Little Vampire Women

“Very unpleasant all around,” she said. “Staking is a terrible way to go. I’d much rather be decapitated. It still makes an awful mess but it’s a lot more dignified than your limbs twittering all over the place.” She shook her arms in approximation and Laurie laughed, appreciating her humour. Jo liked him tremendously, for most of the human boys she knew were particular about vampires and would rather be slayers than friends, which is why she counted so few of them among her acquaintance.

“I’ve never thought about it before, but I suppose I’d like to be decapitated too,” Laurie said. “One nice clean chop!”

“Oh, but the chops are rarely clean. Usually it takes several whacks before the connection is cut. You have to have a really sharp battle-axe.”

“I’ll remember that,” he said, then paled and stuttered, “N-not… th-that I plan on decapitating any vampires. I like them immensely. I’d love to be one myself.”

“Oh, don’t worry. I won’t bite you. I’m a strict humanitarian, so it’s against my religion to eat humans. We stick to pig’s blood and have small animals only on very special occasions. My sister Beth loves kittens.”

“I’ve never met a humanitarian before. There aren’t any in Europe.”

“There aren’t a lot around here either. Just me and my sisters and my parents. It’s no big deal. I don’t even crave human flesh. Maybe if I’d gone without food for days on end, standing this close to you would give me ideas, but I had a snack an hour ago,” Jo said, with a smile to put him at ease. “Tell me about Europe. I love dearly to hear people describe their travels.”

Laurie didn’t seem to know where to begin, but Jo’s eager questions soon set him going, and he told her how he had been at school in Vevay, where the boys never wore hats and had a fleet of boats on the lake, and for holiday fun went on walking trips about Switzerland with their teachers.

“Don’t I wish I’d been there!” cried Jo. “Did you go to Paris?”

“We spent last winter there.”

“Can you talk French?”

“We were not allowed to speak anything else at Vevay.” “Do say some! I can read it, but can’t pronounce.”

“Quel nom a cette jeune demoiselle en les pantoufles jolis?”

“How nicely you do it! Let me see… you said, ‘Who is the young lady in the pretty slippers?’, didn’t you?”

“Oui, mademoiselle.”

“It’s my sister Margaret, and you knew it was! Do you think she is pretty?”

“Yes, she makes me think of the German vampire girls, she looks so pale and quiet, and dances like a lady.”

Jo quite glowed with pleasure at this boyish praise of her sister, and stored it up to repeat to Meg. Both peeped and criticised and chatted till they felt like old acquaintances and didn’t even seem to notice the differences between them, which is precisely how Marmee said it should be for humans and vampires. Jo liked the “Laurence boy” better than ever and took several good looks at him, so that she might describe him to the girls, for human boys were almost unknown creatures to them.

“Curly black hair, brown skin, big black eyes, handsome nose, fine teeth, small hands and feet, taller than I am, very polite, for a boy, and altogether jolly. Wonder how old he is?”

By and by, the band struck up a splendid polka and Laurie insisted that they dance.

“I can’t, for I told Meg I wouldn’t, because…” There Jo stopped, and looked undecided whether to tell or to laugh.

“Because, what?”

“You won’t tell?”

“Never!”

“Well, I have a bad trick of standing near the window at sunrise, and so I burn my frocks, and I scorched this one. Though it’s nicely mended, it shows, and Meg told me to keep still so no one would see it. You may laugh, if you want to. It is funny, I know.”

But Laurie didn’t laugh. He only looked down a minute, and the expression of his face puzzled Jo when he said very gently, “So it’s true that sunlight does you great harm?”

“Only those thoughtless enough to expose themselves. I know I should pull the curtains and go to sleep but I love seeing the first rays peek over the horizon,” she said softly.

“Never mind that,” Laurie said. “I’ll tell you how we can manage. There’s a long hall out there, and we can dance grandly, and no one will see us. Please come.”

