Moss - Blood Diaries: Tales of a 6th-Grade Vampire: Tales of a 6 th-Grade Vampire

PUBLISHERS NOTE: THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION. NAMES, CHARACTERS, PLACES, AND INCIDENTS ARE EITHER THE PRODUCT OF THE AUTHORS FEVERED IMAGINATION OR ARE USED FICTITIOUSLY, AND ANY RESEMBLANCE TO ACTUAL PERSONS, LIVING, DEAD, OR UNDEAD, BUSINESS ESTABLISHMENTS, EVENTS, OR LOCALES, IS ENTIRELY COINCIDENTAL. NO ZOMBIES WERE HARMED IN MAKING THIS BOOK, THOUGH THE AUTHOR WAS TEMPTED.

LIBRARY OF CONFRESS CATALOG NUMBER 2013038641

TEXT AND ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT 2014 MARISSA MOSS

BOOK DESIGN BY SIMON STAHL

FONTS BY BRADLEY NELSON, RICH GAST, AND RAY LARABIE

PUBLISHED IN 2014 BY CRESTON BOOKS IN BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PORTION OF THIS BOOK MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, OR TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, MECHANICAL, ELECTRONIC, PHOTOCOPYING, RECORDING, OR OTHERWISE, WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHER. CRESTON BOOKS IS A REGISTERED TRADEMARK.

ISBN: 9781939547415

1 2 3 4 5 666 4 8 9 10

TO KRISTEN, WHO KNOWS WHAT ITS LIKE TO LIVE IN TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS, WELCOME TO THE VAMPIRE CLAN!

Contents

Table of Contents

January 1

My name is Edgar and Im a vampire. Kidding! I just have very sharp teeth. No, thats not true. Well, it is true, I do have sharp teeth. But thats because I AM a vampire. Really. Only the thing is, its a secret.

Obviously my family knows. Theyre all vampires, too Mom, Dad, Grandmother, Grandfather, Granny, Gramps, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, great-great-great-grandparents (you get the idea), all my aunts and uncles and cousins. But the kids at school dont know. And according to my parents, they cant know, not ever.

Ive heard this lecture for as long as I can remember.

If a mortal discovers our true nature, there will be a vicious mob at our doors, armed with stakes and torches. Its happened before and it can happen again. A couple of centuries ago, Cousin Julius bit a dog in the park the stupid fool couldnt wait until dark. He was too hungry, and the dog smelled delicious, like the kind you would slurp up slathered with onions and relish.

A man strolling by saw Julius with fangs bared and raised such a ruckus, you wouldnt believe! Julius flew home, but it was too late, word was out.

When it was over, all that was left of Julius was a pile of garlic-covered ashes.

Grandfather always leans forward and stares at me with his glittering cold eyes whenever he comes to the end of the story.

And thats why, he grills the moral into me, thats why we may walk among mortals, but we can NEVER trust them. Theyre never our friends!

The reason Im writing this stuff down, the reason Im keeping a diary, which is kind of a human thing to do, is because of my other grandfather, the one I call Gramps.

Hes the one who gave me this book for Winter Solstice. Of course, we dont celebrate Christmas. Everyone knows what happens when vampires get near a crucifix.

And we dont care what anyone says, its still a Christian holiday, no matter how commercial its become. Take away the ribbons, wrapping paper, tree, lights, ornaments, and its one big birthday party for Unmentionable. So naturally we avoid it as much as we can. Used to be thats when vampires would go on holiday, touring bat caves and taking long night hikes, but now that were trying to blend in, to be more human-like, we have our own shadow holiday of Winter Solstice.

Plus a lot of vampire kids were feeling left out, like the whole world was having a party except us. Mom and dad vampires worried that their kids would start celebrating Christmas on the sly, making friends with humans so they could help decorate a tree. To lure kids back to the purity of vampire ways, we came up with our own holiday, no fancy lights or ornaments involved.

Instead we get together for a big blood feast, our one time a year when we can drink fresh blood. Not from humans, of course, that hasnt been allowed since the Edict of 1922. Now we rely on blood banks for human blood, which is still pretty tasty even if its been frozen or freeze-dried. Im not keen on canned blood (that icky metallic aftertaste), but the fresh-from-concentrate (meaning not really fresh at all) is not bad.

For truly fresh blood, though, we can only bite animals, and even that only on special holidays, like Solstice. We gather a big herd of goats, sheep, cows, pigs, maybe a turkey or two. Kind of like the festival of Eid al-Adha in Islam, where every household sacrifices a cow, camel, sheep, or goat in remembrance of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac, but in the end killing a goat instead.

Me, Im partial to pigs. Ill take a fat, juicy hog over a stringy, tough goat any day. And Im not a big fan of camel meat, either. Too lumpy.

Lucky for me, this year was a really good year for pigs. There were plenty of them, so I didnt have to fight off any of my cousins to get one. I got a nice pink piglet all to myself!

And this diary. Giving presents is another human thing, something vampires dont usually do. But like Gramps says, we want to fit in better with humans, camouflaged in a way, so acting a little human is a good idea. Besides this isnt really a present its a job, a kind of assignment.

This is what Gramps said:

Edgar, this is a serious task I ask of you! Vampire life is changing so quickly that we need someone young like you to write it all down, to explain it, so future vampires will understand how and why weve adapted to living with humans.

When I was first a vampire, we bit people and suffered horribly for that. We lived far from cities, in vast, dusty castles. Now we travel freely among humans and blend in so well, they dont know who we really are.

Gramps says Im part of a new generation of vampires, one growing up with people, even going to school with them, seeing up close how humans work (and dont). But Im not a historian. Im a kid whos also a vampire. Or a vampire whos also a kid. He says that doesnt matter. If I write down my life and what I know about being a vampire today, Ill be doing an important job.