Vampire Island (2 page)

Lexie

A
ll January, all Lexie had thought about was Dylan Easterby. He was perfection. Of course, she’d always had a tiny crush on him—what girl didn’t get a thrill from Dylan? You’d have to be dead. Which, technically speaking, Lexie kind of was. And yet Lexie’s crush, always present, always minor, had gone into major upshift now that school had resumed.

During class, she used her fingertip to trace his name in loopy letters along her leg. Occasionally, she caught herself singing “Dylan Easterby” under her breath to the tune of “Oh, My Darling Clementine.” At night, Lexie wrapped herself in silky, Dylany dreams. Whenever she thought she was going too batty from her crush, she swore to herself it would fade, much like the suntan Dylan had picked up during the Easterby family’s winter vacation to Cancún, Mexico. Once Dylan started peeling, Lexie hoped her crush would peel off, too. Meantime, his skin was so toasted, his eyes so warm, his teeth so straight…

“Watch yourself!” Dylan called from across the classroom. Lexie jumped as, with a snap of his thumb and finger, he let something fly.

A silver sparkle caught the air. Lexie heard the object whistling toward her. She clocked its velocity as her hand opened wide to snare it like a Venus flytrap, her instincts identifying that it was inedible, some type of coin. Lexie had the best reflexes in the family, but from the moment she caught the object, she wished she hadn’t. It was never a good idea to showcase bat abilities. Too late now. The class had gone berserk.

“Yo!” “See that?” “Lex, you didn’t really catch that, whatever it was, in your bare hand, did ya? Didja?”

“It’s a peso,” Dylan clarified. “From Mexico. Awesome lightning reflexes, Lex.”

“More like lucky accident.” Lexie shrugged and opened her palm. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Just tell me your secret.” Dylan smiled, a row of utterly orderly teeth.

“The secret is that Lexie’s got yucky octopus fingers,” sniped Mina Pringle with a toss of her head. Kids laughed. Lexie frowned. Mina and Lexie had disliked each other since their first day of fourth grade, four years ago. That was back when Lexie hadn’t broken herself of all of her old bat habits, and at recess she’d picked her nose with her tongue. A disgusted Mina had tattled on Lexie, but of course nobody had believed her, and in fact most kids had thought Mina was just being nasty to Lexie on purpose, because she was the new girl.

Mrs. MacCaw, entering the room, rang her cowbell for quiet.

“Yuck-topus,” hissed Mina for good measure as she flounced off to her seat.

Lexie hid her hands in her pants pockets. It was true that she had extraordinarily long fingers. Like extra-precise ears and speedy reflexes, hyperextended fingers and toes were a Livingstone family trait. Lexie had never much cared until this second. Now she felt a touch sorry for herself. After all, nobody else at Cathedral Middle School had to deal with being part bat. She kept her fingers under her desk as she peeled her morning orange, sucking in the juice and then storing the seeds in her pocket to give to Hudson.

After homeroom let out, half the class trooped up the stairs for English Literature, while the other half trooped down for World History. Lexie and Dylan were among the down-troopers, but Dylan usually traveled in a large pack of hangers-on. Today he let them go by. “So, Lex, am I ever getting my peso back? ’Cause I’d trade it for the secret of how you caught that coin.”

Dylan’s eyes were like amber, ocean-rubbed to smoky softness. He used them to look at Lexie as if she were the most important person in the entire school. But Dylan behaved like this with everybody, Lexie reminded herself. That’s why he was the best-liked kid in the eighth grade.

“‘Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,’” Lexie quoted. Dylan looked confused. “That’s a line of poetry by Dylan Thomas, who died after drinking himself into a coma,” explained Lexie in a rush. “But some people would say he was doomed from the start. Doom catches poets the way other people catch colds.”

Dylan laughed in a way that was half friendly, but maybe half scared. “You’re an odd duck, Lex,” he said. “Go ahead and keep that coin. It’s stainless steel, so if you’re thinking about getting rich off it, you won’t. Sorry.”

No more quotes! Lexie warned herself. No matter how doomed you feel. She knew that poems were considered cornball. If only Dylan Easterby wasn’t so hypnotic. And don’t smile, or your braced-in snag-fangs will show.

