It was Saturday that day, but our bedroom was still the Friday bedroom since You-know-who had stolen the best bedroom of the week. The Friday bedroom is okay though. It has a little arched window with a picture of a griffin on it that Sir Horace says came from his castle. It also has a very high, pointed ceiling; Wanda and I have our beds up on a platform close to the ceiling and you have to climb up a long ladder to get to them. If you want to get out of bed really quickly there is a firefighter’s pole by my bed, and Wanda has to ask very nicely if she wants to use it. But just then Wanda could have asked as nicely as she wanted and I still would not have let her use it.
I like being on my own because I am used to it. Before Wanda came to live with us I spent lots of time on my own, so I was looking forward to just sitting on the griffin window seat and reading my book about werewolves. I was sure that Wanda would still be with Max, but when I opened the door a little squeaky voice from far above said, “Hello, Araminta.”
I did not answer.
“Hello, Araminta,” Wanda said again.
“Oh, hello,” I said in a bored voice. I picked up the Werewolf Spotter’s Handbook, then I sat down under the griffin window and began to read it.
Wanda didn’t say anything, but I knew she was looking at me and wanting me to stop reading. But I didn’t. Then suddenly she blurted out, “He’s a vampire!”
I did not answer. I am not that easily won over.
“Araminta,” said Wanda, looking down at me from her bed, her little legs swinging over the edge of the platform and her eyes almost popping out. “Maximilian is a vampire.”
“I know,” I said, sounding bored. I kept reading.
“You know? But how?” squeaked Wanda.
I shrugged, but I did not say anything.
Wanda did not say anything for a while either. She kept staring at me and trying to make me stop reading. But I would not give in. At last she gave up and said, “Araminta, can I slide down the firefighter’s pole?”
“No,” I told her.
“Please?”
“No.”
“I’ll tell you all the vampiry things I have found out about Max. Can I? Please, please, please?”
“Oh, all right then.”
“Great!” Wanda slid down the pole and a moment later she was beside me on the window seat under the griffin window saying “Budge up, Araminta” as she wriggled to get comfortable.
I closed my book. It was really nice to have Wanda sitting next to me although I wasn’t going to let her know.
“I have discovered that Max is a vampire,” Wanda said, her eyes almost popping out onto the floor.
“So?” I yawned.
“He talks just like vampires talk in the movies.”
“I know,” I said.
Wanda and I know all about vampire movies because some nights, when we are supposed to be in bed, Uncle Drac sets up an old projector in the furry bathroom—which is furry because of all the yucky green mold growing all over it—and Aunt Tabby watches old black-and-white vampire movies and eats a ton of mint candy. Aunt Tabby thinks we are in bed—she does not know that Wanda and I are behind her sofa watching them too, and eating her mint candy when she is not looking.
“And he has really pointy teeth.”
“I know,” I said.
“And long scratchy nails.”
“I know.”
“And he really wanted to see the bats. But that isn’t how I knew he was a vampire.” Wanda wriggled even closer and whispered, “Araminta, do you want to know how I discovered that Max is a vampire?”
This was getting interesting. It sounded like Wanda had discovered something really bad. I nodded.
So Wanda whispered in my ear, “After you jumped out at us in the basement—”
“I did not jump out at you.”
“Yes, you did. Anyway, after that we went to find some gummy bears, and one of the escaped bats flapped into us and Max ate it!”
That was horrible. “How did he eat it?” I asked. “Did he swallow it whole or chew it a bit first?”
“I don’t know,” said Wanda. “I didn’t see.”
“So how do you know for sure he ate it?”
“Because,” Wanda whispered, “when we got into the kitchen he had blood running down from the corners of his mouth.”
“Argh!” I dropped the Werewolf Spotter’s Handbook onto the floor.
“Shhh, he’ll hear you. Vampires have really good hearing,” hissed Wanda. “Remember that movie where they tried to escape in the stagecoach along the top of that cliff in a thunderstorm but the vampire had heard all their plans and trapped them?”
I nodded again. I wished that I had seen the blood too as it sounded really fun—and it proved I was right about Max. “So while you were out vampiring with Vampire Max—” I said.
“I wasn’t vampiring,” Wanda interrupted.
