“Five minutes left!” said Mr. Sparkletoes. “Then I will come and look at what you’ve done.”
I really wanted my crown to be the best. What else could I add?
I spotted some brightly colored toad-stools growing in a ring nearby.
“These will look like jewels!” I said to Pink Rabbit. I quickly picked some and wove them into the crown.
“Beautiful! Look, Pink Rabbit, I am the queen!”
But when Mr. Sparkletoes saw what I had done, he was not happy at all.
“Isadora Moon!” he said. “You have just ruined a sacred fairy ring!”
I blinked.
“Has no one ever told you,” said Mr. Sparkletoes, “never, ever to pick toadstools from a fairy ring? Besides, those are poisonous.”
I looked down at my hands and saw that they were covered in itchy red spots.
“Take that crown off at once!” ordered Mr. Sparkletoes. “You’d better go and get some magic cream from the school nurse,” he added.
I quickly ripped the crown off my head and threw it onto the ground. I felt my eyes fill with tears.
“I didn’t know,” I said. “I didn’t know because I am not a fairy—I am a vampire!”
Then I turned around and ran back toward the school and refused to say another word until Mom came to pick me up at the end of the day.
“How was your day?” asked Mom when she saw me. “Did you have a nice time? Isn’t fairy school wonderful?”
And I said that, no, it was not wonderful at all, and that actually I didn’t think I was a fairy. I was just a vampire.
Mom looked disappointed.
“You’re probably just tired,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll feel different tomorrow.”
We went home and had breakfast with Dad.
He was very happy to hear that I was a vampire.
“I did think so all along,” he said as he slurped down his red juice.
After breakfast, it was bedtime. I was so tired from my day at fairy school that I didn’t even remember to brush my teeth. I just snuggled with Pink Rabbit under our starry quilt and fell asleep.
When I woke up, it was morning and the sun was streaming through my tower window.
“Come on, Pink Rabbit!” I said, pushing him out of bed. “It’s vampire school tonight!”
I got dressed, and then we slid down the banister to the kitchen.
Dad was just coming in from his nighttime flying. He was yawning and looking tired. Mom was busy picking apples off the tree in the kitchen. She was turning them into glasses of apple juice with her wand.
I sat down at the table and started to butter my toast.
“Are you looking forward to vampire school tonight?” asked Dad hopefully.
“Oh yes!” I said. “I think I’m going to like vampire school.”
Dad looked pleased. He yawned and glanced at the clock on the wall.
“Well, you’d better go back to bed after breakfast,” he said. “You must sleep all through the day so that you’re nice and fresh for the evening. Just like I do!”
I stared at him.
“But I just got out of bed!” I said in astonishment. “I’m not tired!”
“You will be tired at school if you don’t sleep today,” said Dad. “Come on, finish your toast and go up to bed.”
So I finished my toast, but verrrry slowly. And then I walked up the stairs to my room. Verrrry slowly. And then I got back into my pajamas verrrry slowly, and then I sat in my bed and stared at the sun coming through the window.
How on earth was I supposed to fall asleep now?
It was a very bright day, and the birds were singing loudly outside. The human children on their way to school were being noisy too. After a few minutes, I got up and tried to block out the light with my quilt. It didn’t really work.
“MOOOM!” I shouted down the stairs.
Mom came hurrying up.
“What’s the matter?” she said.
“It’s too bright,” I complained.
Mom waved her wand, and a pair of dark curtains appeared across my window.
“It’s too loud,” I said. “I can hear the birds.”
Mom made me a pair of earplugs.
“I’m thirsty,” I said.
Mom poured me a glass of apple juice.
“I think I need the bathroom.”
“Well, you’d better go, then,” sighed Mom.
By the time it was evening, I had not slept a wink. But I had drunk thirteen glasses of apple juice and been to the bathroom too many times to count.
I suddenly felt very tired. I could hardly keep my eyes open. Nor could Pink Rabbit.
“We’re very sleepy,” I told Dad. “Maybe we should just go to bed.”
“Nonsense,” said Dad. “You’ve been asleep all day! Once you see how exciting vampire school is, you won’t want to go to bed!”
Vampire school was also on a hill, but it was not covered with flowers and it was not built in the shape of a pink cupcake.
It was a tall black castle with bats flying around its spires and towers. Thunder and lightning cracked through the sky behind it.
Pink Rabbit shivered, so I held his paw tight. I could tell he was frightened. He doesn’t like thunderstorms.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” said Dad. Then he opened his black cloak and flew away into the sky, whooping with delight.
My teacher was named Countess Darkfang. She was very tall and had spiky red nails.
“Good evening, class,” she said. “Tonight we are going to learn how to fly like real vampires. We are going to SWOOSH and GLIDE and WHIZ across the moon! We are going to make some neat formation shapes in the sky. We will start with an arrow shape. A nice spiky arrow.”
Oh goody, I thought. I knew how to fly already, and also I had something the other vampire children did not: wings! This would be easy.