So she just nodded, unsmiling, and in the pause, a new pack of friends quickly shuffled up around Dylan, including fellow best-all-around guy Alex Chung, who slapped him on the back. “Did you see the game last night?” he asked. And Dylan, now talking football, melted into the herd.

“Don’t even think about it.” Mina swooped down and pushed her face so close that Lexie could smell the morning chocolate milk on her breath. It made her stomach churn, since Lexie’s own fruit-juice-based blood was lactose intolerant. “Everyone knows I’m taking Dylan Easterby to the Midwinter Social.” Mina yawned out more bad milk smell. “In fact, I’m planning to invite him tonight.”

Lexie wasn’t sure if she had even known about the Midwinter Social.

“And don’t pretend like you didn’t know about the Midwinter Social.” Mina tucked a lemony blond curl behind her ear. “You’re too tall and weird for Dylan.” She arched an eyebrow. “
Way
too weird, if you ask me. There’s something extra creepy about you, Lexie Livingstone. You know it, and I know it.”

Although Lexie did not have her night wings anymore, she could feel the danger of Mina’s words, and an answering prickle itched at the barely visible wing nubs between her shoulder blades. In another time, she would have hissed in Mina’s face and then flown up to the safety of the rafters. Instead, she bared her braces at her foe. “If I were you, Mina, I wouldn’t be so quick to judge. So you better watch out, because I might have some new tricks up my nose.”

Mina hopped back from Lexie. “Ha, ha, aren’t you funny. Just remember—me and Dylan are exactly alike, and in real life, opposites repel. As for your freaky tricks, Lexie, don’t you worry. I’ll be watching out for them…” Her voice was singsong, but her face had a pointy purpose. Then she turned to skim gracefully down the stairs.

Times like this, Lexie wished that her own bat feet did not stick out like a pair of yams. She also wished that Maddy were here at Cathedral Middle instead of across town at P.S. 42 with Hudson. Teeny Maddy intimidated the other kids because she was always up for a brawl. Maddy would never just stand tongue-tied and beet-faced, giving Mina all the flounce-off power.

As Lexie stood there, she noticed a flyer tacked up on the wall:

World History passed in a fog. Lexie flipped her orange seeds and lucky peso over in her palm. Her tense confrontation with Mina had dried up her skin, making it itchy as fleas on sawdust. She needed to take care of that problem, quick. After class, Lexie headed for her locker to spritz herself head to toe from the atomized half gallon bottle of water she kept stored there. Even though their New World skins allowed the Livingstones plenty of freedom to roam both in-and outdoors, they had to be extra careful to keep hydrated, and to wear plenty of moisturizer and sunscreen, even in winter.

As the mist soothed Lexie’s skin, new thoughts burned up her brain.

First of all, she decided, no more bat tricks. Watchful Mina was already on high alert. If the Livingstones were ever exposed as nonhumans, the Argos would most certainly exile them from New York. And then where would they go? Certainly not back to the Old World. Unlike her younger brother and sister, Lexie had not forgotten those last treacherous weeks before they’d escaped. She had heard her parents say a thousand times that the Old World was much too dangerous now, and that if worse came to worst, they’d rather end their days on a beautiful beach at high noon, where they’d all stretch out and let themselves crumble to black ash. “The final family crispy cookout,” her parents cheerfully called it, trying to make it sound slightly less depressing than everyone knew it was.

Second, but almost just as important—as long as he remained unasked to that Midwinter Social, Dylan Easterby was fair game and he belonged to anyone and everyone. Lexie would not let mini-Mina intimidate her. No way.

And so Lexie’s secret scheme began to hatch.

Hudson

H
udson woke up at 4:00
A.M
. He always began his day at this moment, and always the same way. First he unzipped himself from the sleeping bag that hung upside down by enforced metal hooks in his closet. Next he stepped out of his pajamas and tucked them under his pillow. Then he squeaked open his bedroom window and climbed out onto the granite ledge, where he stared out over the twinkling city. Lastly, he tucked his head to his chest and let himself drop like a rock.