Jo thanked him and gladly went, wishing she had two neat gloves when she saw the nice, pearl-coloured ones her partner wore. The hall was empty, and they had a grand polka, for Laurie danced well, and taught her the German step, which delighted Jo, being full of swing and spring. When the music stopped, they sat down on the stairs, and Laurie was in the midst of an account of a vampires‘ festival at Heidelberg when Meg appeared in search of her sister. She beckoned, and Jo reluctantly followed her into a side room, where Meg sat on a sofa and held her foot.

“I’ve twisted my ankle. That stupid high heel turned and gave my foot a sad wrench,” she said, glancing down at the unfortunate appendage, which now pointed inwards at a most severe angle. “It doesn’t ache and I can stand fine but the cracking sound the bones make every time I step is disturbing the other dancers. I think we should leave.”

“I knew you’d hurt your feet with those silly shoes. I’m sorry. But I don’t see what you can do, except get a carriage, or stay here all night,” answered Jo, tugging on the bent limb, which would not straighten despite her considerable efforts. The vampire ability to regenerate would heal the appendage soon, but not so quickly that Meg could rejoin the dancing.

“Can I help you?” said a friendly voice. And there was Laurie, with a full cup in one hand and a plate of ice in the other.

“It’s nothing,” Meg assured. “I turned my foot a little, that’s all.”

But Laurie could see for himself that she’d turned her foot a lot and immediately offered to take her home in his grandfather’s carriage.

“It’s so early! You can’t mean to go yet?” began Jo, looking relieved but hesitating to accept the offer.

“I always go early, I do, truly! Please let me take you home. It’s all on my way, you know, and it rains, they say.”

That settled it. Jo gratefully accepted and they rolled away in the luxurious closed carriage, feeling very festive and elegant.

“I had a capital time. Did you?” asked Jo, rumpling up her hair, and making herself comfortable.

Meg agreed that she did up until the moment she twisted her ankle and had to leave. Laurie went on the box so Meg could keep her foot up, and the girls talked over their party in freedom.

“Sallie’s friend, Annie Moffat, took a fancy to me, and asked me to come and spend a week with her when Sallie does. She is going in the spring when the opera comes, and it will be perfectly splendid, if Mother only lets me go,” Meg said, cheering up at the thought.

Jo told her adventures, and by the time she had finished they were at home. With many thanks, they said goodnight and entered the house. The instant the door creaked, two little heads bobbed up and eager voices cried out…

“Tell about the party! Tell about the party!”

“I declare, it really seems like being a fine young lady, to come home from the party in a carriage and sit in my dressing gown with a maid to wait on me,” said Meg.

“I don’t believe fine young ladies enjoy themselves a bit more than we do, in spite of our burned gowns, one glove apiece, and tight slippers that sprain our ankles when we are silly enough to wear them.” And I think Jo was quite right.

(#ulink_e1c8f033-d921-5326-be38-2bdff11e9870) International bestseller by Dimitri Strinsky (b. 1294), translated into thirty-seven languages, including Swahili. Its sequel, Seven More Signs of a Vampire Slayer and How I Missed Them the First Time, is also a classic.

(#ulink_ce0331a5-71cf-514f-b800-0816b4e3d5ea) The Pinkerton National Detective Agency, established in 1850 by Allan Pinkerton, who became famous after foiling an attempt to assassinate President-elect Abraham Lincoln. Pinkerton was the first personal-security agency to hire vampires to screen for slayers.

(#ulink_98a90e02-f401-5f2f-8eeb-9ecd1ce9609f) For an example, see “Vampires Are Thoughtless Killing Machines,” New York Times, January 23, 1856.

(#ulink_64e40d46-e2cc-522f-9eb8-2ef8ff050068) Type of shoe said to be worn by men in olden times; however, this detail has been pointed to by several radical feminist scholars as proof that Laurie’s desire to be a vampire is really a repressed desire to be a woman. See Karen Thomapolis’s Unmasking Gender in Little Vampire Women.

Chapter Four (#ulink_994e0b91-53f7-505a-bec0-97970e9443a4)

BURDENS (#ulink_994e0b91-53f7-505a-bec0-97970e9443a4)