The Vampician

Same Day, 3:44pm.

It’s Friday, it’s last lesson. The entire English class is sitting quietly, on the edge of their chairs, waiting. All that can be heard is the ticking of the clock, and every pair of eyes in the room is staring at it as if it was their favourite television show.

All except Anna.

She’s staring at the rest of the class, wishing she was one of them. Wishing she was waiting on the bell to ring so she could burst out into the open air and rush out of the school gates to start the weekend as quickly as possible.

Unfortunately, she’s not. She’s waiting on the bell to signal the beginning of doom.

Briiiiiiiinnnnnnnng! The moment they’ve all been waiting for. In total unison, twenty-nine chairs all scrape backwards against the hard floor and what were once twenty-nine separate teenagers is now a mass of flying colours as they race each other towards the door. Stray pieces of paper fly up into the air and a tube filled with pencils clatters to the floor as one of those teenagers runs carelessly past the teacher’s desk.

“Martin!” roars Mr Menzie over the uproar that just occurred in his classroom. “Pick these up,” he continues at normal talking volume. “And be more careful next time,” he adds hopelessly because he knows perfectly well that the exact same thing will happen next Friday afternoon.

The thirtieth person sighs and leaves the classroom as Martin rams the pencils roughly back onto the desk and the pieces of paper flutter to the floor. Within seconds Martin flings himself past Anna, almost knocking her over, to join the stampede that can be heard thundering round the corner at the other end of the corridor.

“Sorry,” he shouts, without slowing or turning his head to see who it was he had almost trampled.

Anna drags herself along to Mrs. Jones’ office, each footstep more reluctant than the last. She feels like she’s in a horror movie and she’s the protagonist walking down a deserted corridor lined with deceivingly bright colours, listening to every breath she takes. In. out. In. Out. The bad guy should be jumping out on her at any moment now.

“BOO!” yells Aiden, as he rams his hands onto Anna’s shoulders.

“Jesus!” she shouts as she jumps in fright. “Are you trying to kill me today?”

“Shh!” Aiden hushes her, looking around nervously. “What have I told you about my real identity?”

“If you’re the next messiah, we’re all doomed.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Of course I do.”

“Thank y-” he begins, then realises he heard her wrong. “Hang on, you said ‘do’ but you meant ‘don’t’, yes?”

“No.”

They turn the corner to find Mrs. Jones waiting on them outside her office, hands on hips, tapping her foot, a nervous looking Laura at her side.

“Late!” she snaps.

“Mrs. Jones!” Aiden beams as if she’s the apple of his eye. “Pleasant as always.”

“People like you will be the first to go!” snaps Mrs. Jones, then seems to check herself, though it’s hard to tell because it’s difficult to see anything but hate etched into her features.

“Go where?” Aiden asks as if Mrs. Jones is talking about taking them on a family outing.

“None of your business!” she answers, confirming that she said something she maybe shouldn’t have.

“Ah, but if you’re taking me there, then it becomes my business.”

“Shut up!” Mrs. Jones screeches louder than she’s ever screeched before. The girls physically take a step back and even Aiden cringes. “I’ve had enough of your cheek for one day, boy.”

“Just one day?” he asks eagerly. “So you’ll be ready for more tomorrow?”

“Are you looking for another detention?!” Mrs. Jones asks.

“No, I don’t bother wasting my time and effort, they usually find me no problemo,” Aiden shrugs.

Mrs. Jones’ face turns a dangerous shade of red and Laura takes a further step back in case Mrs. Jones spontaneously combusts. Anna worries for Aiden’s safety more in that moment than she did when he was taunting Kieran. She often wonders whether her friend has some kind of death wish, then realises that’s stupid because Aiden enjoys life more than anyone she’s ever met, so she ends up concluding that her friend is just a little bit crazy.

“Shall we get going then?” Aiden asks after an incredibly tense silence.

“Yes,” she answers as if coming out of some kind of trance. “Yes, I think we shall.”

