JONATHAN’S TRIP TO SCHOOL had been like a great middle-of-the-night adventure. He thought he would be exhausted, but he couldn’t sleep at all. His room suddenly seemed so bright. He tossed and turned. He watched the numbers on his digital clock change … and change … and change.
At last Jonathan’s clock read ten minutes before his alarm was set to go off. Surely he could get up now. Maybe his parents were already up. He could talk to them for ten extra minutes before they left for work.
Jonathan tiptoed into the hall. His parents’ door was closed. Too bad. Jonathan must be the first one up. He tiptoed through the hall and down the stairs. Just as he reached the bottom, the door to the basement opened and out came his parents.
“Jonathan!” cried his mother. “You gave us a fright!”
“Excuse me,” he replied, “you startled me, too.”
Jonathan dashed back upstairs. Cautiously, he opened the door to his parents’ bedroom. He peeped in. Their bed was neatly made. It hadn’t been slept in!
Everything is getting stranger and stranger, thought Jonathan. But he would have to worry about his parents and the basement later. Right now he wanted to talk to Ma and Pa about school … and several other things.
Jonathan ran back downstairs and into the kitchen. Mr. Saginaw was just starting breakfast. Ma and Pa were standing by the back door.
“You are up early this evening,” Pa said to Jonathan.
“I know,” Jonathan replied. “Ma, Pa, I need to talk to you. It is very important. Could you eat breakfast with Mr. Saginaw and me? Just this once? You never eat with us. And you look like you could use some food.”
Jonathan could not understand why his parents never ate breakfast. They always looked so thin in the evening. And pale. Almost, well, bloodless. And their eyes were so dull. Surely Mr. Saginaw’s oatmeal would perk them up.
“I am sorry,” answered Pa. “Your ma and I must go the blood bank.”
“No,” said Jonathan firmly, “not yet.” He drew in a deep breath. “Look,” he began, “today I could not sleep. So I got up. I went for a walk outside—”
“Outside?” asked Ma with a gasp. She sat down at the kitchen table. Pa followed her. So did Jonathan and Mr. Saginaw.
“Yes,” answered Jonathan. Ma and Pa looked horrified, but Jonathan continued: “I met a girl named Tobi. She was very nice. And guess what? Her family sleeps at night. She goes out-of-doors during the daytime. She says TV and telephones and stereos are real.”
“Oh, well,” scoffed Pa, “just because she says so—”
“And then she took me to her school,” Jonathan went on. “I saw it with my own eyes. Tobi and I rode on the swings and the seesaws. We looked through the windows of the school. We saw Miss Lecky’s room. That is where Tobi will go to fourth grade. I saw the little desks and the big desk. Tobi said all chil—I mean, kids—go to school. Why do I not go? And why did you tell me school is not real?” Jonathan glared at his parents and Mr. Saginaw. He waited for their answer.
Ma frowned. Pa glowered back at Jonathan. “You broke the rules,” he reminded him sternly.
“You lied to me,” Jonathan replied.
“Harrumph,” said Mr. Saginaw.
Ma and Pa looked crossly at Mr. Saginaw. Everyone was tired of hearing him harrumph.
“I want to go to school,” said Jonathan flatly.
Ma and Pa gasped. Ma patted the coil of hair on her head. She smoothed her filmy gown. At last she turned to Pa. “We knew this would happen one day,” she said to him. “But I did not expect it this soon. He is still so young.”
Pa nodded. “I suppose we will have to get used to the idea, though.”
“Going to school would be a big change,” Ma told Jonathan. “You would have to start sleeping during the night and getting up in the morning. You and Pa and I would hardly see each other.”
“Why cannot you and Pa sleep at night, too?” asked Jonathan. “Tobi says that is what everyone does.”
“We are not everyone,” Pa informed him. “But we will let you go to school. I suppose,” he continued wearily, “that Mr. Saginaw would no longer be your tutor.”
Jonathan nodded.
“But he can help you with anything you need during the day,” Pa went on. “He will buy you a notebook and whatever you need for school. He will drive you to the library. He will be here to help you with, well, anything.”
“But where will you be?” asked Jonathan nervously.
“Oh, we will be here, but we will be asleep,” Pa spoke up. “As we told you, we will continue to sleep during the day and, um, work at night.”
“You might have some trouble changing your sleeping habits,” said Ma. “Learning to sleep when it is dark and going to school when it is light. However, if you start to switch now, you should be used to the new routine by the time school begins. We certainly will miss you, though.”
“But why?” asked Jonathan. “Why can you and Pa not switch, too? I do not think anyone else sleeps during the day and stays up all night. Why do you have to?” Jonathan paused. He felt confused and angry. “Am I adopted?” he asked suddenly. “I am so different from you and Pa. We are not alike at all. I am adopted, am I not?”
