Sleepover Club Vampires (8 page)

“Listen!” Rosie whispered.

At first I couldn’t hear anything. Then there was a scraping and moaning noise above us.

“It’s c-coming from the attic!” Fliss stammered. “Do you think it really is Headless Eric?”

“Don’t be daft!” I told her. “That was just Uncle Bob’s story to get us out of trouble. It’s got to be Molly, she must be stupid if she thought we’d fall for that trick ourselves.”

“You mean she sussed it was us?” Frankie asked. She and Lyndz were now sitting on my bed with the others.

“Must have!” I shrugged. “Come on, let’s go and sort her out!”

We crept to the door and out on to the landing. We were halfway along to the attic door when all the lights were turned on.

“Sprung!” Mum announced viciously.

Molly and Carli were just in front. They looked absolutely amazed when they caught sight of us.

“Now I don’t know who it was that rigged up that little charade,” Mum was looking from me to Molly, “but it’s beyond a joke. Nobody believes in ghosts, OK? And if there’s any more mischief like that, you’ll all be grounded and none of you will be going to the party on Saturday, is that understood?”

“But that’s not f—” Molly began.

“
Is that understood?
” Mum repeated firmly.

“Yes!” We all nodded glumly.

“Now back to bed, all of you!” Mum watched as we headed back to our bedrooms.

As Molly passed behind us she hissed, “We’ll get you back for that!”

“What did she mean?” Rosie asked crossly when we back in bed. “
They
were the ones pretending to be Headless Eric this time.”

“I just want to know how they got back from the attic so quickly,” Frankie yawned sleepily.

Hmm, that certainly was a mystery. But I could tap Molly for that information later. We only had one more chance to slay the vampires before we went home, and I was determined that nothing was going to mess that up.

All the next day we were as helpful as possible – fetching, carrying, peeling and chopping. We figured that if we worked our socks off all day, nobody could refuse us the chance to cut loose for a little while in the evening. And as we were in the kitchen I had the perfect opportunity to ‘borrow’ a little garlic – vampires
hate
that!

By late afternoon, the kitchen was groaning with food. There was just one last dish to prepare – haggis!

“What on earth is haggis anyway?” Fliss asked.

“Well,” Mrs Barber grinned. “As Robbie Burns once wrote, it’s the ‘Great Chieftain o’ the puddin’ race’.”

“Pudding, great! Count us in!”

Mum and Lyndz’s mum exchanged weird looks.

“Well you’d better help me with the ingredients then,” Mrs Barber smiled, leading the way to the fridge.

Frankie took one look inside and dashed outside with her hand over her mouth.

“Gonna hurl!” she moaned.

Fliss and Rosie ran after her. Lyndz and I stayed to have a closer look.

“Och, the girl’s gone soft. Has she never seen a sheep’s heart and liver before?” Mrs Barber pretended to look amazed.

“And w-what’s that?” Lyndz asked, pointing to another bloody-looking container lurking inside the fridge.

“Why that’s the sheep’s lungs!” Mrs Barber explained, removing the container. “And this here’s the sheep’s paunch, or stomach bag. We mix up all those goodies with oatmeal, onions and seasoning, then stuff it back in here and boil it. It’s the most delicious thing you’ll ever taste.”

Lyndz had gone a funny shade of green. And I was feeling none too clever myself.

“Why don’t you two run along and see if Frankie’s OK?” Lyndz’s mum ushered us out of the kitchen. “You’ve worked ever so hard today, go and get some fresh air whilst we finish up in here.”

We didn’t need telling twice. We ran and ran until we finally caught up with the others leaning against a tree outside.

“You OK?” I asked Frankie.

“Mm,” she nodded. “It was all that bloody stuff, it was disgusting.” She went pale again at the thought of it.

“You don’t suppose your Uncle Bob really is a vampire himself, do you?” asked Rosie. “And that was the remains of one of his victims?”

Fliss squealed.

“Nah!” I shook my head. “But speaking of vampires, look it’s getting dark. This might be our last chance to slay them. Let’s go upstairs, grab our things and prepare to do battle.”

We charged up to our room, stuffed the crosses, stakes and garlic into our pockets and ran outside again. Uncle Bob was just walking up to the house.

“You’re brave venturing out there,” he grinned. “You want to be careful, you never know what you might meet.”

We all looked at each other and he went inside, rubbing his hands and chuckling to himself.

“There’s something going on here and I don’t l-like it,” Fliss shivered. “Let’s go back inside.”

“Look Fliss, do you want to come with
us
or stuff disgusting muck into a sheep’s stomach?” I asked her. “The choice is yours.”

Felicity remained rooted to the spot.

“Felicity Proudlove, you are the weakest link, goodbye!”

We started to walk away towards the chapel.

“No, don’t leave me!” she yelled and came hurtling after us.

“We’ll be OK if we stick together,” I told everyone firmly.

When we had the chapel in our sights we went in single file, creeping carefully and trying to make as little noise as possible.

As soon as we got to the chapel, we knew we were not alone. Something was moving about on the other side. Torches occasionally flashed, and there was a low murmuring of voices. I peeped through the open doorway and saw a hooded figure. I gasped and pulled back.

“There’s something round the other side,” I whispered to the others. “We’ll have to creep round. It’s too dark to go in here.”

“I want to go home!” Fliss sobbed. “Please let’s go back.”

“I’m with Fliss,” Rosie agreed. “Come on, this could be dangerous!”

