Sweetblood (9781439108741) (7 page)

“Eat,”
says the voice.

I tear the end off the wrapper and put one end of the bar in my mouth and bite and chew. It is dry, like sawdust. I chew and swallow. A box of cranberry juice would be nice. Bite, chew, swallow. Am I sitting on the railroad tracks? No, I can see the tracks, far away, as if through the wrong end of a telescope. The edges of my vision are dark as charcoal. My mind stops. I stare thoughtlessly at a stalk of dry goldenrod quivering in the wind. Yellow leaves tumble by, but my eyes are frozen. Time passes. After a few eons my mind begins to work again. I have the empty granola bar wrapper in my hand. I must have eaten the whole thing. That is good. Words form on the movie screen in my head, explanatory subtitles appear:

I cross my arms; I hug myself. My guts feel disconnected. That was a bad one. I could have passed out. I almost did. I feel stupid. I am shivering. I should have eaten the granola bar before leaving the mall, but I was so busy feeling sorry for myself because I couldn't have any pizza that I forgot about the calories I'd need for the walk home.

Being a proto-vampire means constantly balancing food and insulin and exercise. Too many cookies and the blood sugar soars, a little too much insulin and it drops, producing an insulin reaction. Exercise also affects blood sugar. If I exercise without eating, I risk having a reaction.

Every insulin reaction is different. Usually they are no big deal. I feel kind of weird, I drink a glass of juice, and everything goes back to normal. But some of them are almost like a religious experience, complete with hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, and disturbing physical sensations.

I don't know how long I've been sitting here, but the sky is lower and darker now and the wind has picked up. My head is pounding. Insulin reactions often give me a headache. I'm trembling from the cold. I stand up. I'm still a little dizzy, but I start walking, one step at a time.

There is a special feeling that comes when you are cold and hungry and it is dark, and you see the shape of your house and lights in the windows, and then you are home. You open the door and the warm, moist smell of cooking hits you. You peel off your jacket and the heat floods in through your pores and you are safe.

When I walk into the house I'm not thinking about being late for dinner or about Mrs. Graham or any of my other troubles. I just feel good to be safe and warm and home.

That lasts for about three seconds.

“Sweetie? Is that you, Honey?”

“It's me.”

She appears in the kitchen doorway, twisting a dish towel in her hands.

“Your father is out looking for you. We were worried.”

If she's so worried, why doesn't she give me a hug? Instead, we face off: the evil sugar-bitch daughter and the whiny hand-wringing mother.

“Well, I'm home,” I say.

“Your father is very upset.”

Now I'm
not so hungry anymore. I head for the stairs.

“Sweetie?”

I ignore the whine and take the steps two at a time. When I close the door to my room I feel safe. I flop back on my bed and stare up at Rubber Bat and, above him, the Seven Sisters. They are dark maroon now, but I remember when they were scarlet and fresh. That was months ago. I'd been sitting on my bed testing my blood sugar, but when I lanced my finger I must've gone too deep because a jet of blood shot into the air like Old Faithful, leaving seven bright, wet, red droplets suspended from the textured ceiling. I have named them the seven sisters of the Pleiades: Halcyone, Taygete, Asterope, Celæno, Electra, Maia, and Merope. I was really into Greek mythology for about five minutes once.

I wonder where my father is. He knows nothing about me, so he is probably driving aimlessly, all serious and fatherly. My head is still pounding. Should I risk a trip to the bathroom to get an aspirin? I decide against it. They'll probably leave me alone for a while if I stay in my room. If I pretend to be doing homework. I sit up and go to my desk and reach to turn on my computer but my hand swipes air. For a moment I am confused—am I having another insulin reaction?

Slowly, I sit down. This is no insulin reaction. This is far, far worse.

I stare at the empty space where my computer used to be.

BLAH BLAH BLAH

Shouting doesn't work. Neither does sulking or refusing to talk. But I try it for a day anyway. The next night at supper, after 24 hours of Lucy Locklip, I offer them a deal.

“Deal?” My father's eyebrows jump so high I'm looking for his eyelids to rip, and his mouth is squirming—I don't know if it's a snarl or a suppressed laugh. “What sort of deal, Sport?”

“You give me my computer back and I'll listen to what you have to say.”

He laughs. I stare back at him stone-faced.

My mother says, “Sweetie—”

“Please don't call me that.”

“Honey—”

“Or Honey or Sugar. Or
Sport
.” I shoot a look at my father. “My name is Lucy.”

“Young lady”—he is less amused now—“I don't think
you understand just how much trouble you're in.”

“What? Because I wrote a highly historically accurate essay? Because I'm having one bad semester at school? Because I was a few minutes late for dinner one night?”

He's shaking his head. “Settle down, Lucy. Just… settle.”

I realize that I'm standing up, waving my fork and screaming. I'd promised myself I wouldn't do that. I take a breath and sit down and fold my hands in my lap.

“Sorry.”

“Listen to what we have to say, then we'll talk about giving you back your computer.”

“It's mine. You should just give it to me.”

He shakes his head, wearing his stone face. I see that I'm not going to change it easily.

