Luckily I didn’t miss much, anyway. Meatloaf with blood-infused ketchup and plasma-filled dinner rolls wasn’t exactly one of her favourite meals.
Ivy rubbed her feet on the soft red velour lining of her coffin. Why wasn’t anyone signed on to the Lonely Echo program? She refreshed her list of friends in the sidebar, but no familiar names popped up with the little green ‘available’ sign. Ivy trawled the Vorld Vide Veb, checking up on some of her favourite blogs: Vintage Vampire and Transylvania Teen.
After she’d learned all she could about celebrity producer Harker’s latest film release, Setting Sun, along with the entire cast’s makeup secrets, Ivy returned to the Lonely Echo program. It was weird for all her friends to be missing and, to make matters worse, her inbox was like a ghost town. Something big had to be happening in Franklin Grove. That could be the only explanation – something big that Ivy knew nothing about. But what?
Her chest throbbed. She’d been fighting this feeling off as long as she could, but she had to come clean with herself. The truth was that Ivy felt disconnected being so far from home. Without Olivia it was like half of her was missing, and without Brendan she felt like part of her heart was on the other side of the globe.
It wasn’t simple homesickness, or that she thought the school was snooty – although it totally is. This place just wasn’t ‘her’. Ivy Vega didn’t wear cable-knit cardigans, she wasn’t afraid to talk to boys and she didn’t eat hamburgers with a baroque-style knife and fork.
She had thought it would be cool to connect with her vampy roots, but the school’s rules were so strict she hadn’t had any time to spend with her grandparents at all. And what roots are more important than my own family tree?
What was the point? Ivy leaned her head back in the coffin. She hadn’t even made any real friends.
Footsteps charged into her room. Ivan started flapping wildly and Ivy nearly leaped out of her coffin.
‘Ivy? Ivy?’ Petra was breathless.
‘Over here.’ Ivy waved.
Petra had a rucksack slung over one shoulder. She took it off, grabbed the bottom of it and shook it out violently. Plastic food-containers of all shapes and sizes spilled out on to their floor. Petra kneeled on the ground and started to sort them. ‘I didn’t know what you liked!’ she said, distractedly. She seemed flustered by the array of sandwiches, cakes, entrées and pastries. ‘So I just grabbed everything I could.’
Ivy laughed. ‘Aren’t you going to get in trouble?’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Petra handed Ivy a slice of chocolate cake and a fork. ‘After what you did for me, I owe you everything. You, Ivy Vega, are the bravest, most selfless girl I know. You made it through the Gauntlet! I bow to you!’ Petra made a grand gesture of performing exaggerated bows as if worshipping Ivy.
Ivy felt her face get hot. ‘OK, enough, enough!’ she giggled. ‘I get it. You’re totally welcome.’
Petra sat back on her heels. ‘Etan sent me a love letter! A beautiful love letter! Here, let me read it for you.’ Petra coughed twice, unfolding a wrinkled letter. ‘A-hem,’ she began to read:
My loveliest flower, Petra,
My heart yearns for the time when we can be close.
You are the sharp point to my fang. The wind beneath my bat wings. The tombstone in my crypt. I love you.
Forever and always yours,
Etan.
Petra hugged the paper, swaying back and forth. ‘Can you believe that? Isn’t that just the most romantic thing you’ve ever heard?’
Gag me, thought Ivy, thankful that her mouth was so full of cake that she couldn’t speak. The letter was way too over the top for Ivy’s taste. But in matters of the heart, to each her own.
‘I know, I was speechless too,’ said Petra, placing her hand on Ivy’s shoulder. ‘But he loves me! It’s official – he really loves me back! And none of this would have happened if you hadn’t finished the Gauntlet.’
Ivy hugged her. ‘Thanks for thinking of me. I thought I was going to die of hunger!’
‘No problem.’ Petra beamed. ‘Now excuse me . . .’ She waggled her eyebrows. ‘But I just have to go and frame this!’
She hurried out of the room, flourishing her love letter above her head. Ivy watched her leave. Petra was turning out to be a much better friend than Ivy had first imagined. It seemed like she didn’t just want to use Ivy as a cover – she really was grateful to her. Maybe this place isn’t so bad after all.
Ivy climbed back into her coffin. She was just about to shut her laptop down when she heard the ping of the Lonely Echo. Finally!
