Jane Jones (12 page)

“No, I just have cramps,” I said. I could feel the anger and humiliation rising in me.

“So you’re
not
menstruating,” Mrs. J finally said, so loudly that my classmates could no longer contain their hysteria. Their jeering made it feel like the walls were
closing in on me. For a second I wished that I could turn on all of them and bare my fangs. I pictured myself sinking my teeth into this girl Ally McNally’s spray-tanned neck while she screamed for her two best friends, Allie and Ali, to help her. And then what would I do? Go into a blood-induced anaphylactic shock as a bunch of humans snapped pictures of me with their cell-phone cameras to put on their Tumblrs? I needed to calm down and end this conversation ASAP so that I could get on with my plan. The old me, of a few days ago, might have backed down, but the new me wasn’t such a wimp. If Mrs. J was actually trying to embarrass me, maybe it was best to fight fire with embarrassing fire.

“No,” I responded defiantly, “my periods are extremely irregular. In fact, it’s been a long time since I last had one.” Mrs. J’s lips tightened in discomfort as I spoke and the girls from my class had gone from shrieking with laughter to just tittering. Maybe they all decided I was less funny-crazy and more scary-crazy. Good. Because if you thought about it, I had something like nine hundred months’ worth of PMS coming to me and now was as good a time as any to use some of it. I continued, even louder, for everyone’s benefit. “The pain isn’t in my uterus or pelvic area. My genitals are fine. But I
am
having some intense cramping.” Mrs. J’s jaw had gone slack from my graphic description.
“So, may I go to the nurse now?” I asked, with what sounded to me like an edge of actual menace in my voice. It felt awesome.

“Get a pass off my desk and go,” said Mrs. J, obviously eager to shut me up. I tuned everything out except the squeaks of my Chuck Taylors crossing the polished wood floor. As I took a pass from Mrs. J’s desk, the bleat of her whistle reverberated off the brick walls and steel beams of the gym. Normal PE activity had resumed, but I was out the door. The first step of my ten-step mission had been a less-than-rousing success, but I’d done it. Step two was figuring out what steps three through ten actually were.

I heard a knock on my bedroom door and before I even had a chance to say
, “Yeah?” Zachary barged in, pushed open the dark drapes on my canopy bed, and sat on the edge of my mattress. I’d given up on hoping that his manners would improve decades ago. “Hey,” he said, “I’m sorry I was a jerk at breakfast this morning.” For a second, I was stunned, then I got wise.

“Did Ma make you come and say that?” I asked.

“Of course she did,” he replied. “She was worried because you’ve been all mopey ever since you got home from school. She thinks it’s because you’re pissed at me.”

“Not really. I know you can’t help yourself,” I said, mussing his already-mussed mop of hair.

“But I am sorry,” he said, trying to duck my hand. “Hey, I’ve been working on another idea for your blood-intolerant thing, J.”

“You have? Tell me about it,” I said.

“Okay, so blood types are a classification of blood based on the presence or absence of inherited antigenic substances on the surface of red blood cells, right?” he rattled excitedly. “Some blood types make A antigens, some make B antigens, some make H antigens, which is important because in order to receive, like, a blood donation, a person has to get the type of blood that matches the antigens present on the surfaces of their other cells and tissues, y’know?”

Honestly, he had lost me a while ago. I was a good student, for sure, but science wasn’t really my thing. Maybe it’s because I had learned the hard way that what science does not know about certain things is a lot. For example, a Nobel Prize–winning geneticist might tell me that I don’t exist. Which, I happen to know, is false. I also never really enjoyed dissecting things, possibly because I’ve often worried about being caught and dissected myself. So, no, I didn’t know, but I was enjoying listening to his squeaky little voice spout facts.

“So, when we were … you know … transformed, I think something went haywire with you that basically killed whatever antigens were on the surfaces of your tissues. Not sure how that happened. Of course, if you were willing to submit to a biopsy …”

“No, I don’t think I want you coming after me with a vegetable peeler,” I said, punching his arm.

“Ugh, fine.” He sighed. “Anyway, my theory is that if I could find a way to extract some HH antigen from the Bombay blood we have in the freezer, stabilize it and grow it, then recombine it with common blood plasma through plasmapheresis …” He continued breathlessly, “Do you know what that would mean?”

