Free The Society of S by Susan Hubbard

my bike downtown to use the computer. Why should I pester my father about hematophagy? He’d only change the subject.
    It took me all of a minute to find a link to “human hematophagy,” and two more to learn that many humans drink blood. African Masai, for instance, subsist largely on cow blood mixed with milk. The Moche society and the Scythians indulged in ritual-istic blood-drinking. And stories of human vampirism were abundant, although whether they were fact or fiction was a matter of fierce Internet debate.
    My next link took me to a series of sites related to “Real Vampires.” These sites described some of the differences between the vampires of folklore and fiction, and those of contemporary reality. The sites disagreed about whether real vampires were dependent on drinking blood, about whether vampires could “evolve,” about whether they could bear children, and if they could, whether the children would be vampires. In short, they didn’t offer me any real answers.
    One article by someone called Inanna Arthen concluded: “Furthermore, this article is not intended to mislead — real vampires, even evolved ones, do sometimes drink blood in order to obtain their energy. Those who understand the many ways that life ‘gives way’ to nurture more life will see this as no more unnatural than eating live vegetables or animals for food.”
    I was musing about this when the librarian put her hand on my shoulder. “Why aren’t you in school?” she asked. She was an older woman with wrinkled skin. I wondered how long she’d been standing there.
    “I’m home-schooled,” I said.
    She didn’t seem convinced. “Do your parents know that you’re here?”
    I thought of telling her the truth: my mornings were my time in which to study as I pleased, before I met with my father after lunch. For some reason, I didn’t think she’d believe me. So I said, “Of course.”
    “What’s your home telephone number?” she asked. And like a fool, I told her.
    Next thing she was talking to my father. While we waited for him to arrive, she had me sit on a chair before her desk. “I’ve seen you in here many times,” she said. “Are you always Googling vampires?”
    Like a complete idiot, I smiled. “I find them interesting,” I said brightly.
    I must confess that when my father finally swept into the library, his long black coat buttoned to the chin and black hat pulled almost to his eyes, the librarian’s reaction was something to see. Her mouth dropped open, and she let us leave without saying another word.
    But on the drive home, my father said plenty, ending with: “— and so you have managed to disrupt an important experiment, whose results may now be compromised, and for what? To annoy a librarian with questions about vampires ?” But his voice held no emotion; only his choice of words, and the slightly lower tone of vampires , let me know that he was angry.
    “I never asked her questions,” I said. “I was trying to do some research on the computer.”
    He didn’t say more until we were back home, and he’d put the car away. Then he came into the front hallway and began to unwind the scarf from his neck. “I suppose it’s time we talked” — he paused to remove his coat — “about giving you your own computer.”

    By the time Kathleen called a few nights later, I was the proud owner of a sleek white laptop with a wireless Internet connection. I told her the story of its acquisition; it was rare that I had anything interesting to talk about lately, and perhaps that’s why her calls had grown infrequent.
    Kathleen responded to the tale of the evil librarian with appropriate “You did not!”s and “Really?”s. “You should have lied,” she said when I’d finished. “You could have given her the wrong phone number. You could have given her our number, since nobody’s at home during the days.”
    I admitted that I hadn’t been clever with the librarian.
    “But it all worked out,”