Still Sucks to Be Me: More All-True Confessions of Mina Hamilton, Teen Vampire

by Kimberly Pauley

  Hey, wait. I leap up. What if the plastic is for blood? Yuck. What do they do, invite people over and then slice and dice on the couch? Grossness.

  I finish filling out my form standing up. Mom just wiggles her eyebrows at me curiously but doesn’t say anything. Just as well. She’d probably think I was nuts, since she tends to be a glass-half-full kind of person.

  The form is actually mercifully short. I don’t really have any goals since I didn’t exactly want to take the class anyway, so I just put down “I’d like to learn more about shape-shifting” and leave it at that. Besides, I’ve learned that the less you put on any Council-related form, the better.

  We head down the hall into a more comfortable room (i.e., no plastic covers on the chairs). It’s kind of a typical family room: well-worn brown leather sectional with poofy pillows, a large-screen TV (Dad would be so jealous—he’s totally jonesing for a good TV since the VRA just left us some dinky 20 incher) and a dog sprawled out in the middle of the floor (something really big and fluffy with lots of drool). Very cozy.

  We can hear Ivetta off in the kitchen, probably whipping up something hospitality-wise. There are four other people in the room already: two older ladies who look almost exactly alike, one really old dude, and a thirtyish looking guy with glasses. We sit down by the two ladies, who immediately introduce themselves as Reba and Reva Tassin.

  “Sisters, not twins,” they chime out at exactly the same time.

  “Mari,” says Mom, “and this is Mina.”

  “So cute,” Reba and Reva chortle in unison. Wow, maybe someone should explain to them exactly how annoying that is. Not to mention the calling me “cute” part.

  “I’m Benjamin,” says the old guy. He sounds a lot more spry than he looks. He looks as old as Dr. Musty sounds. Which is weird if you think about it too hard.

  “And I’m Roland,” says Glasses Guy. He smiles, revealing a pair of enormous buck teeth. I guess vampirism doesn’t come with an orthodontia plan. “You’re not from around here, are you?” Boy, if I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that in the last couple of months, I could buy my own plane ticket home.

  “No, we’re originally from California. We just moved here recently. Our first relocation.”

  “Ah!” The almost-twins turn to Mom. “So it must be your husband that’s working for the mysterious Dr. Jonas! Do tell us everything!” I’m starting to wonder if they have some kind of paranormal link or something. They’re really beginning to freak me out.

  Before Mom can say anything, Ivetta sails into the room with a pitcher of something in one hand and a stack of plastic cups in the other. “Is everyone ready to get started? I hear our straggler coming in now!” I’m guessing she was an aerobics instructor in another life. She’s very, very perky.

  That’s when the straggler comes wandering in and my heart jumps just a little.

  Cameron Carter. I should have known from the spicy sweet smell. I manage to hold in any gasps of surprise, but I must have twitched or something because Mom gives me a look.

  Cameron, of course, shows no signs of surprise at seeing me there. “Hi, Ivetta,” he says. “Roland, Reva, Reba, Benjamin, Mina. And you must be Mari?” He strides over to shake Mom’s hand. She takes it, a little bemused.

  “I’m at a disadvantage here,” she says. “You are?”

  “I’m so sorry. I’m Cameron Carter. I thought Mina might have mentioned me.”

  “I didn’t know you were going to be in this class,” I manage to squeak out. “Um, Mom, this is the guy I told you about that showed me where Ernie’s was.”

  “Right,” says Mom, giving me a bit of the eye. (Great, that means I’ll probably get another talking to about not going places with strangers, no matter how cute they are.) “Nice to meet you, Cameron.”

  “Lovely, lovely,” says Ivetta. “Now we all know each other. How about we get started now? How many of you have tried shape-shifting in the past?”

  Everyone but Benjamin and me raise their hands. “I just turned this year,” I say lamely. I imagine his excuse is that he’s just so old he thought he’d break something. Turning doesn’t reverse aging, though it does make you strong and kind of repairs what you’ve got. I wonder why he turned so late anyway? Wouldn’t it kind of suck to be old forever? I guess the alternative would be worse.

