13 Double Disaster - My Sister the Vampire (15 page)

‘Not sweet enough to justify
actual
bruises,’ said Ivy. ‘You seriously –’

She stopped abruptly as her vampire hearing picked up on the conversation going on among the skater-boys behind them.

‘How crazy is that Franklin Grove girl?’ said one of the boys. ‘Watch out, Finn. Who knows what she’ll try next to get your attention?’

‘She obviously likes you a
scary
lot, bro,’ said another boy. ‘If she’s putting this much effort into faking –’

The first boy snorted. ‘Did you see that “accidental” triple somersault earlier?’

Ivy winced as she tried to imagine how much a triple somersault would hurt even a vampire.

Probably not nearly as much as hearing what Finn’s friends were saying right now.

‘Sophia . . .’ she began, in a whisper. Her friend’s face was pale and she looked as though she felt sick.

But Finn suddenly broke in: ‘Lay off her, you guys! You don’t have to be jerks about it.’

Score one for Skater Finn
, Ivy thought.

Maybe he wasn’t the right boy for her best friend . . . but he wasn’t a bad guy, after all.

‘Hey!’ Finn called from behind them. Ivy turned and saw that he had broken away from his friends to head straight for Sophia. He held out his skateboard, which was painted with
swirls of yellow and bright orange. ‘Here. This is one of my favourites. Do you want to borrow it until you get a new one?’

‘Really?’ Sophia breathed. She took the board from him and stroked it reverentially. ‘You would really do that? For me?’

‘Hey, it’s no big deal.’ Finn shrugged. ‘I’ve got more of them at home.’

He’s telling the truth
, Ivy realised, as she looked at his expression.

To Finn, it really was no big deal. He was just a nice guy, doing a nice thing. But to Sophia . . . Ivy’s chest tightened.

Sophia was so busy stroking the skateboard, she hadn’t even noticed how casual Finn was being. And to her, the gesture obviously meant a
lot.

As Finn headed back towards his friends, Ivy tried to think of the right thing to say. She had to tell Sophia the truth somehow, but she couldn’t bear to break her best friend’s
heart by doing it. How would Olivia put it?

It had to be gentle, it had to be kind . . .

‘Did you see how stupid she looked?’

The biting tones of one of the identical pixie-cut blonde skater-girls on the other side of the park sliced right into Ivy’s vampire-strong hearing. ‘She doesn’t just go
head-over-heels on her skateboard – she’s going head-over-heels for Finn, too!’

The other skater-girls giggled.

‘She’s like a little panting puppy,’ one of them agreed.
‘“Oh, Finn, just look at me, please look at me, please!”’

‘He must feel
so
sorry for her!’ a third girl piped in.

Sophia let out a muffled gasp of hurt, and Ivy could already feel the death-squint on her face as she spun around.

No one makes fun of my best friend. Especially not some identikit blonde clone!

She started forwards, like a warrior going into battle, but Sophia’s hand clamped around her arm.

‘No!’ Sophia’s face looked almost green against her pixie-cut blonde hair now, but she shook her head. ‘
Think
about it, Ivy. A human wouldn’t have heard what
they were saying. They’re too far away.’

‘She’s right,’ Brendan agreed. His jaw was clenched with obvious frustration, but he shook his head at Ivy.

‘I don’t care!’ Ivy glared at the skater-girls across the field. ‘I’m going to go over there and tell those little clones exactly what I think of them.’

‘This is Lincoln Vale,’ Sophia said. ‘You can’t just march over there and call out the mean girls.
These
mean girls aren’t used to being overheard from far
away, like girls in Franklin Grove are. They’ll know that something’s not right.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Remember what we were told before we started this school? We need
to be careful.’

Ivy closed her eyes and felt frustration sweep through her. But Sophia was right.

Slowly, with dragging steps, she turned back to her friends and started walking away from the skatepark.

High school sucks
, she thought.
And not in a good way!

Brendan took her hand and squeezed it, while Sophia walked stiff-backed beside her, cradling Finn’s skateboard under one arm.

As they reached the gates of the park, they saw a familiar, black-clad figure passing between them. Ivy nearly groaned. Of all the times to run into Goth-Queen Amelia!

Amelia barely spared them a glance before narrowing her eyes at the skater-girls across the park. ‘I saw those idiotic girls laughing at you,’ she snapped. ‘Do
not
let
that continue. Otherwise it’ll follow all of us into school! If you want to be goths, you need to assert yourselves.’

