Vampire High Sophomore Year

5



There’s a thing the jenti do that’s called the Rustle. It’s nothing you can really hear. But if you hang around them long enough, you can tell when it’s happening. It’s a way they have of telling each other something is changing. Asking, “Have you noticed?” and “What do you think about it?” without ever moving their lips. Jenti may act as though they couldn’t care less what’s going on, but they always know when something is.

And Turk was something to Rustle about. As soon as she pulled up in her little black Volksbug and parked in a slot that was big enough for a stretch limo, and the four of us got out, it started.

New kid, coming in with Ileana (the Princess) Antonescu, and Cody (the Original Gadje) Elliot, and Justin (World’s First Swimming Jenti) Warrener, and who does she think she is, one of us? And if she doesn’t, what does she think she is?

It was a fair question. Turk had decked herself out in black leather, even though the day was hot, and from her ears and around her neck dangled shards of mirror that flashed and glittered every time she moved. She wore the jewel Ileana had given her hanging on her forehead, and on her neck she’d drawn two black dots and the words OPEN HERE.

Rustle, Rustle, Rustle.

“What’s with all the cars?” Turk said. “Why don’t they just fly to school?”

“There’s an old law against flying inside the town limits,” Justin said. “Goes back to before there were airplanes. Not really enforced anymore. Still, it’s not done very much.”

“If it were me, I’d fly everywhere,” Turk said.

“A lot of folks would think you were showing off,” Justin said.

“Damn right,” Turk said. “I would be. Why not?”

“We jenti say, ‘Gold hidden is gold kept,’” Ileana said.

“Gold’s no good unless you spend it,” Turk said.

Because Turk was brand-new, she had an appointment with Mr. Horvath, the principal, as soon as we hit the door.

“Maybe I should wait for her,” I said to Ileana and Justin when she went in.

“Good idea,” Justin said. “See you in English.”

“And at dinner,” Ileana said. Lunch at Vlad Dracul was always called dinner, and was laid out like a banquet.

The gong for first period sounded its low note through the halls, and the jenti disappeared into their classrooms. I was left alone with the dim light, the marble walls, and the scent of cedar from the doors.

I had never thought it would feel like I belonged at Vlad, but I had to admit, that was exactly how it felt now. It would be too much to say that I was glad to be back. But it was familiar, and I knew I had a place here. A place I’d earned.

The sound of quick, heavy steps coming down the stairs made me look up.

Gregor Dimitru came down them like a tall, angry wolf, and brushed past me with a short nod.

I had a sort of touchy relationship with Gregor. He’d touched me on my first day at Vlad, when he’d started to beat me up. Then Ileana had marked me with her protection. Another touch. Then she and I had fallen for each other, and Gregor had felt frozen out, even though Ileana had never wanted him for a boyfriend, or for anything else. So he and I had spent last semester, up to the last day, basically hating each other. Right at the end, things had improved a little between us. I had no idea what to expect now.

“Hey, Gregor,” I said.

He nodded and went past me into the office. I heard the door to Horvath’s inner office open and close. A minute later, an odd sound came from behind it. It might have been a sort of strangled yelp. And it did not sound like my cousin had made it.

A second later, Turk and Gregor were standing beside me. Horvath was right behind them.

He smiled when he saw me. It was not a friendly smile.

“Master Cody,” Mr. Horvath said. “Welcome—back.” Horvath was not a member of the Cody Elliot Fan Club any more than Gregor was.

“Thanks,” I said.

The door closed.

“Come with me, please,” Gregor said to Turk.

“No wolf, so I get this guy to show me around,” Turk said. “See you, Cuz.”

I had my own classes to get to, but I couldn’t leave without knowing what had happened in Horvath’s office.

“What did you say to Horvath?” I whispered.

“Not much,” Turk said. “He asked me what I was interested in. I said, ‘Rage, despair, and vengeance.’ Then he asked how I saw myself fitting in at Vlad Dracul. I said I didn’t. He didn’t seem to like that, so I said, ‘It’s cool. If I have to go to school for a few more months, I’d rather do it with a bunch of vampires than anybody else.’”

Gregor’s pale skin turned dark.

“Listen, Turk. You have got to stop calling people vampires,” I said. “It’s rude.”

“I don’t care,” Turk said.

“You should,” I said.

