Maggie was nervous for the first day at her new school. Since her mom got a new job, the Stokers had to move to a new state, and Maggie had to leave her friends behind.
“You’re no different than anyone else at school, Mags,” Maggie’s father said on their way to school. This didn’t make her any less scared. Maggie would be the only vampire at an all-human school. What if the other kids had never seen someone like her before?
“Think of all the new friends you’re going to make!” Maggie’s mom said. Maggie got out of the car imagining herself surrounded with people her age, something she wasn’t used to as an only child. This thought calmed her nerves a bit, and she stepped into her new school ready to start the day.
“Class, this is Maggie Stoker. She’s your new classmate from Pennsylvania! Make sure to give her a warm welcome.” Miss Carlton waited for the rest of the Math class to welcome the new student. A blonde girl in the back raised her hand.
“Why do you look so pale? Are you sick?”
Maggie looked down and replied, “No, I’m half vampire.”
The blonde girl whispered to the girl beside her and laughed.
“That’s enough, Ava,” Miss Carlton said. Maggie found a seat and shrunk down, trying to make herself smaller to avoid the stares from her new classmates.
At lunch, Maggie sat alone. She tried to sit with some girls from her class at first, but they got up at the sight of her. She picked at the lunch her mom packed for her, the note in her lunchbox reading “Have the best first day! -- Mom”. Maggie still had hope that her next class would be better.
The science teacher, Mr. Reynolds, was unlike any teacher Maggie had before. He told corny jokes and let the class play games to learn about new topics. The topic of the week was evolution, or what modern animals came from. They were learning about Sabretooth Tigers, a type of cat from the prehistoric period. When Mr. Reynolds pulled up a picture of the Tiger, a voice came from the back of the room.
“Hey look, that looks like the new girl!”
Everyone looked back to see Ava pretending that she had huge teeth like the picture on the screen. The class laughed with Ava, and Maggie covered her mouth with her hands. She was ready for the day to be over.
Maggie wondered how her classmates could be so mean just because she looked a little different. “I didn’t choose to be a vampire! I wish I could look like everyone else,” she thought. After a bit of thinking, she made a plan. To get it right, she would need the help of her mom.
“A school project already on your first day,” Maggie’s dad said after picking her up from school. Maggie didn’t want to tell him the truth, since he was a vampire too. She didn’t want to hurt his feelings, so she just nodded her head. “This is my problem, not his,” she thought.
The next morning, Maggie stuffed all of her supplies in her backpack. She ran to the bathroom before her first class. Making sure no one was in there with her, she pulled out the makeup she took from her mom’s room.
Tan cream covered her pale face. Pink blush made her cheeks look alive. “Now I look like Ava,” Maggie said proudly.
The last step was to cover her fangs. She found some fake teeth from the Halloween section of the store. It was a tight fit, but they closed over her fangs and hid her real teeth. When she talked, a “sh” sound came out instead of the “s”.
“I just won’t talk much today. No one will know it’s me! I can have a regular day without being laughed at.” With that, Maggie marched out of the bathroom and into her first class.
Classes went well for Maggie before lunch. She sat quietly at her desk, only raising her hand when her name was called. The kids in class gave her weird looks, but nobody laughed. “This is actually working,” Maggie thought as she walked to lunch. Before making it to her seat, a blonde figure stepped in front of her.
“It’s not Halloween yet, so why are you dressed up,” Ava laughed.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Maggie said, trying to keep the fake teeth from falling out.
“Just because you try to look normal doesn’t mean you are normal.”
Ava was louder this time, causing people to look over at the noise. Maggie started to feel tears form in her eyes. She could feel the eyes on her. She didn’t know why Ava was only picking on her.
“Me? What’s wrong with you? No one else here looks like you. Sabretooth.”
Maggie knew she didn’t look like the tiger, but it didn’t stop the words from hurting. She wanted to run all the way back to her old school, where her friends were like her. Ava was right about one thing.
No matter how much makeup or fake teeth she wore, she would always be Maggie. Looking at the kids around her laughing, she was aware of the plastic hurting her teeth and the sticky makeup. She turned around and ran.
“So, there was no school project?” Maggie’s dad sat with her in the principal’s office. He had gotten a call from Mr. Reynolds after seeing Maggie crouching in the hallway before class. Maggie looked at her dad and shook her head. She could tell he was upset, but not angry.
“Maggie, you shouldn’t worry about what the other kids say,” Mr. Stoker said. Maggie wondered how her dad could say this. He was so strong. She couldn’t picture him being made fun of.
“Dad, you can’t just say that. You’re a doctor! You help people.”
Mr. Stoker smiled.
“I am now, but when I was your age, I went through the same thing. I did have human friends, but some people didn’t like me because I didn’t look like them. They were afraid of my fangs and thought I looked scary because of my skin. They judged me without knowing me because of what they heard on T.V. or from others. When they got to know me, they realized they were wrong.”
Maggie looked at her dad, her favorite person in the world, and wondered how someone could be mean to him. She thought of her mom, a human. It was easy to see that her parents loved each other.
“But how do I get them to like me if they won’t even be around me,” Maggie asked her dad. It seemed impossible to make friends with Ava around.
“Show them who you really are,” Mr. Stoker said. “And if they don’t like that, they don’t know what they’re missing.” Her dad pulled Maggie into a hug, one last ‘good luck’ before she had to go back to class. She wished she could just go to bed, but she had to stick it out. It was only her second day, and she couldn’t let Ava ruin her year.
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