Ma and Pa looked at each other for a long time. Their eyes were wide. At last Pa said, “All right, Jonathan, it is time you knew the truth.”
So I am adopted, thought Jonathan. I just knew it.
“Your mother and I,” Pa began, then he looked helplessly at Ma. “Oh, I cannot tell him!” he cried. “You do it.”
Ma sighed. “All right,” she said, “here is the truth, Jonathan. Your father and I are vampires.”
Jonathan laughed. “Ma!” he exclaimed. “Tell me the real truth. I can take it.”
“That is the truth,” said Mr. Saginaw slowly. “Remember that book on, er, monsters that I got for you at the library last week?”
“Yes,” replied Jonathan.
“Go get it, please.”
With a searching look at his parents, Jonathan got up. He found the book in his room. Then be brought it back downstairs.
“Turn to chapter seven,” instructed Mr. Saginaw.
Jonathan did so. “It is called ‘How to Recognize a Vampire,’” he said.
Mr. Saginaw nodded, meaning for Jonathan to begin reading.
“Well,” said Jonathan, “it says, ‘There are several signs to check for if you suspect that someone is a vampire. Vampires fear the sun.’” He looked nervously at Ma and Pa. Then he turned back to the book. “‘They cast no shadows.’”
Pa held his hand under a lamp. Jonathan looked at the table below. No shadow. He gulped, but kept on reading. “‘They are not reflected in mirrors.’”
“Which is precisely why we have no mirrors,” said Ma. “They would be a waste of money.”
“There are mirrors in the bathrooms of this house,” Jonathan pointed out. “If you expect me to believe that you are vampires you will have to prove it.”
“Very well,” said Ma with a sigh.
She and Pa, Jonathan, and Mr. Saginaw walked into the bathroom next to the kitchen. The four of them stood in front of the mirror. Jonathan saw only himself and Mr. Saginaw.
“Upon my word!” he exclaimed. “So you are not a vampire?” he said to Mr. Saginaw as the four of them went back to their places at the table.
“No,” replied his tutor. “Someone shall explain about that later.”
After a wary glance at Ma and Pa, Jonathan returned to the book. He felt very much as if he had swallowed a rock. “‘Vampires have long clawlike nails,’” he read, “‘ice-cold skin, and fangs. Before eating, they are very thin, their skin is deathly white, and their eyes appear lifeless. After eating, they look much fatter—’”
“Well, I should not say fatter,” interrupted Ma.
“‘—their skin is flushed with blood, and their eyes are bright.’” Jonathan didn’t have to check any of those signs. He had noticed them all. “‘Some people also believe that vampires are quite ugly,’” he read, “‘have hairy palms, pointed ears, eyebrows that meet over their noses, and extremely bad breath.’”
“Thank goodness we are not of that variety,” said Ma with a shudder, looking at her smooth hands. “I would just die if that were so.”
Ma laughed at her own joke. So did Pa and Mr. Saginaw.
But Jonathan couldn’t. “All right,” he said to Ma and Pa, “if you are vampires, then what am I? Where did I come from? And what is Mr. Saginaw?”
“You, my lovely boy,” replied Ma fondly, “are our son. You are adopted.”
“I thought so,” muttered Jonathan.
“We wanted a child badly,” Ma went on, “but we are centuries old. Our only hope was to adopt a child. And so we did.”
“Lucky me,” said Jonathan.
“And Mr. Saginaw is our, um, helper,” put in Pa. “Like you, he is mortal. He is alive and human. And he does anything for us that must be done during daylight hours, catching sleep when he can. That is his job. Also to care for you.”
Jonathan shook his head. “I do not believe this. I just do not believe it.”
“Think about our names,” said Pa. “They tell part of the story. For instance, our last name is an anagram. Switch around the letters in ‘Primave’ and you get ‘vampire.’ And my first name,” Pa went on proudly, “is Vladimir. I named myself for Vlad the Impaler, a horrible Romanian ruler of the fifteenth century. His father was Vlad the Devil. ‘Devil’ can be translated into the word ‘Dracul.’”
“I,” said Ma, “am Elizabeth, named for Elizabeth Bathory, a female vampire of long ago.”
“I suppose I am named for some awful vampire, too,” said Jonathan disgustedly.
“Certainly not,” exclaimed Ma. “You were named for Jonathan Harker.”
“Oh! I know him! He was the hero in Dracula!” cried Jonathan. “He was the good g—I mean, he was human.”
Ma and Pa nodded, and Mr. Saginaw harrumphed and looked pleased.
