Vampire Brat (3 page)

I
made it down to the front door at the same time as Aunt Tabby—in fact I bumped into her as she was climbing back inside through the dome thingy that leads onto the roof. She was dripping wet and not in a good mood. We raced all the way down to the hall and it was a dead heat, although as Aunt Tabby has longer arms than me she reached the door handle first. There was no
sign of Brenda, who usually races Aunt Tabby to the door, so I guessed she was still hiding under the kitchen table with wimpy Wanda.

Aunt Tabby threw open the huge old front door to Spookie House and went kind of pale. Her mouth opened but she did not say anything, which was very unlike Aunt Tabby, who always has something to say even when you wish she hadn't.

All four of the strangers just stood out there in the rain staring at Aunt Tabby and me. They did not smile or say anything. They had deathly white faces and narrow eyes that bored right through you and out to the other side. I felt like one of those turret steps that the woodworm had eaten. It was weird.

Aunt Tabby made a kind of cough/croak noise, which could have meant almost anything
at all. None of the hearse party replied. A strange yellow light came from the distant lightning flashes and all the time the rain pelted down. It ran down the silent people's faces and dripped off the ends of their noses.

Suddenly Aunt Tabby woke up. She shook herself and yelled in a kind of panicky voice, “Drac! Drac! Your mother's here!”

Wow! I had no idea that Uncle Drac had a
mother
.

I did not think that Aunt Tabby was being very polite, as she always says you should not yell for someone, you should go and find them and ask them
nicely
, Araminta. And also she had not even asked the visitors in, and one of them was her mother-in-law, which meant that she was my great-aunt, so I decided to be polite and show Aunt Tabby what you should do.

“Good afternoon, Great-aunt,” I said, since I did not know her name. “Welcome to Spookie House. Please come in.” Then I stepped back right onto Aunt Tabby's toes and Aunt Tabby yelped. But I must have said the right thing because the old lady strode into the house. She was scary—but what was even scarier was a double-headed dead ferret that she wore around her neck, which stared at me with its four glass eyes as she swept by. The driver shook the umbrella out, carefully placed it in the monster umbrella stand by the door, and went back to the car.

The little kid, who looked like a drowned rat, trotted in next, and he was followed by the almost grown-up girl. She was wearing black lacy socks and cute little black boots. I smiled at her and she kind of half smiled
back—I think. They all stood lined up in the hall and said nothing. The only sound you could hear was water dripping onto the floor.

There was another crash of thunder and the front door suddenly slammed shut.
Bang!
Aunt Tabby and I jumped about three feet in the air.

And then Uncle Drac's mother spoke. “Well, Tabitha,” she said in a scratchy kind of voice. “We meet again.” She did not exactly sound pleased about it, I thought.

Aunt Tabby gulped like one of Barry's frogs and then she hissed in my ear, “Where
is
Drac? Go and fetch him, Araminta. Quick!”

I didn't really want to go because I thought the creepy relatives were really interesting, but I could see that Aunt Tabby needed help and fast, so I raced up the big stairs and along
the landing until I found the little red door to Uncle Drac's turret.

Uncle Drac generally sleeps in the day because he does not like the light very much. On the other side of Spookie House from the haunted turret there is a really tall turret—this is where Uncle Drac keeps his bats. Aunt Tabby has been trying to make Uncle Drac get rid of all the bats since Barry does not sell enough bat poo and it keeps piling up inside the turret. But Uncle Drac loves his bats. Last month Aunt Tabby told him that he had to decide between her and the bats, but Uncle Drac took so long trying to make up his mind that Aunt Tabby decided to forget that she had said anything and the bats stayed—and so did she.

I like going to see Uncle Drac in his turret since I am not really allowed there because it
is very dangerous. There are no floors to stand on—Uncle Drac took them all out so that the bats can fly around as much as they like and pretend that they are in a really big bat cave.

I carefully pushed open the little red door and peered in. Uncle Drac was fast asleep in his big flowery sleeping bag. You may be wondering where Uncle Drac puts his sleeping bag if there aren't any floors, although you have probably guessed—he hangs it from the rafters.

“Hellooo…” I called very quietly, as it is
not a good idea to wake up Uncle Drac very suddenly because he can jump out of his sleeping bag if he gets a shock, which happened once when Big Bat landed on his head. Uncle Drac broke both his legs, but they are okay now. “Hellooo…” I called again. “Wake up, Uncle Drac.”

Uncle Drac stirred. “WharrisitMinty?” he muttered.

“Your mother's here, Uncle Drac.”

“What?”
Uncle Drac's eyes slammed open and he nearly leaped right out of his sleeping bag.

“Careful!” I said.

It was okay—just. Uncle Drac kind of slid back down into his sleeping bag and groaned. “Mother…
here
?”

“Yes. She's come to see you. Isn't that nice?”

“Nice?” asked Uncle Drac, sounding puzzled. And then he said in a really worried voice, “Oh my goodness, where's Tabby?”

