Thirsty - M. T. Anderson [44]
“At the Sad Festival. I’m reporting that vampires are going to try to interrupt the spells to keep Tch’muchgar locked in another world.”
Silence.
“He’s going to try to break back into this world. And he’ll wreak havoc and scatter destruction around him.”
“Okay,” says the policeman.
“They’re meeting at an old abandoned church. You have to help me. I’m turning into a vampire, too. I can’t give you my name yet.”
“Slow down, slow down,” he says. “This sounds serious.”
“It is. You have to listen to me.”
“Okay, okay. Calm. Right, I gotta ask you a couple questions.”
“Go ahead,” I say.
“First,” he says. “Could you tell me: Is your refrigerator running?”
“This isn’t a prank,” I say.
“Second: Is this Mr. or Mrs. Wall? Well, if there aren’t any walls there, how does the roof stay up?” I can hear laughing in the background. Those boys in blue.
“I am not kidding,” I say angrily.
“No, and neither am I, kid. You call with this kinda sh — garbage again, I’ll come over there and give you something to think about.”
Then there’s a dial tone.
I hang up angrily. It’s a pay phone at school, because I don’t want the police to trace the call back to me. I thought they might give me the benefit of the doubt. Obviously no help there.
“Hey,” says Jerk, sauntering up. “Who you talking to?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Hey, okay, no problem.” He puts his hands in his pockets and flexes his feet so he moves up and down. “You’ve been looking, like, really down recently.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, honestly sorry. “It’s nothing to do with you.”
“Would you like to come over after school and we’ll, I don’t know, play Kaverns of Kismet III or something?”
The idea stuns me with its worthlessness. I feel like I’m a million miles from Jerk.
So I apologize no, I’m going to the movies with my aunt. Jerk asks me which movie, sounding really interested, and I say I don’t think we’ve picked one yet.
But even as I stand there lying to him, and as he realizes more and more that I’m lying, and gets quieter and sad around his mouth, I hate myself for saying these things. I make a silent pledge to be nicer to him, because even though he is a million miles from me, he wishes he weren’t. Because there was a time when everything was simpler, and my friends were my friends.
Last year I got really excited about the lunchroom’s Cajun sloppy joes. You would think that Cajun sloppy joes were not much to get excited about, but we live in a small town and not much happens some months.
Now I can’t even eat our cook’s Cajun sloppy joes. I’m sitting at the table, gagging just looking at one. Human food. Grease is rolling off the bun, and chunks of meat are quietly flopping down the sides and landing splayed in sauce, like ants dying of fumigation.
I can’t put that thing in my mouth. It will be so pasty. But I’m so hungry.
I hate to feel my body out of control like this, to know that there’s no way to just eat a normal thing and to be healthy. My body is changing — its sickness I don’t understand, and its health is unhealthy — and I am constantly afraid because I don’t know what will happen to me next.
Nearby, Tom is sitting with his crowd. I am sitting as close to them as I dare. As soon as I sit down, I realize how stupid it is. Rebecca is sitting a few seats away from me, but I feel like everything is falling apart, and I don’t even know how I can think about stupid things like trying to impress her with witty lunch repartee when everything is sliding like it is.
She looks even more beautiful now that I know I’m falling apart. She’s talking about the Cabala, an ancient book of mystical power she’s studying with her uncle. Her friends are a little bit bored by her and keep poking their dessert squares. I love her for it. I could listen to her talk about the Cabala forever. If there were a CD called Rebecca Schwartz Tells You About the Cabala, for $14.99, I’d have three copies.
I am so swept up by Rebecca talking about the Cabala that I hardly even notice when I pick up the Cajun sloppy joe and take a big bite out of it like I would