The Vampician

Friday 19th September 2014, 10:48am.

“PAY ATTENTION!” screeched Mrs. Jones in her horrible piercing voice. It’s the kind of voice that deserves an exclamation mark at the end of everything she says; whispered or screamed. When she shouts, as she’s doing now, it sounds more like she scratched her nails down the blackboard and managed to produce a noise that is distinguishable as a human language. It’s a voice that makes everyone who has the misfortune to hear it cringe. It’s a voice nobody wants to be within ten miles of.

Unfortunately for a certain young girl in the class, her eardrums were within ten centimetres of the source of those high-pitched sound waves and her eardrums immediately wished they were ten miles away. A fraction of a second later, her sleeping brain wished the same thing. Anna violently jerks awake.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, sleepily. She’s not sorry though. If there’s anyone she feels sorry for, it would be her husband. It greatly surprises her that she even has a husband.

“Do I seriously look stupid enough to believe that?!” Mrs. Jones asks. Anna looks up towards her, and accidentally looks straight into those beady black eyes. She uses every ounce of will power she possesses to prevent herself from shuddering. Instead, she diverts her eyes to somewhere nearer the top of her teacher’s head, where there should have been hair, but wasn’t. What probably used to be a very nice shade of brown was closely shaved and left barely visible on top of her head. To make her look even more ludicrous she was wearing large, plastic, bright pink butterfly earrings and ridiculously red lip-stick she might have borrowed from her ten-year-old daughter, if she had one. If she does, it would be her daughter Anna feels most sorry for, not her husband. He, at least would have chosen to be with her, but the little girl had no choice.

“Well?” Mrs. Jones snaps, jerking Anna’s mind back to the classroom where the rest of the class were watching them intently, waiting for Mrs. Jones to unleash her wrath on the Freak. The ones who deem themselves too important to care about anyone else were using the opportunity as a time for checking their mobile phones, passing notes under the tables or quietly gossiping about whatever the gossip happens to be at the moment. Anna has no idea what that gossip is, but neither does she care. There are plenty of other, more interesting things she could be doing instead.

“Right!” Mrs. Jones snaps again and Anna jerks her mind back to this dimension yet again. “Detention! After school! My office!”

Anna’s shoulders slump and she curses herself and her bad habit of letting her mind wander on to completely useless thoughts while back in reality there was something worth thinking about.

“Sit up straight!” Mrs. Jones snaps, and Anna jumps up in her seat. Mrs. Jones nods, satisfied, and walks briskly back to her position at the front of the class. Anna’s shoulders slump again.

Her and Mrs. Jones never got on. They took hatred to each other on the very first day Anna was present in her History classroom, which was also the first day she fell asleep in the middle of the lesson. This, understandably, ticked Mrs. Jones off and she gave her detention. Anna tried to get out of it by explaining that she has a rare medical condition that causes her to fall asleep. This, however, only seemed to cause Mrs. Jones to find punishing her even more enjoyable. Anna presumed that her new teacher simply thought she was lying and so she brought in a doctor’s note the next day. Mrs. Jones gave her another detention, without even giving her a reason. That’s when Anna decided she didn’t like her new teacher very much.

Back in the present day, the bell rings and Anna jumps in fright, as she’d been off in her own little world again. She hurriedly clears her desk, leaves the classroom and joins the hustle and bustle of the school corridors.

“She’s such a vampire,” a girl from her class says in the corridor and Anna stops dead in her tracks because she suddenly remembers what she’d been dreaming about in Mrs. Jones’ classroom.

“Yes, but it’s funny when she’s picking on the Freak,” a voice Anna recognises as being Savannah Harley’s says as her hands give Anna a shove. She stumbles, but doesn’t fall over - she’s used to it. Unfortunately, she knocked into the boy in front of her.

“Watch it!” he shouts and pushes Anna to the side, back into Savannah.

“Ow!” she squeals, but before she pushes Anna again and it turns into a big fight - or, more accurately, a beating - Anna ducks under her arms and scurries down the nearby staircase, weaving in and out of easily irritated teenagers.

She reaches the door of the building and gladly bursts outside into the blistering September sunshine and half-walks, half-runs across the soft grass towards her and her friends’ meeting place. A cool breeze sweeps across her face, as if it’s protecting her from the sheer heat of the sun’s rays and blowing away all her troubles. Anna wishes it could.

