The Truth About Inna

Hi, this is Kiwi! Like Summer said in the last post, I'm feeling a lot better, so I'm going to be writing today's post because I found out something interesting about my big sister Inna.

It may seem weird that there's anything left to find out... but Inna hasn't been my sister for very long. Me and Summer used to live with just Maia. We met Inna in Toronto, where we were living at the time, a couple of months before we moved here. At first, me and Summer thought she was Maia's new girlfriend - but it turns out they were just friends. Inna didn't have a nice place to stay, and we had an extra bedroom, so Maia talked to us and asked if it was okay if Inna came and lived with us. Of course we said it was fine. So Inna became our second older sister, even though we didn't meet her till this year. When Inna was in some kind of danger in Toronto and decided to move here to try to be safe, we came with her, because we're family.

Inna has always been really nice to us, and really goes out of her way to take care of us and protect us. She's always been kind of secretive, though, and won't talk much about her background. Usually she says it doesn't matter - but sometimes she admits the real reason, which is because she thinks we wouldn't be safe if we knew. I get the feeling some parts of her past are pretty bad, because of that and because a lot of times she makes sarcastic little comments about herself that she's not a nice person... even though she really is.

The doctor said I can't go back to school till next week because I had surgery, so Maia took time off work to take care of me. While we were eating lunch today, and I asked her, "How come Inna knows so much about vampires?"

I didn't expect that she would answer me, because she usually doesn't talk about stuff people don't want her to talk about - but Maia surprised me. She said, looking at my still kind-of-bruised face, "We agreed to protect you from this... but I guess we can't." Then she told me the basics of the story.

A few years ago, Inna made some vampires mad - I don't know what she did, Maia didn't say. These were big bad scary vampires, not nice ones like Clare and Tabitha. And older, more powerful ones, like we were wondering about before. They decided to kill her, but not all of them agreed, and when some of them tried to murder her, the other ones secretly saved her life... but she didn't know at the time that there would be a catch. The ones who saved her bound her to them as their servant. 

Inna was with them for awhile, but she finally got away. She's been on the run ever since - from vampires who think she's dead, and from vampires who think she betrayed them by escaping instead of spending the rest of her life serving them. No wonder she's so scared! And no wonder she felt so sorry for Clare. Good thing Inna has us to protect her now!

I asked Maia if I was supposed to keep this a secret, and she said no. That it's better for everyone to know the truth now. I'm glad, because it would have been really hard to be the only kid who knows, and not be able to talk to my sisters.

When Inna got home, Maia told her that she'd told me. Inna didn't seem upset with Maia - but she was worried. She asked me if I still liked her. I said of course I do, I love her, because she's my sister! Then I gave her a big hug. Everything was alright after that.

I'm sure this isn't the whole truth about Inna. I typed up everything Maia told me so I won't forget, but it's just the bare bones of the story. Maybe in time, we'll learn more. For now, I feel like I know my big sister a little better.

Love,

Kiwi

All Better Now

Good news, everyone - Kiwi went in for her surgery today, and now she's home! :-)

Kiwi is doing well. She says she isn't too sore, and she can breathe a lot better with the bone in her nose fixed. She's still really groggy, though, and that's why I (Summer) am reporting on her progress instead of her. Kiwi has some pain pills to take, and she's supposed to take it easy for the next few days, but she's going to be fine.

We're all really relieved. There wasn't any real danger to Kiwi from the surgery, but medical procedures are always a little nerve-wracking. We're glad she's home and feeling better.

Tabitha seems better, too, now that she's sure Kiwi will really be okay. She still isn't talking about what happened when Cécile and Marie-Grace came over, but she's otherwise pretty normal again, and working hard on staying in control of herself. Tabitha watched The Dark Crystal with Kiwi this evening; I think it was good for the two of them to spend time together, so Tabs can see that all is truly forgiven.

Kaya and Fiona have been rehearsing hard for the Nutcracker. Cécile and Marie-Grace haven't been over again because they're all spending so much time at the dance school these days, but Kaya and Fi see them at practices, and have carried our hellos and good wishes back and forth. Once Nutcracker is over, we're going to spend more time with them.

