TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 12 p.m.

Breakfast Bites

So I wake up this morning bright and early, throw on a black crocheted sweater and a short black skirt. I roll on my fishnet tights and lace up my combat boots. Then I head to my bathroom for my morning makeup routine. It takes a lot of time to become "me" in the a.m. But it's worth it.

Sunny, whose idea of morning preparation involves slipping on a T-shirt and jeans and running a comb through her hair, is already downstairs, dressed and picking at some G.o.dawful concoction my mom whipped up. Mom makes very interesting breakfasts with the food she buys at the co-op and we're her guinea pigs. When Sunny had been turning vampire, Mom experimented with this garlic breakfast scramble. The smell alone sent Sunny scrambling to the bathroom to retch her guts out. She claims that was just because of her burgeoning aversion to garlic, but honestly it could have just been the recipe and Mom's attempt to cook.

"So what's the special of the morning?" I ask, sliding into my chair. I'm famished. Nothing she can possibly come up with will make me lose my appet.i.te today.

"Well, it doesn't really have an official name," Mom says, dishing some of the unidentified mush from the frying pan onto a plate. "But the cook at the commune used to refer to it as hippie hash."

Then again, maybe I'll skip first period and hit Dunkin' Donuts on the way to school.

"So how'd your date go?" I ask, trying not to wrinkle my nose as she puts the foul smelling scramble in front of me.

She sets another plate in front of her own spot and sits down between Sunny and me. I glance over at my sister and notice that while the food is being moved around her plate, it's not going into her mouth.

"Great," Mom says, her eyes shining. "We went out to the nicest restaurant. Of course, it was a steak house. He's evidently a big steak eater. Says he loves them really rare."

I try to catch Sunny's eyes. See? Rare steak. The only thing vampires enjoy eating, as it's so b.l.o.o.d.y. "He took you to a steak house?" I ask. Mom's a strict vegetarian, of course. Poor woman. "Didn't you tell him you don't eat meat? That you belong to PETA? That you think the chemicals found in cattle are mind-controlling hormones injected by the government to sedate the human race while big business goes around and trashes our world?"

"It's okay," Mom says, of course completely excusing her date's major faux pas. "I just had a potato and vegetables. It was very good."

Wow. Mom must really have a thing for this guy. She would never go to a slaughter house with just anyone. It's going to be sad to disappoint her. Not that she'll be disappointed when she finds out he's a thousand years old and undead. Oh, well.

"Then what did you do?"

"He took me out to this elegant club where they had an old-fashioned band and dancing. He waltzes like a dream."

Hm. Probably 'cause he was around when they invented the dance and has had a thousand years of practice.

"But you hate waltzing. And cla.s.sical music. In fact, isn't your saying, 'If it's not Jefferson Airplane, it's c.r.a.p'?"

She narrows her eyes. "Rayne, I'm an adult with a wide variety of interests. I had a good time. Don't spoil it because you feel uncomfortable I went on a date."

Sigh. Here she goes. Her voice sounds all tight. I knew she'd jump to that conclusion.

"I'm fine with you having a date. I just want to make sure he's treating you right." And doesn't spend his days sleeping in a coffin. . . .

"Well, you don't have to worry. He's the perfect gentleman. You'll see, tonight."

"Tonight?" Sunny's eyes and my eyes meet across the table. I'm sure mine are as wide as hers.

Mom laughs. "Yes, tonight. I invited him over for dinner. I promised I could cook him a tofu steak that's just as delicious as one made from the slaughter of innocent animals."

Wow. I bet the vamp is really looking forward to that! But tonight! That doesn't give Sunny and me any time to plan.

Unless . . .

I break out into a coughing fit.

"Oh, man," I say between chokes. "I've had this horrible cough. Just horrible. And I don't feel very well either."

"But you were just-?" Sunny starts in. I kick her under the table. Hard. Her eyes light up. And her coughs start coming.

My mom looks from one hacking daughter to the other. "Are you two okay?" she asks. "It's not the hash, is it?"

It probably would be the hash if either of us had actually shoveled any of it into our mouths, which in hindsight may have made the sickness a tad more authentic, but too late now.

"No. It's just, I think I'm coming down with something."

"Maybe you should stay home from school," Mom says, looking worried. "Neither of you sound too good."

"No, I want to go to school," I say, pausing to slump in my chair and close my eyes. "I really hate missing school."

"If you're sick, you need to stay home," Mom commands, reaching over to feel my forehead with the back of her hand. "You feel warm, Rayne." It's amazing what the power of suggestion can do to a parent. "You, too, Sunny," she says, switching to my twin.

"But I love school, Mom," Sunny whines. Gah! Overkill, much? I kick her under the table again. For someone starring in the school play, she's not much of an actress.

"Mom's right, Sun," I interject, to stop her performance. "If we go to school, it might get worse. We could be contagious even. One day of rest now can save us from a weeklong absence down the road."

Mom takes a bite of her hash and nods. "Unfortunately, I can't stay home to take care of you guys," she says, as if that would be something either of us would want. "I've got to get to work."

"It's okay, Mom," I say, patting her on the arm. "We'll probably be sleeping most of the day anyway."

"I hope so." She rises from her seat, kisses both of us on the tops of our heads, and brings her mostly untouched plate over to the sink. Evidently this time even she didn't like her recipe, not that she'd ever admit that to us. "There's OJ in the fridge and some veggie burgers in the freezer if you get hungry later."

