Paul and Storm

by N.K.L. Storm

[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs, administered by Paul and Storm]

[editor’s note: this installment was written in a different color ink than the first part, apparently at a later time. There were no other chapters in the Trapper Keeper ™]

The sweet air was all around them as Emily and Nightfin walked in towards a smoky evening. They didn’t exchange any words, but Emily knew they totally didn’t need to, and even the trees were singing, just for them and them alone. The sky was turning a dark indigent blue.

When they were way down the street, Nightfin took off his Charlie glasses (he’d been wearing glasses to make himself look like a doofus), and suddenly the full fist of his sexiness hit Emily in her mind’s jelly-guts. Suddenly she wished she really was just going bowling with stupid Jessica or something, and she worried about Nightfin’s tongue.

“I thought we could just, you know, walk around and stuff,” said Nightfin, and Emily sighed a big sigh of relief.

“That sounds cool, I guess,” said Emily, who was trying to be all blasé, instead of spazzing out like the dummy she usually was.

“Check this out!” said Nightfin, who then did, like, 20 back springs right down the middle of the street! But sexy. And Emily was amazed by his limbers, and stood there like a dum-dum. Nightfin waved to her from waaaay down the street, where his hair and black coat waved in some sort of unseen wind.

“Join me! Come! You can do it!” he said, but Emily wasn’t sure. I mean, gymnastics was the thing she was easily WORST at and totally hated, and she always tried to act sick or something when it came up in gym class, but the stupid gym teacher always made her do it anyway.

“I–I don’t think I can,” said Emily, glancing down at the ground and looking very pretty (if only she could see herself through other eyes!)

“I believe in you, Emily Smithingtonson,” said Nighfin Daggarhart, and suddenly Emily was filled with some kind of kooky power-flow feeling, like when you’re on a swing and going up REALLY fast.

“Okay, I’ll try,” she said. Emily turned her back to the sturdy-standing Nightfin, scrunched up her eyes and thought about backsprings and swingsets…

…and suddenly she was COMPLETELY flipping around, backwards, and through the breezy air! She thought she’d get dizzy, or fart, but she didn’t, and totally did 20 backsprings. And on the last one she felt an even bigger mega-boost, and she went way way up high, and did this flippy thing, and landed right in front of Nightfin, who was TOTALLY surprised.

“Wow,” he said. He was trying to act all blasé, but Emily knew that she’d totally blown him away. “You really could be The One…”

“Huh? What do you mean??” said Emily, who knew but kind of didn’t know, you know?

“Nothing,” said Nightfin, who was now back to being nothing but sexy and blasé. Then he got this wicked smile on his face, and Emily got this terrible feeling, like a train was going to jump the tracks and onto her. “Let’s go get some ice cream.”

All the way to the Softy-Cold, Emily wanted to hide into a manhole or something. Would Nightfin still think she was okay if he found out? She wanted her feet to be going backwards, not forwards, but her direction was not hers and hers alone to make, and before you knew it they were there.

“I love ice cream,” said Nightfin, who was all licking his lips, making him look like a hungry model or something.

“Yeah, ice cream’s pretty wow-awesome,” said Emily. Oh, no! She was TOTALLY losing it and talking like a dork! “I mean, yeah, it’s pretty blasé.”

“Give us two chocolate ice creams, Nick,” said Nightfin to the boy behind the counter, who was also totally cute. And sort of sexy, but not as sexy as Nightfin, to Emily. Ashley might have thought he was WAY more sexy, which was fine and all. But Nightfin was the REAL sexy one, so Ashley could have the new boy. If she wanted.

“On the house, Nightf–I mean…CHARLIE,” said Nick (who probably wasn’t really named Nick, we’re thinking.)

Nightfin’s blue eyes looked at his so very brown ice cream, and his tongue licked it all swirly. Emily gulped and stood there being nervous with her stupid ice cream cone.

“Mmmm,” said Nightfin, giving his ice cream another sexy lick. Emily noticed that his teeth were really, really white and totally perfect, which she certainly admired. “It’s soooo good! Why haven’t you had yours yet? Did you want a bigger one, with more milk in it? Nick, give her a bigger one…”

“No, Night–I mean Charlie,” said Emily, who barely remembered that no one was supposed to know his real name. A dark sad cloud swept over her soul and heart, for she knew she had to tell Nightfin the inconvenient truth, and that their love could never be, and that her life was just as stupid as she thought it was.

“What’s wrong?” said Nightfin, who didn’t look sexy or wicked or mean AT ALL at the moment, but looked really concerned and sort of sad, too. Which was kind of sexy. And Emily knew that she could tell him ANYTHING. She gulped another bunch of breath and decided to plunge her words, for both of them.

