Diary of a Wimpy Vampire (16 page)

That was a close shave. I don’t have my kit with me, so I know that Mr Jenkins would make me do PE wearing something from the spare clothes box, which is covered in fleas. Just a small part of the humiliating revenge he has planned, no doubt.

I’m going to get Dad to say that I’m asthmatic and if Mr Jenkins makes me do PE, I’ll have an attack and the school will get sued. That should be enough to keep the fiend away from me.

T
HURSDAY
5
TH
M
AY

Fate has handed a wonderful gift to me. There is a film about vampires showing at the cinema. I shall invite Chloe to come and see it, and it will create the perfect excuse to reveal my true nature to her .

It’s all so simple! Chloe shall succumb to my forbidden passion in the leisure mart car park.

F
RIDAY
6
TH
M
AY

12
PM

So far, my plan is going without a hitch. Chloe has agreed to come to the cinema with me. She has also agreed with my film choice, blissfully unaware that it shall mark her induction into the diabolical world of night.

Step into my trap, fragile prey.

4
PM

My brilliant plan has hit a big fat obstacle. Chloe told Brian from the goths about our cinema trip, and he has rudely invited himself along. Now John and Brian’s strange-looking girlfriend are coming along too, which doesn’t even make the right amount of people for a double date. Perhaps if I make sure I’m sitting next to Chloe on the end of the row I can whisper the dark truth to her unheard by these surplus goths. But I’m sure the smell of them alone will be enough to kill the mood.

S
ATURDAY
7
TH
M
AY

Well that was a waste of eight pounds plus bus fare. I failed to sit next to Chloe, reveal my true nature or make her mine for the rest of eternity. And the film was rubbish!

Brian and John made a huge embarrassment of themselves on the way there by throwing boiled sweets at people from the bus window. If they’re not mature enough to cope with travelling on their own, they shouldn’t be allowed to. To make things worse, Brian’s girlfriend was really egging them on.

Although I tried to position myself next to Chloe in the cinema, John barged in between us and I ended up wedged between him and Brian’s girlfriend, who bought a trough of popcorn and a vat of Coke. She kept alternating between slurping the Coke, munching the popcorn and snogging Brian. From what I could hear between these disgusting noises (which wasn’t much), the film was pretty appalling. It trotted out all the old vampirist tripe about us sleeping in coffins, turning into bats and crumbling into ash at the first sign of sunlight.

Still, Chloe said that she thought that the main vampire was ‘gorgeous’, so my plan might well have worked if those other idiots hadn’t lumbered along.

I managed to sit next to Chloe on the bus back, but my efforts to chat her up were sabotaged by Brian and John repeatedly pressing the bell to annoy the bus driver. In the end, we were all thrown off and had to walk the rest of the way. Chloe was visibly irritated and I was forced to abandon any further seduction attempts.

S
UNDAY
8
TH
M
AY

10
AM

Whenever I try to reveal my true nature to Chloe, I find it hard to put into words, so I’ve decided to set out the truth in a letter.

Darling Chloe

I am writing to apologize for my behaviour over the last few days. You might think I have been acting strangely since I declared my love for you. But the fact is, I have been trying to unveil a dark secret.

The truth is that I’m a vampire, and I am almost 100 years old.

This might seem unbelievable or shocking to you. It might be a while before you are able to accept what I am saying. But if you consider the facts, you will come to accept it.

Have you ever wondered why I don’t sleep? Why I don’t eat? Why I feel no pain?

It is because I am one of the undead.

Do you feel drawn to me but overwhelmed by a mysterious sense of danger? Do I seem delicious but forbidden to you like a poisoned apple or some yoghurt that’s been accidentally left out of the fridge?

Am I right to suppose that there was a look of suspicion on your face that time in History when we watched a DVD called
Life During Wartime
? Did you understand that one of the teenagers in the black-and-white footage was actually me?

  Yours in eternal admiration,

Nigel

P.S. If you didn’t recognize me in the DVD, you can get it out of the library. Pause it after 12 minutes and 35 seconds and look in the top right corner of the screen.

P.P.S. Don’t tell anyone about this.

P.P.P.S. Don’t ask me to prove it by turning into a bat.

