Pages From a Vampire's Journal by Olivia D'Abo Page A

the “Most Christian-like Student” award, she would say you’re too intolerant of other religions and culture. If you were valedictorian, the high school administration certainly goofed and mistaked you for someone else. You just knew that was what she would say. You just couldn’t win. Ever. Black dragons were never content with their horde of ill gotten treasure. They always flew that extra mile for an extra trinket or two, spraying chaos the entire trip.
    Trixie looked at the bright golden finches in her iron birdcage. The cage was originally for an eagle. Now, it was a cagey estate for Pog and Wog, who seemed grateful. “I really wish I could be one of you guys right now. Just go and fly away to Bora Bora or wherever I want” she said to herself. “I know you guys probably don’t fly that far or live that long.” She reached into the cage and Pog hopped onto her finger, squinting up at her sideways chirping. She looked under the right wing. It hadn’t healed. A tiny scar was visible, a medal of sorts commemorating a botched escape attempt that almost landed her yellow feathers in the belly of Boris, Camilla’s orange Maine coon. Trixie remembered the not-so-subtle look of disappointment on Camilla’s face when her dad told her to be more careful about closing the cage door at night. Camilla had wished the cat would have gulped down that lackey bird and be rid of it. Several times Trixie suspected her of slipping some kitty litter into the birdcage in the hopes that the little yellow guys might mistake it for seed; their short-lived lives cut even shorter. The kitty litter certainly didn’t get into the cage on its own. Then again, maybe she was just being too paranoid. Nobody could be that cruel, could they?
    Trixie let the finches peck about on her bed. They fluttered about, pecking randomly at her white bedspread emblazoned with a Celtic border. She looked out the window and watched the snow flurry down faster. She thought, “If I go to the mailbox and get my report card, Camilla will see my boot tracks in the snow. She’ll know I checked. But I have to do something. She is not going to drip-feed me with her cynicism again!” Trixie always felt that way after a lecture by Camilla: like she had been poisoned with insults beyond normal vernacular which pierced right under her skin. One bee sting was bad enough. Two was hell. Three or more and you might as well have stepped on a scorpion with eight little babies on its back, their pinchers poised for the kill. Unlike a bee, she didn’t weaken or die after the stung had been dredged. Camilla seemed to draw strength from the sting.
    She put the finches back in their cage, and then started down the white-carpeted stairs, glancing quickly at the crimson bloodstain on the carpet. The stain was a relic of her finch that had narrowly escaped the brutal torture session by Boris a week prior. She always gave it a quick glance with every trip upstairs or down, to remind her that Boris was Camilla’s cat, not hers. She hated him like rat poison. He was heavy, sedated most of the time on cat depression pills, and blind in one eye. Trixie thought that in his previous life he might have been the infamous Black Bart, terrorist of the seven seas. All that was missing was the eye patch and a peg leg. He looked sickly and unhappy with his lot in this life.
    There was a solemn rap at the door. Very faint, yet firm, as if a tree had been stroked up against the copper lion knocker on the door by the wind. She decided to be sure. She opened the door an inch and saw a pale, thin twenty-something with a faint mustache that curled a bit on the ends.
    “Sorry but do you know if a Cunningham lives here?” he said.
    “Yeah that’s me. I’m Trixie Cunningham, what do you want?”
    He momentarily glanced at her quizzically, his pupils looking her up and down in the blink of an eye and said, “Well, I found this letter addressed to this address out on the street. Just lying in