For creative writing class. Read and review? I'll love you forever.

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Entry #1 - Family History

The story began like this: Once upon a time, there was a young woman with dirty blond hair and a small face who developed a friendship with a mysterious young man with dark hair and eyes, who was really quiet and emotionless most of the time. She spent study dates with him that were more date than study. One day she found out a secret that he never kept a secret, just that it was such a weird secret that if he had cared about it being a secret, no one would have bleieved him if he told them the secret anyway.

Okay, I guess what I mean is that, her young man was a vampire, and she was merely a mortal. He never outright said to her "hey, guess what I suck blood, lets go get a soda and tell me how your day went", but he didn't deny it when she finally asked him. And she was joking. Thats the joke in our family. That she one day casually asked him, "are you a vampire or something?" and he seriously answered with a yes. And then, ate the family cat.

No, I kid, he didn't eat the cat. But I added that part when I was 6 years old when I got tired of hearing that same story. I thought it would be funnier. You know, "come to find out...he was a vampire...and he ate the cat!"

But I guess thats only funny if you're me.

Anyway, he was a vampire and she still hung out with him (thats what they called it back then..."hanging out"), and then eventually married a nice, normal young man. He didn't like the vampire, and called it quits on the marriage but not before the young woman gave birth to a little girl, whom she called "Lillian". My mom. The former young lady, now a mother, was my grandma, and then Lillian gave birth to Annabelle, my sister, and lastly, me, Hailey, before my dad died. We adopted Pill.

So now we have the young lady a grandmother. We have the vampire, Luce (last name not given), living with the family (us) while all the other vampires out there not "domesticated" being feared and despised and hated because they eat people. Luce, as far as us kids have seen, eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drinks paint thinner he calls coffee. We grew up seeing packets of medical blood in the fridge next to the butter and special, calcium enriched, single American cheese slices. We're use to the weird guy in the black clothes wandering around the house at 4 am, opening doors and slamming drawers. Seriously. About the only thing that would provoke a reaction out of my mom now would probably be if Luce did eat the cat. We don't even own a cat.

Entry #2 - Nails

"See, in old stories, vampires had really long nails, like claws," I tell Luce earlier today. "Because they used them like weapons too. Sometimes, they would scrape them across the glass at a window at night and like, wake up their victim very subtly. How cool is that?" I am giving him a manicure, attempting to file his nails into points.

"But then again, in old stories, vampires had really, wickedly bad breath and like, hairy palms. How gross is that? How utterly disgusting is that? If you had hairy palms, I would make you shave them. Everyday. And I still wouldn't let you touch me because hand stubble is...so gross." In conversation, either you fill the silence or you sit in silence, because Luce sure as heck isn't going to contribute. I blow nail dust off the back of his hands.

I also have a bottle of black nail polish with me.

"And goth kids, they loved vampires. They painted the nails of one hand black, and only one hand. I don't know why. Don't ask me. Shut up. You talk too much." Luce is silent.

I finish the last nail and examine his hands. I curl my own into claws against my face and bare my teeth. They are flat as tombstones (as Granny would say), but when Luce mimics me, wiggling his fingers for my benefit, his are all sharp, like a shark.

I am just beginning to pain the first nail black when Annabelle swoops down like a vulture and grabs the brush out of my fingers, and spreads an ugly black line across my knuckles.

"Why are you doing this?" she asks me, as though I did this on purpose just to annoy her. "Why would you do this to mom?" She watches me from the top of her nose, raising her brows until they dissapear into her bangs. "You don't hear Mom when she talks about 'image'? You don't care what people will think? It doesn't bother you that the reason that his life is so hard is that you keep creating this...this..." she casts around in her brain for the right phrase to describe my crime. "negative publicity."

"You don't even know what that means," I say. "And anyway, now he's a proper vampire and people will just have to accept him for what he is. Right Luce?"

He looks at me levelly.

"Say yes."

Sighing in frustration, Annabelle swipes her hand across the carpet and catches the nail clippers in her own manicured fingers. She then pushes me out of the way, and cuts off his claws, one by one.

Entry #3 - Seagulls and Sandwiches

Another favorite story in our family is the one of the seagull when I was about 1. I've heard it so often, I think I may have developed an artificial memory from it.

The story goes that one day, we all went to the beach. I imagine what we looked like; I'm sitting a blanketin my navy blue swinsuit with the tutu attached, and the baby sunhat parents love to stick on their kids. I'm eating watermelon out of a tupperware containing, ingesting as much sand as fruit. Mom and Granny are cultivating skin cancer on matching beach chairs with oversized sunglasses and bodies shiny with tanning oil. Annabelle builds a sandcastle to crush with her barefeet. And Luce is sitting covered in head to toe in black, under our beach umbrella. Chances are, he's looking out into the horizon, motionless, legs crossed and arms laying flatly by his side, in the sand. Almost like he's mediatating; except I figure he just spaces out and goes into shut-down mode when he does this.

So then Mom and Granny leave to get us some hotdogs or ice cream (they don't remember which) and leave me and Annabelle with Luce. Luce gives me a sandwich, for the sake of spoiling my appatite, and because I was a bratty baby and started to cry. And Luce has never really been all motherly with kids.

So I'm eating the sandwich, when a seagull swoops down and lands three feet away. I pick a masticated piece of ham and cheese from my mouth and throw it at the bird. Seeing the food, this bird attacks me.

I guess attack isn't the right word...it merely pecks at my hand till I drop the sandwich. By this time, I'm crying and screaming. So Luce gets up off the beach towel, reaches out, grabs the poor bird by the throat, snaps its neck with his thumb and index finger, hauls it out onto the edge of the water, and throws it out into the ocean, too far to drift back to shore.

And all this in front of horrified beach goers and their children.

"How cool is he?" I ask as a closing sentence every time I hear the story.