All that stuff is made up.

1
PM

I have now posted the letter. I am prepared for the consequences.

3
PM

I am beginning to regret posting the letter. What if Chloe is repelled by my true nature? What if she shows it to her parents? What if my parents find out and abandon me for putting us all in danger?

6
PM

I am so stupid for writing our secrets down in a letter. What if the postman is a vampire slayer?

1
AM

Tonight I went out to retrieve the letter from the post box. At first I attempted to scoop it out with a coat hanger, but that didn’t work, so I had to get my sister to use her vampire strength. I had to beg her for ages before she agreed. I ended up giving her thirty pounds from my savings to buy a new Magical Princess Fashion Doll to make her come down to the post box and rip it in half so I could remove the letter .

So now I’ve wasted thirty pounds, pleaded humiliatingly to my little sister and damaged council property, and all because I didn’t have the guts to speak to Chloe directly.

No more excuses. Tomorrow I will tell Chloe the truth.

M
ONDAY
9
TH
M
AY

Today went well for me. Or at least I think it did.

I stopped Chloe on the way back from school and told her I had something to reveal.

I tried again to tell her the truth, but my words kept coming out wrong. I said something about being 100, but she looked confused. I said something about how I don’t have as much speed and strength as I should, but it didn’t make things any clearer. Then I went off on a strange tangent about how I didn’t really eat the sweets she gave me in the library.

But as I was stumbling through this nonsense, she started to look at me differently. Her face turned from impatience and confusion to that hazy look of desire I see on the faces of middle-aged women when Dad smiles at them. She reached towards me and the flow of blood in her wrists was so loud and fast that I couldn’t hear what I was saying any more.

My incoherent wittering was silenced when she pressed her finger against one of my teeth. It turns out that I’d been concentrating so hard on trying to reveal my true nature I hadn’t noticed that my fangs had extended and done the job for me.

Chloe ran her finger down one of them, as if to check they weren’t from a joke shop. And then, still in a dreamlike haze, she leant forward and kissed me on the lips!

She looked at me for a second with that gorgeous type O- blood filling her cheeks, and then dashed off. And that was the last I saw of her.

Tonight I shall do nothing except relive that brief, sweet moment over and over again!

T
UESDAY
10
TH
M
AY

Yesterday I wasn’t quite sure if the day had gone well. Well I can confirm that today did as Chloe has now agreed to be my girlfriend!

When I arrived at the school gates this morning, she was waiting for me again, and this time she asked me loads of questions about vampires. I told her about everything - my age, my family, my blood-drinking. She found it hard to take in, but she was prepared to believe it now she’d seen my fangs.

Although she didn’t admit it, I can tell she fancies me more now she knows I’m a vampire, just as the Almanac suggested. I just wish I’d revealed my supernatural nature sooner!

When I asked her if she’d be my girlfriend, she said yes! So now we are officially an item, although we’ve agreed to keep it secret from the rest of the school for the time being, as she doesn’t want Wayne to get upset.

I don’t care if he finds out! I don’t care if he rams a stake through my heart! At least I would die happy!

W
EDNESDAY
11
TH
M
AY

I sat next to Chloe in History and I spent the entire lesson drawing love hearts with her name in the middle and showing them to her. Then I drew a more realistic picture of a human heart and I became intensely aware of the sound of blood spluttering through hers. I thought I might have gone too far with this drawing, so I kept it to myself.

I wonder when she’ll let me drink her blood? Better take it one step at a time, though. We haven’t even snogged yet!

T
HURSDAY
12
TH
M
AY

I sat next to Chloe in Art this morning and we held hands all lesson. Let the school gossip, I’m not ashamed of our love.

An update on my ridiculous sibling:
Tonight my sister tried to be controversial by putting a werewolf poster on her bedroom wall. She’s seen a film in which an army of vampires battle an army of werewolves, and she’s decided that she wants to join ‘Team Werewolf’ rather than ‘Team Vampire’. Needless to say, we’ve all chosen to ignore her pathetic gesture of rebellion. I even told her that I fully approved of her decision to join Team Werewolf, and offered to buy her a flea collar and a kennel to sleep in.