She spins on her red high-heels - which never fails to surprise people - and begins walking briskly down the corridor. Her three unfortunate pupils follow her - or, more accurately, two unfortunate pupils and Aiden follow her, the invalid catching the troublemaker’s eye and the two of them falling into a silent fit of laughter. Anna never could stay angry at her friend’s stupidity for very long. The scapegoat, however, can quite easily stay angry at Aiden Anderson’s stupidity and moves as far away from him as she can without getting too close to - or too far away from - her quick-tempered, orange suited teacher, wondering how to convince her Mum that her first detention really wasn’t her fault.

Mrs. Jones can hear the laughter and is wondering how much longer she’ll have to put up with these particular teenagers. It shouldn’t be long if Anna’s grandmother is who she thinks she is, because then Anna is a threat and will be dealt with accordingly and as soon as possible, before she becomes dangerous. As for Aiden, well, he’s just annoying, but she’ll keep him for her assistant; he’ll be needing someone cocky to begin his training with.

Upon reaching her classroom, Mrs. Jones unlocks and swings open the door.

“In!” she snaps and the children obey. This is the way she likes it. There will be a lot more of this obeying business one day.

She signals two of the desks - at opposite ends of the classroom - where lie a stack of papers, at least a foot high, if not more on each.

“You two!” she says referring to Anna and Aiden. “Will be arranging these alphabetically! Sit!”

Anna takes the seat nearest the door, swinging her bag under the desk and dropping her buttocks onto the chair. Aiden does the same thing moments later when he reaches the desk at the back corner of the classroom.

“And you!” she peers at Laura. “Will be supervising. If they utter a single word or even so much as glance in each other’s direction, you find me! Understood?!”

Laura vigorously nods her head.

“Good! I shall be returning shortly!”

She struts out of the classroom.

“Take your time!” Aiden shouts after her. Sometimes Anna wants to slap him. Fortunately, Mrs. Jones either doesn’t hear or decides to ignore him.

“Well, this’ll be fun!” he beams. Laura twitches towards the door, but hesitates. Should she fetch Mrs. Jones, the most dreaded teacher in the school, or cover for the person who landed her here in the first place?

“Relax, Laura! Go home, she’ll never know. If she comes back, we’ll tell her you went looking for her, ‘kay?” Aiden tells her.

“Thanks,” she smiles and scurries away, thinking Aiden might not be as bad as she thought.

Aiden’s chair screeches backwards on the floor and Anna turns to see what he’s up to, finding him swinging his bag back onto his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” she asks, wondering if she really wants him to answer.

“Well, I got detention to keep you company so I’m hardly going to sit all the way over here, am I?” he asks as he picks his stack of papers up and walks towards her. Anna turns back around in her seat, shaking her head.

“Have I ever told you you’re completely insane?” she asks with a sigh as he dumps his papers down on the desk next to hers, causing some of them to flutter to the floor.

“A couple of times, yeah,” he grins before diving beneath the desk to retrieve the fallen papers. Anna rolls her eyes, then laughs when Aiden bangs his head on the underside of the desk because he tried to stand up too early.

“You’re a nutter,” she informs him.

“Through and through,” he agrees and plonks his backside down on his chair. Before the minute reaches it’s end, Aiden is impatiently tapping his foot on the floor, not even looking at the papers in front of him.

“I’m bored!” he announces suddenly.

“I’d never have guessed,” Anna mutters sarcastically.

“How would you like some tunes?”

“Please don’t sing.”

“Spoilsport!” Aiden huffs. “But that’s not what I meant,” he continues and dives onto his knees on the floor and begins rooting through his bag. Anna ignores him and begins alphabetising, wanting to get home sometime tonight.

“Ha!” Aiden exclaims loudly as he springs up onto his feet and places his iPod docking station on the desk. “Found it,” he states the obvious as he plugs his iPod into it. Looking up, he asks, “What will we listen to Annie?”

He looks over at her and realises she’s actually doing what Mrs. Jones told her to and asks, “What are you doing?” as if this was beyond understandable.

“Carrying out Plan A,” she answers.

“Plan A for what?”

“Getting home before midnight.”

“Relax! She can’t keep us here forever.”

