Vampire Island (8 page)

Her gaze wandered over to a tall, skinny couple standing at the front desk. They looked sick. Not just any kind of sick. Their lips were liverish, their skin lima bean green, their eyes bugged out and glassed over. Lexie was pretty sure she’d seen that illness before. In fact, she was almost certain she’d once had it herself.

“I’m very sorry,” the receptionist was telling the sickly couple, “but without your Social Security numbers, you won’t be permitted to see a doctor.”

“We need help,” wheezed the man. “We even quarantined ourselves. We could have pneumonia, or a stomach virus, or yellow fever, or typhus, or dropsy.”

“Or worse,” coughed the woman. “Much, much worse.” Her fingers twisted the black enameled beads of her necklace. Watching, Lexie felt momentarily hypnotized by the necklace’s sparkle and glow.

“Even if any of those extremely awful things are true…” The receptionist upturned her hands. “You’re not in the computer file. And if you’re not on our records, then you don’t exist.”

“We do exist. We’re standing right here.”

“I need more proof,” said the receptionist. “That’s how paperwork works. Our on-call doctor will be out in a few minutes, if you’d like to speak to her.”

The couple shuffled off to wait in plastic chairs.

Lexie knew what had to be done. The Argos would want her to risk it. According to the terms of the New World truce, Old Worlders were encouraged to assist fellow Old Worlders. Even if this couple wasn’t fruit hybrids, they were definitely newly arrived Old Worlders who had very likely gotten food poisoning off a New World delicacy. Lexie remembered a few years ago becoming quite ill from jelly beans which, as it turned out, were neither made of jelly nor bean, and contained no healthy, natural fruit preserve whatsoever.

Leaving Mrs. MacCaw, Lexie hurried over. “Excuse me. I’ve seen your symptoms before,” she said. “You two have been poisoned. If this hospital can’t help you, I can concoct my mother’s ancient remedy. Just tell me where you live.” Then Lexie uttered some words of the Old World to show that she was a friend.

The couple’s expressions changed. Their clammy fingers squeezed Lexie’s wrists as they whispered their address in Old World language.

“That’s easy,” Lexie answered. “You’re right in my neighborhood. I’ll prepare it tonight, and by tomorrow morning it will be on your doorstep.”

“Thank you,” croaked the woman.

“Don’t thank her yet,” gasped the man. “We’re still sick.”

And then they were gone.

Hudson

O
ut of the corner of his eye, Hudson watched his sister tornado over. One minute she was plunked down at the sixth grade’s lunch table. Next second, she stood at the head of his.

O Glory Be! O Joyful Tidings! Up until the moment Maddy rapped on the table for attention, Hudson had been worried she’d ditch her end of the bargain.

Kids fidgeted before she’d said a word. Like all the other grades, Mr. Apple’s fourth was pretty much incredibly terrified of Maddy.

“Hand over your lunches, brown-baggers,” Maddy ordered. “Chop-chop.”

One by one, children surrendered their lunches. Only the spitballing lunkhead kid feebly protested. “Why should I?”

“Because,” answered Maddy, “you don’t want to make me mad, do you?” Her nostrils flared. In the bright lunchroom light, all color drained from her brown eyes, turning them pale as cream, then white, then crystal clear, and then brown again. So quick and so chilling that nobody could say for sure what had just happened. Yet it was enough to send a tingle down every spine, including Hudson’s.

Ever since Maddy had confessed that she needed to fulfill her nonvegan destiny, Hudson had noticed his sister embracing her killer instinct. She sucked down the scant winter supply of blood-filled mosquitoes and ticks whenever she could, and as a result her tongue and gums were a deeper, more violent shade of red. Also, Maddy now could move in small tornado bursts, faster than a human eye could follow. These days, she was so speedy that she no longer bothered taking the bus to P.S. 42—but was always there before it pulled up.

Now this trick. Clear eyes. Exclusive to purebloods.

Whenever Hudson thought he should mention Maddy’s metamorphosis to their parents, something stopped him. His instinct told him that he and Maddy were in this together. If he was meant to be a Protector, then he needed his sister’s Predator help.

The lunk added his lunch to the stack in front of Maddy, who worked so rapidly that Mrs. Westenra, the fifth-grade teacher and today’s lunchroom monitor, was not disturbed in her chat with head chef Mr. Lin about his knockout chili-lime salsa. Within minutes, Maddy had unclung every sandwich, sorting food from its wrapping into two sticky piles in front of her. “You see this plastic?” she asked. “Every day I watch you kids carelessly toss it into the regular garbage. I am fed up. Where does it belong?”

Hudson raised his hand. Maddy pointed a bladed finger on him.

“The blue recycling bin?”

“Correct, young Crudson. Kids, you better make friends with the environment. Or else,” threatened Maddy, redirecting her finger to accuse the whole group.

“Or else what?” asked Duane.

