Vampire Crush (12 page)

As if on cue, Vlad’s countenance darkens. I prepare for the worst. This is it. This is the end. But Vlad doesn’t reach for my throat—instead he pul s away, disappointed. It takes a few seconds to realize that it’s not because James has betrayed him; no, it’s because he has no excuse to kil me. I’ve passed. Somehow, I’ve passed.

“Maybe I’l see you around,” I say, giddy with good luck, and head toward the door, half expecting to be tackled from behind. Soon enough, however, the
High School Musical
argument starts up again. Talking to Mr. Amado can wait until tomorrow. Right now I need to get out of here and go where I can be sure my thoughts are completely my own. I’m almost to the door when James catches up with me. A part of me wants to yel at him, but his relief at not being found out is plain, and for a moment, that’s something we share. If I’m being honest, the temptation to put everything on hold and celebrate is overwhelming, especial y when I note that he seems to have recovered from whatever was ailing him.

“Are you feeling better?” I ask, just as a figure appears at the other side of the lobby. It’s Lindsay, the girl I almost let become the prime entree of a vampire buffet. Now she’s heading toward us with a determined stride, her hands hidden by the stack of papers clutched to her chest. Plea for forgiveness number one is on my tongue when she bypasses me for James.

“Thanks again for finding me today,” she tel s him with no hint of il wil . “The articles are due to our journalism teacher tomorrow, so my head was about to, you know, spin around and pop off.”

“No problem,” he murmurs.

“It’s so great that you’re going to join our class,” she continues. “Maybe we can work on something together.”

“Sure,” he says, but his eyes are on me.

Lindsay fol ows his gaze, and I brace myself for another wel -deserved tel ing off. But al she does is apologize for ignoring me and ask if I’ve given any more thought to joining the col ection drive for Greenpeace. “I think we could real y use you,” she says. “Final sign-ups for the planning committee were on Friday, but, wel , this whole weekend is kind of a blur.” She frowns. “I think I need to stop pul ing al nighters.”

It’s like our almost death never happened. I look at James for an explanation and find one in his guilty expression. So that’s why he was late to chemistry, and that’s why he looked so tired. He may not have mind-wiped me, but he had no problem doing it to someone else.

Lindsay picks up on the tension immediately. “Okay, then. I’m, uh, just going to go. Check in with you later for Greenpeace,” she says, and then bolts out the front door. I try to fol ow but James steps in front of me.

“I had to,” he says. “I tried to explain some things to her, but she freaked out and started screaming. She’s safer this way, I swear. The fuzziness wears off after a few days.”

“Where were you after lunch?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.

His jaw tightens. “I had to find Vlad,” he says stiffly. “It took more out of me than I expected.”

“There’s not going to be an extra space in the front row tomorrow, is there?” I say. It’s a bad joke, mainly because I’m half serious.

James’s face wrinkles in disgust. “No. Vlad has a cooler from—”

“The fair,” I say quickly. “I know.”

“I don’t want to know how you know that. Sophie, I’m serious, this is not a stupid journalism assignment. You need to stay away from him. You’re lucky he was distracted. I could hear you, and I was farther away than Vlad. You may think that you’re a fortress of snark and bad-assery, but you’re not.”

The fact that I didn’t entirely succeed in wearing my antivampire hat is not exactly comforting, but I can’t let that deter me. “Not until I make sure the girl is safe,” I say. “I won’t just leave people in danger.”

James’s face hardens, and I realize that I’ve just destroyed any chance of a truce. He steps to the side to let me pass. When I exit into the sunlight, he doesn’t fol ow, leaving me to wonder exactly how many reminders I need before I realize that he’s not on my side.

Mr. Amado colects our Welcome Back articles the next day. When it comes time for me to hand mine over, I experience a moment of panic. Last night I caved and looked over them again, after which I tried to do some finalhour touch-ups, but they are stil hovering more toward the

“suck” end of the spectrum than the “stel ar.”

“Thank you, Sophie?” Mr. Amado says calmly, tugging a few times when my fingers continue to clutch the end. “I’m taking them now.”

