Fang Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

twenty-four hours, and I’d already managed to disappoint my mother. Business as usual, then. From the kitchen, I heard the clatter of pots and pans and muffled swearing. “Dad had better not be boiling a bunny in there.”
    “I heard that!” he yelled. “Come and look.”
    “We have to deduce your diet,” Mum said seriously, taking my hand. She paused, glancing down at it. “At least you’re warmer now. That has to be a good sign.”
    I didn’t feel either warm or cold and hadn’t since I’d woken up in my coffin. “I think I’ve finally reached room temperature,” I said as she dragged me into the kitchen. “It’s—whoa.”
    The table was covered in food. There were three thick steaks, ranging from totally raw to well done. A raw chicken sat next to a cold, cooked one. The halogen light gleamed off silver mackerel scales— raw mackerel, with the heads and fins still on. There were sausages, eggs, and bacon; a couple of hamburgers in freshly toasted buns; cakes, muffins, cookies, raw and cooked carrots, spinach, shepherd’s pie, a pepperoni pizza, a goldfish in a small tank, chips, salad, bread, raw ground beef, oatmeal, cornflakes, and, amid it all, avery nervous-looking rabbit in a cage.
    “Try what looks good,” Dad said anxiously, watching my face.
    “Okay,” I said, pulling out a chair and sitting down in front of the mound of edibles. My eye was caught by the steaks, and my mouth started to water. “First of all, can we please get rid of the bunny and the fish? No,” I said as Zack started to lift the platter of mackerel, “the live fish. Good grief, what were you thinking, Dad?”
    “That shouldn’t be there anyway,” Mum said, dropping a tea towel over the tank to hide it from view. “That’s a different experiment. Now, Xanthe …” Her voice fell into the same sort of tone she used with new undergraduates in their very first lab session. “Take small bites to start with. We have no idea how your digestive system works now, so we don’t want— Xanthe !”
    “Buf ish tastgh sho ghud ,” I said around a huge mouthful of meat. It really was the most delicious thing I’d ever eaten—so fresh and sweet with an amazing juicy tang.
    “But what if you’re allergic?” Mum dived for my plate. We spent a moment wrestling over the remaining half of the steak, but I had vampiric strength and twenty-four hours of hunger on my side. I stuffed therest frantically into my mouth, chewing at superspeed to wolf it all down.
    “Neat,” my brother observed. “You went straight for the raw one.”
    I paused on the last mouthful, looking down at the remaining two steaks.
    Oh. Ew.
    “I’ve got a theory,” Zack said, pulling up a chair for himself and selecting a jam tart. “I think we’re completely wrong. You’re obviously not a vampire.”
    We all looked at him.
    My brother pointed at me. “You,” he said in tones of utter certainty, “are a zombie .”

Chapter 6
    A s a vampire, I solemnly swear I will not:
    1) Angst
    2) Suck
    3) Summon a dark goddess
    4) Fall in love with a vampire hunter
       a) Or a werewolf
       b) Or anyone evil, no matter how hot
       c) Or anyone of a species not approved of by my vampire elders, because no one is worth that sort of stress
    5) Accept any gifts, give any gifts, carry any messages, take part in any mysterious rituals, etc. etc.
    “Here’s another one,” said Mum, sticking a Post-It into the massive tome in her lap. “Running backward while carrying a lit candle in one hand and a live tortoise in the other. Makes vampires flee in terror.”
    “Thanks, Mum.” I didn’t bother to look up from my laptop. I’d given up making notes on any of her findings over an hour ago—Eastern European vampire folklore was turning out to be utterly cracktastic. “Can I remind you that we’re looking for ways to stop vampire hunters , not vampires?”
    When Mum had said she’d gone to work to get research materials, she wasn’t kidding. Every