A half hour later, Olivia was standing in the bookstore with Camilla when her cell phone rang.
“Hey, Ivy!” Olivia said brightly, answering the phone and stepping into the crowded mall corridor to talk. “What’s up? How was practice?”
“Terrible!” Ivy’s voice crackled.
Olivia stiffened. “What happened?”
“It didn’t go anything like last week!” Ivy sounded totally distraught. “I was running late,” she said, “and by the time I finished making myself pink, I couldn’t find your pom-poms. I looked everywhere, Olivia. Finally, I just had to go to practice without them.”
“Oh, no,” Olivia winced. A cheerleader never loses her poms! she thought.
“I might as well have bitten someone. Ms. Barnett gave me this eternal lecture about commitment and responsibility,” Ivy went on.
Olivia shuddered.
“And then it just got worse from there,” Ivy said miserably. “I was so flustered I forgot the words to one of the cheers.”
Olivia closed her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Olivia.” Her sister sounded on the verge of tears. “Ms. Barnett seemed utterly disappointed. It would have been a complete loss if it weren’t for Camilla.”
“Camilla?” Olivia’s eyes snapped open and she spun around to look through the bookstore window. There were her friend’s golden curls in the sci-fi section. “I’m at the mall with her right now!” she whispered.
“Oh, I wondered what she meant when she said she’d see me at five,” Ivy responded.
“What was she doing at practice?” Olivia asked.
“Maybe she came to watch you,” Ivy replied. “Anyway, she’d seen some poms lying in the hallway and ran to get them for me—I mean, you.”
“Well, I’d better go and thank her!” Olivia said.
Right at that moment, Camilla smiled and waved at her. Olivia waved back sheepishly.
“At least that puts an end to my cheerleading career. I’m never doing that again,” Ivy remarked gloomily.
“You sure?” Olivia teased, turning away from the window. “It’s not too late for you to try out. You could have your very own poms!”
“No, thank you,” Ivy said, sounding horrified.
“I just hope everything goes okay on Saturday.” Olivia sighed.
“You’re going to make the squad, Olivia,” Ivy responded confidently. “I know it. Even with me biting at practice. My bet’s on you for captain.”
“I don’t know about that,” Olivia said. “But I’ll give it my best—” Olivia broke off because she could not believe her eyes; Charlotte Brown was coming her way in a hideous pink tube top, Allison and Katie in tow!
“Hold on,” Olivia murmured into her phone.
Charlotte wheeled up with Katie and Allison on either side. “Too bad about Olivia’s poms today,” she taunted, as if Olivia weren’t standing right in front of her. “Katie, Allison, what is the second most important thing to remember in cheerleading?”
“Never touch another cheerleader’s poms!” Katie and Allison chorused.
Charlotte put her hand to her mouth in mock horror. “Oops!” She shrugged. “I guess some rules are made to be broken.” The three girls tittered idiotically and were gone.
Olivia narrowed her eyes as she gazed after them. “Ivy,” she said into her phone, “I think I know who took my poms.”
Chapter 12
After school on the day of the All Hallows’ Ball, Ivy sat on the stairs underneath the basement window of her room, in her black kimono, waiting for Olivia. She’d hardly slept at all the night before. When she’d been practicing cheering with her sister every day, she had successfully avoided thinking about the ball. But ever since her final performance as a cheerleader, dread had swallowed her whole.