“Follow me!” said Countess Darkfang. She lifted out her cloak and shot into the air with lightning speed.
One by one, the other vampires followed. SWOOSH, GLIDE, WHIZ.
Then it was my turn. But as I rose into the air, I realized that I wasn’t swooshing or gliding or whizzing. I was…flapping.
Flap, flap, flap went my wings. And they didn’t go nearly as fast as the others’. They acted more like…fairy wings. How had I not noticed before?
“Come on, Isadora!” shouted Countess Darkfang. “You’re getting left behind!”
I flapped my wings harder, trying to keep up. I could see all the other little vampires far ahead of me, circling around the big, bright moon.
“ARROW!” screeched Countess Darkfang.
All the other vampires arranged themselves into the shape of an arrow, leaving a space on the end for me.
“Come on, Isadora!” they called.
I flapped as hard as I could and eventually reached the space at the end of the arrow shape. I was just getting my breath back when Countess Darkfang said:
“NOW ZOOM!”
Suddenly, the arrow formation shot forward, and I was left alone again in the middle of the sky.
This was exhausting.
“Wait!” I cried, flapping my wings as hard as I could. “Wait for me!”
“STOP, EVERYONE!” shrieked Countess Darkfang suddenly. “We must wait for Isadora.”
The others immediately came to a stop in the sky, still in their perfect arrow formation. Not a hair was out of place on their shiny heads.
I continued to flap along, but I wasn’t used to flying this fast. Now I couldn’t stop! I crashed right into the vampire at the back of the arrow, my wings tangling in his cape so that we rolled into a ball and began to plummet toward the ground.
“Help!” I cried as we spun around and around, stars rushing past our eyes.
“EMERGENCY!” screeched Countess Darkfang. She gathered her cape and shot down toward us. Luckily, vampires are very fast fliers. She grabbed on to my dress just before we hit the ground.
“That was close!”
she said as she set us both upright. “I think that’s enough flying for now.”
Pink Rabbit wiped his paw across his forehead in relief.
“I am not sure flying is your greatest talent, Isadora,” said Countess Darkfang.
I hung my head. Maybe I was more fairy than vampire.
After the flying lesson, it was time for a snack. Countess Darkfang gave out cartons of red juice to everyone.
“Yum!” said all the little vampires.
“Yuck!” I said. “It’s tomato juice!”
“Of course it is,” said Countess Darkfang. “That’s what we vampires like to drink. Delicious!”
I looked at Pink Rabbit, and Pink Rabbit looked at me.
“I think,” I whispered, “that maybe I’m not a vampire after all….”
Then I yawned. A big yawn. I was so tired.
“Now!” said Countess Darkfang. “It is time for the bat-training lesson. Follow me!”
She led us all along a dark, windy hallway to a big room where there were hundreds, maybe thousands, of bats in cages.
“Bats make wonderful vampire pets,” said Countess Darkfang. “They are especially useful for delivering mail.”
She gestured around her at the bats flapping in their cages.
“You may all choose one to be your own special pet,” she said.
I looked around the room. I suddenly felt excited. I love bats. We have twenty-seven of them in our attic. I liked the idea of having my own special one as a pet.
I peered into the cages. There were big bats and small bats, scrawny bats and sleek bats. Which one should I choose?
In the end, I decided on a medium one with silky fur and beady black eyes.
“I will call him Buttons,” I said to Pink Rabbit. “Don’t you think that’s nice?”
But for some reason, Pink Rabbit did not look very happy.
“Now!” said Countess Darkfang. “The first rule of bat training is to never let your bat out of its cage outside or when the window is open. Otherwise it might fly away.”
Everyone looked around the room to check that the windows were closed.
“Of course,” continued the countess, “once your bat is fully trained like mine, it will never fly away.” She smiled smugly and stroked her own pet bat, which was very large and had fur as black as midnight.
“You may let your bat out now,” she said.
I opened the door of the little cage, and Buttons flew into the air.
“Good,” said Countess Darkfang. “Let’s begin! The first thing we are going to teach our bats is how to do a somersault in the air.” She pointed at her own bat and swizzled her finger at it. Immediately, the bat turned a perfect somersault.
“Now you try it,” she said to the class.
I pointed my finger at Buttons and made a circular motion. Buttons turned upside down in the air.
“Almost!” I said excitedly. “Pink Rabbit, did you see that?”
But Pink Rabbit didn’t hear me. He was busy turning perfect somersaults on the floor.
“The second thing we are going to do,” said Countess Darkfang, “is teach our pet to sit neatly on our shoulder.” She snapped her fingers, and her bat immediately flew down onto her left shoulder.
I snapped my finger at Buttons.
But before he could do anything, Pink Rabbit came leaping through the air and landed on my shoulder with a thump.
“Hey!” I said. “Pink Rabbit, you have to get down!”
But Pink Rabbit did not want to get down. He held on to my neck with his pink paws and dug his soft feet firmly into my collarbone.
