THE NEXT FRIDAY EVENING, Jonathan eagerly waited for his parents to get up. When he heard their coffin lids, he stood by the basement door so he could catch them on their way out.
“Guess what,” he cried, as Ma and Pa opened the door, “everything is ready for tomorrow! Tobi says our committee will earn more money than any of the others. We’re going to have a car wash.”
Jonathan followed his parents into the kitchen. To his surprise, they did not get ready to go out. They slumped into chairs instead.
“What’s wrong?” asked Jonathan nervously.
“We are … quite … hungry,” said Ma faintly.
“But you’re always hungry at this time of day,” Jonathan replied. “Why don’t you go to the blood bank?”
“The blood bank,” Pa replied, “is getting, er, low.”
“We have tried to be careful,” said Ma. “A pint here, a pint there, hoping no one would notice.”
“Did someone notice?” Jonathan asked, horrified. He remembered what Ma had said about having to move if anyone became suspicious of the Primaves.
“We are not sure,” Pa answered, “but the blood bank is awfully low.”
“Thanks to us, most likely,” added Ma.
“So the past few nights we have been afraid to take even one pint,” said Pa. “We were forced to kill a deer instead.”
Jonathan, who had been sinking into his chair, jumped to his feet. “Kill a deer!” he cried. “You killed a deer? A poor, innocent deer? That’s disgusting! That’s awful!” He almost added, “I can’t believe you’re my parents,” but he stopped himself in time. For one thing, they weren’t his parents—not really. For another, it was too mean to say.
“Jonathan!” exclaimed Ma sharply. Ma rarely spoke sharply. When she did so, a spot of color flushed her pale cheeks.
Jonathan sat down.
“We never,” said Pa firmly, “just choose an animal and kill it.”
“That would be almost as uncivilized and impolite as killing a human,” agreed Ma. “No, we search the roads for animals that have been hit by cars.”
“Animals we can put out of their misery,” Pa explained. “Last night, we came along just after an accident had happened. A driver had hit a deer, but afterward, he just started his car and kept on going. The deer was left lying by the side of the road. It was not conscious. And it would not have lived.”
“We-ell,” said Jonathan.
“So we had a meal,” Ma went on, “but my goodness, we are tired. I suppose we shall have to fly around all of tonight, too, and who knows what we might find? Possibly just a rabbit. That barely makes a meal.”
“Let us check out the blood bank,” Pa suggested as he and Ma staggered to their feet. “Perhaps there were some donations today.”
“I cannot wait until the annual blood drive is under way,” said Ma, opening the back door. “When did those posters say it was to begin?”
“November third,” Pa replied.
The back door slammed.
“November third,” Jonathan repeated, burying his head in his hands.
“That does seem a long way off,” agreed Mr. Saginaw. He had entered the kitchen and was stirring something in a pot on the stove. “However, your parents have survived these dry spells before.”
“But don’t you see?” said Jonathan miserably. “November third is after Halloween. After the party. If Ma and Pa are hungry now, think how hungry they’ll be then.”
The next morning, Tobi and her father picked up Jonathan, and then Rusty, Eric, and Sharrod, and drove them to the mall. Jonathan tried to think of some way to tell his friends that he would have to cancel the Halloween party. But they were so excited that he couldn’t say a word. He didn’t say anything about the party while they were washing cars, either. And at the end of the day, when Tobi counted up the money they’d earned and began leaping around the parking lot shouting, “We’re rich! We’re rich! Halloween party, here we come!” he really couldn’t say anything. He didn’t want to see Tobi unhappy. And he certainly didn’t want to make her unhappy.
Jonathan decided that he would rather risk the party than disappoint his friends. So that night he went to Mr. Saginaw and said, “I need all those books on vampires and monsters again. Not the library books, the ones that are our own.”
“Very well,” replied Mr. Saginaw. “But why?”
Jonathan shrugged. “No reason.”
Mr. Saginaw showed Jonathan where the books were, and Jonathan sat down on the floor in the den. He opened all the books to their tables of contents, and he looked in each one for a chapter titled something like, “How to Ward Off Vampires.” He read and read and read. He made notes on a pad of yellow paper.
There were, he learned, two main ways to ward off vampires: with garlic and with silver crosses.
“Okay,” Jonathan said to himself as he closed the books, “this is it. I will just have to be prepared for the night of the party. If there’s any trouble, I’ll get out some garlic or a silver cross. Of course, everyone will know about Ma and Pa if I do that—but at least nobody will get hurt.”
During the next two weeks, while Miss Lecky’s class raised more money and bought party supplies, Jonathan took care of other matters. Every time Mr. Saginaw drove to the grocery store at the mall, Jonathan begged to go with him. Secretly, he laid in a supply of garlic. He bought garlic powder, garlic salt, and garlic cloves.
And one day, he went to the jewelry department at a store called Bamberger’s and bought a silver cross.
So Jonathan had his garlic and his cross. Miss Lecky’s class had their money. Halloween was just a few days away—and Ma and Pa were more tired and hungry than ever. Jonathan hoped for the best.