Oh my darkness. Ivy’s feet slowed to a stop as she stared at the mall’s comic-book store, the frontage rising up and up over the central fountain. She had to tip her head all the way back to see the very top floor with its glass-fronted display. That store is bigger than my whole house!
She had to force her mouth shut before she could start moving again. No time to stop! she told herself firmly.
Still, she slid longing glances back at it as she walked away. I will definitely bring Brendan here another time . . . when I’m not looking for my crazy best friend!
Ivy turned a corner to find a bunch of middle-schoolers soaring down the polished gallery floor right towards her on their skateboards. She leapt aside just in time to avoid a messy crash.
One of the younger skateboarders craned his neck backwards as he skated past. ‘Are you OK?’
Ivy sighed. ‘I’m fine.’
The truth was, she could have leapt all the way across the gallery if she’d wanted to. Instead, she’d forced herself to use only half her strength and landed just far enough away for safety. She couldn’t break the First Law of the Night by letting outsiders see her vampire super-strength at work.
But up ahead of her, she saw a vampire who didn’t seem to remember anything about the Laws of the Night – or who she really was – any more. Sophia – who looked like she had been caught in explosion at a gingham factory – stood in the middle of a line of skater-girls that snaked down the long gallery. What are they in line for?
Scowling, Ivy marched right up to her friend and tapped her on the shoulder.
Sophia gasped, her arms flying up to cover her gingham shirt.
Ivy rolled her eyes. ‘Your arms are in the sleeves of your shirt, Sophia. You can’t hide gingham by covering it up with gingham sleeves!’
Sophia looked at the floor. ‘What are you even doing here?’
‘Your mom told me where I could find you.’ Ivy crossed her arms. ‘But she didn’t tell me why you’d come here in the first place.’
Sophia shrugged, lifting her chin defiantly.
‘There’s a special offer.’
‘On what?’
Her friend didn’t answer, so Ivy leaned out from the line of girls, craning her neck to see. The line ended in a hair salon, and the poster in front showed . . .
Ivy’s mouth dropped open. ‘You wouldn’t!’
A short-haired, blonde girl smiled out from the poster. Her hairstyle was the same as worn by everyone in the flock of skater-girls from the park the other day – the ones who’d applauded Finn’s ‘bodacious cabs’ as if their lives depended on it.
Half-Price Cut-and-Dye Today! read the banner at the bottom of the poster.
Ivy turned to stare at her friend. ‘You cannot be serious.’
‘Why not?’ Sophia asked. She crossed her arms stubbornly. ‘Are you turning into Amelia now, Ivy? Telling other goths what to wear?’
Ivy gasped. ‘I am not like Amelia!’
‘No?’ From behind her sunglasses, Sophia raised an accusatory eyebrow.
Taking a deep breath, Ivy forced herself to imagine her friend with short, blonde, pixie-style hair. But her brain simply refused to form the image.
‘Look,’ Ivy said. She fought to keep her voice soft and reasonable. ‘At the risk of sounding like Charlotte Brown, have you actually stopped to think how this is going to look?’
Sophia’s chin jutted out. ‘I’ll pull it off.’
Where was the vamp-fashionista Ivy had known her whole life? Taking a deep breath, she stepped closer. ‘What will your parents say when you get home and reveal this new-look? They’ll totally freak out.’
Sophia’s jaw clenched, but she didn’t back down. ‘It’ll be worth it.’
Ivy shook her head. Lowering her voice to a whisper, she hissed: ‘You can’t say that Finn is worth this much trouble and effort. You’ve known him for one week, and the most you’ve talked to him is when you fell down in front of him.’
‘Finn has nothing to do with it,’ Sophia hissed back. ‘I just want to try a new look for our new school. That’s all!’
Ivy sighed. Yeah, right. If her friend wasn’t ready to admit to her crush, then Ivy wasn’t about to humiliate her by pressing the point.
But as the line shuffled forwards, the entrance to the hair salon grew ominously close, like a whirlpool sucking in helpless sailors.
If I don’t think of something fast, Ivy thought, my best friend is going to make a horrible mistake. We don’t have much time!
We don’t have much time! Olivia had to bite back an Ivy-like growl of frustration, even as her dance partner dipped her in a romantic twirl. She had never endured such an awful dance. It wasn’t her partner’s fault – Will, Jackson’s body double, was a fabulous dancer. But she’d been trying to get back to Jackson, without any success, ever since Mr Harker had first started blaring 50s music on the yacht.
For some reason, Jackson seemed to be exempt to Mr Harker’s rule that everybody ‘get down’. Instead, he sat typing on his tablet device, as if the rest of the cast and crew weren’t spinning on the deck-turned-dance floor right in front of him.
Every time a new song ended, Olivia had made a move to cross the deck towards him. But – every time – she’d found another cast member walking into her path with a big smile and a hand held out to sweep her into the next dance. It was so smoothly done, she wondered if the whole thing had been choreographed!
As the latest song finished, she smiled and pulled away from Will as quickly as she could without being rude. She could feel Jackson’s presence at the edge of the deck, like a magnet pulling her towards him. Finally! She started towards him . . .
. . . and Mr Harker beckoned her over. ‘Olivia!’
Argh! As another track kicked in, Olivia forced herself not to let the annoyance show on her face. She couldn’t offend the studio boss . . . even if she was ready to scream at yet another interruption!
‘Yes?’ she said politely. ‘Did you want to dance?’
‘Ha!’ Mr Harker grinned. ‘Don’t sweat it.’ He glanced meaningfully at where Jackson sat on the edge of the deck, still typing on his tablet device. ‘I know exactly what busy bees are buzzing through your brain.’
‘Then why are you getting in my way?’ The words burst out of Olivia’s mouth before she could stop them. Horrified at her own loss of control, she clapped her hand over her mouth . . . but it was too late to take the words back. Way to tell him everything!