“Or else! The environment will punish you! It will usher in awful weather! Like ice ages, hailstorms, and droughts. Cannonballs made out of pure stinking pollution will smash down from the sky!” Maddy’s speech was causing blue veins to stand up in her neck. “Worst of all,” she continued, “I’ll be watching you. Even when you’re asleep.” Then she threw back her head and cackled, long and low.

Hudson frowned. He thought the cannonballs and the cackling were a bit much. Also, Maddy should not have called him Crudson.

“I think you’re from my nightmares,” whimpered the freckled redhead girl. Which made Hudson feel bad. That girl, whatever her name was, the paper waster, was actually pretty sweet.

“Can we eat now?” asked a kid.

Maddy nodded. Hands slowly reached into the giant sandwich pile, reclaiming their food.

“But if I catch any of you mis-tossing your cling wrap, I will impose a small torture and a hefty fine, and I will write a letter to the Vice President of National Penalties. If you end up rotting in the clink, it’s your own wasteful fault. Later, warts.” With a parting hiss, Maddy whisked away.

For a moment, the table was spellbound.

The redhead girl broke the ice. Head held high, she walked all the way to the end of the table. As far from Hudson as she could get. A few other kids, after grabbing back their ham-and-cheeses or peanut-butter-and-jellys, did the same.

Soon Hudson and Duane sat alone.

Duane sighed as he swallowed a fish stick. “Sending in your scary sis was a bad call, Hud,” he said.

“History has taught us to rule by force, fines, and fear,” explained Hudson. “That’s how citizens are traditionally protected.”

“All I can say is I’m glad I buy hot lunch,” answered Duane. “Even when it’s rubbery old fish sticks.”

Throughout the rest of the week, Hudson the Protector was quietly comforted to see that his class took more time to separate their regular trash from recycling. While these same students weren’t very friendly to him, Hudson and Orville agreed in their late-night talks that being a Protector was not a popularity contest. The more Hudson concentrated on beautifying the New World, the more vividly he remembered the Old, when creatures understood recycling—back when there was no word for it. And the more Hudson thought about being a Protector, the stronger his bat-self became. He now could transform for over an hour per night, and as a bat he could fly higher and faster than ever before. Almost at Old World speeds. But Hudson decided to keep these developments to himself.

“Don’t know what’s gotten into these kids,” remarked Mr. Schnur as he watched a fourth-grader scoop gum he wasn’t supposed to be chewing from where he’d spit it in the recycling bin, then furtively place it in the regular trash. “I must say it’s a pleasant surprise.”

“My sister kind of jump-started them into it,” Hudson confessed, “with scare tactics.”

The janitor rasped a laugh. “Good. Whatever it takes.”

It wasn’t until later that week that Hudson fully comprehended the sacrifice of Protectorship.

Thursday was Valentine’s Day, a day of great joy for P.S. 42. The fourth grade’s bank of cubbies was stocked with cards and flowers and cellophane packets containing heart-shaped chocolates or flavored sugar candies.

Hudson prowled over to his cubby. As the handsomest boy in the class, his candy and chocolate haul was always vast and spectacular. So what if he hated candy and regifted it all to Duane? What mattered was that today was his special day, where he was singled out for being exceptionally gorgeous.

Pillowcase in hand, he peered into his cubby. Looked again. Looked harder. Surely there was some mistake. His cubby was dark and empty as a yewn. Whistling, Hudson strutted over to his desk and opened it. He blinked.

Nothing. No flowers. No candy.

Also, some of his eco-flyers had been returned to him.

Then he saw it. Taped inside the desktop, on the back of his eco-tips, a note.

Jolted, Hudson crumpled the paper into a ball. He marched to the front of the room to deposit this horrible crime of a valentine into the trash. As he headed back down the aisle, he glowered at the freckled redhead girl. She was meaner than she looked, that heartless redhead girl. She wasn’t even paying attention to him. She only had eyes for…uh-oh. This was worse than the empty cubby. Worse than an anti-valentine. Hudson could hardly watch, but there was no denying who was burying his nose into the ruffled petals of a pink carnation. That should have been Hudson’s carnation.

“Bethany Finn,” said Hudson as her name burst unexpectedly through his head. “Why did you give my Valentine’s carnation to…that lunkhead?”

The lunk looked hurt. “We’ve been in school together since kindergarten, Hudson. Don’t you even know my name?”

Hudson could not answer, because he did not.

“Hudson, get a clue,” said Bethany. “Cute isn’t everything. You’re the pits.”

The pits
? What did she mean? From the pits of fruits grew all new delicious fruit, but Hudson had a feeling that Bethany Finn had meant
pit
as in the end-thing you spit out. Because that was just exactly how he felt—spit out of Mr. Apple’s fourth grade.

Spit out and heading home at the end of the lonely day, Hudson ran into his mother’s dog pack. The half dozen small dogs (his father exercised the larger breeds) were tied to a bike stand outside a Park Avenue apartment building. Hudson whistled hello. Dogs barked greetings.

At least not everyone was shunning him.

