Chapter Seventeen
Jason’s Mask

Jason loves two things in life. One is hockey. The second we’ll get to in a moment.

Jason is the goalie for the Scary School hockey team. He is very good at it and almost never allows a goal. Last year, Scary School won the league hockey championship, barely defeating Adventure School, 2–1. Jason was the MVP of the team and got a huge trophy. He was sure Scary School would win the hockey tournament during the Ghoul Games in the spring and he practiced every day for it.

I don’t care how big those monsters are, he thought to himself. They’re not getting the puck past me.

As Jason was daydreaming, Peter hit a puck right past him for an easy goal.

The second thing Jason loves is his teacher, Ms. Fang. He thinks she is the most beautiful woman, human or vampire, ever to walk this Earth. Jason is one of the smartest kids in class, but sometimes he does poorly on his homework so that Ms. Fang will ask him to stay after class and give him an extra lesson. When he aces it on the second try, it makes Ms. Fang happy that she did such a good job teaching him, even though he secretly knew the answers already.

There was a precise moment when Jason fell for Ms. Fang. He had just finished playing hockey during lunch and rushed to class. If he walked in late, he knew Ms. Fang would bite his neck, and that would be the end of him. He made it to class just in time, but he was in such a hurry that he had forgotten to take off his goalie mask.

Ms. Fang pulled down an unmarked map.

“Okay, class,” she said, “who wants to come up to the map and name every country in Eastern Europe?”

Jason knew those countries by heart because he had traveled through Eastern Europe on vacation that summer. Jason’s hand flew up along with several other kids’—Wendy’s, Lefty’s, and Maria’s. This bothered Jason, and he tried to raise his hand extra high.

Ms. Fang scanned the room and was about to call on Jason. However, her brain had already reached the maximum number of names it could hold, and she couldn’t remember Jason’s name. So what she said instead was, “You. The handsome kid.”

Jason lowered his hand and was extremely disappointed. Then Fred poked him. “Jason, she means you.”

“Huh?” Jason had never been called handsome before and was not used to it. The years of hockey pucks flying at his face had disfigured him pretty badly. His nose looked like a walnut, and he had very few teeth to speak of.

Ms. Fang got frustrated and pointed her pointer at Jason. “I don’t have all day,” she bellowed. “Just because you’re the handsomest boy in class, don’t think you can waste everyone’s time.”

That was the moment.

Jason leaped out of his chair like a kangaroo, but his heart leaped even higher. She thinks I’m handsome! he thought to himself. Then, he put his hands to his face and felt the white goalie mask.

Oh no, he realized. I’m still wearing the goalie mask. He was about to pull it off, but then noticed Ms. Fang smile at him. His train of thought continued: She thinks the hockey mask is my face. That’s why she thinks I’m handsome.

Rather than being bothered by that, that made Jason feel happy. He thought, if it’s so easy to make myself handsome, I should have done this years ago!

Unfortunately, all this thinking to himself was being done while he was supposed to be naming all the countries in Eastern Europe, and he got completely flustered and mixed them all up. He didn’t get one of them right.

“Well, you have guts,” said Ms. Fang, “but stay after class so we can review this.”

Jason smiled, but of course nobody saw it.

Jason sat down with Ms. Fang after class and he still hadn’t stopped smiling.

“Now, pay attention,” Ms. Fang said. She named all the countries in Eastern Europe. As soon as she finished, Jason stepped forward and named them back just as perfectly.

“Wow! I really am a great teacher!” Ms. Fang proclaimed with a big smile. “And you get a gold star for the day.”

Jason was feeling fantastic. Maybe a little too fantastic, or he would never have had the confidence to say what he said next.

“Ms. Fang, can I ask you question?”

“Sure.”

“Will you marry me?”

Ms. Fang burst into laughter, which Jason found rather insulting.

“Don’t be silly. There’s no way I could marry you.”

“Why not?” Jason asked.

“For one thing, you’re human and I’m a vampire, and second, I’m eight hundred and fifty years old and you’re ten.”

“I’m almost eleven,” Jason said hopefully.

“Forget about it. You’re not at all the type of man I would marry.”

“What type of man is that?”

“Not a kid like you, that’s for sure. Is it too much to ask for a gentleman vampire who’s at least nine hundred years old and could afford to buy me a brand-new cherrywood coffin to sleep in? I sure hope someone like that comes soon, ’cause my old coffin has dry rot you wouldn’t believe. Now you get on home . . . um . . .”

“Jason. My name is Jason.”

Jason walked home and still kept his mask on. No one could see him crying.

Two weeks later was Jason’s eleventh birthday. He opened his present from his dad, and inside was a brand-new chainsaw.

Jason’s dad was a lumberjack and cut down the trees around their house and sold the wood to support the family. He was hoping Jason would take to it and join the family business.

Father and son went out together, and sure enough, Jason took to it. It took some practice, but in no time he was sawing down trees just as fast as his dad. Soon, he became the best chainsaw wielder anyone had ever seen. He even took it a step further and taught himself to carve wood as well as anyone ever has.

That winter, Jason skipped hockey practice on weekends so he could spend all his spare time working on a special tree he’d found. He still kept the goalie mask on and would for the rest of his life.

On February 14, Valentine’s Day morning, Ms. Fang woke up to find a brand-new, beautifully carved cherrywood coffin sitting on her doorstep.

There was no note.