Fangs for Having Us! Read online

  For Ian, who really knows how to take a bite out of life

  —N. K.

  WELCOME TO CLASS 4A.

  We have a warning for you:

  BEWARE OF THE MAP.

  Our classroom probably looks a lot like yours. We have chairs, desks, a whiteboard, and artwork on the walls. And of course we have our teacher, Ms. Frogbottom.

  Actually, our teacher is the reason why things sometimes get strange around here. Because Ms. Frogbottom is kind of different.

  For starters, she carries around a backpack. It looks like any other pack, but somehow strange things always seem to be popping out of it. You don’t have to worry about most of the stuff our teacher carries. But if she reaches into her pack and pulls out her giant map, beware. That map is magic. It has the power to lift us right out of our classroom and drop us in some faraway place. And somehow it’s always the exact same time as when we left. No matter where we go, we wind up meeting frightening creatures none of us ever believed were real—and getting into all sorts of trouble.

  You don’t have to be too scared, though. Things always seem to turn out okay for us in the end. Or at least they have so far….

  Your new pals,

  Aiden, Emma, Oliver, Olivia, Sofia, and Tony

  MS. FROGBOTTOM’S FIELD TRIP DO’S AND DON’TS

  Do stay together.

  Don’t take photos. You can’t experience the big world through a tiny camera hole.

  Don’t bring home souvenirs. We want to leave the places we visit exactly as we found them.

  Don’t use the word “weird.” The people, places, and food we experience are just different from what you are used to.

  Do have fun!

  1

  “WHO WANTS TO HEAR A spooky story?” Olivia asks as she finishes the last bite of her hot dog. “I know a great one.”

  “Not me,” Tony tells her. “I don’t like being scared.” He grows quiet for minute and listens to something. “Did you hear footsteps in the woods? I think it was a bear. Have I mentioned that I’m scared of bears?”

  “It’s just the wood crackling in the campfire,” Olivia’s twin brother, Oliver, assures him. “You’re imagining things.”

  “I wonder why marshmallows taste so much better when they’re cooked over a fire,” Aiden says.

  “Because the extreme heat makes the sugar caramelize,” I explain. “That changes the flavor of the marshmallow so it’s more buttery.”

  Aiden rolls his eyes. “I wasn’t really asking.”

  Well, how was I supposed to know that? He said “I wonder.” That usually means someone wants an answer.

  “Is there anything you don’t know, Sofia?” Emma asks me. She fixes the daisy crown on her head and pops a marshmallow into her mouth.

  I don’t answer Emma. I know she’s not really asking. She’s just finding another way to call me the class brain. Our teacher, Ms. Frogbottom, has made it clear she doesn’t like name-calling. And “class brain” is definitely name-calling.

  It’s not like I can help having the kind of memory that lets me remember everything I read or see. It’s just the way my mind works.

  Sometimes having a great memory can be really helpful. Like today, when our class got lost hiking around science camp. Ms. Frogbottom had left her map of the campground back in her tent. But she’d shown us the map earlier, so I’d memorized all the hiking trails. When we got lost on our hike, I was the one who got us back to our campsite.

  I love being at science camp. Our class is here for two whole days, studying nature and sleeping under the stars. Today we did experiments to find out what kinds of minerals are in the soil. Tomorrow we’re going to test the creek water for bacteria. This is my kind of field trip!

  We aren’t the only kids at the campground. Right now there are other classes sprinkled around the woods, sitting at their own fires, eating marshmallows and telling ghost stories. For them this is probably their biggest adventure for the whole school year.

  But not for our class. We go on a lot of field trips. Ms. Frogbottom says people learn best from experiencing things. So she takes us out of school really often. Which we all love.

  Well, almost all of us love it, anyway. Tony’s not too sure.

  “Do you think there really are bears in the woods?” he asks nervously.

  Ms. Frogbottom smiles from across the campfire she built near our class’s campsite. “There may be,” she says calmly. “But as long as we clean up our trash and don’t leave any food around, the bears should leave us alone.”