So yeah, the main news is Kiwi. (No new developments, either good or bad, on the recent vampire issues.) Kiwi is feeling pretty cheerful, and wants me to tell you that she got to keep her hospital gown and hospital ID bracelet, because she's really excited about that for some reason. (She tells me that the reason is "Because it's cool!" Well, okay then.) I think she's looking forward to life being back to normal again. Kiwi doesn't like being laid up with an injury, she likes being active. She should be good as new in a few days, though.

Kiwi says thanks for all the concern and well-wishes, and she very is glad to be able to give her friends good news! :-)

Love,

Summer

Inna the Vampire Slayer

Hi, this is Clare, with more Crazy Vampire News.

As you may recall, ever since I've been here, I've had other vampires after me. That's why I came here, actually. I was running from them. I changed my name so it would be harder for them to find me; on the way here I passed a place called St. Clare's Hospital, so I decided to be Clare. They still found me... but I like my new name. I think it suits me.

There were four vampires in their hunting group. They're the ones who kidnapped me off the streets of Denver and turned me into a vampire too. They planned to keep me, and make me a part of their group. Like their trainee, or their little sister. I didn't want to be there, though, because they kill people, so I ran away. They weren't okay with that. They thought I belonged to them. They were afraid I would expose them to the humans because I'd gone rogue. Plus I think they just saw me as their property, with no right to get away. They were going to punish me for not doing what they wanted and not being a killer like them.

I ran from them for a long time... I guess I was always headed to Nova Scotia, without realizing it, because that's where I lived with my grandmother, and I was happy there. Well, they found me in Nova Scotia, so I stowed away on the ferry and went north again. That's how I ended up here. That's how I finally found a home.

Since then, the vampires have been skulking around from time to time. They would occasionally strike - like when they cornered me at the park, or when they kidnapped Kiwi - and then when they didn't win, they'd disappear again. We know they're monsters, but they're monsters who are good at hiding. You can't call the police about problem vampires, because the vampires would just eat the police. We knew we had to find some way of getting rid of them once and for all, before they killed more people. None of us knew where to look, though.

Tonight, they made a move. One of them was sniffing around the house, scouting us out, and he bumped into Inna. Who is not afraid of vampires. And who is capable of being really scary. I'm glad I'm on her side, not the other side. Inna didn't tell us all the details of how she defeated the vampire guy, but I know it involved a wooden stake and firing up the gas barbecue - so I can guess the rest. I'm glad that isn't how I ended up - and I definitely would have if my new family hadn't protected me!

Inna was able to follow the guy's trail back to where the other vampires were hiding. They had built a kind of nest in an unused downtown building, and had killed at least one homeless person to feed on. I'm glad I didn't see that. It would have been sad, and... I might not have acted human around the blood. I don't like that thought.

When Inna went further into their little makeshift lair, she found the other three vampires already dead. From the look of the scene - which wasn't much, since going with traditional lore they were burned - she said it looked like they'd been killed by other vampires.

I'm not sure whether I feel safer, or less safe. The ones who wanted me dead are gone now, but I don't think I can really say I'm safer without knowing why they were killed. 

Grudge? That probably wouldn't involve me. I haven't crossed paths with any other vampires besides the ones who turned me, plus Tabitha, so I don't see how I could have made anyone mad. 

Turf war? Depends. I'm not interested in being territorial, but if someone else wants this to be their territory without other vampires, Tabitha and I are probably also on the hit list. 

Or... something else? And if something else, then what? Why would vampires want to kill other vampires? Would whoever did it want to kill me and Tabitha, too?

Could it be that the vampires who got rid of the dangerous ones were trying to protect the humans? So maybe they're good vampires. Maybe there are nice and heroic vampires who go around making sure bad vampires don't hurt people? Inna didn't think this was too likely, but it would be a happy and optimistic possibility. She said most vampires are more about the self-preservation or at best protecting close family and allies... and in some cases protecting the secrets of vampirism... than about altruism to strangers. Too bad my wishful thinking vampire superhero theory is probably not true.

Maybe I don't want it to be true, anyway. I've done bad things. Tabitha has done bad things. Not that we had much choice, but it happened. Do we count as bad vampires because of that? If someone is "cleaning house" so to speak, are we in danger too?

