This is Blake and Evee...
So, just a taster of the very first part of Chapter One of the story. I am a heavy editor so may well not remain the same!
I knew that it was Friday the 13th the moment I fell out of bed, because the bats were sleeping heads up, feet down on the rail, looking for all the world like five (leathery, black, vicious) birds in a pet shop.
One by one, they woke up, stretching their papery wings and glaring at me for disturbing their rest. Well, I didn’t ask to fall out of bed onto the flagstones, did I? Gathering myself up into a slightly neater heap, I proceeded to untangle my sheets - regulation grey, of course - from my legs. Once the bedclothes were back in their usual place (i.e. the bed), I stripped off my regulation black and grey striped nightdress and wandered over to the bathroom.
Now, I don’t know who said that old castles don’t have all the mod cons, but they’re wrong. We do have running water - albeit extremely cold most days - and electric lights - although most of the older teachers disdain the idea of the light bulb and force us to sit in candlelight. The heating was recently installed after several students came down to breakfast blue (unusually, from cold and not from any magical after-effects). But just because it’s there doesn’t mean it gets turned on!
As I washed in the marrow-chillingly cold shower jet, twisting constantly so as to avoid any part of my body being exposed to the rain of icy liquid for too long, I was startled to hear somebody knock at the bathroom door.
“C’min.” I called, imagining it to be one of the bats come to do her hair before breakfast. For undead beings, they’re still pretty damn vain. I peered round the cubicle door to ask whoever it was not to touch my toothbrush. Sound unreasonable? Try living with girls with fangs!
Instead, I saw Blake peering back at me! This shook me enough to stall my reaction to him being in my bathroom (i.e. screaming). He took advantage of my shock to slap one hand over my mouth and clamber into the shower cubicle with me. Ignoring my squeaks of protest, he wedged us into one corner and turned the water back on, causing me to squeak even more at the cold spray.
“Well,” he murmured. “Now we can talk; no-one notices you yelping in the shower anymore.”
**
Perhaps I should take a moment to explain. I attend Beelzebub’s College for the Sinister Arts, a boarding school for vampires, werewolves and witches. Or bats, tails and wands, if you don’t want to get mobbed by first years, who think these kinds of labels actually make them seem ‘cool’. I myself am a fifth year witch, while my best friend, Blake, is a fifth year bat. Apparently, this explains his secrecy - a vampire’s love of privacy - and is also the reason behind his insistence on cornering me for conversations.
Last Thursday, he locked us both in the stationery cupboard, which was fine (compared to some of his hiding places) until a teacher walked past and took the key! We were stuck in there until third bell, when Mr Sheckles, the janitor came to fetch his mop. What his mop was doing in the stationery cupboard was no more of a mystery to us than what two fifth years were doing in the same place was to him. By that, I mean that we instantly assumed he had finally gone completely senile, and he instantly assumed that we had been... doing... things. Which we hadn’t been. Obviously. I swear. But our protests were not enough to stop us getting hauled up in front of Headmistress Hackleberry. Which it turns out was what Blake needed to talk to me about.
This is all my own work, so any mistakes are mine. The plot, characters, and actual text all belong to me as the author.
I knew that it was Friday the 13th the moment I fell out of bed, because the bats were sleeping heads up, feet down on the rail, looking for all the world like five (leathery, black, vicious) birds in a pet shop.
One by one, they woke up, stretching their papery wings and glaring at me for disturbing their rest. Well, I didn’t ask to fall out of bed onto the flagstones, did I? Gathering myself up into a slightly neater heap, I proceeded to untangle my sheets - regulation grey, of course - from my legs. Once the bedclothes were back in their usual place (i.e. the bed), I stripped off my regulation black and grey striped nightdress and wandered over to the bathroom.
Now, I don’t know who said that old castles don’t have all the mod cons, but they’re wrong. We do have running water - albeit extremely cold most days - and electric lights - although most of the older teachers disdain the idea of the light bulb and force us to sit in candlelight. The heating was recently installed after several students came down to breakfast blue (unusually, from cold and not from any magical after-effects). But just because it’s there doesn’t mean it gets turned on!
As I washed in the marrow-chillingly cold shower jet, twisting constantly so as to avoid any part of my body being exposed to the rain of icy liquid for too long, I was startled to hear somebody knock at the bathroom door.
“C’min.” I called, imagining it to be one of the bats come to do her hair before breakfast. For undead beings, they’re still pretty damn vain. I peered round the cubicle door to ask whoever it was not to touch my toothbrush. Sound unreasonable? Try living with girls with fangs!
Instead, I saw Blake peering back at me! This shook me enough to stall my reaction to him being in my bathroom (i.e. screaming). He took advantage of my shock to slap one hand over my mouth and clamber into the shower cubicle with me. Ignoring my squeaks of protest, he wedged us into one corner and turned the water back on, causing me to squeak even more at the cold spray.
“Well,” he murmured. “Now we can talk; no-one notices you yelping in the shower anymore.”
**
Perhaps I should take a moment to explain. I attend Beelzebub’s College for the Sinister Arts, a boarding school for vampires, werewolves and witches. Or bats, tails and wands, if you don’t want to get mobbed by first years, who think these kinds of labels actually make them seem ‘cool’. I myself am a fifth year witch, while my best friend, Blake, is a fifth year bat. Apparently, this explains his secrecy - a vampire’s love of privacy - and is also the reason behind his insistence on cornering me for conversations.
Last Thursday, he locked us both in the stationery cupboard, which was fine (compared to some of his hiding places) until a teacher walked past and took the key! We were stuck in there until third bell, when Mr Sheckles, the janitor came to fetch his mop. What his mop was doing in the stationery cupboard was no more of a mystery to us than what two fifth years were doing in the same place was to him. By that, I mean that we instantly assumed he had finally gone completely senile, and he instantly assumed that we had been... doing... things. Which we hadn’t been. Obviously. I swear. But our protests were not enough to stop us getting hauled up in front of Headmistress Hackleberry. Which it turns out was what Blake needed to talk to me about.
This is all my own work, so any mistakes are mine. The plot, characters, and actual text all belong to me as the author.