Vampire Queen

Vampire Queen Part 2

   School breezed through quickly on this crisp, spring day. Theo and I were walking down the front steps of the school towards home.

“Freedom at last!”

   I sighed as I stretched my arms upward into the blue sky. Theo laughed at my awkward stretching. I jokingly glared at him.

“What? It’s like my own personal Hell in there. Don’t ever deny it son,” I fake-scolded him, making a funny face.

Theo clutched his sides in laughter. “Man Jane you’re a scream today aren’t you?” he laughed.

I smiled proudly, snuffing my nose in the air. “Why yes, yes I am Theodore.”

   Theo put an arm around me for support. I blushed for the shortest time. He became tipsy from all of his laughter and admittedly, so did I. He was practically on the ground unable to breathe. I nudged him in the ribs as Mr. Harris came into view at the school gate. Theo stood up and we nodded to each other. We did this everyday ever since freshman year.

   As we walked passed Mr. Harris, we blew our gum into large bubbles and popped them in front of his face. Mr. Harris’s face grew beat red. Time to end the show. When Theo and I went through the front gates, I promptly flipped off Mr. Harris and stuck my tongue out.

“See ya after spring break teach!” we cried in unison.

   When we heard Mr. Harris’s angry grumbling we both burst out in laughter, clutching each other for support. Happy tears started to flow down my face as Theo and I collapsed on the sidewalk about a block away from Jefferson High. We were both boisterously laughing, wiping tears of joy from our eyes.

“Oh-my-God!” I choked out the words from my laughter. “Mr. Harris is gonna kill us when we get back ah ha!”

“Yeah, yeah,” Theo chuckled. “You know Jane people are staring at us like we’re a sideshow. I swear one guy tossed me a quarter. We should get off the sidewalk and go to your house,” he said, laughter fading.

   I promptly stopped laughing as well and wiped one last tear from my apple red face.

“Yeah okay but why my house?” I asked him.

Theo lightly flicked my forehead. “Ow!”

“Think about it Jane, your house is two blocks away from here. I take the bus,” he said matter-of-factly.

“Oh right,” I said, feeling a bit stupid.

Theo stood up and extended a hand to me. “Come on Jane.”

   I took his hand and he hoisted me off the ground.

“Man Jane you’re heavy. What have you been eating?” he teased.

I playfully punched him in the arm. “Shut up dickhead.”

Theo laughed. “Alright, alright.”

   We walked together hand in hand to my drab apartment complex worn out from all the laughter that we had shared. As we walked up to the second story of the complex where my apartment was Theo asked, “Hey does your mom still keep the door open in the afternoons, waiting for you to come home?”

   I rolled my eyes. “Unfortunately yes. I mean we already had a robbery once and you broke in a couple of times,” I said, smiling at Theo. “But she doesn’t feel like giving me a house key or something. This is New York City for god sake she should know the crime rate by now.”

   I shook my head in shame. Ever since my dad died in a car accident when I was only two years old, Mother has never seemed to care about safety. She would always leave the door unlocked in the afternoon when she got home from work, waiting for me to come home from school. If she needed to run an errand or something while I was still returning home, she would still keep the door unlocked for all to enter. Thus, the robbery. It happened when I was in middle school, when Theo still walked me to and from school as my little “bodyguard”.