Chapter 18: Well, It’s a Solution

Quillin Vampireclanadze asked me to the Spring Formal a few days later, and it was going to be held just after my three-month punishment ended, so I naturally had to buy a dress.  Kegan had been a nightmare to shop with when I’d let her help me look for a Homecoming dress — no, I would not go to a school dance covered in real spiderwebs, ugh! — so I figured I would ask Collette to help me find something good instead.

But then I had a better idea.

“Me?” Mom asked, looking up from scrubbing a pot in the sink.  She seemed flattered.  “You want me to help you choose your dress?”

“Well, of course,” I said.  “You have great taste.”

We had pictures on the wall from Mom’s past dances when she was in high school, right next to the ones of Collette.  Mom always looked gorgeous, even though the various dates wore suits that looked goofy and out-of-date.

“Well, thank you.”  Mom looked pleased.  “I thought you’d want to go with Kegan.”

“No, Kegan has awful taste,” I told her.

Mom chuckled.  “Just so we’re clear, if I go with you, I’m not going as the wallet.  I’m not going to buy it for you.”

I’d kiiiiiiiiinda hoped she might, but I hadn’t expected it.

“I have enough allowance saved up,” I said.

“All right,” Mom said, rinsing the soap suds out of the pot.  “When do you want to go?”

“Sooner’s better, so all the good dresses don’t get bought.”

“’Kay.  Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”

“Sure!”

I dashed upstairs, bursting with excitement.  This was going to be fun, just like when Mom and I had gone shopping for my first dress for a middle school dance!  Best of all, it would put Mom back in a good mood, so she hopefully wouldn’t be mad at me anymore.  That was my sneaky plan.

Yeah, I knew she would help me find a great dress.  I also hoped that it would clear the air and she would stop being so stiff and tense.  ’Cause Mom being overly polite and stilted around me was getting old.

It hadn’t even started with the New Yeti thing.  I’d realized that a few weeks ago.  It’d started with my turning going wrong, and then it’d gotten much worse after the whole disaster with Rodrigo.

I couldn’t really blame her.  I mean, she’d been kidnapped by the guy, and I’d nearly died several times, and there’d been nothing she could do, and yeah, if all that stuff had happened with Kegan and she’d kept on getting in trouble despite me asking her not to, I’d probably be starting to treat her all stiff and formally, too.

Anyway!  This was exactly what we needed.  She could be in charge of something I didn’t mind her taking charge of, and then she’d feel useful and important, and then everything would be fine again.  I was such a genius for thinking of this.

“Lisette?” Dad called from the computer room while I skipped past him down the hallway.  “Have you read your chapter of the book yet?”

“Can’t right now!  I’m hanging out with Mom!  I’ll do it later!” I called.

“Mmmmm . . . okay,” he said reluctantly.

Ha!  I grinned as I pulled open the door to my room.  I should have thought of this weeks ago!  Talk about a perfect excuse to not have to read that boring book!

. . . Which was missing from my nightstand again, anyway.

I have got to talk to Annette about not going into my room without permission and stealing my things, I thought, staring at the empty space with a narrow-eyed glare.

But, you know, whatever.  The turning stone was much safer from her now.  I’d told Dad why I was worried to leave it at home alone with Annette, and he’d bought me a cheap combination safe at Werewalrus-Mart the next day.

The clothes I’d worn to school seemed good enough for the shopping trip, but my hair had turned into a frizz bomb again, so I got out my styling gel and a comb and set to work taming the terrible mane.  That took most of the fifteen minutes, but I had just enough time to touch up my makeup before Mom called me from downstairs.

“Okay!  I’m ready!”

I decided I could deal without touching up my mascara and dropped it into my makeup bag.  “Okay, I’ll be right down!”

Then she insisted on me bringing a coat because it was now snowing outside.

“It’s just teeny tiny flakes,” I objected.  “And wearing it in the mall will be too hot, and carrying it around will be a bother.”

“Do you want to go, or not?”

I grumbled and chose my thinnest jacket from the closet.

When we got to the mall, sure enough, carrying around the jacket was a total bother.  But I forgot all about that once we got to Stunning Formal and Bridal.

“Oh!” I gasped, running forward and staring at the frothy white wedding dress in the display case.  “Isn’t that gorgeous?  That makes me want to get married right now!”

Mom chuckled.  “You might want to find a boyfriend first.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I said, waving my hand.  “I can pick one by roulette.  Oooh!  Look at that one!”

I raced into the store, and we spent nearly an hour admiring bridal dresses before we finally got to the back with the formals.

“Hey!  How about this one?” I asked with a grin, holding up a lime green atrocity.

Mom stared at me in horror.  “You must be kidding.”

“Yep, totally kidding.”  I tossed it back on the rack.  “Actually, it’s not too bad in the forest green version.”

“You look better in purples and blues,” Mom said.  “How about this?”

We piled up about twelve formal dresses that looked pretty, and then I headed to the changing room.  I was trying to zip myself up in a dark blue sheathe when a pocket in my jeans lying on the floor started to make a buzzing sound.

“Hey, Mom, can you get that?” I called, kicking the pants under the stall door.

“Sure,” she said, reaching for them.  A moment later, she said, “Lisette’s phone.  Who is this?”