In a way, it's a relief not to be scared of the vampires that made me into one anymore. I still have nightmares about when they kidnapped me and turned me. I'm glad they won't take anyone else's mortal life like that. Now I may have more things to be scared of, though. I'm glad I have my family to protect me and reassure me that it'll all be okay. No matter how things turn out with this, letting them adopt me was the smartest thing I ever did.

Love,

Clare

Snow Day!

Hi, fellow bloggers! This is Summer. Summer in the winter! Har har! ;-)

(Wow, my little cartoon thing looks cold in a t-shirt, capris, and sandals!)

Anyway, we've told you this before, but today is not a holiday in Canada. We celebrate Thanksgiving in October, so today is just a Thursday for us. Today turned out to be unusual, though, because we got the first big snowstorm of the season. Not the first snowfall - that was a couple of weeks ago - but the first real storm that changed the daily routine. That's unusual for East Coast Newfoundland. We get a lot of snow, but normally our big bad weather is from January to May, not in November.

Because of the storm, we had a snowday today! It snowed on and off most of the day, and the sky was really cloudy, grey, and overcast. Being off school for weather was really surprising this early in the year, but it was fun. We got up at the normal time to read the school closings online, then got to go back to bed so we could sleep in. Then we got up, got dressed, had breakfast... and there was a knock on the door.

It turned out to be Cécile and Marie-Grace. Kaya had been worried they'd never talk to us again after Tabitha's issues last night, but apparently they still want to be our friends. Yay! They didn't come in the house this time - I think they didn't want to upset Tabitha again - but they asked if we wanted to go sledding in the park. The older girls had already gone out for a snowball fight with their friends, but Kaya, Fiona, Kiwi, Charissa, Evelyn, Molly, and I went with them, and we had a really good time tackling the "slopes." Our city is very hilly, so it's a great place to sled.

Cécile and Marie-Grace were wearing dresses as usual, but we were worried they would get cold, so we lent them some sweatpants to wear underneath. It looked a little silly, but everyone dresses in layers when there's a lot of snow, so they actually probably got fewer looks than usual. They didn't seem to have any trouble sledding in their skirts; I guess they're used to doing stuff dressed that way, even though they're still getting used to planning for how cold it gets here. (I was born in Toronto and I've always lived in Canada, so I'm used to it.)

When were done sledding, I taught the other girls some yoga. They fell over a lot - although the ballet girls and Kiwi with her gymnastics had an obvious edge - so I was glad I had thought to use the snow as cushioning. I'm not sure how much they really learned, but I think they enjoyed it. Then we built snow animals and made snow angels.

We had a great time, and laughed a lot. I'm glad Kaya and Fiona decided to invite the girls over yesterday, because now we can all be friends with them. I probably never would have met them otherwise because I don't take dance. We said goodbye to Cécile and Marie-Grace at the end of their driveway. (They live right next door to a creepy abandoned house... I wonder if they know any good ghost stories about it?) Then the rest of us headed home. It's fun to have new friends who only live two streets down from us. Once Nutcracker is over and the girls don't have so many rehearsals to go to, we're going to hang out more.

I'm so glad my family moved to this city! I wasn't sure about it at first... but now I've met so many great people. I feel really happy here, and very much at home. :-)

Love,
Summer

An awkward (but still fun) visit

Hi, blog friends. This is Kaya. As I mentioned in a reply to a comment on another post, our new friends came to visit us after tonight's Nutcracker rehearsal. It's easy to have people over after dance because our house is only about two blocks away from the dance school, so we just walked here after practice ended. It's getting dark here by late-afternoon this time of year, but it's still a pretty safe walk, especially at such a short distance.

Cécile and Marie-Grace seemed happy to visit, although they were a little shy. I think they don't get invited to people's houses very often. Unfortunately, as soon as I turned my key in the lock and let them in, Tabitha started freaking out. She's used to the family coming and going, but we weren't sure how she was going to handle a guest.

It was even worse than Halloween. Tabitha's room is in the basement of the Rose house, but we live in row houses so we only have interior walls between us. Cécile and Marie-Grace heard everything... including Tabitha ripping her bed apart and throwing pieces of it at the wall. They obviously weren't quite sure what to do.