Left with little other option, I let go, and he moves on to the rest of the students. I notice that Lindsay doesn’t hesitate at al when it’s her turn; she offers her handful of pages proudly and with a bright smile that Mr. Amado returns. Mindwiping, and Other Keys to Better Journalism: An Expose. Maybe I should have asked James to go ahead and wipe me as wel .

I risk a peek at the back corner of the room, where James has stashed himself in the most isolated desk and is now propping his cheek up with his hand as he watches the proceedings with a bored eye. This has been his position of choice in al of my classes, with the exception of English where he finagled a seat directly between me and Vlad and sat up so straight in his seat that I couldn’t even see the tippy-top of Vlad’s head. We haven’t exchanged a single word since yesterday’s fight in the foyer, although once when he caught me looking at him, I thought I saw the ghost of a smile before he schooled his face back into impassivity.

Mr. Amado has finished his rounds. I force my attention back to the front of the room just as he sets the stack of articles on his desk and then sits on its corner. “This is great, guys,” he says. “On Thursday we’l start using the computers to lay everything out—and remember, if you need to brush up on your InDesign skil s, I’m holding refresher workshops after class for the rest of the week.”

He claps, which I’ve learned is his way of drumrol ing. “But right now I wanted to check in and see how you are al holding up after the first assignment and brainstorm ideas for the next few issues. Remember, this is a forum and I am just the steward here to help you.”

“What’s a steward?” Neal asks.

Mr. Amado’s mustache twitches. I also noticed during the assignment roundup that Neal turned in a handful of comics and not an article about the missing blood. That makes me happy, but it means that Mr. Amado’s Neal Frustration Level is high.

“A guide, Neal,” he says. “A guide.”

“I want to keep covering girls’ sports,” Mark Echol s says before anyone else can stake claim to his territory.

“I anticipated that, Mark,” Mr. Amado says. “I don’t see any reason why—” He stops when he notices that I’ve raised my hand. “Sophie?”

I was real y hoping to suggest this in a one-on-one meeting, but it looks like I’m going to have to do it now since Mr. Amado turned into a Super Sophie Evader over the weekend. “I’ve been thinking that maybe we should shake things up this year,” I say. “I mean, Mark, you’re excel ent at girls’ sports, but you’ve been doing it forever. And I’ve been doing the investigative stuff forever, and Emma has been doing the horoscopes forever. The paper might be fresher if we al brought a new perspective to the articles.”

I stop, realizing that most of my classmates are glaring at me. Wel , except for Lindsay, who is doing her best to look encouraging, and James, who’s watching this with more interest than anything else that’s happened today.

“Also, it wil make our clip files more diverse for when we’re applying for col eges and university newspapers,” I finish in a rush. “We’l have so much more experience.”

“That seems like a fair point,” Mr. Amado says. He’s trying to act casual and facilitatorish, but I can tel that he likes the idea. “What do the rest of you think?”

“But I spent al summer reading Linda Goodman’s
Love
Signs
,” Emma says, flipping her black, curly hair over her shoulder. “That’s not going to help me if I’m stuck watching the school play three thousand times.”

“And I’ve always covered girls’ sports,” Mark says. “They know me.”

There are some murmurings from the rest of the class. Mr. Amado is looking at me with a newfound admiration, and that gives me the needed boost to press forward. “But don’t you guys want to try something new?”

“No,” Mark says emphatical y, pushing his glasses up his nose.

I should have waited until I caught Mr. Amado alone. He’s not against getting dictatorial with individuals, but he won’t support something that the class is clearly against. And if I don’t have the girls’ sports cover, then I have no idea how to even start looking—

“I think it’s a great idea,” Lindsay offers. “I mean, I cover almost al of the volunteer drives, and it’s wonderful and everything, but maybe I’m missing something because I’ve gotten so used to it. I don’t see why it would hurt us to try it for at least one or two issues.”

She smiles at me, and I’m overcome by a wave of gratitude, but also guilt, considering that she was robbed of the right to be angry. It feels like I’ve gotten away with something that I shouldn’t have.

