VINNIE, THE VAMPIRE
Volume I
By Jordan Pearce
Smashwords Edition
Text copyright 2010 by Jill Jordan
Are you buying this book? Congratulations!
You’ve not only taken a huge step towards understanding the world of vampires, but you are also supporting a good cause!
Proceeds from Vinny’s book sales support several charities, including the Decatur Education Foundation.
http://decatureducationfoundation.org
Chapter One
Do you have vampires in your neighborhood? Are you sure? Meet Vinny, a vampire living in Atlanta, Georgia. Vinny is 8 years old and is in the 3rd grade.
Vinny’s dad’s name is Vincent and he is a security guard at a computer factory, where people build computers.
Vincent works at the security desk where he greets people visiting the building, and he walks around a lot to make sure that everything is working properly in each section of the factory. Since the factory is so big, Vincent spends most of his time checking the different sections of the building, being on the lookout for any trouble.
Vinny’s mom is a nurse who works at Eastside Hospital, and her name is Valerie. Valerie works the night shift, which means she works at night taking care of patients in the hospital and comes home just when the kids are waking up in the morning for school. She usually has time to take Vinny and Vanessa to school before she goes to bed to get some sleep.
In the afternoon Valerie wakes up, picks up the kids from school, and the family has dinner as soon as Vincent gets home from work. After dinner, the kids go to bed and Mom goes to work at the hospital all night long.
Vinny has an older brother and a younger sister. His brother’s name is Victor and his little sister’s name is Vanessa. His sister Vanessa is five years old, and sometimes Vinny thinks Vanessa is his best friend, and sometimes he wishes she wasn’t his sister at all, he wishes she would just run away and live with the zombies.
In Vinny’s mind, the problem with Vanessa is that she is of course younger and smaller than him, and adults were always calling her cutie, or darling, or sweetie. So most people think she couldn’t do anything mean or get into trouble. They all think that she is a little angel.
Well, Vinny knew that this was not the case at all. Vanessa might look sweet, and sometimes she could even act very sweet, but she was a tricky one. You never know when she is going to pull something on you because she looks so innocent.
Victor on the other hand, is just plain mean most of the time. He is 14 years old, and seems to hate everyone. He is usually grumpy unless he’s riding his skateboard or reading in his room with his iPod turned up full blast. Every now and then Victor plays basketball with Vinny, but most of the time Vinny just tries to stay out of Victor’s way.
Vinny’s family also has a pet bat named Vasser and a cat named Velly. Vasser the bat is 3 years old. One of his favorite games is to sit up on a tree limb in the backyard and try to dive bomb the cat.
Chapter Two
Many people are still afraid of vampires. They’ve probably watched movies and they have heard that vampires drink blood and fly around at night scaring everyone. Well, may have been true a long time ago. Nowadays vampires don’t need to drink blood any longer in order to survive. Scientists have developed a very special berry called the bloodberry.
The interesting thing about bloodberries is that they will only grow in the shade. The bloodberry plant has to be fertilized with a little vampire blood several times a year so that the plant produces healthy berries.
You might think that putting blood on the plant would be very painful, but a vampire can usually save some blood when they get a scrape or cut, and then drip some of it on their plant. Do you ever go to the doctor and they stick your finger for a blood test? Of course that hurts, but when vampires go to the doctor and get that test, they ask the doctor to save a little blood for them to take home and fertilize their bloodberry plants.
Most vampires grow bloodberry plants in gardens at their homes, but the berries can also be purchased in the produce section of the grocery store.
When bloodberry plants are grown in large farms, the farmers buy the vampire blood from blood banks, which store both human and vampire blood. Did you know that blood banks save blood for people to use in the hospital and when they have emergency accidents where they need extra blood?
Well, for vampire blood, farmers can actually buy the blood from the banks and spray their plants with it three times a year.
Vampires who do not mind getting stuck with a needle (like a shot) can make money by going to the blood bank and selling their blood.
