Vampire Trouble Read online

  For the staff and students of Spring Garden Elementary School in Bethlehem, PA, with special thanks to Dave Siegfried, Jane Cassidy, and Lauren Brennan for getting things started. Thank you for all the fun visits and great feedback over the years.

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  About the Author

  Don’t Miss Alex’s First Monster Itch

  Don’t Miss Any Monster Itch Books!

  Copyright

  “Alex, stop looking out the window!” my teacher, Mrs. Fulmer, said.

  “Sorry.” I pulled my eyes from the window and tried to aim them toward the board, but they flickered past it to the clock above the door. I needed to see how close we were to recess.

  “Alex!” she said. “Pay attention, or you’ll get detention.” She tried to frown at me to show she was serious but ended up fighting against a smile. I guess she’d realized she’d accidentally made a rhyme.

  “Yes, Mrs. Fulmer.” I forced myself to look straight ahead at the vocabulary words she’d written for the class. Detention would be just as bad as rain, since either one would keep me inside. And if I didn’t get to go out, it would hurt my chance to do something amazing.

  Luckily, my quick peek at the clock showed me we were only five minutes away from recess. And it didn’t look like there’d be more rain, even though it rained last night and was still cloudy.

  I glanced two rows over to my friend Stuart.

  He held up five fingers with his right hand and made a circle with his left thumb and forefinger. Fifty.

  I flashed the signal back to him. Fifty.

  The bell rang. I shot to my feet, along with everyone else.

  “Wait,” Mrs. Fulmer said.

  We all froze and stared at her like dogs desperately eager to hear “Let’s go for a walk.”

  “Dismissed,” she said.

  We rushed through the door and into the hallway, turning left for the exit that led to the playground.

  “Fifty,” Stuart said.

  “For sure,” I said. In all the years that kids had played kickball at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School, nobody had kicked fifty home runs in a single month. That’s why I was watching the sky. If it rained, we’d have indoor recess. Then I wouldn’t get to play kickball. I loved kickball. And I was good at it. I’d kicked forty-seven home runs this month. Forty-seven! I was within striking distance of setting a record. I wasn’t the first to get close. In the past, five kids had reached forty-eight, and three had reached forty-nine. But fifty just didn’t seem to happen. Maybe they’d all choked under the pressure of reaching such a perfectly round number. But I wouldn’t.

  I loved to compete at anything and everything. Sports, games, contests. And I loved to win. That kickball record was going to be mine. There were eight more school days left to the month. Nothing was going to stop me.

  As I moved with the mob toward the door to the playground, I bumped into my cousin Sarah.

  “You’re always in such a rush,” she said.

  “I like recess,” I said.

  “We all do,” Sarah said.

  “But you’ve always had recess,” I said. “It’s still new for me.”

  We burst outside, and I inhaled a deep breath of the still-damp air. I loved the fact that damp air didn’t make me cough. I really loved that my chest didn’t hurt when I breathed. Until near the end of last year, I didn’t get to go out for recess. I had really bad allergies. No matter what season, there was something that would make me cough, sneeze, itch, or wheeze. My mom—she’s an allergy doctor—wrote me an excuse to get out of recess, even though I didn’t want to be excused. I didn’t get to go outside much after school, either. When I was stuck in my room, I used to put my pillow on the floor and kick it hard at a poster of a goalpost that I’d taped on the wall. I pretended I was scoring field goals. I guess all that kicking made a difference, since the first time I played kickball, I almost put one over the fence.

  Happily, I was fine now. I no longer missed recess. I’d outgrown my allergies. Mom says that happens sometimes and that I was very fortunate.

  As I stood there just beyond the door, thinking about how lucky I was, someone bumped into me from behind.

  “Get out of my way, slowpoke,” Herbert Clumpmeister said, running past me.

  “He could catch you,” Stuart said.

  “No way.” I tried to sound confident. But Herbert had scored forty-five home runs. If things went really badly for me, I could lose the record to him.