He gasped at the speed of the twelve-story vertical plunge and then catch as his arms extended, transforming, his body compacting and his wings materializing to take control of the air. What a shame, thought Hudson, so many are denied the joy of night flying. Not his hybrid sisters and parents, whose nocturnal privileges were distant Old World memories. Not his best friend, Duane Rigby, and not his fourth-grade teacher, Mr. Apple. Not even a single member of the NASA space crew.

Though Hudson could not have said why, he knew it was important for him to fly every single night. Not only did it help him keep his basic skills of takeoff, endurance, and landing sharp, but flying gave him a sense of purpose. Sometimes he liked to imagine that he was in training for something. He was careful about his flights, too, keeping an itinerary of the airplanes landing between 4:00 and 5:00
A.M
. Because no passenger wanted to look out an airplane window and spy an oversized, boyish-faced vampire-fruit bat swooping past.

As he arced over Central Park, Hudson’s fists uncurled to loosely scatter the family’s daily store of seeds. Ninety percent of the seeds wouldn’t pollinate, but it was hard for the Livingstones to give up this recycling technique, left over from a time when they’d been more deeply connected to the ecosystem. Then he sped, his reflexes quick to duck a hanging branch or prickly pine or lumpy shadow. In the controlled environment of Central Park, Hudson didn’t really have to worry about natural predators. Too bad. A tweak of risk, in Hudson’s opinion, would have been intriguing.

Hudson was hardly winded by the time he streaked across Central Park West, heading toward the Hudson River, to which he owed his American name. Familiar smells—garbage, the breeze off the river—directed his path to the lonely wilderness lining the river. Hudson knew his parents would be upset if they ever found out he’d strayed this close to the tip of Manhattan. He himself wasn’t sure why he disobeyed them so stubbornly.

“Fly around the park, but that’s it, Sport,” his mother always reminded him. “Don’t chitchat with other species. Home before sunrise, no arguments.”

“And if your grades drop, that’s it for flight privileges,” added his father.

They made rules because they were parents, but his mom and dad never would have vetoed Hudson’s nighttime adventures. Just like they didn’t prevent Maddy from picking fat ticks off dogs to quench her occasional bloodthirst. Just as they allowed Lexie to reenact tragic deaths. His parents knew Hudson had the most bat in him. He was the only Livingstone who needed to sleep upside down, who communicated with other species, and who could shape-shift for a single, glorious predawn hour into the Old World creature he’d once been.

Hudson had just celebrated his ninth birthday. So far this “ninth” human year had been exceptionally chill. Not just because his class was studying the solar system, or because he was learning to play rock ballads on the piano after centuries of studying Schumann and Mozart. The year’s real enchantment, Hudson knew, had everything to do with his odd new friend Orville.

The wild woods stirred strange memories. In the mosses, hostas, and lichen Hudson also caught a whiff of near-forgotten, almost-ancient adventures.

“Over here, Hud.” Orville’s presence was the faintest echo, hard to find, even for a young bat with saucer ears.

Hudson stretched his wings and zeroed in.

Orville was also some kind of vampire-bat hybrid, possibly part owl or maybe even hawk. He was so old that whatever he’d been was impossible to distinguish from what he was now, all hard black eyes and dirty, crumple-folded wings. Finding a fellow hybrid was so rare that the sight of Orville never failed to fill Hudson with joy. Each night, he half expected to arrive here and find that his friend had long departed.

He crash-landed onto the branch of the spruce where Orville was perched, which caused the creature to squeak in outrage as he rufflingly adjusted himself.

“Pardon me,” said Hudson.

“Ah, you fruit bats.” Orville wrinkled his nose. “You never can get the hang of a graceful landing. Flying foxes—now those are some elegant pilots. But not fruits.”

Hudson shrugged. His claws gripped the branch and he arced to dangle upside down by his knees. As he gave a good post-flight stretch to his muscles, he noticed it.

“What’s that weird smell?”

“Pesticide,” Orville answered. “They sprayed this morning. Got so warm this month that a few of the hatching cycles have started early, and the young weevils and caterpillars are chewing the seedlings and spruce buds.” A peppered moth sputtered by. Orville looked as if he might lunge for it, but at the last moment let it pass.

