Josie Griffin Is Not a Vampire Read online

  THE GROUP

  I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or dive in and ask more questions. On the one hand, telling me they were vampires, werewolves, faeries, and Greek gods was capital C crazy, but on the other, it was fascinating. What would make a group of kids act like this? Boredom, drugs, too many bad novels and movies? Then again, they seemed so serious about it all.

  “So?” Tarren said, staring at me with those intense green eyes. “What are you?”

  I decided at that moment to go undercover because the truth was, I hadn’t had this much fun in months but I knew if I was going to stick it out with them, I would have to play along. “I’m a…” I glanced from person to person. Avis crossed his arms and stared hard at me. Johann frowned while I hesitated. “Werepire,” I blurted out.

  “A werepire?” Tarren said, drawing back. “Sounds like a word I would say.”

  “It’s a mix,” I told her, as if I were offended. “My mom’s a shape-shifter and my dad’s a vampire, so I’m a werepire.”

  They all looked at one another. “I’ve never heard of that,” Tarren said.

  “Can we interbreed?” Avis asked Johann.

  “What powers do you have?” Helios asked me.

  “None,” I said. “Because of the cross-breeding. I’m like a mule.”

  OTHER BOOKS YOU MAY ENJOY

  Cindy Ella ROBIN PALMER

  Fairy Bad Day AMANDA ASHBY

  Falling in Love with English Boys MELISSA JENSEN

  The Fine Art of Truth or Dare MELISSA JENSEN

  Geek Charming ROBIN PALMER

  Goddess Boot Camp TERA LYNN CHILDS

  Little Miss Red ROBIN PALMER

  Me, My Elf & I HEATHER SWAIN

  Oh. My. Gods. TERA LYNN CHILDS

  Wicked Jealous ROBIN PALMER

  Zombie Queen of Newbery High AMANDA ASHBY

  JOSIE GRIFFIN

  IS

  NOT

  A VAMPIRE

  heather swain

  speak

  An Imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  SPEAK

  PUBLISHED BY THE PENGUIN GROUP

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. | Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) | Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England | Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) | Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India | Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.) | Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa | Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America

  by Speak, an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 2012

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Copyright © Heather Swain, 2012

  All rights reserved

  CIP data is available.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-59520-6

  Set in Candida

  Designed by Irene Vandervoort

  Printed in the U.S.A.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ALWAYS LEARNING

  PEARSON

  For Nora

  JOSIE GRIFFIN

  IS

  NOT

  A VAMPIRE

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Me, My Elf & I

  chapter 1

  josie Griffin?” The judge looked down her nose, over the rims of her small rectangular glasses. I popped up from my seat and sent my chair clattering backward.

  “Yes, Your Honor,” I said as sweetly and innocently as I could muster. Kevin must have been laughing his butt off, seeing me like this. A flowery blouse buttoned up to my chin and a skirt down below my knees. I had my nose ring out and my hair (its natural dingy blondish-brown again) pulled into a low ponytail, exposing the dots of sweat lining my forehead. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of glancing his way, though. I was sure he was all slicked out in a jacket and tie like some young Republican. Jerk. He has a fake ID and steals stupid things like potato chips and beef jerky and regularly buys pot from a guy in an ice-cream truck, I wanted to yell. And he should be slapped for how terrible he kisses! But of course, I didn’t say any of that because my lawyer had warned me to be docile as a doorknob that day.

  The judge glanced through her notes one last time, then she removed her glasses and stared at me. “Seems to me, Miss Griffin, that you’ve been a pretty good kid up until now.”

  I nodded and tried to look like the old version of me. The polite girl who was a cheerleader, the editor of the school newspaper, the straight-A student, the one who volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and organized bake sales for earthquake victims. The one my mom kept bemoaning got lost somewhere this summer after Kevin stomped on my heart and I stopped caring so much about the world.

  “I guess you could call this a crime of passion,” the judge said while glancing at Kevin’s table.

  Gag. I wanted to roll my eyes and say, He wishes, but I kept it to myself, something I should have done a month ago before I got myself into this mess.

  She looked back at me. “Do you have anything you’d like to say to the court?”

  I cleared my throat. Ms. Sheldon, my lawyer (who looked more like a hockey player in a pencil skirt than a legal professional), had prepared me for this moment and my parents made me rehearse it like a thousand times the night before as if I were prepping for the talent portion of a Miss Repentant American competition. Chin up, Josie! Mom would say. Confident, but not so cocky. Try to look at least a little contrite.

  “Your Honor, I apologize for my actions,” I said in my sweetest, most innocent voice, the one I’d used a million times to talk people into joining school committees or volunteering for good causes, or not grounding me when I broke curfew. “I know that I was wrong. I should not have bashed Kevin McDaniel’s windshield in with a baseball bat. I was upset and emotional over his treatment of me, but that’s no excuse for my behavior. This is the first time in my life I’ve ever been in trouble.” Okay, so that wasn’t exactly true, but technically I’d never been in trouble with the law, so my lawyer said it was okay to say it under oath. “And I promise you, it will not happen again. I’ve learned my lesson and I would like to get through my senior year without another incident so I can go to college.”

