Ivy tried to ignore them, but she noticed Charlotte watching her carefully. She couldn’t let Charlotte figure out what she was up to, so she turned to Brendan.
‘Stop stealing my ketchup!’ she shouted. ‘You know how much it means to me.’
Sophia sniggered and Brendan dropped the three fries that were halfway to his mouth. Charlotte rolled her eyes and went back to tittering with her minions.
Ivy looked over at Olivia, who seemed to realise that something was going on. She took a step forwards and Ivy shook her head fiercely.
Her sister got the point and stepped back while Ivy grabbed her history book and shielded her face from the window where the photographers were.
‘She can’t come in here,’ Ivy said. ‘Not looking like that.’
‘Like what?’ Sophia asked.
‘Like me, of course!’ Ivy said.
Jackson scowled, and looked a little intimidating with his hoodie and sunglasses. ‘I’m going to talk to the principal before next period, see if we can get them to stay away from the school.’
‘That would be a relief,’ Ivy said. ‘But they’ll just be waiting outside for when we leave.’
Ivy saw Olivia waving from the doorway. She pointed to the food line and then to her belly and mouthed, ‘I’m hungry!’
‘Poor Olivia,’ said Jackson. ‘We can’t let her starve.’
He stood up and went over to the counter, grabbing a salad, a bagel sandwich and a brownie on a tray for Olivia and then sat with her right there in the doorway, having lunch, as bemused fellow students walked around them to get into the cafeteria. The photographers’ lenses couldn’t see around the pillars at the entrance. They were safe for now.
‘I’ve got an idea. Code black, right after school,’ Ivy said, invoking her and Sophia’s age-old code for meeting in the science hall bathroom.
Sophia nodded but Brendan said, ‘Uh . . . what does that mean?’
Ivy smiled. ‘Have you ever wanted to visit the girl’s bathroom?’
Chapter Six
Twenty minutes after school, Olivia was waiting in the girls’ bathroom for Sergeant Ivy to give her orders. Ivy had assembled Sophia, Camilla, Brendan and Jackson as well and had stuck a sign on the bathroom door that said OUT OF ORDER.
‘This is weirder than weird,’ said Brendan, looking around at the green-painted cubicles.
‘Agreed,’ said Jackson. ‘What if someone comes in?’
Olivia giggled. ‘Soon it won’t matter.’
‘I can’t believe I’ve agreed to this,’ Brendan said, shaking his head.
‘Atten-tion!’ Ivy said. ‘Let’s get a move on. Camilla?’
Camilla stepped forwards and emptied a big box on to the bathroom counter, spilling out wigs, sunglasses, expensive-looking bags, blouses and fake jewellery.
Brendan’s eyes almost popped out of his head.
‘I’ve still got the key to the costume room,’ Camilla explained with a shrug.
‘Begin!’ Ivy ordered.
While everyone started picking through the offerings, Olivia handed Ivy the clothes out of her bag.
Ivy quickly sprayed herself down with some fake tan, slipped on the denim skirt, lavender sweater and white sandals – the exact same outfit as Olivia had on. ‘There,’ she said to her sister. ‘Olivia the second, at your service.’
‘Not quite,’ Olivia replied. ‘Olivia would never forget to accessorise!’ She took a chunky white bead necklace from the counter and put it around Ivy’s neck. ‘Better.’
Olivia caught sight of herself and her twin next to each other in the mirror. Sometimes they looked like night and day with their different skin tones and dress sense. But at times like this, when they were switching, it showed how much, underneath it all, they were just the same – sisters and best friends.
‘No matter what,’ Olivia said to Ivy amid the chaos of the bathroom, ‘we’ll figure this thing out.’
‘But we won’t!’ Brendan called from the other end of the counter with Jackson. He was holding a long black wig in his right hand and a short blonde one in his left. He had four different necklaces around his neck and was wearing a loose pink shirt with a long green skirt. ‘Help!’
Olivia cracked up and Ivy joined in, holding her hands to her stomach.
‘No one is going to believe you’re a movie star!’ Ivy said.
‘Hey,’ said Brendan defensively, ‘this was your idea.’
Ivy kissed him on the nose. ‘I know, and it’s going to work too.’
‘But not with you looking like that!’ Olivia declared. She handed Brendan an oversized blue sweater. ‘Pink is definitely not your colour. Lose the shirt.’
Brendan eagerly complied, ripping off the shirt and flexing his muscles.
‘And since you don’t exactly fit the body-shape of an up-and-coming female star . . .’ Olivia went on, ‘we’ll have to aim for as much distraction as possible.’ She handed over a long blonde wig and white sunglasses.
Ivy’s plan for Operation Escape was to have lots of possible mystery actresses to throw the creepy photographers off the real trail.
Olivia and a glammed-up Camilla were going to form one pair to lead off as many paps as they could, while Ivy-as-Olivia and Brendan-as-mysterious-movie-star led the rest in the opposite direction. Jackson would play himself with a Hollywood-ised Sophia as a third possibility. Ivy’s plan was that the photographers would become so confused and fed up that they’d give up and go back to California.