“I suppose we could just deny it,” Olivia whispered.
“Our community doesn’t let things go that easily,” Brendan said.
Ivy nodded in agreement. “We have no choice. We’ll have to show everyone that you have a right to know.”
“But how?” Sophia asked.
“By proving that one of our parents was a vampire, so Olivia’s at least part vampire, too.”
Olivia got goosebumps. It was weird to think of vampire blood coursing through her veins. Maybe I should try eating more steak, she thought, but the idea made her stomach turn.
“The problem,” Brendan said, “is that most people don’t think it’s possible for a human and a vamp to have normal kids.”
“Well, they’re wrong,” Ivy said flatly. She turned to Olivia. “If we can locate our biological parents,” she said, “and prove without a doubt that one of them was a vampire, then no one will be able to object to your knowing the secret.”
“I’m game,” Olivia said immediately. She’d give up her poms to know the truth about their parents anyway. “But what can we do? We already tried the adoption agency route, and that was a dead end.”
“What about the VVV?” Sophia suggested.
“The what?” Olivia asked.
“The Vorld Vide Veb,” Sophia said, sounding like the bloodsucking bride in an old vampire movie.
Olivia’s jaw dropped. “Don’t tell me vampires have their own Internet!”
“It was a vampire who invented the Internet,” Brendan told her with a grin.
“You could try searching references to humanvampire relationships,” Sophia suggested.
“And we should definitely look up Owl Creek, where we were born,” Ivy added. “Olivia, can you come to my house after school? Then we can go online.”
“Sure,” Olivia agreed. “Maybe we can even find out something about what happens when vampires— Ow!” She broke off as somebody kicked her hard under the table.
“Hello, Camilla,” Sophia said brightly, fixing her eyes on Olivia with a meaningful stare.
Olivia turned as Camilla sank down on the bench next to her, laying her thick, dog-eared paperback next to Olivia’s tray.
“Hi,” Camilla greeted everyone. “How are the star twins of Franklin Grove?”
“Awesome,” Olivia blurted, while Ivy croaked, “Killer.”
“How about you?” Olivia asked Camilla, with a sheepish smile as she reached under the table to rub her aching ankle. Now that was close! she thought.
Chapter 4
Ten minutes into last period, as Mr. Strain was going over the procedure for the cheek-cell experiment, Ivy glanced down at the piece of paper that she and Olivia had been passing back and forth since the beginning of class. It had started when Ivy had jotted down one possible theory concerning their parents. Olivia’s latest pink-ink-penned theory was about halfway down.
THEORY 14: Mom bites Dad, feels guilty, runs off with kids, can’t hack single parenthood???
Ivy tapped her pen thoughtfully against her lips. Glancing up, she caught Vera shooting her a mean look. Ivy returned her stare, and Vera angrily whispered the word “traitor” right at her. Ivy rolled her eyes and scribbled, Vera should go eat some garlic!
Olivia smiled when she read it, looked in Vera’s direction, and then wrote, Just ignore her!
Mr. Strain came around to hand out materials, and Ivy covered the page with her book so he wouldn’t see it. “I read the article in today’s Scribe,” he said with a smile as he held out a tongue depressor for their experiment. “As twins, your cells should be nearly identical.”
If so, then Olivia must have some vamp in her, thought Ivy. “Here’s hoping,” she said aloud.
“I keep meaning to ask,” Olivia whispered once their teacher had moved on, “what are you doing this Saturday? My mom wants you to come over for lunch.”
“Okay,” Ivy said as she filled out their lab sheet.
Olivia sighed. “Then she wants to take the two of us shopping.”
Ivy stopped writing. “I think that’s the first time I’ve ever heard you sound unhappy about shopping,” she pointed out.
“My mom is going completely overboard,” Olivia explained. “After you left last night, she started researching Goth cookbooks, and got excited about some recipes she found.”
“Really?” Ivy grinned. “Like what?”
“Blackberry blood soufflé,” Olivia said, looking like just thinking about it made her want to puke.
“That does sound delicious,” Ivy admitted.
“Gross,” Olivia said under her breath.
“I hope that you will all discover something about your own genetics today,” Mr. Strain told the class. “You may now begin.”
As Olivia scraped the inside of her cheek, Ivy twirled her emerald ring around its chain. Their matching rings were the only things either of them had from their biological parents. While Olivia got to work on making their slide, Ivy took the chain from around her neck, and examined the ring thoughtfully. The emerald, a rich green, was set in a platinum band, which was covered with etchings in yellow gold that looked like rivers on Earth as seen from outer space.
As Olivia delicately pressed the two glass slides together, her ring sparkled up at Ivy.
Maybe the rings are some sort of clue, Ivy thought. Ivy pulled the microscope over and slid her ring under the lens. Bringing it into focus, she followed the etchings with her eye, turning the ring slowly. Maybe she’d find something written there, between the tiny rivers.
Something caught her eye as she rotated the ring, but it wasn’t on the band. It was actually in the emerald: a tiny blurry shape that looked like it was floating in the field of bright green.
“What is it?” Olivia whispered. “Let me see!”
“I don’t know,” Ivy said softly. “Probably just a flaw in the stone.” She kept trying to adjust the position of the ring and the microscope’s focus, but she couldn’t make the blob out clearly.
Her sister poked her impatiently. Ivy pulled the ring out from under the microscope and held it up. She squinted, trying to see whatever it was with her naked eye, but she couldn’t.
She turned the ring over. When she brought it right up to her nose, she could just barely make something out. She brushed one finger lightly over the exposed underside of the stone and felt tiny marks.