Vampire Brat by Angie Sage Page B

into my arm and they really hurt, but I had to keep quiet because this was areal-life Combined Vampire and Werewolf Trapping Expedition. And the vampire part was already up and running.
    Vampire Max walked off along the attic corridor and then started down the stairs, with the intrepid Professor Von Spookie and her gullible but well-meaning sidekick following close behind. He didn’t notice a thing. There was a tricky moment when Wanda walked through a big spiderweb and I thought she was going to yell, but she didn’t. We followed Vampire Max down the attic stairs and then we set off along the landing, keeping to the shadows and away fromthe really creaky floorboards. It was weird, but fun in a spooky kind of way.
    In Spookie House there are lots of doors and winding passageways that go to bedrooms and bathrooms and turrets and all kinds of places. We walked along the passage that went past the furry bathroom and I could see the flickering light of the movie streaking out of the half-open door. As we crept by I glanced in and saw Aunt Tabby’s head silhouetted against the light from the projector. Her head had a very strange shape because she wears great big headphones so that the noise does not bother anyone. This was good because there was no chance that she could hear us creeping by—even when Wanda trod on a creaky floorboard and we had to dive into the shadows in case Vampire Max turned around.But he didn’t. He just kept moving, his little legs walking in that creepy vampiry way of his, as if he knew exactly where he was going.
    It is quite easy to get lost in Spookie House, especially at night. There are dead-end passages, stairs that go nowhere, and all kinds of zigzag corridors that go around in circles and make you confused. There are also tons of moldy curtains that hang around the place and jump out on you when you are least expecting it, and that was how we lost Vampire Max. One minute we were tailing him along the twisty passageway in the west wing that goes to the locked turret, and the next moment a horrible dusty curtain had flopped in front of us, and Wanda was covered in a flock of moths.
    â€œUgh!” yelped Wanda.
    â€œShhh!” I hissed, and pulled her back behind the curtain. Everybody knows that the most important thing about a vampire hunt is that they must not know you are hunting them, otherwise they can get very nasty indeed, and I was afraid that Vampire Max would hear us. We hid behind the smelly old curtain listening for his footsteps coming back toward us, but we heard nothing. Very carefully, I pulled the curtain back, half expecting to see Max staring at us with his little beady eyes and blood dripping from his mouth—but there was no sign of him. We had lost him.
    But Wanda did not care. She yawned and said, “Let’s catch him tomorrow then. I’m really sleepy, I want to go back to bed.”
    â€œYou can’t,” I told her. “It will be midnightsoon, which is when we promised Edmund that we would meet Sir Horace at his treasure chest. Remember?”
    â€œOh,” said Wanda.
    There was no sign of Sir Horace in the ghost-in-the-bath bathroom. After what felt like a few centuries I asked Wanda what time it was, since I do not have a watch.
    Wanda always wears her pink fairy watch. She says that Pusskins gave it to her for her birthday, which is obviously not true because cats cannot give birthday presents, and even if they could I do not think that cats would bother to give birthday presents—especially a grumpy cat like Pusskins. But on the card it had said Happy Birthday, Wanda. Love from Pusskins xxx , and that is what Wanda believes. On the watch is a prancing fairy, and insteadof regular watch hands the fairy’s wings go around. Wanda was squinting at the wings for ages trying to figure out what the time was, so I took a look. It was hard to tell, but it looked like one wing was straight up, and the other one nearly was