I wasn't sure either, honestly. I'm used to Tabitha, but Tabs doesn't usually cross paths with "civilians." Was I supposed to joke about it? Explain? (Which would have to be a lie. I can't tell our guests, "Oh, that's just one of our vampires.") Should I apologize? Pretend it wasn't happening?

I went for a brief vague apology, followed by pretending it wasn't happening. Fiona followed my lead, but she kept glancing anxiously at the wall that separates the two houses, as if she was afraid Tabitha was going to burst through at any second. I was... not unconcerned about that possibility, too. Clare was out hunting, so at least we didn't have two of them to worry about. Since Clare is more used to being a vampire, she's in better control and has more options for that kind of stuff; we can't let Tabitha hunt alone in the city, but Clare can control herself well enough to stick to rats instead of humans.

Weirdness aside, we actually had a fun time. Cécile and Marie-Grace said they'd already eaten, and apparently they have a bunch of food allergies, so they didn't want anything to eat, but we all had some herbal tea. We talked about dance, and the places we've visited, and what their lives were like in New Orleans. They didn't say anything about their family, though, so I'm not really sure who they live with. When it was time for them to go, they walked home, so I'm not even positive where they live... although they did mention what street, and it's not far from here.

By the time we had finished our tea, some of my other sisters had joined us, and we played Scrabble and listened to music. (Cécile won the game.) Marie-Grace taught us some old-fashioned ballroom dance steps she had learned back in New Orleans. Not all of my sisters are very wonderful dancers - I thought Kirsten was going to sprain something - but we had a good laugh and it was a lot of fun.

Finally it got late for a school night, and Marie-Grace and Cécile had to say goodnight. (Canadian Thanksgiving is in October, so tomorrow is just a regular school Thursday for us.) It was a fun time, in spite of the weirdness with Tabitha.

Speaking of Tabitha, she totally destroyed her room - especially her bed, which is now in small pieces. At this point, she's being nonverbal again, although she stopped being aggressive once the girls left. Inna says Tabitha will snap out of it; actually Inna thinks Tabitha is over whatever happened, and is just being silent because she's too embarrassed to talk about it. I hope she doesn't feel too bad. I like it better when Tabitha is happy, and it's not her fault she's still struggling with being a vampire.

The weather probably didn't help. We're supposed to get a big snowstorm tomorrow. (I wonder if we'll get a little "holiday" from school after all?) Can vampires sense the weather like wild animals can? It's not a very flattering comparison, but I should ask Clare anyway. It would be interesting to know.

Oh! I also got another letter from my penpal in Nunvavut today. I found out she's a foster kid like I was; I wonder if they matched us up on purpose because of that. She told me more about her school and her activities, and it turns out she likes dance also. She also likes animals. I'm going to write her back about Nutcracker.

Happy Thanksgiving to our American readers who celebrate it, and Happy Thursday to the rest! :-)

Love,
Kaya

P.S. We've decided to use our little cartoons of ourselves in posts we write so it's easier for our readers to remember which one of us is talking. Hopefully it won't be confusing! Group posts won't have a picture, but individual posts will.

P.P.S. Happy Birthday, Inky! :-)

"Where do all the old vampires go?"

Hi there, this is Josefina. I'm just realizing I haven't written a blog entry in a long time! I've just been really distracted with school and stuff... the school newspaper takes up most of my writing time these days. It's good to be behind the keyboard for the blog again. :-)

Just to warn you, this isn't really a news post. It's more sort of a thinky post, about a conversation we had, and a question we couldn't figure out the answer to.

Several of us were sitting in the living room working on homework, when out of the blue, Kirsten asked, "Where do all the old vampires go?"

"What do you mean?" Felicity replied in a somewhat distracted way, looking up from the French verb conjugations she was memorizing.

Kirsten frowned, trying to explain her train of thought, and said, "Well, vampires are supposed to be immortal, right? So how come all the ones we've met have been turned really recently? Clare has been one for a little more than a year. Tabitha for less than two months. The ones who turned Clare and came after her don't seem all that ancient either, are they, Clare?"