“You really do,” I said, “or we’ll get into trouble.” I picked him off me and set him on the floor.
I turned my attention back to Buttons and snapped my fingers at him again.
“Come on,” I urged him.
But Buttons didn’t seem very interested in coming to sit on my shoulder. He was suddenly fascinated with something over on the other side of the room. What was it? I turned to see and then gasped.
The castle window! It was swinging wide open!
Oh NO! I thought as the air suddenly became full of the sound of flapping wings.
All the pet bats, including Buttons, started to dash toward the open window.
WHOOSH! they went. FLAP! SWISH! FREEDOM!
“ARGHHH!” screeched Countess Darkfang. “WHO HAS OPENED THE WINDOW?” She lifted her cape and leapt across the room to close it.
But it was too late.
The bats were gone.
I glanced across at Pink Rabbit. He was standing by the open window looking very pleased with himself.
“Isadora Moon!” Countess Darkfang shouted. “That Pink Rabbit of yours is a LIABILITY. A NUISANCE! I am hereby BANNING him from vampire school!”
“But…,” I said.
“No buts,” said Countess Darkfang. “After today he is never, EVER allowed back.”
Then she picked up her cape and swished out of the room to the lunch hall.
I thought Pink Rabbit didn’t look sorry at all.
After lunch, which was more red food (tomato sandwiches and tomato soup with beet chips—yuck!), it was time for the last lesson of the day. Grooming.
“Grooming is VERY important,” said Countess Darkfang as she walked around the classroom handing out little silver hand mirrors, spiky hairbrushes, and pots of gloopy hair gel. “Vampires must look their best. Shiny, neat hair is extremely important. It’s the rule.” She patted her own perfect hair proudly. There was so much gel in it that it made a TAP TAP sound when she touched it.
All the other vampires began to comb their already neat and shiny hair, smiling as they did so.
I picked up the hairbrush. This was not going to be easy. My hair is quite…wild.
I put the hairbrush to my head.
A minute later, it was stuck!
“Countess Darkfang,” I called. “The hairbrush is stuck in my hair!”
Countess Darkfang came hurrying over, tutting loudly. She gave the hairbrush a little pull, but it didn’t budge.
“Your hair is just too tangled,” she complained. She yanked a little harder.
“Ouch!” I said.
And then a bit harder…
“OUCH!” I yelled.
At last the hairbrush came out. And so did a big clump of my hair.
“Let’s try the gel instead,” said Countess Darkfang. She scooped a large handful from the pot and began to smooth it over my head.
“This’ll do it,” she said.
But the gel did not do it. My hair would just not stay down. I peered into the hand mirror and watched as Countess Darkfang tried to flatten it. Every time she tried to smooth a piece of hair into place, it would ping right back up again.
Ping, ping, PING!
“Hmm.” Countess Darkfang frowned. “Isadora, your hair is WILD!”
I smiled sleepily. I don’t mind my hair being wild. In fact, I quite like it. I closed my eyes as Countess Darkfang continued to cover my head with handfuls of the gloopy gel. It felt quite soothing. And I was so sleepy….
“I will tame it,” I heard her say as I drifted off. “I will! This is not satisfactory….”
And then, before I knew it, I was fast asleep.
Dad was not very impressed when he came to pick me up at the end of the night.
“You’re not supposed to fall asleep at vampire school, Isadora!” he said.
“I know,” I said sadly. “I think maybe I’m not a vampire at all.”
Dad looked disappointed.
“I expect you’ll feel differently after you’ve slept a bit,” he said hopefully. “Let’s go home.”
So we flew home together, and I went straight to bed like Dad does every morning.
I slept through the whole morning and didn’t wake up until three o’clock!
It felt very strange.
When I got up, Mom was waiting for me in the kitchen. She had made me a sandwich. I could tell she had used
magic to make it, because every time I bit into it the flavor changed. First it was ham, then peanut butter, then cucumber, then…
“YUCK! Tomatoes!” I yelled.
Mom’s shortcuts don’t always pay off.
“Oh dear,” she said. “Sorry. I still haven’t got that spell quite right. Let me try again.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “I’m not hungry anymore.”
“So how was vampire school?” Mom asked. “Did you like it better than fairy school?”
“I’m not sure…,” I said. “I still don’t know if I am more fairy or vampire.”
“Oh,” said Mom. “I see.”
I took a handful of cereal and wandered into the garden with Pink Rabbit. Through the fence, we could see the human children walking home along the pavement. Some of them were scruffy, and some of them were neat. Some of them were loud, and some of them were quiet. Some of them were tall, and some of them were short. Some of them were big, and some of them were small. And some of them were just in between.
And the thing was, none of them seemed to mind!
I suddenly remembered what Dad had told me about the stars in the sky. How every one of them is different, but how they are all just as beautiful, and I thought, Maybe it doesn’t matter if I am a little different. Different can be beautiful too.
Isadora Moon Goes to School Page 2
