I reached the slobbering pair. "Eh hem!" I said, coughing, and tapped Becky on the shoulder.
They broke apart their superglued embrace.
"Becky tells me Trevor has a girlfriend," I blurted out.
"I didn't say that," Matt said, looking strangely at Becky.
"But Becky said a girl was at practice rooting for Trevor."
"I guess. I thought you were done with him."
"I am, but gossip is gossip. Did Trevor leave with her?" I asked.
"She was with a creepy guy in a black knit hat. I think you'd like him. Pale with a lot of tattoos. When the team came out of the locker room, they had already gone."
Matt adjusted his backpack, grabbed Becky's hand, and started heading for school.
"Wait--did Trevor look different?" I interrogated.
"He wasn't wearing any tattoos," Matt said with a laugh.
"No, I mean unusually pale. Really thirsty. Redder eyes."
He thought for a moment. "He said he wasn't feeling well," he remembered. "Why all this interest in Trevor?"
The smitten couple looked at me curiously, waiting for an answer.
Suddenly the bell rang.
"I'd love to stay and chat, but you know how I like to be punctual," I lied, and took off. During my first three classes I was preoccupied with confronting Trevor, so to distract myself I daydreamed about Alexander. I wrote our names in my journal--Raven Madison x Alexander Sterling, TRUE LOVE ALWAYS--surrounded by black roses.
When the lunch bell finally rang, I skipped meeting Becky and Matt at the bleachers. Instead I combed the campus searching for Trevor.
I couldn't find my nemesis on the soccer field, the gym, or the steps where all the soccer snobs ate their filet mignon baguettes.
"Where's Trevor?" I asked a cheerleader who was tying her sneaker.
She eyeballed my outfit with contempt. She glared at me as if she were a queen and I were a serf who had dared to stumble upon her castle. She picked up her red and white pom-poms and turned away as if she had already wasted too much time.
"Have you seen Trevor?" I repeated.
"He's home," she snarled.
"You mean I could have stayed home too?" I mumbled. The only reason I came to school today was to find him.
She rolled her eyes at me.
I glared back, imagining what it would be like if I was a real vampire. I'd transform into a spooky bat, swoop around her as she let out a bloodcurdling scream, and tangle myself in her perfectly combed blond hair. "Duh. He's sick," she finally said, scrutinizing me as if I, too, were spreading contagions.
Sick? Matt said that last night Trevor was pale and wasn't feeling well. My mind raced. Sick from what? The sunlight? Garlic? Maybe Luna and Jagger had already managed to lure him to Dullsville's cemetery. Right now Trevor could be sleeping in a red and white coffin. I had to act fast.
I'd spent most of my life sneaking in and out of places--my house, the Mansion, Dullsville's elementary and middle schools. But since I was still a mere mortal and did not yet possess the powers of a shapeshifting bat, Dullsville High was getting harder to just walk, climb, or tunnel out of.
Principal Reed hired security guards to patrol both entrances of the campus, cutting down on kids leaving for lunch and not returning to school. Dullsville High was becoming like Alcatraz. All that remained was for the school board to encircle the campus with frigid water and killer sharks.
Instead of sneaking out, I'd have to make my exit known.
I opened Nurse William's office door to find three other kids wheezing, coughing, and sneezing in the waiting room, glaring at me as if I were the one who was ill.
I realized this might take longer than waiting until school let out.
I jotted down notes in my Olivia Outcast journal when Nurse William, the poster woman for health, bounced out. Exposed to seasonal colds, allergies, and excuses, Nurse William was impervious to dripping noses. Looking more like she stepped out of a gym than an examination room, she could probably snap off her own blood pressure band with a single bicep curl. "Teddy Lerner," she called, reading from a chart. "It's your turn," she said, flashing a Colgate smile.
"I need to see you immediately," I interjected, standing up and holding my stomach. "I don't think I can wait much longer."
Teddy stared at me, his nose as red as Rudolph's, and sneezed. I almost felt bad, but I knew all Teddy needed was a big Kleenex and a bowl of chicken soup. If I didn't get to Trevor Mitchell soon, there might not be any blood left to draw in town.
"All right, Raven."
Nurse William, like Principal Reed, knew me on a first-name basis, since I'd been to each of their offices on numerous occasions.
I followed her into her office--a small, sterile room with the usual jars of tongue depressors, Band-Aids, extra long Q-tips, and a blue cot.
I sat on a metal chair next to Nurse William's desk.
"I've had the chills since I woke up," I fibbed.
She examined my eyes with a small pen light.
"Uh-huh," she said.
She held up her stethoscope.
"Take a deep breath," she said, putting her instrument on my chest.
I slowly breathed in and then fake sneezed and coughed so wildly, I thought I'd pulled a lung.
She quickly drew back the stethoscope.
"Interesting." Nurse William opened her glass cabinet and pulled out an ear thermometer and sterile cover and took my temperature.
After a minute, she read the results.
"Just what I thought."
"I'm sick?"
"I think you have a case of either `testitis' or 'I Didn't Do My Homework Syndrome.' It's common in the spring."
"But I feel awful!"
"You probably just need a good night's rest."
"I think I need to go home," I choked out. "You are keeping me against my will. I have a stomachache and headache, and my throat hurts," I said, talking through my nose.
"We can't release you unless you have a fever," she said, returning the thermometer to the glass cabinet.
"Haven't you heard of preventive medicine?"
"You do look like you haven't slept. Well, you'll have to get approval from Principal Reed," she said with a sigh, exhausted.
Great. New rules to be broken.
I stepped into Principal Reed's office with a note from Nurse William.
I fake sneezed and coughed.
"You've used up all your school sick days," he said, perusing my file. "You've requested to leave school one hundred and thirty days out of the one hundred and forty days of school so far."
"So thirty-one might be the magic number?" "Well, you do look awful," he finally said, and signed my school release form.