Clare shook her head. "Nope. They were only turned a few years ago, as far as I know."

"Exactly!" Kirsten said. "So if they live forever, why haven't we met any old ones? Like Dracula, or something?"

"Because Dracula is fictional," Bree commented dryly without looking up from her book, her sole and oh-so-helpful contribution to the conversation.

Kirsten stuck her tongue out at Bree and rolled her eyes. "I don't mean Dracula specifically. Obviously! I mean really old ones like him. We know more vampires than the average people. How come we've never met any that were old? Like, not even that had been vampires for a few decades?"

All eyes turned to Clare, our resident insider vampire expert.

"I don't know," the resident insider vampire expert replied. "Vampires die a lot, though, I guess. We don't get old or pass away from natural causes, but we can be killed... and so far it seems like there are attempts to kill us a lot. Between vampire hunters and other vampires, the herd probably naturally gets thinned quite a bit."

We all thought this was likely true, but not a totally satisfying answer. That would explain why there weren't many older vampires. Like, why vampires don't just overrun humans and take everything over. It doesn't explain why haven't seen or heard of any, though... because there keep being new ones. Some of them are surviving long enough to create new ones, or else vampires would die out. If they can live that long, surely some of them make it to older age? Even much older?

"Maybe we should ask Inna this," Clare suggested. "She knows more than I do."

Including these two concepts - older vampires and Inna - in the same conversation made me wonder something. I wonder if that's what she's afraid of. If that's what's chasing her. She doesn't seem scared of newer vampires, like our resident ones or the ones chasing Clare. When Kiwi was taken, Inna was angry and afraid for Kiwi's safety, but she didn't seem to have any fears about surviving the rescue attempt herself; she seemed pretty confident. I'm sure some of it was for the sake of the rest of us - but I don't think all her courage was faked. When Inna manages to track the kidnapper vampires down again, she's planning to go after them, and again she seems confident about the outcome.

But there's something she is afraid of. I wonder if it could be the older sort of vampires that we haven't seen yet? Maybe she got on the bad side of one at some point, and now the vampire is out for revenge? It's just a guess, of course. But it's the only idea we've had so far of what might have scared Inna so badly she'd wonder if we were better off without her...

Love,
Josefina

Practice makes... new friends?

Hi, this is Kaya again - three posts in a row from me, you guys will be so sick of it. :-P

I'm writing to update you again because the biggest new thing going on right now is Nutcracker rehearsals. Other than that, life is pretty normal. Well, at least our normal, which includes vampires and shapeshifters and stuff. ;-)

School is going okay for all of us. It's a pretty busy time of year, because the teachers want to get stuff done before the holidays, and we have a lot of extra activities. Speaking of those extra activities, Bree's drama club volunteered to do backstage work for Nutcracker! So now a third Green is involved; Bree has never danced in ballet in her life, but will be working on tech. At the moment, she thinks her job will be to operate the spotlight, which is very important to the show... but they're still deciding for sure what everyone's job will be.

Bree's drama club is also doing a holiday program of skits and songs at their school just before classes let out. She's doing tech for that, too. Bree has decided that she doesn't really like acting in front of people - although she enjoys the improv games they do at their practices - but she loves the backstage stuff. Personally, I think that's great, because it takes people doing both to make awesome shows happen. If everyone wanted the spotlight, plays and dance programs wouldn't be half as good, so I'm glad there are people like Bree who like to help with the unseen but equally important side.

Tabitha is doing well. She has good days and bad days, but the good days have been more frequent lately, and the bad days haven't been as bad. Maybe someday she'll feel comfortable blogging about it herself. For now, though, I'm pleased to tell you (with her permission) that things are better. Kiwi is feeling a lot better, too.

So... Nutcracker! That has been occupying a lot of my time and Fiona's in the past week. We've had rehearsals pretty much every day - although fortunately we have tomorrow off. It'll be nice to have a little break. Things are still pretty rough, but we still have a bit of time, and the teachers seem pleased with how it's going. We tried on our costumes today for the first time, and they look really nice, I think. Somehow, wearing the outfits we'll wear on stage (even without stage makeup and stuff) made it seem more real that we're actually going to be doing this thing in less than a month.

