The Vampire Joy by Alisa Freund (fox in socks read aloud .txt) 📕

night. Sleep came easier that night and she dreamt of Alex’s hug and David’s cold kisses. She knew she wouldn’t be able to make up her mind.
Morning came and it was the same as Tuesday. School went by normally and for once joy felt like she was a normal person living a normal life. Thursday nothing exciting happened as well in fact Alex treated her like all of his other student which in itself is weird. Friday rolled around and she came down for breakfast. “so who do you want to spend your birthday with?” Sabrina asked sipping her coffee.
Joy hadn’t even thought of her birthday she thought of David but she knew that wouldn’t be fun and he probably wouldn’t even talk the entire time. She thought of Alex but she still didn’t feel like she could trust him and plus that wouldn’t be appropriate. “I guess I would have to say my mortal friends. Ma’am.” Joy said smiling.
“I thought you might say that. Their waiting for you at the water front.” She said giving a paper thin smile. “I gave all of you the last day of school before winter vacation. That is my birthday present to you. Happy birthday joy.”
“thank you!” joy said wrapping her in a hug.
“why are you hugging me?” Sabrina asked clearly baffled.
“because you are the closest thing I have ever had to a mother.” She said still not letting go. “my mother died in child birth. Please let me hold on to the delusion for just a moment longer.” Instead of pulling away she returned the hug.
Joy pushed away and wiped the tears away then curtsied and said “thank you ma’am.” And started to ascend the stairs when she heard Sabrina say, “Emilio can you hand me the phone.” Joy stopped at the top of the stairs and listened. “yes, you have my blessing.” She said there was a pause, “because that girl did something I didn’t even think was possible, something I haven’t felt since Michel was still with us. I was bored with this game anyways.”
Joy smiled and entered her room getting changed into regular jeans and a sweater since it was snowing outside. She leaped down the stairs. “by Sabrina I will try to be home for dinner.” She yelled
But Sabrina yelled back, “no you won’t.” Joy whirled around to see Sabrina standing at the bottom of the stairs. “don’t worry. It’s all part of the plan” she said giving joy a wink. Joy smiled at her and left.
Sure enough standing at the water front were Billy, Juliet and Joey. they motioned for her to come over so joy parked the car and walked over to them. “Happy 18th” they all said in unison. “we have a great twenty four hours planned for you.”
“you didn’t have to-“ she started to say but Joey cut her off.
“you were the one who said that knowing we care is the best present ever.” He said.
Juliet picked up where he left off, “this is our way of showing how much you mean to us. First stop breakfast. To genies for some crab cakes benedicts.” That was joy’s favorite so she had no objections. All throughout breakfast they laughed and joked about everything. Billy put a candle in her crab cake and had her blow it out. He explained that there would be 18 in all. Once they were finished with breakfast they went shopping on Hawthorne where Juliet held up a strawberry short cake doll holding a lit candle, “that’s cheating,” joy said raising an eyebrow at her. “that’s not an actual cake.”
“it’s a loop hole.” Juliet said rolling her eyes. “like you’re really going to eat 18 cakes in one day. Just blow out the candle.” Joy reluctantly did.
She ended up buying a lot of cool stuff and put it in her car. After shopping they went to the movie theaters to watch her favorite movie, night of the living dead. Rich kids, renting the entire theater. She thought but then remember she was the one rolling around in a Lamborghini.
Billy ordered food from the concession stand and handed joy a pizza with a candle in it. “that isn’t a cake.” Joy said to him.
“people have pie for their birthday.” He retorted “haven’t you ever heard of a pizza pie?” he said smiling. She once again reluctantly blew out the candle and went into the theater for their private showing. The movie was incredible and joy was walking out wondering how they could possibly top that, when she saw David standing in the lobby.
“we’ll leave you and your dad alone for a bit but we are only giving you ten minutes.” Joey said walking outside with the rest of her friends.
David was holding a small present decorated in cake wrapping paper with a lit candle sticking out of the bow. Damn loop holes joy thought to herself. “those are some pretty eccentric friends you have there. They said I could come on one condition. That I wrap my present like this and have a candle on it. So I guess you have to blow it out.” She did.
“this is where we met 8 years ago do you remember?” she asked
“every day.” He said and held out the present, “so are you going to open it?” he asked.
“you already gave me a present remember? Its parked outside.” She said to him.
