Not Another Vampire Story - 12
12. Ride with Valtieri I
PG13. Tween, humor, middle school, angst, vampires, serial, teen, fiction, summer. #ReadFree
Suggested Music: Still Doll on YouTube
Sylvia survives science class and faces the trip home after school.
Julia's smack-down of morals with their mother was still on Sylvia's mind at school the next week. No one had seen it coming. Julia had never been flagrantly promiscuous, but she'd been no shy wallflower, either.
Who knew beneath that perfect smile and coy come-hither looks beat the heart of a prude? Certainly not Sylvia.
Maybe prude was too strong of a word, Sylvia thought as she gathered her textbook and folder for science. Maybe just a little more tightly morally adjusted than their mom. That was it.
She slid into her desk in Mr. McSimm's class, looking over to Matt's desk snuggled close to hers. She was tempted to inch it away, but knew he'd only push it close again.
"Hi, Sylvi," he said in that thin, nasally voice she'd begun to hear in her nightmares over the weekend. He sat down, looking her over with appreciation. "Did you study up for the simple electrical circuitry experiment?" he asked in all seriousness, as if they were being considered for a Nobel Prize.
Sylvia nodded. "Piece of cake."
"Did you bring your supplies?"
She nodded again.
He leaned closer.
She leaned away. He already smelled like used milk, and they hadn't even had lunch yet. Was it leftover from his breakfast?
"Because it won't work if we don't have all the proper supplies, Sylvia."
"Yes. I got the battery and block of wood. Did you bring your stuff?"
He nodded. "Three feet of insulated wire and a clean tin can. Do you think Mr. McSimm will pass out the bulbs and sockets?"
She just stared at him as the rest of the class milled into the room and took their seats. He looked like he was a doctor and she was a nurse he was asking to close up a patient after surgery. Didn't he ever lighten up, without someone wandering into the wrong locker room? she wondered. "Yeah, I guess. It's not like we're building a bomb, Matt. We're just lighting up a bulb."
He nodded. "Next week we're doing doorbells," he said, grinning idiotically. "And then shrinkage qualities of surface tension."
Oh, joy, she thought. "Goody."
And thus went third hour. The rest of the day was boring, with Holly and Jamie elbow-to-elbow at the lunch table, and Sylvia trying to find interest in volume one of Vampire Knight. It wasn't working.
Somehow, the concept of vampires going to school didn't appeal to her, despite the well-drawn manga pages and Yuki's exploits at Cross Academy. Maybe she'd just stick to listening to the soundtrack for the series of Wakeshima Kanon's eerie cello music on CD. That was certainly weird enough.
When she got to her locker after class, Holly was already there, attached at the hip by Jamie. "Hey, I'm going on ahead."
Sylvia frowned, pulling her book bag from the slot of a locker. "You're walking home?" They had a twenty minute bus ride, but lived only two blocks beyond where the buses stopped picking up from school.
"Yeah; I'll get home about the same time, but Jamie said he'd walk me." Holly's smile threatened to engulf her face.
Sylvia sighed, deflated. She tried to return Jamie's innocent smile. You're the one doing this, she thought at him.
He only grinned.
She shrugged. "Sure. I'll see you tomorrow."
Holly beamed. "See ya, Red."
Sylvia watched them leave, not arm in arm, but he was carrying her bag.
She packed her own book bag to the bursting point and heaved it over her shoulder. She'd have to hurry for the buses. Since they were in eighth grade now, their lockers were located at the opposite end of the school from where the buses parked in a big semi-circle at the front of the school. The sixth grade lockers were located closest to the front, thereby giving the youngest, smallest, puniest, slowest grade a fighting chance to get first pick of bus seats.
She sighed, blowing a stray reddish hair out of her eyes that had come undone from her hair-tie. At least Matt wouldn't be on the bus. Maybe she should just walk home. She lugged the heavy book bag higher. Not with this tank, she thought.
She exited at the side entrance of the school where the seventh graders usually made their escape to round the sidewalk and bypass the flux of sixth graders at the front entrance when she realized she'd forgotten to give Holly the manga. Oh, well, there wasn't room in her bag, and Holly wouldn't appreciate zipper marks traipsing across the front cover. She clutched the bag tightly as a crowd of bigger males—also known as the football team on an off day from practice—rampaged past her. She put her head down and braced herself like a salmon fighting to swim upstream.
She took her place on the sidewalk and fell into step with the other students. She'd only followed for a few seconds before the group around her settled a bit from their pushing and horseplay and gave her a wider berth. She looked to them warily, until one of the prissier popular girls, Minnie, turned full around to walk backwards in front of her, watching Sylvia, as her popular friends cast their gazes her way.
Minnie. Miss Popular. Miss Noteworthy, and Miss Faceworthy, as Holly put it. And no one ever forgot it, not since she'd had a viral moment in sixth grade.
"What, Minnie?" Sylvia finally asked as the blonde girl just stared at her. "Got a problem, Mouse?"
"No, Matt's lab partner." Minnie giggled and gave a humph, tossing her long blonde hair, but then looked to Sylvia's side at the sidewalk curb. She turned to whisper something to one of her also-blonde minion friends.
Sylvia looked to the street where they, and half the students on the sidewalk, were now looking.
The black Mustang slowly crept up parallel to her, the passenger side window rolled down.
"Hello, Sylvia," Terry said from inside, smiling as she did a side-step on the sidewalk. "Want a ride home?"
Sylvia gripped her bag and the manga tighter. How long had he been cruising there? "I'm taking the bus."
Terry's attention turned to the traffic before him and the car slowed for a few kids running across the street.
Sylvia quickened her pace.
"Do you know him?" a girl Sylvia had never spoken to before asked, despite that she was in eighth grade, suddenly materializing at her side.
Sylvia nodded.
The girl's eye lit with envy. "Is he a high school guy?"
Minnie's mouth was gaping, confusion evident.
Sylvia smiled, slowing a bit. "No. He's older than that."
Terry's car pulled alongside her again. "Come on, Sylvi. I need to talk to you."
She glanced at him, enjoying Minnie's gawking. She and her minions paused on the sidewalk, bending to look in the passenger window.
Sylvia blocked their view, leaning down to see Terry inside the Mustang.
He grinned back at her. "Come on."
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Thanks to Sakurapu for sharing her story!
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