During rehearsals, we've made some new friends. That probably sounds weird since we're all from the same dance school, but our school is pretty big, so sometimes there are kids our paths don't cross with very much. For example, Fiona and the other Clara. They're at the same class level, but since that level has a lot of girls in it, it's divided into two sections so the teachers have a smaller group to teach at a time. Fiona and the other Clara, whose name is Cécile, are in different sections, so they have their normal classes on different days and don't really see each other. Nutcracker mixes that up a little, so we get to make friends with kids we wouldn't ordinarily get to know.

That's how Fiona and I ended up making some new friends. One of them is the girl I just mentioned, Cécile. She has a sister named Marie-Grace, who is also in the Nutcracker. I think maybe one or both of them might be adopted, because they look really different, but I didn't ask because I didn't want to pry. I thought it was neat that they have the same first names as the new American Girl characters - but they didn't seem to know who that was. Oh well.

Marie-Grace is playing Maria (Clara's best friend in the Party Scene) in Act One, and a Polichinelle in Act Two. At our dance school, it's a tradition that whoever plays Maria is also a Polichinelle, as another way the Kingdom of Sweets is like Clara's real life, although most of the audience never notices that.

The other girls at our practices were kind of ignoring Cécile and Marie-Grace, and whispering about them that they're weird. They wear really old-fashioned clothes and hairstyles, and they have a different accent. When the other girls tried to talk with them about the newest songs from the radio, or movies, or TV, Marie-Grace and Cécile were polite but clearly didn't know what the others were talking about, so the conversation kind of fizzled.

They don't go to the same school as anyone else from the group does. That's really not as unusual as it sounds... there are a lot of schools in the metro area, both public and private, and some kids are homeschooled or do co-op like I do... but it means yet one more thing they don't have in common with anyone else, because they don't know the same people or take the same academic classes. Eventually the other girls just stopped paying any attention to them.

Fiona and I felt bad for them, so when we had a break in the rehearsal, we went and sat with them. They turned out to be really nice! They're also really smart. They may not watch television or listen to the radio, but they know all kinds of things about ballet and art and classical music, and they've traveled quite a bit. We've heard them speak fluently in both English and French. I asked if they were from France, and they said no - they're from New Orleans, and they also know Haitian Creole. Very cool! I didn't realize anyone else at our dance school was originally from the United States, besides some of the girls in our family.

I got teased a little for talking to them, but whatever. Cécile and Marie-Grace are much nicer than people who would make fun of someone for not being "cool" enough. I think it's neat that they dress differently and stuff. They have a unique style! Which is more than I can say for a lot of people.

Blakeney said they can come over for supper sometime after a rehearsal. I hope they say yes when we invite them. It's always fun to make new friends! That's a nice thing about Nutcracker, meeting new people. I hope we can keep being friends with them after Nutcracker is over.

Love,
Kaya

Nutcracker News

Hi, this is Kaya (with Fiona looking over my shoulder.) As I mentioned in the last post, today was a big day for us - the day our dance teachers assigned us roles for The Nutcracker. Now that we have our parts, rehearsals will kick into high gear, then we'll start performances in a little less than a month. Wow, what a whirlwind!

I got cast in several roles; this is normal for the pointe students at our school because there aren't as many of us. In Act One I'll be a Party Guest. Then I'll have plenty of time to change after my scene, but in Act Two I'll be in and out of Quick Change a lot! At the very start of Act Two, I'll be one of the three Sugar Plum Fairy Attendants, which is like a servant of the real Sugar Plum Fairy; not all productions have that role, but it's basically sort of setting the scene for the Kingdom of Sweets. Then I'm in the Candy Cane dance - that's what we do with the Russian music - and Waltz of the Flowers. I have the length of two other dances to change in between each of those, but still, I will be busy and I'm sure I'll always be in a hurry!

Then I have to change back into my Sugar Plum Fairy Attendant costume for curtain call for the evening performances. The daytime performances are shorter because they cut the Pas de Deux and the Cavalier's solo so it won't be as long for the kids who attend as a school fieldtrip, so for those I won't have time to change back. For evenings, they want me to try it, because that's considered my "main" role since it's a smaller group than my other dances. Madness!