I spun around, admiring myself in the blue sheathe.  Yeah.  Mom had excellent taste.  I hadn’t been too sure about this one when she held it up, since I had thought it looked kind of plain, but on me, it looked amazing.

Mom sounded perplexed.  “Who?”

My breath caught in my throat.  Oh, my gosh.  I had Mom answer the baobhan sith phone.

“I see,” Mom said.  She didn’t sound pleased.  “Yes, I know who you are.  I’m Lisette’s mother.  You can talk to me about it.”

I panicked, breathing quickly.  I am in so much trouble.  Mom is going to kill me.

“Mm-hm,” Mom said from the other side of the door.  “Mm-hm.  Yes, I’d say that sounds reasonable.  Obviously you’d need to keep hidden.”  A long pause.  “Hmm . . . I’d say that no more than two minutes per person would be good.  Can you see how much time a person has left?  Oh, good.  Okay.  Then maybe have a limit like, if they have less than ten years left, you don’t take any.”

What in the world is going on?!  I stared at the closed door, wishing I had a magical power to see through it.  Is Mom talking to the baobhan siths?  Is she giving them advice?!

“Well, it’s not like that would thrill me,” Mom said.  “But I don’t think it’ll do much harm.  Especially since there aren’t that many of you.  And I agree, I don’t see much alternative.  Mm-hm.  Mm-hm.  Yes, if you want to.  Bye.”

There was a beep as she hung up the phone.

I unlocked the door and pushed it open with trepidation.

“Guess who that was,” Mom said, holding up the phone.

“A bao—”  I stopped myself, since we were in a public place, and someone might overhear.  “Um, people from New Yeti?”

“Yessssssssssssss,” she said dryly.

I gulped.  “They gave me that phone in case they wanted my help in an emergency.  Um, what did they say?”

“They wanted a non-baobhan sith’s opinion about their plan to get through the full moon.  I told them I thought it was fine, given the circumstances.”

Well, so much for making sure we didn’t say the word in public.  I looked around quickly to make sure nobody was near.  Fortunately, no one seemed to be, although you could never be certain.

“So, what?  They’re planning to . . . hide in the bushes and steal time from anyone who walks by?” I asked with misgivings.

“No, just hide their feet,” Mom said.  “So that people can’t see what they are.  Obviously it’s not ideal, but I think it’s pretty reasonable, given the situation.  It won’t hurt anyone much, and the siths will survive.”

The idea made me feel squicky.  Picking people’s pockets for two cents each probably wouldn’t hurt anyone that much either, but it was still stealing.

“If that’s their plan, they ought to do something else,” I said.  “Like go on the news and ask for donations.”

“Yes, I’m sure that would work really well,” Mom said tartly.  “The reason the Red Cross works so well is because people who donate aren’t giving up anything that can’t be replaced.  It’s also understood that draculas use their own blood to heal other people who get injured, so there’s a sense that it’s a fair trade.  The siths wouldn’t be offering to do anything in return.  Maybe it would work for one month, but two?  Three?  A hundred?”

“Their powers are really amazing,” I said.  “I bet there are all kinds of ways those could be useful to other people.  They could be, like, firefighters, or do rush jobs, or help the police.  There are all kinds of things.”

“I’m sure there are,” Mom agreed.  “But you’re forgetting that there’s prejudice against vampires.  People have an instinctive fear of species that feed off them.  The anti-vaccination movement, for instance, is based on people being afraid the trace amounts of vampire blood that are used to make shots painless will turn their kids into draculas.  Which has been completely debunked a thousand times, and makes no logical sense!”

Mom worked at a hospital.  She got worked up about that subject a lot.

“Okay,” I said, not wanting to hear her strong opinions about people who were scared of dracula blood all over again.  “But don’t you think, if the vampires do that even one time, it’ll make things worse when they finally do tell people they’re there?  If people find out there’ve been vampires feeding off them without telling them, they’re gonna be more horrified, not less.”

“Well, what do you suggest?” Mom asked impatiently.  “Do you have an amazing solution that will solve all problems now and long-term in the next week and a half?”

I thought about it hard, but nothing sprang to mind.

“Vampires have the right to eat and survive,” Mom said.  “Even if people are afraid of them.  Even if they haven’t figured out how to be useful yet.  Even if they were flung out into the world with no alternate plan in place and no warning.”

I gulped.  She was mad at me again.  Darn it.

“If I come up with a better idea, can I suggest it to them?” I asked, reaching for the phone.  The number to call them back would be on the call log.

Mom slipped the phone away from my reach.  “You can, if you run it by me and I approve of it.  In the meantime, I’ll be keeping this phone.  I’ll be fine with any reasonable requests they might make.”

I sighed.  This wasn’t the way I’d expected things to go when they finally called me.

I’d been expecting them to ask me to go on some daring rescue mission.

I’d been expecting them to need my awesome power.

I’d been expecting them to see me as the ultimate authority on how to integrate into normal life.

Now I couldn’t do anything like that without Mom’s approval, not even talking to them, which was a total drag.

On the other hand, Mom wasn’t being stiff and formal, she didn’t stay mad for long, and she seemed downright cheerful by the time we got home with a fantastic formal dress purchased.

So mission accomplished . . .

. . . sort of?