Fangs for Nothing (Vampire Hunting and Other Foolish Endeavors) Read Online Free Page A

what I told her.
    Xan-Z-Bar:   Besides, you’ll see her tomorrow at work.
    This wa s the way our conversations usually went via IM. Xander and Rini rarely IMed each other directly, that I knew about, but that probably had something to do with my secret crush suspicions. They preferred to both badger me for attention, but only if they believed I was favoring the other person. Hey, at least it’s nice to be wanted. Now, if I could only transform my powers into something that attracted girls. I mean, girls that weren’t Rini.
    *****
    I had rinsed the egged part of my jacket in the bathroom and hung it in my closet with a towel on the floor beneath it in case it dripped. I didn’t want to have to explain to Grandma that I’d been egged right in front of our house. That would really send her on a major tirade about “kids today” and I just wasn’t in the mood.
    My grandmother once told me that back when she was a kid, everyone went downtown to do their shopping. There weren’t any malls in the suburbs, and there weren’t any national chain stores. Cleveland had a couple big department stores called Halle Brothers and Higbees. These stores had stuff made especially for them from all over the world. A bunch of my vintage ties have labels that say things like, “Made in Florence, Italy, especially for the Halle Brothers of Cleveland, Ohio.” And I guess there were department stores like this all over the country. So if you went shopping in Atlanta, you’d find completely different stuff than you’d find shopping in Chicago. To me, that sounds totally cool. It would be so much more interesting traveling in America if there wasn’t a Gap at the corner of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco exactly like the Gap at Terminal Tower in downtown Cleveland. And don’t even get me started on chain restaurants. Bluk.

Chapter 3
     
    “Herbert, wake up.” Grandma pulled open the curtains to both my bedroom windows, and the light of early morning came flooding in.
    “Gah ,” was all I could manage while quickly burrowing my face under my pillow so my retinas wouldn’t be burnt to a crisp.
    “Stop being so dramatic,” Grandma said in her most we-need-to-make-something-of-this-day voice. “I need you to take me to the market.”
    “Buufff,” I groaned, knotting my body into a ball of protest.
    “ None of that.” Grandma grabbed the sheet that I had twined around my legs and started yanking on it. “Come on, now. You know I like to get there early.”
    “Al l right, Grandma. Fine. I’ll get up. Just give me a minute,” I groused.
    “Thank you, Herbie,” Grandma cooed. “I’ll go fix you some breakfast.”
    Sighing, I hauled my carcass out of bed. When Grandma said she wanted to go to the market, she didn’t mean just the local grocery store. She meant the West Side Market in Ohio City. It’s this massive building that looks more like a place where they used to house zeppelins than a place to haggle over the price of a kumquat. The main reason Grandma liked going there was to harass the vendors. She would tangle with anyone from the butcher over the accuracy of his scales to the vegetable stand clerk about the freshness of his bell peppers. Rather than ordering a dozen Catawba peaches and having the clerk throw them in a bag, she insisted on inspecting each and every piece of fruit. “If you don’t check, they’ll give you the old stock with a few good ones on the top,” she insisted. After two solid hours of kung fu fighting her way through the market, putting the screws to everyone in a white apron and paper hat, Grandma was always in a terribly good mood for the rest of the day. My job was to drive the car, carry the purchases, and make sympathetic eyes at the vendors, sometimes mouthing the word sorry if Grandma was excessively vigorous in her quest for the highest quality at the lowest price.
    I slouched out of my room, yawning and starting to perk up as I detected the smell of sausage in the air. Why was