The biggest news, though, actually comes from Fiona. Yes, little miss "I probably won't get a part, I'm not as good as the other girls, they've all been dancing longer than me, my teacher doesn't like me, etc." Apparently she was wrong about all this, because she got one of the biggest roles! ;-)

Fiona is one of the two girls who was cast as Clara! Woot! Our school double-casts for the younger kids, so that more people get a chance to perform, they don't get so tired, and they don't have to miss as much school. The two casts get the same number of performance days, and it's different from alternates; the alternate for Clara will only take over if Fiona or the other girl get too hurt or sick to perform. My roles aren't double-cast, so I'll be in all the shows, but on Cast B days I get to dance with my sister. We're both really excited! Fiona is so proud of herself and happy - as she should be.

There's one little fly in the ointment, though, and that is that the Clara understudy is not happy. She was just assuming she was going to get the role, and she's really upset that she got cast as an alternate. (Even though at the performances where she doesn't have to be an emergency Clara she'll still go on as a Polichinelle, so it's not like she won't be on stage in some capacity.) I think she's probably getting a lot of pressure at home about it, too, because her two older sisters both danced the role of Clara at her age, and her mother seems like one of those stage-mommy types. I feel bad for her in a way; it's no fun to be disappointed, and we were all hoping for good parts. I don't feel bad for her all the way, though, because she's being really nasty to Fiona and the other Clara about it. Both of the Claras joined the school in the past year, and the alternate is whispering to the other girls that they don't deserve it because they're new.

I was trying to cut her some slack because she was so miserable about it, but then I heard her tell her friend that Fiona is "crazy," and at that point I went and told her to stop it and grow up. Fiona has bipolar disorder, but she's not crazy and that has nothing to do with whether or not she can dance - which obviously she can, since she got the role.

The understudy backed off, but I'm worried she's going to try to spoil this for Fiona. Well, not if Big Sis Kaya has anything to say about it, she won't. ;-)

So Fiona and I are celebrating tonight, mean people aside. I think cookies and a silly dance movie are called for! :-)

Love,
Kaya

Recovery

Hi, this is Kaya.

Well, life goes on. Even after something really scary, like the accident with Kiwi and Tabitha.

Kiwi is feeling better today. She's still really sore, and her cheek and nose are really swollen. She's still having trouble with her eye. Surgery is looking like a certainty. Kiwi is taking pain meds, though, and using ice, so she seems pretty cheerful. Especially when we watched Labyrinth with her.

Tabitha feels really, really awful. We all feel bad when we see her, because she looks so dejected. She keeps apologizing to Kiwi - even though Kiwi forgave her - and seems surprised Kiwi even still wants to see her. All day, Tabitha has been doing her best to make Kiwi feel better. Once the sun set she even went in the kitchen and baked cookies for her, even though she couldn't taste any of it herself. We didn't even know Tabitha could cook; we've never seen her do anything around the house. I think she's really trying to turn over a new leaf... and find some humanity. We all wish her well.

For the rest of us, things are kind of back to normal again.

Felicity and Josefina are preparing for the French language oral exams they have every semester. They spend a lot of time chatting away to each other, and the rest of us sort of understand.

Fiona and I are thinking a lot about Nutcracker for ballet - we find out our roles on Monday. I'm pretty sure I'll get something because pretty much all the pointe students are in it. There aren't as many of us, and we have more experience, so I'll probably get cast. I hope it's something good! Fiona isn't sure if she'll get a role, because there are a lot more kids in her age group, and most of her class has studied longer than she has. She also thinks her teacher doesn't like her. She's not sure she'll even be in the show. I think she will, though. She's a good dancer and she works hard. Day after tomorrow, we'll find out!

And yet as always lately, our life is a balance between the mundane and the weird. Day-to-day, it's pretty normal for us. We live just like many other kids our age.  There are some shadows hanging over us. Some scary things still unresolved.

1.) We don't know where the bad feral vampires that kidnapped Kiwi and are trying to kill Clare are. After the last incident, Inna tried to track them down, but couldn't find them. They're still out there. That is worrisome.

