that. We lived far from cities, in vast, dusty castles. Now we travel freely among humans and blend in so well, they don’t know who we really are.”
Gramps says I’m part of a new generation of vampires, one growing up with people, even going to school with them, seeing up close how humans work (and don’t). But I’m not a historian. I’m a kid who’s also a vampire. Or a vampire who’s also a kid. He says that doesn’t matter. If I write down my life and what I know about being a vampire today, I’ll be doing an important job.
I don’t know about that, but I promised him I’d try. So that’s what I’m doing.
January 3
The problem is, my life is pretty boring. Since nobody at school can know I’m a vampire, it’s hard to have regular, human friends. I certainly can never invite anybody over.
When I was younger, that didn’t matter so much, but now, in middle school, it does.
I suppose I should explain how vampires age. That’s probably one of those things Gramps expects me to write about. But this is my diary and I’ll get to that when I want to, which isn’t right now.
Right now I want to write about the human world -- school, people, how to make friends. Because the thing is, I want to have friends. For me, that’s the whole point of going to school. Well, that’s not totally true. Sometimes I learn stuff. Right now we’re studying ancient Egypt, and that’s really interesting.
I bet there were vampires during the time of the pharaohs. I bet some pharaohs were vampires themselves They sure had vampire-like powers. They could turn themselves into animals, or part animals, like the Sphinx.
And they had this magical connection with cats, snakes, and crocodiles. Sounds vampire-ish to me. Plus everyone knows that the Egyptians invented the mummy and the mummy’s curse. Which are vampire cousins for sure. So social studies is definitely interesting to me right now.
But my favorite part of school, the learning part, I mean, is science. I love it when we mix up concoctions, which we never do enough of. I love studying strange insects and the really bizarre things they do. Like spiders. They’re like vampires, too, because they suck the blood out of their prey.
Last month we learned about a weird fungus that attacks ants in the rai
n forest and takes over control of their brains (okay, they’re limited, tiny ant brains, but still!). They’re actually called zombie ants, because that’s what they are – ants controlled by a creepy fungus that hatches more funguses (or is it fungi?) from the body of the ant. Totally gross and totally cool!
Besides learning interesting stuff every now and then, the best part of school – and the worst – is the kids. Most of them totally ignore me. I don’t know if it’s because even without knowing I’m a vampire, they can tell I’m different, or if it’s because I’m just bad at acting human. I used to be way worse at it. Once in kindergarten, I brought in a bunch of dead rats for show and tell. As you can guess, that didn’t go over very well. But I’m much better about that kind of thing now. I don’t blurt out weird stories about pet owls or great-Uncle Morris and his incredibly long eyebrows.
And when we learned about the zombie ants, I didn’t say anything about meeting real zombies, even though I have and they’re way more stupid than ants. I try to act as normal as I can, whatever that is. By now, in 6th grade, I think I’m finally convincing enough that I can try to make friends.
This year, for the first time, I’ve even found three boys I kind of like. We eat lunch together and hang out during class when we can. Which means they must like me, too, believe it or not.
Lucas -- smart, funny, has an amazing comic collection that he brings to school. He even let me borrow his Spiderman and Bone collection.
Howard -- super-good at video games, knows all the shortcuts and cheats. Ask him any question about the original Star Trek show and he knows the answer.
Joel -- smart in his own strange way, an expert on geography – if anyone knows where Kirghistan is (and how to spell it), he does. Great at sudoko and any other kind of number puzzle.
I know what you’re thinking – these guys are all nerds. But only in the best possible way. They brush their teeth and wash their hair, so they aren’t total dweebs. Plus they’re funny and smart and nice. They’re fun to be with, human kind of fun.
I wouldn’t call myself a nerd, though I suppose other kids might. Just because I don’t fit into the usual social categories. I’m not a jock or artistic type or the kind to run for student council. I’m not a brainiac or jazz musician. I suppose that leaves nerd. Really I’m just “other.” In every way possible.
Mom says I’m going through my Ugly Duckling phase and soon I’ll blossom into a handsome, dashing vampire.
Dad says I should learn judo or karate in case I don’t.
Thanks, Dad.
You probably think because I’m a vampire, I have superpowers and that should make me super-cool. The problem is, I can’t show them off at school since nobody can find out I’m a vampire.
Plus my superpowers aren’t the same ones that the vampires famous in history have. I’m not strong, but I can climb walls like Spiderman, and I’m great at jumping really high and really far. Too bad it’s a family rule – No Sports Teams. It’s part of the No Calling Attention to Yourself rule.
Problem is, if you’re a boy and you don’t play sports at my school, you’re nobody. If only Dad would let me do track!
I can turn myself into a bat and fly, but you’ve probably already guessed doing that at school is a HUGE no-no. So I’m left with being as plain and ordinary and uncool as possible.
While I’m waiting to turn into the cool vampire that’s hidden away inside of me, I have to survive 6th grade. Which is the first year of middle school. Which is the door to the Gates of Hades.
That means once you pass inside, you’ll face all kinds of trials and tribulations. Middle School is tough on humans and non-humans alike!
