The Vampire Pirate's Daughter Read Online Free Page B

friends with her is going to make
me cross Andrew’s path daily and I was hoping to only look
longingly at him every now and again. Besides, Shayne and Amanda
have been nudging me toward Ethan for the last ten years. I do like
Ethan, but I would not want to literally spend eternity with
him.
    Andrew smiles when he sees Carmine and he
walks toward us. He looks at me and then smiles in greeting. He
tickles Carmine in her waist and laughs delighted when she shrieks
away from him.
    “Hi, Carmine,” he laughs.
    “Hey. You are here early today.”
    “Ya, we had cross-country training this
morning.”
    He punches her lightly on the arm. “You know
this, you goose.”
    I just stand there looking at them.
W hen he looks back at
me, I feel foolishly inhibited.
    We walk together to our registry class and
the rest of the morning drags by.
    During lunch break, I go to the office. The
smell of percolated coffee is overwhelming and fills the entire
administrative office. They decorated the entrance with modern
furniture and it looks like a picture in an interior design
magazine.
    I ask the receptionist behind the high
rosewood desk if she could give me details of the cross-country and
she smiles friendly while she opens one of her filing drawers and
takes out a stapled pack of papers.
    She hands them to me over the desk, while
smiling friendly. “There you go.”
    I say, “Thank you,” politely and then I walk
out the door and back into the sunshine, away from the air
conditioning. I do not get hot or cold, but I do sense a change in
weather and I can feel a difference in the air between warm or
chilly.
    I am not planning on stalking Andrew, by
enquiring about cross-country. I did have a real interest in
running. After all no one else could run long distance like I
could, and never get out of breath.
    Here students do not leave school at lunch
break and we have to spend break together. There is no cafeteria
where kids can go to sit down for lunch, but there is a tuck shop
where they can buy a warm lunch and then they all scatter
throughout the corridors and sports field – doing what they do in
their respective groups.
    I sit down in my usual corner and then I
page through the documents the receptionist gave me. Usually I
would read one of my books. I enjoyed reading and these days I
enjoyed reading the various vampire romance books, which were
dominating the bookshop shelves. I loved the idea that people
thought there was a possibility that someone like me could have a
relationship with a human boy. Never before have I had the
slightest inclination or attraction to a human boy, until the first
time I saw Andrew. He had some magnetic hold over me. Without
speaking to me, I knew I would delight in his touch. It should be
so simple - it always is in movies, but in movies, you cannot see
the conflicting emotions and pain.
    The bell rings and I automatically walk to my
next class. Carmine bounds toward me. “Where have you been? I was
looking all over for you.”
    Carmine smiles toward Andrew. “Susie cannot
come on Friday. Pity isn’t it.”
    I must be fooling myself, but I thought I
saw disappointment in his eyes. Yeah, right!
    In Business Studies, Mr. Williams tells us to
form groups of four. I see Carmine rush toward me and predictably,
Andrew and John come with her.
    Mr. Williams explains that he wants us to
work on a project about the impact the internet has had on the
world and the fact that the world has literally shrunk due to the
information now available at each person’s fingertips. He tells us
that we can start immediately and we drag our chairs across the
floor and the scarping noise is loud and irritating.
    Carmine, John, Andrew and I sit around the
table and Andrew is sitting across from me.
    I start the discussion, “I think that the
internet has not shrunken this country, because although the
population exceeds fifty million, only about ten percent have
access to the internet.”
    Andrew retaliates, “But they