2.) The vampire hunters who also wanted Clare dead got kicked out of Canada and aren't supposed to come back. They were after Tabitha when we found her in Pennsylvania, though, so they have even more reason to want to get to us if they figure out where she is. What if they hear about what happened to Kiwi and think Tabitha is an urgent danger? What if they sneak across the border and come back?

3.) The people who keep threatening Inna. We don't know who the are. Whether they're more vampires, or humans, or what. We do know Inna is scared of them... and Inna isn't scared of much, not even ordinary bad vampires. Whatever has her spooked has to be really bad.

So that's life. Kiwi is recovering. I guess we're all recovering - Kiwi was the only one who got hurt, but it was really scary and upsetting for all of us. Tabitha is still trying to get over her guilt. Yeah, we're all still getting better. But I think we're going to be okay.

Love,
Kaya

Accidents Happen

Hi, this is Summer.

As the title of the post says, accidents happen. With vampires around, accidents are even more likely. Unfortunately, we had an accident with Tabitha, and people are pretty stressed out about it.

I should start out by saying that in the time since we posted last (and sorry it's been so long - this is a busy time for us at school) Tabitha, our new vampire, had kind of plateaued. At first, she was just totally feral like an animal, but as she got used to living here she settled down a little. She didn't have to be tied up anymore. Obviously she was struggling a lot - especially over the blood craving thing - but she was able to carry on brief conversations with us, and at one point we felt comfortable enough that Inna and Clare took her to the woods to run around for awhile, and it went fine.

But then... it was like Tabitha decided this was good enough. She had Clare to feed her when she needed to eat. She had a safe place to live. She had company and conversation when she felt like it, and she could make us go away by acting crazy when she didn't. She knew we'd take her out of the city so she could stretch her legs if she behaved well. But that was it. That's not much of a life. Not compared to what she could have.

We were hoping she could finish school, like Clare is doing with her homeschool lessons, and maybe go on to university someday. That she could get under control enough to go outside besides the woods or the yard. That she could maybe even make some human friends someday. That sort of thing. We were hoping she could basically be a normal young woman, with the occasional vampire oddness to work around.

Tabitha didn't seem all that interested. Because living like a human is hard work for a vampire, and living like a monster, or at best an animal, is not difficult. Tabitha had found a sort of comfortable (for her, not for anyone else...) midpoint, and she seemed content to stay there - which worried us.

I think that may have changed with the accident tonight, though.

All of us girls were in the Roses' basement, watching TV with Tabitha. We know it's harder for her with that many people, but it seems like she's getting used to it, and she enjoys the company. Kiwi and Evelyn were playing quietly with Ev's toy horses while we watched the show. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but Kiwi banged her arm on the coffee table, and scraped her elbow.

There was a tiny little bit of blood.

We all froze.

Clare ran out of the room and upstairs, which was really smart, because she could potentially have made things a lot worse. But Tabitha took one quick sniff of the air, and totally lost it. She crossed the room in a single leap, and tackled Kiwi. Kiwi squeaked as her head banged on the floor, and tried to get away from Tabitha, but vampires are way stronger than humans. The rest of us yanked Tabitha off Kiwi, even as Kiwi was shifting to her cat form to try to get out from under her. We had to put Tabitha back in the restraints; she wouldn't calm down. Kiwi changed back, and we took her out of the room while Felicity and Inna tried to get Tabitha to stop freaking out.

Kiwi is pretty banged up. She's not going to die or anything, but the doctors said she will probably need surgery. :-(

Tabitha feels totally awful, like she's a terrible vampire. It wasn't really her fault. She's still getting used to this, and it's not easy for her. Kiwi doesn't blame her at all. Tabitha expected she'd get kicked out... or staked. But we still love her, and Kiwi forgives her.

It was really, really scary. I still get the shivers when I think about it. In a way, though, I think it was good. (Not for Kiwi, though - she's seriously been having the worst couple of months!) I think it finally showed Tabitha why we keep trying to get her to do better, and why we can't just let it go. Before, it seemed like she thought we were nagging. Now she knows how dangerous she can be. I don't think she ever realized this before. Tabitha seems really serious about getting herself under better control. I think that'll turn out to be a really good thing.

We'll be here for her.

Love,
Summer