The dog howled another time. Its cries seemed stronger. Was it howling at Valentine—or my own true love?
"Alexander—where are you?"
I remembered my parents were waiting for us at the Cricket Club. Alexander and I were supposed to return before the meals reached the table. We would have been back before the fish and chips arrived if I hadn't diverted us into the woods.
"Alexander!" I called again.
Then I realized if Valentine was here, my continued shouting was calling attention to my location.
I heard a fluttering in the trees above me. I could barely see what looked like two frightened squirrels racing up a branch, running away from a winged creature. It looked like a bird, but then the moonlight illuminated its small, mouselike face. This was no bird—it was a bat. It hovered in place intently, then headed straight for me.
I raised my arm to cover my face.
"Alexander!"
Nothing happened.
I opened my eyes and saw the creature fly overhead, through a break in the trees, into the night sky. Then it disappeared.
A hand fell hard on my shoulder.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. I turned around.
"I told you to stay outside on the sidewalk," my boyfriend scolded.
"Was that you?"
"Was what me?"
"That bat?"
"What bat?" Alexander plucked a few twigs out of my hair and shirt, which I now knew he could easily see in the dark, and grabbed my hand. "Let's get your brother," he instructed softly.
As Alexander led me back through the woods, I glanced up at the moon, wondering what, or maybe who, I'd just seen.
4 Library from Hell
Dullsville's library was a freestanding two-story brick building with white colonial columns, built in the late nineteenth century.
My favorite memories of visiting the library were during Halloween. The librarians did their best to make it scary and fun. They'd decorate the shelves with cobwebs, dangle plastic spiders from computers, and place "terrorific" authors like Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen King, and Mary Shelley on display. I'd be greeted at the door by a witch and later check out a book from a werewolf.
However, today wasn't Halloween and I was going to be checking out more than literature. Alexander and I breezed through the automatic doors and past the "Used Books" drop box, the table of upcoming events, a cart of returned books, and the circular information desk.
We cased every aisle to see if Valentine might be hiding behind one. The library was empty of its regular and visiting readers, but a few Math Club family members were biding their time surfing the Internet. Alexander and I searched the fiction aisles and then wandered through the DVD and CD section. A few siblings were hanging out in the teen section. Valentine wasn't around, and neither was Billy Boy.
A young woman with a checkered sweater and jeans was restocking books. "May I help you?" she inquired.
"Can you tell me where the Math Club is having their party?" I asked.
She pointed to the stairwell and adjacent elevator. "Lower level, behind children's literature, in the conference room."
As Alexander and I descended the aging staircase, I could smell the strange scent of old books combined with the intoxicating scent of cheese pizza.
When we reached the bottom, we saw a fountain with rocks running along the back wall. It held some hefty goldfish, and gold and silver coins lay at the bottom like sunken treasures. A woman was sitting with her child as the little girl innocently tried to pet the yellow swimmers.
"My mom brought me here when I was little. She used to give me a penny to throw into the fountain," I shared with Alexander as we walked past a round child-sized table riddled with picture books. "My wish was always the same. That I'd become a vampire." I gazed into his eyes. "Maybe that wish can finally come true."
Instead of answering, Alexander led me toward the conference room.
We walked by shelves of picture books, tables of computers, and posters of the Cat in the Hat, Curious George, and Babar. The normally quiet library was filled with the sounds of kids talking and laughing.
We finally reached the doors of the conference room. A long rectangular table was covered with pizza, popcorn, chips, and all the soda a preteen's bladder could hold.
A middle-aged man, who looked more like a football coach than a librarian in his sweatshirt and jeans, was at the head of the room, pulling a movie screen down over the blackboard.
About twenty kids in all were having a blast, hanging out on the weathered brown carpeting, lounging in beanbag and folding chairs, playing with MP3 players or Gameboys, and munching on snacks.
Stationed at the doorway, I quickly scanned the room, searching for any white-haired preteen. I breathed a sigh of relief when I didn't see Valentine. But I did see something I never thought I'd witness—my pesky sibling entertaining a small group of students who had gathered on the floor around him, cracking up like he was a nerdy Chris Rock.
I was stunned. I'd always called Billy "Nerd Boy" for a reason, but now he was shining in a way I'd never seen before. I realized the scrawny little brother that I'd always picked on my whole life had something I didn't have—a club of peers that he related to and who looked up to him as if he were a king.
I hated to admit it, but I felt a tinge of pride and a tiny bit of jealousy. My puny little brother was lucky to have a group to belong to—something I had never had. There was Chess Club, French Club, but never the Goth Club. I imagined a preteen roomful of students like Alexander and myself, eating gummy worms, reading Bram Stoker's Dracula, and watching Queen of the Damned.
Suddenly the laughter stopped, and the students glared at us, like we were the nerdy ones.
Billy Boy turned around. "What are you doing here?" he asked, joining Alexander and me by the door. "Is something wrong?"
"Have you seen that pasty kid with black fingernails that you promised to show Henry's treehouse to?"
"No. I told him we had Math Club tonight, so we agreed to meet at Henry's tomorrow at sunset. He eats dinner late," Billy Boy explained. "I thought maybe he might meet us here, but I haven't seen him. Why?"
"Never mind…Mom and Dad are waiting for us at the Cricket Club. We want you to come over."
"The Cricket Club," he said enthusiastically. "But I've already eaten."
"It doesn't matter; you can get dessert."
"But Star Wars is about to start. And I promised I'd go home with Henry."
Billy Boy was at the age where he preferred the company of his friends to his family. I nearly felt torn insisting my brother join us when he was having such a great time at the party, but I didn't have a choice. Valentine might be lurking in the Dead Tree Forest—or anywhere in Dullsville, for that matter.
"We'll bring Henry with us," I said sternly.
The preteen techno wizard then sauntered over. "Hi, guys. Have you come to watch the movie?"
"No, we've come to take you and my brother to dinner. We have to hurry; Mom and Dad are waiting."
The librarian came over. His generous smile couldn't mask his concern that my brother was talking to a dark stranger.
"This is my sister—and her boyfriend." Billy Boy introduced us with a hint of pride.
"We are just about to start the movie," the book man began. "You are welcome to stay."
"Henry and I will have to take a rain check," Billy Boy replied. "We have a match at the Cricket Club."
Back at the restaurant, Alexander placed his hand on my knee in between bites of his "bloody" steak. The Mitchells continued to eyeball us as Billy Boy and Henry took over the conversation, talking about computer math and the strange boy they met a few days ago at the library.