Her father put his newspaper down on the counter. “You appear to be upset,” he said.
“Serena Star said my name on TV!” Ivy exclaimed.
Her dad raised an eyebrow. “Why would she do that?”
“Because,” Ivy huffed, “I’m a Goth member of a vampiric cult hiding a terrible secret!”
“Oh,” said her father. “Is that all?”
“Dad!” Ivy cried. “Serena Star’s not going to let the story rest until she has every one of us staked and boxed!”
“Ivy, you worry too much.” Her father sighed. “The vampire community is aware that Serena Star is digging. I promise you, she won’t find anything.”
“Aren’t you the least bit upset that she’s investigating your own daughter?” Ivy demanded.
“Well,” he began, a smile creeping across his face, “I would prefer the journalist in question to have a bit more gravitas than Serena Star, admittedly.”
Ivy threw a dishcloth at her father’s head, but he caught it.
“Honestly, Ivy,” he said with a short laugh. “Vampires have been hiding from the world since long before you were born. Coffin chasers like Serena Star come and go.”
The mention of her birth reminded Ivy about her conversation with Olivia. “Maybe that’s why my parents gave me up,” she remarked testily.
“What?” her father said, suddenly turning serious.
Ivy looked at her father carefully. “Maybe my real parents gave me up because someone was on their trail,” she said slowly, “trying to expose them as vampires.”
“That’s ridiculous,” her dad said briskly.
“How do you know?” Ivy asked. “Did they leave a note with the vamp adoption agency or something?”
Her dad threw his hands in the air. “No, of course not.” He started rummaging around in the fridge.
“And you never found out anything about them?” Ivy pressed.
Her dad closed the fridge without taking anything out and turned back to Ivy. “I received nothing but your name, your place and date of birth, and your ring.” He smiled and gave Ivy a hug. “But no matter. You yourself are all that matters—not your parents. You must look to the future, my Ivy—”
“Not back to the past,” Ivy finished for him, rolling her eyes. “You always say that!”
“I say it,” he said gently, “because it is true.” And with that, he picked up his newspaper and walked out of the room.
But it’s not true for me anymore, Ivy thought as she leaned against the counter. I want to know more—not just for my sake but for my sister’s. She had no choice but to see what she could find out on her own.
At the beginning of lunch period, Olivia bounced into the school’s editing suite and sank onto a swivel chair in front of a button-packed console. She and Camilla had reserved the suite so that they could record the voice-over for their documentary. As she waited for her friend to arrive, Olivia pulled out the script they’d written and quietly started rehearsing her lines—she was going to play Great-aunt Edna.
“My dear duke,” she whispered. Suddenly, the room’s loudspeaker crackled to life. “OLIVIA ABBOTT,” boomed a computerized voice. “I COMMAND YOU TO TELL ME THE DEEP, DARK SECRET OF FRANKLIN GROVE!” Startled, Olivia leaped to her feet. “OR ELSE!” the voice finished.
Olivia peered around, confused and a little frightened. What is this, some weird Serena Star interrogation tactic? she wondered.
Suddenly, a slim door in the corner of the room flew open, and Camilla stuck her blond curly head around it. “Is this place neat or what?” she grinned. Behind her Olivia could see a tiny gray room with padded walls and a microphone hanging from the ceiling. Hers was the voice Olivia had heard.
Olivia flopped back into her chair. “You scared the living daylights out of me!” she wailed.
“Sorry,” said Camilla mischievously. “So”— she grabbed the script from Olivia’s hand—“have you figured out who’s going to play the duke?”
“I asked Brendan Daniels, Ivy’s boyfriend,” Olivia answered.
Camilla looked pleased. “He’s perfect.”
“Unfortunately,” Olivia went on, “he can’t do it. He has band practice right now.”
“Oh,” Camilla said disappointedly.
“Maybe we can grab someone else,” Olivia said, rising from her chair and sticking her head out into the hallway. There weren’t many people around, but then she spotted her sister, trudging along, looking totally ticked off about something. Olivia caught her eye and waved her over.
“Hey,” Olivia said. “What’s wrong?”
“What’s wrong,” growled Ivy in a low voice, “is that I’m fed up with having that bloodhound Toby Decker on my trail! All I’ve wanted to do all morning is call the vamp adoption agency, but I can’t do that with him watching me all the time.”
Olivia scanned the hallway over her sister’s shoulder and spotted Toby peeking out from behind someone’s open locker door. Today he was wearing a striped tie. From a distance, he almost looked like an old-fashioned aristocrat instead of a slightly dorky eighth-grader.
“I have an idea,” Olivia sang, straightening her sparkly pink top and gently pushing past her sister.
Toby noticed Olivia approaching and stepped out from behind the locker door. He smoothed his hair back with his hand.
“Hi, Toby!” Olivia said. “What are you up to?”