‘Olivia . . .’ she began, as her phone vibrated beside her. It shook harder and harder with every ring. By the fourth ring, it was vibrating so hard, it was practically doing a jig on the table.
‘Don’t worry,’ Olivia said. Sighing, she straightened. ‘I can hear your phone ringing, and I have to get to make-up now, anyway. We’ll talk later.’
‘Are you sure?’ Ivy asked. ‘If you need to talk now –’
But her twin just gave a sad wave before flicking off her webcam.
Ivy let out a groan of frustration. Talk about awful timing!
‘Yes?’ she snapped into her cell phone. ‘What is it?’
‘Ivy . . .’ It was Brendan, and he didn’t sound happy either. ‘You need to get over here. Fast.’
‘Where are you?’ Ivy was already starting up from her computer desk and hunting for her boots in her messy bedroom. ‘What’s wrong?’
Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted the tip of one black boot peeking out from under her bed. She dived for it just as Brendan answered:
‘I’m in the Lincoln Vale skatepark.’
Ivy groaned. With her head still halfway under her bed, she asked, ‘Is Sophia there?’
‘For now.’ Brendan’s tone was grim. ‘But, pretty soon, she’ll be in the emergency room if she keeps falling off that skateboard.’
Ivy pulled herself up to sit on the cluttered floor by the bed, leaving the boot lying abandoned nearby. ‘I don’t know if it’s a good idea for me to show up there,’ she mumbled, drawing her knees up to her chest. ‘I don’t think Sophia wants to see me right now. We’re . . . we’re not exactly best friends at the moment.’
‘Stop talking nonsense.’ Brendan’s words rapped out, making Ivy gasp.
She’d never heard him sound so tough on her before!
He barely paused for breath before continuing. ‘One: yesterday was hardly World War 3. You had a fight – so what? You’ve been best friends for years!’
‘But she’s really mad at me,’ Ivy whispered.
‘And two,’ Brendan continued, ‘it doesn’t matter how mad either of you might be right now. You are too good a friend to let Sophia humiliate herself again!’
Ivy breathed in deeply. He’s right, she realised. Maybe Sophia would be mad that she’d come. Maybe they’d even have another fight. But they had been friends for too long to let one fight change everything.
‘OK,’ said Ivy, grabbing her boot from under the bed. She found its twin by the chest of drawers, already pointing at the door. ‘I’ll be there as fast as I can,’ she promised.
. . . Or, as fast as the bus will take me!
Half an hour later, she was crossing the park at top speed, aiming for Gingham Central – the skatepark. She came to a dead halt when she caught sight of Sophia.
What does she think she’s doing?
Looking more confident on her skateboard than Ivy had ever seen her before, Sophia zoomed straight off the edge of one of the skatepark’s concrete canyons. She looped through mid-air in a fast somersault that made Ivy’s heart lurch. A moment later, she landed – almost perfectly.
Wow. Ivy drew a deep breath, feeling relief shudder through her. OK, maybe Sophia won’t end up in the ER after all.
She started forwards . . . but Sophia hadn’t finished. She flashed a quick look at Finn from underneath her newly blonde fringe, then launched herself forwards again, flinging herself into the air off the top of the canyon. This time, her loop soared even higher. She gripped the sides of her skateboard to carry it with her as she flew . . .
But skateboards hadn’t been designed for vampire strength.
Beneath Sophia’s grip, the skateboard snapped with a crack that echoed through the park.
With a shriek, Ivy started running. But even her vampire speed would not have got her there in time.
As the two pieces fell apart, Sophia tumbled through the air and landed hard on her back in the grass nearby.
Ivy and Brendan were the first to reach her, as people ran from all over the park.
‘Sophia!’ Ivy bent over her friend, shaking with panic.
‘I’m OK,’ Sophia mumbled, her eyes flickering open. She gave Ivy a weak smile as she pulled herself up to a sitting position. ‘Seriously.’
‘Thank darkness.’ Ivy let out her breath. Then she lowered her voice to a hiss. ‘What were you thinking?’
Before Sophia could answer, though, Finn came running.
