She watched as Ivy opened the door and Brendan entered. He was wearing a black floorlength cape over his tuxedo and a textured white shirt with a white bow tie. His black curls shone.
“Ivy, you look beautiful!” Olivia heard Brendan say.
“Thank you,” Ivy answered demurely. From under his cape, he produced a flower: a
single red rose, so dark it was almost black. Ivy took it and smiled as she looked at Brendan. They looked at each other dreamily, and the moment was so romantic that Olivia thought they might kiss, but just then, Mr. Vega appeared.
“You must be Brendan,” he said, descending the grand staircase. He looked impeccable in a black velvet tuxedo.
The doorbell rang again, and in rushed Sophia, wearing a beautiful black-and-white dress that looked like something from an Audrey Hepburn movie. She was also lugging a huge camera bag and a tripod. “Sorry I’m late.” She panted. She stopped in her tracks and looked Brendan and Ivy up and down. “Wow, you two look killer!”
Olivia watched as Sophia took pictures of the perfect couple. In every single shot, Ivy did the one thing that Olivia liked to think she’d been responsible for teaching her to do. She smiled— and not a close-lipped Goth smile but a bright cheerleader beam!
When Ivy and Brendan, Mr. Vega and Sophia had left the hallway, Olivia slipped away down the staircase, back to Ivy’s basement window. She needed to go home and get some rest. After all, cheerleading tryouts were in less than twenty-four hours, and Olivia needed to be ready for anything—especially if she was going to go head to head with Charlotte Brown.
Chapter 13
Ivy and Brendan sat with the rest of the planning committee at the table in the center of the ballroom. Melissa raised a glass of cherry punch and shouted over the din, “To Ivy, who seriously surprised us!”
“You’re not kidding!” cried Sophia, flashing Ivy a knowing smile from where she stood. She lifted her camera and snapped a picture.
Ivy almost felt herself blush as she shyly clinked her glass against everyone else’s. “I had a lot of help,” she said.
“Miss Vega,” a voice boomed. It was old Mr. Coleman, one of the chaperones, extending his hand. “This is the best All Hallows’ Ball I have ever attended, and I have been at all two hundred two of them.” He planted a cool kiss on the back of Ivy’s hand. “You look smashing,” he said.
Ivy let her eyes wander around the ballroom. Olivia really had done a killer job. People were marveling at the old film posters on the walls, and some were going from table to table having their friends take pictures of them with different celebrity tombstones. Everybody looked suave and mysterious, just like in the old vampire movies.
Suddenly, the room grew quieter. Ivy saw one of the Beasts standing in the center of the dance floor, a pale hand raised over his head to silence the crowd. In his other hand he held a black microphone.
Oh, no, thought Ivy. What are they up to now? “Good eeeve-ning,” the boy said, doing the lamest old-time vampire-accent imitation Ivy had ever heard. “I vant to invite you all onto zee dance floor for zee first dance.”
Ivy couldn’t help but laugh. The Beast was the DJ!
Brendan stood up. “Come on,” he said, taking Ivy’s hand. “It’s the first dance.”
Ivy shook her head. “We don’t dance, remember?”
Brendan’s eyes sparkled, and he leaned closer to her. “That’s why they call it the first dance, Ivy,” he said.
As Brendan led her onto the dance floor, his cape flowing around him, Ivy felt everyone’s eyes on her. She saw people looking her up and down admiringly, and, at the edge of the dance floor, she even spotted her dad, beaming.
Brendan stopped right in the middle of the dance floor. Ivy put her head on his shoulder, and the song began. She closed her eyes. I better not be dreaming, she thought breathlessly.
Ivy woke up the next morning and pushed open her coffin. She hadn’t dreamed any of it. She and Brendan had danced all through the ball. And afterward, they’d stayed up until one o’clock in the morning talking on the front porch.
She couldn’t wait to call Olivia and tell her all about it. After all, none of this would have happened without her. Wait a minute, Ivy thought, glancing at the clock. Olivia’s got cheerleading tryouts this morning!
Ivy suddenly had a killer idea. She leaped out of bed and threw open one of her wardrobe doors. She would surprise her sister by supporting her from the bleachers during tryouts!
A half hour later, Ivy was marching through the front hall of Franklin Grove Middle School wearing the pinkest, most supportive outfit she could muster: a gray Devils sweatshirt and a Devils baseball cap pulled down over her hair.
She floated past her own reflection in the front hall display case. She almost looked like a cheerleader, with her school spirit costume.
As if on cue, a high-pitched voice called, “Olivia!”
Ivy looked up to see Charlotte Brown charging down the hallway, decked out in her cheerleading uniform.
“I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Olivia!” Charlotte complained.