Cirque Du Freak The Vampire's Assistant Read Free Page A

passed, and we moved on. We wandered from towns to villages to cities. I
    wasn't getting along very well with Mr. Crepsley. Nice as he was, I couldn't forget that he was the one who'd pumped vampire blood into my veins and made it impossible for me to stay with my family.

    I hated him. Sometimes, during the day, I'd think about driving a stake through his heart while he was sleeping, and running away. I might have, too, except I knew I couldn't survive without him.
    For the moment I needed Larten Crepsley. But when the day came that I could look after
    myself...

    I was in charge of Madam Octa. I had to find food for her and exercise her and clean out her cage. I didn't want to - I hated the spider almost as much as I hated the vampire - but Mr.
    Crepsley said I was the one who'd stolen her, so I had to look after her.

    I practiced a few tricks with her every now and then, but my heart wasn't in it. She didn't interest me anymore, and as the weeks went by I played with her less and less.

    The one good thing about being on the road was being able to visit a whole bunch of places I hadn't been before and see a lot of cool sights. I loved traveling. But, since we traveled at night, I didn't get to see many of our surroundings - bummer!

    One day, while Mr. Crepsley was sleeping, I got tired of being indoors. I left a note on the TV, in case I wasn't back when he woke up, then left. I only had a little money and had no idea where I would go, but that didn't matter. Just getting out of the hotel and spending some time by myself was wonderful.

    It was a large town but pretty quiet. I checked out a few arcades and played some video games in them. I'd never been very good at video games before, but with my new reflexes and skills I was able to do pretty much anything I wanted.

    I raced through all levels, knocked out every opponent in martial arts tournaments, and zapped all the aliens attacking from the skies in the sci-fi adventures.

    After that I toured the town. There were plenty of fountains and statues and parks and museums, all of which I checked out with interest. But going around the museums reminded me of Mom -
    she loved taking me to museums - and that upset me: I always felt lonely and miserable when I thought of Mom, Dad, or Annie.

    I spotted a group of guys my age playing hockey on a cement playground. There were eight
    players on each side. Most had plastic sticks, though a few had wooden ones. They were using an old tennis ball as a puck.

    I stopped to watch, and after a few minutes one of the guys came over to me.

    "Where are you from?" he asked.

    "Out of town," I said. "I'm staying at a hotel with my father." I hated calling Mr. Crepsley that, but it was the safest thing to say.

    "He's from out of town," the boy called back to the other guys, who had stopped playing.

    "Is he part of the Addams Family?" one of them shouted back, and they all laughed.

    "What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, offended.

    "Have you looked at yourself in a mirror lately?" the boy said.

    I glanced down at my dusty suit and knew why they were laughing: I looked like something out of Beetlejuice.

    "I lost the bag with my normal clothes," I lied. "These are all I have. I'm getting new stuff soon."

    "You should." The boy smiled, then asked if I played hockey. When I said yes, he invited me to play with them.

    "You can be on my team," he said, handing me a spare stick. "We're down, six-two. My name's Michael."

    "Hey. I'm Darren," I replied, testing the stick.

    I rolled up the cuffs of my pants and made sure my shoelaces were double-tied. While I was doing that, the other team scored another goal. Michael swore loudly and dragged the ball back to the center.

    "You ready to go?" he asked me.

    "Sure."

    "Come on, then," he said. He tapped the ball to me and moved ahead, waiting for me to pass back.

    It had been a long time since I'd played hockey - at school, in gym, we'd usually had to choose between hockey and soccer, and