It was on the first day of summer vacation that Poppy
found out she was going to die.
It happened on Monday, the first real day of vacation
(the weekend didn’t count). Poppy woke up feeling
gloriously weightless and thought, No school. Sunlight was
streaming in the window, turning the sheer hangings around
her bed filmy gold. Poppy pushed them aside and jumped
out of bed—and winced.
Ouch. That pain in her stomach again. Sort of a gnawing,
as if something were eating its way toward her back. It helped
a little if she bent over.
No, Poppy thought. I refuse to be sick during summer
vacation. I refuse. A little power of positive thinking
is what’s
needed here.
Grimly, doubled over—think positive, idiot!—she made her
way down the hall to the turquoise-and-gold-tiled bathroom.
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L.J. Smith
At first she thought she was going to throw up, but then the
pain eased as suddenly
as it had come. Poppy straightened and
regarded
her tousled reflection triumphantly.
“Stick with me, kid, and you’ll be fine,” she whispered
to
it, and gave a conspiratorial wink. Then she leaned forward,
seeing her own green eyes narrow in suspicion. There on her
nose were four freckles. Four and a half, if she were completely
honest, which Poppy North usually was. How childish, how—
cute! Poppy stuck her tongue out at herself and then turned
away with great dignity, without bothering to comb the wild
coppery curls that clustered over her head.
She maintained the dignity until she got to the kitchen,
where Phillip, her twin brother, was eating Special K. Then she
narrowed her eyes again, this time at him. It was bad enough
to be small, slight, and curly-haired—to look, in fact, as much
like an elf as anything she’d ever seen sitting on a buttercup
in a children’s picture book—but to have a twin who was tall,
Viking-blond, and classically handsome . . . well, that just
showed a certain deliberate malice in the makeup of the universe,
didn’t it?
“Hello, Phillip,” she said in a voice heavy with menace.
Phillip, who was used to his sister’s moods, was unimpressed.
He lifted his gaze from the comic section
of the L.A.
Times for a moment. Poppy had to admit that he had nice eyes:
questing green eyes with very dark lashes. They were the only
thing the twins had in common.
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Secret Vampire
“Hi,” Phillip said flatly, and went back to the comics.
Not many kids Poppy knew read the newspaper, but that was
Phil all over. Like Poppy, he’d been a junior at El Camino
High last year, and unlike Poppy, he’d made straight A ’s
while starring on the football team, the hockey team, and
the baseball team. Also serving as class president. One of
Poppy’s greatest joys in life was teasing him. She thought he
was too straitlaced.
Just now she giggled and shrugged, giving up the menacing
look. “Where’s Cliff and Mom?” Cliff Hilgard was their
stepfather of three years and even straighter-laced than Phil.
“Cliff ’s at work. Mom’s getting dressed. You’d better eat
something or she’ll get on your case.”
“Yeah, yeah . . .” Poppy went on tiptoe to rummage
through
a cupboard. Finding a box of Frosted Flakes, she thrust a hand
in and delicately pulled out one flake. She ate it dry.
It wasn’t all bad being short and elfin. She did a few dance
steps to the refrigerator, shaking the cereal box in rhythm.
“I’m a . . . sex pixie!” she sang, giving it a foot-stomping
rhythm.
“No, you’re not,” Phillip said with devastating calm. “And
why don’t you put some clothes on?”
Holding the refrigerator door open, Poppy looked down
at herself. She was wearing the oversize T-shirt she’d slept in. It
covered her like a minidress. “This is clothes,” she said serenely,
taking a Diet Coke from the fridge.
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L.J. Smith
There was a knock at the kitchen door. Poppy saw who it
was through the screen.
“Hi, James! C’mon in.”
James Rasmussen came in, taking off his wraparound
Ray-Bans. Looking at him, Poppy felt a pang—as always. It
didn’t matter that she had seen him every day, practically, for
the past ten years. She still felt a quick sharp throb in her chest,
somewhere between sweetness and pain, when first confronted
with him every morning.
It wasn’t just his outlaw good looks, which always reminded
her vaguely of James Dean. He had silky light brown hair, a subtle,
intelligent face, and gray eyes that were alternately intense and
cool. He was the handsomest boy at El Camino High, but that
wasn’t it, that wasn’t what Poppy responded to. It was something
inside him, something mysterious and compelling and always just
out of reach. It made her heart beat fast and her skin tingle.
Phillip felt differently. As soon as James came in, he stiffened
and his face went cold. Electric dislike flashed between
the two boys.
Then James smiled faintly, as if Phillip’s reaction amused
him. “Hi.”
“Hi,” Phil said, not thawing in the least. Poppy had the
strong sense that he’d like to bundle her up and rush her out
of the room. Phillip always overdid the protective-brother bit
when James was around. “So how’s Jacklyn and Michaela?” he
added nastily.
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Secret Vampire
James considered. “Well, I don’t really know.”
“You don’t know? Oh, yeah, you always drop your girlfriends
just before summer vacation. Leaves you free to maneuver,
right?”
“Of course,” James said blandly. He smiled.
Phillip glared at him with unabashed hatred.
Poppy, for her part, was seized by joy. Goodbye, Jacklyn;
goodbye Michaela. Goodbye to Jacklyn’s elegant long legs and
Michaela’s amazing pneumatic
chest. This was going to be a
wonderful summer.
Many people thought Poppy and James’s relationship
platonic.
This wasn’t true. Poppy had known for years that she
was going to marry him. It was one of her two great ambitions,
the other being to see the world. She just hadn’t gotten around
to informing
James yet. Right now he still thought he liked
long-legged girls with salon fingernails and Italian
pumps.
“Is that a new CD?” she said, to distract him from his stare
out with his future brother-in-law.
James hefted it. “It’s the new Ethnotechno release.”
Poppy cheered. “More Tuva throat singers—I can’t wait.
Let’s go listen to it.” But just then her mother walked in.
Poppy’s mother was cool, blond, and perfect, like an Alfred
Hitchcock heroine. She normally wore an expression of
effortless efficiency. Poppy, heading out of the kitchen, nearly
ran into her.
“Sorry—morning!”
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L.J. Smith
“Hold on a minute,” Poppy’s mother said, getting hold
of Poppy by the back of her T-shirt. “Good morning, Phil;
good morning, James,” she added. Phil said good morning and
James nodded, ironically
polite.
“Has everybody had breakfast?” Poppy’s mother asked,
and when the boys said they had, she looked at her daughter.
“And what about you?” she asked, gazing into Poppy’s
face.
Poppy rattled the Frosted Flakes box and her mother
winced. “Why don’t you at least put milk on them?”
“Better this way,” Poppy said firmly, but when her mother
gave her a little push toward the refrigerator, she went and got
a quart carton of lowfat milk.
“What are you planning to do with your first day of freedom?”
her mother said, glancing from James to Poppy.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Poppy looked at James. “Listen
to
some music; maybe go up to the hills? Or drive to the beach?”
“Whatever you want,” James said. “We’ve got all summer.”
The summer stretched out in front of Poppy, hot and
golden and resplendent. It smelled like pool chlorine
and
sea salt; it felt like warm grass under her back. Three whole
months, she thought. That’s forever.
Three months is forever.
It was strange that she was actually thinking this when it
happened.
“We could check out the new shops at the Village—”
she
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Secret Vampire
was beginning, when suddenly the pain struck and her breath
caught in her throat.
It was bad—a deep, twisting burst of agony that made her
double over. The milk carton flew from her fingers and everything
went gray.
21-12-09, 07:39 PM
Secret Vampire by L.J. SMITH
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