“Because ...” began Tony, but he was interrupted by the sound of the doorbell.
“That’ll be Dad,” said Tony’s mother, getting up.
“Dad?” asked Tony, sounding surprised
“He arranged to come home early,” explained his mother.
Once she had left the room, Tony rounded on Nigel. “If you think you can come here and do just what you like ...” he hissed, but Nigel interrupted.
“Hey, steady on,” he said with mock concern.
“I’ll ... I’ll ...” But before he could find the appropriate threat, his father came into the room.
“Hello, Rudolph,” he said.
Nigel half rose from his chair. “Afternoon.”
“So, at last we’ve got the chance to get to know you,” said Tony’s father, sitting down. He doesn’t even notice me, thought Tony grumpily. But then, I’m not a guest!
“You’re the one who thinks it’s always Halloween,” said Tony’s father conversationally.
“I-I do?” asked Nigel.
“Tony’s told us that you’re always dressed for a Halloween party.”
“Ow!” cried Nigel as Tony landed a sharp kick on his shin from under the table. “Er, yes, I suppose I am.”
“How do you work it in the summer?” pursued Tony’s father.
Nigel was at a loss at this, so he said nothing and took another biscuit instead.
“You must have a special party?” smiled Tony’s father.
“Perhaps he doesn’t want to talk about it,” suggested Tony quickly.
“Quite.” Nigel nodded.
Tony’s father pointed to the cloak and remarked, “You’ve even got your costume on today. Are you going to pretend it’s Halloween tonight?”
“Not tonight,” said Nigel hurriedly. “Tomorrow, probably. Now, I really must be going.”
“So soon?” asked Tony’s mother, appearing from the kitchen with a fresh pot of tea.
“I’m afraid so,” said Nigel. “I’ve got to get some things ready.”
“What sort of things?” asked Tony’s father. “Do you have to polish your vampire teeth? Or have you got a set of those rubber fangs?”
“Rubber fangs?” Nigel was completely lost.
“Yes. All the best vampire costumes have rubber fangs to go with them. If you don’t have two pointed teeth, you’re not a proper vampire!”
Nigel had gone pale. He even seemed to have lost his appetite, for he stood up, murmuring, “I must be off.”
“Goodbye,” called Tony’s astonished parents.
“’Bye,” said Nigel.
Tony went with him to the door. When they were out of earshot, he asked, “Why did you get up so suddenly?”
“Why?” sneered Nigel. “Because I don’t like being squeezed like a lemon, that’s why. Apart from that, I suddenly realised that I’d met your father.”
“No!” gasped Tony. “Where?”
“My dad sits in the same office at work.”
“Did he recognise you?” asked Tony.
“I hope not,” said Nigel. “Look what I look like.” He grinned. “’Bye then, Tony.”
“Wait!” cried Tony. “The cloak!”
“Oh, yeah, this old rag,” said Nigel, pulling it off. “Here you are; I’m not wearing that again!”
Tony quickly rolled it up and stuck it under his pullover. “’Bye, Rudolph!” he said loudly enough for his parents to hear, and shut the door. Thank goodness that was over. Now all he had to do was hide the cloak. He tiptoed across the hall. The door of the living room was open, and he could hear his parents talking quietly. No doubt they were still at the table discussing Rudolph!
“Tony!” called his mother. “Is that you?”
“Just coming,” he answered, and slipped into his room.
“What’s the matter?” asked his mother.
“Nothing,” replied Tony, stuffing the cloak under his bed. “Here I am.”
As he had guessed, his parents were sitting at the table with rather puzzled expressions on their faces. “Well?” asked Tony bluntly. “What did you think of him?”
“He wasn’t very talkative,” said his mother.
“He never is,” said Tony.
“And I’ve met better behaved boys,” she went on.
“So’ve I,” agreed Tony, thinking wistfully of the cream buns.
“In fact, I can’t think why he is such a good pal of yours,” announced his mother.
Nor me, thought Tony to himself. Out loud he asked, “What about you, Dad. What did you think?”