“That’s one vote for yes,” Mr. Amado says, “and two votes for no.” He folds his plaid arms across his chest and leans backward. “Anyone else for yes?” he asks hopeful y. The bulk of the new sophomore staff members raise their hands along with me and Lindsay, clearly wanting to get on Mr. Amado’s good side right from the get-go, not to mention either one of the editor in chief hopefuls.

“That’s twelve yeses,” Mr. Amado says, and then blinks a little because the no’s have already raised their hands.

“Okay. And that’s eleven no’s. Did anyone not vote?” he asks and then frowns. “Neal?”

Neal looks up from his binder and rubs his cheek, leaving a smudge of dark blue ink on his chin. “What are we talking about?”

“Whether we want to switch up assignments for the next issue.”

“I want to keep doing the comics. So … no?”

Mr. Amado sighs. “Of course. Twelve and twelve. Who’s our tie-breaker?” He scans the room until he finds James, who’s been doing nothing but idly rol ing his pen back and forth throughout the whole thing. “What do you say, James?”

James is obviously frustrated to have been singled out.
Please say yes
, I think, even though I’m fairly sure that he’s too far away to hear me. I wonder if he realizes my ulterior motives for this switch. Even if he doesn’t, he might vote no just because we’re on the outs. I’m stil holding my breath when he looks at the ceiling.

“Yes,” he says final y.

“Wonderful!” Mr. Amado says. “Why don’t you guys think over what you want to handle and come talk to me when you’re ready to pitch article ideas.”

I’m at his desk before he’s even halfway in his seat. When I tel him that I want to cover girls’ sports he does a double take. “Are you sure?” he asks.

“It wil be a chal enge,” I say, doing my best to put a Future-Journalist-of-America spin on it, “and I real y want to try my hand at something new. Cross-country, soccer, and tennis al have their first official matches next week.”

“We usual y do a ful spread for the sports pages. Can you write enough to fil that or do you need a buddy?”

“I got it,” I say.

“Then it sounds good to me. Great idea, Sophie. Real y,”

he says, and for that moment, it feels like it might just be easy to fix everything after al .

One week later, when I’m about to be hit in the nose by a flying soccer bal , I realize that feeling was premature.

“Watch out!” someone yel s, and even though I duck soon enough to avoid being beaned, I drop my pen beneath the bleachers in the process. Seeing that the game is paused due to some infraction (note: find out what sort of penalties there are in soccer), I jump off the side and crawl beneath the risers, kicking aside stray cups and candy bar wrappers until I final y find it plopped in the center of a cheesy leftover nacho tray. By the time I’ve successful y decheesed it and made it back to my spot, the entire Thomas Jefferson girls’ soccer team is hugging one another and jumping up and down. I have a sneaking suspicion I’ve missed something important.

Sure enough, one of Caroline’s friends breaks away from the pack and jogs over, her blond ponytail swinging.

“Did you see it?” she asks, half out of breath.

“See what?”

“Um, my penalty kick. My game-winning penalty kick.”

“Oh, right. You kicked the bal and it went in that net,” I say, pointing to the goal at the far right end of the field.

“No,” she says, pointing in the other direction, “it went in
that
goal. Where’s Mark? He always covers our games.”

Mark is probably in an underground lair sticking pins in a Sophie voodoo dol , but I lie and say that he real y wanted to cover the fal play this year. “Apparently he’s a big
High
School Musical
fan,” I add, feeling the jab of another imaginary pin.

“Fine, whatever,” she says. “Just make sure that you list my name as ‘Marta’ and not ‘Martha.’ He always gets that wrong.”

“Noted,” I say, expecting her to run back to her teammates, but she continues to stand there. Thinking I’m supposed to offer some encouragement, I add, “Real y great game by the way. You kicked the bal real y far. Like, I didn’t think it could go that far, but then it did.”

“Thanks,” she says dryly. “Aren’t you going to interview me?”

“Oh, right. I was going to interview you al in the locker room.”

“Like when we’re getting dressed?”