“Okay,” I say, “talk.”

My father did most of the talking.

“The first thing we want you to know is that we love you very much, and we want what is best for you.”

Inside my head I reply,
BLAH BLAH BLAH—then why did you breed a kid with diabetes?

“And we're worried about you.”

I am keeping my face very still.

“Mrs. Graham is worried too.”

BLAH BLAH BLAH.

“You know, when someone you love seems to change suddenly, it's a little scary. Last year you seemed to be doing so well at school, and now… well, you seem so unhappy.”

BLAH BLAH BLAH
. How happy would you be if you were a teenage diabetic vampire freak?

“And that
essay
you wrote—,” my mother breaks in.

My father shuts her up with a glance. He says, “It's not the essay, Lucy. Not just that. I mean, we know that Mrs. Graham is kind of old-fashioned. And I know you just wrote that to shock her—”

“I wrote it because it's true,” I said.

“Well… you don't really think you're a
vampire
,” he says.

I stare back at him. I want to say,
Yes, I really do think I'm a bloodsucking demon from hell.
But I know if I say
that
I'll
never
get my computer back.

I say, “Not really.”

He looks relieved. “Good.” He leans forward and puts on his friendly concerned-dad face. “The reason we took your computer, Lucy, is because of some of the Web sites you've been visiting. I checked them out.”

“Excuse me? You went snooping in my computer?”

“I looked at your Internet history file. I visited some of those sites, Lucy. The vampire sites? You know, there are some very sick, dangerous people out there.”

“It's just role-playing.”

“Most of it is, I agree, but not all. I believe that some of those people are very serious.”

“I don't
think
so.”

“Well, I do. A girl… a young
woman
like you… you have to be careful. There are a lot of predators out there.”

“So you
do
believe in vampires?”

He sits back and crosses his arms. Not a good sign.

“Okay, okay! What do you want me to do?” I ask.

They look at each other—another bad sign. The arms uncross and he is leaning in on me again.

“Lucy, we want you to be safe and happy.”

I don't know what he's going to say next. But I know I'm not gonna like it.

My parents want me to see a counselor. A shrink. They don't want me to be a vampire, so they are sending me to a headshrinker. I imagine a leering, wrinkled old man asking questions about my sex life. He won't find much there.

The guy they want me to see is a psychologist recommended by Buttface.

“Forget it,” I say.

“I don't think you understand,” my father says after a few seconds. “You really don't have a choice here.” His face is hard as stone. I can hardly believe this is the same man I used to trade winks with. If he winked now I think his eyelid would crack.

“You mean if I don't see your shrink you'll have me committed or something?”

They just stare at me. Uh-oh. I think furiously.

“I'll talk to Fish,” I say.

“Fish?”

“Dr. Fisher.”

My mother jumps in. “But… Honey… Dr. Fisher is an
endocrinologist
.”

“He's a
doctor
. Look, I've got an appointment this week for my six-month checkup. I'll talk to him, and if he thinks I need a shrink, then I'll go.”

“I really don't think this is Dr. Fisher's area of expertise,” my father says.

“Maybe my problem is diabetes related.” I can see they aren't buying that. “Besides, if I have to see a shrink, I'd rather see somebody recommended by Fish than by Buttface.”

“Lucy!” my mother says. At least she didn't call me HoneySweetieSugar again.

They don't like it, but after a bit of stubborn squalling,
they agree. In the meantime, I'm off-line and grounded. They also decide to deprive me of telephone privileges, just to be extra cruel.

It feels a lot like being really, truly dead.

Since all of my other evening options suck worse, I decide to do my laundry. I've been washing my own clothes for the past six months, ever since I complained about the way my mother folded my jeans. But that was another crisis, another time.

I'm going through my pockets when I come across something hard and square. The box that Guy gave to me. With my life turning into a disaster movie, I'd forgotten all about it. I open it carefully, not sure whether I'll find a chrysalis, a butterfly, or something else altogether. To my relief, the green chrysalis is resting comfortably on its spun-cotton pillow. I hold it in my hand and look closely at the smooth, green, waxy surface. The gold dots are a little brighter than I remember them. Can it really be alive?

I am reminded of something. When Mark Murphy and I were little kids we would catch fireflies and, at the moment of illumination, pinch off their rear ends and stick the glowing guts on the backs of our fingers. We called it night jewelry. One time we got pretend-married and gave each other firefly wedding rings. Of course, the night jewelry—and our marriage—only lasted a few minutes. After that all we had was firefly guts.

There is a small black stem on one end of the chrysalis. I attach a piece of tape to the stem and hang it from the shelf above my computerless computer desk and think about Guy. Dylan. I don't know which name I like better. I close my honey-colored eyes and think about his blues and wonder if maybe he is the one who will complete me. I have
always thought that I am only part of a person, and that there is someone out there who will fit to me the way a key fits a lock. But what kind of guy would give me a bug for a present? Is this a teenage version of getting pretend-married with firefly guts?

I separate my darks from my lights—the dark pile is way bigger—and I carry them downstairs to the laundry room.