My Favorite Fangs: The Story of the Von Trapp Family Vampires (12 page)

Sure enough, the truck did take them away from these people. After they jumped off of the moving vehicle, Maria and the brats skipped to a grassy meadow at the foot of Maria’s favorite stomping (and singing) (and skipping) (and flying) (and self-pleasuring) grounds, the Alps. Once they found what Maria called, “… the grass I love most of all,” she plopped down onto the grass and directed the kids through a series of acrobatics and feats of strength.

“Friedrich,” she called, “bend over and stand on one finger!” He did. For five minutes.

“Gretl,” she called, “jump as high as you can!” She did. To the tune of fifteen meters.

“Brigitta,” she called, “scream at the top of your lungs!” She did. Five kilometers away, a window shattered.

“Kurt,” she called, “rip that tree up from the ground!” He did. Without even breaking a sweat.

“Louisa,” she called, “do ten cartwheels, one right after the other!” She did. And another ten after that.

“Farta,” she called, “turn into a bat and fly to the sun.” She did. She didn’t, however, hit the sun … but she came darn close.

“Liesl,” she called, “come to me!”

Liesl jogged over. “Yes, Governess?”

“Liesl, I want you to lick your own lady-parts.”

“Pardon me?”

“Lick your lady-parts. Since you can now do it, I’d recommend doing it every chance you get. Once you figure out what’s going on down there, you’ll thank me. Profusely.”

“If you say so,” Liesl said, then, after making sure none of her siblings were paying attention—they were not—she lifted the hem of her sailor skirt, pushed aside her panties, then contorted herself so her tongue was directly in front of her hallowed ground. After a tentative lick, she coughed, taken aback by the metallic taste. But a few seconds later, she got used to it, and a few seconds after that, she grew to like it, and a few seconds after that, she knew Maria was right. Someday, she would thank the Governess. Profusely.

Just when it was getting hot and heavy down South, Louisa cartwheeled over and said, “Fraulein Maria?”

Maria, who was sitting on the grass and fondling her own lady-parts, tore her gaze away from Liesl and said, “Hmmmm?”

Noticing the guilty looks on both Liesl and Maria’s faces, she asked, “What’s going on here?”

Clearing her throat, Maria said, “Nothing, dear. What can I help you with?”

“Can we do Vampire exercises every day?” she asked.

Liesl wiped her lips. “Yes, Fraulein Maria. Can we?”

Kurt wandered over, still carrying the tree. “I haven’t had this much fun since the day we rolled those drunk Frenchmen in the square last spring.”

“I don’t understand how kids as wonderful as you can play such mean tricks,” Maria said.

Friedrich lay down on the grass, then rolled over so his face was in Maria’s lap. “Who says we’re wonderful?”

Maria pushed him away. “Back off, pal. Access is by invitation only.”

Liesl said, “This sort of behavior is the only way we can get Father to pay attention to us.”

Farta said, “But the truth is, that rarely works.
Nothing
works.”

“Because he’s always drunk on his wacky juice,” Kurt said.

“Well, maybe he’ll be more lucid when he returns with the Baroness,” Maria said.

“Doubtful,” Gretl said. “The man is a full-blown alcoholic. His blood is probably half juniper berries, one-quarter erythrocytes, and one-quarter leukocytes.” Nobody asked what erythrocytes and leukocytes were, because nobody cared.

“Let’s be optimistic, children,” Maria said. “Maybe he’ll be in good shape when he returns. Maybe we can do something to get him to notice you, something to make the Baroness love and respect you. Like … like … like
singing
!” Each of the kids ripped up a handful of grass and dirt from the ground and threw it at Maria. Wiping the mud from her eyes, the Governess said, “I guess singing is out. Any other suggestions?”

Brigitta said, “A puppet show! A von Trapp family puppet show!”

Liesl gawked at her little sister. “
Puppets?
In
Austria?
Are you
insane?
”

Friedrich said, “Brigitta, I
scheisse
on your puppets! No puppets!”

Brigitta nodded as if it had been decided. “Puppets.”

(In the midst of all the puppet discussion, Maria heard a distant noise from the North. It sounded like Mother Zombie’s nightly benediction:
Lady, oh the lady, oh the lay hee hoo
. And then once the talk of puppets ceased, so did the chant.
Odd
, Maria thought,
quite odd
.)

