Ma and Pa Dracula

  “Okay,” replied Jonathan. He’d have to think up some explanation for giving away the collie, but he didn’t need to do it just then. “Thanks for bringing your tapes and stuff. See you in school Monday,” he called. He closed the front door and let out a huge sigh of relief. I did it! he thought.

  Suddenly Ma and Pa appeared.

  “Has everyone left?” asked Ma.

  “Everyone,” answered Jonathan. “Even Tobi,” he added pointedly.

  Ma didn’t answer. She could barely stand up.

  “Then we shall be off,” Pa said weakly. “Wish us luck.”

  “No!” said Jonathan. “I want to talk to Ma. She almost grabbed Tobi.”

  “I could not help myself.”

  “We must be off,” said Pa. “Jonathan, some things cannot wait.”

  “But—” said Jonathan.

  “We are off,” Pa replied, looking grim.

  “Good luck,” said Jonathan sulkily. “I hope you find … something.”

  As a precaution—in case they didn’t find anything—Jonathan moved his garlic supply to the table next to his bed. He fell asleep that night wearing his cross. He wasn’t going to take any chances.

  Jonathan waited anxiously for the next few days to pass. November first … November second … November third … November fourth. The blood drive was under way. Jonathan was more relieved than he cared to admit. He couldn’t stand the idea of Ma and Pa stealing blood that sick people needed. It was horrible. On the other hand, they looked pretty sick themselves. They needed the blood, too.

  On the evening of November fourth, Ma and Pa woke up early. They sat down at the table in the kitchen to spend some time with Jonathan and Mr. Saginaw before they left for the blood bank.

  “Boy, do you look healthy,” Jonathan couldn’t help saying.

  “Thank you kindly,” replied Ma. “I certainly feel better.”

  “So do I,” agreed Pa. “We had a real feast last night.”

  “Guess what happened in school today?” said Jonathan. “I got an A on a math test, I scored a goal playing soccer, and I was the first person Sharrod chose to be on his side in our spelling bee.”

  “Well, well,” said Pa.

  “Wonderful,” said Ma.

  “Oh, and this is from Miss Lecky and the kids in my class.” Jonathan pulled a thank-you card out of his pocket. It was crumpled from having been sat on all day, but Ma and Pa didn’t seem to care. “See? Everyone signed it,” said Jonathan.

  “Mm-hmmm,” said Pa, “very nice.”

  Ma looked thoughtful. “You are happy now, Jonathan?” she said. “You are happy going to school, and being awake during the day and asleep at night?”

  “Sure. Really happy,” replied Jonathan, wondering why Ma was asking.

  Ma nodded. “That is good,” she said, but she glanced at Pa.

  Jonathan had the feeling they wanted to talk to him about something.

  Pa stood up. He folded his arms and began to pace back and forth across the kitchen floor. At last he said, “We had quite a scare when the blood bank ran dry. That was not a good sign.”

  “Sign of what?” Jonathan asked.

  “Of how long we can stay here,” Ma answered quietly. “We shall have to leave soon.”

  “Because people will be suspicious?” said Jonathan.

  “Yes,” replied Ma, “and because your father and I need a new source of food.”

  Jonathan nodded, remembering what had happened with Tobi in the basement. “How soon is soon?” he wanted to know.

  “Immediately,” replied Pa.

  “Immediately?” cried Jonathan. “You mean tonight?”

  “Tomorrow night,” said Ma. “After we pack up.”

  “Wait a second,” said Jonathan. “No! I’m not moving. I have friends here. I go to school here. My life isn’t just a house and books anymore. It’s kids and playing outdoors and learning sports and eating in a cafeteria and raising my hand and Halloween parties. And—and it’s Tobi and Sharrod and Rusty and Eric and Miss Lecky. You can’t make me leave all that just because of your stupid blood bank. That’s your problem, not mine.” Jonathan turned away from his parents and Mr. Saginaw. He stalked out of the kitchen. He stomped up to his room. He slammed the door. He had never slammed his door before.

  A few minutes later, someone knocked on it.

  “Who is it?” called Jonathan sulkily.

  “It is I, Pa.”

  “You can come in.”

  Pa entered Jonathan’s room and sat on the bed.

  “I thought you’d gone to the blood bank,” said Jonathan. He looked down at his hands. He couldn’t look at Pa.

  “Your ma and I will go soon. This matter is more important. Jonathan, your mother and I did not realize how badly you wanted to stay here. We thought you would be happy going to any school.”

  Jonathan shrugged.

  “What I want to tell you,” said Pa, “is that we have decided to stay here. For your sake. At least until the end of the school year.”

  Jonathan’s head snapped up. “Really? Oh, thank you, Pa! Thank you, thank you, thank you! … Do you mean it?”

  “Dracula’s honor.”

  Jonathan grinned. He could stay!

  Pa left the room. And as he left, Jonathan suddenly remembered his mother’s hand creeping out of her coffin. He had to shake his head to get rid of the memory.

