Chapter One
"I will!" Shouted Poppy. Poppy grabbed the book and settled back against James waiting for everyone to sit down. "Secret Vampire, Chapter One…"
"It was the first day of summer vacation when Poppy found out she was going to die."
"Poppy you can't die!" Exclaimed Maggie.
"I didn't die," Poppy said.
"Well technically-" James started.
"James!" Poppy glared at her soul mate.
"Sorry."
"Whipped," someone coughed. James glared around the room and motioned for Poppy to continue.
"It was on Monday the first real day of vacation (the weekend didn't count)."
"Well duh," Gillian huffed.
"Poppy woke up feeling gloriously weightless and thought, No school. Sunlight was streaming in the window, turning the sheer hangings around her bed filmy gold."
"Sounds pretty," sighed May-Lynnette. Poppy nodded in agreement before she started reading again.
"Poppy pushed them aside and jumped out of bed- and winced."
"Poppy are you alright?" asked a concerned Galen. Poppy rolled her eyes.
"Ouch. That pain in her stomach again. Sort of a gnawing, as if something were eating its way toward her back. It helped a little if she bent over. No, Poppy thought. I refuse to be sick during summer vacation."
"Being sick during summer vacation sucks!"Maggie shouted in agreement with the previously human Poppy.
"I don't mind," said Thea.
"I don't mind as long I can still stargaze," Mary-Lynnette stated.
"If we keep talking we will never get done!" Hannah berated them.
"I refuse. A little power of positive thinking is what's needed here."
"Don't you mean popative thinking?" Morgead's lame joke was met by silence.
"Grimly, doubled over-think positive, idiot- she made her way down the hall to the turquoise-and-gold-tiled bathroom. At first she thought she was going to throw up, but then the pain eased as suddenly as it had come. Poppy straightened and regarded her tousled reflection triumphantly."
"Why would you regard it triumphantly?" Asked Jez.
"I donno? Because, I wasn't feeling icky anymore?" Poppy answered unsurely.
"Stick with me, kid, and you'll be fine," she whispered to it, and gave a conspiratorial wink."
"Talking to your self is the first sign of madness ," David commented while everyone else snickered.
"Then she leaned forward, seeing her own green eyes narrow in suspicion. There on her nose were four freckles. Four and a half, if she were completely honest, which Poppy North usually was.
"Oh goddess no! Not four and a half freckles!" Maggie shouted dramatically.
"How childish, how-cute! Poppy stuck her tongue out at herself and then turned away with great dignity, without bothering to comb the wild coppery curls that clustered over her head."
"Your hair looks sexy like that," James muttered to low for the others to hear and making her blush. (A/N can made vampires blush?)
"She maintained the dignity until she got to the kitchen, where Phillip, her twin brother, was eating Special K."
"Wow a guy eating Special K? How manly," Erik commented and all the 'manly' men in the room agreed, though Poppy was starting to feel a growing sense of dread for the thoughts that were coming up next.
" Then she narrowed her eyes again, this time at him. It was bad enough to be small, slight, and curly-haired-to look, in fact, as much like an elf as anything she'd ever seen sitting on a buttercup in a children's picture book-"
"A very cute children's picture book elf," teased James.
"I think you look more like a pixie," added Mare.
"But to have a twin who was tall, Viking-blond, and classically handsome .. - well, that just showed a certain deliberate malice in the makeup of the universe, didn't it?"
All the girls with brothers nodded their head.
"Hello, Phillip," she said in a voice heavy with menace. Phillip, who was used to his sister's moods, was unimpressed. He lifted his gaze from the comic section of the L.A. Times for a moment. Poppy had to admit that he had nice eyes: questing green eyes with very dark lashes. They were the only thing the twins had in common."
"A good thing to I wouldn't want to have feelings for you and see you and your brother looking the same! It'd make me question my sexuality!" James laughed. As all the girls (but Keller and Jez-A/N can't see them doing that-) told Poppy she had very pretty eyes.