Sherlock was an old basset hound whom Hudson’s mother had been walking for years. He was the first pure animal who had befriended Hudson in the New World. This afternoon, as always, slobber dribbled in strings from his jowls. Hudson crouched and used his shirtsleeve to wipe it up.

“How’s it going, Sherlock?”

“Looking forward to warmer months and packing away this ugly dog sweater.” Sherlock snuffled. “Give a dog a scratch between the shoulders?”

Hudson scratched. “Where’s Mom?”

“She’s dropping off Scrumptilicious,” yapped Daisy, the one-eyed pug.

“Fifty-fourth floor,” yipped Chico, a terrier mix. “They’re probably still in the elevator. Me, I don’t care for views. I’m more of a burrower.” He demonstrated, clawing into the pavement. Then he spied his tail and started chasing it.

“Who’s Scrumptilicious?” asked Hudson.

“Toy poodle.” Sherlock yawned, creating fresh chains of slobber.

“Did you check out those pink booties Scrump was wearing?” panted Chico, and then he did a flouncy impression. The dogs barked with laughter. Myrtle the corgi laughed so hard, she fell over.

“Watch it, Myrtle,” said Sherlock, nosing her back onto her feet. “You might look perky, but you’re ninety-one in dog years.”

“Eighty-four,” snapped Myrtle.

“Why the long face?” Sherlock asked Hudson.

“School,” Hudson answered. “Sometimes my differences take up more space than my sameness.”

“Yeah, we know what that’s like,” said Sherlock.

“You?” Hudson stared around the pack. “How?”

“Rrrf, think about it. It’s no picnic walking in one dog pack of seven different breeds,” explained Sherlock. “For example, Bernie’s legs are too short, which slows us all down.”

“Aw, gimme a break,” said Bernie, who was a dachshund and very self-conscious about his legs. “They get the job done.”

“And Myrtle’s getting long in the tooth, and Daisy’s missing an eye, and Chico’s a drama queen, and now we’ve got Scrumptilicious,” continued Sherlock, “with her silly name and pink booties. Scrump really lowered our coolness quota.”

“And you, Sherlock? It’s not like you’re some kinda Best in Show.” Bernie snorted. “Your saliva issues mean a rainy-day forecast
every
day for the rest of us.”

Sherlock shook off the insult, sending slobber everywhere. “That’s exactly my point. Admit your differences, and people forgive. A little goodwill goes a long way.”

Hudson prickled. Admitting was practically the same as apologizing, and apologies made him feel dumb, and he never liked to feel dumb. What if he admit-apologized to the class, and everyone laughed at him? What if they didn’t accept his apology? What if they didn’t give him the Protector respect he deserved? “How do you know if that’ll work?”

“Trust me,” said Sherlock. “An old hound knows these things.”

The next day was Friday. All of Mr. Apple’s students’ memoir projects were put up around the room for display. Hudson had assembled his own project with scant enthusiasm. His was the most boring because he hadn’t been able to use his real Old World history or take any photographs. Next to his blah, phony essay, he’d brought in his completed, thawed-out Caspian Sea jigsaw puzzle. Lastly, he had painted a watercolor of his family as seen from an aerial view so they were just little specks.

Hudson didn’t expect to get a good grade on this project, but in a fruit-vampire-bat hybrid family, it was way more important not to call attention to heritage.

The girl with the white eyebrows who was from Sweden had brought in a blender and showed the class how to make lingonberry juice. Hudson drank a whole cup and repeated her name so that he was sure he remembered it before he said, “I really like your project, Vendela Sorkin.”

“Oh, um, thanks, Hudson.” Vendela Sorkin took a cautious step away from him. “And tell your sister I’m bringing my lunch in earth-friendly reusable containers now, okay?”

Hudson nodded. He didn’t even unplug Vendela’s blender to save energy, though his fingers itched to. Instead, he slowly made his way around the room, praising the projects. It was hard work, and gradually he realized that one nice word for each project was not enough to win the class’s forgiveness.

One kid, passing by Hudson’s project, whispered very loud, “I vote Hudson’s memoir most recyclable.”

“Shh,” warned the other kid, “or he’ll send his thug sister to beat you up.”

Hudson, hearing this, suddenly experienced a terrible burning in his face. He thought this must be blushing—his first blush, ever. His fingers pressed his flaming cheeks. Did this shameful feeling mean he was becoming more human?

At the end of the day, with Mr. Apple’s permission, Hudson gathered his courage and stood before his fellow students. “Class, my message to help balance our ecosystem had too much clout. While this message is still critical, I want to make a goodwill offering. Therefore, everyone is invited to a party at my home on the last day of this month. It is my parents’ anniversary and usually we just like it to be family. So consider yourselves lucky. Please bring fruit and leave by dinnertime. Thank you.” Now Hudson pulled a box of Elf Scout cookies from his knapsack. “Help yourself to these. I forgot to give gifts for Valentine’s Day. Better late than never.” He opened the box and set it on Mr. Apple’s desk.