Here is the thing about my family: We are everything but normal. I'm not saying that we are freaks or that we indulge in weird hobbies. We are just different from other people, and we never stay too long in one place.

That is why I don't have so many friends and usually keep to myself. My parents are a bit conservative, too. So if a boy wants to date me, he can be sure that especially my father will give him a hard time. Even though I'm his darling daughter Kira and he would never hurt me, I know that my father can frighten people.

When Jaden Macarone wanted to go to a school dance with me last year, my father not only wanted to check him out in person first, but also looked at him as if he wanted to eat him alive.

"What are your intentions with my daughter?" he asked Jaden. His baritone voice sounded like thunder.

"I want to go with Kira to the dance, sir. I'll make sure that she'll be back home by 10 o'clock," Jaden, who was the captain of the school's football team, was not someone you could easily intimidate, but my father's voice and formal manner of speaking clearly scared him.

"And how do you intend to accomplish that? Do you have a car?" my father asked, knowing full well that we were both fourteen at the time and that Jaden couldn't possibly have a license.

"My Mum will drive us, sir," Jaden said.

"And your mother agrees with your decision to date my daughter?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"A yes, sir."

"Then I'd like to meet her, too."

"Dad!" I exclaimed because I thought my father was completely losing it. Why did he always have to be so old-fashioned?

I realized that my father's cautiousness made a lot of sense though on the night of the school dance. Jaden and his mother never arrived at our house because they were both dead by the time they were supposed to get me. People at school whispered that Jaden's Mum had lost control of her car, and it had gone over Pine Creek Bridge. Jaden had still been alive when the paramedics arrived, but he must have been out of his mind as his last words had allegedly been, "He's a vampire."

Of course, I don't believe in such nonsense. My father assured me that I had made a lucky escape because the boy I had lost my heart to had been a deeply troubled soul.

We left Pine Creek as soon as the school year was over and moved to a small town that was far up north. My parents claimed that I needed "a fresh start" after "the terrible tragedy" that had happened with Jaden despite the fact that I had barely known the poor boy.

So I had to start all over again, which had become a sad routine for me by now: When the new school year started, I was the new girl at school who mostly kept to herself, a quiet observer of the adolescent chaos that surrounded her and a straight A student nonetheless. My parents had enrolled me in an all girls' school run by Catholic nuns this time, and this school was supposed to prevent me from suffering any more heartbreak according to my mother.

I thought The Mary Magdalene Convent School would be my worst school by far, if only because I had to wear a ridiculous school uniform that consisted of a black sweater, red skirt and long socks. But during my first week there, I realized that it was an unusual school, but it wasn't so bad. There was something special about an all girls' school as all the other girls seemed to form a secret sisterhood of teenage girls who were incredibly supportive of each other as everyone had to deal with the similar problems.

I tried to keep to myself and would have succeeded if it hadn't been for this girl named Matilda who sat next to me in a couple of classes. She struck me as the kind of student who probably wouldn't have dared to say a word to anyone at a mixed school because she was slightly overweight, did not believe in wearing any make up or styling her unruly brown locks in the morning.

At this school, she was the first kid to address me. "Hi, I'm Matilda Symonds. Is it true that you are a transfer student from Pine Creek?"

"Yes, I am."

"Is it true that you had to leave because you had an affair with a boy? There is a rumor going around that was the case," she asked and seemed really curious to find out more about the new bad girl at school.

"No, I was not kicked out of school, and no, I did not have have an affair with anybody. Not that it is anybody's business... Besides, you are aware of the fact that we are living in the 21st century?" I asked.

Matilda was smart enough to realize that she had gone too far. "Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you! It's just... I've never met anyone who has been in contact with boys on, like, a regular basis. What are they like?"

"Well, they are human beings like us! What do you think they are like?" I exclaimed and thought that this conversation was insane.

"I don't know," Matilda shrugged. 

That was the beginning of our friendship or rather our companionship because Matilda's parents didn't want her to be friends with me because I had been at a mixed school and was a potential bad influence.

So even though I had a constant companion at school, I was on my own as soon as it was over. I didn't mind that so much because I was used to it. Besides, quite a few good new shows and films had popped up on Netflix this month, so this wouldn't bother me for a while. In the end, it would, of course, but perhaps Matilda's parents had changed their opinion about me by then. 

Those were my thoughts one Friday afternoon when I climbed out of the school bus and walked half a mile to our new home. The house looked a bit creepy since nobody had lived in it for almost 40 years. But my mother was an ace interior designer who had already begun to take care of the problem, while my father had hired a flat roofer to take care of the leaks in the roof.

I was surprised when I saw that the front door was open. Actually, I had an immediate gut feeling that something was not all right because my father scolded me on a regular basis for leaving doors within the house open, which is why he would never leave the front door open when he was home. I don't know why, but I took the broom that stood in the empty hallway firmly into my hands upon entering the house. 