Hudson kept quiet. In his nearly four hundred years of existence in worlds both Old and New, he had come to appreciate the value of listening. Something big was on Orville’s mind. Still, he wasn’t prepared to hear the hybrid speak the following words. “Fly with me? I’d like to show you something.”

“Okay.”

More than okay! Thrilling! Hudson rarely shared flights with Orville, who took his time warming up, cracking his neck and rolling his brittle shoulders. The few times they had flown together, the older creature had led Hudson into wild parts of a natural world Hudson had never seen.

“Stay close,” instructed the older bat, and so Hudson hovered on his side as they coasted. Orville acted as tour guide, but sometimes was silent, allowing Hudson to enjoy the night. He inhaled pine and cedar, spied raccoons and porcupines, and followed the bridges and trestles. He let his eye trace the horizons of rock ruins and ravines. Close by, he could hear Orville identify the name of every shrub, possum, cricket, and bird’s nest.

Deeper into the woods, Hudson picked up different energy. A whoosh of one creature, then another, flying past. The touch of a wing against his cheek stood Hudson’s hair on end.

The night was not as serene as he’d thought. And a lot more crowded.

“Who are they?” Hudson gasped when he and Orville finally circled back and returned to the branch. He could feel his fruit-fortified blood pounding.

“You think you’re the only hybrid in this wood?” Orville snorted, then made a point of landing with expert grace.

“Except for you, kind of, yes,” Hudson answered truthfully. “Are there many of us?”

“Hard to say. Just like us, they keep themselves hidden,” Orville answered. “They bother no one, and nobody bothers them. Young Hudson, I think the time has come for you to sharpen your senses. For example, how would you describe this night?”

Hudson sensed it was the wrong answer when he said, “Great?”

The older bat tipped his head. “What else?”

“Uh…fast, chill—”

“Chill!” Orville hopped. “Chilly, exactly. But not frosty. And what month is it?”

“January.” Hudson was perplexed. He’d meant
chill
as another word for “great.” Kids at school were always using that word. Hudson was proud when he picked up on slang—usually he hardly ever noticed it.

Orville sighed. “Did you know that our globe is heating up because humans use too much energy? Excess gases become trapped in the atmosphere. The trapped gases are overheating the planet. They melt our glaciers and confuse our forests. Our entire ecosystem is getting sick.”

“We’re studying the
solar
system right now,” said Hudson primly. “The ecosystem isn’t until April.” He didn’t like to be ignorant, and he had not known about the trapped gases. So it seemed important to explain why.

Orville’s eyes were hard as a burnt match. “You are special, Hudson. You’re a pure link between the human and animal world.”

Hudson preened. Privately, he’d always thought he was a particularly spectacular morph of bat and boy. He wished he could brag to more people about that. Or any people, come to think of it. “Thanks.”

“That’s why it is important that you know.”

Hudson drew sharply alert. “Know what?”

“It might be that you have been chosen, Hudson. New World creatures have been waiting for a young protector. I’d always thought it was a rumor whispered among hybrids to comfort themselves, but with our woods in crisis, I must admit, I’m hopeful.”

Now Hudson wasn’t sure if he wanted to preen some more or fly away. His stomach churned. A protector? Him? He’d never protected anything in his life. In fact, he still hid upside down in his closet during thunderstorms.

Orville continued, “According to legend, the Protector defends the One, but helps the Many.”

“I don’t get it. Who’s the One? Who’s the Many?” Hudson wondered why he couldn’t get to be the One instead of the Protector. It seemed chiller to be the One.

“I’m sorry, but I don’t have all your answers. What I hope I have shown you is our dilemma.” Orville’s thin wings opened as if to hug the entire landscape.

Hudson nodded solemnly. “What can I do?”

“To the true activist, the question becomes ‘What can’t I do?’”

A quiet rush of purpose stood Hudson’s ears on point and woke up his whole body. Here it was—that tweak of risk, that sliver of dare he realized that he had been waiting for all these sleepless, urgent nights.

Orville wanted him to protect these creatures.

Was Hudson ready?