inappropriate picture of some little girl’s plaid skirt and bare knees, back in her locker.

“Nah.” Kate shrugged. She smiled up at me. “I like older men.”

Oh. Wow. She liked me. She completely liked me! I, Finbar Frame, was a stud. Even if the cafeteria was serving its suspiciously ambiguous “pasta casserole” for lunch, today was a great day.

Just then, I noticed for the first time a picture in Kate’s locker. It was of a girl with super-long hair. She actually looked a lot like Kate. For a wild second I thought Kate had a twin sister too. Not only was she smart and gorgeous and quick on her feet—Kate was a twin, like me! Even stranger, like me, Kate had a twin who was the complete opposite of her. The girl in the locker picture was wearing a really short skirt and high heels. She had her tongue stuck out and looked drunk. Nothing like the cool, collected Kate.

“Is that your sister?” I asked, pointing to the picture.

“Oh.” Kate looked up quickly. “Uh… that’s a friend from my old school.”

She slammed her locker quickly and seemed flustered. I shrugged it off and followed Kate to the cafeteria.

At lunch, something strange but kind of awesome happened.

Well, first, one of the skater kids came up to me in the lunch line as I was selecting a Snapple and said, “Hey-ooo, it’s LC from The Hills.”

“I don’t even have my sunglasses on,” I told him.

“Whatever, dude,” the skater scoffed.

Kate, ahead of me, scooped some spaghetti and meatballs onto her plate.

“What was that about?” she asked, nodding at the skater.

Oh, right. I’d told Kate I couldn’t be out in the sun, but I’d tried to make it sound as manly as I could. Like I’d spent so many hours rock climbing with my raw muscles exposed and climbed so close to the sun that even my alligator-tough flesh had had all it could take. To keep this impression up, I’d avoided Kate whenever I was wearing my Hollywood shades.

“Those guys just like my sunglasses,” I told Kate.

“What sunglasses?” she asked.

Never mind.

Okay, this wasn’t the awesome thing that happened. The awesome thing happened after Kate and I sat down with our spaghetti. The awesome thing was that these two freshman girls came over to our table.

“Hey, Finbar.” The girls giggled in unison.

“Um…”

How did these girls know my name? I’d never seen them before. And they had really, really tight pants on. Not that that’s relevant, but how did girls find such tight pants?

Anyway, simultaneously, each girl extended a piece of garlic bread.

“You want some garlic bread, Finbar?” they asked.

Just to set the scene, they each said this in the same way one would ask, “You want some help with those pants, sexy?”

I looked to Kate and shrugged. Although she looked amused, I reassured myself that she was concealing her jealousy by taking a bite of meatball. Or maybe she knew I’d never go for a girl in pants that tight.

“Garlic bread?” I repeated dumbly.

“Yeah,” one girl said. “Nice and garlicky.”

“Oh. Uh… no thanks,” I told her.

She thrust the bread right against my face. I jerked my head back.

“You sure?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “Thanks, though.”

I was completely puzzled until I heard the freshman girls’ conversation as they walked away.

“He was totally scared of the garlic!” one squealed in delight.

“He so is what they said he is!”

A vampire! I so was a vampire! I swirled my spaghetti around my school-safe spork in triumph. Jenny knew I was a vampire and told Kayla Bateman. Kayla Bateman knew I was a vampire and told Ashley Milano. Ashley Milano knew I was a vampire and had probably published it on the bathroom wall. Now even freshman girls knew I was a vampire.

I looked over at Kate, who was calmly sipping her Snapple Green Tea like she was in some damn zen garden. As if she wasn’t sitting across from a spine-chilling, bloodthirsty beast who got her heart pumping in more ways than one. Kate did not know I was a vampire. She hadn’t even heard I was a vampire. Why didn’t Kate gossip? More importantly, why didn’t Kate ever use the third stall in the girls’ bathroom?

The meatball on my plate put a new thought in my head. Maybe because I ate human food in front of Kate every day, she didn’t believe I subsisted on the blood of unwilling victims. Damn lunch. Damn pasta casserole! Damn Hebrew National hot dog day. Damn my humanity!

“I think those girls have