'Night World : Secret Vampire Chapter 1\r'

'It was on the frontmost twenty-four hours of summer vacation that Poppy ground verboten she was going to die.\r\nIt happened on Mon daytime, the first real day of vacation (the weekend didnt count). Poppy woke up feeling gloriously weightless and vox populi, No school. Sunlight was be adrift in the window, turning the suss reveal- through hangings around her fork up gossamer gold. Poppy wedgeed them aside and jumped discover of bed and winced.\r\nOuch. That irritation in her support again.-Sort of a gnawing, as if around social occasion were eat its way toward her dorsum. It helped a comminuted if she bent over.\r\nNo, Poppy purview. I spurn to be sick during summer vacation. I refuse. A shrimpy power of positive thought is whats needed here.\r\nGrimly, doubled over-think positive, half-wit!-she make her way pilingward the h all(prenominal)(prenominal) to the turquoise-and gold-tiled bathroom. At first she thought she was going to feature up, barely th en the pain eased as curtly as it had come. Poppy straightened and regarded her tousled criticism triumphantly.\r\nâ€Å"Stick with me, kid, and youll be fine,” she mouth to it, and gave a conspiratorial wink. so she leaned forward, seeing her own kB eyeb any narrow in suspicion. There on her twist were four freckles.\r\nFour anda half, if she were in all honest, which Poppy North usually was. How childish, how-cute!\r\nPoppy stuck her idiom out at herself and then turned away with wide dignity, without bothering to comb the wild coppery curls that clustered over her head.\r\nShe kept up(p) the dignity until she got to the kitchen, where Phillip, her twin brother, was take Special K. Then she change her eyes again, this time at him. It was bad enough to be small, slight, and curly-hairedâ€to look, in fact, as more manage an elf as anything shed ever seen sitting on a buttercup in a childrens picture take forâ€hut to have a twin who was tall, Viking-blon d, and classically bad .. well, that right handeous showed a true deliberate malice in the makeup of the universe, didnt it?\r\nâ€Å"Hello, Phillip,” she verbalise in a voice enceinte with menace.\r\nPhillip, who was used to his sisters moods, was unimpressed. He bring up his gaze from the comic atom of the L.A. Times for a moment. Poppy had to notice that he had nice eyes: questing green eyes with really dark lashes. They were the only thing the twins had in common.\r\nPhillip express flatly, and went back to the comics. Not many another(prenominal) kids Poppy knew read the newspaper, but that was Phil all over. Like Poppy, hed been a junior(a) at El Camino last last year, and un same Poppy, hed made straight As while star on the football team, the field hockey team, and the baseball team. Also serving as class chair One of Poppys longest joys in life was teasing him. She thought he was too straitlaced.\r\n mediocre right off she giggled and shrugged, lo ose up the menacing look. â€Å"Wheres Cliff and mama?” Cliff Hilgard was their stepfather of three long time and even straighter-laced than Phil.\r\nâ€Å"Cliffs at work. Moms getting dressed. Youd better eat somewhatthing or shell get on your case.”\r\nâ€Å"Yeah, yeah …” Poppy went on tiptoe to rummage through a cupboard. decision a box of frost Flakes, she thrust a delve in and delicately pulled out one flake. She ate it dry.\r\nIt wasnt all bad being compendious and elfin. She did a few trip the light fantastic toe steps to the refrigerator, shaking the grain box in rhythm.\r\nâ€Å"Im a … sex pixie!” she sang, giving it a footstomping rhythm.\r\nâ€Å"No, youre not,” Phillip tell with waste calm. â€Å"And why dont you site some clothes on?”\r\n holding the refrigerator door open, Poppy looked down at herself. She was wearing the oversize T-shirt shed slept in. It covered ‘ her like a , minidress. â€Å"T his isclothes,” she said serenely, pickings a Diet snow from the fridge.\r\nThere was a belt at the kitchen door. Poppy saw who it was through the screen.\r\nâ€Å"Hi, crowd together! Cmon in.”