First Night: Almost One

Ivy rapped her knuckles against Edwen’s forehead. “I think you broke him when you punched him, Andi. He’s talking stupid, and his eyes are loose.”

“Nystagmus,” Eugenia diagnosed. “A malfunction of the ocular muscles. It’s often congenital.”

Edwen giggled. “She said ‘genital.’”

Ivy knocked him on the head again. “Yeah, that’s the kind of maturity I’d expect from a centenarian.”

“Hey, Edwen. What was the final match in the dirty geography championship?” Drew cupped his hands around his mouth and whispered, “Bangkok against Titicaca.”

Edwen’s eyes widened. His face reddened. A harsh pfffffft escaped through his tightly pursed lips.

Eugenia frowned at Drew. “Don’t encourage him.”

“Come on, that’s funny at any age.”

“If you’re male.”

Drew sobered and thrust his Mae West breasts forward so they couldn’t be ignored. “That’s what I meant. Funny at any age, to a guy. Like Edwen.”

Andi eyed those breasts, which had become the focal point of the room. The neck of his nightgown dipped low enough to show cleavage that looked like the real thing—as real as boobs that huge could be, anyway. No way he committed to implants. It had to be some sort of full-torso mask. The frilly pink scarf around his neck must hide the seam. “Sleeping in that neck rag is a choking hazard. I hope that’s some kind of quick-release knot.”

He covered the knot with his hand. “I’ve been sleeping in it for years without a problem.”

“Sure you have.” The sooner he let them in on his “secret,” the shorter the grudge she’d hold for treating them all like they were stupid. He could let them in, or she could huff and puff and blow his skirt up around his ears. She wasn’t picky about method of entry. “You a light sleeper, Drew?”

His fingers tightened over the scarf. “Why do you ask?”

“Oh, no reason.” Paranoia would drive him to come clean before she had to resort to a nocturnal raid. If it did come to that, she’d be less clumsy about it than her sparkly nighttime visitor.

Ivy picked a teeny fleck of silver foil from Edwen’s hair and flicked it on the carpet, slightly diminishing his sparkle. “What do werewolves want with Andi?”

His nose, which was almost as pert as Andi’s, wrinkled with undisguised distaste. “They’re the trailer trash of the supernatural community. They know they could never have a magnificent princess such as Andrea for their own. They’re jealous of our love and seek to steal her from me.”

Andi twirled the baseball bat like a baton. She’d get to his allegations of love in a minute. One bit of stupidity at a time. “I’d be shaking in my boots if I didn’t have previous experience with your creative definitions. If you call yourself a vampire, your version of a werewolf is probably about as scary as an asthmatic gerbil.”

Hectic red blossomed on his pasty cheeks. “I am a vampire!”

On to the next bit of stupidity. “You don’t drink blood. Except for tonight, you’ve been out in daylight every time I’ve seen you.”

Eugenia cleared her throat. “Traditionally, in both historical and literary sources, sunlight has no detrimental effect on vampires. That’s a Hollywood affectation from the last century.”

Way to completely miss the point, Miss Smartypants. “Traditionally, here in the real world, vampires don’t freaking exist, and if they did, they wouldn’t have an allowance to spend on eyeliner and glitter makeup. He’s closer to runner-up in the Little Miss Eating Disorder pageant than any kind of vampire, traditional or otherwise.”

“Yeah, well, I have superhuman abilities!”

“Like what?”

“I can jump real high.” He sprang from the chair to the bed as if it were Oprah’s couch.

Drew applauded. “Do you play any sports?”

“Baseball.”

“Awesome.” Andi cocked the bat over her shoulder and dug her feet into the carpet. Finally, a practical application for the skills picked up during her years on the varsity baseball team. “I’m up for hitting a few balls.”

Drew’s free hand dropped to shield his crotch. “I’d have thought basketball would be more popular with jumpers. What else?”

“What do you mean?” Edwen leapt over to the other bed, a wary eye measuring the range of Andi’s swing.

“Superhuman abilities, plural,” Drew refreshed his memory. “What else do you do?”

Edwen’s flush spread to his ears. “Um… actually… that’s it. But I am so a vampire!”