“We shall do Vampire exercises for them,” Friedrich continued. “That’s the only thing we should be doing. The
only
thing.”

“Fine,” Maria said, “but you have to start at the very beginning. Which, as you might guess, is a very good place to start.”

“Beginning?” Gretl asked. “What do you mean beginning? Like the beginning of the alphabet? Like A, and B, and C?”

Friedrich said, “Why would she mean the beginning of the alphabet, shrimp?”

Maria held up a single finger. “It just so happens, Friedrich, that Gretl is sort of right…”

“She’s
always
right,” Louisa said, “the little twit.”

“… but not
entirely
right. We start at the beginning of the alphabet … but not the human alphabet. The Vampire alphabet.”

Liesl gave her a skeptical look. “There’s a Vampire alphabet?”

“There sure is,” Maria said, unpacking her saxophone. After she put the reed in the mouthpiece, and the mouthpiece on the sax, she honked out an E Phrygian scale, then said, “The Vampire alphabet is only seven letters, and those letters are do, ray, me, fah, so, la, tee. Seven letters. No more, no less.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Brigitta said. “What can you spell with seven letters?”

“Plenty,” Maria said. “Like you can spell
meeraytee
.”

“What’s
meeraytee
?” Farta asked.

“A dead deer that’s ready to be eaten.”

All at once, the brats said, “
Meeraytee
.”

“That’s right,” Maria said. “You can also spell
solafah
.”

Liesl asked, “And what, Governess, pray tell, is
solafah
?”

“Why everybody knows that
solafah
is a drop of acid rain.”

“And what, Governess, pray tell, is acid rain?”

“Never you mind. You can also spell
fahdoe
.”

“Fine, I’ll bite,” Kurt said. “What’s
fahdoe
?”

“A long, long way to fly, naturally. And we Vampires often-times have a long, long way to fly.”

“Right, naturally,” Liesl said, “what else would
fahdoe
be? Let me do one. Is, um,
dorayme
a word?”

“Of course it is,” Maria said. “It means ‘disjointed plot line.’”

“So you could use
dorayme
to describe the genesis of this book?”

Maria grinned. “You’re correct, Liesl! I love you most of all!”

At that, the children simultaneously rolled their eyes.

Farta said, “My turn, my turn!
Lalateeray
!”

Maria clapped once. “Very good, dear.
Lalateeray
is what you do after you finish with your
dorayme
.”

Gretl asked, “And what exactly does one do after
dorayme
?”

“You
lalateeray
.”

“I understand,” Gretl said, “but what specifically is
lalateeray
?”

“It’s what you do after
dorayme
. Now shut it, so I can tell you the last word of the day, which is
teeteeteedoe,
which means dinner. A meager dinner, granted—we’re talking jam and bread, and maybe some lukewarm tea to wash it down with—but dinner nonetheless.” At that, Kurt’s stomach rumbled.

“Governess?” Friedrich asked.

“Yes, Friedrich?”

“The Vampire alphabet is a stupid, stupid alphabet.”

Maria said, “I didn’t make it up. It was here when I was transformed, and it will be here long after I’m gone. Not that I’ll ever be gone, but you know what I mean. But if you look at it the right way, it isn’t that bad. Once you have those letters in your heads, you can spell a million different words by mixing them up. Like
sodola
.”

“Or
fahmeedo,
” Farta said.

“Or
sodofahfah,
” Louisa said.

“Or
dolahdolatee,
” Kurt said.

For the next hour, the children sang thousands of words in Vampire, some of which meant nothing, to which we say,
Doedoerayfah meemeemee
. And we mean it.

INTERLUDE #2

H
ANDSOME BOY POINTED
to Felt Face and said, “You must be loving all this bollocks about puppets, mate.”

Giggling, Brown Cape said, “Oooh, watch it, limey, you don’t want to make him mad. You wouldn’t want to imply that he himself is a puppet. Because if he’s a puppet, then he’s not a living being, and he really, really, really thinks he’s a living being.”

Felt Face said, “One, two. I count two obnoxious jerks whose cars I’ll be egging on Halloween.”

Dracula glared at Handsome Boy and Brown Cape, and growled, “Lay off of him, you twinks.” After a lengthy staring contest which the two younger Vampires lost by a mile, Dracula turned to Felt Face and said, “Listen, buddy, there’s nothing wrong with not being a living being. Living’s overrated. Maria von Trapp knows that. That’s why she turned all the kids into Vampires. She was being nice.”

