Diary of a Wimpy Vampire (5 page)

*This might sound impossible, but it’s quite simple really. Imagine if my dad had been born as a human a few years later than me, but not transformed into a vampire until he was in his thirties or forties. To the eyes of a human he would look older than me, but I would know he was younger. And ignore everything he said.

T
UESDAY
1
ST
F
EBRUARY

10
AM

I looked in the bathroom mirror this morning and noticed that my spots have got worse. Sometimes I wish vampires really couldn’t see their reflections.

1
PM

Chloe was upset today when the girls from the popular gang wouldn’t let her sit on their table because she reported them for talking in assembly. I agreed that they were being completely unfair, as she was only doing her duty as a prefect.

We then had a good chat about a ghost-hunting show that was on TV last night. They had some actors from a soap opera staying in an old country house and it filmed them listening to strange noises. Chloe thought it was fake and I agreed with her.

I can remember getting scared of ghosts when I was at school in the fifties. We used to think that one of the corridors was haunted by a pupil who drowned, and we would always run down it so he couldn’t get us. Looking back, it was a bit hypocritical of me to be so scared of a supernatural entity despite being one myself, but I was much more easily swayed back then.

5
PM

I sat with Craig and Wayne in Maths but it was really boring as they kept going on about how low cut Mrs Thomson’s top was. They were talking like they were experienced international playboys rather than spotty adolescents from a small town. I found it difficult to care about the subject, as all tops seem low cut to me if you can see a girl’s neck. Unless a girl is wearing a polo neck, I regard her as provocatively dressed.

It’s PE again tomorrow. I can’t face another lesson with that idiot Mr Jenkins so I’m going to ask Dad for a note to get me out of it. I’ll get him to write that I’ve got a bad back, and that I can’t do it for three months.

W
EDNESDAY
2
ND
F
EBRUARY

At first Dad refused to give me a note to get out of PE. He said it was the best lesson in school, and I should be looking forward to it. That’s easy for him to say, with his vampire strength and speed. PE might well be fun if you can run a marathon in five minutes and leap over hurdles as if they were paperclips. I can’t even do a forward roll!

In the end he agreed to write the note, but still managed to make it embarrassing. He went off into his study and wrote on ancient parchment with a quill. That might have been acceptable in the seventeenth century, but it isn’t now. I wish he would make at least some effort to get with the times.

Mr Jenkins almost had a heart attack when I gave him the note, but he accepted it nonetheless, and I enjoyed a blissful PE-free afternoon in the library.

T
HURSDAY
3
RD
F
EBRUARY

We had a Science test this morning that I’d completely forgotten about. I hadn’t done any revision and I got it all wrong. It’s so horrible when you scan through the questions on a test and realize you can’t do any of them. I don’t know why humans think vampires are scary. Tests are much worse.

This afternoon I found out that the girls from the popular gang have given every boy in the class a mark out of ten for looks. I don’t care what the popular gang think about me, but I hope I didn’t get less than seven. I’m supposed to be a beautiful, aristocratic immortal. I’d be the first to admit that I’m not the best-looking vampire of all time, but I’d still like to think that I’m better than average-looking.

Jay from the tough gang waited outside the school gates tonight and gave everyone a dead arm on the way home (this is when he hits you so hard at the top of your arm that it goes numb). I didn’t mind because I can’t feel pain. Technically, the whole of me is dead, so a dead arm isn’t a big deal.

F
RIDAY
4
TH
F
EBRUARY

Craig has seen the list of marks out of ten and apparently I got a four! According to him, only three people in the class got a worse score than me! And they include Darren, who has fleas.

Why do none of the girls fancy me? I’m a vampire, I should be the class heart-throb. Judging from my score, I’m more Quasimodo than Count Dracula.

I have thick black hair and deep-set eyes, although I’m not good at eye contact. My skin is pure white when it’s not plagued with rashes or acne. I’m also quite tall for my age, and I would surely have grown to over six feet if I’d stayed human longer.

Why don’t these elements combine to produce the deadly, hypnotic beauty that’s rightfully mine?