  But that would never happen. I’d get to fifty before he did. That’s what really mattered with records. It was good to reach fifty, but it was great to be the first one to do it.

  “Have fun,” Sarah said as she headed off toward the basketball courts.

  “You too,” I said. I cut over toward the ball field. There were puddles all over the place, including a huge one right near home plate, but the field was dry enough for us to play on.

  “Hey, who’s that?” Stuart asked as we lined up to reach into the bag that held the field positions. He pointed behind the backstop.

  There was a young woman, or maybe she was an older girl, standing under the tree behind the backstop. I hadn’t even noticed her. In her long black coat, floppy hat, and black pants, she sort of blended into the dark bark of the walnut tree. And it was hard to tell her age with her face hidden behind thick-framed sunglasses and droopy black hair. The little bit of her face that I could see was very pale, and she didn’t look very happy.

  “New monitor, I guess.” Students from the local college earned extra money by helping keep an eye on things at the playground. Some retired people did that, too. They’re all really nice, and they make sure nobody gets hurt.

  I reached into the bag and plucked out one of the old tennis balls that was inside of it. THIRD BASE was written on it in permanent marker. That would be my starting position. We don’t play two teams—we play a game where you rotate through all the field positions. Then you line up to wait for your turn to kick after you play right field. If the batter kicks a pop fly and someone catches it, they swap positions. And if the batter is out any other way—through a tag, a force, or being hit by the ball (everyone’s favorite method)—he becomes the pitcher.

  We took our positions. Herbert was up to bat first. He’s pretty competitive, too. He pointed at me and said, “Watch out. I’m about to crush your chances for the record.”

  He didn’t. Not this time.

  As I moved through the outfield positions, from left to center to right, I watched the new monitor. Most of the monitors get interested in the games, and even clap and cheer when someone makes a good play, or say comforting words when things go wrong, but Gloomy Girl just stood there, staring straight ahead as if we were no more interesting than stalks of corn or specks of dust.

  Glancing over my shoulder, I saw a monitor by the basketball court clapping for Sarah as she sank a jump shot from beyond the foul line. Another monitor was helping swing a jump rope for three kids. But I turned my attention away from them as I heard the unmistakable sound of the ball getting a solid kick. It was a grounder to second and an easy out. Which meant I was back in the batting line. Soon after that I was up.

  As I jogged to the plate, I flashed the fifty sign to Stuart, who was now at shortstop. He flashed it back. After I took my position in the batter’s box, I looked at the new monitor. She still stared straight ahead, as if I didn’t even exist. Well, she’d get more interested when I kicked the ball into orbit.

  Lindsay Waller, who was pitching, rolled the ball toward the plate. I took a step back. And another step. And another. And—well, I took five steps back in all. That’s my patented hyper-special foolproof kickball home run technique. Five steps back as the ball is rolling and then a dash forward to meet it perfectly at the plate with a super-duper kick.

  As I took my fifth step, my nose started to itch. I couldn’t worry about that. I had a ball to blast for a home run. It was a perfect pitch, traveling with just the right amount of speed for me to clobber it. That would put me at forty-eight!

  I dashed forward. The itch filled my whole nose. Ignore it, I told myself. I reached the plate, planted my left foot firmly at the same time as I swung my right foot back. (I’m a lefty when I write or throw, but I kick righty.) The big secret to kickball is that you don’t just kick with your foot, or even your leg. You kick with your whole body working together. I put my shoulder into it, and then my hip, followed by my knee. With the force of all my moving parts behind it, I unleashed a mighty kick. At the same instant, I sneezed so hard I thought my head would leave my neck.

  When your head is sneezing and your foot is swinging, and the dirt around home plate is just a little bit wet and slippery, things don’t always go as planned. I missed the ball. I’d totally muffed the kick. Worse, I swung my leg so hard, I sent myself sailing through the air. And even worse than that, I was sailing right toward the huge mud puddle.

