Tom Bites Back Read online

  Text copyright © 2020 by Steven Banks

  Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Mark Fearing

  All Rights Reserved

  HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

  www.holidayhouse.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Banks, Steven, 1954- author. | Fearing, Mark, illustrator.

  Title: Tom bites back / by Steven Banks; illustrated by Mark Fearing.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Holiday House, [2020] |

  Series: Middle school bites; #2 | Audience: Ages 8-12. | Audience: Grades 4-6.

  Summary: Eleven-year-old Tom the Vam-Wolf-Zom meets Martha, the 244-year-old vampire who bit him, and convinces her to teach him such important things as how to fly and how to hypnotize people.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019055025 | ISBN 9780823446155 (hardcover)

  Subjects: CYAC: Middle schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. |

  Vampires—Fiction. | Werewolves—Fiction. | Zombies—Fiction. | Humorous stories.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.B22637 Tom 2020 | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019055025

  Ebook ISBN 9780823447947

  a_prh_5.5.0_c0_r0

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  1. The Bat That Spoke

  2. Calling the White House

  3. The 244-Year-Old Girl

  4. Questions and Answers

  5. The Flight of the Vam-Wolf-Zom

  6. Showing Zeke

  7. Band of Five

  8. Donuts, Ants, Dogs

  9. The Longest Tale

  10. The Masterpiece

  11. Tea Party

  12. Art Critics

  13. Eating Terrence

  14. The Terrence Plan

  15. Terrence Lives!

  16. Zeke Almost Has a Heart Attack

  17. The Band

  18. Clothes Make the Band

  19. Mad Scientist

  20. Changing Looks

  21. The Perfect Haunted House

  22. The Reunion

  23. Code Red

  24. The Worst Idea Ever

  25. To Fly or Not to Fly

  26. Carrot Boy Meets the Vam-Wolf-Zom

  27. Werewolf Time

  28. Werewolf Rehearsal

  29. The Invisible Vam-Wolf-Zom

  30. No Costume, No Candy

  31. The Randee Rabbit Problem

  32. Do Not Try on the Masks!

  33. Who Are You?

  34. Breaking the Rules

  35. Second Offense

  36. Dance Lesson

  37. The Witch Surprise

  38. Dance Police

  39. Taco! Taco!

  40. All Hallow’s Eve

  41. Dumbness

  42. The Shortcut

  43. Saving Tanner Gantt

  44. Are Those Real?

  45. Hypnotic Lesson

  46. Down the Rabbit Hole

  47. The Tanner Gantt Technique

  48. Bat–Tom Rises

  49. Tree House Tears

  50. The Flight of the Bat–Tom

  51. The Owl and the Bat

  52. Spying

  53. Perks of Being a Werewolf

  Acknowledgments

  To my sons, James and Spencer, who know the importance of family, friends, and a good Halloween costume, and who have brought me immeasurable joy.

  1.

  The Bat That Spoke

  The bat on the windowsill looked up and said, “Hello?”

  I wasn’t surprised that a bat was talking to me. A lot of weird and crazy stuff had happened that week.

  1. The day before I started middle school, I got bit by a vampire bat. (When I was asleep, but I thought it was just a spider bite.)

  2. Then I got bit by a werewolf. (When I was running, but I thought it was just a big dog.)

  3. After that, I got bit by a zombie. (When I went into an old carnival trailer at a creepy gas station, but I thought it was fake.)

  4. I turned into a Vam-Wolf-Zom.

  5. I told my best friend, Zeke, and we found out I have super hearing, night vision, and awesome strength and speed. But I can’t turn into a bat and fly, which is totally unfair.

  6. I found out that I’ll live forever, unless the sun burns me up or I get a wooden stake in the heart or shot by a silver bullet or if somebody chops my head off. (I guess everybody dies if they get their head chopped off.)

  7. Emma, The Worst Sister in the World, found out I was a Vam-Wolf-Zom when she saw me drinking blood from a raw steak. She told our parents.

  8. My parents decided I should tell everybody at a school assembly, where the principal announced they had to treat me like a normal kid.

  9. I got suspended for a day because I threatened to rip somebody’s throat out. (I only said it to scare him, so he wouldn’t beat up this kid named Abel Sherrill.)

  After The Worst First Week of Middle School Ever, my family went up to my gram’s house in the woods for the weekend, where I got all my bites.

  The night we got there we had a big dinner of barbecued spareribs. I have to eat a lot because I’m one-third zombie. Zombies aren’t hungry 24-7 like on TV, but when you get hungry, you are REALLY hungry.