At the blood bank, a nurse uses a needle to take blood from the vampire’s arm and then the bank stores it in a vial, not only for emergencies, when vampires have to go to the hospital, but also to sell it to the farmers that raise bloodberries.
Vampires can eat bloodberries or make bloodberry smoothies or other treats with them. A vampire needs to have a bloodberry at least once a day to make sure they stay strong and healthy.
Vampires also eat a few other things that regular people might not like too much, but you will learn about that later.
Chapter Three
Of course there are other things that people believe about vampires that are still true these days. Even though vampires don’t use their big teeth, called fangs, to drink people’s blood any more, all vampires have fangs.
Some vampires file down their sharp teeth with a fingernail file because they want to look more normal and fit in with regular humans. But some vampires (like Victor) like to look scary, so they try to grow their fangs to be very long and sharp.
One problem vampires still deal with today is that they are allergic to sunlight. Back in the old days, many years ago, if vampires went out in the daytime, they would dry up and turn to dust. In modern times though, vampires can buy a special powerful sun block, called VampBlock that they put on their skin during the day time.
The VampBlock protects the vampire’s skin and allows them to go outside like everyone else. Victor calls this sun block ‘rot cream’, and he hates to wear it. Vinny and Vanessa don’t like the VampBlock either, but it is something they all have to use.
Too much sun will make a vampire’s skin turn an ugly green color and get blisters all over it….then they really do look like monsters! If a vampire gets a sun burn it has to stay inside away from any sun for two days to let their skin heal. If the sunburn is really bad a vampire will have to go to the hospital for treatment.
As you might guess, if they could, vampires would actually prefer to come out at only at night, since, like Victor they hate to wear so much VampBlock. For kid vampires that is tough, because not many schools operate at night. So young vampires get used to wearing the sunscreen every day whether they like it or not.
And another thing about vampires…. a lot of people have always thought that vampires could not see themselves in a mirror, because in the past vampires were considered to be ‘undead’. When someone is undead, they still walk and talk but are very stiff and very pale, almost green. Their body moves but their brain doesn’t work well and they seem pretty stupid. You may have seen movies about zombies, these creatures are considered undead.
Nowadays, since vampires don’t have to rely on drinking real blood anymore, they are like regular living people and can definitely see themselves in a mirror. Just a heads up though, beware of the zombies, most of these creatures are truly mean and if you get too close to one, they will probably try to rip your eyes out and eat your brain.
Now that you know something about vampires, let’s check in with Vinny and his family….
Chapter Four
It’s Monday morning, after a nice weekend, but now it’s time for the kids to go back to school. Mom and Dad have to go back to work as well, so everyone is grumpy.
Vinny gets out of bed and heads to the bathroom. He washes his hands and sees Velly, the cat, watching him from the window sill. Vinny loves to pet Velly so he reaches out to her as she is sitting there in the window. However, Velly is not in the mood to be held, REOWWWWWWWW, she says to Vinny and scratches him on the arm, leaving a big claw mark. Vinny’s arm starts to bleed immediately.
(The strange thing about a vampire’s blood is that it is green, kind of like the color of broccoli. Scientists think that the vampires’ green blood actually helps the bloodberries grow and become healthy fruits for vampires to eat.)
Vinny’s mom hears the cat first, then she hears Vinny start screaming. She grabs a jar, squeezes his arm a little and collects some blood. OWWWW Vinny screams again. “COOL!” says Mom, we have our bloodberry fertilizer now!”
Then Mom looks at Vinny, “Oh Vinny, are you OK? You know better than to grab Velly in the morning, she is as grumpy as you are!” Vinny’s mom wipes the rest of the green blood from Vinny’s arm and gets a bandage.
By this time, all of the commotion has woken Victor, not a good thing. Victor forgot his VampBlock when he went to the baseball game over the weekend. He has to stay at home for two days, and is very grouchy about it… “BE QUIET you little whiner”, Victor yells to Vinny, as he peeks out of his bedroom door.
