Fangtastic! (9 page)

“Ivy,
you worry too much.” Her father sighed. “The vampire community is aware that
Serena Star is digging. I promise you, she won’t find anything.”

“Aren’t
you the least bit upset that she’s investigating your own daughter?” Ivy
demanded.

“Well,”
he began, a smile creeping across his face, “I
would
prefer the journalist
in question to have a bit more gravitas than Serena Star, admittedly.”

Ivy
threw a dishcloth at her father’s head, but he caught it.

“Honestly,
Ivy,” he said with a short laugh. “Vampires have been hiding from the world
since long before you were born. Coffin chasers like Serena Star come and go.”

The
mention of her birth reminded Ivy about her conversation with Olivia. “Maybe
that’s why my parents gave me up,” she remarked testily.

“What?”
her father said, suddenly turning serious.

Ivy
looked at her father carefully. “Maybe my real parents gave me up because
someone was on their trail,” she said slowly, “trying to expose them as
vampires.”

“That’s
ridiculous,” her dad said briskly.

“How
do you know?” Ivy asked. “Did they leave a note with the vamp adoption agency
or something?”

Her
dad threw his hands in the air. “No, of course not.” He started rummaging
around in the fridge.

“And
you never found out
anything
about them?” Ivy pressed.

Her
dad closed the fridge without taking anything out and turned back to Ivy. “I
received nothing but your name, your place and date of birth, and your ring.”
He smiled and gave Ivy a hug. “But no matter. You yourself are all that matters—not
your parents. You must look to the future, my Ivy—”

“Not
back to the past,” Ivy finished for him, rolling her eyes. “You always say
that!”

“I say
it,” he said gently, “because it is true.” And with that, he picked up his
newspaper and walked out of the room.

But
it’s not true for me anymore
,
Ivy thought as she leaned against the counter.
I want to know more—not just
for my sake but for my sister’s
. She had no choice but to see what she
could find out on her own.

At the
beginning of lunch period, Olivia bounced into the school’s editing suite and
sank onto a swivel chair in front of a button-packed console. She and Camilla
had reserved the suite so that they could record the voice-over for their
documentary. As she waited for her friend to arrive, Olivia pulled out the
script they’d written and quietly started rehearsing her lines—she was going to
play Great-aunt Edna.

“My
dear duke,” she whispered. Suddenly, the room’s loudspeaker crackled to life. “OLIVIA
ABBOTT,” boomed a computerized voice. “I COMMAND YOU TO TELL ME THE DEEP, DARK
SECRET OF FRANKLIN GROVE!” Startled, Olivia leaped to her feet. “OR ELSE!” the
voice finished.

Olivia
peered around, confused and a little frightened.
What is this, some weird
Serena Star interrogation tactic?
she wondered.

Suddenly,
a slim door in the corner of the room flew open, and Camilla stuck her blond
curly head around it. “Is this place neat or what?” she grinned. Behind her
Olivia could see a tiny gray room with padded walls and a microphone hanging
from the ceiling. Hers was the voice Olivia had heard.

Olivia
flopped back into her chair. “You scared the living daylights out of me!” she
wailed.

“Sorry,”
said Camilla mischievously. “So”— she grabbed the script from Olivia’s hand—“have
you figured out who’s going to play the duke?”

“I
asked Brendan Daniels, Ivy’s boyfriend,” Olivia answered.

Camilla
looked pleased. “He’s perfect.”

“Unfortunately,”
Olivia went on, “he can’t do it. He has band practice right now.”

“Oh,”
Camilla said disappointedly.

“Maybe
we can grab someone else,” Olivia said, rising from her chair and sticking her
head out into the hallway. There weren’t many people around, but then she
spotted her sister, trudging along, looking totally ticked off about something.
Olivia caught her eye and waved her over.

“Hey,”
Olivia said. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s
wrong,” growled Ivy in a low voice, “is that I’m fed up with having that
bloodhound Toby Decker on my trail! All I’ve wanted to do all morning is call
the vamp adoption agency, but I can’t do that with him watching me all the
time.”