“I can’t eat dairy,” she said, bracing herself as she waited for her soul-mate to spurn her blossoms, for Eternity. “I’m lactose intolerant.”

But to Emily’s wholesome surprise, Nightfin smiled and put his hand around hers, which was around the ice cream cone, in which lay the deliciously damning nourishment.

“Yes, you can,” he said, and Emily’s stomach started to go all tingly. She looked into his eyes (which were now ever-so azureous), but her level of brave was smaller still.

“But…if I eat it…then later…”

“You won’t fart tonight, Emily Smithingtonson,” he said, and it was like a big sigh! “And I wouldn’t care if you did. It smells different to…” and he looked over at the guy that Nightfin called Nick (he’s actually named Trudude), who nodded, like they were in on some kind of plan.

“…our kind,” finished Nightfin, who then pushed the ice cream up to Emily’s lips. And Emily licked it, and it tasted sweet and milky, but like it was from another PLANET, or some other unbeknownst place. And she ate it and ate it and ate it, and Nightfin held her hand on the cone, so warmly, and he smiled as she devoured the cone-nectar, like he was the kindest person ever (but not like he wasn’t still sexy, because he most dubiously still was!), and it was his first gift to her, to share.

“Okay you two,” said Nick, who was sort of acting annoyed, but was really probably just joshing them, and was actually pretty happy for them. Then he gave Nightfin a very morbid look (which would have driven Ashley NUTS, but she wasn’t there. Ha-ha!) “I think it’s time she knows.”

“Yes,” said Nightfin, letting go of Emily’s creamy hand, with drama. “Let us walk.”

Before she even knew it, Emily’s feet tread them into the woods where she used to hide when she was just a stupid little girl. And for a moment she thought “no, I can’t take him here”, and she worried about Nightfin’s tongue again, but she knew at that moment that she was totally SAFE, and it wasn’t creepy at all.

Then she was all confused, probably because it was pretty dark or something, and she didn’t remember how to get to her hiding place, or back to the Softy-Cold, or back home, or ANYWHERE.

“Shhhhh,” swam Nightfin’s voice into Emily’s auditory canal. “We’re here.”

Emily looked into Nightfin’s indigent eyes, and tried to ask him an infinite quantity of questions, just with her eyes only. How did he know about her secret place? What? Who? Why?!?!?!

“Shhhhh,” coursed Nightfin’s voice over her hair and soft cheek, which truly was pretty. “I know you have a lot of questions, which is why I let you bring me here.”

Then, suddenly, for some reason, Emily was soooo MAD! So was she just, like, his pawny play-thing, then?! Was she?! Had she just been leading him around on a chain that was in all actuality wrapped around her own truly pretty neck, and looped back in a way so that HE was actually holding it?!?!

“First you listen to me, Nightfin-Bannister-StupidGuy, or whatever your lame-o name is!?” she spat in a huffily turning away and acting as blasé as she could! (and really felt, really!) “Maybe I’d rather not ask you any dumb questions!! Maybe YOU’RE the dumb and don’t know anything?! You and your stupid, STUPID blue eyes!”

A hand caught her hand, and the hand was his hand, and he pulled her around, and she sort of twirled around and probably looked very graceful and pretty, though she’d never ever practiced doing that kind of thing in the mirror or anything.

“You’re right,” said Nightfin. “But if my eyes are stupid, it’s because they’re stupid for you.”

Emily wished she could shatter all of her stone words with a big chisel of feelings, and her heart became an ocean of delicious melty ice cream, and she collapsed into his torso.

“There, there, sweetly one,” said Nightfin. “You are no toy, not for me nor ANYONE, of mortal heritage or no. And I wouldst challenge any such who said so–but only if it were your wish, from respect. So you must not cry!”

“I–I won’t,” she said.

“Good, good,” said Nightfin. “For tears so delicious cannot ever be, lest the perils…” he said, mysteriously, as he glanced so sexishly away.

“I don’t understand,” said Emily, breaking herself apart from him.

“I don’t either,” said Nightfin, who turned his head briskly away to the side and down, and looked importantly gothic and blasé. “But I think it’s time that you know more about my kind.”

END OF PART 2

CONFINUE TO PART 3

EMILY AND THE SEXY VAMPIRE – HOME

by N.K.L. Storm

[Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs, administered by Paul and Storm]

PART 1

Once there was a girl who was really, really pretty, but she didn’t know it. And no one understood her AT ALL. Especially not her so-called friends and especially ESPECIALLY not her parents.

“Did you have a good day at school today?” asked Emily’s dad.

“Shut up, whatever!” said Emily, who had had the worst day EVER.