Vinny sees Victor’s face, it is all green with big nasty blisters on his nose. “ Victor, you look like a big green booty!” Vinny hisses back.
Victor throws a tennis ball at Vinny and misses, then he slams his door shut as he yells “you little creep!”. Vinny dreams of shutting Victor’s nose in the door…. “if only Mom had heard Victor”…he thinks to himself, “he’d be busted”.
Vinny’s still mad at the cat and his grumpy brother. He walks into the kitchen …. and… guess what’s for breakfast – cinnamon honey spiders, his favorite! “Things just got better” Vinny smiles and sits down.
Just as Vinny is about to eat his first spider, Vanessa comes walking up behind him and grabs a handful of Vinny’s spiders and pops them into her mouth.
“YOU LITTLE BRAT!!! Vinny yells…Vanessa takes off running, Vinny chases her and pushes her to the floor.
Now whiny Vanessa starts screaming and crying and here comes Mom. “Vinny, go to your room”, she says.
“But Mom, she took” Vinny starts to say, “Hush your mouth and go to your room” says Mom. Vinny walks to his room, he is so mad he can barely see his door and he bumps into it. “OWWWWWW!”
In a minute or two Mom brings Vanessa in to see Vinny, who is sitting on the bed in his room.
“I’m sorry for taking your spiders Vinny” she says, and she sniffles, so Vinny can tell she has been crying, Mom must have chewed her out.
Vinny mutters “that’s still not OK”.
Mom says, “Vinny, your sister has apologized, please accept it”. Vinny rolls his eyes at Vanessa and says “OK, but you better not do it again or you’ll pay big time!”. “OK”, Vanessa says as she sniffles. Vinny is amazed at how good of an actress Vanessa can be.
They all leave Vinny’s room and head back to the breakfast table. Mom brings more spiders for each of them and they also eat a banana. Vinny and Vanessa love to eat bananas. They have a game that they play when Mom isn’t watching. They each sink their fangs into their banana and see who can walk around the longest without their banana dropping to the floor. Whoever’s banana drops first has to eat the dirty banana and the winner eats the one that hasn’t fallen.
Since he’s older and his fangs are longer, Vinny usually wins, but this time his banana drops from his fangs and hits the floor.. ‘plop’. Vanessa starts laughing and accidentally drops her banana too, so they both have to eat dirty bananas (Vinny picks a few cat hairs off of his before he takes a bite). He munches his banana and tastes something crunchy, maybe an extra bug or two on there? “YUMMY!” he thinks.
Chapter Five
“Let’s head out” says Mom from the hallway, so Vinny and Vanessa run to brush their teeth. Since vampires have those long fangs, they have to take extra care to brush them and keep them shiny white. Have you ever seen a vampire with cavities in their fangs? Probably not, they are very proud of their clean white teeth.
While Vinny is brushing his teeth, he tries to decide if his day is going to get any better. So far, this morning has been really cruddy, will it get worse through the rest of the day?
At dinner every night with his family, before Mom goes to work at the hospital, they all talk about how each day went. It sounds corny, but when he takes time to remember, Vinny is reminded of lots of good things that happened during the day. Vinny’s parents always tell him to be thankful for each day and consider it a blessing.
“Well that is hard to do when your brother is throwing things at you and your sister is stealing your food”, Vinny mutters to himself.
Mom’s voice brings Vinny back from his thoughts. “Vinny, don’t forget to feed Vasser before you let him out” Mom calls out.
Vinny runs over to Vasser’s cage and drops in a few pieces of peaches, Vasser’s favorite fruit. Vasser eats the peaches in like 3 seconds. Vinny lets him out and he flies around the room excitedly.
As Vinny walks back to his room to get his cape, he decides that he is tired of wearing his small, kid-sized cape. So, while his dad is in the bathroom getting ready for work and putting on his VampBlock, Vinny puts on his dad’s cape. He ties it up around his waist so his mom won’t notice how long it is, and then he hangs his own cape in Dad’s closet.
