Vampire Island by Adele Griffin Page B

first blush, ever. His fingers pressed his flaming cheeks. Did this shameful feeling mean he was becoming more human?
    At the end of the day, with Mr. Apple’s permission, Hudson gathered his courage and stood before his fellow students. “Class, my message to help balance our ecosystem had too much clout. While this message is still critical, I want to make a goodwill offering. Therefore, everyone is invited to a party at my home on the last day of this month. It is my parents’ anniversary and usually we just like it to be family. So consider yourselves lucky. Please bring fruit and leave by dinnertime. Thank you.” Now Hudson pulled a box of Elf Scout cookies from his knapsack. “Help yourself to these. I forgot to give gifts for Valentine’s Day. Better late than never.” He opened the box and set it on Mr. Apple’s desk.
    The class didn’t speak. Hudson wondered why they all looked so frightened.
    “Count me in, Hudson,” Mr. Apple said at last, breaking the silence. He clapped one hand on Hudson’s shoulder as he used the other to select a cookie. “I, for one, would like to get to know you better by visiting your home. Sometimes a family doesn’t bloom to life out of a simple class project. We can do it all as a field trip, with permission notes from parents. Right, kids?”
    The class spoke not a word. Not one peep. Nobody went for a buttercrumbly, either. Mr. Apple’s extra-cheerful crunching was the loudest noise in the classroom.
    Hudson slunk to his desk. Every pore of his paper-thin vampire skin felt dry and thirsty and exhausted. He had complimented and admitted and even— shudder —apologized, and he probably hadn’t solved anything at all.
    In fact, he was sure of it.

Maddy
10
TEA FOR YOU
    “Idiot! You blithering idiot!” Maddy flew from one end of the family room to the other. As soon as she hit the wall, she jump-kicked it, using her boot as a lever to somersault midair to land and pounce to the other end. It was making her dizzy, but had the benefit of upsetting her sister. “Why did you prepare those icky von Kriks an Old World healing brew and put in on their doorstep, Hex? After all my hard work, you wrecked everything!” Swoosh, whoosh, kick, flip, swoosh.
    Hudson looked up from his latest jigsaw puzzle of Gangehi Island. “Cut it out. You’re scuffing the wall.”
    Maddy was not ready to cut it out.
    “How was I supposed to know you’d deliberately poisoned our neighbors?” asked her sister, looking up from her toenails, to which she was adding a second coat of rouge noir . “I didn’t realize they were your precious von Kriks. They looked like hybrids that’d gotten indigestion off some too-human food, like mayonnaise or licorice logs. So I got out the Old World Healing Balms book and made a poultice.”
    “Which one?” asked Hudson.
    “The same detoxifier Mom gave me when I ate those jelly beans. When you crush burnt matchsticks with five goose feathers and water from a moonlit puddle.”
    Hudson nodded. “Mom made gallons of it during that last Old World War, too, when some fruits ate beef jerky that they thought was dried fig.”
    A mosquito was poised on the wall. Midsomersault, Maddy’s cherry-red tongue shot out. She landed on both feet and crunched.
    Lexie shuddered. Maddy bared her fangs. Lexie hid her eyes. “Don’t show me your teeth when they’re bloody.”
    Maddy bared them some more.
    “You know, Mads, you’re getting scarier.” Lexie turned to Hudson. “The other day she made her eyes go clear.”
    “You shouldn’t tattle,” reprimanded Hudson. He exchanged a significant look with Maddy. Good ol’ Crud, he was smart to be on her side.
    “Clear eyes means there’s too much blood in your diet.” Lexie wagged her finger. “I better report to Mom and Dad. I don’t care if it’s tattling.”
    “They’d agree I need the extra protein.” Maddy spat a crunchy ball of bug wings and legs, then did another flip.
    “Hey!” Now her sister