3. HAND PRICK
the month following the snowball accident was tough. People kept looking at me,
especially when teachers read my name on the attendance list and I said “Here.” Somehow my new
nickname for Edwart, “Hero,” didn’t catch on. So, I decided to break my unwritten, unspoken, and
unthought understanding with Edwart, and start telling our story.
First, I told Tom and Lucy that Edwart saved me from a snowball. They weren’t impressed. So I started
saying Edwart saved me from a rock with snow around it, and, later, I started saying he saved me from
an avalanche. One day, I said that Edwart ran with superhuman speed, stopping a car that was about to
hit me with his superhuman strength.
“Wait,” said the freshman girl in the cafeteria lunch line. “Edwart Mullen? You mean the kid whose
clothes are too small?”
We looked over at Edwart, who was sitting alone, doing homework due next month.
“Yes,” I said gravely, taking a large bite of my pudding to prevent me from saying anything else.
“You must be new here,” the girl said, picking up her tray.
“Mumph bleh,” I said, spitting little flecks of chocolate pudding after her. She didn’t answer. I knew no
one would understand me in Switchblade.
Still, Edwart was cold towards me. I knew that he wished it had never happened—that he had never
saved me—that I had never started wearing a shirt that said “Thank you, Edwart!” One afternoon in
Biology, over a month after the accident, I couldn’t take it much longer. Edwart looked so cute with his
red curly hair and freckles, like the “before” picture in an ad for freckle concealer for men. Yet he was so
complacent, as if he didn’t need me and my alluring ear-shape to pass on to his offspring. I had to do
something.
I poked the boy in front of me. He turned around, looking surprised.
“Hey, it’s Peter, right?” I asked. “Yeah,” he answered, seduced.
“Want to go to prom with me?” I asked, plenty loud so Edwart could hear.
“Um … sure,” he said. “Would it be okay if we hung out a couple of times before then? I don’t really
know you.”
Did Edwart notice? Was he jealous? I slyly looked at his mood ring to find out. Still purplish-brown!
Clearly, I was going to have to do more—onedate to prom wasn’t enough. I turned to the boy sitting
behind me, to the right.
“Zack,” I said.
“What is it?” he asked, looking up at the board to take notes.
“Will you go to prom with me?”
“But … didn’t you just ask Peter?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I want to go with you, too.”
He hesitated. “Well, I don’t have a date yet, so, okay, I guess.”
“Hey, Adam,” I called across the room.
“Belle, please. I’m trying to teach,” said Mr. Franklin. But when I called out to Adam he must have
understood that this was an important interruption—an interruption for love—because he just sighed and
continued diagramming the cell.
“I already have a date, Belle,” Adam whispered loudly.
“Tom!” I shouted.
“Belle!” Mr. Franklin yelled.
I settled down in my chair, satisfied. Edwart was looking now.
The rain was so bad by the time school got out I had to float my U-HAUL back home. I stood on the
top of the truck and guided it with a long pole, pretending I was in New Orleans
from the flood.
“So Belle …” my dad said that evening at dinner. “Any boys at school catch your eye? How about Tom
Newt? He seems nice.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I said, imagining what Tom would look like as Edwart. He would look hot. “Are you
going to eat your spinach?”
“Do you want it, honey?”
“No, you should eat it,” I said. “And mine, too. It’s good for your health. C’mon, dad. Open up!”
I put as much spinach as I could on my fork and moved it towards his mouth. Some spinach fell onto his
placemat. Some onto his lap.
“The train’s coming! Cug-a-cug-a-cug-a-coo! coo!” I chanted.
“Belle, that’s not the noise a train makes,” he said. “They gochug-a-chug-a —with a ‘ch.’”
“Maybe in Switchblade,” I said skeptically. This place certainly was backwards.
I wanted to look especially good in Bio the next day, because I was sure that it was the day Edwart
would ask if he could be my third date to prom. That night I wrapped my hair in springs from the
armchair in our living room to make it curly. I even put in false teeth. On my way to school the next
morning, I felt light and bouncy, but that could be because I’d left in some springs.
I went to the Bio classroom fourth period to be sure I was on time for sixth. It was dark and Mr.
aluminum foil for cleanliness.
The bell rang. I sat up super straight in my chair and smiled with my big, straight teeth. Students began to
come through the door. Tom, Adam, Lucy, followed by more students. No Edwart. I stopped smiling
and removed the teeth. Just when I thought Edwart was a normal, jealous boy, he does something
unpredictable, like not show up to class with roses.
“Okay, guys,” Mr. Lookner began. “My nephew needs a blood transfusion, so I want to know all of
your blood types.”
He sounded proud of this idea. He put on a pair of rubber gloves, which made an ominous slap as they
hit his skin. I cringed.Slap. Slap. Slap .
“Okay, I’ll stop,” he said. “That’s just such a cool sound!”
Still no Edwart. Whythis day to be absent from Bio? He had been in English. I knew this because I
delivered a note to him from the “principal’s office” when he was in class. It said “Hey QT.” I really
wished I were principal of this school. I’d give him so much detention. He deserves it, for cutting class
instead of asking me out.
Mr. Franklin was detailing the procedure. “I’ll be coming around with a medical consent form, so don’t
start until I get to you. Those of you who aren’t AB can sit in the back and chat.” A few kids cheered.
“But!” he continued. “Not until I know everyone’s blood type. Now, I want you to carefully prick your
finger with one of these knives from my kitchen…”
He grabbed Adam’s hand and cut off a bit of his pointer finger. Blood spurted out and landed on Mr.
As I watched the dripping arc of crimson, I suddenly felt nauseous. Wherewas he? Why wouldn’t he
come to class on a day when we were doing such a fun lab?
