Holly Black (19 page)

As Mom’s rant goes on, I minimize the Web page on my PC so she won’t catch a glimpse of the bare-assed fan art beside the
Underworld
fic I’m reading.

“You know, Dawn, your sister?—”

“
Step
sister,” I put in. Megan. The athletic one. She of the chemical blondness. The one whose boyfriends have heavy brow-ridges and square jaws. “Megan took the car before I could run errands.”

“You should have told her you needed it,” Mom replies, because it’s important that everything be my fault.

I don’t point out that I tried but Megan ignored me. I don’t point out that even if I hadn’t told her,
she
could’ve asked me before taking off.

Mom crosses her arms. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt you to give her a chance. This adjustment hasn’t been easy for Megan, either.”

I don’t say it, but it bothers me when Mom takes her side. The thing is, I did try in the beginning. When our parents announced their engagement at the Olive Garden, I told Megan in the ladies’ restroom that it was hard for me, too. Out of nowhere, she starts yelling at me that I don’t know anything and that my visiting my dad at his apartment in Round Rock is totally different from her visiting her mom’s grave in Smithville.

Of
course
it’s different. I get that—I got it then—but Megan’s treated me like a lesser species ever since. Like how she always calls my room “the guest room.” And how she always foists little-brother-babysitting duty on me because I have “no life.”

I offer up a theatrical sigh. “Poor Megan!”

“You’re grounded,” Mom says as she exits.

I don’t bother to shrug. To Mom, “grounded” means not going out, but doesn’t include ’net, cell, or DVD restrictions. By this weekend, she’ll have moved on to another of my allegedly fatal flaws, and it’s not like I’ve got plans on the average Tuesday night.

When Mom leaves, I shut the door behind her. Then I bring my browser back up on screen and begin checking RSS feeds. I read this story about a sixth grader in Wyoming who’s trying to get a new word accepted into
The Unauthorized Dictionary of the Klingon Language
. It’s kind of cute, so I comment
Qapla!
Then I happily spend the next hour on the
readergirlz
boards at MySpace.

My mood is ruined again when Megan bursts into the room.

“You could knock,” I say without turning around.

“Sorry,” Megan replies. Then she says the most shocking thing imaginable: “Want to come with me tonight to the Buffy Sing-Along?”

Megan knows I want to go. I’ve been talking about it for weeks. And she’s just come from speaking to Mom. She’s clearly toying with me.

I shake my head. “Thanks to you, I’m grounded.” I swivel in my desk chair. “Wait.
You’re
going?”

Megan is not into anything remotely interesting. Her tastes are simple. She watches “reality” television. Worse, she wants to be
on
reality television. Last week, the Colonel practically pissed a kidney stone when she mentioned driving to San Antonio to audition for
So You Want to Marry a Movie Star?

“Ryan’s working the sing-along tonight,” Megan replies. “We’re going out after.”

Ah, Ryan. The second and blander of her great loves. Like her, he rows a skinny boat backward and is into other sports that involve grunting and spandex.

I do have to admit, though, that he’s pretty much gorgeousness personified. His only physical defect is the beginning of what promises to be a severe case of male-pattern baldness.

“He’ll be bald by twenty-two,” I say.

“Who cares what he’ll look like at twenty-two?” She winks like we just shared a moment, which we did. But I don’t think we got the same thing out of it.

“This involves me…why?” I ask, getting back to the Slayer.

Megan’s smile turns brittle. “For reasons I don’t understand, Ryan’s cousin Eric will be joining us, and we need someone to keep him out of our way.”

I’m in no mood to babysit again. “Waterloo doesn’t allow kids under ten.”

Megan steps daintily through the maze of paperbacks and graphic novels on my floor, brushes imaginary lint from my black comforter, and sits, addressing me in the same tone she might use with a cocker spaniel. “I’m not asking you to babysit, Dawn. I’m setting you up on a blind date.”

I make a half-laugh, half-barfing noise. “No.”

Megan lifts her French-manicured nails, examining them. “It won’t kill you. He’s not a troll, and he’s into the same geeky stuff you are.”

I minimize the screen again. “Like?”

“Like, like
Buffy
!” she replies, glancing at my posters. “
Star Trek! Batman!
Comic books, and…” Her gaze lingers appreciatively on Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine.

Despite myself, I’m tempted. I adore Buffy. Well, actually, I like Buffy. I adore Willow and Tara, and I think their love ballad is the most romantic…Wait. Even if Eric is cool and it didn’t mean spending a whole evening with Megan…“I’m still grounded.”

“Carol says it’s okay so long as you’re with us,” Megan replies, standing.

I hate it when she calls my mom “Carol,” and I’m positive the “date” aspect is going to suck. Still, it
is
Buffy. “Fine, I’m in,” I say. Then I add, “But you’re paying for everything.”

The doorbell rings at seven sharp. I rush to the door. Fortunately, the twins don’t realize a world exists beyond their latest video game, and the Colonel isn’t here to indulge in his usual tactic when a boy comes over (giving him the third degree while ostentatiously cleaning his Winchester thirty-ought-six on the living room coffee table).

“Um, hi,” Eric says.

He’s a little over six feet tall, skinny, generally symmetrical, has fewer than the average number of pimples and a full head of hair. He’s also wearing blue jeans and a green button-down oxford shirt, which is kind of boring and does nothing to set off my black sleeveless T, black tiered knit skirt, and combat boots.