Aiden presses play on Anna’s favourite song, hoping to coax her out of her seat. Anna smiles, but doesn’t get up, knowing that Aiden knows her too well and is very good at using that against her.

As if to prove this correct, Aiden sprints to the other side of the classroom and opens the blinds that Mrs. Jones always keeps closed, knowing that with the summer sun shining through the window, Anna wont feel like alphabetising useless pieces of paper.

“Wonder if Mrs. Jones will fry if she walks in here,” Anna jokes, referring to their teacher’s nickname. However, after last night, Anna is seriously wondering if there is any truth to the nickname her pupils have given her, and asks Aiden, “You don’t think vampires could be real do you?” so suddenly that she surprises herself.

“Why?” he asks, unsure whether his friend is playing a joke on him or not.

“Nothing. Never mind,” Anna answers so quickly, Aiden knows there’s something up.

“Annie,” he says, in a tone that tells her he doesn’t believe her and inviting her to explain herself.

“Aidie,” she retorts in the same tone.

Aiden studies Anna for a few seconds that Anna spends wishing he wouldn’t study her.

“Right, you!” he says so suddenly, Anna jumps. He grabs her arm and drags her away from her desk, toppling the chair in the process.

“What are you doing? She could come in at any moment!” Anna protests, though she’s secretly glad. With the summer sun shining through the window, Anna really didn’t feel like alphabetising useless pieces of paper.

“Yup! The danger makes it more fun, remember?” he grins, but Anna just sits back down again, albeit reluctantly.

“Let’s just get this detention over with, so we can go home, ‘kay?” she says, annoyed with herself.

“What happened to the Anna from the AAAA?” Aiden asks, AAAA referring to their childhood games that they titled ‘Anna and Aiden: Adventuring Amigos!’.

“She grew up!” Anna snaps, angry with herself for getting angry at Aiden when it’s herself she’s angry with. She has no idea why she doesn’t just tell him what’s bothering her.

“I don’t believe you,” he states.

“Yeah…well…” Anna mumbles, not knowing what to say, and begins flicking through the papers in front of her.

“Anna,” he says sternly. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing!” she says, too loudly. “Leave me alone.”

“Anna.”

“For Chrissake, Aiden, I don’t want to talk about it!” she snaps, more viciously than she meant and decides she’d better leave the room before she explodes from the effort of trying not to explode.

She marches out of the classroom, leaving Aiden standing wondering what he did wrong.

Same Day, 4:06pm

Anna sits curled up in the corner of the girls’ bathroom, leaning on the damp walls - hoping it’s only water they’re damp with - breathing in the combined smell of cigarette smoke, urine and something else that she doesn’t want to know the name of, feeling like a coward - a stupid coward. She’s going down the right road is she wants to ruin her relationship with her best friend of eleven years. All because some idiot with red hair swooped down on her and told her she was a vampire. This is his fault, but, for some unknown reason, she can’t tell Aiden that, though she’s suspecting the reason is because a part of her has been believing it.

If she tells him that, he’ll worry and find some psychologist who’ll have her carted off to some mental institution because, after all, believing you’re a vampire is completely crazy! But, the thing is, too much of what the red-haired man said made sense. Too much of what he said was true: he described every single symptom brought on by her unique disease. Every single one of them. Not only that, but he described them as if he’d said it all several times before. This is a disease even her doctors have never heard of, so how on Earth could some random stranger have known about it?

Anna wonders if her illness is not as unique as her doctors thought it was and if he suffers from the same thing, and if he does, if insanity is a later symptom she has to look forward to. Maybe she’s already beginning to suffer from it - why else would she be seriously considering what he said? However, she man she met last night stopped seeming insane the moment he began to talk, oddly enough. Waking up in the street after one of her frequent faints to find him “tasting” the blood in her arm pretty terrifying, but her fear dissipated almost as soon as he began to talk. He was calm - though frustrated and apparently busy - and convincing. Are these the markings of mad men?

Anna doesn’t know and she’s sick of pondering it over, but one thing she does know is that she isn’t going to let him come between her and her best friend.