Andi adjusted her grip on the bat. She’d also been on the varsity track and field team. Her specialty—the javelin. The bat wouldn’t fly the same, but at a range of less than ten feet, the difference shouldn’t impair her ability to drill him between the eyes. “You’re not an old-school shrivelly corpse bloodsucker, and you’re damn sure not a new-school irresistibly smexy bloodsucker.”

Edwen’s shifty eyes bulged. He tugged at his unkempt hair. His voice crept up an octave into the shrill range. “I’m the future of vampires!”

“So… the next step in the evolution of your species is a leap after which you have more in common with Tinkerbell than with the vampires who came before you.” She must have missed the day in biology class when they covered Darwin’s observations of vampires. Fortunately, there was a brainiac in the room. “Can I get a ruling on the likelihood of that, Genie?”

Eugenia glanced up from her notebook. “Evolutionary development typically occurs in minute increments during a span of many generations in order to enable the species to better survive an environment. Wisconsin is not a sufficiently hostile environment to provoke such adaptations. His claim, therefore, is implausible at best.”

Ivy shrugged. “I’m convinced.” She tipped the chair on its side and stomped her booted foot against the top of one of the legs. The wood gave way with a crack. She stooped to retrieve the severed leg, now a twelve-inch stake with a jagged tip. She pulled a knife from her boot and deftly whittled the stake to a sharp point.

The blood leached from Edwen’s face. “What’s that for?”

Ivy tested the tip with her thumb and drew blood. “For hammering through your heart, vampire.”

“What?”

“In the owner’s manual that came with my leather bustier, it says I’m obligated to slay vampires. I’d behead you, but the administration confiscated all my long blades, and it would take forever to hack through your spine with a knife. The only other officially approved method is a stake through the heart. It will be a little quicker and slightly less painful if you hold still.”

He danced backward on the bed. “No way!”

“Slow and agonizing it is.” Ivy stepped onto the bed.

Drew’s mournful expression foreshadowed the boy’s cruel, cruel fate. “It’s a shame you have to die. If only you were something other than a vampire.”

Edwen crossed his arms over his chest and squeezed his eyes shut tight so he couldn’t see his impending death. “All right, I admit it! I’m just a horny virgin with no social skills who needs a gimmick to pick up chicks. Please don’t kill me!”

Ivy took a step closer. “Run.”

He hopped to the floor and raced back and forth along the strip of carpet between the bed and the wall.

Andi considered throwing the bat but doubted a blow to the head would have much effect on someone who was already that brain damaged. “How many times were you dropped on your head as a child?”

“Only four.” He stopped running and swiped a hand over his forehead to remove the sheen of perspiration, leaving a swath of less-pasty, sparkle-free skin spotted with pink pimples. “Can I interpret your concern as a symbol of your eternal devotion to me?”

She hurled the bat. Unbalanced by its own weight, it fell short of its intended target, striking him in the shoulder with enough force to make him stagger.

“Ow!” His lower lip quivered. His eyes sparkled—with tears. “That really hurt. What’d you do that for?”

“It’s a symbol of my eternal devotion to getting rid of you.” She jabbed a finger toward the window. “Get out.”

“But I can’t reach the window.” He jabbed a finger toward the window. “She” —he jabbed a finger toward Ivy— “broke the chair.” He jabbed a finger toward the chair.

“Lucky for you” —Andi jabbed a finger toward him— “you can jump real high” —she jabbed a finger toward the ceiling— “so get the hell out.” She jabbed a finger toward the window once more.

When he hesitated, Ivy jabbed the stake toward him. “Now.”

Edwen obeyed before she felt moved to get the point across by ramming it through his chest. His not-so-supernatural jump boosted him only high enough to hook his fingers on the windowsill. He kicked the wall, scrabbling for purchase. His black ankle boots were treadless, like dance shoes, and ineffective for scaling vertical surfaces.

“It’s like watching a hamster in a wheel,” Drew observed. “He needs the exercise, but it’s kind of sad he’ll never get anywhere.”

It was, nonetheless, entertaining to watch, and they did so for several minutes before Ivy grew bored. She seized the back of his skinny jeans and gave a swift upward yank.