“But,” said Jonathan, frowning suddenly, “how did you become vampires? You were not born that way … were you?”
“No,” said Pa. “We were bitten—for our blood—by other vampires. When we realized we could not change what had happened to us, we decided to accept ourselves as vampires, and to stay together. We were already married. We took on our new names and, well, we adjusted to staying out of the sun and to living on blood.”
Jonathan shuddered. “Where do you get your blood?” he couldn’t help asking.
“At blood banks, mostly,” replied Ma. “As we leave the house, we turn into bats—”
“Turn into bats?” cried Jonathan. “You turn into bats? I refuse to believe that my parents turn into bats every night.”
“Jonathan,” said Ma gently, “all vampires do that. If it upsets you, I am sorry. But that is what we do. Then we fly to the local blood bank, find some small opening to squeeze through, change back to our vampire forms, and have a nice meal.” She sighed, looking quite satisfied.
“You mean you do not work at the blood bank?” asked Jonathan.
“No,” Ma answered, “we do not need to work. We have plenty of money. Old money.”
Jonathan nodded. “Do people not notice that you have been in their blood banks?” he wondered. “Do they not see that the supply is getting low?”
“Yes,” said Pa sadly, “they do. Well, they do not know that vampires have been flying in, but they do see the supply dwindling. And they become suspicious. That is why we must move so often.”
“What happens if you cannot get into the blood bank, or if there is not enough blood in it?”
Pa cleared his throat. “We have to take … other measures,” he replied vaguely. “And if the supply is desperately low, then we must move.”
“Do you ever kill humans?” Jonathan exclaimed with a gasp. He would have to remember never to let Tobi near his house again. At least at night.
But Ma answered, “Of course not! We are much more civilized than that.”
Jonathan hoped so. But he wondered just what Ma and Pa would do if they were very hungry, or if they were lazy and didn’t feel like going to the blood bank.
He tried to take everything in. His life was falling into place. He understood now why his family moved so often, why they always lived far out in the country, where his parents went at night, and why they looked so awful each evening before they left for the blood bank.
“I suppose,” he said, “that you do not sleep in the bedroom. You must sleep in the basement. Vampires do.”
“That is right,” agreed Ma. “Our coffins are there. Mr. Saginaw used to open and close the door to our bedroom so that you would think we slept there.”
“May I see the coffins?” asked Jonathan.
“I suppose so,” answered Pa. He glanced at Ma. Ma shrugged.
Then Mr. and Mrs. Primave led the way to the basement. Ma turned on the light, and she and Pa went down the stairs. Jonathan and Mr. Saginaw followed them to the dimmest corner of the basement. There, side-by-side, were two coffins, one white, one brown. Jonathan had never seen them before. Ma and Pa and Mr. Saginaw must have kept them well-hidden during moves.
“The white one is mine,” said Ma.
“We must have them with us at all times,” added Pa.
“Were they in the U-Haul trailer when we were driving here?” Jonathan wanted to know.
“Yes,” said Mr. Saginaw, “they were carefully covered up.”
“How lucky that that policeman did not search the trailer,” said Jonathan.
“Oh, my.” Mr. Saginaw put his hands to his temples as if he had a horrible headache. “That would have been a tragedy. Think of the explaining we would have had to do.”
“And probably in the sheriff’s office or at a police station,” agreed Ma, looking especially pale.
“May I see inside the coffins?” asked Jonathan.
“Well, all right,” said Pa, “but do not … do not get too close at first.”
Pa opened the lids of the coffins. Jonathan crept nearer to them. Was something going to jump out at him? He tiptoed closer and closer and—
“My heavens!” cried Jonathan. He backed away. “What on earth is that odor?”
“Earth,” answered Ma.
The coffins were filled with dirt.
“It is from our native country,” added Pa. “It is something we must have.”
Ma nodded her head. “We apologize for the smell, but the soil is rather old now.”
Jonathan made a face. “You sleep in it? How can you stand it?”
“Actually, we like it,” replied Pa. “You would, too, if you were a vampire. But we know it smells because Mr. Saginaw prefers not to get too close to it.”
“Foul stuff,” muttered Mr. Saginaw.
Jonathan nodded gravely.
“Cheer up,” said Ma, “have we not told you that you may go to school like other youngsters?”
“Forgive me,” answered Jonathan, “but I am trying to—to absorb some unusual news. I have just learned that I am adopted and that my parents are vampires.” He headed toward the stairs, feeling angry. “And furthermore, for nine years you kept me from things I might have enjoyed, like television.”
Jonathan tried to calm down. “But thank you for letting me go to school,” he said sincerely. “I simply cannot wait for math class!”