by Marissa Moss
“But I’m not suggesting we go back to draining humans of their blood! Because we rely on blood banks and animal blood, we aren’t a threat anymore. That’s why people should accept us now!”
Granny shook her head. “The most recent attempt happened in early 20th century Paris. It seemed like the perfect age for vampires, with lots of night life. An exciting mix of all kinds of people, especially artists, came to experience the cultural richness of Paris. There was a tolerance for different tastes and experiences. Or so Gigi LeNoir thought. She danced the can-can for artists like Picasso and Matisse.
“But when she whispered her secret to them, they called in the gendarmes and that was the end of Gigi. At least no other vampires were destroyed that time. You see, you can never trust humans. Never.”
I knew she meant to make me feel better, but it wasn’t working. I felt more alone than ever.
All around me vampires were dancing, drinking, laughing, and playing games. Bats flitted through the tree branches, vampire kids played zombie tag, old vampires sat together sharing stories and card games.
Why didn’t I fit in? Here or anywhere?
I was staring at the dirt by my shoes when Zoe came up to me again. For more insults, I guessed. She wasn’t finished yelling at me.
“Look, Edgar, I’m sorry,” she said.
“What?” I couldn’t believe I’d heard right.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “Hey, I’m in 6th grade, too. I know what it means to be popular. And unpopular.”
“You do?”
“Why do you think it’s any different for me?” she asked.
“Because,” I sputtered, “you’re cool, not a loser like me.”
“Maybe I’m cool here, with other vampires, but it’s NOT like that at school, I guarantee you.”
I stared at her. No way she was a total loser like me.
“I’m not at the bottom of the heap, but I’m nowhere near the top either. Kind of bottom of the middle. And that’s okay. I don’t want kids to notice me. It’s safer to be invisible.”
“But if the other kids knew you were a vampire, you’d be at the top of the pile!”
Zoe shrugged. “So what? It’s not like I care what humans think of me.”
Well, I do. I care a lot. Not that I would admit that to her.
Instead I said, “Okay, but who wants to be bullied? Not me!”
“That’s why I’m apologizing. I can see why you vampirishly blew up at that bratty girl. But you know what you have to do now.”
I sighed. She was right. I did know. Somehow I would have to convince everyone the rumors weren’t true, I wasn’t a vampire. Starting with Gertie. But how?
“You know what would be great?” Zoe asked.
“What?”
“If you could get back at that mean girl and stop the vampire rumors at the same time.”
“If I could get back at Gertie, it’d be worth stopping the vampire rumors,” I said.
How do you make the most popular girl in the 6th grade suddenly unpopular? Is it possible?
It was an interesting challenge. Would it be enough to prove that she was wrong when she told everyone I was a vampire? Would that make her look stupid or untrustworthy or simply ordinary? After all, humans make mistakes. There’s even a saying, “to err is human.” Nobody says, “to err is vampire.” Which goes to show how superior we are, if you needed proof.
“If I think of anything, I’ll let you know,” Zoe said.
She was offering to help me? Was she trying to be nice? I was too stunned to say anything, but that was a definite first for a Saturday Vampire Jamboree – someone coming up to talk to me who wasn’t Granny. And being nice about it.
January 16
By dawn, back home, I still hadn’t thought of how to handle Gertie and the vampire rumor. I had one more day to figure things out. Tuesday was VRO Day – Vampire Rumor Over Day.
You know how you can try and try to think of something, like writing a story, but the paper stays blank, and you can’t think of anything to say? The more you turn possibilities over in your head, the more stupid they all seem. Then right when you least expect it, when you aren’t thinking of anything at all, you’ll get an absolutely brilliant idea. That’s how it was for me.
It helped that the timing worked out. It was mid-January, so not too far-fetched if I wanted to send a valentine to somebody. And I did, very much. The stores start stocking that stuff right after Christmas, so it was easy to find a big, red, lace-edged valentine, all gooey and lovey-dovey.
On the outside of the envelope I wrote “To Gertie” and inside the card, I slipped my school photo from the beginning of the year.
