Red Moon Rising by Peter Moore

am. My blue eyes say one thing, my coloring and build say another. Some of the guys are sneaking looks at Claire. They probably don’t hang around with vamp girls too often, and I always forget how pretty she is. To me, she’s just Claire, so it’s kind of funny to see guys checking her out. Not to mention that none of these guys is her type, due to their being guys.
    They argue for a while about whether the kid’s heart stopped or if something else happened. Then the subject changes to classmates from Millbrook. Of course, I have no idea who they’re talking about, but that doesn’t matter. I’m here with Juliet Walker.
    She’s smiling at me a lot, but not so much that it seems fake, so that’s good. She includes me when she’s talking, and looks at me, which is another good sign. But every time I look at Claire to get a sense of how she thinks it’s going, she’s talking to that girl Victoria.
    I’m trying not to stare at Juliet while she talks. Just keep it cool. At one point she tosses her hair and I see that she’s wearing earrings, hoops in hoops. I’m not used to that. Vamp girls don’t usually bother with earrings, since the holes would close up the second they’re taken out.
    When the conversation turns to movies, Michael goes on about how bad the new Kurt Helsingermann movie is. “The action was lame. And that guy is too old now.”
    This is my chance. “Helsingermann is the finest actor alive,” I say. I push my hair up like his. Claire catches my eye and shakes her head tightly, like, don’t do it . But this is a specialty of mine. I point at each kid while I put on the famous Bavarian accent. “You, go get zee veapons!You, get zat antenna vorking again! Und you, take ze girl und take cover. Und me? I vill disable zat varhead, und zen…I’ll come back !”
    It gets a pretty good laugh. Claire is looking at the pavement, shaking her head, but what does she know about brilliant impersonations?
    Juliet is laughing. She bumps her shoulder against mine. That means something. I’m sure of it.
    She’s not paying more attention to me than she is to the other guys. I don’t know if it’s because she doesn’t like me more than them or because she doesn’t want to be obvious. I look over to Claire, who’s still talking to that Victoria. Thanks, Claire. Big help. You’re supposed to be watching me. I put my hands behind my head and stretch, but she’s not looking this way, and totally misses the signal.
    I’m tense and forget not to grind my teeth. A white-hot arrow of pain shoots through my jaw and electrifies every nerve in my body. I yelp, in a less than manly way.
    Everybody goes silent and looks at me. “Are you all right?” Juliet asks.
    â€œYeah, sorry. Bit my tongue.”
    â€œOh, I hate when that happens,” she says. Fortunately, the conversation starts up again. I do the secret signal twice in a row, and as I walk across the parking lot to the store, I’m still not sure Claire even noticed.
    It feels like I’ve been standing next to the frozen food cases forever. I’m frustrated and I’m cold. If Claire doesn’t get here in the next thirty seconds, I’m going to kill her. And what is up with that pain in my tooth? It doesn’t hurt if I push on it with my finger, but it kills when I clench my teeth.
    â€œWhy are you hiding in the back of the market?” Claire asks.
    â€œWhere were you?” I say to her. “I’ve been waiting here for, like, half an hour!”
    â€œYou were waiting maybe two minutes. I was talking to Victoria. Sorry if I didn’t stop her in the middle of a sentence so I could rush across the parking lot and into the store. That wouldn’t have been too random.”
    â€œWell, I was worried that you didn’t see the signal.”
    â€œDidn’t see it? It looked like you were bringing