  Splash! It was not a happy landing. I ended my fall poorly. And wetly.

  Pretty much everyone on the field, and anyone off the field who saw my splashdown, was laughing.

  “Strike one,” Herbert said from his spot at second base.

  “No fooling,” I muttered as I pushed myself up from the muck. I could feel my face flushing. If it got any hotter, it would steam off the muddy water t
hat was all over my neck and forehead. After I stepped back to the plate, I glanced at the monitor, just to prove to myself that I had to be wrong. Was she really totally uninterested in what had just happened? I’d done a face-first full-body plant in a mud puddle! I know a towel would be too much to ask, but a look of sympathy, or maybe an “Are you okay?” would have been nice.

  But she didn’t seem to react at all.

  On the next pitch, as I backed up, I felt the itch again, on the third step. As I finished my five steps and started my dash, I felt another sneeze coming.

  I gritted my teeth.

  I’m not sneezing, I told myself.

  I sneezed. This one was even harder. And, yeah, I went flying, again. And, naturally, I landed in the puddle, again. But I’d already soaked up most of the mud on my first fall, so this one didn’t make things all that much worse.

  Still, it seemed to draw even more laughter.

  “Strike two,” Herbert said.

  I had no idea why I kept sneezing. But I realized that maybe this wasn’t the time to try for a home run. I’d have plenty of chances to score the three homers I needed.

  I sneezed on the fourth step as I backed up. And then I sneezed a second time as I moved forward. But I didn’t try to nail the ball—I just sort of lashed my foot out at it and hoped to make contact. I actually made a solid hit. Unfortunately, it was also a weak one, popping up toward second base.

  The ball dropped right into Herbert’s hands. I could hear sighs of disappointment from all around the playground as I failed to land in the puddle again. Then I sighed because not only was I out, but thanks to catching my pop fly, Herbert was up. I was supposed to take his spot on the field, but I was just too muddy and discouraged to keep playing.

  “Someone sub for me,” I said. I needed to wash off.

  As I walked away, the ball smacked the back of my head with a loud POING!

  I turned around and instantly spotted the ball’s source. Herbert had kicked it right at me.

  “Oops, sorry,” he said, grinning. “Accident.”

  “Yeah, right.” I didn’t believe him. I watched the next pitch, so he wouldn’t hit me again. Instead, he nailed the ball for a home run. Great. Really totally wonderful and great. I was a mud ball, and Herbert was within one home run of catching me.

  I went inside to the art room and used the sink to clean up my face and arms. The art teacher, Mr. Pemberton, had a bunch of old shirts he kept on hand for kids to wear when they painted. He let me borrow one.

  I had lunch right after recess.

  “What happened to you?” Sarah asked when she saw me walking past the table where she sits with the other girls from the science club. Even with the clean shirt, I was pretty much a mess.

  “I sneezed so hard, I flew into a mud puddle,” I said.

  Sarah laughed. “Wish I’d seen it. That must have been one monster of a sneeze.”

  As the words left her mouth, her eyes widened. She stared at me. I stared back at her. My eyes widened, too.

  “No way,” I said. Just the other week, after not having any allergies for a long time, I had gotten a very itchy rash as an allergic reaction to a ghost. But a sneeze wasn’t a rash. And there was no ghost on the playground. At least, I was pretty sure Gloomy Girl wasn’t a ghost. She wasn’t transparent.

  But she sure was spooky.

  “You’re right,” Sarah said. “One sneeze doesn’t mean anything. Everyone sneezes.”

  I didn’t tell her that it was more than one.

  * * *

  After school, when Sarah and I were heading out, I saw Gloomy Girl standing beneath a tree by the curb. The sky was still overcast, but the sun had peeked through a hole in the clouds.

  I pointed to her and said to Sarah, “She was by the kickball field today. Maybe she’s making me sneeze.”

  “That’s silly,” Sarah said. “Like I told you at lunch, one sneeze doesn’t mean anything.”