  “No problem, no problem,” says Ivetta. “It can actually be better if you’ve never tried because then you don’t have to unlearn anything.” She smiles at me. Well, at least her method of teaching is a little friendlier than old Grandma Wolfington’s.

  “Let me show you an example of what shape-shifting can be about.” She moves to the center of the room and motions Cameron and Roland to sit on the couch. Cameron sits right by me, which I try to ignore.

  Ivetta looks like she’s concentrating really hard and then, slowly, her features start to change. It’s almost like her bones are reshaping, taking the skin and everything along with it. Her eyes tilt up at the corners and her lashes extend (ooooh, I so want to learn to do that). Even her height changes a little, maybe an inch or two. Her hair turns from blonde to deep black, starting at the roots and creeping down to the tips. And her teeth shrink until they are just these perfect little pearls. She smiles at us. Whoa. She could almost be a Lucy Liu clone now. In the space of maybe five minutes, she’s transformed herself from Southern housewife to Asian glamour queen.

  “Now that I’ve got your attention,” she says, “let’s talk about the dos and don’ts and the cans and can’ts of shape-shifting.” The voice that comes out of the Lucy Liu lookalike still sounds like a Southern belle, which is totally disorienting.

  Reba and Reva are practically drooling in their seats. “Yes, yes! Show us how to do that!” they both exclaim.

  Okay, I’ll give it up to Mom. Shape-shifting is cool. Way cool. The guys are also all looking very interested, but that could be the whole Lucy Liu-ness of it.

  “What you’ve just seen is a fairly extensive transformation. As you should already know from your introductory classes, you have to work within certain limitations when shape-shifting. The primary one is mass. Now for instance, if I wanted to add a few inches to my, shall we say, personality”—she motions to her chest and everyone laughs (hey, I’m sure all the women, and probably the guys too, were thinking about that)—“I’d have to transfer the mass from somewhere. In a nutshell, you can’t make something out of nothing.”

  I like Ivetta. At least she’s got a sense of humor. If G.W. had been more like this, maybe I’d have actually remembered some of the stuff from class. Maybe.

  “The other limit is energy, which you’ve always got to keep in mind.” She hands the cups to Roland and the pitcher to Benjamin. “Sweeties, can y’all pour everyone a cup of that lovely red stuff there?” She keeps talking as they pour glasses and pass them around. I take the cup and look at it before I drink it. I can’t tell if it’s human or animal. I look at Mom, but she just smiles at me and takes a sip, so I do too. I guess manners trump everything.

  “Everyone drink up,” Ivetta says. “You’re going to need it.”

  “Is this why everyone doesn’t just walk around all the time with more, um, personality?” I ask. Because even though vampires are in general buff, I’ve definitely seen some who could use some improvement in the looks department. Uncle Mortie, case in point. Not that he needs “personality” … but more hair would definitely be good. More hair and less gut.

  “Excellent question, Mina! Yes, that’s exactly right. It takes a lot of energy to sustain a shape-shifting change and the more extensive the change, the harder it is. If you wanted to just do one little simple thing over a long period of time, like changing your hair color and nothing else, it’s possible to do so without completely exhausting yourself. However, and this brings me to my third point, shape-shifting also takes a lot of concentration. The more you practice, the easier it is, but it’s not automatic by any means. If you get distracted or lose your concentration, poof! There
it goes.” She lets her changes slip and everything shimmies back into regular Ivetta again. I kind of miss the Asian goddess.

  “And we obviously don’t want to lose any changes when we’re out and about in public. That would cause a lot of questions and definitely create problems. So I must caution you to always practice within the confines of your home before attempting any shifting out in the world. Also, I highly recommend that you never use a shift around humans you see on a regular basis. It can be very hard to explain how your hair grew ten inches overnight!”

  Ha, yeah, I could see that. Maybe I could still swing the eyelashes. That wouldn’t be too hard, right? And not like they are super noticeable either. I mean, who goes around measuring eyelashes?

  “What about changing into a bat or a wolf? Are we going to be doing any of that?” Roland asks. Huh. Looks like he already tried for beaver and got stuck.