  There was a full moon that night, so I turned into a werewolf. Gram hadn’t seen me do that yet. She thought I made a good werewolf; she loves old horror movies and we usually watch them when we visit her. But that night, Emma picked a stupid, boring, romantic movie. When it was over, I went up to bed, and that’s when the bat appeared on my windowsill.

  I just sort of stood there, staring at it.

  “Hello?” it said again, louder. “Bonjour?…Hola?…Guten Nacht?…Ciao?…Namaste?…Marhaba?…Ohayo?”

  It sounded like a girl bat.

  “Hi…” I said.

  “Well, that is most fortunate,” said the bat. “You can speak. This shall be a more interesting conversation.”

  She talked like Abel Sherrill, The Second-Weirdest Kid at My School. (I’m the first.) He wears a suit and tie to school every single day and carries a briefcase. We share a locker. It bugged me at first, but now I don’t mind so much.

  “Are…are you the bat that bit me last week?” I asked.

  “Yes. That would be me.”

  I wanted to smash her. If this stupid bat hadn’t bitten me, I wouldn’t be a vampire. Or one-third vampire. But I also wanted to ask a million questions, so I didn’t smash her.

  The bat looked me up and down. “I did not know you were a werewolf. You certainly didn’t taste like one.”

  I forgot I was in full werewolf mode. I guess I was getting used to the hair.

  “The werewolf bit me after you did,” I said. “Why’d you have to bite me anyway?”

  “Are you a dunderhead?”

  I didn’t know what a dunderhead was, but it didn’t sound like a compliment.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “I am a vampire. That is what we do. I was flying by and needed blood. The old woman’s window was closed, unfortunately—”

  “That’s Gram, this i
s her house.”

  “—and your window was open.”

  “Why’d you have to turn me into a vampire?”

  “I assure you, lad, that was not my intention. It was an accident.”

  “How can you accidentally turn somebody into a vampire?”

  “I had bitten you and was preparing to drink, but let me make this perfectly clear, this has never happened before, because you moved and tried to swat me, I bit my lip. A drop of my blood dripped into the bite I had made on your neck. Once a vampire’s blood mixes with a human’s, they will turn. As you did.”

  “I’m a vampire because you bit your lip?!”

  “Precisely. Consider yourself lucky. If I had drunk all your blood, we would not be having this conversation.”

  She looked past me, into the room. “Are you alone here?”

  “No. My parents and sister and Gram are here—”

  I had a horrible thought. She wanted to suck their blood. In a split second I grabbed the bat and held her in my fist. I can move super fast when I want to. That’s one good thing about being part vampire and part werewolf. Zombies are major slowpokes. There is nothing good about being a zombie.

  The bat squirmed and wiggled and tried to get free.

  “Unhand me this instant!”

  “Don’t bite anybody here!”

  “Let me go!”

  “Not until you say you won’t bite anybody.”

  I squeezed her a little to show I was serious. I didn’t want her accidentally turning Mom, Dad, Gram, Emma, or our dog, Muffin, into vampires. Are there vampire dogs?

  “Very well,” she said. “I shall not bite anyone.”

  “No! You have to say, ‘I swear on blood’!” I said, holding her a few inches from my face.

  She gave me a disgusted look.

  “I swear on blood I shall not bite anyone in this house. Now put me down, you ninnyhammer!”

  Ninnyhammer didn’t sound good either.

  I set her back down on the windowsill. Now I knew I could trust her. Last week Zeke said that if a vampire swears a blood oath it was binding. If they went back on their promise they melted or disintegrated or burst into flames or something.

  “I’ve got a zillion questions,” I said.

  “I shall answer a few and then I must be on my way.”

  The bat flew farther into the room, whizzing right by my ear, and landed on my pillow. I wasn’t thrilled she was on my pillow. I mean, bats are kind of like rats with wings.

  “First, I have a question for you, lad,” she said. “How did you become a werewolf?”

  “A werewolf bit me when I was running,” I said, sitting down in a chair. “But, I’m only one-third werewolf.”

  “One-third? Pray tell, how is that so?”

  I told her about getting bit by the zombie.

  “You are also part zombie?” she said, her little bat eyes getting big.

  “Yeah. I’m a Vam-Wolf-Zom.”

  She nodded. “Vam-Wolf-Zom…. Very clever. I am naturally fond of vampires, on the whole; I tolerate werewolves; but zombies are another matter. Good for nothing, brainless eating machines.”

  Nobody likes zombies. Except maybe other zombies. Gram loves zombie movies, but it’s not the same.

  The bat walked toward me, across my pillow, leaving little bat foot imprints. She looked up at my face. “Absolutely fascinating. In all my two hundred and forty-four years, I have never chanced upon nor heard of such a creature.”

  “Never? I’m the only one— Wait! You’re two hundred and forty-four years old?!”

