Still, she couldn’t stand the look of hurt in the other girl’s eyes. Crossing her arms, she looked pointedly away, studying the rest of the cafeteria. As her gaze picked out Olivia in the crowd, she let out a sigh of relief. Thank goodness, her twin hadn’t ended up stuck at a table full of strangers – Sophia had made space for her at the skater table with Finn and his friends. Between Olivia’s pink top, Sophia’s black dress and the rest of the skaters’ tie-dyed or gingham outfits, they looked like an odd mixture of students to be sitting together . . . and that was exactly how it should be.
Ivy was just wishing that she could be part of it when she suddenly heard a piercing gasp. She swung back around to her own table and found Shadowtown Girl staring down at her T-shirt. When the goth-girl straightened, she was beaming with delight. ‘I get it! You’re quoting from that scene in series two, episode four, aren’t you?’
Uh-oh. Ivy swallowed hard. Was she? She hadn’t thought she was . . . but now that Laura pointed it out . . .
‘When that vampire guy makes fun of the sweater his girlfriend is wearing,’ Laura went on ‘to try to make her dump him because he knows he’s not good enough for her! But she doesn’t, she just loves him even more because she can see through his act and knows he’s a good person underneath.’ Her eyes misting, the girl reached across the table and grabbed Ivy’s hand. ‘I can’t believe this. I’ve never met anyone who knows Shadowtown as well as I do. You are the coolest !’
As all the other goth-girls around the table chimed in with agreement, Ivy sagged in despair.
So much for that plan! She’d just accidentally made herself more popular than ever!
When she looked at Brendan, she found his cheeks sucked in tight to try to hide his smile . . . but she could tell he was laughing on the inside, even while she was dying.
And it was still only Monday!
Chapter Four
‘I just miss you,’ Olivia whispered into the phone that evening, as she sat curled up on her bed.
‘I miss you, too.’ Her boyfriend’s voice was warm and confident, and just the sound of it made her shoulders relax. ‘But things will get easier at school soon. I know it. Hey, you’re a movie star now, remember?’
Olivia rolled her eyes, but she couldn’t help laughing as she propped herself up against her pale lavender pillows. ‘Yeah, maybe I should tell the goths at school to keep that in mind.’
Jackson laughed too, but when he spoke again, his tone was serious. ‘Just remember, it could be a lot worse. You wouldn’t want to be fighting off paparazzi every day, right? That’s why you went back to Franklin Grove in the first place – because you wanted a normal life. No Hollywood lifestyle, no hangers-on . . .’
‘You’re right.’ Olivia took a deep breath. ‘Of course you’re right. And if that means being unpopular . . . that’s OK.’ She nodded firmly, bracing herself. ‘I don’t need to be popular to be happy.’
The doorbell rang downstairs, and she jumped up, balancing the phone against her ear. ‘Oh, Camilla’s here! I’ve got to go.’
‘Have fun tonight,’ Jackson said, ‘and say hi to her for me, OK?’
‘I will.’ Beaming, Olivia hung up and hurried down the stairs to the front door, where her best friend was waiting.
Olivia hadn’t seen Camilla since she’d left for filming. Now that high school had started, they weren’t even going to the same school any more . . . but they had vowed to hold sleepovers every two weeks to make up for it. Even though it was a school night, their parents had allowed them to hold their first sleepover, on the absolute promise that they would go to bed on time.
Just the sight of Camilla’s grinning face under her big glasses and floppy new velvet beret was enough to make Olivia start to feel like she was really home again, after all the weirdness of the filming, the jet lag and her bizarre new school. And as they went into the kitchen to make potato salad for dinner, Camilla’s burbling energy was infectious.
‘I missed you so much!’ Camilla bounced into a movie director’s pose, holding out her hands to frame Olivia’s face as if she were directing a shot. ‘Scene: A school hallway . . . but something is missing from the picture!’ She dropped her hands, sighing. ‘School is so different without you.’
‘I know.’ Olivia winced as she thought of just how different her new school was. Shaking it aside, she leaned over to pull out a sack of potatoes from a storage drawer.
‘I mean, Charlotte Brown is great, of course!’ Camilla said. ‘But it’s not the same.’
‘Excuse me?’ Olivia jerked upright, the sack of potatoes slipping out of her hands. ‘Did you just say Charlotte Brown was great ?’ She stared at Camilla. ‘Are we talking about the same Charlotte Brown?’
As the queen bee of Franklin Grove Middle School, Charlotte had tormented them relentlessly all through eighth grade.
‘Well . . .’ Camilla shrugged and picked up a carrot stick from the platter Mrs Abbott had left on the counter earlier that evening. ‘She’s changed. She’s actually really fun to be around, now. She’s good at organising events, and we’re working together on the school play.’
‘Wow.’ Olivia shook her head in wonder as Camilla crunched the carrot stick. ‘So . . . you and Charlotte Brown are BFFs now?’
Camilla cringed, almost dropping the carrot. ‘No! Not exactly. More like . . . maybe SOFFNs?’
Olivia laughed helplessly. And Ivy thought film language was hard to understand! ‘What does that even mean?’ she asked, as she leaned back over to pick up the potatoes.
‘I just made it up.’ Camilla grinned, looking delighted with herself. ‘Do you like it? It means Sort-of-Friends-For-Now.’
‘Got it.’ Olivia smiled ruefully. ‘No long-term commitment.’
‘We’ll just have to see how it goes,’ Camilla said. Her brows lowered as she finished the carrot stick. ‘Have you noticed how high school changes people?’
Olivia sighed. ‘That is very true.’
The last thing she wanted to think about right now was how much everyone seemed to have changed . . . even her own twin. So she was only too glad when Camilla launched into questions about the filming experience on the set of Eternal Sunset. Olivia might not know all the technical details that Camilla, a director herself, was curious about, but thinking about the London shoot was a perfect distraction from the day she’d had.