I frowned. “I don’t. Tell me in English.”

“It would mean that we could have an endless supply of blood … of food … for you. You could feed on more than just a drop every few days. If it worked, you could feed all you wanted. Maybe put a little juice in your caboose!” he exclaimed. I smacked his arm. Brothers should not be talking about their sisters’ cabooses under any circumstances. “Well, what do you think?”

“I think I am lucky, and I also think I have the best little brother in the world,” I said. It was true. My brother was loud and often obnoxious, but he had this incredible gift, and he chose to use it trying to figure out a way to make my life better. Not a lot of vampire
or
human girls can say that.

“I don’t want to get your hopes up too high,” he admitted. “I believe it’ll work, but it’s gonna take time. Not to mention using up some of the Bombay we have stored for you. But if I can make it happen, it could really change things,” he said seriously. He was right. Not only would it
be possible that I might gain strength, it would also make purchasing blood products on the black market so much simpler and less expensive for our parents.

“I love you, Zach,” I said, swallowing hard on the lump in my throat. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some homework to slog through. Not everyone in the family can be such a brainiac.”

“Okay,” he said, getting up. “I’ll update you on my findings. Let me know if you change your mind about the biopsy,” he said, wiggling his fingers in front of him like a mad scientist in a scary movie.

I threw a pillow after him as he ran out of my room and closed the door, leaving me alone on my bed. Even though I’d already swallowed one lump, I had a brand-new one in my throat. Here my little brother had been thinking of ways to help me, while I’d been thinking of ways I might leave him and the rest of my family behind forever. Actually, if I was being honest, I’d been thinking of ways to avoid thinking about that so far. I knew I had to give Timothy my answer, and soon, but first there were a few things I needed to sort out. Primarily, what was the damn deal with my history teacher?

For someone who had, prior to that week, never broken a school rule, I’d sure made up for it in two days. I’d become a one-woman crime wave! Okay, maybe just a
one-girl minor-infraction machine. Still, I’d gotten pretty bold. After faking sick in gym, I’d passed right by the infirmary and went to the main office. A shiver went through me as I remembered the horrible secretary looking up at me over the tops of her reading glasses.

“Is Mrs. Rosebush here?” I’d asked. “I need to see her right away.”

“Mrs. Rosebush is at a school-district meeting,” she said with her pouchy cheeks quivering. “She won’t be back today.” Snap. I had planned on Rosebush being there. I wasn’t exactly sure what I would do once I got to her, but I hadn’t bargained on dealing with anyone else. Especially not this nasty lady. But I couldn’t really leave without getting what I came for either.

“Okay,” I pressed, “then … do you know if she ever found my file? She said it was missing during my meeting today and—”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know the answer to that,” she interrupted. “You’ll have to check back in with Mrs. Rosebush tomorrow.” She went back to shuffling the papers on her desk and I stepped closer. She looked up, jutting her round chin out, not understanding why her dismissal hadn’t worked on me. I leaned down, then reached out and grabbed her fleshy wrist with my thin, cool fingers and looked into her dull gray eyes.

“I’m afraid I can’t wait until tomorrow,” I said. “That file contains all kinds of private information about me. It’s not good that it’s lost.” It was only my second attempt at trying to glamour anyone, and since this time it was for semi-nefarious purposes, my nerves were acting up. I felt certain that at any moment, this could become an epic fail. I really needed to work on my self-esteem. “You understand, don’t you?”

“I do,” she said dreamily. “I do understand.” That was a relief.

“Good,” I said, not letting go. “Do you think maybe it was accidentally moved? Is there a file-storage room here?”

“There is.” She nodded. “In the basement.”

“Then I need you to go,” I instructed, “and see if my file was mistakenly put down there. Do you remember my name?”

“I don’t know,” she said, softly shaking her head. Of course she didn’t. She knew enough about me to feel like it was okay to treat me like I was a piece of chewed gum on the bottom of her orthopedic shoe, but she hadn’t bothered to learn my name. Either way, it didn’t matter.

“That’s fine,” I said. “Just go down to the basement and look for my file. Do not come back without it. Do you understand me?” I let go of her arm slowly and stepped
back. I’d hit her with all that I had, and hopefully it would last for a while.

