Nightlight (5 page)

Great
, I thought, shutting off the computer. I figured this was basically the same as telling my dad I was in love with a vampire, especially because he monitored my Internet activity.

Suddenly, I remembered the song my dad used to sing to me every night when I was a little girl:

I stopped singing gleefully, realizing my dad would probably have a problem with Edwart.
Hmm
. I decided I would tell him that Edwart was a vegetarian vampire, feasting solely on ketchup.

The next morning I was on my way to first period when someone grabbed me from behind, reminding me of the vice principal pulling me off the stage during the talent show in Phoenix. I still don’t know why my act was cut short; my alter ego BelGo is a terrific rapper and break-dancer.

I turned longingly, but it wasn’t Vice Principal Decherd, it was Edwart.

“Oh, so you’re talking to me now?” I asked coyly.

“Yes, of course. When was I not talking to you?”

I remembered last night, when I called Edwart repeatedly, pretending to be selling tooth sharpeners. He had hung up every time. I decided not to mention it.

“Were you okay yesterday after I brought you to the nurse?” Edwart asked.

“Yes.
Were you?”
I asked, assuming that vampires experience deep soul pain.

“I think so.”

“Okay, great. See ya!” I turned around quickly so Edwart might see me from the back. I had skull barrettes in my hair, just for him! (I have a lot of Halloween-themed jewelry It all began that summer a plague fell upon my fish tank. That same summer I took up fishbone whittling).

When I walked into English, I was still practicing my make-out moves on my hand.

“Nice of you to join us, Belle,” Mr. Schwartz said.

“Yes,” I said, realizing that I could be anywhere right now, even in a tomb with Edwart. “It
is
nice of me.”

I turned my desk to face the window so I would be the first to see if an asteroid were coming. Frankly, I find the current custom of all desks facing the front a very dangerous one. Who’s our lookout for the other three sides?
The teacher?
Not if he’s constantly yelling at me to put down my binoculars and to stop shushing him when he starts to speak.

I stared out the window at the beautiful, beautiful rain. A figure stood in the parking lot with his arms outstretched
towards the sky. Edwart. In one hand was a bar of soap which he brought to his face, beginning to vigorously scrub. Afterwards, he dropped the soap into a bucket and turned his head up to the cumulonimbus clouds, letting the water cleanse him as he sang an old show tune meant for no one else’s ears. From his backpack he pulled out his computer wrapped in a plastic bag. From the front pocket he pulled out a case and unfolded a medium-sized satellite dish with “Datastorm” written across. He climbed up on his car and pulled down his plastic face-shield, drilling the satellite into the top.

My heart stopped. Was he going to chase a storm? In
this
weather? As the soft drizzle of the morning petered out and the sun returned, he drove off into the distance. He was a risk-taker, but he was
my
risk-taker.

Turning my binoculars away from the window to the poster of Forbes’ top ten oil tycoons reading
Jane Eyre
, I could hear Angelica babbling. The whole point of sitting next to Angelica was that she was the quiet type of girl—the type that
enjoys
taking orders and agreeing with you when your voice reaches a certain volume. But today she would not quit yammering her head off about who cares. I heard the down-up-down inflection in her voice, which is my cue to gasp with shock. I nodded in sympathy to teach her a lesson.

That’s when I realized she was stifling a seizure.

“Sorry!” she said as she went through a series of body hiccups.

“It’s all right,” I said forgivingly. Better Angelica than
Lucy, who never apologizes for seizuring near me. Angelica was definitely a better friend than they were, but she wasn’t quite
best
friend material. A true best friend would feel comfortable having a seizure in front of me, pausing to laugh when I did my wry epileptic impersonation.

Suddenly, Angelica’s eyes rolled back. “I SEE A ROOM IN CHAPTER TEN,” she said in the raspy voice of the future. “A ROOM FULL OF VAMPIRES. IN THE CORNER OF THE ROOM IS A METAL FOLDINGCHAIR, FOLDED UP, WITH A RED SEAT. THREE OF ITS FEET HAVE BLACK RUBBER STOPPERS TO PREVENT SCRAPY NOISES. THE FOURTH FOOT DOES NOT. ONE COULD THEORETICALLY ROCK IN IT BUT THAT IS NOT ADVISABLE.
BEWARE OF THE CROWN,”
she finished, and then collapsed on the floor.