When she feels she’s far enough away from the rest of the school’s population, she slows to a walk, breathing heavily, and, as if to top finally being outside and away from Mrs. Jones, there’s that beautiful smell of freshly cut grass. Anna smiles. She loves being outside in the summer sun, which is another reason why that bloke she met last night was a lunatic.

She reaches the little patch of grass that is almost entirely hidden by an assortment of bushes in the corner of the school grounds. Here, she throws her bag down and lets her body follow it. She lies there with her hands under her head, eyes closed, bathing in the what’s left of the warmth for what she hopes to be the rest of her life. In reality though, it was only a minute or so before she opens her eyes again, wondering where her friends had gotten to, to find a pair or brilliantly green eyes inches from her own, and floppy dark brown hair almost tickling her nose.

“Jesus! Don’t do that!” Anna exclaims as he sits down beside her, laughing, and Brandon sits on her other side, giving his head a rough shake in attempt to keep his dirty blond, shaggy hair out of his eyes. As usual, as soon as he stops shaking, it falls straight back into his eyes. He’s smiling. He never laughs. If he finds something funny, he smiles. The rest of the time he looks quite expressionless. Anna does’t really blame him though: she’d be the same if she was in his shoes.

“Yes, but please, call me ‘Aiden’. I find that when people know my true identity I receive a lot of unwanted attention. I like the quiet life, me,” he replies with an over-dramatic sigh. Anna rolls her eyes.

“Thinks he’s Jesus now does he?” they hear Jaycee’s voice say from somewhere half-way through the bushes. “You need to deflate that head of yours mister.”

Jaycee and Catlyn’s lanky forms emerge from the bushes, looking as identical as ever. The only way people can tell them apart is by their hairstyles. They’re both blonde, but Jaycee never lets hers grows past her neck, and its usually spiky, and the fringe, which comes from a right side parting over her left eye, is dyed bright green. Catlyn’s hair is roughly half way down her back and her fringe is similar to Jaycee’s except it is dyed bright turquoise.

“What? Who?” asks Aiden as he looks around in mock confusion, pretending to be searching for the person she had spoken to.

“You, jackass,” says Catlyn as she flops down onto the grass next to Jaycee, across from Anna, Aiden and Brandon. Aiden just nods and smiles to himself as if satisfied with being called a jackass and falls backwards into a lying position next to Anna.

“What are you like?” asks Catlyn.

“One of a kind,” Aiden replies.

“Definitely,” agrees Jaycee. “One too many at times.”

“Love me really,” Aiden teases.

“That’s debatable,” shrugs Jaycee. In response, Aiden grabs a fistful of the freshly cut grass and throws it at her. It hits her shoulder, and just as Aiden begins to laugh, Catlyn retaliates on Jaycee’s behalf, and the grass lands in his face, some of it going into his mouth.

“Nice one, Cat!” Jaycee giggles.

Anna laughs and Brandon smiles as Aiden flips up into sitting position, trying to spit the grass out. Failing to succeed, he sticks his grass-covered tongue out and desperately wipes at it with his hands. Jaycee and Catlyn fall into hysterics, clinging to each other for support.

“Oh, now you’re in for it,” Aiden says, eyes wide with a grin on his face. He was trying to look like a madman, but he only succeeded in making himself look incredibly funny, causing Jaycee and Catlyn to finally collapse onto the floor in their hysterics.

Aiden fills both hands with grass and throws one handful at each of them. They quickly close their mouths as not to suffer the same fate as Aiden did. They needn’t have bothered, because he has a terrible aim: Catlyn’s grass-bomb landed on her side and Jaycee’s, a little closer to the target, on her neck. The girls roll onto their stomachs and push themselves to their feet, collecting grass on the way. Spinning round simultaneously, they throw their grass in Aiden’s direction. They both play Netball and so have an excellent aim, and their attacks would have been on target if Aiden didn’t possesses his fast reflexes. He’d rolled on his side and sprung to his feet, thinking he should audition for the next James Bond movie.

“Missed me, missed me, now you gotta kiss me,” he chants, like a Primary School kid.

“You wish,” Jaycee and Catlyn both reply, but are unable to dodge Aiden’s resulting grass attack in time and end up covered in it.

They continue teasing and launching grass at each other, but Anna hadn’t been paying them much attention because her mind had drifted off again. It was preoccupied with thinking about her dream and the events of the night before, and wondering what on Earth it had all been about. The man was mad, surely? Vampires aren’t real.

