He produced his calculator from his backpack.
"Say you drink from someone once a week. Is that about right?"
"Yeah," said Doug.
"So if your first victim becomes a vampire, then in a week there are two vampires who need to feed. You and him."
"Me and her," Doug stressed.
"And then in two weeks there’s four vampires, and in three weeks eight, and on and on. So guess how many weeks it takes before everyone on Earth is a vampire."
"I dunno." Doug sighed. "Ten."
Jay frowned. "You don’t think that. You just guessed low so my answer won’t sound amazing."
"So what is it already?"
"It’s, like, thirty-four. Thirty-three and a half."
"That’s really amazing."
"Anyway," said Jay, sounding deflated, "it means there must be a way to just feed, like we thought. Maybe even a way to feed so the victim forgets, like some kind of vampire hypnosis, or else there’d be news reports of vampire attacks all the time."
"I don’t like that idea," said Doug. "Hypnosis. It’d be like slipping something in her drink."
"Well, what if the person…gave you permission?"
Doug covered his face. "We’ve been through this. I appreciate the offer, but it just seems…gay. I’d rather drink a little cow here and there and try to meet some girl who’s into it. Like this new girl. She’s pretty goth for an Indian."
"I’m not saying I want you to do it," said Jay. "It’s just…hard to see you hurting so much. You could just drink a little of my blood, just to see—"
"Uh-uh," said Mr. Gonzales as he loomed suddenly over their desks. "No inglés. En español, por favor."
Jay glanced in the teacher’s direction, then stared at his hands. "Um…Podría usted…beber un poco de mi…sangre? Es correcto? Sangre?"
"Sangre es ‘blood,’"
"Sí," said Jay. Doug pretended to read his book. Mr. Gonzales coughed.
"You’re supposed to be pretending to buy pineapples," he said.
12
Pack lunch
SEJAL CARRIED her lunch through the center aisle of the crowded cafeteria like a bride, aware of the careless stares of other students, the brush of their eyes on her skin — the designs that they left there, some pretty, some not. For the second time that day a boy asked in a loud stage whisper as she passed if Sejal had ever read the Kama Sutra. Maybe the same boy.
"Dude, I think she heard you!" said another. Laughter all around.
That’s what I get, she thought. It hadn’t been necessary to walk among them all like that. She could have skirted around the side, but she’d made the effort to be visible, to be an actual actor in the actual world. As if, as the new girl, she really needed to give them an excuse to stare.
She dipped her head, let her hair fall in front of her face.
She had to remind herself of one of the points her psychoanalyst was always trying to drive home: that the internet was less inviting, that it was even more critical. Her conspicuous stroll through the cafeteria of the internet would have started a flame war. Each nasty comment would burn like a match against her skin. How could she miss the warmth of all those matches?
She exited the cafeteria and walked toward a large tree in the center of the quad, drawn to a shining, friendly face like a smiley. A face that seemed just now to be lit with the divine light of the universe.
"There she is!" said Cat. Cat stood and invited Sejal to sit in the grass with a tight cluster of other kids.
"Hi," said a girl with long, slender arms. "I’m Ophelia. Cat’s probably told you about me."
Cat had, in fact. She’d given Sejal a rundown of a dozen different names, most of which were promptly forgotten. Sejal shook Ophelia’s hand, let her eyes linger over the soft brown feathers and long pink bangs of her hair. Sejal wanted this haircut.
"This is Troy and Abby and Sophie and Adam and Phil," Ophelia said, christening each with a flick of her wrist. They became more animated, as if made real by the gesture of Ophelia’s invisible wand.
"Where are you from again?" asked Sophie.
"Kolkata. In India."
"Ohh," said the girl with a sad tilt of her head.
It was a response Sejal would hear a lot in the following weeks and which she would eventually come to understand meant, "Ohh, India, that must be so hard for you, and I know because I read this book over the summer called The Fig Tree (which is actually set in Pakistan but I don’t realize there’s a difference) about a girl whose parents sell her to a sandal maker because everyone’s poor and they don’t care about girls there, and I bet that’s why you’re in our country even, and now everyone’s probably being mean to you just because of 9/11, but not me although I’ll still be watching you a little too closely on the bus later because what if you’re just here to kill Americans?" There was a lot of information encoded in that one vowel sound, so Sejal missed most of it at first.
"Christ, Sophie, my gyno is Indian," said Ophelia. "Just because she’s from the Third World doesn’t mean she eats bugs. No offense if you do, Sejal."
"’Felia, you can’t call them Third World anymore," said Troy. "It’s hurtful."
"Says who?"
"Mr. Franovich."
Ophelia farted through her teeth. "Franovich."
"What are we called, then?" asked Sejal.
"A Developing Nation."
"Ha!" said Ophelia. "Developing! Like they’re getting their boobies."
"Isn’t that one of your old dresses, Cat?" asked Abby, who was similarly attired.
"The airport lost my bag," said Sejal, "but Cat and I wear the same size."
"Really?"
"That’s sad," said Sophie. "About your bag. You probably had all kinds of beautiful kimonos or robes or whatever."
"Just one sari," said Sejal, "and a salwar kameez my mom made me pack. Mostly it was jeans and shirts."
"And your elephant god," Cat reminded her.
And that, Sejal thought with a guilty pang. The faces of the other kids had soured suddenly, as if they could taste her shame. But then someone new spoke up behind her.
"Wow, you smuggled Ganesha in your suitcase? Isn’t he pretty big?"
Sejal turned to see Doug and another boy from math class. She smiled.
"Not always. Sometimes he rides a mouse."
Doug sat, followed by the other boy, who pulled a book from his backpack and began to read.
"Hey, Meatball," said Cat. Doug returned the greeting and extended it to everyone else. The other kids responded with nods or leaden "heys" of their own.
"Meatball?" asked Sejal. It sounded like an insult, but nobody laughed, and Doug had taken it in stride.
"God, it’s like you know everything," Sophie half sneered at Doug. "Why do you know G’daysha?"
"Ganesha. I don’t know, from books. He’s…heh…he’s in this comic book called ‘The God Squad.’ You ever read that one, Adam?"
Adam started. His face contorted with hammy confusion as he muttered that he had no idea what Doug was talking about.
"You sure? They have a huge God Squad poster on the wall at Planet Comix."
Adam shrugged. "Whatever, Meatball. I don’t remember. I haven’t been there since junior high."
"Meatball?" Sejal said again.
"Yeah," Doug explained now. "People just — I’ve always been called Meatball. Since, like, the fourth grade. I can’t even remember how it started, anymore."