She clicked the screen and saw a pale, washed-out Olivia. ‘Ivy,’ she said. ‘I’m so glad I caught up with you.’ Something in the tone of her voice tied Ivy’s stomach in knots. ‘I’ve got some news.’
Chapter Ten
Olivia was going to need a week’s worth of Beautilicious under-eye treatment cream to get these bags to go away. Bending closer to the mirror, she prodded the two dark circles. Then she pulled away and looked around the room. Nobody else looked any better.
She was curled up in an armchair at her bio-dad’s house. Brendan was asleep and drooling on the silk couch. His parents were snoring on a cramped loveseat.
They’d been up all night. Olivia’s first instinct had been to take Brendan to the hospital right away, but she’d suddenly remembered that no way could she bring her sister’s boyfriend to a bunny hospital. That might expose the vampire secret.
Instead, Olivia had succeeded in getting Brendan to the Vegas’ house, after which Charles had inspected him and confirmed her worst fears: Brendan was seriously ill. He’d insisted Brendan stay there since the Vegas’ home was bigger and everyone would be more comfortable. Plus, he had a well-stocked vampire medicine cabinet – not that it seemed to be doing any good.
Brendan had been passed out for hours. The only sign of life was a slight twitch in his fingers. Of course, his complexion always looked corpse-like to Olivia. That much hadn’t changed. But seeing him lying there so helpless? Olivia thought even Ivy would have felt scared at that moment. She’d told her sister as much as she had dared over the Internet: how Brendan seemed to be ill but they were all taking care of him. She hadn’t told Ivy quite how ill, though. What can she do in Transylvania anyway?
Olivia smelled bacon frying and waffles cooking. Charles was in the kitchen making breakfast, but she doubted that anyone had much of an appetite. She clutched her stomach and rocked in the chair. She was worried sick about Brendan – literally!
The worst part for Olivia was that she had noticed things being wrong for days – the grey patches of skin, the feverishness, the fast talking – but she hadn’t managed to put two and two together until yesterday. Now she felt awful for not asking questions earlier. She watched Brendan sleeping. Even though she knew it was silly, she crossed her fingers, squeezed her eyes shut, and made a wish. Please let him be OK!
She tried to cheer herself up – nobody else had guessed what was wrong with him, so how could she, a mere bunny, have realised that he had a vampire illness? She may be related to vampires by blood, but vamp biology was way beyond her area of expertise.
The doorbell rang, the classical organ music sounding sombre from the big hallway.
‘Olivia, can you get that?’ Charles popped out of the kitchen holding a greasy spatula.
‘Coming!’ Olivia ran to the door and opened it to see Holly standing there with her hands on her hips.
‘Hello, Olivia,’ Holly greeted her stiffly.
‘Um, hi,’ Olivia replied. Something was obviously wrong – but what? She’d climbed out of Ivy’s clothes and the stupid wig. But still, Holly seemed strained. Everything had been fine when ‘Ivy’ had left her. Was she mad that Olivia had been a no-show? ‘Um . . . how did you find this house?’ she asked. She knew she hadn’t shared Ivy’s address with Holly, so her new friend must have been doing some serious detective work.
‘Oh, you know, I asked around.’ Holly flipped her red-st
reaked hair over one shoulder. ‘I’m good at that sort of thing.’
‘OK . . . well, it’s great to see you, but this really isn’t a –’
‘I just wanted to return Ivy’s phone to her,’ said Holly. She wiggled Olivia’s mobile phone in front of her face. Olivia felt her eyes widen. She’d been in such a hurry to get Brendan out of Mister Smoothie that she’d forgotten to grab her phone from the table, which meant . . . ‘I had a most interesting conversation with somebody called Sophia?’ One of Holly’s eyebrows was raised. ‘Funny thing – she seemed to think she’d called you and not Ivy.’
Olivia’s mouth went dry.
Holly gave Olivia a tight-lipped smile. ‘I guess that you and Ivy must be so identical even your phone numbers look alike, huh?’
‘That’s right,’ said a familiar voice from behind Holly. ‘Only one digit is different. Our friends mess it up all the time.’ Olivia looked past Holly to see Ivy walking up the stone steps to her father’s mansion, rolling her darkly lined eyes. ‘Super annoying.’
Olivia’s jaw dropped. What? She tried to resist the urge to run up and tackle her sister. ‘Hey, Ivy,’ she said instead, trying to play it cool. ‘I didn’t expect you to be here so . . . soon.’ That was an understatement! Olivia hadn’t known that Ivy was planning to come home at all!