"Mum! Dad! I'm home!" I exclaimed.  

"Run away, Kira!" I heard my mother scream. Then there was a knock as if someone had hit her with something. 

Of course, I didn't want to run away when I heard that sound. But my blood did freeze, like, ten times over, and I was more scared than I had ever been in my entire life. Someone had broken into the house, and I was my parents' only hope.

Then I saw a woman come out of the kitchen. Her skin was so pale that it was a miracle she was still alive, and her eyes were red as if she was suffering from a permanent conjunctivitis. She was wearing a baggy black robe and about my mother's age, perhaps older. It was hard to say. In any case, she had a commanding presence and was clearly a figure of authority. Therefore, she didn't strike me as a common burglar. "Are you Kira?" she asked me.

I nodded. 

"I'm Lily from Vampire Child Services. We're here to bring you back to your family," she said.

"Vampire what...?" I started. "But my parents are in there."

"No, these vampires in there have stolen you from your family," she revealed. "I know that is a lot to take in-"

"No!" I screamed and used all the force I had in my hands to break the broom into two halves. I was so shocked that I didn't find that task difficult at all. I had watched so many bad vampire movies that I knew exactly where to place the stake when I attacked her. Said vampire movies had also suggested to me that vampires had better reflexes than humans. I realized that was not strictly true for all vampires when the dust that had once been Lily from Vampire Child Services landed on my clothes and made me cough. 

I went into the kitchen and found my parents tied up on the floor and a male vampire with a crossbow standing over them. 

"Where is Lily?" the stranger asked.

"I think she's gone," I revealed and beat the dust off my clothes.

"You are a murderer!" he said in an accusing tone. "We don't kill our own kind!"

"Well, since I'm not a vampire, I guess your rules don't apply to me! Oh, and I prefer the term 'vampire slayer.' You know, as in Buffy the Vampire Slayer," I stated and walked over to the kitchen counter. I knew my mother kept her Bunsen burner there. It was a strange place to keep it, but now I knew why it was there and why you could always turn it on within seconds. 

"That show was a disgrace to all vampires..." was thus all the vampire was able to say before the fire coming from the flying Bunsen burner hit him and set him aflame. He dropped the crossbow, too, as he ran out of the kitchen. We had a small pond in our front yard, and he probably wanted to jump in it. But he never made it even out of the front door. Like Lily, he turned into dust. 

I untied my parents or rather the people I had taken for my parents for so long. It was true that there was no physical resemblance at all between us and that I had never met any relatives. Plus I didn't really know how my father had made his fortune. He had just always been really rich. 

But there were more important matters to take care of first. "Are you okay?" I asked them.

"I think so. Child, you must have a lot of questions..." my mother began.

"And we are prepared to answer every single one of them!" my father stated.

The entire situation felt surreal to me. "Yeah, you'd better do that! Because your friends have made a real mess here!" 

"We just want you to know that you will always be our little girl, no matter what..." my mother said.

"Yeah, even though you're not our biological daughter, we love you all the same!" my father added.

"So these vampires spoke the truth? And Jaden Macarone was right, too? You are a vampire? And you stole me?" I asked my father. 

My father nodded.

"And you were responsible for the accident that killed Jaden and his mother?"

"I wanted to scare that lady! But she was an awful driver and drove her car over the bridge when she saw me standing in her lane!" my father said in a defensive tone.

"Like Count Dracula is the kind of sight you expect to encounter when you're driving over a bridge at night!" I exclaimed. 

"Count Dracula has never existed! That's stupid vampire folklore that only came into existence because a couple of stupid vampires couldn't help themselves and started running their mouths in the presence of 19th century writers!" my mother said.

"Mary, stop it! I had to kill a journalist in 1901 after your brother had told him our life story!" my father revealed.

"How old are you?" I asked them after my father had mentioned that they had been alive in 1901.

"I'm 244 years old, and your mother is 365. That's why I like to call her a 'cougar' sometimes."

"And I guess your age was the reason why you couldn't have any children of your own?" I asked.

"No, real vampires cannot have children, no matter what those bad TV shows suggest. And since our documents were all fake, we couldn't risk to go to an adoption agency and ask whether they would give us a child," my mother said.

"So you just took me away from my real parents! What did you do to them?" I asked, even though I had a lingering suspicion that this was exactly the kind of question I should better not ask them.

"We killed them, of course!" my father said. "I thought that was better for them than to let them lead a life without their child."

"Which is exactly the kind of life you might be leading from now on!" I exclaimed.

"That's ridiculous! You're not even 18. You cannot leave us!" my father countered. 

Although I was angry, he certainly had a point. I could not live on my own even though life with my parents would never be the same again. Our family life definitely had to change.

Therefore, I offered them a deal. "Well, if you agree on staying here until I finish school and grant me every wish I might have in the future, I might indeed stay until I'll be old enough to go to college."