Just a note about the capes…. Yes, vampires still wear those capes. Young vampires wear them just for fun or to keep warm, but grownup vampires can use them to disappear and reappear somewhere else. You may have seen that in the movies.
When Vinny’s dad is late for work, he uses his cape to disappear from the house, and reappear at the computer factory. Usually though, vampires try to be normal like everyone else, so Vinny’s dad drives his car or takes the train. Vinny knows that Dad is not running late today, so there is no chance he’ll notice the cape missing!
A little bit more about capes. Some people think that during the time that the vampire disappears with the cape, it travels through another world, like a black hole in the universe. Dad has not mentioned anything about that, but Vinny is going to ask him when he can remember to bring it up.
Vinny leaves his parents’ room to get Vasser, who is still flying around the kitchen looking for Velly. Vasser lands on Vinny’s shoulder, then Vinny joins Vanessa and Mom in the living room as they get ready to walk out of the front door.
Mom mentions that since it is such a nice morning they will ride their bikes to school. She always puts Vanessa on the back of her tandem bike and Vinny rides his own bike.
Vinny likes his bike. He has a basket on the front, and he has decorated the basket with cool pictures of his favorite baseball team, the Atlanta Braves.
He puts Vasser in the basket. Vasser loves to ride in the bike and spread out his wings while Vinny pedals fast. When Vinny pedals fast enough, his cape flies out behind the bike, making him feel like batman or superman.
One problem with wearing his cape on the bike is that if Vinny doesn’t pedal fast enough or tie the cape up around his waist, it gets caught in the wheels of the bike and can cause a wipe out.
Last year Vinny was riding his bike down a huge hill, racing his friend John, when his cape got caught in the back wheel. The bike went sideways, Vinny went straight ahead, and Vasser flew up into a tree. Vinny landed on the pavement and scraped his leg in three places, and almost knocked his right fang out.
Now Vinny always looks out for his cape when he’s on the bike. He especially had to do that today, or Mom would notice how long the cape was and realize that he was wearing Dad’s cape, and that would not be a good thing.
Vinny checks the cape and re-ties it in a double loop around his waist. It still flutters pretty good when he pedals fast, so Mom doesn’t notice anything different.
Chapter Six
After they make it to school, Vinny parks his bike out front and Mom puts Vasser in her bike basket and heads off to take Vanessa to kindergarten just down the street.
Vasser doesn’t get to come into the school. Vinny brought Vasser inside the school once and he dive bombed Mrs. Calloway, Vinny’s teacher, and pulled some of her hair out. That was not a good scene, so Vinny keeps Vasser away from trouble.
Although Vinny is different from the other kids in his class, most of them treat him like any other kid. Vinny’s classmates have learned that he may look different on the outside, but on the inside he is just like them. For example, some kids, especially Mark, like to talk a lot, while some kids, like Kelly, are quiet. Some kids are taller, some are shorter. Some kids have lighter skin, some kids have darker skin. Some kids are vampires, some are not. That is how Vinny likes to look at it.
Every now and then one of the kids from 4th grade will start to pick on Vinny, because sometimes, when he gets excited, it’s hard to understand everything he says because his fangs get in the way. When this happens on the playground, his friends from 3rd grade always help him out, especially John, his best friend. They watch out for each other.
Now Vinny walks into his classroom, and spots John. They give each other their top secret handshake and start to plan what they will do at recess. Mrs. Calloway, asks them to get quiet and sit down so that the Spanish teacher, Mr. Cordova, could start Spanish lessons. “Buenos dias!” he says to the class. Vinny has learned that the Spanish word for vampire is ‘vampiro’. COOL.
At lunch time, everyone heads to the cafeteria. Vinny usually brings his lunch, as he likes foods that pretty much gross the other kids out.
Today, along with a few bloodberries, Mom has packed some yogurt with worms, and some cheese with mold on it.