Suddenly, there he was. Edwart. Edwart, standing there with his short buzz cut and masculine jaw, rough
with light hair. There was something red stuck in his teeth. With a rush of nausea, I suddenly understood
what he was.Dentist Patient!
I realized the whole class was silent, staring at me. I guess I must have said that out loud. Oops. Then I
thought, no, that can’t be right. Edwart has naturally perfect teeth.
I got out of my seat quickly so I might lightly slap Edwart in the face with my hair. I approached the
materials table, where he was standing, shoving a pack of Twizzlers into his backpack. I swung my
head…
… And then the next thing I knew I was looking up at Mr. Franklin and Lucy’s faces.
“Hey guys,” I said.
“Belle, you fell!” Lucy exclaimed jealously.
“No I didn’t.”
“Yes, Belle, you tripped on the leg of your chair. I think you were unconscious for a couple of seconds,”
Mr. Franklin explained.
“Nope,” I said.
Mr. Franklin stood up and rubbed both his temples like he was drawing circles there. “Dear God,” he
muttered. “Why today? Edwart!” he called. “Since you’ve already done this lab with me during your free
track, please take Belle to the nurse.”
“Sorry I was late, Mr. Franklin, but the Fed Challenge Team needed a replacement and—”
“Just go,” Mr. Franklin said. “And Belle, don’t mention anything about what we’re doing in class today
…”
I looked right into Mr. Franklin’s eyes. He must be some kind of mad scientist! Conducting secret
experiments! If things didn’t work out with Edwart, I could always be his Igor, digging up bones and
teaching them English for chump change.
“Right,” I said, winking at Mr. Franklin with one eye, and then the other, to show that Ireally got it.
“I don’t need your help walking!” I insisted angrily as I slithered out of the classroom on my belly.
“Edwart, can you carry her?” Mr. Franklin asked.
“You heard her—she wants some bigger guy to do it,” he said, crossing his arms and hunching his back
so I could climb onto it more easily. He stiffened as I took his hair into my hands like reigns and gave a
gentle kick to get him going. Then he fainted.
“Edwart,” I said, poking his crumpled form beneath me. “Are you okay? I think I better carry you to the
nurse’s.”
“No! I can do this!” he said, leaping to his feet. He scooped up my entire eight pounds, four ounces—to
be honest, I hadn’t weighed myself in a few years—and we walked slowly out of the classroom. “Come
on Edwart—a half-step at a time,” he muttered quietly, not wanting to disturb my faint slumber. “Okay.
Now half step at two times.”
I rested my head on his firm, sweaty shoulder. I felt something stroking my hair. Then I felt Edwart put
some of my hair up to his nose, leaving it draped above his lip. He looked good with a long, full
mustache. Suddenly he released my hair. He took some Purell from his pocket and frantically rubbed it
on his mouth.
“So, uh, Belle … do you have any pets?”
“No,” I said sadly, remembering Jared the Iguana. Eventually, I had to return him to where I found him:
Mr. Rich’s third grade class.
“My mom won’t let me have pets,” Edwart said. “It’s not because she thinks I’m not responsible or
anything. She just thinks I’d be too nervous to care for them, and she’s probably right. But,” he
continued. “I found a bat in my attic and I trapped it! Granted, it was a dead bat.”
Bats, huh?I thought, repetitively.Maybe Edwart had rabies!
We walked in to the nurse’s office. The nurse was an older woman who needed glasses but preferred to
wear them around her neck with a colorful lanyard. She looked up from her novel,Full Moon . “One
sec,” she said. “I’m almost done with this chapter.” Edwart and I waited.
“Okay,” she said. “Come on in here and lie down, and I’ll get you some ice for your head.”
Edwart let me down and the nurse brought me into the adjoining room with two mat-like beds. Edwart
watched me leave him sadly, holding his hand out towardss me. When the nurse turned around, he
cleverly disguised this gesture by doing the robot.
After the nurse lay me down, he stood there for a while, looking like the star of an infomercial explaining
what happened to his little brother when he smoked weed.
“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” the nurse asked after a few minutes.
“Yes.”
“Wait,” she said suddenly. “Are you Edwart Mullen? I’ve been calling you down to the nurse’s office
every day now for a week! You need to get your shots for your trip to Transylvania .”
“No! I don’t need shots! You have me confused with someone else! You must be thinking of another
boy who is much bigger and braver and has a normal name!”
He turned and ran out of the nurse’s office. The nurse was about to follow him, but then she sighed and
returned to reading.
I strained my neck to see Edwart go around the corner, eventually getting up from my bed to follow him
all the way back to class.Transylvania , I thought as I walked past the classrooms. Why did that country
sound so familiar? Then I thought,Maybe Edwart is a foreign exchange student!
I looked in through the window of our classroom door. Edwart took a seat, next to my empty seat.
That’s when I realized it didn’t matter what he was—5'8? or 6'3? like he said on his medical forms—I
loved that crazy superhuman.
Back at the nurse’s office, I carefully placed Edwart’s medical file back in the “Special Attention”
cabinet. What was he hiding, besides multiple food allergies? Whatwas he? It was time to do some
thinking. I sat down on the floor of the nurse’s office and assumed a meditation pose, my hands poised
upward on my crossed legs. I murmured, “Ommm.”
My mind was moving quickly: the red stuff in Edwart’s mouth, his being late to class during the blood
lab, the bats, Transylvania … It didn’t make sense. I thought for a while longer. I took an Odwalla bar
break. I thought some more.
Then, suddenly, I remembered the accident, and Edwart’s snow-proof body, and his eyes that changed
from I-don’t-remember to green, and I knew. YES! VAMPIRE!
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