“Yes,” she said, standing up and getting her cardigan off the back of her chair. She shuffled out of the office trying to button her sweater, but she had missed the bottom hole. She looked sort of insane, and I would have felt bad for her if I had liked her even one little bit. But I didn’t, and I hoped she’d be down there for hours, looking for a file that wasn’t even there. If anyone found her and brought her around, between the misbuttoned outfit and her explanation that she was looking for paperwork on a student whose name she couldn’t remember, I was pretty sure they’d at least make her lie down for a while.

Once she was out of the office, I closed the heavy door after her and turned the lock. I looked out the wire-reinforced window to make sure nobody had seen me, and then pulled the shade down tight. The office seemed so hectic every morning, but by this time in the afternoon, it was pretty quiet, while the students listened to afternoon lectures, dozed off during filmstrips, or quietly gossiped on the basketball court about the weird girl’s freak-out over her cramps. I pushed those thoughts from my mind as I sat down behind the secretary’s desk and started going through her bottom drawer, which was jammed with yellowed papers in browning folders. Was this the second
desk I was ransacking within twenty-four hours? I was becoming quite the badass! I spoke quietly to myself as I thumbed through the tabs, “School holiday calendar, medical forms, letterhead, budget, by-laws, education board meeting minutes …” Cripes, hadn’t this woman ever heard of alphabetizing? I didn’t see anything that looked helpful to me. I closed the drawer and briefly checked the next one up, which contained approximately one old leather handbag, twenty pads of blank hall passes, and seven million pens.

I abandoned the desk drawers and turned my attention to the desk’s surface and the ancient-looking computer atop it. There was a document already open, a letter of some kind, which I closed without saving
any
of the changes. Kind of mean, but I totally enjoyed it. Once it went away, I was left with a horribly cluttered computer desktop littered with little cutesy cat icons rather than the folder icons that normal people used. I scanned the labels until I saw one that made me gasp.
Payroll.
I clicked on it and waited breathlessly as the computer groaned and strained, trying to retrieve the data.

Bibbibbiddibbibbiddibibbiddiboop!
The sudden, unexpected trilling of the top-volume ringer on the secretary’s phone caused me to drop the mouse and clutch my throat in startled horror. There was no caller ID, and
I didn’t consider answering it for one second. I did realize, though, that if it was a faculty member or someone else working inside the school, a non-answer might prompt whoever was on the other end of the line to visit the office personally, especially if the matter they were calling about was urgent. I needed to wrap this thing up fast.

The little hourglass animation on the computer finally finished and the payroll folder opened. Inside it, there was a document called … 
Payroll.
Very creative. I clicked on it and waited for what seemed like another interminable amount of time for it to open. When it did, I breathed a sigh of relief on seeing what seemed to be a decently organized and reasonably complete contact sheet of every teacher and employee working at the school this year. I scrolled down, down, down to the
S
’s until I got to
Smithburg, Charlotte
. Had I been a more advanced spy, I probably would have popped in a flash drive to download the file onto, or even just printed out the list, but I was new at this, so I went the low-tech route. Looking for something to write on, I remembered all those hall pass pads in the drawer and grabbed one of those, plus one of the less chewed-looking pens. Writing quickly, I took down all the information there was. Ms. Smithburg’s address, a phone number, and a long sequence I assumed was her Social
Security number. I didn’t think I’d need it, but I was pretty new to this whole espionage thing.

Once I had the information, I shut down the computer and went to return the pad of passes before deciding that they might come in handy and slipping them into my bag. I walked to the door and unlocked it but left the shades down so people might not notice the secretary’s absence right away. Then right before I opened the door, I noticed something out of the corner of my eye: the control panel for the school’s announcement and bell system. The announcements were made with a microphone that looked like a CB handset and the bells were all on an automated system, but they could be overridden with the buttons on the panel. I was seized with an idea. Of course, in order for that idea to work, I would need the small chrome key that fit into the small chrome lock on the panel. Lucky for me, that small chrome key could be found sticking right out of its lock. I bet the secretary kept it there so it wouldn’t get lost. Not that I was complaining, but everyone at this school really needed a seminar on personal and professional security. I turned the key and was about to press the button that was labeled
CLASS BELL
when I changed my mind and pressed the one labeled
DISMISSAL BELL
.