Since most of his friends don’t like to watch him eat this stuff, the cafeteria workers have set up a special table for him. He doesn’t mind eating alone, as some of his friends’ lunches actually gross him out too. That broccoli casserole that Kevin was eating the other day almost made Vinny puke when he walked by the table.
Chapter Seven
After lunch, the class has their math lesson, then it is finally recess. Vinny and John can’t wait to get outside. Today they have decided to start a game of vampire tag, a game that Vinny himself made up.
In vampire tag, the person who is the vampire wears Vinny’s cape and hides behind it while counting to 30. All of the other kids run to different parts of the playground, and when the vampire is done counting, he or she runs around with the cape flying and tries to grab the other kids. When the vampire catches the first person, the vampire gets to draw a bat on his captive’s arm with a marker that Vinny keeps in the cape pocket, then that person is the vampire. At the end of the game the person with the fewest bats on their arm wins.
Vinny, John, Sarah, Kelly, Jack and Ernie are playing the game. Kelly is the vampire first, and she puts the cape on and raises her arm to hide behind it.
All of the other kids take off running. Kelly counts out loud to 30, but when she is finished, the cape drops to the ground, and Kelly is gone!
All the kids who have tried to run and hide from her turn and look, but they can’t see Kelly. Everyone runs over to where the cape is laying on the ground. “Kelly, where are you?” yells Vinny. Everyone calls out for her.
“What do we do, should we tell a teacher?” asks John.
Vinny is thinking very hard, no one sees Kelly anywhere. He really doesn’t want to get Mrs. Calloway involved. Suddenly Vinny remembers and thinks to himself, “OH NO, I think I know what happened! When I decided to switch out my cape for Dad’s, I forgot that my dad’s cape has real magic powers. Dad’s cape must have made Kelly disappear when she wrapped herself up in it! Oh, NO. What should I do now?”
Chapter Eight
Vinny looks up and sees Mrs. Calloway walking over to him. He starts to panic and starts talking so fast that Mrs. Calloway can’t understand anything he’s saying.
“I’m ssssssssssoooo shhhhhooorrrry Mrs. Calloway! The cape took Kelly and now my dad’s going to be angry and no one’s going to be my ffffriend and”…..
Mrs. Calloway puts her hands on Vinny’s shoulders and looks him in the eyes. “Vinny, calm down, what is going on? Talk slowly, I can’t understand you!”
At this point, Vinny can’t help it, he starts to cry, and Mrs. Calloway tells him “Vinny, don’t get upset, just tell me what happened, we need to find Kelly”.
Vinny sniffs and wipes his eyes. “We were just playing vampire tag, but I forgot that I accidentally borrowed my dad’s cape, and now the magic has taken Kelly away!!!” Vinny started crying again.
Mrs. Calloway told the rest of the class to go inside the classroom with Mr. Cordova, who came to help out when he saw all of the commotion on the playground.
Mrs. Calloway took Vinny with her to the principal’s office. Vinny had never been there before, and he started crying again. Usually only kids who were bullies or who did something really really bad had to go to the principal’s office.
The school principal’s name was Mr. Brown. He was very tall and had a moustache. His voice was very loud, and when he stood out in the hall every morning greeting the children, Vinny could hear him from out on the sidewalk. While he seemed like an OK guy, Vinny was still a little nervous around him.
Mrs. Calloway knocked on Mr. Brown’s door. She whispered something to Mr. Brown and he took them immediately over to his desk. Mrs. Callaway dialed the phone, calling Vinny’s dad at work. “Could you please put Mr. Van Buren on the phone?” asked Mrs. Calloway. Vinny started to sweat.
The secretary at the computer factory found Dad and he answered the phone. “Is there something wrong?” he asked as soon as he said hello. The secretary had told Dad that someone from Vinny’s school was calling, so he was already very worried.
Mrs. Calloway said, “Hello Mr. Van Buren, it’s Mrs. Calloway. There has been a little incident at school this afternoon. It seems that Vinny has your cape, and somehow it has made one of his classmates disappear.”
