The Traveling Vampire Show

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.