  Tony starts biting nervously at the skin around his nails—which is kind of gross, since he still has dirt under his fingernails from this morning’s experiments. “I hate field trips,” he complains. “They’re always so scary.”

  “Come on, Tony,” Oliver replies. “Bears would be the least scary creatures we’ve met up with on one of Ms. Frogbottom’s field trips.”

  I know what Oliver means. Ms. Frogbottom has taken us on some pretty interesting trips.

  Once, she took us to Egypt, where we saw the pyramids and the tombs of the great pharaohs. That part was really fun. But meeting a living mummy who wanted to hold us prisoner in his tomb of doom sure wasn’t.

  Another time Ms. Frogbottom took us to Scotland. While we were there, we came face-to-face with the Loch Ness Monster! He was HUGE. To make things worse, Tony nearly drowned.

  You may be wondering how our class can travel all over the world on field trips and still get back in time for dismissal. No airplane goes that quickly.

  But we don’t travel by plane.

  Or train.

  Or even bus.

  We actually travel by map. Or more specifically, Ms. Frogbottom’s Magic Map. The huge one she carries in her backpack.

  Ordinarily I don’t believe in magic. I’ve always thought there was a scientific explanation for anything that happens in the universe. But I can’t think of any explanation for how Ms. Frogbottom’s map works, unless it’s by magic. Because when Ms. Frogbottom points her finger at a place anywhere in the world, we are suddenly taken there—in a matter of seconds.

  So you can imagine how curiously we are all staring at our teacher now, as she reaches into her backpack. Is she about to pull out the Magic Map? Are we about to be magically transported from science camp to someplace far away?

  Nope. Ms. Frogbottom was just reaching for a red plastic back scratcher. She’s using it to scratch at the mosquito bites on her back.

  “Aaaah,” our teacher says. “That’s better.”

  “The mosquitoes at science camp are vicious,” Emma says. She scratches at her arm. “I think one of them bit me three times.”

  “Impossible,” Aiden tells her. “After a mosquito bites you, it dies.”

  “That’s not true,” I tell Aiden. “Female mosquitoes bite people to get their blood. Then they use that blood to nourish their eggs. In its six-week lifetime, a mosquito lays eggs over and over again—up to two hundred eggs at a time! Which means mosquitoes have to bite a lot of people. Some more than once.”

  Emma smiles proudly. “See?” she tells Aiden.

  Aiden frowns and mumbles something under his breath. It sounds a lot like “class brain.”

  “I don’t have mosquito bites.” Tony fingers the small cloth bag that’s hanging from a leather rope around his neck. “My nonna’s garlic keeps mosquitoes away.”

  “It also keeps your friends away.” Oliver laughs. “You stink.”

  Tony shrugs. “Maybe. But I’m the only one of us who’s not scratching.”

  I know it’s probably not Tony’s grandmother’s garlic that’s keeping the mosquitoes away. More likely it’s something in the chemical makeup of Tony’s sweat that’s stopping them from biting
him.

  For a minute I think about calling up an article on my tablet so Tony can read about that. Then I remember that I’m not getting service in the woods. My tablet is pretty much worthless here, which is driving me nuts. I hate when I can’t immediately get the information I want.

  “So about my scary story…,” Olivia reminds us all.

  “No, no, no!” Tony exclaims.

  “You can listen or not, Tony,” Olivia insists. “But I’m telling it. Once upon a time there was a camper who snuck out of his tent and wandered off—”

  Swish!

  “AAAAAH!” Before Olivia can go any further, Tony screams.

  “I didn’t even get to the scary part yet,” Olivia tells him.

  “Something just swished right over my head!” Tony answers.

  “Probably a bat,” I tell him. “I bet there are a lot of them here. With all the mosquitoes, they have plenty to eat.”

  My friends stare at me.

  FROGBOTTOM FACTS

  There are more than 1,300 species of bats.

  Bats are nocturnal, which means they are active at night.

  Most bats avoid bumping into things in the dark by sending out sound waves, and then listening for them to echo back. This is called echolocation.