“You okay?” the soft voice of Brandon’s asks Anna.

“Yeah, fine,” Anna lies, but, knowing Brandon has a knack for knowing when people have something on their mind, she adds, “Just enjoying the sun while I can ‘cause I’ve got detention with Mrs. Jones later.”

“I’ll give her hell for you, Annie,” Aiden promises, while dodging the grass flying from the twins’ hands.

“What have I told you about calling me Annie?” Anna asks, as if she were speaking to a naughty child, which Aiden pretty much was.

“Um, not no,” he grins, flashing his teeth, then receives grass to the back of the head, happily delivered by Jaycee.

“Nice one, Jayce!” says Catlyn and they high-five. Aiden spins round to retaliate, but before he has the chance, he’s hit in the back of the head again, this time due to Anna., who had quickly gotten to her feet.

“Hey! This isn’t fair! Three on one!” he complains, spinning round again, not knowing where to throw his grass next and being attacked by girls from all sides. “Help me out, Brandon.”

Brandon smirks, gets to his feet and throws some grass at Catlyn.

“Oi!” she giggles. “You’re supposed to be the peaceful one.”

“It’s my day off,” he replies with a smirk.

They’re grass-fight was cut short by some very unwelcome quests.

“I thought we’d left Primary School. Clearly I was wrong,” the sneering voice of Kieran Edkin attempts to attract the attention of the five people who are deliberately ignoring him.

“Oh, get lost, pretty boy,” Aiden replies, his usual impatient self. His friends roll their eyes, cursing his impatience, and turn to face their visitors.

In the centre stands the burly, blond-haired, blue-eyed Kieran Edkin, the school’s biggest bully. Clinging to his arm like a desperate limpet on the rocks is his girlfriend Savannah Harley. Next to Kieran stand his cronies, Snake and Spider. Of course, they’re not their real names but anyone who uses them doesn’t tend to stay in one piece for very long.

Next to Savannah is her best friend, Millie Heartsdale, which everyone thinks is a misleading name for a thug like her, but no one would dare comment on it. As if for contrast, next to, but a few steps behind, dear Millie, stands Rebekah Fortham, a small, timid girl who’s only friends with them because she’s afraid of being on the opposite side. Anna and her friends have tried to convince her to “change sides” and be friends with them, but, being frightened of being seen talking to them, she ran off.

All six of them are laughing at Aiden.

“Ohh, ‘get lost’. Scary. I wont mess with you,” Kieran jeers sarcastically.

“Just you wait and you’ll get what’s coming to you,” Aiden retaliates.

“Unless you mail it to him,” Anna mutters. Aiden turns to look at her and they burst out laughing at the inside joke. Kieran, however, turns his nose up at them.

“You make me sick,” he states.

“We’re glad to have the privilege,” Aiden retorts, still laughing slightly.

“I could pound you to a pulp before you even knew what was happening,” Kieran sneers.

“Come on then,” Aiden stops laughing and straightens himself up. His friends begin to worry; Aiden’s never invited a fight before.

“Aiden, don’t,” says Anna, knowing Snake and Spider would be the ones to beat him to a pulp before he even knew what was happening, and not Kieran. Aiden may be a daredevil, but he’s not violent, and Anna’s pretty sure he wouldn’t come out better against those two.

“You’d listen to her if you know what’s good for you,” Kieran advises.

“Eat lots of greens, regular exercise, that kind of thing, yeah?”

“You’re a cocky wee shite aren’t you.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

Before Kieran can answer, the bell rings. They continue to stare each other down for a few tense seconds that felt like forever to his anxious friends, before Kieran and company slowly turn around and begin walking away.

“Watch your back, boy,” is Kieran’s parting statement, and, to the relief of his friends, Aiden doesn’t retort.

“What the hell did you think you were doing?” Anna hisses at him, angry now that the fear has passed.

“I’m sick of that kid walking around like he owns the place,” he replies as he picks up his schoolbag and swings it over his shoulders.

“He can do that all he likes as long as his cronies aren’t beating the crap out of you. I like your face how it is.”

“It is a very handsome face isn’t it?” he asks, a smile creeping back onto his angry face.

“Keep telling yourself that, mate,” Jaycee replies.

Same Day, 12:05pm.

During their third lesson of the day, Anna gradually got Aiden out of his surly mood and back to his playful self, ready to take on his next challenge: driving Mrs. Jones up the wall!