  Judge Levitz sighed and looked back down at her papers. “Very well. Judge rules you shall pay damages in the order of nine hundred and fifty dollars to Mr. McDaniel for repair to his car, plus court fees in the sum of fifty dollars. You shall also be on probation for one year and
perform thirty hours of community service. If your record remains clean for one year, you may petition the court for expungement of the charges from your permanent record. However, to ensure that you can control your temper in the future I am sentencing you…”

  I stumbled backward. Sentencing me?

  “…to six weeks…”

  I gripped the chair behind me and nearly gasped. Was she sending me to juvie?

  “…of anger management group therapy.”

  I stood up straight. “Huh?”

  The judge looked at me annoyed. “What’s that?”

  Ms. Sheldon grabbed my elbow. “Nothing, Your Honor,” she said, squeezing my arm. “Thank you, Your Honor.”

  “Case adjourned,” the judge said.

  My mom threw herself at me as we headed into the hallway. “Oh thank god!” She sighed as she clung to me. “For a minute there I thought she was putting you in juvenile detention.”

  I tried to look unconcerned even though my heart had just started beating normally again.

  “It’s a little harsh,” Ms. Sheldon said as she swung her raincoat around her broad shoulders and pushed us through the crowded hallway. “I didn’t expect her to give you community service and anger management. One or the other I could understand, but both? Sheesh.” She chucked me on the shoulder and I nearly tripped. “Sorry about that, kid.”

  How lame, I thought as I unbuttoned the top of my stupid blouse, which was about to strangle me. “Anger management therapy? Will I have to talk about my feelings with a bunch of hotheads?” I asked and Ms. Sheldon nodded. Oh well. At least it would be good material for JosieHatestheWorld, my blog where I chronicle all the crap that goes on in my life every day.

  “Hey,” my dad said. His forehead, which you could see more and more of those days, was bright red. “You ought to be grateful, missy. What you did…”

  “I know, I know, Dad. Please. I’ve been through enough today.” I untucked my shirt and loosened a few more buttons, exposing the white tank top I had on underneath.

  “A thousand dollars! It had to be the ’69 Camaro, didn’t it?” He shook his head and I rolled my eyes because I was so sick of hearing about how I defaced a beautiful vintage Chevy as if it were a Renaissance sculpture. Whatevs. Kevin’s daddy had a whole lot full of those stupid vintage muscle cars. “You will pay me back every red cent,” my dad said.

  “I know,” I told him for the ten millionth time since I bashed in Kev’s windshield.

  “Jo. Hey, Jo.” Kevin’s voice came from behind me. I stopped and stiffened for two seconds, but I didn’t turn around. I kept weaving through the other people in the hall toward the big red door to freedom. “Jo!” he called again. “Come on, babe.”

  The babe was what did it. I whipped around and pointed my finger at Kevin McDaniel’s chest. “Don’t you ever call me that again!” I spewed. Then I poked him in the sternum at every syllable. “I. Am. Not. Your. Babe.”

  He held up his hands and stepped back, probably afraid I was going to punch him next. He looked like an idiot with his blond hair parted to the side, wearing some stupid tan sports coat and blue and green striped tie—all of which I’m sure came right out of his father’s closet.

  “You look like a used car salesman,” I told him with disgust.

  He cocked an eyebrow at me. “And you look like yourself again.”

  “Bite me,” I said, and just as I was about to turn around, I saw Madison peering out from behind him. She wore a body-hugging purple dress with a raggedy asymmetrical hem and black slashes across the front. “You!” I growled. “I can’t believe you would have the nerve…”

  “Josie, I…” Madison started to say, but I shot her the look of death and she shut her mouth.

  “And in that dress!” I said.

  She looked down at herself, smoothing the fabric over her hips. “What?”

  “Zombie Apparel? We used to make fun of that store and all its Goth wannabe fashion victims.” I rolled my eyes. “Then again, you never did have any originality. Which is why you had to steal my boyfriend instead of getting your own!” I stopped. It wouldn’t do me any good to go after my ex-best friend right outside the judge’s chambers.

  “Come on, Josie.” Mom caught my elbow and turned me toward the doors. “They aren’t worth any more of your trouble. You’d only regret it.”

  Mom pulled me into the gray drizzle of that mid-August day and I breathed in deeply. “I’m glad that’s over.” I raised my face to the sky, letting the moisture cover my cheeks.

  “Me, too.” Mom searched her bag for an umbrella. “I hope we never have to do this again.”