Olivia
scanned the hallway over her sister’s shoulder and spotted Toby peeking out
from behind someone’s open locker door. Today he was wearing a striped tie.
From a distance, he almost looked like an old-fashioned aristocrat instead of a
slightly dorky eighth-grader.

“I
have an idea,” Olivia sang, straightening her sparkly pink top and gently
pushing past her sister.

Toby
noticed Olivia approaching and stepped out from behind the locker door. He
smoothed his hair back with his hand.

“Hi,
Toby!” Olivia said. “What are you up to?”

Toby
blushed. “Oh, you know. Nothing, really.”

Olivia
widened her eyes and flashed Toby her biggest smile. “That is so exactly what I
was hoping you were going to say. Come on!” She linked her arm through his and
started leading him toward the editing room.

“B-but—”
Toby stammered, his eyes scanning the halls for Ivy.

“No
buts!” Olivia said. “You’re just the man I need!”

“I am?”
Toby croaked.

“You
are.” Olivia confirmed, giving his arm a squeeze. “Camilla and I are making a
movie for media studies, and we’ve been looking
everywhere
for the right
guy to play the dashing duke!” As she pushed Toby through the editing suite
door, Olivia looked over her shoulder and winked at Ivy, who was lurking in a
doorway across the hall. “He was just perfect,” Olivia told her sister later
that day. “He’s got a nice voice and he even put on an Italian accent. ‘Edna,
bella,’ ” Olivia imitated, clutching her heart, “ ‘I cannot live without you.’ ”

Ivy
laughed so hard, black mascara tears streamed down her cheeks. “Olivia,” she gasped,
dabbing at them with the sleeve of her black crocheted sweater, “you seriously
suck.” Which Olivia knew was like the biggest compliment a vampire could give.

“Don’t
I?” Olivia grinned.

“It
was like being freed from prison,” Ivy said giddily as the bell rang for the
start of science class. “I had the whole lunch period to myself! He did track
me down again after English, though.”

“Did
you book an appointment with the adoption agency?” Olivia asked hopefully.

Ivy
nodded. “I’m going after school.”

There
was a flutter in Olivia’s stomach.
Maybe today’s the day I’ll finally learn
something about my parents,
she thought.

As Mr.
Strain started writing instructions for the day’s chemistry experiment on the
board, Ivy said, “There’s just one thing.” Olivia looked at her expectantly. “I
need you to help me lose Toby again.”

Olivia
understood right away what her sister had in mind. It seemed like ages since
she and Ivy had traded clothes and swapped places, but it was so much fun. A
smile spread across her face.

“We’ll
switch!” they whispered together, as if on cue—which promptly set them both off
in another laughing fit.

“Ladies,”
said Mr. Strain sternly from the front of the room. “Is there something
humorous about oxygenation?”

“I’m
sorry.” Ivy gulped, straining to keep from laughing. “It’s my medication.”
Olivia clutched her chair to keep from falling off.

It
took half the class before they could say anything to each other without
automatically cracking up. Finally, as they were finishing their experiment,
Ivy whispered, “Where should we do it?”

“How
about the mall?” Olivia suggested.

“Killer
idea,” Ivy said. “I’ll head there with Toby in tow right after school. I’ll go
the long way.”

“And I’ll
take the shortcut,” Olivia said, blown away by how she and Ivy seemed able to
read each other’s minds, “and wait for you in the girls’ bathroom in the food
court. Once we switch clothes, I can lead Toby around the mall while you go to
your appointment.”

“Exactly,”
said Ivy. Then added loudly, “Five hundred seventy milliliters.”

“Huh?”
said Olivia, confused. Then she noticed Mr. Strain standing right in front of
their desk. “Right,” she said, writing the number on their experiment log. “Five
hundred seventy milliliters.”

