Diary of a Wimpy Vampire (12 page)

I hope nobody spots this and works out we’re immortal. We’ll end up getting driven out of our home by irate townsfolk. Plus, I still owe a considerable library fine in the last town we lived in, and I wouldn’t want that to catch up with me.

It didn’t look like anyone in the class noticed, though I couldn’t help but wonder if I saw a slight look of confusion on Chloe’s face. Is she beginning to suspect my true nature?

Step into my dark web of forbidden desire, Chloe darling...

S
ATURDAY
26
TH
M
ARCH

1
PM

I have bought a book called
The Secrets of Success with Women
. It must contain some very big secrets as the man on the cover has terrible hair and looks really sleazy. The techniques must be powerful indeed if they helped him get a girlfriend.

6
PM

I have finished the book now, but it didn’t contain any secrets. It just said that you have to make eye contact, smile a lot and touch women’s arms when you talk to them. I’ve heard this kind of advice bandied about for over eight decades now, and it’s easier said than done. Also, the author made several stupid generalizations about dating in the past, a subject that he can’t possibly know about. He said that it’s harder to find girls now than it was in the sixties, the age of ‘free love’. Well I lived through the sixties and, take it from me, it was just as impossible to approach girls back then. I wish someone had told me where all this free love was going on.

S
UNDAY
27
TH
M
ARCH

My parents announced that we’d be going on a family hike today, and I foolishly agreed to join them. They took it upon themselves to dash up a rocky slope and I attempted to follow. I misplaced my footing, fell hundreds of feet down and broke my arm. It was really annoying and took almost five minutes to heal.

Obviously, as a vampire, I can’t really be harmed unless someone chops my head off or rams a stake into my heart, but I can still get temporarily injured. I was hit by a car in the eighties, and I broke so many bones it took me almost twenty minutes to recover. I was inside an ambulance by then, and I had to wait until it stopped at the lights to run away. The whole situation was incredibly embarrassing, and it certainly made me think twice about crossing the road without looking.

At least I’ve never had a really serious accident, though. They say that Roderick of Colchester lost all his limbs in the Battle of Balaclava, and it took a week for his severed arms and legs to crawl their way across the battlefield and reattach themselves. It must have been a real hassle.

On the way back to the car we passed a group of ramblers who were really staring at us. I wish Dad wouldn’t wear his cape when we go hiking.

M
ONDAY
28
TH
M
ARCH

10
AM

In assembly today, the headmaster revealed the destination of our year’s school trip next week. It isn’t very good news for me, as we’re all going to the zoo!

As animals hate me, a place filled with them is unlikely to be a suitable destination. Why do I have to get all the bad things about being a vampire, but none of the good things? I hate my life.

Pretty much any other school trip would have been better for me. Unless ‘Chessington World of Garlic, Crucifixes and Vampire Slayers’ exists. But I know that if I stay behind, another boy will sit next to Chloe on the coach and chat her up. I simply have to go, and the animals are just going to have to put up with it.

6
PM

We had a Drama lesson this afternoon and I was in a group with Si and Brian the goths.

We had to devise a short piece to perform for the rest of the class, and Si suggested that we do it about vampires. He came up with a really corny idea about us emerging from coffins in a graveyard and boasting about the women we were going to bite. It was really inaccurate, and most of it was stolen from the vampire TV show they watch, but I couldn’t be bothered arguing so I went along with it.

We performed our piece to the group, and Si and Brian put on hammy Eastern European accents. What is it with these Eastern European accents everyone does when they pretend to be vampires? We’re deadly immortals, not plumbers! In the days before the vampire purges, there were covens in places as far apart as New Orleans, Paris, Alaska, Stockholm and Santa Carla. Admittedly, there was a coven in Transylvania, but it was by no means the only one.

After our piece, the Drama teacher Mrs Stokes said that it was good overall, but that I didn’t put in as much effort as Si and Brian!

This is so humiliating. I know I make a less convincing vampire than my parents, but I didn’t expect to make a less convincing vampire than a pair of smelly goths!

T
UESDAY
29
TH
M
ARCH

Today I hung around with the tough gang and won some street cred. Bet you weren’t expecting that, were you?