“Oh, should. That’s my favorite word,” Turk said. “Know what should really means, cousin? It means ‘I don’t like what’s happening now.’ That’s all.”

“No it doesn’t.” I was practically speaking in a normal voice now. In the halls of Vlad, that’s like shouting. “It means—it means—Look, your English teacher is Shadwell. He writes poetry and textbooks. Ask him what should really means.”

“Gee, do you think I should?” Turk said.

“It is customary not to speak above a whisper in the halls,” Gregor said.

We were at the top of the stairs, where most of the junior and senior classes were.

“This is the class of English,” Gregor said. “You are to enter.”

Gregor was from Europe, so sometimes his English got a little odd. Usually, this was not a good sign. It tended to go with his skin turning dark, and his beating people up.

They went in, and I went back downstairs. Gregor and Turk. If Horvath had wanted to put the two wrongest people at Vlad together, he couldn’t have done better. It was like putting one of Justin’s angelfish in with something else, a clown loach, maybe, and waiting for the fight to start.

I got through the first three periods without hearing that Turk had been expelled, or thrown out a window. I collected my first batch of impossible assignments in math, biology, and history. Ah, yes, history.

Mr. Gibbon, the same teacher I’d had last year, told us our semester grade would be based on the book, treatise, or dissertation we would write on a subject from New Sodom history. That was in addition to the readings we would do from Hidden Heritage: The Jenti Presence in American History and the essays we would write on what we read, and the thousand pages of outside reading we would have to do.

“The addition of New Sodom history to the curriculum of this class is an idea of mine,” he said in the faraway voice he always used. “The topic of local history is endlessly fascinating in itself, of course. Moreover, what was once dismissed as mere antiquarianism has become a legitimate field of historical inquiry. And in the case of our unique community, it is, perhaps, especially intriguing. It is an area in which one may make original contributions to the study of the past, and I look forward to receiving yours.”

Sometimes I wondered if Mr. Gibbon was boring on purpose, or if it just came naturally to him, like his flaky skin and gaunt, bony face.

Then came dinner, a subject in which I was as good as anybody at Vlad. When I got to the dining hall, it was just the same as it had been last year, with white-coated waiters and silver trays. The only difference was there were no water polo jocks shouting and throwing food.

Ileana and Justin were already at a table. They had saved places for me and Turk.

“How’s it going so far?” Justin asked me.

“Same as last year. Impossible,” I said. “I have to write a book or something on New Sodom history. Sheesh. I don’t know anything about this place that you didn’t tell me.”

“Well, there’s a lot to know,” Justin said. “Pretty interesting, some of it.”

“Yeah, but a whole book,” I said. “What’s that, seventy thousand, a hundred thousand words?”

“More or less,” Justin said. “Maybe you ought to do a play. Plays average twenty thousand.”

“Maybe a musical,” I said. “Except that I hate musicals.”

“I could sing in it,” Ileana said. “I will be taking a class in vocal music.”

Justin’s mom, who had been teaching Ileana piano for years, had a new part-time job teaching a couple of classes in the music department.

“Musical history,” I said. “I could tell Gibbon it was a new form.”

Turk came into the dining hall. I beckoned her over.

“I thought this place was going to be hard,” she said as she sat down.

“What did Shadwell say about should?” I asked her.

“He said it was an interesting insight, and everybody should write an essay on it. Five thousand words.” She stretched and said, “If I can just keep awake, I’ll do okay here.”

“So, you like it okay, then?” Justin asked.

“Too posh,” Turk said. “Way too posh. But apart from that, what’s there not to like?”

“Well, some people think the work is kind of hard,” Justin said.

Turk shrugged.

“Not so far,” she said.

“It is good that you feel so confident,” Ileana said.

“Where’s Gregor?” I asked.

“I told him to get lost,” Turk said. “How hard is it to find your way down a hallway? Besides, he’s a jerk. That phony accent.”

“It’s not phony,” I said. “He talks that way. He’s from Europe.”

“Some kind of exchange student?” Turk said.

“There are dormitories for students from overseas,” Ileana explained. “Jenti from all over the world come to Vlad.”

Gregor came in at that point. He was with his friends Ilie, Constantin, and Vladimir. They sat down together and bent their heads toward him. Gregor was angry about something, and I had a pretty good idea, in a general way, what it was.

One of the waiters hurried over to their table.