‘Are you OK? I’ve never seen a skateboard snap like that!’ He picked up the broken pieces, shaking his head while his followers gathered around him to stare at the evidence. ‘Talk about amateur workmanship!’
‘Oh . . . right!’ Sophia’s eyes widened as she gazed up at Finn. ‘And I’m fine. Absolutely fine!’
Over Sophia’s shoulder, Brendan met Ivy’s gaze. She sighed and gave him a discreet nod. We lucked out, she admitted to herself. All the skaters gathering round were blaming the skateboard. It hadn’t even occurred to them that Sophia might have been super-strong.
But didn’t Sophia even realise what a close call it had been? What she’d done hadn’t just put herself at risk – it had put every vampire at risk! She’d nearly exploded vampire secrets wide open . . . but she was so busy looking starry-eyed at Finn, she didn’t even seem to have noticed.
Gritting her teeth, Ivy grabbed Sophia’s arm. ‘Come on,’ she growled. ‘We need to get you home.’
‘No way. I’m fine!’ Sophia tried to yank her arm away, but she couldn’t help wincing.
‘You’re definitely bruised, and you need a rest.’ Brendan took Sophia’s other arm.
Pouting, Sophia stopped resisting. As Ivy and Brendan drew her away from the broken pieces of the skateboard, she whispered, ‘What are you doing? Couldn’t you see? Finn was talking to me! Isn’t that fantastic?’
‘Fantastic?’ Ivy had to drop Sophia’s arm before she could give in and shake her own best friend by the shoulders. ‘He was talking to you because you had hurt yourself !’
Sophia gave a wistful sigh. ‘He was worried about me. Wasn’t that sweet of him?’
‘Not sweet enough to justify actual bruises,’ said Ivy. ‘You seriously –’
She stopped abruptly as her vampire hearing picked up on the conversation going on among the skater-boys behind them.
‘How crazy is that Franklin Grove girl?’ said one of the boys. ‘Watch out, Finn. Who knows what she’ll try next to get your attention?’
‘She obviously likes you a scary lot, bro,’ said another boy. ‘If she’s putting this much effort into faking –’
The first boy snorted. ‘Did you see that “accidental” triple somersault earlier?’
Ivy winced as she tried to imagine how much a triple somersault would hurt even a vampire.
Probably not nearly as much as hearing what Finn’s friends were saying right now.
‘Sophia . . .’ she began, in a whisper. Her friend’s face was pale and she looked as though she felt sick.
But Finn suddenly broke in: ‘Lay off her, you guys! You don’t have to be jerks about it.’
Score one for Skater Finn, Ivy thought.
Maybe he wasn’t the right boy for her best friend . . . but he wasn’t a bad guy, after all.
‘Hey!’ Finn called from behind them. Ivy turned and saw that he had broken away from his friends to head straight for Sophia. He held out his skateboard, which was painted with swirls of yellow and bright orange. ‘Here. This is one of my favourites. Do you want to borrow it until you get a new one?’
‘Really?’ Sophia breathed. She took the board from him and stroked it reverentially. ‘You would really do that? For me?’
‘Hey, it’s no big deal.’ Finn shrugged. ‘I’ve got more of them at home.’
He’s telling the truth, Ivy realised, as she looked at his expression.
To Finn, it really was no big deal. He was just a nice guy, doing a nice thing. But to Sophia . . . Ivy’s chest tightened.
Sophi
a was so busy stroking the skateboard, she hadn’t even noticed how casual Finn was being. And to her, the gesture obviously meant a lot.
As Finn headed back towards his friends, Ivy tried to think of the right thing to say. She had to tell Sophia the truth somehow, but she couldn’t bear to break her best friend’s heart by doing it. How would Olivia put it?
It had to be gentle, it had to be kind . . .
‘Did you see how stupid she looked?’
The biting tones of one of the identical pixie-cut blonde skater-girls on the other side of the park sliced right into Ivy’s vampire-strong hearing. ‘She doesn’t just go head-over-heels on her skateboard – she’s going head-over-heels for Finn, too!’
The other skater-girls giggled.
‘She’s like a little panting puppy,’ one of them agreed. ‘“Oh, Finn, just look at me, please look at me, please!”’