Ivy was carrying a heavy rucksack slung over her back and a straw bag with an exotic-looking plant spilling out of the top in long tendrils. A dazzling ruby-and-gold necklace sparkled at her throat. Olivia made a mental note to ask Ivy where she’d got it once things had calmed down.
Ivy smiled at Holly. ‘It’s great to see you again.’ Thank goodness for vampire hearing, thought Olivia, realising that Ivy must have picked up on the conversation while walking up the pathway. ‘I’d love to stay and chat some more, but my dad needs me inside,’ she went on, gently sliding Olivia’s phone from Holly’s outstretched hand. ‘Thanks for bringing this back.’
As Ivy disappeared inside the house, she winked at Olivia. The last thing Olivia heard was her sister calling out, ‘Dad, do we have any lavender?’
‘Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry!’ Holly’s mouth was open and she looked horrified. ‘I . . . I had never seen you together and I thought that maybe you were some weirdo with a fantasy of having a twin, or worse, like, a practical joker. I didn’t mean to . . . I mean, I just thought that . . . I thought you were making fun of me!’ Holly buried her face in her hands, and when she emerged again, her eyes were glistening. ‘The only reason I came on so strong with the phone thing was that I thought you were being cruel.’ She lifted her chin and wiped smudged mascara from underneath her eyes. ‘I stand up for myself and, well . . . I was so sure I was right.’
‘It’s OK, Holly.’ Olivia patted her back. ‘I completely understand. I know someone just like that, so it’s not a big deal. I promise.’ If only Olivia could tell Holly the truth! She had only been trying to help when she’d pulled her switcheroo. But a long time ago, Ivy had broken the most important vamp rule, the First Law of the Night – Thou shall not reveal one’s true self to an outsider – so that the twins could be closer, and Olivia was not going to be the one to risk the secrecy of all vampire society.
Besides, she and Holly were getting along fine now. Why rock the boat? Maybe after this we can have a clean slate together.
She smiled at Holly. ‘Hey, I hate to run, but we’re kind of in the middle of a . . . family thing.’ Olivia chewed her lip, inwardly cringing at another kind-of-sort-of lie. This is the last one, I swear! She was glad to have a new friend, but if there was one thing she’d learned over the past few days, it was how important Ivy was to her.
‘Sure – of course!’ said Holly. She smiled and turned back up the path. ‘See you around. And sorry, again.’
Olivia closed the door, thankful that she’d somehow managed to skate by with her new friendship intact.
Inside, Olivia found Ivy kneeling by Brendan’s side with her hand on his forehead. Olivia hadn’t seen her sister look so anxious since it had been her who was sick.
‘Ivy?’ Olivia asked gently, rubbing her twin’s back.
Ivy took Olivia’s hand and got to her feet. They hugged and Olivia wished that she never had to let her sister go ever. But Ivy broke the moment. ‘I have something I need to do for Brendan in the kitchen,’ she said, casting one last glance in her boyfriend’s direction before pulling a leafy plant from her pocket. ‘Can you grab me a bowl?’
Thankful to finally be doing something useful, Olivia followed her into the kitchen, hurried over to a cabinet and pulled out a large silver mixing bowl.
Ivy sprinkled the weird plant into the bowl, then began mashing it and stirring in lavender. Charles and Olivia watched her work.
‘What is that plant?’ asked Olivia, giving the mixture a sniff.
‘That’s Oxynamon.’ Ivy pushed the pestle harder into the leaves.
Olivia pinched a bit between her fingers. ‘Oxy-what-now?’
Ivy gently slapped her hand and Olivia dropped the plant back into the bowl. ‘Before I left, I ran Brendan’s symptoms by Helga. She’s working as the Herbal Science teacher at Wallachia now. This is what she recommended.’
‘For what?’ Olivia watched as Ivy sprinkled some more of the lavender into the bowlful of Oxynamon.
‘Apparently, Brendan’s symptoms are classic signs of a platelet disorder. He probably got it by eating something with too many artificial preservatives. It can be really serious for a vampire.’ Ivy shook the bowl, mixing up the ingredients.
‘Of course!’ Olivia smacked her head. ‘A few days ago Brendan said he had a stomach ache after he’d eaten that Taurus Bar.’ Olivia shuddered at the memory of the bar’s foul smell. How could anyone expect to put that in their mouth and not get sick?
