I Must Be Crazy

“Miss Plum came to my house last night,” Lissy told Timothy the next day at break time.
He looked suitably impressed and asked, “Were you in trouble?”
She shook her head. “She was just checking on me, to see how I was doing at home.” She added in a whisper, making him lean towards her. “I think my daddy likes her.”
“She is pretty. And nice.”
“I know.” They sat in silence for a while, and then the bell rang.

At lunchtime Martinette called across the playground, “Lissy, can you come here for a moment?” Lissy did so. Martinette was in Year Five, and it was always something special when someone older than you wanted to speak to you.
The older girl was sitting on the bench next to the fence, swinging her legs. She smiled at the little girl and patted the bench next to her. Once Lissy had sat down she said, “I heard that your nanny comes from the same place as Mr de Mellios?”
Baffled, the little girl nodded. “The agency.”
“That’s right,” Martinette said. “So, you must be used to that sort of person, then?”
“That… sort of person?”
“Mr de Mellios is a bit… creepy,” the Year Five said dismissively, as if everyone who came from the agency was the same. “Everyone knows that.” She looked at the little girl. “The thing is, he confiscated something of mine, but I want it back and I don’t want to have to ask him for it.”
“What did he take?” asked Lissy doubtfully.
“My tamagotchi.” Martinette leaned towards her, expression grim. “If I don’t get it back soon it could die.” The little girl’s eyes widened. A matter of life and death! “I need you to go and get it for me out of the top drawer of his desk. You’ll be able to reach it, don’t worry.”
“Why can’t you go and get it?”
Martinette sighed. “I would if I could, but I’m too big. You, on the other hand, are small enough to be sneaky, and innocent enough to get out of trouble if you get caught.”
“Isn’t that stealing, though?”
“Of course not! Don’t be silly. It’s mine in the first place, he was the one who stole it.” Martinette glanced at her pink glow-in-the-dark watch and sighed tragically. “Now it’s missed two feeding times.”
Lissy gave in. “Alright, I’ll do it. But only if you’re carefuller with it in the future.”