“She's downstairs, Uncle Drac.”

“With
Mother
?”

“Yes.”

As soon as I said that, Uncle Drac clambered out of his sleeping bag, swung himself up onto the rafter, and walked like a tightrope walker to the door and squeezed through. “Come on, Minty,” he said, grabbing hold of my hand, “we can't leave Tabby alone with
Mother a moment longer,” and we ran down the stairs to the hall.

It was empty. Everyone had disappeared. There was nothing left but a great big steaming puddle of water.

This was getting better and better. Everyone had vaporized!

I
t was very disappointing. No one had vaporized at all. Uncle Drac and I found them all sitting at the long table in the third-kitchen-on-the-right-just-around-the-corner-past-the-boiler-room. Brenda and Wanda had managed to crawl out from underneath the table, and Wanda was helping to pour the hot water into Brenda's biggest teapot—which is about the size of a bucket.

The whole kitchen smelled of wet wool—Uncle Drac's mother, the weird little kid, and the almost grown-up girl were sitting at the table, steaming quietly as their thick black clothes began to dry off. No one said a word. Aunt Tabby sat glaring at the end of the table while Uncle Drac's mother was busy eyeballing her in the kind of way that Aunt Tabby sometimes eyeballs me.

Close up I could see that you could not mistake Uncle Drac's mother for anyone else in a million years. She looked just like him. She had the same square, pale face and the same brilliant pointy teeth that just showed over the corners of her mouth—but she did not smile like Uncle Drac. She glowered. So did the double-headed ferret.

The almost grown-up girl looked very
interesting. She had long dark hair with black ribbons threaded through it, and I really liked her little black hat, which had lots of black lace and feathers all over it. I thought I saw a stuffed mouse on it too, but I was not sure and I didn't want to stare too hard. The almost grown-up girl looked like she might not appreciate that.

The little kid was weird. He had squinty eyes and a really pale face like he had never, ever been out in the sun. His shiny black hair was swept back and you could still see the comb marks in it. He was wearing a starched white collar, a tie, and a buttoned-up jacket, and he was sitting on
my
chair, with his little legs swinging to and fro. He was quite pudgy and was busy chewing some candy. I could see he had a great big bag of candy stuffed into each pocket but he wasn't about to offer any to Wanda or me.

I gave him my fiendish frog stare but he stared right back and he didn't blink. Not once. That had never happened to me before.

Suddenly Uncle Drac broke the silence. “Hello, Mother,” he said. “You remember Araminta.” Then he said to me, “Minty, this is your great-aunt Emilene.”

I smiled and was about to say hello when Great-aunt Emilene snorted like a camel and said,
“I remember Araminta. Odd little scrap.”

Well.
She
got a fiendish frog stare too, and the almost grown-up girl almost smiled.

“And these, Minty, are your cousins, Mathilda and Maximilian,” said Uncle Drac.

I had heard Uncle Drac talking about them sometimes but I had never met them before. “Hello,” I said. Mathilda just smiled kind of mysteriously and Maximilian shoved another piece of candy in his mouth and kept right on chewing. I was really glad that the almost grown-up girl was my cousin, but I could have done without the little kid.

Great-aunt Emilene did her camel impression again and said in a loud voice, “Well, Drac, you're looking sickly. I see Tabitha is still not feeding you properly.”

“Oh…er…” Uncle Drac did not seem
to know what to say, and Aunt Tabby said nothing at all, which really surprised me.

“I did not receive a reply to my letter, Drac,” said his mother sternly.

Uncle Drac blinked. “What letter?” he asked.

“Don't make excuses, Drac. As I was saying, I did not get a reply to my letter so I came anyway. Maximilian's parents have been called away on an urgent assignment. I expect you know how successful their ghost-hunting business is now. A good deal more successful than the
bat
poo business, I would imagine.”

She sniffed loudly and I thought Uncle Drac looked upset. But she didn't care, she just carried on in her scratchy voice, like chalk squeaking on a blackboard, “Well, Drac, as I said in my letter, Mathilda is off to
college and I have a cruise booked that I have
no
intention of missing. Maximilian's trunk is in the car. You can help Perkins out with it and then we'll be gone.”

At the mention of “gone,” I saw Aunt Tabby smile faintly, but Uncle Drac looked like something had hit him over the head. “Trunk?” he asked.

His mother sighed just like Aunt Tabby sighs when I say something that she does not agree with. “Help Perkins lift it out, will you, Drac?”

Just then Brenda put the teapot down on the table with such a thump that everyone and everything, including all the cups, jumped. “Oops, sorry. Clumsy me,” Brenda trilled rather nervously. She started pouring the tea, and I went and sat down at the end of the
table. Wanda came and sat next to me, then she leaned over and said right in my ear, “It will be nice to have Maximilian staying with us, won't it, Araminta? I told him he could have our Saturday bedroom.”