As the
teacher walked on to the next desk, Olivia felt Ivy slip something cool and
metallic into her hand, and looked down to see that it was a set of keys. “I’ll
meet you back at my house after a few hours,” Ivy whispered. “Just walk in, say
hello to my dad, and head straight to my room. Don’t come out until I get
there. Eventually, Toby will give up and go home.”

Olivia
nodded. She’d have to call her mom and tell her that she was studying at
someone’s house. She went over the rest of the plan in her mind, and then she
started to grin again.

“What
is it?” Ivy asked.

“If we’re
switching clothes, then you’re going to have to wear
this
to the
adoption agency,” she said, pointing to her pink sparkly top.

The
look of complete horror on Ivy’s face was more than Olivia could bear. She
burst out laughing again, which set Ivy off, too.

“Ladies!”
called Mr. Strain.

Ivy
had bats in her stomach as she strolled through the mall food court. She wasn’t
just nervous about her visit to the adoption agency, she was also excited about
swapping identities with her sister. Switching was almost like being invisible.
Especially this week, when she felt like a bug under a microscope. She couldn’t
wait to shed her skin.

She
confirmed with a sidelong glance that Toby was still behind her as she headed
into the ladies’ room.
At least he can’t follow me in here,
she thought.
Well, he could, but then he’d get arrested.

There
was no one in the ladies’ room except an old woman bent close to the mirror,
straining to put on pale lipstick with a shaky hand.
Where’s Olivia?
thought
Ivy.

The
lady noticed Ivy and gingerly turned around, clutching her purse to her chest. “You’re
one of those death children I heard about on
The Morning Star
!” She
gasped.

Ivy
put her hands on her hips. “So?”

The
lady wagged a bony finger. “The Star of truth will shine!”

A
stall door swung open and out marched Olivia. She walked right up to the old
woman. “Then you should be worried about all those stolen ketchup packets from
the food court you have in that pocketbook,” she said, folding her arms
disapprovingly.

The
lady hurried out of the bathroom without another peep.

“Have
a good day!” Ivy called after her with un-Gothlike enthusiasm.

Five
minutes later, Olivia and Ivy had changed into each other’s clothes, and Ivy
was putting the finishing touches on Olivia’s black eyeliner. The spray-on
whitener really made an enormous difference to Olivia’s appearance.

“All
right,” Ivy said, taking a step back to admire her work. “You are now
officially one of America’s Most Wanted.”

Olivia
laughed. “And you should really consider wearing pink sparkles more often,” she
responded.

They
gave each other a huge hug.

“I
hope you find what we’re looking for,” Olivia said.

“Me,
too,” whispered Ivy. Then, with a playful wink, Olivia trudged out of the
bathroom in Ivy’s heavy black boots.

Ivy
pulled her hair back into a ponytail and started putting on Olivia’s shimmery
pink lipstick.
It’s pretty killer having a twin. Although,
she thought,
reviewing her reflection in the mirror,
I always swore I’d never be caught
dead in sparkles!

Olivia
looked through an on-sale rack of drab skirts in the back of Midnight Clothing.
She never thought she’d ever feel this way, but she was sick of shopping. She’d
led Toby around the mall three times already. Her feet, clad in Ivy’s heavy
black boots, were almost as sore as they were when she won the Cheer-a-thon in
sixth grade.

Right
now, Olivia could see Toby lurking behind a pile of distressed black jeans. She
glanced longingly toward the dressing rooms, wondering if she could hide out
there for a while.

Toby
would probably just camp out in the next changing room,
she thought. She hoped Ivy was
succeeding at the adoption agency, because this was starting to feel as bad as
not being able to stick a roundoff.

Suddenly,
Olivia had an idea about how to liven things up.
It’s time to find out just
how far Toby is willing to go,
she thought mischievously. She turned on her
heel and walked abruptly out of Midnight Clothing. After a moment, she heard a
crash, and Olivia glanced over her shoulder to see that Toby had toppled a
display of black sunglasses.