Freaks
(Excerpt from Wally the Undead, one of the 3 stories in Freaks)
'What?' As Uncle Vlad bellowed, the chandelier above his head trembled. 'I knew no good would come of moving to this new land. ‘The boy is turning into a freak.'
Wally kept his head down. But he felt his uncle's eyes on him.
'You can change where you live and what you wear,' said Uncle Vlad. 'But you can never change what you are.'
I will, thought Wally. He wanted the kids at his new school to like him, to hang out with him at lunchtime, to argue about which football team was the best and who had the tastiest sandwiches. But if the kids at school knew the truth about him, they would be terrified. They would run away - or worse.
Wally thought of his father. No-one in the family talked about what had happened to him, except in whispers, in the dead of night. One full moon, he went out for a snack, but never came back.
After that, Wally's mother, Lilith, replaced the wooden furniture with metal. She wouldn't walk near paling fences, even if it meant taking the long way home. And Wally, Elvira and Mora never used wooden pencils to draw or write, only crayons. Most kids looked at pencils and thought about colouring in. Vampires looked at wooden pencils and thought about something entirely different.
'Don’t worry, Lilith,' said Uncle Vlad. 'I'll sort the boy out.'
Wally felt as though a heavy weight pressed on his chest. He didn't want Uncle Vlad to 'sort' him out. That was only going to make things worse. Wally wanted to be left alone.
A blast of wind hit the house. The front door swung open and hit the wall. Leaves scattered across the carpet. A candle flickered and went out...
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