The Traveling Vampire Show

dusk. Intense, hopeful and nervous, they seemed to be searching for something in my eyes.

She had never stared at me quite that way before. I wondered what it meant.

What if she wants me to kiss her?

Could that be it? I wondered.

Do it and find out.

But maybe that wasn’t what she wanted.

We kept gazing into each other’s eyes. Soon, I was sure that she did want me to kiss her. She didn’t just want it, she was waiting for it. Waiting for me to catch on and take her into my arms and put my lips on hers.

I wanted to do it, too. I ached to do it. I’d been longing to kiss her for so long, and now she was almost begging for my lips.

I couldn’t force myself to move.

Do it! Come on! She wants me to!

I stood there like a tump—except that lumps don’t sweat and tremble.

I felt more frightened than when we’d been searching the house, but this fear was mixed with desire for Slim and disgust with myself for being such a coward.

Just do it!

Making an excuse for myself, I thought, If I try to kiss her now, Rusty might catch us.

The water still ran.

What’s taking him so long, anyway?

Then I thought, Who cares if he sees us kiss? Just go ahead and do it. Do it now before she changes her mind....

A toilet flushed.

The sound of it came like a signal for Slim to shut down the power of her gaze. Whatever’d been going on, it was over. A mild smile lifted the comers of her mouth. With her eyes and smile, she seemed to be saying, “Oh, well. Missed our chance. Maybe next time.”

At least that’s what I think they were telling me. They might’ve been saying, “You dumb jerk, you missed your chance.” But I don’t think so.

Then she reached up and flicked my nose the same as she’d done to Rusty, but not as hard. Not nearly as hard.

Gently.

Then she said, “Want to help me pick up the glass?”

“Sure.”

We turned and entered her mother’s room.

Chapter Twenty- seven

We no sooner started picking up the pieces of broken glass than Slim said, “I’ll get my wastebasket.” She hurried off and came back quickly.

When she set it down, I dumped in a handful of glass and saw her ruined copy of Dracula at the bottom.

“Mom won’t be too happy about this,” Slim said.

“She doesn’t get home till tomorrow?”

“Probably not.” Frowning slightly, Slim started to gather shards from the dresser top.

“What if we clean all this up,” I said, “and get rid of the smell and replace the broken stuff? She’ll never have to find out anything happened.”

“Is that what you’d do?” Slim asked.

I looked up at her.

“If it was your mom’s stuff?”

“Maybe.”

“You wouldn’t, either.” A grin spread across her face. “You’re way too much of a Boy Scout for that.”

“Think so, do you?”

“I know so.”

I suddenly felt ashamed of myself for not living up to her ideas about me.

And I felt very glad she didn’t know everything.

“Anyway,” she said, “I don’t think we’d get away with it. We’d have to find a matching vase and perfume bottle....” She shook her head. “Even if we could lay our hands on exact matches, Mom would figure it out somehow. Then I’d be in trouble for trying to trick her.” She dumped a handful of glass into the wastebasket. “Only thing is, it’ll really scare her if she finds out somebody came in the house and did this stuff. It’d be nice if she