“Give me a bloody break,” Handsome Boy said. “She turned them because she was hungry.” Pointing an accusatory, pointy-nailed finger at Dracula, he said, “And if anybody would know about turning innocents due to hunger, it’s you, you sloppy git.” He grabbed some Fritos, then said, “You know what? The first two chapters were bloody good, but now I’m bloody tired of this bloody book. Can’t we just discuss some bloody Franzen like every other bloody book club in the world? He’s a boring fuck, but I always feel superior when I tell people I’ve read his stuff.”

Ignoring him, Dracula told Felt Face, “Everybody knows that undeath has advantages galore. Like you get a true sense of the passing of world history…”

Handsome Boy blew a raspberry and said, “Boooooring!”

“… and you get to see how humanity advances…”

Another raspberry. “Snooooooore!”

“… and you get to experience the evolution of art…”

Another raspberry. “Zzzzzzzz! Besides, if the evolution of art means taking a perfectly boring movie musical and turning it into an even more boring book, I’d rather die for good.” Handsome Boy stood up and walked over to the window, then, staring at the cloudy night sky, said, “I will say, though, that this Maria twat knew how to live her undeath to the fullest: Lots of sex and lots of blood. The best one-two punch imaginable.”

Felt Face mumbled, “One, two. I’d like to give you a one-two punch right in your nutsack.”

Without turning around, Handsome Boy said, “Zip it, wank job. I know where your coffin is.”

“Yeah, while I know where your butthole is. One. I count one butthole that I’ll fill with … with … with…”

“Chocolate cereal?” Brown Cape suggested.

“Right. With chocolate cereal.”

Handsome Boy said, “Or copies of this book.”

“Speaking of which,” Dracula said, “can we get back to it?”

“Sure, but can we get a move on?” Handsome Boy said. “I’m meeting this pale, skinny bird at midnight, and she’s simply gagging for it.”

“Still sniffing around the high school chicks, eh, Prince Charles?” Dracula asked.

“Two words, Drac: Tom Cruise. Two more words: Kirsten Dunst.” He shook his head sadly and said, “The crap that that psycho Anne Rice comes up with makes me look like a right gentleman.” He pointed at the paperback book on the coffee table. “And speaking of crap literature, let’s finish with this mess.”

Dracula sighed and said, “Thank you,” then read, “Captain Georg von Trapp had two vices…”

CHAPTER 4

C
APTAIN GEORG VON TRAPP
had two vices: Alcohol and expensive cars.

Drink-wise, he was neither discerning nor brand-loyal, simply content to guzzle gin of every size, shape, and strength, be it Steinhager, or Bruichladdich, or Fleischmann’s, or Sipsmith’s. When his liquor cabinet was empty, the cloudy-looking slop that his neighbor Klaus Hass made down in his basement was sufficient. If there was no gin, lager sufficed.

Automobiles were a different story. Cars, he was choosy about.

Only the best of the best would do for the Captain, and his fleet was the envy of Salzburg’s car buffs. The flashiest was a giant red 1921 Steyr with a white stripe along the side, so arresting that every time he took it out for a spin, it elicited envious hoots and whistles amongst the Austrian populace. His 1931 Austro-Tata was sky blue, and could tear up the roads to the tune of forty kilometers per hour. But his pride and joy was the 1901 Leesdorfer, a huge black convertible that was the very last one the short-lived manufacturer ever produced. (The car’s lack of success both in terms of sales and mechanics stems from the fact that it was a convertible built to seat twelve.) It broke down at least once a month, and a sharp turn would cause it to stall, and it was bumpy to the point that if one rode in it for more than twenty minutes, one would exit the car with black and blue buttocks, but the Captain adored it, in part because he could use it to transport the entire family.

The Leesdorfer, as was its wont, hiccupped its way down the highway, the Captain behind the wheel, his close chum Max Detweiler in the back seat, and, to his right, in the passenger seat, the second love of his life, Baroness Elsa Schrader.

Von Trapp stole a peek at Max in the rearview mirror, noting as always how darn slick his friend looked, what with his greasy hair, his just-so mustache, and his toothy smile. For about the millionth time, the Captain thought,
He’s one of my oldest and dearest, but I’d never buy a car from him. Never.