What about the cheerleaders? she wondered. Nobody said a vampire couldn’t wear pink. Besides, if anyone had some evil in her, it was Charlotte Brown. Now I’m being ridiculous, Olivia told herself. No way is Charlotte cool enough to be a vampire!
She looked down at her blank paper and wrote, “VAMPIRES DO NOT EAT BUNNIES” ten times without stopping. It sort of helped, except that, when she was done, she realized she’d missed out on how to calculate the area of a trapezoid.
By the end of class, Olivia was obsessing about the ball planning meeting after school. Everyone was nice to Ivy, but what if they discovered she was an impostor? What if they found out that she knew their secret? Ivy had said there could be trouble....
Quickly Olivia tried to think of some sort of protection she could take with her, just in case. She had a nearly empty nail polish bottle in her purse. She thought maybe she could empty it and then fill it with holy water. But, then, what if that was a myth, too? And where was she going to get holy water, anyway? Would a pencil count as a stake? she asked herself. She did have two of those in her purse. Garlic! she thought suddenly. At least she knew that wasn’t a myth.
At lunch, Olivia was hoping for a garlic infused daily special, but no luck. The specials board announced that today it was crab salad, and as Olivia read it something clicked inside her head. I get it! she thought. Vampires are just different kinds of humans, just like crabs and lobsters are different kinds of crustaceans! They’re pretty much the same thing: one big happy crustacean family! And from then on, Olivia felt much better.
She smiled at everybody she saw for the rest of the afternoon, right up to when she grinned goofily at Ivy at the beginning of science.
“How are you?” Ivy asked in a low voice. “Great!” Olivia said brightly. “It’s like you’re a lobster!”
Ivy clearly didn’t get it, but she didn’t press. “Are you still up for the planning meeting this afternoon?” she whispered.
“For sure,” Olivia said. “I can totally handle the vamp—” Ivy’s eyes widened. Olivia coughed and lowered her voice. “The meeting,” she said instead.
At the end of class, Olivia followed her sister into the girls’ bathroom.
After they’d switched clothes, Ivy stood looking in the mirror. “Now I wish I didn’t have a reflection,” she said, pulling Olivia’s pink gym shirt away from her chest. Then she leaned forward with an eyeliner pencil to do Olivia’s eyes. “Remember what you said about cherry punch at the meeting?”
“Uh-huh?” Olivia said.
“Myth,” Ivy said simply. “Vampires don’t just eat meat and drink blood. You can eat the crackers or chips or whatever’s there.”
“Okay,” said Olivia, feeling just a little less nervous.
“Is there anything else you need to know?” Ivy asked.
Questions raced to the front of Olivia’s mind and raised their hands eagerly. Finally, she picked one. “Are all Goths vampires?”
“In Franklin Grove? Not all but most,” Ivy told her.
“What about everybody else?”
“Bunnies, like you,” Ivy answered matter-offactly.
“Are you immortal?” Olivia asked.
“That’s a tough one.” Ivy put Olivia’s bag down. “Not really. But I might get to see the day people live on Mars.”
“What can kill you?” Olivia wanted to know.
“What can kill you?” Ivy countered. “Listen, Olivia, vampires are people, too.”
Olivia nodded. “I know. Like you’re a lobster and I’m a crab,” she said automatically. “But we’re both crustaceans.”
“No,” Ivy said. “I didn’t say we were seafood.I said we were people. With hearts and souls and everything. We’re into life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness just like everyone else. We don’t even talk about it among ourselves that much. It’s like you being a vegetarian. That’s not such an enormous deal, right?”
“Right,” Olivia admitted. Totally. No biggie. “Thanks, Ivy.” Olivia scrunched up her nose. “I guess this vampire thing does take some getting used to.”
Ivy assumed a vacant look. “Really?” she squealed in her cheerleader voice.
Even though she knew she had nothing to fear, the hair on the back of Olivia’s neck stood on end the moment she and Sophia came in sight of the towering FoodMart sign. Sophia was talking excitedly about the ball as they walked, but Ivy’s words were the only ones Olivia could hear: “I go to BloodMart like everyone else. There’s one in the basement of FoodMart.”
Olivia imagined a huge, dim underground crypt, filled with enormous vats of swirling red liquid. Spigots dripped gruesomely, and bloodsoaked napkins littered the floor. Before she knew it, she and Sophia were walking through the store doors and it was too late to flee.
As they walked down aisle nine, questions flooded Olivia’s mind. How much blood would be needed to satisfy every vampire in Franklin Grove? How many vampires were there in Franklin Grove, anyway? Dozens? Hundreds? Thousands?
She and Sophia came upon the same noseringed stock boy with the midnight stubble.
Maybe that wasn’t cranberry juice he was stacking after all! Olivia thought. Her heart raced. He must be a vampire since he opens the door.What if he can smell my fear? She put her hand to her neck and started hyperventilating.
Sophia gave her a weird look. “You’re breathing like a horse,” she said. Then she turned to the stock boy and said, “Pumpernickel.” He obediently unlocked the staff door, and Olivia scurried past him, trying to avoid eye contact.