Team Human by Justine Larbalestier

ended. I leaned back against the kitchen counter, very close to tears. I blinked and dug my fingernails into my palm. I was not going to cry.
    â€œYou’ll come back to school, won’t you?” Cathy asked.
    â€œI—” Francis began.
    â€œYes, he will,” Camille interjected.
    I felt so betrayed. Camille was a creepy vampire, who had leaped upon us with a jugular-tearing glint in her eye, but at least she had seemed sensible. A sensible vampire cop who made tea!
    I guess she couldn’t take any more of the love ballads. But it seemed cruel to inflict Francis on us instead.
    â€œI will,” Francis said.
    â€œI’m glad,” Cathy murmured. She looked down at the floor and blushed.
    Francis took Cathy’s hands into his. They resumed gazing into each other’s eyes.
    â€œReally?” I said to Camille. “You want him to go back to school. Don’t you think that’s a bad idea?”
    â€œYes, Mom, I thought you wanted to, um”—Kit lowered his voice—“not encourage this madness. Your words, not mine.”
    â€œToo late now,” Camille said, waving in the direction of the lovebirds. “Besides, I think the human school has been good for Francis. It got him out of our hair.”
    â€œNo, it didn’t. He was away during the day, when you’re all resting.”
    â€œYes, but he rested more at night. Not to mention that it got him out of your hair, Kit. Don’t you enjoy him not following you about asking questions all day?”
    Kit, grabbing Cathy’s plate and their mugs, conceded that he did.
    I tried to intervene at this point. As an uninvited guest, I felt the least I could do was wash the dishes. But Kit had plenty of reach on me, and he held the plate well over my head as I followed him over to the sink. I watched him carefully and managed to seize the plate out of his hands as soon as it was clean. His wet fingers slid against mine as I grabbed at it, and he started and then looked at me, eyes shocked-wide and blue.
    He never had a chance of keeping his grip.
    I dried the plate and put it back in the cupboard, which was about the emptiest kitchen cupboard I’d ever seen. I guess they didn’t have many dinner parties, what with only one person in the house eating.
    â€œHasn’t he been unbearable since he was separated from ‘star-kissed Cathy’?” Camille continued from the table.
    â€œStar-kissed Cathy?”
    Kit grimaced. “The ballad.”
    â€œHe only recovered from his last broken heart a few decades ago. And that was the girl he loved before he turned. Romantics,” Camille said, able to convey her derision with the faintest movement of one eyebrow.
    Francis and Cathy seemed to have been rendered deaf by love.
    I realized Cathy was never going to say it, even though she was always the polite one, so I offered belatedly, “Sorry about the break-in.”
    â€œNot to worry,” Camille said, with another glance at the happy couple. “I can see that it wasn’t your idea.”
    â€œMom’s probably glad you broke in,” Kit said in a low voice, even though I was fairly certain Camille could still hear us. “She’s always going on about wanting me to hang out with other humans.”
    I laughed again, but it wasn’t even a good fake laugh. All I could think of to say was “Moms, huh? And their crazy mom insistence that you interact with your own species! By the way, how exactly is she your mom?”
    I didn’t say it.
    At least he did know he wasn’t a vampire. Phew.
    Kit could tell the laugh was fake. He did not beam. His eyebrow went up in a silent question as he washed Cathy’s teacup.
    I didn’t answer the question. I wasn’t the mystery here.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    Vampire Promenade
    â€œP ermit me to accompany you home,” Francis said.
    â€œWe’re cool,” I said.
    â€œYou’re so kind,” said