January 18
Now that I had the card, I was so eager to get to school on Tuesday, I practically flew there, even without using bat wings. I didn’t have to wait long. As soon as I walked down the hall, Gertie came up to me, all fluttery eyelashes and simpering smiles. I smiled back and handed her the big pink envelope.
“Oooooh, Edgar! For me! How sweeeeeeeet of you!” she purred. She couldn’t wait to tear it open. Before she could read the sentimental tripe of a verse, the photo fluttered out, drifting slowly to the floor.
“A picture? Your picture?” she asked, picking it up.
Please be smart enough to figure it out, I prayed. Don’t be a total dodo head.
The pack of girls who follow Gertie everywhere clustered around.
“A photo?” shrilled one.
“A photo!” echoed another.
“A photo!” Gertie bellowed. So she wasn’t an idiot. Phew!
“Edgar, what does this mean?” she yelled in my face.
“Can we talk about this in private?” I asked. I didn’t want to completely embarrass her. Otherwise my plan wouldn’t work.
Gertie glared at her entourage and they scurried away.
“How can you be a vampire if there’s a photo of you?” she demanded. “Everyone knows vampires can’t cast reflections or be photographed!”
I wondered when she’d become such an expert on us. I bet she didn’t know how we dealt with the sun or garlic. She certainly didn’t know how we handled photos.
I’ll let you in on a secret – here’s how we do it. Once vampires started sending their kids to school, the dreaded school photo became a BIG problem. At first, the vampire kids stayed home on those days, but year after year after year, that began to look suspicious.
That’s when Uncle Martin had a genius idea. If every school photographer all over the country were themselves vampires, the problem vanished. Because whenever the photographers were supposed to take a vampire student’s picture, they marked the blank negative with the name and description. Then, back at the photo lab, a call was put out to all the other vampire school photographers until a match was found. School photos never look like the person anyway, so if the nose or chin was a bit off, nobody noticed. A close enough likeness could always be found.
My school photograph obviously wasn’t really me, since as even Gertie knew, vampires can’t be photographed. It was Melvin P. Johnson of Sioux City, Iowa.
What Gertie didn’t know, what no mortals know, is that thanks to vampire school photographers all over the continent (yes, in Canada, too), no vampire child ever has to miss school on Photo Day.
If you don’t believe me, look closely at the photographers on your School Picture Days. Can you tell they’re vampires?
Back to Gertie, who was shoving the photo under my nose.
“You tricked me!”
“I never said I was a vampire. You did.” I felt strangely calm in front of her boiling fury.
“Edgar, you’re an even bigger loser than I thought you were!”
“You didn’t think I was such a loser all last week,” I reminded her. “Everyone saw you follow me around, all sugary and sweet.”
“Not true! I’m never sugary and sweet!”
Actually, I agreed with her on that one, but she was definitely acting all goo-goo eyed
, and she knew it.
“Listen,” I said. “It’s fine with me if you tell everyone I’m not a vampire. Your friends who saw the photo will, if you don’t. But if you spread nasty rumors about me being a total loser creep, what does that make the girl who had a crush on me?”
Gertie gulped. She turned paler than my great-aunt Lucretia and that’s saying something.
“I get it,” she said, crumpling up the photo. “I won’t say bad stuff about you any more. But I won’t say good stuff, either. I’ll ignore you, got that? Totally ignore you!”
“Fine with me.” I held out my hand. “Shake on it.”
January 24
I guess things are back to normal now. I’m not cool, but I’m not dog doo doo, either. Maybe I’m like Zoe, at the bottom of the middle level of the social pyramid. Like she said, not a horrible place to be.
Howard, Joel, and Lucas are still my friends. And guess what? They still invite me over to their houses. Now that I’m not a known vampire, Mom lets me go, so long as I agree to NEVER invite them home. Besides, mortal feet can never touch our welcome bat.
They don’t ask why I don’t invite them over, and I don’t offer any excuses or explanations. It’s just the way it is. Nobody seems to mind. I know everyone says you can’t trust a human, but in my experience, some of them make pretty good friends.