“What’s up with that? That waiter acts like he’s afraid of him,” Turk said.

“Not afraid,” Justin said. “Gregor’s pretty high jenti. Some folks don’t mind showing him they know it.”

“Jerk,” Turk said.

Then Gregor stood up and stalked over to our table.

I tensed, figuring our on-again-off-again acquaintanceship was off again, but he wasn’t coming to see me.

“You spoke something in world history third period,” he said to Turk.

“Yep,” Turk said.

“What did you mean when Mr. Von Ranke asked, ‘What is the essence of the jenti situation in the world?’ and you said, ‘Ingratitude’?”

“I thought it was pretty clear,” Turk said. “Ingratitude means—”

“I know what it means,” Gregor said. “What I am really asking is, how dare you say such a thing, when you know nothing of us?”

“Do you remember who talked before I did?” Turk asked.

“Yes. It was I,” Gregor said.

“Mm-hm. You went on for five minutes about how the vampires have always been persecuted, and everybody was nodding along with you. And it just sounded like you didn’t have a clue in your head about where you are.”

“What do you mean?” Gregor said.

“I mean, look around you,” Turk said. “For God’s sake, man, half the world goes to bed hungry at night. And what’s your biggest problem? Yours, personally.”

“You have no right to say anything about us,” Gregor said.

“What is your problem, man? Your biggest problem?” Turk went on.

“Do not try to reduce this to a question of myself,” Gregor said. “That is not the point.”

“It’s my point,” Turk said. “You’ve got everything, for God’s sake. You wouldn’t know real trouble if it pantsed you, tied you up, and left you in a tree house.”

For a second, Gregor looked puzzled. As insults went, that was a left-fielder. And the image was so ridiculous that I think he might have laughed.

Except I beat him to it. I couldn’t help it.

And that made Gregor turn on me.

“Sorry, man,” I said, trying to apologize. “She did that to me once. Except for the pants part.”

Justin put his hand over his eyes.

Ileana dropped hers.

Because one thing you did not ever want to do with Gregor was to attack his dignity, and he clearly had decided that we had just done that.

And there was one other thing that everybody at the table knew but Turk. It was the answer to her question to Gregor. Gregor didn’t have Ileana. I did. And he still hadn’t gotten over that.

Gregor stood there twitching, with his pale skin turning dark red. No one had ever actually seen Gregor lose it. There was always this iciness about his anger, even when he was beating you up. But now he looked like his head might pop off the top of his neck.

“You are ignorant. Useless. Arrogant. Even your stupid cousin is better than you,” he finally said to Turk. He stumbled over the words, which was not like Gregor. He usually said something fang-sharp and sarcastic when he was mad.

“But not wrong,” Turk said slowly.

Ileana reached over and put her hand on Gregor’s arm. She flicked her eyes.

Gregor looked around and saw that everyone in the dining hall was watching our table.

“You will never know how wrong you are,” Gregor said.

“Ooh. Slash,” Turk said, drawing one of her long black nails along her throat.

Gregor shook his arm free, snarled in a way that made me think what a great wolf he probably made, and turned away.

“Oh, boy,” I thought. “Welcome to tenth grade. Thank you, Turk.”

Turk turned back to her food.

“You know,” she said, “this salmon mousse is really good.”

But Ileana wasn’t going to let her change the subject that easily.

“You have a point, Turquoise,” she said. “But not as strong a point as you think. You have judged him too quickly. And Gregor has a point, too, don’t you think?”

“What I think is that he’s a spoiled, whiney brat,” Turk said.

“Gregor would not tell you this, but his mother is dead,” Ileana said. “Is that, perhaps, a large enough personal problem for you to respect?”

“Let me tell you something, Ileana,” Turk said. “About why I don’t worry whether I’m rude or not. It’s because people are always rude to me. And why? Because I don’t look like them. Don’t think like them. Don’t want to be like them. I don’t insult them just because they’re all about rock stars, or jock stars, or video games. I don’t care about that stuff, but I don’t dump on the people who do. But if you look like me, if you act a little different from what they’re used to, they’ll circle around you and try to peck out your eyes. And I’ll tell you something else. These vampire friends of yours don’t know how lucky they are. A whole school of people exactly like themselves to hang out with. A whole school. And I can’t even find one person.”

She got up from the table and left.

It was going to be a long year.