  At school the next week, Jonathan learned to use a computer. He remembered to raise his hand every time he had something to say. He told Tobi that his parents had decided to give their collie to an elderly couple, to people who led a quiet life and whom the dog wouldn’t feel so shy around.

  And for the next few days, Ma and Pa seemed healthy. Then on Wednesday, they began to look a bit paler and seem a bit weaker.

  “The blood bank is drying up quickly,” said Pa.

  “There was so much blood a few days ago,” added Ma.

  “Perhaps a hospital needed it,” suggested Mr. Saginaw.

  Jonathan opened his mouth. He almost said, “Maybe it’s time to move again after all.” Then he closed his mouth.

  Two nights later Ma and Pa staggered out of the basement.

  “We will be lucky to find a vole tonight,” said Pa.

  “What’s a vole?” asked Jonathan.

  “A mouse-sized creature,” Ma answered shortly. She and Pa left the kitchen without saying another word. Jonathan ran to the window. He watched them turn into bats and fly into the night.

  “Are they angry?” he asked Mr. Saginaw.

  “No. They are hungry.”

  The night after that, Ma and Pa didn’t even speak as they entered the kitchen. They couldn’t. Ma leaned heavily on Pa’s arm as he helped her out the back door. Jonathan ran to his room to check on his garlic. Then he put the cross around his neck. He decided to wear it at all times from then on. He sat down on his bed and thought. Ma and Pa had not said another word about moving, not since Jonathan had said he wouldn’t move. But now they looked awfully sick, almost as bad as they had at Halloween. Jonathan sighed. What was the point of staying somewhere if his parents were going to be sick all the time? Anyway, he knew he wasn’t being fair to them. They had tried awfully hard to help him fit in. And Jonathan could make friends anywhere. He could go to school anywhere. But who knew what would happen to Ma and Pa if they stayed in the old Drumthwacket house?

  Jonathan knew what he had to do.

  The next night, he waited for his parents to enter the kitchen. “Could you sit down?” he said.

  “We must get food,” Pa replied weakly. But he seemed to be having trouble walking, so he sank into a chair.

  Ma sank into the one next to him.

  “I don’t know how to say this,” Jonathan began, “but I guess I better say it fast. I—I think we should move after all. I can’t stand to see you like this. You’re so thin and pale. You hardly even talk anymore.”

  Jonathan picked up his spoon. He tapped it on his knife. He wasn’t sure wha
t to say next.

  “Do you want to move?” asked Ma in a small voice.

  “No,” replied Jonathan, “but I think we have to.”

  Ma and Pa smiled at Jonathan.

  “That is good news, son,” said Pa.

  And Ma added, “We love you.”

  Epilogue

  THE RATTLY OLD CAR sped through the night. Jonathan stared into darkness.

  “Go to sleep, Jonathan,” said Mr. Saginaw.

  But Jonathan couldn’t. No one else was asleep. Besides, he was too busy thinking. He thought how relieved he was that Ma and Pa had found a good meal the night before. They looked much healthier. He remembered saying good-bye to Miss Lecky and Tobi and his other friends that day. His class had given him a party in school. Jonathan had been the star of the afternoon, wearing new clothes that Tobi assured him were very cool. He thought about attending a new school when he and Ma and Pa and Mr. Saginaw reached their farmhouse in New Jersey. He was scared. He didn’t want to start over again, but he had no choice. It might take awhile, but he would just have to look for another Tobi, another Sharrod, another Miss Lecky. He could do that … couldn’t he?

  He wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about any of those things. What if he didn’t find a friend as good as Tobi or a teacher as nice as Miss Lecky?

  Jonathan sighed and patted the pocket of his pants. He felt the wad of papers folded up in there. On the papers were the addresses of all the kids in Miss Lecky’s class. Jonathan planned to write to somebody everyday. He hoped for lots of mail at his new house. Mail would be good, in case making new friends took awhile.

  In the front seat, Mrs. Primave began to scream. “Vlad! Look out! Look out, Vlad! Look out, look out, look out!”

  Mr. Primave hit the brakes.

  EEEEEEEECH! The car skidded to a stop.

  Mr. Primave turned to his wife. “What was it? What did you see?”

  “I think it was a dead vole.”

  “Then you guys wait right here,” said Jonathan. “I’ll go get it. You could use a midnight snack.”

  When you’re the son of vampires, thought Jonathan as he scrambled out of the car, you have to get used to these things.

  A Personal History by Ann M. Martin

  I was born on August 12, 1955, in Princeton, New Jersey. I grew up there with my parents and my sister, Jane, who was born two years later. My mother was a preschool teacher and my father was an artist, a cartoonist for the New Yorker and other magazines.

  When I was younger, my parents created an imaginative atmosphere for my sister and me. My dad liked circuses and carnivals and magic, and as a teenager, he had been an amateur magician. My father would often work at home, and I would stand behind his chair and watch him draw. When he wasn’t working, he enjoyed making greeting cards.

