This Totally Bites! Read Online Free

— I glanced out the window at the Manhattan skyline. Though I loved the tall buildings and concrete sidewalks of New York City, I liked the idea of such a rural, quaint place … the place my ancestors had lived! Suddenly, I realized that Great-aunt Margohad given me a great starting point for my social studies project.
    Excited, I helped with the dishes and excused myself for the night. Then I headed into my room, grabbed my laptop, and sat cross-legged on my bed.
    I opened Google, then typed in the name of my family’s Romanian village, grateful for the
Did you mean?
feature after I’d misspelled it twice. Then I clicked on the Wikipedia page; it showed a pretty picture of the forests Great-aunt Margo had talked about, and gave the basic facts: population, map coordinates, and weather. Then, as I skimmed the page, I spotted a sentence that made my jaw drop.
    Located in the region once known as Transylvania, this small town is still home to many vampire legends.
    I sat back, my pulse racing.
Transylvania?
As in, Count Dracula territory? I had no idea that my family came from
there.
Intrigued, I started to read more, but then my IM pinged. It was Gabby.
    Bad news! she’d written. Dentist said I have to get braces!
    I was still preoccupied by the whole Transylvania thing, but I tried to turn my attention to my best friend.
    That totally bites! I typed back, hoping to make her smile.
    Her response popped up immediately: Am so not LOL-ing. Of course u can joke about it, Em. U have perfect teeth!
    I shook my head. Though my dentist had recently declared that I wouldn’t need braces (I’d celebrated with a candy feast that had resulted in three cavities), my teeth were
far
from perfect. I rose up on my knees so I was facing the mirror above my dresser, and I opened my mouth in an exaggerated smile. There they were, in the corners of my mouth — my super-embarrassing, super-pointy teeth. My dentist called them “incisors” and had even remarked that mine were sharper than most. I knew he was being nice by not calling them what they really were: fangs.
    I heard another
ping!
and glanced back at my computer.
    And ur “fangs” don’t count! Gabby had written.
    She seemed upset, so I decided to call her. We chatted for a while, discussing Great-aunt Margo(“definitely weird,” Gabby said), my dance vs. gala issue (“definitely dance,” Gabby declared), and braces (“get colored ones and make them a fashion statement,” I advised). By the time we said good-bye, it was late, so I finished the Edgar Allan Poe story I had to read for English, brushed my imperfect teeth, changed into my pj’s, and crawled into bed.
    But, of course, I couldn’t sleep.
    First, I flipped onto my side, then my belly, then my back. Passing headlights from cars threw strange shapes onto my ceiling. The falling raindrops sounded like fingertips tapping against my window-pane. I thought about Edgar Allan Poe, Halloween, Henry Green (for just a second), Great-aunt Margo, and the genealogy project. Then I remembered the Wikipedia page I’d stopped reading, and I sat up.
    Without turning on the light, I eased out of bed and walked over to my desk. Sinking into my chair, I opened my laptop, and went back to where I had left off:
    Located in the region once known as Transylvania, this small town is still home to many vampire legends. One such legend is about a certain breed of vampires who canshape-shift into bats, which then feast upon human and animal blood. In ancient times, villagers became so fearful that they hung knobs of garlic from their doorways, as it was said that the scent warded off the fanged creatures.
    BANG!
    The loud sound made me jump up so fast that I almost knocked over my chair. The bang hadn’t been a clap of thunder, or one of the many sirens I was used to hearing at all hours. It hadn’t even come from outside. It had come from right next door.
    From the guest room.
    Maybe Great-aunt Margo, like me, had trouble sleeping.