OneAndOneIs2

I was reminded of this article that I wrote for the "Stake & Garlic" competition some time ago. They wanted a vampire story for kindergarten. So I wrote a Winnie-the-Pooh parody. . .

Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, Vlad-the-Vampire lived in a city all by himself under the name of Al Ucard.

One night when he was out walking, he came to a big house in the middle of the city, and at the top of the house there was a balcony, and in the balcony, there was a window, and in the window, there were some white curtains, rippling in the breeze coming through the open window.

Vlad-the-Vampire sat down on a bench outside the house, put his head between his hands, and began to think.

First of all he said to himself: "Those billowing curtains mean something. You don't get curtains like that, just billowing and rippling without its meaning something. If there are white curtains blowing in the wind, there's someone sleeping in that room, and the only reason for sleeping behind billowing white curtains that I know of is because you're a young woman."

Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the only reason for being a young woman that I know of is to have tasty blood." And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for having blood is so as I can drink it." So he began to climb the house.

He climbed and he climbed and he climbed as he climbed he sang a little song to himself. It went like this:

Isn't it odd

How a vampire likes blood?

Drink! Drink! Drink!

Why is that, do you think?

Then he climbed a little bit further... and a little bit further... and a little bit further ... and just a little bit further. By that time he had thought of another song.

If vampires and women were to somehow swap roles,

They'd put their bedrooms at the bottoms of holes.

Then although we'd have to endure more falls

We shouldn't have to climb up all these walls.

He was getting rather tired by this time, so that is why he sang a Complaining Song. He was nearly there now, and if he just pulled himself over the balcony railing...

Crack!

"Oh, help" said Vlad, as he dropped ten feet onto the balcony below him.

"If only I hadn't--" he said as he bounced twenty feet on to a ledge.

"You see, what I meant to do," he explained, as he turned head-over-heels, and crashed on to yet another window ledge below, "What I meant to do--"

"Of course, it was rather--" he admitted, as he hit the conservatory roof.

"It all comes, I suppose," he decided, as he rolled off the roof, spun round three times, and dropped into a gorse-bush, "It all comes of liking blood so much. Oh help!"

He crawled out of the gorse-bush, brushed the prickles from his shirt, and began to think again. And the first person he thought of was Igor.

So Vlad-the-Vampire went round to his friend in another part of the city.

"Good morning, Igor," he said.

"Good morning, Vlad-the-Vampire," said Igor.

"I wonder if you've got such a thing as a balloon about you?"

"A balloon?"

"Yes, I just said to my self coming along : 'I wonder if Igor has such a thing as a balloon about him?' I just said it to myself, thinking of balloons and wondering."

"What do you want a balloon for?" Igor said.

Vlad-the-Vampire looked round to see that nobody was listening, put his hand to his mouth, and said in a deep whisper: "Blood!"

"But you can't get blood from balloons!"

"I can," said Vlad.

Well, it happened that Igor had been to a party the day before at the house of his friend Frankenstein, and he had been given a black balloon; and one of Frankenstein's monsters had a big white balloon; and had left it behind, being really too monstrous to go to a party at all; and so Igor had brought the black one and the white one home with him.

"Which one would you like?" Igor asked Vlad.

He put his head between his hands and thought very carefully.

"It 's like this," he said. "When you go after blood with a balloon, the great thing is not to let the young woman know you're coming. Now, if you have a white balloon, they might think you were only part of the moon, and not notice you, and if you have a black balloon, they might think you were only part of the night sky, and not notice you, and the question is : Which is most likely?"

"Wouldn't she notice you underneath the balloon?" Igor asked.

"She might or she might not," said Winnie-the Vlad. " You never can tell with young women." He though for a moment and said: "I shall try to look like a bat. That will deceive her."

"Then you had better have the black balloon," Igor said; and so it was decided.

Well, they both went out with the black balloon, and Igor took his gun with him, just in case, as he always did, and then, when the balloon was blown up as big as it could be, and Igor and Vlad were both holding on to the string, Igor let go suddenly, and Vlad floated gracefully up into the sky, and stayed there -- level with the window with billowing white curtains in it, and only a few feet away.

"Hooray!" Igor shouted.

"Isn't it fine?" shouted Vlad-the-Vampire down to Igor. "What do I look like?"

"You look like a Vampire holding on to a balloon" Igor said.

"Not," said Vlad anxiously,"---not like a bat in the night sky?"

"Not very much."

"Ah, well, perhaps from up here it looks different. And as I say, you never can tell with young women."

There was no wind to blow him nearer to the window so there he stayed. He could see the sleeping young woman, he could smell her blood, but he couldn't quite reach her. As he watched, he saw her wake up and look around in puzzlement.

After a little while he called down to Igor. "Igor!" he said in a loud whisper. "Hallo! I think the young woman suspects something!"

"What sort of thing?"

"I don't know. But something tells me that she's suspicious!"

"Perhaps she thinks that you're after her blood?"

"It might be that. You never can tell with young women."

The young woman got out of her bed and came over to the window. She looked very suspicious, and also rather irritable. No-one likes being woken up at night, after all.

Vlad stayed silent for a little while, and then he called down to Igor again. "Igor!"

"Yes?"

"Have you a cloak in your house?"

"I think so."

"I wish you would bring it out there, and throw it to me, so I could flap it around like bat wings. I think if you did that, it would help the deception which we are practicing on this young woman."

Well Igor laughed to himself, "Silly old Vampire!" But he did not say it aloud because he was so fond of him, and he went home for his cloak.

"Ah, there you are!" called down Vlad-the-Vampire, as soon as he got back to the house. "I was beginning to get anxious. I have discovered that the young woman is definitely Suspicious."

"Shall I throw the cloak up?" Igor said.

"Yes, please," said Vlad-the-Vampire. "But first, I must have both hands free to flap it. So I shall tie the balloon to my belt."

And so he did. Once the balloon was firmly tied, Igor threw the cloak up to him, and Vlad caught it and put it on, and then flapped his arms under the cloak to make himself look like a bat flapping its wings.

The young woman was looking out of her window suspiciously by now, trying to make out what had woken her up. Because it was dark, she couldn't clearly see what was floating outside her window, so she wasn't sure if it really was a bat, or just a Vampire pretending.

Since she didn't like bats any more than she liked Vampires, she decided to throw things at it until it went away, whatever it might be.

"Igor--ow!" called out Vlad. "I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very --ow!-- important decision. This is the wrong sort of young woman!"

"Is it?"

"Quite the wrong sort. Ow! So I should think she would have the wrong sort of blood, shouldn't you?"

"Would she?"

"Yes, so I think I shall come down now."

"How?" asked Igor.

Vlad-the-Vampire hadn't thought about this. He had tied the balloon to his belt, and it he undid his belt, his trousers would fall down, and he didn't like the idea of that. So he thought for a long time, and then he said:

"Igor, you must shoot the balloon with your gun. Have you got your gun?"

"Of course I have," Igor said. "But if I do that, it will spoil the balloon."

"But if you don't," said Vlad, "I shall have to take off my belt, and that would spoil my clothes."

When he put it like this, Igor saw how it was, and he aimed very carefully at the balloon, and fired .

"Ow!" said Vlad.

"Did I miss?" Igor asked.

"You didn't exactly miss," said Vlad, "but you missed the balloon."

And with that, Vlad-the-Vampire crumbled into dust and blew away on the night breeze. And the young woman went back to her bed, and had a good night's sleep.