Teeth_ Vampire Tales - Ellen Datlow [17]
“We just want you to know that we’re not all about silk cravats and rural villages that sit at the bottoms of eastern European mountain ranges,” he told the assembled population of freshmen through seniors. “We don’t necessarily kill, although some do, but they aren’t representative of us as a whole.”
“Oh my God,” said Lottie. “I cannot believe they’re doing public outreach. It’s pathetic. I want the cravats, whatever those are. I want the rural villages that sit at the bottoms of eastern European mountain ranges. Not these losers.”
“They’re ties,” Retta whispered. “Victorian ties. Shh.”
Lottie rolled her eyes. She said, “You’re too nice, Retta.”
Retta isn’t Retta’s full name—it’s Loretta; but since they were little, people have called her Retta because she and Lottie have always been best friends and two L-named girls who are consistently spotted as a pair are annoying. Lottie and Retta had once agreed: They didn’t want to be like those siblings whose parents name them all under the tyranny of one letter, like steps going up and down a staircase, the same, one right after the other. It was Lottie who came up with Retta. For a while Retta had wondered why it was her who had to change her name, not Lottie, whose full name was actually Charlotte, but it was Retta that stuck.
“We would also like to disabuse you of the notion that we are all bloodsucking fiends with fangs,” the head vampire told them. His companions nodded behind him. One was a short, chubby boy who looked like he should be playing a tuba in the marching band, glasses that he’d taped together on one side, a potentially obsessive thumb sucker. The other was a hyperthin girl, skin white as paper, wearing black boots, black jeans, black tank top, black earrings made of some kind of dark crystal. She had long black hair and wore black lipstick. She was probably not the head vampire’s best choice in representing the unexpected in vampires. Find comfort in familiarity when familiarity is disappointing, Retta reminded herself. That’s what the guidance counselor had told her at her senior session when Retta had said she didn’t know what she wanted to do after high school but was hoping to somehow get out into the world. “Thanks,” Retta had said upon receiving that wafer of wisdom, then told the next kid it was his turn when she left the counselor’s office.
“Did that dude just say he was abused as a child?” Lottie whispered. “No doubt that’s the reason for his vampirism.”
“Shh,” Retta said again. “They deserve to be heard, too.”
“Too what?” said Lottie.
“Too like anyone,” said Retta. “Lottie, will you please just pay attention? Mr. Masters is looking up at us. We’re going to get detention.”
That shut Lottie up. Nothing was worse than sitting in a stale classroom with Mrs. Markowitz after school. Mrs. Markowitz, who has taught freshman algebra since the dawn of time, expects you to look straight at her as she reads romance novels at her desk during detention. Retta always focused on the cover, the muscular chest of a man as he wrapped the heroine up in his arms. She’d imagine the book, the ink on the paper, make it up as Mrs. Markowitz turned each page. Lottie would spend the entire period burning holes into Mrs. Markowitz with laser eyes. She lacked imagination.
The head vampire said, “We feed, yes, but we do not always feed on blood.”
A boy in the row behind the girls shouted,