My heart was pounding in my chest. And I admit that I was scared. Really scared. Part of me wanted to turn and run. But part of me thought:
Come on Kenny, this is exciting!

Besides, I knew that the others would never let me forget it if they thought for one second that I was as terrified as they were.

“You stay here if you want,” I hissed. “But I’m going in!”

I hugged the wall of the chapel as I crept stealthily round to the other side. Frankie was right behind me – I could hear her breathing down my neck. And Lyndz was behind her.

When we got to the corner I turned and whispered, “Get your stakes ready. On a count of three, let’s get slaying. One, two, THREE!”

We rushed out like mad things, yelling and screaming at the tops of our voices. I executed a few high kicks, although at first I couldn’t really see what I was aiming for, it was too dark.

Then I saw the figures again. There were lots more than I’d expected. I ran towards them with my cross raised, brandishing my garlic. I tried to do a flying drop kick just like Buffy, but it wasn’t that easy. I seemed to get my legs all wrong and landed awkwardly. I tried to recover myself, but as I staggered to my feet something grabbed me from behind and dragged me into some bushes.

“Help! Frankie! Lyndz!” I yelled. But it was no good –
they’d got them too!

“Leggoofme!” I yelled, thrashing about with my arms and legs. All I could see were these dark shapes surrounding me.

“Ouch!” I made contact with something, it felt like a shin. Whatever I’d kicked was obviously reeling in pain, so I tried more of the same.

“Och, you little wild beastie!” a man’s voice snarled crossly. “Put the torch on her, Andrew!”

Now I’ll admit that up until then, I was convinced that I was fighting for my life. We’d been captured by vampires who were going to kill us for sure. But that voice didn’t sound as though it belonged to a vampire – and I’d certainly never heard of a vampire calling itself
Andrew!

A bright light suddenly flashed on to my face. I blinked and tried to turn away from it. The first thing I saw was Frankie struggling furiously against two men who were holding her by the shoulders. Next to her a woman was grappling with Lyndz. They were all wearing jeans and anoraks. Now I know that vampires are masters of disguise – but
anoraks?
Per-lease!

“Just what on earth do you think you are doing?” asked the man behind me furiously. “Your silly games could easily disturb the bats and that’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid.”

“Bats?” We all spoke together.

“Yes, we’re here observing the bat colony in the chapel,” said the woman. She was quite young and fortunately she didn’t seem as cross as the other man. In fact she looked as though she was desperately trying to stop laughing.

“We’ve been here all week trying to establish approximately how many bats there are,” she continued. “Whether they’re in good health and how far advanced they are in their preparations for hibernation.”

“Bats!” I repeated like an idiot. “We thought you were vampires!”

Everyone just cracked up. Talk about
us
disturbing the bat population! They made so much noise they probably disturbed every bat from Scotland to the South of France!

“Now, now. Don’t mock the girls. I thought they showed great spirit!” Uncle Bob had appeared with Fliss and Rosie. They were all grinning from ear to ear.

“That was so funny!” Rosie was laughing so much she was almost choking. “You ought to have seen yourself, Kenny!”

“Can it, Rosie!” I snarled. “You knew about this all the time didn’t you, Uncle Bob? Why didn’t you tell us that there were bat-watchers here?”

“And spoil all your fun?” Uncle Bob grinned. “Now I couldn’ae do that, Kenny. Look, no harm’s done and now you’re here you can watch the bats too.”

He pointed overhead. The air was filled with black shapes sweeping out into the sky from the chapel. Once they’d soared higher, they seemed to swoop down suddenly.

“Eek, my hair! They’ll get stuck in my hair!” squealed Fliss and put her hands protectively over her head.

“The last thing bats would do is land in your hair.” The older man still sounded really annoyed with us.

“It’s true,” the woman told us gently. “They’re swooping like that to feed on insects. They have to eat as many as possible at the moment because soon they’ll be hibernating for winter so they’re in the process of fattening up. Even these tiny bats can eat up to 3,000 insects at one feeding.”

“Really?” I was totally stunned. “That’s awesome!”

“But how can they see in the dark?” asked Lyndz.

“Well actually they don’t,” Andrew, the guy who’d flashed the torch in my face, explained. “They use a system of echolocation. That just means that as they fly, they make high-pitched sounds. They find out what obstacles are in their way by the echoes they get back. Clever, huh?”

“Wicked!”

“You know when I said I’d seen something flying past our window on the day we got here?” I told the others excitedly. “It must have been a bat! But I always thought bats were a lot bigger than these ones?”

“Oh they can be,” the woman explained. “These are pipistrelles. They’re the smallest and most common bats in Britain. They only weigh about seven grammes, tops.”

“Wow!” breathed Frankie. “That’s tiny!”

When we were sure that all the bats had left the chapel we crept to the doorway to take a peek inside. There was a faint high-pitched noise, coming for somewhere.

“Careful everyone,” the man told us. “It sounds like there’s a bat in trouble.”

We shone our torches on to the beams and over the ground.

“Look!” Fliss suddenly whispered. She shone her torch over to the far corner of the building.

There on the ground was a tiny bat. The man went over and very gently picked it up. You ought to have seen it. It was so tiny, and its wings looked far too big for it somehow.

“I think it’s probably just hungry,” the man said. “We’ll take it back with us and have it checked over. My guess is that it’ll just need feeding up. Then we can release it back here in a day or two. Would you like to hold it?”