Diary of a Wimpy Vampire (3 page)

My parents rejected my offer, saying that I’d only throw something expensive away by mistake. So what should I do then? Wait for them to tidy up themselves? Let’s just say it’s a good job we’ve got the rest of eternity for that!

This afternoon my sister asked me if I wanted to play football with her in the back garden. I said no, just like I did the last thousand times she asked. I don’t know why she thinks I’m suddenly going to change my mind.

All that happens is that we take turns to do penalties while the other goes in goal. It’s all very one-sided, thanks to my sister’s speed and strength. I’ll take five penalties, which she’ll save in the unlikely event that they go near the goal, and then she’ll take five penalties. Even if I do catch the ball, the force of it whacks me into the back of the net and she counts it as a goal. We even broke the conservatory at our last house, when the force of one of her penalties dragged me through it.

So even if I was remotely interested in football, getting beaten at it by a ten-year-old girl would hardly be my idea of fun.

S
UNDAY
16
TH
J
ANUARY

My stupid sister is upset because she wants to change her name and Mum and Dad won’t let her. Her name is Mavis (and has been since she was born in 1916), but now she’s being teased in school for having an old-fashioned name and wants to change it to something modern.

Quite sensibly, Mum and Dad have told her that she has to wait until next time we move rather than suddenly announcing to her class that she’s changed her name. They might have been more likely to give in if her ideas had been less ridiculous, though. Her list of suggested names in order of preference was:

Twist

Princess

Jet

Sailor

Melody

Orchid

Manhattan

Angel

Like she wouldn’t draw attention to herself with that lot!

Anyway, Mum and Dad put their foot down with her for the first time in a century, and now she’s stormed off to her room. I am resisting chanting the name ‘Mavis’ outside her door, because I’m too mature to care. I might just go and shout it a couple of times, though.

M
ONDAY
17
TH
J
ANUARY

I sat next to Chloe in the library at lunchtime so I could apologize for dashing off on Friday, but she didn’t say anything about it, so i let it go.

I wanted to talk to her, but whenever I tried I kept getting thirsty and could feel my fangs growing again. Why does my body insist on betraying me like this? It’s not like I only want to sink my teeth into her neck. I want to get to know her and have meaningful conversations with her and take her for long moonlit walks. Obviously, it would be nice if she let me drink her blood too, but that’s not all I’m interested in.

I’m so confused by my feelings.

T
UESDAY
18
TH
J
ANUARY

12
:
05
PM

I’m in the library sitting next to Chloe once again. Perhaps I’m putting her off by smiling too much. I once read that humans are attracted to the smouldering intensity of vampires. I will now make an effort to pout.

12
:
10
PM

It’s actually quite difficult to pout. I probably should have practised in front of the mirror.

Look up from your textbook, Chloe, and see the doomed longing of the decades etched upon my melancholy features!

Look up from your textbook and yield to icy bliss! Look up from your textbook because my face is starting to hurt now!

12
:
15
PM

Chloe looked up from her textbook and asked if I was feeling ill. Pouting attempt deemed a failure.

W
EDNESDAY
19
TH
J
ANUARY

Mum dropped me off at school today and it was a very embarrassing experience. Like all vampires except me, she appears overwhelmingly beautiful to humans. Which is all well and good when she’s catching prey, but not great for me if I want to get through the school day without being teased.

I told her to stay in the car, but she insisted on kissing me on the cheek in front of everyone. Craig from my class shouted out that he’d like my mum to kiss him on the cheek too.

By lunchtime, the whole pathetic school was buzzing with the news that I had a ‘hot mum’ and I couldn’t walk down the corridors without some idiot asking if they could go on a date with her.

It would serve them right if I did set them up with her. They’d be lying in an alley drained of blood after five minutes.

Why can’t I just have normal parents like everyone else?

T
HURSDAY
20
TH
J
ANUARY

Today was cold but bright and I got a couple of unpleasant spots on my chin. It’s sometimes said that sunlight kills vampires, but this is another myth. Bright sunlight makes the skin of vampires burn, but it’s only a mild irritant, not much worse than someone with ginger hair would experience. This is the real reason we avoid hot countries and prefer to go out at night, and the origin of all those silly ideas about us turning to ash if we forget the clocks have changed and open the curtains at the wrong time.

As usual, I got a particularly bad deal as the sun gives me terrible acne as well as a rash. In the summer, I cover my face in high-factor sunblock every few hours and that gives me decent protection. But there are days like today when rays unexpectedly hit my face and I get a nasty cluster of whiteheads. It’s annoying, but it beats turning into the contents of an overturned ashtray, I suppose.

I was too ashamed to sit next to Chloe at lunchtime with my hideous spots so I went to the toilets to squeeze them instead. I shall cover them up with white foundation tomorrow.

Mum barged into my room while I was looking at my Science handout about the heart tonight. I wish she would learn to knock.

F
RIDAY
21
ST
J
ANUARY

Mum and Dad have gone down to London today to do boring bank stuff. Sometimes I go down with them but I couldn’t today because I had school.

Although London is an exciting city, it makes me feel sad when I see how much it’s changed since we lived there in the thirties. The neon adverts at Piccadilly Circus have changed from Player’s Cigarettes to Cinzano to Skol to McDonald’s. And in all that time I still haven’t got a girlfriend. I need to sort my life out.

My parents don’t need jobs because we live off the interest of the many bank accounts they’ve opened over the years. However, we’re not allowed to spend too much in case it draws attention to us. I only get ten pounds a week pocket money, which is grossly unfair when you consider I’m the son of millionaires.

1
AM

My sister is so annoying! She’s got her music on at full blast and she won’t turn it down! Mum and Dad are still out, and she won’t obey me.

For a vampire, her taste in music is an absolute disgrace. She’s listening to some dreadful pop song about how true beauty is on the inside written by cynical old songwriters for a manufactured teen starlet. Vampires are supposed to like funeral marches, dirges and haunting piano pieces. If we must listen to modern music we should at the very least listen to emo, goth or death metal. Teen pop is surely inappropriate for the undead.

Plus, if these songwriters really believe that true beauty comes from within and not from physical appearances, why didn’t they get someone ugly like Brian’s girlfriend to sing it rather than a sixteen-year-old starlet who looks like she’s been created from scratch by a plastic surgeon?

S
ATURDAY
22
ND
J
ANUARY

Mum and Dad are back from London, but they are both unwell. I don’t know what kind of blood they drank down there, but they look pale, even by vampire standards. I suspect they fed on someone with a high level of alcohol in their blood, which we’re supposed to avoid. In theory, the smell of alcohol should have been enough to repel them, but I bet they went right ahead and glugged away anyway, the greedy pigs.