Vampire Brat Read Free Page A

third stair or the seventh because they are rotten because of some very big woodworms who live there. The stairs go around two corners and are really dark and steep. At the top is a dusty old velvet curtain, which is inhabited by some fierce moths that do not like being disturbed and dive-bomb your head, so it is best to squeeze through the curtain very slowly and carefully. Once you are in the turret you have to walk around the edge because there is a big hole in the middle of the floor where a bathtub fell through. Aunt Tabby used to keep lots of old bathtubs in the turret, but she made Barry help her take them all out after that.
    Anyway, as I carefully walked around the edge of the turret I was really happy to see a bright flash of lightning. I stopped and counted the seconds until the loud crash of thunder came. It was not even two seconds, more like one and a half. That meant that the middle of the storm—the exciting part where the lightning is right overhead—was really close. Great, I thought, I’m here just in time. I climbed onto an old box by the window so that I could see out, as the window is very high up. It is also very dirty, as Aunt Tabby does not clean windows because it lets the light in and Aunt Tabby thinks that houses should be nice and gloomy, which is why she paints everything brown. I think she would even paint me brown if I stood still for long enough.

    I rubbed a clean patch on the glass and peered out. Even though it was not yet dinnertime it was almost dark outside. There wereheavy gray clouds filling up the sky and a few fat spots of rain were falling. It was perfect—and really spooky.

    In the distance, all misty through the rain and the grubby window, I saw a car’s headlights. I watched the lights, expecting them to keep going along the big road, but to my surprise the car turned off onto the lane thatgoes by Spookie House. I wondered where it was going—since Aunt Tabby put up a sign that says DANGER, UNEXPLODED MINES not many cars drive past. As it drew nearer I could see that it was going really slowly, as if it was looking for somewhere, and then it stopped—right outside our front gate.
    At the very moment that it drew up outside Spookie House there was the most enormous Craaaack. A brilliant white streak of lightning shot down and hit the car. It was amazing. A blue flame whizzed around the outside of the car and I held my breath, waiting for it to explode.
    It was very disappointing—nothing happened. The car did not explode at all. Instead the rain started to pour from the sky in buckets and the car didn’t even sizzle . It was aweird car. It was very long and I knew I had seen cars like that before but I could not think where. The window was misting up with my breath, so I rubbed it again and then I could see more clearly. The car outside Spookie House was a hearse! With a coffin in it .
    I wished I had Wanda’s telescope. I could just about see three people sitting in the back of the hearse with the coffin—a girl who looked almost grown up, a little kid, and an old lady. The driver was sitting on his own in the front; he wore a top hat and had a very white face that almost shone through the window.
    All the time I was watching the hearse, thunder was rolling around the sky, and in the distance every now and then lightning streaked down from the clouds. The rain wasfalling harder now, it was splashing in through the rotten window frame and dripping onto my socks. I rubbed the window clear with the end of my sleeve, and when I looked again the white-faced driver had gotten out. He opened an enormous black umbrella, and was holding the door open for the old lady. She stepped out of the hearse very carefully and was followed by the little kid and the almost grown-up girl.
    Even though I did not want to be a detective anymore because now I had decided that I was going to be a werewolf hunter, I still practiced my detecting skills when I got