  “What?” I wonder. “You guys know bats eat mosquitoes.”

  “Sure,” Oliver agrees. “But why didn’t you know it was a bad idea to tell Tony that there are plenty of bats here?”

  “Bats are horrible,” Tony says nervously. “They’ll bite you and suck the blood right out of your neck.”

  “There are such things as vampire bats,” I agree. “And they do feed on blood.”

  Tony keeps nervously chewing the skin around his fingernails.

  “Sofia, stop,” Oliver pleads. “Look what you’re doing to him.”

  “Vampire bats don’t bite people,” I assure Tony. “Only animals. Usually cows.”

  Tony looks at me. “Are you sure?”

  I nod. “Absolutely.”

  Tony glances across the campfire to Ms. Frogbottom. “Is Sofia right?”

  Ms. Frogbottom nods. “Bats are not the enemy, Tony. They eat the bugs that annoy us. I’ve always been fascinated by them. Now that you’ve brought them up…” Ms. Frogbottom reaches into her backpack and pulls out her Magic Map.

  If Tony was scared before, he looks absolutely petrified now. “I didn’t bring them up,” he insists. “That bat brought itself up. It flew right over my head.”

  But our teacher isn’t listening. She’s busy looking for a place on her map. A giant smile forms on her face. She taps the map with her finger.

  Suddenly a white light flashes all around us. My body feels weightless, and I think my feet have just left the ground.

  It’s like I’m flying in space. And then…

  2

  “WHOA!” OLIVER EXCLAIMS. “THIS IS not science camp.”

  “Where are we?” Olivia asks.

  Ms. Frogbottom smiles. “Where do you think we are? Put the facts together. I’ll bet you can figure it out.”

  I look down at the cobblestones beneath my feet. Then I look up at the full moon. By the moonlight I can see that the concrete houses lining the road are close together and mostly painted in pale colors—pink, yellow, blue, and green. The windows have wood trim.

  The roads are narrow and winding, leading up and down steep hills. The cars parked on the street are much smaller than the ones we have at home. The license plates on the cars look different too—they’re longer and thinner, and there’s an RO in the corner of each one.

  I wish I could hear people talking. Maybe I would recognize the language. But it’s dinnertime and everyone is inside, eating. The small street is empty.

  “Those homes seem hundreds of years old,” I say. “We could be somewhere in Europe. The houses in Europe are often older than the ones at home.”

  “Very good,” Ms. Frogbottom says. “But where in Europe?”

  “This all started when we were sitting around the fire,” Emma thinks out loud. “Maybe we’re someplace that burned down once.”

  I shake my head. “Can’t be. The old houses wouldn’t still be here if there had been a big fire.”

  I hear Emma mutter “class brain” under her breath. It’s hard for me not to feel bad.

  “Wait,” Olivia says. “Weren’t we talking about bats? Maybe we’re in some place where you would find a lot of bats.”

  “I don’t think this is Yankee Stadium,” Oliver jokes.

  “Olivia’s right,” I say. “I think we are in a place known for its bats. The flying ones—not the baseball kind.” I turn to Ms. Frogbottom. “RO could stand for ‘Romania.’ Are we in Transylvania, Romania?”

  “Yes!” Ms. Frogbottom cheers. “You figured it out. We are in the Sighişoara area of Transylvania, Romania.”

  “I’ve heard of Transylvania,” Emma says. “It’s where Dracula came from. I saw the movie. In it Dracula was—”

  “A vampire.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. I shouldn’t have said that. I know vampires aren’t real.

  I also know that just the thought of vampires will scare Tony. But I’ve already said it. And sure enough…

  “VAMPIRE?” Tony shouts.

  “There was no Dracula,” I assure Tony. “He was just a made-up character in a book.”

  “You mean a movie,” Emma says.

  “It was a book first,” I tell her. “A fiction book.”

  But that doesn’t make Tony happier. “I want to go back to science camp,” he moans.

  “There are mosquitoes here,” Aiden says as he scratches at a fresh bug bite. “Just like at science camp.”

