Fat Vampire Value Meal (Books 1-4 in the series) by Johnny B. Truant Page B

sometimes gets her.”  
    “It’s just the two of you?”  
    Claire nodded.  
    “Do you ever do anything together? Like, hang out?” Reginald, whose own mother was perhaps too attentive, admitted to himself that he might not have an objective frame of reference, but it seemed like all Claire’s mom did was to work and sleep. Without any father, siblings, or other family, he could imagine Claire spending hour after hour after hour alone in the ramshackle house. Watching True Blood.
    “We had a party for my birthday,” she said. “And we always eat dinner together if she’s home.”  
    This was too depressing. He opted to change the subject.
    “When do you sleep?” he asked her, gesturing at the encompassing night with his eyes. Then he smirked at her. “Are you a vampire?”  
    “I got up just for you, Reginald. I’d normally sleep now, like a normal girl.”  
    “C’mon. Let me see your fangs.”  
    “I don’t have fangs.” She giggled like a little girl, because she was one despite her resilient exterior. It was perhaps the first sheen of youth he’d seen from her, he realized. The thought made him sad.  
    “I’d like to, though,” she said.  
    Reginald shook his head, not understanding.  
    “I’d like to be a vampire. Tell me… how does it happen? How do you get turned?”  
    “You wouldn’t want to be a vampire,” he said, thinking of how everywhere you went, a group in power was telling you that you weren’t good enough. At least humans had daytime to spread their intolerance around in.  
    “I would, though,” she said. “I’d be a good hunter. How is it done, Reginald?”
    He shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know.” And he told her the story of how he’d been turned, exactly a week ago now.  
    “And now Maurice, my friend… my ‘maker,’ I guess is the word you’d know… he’s in trouble for turning me. And I’m… well…”
    “You’re what?”
    He sighed. “I’m a fat vampire.”  
    “So what?”  
    “I’m slow. I’m weak. I didn’t know in advance, and didn’t prepare.” Then, because he knew the sorts of things she’d say if he paused there, added playfully, “What about you, Claire? Have you done your training? Have you been hitting the weights? Make a muscle. Show me.”  
    She curled her biceps into an invisible peak. Reginald made impressed noises.  
    After a few minutes of silence, she looked him in the eyes. Reginald realized he could easily glamour her, but he no longer wanted to.  
    “I’d like you to turn me,” she said. “Not now, obviously. You’ll need to figure out how it’s done for sure, but then I want in.”  
    “You want in ?”
    “I spend all day in a stupid school that I hate and then I come home and spend nights either literally alone or pretty much alone here, watching TV. This neighborhood isn’t great. Sometimes there are shots outside at night. I’m little for my age. I get picked on.”
    Reginald thought of how easily she’d bested him on the night they’d met, how she’d spun out of his grip as if his hands had been greased. He thought she must do okay, but Reginald knew what it was to be picked on — how it dug into your spirit like talons — and said nothing.
    “If I were a vampire,” she said, “I’d be on top. I wouldn’t just hang out here alone. I could go out at night. I wouldn’t have to be afraid of anything.”  
    Then she looked right at him, waiting.  
    “You’re serious.”  
    “Yes. Can you find out how it’s done?”  
    “I can’t do that, Claire. Even if I wanted to.” And he explained about the training, about the reason that the only vampires anyone ever heard of were fit and thin and strong and fast and attractive. “Besides, he said, you’d never grow up. It’s bad enough to know I can never lose weight, but to know you’d be a kid forever? It gets better as you grow up, Claire. Not always a lot better, but for now, you just have to put in your time.”