  I confessed I’d sneezed three or four times.

  “It could be her perfume or something,” Sarah said. “Aunt Esther’s perfume makes me sneeze.”

  I shuddered at the thought of that. “Aunt Esther’s perfume kills insects and wilts flowers,” I said. “I think she pours it on with a ladle. But, as terrible as it is, it has the same effect on everybody. I was the only one on the field who sneezed. And I only sneezed when I was near Gloomy Girl.”

  The hole in the clouds closed up, erasing the sunlight that painted the pavement. Gloomy Girl ran down the sidewalk, heading right toward us. I froze. As she got close, my nose itched and twitched. I turned toward Sarah to tell her what was happening. Just as Gloomy Girl sped past me, I sneezed, even harder than before. It happened so quickly, I didn’t have time to turn away or cover my nose.

  “Ew … ” Sarah said as she reached toward her face. Little snot droplets glistened on her cheeks like flecks of quartz.

  “Sorry,” I said. “But see? She made me sneeze.”

  Sarah nodded. By the time she’d wiped her face and stopped saying “ew,” Gloomy Girl was half a block away

  Sarah and I looked at each other.

  “Something weird is going on,” I said. “How could I be allergic to a person?”

  “Let’s find out,” Sarah said. She raced after Gloomy Girl.

  “Actually, I’m not sure I want to know,” I muttered, but I joined in the chase.

  We closed the distance and got within about twenty feet of Gloomy Girl before she turned a corner. For a moment, we couldn’t see her past the hedges that lined a front yard.

  Then we sped around the corner … but Gloomy Girl wasn’t there.

  “Where’d she go?” I asked.

  Something fluttered past us.

  Sarah screamed.

  I guess I did, too.

  Something large and dark flitted right above our heads and then shot away, flying over the rooftops.

  “A bat!” I said.

  “In the daytime?” Sarah said. “No way. Bats are nocturnal. That was a bird.”

  Maybe she was right. Either way, I didn’t feel like arguing. “Where’d Gloomy Girl go?” I stared down the street. There was no sign of her.

  “Maybe she went into one of the houses,” Sarah said.

  “Maybe … ” I didn’t want to think that she’d vanished.

  We headed toward home. Sarah lives just one block from me, which is convenient when I want to hang out with her and a nuisance when I don’t.

  “I hate the idea that my allergies are coming back,” I said. I remembered all those days when I looked out the classroom window at everyone having fun at recess.

  “That wouldn’t be good,” Sarah said. “Hey, I just thought of something … ”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Maybe Gloomy Girl is a ghost!” Sarah said.

  “I thought of that,” I said. “I don’t think she is—and this is sneezing, not a rash. I hope it doesn’t get any worse, though, the way that the rash did.” I definitely didn’t want to sneeze any harder than I’d already sneezed.

  “I don’t blame you. But I guess we shouldn’t jump to any conclusions,” Sarah said. Then she laughed and added, “Or into more puddles.”

  “Very funny,” I said.

  Mom was in the living room reading one of her allergy-doctor magazines when I got home. Mom and Dad try to make sure one of them is there right after school every day. I don’t know why. I can find the fridge without any help, and I understand the TV remote better than either of my parents.

  “Alex!” Mom gasped. “You’re covered in mud!”

  “It’s not that bad,” I said. I’d actually pretty much forgotten about it. “And I wouldn’t really call myself covered. A lot of it flaked off already.” I wrinkled my forehead and watched a sprinkling of tiny mud flakes flutter past my eyes. They were kind of pretty, though not as glisteny as snot droplets.

  Mom knelt, lifted my eyelids with her thumbs, and peered into my eyes. Then she made me open my mouth and say ahhhh. After that, she grabbed her stethoscope and listened to my lungs. Once she was satisfied I wasn’t in the middle of a severe allergy attack, she said, “Go clean up, immediately. Do you have any idea how many allergens and pathogens are in the soil?”