\r\n pack Rasmussen came in, taking off his wraparound Ray-Bans. Looking at him, Poppy mat apang-as constantly. It didnt matter that she had seenhim every day, practically, for the past ten years. Shestill tangle a quick swell throb in her chest, somewhere among fragrance and pain, when first confronted with him every morning.\r\nIt wasnt just his outlaw good looks, which alwaysreminded her vaguely of throng Dean. He had silky light brown hair, a subtle, intelligent governing body, and grayeyes that were alternately acute and cool. He was the handsomest boy at El Camino High, but that wasnt it, that wasnt what Poppy responded to. It was something insidehim, something mystical andcompelling and always just out of reach. It made her heart do the dishes fast and her ski n tingle.\r\nPhillip felt differently. As soon as jam came in, he stiffened and his face went cold. Electric dislike flashed between the two boys.\r\nThen James smiled faintly, as if Phillips reactionamused him.”Hi.”\r\nâ€Å"Hi,”Phil said, not flux in the least. Poppyhad the strong mind that hed like to bundle herup and frisson her out of the room. Phillip alwaysoverdid the protective-brother bit when James wasaround. â€Å"So hows Jacklyn and Michaela?” headded nastily.\r\nJames considered. â€Å"Well, I dont really know.”\r\nâ€Å"You dont know?Oh, yeah, you always drop yourgirlfriends just beforehand summer vacation. Leaves you free to maneuver, right?”\r\nâ€Å"Of course,” James said blandly. He smiled.\r\nPhillip glared at him with unabashed hatred.\r\nPoppy, for her part, was seized by joy. Goodbye, Jacklyn; goodbye Michaela. Goodbye to Jacklyns soignee long legs and Michaelas amazing pneumatic chest. This was going to be a wonderful summer. Many mass thought Poppy and Jamess relationship platonic. This wasnt true. Poppy had know for years that she was going to bond him. It was one of her two great ambitions, the other being to see the world. She just hadnt gotten around to making known James yet. Right now he still thought he liked tall girls with salon fingernails and Italian pumps.\r\nâ€Å"Is that a new CD?” she said, to steal him fromhis stare out with his future brother-in-law.\r\nJames hefted it. â€Å"Its the new Ethnotechno release.”\r\nPoppy cheered. â€Å" more(prenominal) Tuva throat singers-I cant wait. Lets go discover to it.But just then her fuck off walked in. Poppys mother was cool, blond,\r\nand perfect, like an Alfred Hitchcock heroine. Shenormally wore an mental synthesis of effortless efficiency. Poppy, heading out of the kitchen, nearlyran into her.\r\nâ€Å"Sorry-morning!”\r\nâ€Å"Hold on a minute,” Poppys mother said, gettinghold of Poppy by the back of her T-shirt. â€Å"Good\r\nmorning, Phil; good morning, James,” she added.Phil said good morning and James nodded, ironically polite.\r\nâ€Å"Has everybody had breakfast?” Poppys motherasked, and when the boys said they had, she looked at her daughter. â€Å"And what about you?” she asked,gazing into Poppys face.\r\nPoppy sound the Frosted Flakes box and hermother winced. â€Å" wherefore dont you at least put milkon them?”\r\nâ€Å"Better this way,” Poppy said firmly, but when hermother gave her a little push toward the refrigerator, she went and got a quart carton of lowfat milk.\r\nâ€Å"What are you planning to do with your first day of independence?” her mother said, glancing from James to Poppy.\r\nâ€Å"Oh, I dont know.” Poppy looked at James. â€Å"Listen to some music; maybe go up to the hills? Or get hold of to the beach?”\r\nâ€Å"Whatever you want,” James said. â€Å"Weve got allsummer.â⠂¬Â\r\nThe summer stretched out in front of Poppy, hotand golden and resplendent. It smelled like pool chlo rine and sea brininess; it felt like fond grass under her back. troika whole months, she thought. Thats forever. Three months is forever.\r\nIt was quaint that she was actually thinking thiswhen it happened.\r\nâ€Å"We could wear out out the new shops at the Village —?? was beginning, when suddenly the painstruck and her schnorchel caught in her throat.\r\nIt was bad-a deep, twisting break loose of agony thatmade her double over. The milk carton flew fromher fingers and everything went gray.\r\n'