Ivy nodded. ‘That sounds like the culprit. Energy products are processed and chock-full of artificial ingredients. Brendan’s system probably couldn’t digest them all properly. He should have known better.’
Olivia whistled. ‘Who are you and what did you do with my sister?’ she teased. ‘You’re a genius!’
Charles left the room for a moment and came back holding a Taurus Bar. ‘Is this what Brendan ate, Olivia?’ he asked.
‘Yes! Where’d you get that?’
‘I checked Brendan’s jacket pockets and saw that he had a spare one. Who knows how many of these he’s been eating.’ Charles read the label. ‘It contains oxymistine.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Olivia. Brendan had made it sound as if the bar would be good for both humans and vampires.
‘It’s a chemical that gives vampires energy, the same way humans get a boost from caffeine. It should be harmless enough, but judging by Brendan’s state, there must be a lot more in these bars than the 1.4 grams stated on the label.’ He unwrapped the bar and broke a piece off, studying it in the overhead light. ‘Hmm . . . very suspicious.’
‘Don’t worry about that right now, Detective Dad.’ Ivy winked. ‘The remedy will be ready any second.’ She took another pinch of lavender and added it to the mix, wafting some of the fragrance up to her nose and sniffing.
Olivia smiled. ‘I remember how you cured me when I was in . . . Wait a minute! We still haven’t talked about why you’re back here in Franklin Grove. You’re supposed to be . . .’ She pointed outside. ‘And now you’re . . .’ Olivia pointed down at her feet. ‘But how did . . .’ She shook her head and threw her hands in the air. ‘What’s going on?!’
‘I promise I’ll explain everything.’ Ivy scooped the bowl under her arm. ‘Right after I fix up my boyfriend.’
‘Did you know?’ Olivia demanded of Charles.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. ‘I had to buy her a plane ticket, didn’t I? Ivy called me last night and said she wanted to come home. So here she is.’
Olivia stared dumbfounded at the swinging kitchen door. But it didn’t matter. I don’t care why she’s back, so long as she is back. My life gets crazy when she’s not around!
Ivy sat on the edge of the sofa, holding Brendan’s hand. She couldn’t believe how feverish he’d been before, but his skin was much cooler now. Ivy took in his marble face and the dark shaggy hair that brushed his cheek as he slept. The dimple on his chin was just as cute as she’d remembered it, though she wouldn’t admit that to anyone in a million years. Ivy was so glad to see him she could hardly understand how she’d managed to say goodbye in the first place.
It would be a few hours before he woke up, which was fine because she still had a lot to wrap her jet-lagged brain around. Fortunately, his parents had crashed out in a bedroom, so she didn’t have to worry about making polite conversation with anyone. ‘So you’re sure you’re OK?’ she asked Olivia, who was sitting cross-legged on the oriental rug with their dad.
Charles had brought in three steaming mugs full of rich hot chocolate. He blew across the tops of the cups to cool them down.
‘Yes!’ Olivia repeated. ‘I told you, the break-up really was mutual. Jackson . . .’ Olivia paused when she mentioned his name. ‘Jackson is a good guy. We’ll still be friends. And I know one thing: we made his thousands of adoring fans happy!’
Leave it to Olivia to find the positive spin. ‘But I wasn’t here to –’ Ivy protested.
‘I survived,’ Olivia reassured her. ‘And besides, what we should be focused on is Dad’s big day! Remember the whole wedding thing?’
‘It’s not just my big day.’ Charles patted Olivia on the head. ‘It will be a big day for all of us. We’re getting a new Vega.’ He jiggled open the thin drawer in the coffee table and pulled out a magazine called Vampire Bride, flipping it open to a page on which a slender female vampire was riding a camel next to the pyramids in a form-fitting wedding dress. ‘Now, what do you think of this, Ivy?’
‘I think, “Hooray, more wedding planning”,’ Ivy joked. ‘My favourite.’
Olivia tossed a throw pillow at her.
‘Hey, watch it! I’m only kidding!’ It was true. Ivy was thrilled her dad was getting married to Lillian. Her whole life, she had worried that her father would never find someone he loved as much as the twins’ mother. But somehow it seemed that ever since she’d found Olivia, her family just kept getting bigger and better.
11 Flying Solo - My Sister the Vampire Page 10