Fat Vampire Read Online Free PDF Page B

its four subjects to be standing there smiling and half smiling, perhaps with the softly blotchy blue backdrop somehow behind them, and Catherine posed awkwardly like she’d been placed in the wrong exhibit. A crow among canaries.
    There were families here, but none of them the right family. There was a strangely madeup teenage girl who appeared to have already found the passenger she was meeting, and a group of blond girls in matching sorority sweatshirts holding a handmade sign that read WELCOME BACK , CASSIE !
    Sejal stood still as fellow passengers streamed past her, pressed too close, their swinging arms and hot breath fanning a guttering panic in her chest. She had been traveling for eighteen hours and she felt worn and thin. What now? Would they be waiting in the baggage claim instead? But her host father, Mr. Brown, had been so insistent. Weirdly, overcautiously insistent. In his email, and in all caps, he’d assured her that they would BE WAITING JUST OUTSIDE SECURITY, IN A-WEST TERMINAL, RIGHT NEXT TO THE CASH MACHINE NEXT TO THE VIDEO SCREENS THAT SAY “ARRIVALS,” and that they would LOOK LIKE THE PEOPLE IN THE PHOTO. There were two people standing by the cash machine, but they were only the teenager and a female passenger from Sejal’s flight. Sejal approached.
    Both girls turned. One was a fellow Indian, the other a girl with dangerous-looking bottle-black hair and thick eyeliner. Blue lips. Pale skin. Black everything else.
    â€œOh, thank goodness,” said the Indian girl in Hindi. “Do you speak English? This very odd Amrikan girl will not leave me alone—do you know how to tell her that I don’t want any pamphlets or whatever it is she’s selling?”
    Sejal turned to the American girl. “Are you…Catherine?” she asked.
    Catherine glanced at the other passenger in confusion, then back to Sejal.
    â€œOh, shit,” she said.
    Â 
    â€œPlease don’t tell my parents I did that,” said Catherine as they walked to baggage claim. “It took so long to get them to let me pick you up myself. I had to promise to rake leaves.”
    Sejal smiled, pleased to be worth bargaining for.
    â€œI did not know you at first either,” she said, looking down at the photo in her hands. “You look different than your picture.”
    â€œOh Jesus. Don’t look at that.” She snatched it from Sejal and ripped it in half. “I thought I’d gotten all of these.”
    Catherine threw the pieces of family to the floor, then stopped.
    â€œSorry,” she said.
    She took two steps back, picked up the pieces, and presented them to Sejal.
    â€œSorry, that was yours.”
    Sejal took the two halves and reconnected them in her hand.
    â€œIt is fine.”
    â€œNo, I’m acting stupid. You’re going to think I’m stupid.”
    â€œI am not. I think you are…interesting. I think you have interesting clothes.”
    Way to go , thought Sejal. Well said. She’s going to think I’m insulting her. But Sejal did find her clothes interesting. They looked like she felt. She thought with some embarrassment about the skirt and sweater outfit she was wearing now,as though she’d meant to audition for a spot in the Brown family portrait.
    Catherine watched her face as they mounted the escalator. Sejal tried to look as earnest as possible, and after a moment Catherine smiled.
    â€œWell, I like your…sweater,” she said. “Really yellow.”
    They held each other’s gaze for another moment, then laughed.
    â€œThank you, Catherine.”
    â€œOoh. Call me Cat. My parents won’t, but…I was hoping you would.”
    â€œOf course.”
    They found the baggage carousel that corresponded with Sejal’s flight and staked their claim to a small gap between other passengers. For reasons she didn’t entirely understand, Sejal did not look forward to seeing her luggage. She had already