“Well, I didn’t see much of him. But I got the feeling I’d seen him somewhere before.”
“Mmm.” Tony couldn’t resist a smile. “I wonder.”
“Do you think I have?” asked his father.
“Of course not.” Tony had never looked so innocent. He felt quite elated. Everything had gone according to plan. And it was highly unlikely that his father would ever remember where he had met Nigel – at least, he hoped not!
At Dusk
“WOULD YOU MIND IF I went to my room?” asked Tony politely.
“Of course not,” said his mother. “But why?”
“I’ve got something to do for school,” said Tony. This was not exactly true, but it was always a good excuse, and one to which his parents never raised any objection. Once in his room, Tony threw himself down on his bed. Nigel didn’t half fancy himself, he thought. He was, of course, very grateful that Nigel had played the game at all, and what’s more, he’d done it very well – his parents hadn’t suspected a thing! But the play-acting during tea! Still, at least now his parents knew who Rudolph was, and wouldn’t go on at him anymore about meeting his friend – after all, they’d had an eyeful of him that afternoon!
Tony must have fallen asleep, for when he opened his eyes, it was already getting dark. All was quiet in the flat. Perhaps his parents had gone out? Tony went to the door and listened carefully. There was not a sound to be heard. If his parents were at home, the television was bound to be on, or at least the radio, and sometimes they even talked to each other! Tony decided they must have gone out for a walk.
He was thirsty, and suddenly remembered the chocolate milkshake his mother had made for Nigel. Perhaps there was some left. An exploration of the fridge revealed a piece of the cake, but no milkshake, only orange juice. Tony had to be content with that, and taking the cake with him, he went back to his room. As he crossed the hall, he noticed a strange, rather mouldy smell, which had not been there before. It was not the cloak; that just smelled of old clothes. And it could not be Rudolph, because he always smelled rather singed. Was it one of the other vampires? After all, he had left his window open ...
He opened his bedroom door cautiously and asked: “Is anyone there?” A low chuckle was the only answer.
“Rudolph?” he called into the gloom.
“No!” came the reply, followed by a high-pitched girlish giggle.
“Anna!” guessed Tony.
“Right!” The lamp by Tony’s bed was switched on, and its light revealed Anna sitting on the bed, looking pleased with herself. She looked different: her hair, which on Sunday had hung in wild tangles down to her shoulders, had been brushed till it gleamed. Her eyes shone, and excitement had brought colour to her deathly-pale cheeks. What on earth was she doing here, wondered Tony. He hoped she was not on the prowl. Anna must have guessed his thoughts, because she began to laugh. “Have you forgotten I’m called Anna the Toothless?” she asked.
Tony felt foolish. Unable to think of anything else to say, he held out the glass and asked: “Do you like orange juice?”
She shook her head. “No. But I’d love some milk.”
“Wait a second,” said Tony, and a moment later he returned with a glass of milk.
“Thanks,” she smiled, and drank it with little sips, watching him over the rim of her glass in a way that made him feel very uncomfortable.
“Er,” he coughed. “Would you like to borrow anoth
er book?”
“No, thanks,” she said.
“Oh. Er, well, then why did you come?”
“I just wanted to see you,” she said with a beaming smile. “Do you mind?”
“N-no,” he stammered.
“How do I look today?” she asked.
“V-very nice.” This was becoming ridiculous!
“Do you really think so?” she said happily, smoothing down her hair. “It was really very difficult. I hadn’t combed my hair for seventy-five years!” Her expression changed as she plucked at her cloak. “I hate this old thing,” she grumbled. “Do you know, I never minded before what I looked like. But now I think you’d like me better in pretty clothes, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t know,” said Tony. “You couldn’t fly without your cloak.”
“It’s so unfair,” she sighed. “Normal girls can wear what they like, it’s only vampire-girls who have to dress in crummy old things like this!” She bit her lip, and seemed to be thinking. “May I ask you something?” she said finally.
“Of course,” said Tony rather surprised.
“What do you think of vampires?”