  While we stood there, Kevin and Madison came out the door. He had his arm around her shoulders and she leaned into him. They whispered together as they hurried down the courthouse steps toward another person standing at the bottom under a giant red golf umbrella. Chloe. Bee-yatch. My other ex-best friend who didn’t have the courtesy to mention that Kevin and Madison were screwing around behind my back. The three of them huddled under the umbrella beneath one of the Zombie Apparel billboards that had sprung up like mold around the city in the past few months.

  “God, I hate those ads,” I said.

  Mom opened her sensible brown umbrella to cover both of us. “Poor girls look emaciated,” she said, studying the sickeningly skinny stick figures in the billboard, all hip bones and dark eyes under masses of long, tangled hair. The center girl in the ad wore the same dress Madison had on. Across the bottom of the billboard, scrawled like blood-red graffiti, were the words Zombie Love Attack!

  A sharp barking noise, almost a laugh, leapt from my mouth. “It’s the perfect caption, though, isn’t it?” I had half an urge to snap a picture of my brain-dead ex-friends beneath that stupid catchphrase and post it on my blog, but they crossed the street and climbed into Kevin’s latest meathead muscle car plucked right off his daddy’s lot.

  “Nice car,” my dad said and whistled through his teeth.

  “God, Dad!”

  He looked at me apologetically. “Sorry, Josie, but what do you expect? The kid is driving a mint late-60s Chevy Impala. You don’t see many of those these days.”

  “I hope he wrecks it,” I muttered, but as I watched them go, my chest hurt. I wouldn’t cry, though. I pushed down that sadness and let it turn bitter in my gut. “You know what?” I said to my parents as the rain began to fall in quick sharp pellets. They both looked at me and waited. “I don’t regret what I did for minute.” My mom’s mouth dropped open and my dad looked like I’d sucker punched him.

  “Good god, Josephine!” Dad ran his hands through what remained of his hair. “Maybe you do need anger management therapy.”

  “Maybe so,” I said as Kevin, Madison, and Chloe turned the corner out of my sight. I closed my eyes and remembered the aluminum bat in my hands. The way it thunked down on the trunk of his car as he scrambled out the passenger side door, yanking up his pants. I saw Madison’s face, staring at me in horror from the backseat. For just a moment I smiled as I remembered slamming the bat over and over onto the windshield. But my glee was short-lived because that feeling of the glass cracking into a thousand pieces under the weight of my fury was the same as the shattering of my heart that night.

  chapter 2

  my first act as a juvenile offender was to meet with my social worker one week after my court appearance. Since I was officially grounded until I hit thirty and school didn’t start for another few weeks, I was almost looking forward to it. At least I’d have something new to say on JosieHatestheWorld.

  “You are not wearing that,” my mom groaned when I trudged through the dining room in my favorite short denim skirt with skull and crossbones patches on the butt, an old Siouxsie and the Banshees tee that my aunt gave me, and my best clunky black boots.

  “What’s wrong with it?” I said, looking down at myself. “I wasn’t tried for fashion offenses.”

  Mom hopped up from the table where she was paying bills and waved her pen at m
e. “But, honey, you have to present yourself to your social worker as a person who’s trying to change!”

  “Why?” I asked, then I realized that she was probably talking about the purple streaks in my hair and the diamond stud in my nose. I had no intention of taking those out, so I smiled at my mom and said, “You’re the one always telling me to be myself.”

  “That’s true, but please just put on something presentable to meet with the social worker. Then wear whatever you want for the rest of the day.” I could see the worry lines around her eyes. Lines my dad swore I’d personally etched onto her face in the past few months. “You can never take back a first impression, Josephine.”

  “Hmmm, where have I heard that one before?” I muttered, because that had become my mother’s favorite refrain lately.

  Mom tossed up her hands in exasperation, a gesture I’d also become very familiar with recently. “Just do it for me, would you?”

  I felt bad, sort of. It wasn’t like I was trying to antagonize my mom by looking like this. She just chose to be antagonized by how I looked. “Fine,” I said in an effort to be a better daughter after what I’d put my mother through in court last week. “But I don’t have time to wash the streaks out of my hair.”

  “Wear a headband,” she called after me as I marched up the stairs.

  In my room, I snapped a quick picture of myself, then I whipped off my boots, skirt, and T-shirt and rummaged around in my closet for a pair of khaki pants, a pale blue blouse, and brown flats—the uniform of Josie Past. I took another picture. I logged onto JosieHatestheWorld and uploaded both pix with a description of how Mom made me change from A to B for this meeting. Under picture B of me in my stupid khakis, I wrote, “I will not, under any circumstances, wear a headband!” I posted everything and logged off.

  My blog had been my solace ever since Kevin and I broke up. It was the one place I could go to vent. And I went there a lot. I had another blog before the breakup called JosieRahRah. Old Josie liked to write about cheerleading camp and all my volunteer tasks and post pix of me and my “friends” (pardon me while I barf). I used to think I had so many things to post about. I was an A student, a great friend, a peppy cheerleader, editor of the school paper, and a stellar member of my community. I kept waiting for exciting things to happen for me.