“Do I have to, Babe? You know how much I hate going there!” Dylan Band tried to worm his way into his wife’s good books by nuzzling her neck. He very much wanted to wriggle out of a trip to the shopping centre.
“No arguments! It’s late night shopping and
The bus wound its way along country lanes, before finally reaching the picturesque
It went against vampire etiquette to pay for anything but just this once
Nobody knew how such a thing could have happened. It was certainly unheard of among the legions of vampires who had met for their annual convention at
This strange occurrence of her birth set
“It sucks being special!”
“Hi
“Erm…Dad, this is Darren. We’re in the same year. What’s in the bags?”
“Never you mind, nosey!” He grinned and his freckled face turned a very becoming pink. “The words SECRET SANTA mean nothing to you, do they?”
“Oh, I forgot! Thanks for reminding me. You never guess whose name I picked out of Miss Witherspoon’s hat: Felicity Henderson of all people!”
“How about an atlas?
“Thanks for the tip!”
Mr. Band nodded a farewell at Darren and more dragged than led his daughter towards the fashion outlet at the far end of the shopping centre.
“Does your little boy friend know about us?” Mr. Band frowned at his daughter.
“Of course not! What do you take me for, Dad? And he’s NOT my boyfriend!”
“If you say so, Princess!” Mr. Band ruffled his daughter’s brown hair and mumbled: “We’d better buy you a coat fit for a young lady. No cute little bats and definitely no wolf cub design.”
They entered The Sandalwood Experience and looked through the rows of clothes.
“That red embroidered one is nice, Princess. How about this green velvet number?” Mr. Band’s taste was more hippy than hip-hop. After rejecting fifteen coats,
“I don’t think that colour suits you, Dad.” Willow said disgustedly, when her father came out of the changing rooms wearing a purple t-shirt with the words I’ll be your darling tonight emblazoned in silver lettering on the front. Perhaps Darren would buy her a CD by her favourite indie-band The Cardiff Bloodsuckers?
“How about this one, Princess?” Mr. Band re-emerged from the cubicle with another fashion disaster. He spun around and revealed the inscription Sexy Beast on the back of a blood red shirt. “Do you think Mum would like it?”
They finally left the shop with
She went into Smith’s Children’s Emporium to get a Secret Santa present.
“You’ll need that for Monday’s general knowledge test with Miss Witherspoon, won’t you?” Felicity
“Actually, I was thinking of getting it for your father, as a thank you present for my lift home the other day!”
Eventually
There was no price tag.
“35% off everything on that shelf? What a bargain for a hippo!”
Upon reflection
Unusually, there was no cheerful fat Santa and no sleigh laden with gifts inside. Instead, a man in Santa pants and a false beard lay unconscious on the denuded sleigh. The man had a deep cut across his forehead and
“I’m not telling you again, brat. Hand over the loot or I’m going to blow your head off!”
Darren stood with his back against a window overlooking the car park. He was holding a sack full of presents in one hand and a gift box in the other. Darren was very pale and clearly frightened. The sleeve of his jacket was torn and his lip was bleeding. The floor was littered with crumpled wrapping paper and children’s Christmas presents were strewn all over the floor. An open safe stood in one corner of the office. What
“No, I’m not going to let you take it! This money belongs to the people who work here! It’s their wages and their bonus for working all the Sunday’s before Christmas, you lousy thief!” Darren aimed another gift box at the man. The man ducked and the festive missile failed to reach its target.
“Oh look, it’s your girl-friend! How sweet. Have you come to rescue your little man?” The thief gestured with his gun. “Over there, cutie, against the wall where I can keep an eye on you.”
She cursed herself for having neglected her stalking practice in recent months. If she had followed her mother’s advice,
He would be a lot scarier
“Thanks for trying,” Darren whispered.
“If we give you the Santa sack, will you let us go?”
“Sure, cutie. If you give me the loot, I’m going to let you go…straight to hell! You’ve seen my face, little Miss. Nothing personal, but I can’t risk you giving the police a photo-fit description of me!” The man grinned and displayed a row of yellow teeth in his wrinkly face. He was the least likely elf
“I don’t think you are going to kill anyone today,”
She had hurled herself at the thief before the man could have uttered the words Santa’s Little Helper. She threw him to the floor. They fought. The gun went off. A bullet ricocheted from wall to wall and was immediately followed by another shot. This one found its target.