Still, I’ve seen worse.

“Told you he was borderline cute,” Megan murmurs as she comes down the hall. Brushing by, she adds, “I asked Daddy to lay off his whole intimidation-by-firearms shtick.”

I take that in as she leads me out the front door to a minivan with fake wood paneling. We live in Austin, so I walk around to look at the bumper stickers: THE WHEATGRASS PRESERVATION SOCIETY. SAVE OUR SPRINGS. Number three is the universal negative symbol crossing out the name
Wesley
.

I take shotgun (Megan for once is happy to ride by herself, lower profile, in back). And as Eric backs out of the driveway, I ask, “Wesley Wyndham-Price or Wesley Crusher?”

Eric hits the brake and glances at me. “Oh, Crusher. I’m sure you’ll agree that Wesley Wyndham-Price was less than outstanding in his early
Buffy
appearances?—”

“Though he made Giles seem more buff?—”

“Granted, but in any case, he dramatically improved on
Angel,
whereas Wesley Crusher started out bad and went downhill. No redeeming qualities whatsoever.”

“Sure there were,” I say, undaunted. “Redeeming qualities, that is.” I try to recall if there’s a single episode of
Star Trek: The Next Generation
in which Wesley Crusher is not annoying. Okay, maybe I’m a tad daunted.

I have to admit it, though. Megan was right. Eric’s not a troll.

Glancing at his MapQuest printout, Eric begins reverse engineering his way out of the neighborhood. A moment later, he shoots me that supercilious look of the über-geeky. “Well?”

An instant later I have the answer. I take a breath to ensure there’s no smugness in my voice. “He’s not Dr. Z.”

“Who?”

“Starbuck’s kid. You know, Starbuck from
Battlestar
Gallactica
.”

“She?—”

“
He
,” I interrupt. “
He
has a kid. In the original series.” Which I used to watch with my dad on the only surviving Betamax videotape player this side of eBay. “Actually, it was
Galactica
1980
.”

Eric looks at me like I’ve turned into a Fyarl demon and swerves just in time to avoid a bicyclist.

I’ve established enormous geek cred.

“A spin-off,” I say. “Probably the single worst example of the child-genius motif in science fiction history.
Much
worse than Wesley Crusher.” I’m actually enjoying myself now. “Dr. Z always had this weird white glow about him, practically an aura, which I suppose was how people could tell he was a genius.” I fiddle with my seat belt. “Well, that and the fact that Commander Adama genuflected every time he saw him.”

“La, la, la,” Megan sings from the back, sounding bored but amused.

I’d half forgotten she was back there.

Eric does the smart thing and ignores her. “Yeah, the kid-genius thing is bad, but it pales next to the previously unknown, never-mentioned pseudo-sibling who appears suddenly out of nowhere.”

“Fascinating,” Megan mutters, checking her lipstick.

“Most prevalent on family sitcoms,” Eric adds, “but also frequent and problematic in speculative fiction.”

“Well, yes, there’s Dawn,” I say, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. As we slow, stuck in traffic, I add, “Believe me, I know. I bear the burden of her name.”

A lot of people have issues with Buffy’s sister. But kleptomania aside, Dawn always tried to be one of the good guys. And every once in a while she was really brave.

“Are you familiar with the usenet group alt.dawn.die.die.die?” Eric asks. At my nod, he announces, “I founded it.”

I give him a long, considering glare and try to decide if he’s trying to piss me off or whether he just doesn’t have any social skills.

“Look, Dawn Summers was thematic,” I tell him. “Summers blood. Saving the world, again. It made sense. Besides, it’s not like those monks asked Dawn if she wanted to be transformed from a ball of energy into Buffy’s little sister.”

“Oh, my God!” Megan interrupts with a bark of laughter. “No wonder neither of you can get dates by yourselves.”

“Honestly,” I say, “was Dawn really all that bad?”

“She whines,” Eric replies. “All of the pseudo-siblings whine.”

“Not Tim Drake Robin,” I shoot back, although, to be fair, he didn’t start out as Dick Grayson’s sibling (or Bruce Wayne’s son) per se.

“Jason Todd Robin?”

“He deserved to die,” I admit. I hold my breath, worried Eric will counter with the abomination that was Spock’s half-brother, Sybok. Even I don’t have a defense for that.

A light changes, and we’re moving again.

“Why do you two know all this?” Megan asks.

I glance over my shoulder. “Who won the third
American Idol
?”

As we turn into the parking lot, she says, “That’s different. It’s popular.”

Waterloo Cinema isn’t like other movie theaters. The auditoriums have great stadium seats with long tables secured in front of each row. Even better, they have actual waiters who serve food and drink during the film itself.

We take in the crowd and settle into our seats about five minutes before the show starts. I’m oddly pleased by how packed the theater is. How
popular
the show is, even after all this time.

As we sit down, we’re given bottles of soap bubbles, plastic vampire teeth, and cigarette lighters.

Megan examines hers like they’re the unclean symbols of a mysterious, foreign, and possibly dangerous culture.

She gives up when her boyfriend Ryan takes our orders—Greek salad with chicken for Megan, burger and fries for Eric, a flaming chocolate bomb for me.

I ignore my stepsister’s look of horror as a cheer rises and the overture begins.