The wedgie made Edwen squeal like castrated pig but lifted him sufficiently to get his head and shoulders out the window. From that position, he was able to pull himself the rest of the way outside. As soon as his shoes disappeared from view, his face took their place. “Andrea, my love, there’s one more thing you must know: four seventy-one.”

At least that’s what Andi thought he said. It was hard to hear him through the rumbly growl coming from behind him, like a garbage truck, only more guttural. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know, but remember it. It’s really, really impor—” His shriek as he was wrenched back into the darkness deleted the remainder of the word.

Nearby but out of sight, the night filled with sounds of snapping and screaming and crunching and cries for mercy and, finally, a lone victorious howl that made Andi’s skin chill and tingle in response.

Ivy closed the window, fastened the latch, and returned the three-legged chair to its original placement, where it disguised most of the dark scuff marks left on the wall by Edwen’s boots.

Her pen poised motionless above her notebook, Eugenia stared at the window, a reflective rectangle with a backdrop of impenetrable blackness. With the distorting effect of her glasses, her wide eyes seemed the size of English muffins. “That didn’t sound like an asthmatic gerbil.”

Ivy tucked the stake into her boot. “Probably because it was a werewolf.”

“Aren’t you going to help him?”

Ivy stretched out on her rumpled bed and closed her eyes. “He has two-inch long fangs, razor sharp claws, and probably his pack nearby for backup. He doesn’t need my help.”

Andi retrieved her bat and propped it in the corner. “Big day tomorrow. Time for everybody to hit the hay.”

Drew departed in a swirl of pink frills. “Night, all. Remember, I called dibs on the shower in the morning.”

Eugenia continued to stare. “Doesn’t anybody care that an adolescent boy is being eviscerated on the lawn?”

“Not enough to share the experience with him.” Ivy reached up to flick off the light. “He should have stayed in Wisconsin.”

Andi took Eugenia’s arm and gently guided her from the room. “Don’t stress over this. Think of it in terms of biology. It’s survival of the fittest, natural selection culling the weak and useless so they don’t handicap the rest of the herd.”

Eugenia slipped her notebook back up her sleeve, followed by the pen. “If my psychological profile was accurate, either your rejection would have driven him to progressively dramatic acts of self-injurious behavior in an attempt to earn your attention that would ultimately escalate to self-termination, or he would meet his demise unintentionally through an autoerotic asphyxiation accident.”

“So he demises a week early, but he doesn’t go to hell for offing himself or cause his mother an eternity of shame by dying with a deathgrip on Little Edwen.” Andi extended her hands to weigh the significant pros against the one flimsy con. “All things considered, being eaten by a werewolf was really for the best.”

She snapped the door shut to block out Eugenia’s feeble protest and collapsed on the bed with a weary sigh. “Sorry, Ivy. I probably should have warned you I’m a weirdo magnet. I’d hoped the sixteen-foot wall around the Academy would hold them off for a while.”

“Don’t apologize. It was a useful experience. The team bonded in vanquishing a common enemy, and I gathered a lot of valuable information.”

Andi strained her eyes to make out her roommate’s black-clad silhouette in the dark. “Like what?”

“One, the wall doesn’t keep intruders out, so its purpose must be to keep someone—or something—in.” The bedding rustled faintly as she shifted position. “Two, you are no more an ordinary girl from Detroit than that boy was a vampire or Drew has ovaries.”

Andi’s fingers clenched the bedspread so tightly, the wrinkles would never come out. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Three, you’re a lousy liar. I’ll keep watch to make sure you don’t have any more visitors tonight. Get some sleep. ”

One by one, Andi’s tense muscles relaxed as the all-clear signal made its way from her brain to her limbs. “You’re not going to stake me.”

“You haven’t given me a reason to. Yet.”

That ominous final word failed to alarm Andi. She might be a little… odd, but without a baseball bat, she posed little threat to anyone. As long as her knack for attracting freaks didn’t faze Ivy, they should have a long and violence-free relationship.

Trusting her roommate to fend off further invaders, she closed her eyes and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

A milky haze blossomed against the window, the vapor of hot breath against cool glass. It dissipated within seconds, by which time the breather was long gone.

NEXT: Week 1: Written Evaluations