Sneaking into the Year Five classroom was harder than it had sounded.
Lissy had never been into the Year Five classroom. She’d been past it, and she’d been into the Year Six classroom next door once last year when she’d been little and just starting Reception, and had started to cry and refused to stop until she was taken to see Markus - but she’d never been into the Year Five classroom.
She held her breath and pressed herself into the corner as someone walked past outside. Once they were gone, she hurried over to the desk. It was one of the old-fashioned ones with a panel on the front, so it was easy to hide behind or under it. Lissy was also short enough that she didn’t need to stoop to be hidden from view behind it.
She opened the top drawer with some difficulty. Unable to see what was in it, she felt around instead. Her fingers encountered pens, pencils, small soft toys, action figures - until at last they closed around the smooth, rounded shape of the tamagotchi. Triumphant, she closed to drawer and was about to peep around the desk and make a bid for freedom - when she heard footsteps enter the room. Quickly, she retreated as far under the desk as she could go, hoping fervently that the sleeping tamagotchi would not choose this moment to wake up.
“Bugger,” she heard the voice of Hadrian de Mellios say quietly. His footsteps passed in front of the desk, around the side - then stopped, and went over to the side of the classroom. “In fact, I would go as far as to say double bugger.”
There was one aspect of each classroom which Lissy knew was the same: on one side, there was the home of a class pet. These pets differed for each year - frogspawn, goldfish, snails, a range of insects and other creepy-crawlies collected around the school ground or brought from home. Year Five had a hamster - a little white and orange hamster, which could quite often be seen and heard running on its little plastic wheel as if it was in serious training for a marathon. The side Mr de Mellios was standing on now was the side on which the hamster cage in this classroom was located.
Lissy heard the clicking metal-on-metal noise as the cage opened, and rustling as the man searched through sawdust and bedding, looking for the little warm creature hiding inside. Closing her eyes, she could imagine it vividly. She’d had a hamster once, or Tracy had. They’d let it watch TV with them, and fed it peanuts and little hamster treats. She imagined the little hamster being woken by the teacher’s unfamiliar hands, it running in fright from his unfamiliar smell.
“Well, hello there, little one,” she heard him whisper, his voice loud in the silent room. She couldn’t even hear the sounds of the playground from here. “I hope you won’t take this personally? It’s not that I have anything against you or anything. I’ll try not to kill you.”
Lissy couldn’t quite describe what happened next. It was as if a wave passed over her - a wave of something, not a physical substance, but a feeling. Whatever it was, it terrified her enough to make her burst out from underneath the desk, fully intending to flee out of the classroom and away from whatever was happening there. But the tamagotchi dropped from her hand, and she couldn’t leave without it - it was the whole reason she was here. This was when she realised the strange fear which had overcome her was gone. This was when the strange fear was replaced by another, different type of fear, and she turned to face Mr de Mellios.
He was frozen, staring at her with wide, dark eyes. Year Five’s class hamster was being held, struggling, near his mouth. She stared back, all thought of the tamagotchi gone from her mind. Instead of normal teeth, Mr de Mellios had fangs.
There was a long silence. Then Mr de Mellios, almost sheepishly, put the still-struggling hamster back into the cage and closed the door. “It’s not what it looks like,” he muttered.
“You have big teeth,” said Lissy simply. “Were you going to eat the hamster?”
“I was not going to eat the hamster. I promise. I also won’t try it again.” He glanced around, and approached her carefully, as if she were a dangerous animal which might run at any given moment. “You won’t tell anyone about this, will you?”
“What shouldn’t I tell them about?” She backed away a little, but found her back against the desk. He kept walking forwards in the same cautious way.
“You know what.” His expression was unreadable.
“I-”
They both jumped as the door swung open and Zariya walked in, saying loudly, “Hadrian, I need to talk to-” She caught sight of them, and stopped. After a moment she leapt at Hadrian, grabbing the collar of his shirt and slinging him violently to the floor. “What the hell do you think you’re doing? It’s bad enough that I have to work with you, without you doing child predatory things in your own damn classroom! With Darcie’s charge, as well!”
“I was not doing child predatory things!” protested Hadrian hotly from the ground, not even attempting to stand up. “I was not at all! Don’t inflate things, you’re like those tabloid rag things.”
“What were you doing, then?” She leaned down and hissed at him, apparently under the impression that Lissy wouldn’t hear her, “And why are your bloody fangs out, you moron?” She went over to Lissy and knelt next to her. “Are you okay, poppet? Did he do anything to you?”
“He never touched me,” said Lissy, looking past her to where Hadrian was gingerly clambering to his feet. “Why does he have fangs, do you know? And he had the hamster.”
Zariya whirled. “You have the hamster? Spit it out, right now!”
“I don’t still have it, you silly creature! I put it back! And I did not touch her! Don’t you think I have enough problems without making more for myself? Don’t you think we all have enough problems?” He pointed at Lissy. “What are we going to do about her? However much you try to mince words neither of us are going to convince her that there’s nothing strange going on here. She’s not stupid, and she’s not mute. Perhaps if she tells someone it could be attributed to an overactive imagination, but we can’t take that chance.”
Zariya smiled down at Lissy, who was looking from one teacher to another with mild interest. “You don’t mind if we ask you some questions, do you? And tell you some things? It’s half an hour ‘til the end of lunch,” she added to Hadrian, expression changing to a glare as she turned to him. “I’m sure we can smooth it out. And you’re right, that’s a risk we can’t take. If everyone else was convinced we’d be fine, but I don’t think we’ve quite ticked the ‘normality’ box and Crispin really isn’t helping.” She turned back to Lissy. “How do you feel?”
“I’m fine,” insisted Lissy. “I don’t know what’s going on, but no-one’s hurt me and I’m not scared.” She raised her chin a little defiantly, because this last part wasn’t entirely true, and she had a feeling they knew it wasn’t. Hadrian sighed, and squatted down next to her.
“I’m sorry, Alice. I didn’t know you were in the room, or I wouldn’t have done anything to scare you.”
“Lissy,” said the little girl. “Everyone calls me Lissy.”
Zariya snorted with laughter. “I suppose that’s a good sign, that you’re on nickname terms with her,” she remarked to the man.
“What were you going to do to the hamster?” persisted the girl. Hadrian squirmed.
“I was… going to attempt to drink its blood. Not much… just a taste.”
“Just a taste? Of hamster blood? You really are a sick weirdo.” Zariya punched his arm. He rubbed it reproachfully.
“Now I shall have a bruise. I’m sure you’d prefer I drank hamster blood than human.”
“You’re a vampire, then?” said Lissy.
There was a long silence. The teachers exchanged glances, and the woman leaned closer to her. “Now, Lissy, I need you to do something for me. You can’t tell anyone about this - no-one. It’s very important. If you feel…. uh, mentally scarred or something… then come to us and you can talk to us. To me,” she corrected herself, and Mr de Mellios scowled. “No-one can know. If you’re scared of us, then there’s not really anything we can do, but… please. We’re not trying to harm anyone, we’re just trying to get by. We have to live just like everyone else.”
“Are you a vampire too?” asked Lissy, peering at Zariya’s teeth.
“Goodness no,” she exclaimed, as Hadrian roared with laughter. “I’m, er… something else.”
“Something that howls at the full moon and uses a razor frequently,” muttered the man, and received another punch. Serious again, Zariya leaned towards her once more.
“Are you scared, Lissy? I know it must be difficult to cope with strange things.”
“Not really,” said the little girl dismissively. “Some of the things Darcie does are a bit strange, or at least Daddy acts like they are. So does Tracy - like when she cooks things in the big black pot. Herbal medicines, I think she said. Some of them are pretty colours, she keeps them in nice bottles on a shelf.”
To her surprise, Zariya groaned. “I think it looks like we need to talk to Darcie, too,” she said to Hadrian, standing up. “In fact, this might resolve matters quite nicely. Come on, Lissy - we’re taking you home.”
“W-why?”
“Because you fainted and you don’t feel well, so I’m taking you home. Hadrian, get Crispin. You two will just have to take the rap for missing work.”
Hadrian sighed and pulled out his mobile phone. “I’ll call for substitutes for all three of us,” he muttered. “You owe me, hairy.”