“Yeah. I thought it would make for a better article that way,”

I say. “You know, smel the sweat; feel the camaraderie. That sort of thing.”

She looks at me like I just said I wanted us al to hold hands and then play spin the bottle.

“Come on,” I say, trying for peppy obliviousness as I stand up and nudge her toward the locker room. “We can get started on the way.”

I ask Marta questions for as long as it takes to confirm that she’s not bearing any star birthmark, and then move on to the rest of the team as they trickle in to wrestle out of sports bras and wiggle into skinny jeans. After I exhaust my soccer questions, I recycle the icebreakers from the newstudent profile. Final y, one of the sophomores slams her locker shut with a clang.

“I mean, my favorite color’s burnt orange, but seriously—

what does any of this have to do with the game?”

The rest of the girls murmur in agreement and start to brush past me, some of them picking up their remaining clothes and walking out in their soccer uniforms. When the room is empty, I close my eyes and fal back against the wal . On the upside, I have another seven girls to cross off my list, which makes about thirty when you add in al the other locker rooms I’ve been lurking in. On the downside, at this rate I wil get a name for myself as the creepy reporter who insists on interviewing subjects while they are halfnaked. I wait a few moments before pushing through the swinging door. Unfortunately, my delay tactics were for naught; a gaggle of them are huddled in the center of the gym around a bright blond head that I know al too wel .

“Vlad, I thought you said you were going to come to our game,” pouts one of the team members that I’ve just crossed off my list.

He smiles. I’ve been doing my best to avoid him these past two weeks, but even I know that’s occurred less and less regularly since his kissy lips have failed to locate the girl among the cheerleaders. He’s been losing patience with teachers, and yesterday I even overheard him snap at Ms. Walpole for asking how his paper on
Frankenstein
is going (“It’s not, you harpy”). But now that he has an audience, he’s al sweetness and light. I watch as he clasps a hand to his heart.

“I know, and please accept my deepest apologies for missing it,” he says. “I hope that the upcoming party my friends and I wil be throwing is enough to make up for my absence.”

“Party?” Marta says.

“Yes,” Vlad says. “And there is even a theme.”

She claps her hands. “Theme parties are my favorite. What is it? Twenties? Pimps and Hos?”

Vlad just raises his eyebrows mysteriously and puts a finger to his lips. “The invitation wil say more. In fact,” he says, making an elaborate show of looking at his watch,

“they should be in your lockers now.”

The girls look at one another and then head for the door—

apparently I’m the only one who wants to vomit at the prospect of a Vlad-catered party. I can only imagine what the theme wil be … “Show Off Your Birthmark Night”? As if I didn’t have enough to deal with already, Vlad has to learn how to multitask.

After verifying that the coast is clear, he pul s the smal black journal from his back pocket. He’s been scribbling in it more than ever—in English, in the cafeteria, in the middle of the hal way—and I want to know what. I haven’t had the chance to try and squeeze more information out of the Sophie-friendly vampires. Marisabel has either been absent or too close to Vlad, and Violet seems to have taken a vow of silence; every time I try to speak to her in English, she just presses her lips together and whispers,

“C’est une secrete.”

Suddenly, Vlad looks up, and before I can think of a suitable hiding spot, he’s heading my way. Since that day in the lobby, he’s looked at me several times with a suspicious glint in his eye. When he’s about twenty feet away, I panic and let my feet walk in whatever random direction they would like to go … which happens to be halfway up the bleacher stairs. My flight instinct needs a better sense of direction.

Realizing that I’m trapped, I turn around and try to pretend that’s what I was intending on doing al along. I take a seat, but keep to the edge just in case I have to move quickly.

“What are you doing here?” Vlad barks up at me from the bottom step.

I hold up my notebook and do my best to feign a natural indignation at being harassed by what is supposed to be a near stranger. “Um, reporting on the soccer game. I was just going to jot down some notes.”

“You were here yesterday outside the locker room as wel . After the other meet concluded, the one where they run around in the forest for no reason.”

“Yeah, I cover cross-country, too,” I say, trying to keep my voice as even as possible. “What’s the big deal?”