Jay and Baz from the tough gang were making everyone play a game called ‘Mercy’ where you have to link fingers with someone else, and then press forward with your wrists until the other person says ‘mercy’. Jay grabbed me as I was on my way to the library and said I had to play. He expected that I would give up and scream for mercy in seconds like everyone else he had been terrorizing, but I didn’t even wince as he bent my palms back. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the strength to mount a counter-attack either, so we just stood there for a couple of minutes like we were holding hands. Eventually, Jay gave up and put his hands down, and Baz said that under the rules of Mercy, I was the winner.

Jay said I was ‘alright’ and ‘not as bad as the other weirdos’ and I gratefully accepted his compliment. Word of my astonishing victory soon travelled around the school, and in some versions of the story, I even made him beg for mercy. The stories made me sound really heroic and I hope they reached Chloe’s ears.

W
EDNESDAY
30
TH
M
ARCH

4
PM

Mr Jenkins is getting on my case about my continuing absence from PE. He came to the library at lunchtime and harassed me. He asked me if I was coming to his lesson today, and I said I wasn’t. He really boomed the question out, probably because he’s never been into a library before and doesn’t know you’re supposed to be quiet. He then touched his hand to my forehead and admitted that I felt cold and unwell. Thank you vampire temperature for getting me out of another miserable PE afternoon!

Mr Jenkins walked away, but he kept shooting suspicious glances back at me. You can tell he really hates me. If I ever have to attend another one of his lessons, it’s going to be hell. I must think of a better long-term strategy to escape him.

2
AM

Craig has lent me a new PlayStation game, but I didn’t realize until I started playing that’s it’s about vampires. I’ve been playing it for a few hours now and I’m really bored. I’m worse than those people who drive home from work and immediately start playing driving games.

T
HURSDAY
31
ST
M
ARCH

1
PM

I intended to take my usual seat next to Chloe in Art today. However, when I arrived I noticed that Wayne was already sitting there.

To make things worse, the only seat left was next to Darren, and it’s common knowledge that you’ll get fleas if you sit next to him. In the end I had to construct a fleaproof barrier between us with an easel.

I started to get worried about Wayne as I watched him sitting next to Chloe. Craig once said he was a ‘smooth operator’, whatever that means. But I doubt Chloe would have been impressed by his artistic skills. All he ever does is draw pictures of the tattoos he wants.

6
PM

Mum and Dad have been out hunting, and they’ve brought back some lovely type O- blood. Dad tried to tell me about the man he’d siphoned it from, but I didn’t want to know. It always puts me off to find out about the people blood comes from. This is another reason why I don’t want Mum and Dad to hunt in this town. Nothing is more likely to make me lose my appetite than finding out the blood I’m drinking came from the sweaty bloke who works in the all-night garage.

Dad’s very old-fashioned about who he feeds on and he still follows the hierarchy of victims laid out by the Vampire Council, which commands that you snack on people according to their status in society. So, for example, you can feed on a labourer whenever you feel like it, you can only feed on a merchant when you’re ravenous, and you can never feed on a king.

It’s a really silly and old-fashioned system, which lists ‘apothecaries’, ‘costermongers’ and ‘falconers’, but not computer programmers and call centre workers, and it’s based on the sort of class system that our beardy History teacher Mr Morris gets angry about.

In fact, the whole thing is completely unjust, and if I think about for a moment longer it’s going to put me off this lovely blood that I’m currently enjoying.

F
RIDAY
1
ST
A
PRIL

Today I asked Chloe to be my girlfriend and she agreed. I sank my teeth into her neck and drank from her jugular in the library at lunchtime. She’s agreed to join me as a vampire and she’s moving in next week.

April fool!

All joking aside, I expect to be referring to Chloe as my girlfriend in all seriousness soon, as I’m planning to make a move on her during the school trip.

S
ATURDAY
2
ND
A
PRIL

I went out for a walk around town this afternoon and I ended up going past the old people’s home. I know I sometimes complain about how boring immortality can get, but I’m glad I’m not going to get old. They all looked so bored staring out of the window and nodding off.