Was that an omen? As far as I knew, only vampires and girls who’d read the major works of Jane Austen had unique abilities. In any case, I didn’t see why
I
had to be wary of getting a crown and possibly controlling an entire nation from a comfortable throne. I tend towards diplomacy, even in games such as
Risk
, decreeing a ceasefire for everyone by swiping the board off the table.

“This is important, Angelica,” I said when she awoke from her stupor. “Is Edwart in that room of vampires?”

The whole class was surrounding us, yelling, “Give her some air!” As if air were some wonderful gift I couldn’t get myself.

“Hmm. Sleepy,” Angelica murmured.

Rats
. She had returned to her normal self.

“Is ‘vampires’ code for ‘Edwarts?’” I asked. “And ‘crown’ code for ‘poison nuggets disguised as raisins which you pick out of cereal anyway so don’t worry about it?’”

But Angelica wasn’t paying attention. “Mouth tired,” she sighed as the school nurse strapped her onto a stretcher and carried her away.

Why did I have to beware? Was Edwart going to hurt me? Why hadn’t he hurt me yet? Was I not worth the trouble of hurting?

No. I was being insecure. I was worth
a lot
of hurting, elaborately planned to take place in an old ballerina room with easily shattered mirrors to complete the gloriously gory spectacle. If Edwart didn’t think I was worth that, I’m sure some other vampire would.

Before going to lunch, I ran outside to the parking lot to make sure Edwart’s van had returned. I let out a long, deflated, bellow of a sigh as I ran around and around the 500-space lot. It wasn’t there. I considered going home—was an education worth it without a marital prospect? Then a voice popped in my head. A low, melodious voice, humming Schubert
—My hallucination of Edwart
.

I got this hallucination whenever I jeopardized my future as a Nobel Laureate in Physics.

“Pardon me,” sang the voice. “I have a terrible habit of slipping into Schubert in moments of urgency—one among many things I picked up in my mystical travels through Italy. Belle,” it continued harmonically, “Get your high
school diploma. For me.” It faded out to a hip indie song—“Claire De Lune.”

That settled that. I wasn’t sure what kind of a “career” an education would get me that I couldn’t get using my sockpuppet routine and tenacity, but I had faith in my voices. Why, just the other day while I was slipping, hadn’t I had a vision I might fall? Resolved, I decided to put my life in the hands of my precarious brain figment and finish high school.

The next day an Activities Fair was going on in the cafeteria. Each table was turned into a booth with a neatly decorated poster board. I particularly admired the “Teens for Fascism” display. Those teens must be really devoted to their club if they used zig-zag scissors. Maybe I hadn’t given fascism the consideration it deserved.

“Belle!”

I looked over. Lucy was standing beneath a
“Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Fans” poster. “Join my club!”

“No, thank you,” I said icily. But I was not thankful, and I think I conveyed that through my tone. I had no intention of supporting a show that encouraged the genocide of an already endangered species of immortals. I decided to use “Frown Power.” This is where you socially deter people from being bigoted by frowning at their ignorant remarks. I got up real close, looked that poster straight in the eye, and frowned until I could feel the power of my moral triumph
rushing through my circulatory system. I grabbed that poster, turned it around, drew a skull and crossbones and ripped it up. I would become a table-booth pirate. Who would be the first to know my cunning?

I saw a table with a sign that read: “The Beauty of Price Elasticity and Free Pizza!” I resented the beauty of price elasticity, but I kind of liked free pizza. I drew closer to the booth to pirate a slice, suddenly discerning the figure manning it.
Edwart was back!

“Belle?” Edwart asked as my hand reached up for a slice from my hiding spot beneath the table.

“Huh? Oh …
Edwart
. I didn’t recognize you. Thanks for the pizza! Listen, I’d love to join your club sometime, but I’ve gotta do things. Make some toast for Jim. He’s an idiot!”

“Stay! If you like pizza, you’ll love the Price Elasticity Club—a club devoted to giving students the free pizza they’ve earned by clicking the ads on the website I made for my economics class.”