“That’s it, young lady,” said Emily’s stupid mom. Then they grounded her and told she couldn’t text for, like, I dunno, a year or something.

The next day Emily was walking home from school, and this car pulled up. It looked fast, but not in a lame way like that kid Billy’s down the block. And there was this sticker on the window that looked like it was a magic symbol or something. Emily was sort of scared, but there was a cute boy driving it.

And that made Emily even MORE scared! She wanted to run–no, she wished she had her rollerskates on, and she’d skate away so, so swiftly! But before she could even take one velvet breath, the boy spoke to her.

“Hey,” said the boy.

“Hey,” said Emily.

Emily looked at the boy, and it was like they didn’t need any more words or anything. He had really, really blue eyes, like a thousand oceans inside of a thousand seas. Inside of two ponds, that were his eyes.

And though her heart told her this boy was meant for her, forever and ever, she just couldn’t believe it was true because she was ugly and stupid and not good at art or ANYTHING. So she looked away from her soul-mate and ran, faster even than she could have skated.

And even though it was pretty hard to hear over the sound of her own tears, she was pretty sure she heard him say “I’ll see you soon.”

“Who’s your new boyfriend?” asked Ashley the next day at lunch. “I saw you with him, and he’s one of those WEIRD older boys.”

“Shut UP!” shouted Emily. “He’s not my boyfriend, and he’s not weird, and he’s not that old!”

“Is too, is too, and is too!” said stupid Jessica, who always agreed with whatever Ashley said. Emily wished she could find other girls to eat lunch with, but, you know, whatever.

“I bet you let him put his tongue in your mouth,” said Ashley.

“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!” cried Emily, and then she couldn’t stop crying. It was like she was a wet waterfall. But who was the river that powered the waterfall?

Or instead of a river, was it a thousand oceans?

Emily ran out of the lunch room, crying really hard. Ashley and Jessica laughed even harder.

And two blue pond-eyes watched the whole thing from outside a window…

Emily had weird daydreams the rest of the day. In one of them, she rode the whitest horse there ever was, and she fed it carrots. It carried her all around this forest, where all the animals said hi to her. And the horse had blue eyes.

In another dream Emily was on a throne, and her cat, Smudges, was there too. Except it wasn’t exactly her cat–the cat in her dreams had a black right ear instead of a black left ear. And it had blue eyes.

In yet ANOTHER dream she was flying, but over some kind of magical land. And she was pretty sure it was a long time ago, because way down on the ground she could see old buildings, like castles and things. One of the castles looked like it had blue eyes.

“Emily Smithingtonson! Wake up right NOW!” shouted a voice. It was Emily’s teacher, Mrs. Hately. “And if you don’t answer this next question right, I’m giving you detention for a week!” And you could tell that Mrs. Hately REALLY wanted to give Emily detention, because that’s what she liked to do more than anything in the WORLD.

“But Mrs. Hately…” started Emily. She really, really wanted to apologize, and she meant it.

“Enough!” shouted the stupid teacher. “Here’s the question: in 1647 in Cyzgmrvyzzkavania, who killed the Vampyre Kyng?”

Emily’s head swam. Oh no! she thought. I’m going to get detention! Mrs. Hately had a really mean smile on her face, and started to grab a detention slip. But then suddenly it was like Emily just knew all these things.

“It was Smiggle Bigglye!” she shouted triumphy! Mrs. Hately frowned, because she wanted to give Emily detention and now she couldn’t. Except she asked another question.

“Well, if you’re sooooo smart, what was the Vampyre Kyng’s name?”

“Moonglow Daggarhart!”

“And when was the last Vampyre killed?”

This time no answer came to Emily’s head. Mrs. Hately smiled in a really mean way.

“A-ha! You ARE stupid!” Mrs. Hately shouted, triumphy again. “It was in 1666!”

“Nooooo!” shouted Emily. “The Vampyres live! Live! Liiiiiive!”

“Detention! Detention! Detentioooooon!” shouted Mrs. Hately. “In fact, go to the detention room right now!”

Emily cried all the way to detention. But not because of Mrs. Hately. No, that woman could never defeat her. No, it was because she couldn’t bear the thought that the Vampyres should be perished from this earth.

And two hungry blue eyes watched poor Emily cry her little eyes out while she sat, all alone, with no one else and by herself, in the stupid detention room.

On the third day of her detention, all alone, she saw someone outside the window and in the teachers’ parking lot. It was an older boy, and he was all gothic and wearing black–and suddenly blue eyes were staring at her!

The boy–her boy–put his finger to his lips and did that ’shhhhhh!’ sound, even though Emily couldn’t really hear it. Emily was afraid he would be caught, and tried to wave him away, but the boy just laughed.