“Well, while you were doing whatever with Max, I was busy putting together a Combined Werewolf and Vampire Trapping Kit,” I said.
Wanda looked impressed. “You are so smart, Araminta.”
“I know,” I said.
As we were going down the stairs to supper, Wanda suddenly stopped and said, “But we don’t need to trap Max, we know where he is. He will be downstairs having dinner with us.”
I sighed. “But we have to trap him while he is biting someone, don’t we? Otherwise Aunt Tabby will never believe it.”
“Oh,” said Wanda, “I see.” And then she said in a worried voice, “But who will we trap him biting?”
Now when you are trapping vampires—or werewolves—you need one person to set the trap and another one to be bait. And since it was my trap, I would have to set it. Which, as far as I could see, left only one person who could be the bait. But I didn’t tell Wanda that because I thought it might put her off her dinner. Despite what Aunt Tabby says, I think I can be quite thoughtful at times.
8
VAMPIRE STEW
Dinner that night was weird—and not just because the boiler exploded.
When Wanda and I got down to the second-kitchen-on-the-left-just-past-the-larder, Vampire Max was helping to lay the table and Aunt Tabby was saying, “Thank you, Maximilian dear, that is so helpful. And all the knives and forks are in the right places, too. You must show Araminta how to lay the table so neatly.”
Max simpered a smile, and I noticed he did not show Aunt Tabby his vampire teeth. He didn’t look like a vampire at all; in fact he looked more like a freshly scrubbed teacher’s pet. His hair was neatly combed, his face was shiny and pink—you could tell he had just washed it to get rid of the blood—and he had put on a tie. When Wanda and I arrived, he bowed. How creepy was that? But I could tell Aunt Tabby just thought it was good manners.
“Good evening, Vonda,” he said, which is how he says Wanda’s name. Wanda gave a kind of strangled yelp and scuttled off to her chair. “Good evening, cousin Araminta,” he said in my direction, and he bowed again.
Wanda was right—Max did have a creepy, vampiry accent. Sometimes I notice that Uncle Drac has a bit of an accent like that but most of the time I don’t notice it because I am used to Uncle Drac and he is not creepy at all.
“Say good evening to your cousin, Araminta,” Aunt Tabby said. “And you can sit down and stop gaping too—it’s rude to stare.” She began to ladle a big pot of Aunt Tabby stew into our bowls. Wanda sighed. She does not like Aunt Tabby’s cooking. I used to not mind it but Wanda’s mom, Brenda, is a much better cook and she usually makes dinners. But I supposed that she was still looking for Pusskins.
“I am not gaping,” I told Aunt Tabby. “Not much stew for me, please.”
Aunt Tabby took no notice. She ladled out a huge scoop of glop and bits of it splattered down my front. Yuk.
“You are not being very polite, Araminta,” said Aunt Tabby, annoyed, as she ladled out an even bigger pile of stew into Wanda’s bowl. “I must say, you could do worse than take a few tips from your cousin Maximilian on manners
. He is the politest and most considerate child I have ever met.”
What was wrong with Aunt Tabby? Had she had a brain transplant or something? Couldn’t she see how obvious it was that Max was the nasty, biting kind of vampire? I picked up my spoon and poked it at the stew, which felt kind of solid like a Jell-O cube. Not a good sign.
Wanda was looking at her pile of stew as though it might be about to ambush her, but Vampire Max was wolfing his down and even managing to look like he was enjoying it. Aunt Tabby was gazing at him adoringly. I could see that Max could do no wrong in Aunt Tabby’s eyes. Somehow I had to show Aunt Tabby what Vampire Max really was.
Suddenly I had a really brilliant idea. I had read somewhere that real vampires cannot bear to be near garlic. They hate the stuff. So, I decided to get him to give himself away. I stared really hard at him so that I did not miss a single flicker of expression, and I said very nicely, “Aunt Tabby, is there any garlic in this stew?”
“Garlic?” asked Aunt Tabby, looking puzzled.
Vampire Max looked up. Aha.
“Yes,” I said, and I looked meaningfully at Vampire Max, “garlic.” Vampire Max did not react. He was stonewalling, I could tell.
“No, there isn’t any garlic in it, Araminta.” Aunt Tabby sounded touchy. “You don’t like garlic.”