She stands up and leaves the bathroom, ignoring herself and instead wondering how she’s going to apologise to Aiden.

Same Day, 4:12pm

Mrs. Jones re-enters her classroom, Kieran Edkin in tow, to be greeted by sad, acoustic guitar music and a sullen-faced teenage boy sitting rifling through her papers.

“What are you doing?” she asks, taken aback, having forgotten he’s here on detention.

“Wasting my time,” Aiden mutters.

“Well, go waste it somewhere else!” she snaps, eager to get rid of him. She has more important matters to attend to now.

Aiden shrugs and leaves, ignoring Kieran’s sneering, and taking his iPod as well as his and Anna’s schoolbag with him, not caring why his teacher has had a sudden, peculiar change in attitude, or why Kieran is still in the building half an hour after school finished. He hears the door slam behind him but ignores it and turns the corner at one end of the corridor, as, in comedic timing, Anna enters the corridor at the other.

Anna hadn’t heard the door slam as she was too absorbed in her own thoughts. She still doesn’t really know what she was going to say to him as she places her hand on the doorknob, deciding just to let the words flow and hope she doesn’t say anything too stupid.

She takes a deep breath, bracing herself for the next few moments when she spots an orange-coloured movement through the small square of glass in the door. Mrs. Jones is back. Her instincts tell her to leg-it but her brain tells her that will only get her into even more trouble than telling Mrs. Jones she nipped out to the toilet. She’s about to go in and face her wrath when she notices that Aiden isn’t there and Kieran is. How strange.

“But you said it was time,” moans Kieran. Time for what? Anna wonders. Curiosity gets the better of her and she cocks an ear to listen in instead of running for her life.

“Not right this second, boy!” barks Mrs. Jones. “Patience!”

“I’ve waited for ages,” he whines.

“Then a few more hours wont kill you!” she retorts.

“It might!” Kieran argues. “How am I supposed to defend myself when I’m so weak?”

“And if you continue to be weak, Igor will be merciless!”

“So you’re scared are you?” Kieran taunts.

“And you’re not?! Foolish boy!”

“He’s just some old geezer,” he shrugs.

“You’re going to get yourself killed, boy!”

“Yeah, yeah, freedom of speech and all that,” Kieran dismisses the statement. “When are you going to change me?”

“Freedom of speech?! You think freedom of speech will protect you from Igor?! Igor, the greatest vampician of all time! Fool! I can’t believe he agreed to this!”

“Exactly! Your precious Igor agreed, so get on with it!” Kieran demands.

“We need humans first!”

“Well go get them.”

“Would you shut up!” she screeches. He does so. “Meet me at the clearing in the woods at ten o clock!” Mrs. Jones continues. “Everything will be ready!”

“I’ll never get out at ten o clock!”

“If you can’t even get away from your parents, then you’re no good to us!”

“Okay, okay. Clearing. Ten o clock. Got it.”

“Good! Now be gone!” she dismisses him.

Anna bolts into the empty classroom next door just as Kieran leaves Mrs. Jones’. He walks past the classroom Anna’s hiding in muttering inaudibly to himself. Only when Kieran has reached and rounded the corner does Anna breathe freely again. She exits the classroom and runs in the opposite direction, away from both Mrs. Jones and Kieran, wondering what on Earth that was all about.

She runs down the stairs, out into the grounds and towards the school gates where Aiden is just leaving.

“Aiden!” she shouts. “Aiden! Wait up!”

He turns at the sound of his name, but doesn’t look up. He just stands awkwardly, hands in his pockets, wearing both his backpack and Anna’s shoulder bag as Anna rushes to meet him.

“What’s wrong?” she asks when she catches up, startled to find he isn’t grinning like he usually is.

“You’re not angry with me?” he asks, startled himself, and lifts his head at last. Anna’s momentarily confused before she remembers what happened in detention.

“Oh, no, that was my fault, but never mind,” Anna cuts him off, desperate to tell him about what she just heard. “Mrs. Jones and Kieran are up to something. Feel like sneaking out tonight?”

Aiden grins once more.

“Obviously.”