I eyed him suspiciously. Except for the mud on his face and his missing right pant leg, he had returned from his storm-chase in pristine condition. “Riddle me this
Mr. Internet Guy,”
I said, crossing my arms detectively. “How is it that you, allegedly completely mortal, are here
without a car?”

“My car had to be sacrificed for a greater cause.” His face clouded with the haze of an ideal. “A muddy ditch right outside of this campus. I had to hurtle my car into the ditch before a looming cloud could get me. Nobody said being a
venture-meteorologist with a bent for slowly accumulating money from .0001-cent web-ads would be easy. Nobody says much about that type of person at all.”

“What would I have to do if I joined this ‘club’ of yours?” I asked suspiciously. I had noticed that he had artfully left out the adverse effect price elasticity had on consumer demand in his propagandizing.

“You
would consider joining my club? Wow. No one has ever shown an interest in appreciating price elasticity with me before. For a while there, I thought it was me and price elasticity against the world. This is all happening so fast. I … I’m not sure what another person would do in my club. Let me think about it for a second.” He started pacing behind his display. His body seemed to flash in excitement.

Or was that me, blinking really fast?

“I know! You would have to spend every lunch period with me—”

“Yes.”

“—making a fortune.”

Ooh
. If only I could travel back a few clauses. If only I had said “yes” when that scientist asked if I wanted his extra time machine.

“At the end of the year we use that fortune to try to communicate with deep-sea cetaceans.” His eyes sparkled with zealous determination. “I know the truth is down there.”

He was so perfect it ached.

“So I just sign here?” I asked.

“Yes—right below the words, ‘Edwart hereby possesses the soul of:’”

“Okay!” I signed my name:

I flipped the paper over for more space, then squished in the rest in tiny print:

“There,” I said, scrawling the last letter with a flourish that continued off the page into a loop-de-loop in the air as my signature entails. I’d deal with the soul provision when the time came.

“Belle!” someone shouted from the next booth. It was Laura—a girl who sat across from me everyday at lunch, giving her the privilege of having a name. Angelica was signing the club sheet and Lucy was signing fake sheets Laura gave to her so the wait would seem shorter. Lucy was based on a particularly impatient character.

“Join our shopping club—our first meeting is today after school!” one of them said. You can pick which one—they’re pretty interchangeable.

“No, join our club,” said Tom from the booth next to that. “The boys’ club: Kick the Box. We consider you one of the boys because you are so laid back and chill.”

I couldn’t believe it. One of the boys. I’d finally made it.

“What’s ‘Kick the Box’?” I asked.

“Every Friday night we take turns crouching in a box while the other guys kick it.”

“Sure I’ll play,” I said, making their days. I felt good about myself after that. Socializing is a simple way to give back to the community.

“Muurp,” muurped Edwart. We all turned towards him. He was wringing the hem of his shirt in his hands and shifting his eyes from one face to another, a common mannerism from the Victorian Period.

“What is it Ednerd?” asked Taylor. “Have you finally turned into one of your little machines?”

Laura giggled, expecting Edwart’s comeback to be something hilarious. She wasn’t disappointed.

“Belle can’t join your club,” he said, super-hilariously. “Friday night is when we click on each other’s ads—the most vital part of the Price Elasticity Club.”

“Fine,” said Adam. “I guess Belle would rather click on advertisements than go to
Las Vegas
this Friday for a boy’s club
Bachelor Par-TAY
.”

Edwart made that threatening growl of his and I can’t resist him when he puts on his puppy face.

“I suppose I’ll join the shopping club instead,” I grumbled. Sheesh. What was this—a Judd Apatow movie? I trudged over to Laura’s sign-up sheet. I bet she didn’t even know what
Star Wars
was, like in that scene in
Knocked Up
.

“The best part about girl’s club,” said Laura as I signed my name and muttered words at random from my internal
anger-rant, “is getting to know each other better. Each week I come up with a different question.
Last
week’s question was which of Laura’s headbands is the prettiest headband?
This
week’s question is which humanoid in The Federation would be the most just political leader. Like,
The most just.”
She tossed her hair two-dimensionally.