Vampire Boys Of Summer (Completed!)

Episode 24: Miss Lazenby

Miss Lazenby, our teacher, stood at the front of the class facing us, her hands flat on the desk. Something wasn’t right about her this morning. On a normal day, she was all about posture; today she was slouching. Her makeup on most days was impeccable, making her appear much younger than her forty-something years, but today her makeup was nearly nonexistent, and it made her look like she had missed out on sleep for about a month. Her outfit was different, too. Normally, she dressed in what I would call casual formal, a long dress with a sweater slung over her shoulders, something she could wrap about herself to hide her figure. Today she didn’t care about her figure being hidden. She looked poured into her dress and the length of it was shorter than her normal attire. The boys enjoyed the new Miss Lazenby, but I found it plain weird.

“Today, class,” she intoned in a monosyllabic voice, “We are going to read in our books the chapter on Japanese expansion to the west after the arrival of Commodore Perry in 1853.” She flipped open her own book so hard it nearly flipped off her desk. “Please read silently at your desk the remainder of this class.” She then opened her purse and emptied the contents on the desktop. She grabbed a pill bottle from the pile and popped a couple in her mouth. She didn’t have any water so she just tilted her head back and swallowed. Then she removed a pair of sunglasses from the pile and put them on.

I looked over at Angela. Her mouth was wide open, like most of us in class, looking on the unbelievable scene. Our teacher, in the space of a day, now acted like a drunk or drug addict who had run out of money and was just trying to make it without going to rehab. I don’t think anyone suspected what I did, though. In my mind all I could wonder is which vampire had gotten to her last night.

“Well, that was like the strangest class ever,“ Angela said once we were out in the hall.

“Yeah.” I still wondered what had gotten into Miss Lazenby. She had all the earmarks of a vampire victim. Who had visited her, Haru or Ryo? I couldn’t see Chinatsu doing that, but if she too were a vampire, perhaps she had. Or maybe it was the creepy jigsaw man. I shuddered at that thought. He was downright terrifying if you asked me.

“Maybe she went bar hopping and got lucky last night,” Angela joked. We both knew that Lazenby was about as prim and proper as they come. A club was about the last place you’d see her. Angela must have been thinking the same thing because she launched into an excitable newsflash about Spiros, our local teen club. “You won’t believe who’s going to be DJ there this Saturday!” Before I could even answer she blurted it out. “Jonny Faze!”

Jonny Faze was a popular old school DJ and mixer out of New York. He grew up here and was the closest thing that Chelsea Valley had for a celebrity. The fact he was in his early twenties and was also an underwear model made him Angela’s number one choice of eye candy. We both knew him; his little brother went to Chelsea Valley High and was loosely acquainted with us. We didn’t hang out or anything, but we sometimes spoke in the hall, or he’d see us at lunch and throw stuff at us. He hadn’t quite gotten out of the pick-on-all-the-girls stage, but once he did, I’m sure he’d be a real cutie like his DJ brother.

“That’s a bummer,“ I said, as we moved down the hall toward our lockers.

“A bummer? No way! You know, I heard he has this new thing where he takes the record off one turntable, twirls it on the end of his finger, and then lets it drop on the other one before ripping his shirt off! It doesn’t get any better than that, girl!”

That would be a sight to see, I suppose, though I couldn’t even picture it. Instead, I was picturing the vampire Ryo ripping off his shirt, his abs tight as a brick, and his chest emblazoned with a sweaty “Loveless” tattoo. Why I thought of him instead of Haru, I hadn’t a clue. Maybe it was because of what Ryo had said about his cousin. It’s hard to get dreamy about someone who may have killed another dreamy eyed girl like me.

“I’m sorry Ang, you’ll have to go alone.”

“What? No way! This is going to be so wild! You can’t ditch me.”

“I’m going to go see my dad this weekend.”

Her face fell. “Oh.” She took a look around us to see if anyone had heard me. When she saw they hadn’t, she tried to give me a little reassuring smile. “Well, I hope he’s okay.”

“Yeah, me too.” There was an awkward silence between us for a moment. “Well, maybe if I get back in time I can come.”

“That would be great! You should go see your dad early. I’d hate for you to miss out on the party and have to see Jonny Faze on YouTube instead of in person. “

I smiled, but it was a little weak. I wasn’t thinking of Faze at all, but instead was wondering how vampires behaved on the dance floor.

My locker was at the end of the hall, close to the stairwell that led either up to the second floor or down to the boiler room. Angela’s wasn’t right next to mine, but was only a few lockers away. There was a post- it note stuck to the outside of mine. I pulled it off and read it. Written with a red sharpie, it spelled out two words: “Your Dead.” Never mind the grammar was wrong. The message was quite clear and I knew it was from the Trumps. I shook my head. Now it was on. I might as well have been on death row. I could almost hear the rest of the student body chanting, “Dead girl walking.”