I really wish she hadn’t said that.
Olivia took a deep breath, feeling a sudden heaviness in her chest.
This is good. It’s wonderful. Because of this movie, I’m going to see the world!
But would things be different when she finally made it back?
She couldn’t help it. She looked back over her shoulder . . . and found Ivy looking right at her through the diner window.
Ivy gave a little nod, just as if she had read Olivia’s mind and was letting her know: Everything’s going to be OK.
Olivia felt her shoulders slump in relief. Ivy’s always right about this kind of thing.
With one last smile for her sister, she turned and walked quickly home. She had packing to finish and a movie to make!
Chapter Two
Brrrring!
The shrill sound of the alarm clock sent Ivy jerking upright. Her head hit the lid of her coffin-bed. Ouch! As she sat up, rubbing her head, she groaned. Welcome to ninth grade, huh?
It was pitch black inside the coffin-bed, but Ivy didn’t need to see the clock face to know exactly what time it was: Ridiculous O’clock!
Any other day, she would have turned over and gone right back to sleep. Today, though . . . Dad will just come and get me otherwise.
She yawned and pushed the lid open. It creaked softly. She kept her eyes closed against the dawn light streaming in from her bedroom window.
Ivy hadn’t thought anyone could be more nervous about her first day of high school than she was, but Mr Vega had proved her wrong. Her dad had insisted on the insanely early wake-up so that they could go over their ‘plan of assimilation’ before school. Worse yet, Ivy was pretty sure that he was right to be worried.
Because Franklin Grove High School was on the north edge of town, Ivy was going to meet a lot of new kids from Lincoln Vale, the next town over – kids who had not grown up with vampires in their midst! Kids who would ask questions that Franklin Grove’s youngsters just didn’t:
Why are these goths faster, more agile and stronger than most other boys and girls their age? Why do the goths from Franklin Grove stay so pale, even in summer? How can anyone eat a burger so rare?
The Franklin Grove goth kids were going to seem really, really strange to their new classmates from Lincoln Vale, and this was totally freaking out Ivy’s dad. The First Law of the Night ordered that a vampire never revealed their true self to an outsider. But the students at Franklin Grove Middle had become so used to the odd spurt of speed or the super-quick catch of a ball that they’d stopped noticing. The same wouldn’t be true at Franklin Grove High. Ivy and her friends were going to have to be extra careful . . .
‘You don’t want to be caught out,’ her dad had warned her, his face even paler than usual. ‘It could have disastrous consequences for the whole vampire community. Do you understand the seriousness of the situation?’
Oh, Ivy understood all too well. She wasn’t just starting at a new school – she was putting her vampire identity on the line. Along with the extra homework, she’d need to be extra vigilant.
Ivy groaned and clambered out of her coffin, the morning light hurting her sleep-deprived eyes. Ha. She gave a pained laugh at the irony. I’ve never felt more like a vampire than I do right now!
She was still rubbing her bleary eyes as she padded downstairs to the kitchen. In the doorway, she stopped dead. Am I still asleep? She rubbed her eyes and looked again. The sight that met her eyes was the same. No way! She gently slapped her own face. I have got to be dreaming!
Maybe marriage had changed her dad . . . but no way would her father ever sit at the kitchen table in a football jersey, with a backwards baseball cap on his head!
I must be in the middle of a spectacularly strange nightmare!
‘Excuse me.’
At the sound of Lillian’s familiar voice behind her, Ivy sagged with relief. Thank goodness. She’ll take care of this madness!
She turned around – and gasped.
It might have been Lillian’s voice she’d heard, but it sure wasn’t elegant, confident Lillian she saw before her. Instead, she saw a mouse of a woman in silly pigtails, with bookish glasses propped on her nose, textbooks tucked under one arm. As Ivy gaped in disbelief, the woman with Lillian’s voice ducked her head and whispered a shy, ‘Excuse me,’ trying to get past Ivy into the kitchen.
‘What is going on?!’ Ivy’s voice rose into a shriek. ‘Did I wake up in Upside-Down Land? What are you two doing? And where did you get props from? And those costumes, oh my darkness – Lillian, do you even know how much Olivia would freak out if she saw those horrific sweater-vests?’
Lillian grinned and patted her textbooks as she set them down on the table. ‘Think of it as a rehearsal. Your dad and I decided we should do some role-play to help you prepare for interacting with the other kids at high school.’
‘And you couldn’t have warned me first?’ Ivy shook her head numbly as she sank down into her seat at the table. ‘I can’t be expected to deal with this kind of thing – I haven’t even eaten my Marshmallow Platelets yet!’
‘He-e-ey now!’ Charles drawled. Hearing the dumb-jock tone in his usually precise voice made Ivy’s head spin. ‘This is deadly serious, dudette! You cannot be taken by surprise when you get there. High school can be, like, so totally, totally lethal!’
‘Did you seriously just refer to me as “dudette”?’ Ivy put one hand over her eyes. ‘Please say I was imagining that. I have to have imagined that part. Or maybe I really am still asleep in my coffin.’
‘Seriously,’ Lillian repeated, ‘there will be a lot of new faces. Like, a lot. You should definitely think about how you’re going to cope with so many extra bunnies.’
‘Gaah.’ Ivy groaned and reached for her box of Marshmallow Platelets.
This was going to be a long morning. She needed all the help she could get.
‘I’ll go through with this dumb role-play if it’ll make you guys happy,’ she said, giving her dad and step-mom a weary look. ‘But, I’m telling you, if I can cope with Charlotte Brown and her cheerleader cronies, with their perma-smiles, I can definitely cope with anything this new school throws at me.’
I think.
Suddenly, she was assailed by visions of a hallway full of perky bunnies . . . and all of their faces twisting in disgust as she walked past them. Euch.
Ivy swallowed hard and concentrated on pouring her Marshmallow Platelets into a bowl, while she felt both her dad and step-mom watching her like hyper-anxious hawks.