“Bad elf!” She ripped off the man’s fake ears and threw them away. “Come on Darren, let’s get out of here. We’ll give the Santa sack with the money to the nice shop assistant at the till.”
Darren lay crumpled up among the wrapping paper. He was writhing with pain. Blood was soaking his jeans. Blood was spurting out from his arm.
“This is my fault! Oh please, Darren, open your eyes and tell me what I should do!”
Darren opened his eyes and stared at her. Tears ran down
The thief woke up before
“Wait, you can’t leave us. Darren’s hurt! You shot him. What do I do? Please help him!”
“Not my concern, Missy. I’m a bad elf, remember!” The man aimed a punch at
When
The third thing that happened as soon as
“Darren is hurt, Dad. What can we do?”
“You’re not making much sense, Princess. He’s bleeding to death. We’re going to take him home and eat him, of course.” Mr. Band frowned and kissed his daughter’s throbbing forehead. “You must have hit your head pretty hard, if you’ve forgotten you’re a vampire!”
“Dad! Darren’s my friend. We can’t eat him; I want to help him survive!”
“About time you learned never to look a gift horse in the mouth! If you had to work as hard as your mother, trying to bring food to the table every day, you wouldn’t turn down a free meal like this.” Mr. Band grumbled, but he took off his belt and slung it around Darren’s arm to stop the bleeding. He showed
“Ouch…my arm.” Darren regained consciousness and watched
“You call this lucky? If I hadn’t blundered and had taken care of that rotten elf properly, you wouldn’t have been hurt!”
“Why did you…come into the shop?” Darren looked at her intently. “I mean, you don’t celebrate Christmas, do you?”
“I had money left over and…with all the discounts on offer I could afford Felicity’s Secret Santa present and getting something for you, too.”
“Thanks. I reckon with my present you gave away a bit more than you had bargained for?” He touched her face again, his fingers delicately tracing the outline of her fangs protruding under her upper lip. Outside sirens howled, ambulance and police vehicles arrived, people shouted. Inside the office time stood still.
“I’m glad you know.”
They watched Darren being taken away in an ambulance. He’ll be fine, the paramedic had said. Mr. Band explained they had simply found the boy when he had cried out. Apparently, the thief had tried to escape through the window, but had missed his footing and had fallen. His accomplice the fake Santa was taken to hospital wearing handcuffs.
They had missed the last bus but the nice shop assistant offered them a lift home. She asked them to wait whilst she locked up the Emporium for the night.
“Never again. I hate that place, Babe!” Mr. Band made the most out of the situation. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: shopping is bad for your health!”
Alice Band massaged her husband’s shoulders and listened to his highly individual account of the robbery.
“Are you alright, Princess?” Mr. Band pulled his daughter close and tickled her tummy. “No lasting side effects from that bump on the head? I mean, apart from an alarming tendency to be a Good Samaritan?”
“Just because we are vampires, doesn’t mean we can’t have friends, Dad. You’ve got human friends, Rob in your band for example.”
“Good musicians are hard to come by, Princess. I found out the hard way. Never should have eaten Tom. First class drummer – took me ages to replace him.”
“Here, I got this for you, Dad.” Willow handed her father a small package. “Try it on later, if you like. I’m going to bed.”
She kissed her mother goodnight, smiled at her dad and went upstairs. She fell into her bed and closed her eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. Still wondering why Darren had entered the Santa tent in the first place, she absentmindedly traced the outline of her fangs protruding under her upper lip.
Downstairs, Mr. Band spun round and round on the spot showing off his new t-shirt to his wife. He asked her to repeat out loud what it said on the back. His mauve chest proudly displayed the words MY DAD. His wife shook her head in disbelief and mouthed the words MY HERO which sparkled in gold letters on the back.
The End
Growing up is always hard. Even an eleven-year-old vampire girl has to go through the process!
Fans of Willow and Stinkforth-upon-Avon's inhabitants can now visit http://willow-the-vampire.com and read more stories. My pen name is Maria Thermann. Happy readingAuthors comment
All rights belong to its author. It was published on e-Stories.org by demand of Maria Thermann.
Published on e-Stories.org on 05.12.2009.
Meer uit deze categorie "Algemeen" (Short Stories in het Engels)
Other works from Maria Thermann
Vond je dit een leuk artikel? Kijk dan eens naar het volgende: