Edward Lee: Vampire Lodge

“Yep,” Kevin said.

“Sure do,” Jimmy said. “Everything except our kites.”

Kevin’s father closed up the tailgate on the station wagon, then looked curiously at the two boys. “You guys aren’t taking your kites?”

“We’re taking them, Dad,” Kevin said, “but we’d rather carry the kits with us than put them in the back with all the other stuff. The wooden rods could break back there with the luggage.”

Kevin and Jimmy had bought the kite kits with their allowances last week, but they realized the smartest thing to do would be to wait till they got to the lodge before they put them together. The back of the station wagon was loaded up with their suitcases—Becky’s suitcases were round and pink! Girl Luggage, Kevin thought of it as—plus a lot of fishing rods and tackle boxes that Kevin’s father and Mr. Grimaldi would be using.

“What are you wearing a dress for?” Kevin asked of his sister when she came out of the house. “We’re going to a camping lodge, not the junior prom!”

Becky’s blonde hair shined in the early morning sun; she was wearing a pink and white frilly dress, and, as usual, she smirked at Kevin’s comment. “Just because you want to dress like a bum doesn’t mean I have to,” she said of Kevin and Jimmy’s blue jeans, camping boots, and flannel shirts. “Besides, I might meet some boys, and I want to look my best.”

Boys, as in boys her own age. That’s all she ever thinks about these days are boys, Kevin thought. Kevin knew she couldn’t wait to get into high school and start dating. But he doubted that there would be any boys for her to meet up at Aunt Carolyn’s. The lodge and campsites were way out in the woods, and there wasn’t a town around for miles.

Both Kevin and Jimmy’s father were dressed in boots, jeans, khaki fishing vests, and these kind of dumb looking hats with fishing lures on them. Mr. Grimaldi glanced at his watch. “I guess we better get going. The sooner we get on the road, the sooner we’ll get there.”

“Everybody ready?” Kevin’s father asked.

The kids all agreed, then piled into the backseat of the station wagon, while the fathers got up in front. Both Kevin and Jimmy’s mothers had already left for their real estate convention in Chicago—their fathers had taken them to the airport earlier.

The car doors chunked closed, and Kevin’s father backed out of the driveway.

“Why don’t you put those stupid kite kits in the back,” Becky complained, frowning.

“Because they’ll get busted up from all your stupid junky pink Girl Luggage, that’s why,” Kevin contested. “Who on earth would want round suitcases?”

“Dad!” Becky whined. “Kevin’s making fun of my luggage again!”

“Oh, I am not!” Kevin said. “Jeeze!”

“Kevin, stop making fun of your sister’s luggage,” Kevin’s father ordered from behind the steering wheel. “We’re not even out of the driveway yet, and you two are already at it. At this rate we’ll all be having nervous breakdowns by the time we get to your Aunt Carolyn’s lodge.”

“I don’t even want to go,” Becky complained. “Aunt Carolyn’s weird.”

“She is not,” Kevin said.

“What’s weird about her?” Jimmy asked curiously.

Becky chuckled. “Well, for starters, she always wears these ridiculous spooky black dresses, and she has this real long black hair hanging down all the way to the middle of her back, and she’s real old.”

“Becky,” Mr. Bennell said, “your Aunt Carolyn is not old. She’s only in her forties.”

“Wow, that’s pretty old,” Jimmy whispered aside to Kevin.

“I know,” Kevin replied. “But don’t listen to any of that junk my sister’s saying. Becky never has anything good to say about anyone. Aunt Carolyn’s really cool.”

“You just think she’s cool,” Becky added, “because she wears all those creepy black clothes all the time, like the people in your stupid vampires movies.”

“What’s a vampire?” Jimmy asked.

“You don’t know what a vampire is?” Kevin asked. He was astonished. “Like Dracula and Vampirella?”

“Nope,” Jimmy said.

“Vampires are the living dead,” Kevin answered with enthusiasm. “They come out at night from their coffins and drink people’s blood so that they can live forever. And they can change into bats.”

“Wow!” Jimmy said.

“And they’re—”

“They’re stupid, is what they are,” Becky rudely interrupted Kevin’s explanation. “Some silly old bald guy with fangs climbing out of a coffin. I’ve never seen anything so stupid in my life.”

“Oh, yeah? Well if it was so stupid, how come you were watching it?”

“Because you hogged the remote control, that’s why,” Becky replied. “I had no choice. You think I wanted to watch that dumb junk. Vampire movies are stupid, and only stupid kids watch them.”

“Becky, stop calling your brother stupid,” Mr. Bennell said from the front seat.

“But, Dad, Kevin won’t shut up about vampires,” she said back. “Vampires, vampires, vampires. I’m so sick of hearing about vampires.”

“Kevin, stop talking about vampires,” Mr. Bennell said.

“Okay, Dad,” Kevin replied, but then he thought, Boy, is this going to be a long ride.

CHAPTER THREE

But actually, as it turned out, the drive wasn’t that bad. Once they got off the interstate, heading up toward the country, it seemed like they were entering another world. The long, wide stretches of car-crowded highway soon changed to narrow, twisted roads which ran through heavy woodlands and past huge, open fields of cut cornstalks and still more fields of waving, shimmering grass. They even passed a lake and several swamps. Kevin loved getting out of town and up into the country like this, especially when it was the middle of autumn. The air was clean and fresh and cool, and the sun seemed to make everything brighter.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my whole life,” Jimmy said, gazing out the window in complete astonishment. “This is great.”

“Yeah, I know,” Kevin agreed. “I love coming up here.”

“What’s the big deal?” Becky objected. “Just a bunch of chopped-down cornfields and ugly swamps, and a lot of trees with hardly any leaves left on them. So what.” Then she went back to reading one of her dumb romance novels.

“We’re almost there, kids,” Mr. Bennell announced.

“So you say there’s some good fishing up this way?” Mr. Grimaldi asked.

“Not good fishing, great fishing,” Kevin’s father answered his friend. “Striped bass, lake trout, and perch like you wouldn’t believe.”

“How long has your sister owned the place?”

“Oh, years and years. She’s always loved it up here. And it’s a shame too.”

“What do you mean?” Mr. Grimaldi asked.

“Well, business has dropped over the years,” Kevin’s father said. “Things are getting pretty run down, Carolyn can’t afford to have the property properly maintained anymore. Each year, somehow, she manages to hang on, but it looks like she’ll probably go bust soon.”

Kevin’s ears perked up. He wasn’t quite sure what they were talking about, but it didn’t sound good. “Hey, Dad, what’s that mean?” he asked. “Going bust? ”

Mr. Bennell seemed to duck the question. “Never you mind about that, Kevin,” he said. “We’ll talk about it later when I’ve got more time.”

Figures, Kevin thought. That’s what adults said whenever they didn’t want to talk about something.

“It means she’s going broke,” Becky said. “It means she doesn’t have enough money to run the lodge anymore, and she’ll have to close it down, stupid.”