  “You didn’t like camp,” Oliver reminds Tony. “You were afraid of the bears.”

  “Bears aren’t as scary as vampires,” Tony insists.

  I turn on my tablet. Phew. I’m getting a signal here.

  “Actually, Transylvania has one of the largest bear populations in all of Europe,” I say as I scroll through an article I just found. “And of course, where there are mosquitoes, there are usually bats. Which is why I think people tell vampire stories around here.”

  FROGBOTTOM FACT

  The Carpathian Mountains, where Transylvania is located, are home to more than six thousand brown bears.

  “Bears, bats, and vampires?” Tony sounds terrified.

  “Wait a minute,” Emma says. “This can’t be Transylvania. If it were, Dracula’s castle would be up on top of a giant hill.”

  “You’re talking about Bran Castle,” I tell Emma. “The model for the castle in the book Dracula.” I scroll a little further on my tablet. “That’s in Bran, which is another part of Transylvania.”

  “Good,” Tony says. “Because I don’t want to be anywhere near anything that had to do with Dracula.”

  “There was no Dracula,” I repeat, looking at my tablet. “Oh, this is interesting….”

  “What is?” Olivia asks me.

  “I don’t want to know,” Tony groans.

  “It says that the author of the book Dracula, Bram Stoker, based the made-up character of Count Dracula on a real Romanian prince named Vlad the Impaler. Vlad wasn’t a vampire, but he was a really mean guy.”

  “Okay, then I don’t want to meet Vlad,” Tony says.

  FROGBOTTOM FACTS

  Bram Stoker published his book Dracula in 1897.

  Bram Stoker got the name “Dracula” from Vlad the Impaler’s family name, “Dracul,” which is Latin for Dracula.

  “You won’t meet him,” I promise Tony. “He died in 1476.”

  “I want to go back to science camp,” Tony whimpers.

  “Nonsense,” Ms. Frogbottom tells him. “We just got here. There’s so much to see.”

  “We can’t see anything,” Tony insists. “It’s dark out. And that’s when vampires appear. Right?”

  I shake my head. “There are no such things as vampires.”

  “I’ve seen a lot
of vampire movies,” Emma insists, like that makes her some kind of expert on the subject. “Vampires have difficulty seeing in the daytime, so they come out at night. And they’re shape-shifters—”

  “Like the kelpie we met in Scotland?” Aiden pipes up. “He turned from a man into a horse.”

  “Kind of,” Emma replies. “But in vampire movies they change from people into bats. That lets them fly off quickly when they’re in trouble.”

  “I’d love to be able to fly off anytime I got in trouble,” Olivia says.

  “You’d be flying an awful lot,” Oliver tells his sister. “You might never land.”

  “What else do you know about vampires?” Aiden asks Emma.

  “Vampires aren’t re—” I begin.

  But Emma interrupts me. She loves showing off all her vampire knowledge. Except it isn’t really knowledge, because these aren’t facts. They’re just made-up legends she’s seen play out in the movies.

  “Vampires can be scared off with garlic, a group of them is called a brood, and they don’t have any reflections, so they can’t see themselves in a mirror,” Emma tells our classmates.

  “You’d better never become a vampire,” Aiden tells Emma. “You’d go nuts if you couldn’t look in the mirror.”

  Emma sticks her tongue out at Aiden. But she doesn’t argue. Instead she keeps talking about vampires in the movies. She’s acting like such a know-it-all. A vampire know-it-all.

  And now no one wants to hear any of the real facts I’ve found on my tablet. Which is a shame, because they’re really interesting.

  Vlad the Impaler was held hostage for six years by the Ottomans when he was a boy. When he grew up and became a leader, he ordered the killing of more than twenty thousand Ottomans as revenge. Just for fun he would invite his enemies to dinner, and then kill them.

  That’s real information. But all anyone wants to hear about is the made-up stuff Emma’s seen in the movies.

  “Vampires hypnotize their victims to make it easier to lure them into the vampires’ lairs and bite their necks,” Emma continues. “Once a person is bitten by a vampire, they become one too.”