Ivy didn’t get a chance to dwell on her looming teacher, or on Petra’s boy craziness, though, because suddenly she was too busy wondering why her classmates were all staring at her as if they were completely star struck.
‘Petra, do I have something in my teeth?’ Ivy bared her fangs for Petra to check. She’d been letting them grow back ever since entering the Academy. Usually, vampires in Franklin Grove were meticulous about filing their fangs back so that normal humans wouldn’t notice anything odd. Here, fangs were the norm and Ivy was quite enjoying the sensation of those sharp little teeth on either side of her mouth.
‘No.’ Petra giggled for the first time all day.
There was a smattering of applause as Ivy passed. Some girls even mimed bowing and worshipping at her feet. What is going on? Ivy wondered. My run in with Miss Avisrova should be yesterday’s news by now.
A slender vampire with a trendy blunt-cut fringe bounced over to Ivy with a notebook and a black marker pen. ‘Can I have your autograph?’ she asked. ‘Make it out to Anastasia.’
Ivy scribbled something unintelligible in the notebook. Somewhere between Herbal Science and lunch I must have entered the Twilight Zone, she thought.
‘Am I getting pranked?’ Ivy ducked into the cafeteria with Petra and they grabbed a couple of seats at an empty table. Ivy arranged her chair so that she didn’t have to face the entrance, but she still felt as if there was a spotlight shining right on her.
Petra pulled an electronic tablet device out of her leather bag, swiped her thumb across the screen and started scrolling. Her eyes crinkled and she kept looking from Ivy to the tablet and back to Ivy again.
‘OK, seriously, what is going on?’ Ivy demanded.
Petra’s mouth was hanging open. The girls sitting at the tables nearest them leaned in closer. ‘How did you do it?’ said Petra, shaking her head in slow motion. ‘It’s amazing. How on Earth did you do it?’
Before Ivy could ask her to explain, Petra handed her the tablet. The web browser was open to a concert review site featuring an article that covered the Pall Bearers’ show in Franklin Grove: Small town, big show: Yesterday’s Pall Bearers concert was to die for.
Oh my darkness! Ivy thumped her head with the heel of her hand. She had totally forgotten that she’d entered the competition! She’d been looking forward to that concert for so long and so had Sophia and Brendan. Ivy felt like she’d been staked. She hadn’t been there, which meant that they hadn’t got to go either.
But wait – Ivy read further down the page. From the review’s photograph, it looked as if she had attended. Because there, holding a microphone, giving half-hearted Devil’s Horns and doing her best to scream along, was her twin Olivia – dressed up as Ivy herself.
Ivy read the caption: The band brought super-fan Ivy Vega on to the stage to perform their hit single ‘I Hate You’.
Ivy set the tablet down, not sure what to think.
‘And this was yesterday?’ asked Ivy.
Petra nodded. ‘Of course! Don’t play coy.’
But how . . . but why . . .? It must have been Olivia, pretending to be her. Olivia at a Pall Bearers concert though? She probably didn’t know ‘I Hate You’ from ‘Welcome to My Frightmare’! Ugh! She looked at the picture again. Poor Olivia. It was pretty funny.
She peered closer. There, with their elbows propped on the stage and hair flying as they rocked out, were Brendan and Sophia. This time Ivy laughed out loud. At least she didn’t have to feel guilty about her friends missing the concert. Another win for Team Identical Twin!
Petra grabbed Ivy’s arm, eyeing her intensely. ‘You have to tell me how you did it!’
‘Did what?’
‘Ivy!’ Petra playfully slapped her. ‘Hello, you can drop the mysterious act for me, can’t you? I’m your room-mate! What’s your secret?’ She tapped the tablet. ‘How in Dracula’s name did you pull this off?’
Understanding dawned on Ivy. The girls at Wallachia thought that Ivy had managed to get home for the show and then back to school – from Transylvania to Franklin Grove and back again – all in record time and without a single teacher spotting her! Uh-oh. Time to set the record straight. She sucked in a deep breath.
‘Look.’ She angled herself outward so that the eavesdroppers would be able to hear too. Ivy was surrounded by a roomful of hopeful faces, watching her with wide eyes. They wanted her to have pulled this off, she realised as she looked around.
Many of these girls had been students at Wallachia for years. In such a strict school, where there was an actual obstacle course separating boys and girls, how cool would it be if one of the students was so rebellious that she was able to get not just in and out of the Academy, but all the way to America and back without anybody noticing?
Who was Ivy to crush their dreams? She chose her words carefully. ‘I do love The Pall Bearers.’ She waited for the cheers, or even just an awed murmur, but instead there was dead silence. Worse, the smiles had dropped from their faces and they’d started to back away hastily.
Hang on! thought Ivy. Why are they suddenly treating me like I give off a bad smell ? Several of the girls had turned their backs and were now hunched over their meal trays. One girl glanced nervously over her shoulder and gave a small shriek before turning to whisper furiously in her friend’s ear.
What the –?
Ivy heard the sound of heavy footsteps on the stone floor. A shudder ran up the length of her spine. A shadow fell over her. Ivy didn’t have to turn around to know who was there. She craned her neck to look up and, sure enough, Avisrova was standing with her arms crossed and her face screwed up into an angry ball.
‘I didn’t expect my walk to lead me to this, Miss Lazar. You have some explaining to do.’