  Knock! Knock! Knock!

  Someone was outside my door.

  2.

  Calling the White House

  It was my sister, Emma. I know her knock. She always uses her fist and bangs on the door as hard as she can.

  The bat dove under my pillow. I really hoped she didn’t have fleas.

  “Hey! Freakazoid!” Emma yelled.

  Freakazoid was Emma’s latest nickname for me. Ever since I became a Vam-Wolf-Zom she’d called me a lot of different names. I think she was trying them out before she settled on the best one. So far she had called me:

  “Who are you talking to?” yelled Emma from the other side of the door.

  “Zeke!” I yelled back. “I called him to ask about some history homework.”

  Emma would go ballistic if she knew the vampire bat that had bitten me was in my room. She’d probably call the police, the FBI, and a SWAT team. I bet she’d call the White House.

  “Hello. This is the White House. How may I help you?”

  “This is Emma Marks! The vampire bat that bit my brother is in my grandmother’s house! Send the army and navy and marines over! You need to declare war!”

  “I’m sorry, we can’t do that. Only Congress can declare war.”

  “Are you serious?!”

  “Yes. You should have learned that in school. What grade did you get in Government class?”

  “I probably got an A. You have to get rid of this bat!”

  “Let me bring your report card up on my computer…You got a C.”

  “Are you going to help me with this vampire bat or not?”

  “Would you like me to connect you to The Federal Bureau of Vampire Bat Task Force Operations?”

  “Yes! I would! It’s about time!”

  “I’m joking, Ms. Marks. There is no such organization.”

  “That is NOT funny!”

  I could totally see Emma doing that.

  “Did you steal my toothpaste?!” she yelled, from the hallway.

  “No!”

  “Yes, you did!”

  “No, I didn’t!”

  “Let me come in and see for sure!”

  Emma uses toothpaste that supposedly makes your teeth super white and bright. She’s always smiling at herself in the mirror. She had braces until a year ago and complained about them every single day. I guess I might have to get braces since I have fangs now.

  “I don’t have your stupid toothpaste, Emma!”

  Emma made a noise that sounded like a bear growling. Then she stomped down the hall. I locked my door, turned back around, and there was a girl staring at me.

  3.

  The 244-Year-Old Girl

  It was just like a horror movie, when a creepy-looking girl climbs out of a well or suddenly appears in a mirror.

  She looked about thirteen or fourteen. She was thin and a little taller than me, with long, red hair that went down her back, green eyes, and a pale, white face. She was wearing a dark green dress that looked like she was going to a Halloween party or a funeral.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Martha Livingston, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”

  She held up the two sides of her dress with her fingers, bowed her head a little, and curtsied. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do, so I bowed back. Did I have to learn vampire manners? I didn’t know what to say. I’d just been talking to a bat, and now the bat was a girl.

  “And what is your name, lad? It is customary to introduce oneself.”

  “Oh. I’m Thomas Marks.” I don’t know why I said “Thomas” instead of “Tom.” “Are you really two hundred and forty-four years old?” I asked.

  “Let me clarify: I have existed on the earth for that long. I was thirteen when I was turned.” She looked like a girl, but she sounded like a grown-up. It was easier talking to a girl than a bat.

  I didn’t want Mom, Dad, Gram, or Emma to hear us talking, so I turned on an old radio that Gram keeps on the desk in the room. Some boring classical music with pianos and violins playing the same thing over and over came on.

  Martha closed her eyes and smiled. “Mozart’s twenty-first piano concerto in C major. I heard him play that in the Burgtheater in Vienna, 1785.”
<
br />   I didn’t know what she was talking about, so I just nodded.

  She opened her eyes and said, “Who was the shrieking female at the door?”

  “That’s my sister, Emma.”

  “She is high-spirited.”

  “She’s a major pain in the butt.”

  “How did you know about the blood oath, Thomas?”

  “My best friend Zeke told me.”

  “He must be a wise and learned fellow.”

  Zeke was sort of the opposite of a wise and learned fellow. But he did know a lot of stuff about monsters. He would love to meet Martha.

  “Is he a true, loyal, and honest friend?” she asked.

  “He is.”

  “You are lucky. As Benjamin Franklin said, ‘A true friend is the best possession.’ You have other friends too?”

  “Yeah. There’s this girl named Annie Barstow and a guy named Abel Sherrill—he’s a new friend.”

  “Annie Barstow is someone you are fond of? Your girlfriend, perhaps?”

  Why do people always ask that when you say you have a friend that’s a girl?

  “No. She’s just a friend.”

  Martha sat down in an old rocking chair in the corner of the room and folded her hands in her lap. “Since you will not allow me to feed, our time here must be brief. What do you wish to ask of me?”