‘He must feel so sorry for her!’ a third girl piped in.
Sophia let out a muffled gasp of hurt, and Ivy could already feel the death-squint on her face as she spun around.
No one makes fun of my best friend. Especially not some identikit blonde clone!
She started forwards, like a warrior going into battle, but Sophia’s hand clamped around her arm.
‘No!’ Sophia’s face looked almost green against her pixie-cut blonde hair now, but she shook her head. ‘Think about it, Ivy. A human wouldn’t have heard what they were saying. They’re too far away.’
‘She’s right,’ Brendan agreed. His jaw was clenched with obvious frustration, but he shook his head at Ivy.
‘I don’t care!’ Ivy glared at the skater-girls across the field. ‘I’m going to go over there and tell those little clones exactly what I think of them.’
‘This is Lincoln Vale,’ Sophia said. ‘You can’t just march over there and call out the mean girls. These mean girls aren’t used to being overheard from far away, like girls in Franklin Grove are. They’ll know that something’s not right.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Remember what we were told before we started this school? We need to be careful.’
Ivy closed her eyes and felt frustration sweep through her. But Sophia was right.
Slowly, with dragging steps, she turned back to her friends and started walking away from the skatepark.
High school sucks, she thought. And not in a good way!
Brendan took her hand and squeezed it, while Sophia walked stiff-backed beside her, cradling Finn’s skateboard under one arm.
As they reached the gates of the park, they saw a familiar, black-clad figure passing between them. Ivy nearly groaned. Of all the times to run into Goth-Queen Amelia!
Amelia barely spared them a glance before narrowing her eyes at the skater-girls across the park. ‘I saw those idiotic girls laughing at you,’ she snapped. ‘Do not let that continue. Otherwise it’ll follow all of us into school! If you want to be goths, you need to assert yourselves.’
Only Brendan’s meaningful hand-squeeze stopped Ivy from snapping right back, I’ll show you assertiveness!
Amelia strode past without waiting for a reply. Ivy turned to glare after her, and saw the older girl head for her usual lounging spot, just by the skate-area. Her followers were already flocking there from the four corners of the park.
Actually, wait a minute . . . Ivy frowned as the thought finally occurred to her. If Amelia’s so determined to preserve goth social dominance, then why does she spend so much time at the skatepark? Amelia seemed to come here almost as much as Sophia! She thought back to the time that Amelia had been in the park, watching Sophia with undisguised suspicion. Watching Sophia and Finn . . .
Ivy narrowed her eyes in suspicion as she watched Amelia sit down on the grass less than fifteen feet from the concrete canyons. Something fishy is definitely going on, Ivy thought. Something fishy that’s wearing black!
Chapter Nine
‘Pardon?’ Olivia bit back a yawn just in time. As her interviewer beamed at her, she tried to clear her head, which was foggy with exhaustion. Plus, she was feeling faint again from the corset she was wearing beneath her lavender silk ballgown for this on-set interview. ‘Could you repeat the question, please?’
‘Of course.’ The interviewer, a sleek, dark-haired British woman in a form-fitting pencil skirt and blouse, smiled at her condescendingly. ‘This is your first interview for a DVD special feature, isn’t it? You must be so nervous, you poor thing.’
‘A little bit,’ Olivia said, smiling politely for the sake of the rolling cameras. Inside her head, though, she answered more honestly: I’m more fed up than nervous! She had barely slept the last two nights. Now it was Monday, her final day in England, and she was wasting her last precious hours with this interview. Jackson was packing his suitcases somewhere nearby, preparing for his return flight to Hollywood that night!
How was she supposed to concentrate on a silly DVD interview when she might be losing her last chance to make things right between them?
‘And will you be doing it again?’ the interviewer asked. She cocked one eyebrow. ‘What exactly do you see as your future in Hollywood?’
Uh-oh. Olivia swallowed, trying to maintain a pleasant expression. Ever since she’d arrived on-set, she’d been asking herself the same question, but she still hadn’t come up with an answer. Could she do it now, while the cameras were rolling?
‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘acting is something that I truly love doing . . . but it is a lot of work, and there’s a lot of stress involved in working on a film set.’
The interviewer smiled. ‘You’re certainly not leading an ordinary teenager’s life.’
That’s exactly the problem, Olivia thought. She just knew that if she and Jackson were two normal teenagers, nothing could stand in their way. But they weren’t ‘normal’ and that meant –
No! With sudden resolution, she cut off the familiar chain of worries before it could even begin. I can’t just keep asking myself the same questions again and again. I have to do something! If I don’t, I’ll regret it forever.
Olivia tried to draw a deep breath to brace herself – then winced, as the tight corset bit into her side. She managed to force a smile as she answered the interviewer’s question:
‘No, it’s not an ordinary life,’ she said. ‘But it’s the one I’ve chosen . . . for now.’
I’m going to find Jackson and have an honest, face-to-face conversation. I will get my future cleared up once and for all . . . even if I have to wear a hoop-skirt as I do it!
The interview seemed to go on forever, but finally she was free. Olivia hurried to Jackson’s trailer. She paused outside, took a deep breath, and knocked. She was already practising her opening line.
Then her shoulders sagged as the silence stretched on. What good is an opening line if he doesn’t even answer the door?
Biting her lip, Olivia thought it through. Jackson often wore headphones when he was alone. He probably just hadn’t heard her. She couldn’t give up now!
Tentatively, she turned the handle of the trailer door. It opened a crack . . . and she let out her held breath.
The trailer was empty.
Of course. Jackson must be in the Hair and Make-up trailer, getting ready to shoot his last scene!
She was just turning to leave when she caught sight of something flickering inside the trailer. It was his laptop computer, flashing a warning – it needed to be plugged in to charge.
Olivia hesitated. She didn’t want to invade his privacy . . . but she knew how hard he’d been working on . . . something . . . lately. She didn’t want him to lose whatever it was, if the computer shut itself off.
I just won’t look at anything, she promised herself. She eased herself into the trailer, careful not to knock anything over with the massive hoop-skirt of her Victorian ballgown.
At the last moment, though, as she was leaning over to plug in the laptop, she couldn’t help herself – she caught a glimpse of the email Jackson had been in the middle of writing.
She jerked her eyes away quickly . . . but there had only been one line written so far, and it had already burned itself into her brain.
I just don’t know what to do about
. . . Me? Olivia silently wondered.
Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears as she backed hastily away from the computer.
Had Jackson been writing to someone about her? Was the reason he hadn’t said anything decisive . . . because he was nervous?
Olivia shook her head. She’d always seen Jackson as being so confident . . . but inside, what if he was just as unsure about her feelings as she was about his?
All this time, she’d been waiting for him to make a gesture . . . but now it felt like the time for Olivia to make a gesture for him.
By the time she reached the Hair and Make-up trailer, Olivia was light-headed with panic and possibility. Can I really do this?
She looked through the door and saw Jackson sitting with his back to her, familiar and perfect. No one else was there to overhear them. It was the perfect moment.
Olivia set one hand on her stomach, trying to settle the nerves fluttering there. I can do this . . . for him.
‘Hey,’ she said, speaking quickly. ‘Whatever I’m about to say, just please don’t try to stop me. I have to get this out, or I’ll burst!’
Even as she saw his shoulders stiffen with shock, her words tumbled out. ‘I love you. I do! And I’m sorry things are so difficult. I have to be totally honest and say I just don’t know if I’m going to be doing many more movies in the near future.’
She had to stop for a quick breath, almost panting in the tight corset. What on earth did Victorian ladies do when they got emotional? Ignoring the tightness in her waist, she carried on: ‘I’m pretty sure fourteen-year-olds aren’t meant to be this tired! I mean, I think you’re amazing for being able to do it, but . . . it’s just not for me. And I don’t want to be part of an “it” couple. I want to be a normal boy’s normal girlfriend!’
She sighed. ‘Obviously, I know that’s not going to happen. You’re way too famous! But . . .’ She paused, closing her eyes as she finished: ‘I really think we should give us another try . . . Do you?’
13 Double Disaster - My Sister the Vampire Page 10