“think of this as a bonus for being an awesome daughter.” She smiled and took the box she opened it to reveal a gold crucifix dangling from a thin delicate gold chain. David took it out and fastened it around her neck. He gently straightened and said, “happy birthday joy, I must take my leave your friends are coming.” And with that he walked away and as he passed her friends said “she’s all yours.”
The group looked at joy with mischievous smiles and she knew there was much more. The next stop they took her was the ice-skating rink where she blew out two candles in two hostess cupcakes. Joy was good at ice-skating from all of her practice roller skating. She spun around with the music, she skated with Juliet gossiping about boys at school, laughed at Billy stumbling over himself. And spun around with Joey.
After they were all skated out they went to a late lunch at my father’s place. Since Joey told the waitress it was her birthday she returned with a cake only slightly bigger than her palm with three lit candles poking out from the top. She blew them out and had a hamburger and fries with a water.
“why don’t you ever drink caffeine?” Juliet asked and took a drink of her coke.
Joy shrugged her shoulders and said “I just don’t see the point of it is all.”
“but it tastes good.” Joey said taking a chug of his mountain dew.
“not to me. It scratches your throat and makes you crash. I really just don’t see the appeal.” Joy said not making eye contact with any of them.
After that they dropped the subject and headed over to wonder land where they played video games until they were tire and wanted to relax, but Billy looked at his watch and said, “shit! We’re going to be late.” With that they ran across downtown to the theater. She looked up at the showing and it read midsummer’s night dream. That was joys favorite play and she was beaming with joy.
They watched the play from the front row and when the curtain came back up Helena was holding a cupcake. She walked up to joy and as joy was about to blow out the candle the actress said, “don’t worry we all have faith in you to make the right decision.” Joy’s eyes widened and looked up at this woman. Vampire? Then she looked around at the rest of the troupe and sure enough they were all vamp.
Joy blew out the candle and whispered back, “what is the right decision?”
Helena let out a little giggle, “silly I can’t tell you that but my advice is just follow what your heart is telling. We’ll see each other soon, until the ball be safe.” And with that she took her final bow and was off stage leaving joy still very confused.
But she didn’t have time to be confused because the next thing she knew Billy grabbed her hand and said, “what was that all about?”
I wish I knew. She thought but said, “she’s a friend of the families.” It wasn’t a lie but it wasn’t the entire truth.
“cool friend.” He said looking back at the stage, “do you want to invite her with us?”
“no, no.” joy said shaking her head. “she isn’t that close to me I only just met her.”
“alright to our next stop then?” Juliet said.
“to dinner!” Joey yelled raising his arm in the air like he was leading a cavalry into battle.
They ended up eating dinner at Chinese restaurant in china town. The entire table was filled with different food some that were common that joy had heard of and some things she couldn’t even pronounce. The waitress brought over a small strawberry cake with a one and an eight. “thanks mom.” Joey said to the waitress. And she bowed.
Joy was in shock, “she’s your mother? You’re Chinese?” she asked joey.
“yeah, I’m only a quarter Chinese and my mother’s half.” He said looking towards the kitchen with pride, “this is actually my grandfathers restaurant, he wants me to take over when I’m done with high school but my father also wants me to work at his law firm.”
“What do you want to do?” Juliet asked taking another bite of her spring roll.
Joey looked down at his napkin and timidly answered, “I would love to take over the restaurant but my father has paid my way through school, so I would feel guilty if I didn’t work at his law firm.”
Joy slammed her hand on the table which made everyone jump and look at her. “no, it isn’t right! Your father should have paid for your schooling because he is your father, not because of his own selfish gain.” She said enraged at a man she had never met.
“that’s the way it would be in a perfect world, but alas we live in a society where everyone has ulterior motives and sneaky back door deals.” He said with his eyes watering. Joy could see that the subject was really disturbing him so she dropped the subject.
Billy looked at joy up and down and said, “you know a lot about our families and pasts but we don’t know anything about yours. If you don’t want to share it with us that’s fine but I’m rather interested in knowing.”
“We’ll there isn’t much to tell.” She said looking down at her half eaten plate of food, “my mother died in child birth so my father took care of me after that. But I watched as the days went by and her death ate him up inside. He had blamed me and it got to the point where he wouldn’t look at me or cringe at my touch and then one sunny day in august when I was nine I came home to find him lying on the couch with his head missing. After that I just wondered the streets not knowing what to do until I met David and well you know the story from there.” She told the entire story without looking at any of them.
Before she realized it an arm wrapped around her and held her in a tight embrace. Then Billy’s voice spoke, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea you went through all of that.” Before she