  “That’s covered in the advanced class. Though, honestly, it’s really more of a party trick nowadays than something actually useful. Wolves aren’t too common in most populated areas. A dog shift is much more useful, but, as I mentioned earlier, you have to work within the confines of your own mass. For most of us, that would mean one pretty darn big dog. Bull mastiffs are popular choices, but they still attract quite a bit of attention. As for bats, it is possible, but something you’d never do in public.” Ivetta laughs. “Talk about headline news! A giant bat swooping around would be on at six o’clock for sure!”

  “So what is shape-shifting really good for then?” sniffs Reva. (Reba, thankfully, is in the middle of a big gulp.)

  “It can be very useful in many situations. Perhaps you are visiting the place you used to live before you were relocated—you could do so by disguising yourself.”

  Oh really? Hey, maybe if I get good enough at the shape-shifting to hold a disguise, I could talk Mom and Dad into letting me go back to California for a visit. Even the Josh-erator would have to go for that.

  I start paying closer attention. This could actually be useful.

  “I recommend that you practice a standard shift so that you always have a disguise at the ready. You never know when you might meet someone coming around the corner that you don’t want to see. And people do travel today. It’s not like the good old days when there were no airplanes or highways. Why, you might run into someone from around here in Paris someday!”

  I kind of doubt that I’d run into any Cartville folks in France, but I guess you never know. Running into Nathan in Europe (I think his dad has a chateau somewhere) or some of the other A-listers from back home is more possible, though still pretty unlikely.

  “And for those of you who turned at a younger physical age, like Mina and Cameron, you can use shape-shifting to appear older when necessary. Add a few wrinkles, some laugh lines … there are lots of ways to age yourself. Of course”—she nods to Benjamin—“the reverse is also true. We can use shape-shifting to appear younger as well.”

  He looks a little offended, but I’m intrigued. I’ll never have to worry about being carded to get into movies or things like that. And once George gets here, we can go to some swanky New Orleans club, the kind of place that wouldn’t let a couple of teenagers in.

  If he ever gets here. Still no word from him and I’m at 22 e-mails (okay, maybe 25). Not that I’m counting.

  We spend the rest of the first class practicing simple shifts, which is good since Ivetta was right: it isn’t easy peasy. We go through the pitcher in no time flat. But by the end of the session, I’ve learned

  a) that for once I’m better than Mom at something (I was totally the star pupil),

  b) the hokey meditationy breathing exercises Ivetta showed us actually do help, even though I felt completely silly doing them,

  c) it would be totally possible to get good enough at this that I could go back home for a visit and check up on Serena in the not too far off future, and

  d) I wasn’t even distracted by the spicy sweet smell of Cameron. Not even once. But I totally think Reba was.

  Ivetta says she’s going to show us some concentration tricks next week so a shift can be sustained longer.

  I wish I didn’t have to wait a whole week for the next class. As soon as I get good at this shape-shifting stuff, I’m going to visit Serena. I can hardly wait to tell her. Finally, I have some news to cheer her up, if I can ever get her to answer her phone.

  18

  The next day, I decide to skip lunch. (They’re having taco salad again. Gah! My supersmell can’t take it!) Instead I head over to a quiet corner of the library to practice my newfound shape-shifting skills. I worked on it all last night (went through like a whole pitcher of Special K by myself), but I’ve still got a long way to go if I’m going to talk my way into a California trip.

  The library is the only place in the school Henny has yet to dig me out of and is far enough away from the cafeteria that it doesn’t reek. I’m concentrating on my eyelashes (got the longer part down pat, but I want thicker too) when I hear someone coming around the corner. I quickly let them shrink down to normal and shut my compact like I was just checking out my makeup or something.

  “Practicing?” asks Cameron.

  “Oh, it’s just you.” Phew. No wonder I didn’t hear him until he was almost on top of me. He must have been doing the whole vampire stealth mode thing.

  He laughs. “Nice to see you too, Mina.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way!” Ack, why am I always saying the stupidest things around him? And here I thought I was over the whole can’t-speak-coherently-around-cute-guys thing. He must think I’m such an idiot.

