True Friendship
Tony followed the same path he had taken with his father that afternoon: down the slope, across the stream, and through the wide valley crisscrossed by small hills. But this time, and under the moonlight, everything seemed different and strange. The trees seemed like large ghostly creatures, and he had to be very careful not to trip over tree roots and branches or slip on loose rocks.
A couple of times he came close to turning on his flashlight. But he didn’t, for fear of being spotted. Under no circumstances should he attract the attention of any vampires that might be nearby, either by making noise or using his flashlight!
When Tony had climbed the hill that led to the ruins and saw the castle gate with the eerie portcullis, it took his breath away for a second. His heart was bursting with excitement and tension. He stopped in the shade of a tree and looked over at the ruins. If he hadn’t known that Anna was waiting for him over there… While he was still thinking about her, he suddenly felt someone tapping him on the shoulder from behind.
As if struck by lightning, Tony spun around and looked into the deathly pale face of the little vampire.
“R-Rudolph?” he stammered.
“Pretty brave of you to come here!” said the little vampire. “Death-defying, so to speak!”
“I…” Tony struggled for words. He was so confused that he couldn’t think clearly. “I wanted… I was going…”
“You’re lucky you met me!” the vampire said in a creaky voice. “And not my grandmother!”
“Sabine the T-Terrible?” stuttered Tony.
“Or my grandfather, William the Dry!” the vampire growled.
“But I thought they would have left a long time ago,” Tony muttered.
“Flew away, you mean?” The vampire looked at Tony with sparkling eyes. “They were too upset. You can’t imagine what we discovered today when we woke up.”
“What?”
“My mother was beside herself! And Aunt Dorothee had a heart attack!”
“A heart attack?”
“Yes! And if Anna hadn’t taken all the blame, then your last hour would probably have struck!”
“My… last hour?” Tony repeated, trembling.
“Certainly! You’re the one who snooped around in our new crypt! Weren’t you?”
“Y-yes,” Tony said piteously.
“Ha, how could you be so stupid as to leave my mother’s coffin half-open! You know that we vampires can’t lift a finger when we’re asleep! So, my relatives immediately came to the conclusion that a human must have been in our crypt!”
Tony’s hair stood on end. “And?” he asked anxiously.
“They wanted to search all of Misery Valley. If Anna hadn’t said she’d moved the lid…”
“Anna said that?”
“Yes. She claimed that she had dreamed that the cemetery keeper Ravenhood had come to Misery Valley, that he had stretched a large black net over the castle tower, and that he had caught our mother, Hildegard the Thirsty, in the net. So when Anna had woken up from this horrible dream, trembling with fear, she immediately checked our mother’s coffin to see if she was still inside. She was so relieved to see that our mother was resting peacefully inside her coffin that she forgot to close the lid again.”
“Woken up?” asked Tony, surprised. “Is that even possible for vampires?”
“Usually not,” Rudolph answered. “But Anna has also admitted that she still—ugh!—drinks milk, and that’s why she’s not a full vampire yet. But of course she got into trouble anyway,” he added. “And she deserved it!”
“She got into trouble?” asked Tony, startled.
“Of course! My grandmother said, ‘It’s an embarrassment to the whole family, how long it’s taking her to become a vampire!’ ”
“Poor Anna!” said Tony quietly, remembering that she was doing all this just for him. Because of him, she didn’t want to become a real vampire. And it was to protect him that she’d claimed to have opened the coffin lid.
“Why are you saying ‘poor Anna’?” the vampire snorted. “I guess you don’t care about me, then? I could have saved myself the trouble of coming out here!”
“N-no!” said Tony hastily. “I—I think it’s great that you came here!”
“Great?” said the vampire indignantly. “If you only think it’s ‘great,’ I’d rather go back!”
“No, I think it’s really great, I…” Tony searched for the right words to appease the angry vampire. “I think it’s a sign of true friendship!” he said.
The vampire seemed to like that. A satisfied smile flitted across his face.
“That sounds better,” he said, flattered, and with a grin he added, “But you should really feel sorry for Anna! As a punishment for her forgetfulness, she has to stay and nurse Aunt Dorothee tonight!”
“Nurse? Is Aunt Dorothee that bad?”
“No. She’s already, uh, dead. She probably just wants company, tonight, on her vampire day! I’m sure Anna will have to listen to her stories about Uncle Theodore all night.”
“Then she didn’t have a real heart attack?”
“Who knows?” Rudolph grinned broadly. “Maybe it was just too much blood!”
“Too much blood?”
The little vampire gave a croaking laugh. “You know Aunt Dorothee!”
“Not that way?” cried Tony. “No!”
“Shhh!” the vampire admonished him. He stepped very close and put his lean, ice-cold index finger to Tony’s lips. “Do you want my mother to hear you? Or my grandmother?”
“N-no,” Tony stuttered.
“So, there you are!” The little vampire made a satisfied face. “Now let’s go to where you’re staying. Then we can talk in peace!”
“Where I’m staying?”
“Yes, to your cute fabric shelter that Anna told me about. Your parents must have gone out, dancing or to the movies!”
“No! I… we’re staying in a cave, and my father’s sick…”
“Sick?” The vampire frowned. “So, we can’t go to where you’re staying?”
Tony shook his head.
“Well, that’s just great!” the vampire growled. “First I have to give up the Men’s Club meeting for you, and now I won’t even get to see your temporary home!”
“Men’s Club?” asked Tony, amazed. “I didn’t even know you were in a men’s club.”
The little vampire lifted his chin proudly. “Well,” he said, feeling very superior.
“What do you do in that kind of club?” Tony asked.
“What do we do?” The little vampire brushed his long, matted bangs off his forehead with a rather contrived wave of his hand. “Different things. Tonight, for example, we were going to go bowling.”
“Bowling?” Tony repeated incredulously.
“Yes, bowling!” the vampire snapped at him. “I bet you don’t have the faintest idea how to bowl!”
“In fact,” Tony said sharply, “I’ve bowled quite a lot.”
“Really?” asked the vampire in a completely different voice. “Then maybe you can give me a few tips?”
“Tips?”
“Yes! So, that I can win for once, instead of always Gregory or George the Quick-Tempered.”
“Are they also in the Men’s Club?”
“Of course! George founded it! Gregory has even moved in with him so they have more time together to talk about it.”
Tony ears perked up. “Gregory doesn’t live in the ruins anymore?”
“No. He moved out four weeks ago.”
“Oh, that explains it,” Tony mumbled. Now he knew that it was Gregory’s coffin that had been missing!
“If you’re so good at bowling, why don’t you come with me?” said the vampire, interrupting Tony’s thoughts.
“Come with you? Where are you going?” asked Tony warily.
The vampire laughed hoarsely. “To the Whiner’s Tavern!” he replied, and to Tony’s surprise, he pulled a second cape out from under his. “Here, take it! You can keep it until the next inventory.”
And when Tony hesitated to put on the cape, the little vampire cried out impatiently, “What’s wrong? Come on, put it on! You can give me some tips on the way!”