Perhaps one day they will, and all the girls in the popular gang will be begging to go out with me. And I will laugh in their silly little faces.

S
ATURDAY
5
TH
F
EBRUARY

I asked Dad today about why I don’t have the same attractiveness as other vampires and he suggested it was to do with the age I transformed. He said that supernatural beauty is something grown-up vampires need to attract prey, but vampire children don’t need it because they have their parents to get food for them.

Could he be any more patronizing? For a start, I wasn’t a child when I transformed, I was fifteen, and mature for my age, so you’d think that the laws of vampire biology would have made an exception.

He also said that you don’t hear my sister complaining about it. Of course she doesn’t. She hates boys and would be happy enough to spend the rest of eternity getting pampered by my indulgent parents. All I can say is that she’d better hope they don’t bump into any vampire slayers, as I have no intention of looking after her if they aren’t around.

He did make one useful suggestion, though. He said that to humans, vampires smell of the thing they most desire. He suggested that I might be stifling my natural vampire aroma with deodorant. I know he dislikes the smell of the Lynx I spray on every morning, so he might just be saying this to make me stop using it, but I’ll try cutting it out next week and see if it makes me more alluring.

S
UNDAY
6
TH
F
EBRUARY

Today we had a family outing to the seaside. My sister insisted that we all go on the ghost train even though it always makes her frightened. She had to bury her head in Mum’s gown when the carriage went past a luminous skeleton (or ‘skellington’ as she pronounces it). It was so pathetic.

The man in the ticket booth was dressed as a vampire, though he wasn’t putting much effort in. In fact, he was the first vampire I’ve ever seen who looked even more bored than me! He was also seriously overweight, which wouldn’t be possible for a real vampire. We live off human blood, not deep-crust pizzas.

M
ONDAY
7
TH
F
EBRUARY

As suspected, Dad was talking nonsense about the whole vampire smell thing. I’ve been off the deodorant since Saturday, but far from attracting anyone, I ended up sitting on my own in every lesson today.

In Maths, I even stretched out my arms to see if the smell of my untreated pits would get the humans flocking round. Instead, everyone in the row behind me pulled their jumpers up over their noses to protect themselves from the pong like they do when Darren sits next to them.

I concluded that my natural smell is probably not attractive to humans, so I avoided Chloe for the rest of the day. I clearly don’t smell of the thing humans most desire. Unless the thing humans most desire is a cheese sandwich that’s been accidentally left in a locker over the summer holidays.

T
UESDAY
8
TH
F
EBRUARY

Today I heard a piece of news that pierced by heart like a stake dipped in garlic and holy water. Wayne fancies Chloe!

I must act soon! I’ll never forgive myself if she starts going out with that fool. I’m sure she won’t be interested in him, though. He hangs around with the popular gang, and he’s quite good at football, I’ll admit. But he’s got bad teeth and a downy moustache and he’s in the bottom set for English where they let you watch DVDs instead of reading books. My wonderful Chloe couldn’t possibly fall for anyone that stupid.

If only I could tell you the truth, Chloe! When he’s middle-aged and bald, I’ll be here for you just as young and attractive as ever. Or at least, just as young as ever.

Tomorrow, my beautiful prey, I shall reveal all.

W
EDNESDAY
9
TH
F
EBRUARY

10
PM

I went to the library to reveal the truth about my nature to Chloe, but I was too nervous to say anything, so I went to the steps at the back of the library to hang around with my annoying friends the school goths instead.

They were talking about a new vampire show that started on TV last night, and weren’t they just the world’s leading authorities on the subject? Si got the ball of ignorance rolling by trotting out the myth that vampires can transform themselves into bats. Oh, can they now? And what happens to our bones when we do this? Do they magically shrink and then expand again? And what about our clothes? Do they somehow appear again when we transform back to human form, or are we naked? It would hardly be worth using your bat power if it meant having to spend the rest of the day with your privates on display.

Next, Brian said that he wished he was a vampire. I was so incensed by this that I was tempted to sink my fangs into his ample neck right then and show him the dull reality behind his childish fantasy. He’d be bored out of his mind in minutes, with no extra large pizza or afternoon nap to look forward to.