“Yes I do. I really, really like garlic. Could you grate some over it for me please?”
“What, raw garlic?” asked Aunt Tabby. “Are you sure?”
I nodded. It couldn’t make the stew taste any worse and it was an important vampire test that had to be done. I glanced at Wanda and she looked very puzzled.
Aunt Tabby sighed, scraped her chair back, and got up. She came back with a big head of garlic and a little grater. It was the moment of truth. I stared at Vampire Max and he stared at the garlic like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. I knew I was getting somewhere.
Aunt Tabby got busy with the grater and dumped a whole bunch of garlic on top of my gooey stew. Yuck. It smelled disgusting. Aunt Tabby is right, I do not like garlic one bit.
“Can you give some to Wanda too?” I asked.
“What, me?” squeaked Wanda.
“Yes, I don’t want to be greedy and take it all,” I said.
“I don’t mind, Araminta, really I don’t,” said Wanda as Aunt Tabby got busy grating garlic all over her stew too.
“And I don’t want to leave Vamp—I mean Max—out,” I said to Aunt Tabby. “I am sure he would like some.”
“No!” Vampire Max almost shouted. “I do not like garlic upon my stew. It is perfect as it is, thank you, Aunt Tabitha, I have never tasted a more delicious stew,” he said, carefully smiling his no-teeth smile at Aunt Tabby.
“Oh, how kind of you to say that, Max,” simpered Aunt Tabby. She sat down and began to cut up her stew with a knife and fork. “You could learn a lot from the way Maximilian behaves, Araminta,” she said, fixing me with a beady glare.
It is always best to change the subject when Aunt Tabby is grumpy, so I quickly said, “Has Brenda found Pusskins yet?” but it didn’t seem to work.
“No,” snapped Aunt Tabby, and she cut up another mouthful of stew.
“Probably,” I whispered to Wanda, “because it is Pusskins in the stew.” Wanda gasped and dropped her spoon. Aunt Tabby—who says that whispering in front of other people is just about the rudest thing you can ever do—looked like she was going to explode.
But the boiler got there first—bang!
9
BOILER BRAT
The boiler room was an awful mess—it looked just like it used to before Brenda arrived, when Aunt Tabby took care of the boiler all on her own. There was soot everywhere, the boiler door was swinging from the lampshade, and there were pieces of boiler all around the room.
At the sound of her precious boiler exploding, Brenda had come running. She took one look and screamed, “My boiler, my boiler!”
“It’s not that bad, Brenda,” said Aunt Tabby huffily, “I’ve seen worse.” She handed Brenda a bucket. “Put the pieces in there and I’ll fix it later.”
Brenda snatched the bucket and glared at Aunt Tabby. “You will not fix it later,” she said. “I will fix it now. Oh, there’s a good boy, Max, how sweet of you. Thank you, dear,” she said, beaming at You-Know-Who. Vampire Max had got hold of the broom, which was twice as big as he was, and was busy sweeping up all the soot.
Brenda glared at Wanda with a distinctly Aunt Tabby–like expression. “That, Wanda,” she said, “is what I mean by being helpful. Little Max didn’t wait to be asked to sweep up, did he? He just got on and did it.”
Wanda did not look impressed by this information. In fact she looked pretty annoyed. She grabbed hold of my sleeve and tugged me out of the boiler room, “Come on, Araminta,” she said loudly. “Let’s go. You can have some of my gummy bears.”
We sat in the dark in the first-kitchen-on-the-left-just-by-the-stairs, which is where Wanda keeps her gummy bear stash, and ate two whole bags between us. It was fun, just like old times before Vampire Max arrived. No one guessed we were there.
We were just wondering whether to share a third bag of bears when who should come past but Brenda and Aunt Tabby—with Vampire Max trotting between them like a little dog. Both of them were cooing over him.
“It was so sweet of you to help me fix the boiler, Max,” said Brenda. “I have tried to get Wanda to show an interest in the boiler but she really does not care.”
“But boilers are fascinating, Mrs. Wizzard,” said Max in his creepy voice.
Brenda giggled. “Oh Max dear, you must call me Brenda. All my friends do. And I do hope we are friends.”
