The Traveling Vampire Show

Chapter Forty-one

I think my mouth fell open. I know Slim’s did.

Rusty blasted, “You!”

“I’m sorrrrry,” she brayed, and then started to bawl. Face red and twisted, tears rolling down her cheeks, she sobbed out, “I didn’t mean to! I’m sorrrrry!!!”

“You little shit!”

“Knock it off,” I told Rusty.

Standing there, Bitsy lowered her face into her open hands. Her shoulders jumped up and down. She gasped and snorted.

Slim started making faces at me and nodding toward Bitsy.

I got the message. Stepping up to Bitsy, I murmured, “It’s all right,” and put my arms around her.

Her arms whipped around me like a springing trap.

I stroked her head with one hand and patted her back with the other while she shuddered and twitched. Her face was shoved against my chest. I felt her hot breath through my shirt. Soon, I felt wetness, too. From her tears. And, I’m afraid, from her slobber.

I kept saying, “It’s all right” and “Everything’s fine” and “It doesn’t matter,” and so on for quite a while until Bitsy finally calmed down.

Then Slim said softly, “Let’s go sit down.” She led the way. Bitsy and I followed her, Bitsy sniffing and clinging to my arm.

In the living room, Slim pointed to the sofa. So I sat down on it, Bitsy still hugging my arm.

Slim sank onto the front edge of a chair. She propped the bow on the floor between her feet and held it upright in front of her. She couldn’t lean back because of her quiver.

Rusty sat in another chair, looking disgusted and shaking his head.

“We’re not mad at you, Bitsy,” Slim said.

“You’re not?”

“No. Are we, Dwight?”

“No,” I said. “It’s no big deal, Bitsy.”

“No big deal,” Rusty echoed, glaring at her. “Fuckin’ psycho.”

Bitsy gasped. From the look on her face, she was about to blurt, “I’m gonna tell!” But no words came out. Our warnings must’ve gotten through to her.

Slim frowned at Rusty. “You’re not helping matters.”

He rolled his eyes upward.

To Bitsy, Slim said in a gentle voice, “What happened, anyway ? What made you do it?”

She gave Slim a pouty look, then whined, “I don’t knowwww. They ditched me.”

“Rusty and Dwight.”

“Yeah. I got sent in for my shoes, only when I came back out they were already gone. It was all just a trick to get rid of me.”

“A pretty mean trick,” Slim muttered.

Which made me feel crummy again.

“Yeah,” Bitsy said. “It was really mean. I went after ‘em. I could’ve caught up, too, ’cause I knew they were going to Janks Field to look for you. Only they didn’t want me with ’em, or they would’ve waited.” Bitsy looked into Slim’s eyes. “See, the thing is, you’ve always gotta have it just the three of you. Nobody wants me butting in. They’ve gotta have you all to themselves, and I guess you wanta be the only girl.” She pushed out her lower lip again. “Maybe you’re not the only girl around that wants to have fun sometimes.”

I saw Slim’s eyes go shiny. She swallowed, licked her lips, then asked in a soft voice, “You blamed me for the guys ditching you?”

“Sorta,” Bitsy muttered.

“And that’s why you went over to my house?”

“I guess.” She lowered her head and continued. “It wasn’t locked or anything.”

“It hardly ever is.”

“I knew nobody was gonna be there, ’cause of how your mom works over at the restaurant and you don’t have a dad or anything… and the guys said you were over at Janks Field. So I just went in.”

“Freak,” Rusty muttered.

“Stop it,” I told him.

“Well, she is.”

“Leave her alone,” Slim said. Then she said to Bitsy, “Did you go in on purpose to wreck things?”

“No,” she said. It was almost a whimper.

“Why did you go in?”

She shrugged with one shoulder. “I don’t know.”

“But you went up to my bedroom and chewed on my Dracula?”

“I guess so.”

Rusty sneered. “You don’t know?”

“I guess I chewed on some book.”

“Why that one?” Slim asked.

“Just… I don’t know… I knew you liked it a lot.”

“That’s why you chewed on it? To hurt me?”

“I guess so.”

“Why none of the others?”

Another shrug. “I don’t know. I guess maybe I didn’t feel like it.” She raised her head to meet Slim’s eyes. “It made me feel awful, wrecking your book.” Her lower lip bulged, her chin shook and she started crying all over again. “I’m sorrrrry! ” she blubbered.

I started patting her back.

Slim said, “It’s all right, Bitsy. Don’t worry about it.”

“I’ll… buy you… a new one.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Slim said. “But I don’t get it. If you suddenly felt so bad about wrecking Dracula, how come you went into my mom’s room and started breaking things?”

Here we go.

“I didn’t,” she blurted.

Meeting my eyes, Rusty shook his head slightly.

“You didn’t break the vase?” Slim asked. “Or the perfume bottle?”

“They was… already busted. I just… I took the flowers, that’s all… They looked so… they was on the floor like… like nobody wanted ’em and they got thrown down… and they looked so sad.”

Looking perplexed, Slim said, “But you didn’t break any glass?”

Bitsy shook her head.

Then Slim laid off the questions for a while and I patted Bitsy until she calmed down. When she was done crying, Slim asked, “So what happened after you picked up the roses?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing else at my house?”

“Huh-uh.”

“So you left my house, and then what?”

Lowering her head, she muttered, “I guess I went and gave a rose to Dwight.”

“You went over to his house and sneaked in?”

She nodded slightly.

“What time was that?” I asked.

She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Wasn’t my mom home?”