"Hi," Phillip said flatly, and went back to the comics. Not many kids Poppy knew read the newspaper, but that was Phil all over."
"Ugh, who reads the news paper?" Morgead asked disgustedly.
"I do," said -surprisingly -Ash.
" Like Poppy, he'd been a junior at El Camino High last year, and unlike Poppy, he'd made straight A's while starring on the football team, the hockey team, and the baseball team. Also serving as class president."
"Stuck-up know-it-all," grumbled Ash.
"Hay, I'm a know -it- all!" Mare said defensively.
"Yeah, but you're not stuck-up!" Mare smiled and gave Ash a kiss on the cheek.
"One of Poppy's greatest joys in life was teasing him. She thought he was too straitlaced. Just now she giggled and shrugged, giving up the menacing look.
"Where's Cliff and Mom?" Cliff Hilgard was their stepfather of three years and even traighter-laced than Phil.
"Cliff's at work. Mom's getting dressed. You'd better eat something or she'll get on your case."
"Yeah, yeah ..." Poppy went on tiptoe to rummage through a cupboard. Finding a box of Frosted Flakes, she thrust a hand in and delicately pulled out one flake. She ate it dry."
"The best way to eat it," David said knowledgably.
"It wasn't all bad being short and elfin. She did a few dance steps to the refrigerator, shaking the cereal box in rhythm.
"I'm a ... sex pixie!" she sang, giving it a footstomping rhythm."
"I'm sure James loves that!" Delos laughed with everyone else. He was still not up on the whole modern technology thing, but he did know what those words meant.
"No, you're not," Phillip said with devastating calm. "And why don't you put some clothes on?"
"Your brothers a stick-in-the-mud," Hannah said. "What?" Everyone was staring at her. Hannah wasn't a complete stick-in-the-mud but was stick-in the-mudish.
"Holding the refrigerator door open, Poppy looked down at herself. She was wearing the oversize T-shirt she'd slept in. It covered her like a minidress."
"That is clothes," said Mare and rolling her eyes with the rest of the room.
"This is clothes," she said serenely, taking a Diet Coke from the fridge.
Everyone laughed.
There was a knock at the kitchen door. Poppy saw who it was through the screen.
"Hi, James! C'mon in."
"Enter soulmate stage right," Quinn said as if giving stage directions.
James Rasmussen came in, taking off his wraparound Ray-Bans. Looking at him, Poppy felt a pang-as always.
"Ahh… The soulmate principle." Thierry sighed. But Poppy was just thinking how embarrassingly painful theses next couple Chapters where going to be.
"It didn't matter that she had seen him every day, practically, for the past ten years. She still felt a quick sharp throb in her chest, somewhere between sweetness and pain, when first confronted with him every morning.
It wasn't just his outlaw good looks, which always reminded her vaguely of James Dean. He had silky light brown hair, a subtle, intelligent face, and gray eyes that were alternately intense and cool. He was the handsomest boy at El Camino High, but that wasn't it, that wasn't what Poppy responded to.
It was something inside him, something mysterious and compelling and always just out of reach. It made her heart beat fast and her skin tingle."
"Poppy I hate to tell you this but… I'm a vampire," James in a mock serious voice. Poppy giggled and slapped him playfully on the arm.
"Phillip felt differently. As soon as James came in, he stiffened and his face went cold. Electric dislike flashed between the two boys."
"And the hate will grow stronger…" James muttered partially inaudible.
"What?" Asked Poppy.
"Nothing." Poppy didn't believe him, but continued reading anyway.
"Then James smiled faintly, as if Phillip's reaction amused him.
"Hi."
"Hi," Phil said, not thawing in the least. Poppy had the strong sense that he'd like to bundle her up and rush her out of the room."
"My brother was the opposite. He wanted to find me a boy friend! Not keep me away from them!" amre said with a slight tone a jealousy.