Tony wasn’t prepared for this. “Oh, er, they’re great!” he answered.
“And ... vampire-girls?”
“Vampire-girls?” he hedged. “I only know one!”
“Well, what do you think of me?” she tittered.
“You’re O.K.,” he muttered, and felt himself blush.
Her face fell. “Only O.K.?” she said. “I think you’re much, much nicer than O.K.”
She stopped suddenly, and looked as if she was going to cry.
What on earth was he going to do? The whole conversation had got out of hand, thought Tony, who would much rather talk of less dangerous subjects.
“Where is Rudolph?” he asked hurriedly.
“You only ever think about Rudolph,” she sighed.
“Not at all,” said Tony. “But he is going to pick up the cloak tonight.”
“Was going to,” she said with a sniff.
“Isn’t coming then?”
“No. He can’t. He’s ill.”
“Ill?” Tony sounded worried. “It wasn’t ... the Nightwatchman?” he asked, with a catch in his voice.
“No,” she said. “Blood poisoning.”
“Blood poisoning?” echoed Tony. That sounded like a very serious disease. “Where is he?”
“In his coffin with a temperature,” she replied.
Tony did not know what to say. Poor Rudolph was lying alone in his coffin with no one to look after him. When he was ill, his parents sent for the doctor and brought him grapes and lucozade to make him feel better.
“Could we go and see him?” he asked.
“See him?” giggled Anna. “And what if my parents saw you? Or my grandparents? Or my aunt? Or my brother?”
“Yes ... er, well perhaps we’d better not,” agreed Tony, whose hair began to stand on end at the mere mention of the other vampires. “Is he very ill?”
“Are you worried he might die?” asked Anna. Tony nodded. “Well, forget it! He’s dead already, remember!”
Tony had not thought of that, but he did not think that it made much difference. “Even so, he must be feeling rotten,” he said. “We ought to look after him.”
“What does ‘look after’ mean?” Anna asked. She had never heard that expression before.
“‘Looking after’ someone means you go and see someone and play games with them and read them a story and make them laugh.” At least, that was what happened whenever he was ill. Tony wasn’t sure what you did with vampires!
“No one looks after us,” said Anna. “My family are either all asleep in their coffins or out and ... well, you know all about that.” She sighed. “Anyway, nobody has any time for us. Nobody has ever read me a story or played a game with me.”
Poor Anna, thought Tony. It must be really tough being a vampire-kid. He always thought his parents took little enough notice of him, but he had a fantastic time compared to a vampire!
“We could look after Rudolph, as long as your family weren’t there,” he suggested.
“Supposing one of them comes home early?” asked Anna.
Tony waved his hand nonchalantly. “That’s hardly likely,” he said. “Anyway, I’ve already been to the vault once.”
“What!” exclaimed Anna. “You’ve already been there?”
“Yeah, with Rudolph,” said Tony.
“And no one found out?”
“No. Aunt Dorothy nearly did, but I got into Rudolph’s coffin just in time.”
Anna breathed a sigh of relief. “Aunt Dorothy’s the worst,” she said. “She once had a go at me, even though I’m a vampire too!”
“Ugh!” Tony could not stop himself. He felt his throat gingerly as he remembered Aunt Dorothy’s strident voice echoing around the vault.
“But she’s nearly always out the longest,” said Anna soothingly. “She’s the greediest, you see. So – when are we off?”
Tony seemed to have lost his earlier enthusiasm. “Do you really think we should?”
“Yeah. Come on! You said yourself that we ought to be looking after Rudolph.”
“O.K. If you’re sure.”
“Come on,” she urged. “You’ve got the other cloak.” She jumped up and down on the window-sill with impatience. “Rudolph will be surprised,” she chuckled.
“I just hope it’s all right,” said Tony, joining her on the sill with the cloak. And away they flew.
First Aid
THE WALL OF THE cemetery was already in sight. The sky was clear, the moon shining brightly, and consequently the cemetery looked much less spooky and mysterious to Tony than it had the Sunday before. Perhaps it was just that this was his third visit, he thought, as he followed Anna over the wall and landed in the grass on the other side.