“What?” I gasped. The Saturday bedroom is my favorite bedroom.

“It will be such fun,” said Wanda, who had obviously not noticed that I most definitely did not think it would be anything
like
fun. “We can sleep in our Friday bedroom on Saturday, too. That would be really exciting.”

Wanda's idea of what is exciting is not exactly the same as mine.

I looked at Aunt Tabby—surely she was going to say something about this? But she didn't say a thing. She just sat there like a goldfish whose water has just been poured down the sink.

“Um…trunk. I'd, er, better go and get it then,” muttered Uncle Drac. He gulped down his tea and stood up. His chair made a horrible scraping sound on the floor, but I didn't mind because even that was better than listening to the weird slurping noise that Great-aunt Emilene made while she sucked up her tea like a vacuum cleaner.

There was no way I was going to stay down in that kitchen with Wanda Wizzard grinning at the little kid like he was her new best
friend, so I said, “I'll help you, Uncle Drac.”

“Would you, Minty?” Uncle Drac looked pleased. He grabbed my hand and we both shot out of the kitchen like we were being chased by a whole pack of werewolves. In fact give me a pack of werewolves any day.

It was pouring down rain when we got outside and the thunder was still rumbling, which was fun. Perkins was asleep in the driver's seat. His mouth was wide open and he was snoring loudly. Uncle Drac tapped on his window, but there was no chance Perkins would hear anything with a snore almost as loud as the thunder.

“You'll have to bang on the window really hard,” I told Uncle Drac, who is quite shy and usually leaves all the loud stuff to Aunt Tabby. He didn't seem to want to, so I thumped the
window hard and made my cross-eyed wide-mouth frog face through the steamed-up glass.

It worked. Perkins jumped up like something had bitten him, squashed his top hat on the roof of the car, and sat straight back down again. Then he wound down the window and said, “Yeeeees?” in a low, spooky kind of voice that would have really scared Wanda, though it did not scare me at all.

Uncle Drac coughed and said, “We have come for Maximilian's trunk.”

Perkins—who looked like a skeleton close up—pushed open the door and nearly knocked us over. A moment later he had opened the back of the hearse and was tugging at the coffin. “A little assistance would not be amiss,” he said in his eerie voice.

Uncle Drac and I looked at each other.

Who was in the coffin? And why were they going to be buried in Spookie House?

“Not the…coffin,” said Uncle Drac. “Maximilian's trunk.”

Perkins looked at Uncle Drac like he was being really stupid. “This
is
Maximilian's trunk,” he said.

Uncle Drac and I heaved the coffin up the crumbling steps to Spookie House while Perkins the skeleton watched us
through his steamy window, safely back in his nice dry car. We staggered through the front door and dumped the coffin down in the hall with a huge
thump
, which shook the house and brought Aunt Tabby running.

“What is
that
?” she asked, staring at the coffin.

“Trunk,” gasped Uncle Drac, sitting down on it and wiping the water out of his eyes. “Minty and I carried it in.”

I had never seen Aunt Tabby make a startled horse expression before, so I was very interested in what she was going to say next, but she just whinnied like you had run out of sugar lumps and rolled her eyes.

Then Wanda appeared.
She was holding Maximilian's hand
.

He was trotting beside her, his short little
legs, which were even shorter than Wanda's—if that is possible—having trouble keeping up as Wanda dragged him across the hall and started up the big cobwebby stairs that sweep up from the hall. “Come on, Max,” said Wanda, sounding like she was trying to get one of Barry's frogs to do a particularly difficult jump, “I'll show you your room. It's called the Saturday bedroom and it's really great. I have to share it with Araminta but
you
can have it all to yourself.”

Max did not look convinced. He kept staring at me, and the more Wanda pulled him up the stairs, the more he hung back. I could see his point because who would want to be dragged anywhere by Wanda Wizzard? But Wanda kept on tugging.

“Don't take any notice of Araminta—she's
always making faces,” she told him in a loud voice while she stared right at me. “If she's not careful, the wind will change and she will get stuck like that. Not that you'd notice.” Then she gave Max an extra-strong tug. Max gave in and they disappeared up the stairs.

So guess who had to help carry the trunk all the way up to the Saturday bedroom? That's right, Uncle Drac and I. Of course it wouldn't fit up the rope ladder and through the little door at the top, so I let Wanda spend the rest of the afternoon climbing up and down the ladder with Max's stuff, which was good for her, as she has gained a bit of weight recently.

While Wanda was climbing up and down the ladder, I did some thinking. I had wondered how Pusskins was still managing to eat my
cheese and onion chips even when she had disappeared. But it was obvious now that I thought about it. It wasn't Pusskins who had been eating them, and it never had been.
It was the werewolf
.

So if I wanted to ever eat cheese and onion chips again, there was a whole lot of stuff I had to do. And number one on the list was to get together a Werewolf Trapping Kit.