Vampire High Sophomore Year - By Douglas Rees Page 0,13

bringing the joy of your presence.” It was one of about six high jenti phrases I knew. High jenti was so elaborate and formal that almost nobody spoke it anymore. Jenti kids in New Sodom spoke a lingo of jenti, English, and a few other languages. There were no rules, and it was always changing. But I knew one jenti girl who did know the old language, because she had to. And I was going to learn it for her. It was a surprise. I hadn’t told Ileana or anyone I was taking this class. And no other gadje ever had.

Anyway, I said the same thing back to Ms. Magyar, and the room cracked up. I mean, cracked up jenti style. All of the heads that had been turned my way looked down at their desks, and seven pairs of shoulders went up like they were trying to flap.

“The proper response is—” Ms. Magyar said, and made some sounds like gears grinding. “The approximate translation in English would be ‘I fly toward the bright moon of your splendor.’”

“Thank you,” I said in one of the other high jenti things I knew. It really meant, “Your gift is beyond the deserving, O radiant friend.”

But Ms. Magyar giggled. “That was creditable, Master Cody. But as you spoke the words, they meant, ‘Your gift is beyond the nothing, O radiant horse.’”

The shoulder blades were twitching like mad.

By the time class was over, I knew that in high jenti there were twenty-seven words for groups of men, and twenty-nine for groups of women. Nouns inflected, whatever that was, to fourteen cases, whatever they were. There were three alternative conjugations for most verbs, and a thing could be male, female, or neuter depending on which of the conjugations you were using.

It was going to be lots of fun.

But not as much fun as my fourth-period class had been. English class. One thousand pages of outside reading per semester, and of course Some Further Glories of English Literature by Norman P. Shadwell. Apart from that, just the odd essay, sonnet cycle, or novella.

The last gong chimed through the halls. Feeling slightly as though I’d been run over by a truck, I went down to Ileana’s chorus class.

They must have been running late. The door was still closed. Through it came a sad old song sung in high jenti. Even though I didn’t understand a word, I felt the sorrow. And the singer, whoever he was, was fantastic. It was a powerful voice, kind of deep, and rich. Some of the singers in the old movies my parents liked to watch were like that. Not my kind of thing, but I knew it was good.

The song stopped.

The door opened.

I looked in.

Gregor was standing next to Mrs. Warrener’s piano, looking over her shoulder at some sheet music.

“Thank you, Gregor,” she said. She said it in that old New England way that means a lot more than the words.

Wow. Gregor. I’d have sooner expected him to have a hidden talent for being nice.

The jenti were impressed, too. You could tell. Their eyes were shining.

He looked my way and I wanted to say something, and I wanted it to be special. So I said, “Your gift is beyond the deserving, O radiant friend.”

The whole class turned their eyes on me.

Rustle, Rustle. The gadje friend is learning high jenti. What a good friend he is. Rustle.

So I had snitched Gregor’s moment of glory. Swell.

He didn’t say anything, just got his stuff and went past me.

“All I wanted to do was be nice,” I said to Ileana.

“You were. You are. Some people are hard to be nice to,” Ileana said.

And up came the other person I knew who fit that description, right on cue.

“I haven’t been this bored since the last time Mom got married,” Turk said. “I thought a school full of vampires would be exciting. This place is about as interesting as a cemetery.”

I didn’t say anything. I just wished the French Foreign Legion took girls.

“Shall we visit the student center?” Ileana smiled. “Perhaps you would like that.”

“Whatever,” Turk said.

The center was the way it always was after school: quiet and elegant and full of whispering jenti.

Turk looked around at the oak-paneled walls and the oil paintings that hung on them and said, “You could get a really great headbanger concert going in here. Anybody ever done it?”

“Sure,” I said. “The same day we had the pig fights. It was real popular.”

Turk just shook her head. “I can’t handle this