  My parents were very interested in my sister’s and my artistic abilities, and our house was filled with art supplies—easels, paints, pastels, crayons, and stacks of paper. Coloring books were allowed, but only truly creative pursuits were encouraged, and I took lots of art classes.

  Our house was as full of pets as it was of art supplies. We always had cats, and, except for the first two years of my life, we always had more than one. We also had fish, guinea pigs, and turtles, as well as mice and hamsters.

  When I think about my childhood I think of pets and magic and painting and imaginary games with my sister. But there is another activity I remember just as clearly, and that’s reading. I loved to read. I woke up early so I could read in bed before I went to school. I went to bed early so I could read before I fell asleep. And from this love of books and reading came a love of writing.

  In 1977 I graduated from Smith College in Massachusetts. I taught elementary school for a year, which is what I had wanted to do, and used children’s literature in the classroom. I loved teaching, but by the end of the school year I had decided that what I really wanted to do was work on children’s books. So I moved to New York City, entered the publishing field, and at the same time, began writing seriously. In 1983, my first book, Bummer Summer, was published.

  In 1985, after the release of my first three books—Bummer Summer, Inside Out, and Stage Fright—an editor at Scholastic asked if I’d be interested in writing a series about babysitting. She had a title in mind—the Baby-Sitters Club—and she was thinking of a miniseries consisting of four books. So I created four characters: Kristy, Claudia, Stacey, and Mary Anne, and planned to write one book featuring each girl. The series was supposed to start in 1986 and end in 1987. Instead, it ended fourteen years later in 2000, with over two hundred titles and four related series, including Dawn’s spinoff, California Diaries.

  Saying good-bye to the Baby-Sitters Club was sad. It had been nice not to have to let go of the characters at the end of each book. But by 2000, I had found that I wanted more time to spend working on other kinds of stories (though I did return to the series to write a prequel, titled The Summer Before, in 2010).

  I felt myself drawn to the 1960s, the most important decade of my childhood. I think this interest was due in large part to the fact that my mother’s diaries came into my possession, and I spent a good deal of time reading them, especially the ones that covered the 1960s. The next thing I knew, I had written three books set in that decade. The second, A Corner of the Universe, is the most personal of all the books I’ve written. It’s loosely based on my mother’s side of the family, and in a way, it started on a summer day in 1964 when I learned that my mother’s younger brother, Stephen, who had died shortly before my parents first met, had been mentally ill. Stephen was the basis for the character of Adam in A Corner of the Universe. The book won a Newbery Honor in 2003.

  The life I lead now is not terribly different from the one I led as a child, except that I no longer live in Princeton. I moved to the Catskill Mountains in New York a number of years ago. Animals are still very important to me. Influenced by the many stray cats I’ve known, and inspired by my parents, who used to do volunteer work for Princeton’s animal shelter, I became a foster caregiver for an animal rescue group in my community. I also still have cats of my own, and only recently said good-bye to my dog, Sadie, the sweetest dog ever. She was the inspiration for my book A Dog’s Life.

  Although I grew up to become a writer, my interest in art never left, except that now I’m more interested in crafts, and especially in sewing and needlework. I like to knit, but I most enjoy sewing, especially making smocked or embroidered dresses. And of course, I continue to write. In 2014, the fourth Doll People book, The Doll People Set Sail, will be published, as well as Rain Reign, a novel about a girl with Asperger’s syndrome and her beloved dog, Rain.

  Here I am as a newborn in the hospital in August 1955.

  Me at age two at my home in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1957.

  This is the house where I grew up on Dodds Lane in Princeton.

  My family always had cats—and except for when I was in college, I’ve always had at least one. This is a photo of Kiki, Sweetheart, Tigger, and Fluffy from my childhood home (Kiki is a little hard to see).

  Reading at bedtime with my mother (and cats Sweetheart and Honey) when I was about seven, circa 1962.

  On the left is my mother’s younger brother, Stephen, with my grandfather and my uncle Rick. Stephen was mentally ill and the basis for the character of Adam in A Corner of the Universe.

  Graduating from Smith College in Massachusetts in 1977.

  Here I am at home in New York City in 1989, surrounded by fan mail.

  This is my house in New York, around 1993. It recently celebrated its one hundredth birthday.

  Wildlife plays a larger role in my life now than when I was young. I will often find deer, wild turkeys, and garden toads in my backyard. Here is a black bear investigating my hose!

  My dog, Sadie, one week after I brought her home in 1998.

  At home in the country in 2000 with Peanut, one of the many kittens I’ve fostered.

  This is the room where I do all of my s
ewing and card-making.

  A few of my handmade greeting cards!

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1989 by Ann M. Martin

  Cover design by Andrea Worthington

  978-1-4532-9801-5

  This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

  345 Hudson Street

  New York, NY 10014

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