“The entrance is just over there,” Anna whispered, “but we must wait to make sure everything’s quiet.”
Tony nodded. “I know,” he said. “The Nightwatchman.”
“Ssh,” she hissed.
Tony looked around at the tilted gravestones, almost overgrown by the long grass, the rusty old crosses sticking up out of the undergrowth, and the shadowy mass of the yew tree, under which lay the entrance to the vault.
Anna was straining her ears to catch the slightest sound. After a while she stood up. “O.K.,” she said. “We can go.”
“Why don’t you, er, go first?” suggested Tony, who suddenly felt rather sick, like you do when you have not eaten for a whole day.
Anna looked surprised. “Why? I promise there won’t be anyone else in the vault apart from Rudolph.”
“But you could just make quite sure,” insisted Tony. What if Aunt Dorothy had had another fainting fit? Or if one of the others had stayed behind to look after Rudolph? Tony shuddered at the thought of coming face to face with Thelma the Thirsty!
“Oh, all right,” said Anna. “I’ll have a look. But you must keep hidden.” She vanished down into the hole, and Tony crept deeper into the shadows.
At that very moment, he heard soft footsteps. They sounded quite a way off, but in the stillness that enveloped the graveyard, there could be no doubt of their reality. An icy shudder ran through him. It couldn’t be Nigel, could it? But he would never have been able to follow them from the ground. No, there was only one explanation: the Nightwatchman!
By now Tony could make out the figure of a man. He was quite small, and he was moving swiftly but carefully, his head turning questingly from this side to that. As he came nearer, Tony could make out a grey, wrinkled face with a pointed nose and bright restless little eyes, all of which made him look rather like a rat. Then Tony’s gaze was riveted to something else: out of the pocket of his overalls poked an enormous hammer and some sharp wooden stakes!
Tony hardly dared to breathe. The deep shadow of the yew tree hid him perfectly, so he felt he was fairly safe, but Anna ... at any moment, she would pop her head up
to call him, and the Nightwatchman was only a metre away! He had already turned those piercing eyes onto the darkness under the yew tree!
Tony saw the stone at the entrance to the vault begin to move, and suddenly he had an idea. He picked up a largish stone from the ground, and lobbed it as far as he could away from the yew tree. The stone landed heavily some way away, and like a hound on the scent, the Nightwatchman hurried off in the direction of the noise, baying: “Now I’ve got you!” Tony watched him start rummaging around in the bushes, brandishing the hammer and one of the wooden stakes. Tony raced over to Anna and slid down into the vault, pulling the stone over the entrance after him.
“Phew!” he gulped, leaning against the cool stone wall. “That was close!”
“What was?” asked Anna.
“The Nightwatchman,” said Tony, still out of breath. “He nearly caught you moving the stone!”
“The Nightwatchman?” gasped Anna. “Did you see him?”
“Yeah – but he didn’t see me.”
“Where is he now?”
Tony grinned. “Looking for a stone!”
“What?”
“I chucked a stone to distract him, and now he’s on the wrong hunt,” explained Tony.
Anna breathed a sigh of relief. “Don’t you think he looks like a rat?”
“Mmm,” agreed Tony. “Hideous.”
“I quite agree,” giggled Anna. “We vampires look really quite sweet in comparison. Do you know what his name is? Mr. McRookery!”
“No!” laughed Tony.
“It is!” Anna grinned delightedly and hopped from one foot to the other chanting: “Silly Mr. McRookery. You don’t know where us vampires are, do you?”
A rasping cough from the vault interrupted them.
“Rudolph!” cried Tony. “How is he?”
“Him?” scoffed Anna. “He’s all right. He’s already up and about. But now Gruesome Gregory’s got it.”
“Gruesome Gregory?” Who on earth was Gruesome Gregory? Of course, their elder brother.
“Does he know that I’m ...?”
“Of course,” nodded Anna. “But don’t worry. We vampire-kids stick together!”
“He ... er ... won’t do anything to me?”