Dad was quiet for a moment, then he told Mrs. Calloway that he had not worn his cape to work this morning. He wasn’t running late and it was going to be warm all day. Basically he hadn’t seen that it was missing.
“Mrs. Calloway, please put my son on the phone”, said Vince Van Buren. Vinny knew that he was in big trouble, and started crying again.
Dad said to him “Vinny, we’ll talk about this when I get home from work. First, we need to find your friend, so stop crying. What is her name?”
“Kelly”, said Vinny, as he tried to hold back his tears. “What was she doing in my cape?” asked Dad.
“We were playing vampire tag, and shhhhe was IT, so she put on my cape, but it was really yyyyyyourrr cape,” Vinny was slurring his words again as he got upset.
“OK, what I need you to do Vinny is calm down, and do exactly what I tell you to do. It may hurt a little, but you’ll need to do this to get Kelly back” said his dad. “OK Dad,” Vinny was trying to calm down.
“Take my cape, and go to the exact spot that your friend was standing when she disappeared. Put the cape on, and start spinning around in it until it is twirling so fast that you are almost dizzy. The string on the cape will start to get very hot, and may burn your skin.
Just as you feel like you are going to fall down, pull the string on the cape and toss it as high in the air as you can. You should see Kelly after the cape falls on the ground. She won’t remember anything about disappearing, as humans can’t process the things that happen in the other world.”
Chapter Nine
Vinny told his dad thanks, dropped the phone back on the desk and immediately ran outside to the playground. He didn’t have time to think about what Dad had said about some other world. Mrs. Calloway came running behind him.
The cape was still lying on the ground, so Vinny picked it up, put it on, tied the string around his neck and began to twirl.
The 4th grade kids were now out on the playground, and they stood around him as he spun around faster and faster. Vinny was breathing very hard, the string starting to burn the skin on his neck. He heard some of the 4th graders giggling but didn’t pay any attention to the laughter.
Just when Vinny thought he was going to pass out from dizziness, he flung the cape WAY up into the air.
Sparks and smoke came out of it as it hovered in the air way above the crowd of students, who stopped laughing and stepped backwards a little.
The smoke and sparks went away, and the cape floated gently to the ground. Nothing happened, everyone held their breath. Vinny was so upset, he began to walk away, his neck sore from the heat of the cape and wondering what he could do to find his friend Kelly.
“Hey look!”, he heard a girl yell from behind him. He turned around suddenly and saw his cape moving around. “Something is underneath the cape!”, someone exclaimed.
Vinny ran over and yanked at the cape. Underneath it, lying on the ground, they saw Kelly. “Is she dead?”, someone asked. Suddenly Kelly opened her eyes and smiled.
“Cool” said one of the 4th graders. Everyone in the crowd yelled and jumped up and down. Kelly stood up, but looked very shaky.
“What happened?”, she asked Vinny. “I forgot I had my dad’s cape, it made you disappear!” Vinny told her.
“Did it hurt?”, asked a girl standing next to Vinny. “Are you bleeding?’ asked another student. “Are you a vampire now?” asked another girl.
Before Kelly could answer, Mrs. Calloway said “EVERYONE INSIDE, KELLY AND VINNY STAY HERE WITH ME”. Mr. Cordova led the 4th graders back inside the school. Vinny and Kelly stayed on the playground with Mrs. Calloway.
“Kelly, are you OK?” asked Mrs. Calloway.
“Yes m’am” said Kelly, “I feel fine, I think I was a little dizzy for a minute”. Mrs. Calloway checked Kelly over to make sure she wasn’t injured. “What’s my name?” she asked Kelly.
“You’re my teacher, Mrs. Calloway”, Kelly replied. “WHEW” said Mrs. Calloway, “ I think you are going to be just fine,” she said.
“Vinny, I’m going to take Kelly in to see the school nurse. You’ll meet me in the principal’s office.” Then she walked away holding Kelly’s hand.