As for Gertie, she’s as obnoxious as ever. But not to me. She’s kept her promise, she totally ignores me. I can eat my juicy, bloody sandwiches in peace. No one puts trash in my locker. The jocks don’t notice when I pass by. Sometimes it’s good to be invisible, like Zoe said. The people who matter can always see you and who cares about the rest?
Sadly for Gertie, she’s slipped a notch or two in the social hierarchy. She’s not called a complete fool who had a crush on a loser, thinking he was a vampire. She’s called an untrustworthy liar who spreads stories that aren’t true.
“You can’t believe a word she says!”
“I heard she called some kid a leprechaun.”
“No, it was a werewolf.”
“Uh uh, a zombie.”
“Whatever! You can’t believe her, that’s all there is to it!”
Now I just have to see what happens at the next Saturday Vampire Jamboree when I announce that the vampire rumor is officially over. I wonder if I’ll be a hero, the vampire who saved his clan? Maybe Barnaby and Thadeus will be impressed. Maybe Zoe will start liking me.
More likely, it’ll be a Jamboree like any other and the only one to talk to me will be Granny. She’s already told me that I did the right thing.
“Edgar, I’m so proud of you! Such a clever solution to a difficult problem! I knew you could do it.”
I wish I had as much faith in me as Granny does. But I have all of middle school to figure out how to fit in – or not – in both worlds. All of middle school to figure out what really matters to me. And in the meantime, I’ll make vampire history by writing it all down, so maybe one day, more of us vampires will stick out the middle-school years, just like humans. After all, if I can handle Gertie, I can deal with 6th grade.
I’ll worry about 7th grade next year.
MARISSA MOSS IS A VEGETARIAN WHO HAS WRITTEN MORE THAN 50 BOOKS FOR CHILDREN. HER POPULAR AMELIA’S NOTEBOOK SERIES HAS SOLD MILLIONS OF COPIES AND BEEN TRANSLATED INTO FIVE LANGUAGES. THE AUTHOR HAS WON MANY AWARDS, INCLUDING ALA NOTABLE, BEST BOOKS IN BOOKLIST, AMELIA BLOOMER PICK OF THE LIST, AND THE CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD.
ALSO BY MARISSA MOSS:
THE AMELIA’S NOTEBOOK SERIES
A SOLDIER’S SECRET:
THE INCREDIBLE TRUE STORY OF SARAH EDMONDS, A CIVIL WAR HERO
BARBED WIRE BASEBALL
THE PHARAOH’S SECRET
NURSE, SOLDIER, SPY
MIGHTY JACKIE, THE STRIKE-OUT QUEEN
THE BRAVEST WOMAN IN AMERICA
SKY HIGH: THE TRUE STORY OF MAGGIE GEE
MIRA’S DIARY: LOST IN PARIS
MIRA’S DIARY: HOME SWEET ROME
DAPHNE’S DIARY OF DAILY DISASTERS: THE NAME GAME!
DAPHNE’S DIARY OF DAILY DISASTERS: THE VAMPIRE DARE!
EDGAR’S FAVORITE
CHOCOLATE BLOOD PUDDING RECIPE
INGREDIENTS:
3 CUPS HEAVY CREAM
1 CUP SUGAR
1 CUP PIG’S BLOOD
3 TBSP COCOA POWDER
1 TBSP PEPPER
3 SHEETS GELATIN
MIX 2 CUPS CREAM, SUGAR, PIG’S BLOOD, COCOA, AND PEPPER IN A SAUCE PAN, AND BRING TO A BOIL. REMOVE FROM HEAT AND LET SIT FOR A WHILE. SOFTEN THE GELATIN IN THE LAST CUP OF CREAM FOR A FEW MINUTES, THEN STRAIN THE MIXTURE FROM THE SAUCEPAN AND ADD THE GELATIN AND CREAM. STRAIN THE FINAL MIXTURE INTO RAMEKINS OR A MUFFIN PAN. LET THEM SET IN THE REFRIGERATOR FOR 4 HOURS. SERVES 6. FOR A MORE TART FLAVOR, SUBSTITUTE GOAT’S BLOOD. FOR ADDED RICHNESS, TRY RAM’S BLOOD AND A PINCH OF NUTMEG.