Wanda made her sick-bag face at me. I made one back.
Aunt Tabby was just as bad. “I think you have earned a little treat, Maximilian. Do you like mint candy?”
“It is my favorite candy, Aunt Tabitha,” said creepy Max.
Well. Aunt Tabby never offers me any of her precious mint candy.
We waited until the Vampire Max fan club had gone and then we crept into the basement corridor, which was really dark because all the lights had gone out when the boiler exploded.
Suddenly I saw the werewolf eyes again—and they were staring right at us. They were really close to the ground this time, and I knew that meant only one thing—that the werewolf was about to pounce. I grabbed Wanda’s arm.
“Ouch!” she yelped.
“Shh…werewolf!” I hissed. But as soon as I spoke the eyes disappeared back into the darkness.
“I didn’t see it,” said Wanda.
“It was the werewolf. What else has staring eyes and lopes around in the dark?”
We had reached the foot of the stairs that go up from the basement and I could see Wanda’s face now in the light coming down from the hall. She had on her I-don’t-believe-you expression. “It wasn’t loping, Araminta,” she said. “If it had been loping we would have heard it.”
“So what exactly does loping sound like?” I asked Miss Know-It-All.
“Sort of scuffling, like this”—Wanda scraped her shoes along the floor—“and then kind of dragging, like this,” and she did a weird walk like a crab short of a few legs.
“Pwfeeergh!” I snorted.
“It’s not funny,” said Wanda.
“Yes…it is.” It was no good. I had the giggles. I sat down on the stairs and choked and spluttered while Wanda looked mad. She stood tapping her little foot, waiting for me to stop, and then suddenly she shrieked, “Look, look! Werewolf paw prints!”
She was right. All along the corridor were big sooty werewolf paw prints—and they were headed upstairs. The werewolf was loose in Spookie House.
“Run!” I yelled. And we did. We both ran as fast as we could and we did not stop until we reached our Friday bedroom. And Wanda didn’t even stop then—she scooted up the ladder to her bed and dived under the blankets. I slammed the bedroom door behind me and shoved a chair up underneath the handle like the heroine alway
s does in the movies when the vampire has chased her through his castle at midnight and cornered her in some deserted room—far away from all her silly friends, who have no idea at all what is going on. I waited for the door handle to rattle like it does when the vampire tries the door and you just know she’s in for it and is about to become vampire fodder—but it didn’t. We were safe.
Well, not exactly safe, as we had a vampire and a werewolf wandering around Spookie House—but that was okay because I had a Plan. The trouble with my Plan was that I needed Wanda’s help, and Wanda was under the bedclothes trembling like a great big tub of Jell-O. So while Wanda was doing her Jell-O impression I checked my Combined Werewolf and Vampire Trapping Kit. It was all there.
I pulled Wanda out of bed to show her what was definitely the best Combined Werewolf and Vampire Trapping Kit ever. “This is going to be the best Combined Werewolf and Vampire Trapping Expedition ever,” I told her. “Obviously we will have to wait until midnight because that is the time when you can be sure to find both vampires and werewolves hanging around. But I am sure it won’t take long to trap them both.”
“I am not going on a Combined Werewolf and Vampire Trapping Expedition, Araminta,” she said. “No way. Especially not at midnight. I wouldn’t go anywhere in Spookie House at midnight.”
Wanda is such a spoilsport. “If it wasn’t at midnight would you go?” I asked.
“No.”
Now I was really disgusted. It takes two people minimum to catch a vampire or a werewolf. One person has to be the bait—which, as I have said, was ideal for Wanda—and the other one has to have split-second timing and lightning-fast reactions—which I could easily do. But obviously I could not do both at once.
There was no one else I could ask either. Grown-ups are absolutely no use at stuff like that, which ruled out Brenda, Barry, Uncle Drac, and Aunt Tabby—and who would want Aunt Tabby helping them catch vampires and werewolves at midnight anyway? She would frighten them away. Ghosts would be no good at that sort of stuff because generally they cannot hold anything, and our particular kinds of ghosts would definitely be of no help—Sir Horace would just fall to pieces and Edmund would be even more scared than Wanda. The only other person in Spookie House who would have been okay was Max—except it was him that we needed to catch.