The Traveling Vampire Show

Silence crashed down on us.

Slim, Rusty and I stared at each other.

Bitsy watched us, a funny smile on her face that made me suspect she knew exactly what she was doing.

Nobody else spoke up, so I did.

“We’d like to have you come with us,” I said, “but we’ve only got four tickets.”

She pointed at us, counting aloud. “One, two, three, four.”

“The problem is, one of the tickets is for Lee.”

“But she’s not here.”

“Thanks for the news flash,” Rusty said.

Slim gave him a dirty look, then said, “They’re Lee’s tickets. She bought them, and she’s intending to go.”

“In fact,” I added, “they might not let us in without her. We’re all under age. Stryker only sold her the tickets on the condition that she’d come with us.”

“How can she come with us if she isn’t even here?” Bitsy asked.

“Well,” I said, “we’re hoping she’ll be back in time.”

“So I won’t be able to go?”

“I didn’t mean it that way. We’d like for you to come with us.”

“Of course,” Slim said. “But with only four tickets, I’m not sure we’ll be able to manage it.”

Lower lip bulging again, Bitsy said, “I guess I wanta go home now. If I can’t go to the vampire show…”

“You can go!” Rusty blurted. “Jesus! Okay? No problem. We’ll get another ticket, that’s all.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” I asked.

“For all we know,” Slim said, “they might be sold out.”

“Even if they aren’t,” I added, “they won’t sell us one for a thirteen year old.”

“I’m going home,” Bitsy said.

“No!” Looking frantic, Rusty raised his open hands and Happed them at us. “Just hang on a minute. Nobody’s going anywhere. I’ve got it all figured out. Okay?”

“Let’s hear it,” Slim said.

Calming down slightly, he patted the air in front of his shoulders and said, “We go now.”

“Go where?” I asked.

“To Janks Field. We take three of the tickets. Slim drives. We leave Lee’s ticket here so she can follow along later in her pickup. We leave her a note, too, so she’ll know what’s going on.”

“That still leaves us a ticket short,” Slim pointed out.

Rusty patted the air some more. “That’s why we go now. We get there good and early, find us an adult and pay him to buy us one more ticket.”

“What’ll we use for money?” I asked.

“How much we need?” Bitsy asked.

“The tickets are normally ten bucks,” Rusty said, “but we might have to pay more. Fifteen or twenty, maybe.”

“I got more’n thirty,” Bitsy said.

I remembered her white patent leather purse. She didn’t have it now. When we first came into Lee’s house, she must’ve left it in Slim’s car.

Rusty frowned as if he couldn’t figure out how his little sister had gotten her hands on that much money. But he played it smart this time and kept his mouth shut.

“Great!” he said. “We’re in business.” He glanced at Slim, then at me. “Okay?”

“Might work,” Slim said.

“Worth a try,” I said.

Narrowing her eyes, Bitsy looked at her brother. “What if we can’t get another ticket?”

Rusty stared at her for a long time, then said, “That happens, you can have mine.”

Chapter Forty-three

In the kitchen, I handed three of the tickets to Slim and left the fourth ticket on the table beside Lee’s purse. Slim slipped them down a seat pocket of her cut-off jeans.

I found a pen and a pad of scratch paper by the phone. Back at the table, I wrote:

Dear Lee,

Sorry we missed you. We took three of the tickets and went on ahead. We figured we had better get there early and beat the crowd, as the parking has been known to get wierd.

We took Slim’s Pontiac. Please come as early as you can. We well be looking for you and save you a seat.

Love, Dwight

I showed the note to Slim. She read it to herself, then asked, “Who ever taught you how to spell?”

“What’s wrong with my spelling?”

“Aside from it stinks?”

Rusty chuckled.

“Like you’re some kinda whiz kid,” I said to him.

“Let me see,” Bitsy said, and plucked the note from Slim’s hand. Her head bobbed up and down as she silently mouthed the words. About the time she came to the end, her brow furrowed.

“She’s my sister-in-law,” I explained.

Bitsy said, “I know that,” but she looked relieved.

After she gave the note to me, I folded it and placed it beside the red ticket. “All set,” I said.

“You don’t want to correct the spelling?” Slim asked, a glint in her eyes.

“Not really.”

“Lee’s a teacher.”

“I know that,” I said, suddenly sounding like Rusty or Bitsy.

Rusty let out a laugh. To Slim, he said, “Dwighty’s hoping to get some private spelling lessons from her.”

“Very funny,” I said. “Are we going?”

“Let’s go,” Slim said.

In the living room, she picked up her bow and her quiver of arrows. Then we left the house. Hanging back, I shut the main door after I was out.

We crossed the lawn to Slim’s car. When we got there, she put her bow and quiver of arrows into the trunk. Then we all climbed into the car. I sat in the back seat with Bitsy. Slim drove. Within about a minute, we were out on Route 3 with woods on both sides and no other cars in sight.

“What I think we’ll do,” she said, “is walk in.”

“Huh?” Rusty said.

“Walk?” asked Bitsy.

“I’m not driving onto Janks Field,” Slim said. “For one thing, I don’t want the tires getting ruined. For another, we might be the only car there this early. We’re too young to be going at all, so we sure don’t want the whole crew watching us arrive.”

“Good point,” I said.

“Also, the place’ll probably end up jammed with cars later on. We don’t want to get stuck in the traffic.”

“Hey,” Rusty said, “maybe they’ll have a riot like that other time.” He sounded as if he hoped so and wouldn’t mind participating.

“If there is a riot,” Slim said, “we can just take off into the woods free and clear.”