"Thanks, Mom."

"Do you think I should cancel having my friend come over?" she asks, sc.r.a.ping her leftovers into the compost bin. "I mean, if you two are sick ..."

"No, no," Sunny says, before I can kick her a third time. "We'll feel better by then, I'm sure."

Great. Way to buy us more time, Sun.

"Okay. Well, you let me know," Mom says, sounding relieved. "Call me at work if you take a turn for the worse and would rather just lay low."

So she goes to work and now Sunny and I are home alone. Sunny rinses our breakfast plates and I run up to my room for my secret stash of strawberry Pop-Tarts. After toasting, we rendezvous in the living room, me on the couch, Sunny on the lounger.

"So what are we going to do?" my sister asks, mouth full of Pop-Tart. "He's coming over tonight. That doesn't give us much time." "Right." I break my pastry in half, licking the strawberry filling. "What about calling Magnus? Certainly he could recognize a fellow vamp."

"Yeah, but it's daytime. He won't be up and about 'til well after dinner."

"Oh, yeah. Duh." I smack myself on the forehead. That was stupid.

"What about you?" Sunny asks. "Aren't you the knower of all things vamp? The proud graduate of Vampire School? Won't you be able to tell on sight whether the guy sleeps in a coffin or not?"

I shrug. "Not necessarily. A vampire can cast what's called a 'glamour' on themselves to make them look human if they need to. That's how they can walk among us and no one's the wiser. And I doubt the guy's going to show up to dinner sporting his fangs."

"Great." Sunny sighs.

"What are we going to do then?" "What about that movie you were talking about again? The Lost Boys?"

"Yeah. We could rent that "

"No time. Netflix takes at least a day to deliver."

Sunny laughs. "You ever hear of a video store, Rayne?"

D'oh. "Oh. Right. Forgot about those." Stores that you can go into and rent DVDs instead of having them mailed to your door. How cute and retro. "Do they still exist?"

"I think there's a Blockbuster downtown."

"Okay, cool." I pull my feet out from under me. "So you go run to the Blockbuster and rent every vampire movie you can find. I'll go on the Internet and research what I can from here."

"It's a plan."

It wasn't exactly a plan, but it was a start. Operation Date with Dracula was on.

POSTED BY RAYNE MCDONALD @ 12 P.M.

THREE COMMENTS:

CTU-in-TrainingGrrl says . . .

Wait-you mean Jack Bauer was in movies before he became a CTU agent? Vampire movies? Whoa. I've got to update my Netflix queue ASAP!!

StarrMoonUnit says . . .

Can you post the recipe for hippie hash? That sounds de-lish! I mean, I've had hippie brownies before and mmmmm. . ..

Rayne says . . .

Hey, CTU girl, you are aware that 24 is just a TV show, right? I mean, it's not even a reality one. It's got, like, a script. Jack Bauer is some dude named Kiefer Sutherland and evidently he's been in a billion movies and even dated Julia Roberts back in the day.

Sorry to disappoint.

And P.S., StarrMoonUnit? Hate to disappoint you as well, but there's actually no hash in the hippie hash. . . .

14

TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 10 P.M.

The Not-So-Lost Girls

The doorbell rings at six o'clock and Sunny and I are ready. In fact, if Dracula himself were to bust through the door, I think we'd actually have a chance of defeating the guy.

First up, we're both wearing necklaces made out of garlic under our hoodies. We've got holy water (which we snuck in and "borrowed" from St. Patrick's Church down the road) locked and loaded into our Super Soaker Triple Shot water guns. I'm wearing rosary beads and Sunny's got on her cross necklace. In short, together we're every vampire's worst nightmare.

"Can you get the door?" Mom asks from the kitchen. While we've been preparing, she's been running around trying to get the meal together. I felt bad not helping her, but we had too much to do on our end. I did agree to stir the vegan marinade (not sure why tofu needs to be marinated, but whatever) while Mom went upstairs to change. That gave me a chance to add a few cloves of garlic to the mix.

"Girls?"

"I'll get it, Mom." Sunny jumps up, ready to oblige with the door opening.

"Wait!" I cry. "Didn't The Lost Boys teach you anything?" According to the movie, the boys' plan to determine whether their mom's BF was a vamp was foiled because they invited him into the house. Evidently if you let a vampire in, you're powerless against him. "We must learn from the lessons the bad eighties movies teach us."

"Uh, right," Sunny says, sitting back down. The doorbell rings again. She picks up the DVD case and skims the back.

"Though did you really think it was that bad? I thought it held up kind of well, considering it was made, like, twenty years ago."

"Sunny! Rayne! Answer the door!" Hm. Mom's not sounding as sweet and patient anymore.

Sunny sets down the case. "Anyway, what if Mom lets him in? Does that mean the house is still safe for him? That anything we do won't work?"

I scratch my head. "I don't know. The movie never addressed that possibility. Maybe we should go to the door and refuse him entrance. Just to make sure. Then if Mom lets him in, she'll be the only one rendered powerless."

"Good idea."

We jump up from our seats and rush to the door. We stare at it for a moment, then at each other, both wondering what we would find on the other side. Would he be elegant and poised? Would he try to hypnotize us with mesmerizing eyes? What if he had one of the hounds of h.e.l.l with him, like the boyfriend in the movie, ready to attack? Or maybe he'd be full-on vamped already, having decided to skip dinner and go right for our necks ... as dessert.

You never knew with an evil vampire, now did you?