nonsense in her head. Laurie was sick and lonely, and feeling how rich she was in home and happiness, she gladly tried to share it with him. Her face was very friendly and her sharp voice unusually gentle as she said…
“We’ll never draw that curtain any more, and I give you leave to look as much as you like. I just wish, though, instead of peeping, you’d come over and see us. Mother is so splendid, she’d do you heaps of good, and Beth would sing to you if I begged her to, and Amy would dance. Meg and I would make you laugh over our hunts, and we’d have jolly times. Wouldn’t your grandpa let you?”
“He’s very kind, though he does not look so, and he lets me do what I like, pretty much, only he’s afraid of vampires,” began Laurie.
“We are not only vampires, we are neighbours too, and he needn’t think we’d eat you. We are strict humanitarians!”
“You see, Grandpa lives among his books, and doesn’t mind much what happens outside, so he doesn’t know there are good vampires like your family out there.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Do you like your school?” asked the boy, changing the subject, after a little pause, during which he stared at the fire and Jo looked about her, well pleased.
“Don’t go to school, I’m a vampire defender—well, right now I’m in training. I protect my great-aunt from imagined assassins, and a dear, cross old soul she is too,” answered Jo.
Laurie opened his mouth to ask another question, but remembering just in time that it wasn’t manners to make too many enquiries into vampires’ affairs, he shut it again, and looked uncomfortable.
Jo liked his good breeding, and didn’t mind having a laugh at Aunt March, so she gave him a lively description of the paranoid old lady, her aunt’s parrot that talked Spanish and the study where she revelled.
Laurie enjoyed that immensely, so she told him about the prim old gentleman vampire who came once to woo Aunt March. In the middle of his fine speech, Poll tweaked his wig off to his great dismay, so the suitor bit the head off the bird in retribution. But the parrot was itself of a special avian vampire species, so its head grew immediately back to insult the gentleman anew. The boy was so amused, he lay back and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and a maid popped her head in to make sure the young master wasn’t being consumed by his guest.
“Oh! That does me no end of good. Tell on, please,” he said, taking his face out of the sofa cushion, red and shining with merriment.
Much elated with her success, Jo did “tell on”, all about her famous defender uncle, her plans to follow in his footsteps and her fond wish someday to invent a clever instrument that would improve the method by which one caught slayers—though what that was, she couldn’t imagine. Then they got to talking about books, and to Jo’s delight, she found that Laurie loved adventure tales as well as she did and had read more than herself.
“I wish I could be a vampire so I could go on grand hunts too,” he said.
“Oh, you don’t have to be a vampire to go on hunts. Anyone can do it.”
“But you have special powers,” pointed out Laurie.
Jo shrugged. “Not really. I know people go on about our special vampire strength and senses, but it’s a lot of work to develop those things and nobody bothers any more. Now we use clever instruments like the one I’m going to invent. The new method employs the many modern advances of science and is far superior to the old method of relying on natural skill and instinct. All you need is a daily regimen of calisthenics and barbell lifting to be strong. I’d be happy to train you myself.”
“But you can see in the dark and hear and smell things from far away.”
Jo admitted that these were advantages of her race but insisted that devoted study could go a long way to compensate for their lack.
Laurie’s eyes glowed with excitement. “Really?”
“Absolutely! It’s simply a matter of hard work.”
“My grandfather would never agree. Couldn’t you just turn me into a vampire? That way, I don’t need his permission.”
“I couldn’t possibly,” said Jo earnestly, not sure if he was teasing but also not caring, for she hated the thought of turning any mortal man. She knew all vampires did it eventually, for that was how they mated, but she couldn’t bear the thought of doing it herself. Although there were many reasons to sire that didn’t include finding a life mate, such as friendship, whimsy, fondness, or spite, the act always created some kind of connection and Jo loved her independence too well to be tied to anybody on such a deep and abiding level. She knew her sisters would do it one day, though perhaps not Beth, who was far too shy. But that was a long way off—a decade, at least—so she wouldn’t have to think about it for ages. “But I’ll talk to your grandfather.”
“You aren’t afraid of him?”
“I’m not afraid of anything,” returned Jo, with a toss of the head.
“I don’t believe you are!” exclaimed the boy, looking at her with much admiration and desiring the vampire state even more for the courage it seemed to confer.
Laurie led her to the library to wait for his grandfather. It was lined with books, and there were pictures and statues, and distracting little cabinets full of coins and curiosities, and Sleepy Hollow chairs, and queer tables, and bronzes, and best of all, a great open fireplace with quaint tiles all round it.
“What richness!” sighed Jo, sinking into the depth of a velour chair and gazing about her with an air of intense satisfaction. “Theodore Laurence, you ought to be the happiest boy in the world,” she added impressively.
“A fellow can’t live on books,” said Laurie, shaking his head as he perched on a table opposite.
She stood before a fine portrait of the old gentleman and said decidedly, “I’m sure now that I shouldn’t be afraid of him, for he’s got kind eyes, though his mouth is grim, and he looks as if he had a tremendous will of his own.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” said a gruff voice behind her, and there, to her great dismay, stood old Mr Laurence with a wooden stake raised high in his hand.
For a minute a wild desire to run away possessed her, but that was cowardly, and the girls would laugh at her, so she resolved to stay and get out of the scrape as she could. She hated the thought of hurting her new friend’s elderly relative but she would gladly knock him down with a scissor kick if necessary to her survival.
The gruff voice was gruffer than ever, as the old gentleman said abruptly, after the dreadful pause, “So you’re not afraid of me, hey?”
“Not much, sir,” she said with a glance to the stake.
Mr Laurence took a threatening step forward. “What have you been doing to this boy of mine, hey?” was the next question, sharply put.
“Only trying to be neighbourly, sir.” And Jo told how her visit came about.
“You think he needs cheering up a bit, do you?” he asked, his tone suspicious. Everyone knew vampires weren’t charitable, so he thought the girl must have an ulterior motive.
“Yes,