“Hey Mrs. Jones!” he shouts in the loudest, cheeriest voice he could muster as he walks into the freezing cold classroom with a spring in his step. Mrs. Jones’ eyes widen in disbelief, her lips become so thin they’re barely visible and she sucks her cheeks in over her cheekbones making her face look even skinnier than it usually does.

“Sit down!” she snaps.

“Sure thing Miss. J!” he replies skipping over to his desk, past her desk, where he accidentally-on-purpose knocks over those perfectly stacked papers.

“Sorry Miss. J! Don’t worry! I’ll pick ‘em up in a jiffy!” he over-dramatically says as he bends over to scoop up the papers and shove them roughly back onto her desk. Then he turns with the deliberate force needed so that the wind the created by the movement causes some of the papers to fall back onto the floor again. He pretends not to notice as he carries on walking towards the back of the classroom to his own desk. On his way he bumps into one of the desks, knocking it out of its place in the perfectly arranged row.

“Oh, I’m such a klutz today,“ he proclaims loudly, but leaves the desk where it is and carries on to his desk where he sits down, swings onto the back two legs of the chair, his head hitting the blinds across the window, and puts his feet up on the desk to observe, expecting her to lunge at him and murder him. Instead, she just stands there, disbelieving, slowly breathing in and out, still with the same look on her face, which was now turning red with fury. Her hands had curled into tight fists that caused her fingernails to cut into her palm.

The poor kid whose desk Aiden nudged out of place quickly straightens it, hoping to calm his teacher down so they don’t get a twenty thousand word essay for homework to be handed in tomorrow. It seemed to work, if only a bit, because her breathing slows and her body relaxes slightly.

“If you are quite finished?!” Mrs. Jones asks Aiden, who just smiles sweetly at her. She glares and walks from the door to the front of the class.

Once everyone had all sat down and retrieved their books from their bags, Mrs. Jones clears her throat, which, unless it was clogged, was pretty useless because the class learned long ago that it is hazardous to their health - and leisure time - to let their attention slip, even for a moment, while in her class.

“Right, class! Today,” she begun, but was interrupted by Aiden’s sudden coughing fit. Mrs. Jones glares at him. He stops as suddenly as he started.

“Sorry, Miss. J!” he grins.

“Today, you will be learning about the food rationing of World War Two!” she continues and turns to begin writing on the chalkboard behind her. Aiden, determined to cause Mrs. Jones' idea of World War Three, makes a high-pitched screeching noise in time with the chalk’s contact with the board. Mrs. Jones ignores him.

She turns back around to thirty thirteen-year-olds trying not to laugh. She picks on an unfortunate girl at the front.

“Lauren Tilmer! What do you think you’re smirking at?!” she snaps.

“It’s Laura,” she replies, timidly.

“I don’t care! Detention!”

“That’s not fair, Miss. It wasn’t Laura’s fault,” Aiden complains.

“Really?! And whose fault is it then?!” Mrs. Jones asks.

“I think it’s that cheeky boy at the back, Miss. I believe his name is Aiden Thomas Anderson.”

“Well! You can tell Mister Anderson to shut up or he is going to get more people in trouble!” Mrs. Jones replies, aware of the game Aiden is playing against her.

“Sure thing, Miss. J!”

“Good!” she says, and begins talking about food rationing.

“Hey, Aiden!” he shouts. “Miss. J says if you don’t shut up you’re going to get more people in trouble!”

“Aiden!” Mrs. Jones snaps.

“Just doing as requested, Miss.”

Mrs. Jones makes a noise in her throat, but doesn’t rise to the bait, believing herself to be above the games of insolent teenagers.

“Now! Who can tell me why rationing was introduced during the Second World War?” she asks, ignoring the boy at the back of the class, who is sitting flicking his pen back and forward off the desk causing a highly irritating clicking sound. The class is too distracted to answer.

“Haven’t you been listening for the past month?!” she asks, sweeping her eyes across the faces of twenty-nine teenagers concerned about their leisure time if they say something wrong. Meanwhile, the clicking sound goes on.

Click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-

And on.

Click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-

“Stop it!” Mrs. Jones shrieks.

Click-click-click-click-click-

“I said stop it!”

Click-click-click-

“What’s the magic word?” Aiden asks patronisingly.

Click-click-click-click-

“Detention!”

The clicking immediately stops.

“That’s the one,” Aiden says and smiles, knowing he’s the victor of World War Three.

Mrs. Jones scowls. She knows it too.