“Uh, oh” Vinny said to himself. He knew he was in a lot of trouble. Now completely alone on the playground, he walked slowly up the back steps and down the hall to Mr. Brown’s office. Vinny was very worried as he came to Mr. Brown’s door for the second time.
“Vinny Van Buren?” Vinny heard that loud voice before he even stepped into the principal’s office. “Yes sssir”, answered Vinny timidly.
“What have you been up to young man, you are not one of my regular visitors, as a matter of fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had to invite you to my office before have I?”
“No ssssir,” replied Vinny. He was so afraid of what Mr. Brown might do, he was shaking in his shoes and thought his fangs were going to disappear into his head.
“Vinny, I don’t think you meant any harm to Kelly, but I will still need to punish you for what happened today, it was a very dangerous thing to do.” Vinny swallowed hard and held his breath.
“Vinny, you will apologize to Kelly, and then I’ll need for you to write a note to her parents telling them what happened and apologizing to them as well.”
“You’ll also need to ask your parents to call Kelly’s parents.” This is what upset Vinny the most, as he knew that his dad was going to be very unhappy with him. “You’ll stay here in my office until school is over, go have a seat in the Trouble Chair.”
“Yes sir”, Vinny replied. He had heard of the Trouble Chair from other kids, but had never sat in it. One of the 4th graders had told him that there were spikes and nails in it, and that it would shock you if you moved.
He sat down very carefully and did not move at all. It was a hard, uncomfortable chair, but he didn’t feel any nails or spikes. Vinny sat as still as he could because he did not want to take a chance on getting shocked. There were some red spots on the seat that looked like bloodstains, yikes!
Mr. Brown brought Kelly into his office and Vinny apologized to her. Kelly said “It’s OK Vinny, I know you didn’t mean to do it, I was just a little scared as everything turned dark and I couldn’t tell where I was.”
“I have to write a note to your parents too”, said Vinny. Mr. Brown let him get out of the Trouble Chair for a minute to write the note and hand it to Kelly. The note read:
Vinny handed the note to Kelly and she left the office. He remained there in the Trouble Chair, sitting very still.
The rest of the afternoon went by very slowly for Vinny. When the school bell rang for the end of classes, he was not even happy to be going home. He knew that when his dad came home from work, there would be more trouble than the Trouble Chair.
Chapter Ten
Vinny walked outside and saw his mom on her bike, waiting to pick him up. It was obvious that she had heard about the cape incident, as she did not have a smile on her face, and she had Dad’s cape stuffed in her bike basket. Maybe Mrs. Calloway had given it to her and told her everything. She must have left Vasser at home, he was nowhere to be seen.
“Vinny, I heard what happened at recess today, Dad called me from work right before I left to come up here to pick up you and Vanessa. I am very disappointed in you…” she was going to keep talking but Vinny couldn’t take it, he started crying again. Mom continued.. “I have Dad’s cape, you go get your bike. We have to ride by and pick up Vanessa at her friends house, then we’ll head home”.
Vinny pedaled slowly with his mom, they picked up Vanessa, who had not heard about the cape yet. She wouldn’t stop talking for the whole ride, something about her friend’s new puppy. Vinny wanted to tell her to shut her mouth, but he didn’t want to get in any more trouble.
When they got home, Vinny knew to go straight to his room. He closed the door. He could still hear Vanessa talking, boy, she got on his nerves.
Mom opened the door “you will have to stay in here until Dad comes home from work”. Vinny knew that he was in big trouble.
Sitting there on his bed, Vinny thought about what he had done. What had made him be so stupid and decide to take his dad’s cape? Why did he have to do that? He laid back and stared at the ceiling, feeling very sorry for himself.
Suddenly, he heard the door creak open. He looked up and saw a huge figure step through the door. His dad walked over to the bed, only this didn’t look like his dad.
He had green skin with bumps all over it, and his fangs were all rotted and green, and there was blood dripping from them!
OH NO, NOT A ZOMBIE!!!! Vinny was terrified.