Then he went up to a car–Mrs. Hately’s car–and climbed up on top of it! And then he started dancing on it!

“Oh, please stop! You’ll get caught!” shouted Emily, but she knew he couldn’t hear her. And even if he could, she knew he wouldn’t listen.

Suddenly the door slammed open, and a teacher walked in.

“What’s going on in here?” said Mr. Bimbins, the math teacher. “And what are you looking at?”

“Nothing!” said Emily, who knew for sure that the boy would get caught. But when she looked out the window, he was gone into thin air!

“That’s another week of detention for you!” said Mr. Bimbins. But Emily didn’t care.

Her boy had danced on a car for her, and then he got away.

Later on the way home, Emily felt like she was being followed. And she was. By the boy.

“Hey,” he said, just like the first time they met. Except this time he wasn’t in his car. He was leaning up against a tree, and Emily thought it was really sexy. His blue eyes were just as blue as she remembered them being.

“Hey,” said Emily. This time she trampled down the urge to run, even though her heart was running very fast indeed.

“You saved me back there,” said the boy. “If you hadn’t shouted, I would totally have been caught.”

Emily’s heart raced even faster, and she needed to fart. But she didn’t.

“How could you hear that?” she asked. “I was, like, inside. And you were outside.”

The boy laughed, like he knew a secret that Emily didn’t know. “Let’s just say that my hearing is really, really good, Emily Smithingtonson.”

“How did you know my name?” asked Emily, who was very surprised that the boy knew her name.

The boy laughed, like he’s just heard a very funny joke. “Let’s just say that my hearing is really, really good.”

“Well, what’s your name?”

“People in this town call me Charlie Bannister,” said the boy, but Emily already knew his SOUL.

“That’s not your real name, though, is it?” asked Emily, even though she already knew that it wasn’t.

“No,” said the boy. “My real name is not pronounceable by your kind.”

“I don’t understand,” said Emily, even though her heart knew the terrible truth.

“I’ve already said too much!” said the boy. “But I’ll tell you that my name sort of translates as…”

Suddenly the boy was looking around like he heard something, his blue eyes looking everywhere, and it was sexy. He turned to go.

“Your name! You MUST tell me!” shouted Emily in a voice more confident than she’d ever felt in her ugly, stupid life.

“You can call me…Nightfin Daggarhart!”

And Emily Smithingtonson watched Nightfin Daggarhart run behind the tree, and then he was gone, and she farted.

She didn’t see Nightfin for a whole week, and the only person she could talk to about it was her cat.

“I know you believe me, Smudges,” she said as she petted him in her room. “But why did he run away from me?”

Then there was a knock on her door. It was her mom.

“Honeykins, there’s someone here to see you,” she said. Emily imagined it was stupid Ashley and Jessica, who wanted to laugh at her lame clothes or something.

“Tell them to go away!”

“Okay,” said her mom. “But it’s a cute boy–with blue eyes.”

Emily’s heart beat so loud that her cat jumped straight onto her head, totally messing up her hair, which looked lame most of the time anyway. But Emily didn’t care–Nightfin was her moon, and like the sweeping ocean tides, she would rise to his sexy moon-song.

“Tell him I’ll be right there,” said Emily. She put on something that looked pretty okay, but not TOO good, so it wouldn’t seem like she was all “ooh, I just love, love, love you Nightfin!” and stuff, but she’d still look good in a more “oh, it’s YOU…that’s cool” kind of casual way.

When she got downstairs, Nightfin was in the kitchen and all talking to her mom, and he looked like a total dork! He had glasses on and stuff.

“Yes, Mrs. Smithingtonson, I’m a verrrry good student,” he was saying, and when he saw Emily he dropped the brainiac book he was carrying.

“Be careful, Charlie,” said Emily’s mom. “You might hurt your book or something.”

“Oh, I’d never hurt a book,” said Charlie (who was really Nightfin acting like a dork), who winked at Emily. “Books are totally wow-awesome!”

Emily’s mom laughed, because Nightfin had charmed her, big time. “Oh, Charlie! You’re sweet. Emily is grounded but you seem like a fine young man, so you can take her bowling if you want.” Nightfin winked at Emily again, because they were so totally NOT going bowling.

“Okay, Mrs. Smithingtonson. I’ll have her home at a reasonable hour,” said Nightfin (who, you will remember, was acting like goofy Charlie Bannister).

“I know you will–have fun!” said Emily’s mom.

And Emily went out of the house with Nightfin (Charlie!), into the pre-dusky sort-of dim November eve.

CONFINUE TO PART 2