"Phillip always overdid the protective-brother bit when James was around. "So how's Jacklyn and Michaela?" he added nastily.
James considered. "Well, I don't really know."
"You don't know? Oh, yeah, you always drop your girlfriends just before summer vacation. Leaves you free to maneuver, right?"
"Of course," James said blandly. He smiled.
Phillip glared at him with unabashed hatred. Poppy, for her part, was seized by joy. Goodbye, Jacklyn; goodbye Michaela. Goodbye to Jacklyn's elegant long legs and Michaela's amazing pneumatic chest."
James tried and failed to hide his smile at Poppy's blush. Everyone else just laughed at Poppy's antics.
"This was going to be a wonderful summer. Many people thought Poppy and James's relationship platonic. This wasn't true. Poppy had known for years that she was going to marry him. It was one of her two great ambitions, the other being to see the world. She just hadn't gotten aroundto in forming James yet."
"That would have been nice," James said to Poppy while kissing her cheek.
"Right now he still thought he liked long-legged girls with salon fingernails and Italian pumps."
"I never cared for those," James murmured to Poppy who was beaming.
"Is that a new CD?" she said, to distract him from his stare out with his future brother-in-law.
More laughs rang across the room.
"James hefted it. "It's the new Ethno techno release."
Poppy cheered. "More Tuva throat singers-I can't wait. Let's go listen to it."
Poppy shrugged at the looks she was getting.
"But just then her mother walked in. Poppy's mother was cool, blond, and perfect, like an Alfred Hitchcock heroine. She normally wore an expression of effortless efficiency. Poppy, heading out of the kitchen, nearly ran into her."
"Sorry-morning!"
"Hold on a minute," Poppy's mother said, getting hold of Poppy by the back of her T-shirt. "Good morning, Phil; good morning, James," she added. "
"It seems she likes James," Rashle noted.
"Yep, she thought I was good influence on her," James laughed as Poppy stuck her young out at him.
"Phil said good morning and James nodded, ironically polite."
"How was it ironically polite?" James asked. Poppy just shrugged.
"Has everybody had breakfast?" Poppy's mother asked, and when the boys said they had, she looked at her daughter. "And what about you?" she asked, gazing into Poppy's face."
"Doesn't she trust you?" Mare questioned.
"She thinks I'm dead now," Poppy replied sadly. That's what your family would think to if things hadn't happened the way they did, thought Mare who was frowning. Ash knowing what she was thinking put an arm around her and held his M'lin close.
"Poppy rattled the Frosted Flakes box and her mother winced. "Why don't you at least put milk on them?"
"Better this way," Poppy said firmly, but when her mother gave her a little push toward the refrigerator, she went and got a quart carton of low fat milk.
"But Frosted Flakes are better that way," Maggie said questioning Poppy's mom's sanity.
"What are you planning to do with your first day of freedom?" her mother said, glancing from James to Poppy.
"Oh, I don't know." Poppy looked at James. "Listen to some music; maybe go up to the hills? Or drive to the beach?"
"Whatever you want," James said. "We've got all summer."
The summer stretched out in front of Poppy, hot and golden and resplendent. It smelled like pool chlorine and sea salt; it felt like warm grass under her back. Three whole months, she thought. That's forever. Three months is forever.
"Er… Not really and I'm speaking from personal experience," Quinn told Poppy slightly apologetic.
It was strange that she was actually thinking this when it happened.
"What happened?" Keller asked.
"If we read I'm sure will find out," Galen said gently.
"We could check out the new shops at the Village -" she was beginning, when suddenly the pain struck and her breath caught in her throat. It was bad-a deep, twisting burst of agony that made her double over. The milk carton flew from her fingers and everything went gray."
"That's it," Poppy said firmly. "Who wants to read next?"
"I will," Mare volunteered. Poppy handed the book to Mare, who snuggled into Ash and begain to read.
"Chapter Two…"
Please Review! I hope you liked it! I'll update soon!
-WritetoReading