Venice Beach Hall = freakshow
If Jewel had been dreaming, she’d awakened
to a nightmare.
Her half-siblings practically ruled the
school and the whole place seemed to be filled with more than the usual amount
of miserable looking teens wearing dark clothing.
Jewel went to the office to sign in.
“You’re looking very cheery today,” the
office manager, Mrs Parks, noted. She even wrote it on Jewel’s form next to her
name, age and other details; smiles a lot.
“I’ve allocated you a home room,” Mrs Parks
said. “I think you’ll enjoy the company. We have two new boys today – both of
them total hotties if you don’t mind me saying so.”
Jewel didn’t.
She slunk into her seat in the back row of
home room and pulled out her copy of Bram
Stoker’s Dracula. She figured she should do some research and she may as
well start at the beginning then work her way up to Twilight. Jewel was
comfortable in her seat surrounded by a small selection of dozing teen vampires
(some curled up in the rafters, others slumped on chairs and tables) and a few
other ‘normals’ like her. Some of the vamps had notes from home giving them
permission to sleep most of the day. It was discriminatory to apply normal
rules to the nocturnal. The nocturnals collected their class work at the end of
the day and simply worked through the night and delivered it to their teachers
the next morning.
There were also kids at Venice Beach Hall
who were trapped in the school district and couldn’t transfer out of VBH for
fear of being branded ‘discriminators.’ As long as you had type O generic (safe
blood) and resided in the district, you were required to attend Venice Beach
Hall. It was deemed perfectly sound. As Miranda told Jewel, “don’t worry dear,
no one would dream of biting you there. Your blood is hardly sweet
enough.”
VBH wasn’t so bad, although the décor was
more like Dracula’s castle. The cafeteria gave a choice of real food as well as
various blood snacks. They were supposedly made with animal blood but it still
grossed the average humans out.
Jewel had her head immersed in Dracula when she walked straight into
Riff Martin in the lunch queue. Riff was the new boy. At first she thought he
was a vamp because he wore black and had dark circles under his eyes. After
Jewel knew him better, she realized he stayed up all night mixing music. Riff
was kind of tall and skinny which made him appear quite hungry.
Jewel jumped when he said “hi.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m not gonna bite
you. I just… moved here with my aunt. She’s the guidance counselor but don’t
tell anyone. She said she’s never been so busy – already. Vamps have a lot of issues.
I didn’t think this place would be so… creepy,” he said as an afterthought. Then
he smiled politely.
“Right, sure, well, it is,” Jewel said.
The last time a hot boy spoke to her, at
her previous high school, Jewel had made the mistake of going out with him. The
next day at school the rumor went around that Jewel had tried to bite him. It
was so untrue, but students had heard her stepsisters were vampires and bullied
Jewel accordingly. Perhaps it would be better here, Jewel thought.
“So, you take music?” Riff asked.
“Oh, yeah.” Jewel was carrying her music
notes and Riff was holding his guitar. He wanted to ask more but he had to be
at practice.
“Well, I gotta go. See you in class then,”
he said, picking up a bottle of soda.
“Okay,” Jewel replied. Riff was kind of a
nerd by anyone’s standards but he was also warm, friendly and mysterious. Jewel
hoped she’d see him again.
The lunch room was crowded as Jewel took a
seat. Her stepsisters were gathered in a bunch gossiping about a new guy called
Marco. They waved her over but when Jewel moved towards them Charity mouthed,
“just kidding.”
Jewel shrugged. From where she was
seated, she could hear their conversation.
“He’s totally not normal. Have you seen
how hot he is?”
“Sure,” Vanity replied. “I think he’s a
vamp.”
“I don’t,” Charity said, “I saw him buy a
sandwich…”
“Yeah but did you see him digest it?”
“He’s so rad I don’t care. Either way, I’m
going to get with him at the party.”
And that’s how the conversation continued.
Jewel thought she’d spend lunch alone, and
pulled out Dracula again. She was up
to a very descriptive part when the boy in question, the topic of the day,
Marco De Marco, sat down opposite her. Everyone talked about how handsome and cute
Marco was and they weren’t kidding. Since the start of the new semester, he’d
been considered one of the hottest juniors ever. He had light brown hair
(Patience described it as ‘caramel’) and warm brown eyes. Girl vamps followed
him everywhere in groups, even the sleepwalking ones woke up and slumped along
to catch a glimpse of him in class. (On the other hand, Riff apparently flew
under the radar. Being supposedly ‘normal’ was less than appealing to the
majority at VBH).
Jewel continued to read; she was pretty shy
and hoped to just endure her first days at a new school by flying under the
radar.
She hadn’t counted on Huck and Ruby.
“Hey,” Huck said, “well look at you, another
normal.” He introduced himself, “My real name is Huckleberry,” (Ruby laughed)
but everyone calls me Huck, and this is Ruby.”
Jewel’s new friends were witty and smart,
making jokes over lunch about how they ended up at Venice Beach Hall (both
expelled from other schools for ‘anti-social’ behavior). Lunch flew by as they
spoke.
Meanwhile Jewel’s stepsisters, Patience, Vanity
and Charity, sat on the other side of the cafeteria discussing Marco De Marco
and various possible themes for their Masked Birthday Bash.
They came up with suggestions like: Vixens and Vampires, Secret Agents and Vampirical Assistants (but
argued about the fact that girls shouldn’t always be relegated to assistant
status) and finally settled on an Undercover
Sucker theme. All three girls wanted to go as various different Bond girl
vampires but they worried that gave the wrong impression.
“Perhaps it’s time we presented a more
academic image,” Patience suggested.
They thought about this for a moment. The
Minchin girls never studied and laughed at those who did.
“We’re so wealthy,” Vanity sniggered, “we’ve
had two whole centuries to consolidate the income from mom’s marriages. In any
case, we’ll never have to work at all now because mom has married one of the
richest men in Los Angeles.”
“I cannot wait to raid our step’s closet –
apparently she’s into vintage.”
By this time, Marco De Marco and his
friend Giovanni had left the cafeteria without looking up at Jewel or her new
friends.
Jewel was glad. She didn’t want to draw any
more attention to herself. It was bad enough that she was obviously a normal.
“Word on the street is that Marco is European.
Of course, there’s something exotic about him, but in a school full of freaks,
who’d notice?” Ruby whispered.
“Hey, we heard you’re related to the Minchin sisters.”
“Hey, we heard you’re related to the Minchin sisters.”
“Not by blood,” Jewel cringed.
“Lucky you,” Ruby said. “By the way, we’re
coming to your place on Saturday – big birthday party.”
Huck leaned in, “Well, we weren’t
technically invited, but we’ve decided to crash it anyway, since everyone’s
wearing masks and our blood doesn’t appeal!”
Jewel started to laugh. She’d forgotten
how it felt to have friends.
“Well, I’m inviting you – both of you.”
Suddenly Jewel didn’t care what her stepmother said, she knew she’d have to
fight back or risk being beaten into submission.
“Awesome,” Huck said. “We’ll come early. You
could use a stylist.”
