Fang Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

I repeated. “Sneezing toast.”
    “Not toast, Toast !” He ducked into the closet, and reemerged clutching a large wire cage. “I named her myself. Isn’t she the greatest?”
    I got to my feet, gathering up the shredded remains of my dignity, and peered through the bars. A fuzzy brown-and-white ball of fur looked back at me with round, black eyes. Its pink velvet ears quivered. “It’s a guinea pig,” I concluded in the face of the evidence before me. Well, that explained why the closet had smelled of hay. “Zack, why is it a guinea pig?”
    “Dad got her for you.” Zack gazed fondly down at the little fluffball. “I guess if you aren’t going to eat her, I can keep her!”
    I rubbed at my forehead. It was way too early in the night for this conversation, and the terrible clashing colors of the room decor were giving me a migraine. “Dad got me a … guinea pig?”
    “For breakfast,” Zack said. “That’s why I named her Toast. You aren’t going to eat her, are you?”
    “No!”
    “Woot!” Zack hugged the cage to his chest, carrying it off in the direction of his bedroom. “I hope you don’t want to eat Marmalade or Sugar Puff either!”
    “Marma—oh, never mind.” Shaking my head, I sought refuge from the weirdness by retreating to the bathroom. My headache eased in the plain, white-tiled room, vanishing to nothing as I sorted through toiletries in search of something that would wash away grave dirt. After forty-five minutes of scalding water and an entire bottle of shampoo, I felt halfway human again. Or, to be more accurate, totally vampire.
    The mirror had fogged up; I wiped it clean and squinted at my blurred reflection. My first reaction was relief that I had a reflection—I’d been worrying about how vampires applied eyeliner. My second reaction was … disappointment. My skin, though slightly paler, hadn’t turned a shimmering alabaster. My browneyes had not become exotically golden or blood-scarlet. My face looked a little gaunter, but I hadn’t magically acquired elegant cheekbones and an aristocratic nose. My nondescript hair was still, well, nondescript.
    I looked, all in all, the way I always had. Perfectly normal.
    Except my acne was gone. That counted as a miraculous transformation into astounding inhuman beauty, as far as I was concerned.
    My mouth seemed ordinary enough when it was closed. I drew my lips back from my teeth, leaning close to the mirror. The canines were definitely bigger and sharper. They crowded together, slightly askew, with the top set overlapping the lower. When I tried opening and closing my mouth, I could feel the edges of them sliding against each other like chisel blades. But they certainly weren’t monster-movie fangs. Anyone looking at my teeth wouldn’t immediately think “vampire,” just “typically awful British dentistry.”
    Crap . Three years of braces down the drain.
    Someone knocked softly on the bathroom door. “Xanthe?” Dad said. “Are you okay in there?”
    “Fine.” I tied my robe shut and went out. “I don’t look all that different, do I?”
    He pulled me into a brief hug. “You’re still my girl. Are you hungry? We got, um—”
    “Yes, I already met Toast.” I sighed. “Please tell me that Marmalade and Sugar Puff aren’t a rabbit and a hamster.”
    He dropped his gaze sheepishly and mumbled, “Chinchilla.”
    I shook my head. “I hope the pet store gives refunds.”
    “We got some other things to try as well.” He trailed after me as I headed toward my room. “We’ll work something out.”
    “What, did you rob a blood bank or something?” I opened the door to my room. “Let me get some clothes and— Jesus Christ, what did you people do in here ?!”
    My bedroom—my private sanctuary, my castle, my room —was a complete mess. Incredible, utter chaos. Stuff was strewn everywhere. Books were stuffed willy-nilly on the shelves, in a shrieking clash of sizes and colors. Papers were scattered all over the desk,