Chapter Four
Principal West was a middle-aged man with whom I once had a run-in when Danny had told me I was not allowed to pick up our kids from school. Today, the principal gave me the eye, but this time, he did not try to prevent me from picking up my kids.
I waved politely, ducked my head a little, and mouthed, “Sorry I’m late” through the minivan windshield. The principal wasn’t happy—and probably made a noise that sounded like, “harrumph,” although I could only guess at the noise, since my hearing, although enhanced, wasn’t magical.
When I came to a full stop, the principal, who always waited with students for their delinquent parents—I was late far, far too often—finally released my kids to me.
Anthony’s jeans might have been hanging down a little in a style that I didn’t approve of. Anthony slid into the back seat, and immediately went to work on his Game Boy.
Tammy was sporting a frowning face, in a style I definitely didn’t approve of. Since it was her week to sit in the front seat, she rode shotgun.
“I’m almost thirteen, Mom. Thirteen. I don’t need a principal to wait with me for my mother. It’s so embarrassing.”
“Your face is embarrassing,” said Anthony.
I waved to the principal again, who gave me a tight, half-smile and turned his back on me as I pulled out of the parking lot.
Once we were cruising down Rosecrans, I looked at Anthony in the rearview mirror. “Apologize to your sister,” I said to him.
“No.”
Aghast, I looked in the mirror again. “What?”
“Just playing. Sheesh, can’t you take a joke?”
“No, I can’t. Now apologize.”
“Fine. Sorry, butthead,” he said in Tammy’s direction.
“Give me your Game Boy.”
He did, passing it to me between the seats. I opened the center console and deposited it within, along with untold work-related receipts, boxes of gum and one mostly covered box of cigarettes. I quickly shut the console again.
“He just called me a butthead, Mom.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“You said it and thought it.”
“I can think anything I want. There’s no law about thinking.”
“He just mentally flipped me off, Mom!”
Anthony giggled in the back seat. I told Tammy to get out of her brother’s head and for Anthony to quit mentally flipping off his sister. He giggled some more, then settled down. Tammy pouted, crossing her arms, making her own harrumph noise. At least they were mostly quiet. It was about all I could ask.
About a minute later, Tammy said, “I saw them, Mom.”
“Saw what?”
“The cigarettes. Whose are they?”
It would do no good to give Tammy a line, or tell her anything other than the truth, although I’d rarely made it a habit of lying to my kids. Of course, keeping my vampiric nature hidden from them as long as I could was one thing, but that cat had been out of the bag for some time now. Also, Tammy was as telepathic as I was. Perhaps even more so, since she could read other family members’ minds, including her little brother’s, and he was about to hit puberty. I prayed for her soul.
“We’ll talk about it later,” I said.
“What are you two talking about?” asked Anthony. Now that he was no longer physically attached to a game console, he had joined the land of the living.
“Mommy has a pack of cigarettes in the car,” said Tammy.