  “You just startled me is all. Why aren’t you at lunch?”

  “Same reason you are, apparently. Lowell’s house is so crazy with everyone getting ready for John and Wayne that I haven’t had a chance to try out my shape-shifting. I thought this would be a good place to practice. Besides, it takes hours for me to get over the taco salad smell.”

  “I’d have thought you’d already be an expert at shape-shifting.” And everything else, oh suave one.

  “I’ve been concentrating on other skills,” he says. Yeah, like that crazy mind-control stuff. I really need to learn how to do that. I’ll have to ask Ivetta if she has a class on that. Very, very handy skill, that. I wonder if I could use it to talk Dad into buying me a plane ticket? Or better yet, buying me a car to make that California trip once my shape-shifting is up to par.

  “Did you take a class for that mind-control stuff you did on Mr. Benoit?”

  “No, actually Lowell taught me. He’s quite good at it. I’m not that great at it, actually. That’s why I had to get so close to him. Lowell can gain control of someone from across the room. He uses it too much, actually. Does it at school a lot on the students.”

  “Can you teach me how to do it?” Not that I have anyone in particular I need to control other than Dad. Okay, and Kacie. It would be great to cut her off before she tries to cut me down again. Even better if I could do it in some embarrassing but not suspicious way.

  “Actually, I was going to suggest that to you.”

  “Really?” He was? Why? Does he just like to go around and teach people things? How weird.

  “Yeah, you know, if you … if you want we could get together around midnight? I know a cool spot we could meet at the elementary school playground. No one will see us there.”

  “I probably should make sure my parents don’t mind.” I can’t believe I just said that. But I did promise Dad I’d be more careful. Or, I guess, more upfront.

  “Oh.” For once Cameron looks a little bit flustered. “Well, hey, here’s my number. If you can’t make it, give me a call. In fact, call anytime.” He scribbles it on top of my notebook and then starts backing up. “I just remembered I forgot my English homework. See you later, okay?” He’s gone before I have time to do more than nod.

  Well, that was odd. But cool that he’ll teach me. Watch out, Dad. There is a car purchase in your future! Maybe a convertible.


  Did Cameron really say to call anytime?

  When the bell rings, I manage to escape Henny’s detection until I leave the library to grab my Calc textbook. I’m sporting my new eyelashes (sorry, Ivetta, I know, I know, I’m a total rule breaker sometimes) and it’s not too much of a strain so far. After all, eyelashes are pretty tiny.

  Henny doesn’t notice them, but Grady (who was standing outside the library like a lost puppy) does a bit of a double take. “You look even nicer than normal today, Mina,” he says in his aw-shucks way.

  “Thanks, Grady.” I’ve been trying to keep my conversations with him pretty short in the hopes that he’d take the hint that I’m not interested. I’ll say one thing for the boy: he’s persistent. And all that work helping out on his uncle’s farm hasn’t hurt him any either.

  Grady weasels his arm onto my shoulders (honestly, I’m a little ashamed that I’ve stopped fighting it; it was just a losing battle) and steers me to my locker.

  “You know, Grady, I really can carry my books myself.” He’s been insisting on carrying them for me every day. I thought at first it was just a Southern thing, but none of the other boys seem to carry books for the other girls, so I guess it’s just a Grady thing.

  “Oh, I know. But then what would I do with my hands?” He winks at me real slow. I have to laugh. He’s just such a guy. Henny grins and mock fans herself. At least she’s finally starting to see the humor in him too, rather than just swooning all over the place.

  We stop in front of my locker and I spin the combination. I pull up the latch and before I can even swing the door all the way open, wildflowers start pouring out. Daisies, black-eyed Susans, and tons of others that I don’t even know. Like bushels of them.

  “What the—” I sputter. Did a florist die in my locker?

  “I picked them all myself.” Grady’s smiling at me, and a crowd of girls have gathered around oohing and aahing. “I would’ve used roses, but I didn’t want you to get hit with any thorns when they came out.”