The Traveling Vampire Show

“I know,” said Rusty. “You wanta go to the movies.”

She shook her head. “I wanta go home.”

Chapter Forty-two

Go home?” Rusty said. “No way.”

“Wanta bet?” Using one hand to hold the top of her dress shut, Bitsy shoved at the ground with her other hand and managed to sit up.

“I’ll drive you home,” Slim said. “But you don’t want your mom and dad to see you looking like this. Let’s go in the house first, and….”

“Huh-uh. I wanta go home. Right now.”

Rusty looked pitiful. “Man, it’s gonna be my ass.”

“Should’ve thought of that,” I said, “before you threw her down.”

“It was an accident. Anyway, if you hadn’t grabbed my shirt…”

“Oh, so now it’s my fault.”

With Slim holding her steady, Bitsy rose to her feet. “Let’s go in the house,” Slim said.

“I don’t wanta.” She tried to pull away, but Slim held on.

“You’re not going home looking like this,” Slim said, her voice firm. “We’ll clean you up first and see if you’ve got any injuries. Then we’ll do something about your dress. Then I’ll take you home. Maybe.”

I almost applauded.

Hobbling toward the front door in Slim’s custody, Bitsy started to cry again.

Rusty and I stayed back. By the time we entered the front door, they were out of sight. Soon, we heard water running.

Rusty shook his head. “I’m really gonna get it,” he muttered. “They’ll ground me so long I’ll be gray before they let me outa the house.”

“You should’ve kept your hands off her,” I said.

“She was trying to get away. She was gonna run home. It would’ve wrecked everything.”

Slim came striding into the foyer.

“How is she?” I asked.

“Really upset. I mean, God.” Slim shook her head. “At least she’s not hurt.”

“She’s not?” Rusty asked. He seemed surprised and pleased.

“Not much. Mostly, she’s grass-stained. She has a few little scrapes and scratches, but that’s about it. I told her to wash up.”

“How about her dress?” Rusty asked.

“Wrecked.”

“Can’t you fix it?”

“I could wash it,” she told Rusty, and glanced at me in a way that brought back memories of her laundry room. “I might be able to mend it, too… sew some new buttons on. But the first time your mother takes a good look at it, she’ll know it got wrecked. I mean, there’s fabric missing where the buttons got torn off.”

“In other words, I’m fucked.”

Almost pleased, I said, “Yep.”

“Not necessarily,” said Slim. “There’s one way out.”

“Suicide?” Rusty asked.

“A little less drastic than that,” Slim explained. “As a matter of fact, it’s simple. All we’ve gotta do is win Bitsy over. You’re off the hook if she doesn’t tell on you.”

“But what about the dress?”

“She can say she was fooling around… got into a game of touch footfall or something and had a little accident.”

“Better make it tackle football,” I said.

Slim grinned at me. “Yeah.”

Rusty shook his head. “She’ll never go along with it.”

“It’s your only chance,” Slim said.

“What you’ve gotta do,” I said, “is really kiss up to her.”

“Barf.”

Giving me a meaningful look, Slim said, “We’ve got to all be really nice to her.”

“Never should’ve let her come with us in the first place,” Rusty muttered.

Slim smirked at him.

“Hey, moron,” I said, “it was the only way to get you out of the house.”

“I could’ve snuck out.”

“Sure. Maybe by around midnight. Which would’ve been a little late for catching the Vampire Show.”

“Not gonna catch it anyway if we let Bitsy go home and rat on me.”

“I shouldn’t have pushed her,” Slim muttered.

“That was Rusty.”

“You know what I mean. We wouldn’t be in this fix if I hadn’t given her the third degree.”

Rising out of his worries, Rusty flashed a smile at me. “What the hell did she do in your room?”

“Let’s drop it,” I said. “I don’t know and I don’t wanta know.”

“Must’ve been pretty embarrassing.”

Slim shook her head. In a low voice, she whispered to Rusty, “The kid’s in love with him—everything’s embarrassing.”

I believe I snarled.

“Well, she is,” Slim told me.

“I know.”

“That’s right,” Rusty said.

At the sound of a door opening, we went silent and watched Bitsy step into the hallway. She was no longer crying. She seemed calm. Back straight, she limped toward us. She’d used a couple of safety pins to fasten the top of her dress together, but she hadn’t done a very good job with them. Her front was open to one extent or another all the way down to her waist.

“How are you doing?” I asked her.

“Not so good.”

“We’re really sorry you got hurt.”

“Yeah,” Rusty said. “I’m sorry.”

“You know what?” Slim asked her. “We’re glad you’re the one who did that stuff in our houses. I mean, we figured we had those weirdos from the vampire show creeping around, so it’s a fantastic relief to find out it was only you.”

“That’s for sure,” I said.

It wasn’t a total lie. I was very glad we weren’t being stalked by Stryker and his gang. But the notion of Bitsy creeping through my house—while my mom was home—gave me a bad case of the creeps. I knew that Rusty and I had sneaked into Slim’s house that same day, but this seemed different. In fact, this seemed a trifle demented.