The creature loomed over his bed, and said “WHY DID YOU TAKE MY CAPE? I am going to bite your face off!”
Vinny screamed, and jumped out of bed. He looked around, no one was in his room. He must have fallen asleep. WHEW. He was still shaking from that dream.
Vinny’s mom had heard him scream and opened his door. “Vinny, what’s happening?” She asked. “I guess I fell asleep and I had a very bad dream. I dreamed that Daddy was going to bite me!”
“Oh Vinny”, him mom hugged him. “You know your dad is going to be mad, but he doesn’t bite anyone. He actually just got home.”
Vinny looked up and his dad was standing in the doorway. “I’ll let you two talk” said his mom, and she left the room.
“Vinny, tell me why you took my cape this morning” said Dad (who did not look at all like a zombie, thank goodness).
Vinny sniffed and said “ Dad, I don’t know what made me do that. I am so sssssorry, I will never do it again. I wasn’t thinking about what could happen, it just ssssseemed like it would be fun to wear your cape for once”.
“Well ,Vinny, it’s a good thing that your friend did not get hurt. You know that little vampires can’t wear adult capes until they turn 16, then you have to take a test and practice using it.”
“Human kids can’t use adult capes either, and even when human adults try to wear a vampire cape, they usually get injured and sometimes have to go to the hospital, you know that. Wearing a vampire cape is a big responsibility, I’ll tell you more about it once your punishment is finished”.
“ I am sssorry Dad. I really didn’t plan for Kelly to disappear” he was about to start crying again.
“So if Kelly hadn’t disappeared, would you have told me that you used my cape without my permission?” Vinny knew what he should say to that question. “Yes Dad, of course I would have told you!”
“Well I’m not sure of that, but I do trust you Vinny”, said Dad, “ I forgive you son, I love you. But I want you to also learn to think about how your actions can hurt others. We all must learn to think about people other than ourselves”. Vinny’s dad hugged him. “You do know you are going to be punished for this”.
“I know Dad”, Vinny replied. “What’s going to happen to me?” He hoped he wouldn’t have to give up all of his video games.
“Vinny, do you know what being grounded means? I am sure you’ve heard it from your friends at school. It means that you cannot go anywhere except for your house, and you can’t have anyone over to play.”
“You are going to be grounded for three days. That means no baseball practice tomorrow, and John can’t come over to play with you on Wednesday. Each day you will have to come straight home from school and do your homework and play only with Vanessa. No video games or television either”.
Dad kept talking, “I’m going to call Kelly’s parents tonight after dinner.
I know you had to write them a note, but you’ll need to apologize over the phone as well”.
Ouch, Vinny dreaded telling Mrs. Miller about what happened.
“I don’t want people at your school to start worrying about you being a vampire. You could lose friends over this if parents don’t feel comfortable that their children can play with you and not get hurt. You know they already see us as different than they are, so we have to try a little harder to make sure people are not afraid of us.”
“OK Dad” Vinny was not going to argue about this punishment with his dad, but he was thinking “ Three whole days???? What am I going to do for three days???” Oh well, it could have been worse, his dad could have taken his video game forever or something.
Vinny knew for sure that he’d try to never take his dad’s cape without asking, and that he would also TRY to make a habit of thinking about what might happen before he did something that maybe he was not supposed to do. It seems like that stuff always came back to get him in the end. He did feel very terrible about scaring Kelly so badly.
Vinny and his dad walked out of his room. Dad had brought home pizza for dinner, and Mom and Vanessa were waiting for them. Victor was having dinner in his room due to his blisters. “Now let’s have some pizza”, said Mom.
They sat down at the kitchen table, and Vinny’s mom said the blessing.
Vinny took a big bite of pizza and got a pepperoni stuck to his fang. Everyone laughed, and he did too…. “Even if I’m grounded for a few days, I’ll make it” Vinny smiled to himself, “plus, if I’m really nice to Vanessa, I bet Mom will let me watch TV with her!”