January 4
It’s hard to say what’s the worst thing about middle school. Sometimes I think all the other boys are werewolves.
They growl and bark a lot – and that’s when they’re having fun, not even fighting. The only ones who really talk to me are Lucas, Howard, and Joel.
Oops, I shouldn’t have said that! But really, compared to most vampires I know, I have a healthy tan because at least I’m outside a little every day. I had to think fast and say something that sounded normal and human-like, so they wouldn’t think I was a total weirdo, but all I could think of was this:
“Gotta get home and feed my goldfish!” Which was totally lame. Who rushes home to feed fish?
Lucky for me, my nerd friends are almost as allergic to sunlight as I am. So when I don’t play soccer or basketball, it’s okay. They still eat lunch with me. You’d think that lunch would be the one place I would fit in. But you’d be wrong.
I’ll tell you what’s icky – cafeteria food. That’s a whole higher level of absolute disgustingness. Nothing is actually food there. It’s all overcooked chemicals shaped to vaguely resemble something edible.
Raw liver is delish compared to that! Plus it’s full of nice, tangy blood. I know some vampires only drink blood, but we’re the kind that also eat, so long as what we’re eating is plenty bloody.
Of course drinking is still the best. Mom always packs me a special juice box.
Sometimes she gives me type O, sometimes AB negative or A positive. It’s nice to have a variety.
Lucas saw me drinking some today and asked to taste it. Of course, he thought it was blood orange juice, the way he was supposed to, not plain blood.
I told him Mom gets mad if I share lunch stuff because she wants to know I’m getting all my vitamins. It sounded like something a human mom would say. Lucas bought it.
Problem was, I happened to say it right when Gertie was passing by with her vegan burger.
Vegan is like Vegetarian Plus. Those people eat nothing that has even gotten close to an animal. No butter, yogurt, cheese, milk, eggs, chicken, fish, pork, veal, goat, lamb, beef, hyena. Basically if it tastes good, they don’t eat it. Know what they eat instead?
Vegetables! Talk about a weird kid! She’s a girl who eats mostly green things, some brown (like wheat or rice), some grayish (like oatmeal), but nothing with any flavor or real color to it. Who chooses carrots over ice cream? Brussels sprouts over brownies?
You can guess that somebody like that doesn’t look too kindly on liver sandwiches, raw or cooked. Gertie’s been glaring at me for weeks now. Maybe because I make a tempting target since I’m not remotely popular. Maybe because of the way I dress or comb my hair or eat my lunch. Maybe it’s the shoes I wear. But this was the first time she said something. Like she couldn’t resist when she heard my lame-o excuse for not sharing my drink.
“Oooh, poor Edgar, little mommy’s boy! Can’t do anything to upset his mother, can he?”
“What did you say?” I wasn’t sure how to respond. Can a human boy fight with a human girl? Can a vampire boy?
I need to stop here and explain something before I write down the rest of what happened or there’s no way Gramps or anyone else will understand this. These are the facts about Gertie.
First, she’s a girl, and girls travel in packs, worse than wolves even.
Second, she’s a cool girl, the kind all the other girls want to be friends with, the kind all the boys have crushes on (even though she’s a vegan which should make her totally repulsive). If she were a boy, not eating meat would automatically make her not cool. But as a girl, it somehow makes her even cooler, like she’s a better person because she doesn’t eat cows. Or their milk. Or things made from them, like chocolate, cake, pies, basically anything delicious.
To boys, eating meat is manly. To some girls, it’s mean. To me, it’s food, plain and simple.
Anyway, Gertie’s had it in for me for a long time, though I don’t know why she’d even notice me. We’re so far apart on the school social scale, it’s like we’re breathing different air. But today, it was as if for her to feel like she was really on top, she needed someone to really be on the bottom.
Guess who that someone was?
I wasn’t an Ugly Duckling waiting to transform into a swan, like Mom said. I was a scapegoat, a co
nvenient target. Usually she was content with snotty comments. Today she was ready to attack. Maybe another girl had insulted her, maybe she’d fought with her mom that morning. Who can understand the motivations of humans? All I knew was that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, about to be swept up in a furious Gertie storm.
“I said you’re a big baby!” That wasn’t so bad, but she followed that with throwing her garbage down on the table in front of me. Then another girl tossed her trash down, and another, and another. Until a big, stinking pile reached almost to my nose.
“Think you’re so tough with all that horrible meat you eat? You’re just a creepy animal bully. A total loser!”
I was wondering who was the real bully here, but nobody else was. Once she called me a loser, my fate was sealed. Everyone would be saying it. After all, they were thinking it before. Gertie was just encouraging them to take their disdain a notch higher. Or would that be a notch lower?
She flounced off, followed by her girl pack.
I sat there, like the social misfit I was, one rung further down in the pecking order, while she was one rung even further up.
Lucas, Howard, and Joel all stared at me, like I’d savagely bitten an innocent lunch lady.
“I didn’t do anything!” I said. “I was just eating my sandwich, drinking my juice.”
They still stared at me.