Only Brendan’s meaningful hand-squeeze stopped Ivy from snapping right back,
I’ll show you assertiveness!

Amelia strode past without waiting for a reply. Ivy turned to glare after her, and saw the older girl head for her usual lounging spot, just by the skate-area. Her followers were already
flocking there from the four corners of the park.

Actually, wait a minute . . .
Ivy frowned as the thought finally occurred to her.
If Amelia’s so determined to preserve goth social dominance, then why does she spend so much
time at the skatepark?
Amelia seemed to come here almost as much as Sophia! She thought back to the time that Amelia had been in the park, watching Sophia with undisguised suspicion. Watching
Sophia and
Finn
. . .

Ivy narrowed her eyes in suspicion as she watched Amelia sit down on the grass less than fifteen feet from the concrete canyons.
Something fishy is definitely going on
, Ivy thought.
Something fishy that’s wearing black!

‘P
ardon?’ Olivia bit back a yawn just in time. As her interviewer beamed at her, she tried to clear her head, which was foggy with
exhaustion. Plus, she was feeling faint again from the corset she was wearing beneath her lavender silk ballgown for this on-set interview. ‘Could you repeat the question, please?’

‘Of course.’ The interviewer, a sleek, dark-haired British woman in a form-fitting pencil skirt and blouse, smiled at her condescendingly. ‘This is your first interview for a
DVD special feature, isn’t it? You must be so nervous, you poor thing.’

‘A little bit,’ Olivia said, smiling politely for the sake of the rolling cameras. Inside her head, though, she answered more honestly:
I’m more fed up than nervous!
She
had barely slept the last two nights. Now it was Monday, her final day in England, and she was wasting her last precious hours with this interview. Jackson was packing his suitcases somewhere
nearby, preparing for his return flight to Hollywood
that night
!

How was she supposed to concentrate on a silly DVD interview when she might be losing her last chance to make things right between them?

‘And will you be doing it again?’ the interviewer asked. She cocked one eyebrow. ‘What exactly do you see as your future in Hollywood?’

Uh-oh.
Olivia swallowed, trying to maintain a pleasant expression. Ever since she’d arrived on-set, she’d been asking herself the same question, but she still hadn’t
come up with an answer. Could she do it now, while the cameras were rolling?

‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘acting
is
something that I truly love doing . . . but it is a lot of work, and there’s a lot of stress involved in working on a film
set.’

The interviewer smiled. ‘You’re certainly not leading an ordinary teenager’s life.’

That’s exactly the problem
, Olivia thought. She just
knew
that if she and Jackson were two normal teenagers, nothing could stand in their way. But they weren’t
‘normal’ and that meant –

No!
With sudden resolution, she cut off the familiar chain of worries before it could even begin.
I can’t just keep asking myself the same questions again and again. I have to do
something! If I don’t, I’ll regret it forever.

Olivia tried to draw a deep breath to brace herself – then winced, as the tight corset bit into her side. She managed to force a smile as she answered the interviewer’s question:

‘No, it’s not an ordinary life,’ she said. ‘But it’s the one I’ve chosen . . . for now.’

I’m going to find Jackson and have an honest, face-to-face conversation. I will get my future cleared up once and for all . . . even if I have to wear a hoop-skirt as I do it!

The interview seemed to go on forever, but finally she was free. Olivia hurried to Jackson’s trailer. She paused outside, took a deep breath, and knocked. She was already
practising her opening line.

Then her shoulders sagged as the silence stretched on.
What good is an opening line if he doesn’t even answer the door?

Biting her lip, Olivia thought it through. Jackson often wore headphones when he was alone. He probably just hadn’t heard her. She couldn’t give up now!

Tentatively, she turned the handle of the trailer door. It opened a crack . . . and she let out her held breath.

The trailer was empty.

Of course. Jackson must be in the Hair and Make-up trailer, getting ready to shoot his last scene!

She was just turning to leave when she caught sight of something flickering inside the trailer. It was his laptop computer, flashing a warning – it needed to be plugged in to charge.

Olivia hesitated. She didn’t want to invade his privacy . . . but she knew how hard he’d been working on . . .
something
. . . lately. She didn’t want him to lose
whatever it was, if the computer shut itself off.

I just won’t look at anything
, she promised herself. She eased herself into the trailer, careful not to knock anything over with the massive hoop-skirt of her Victorian
ballgown.

At the last moment, though, as she was leaning over to plug in the laptop, she couldn’t help herself – she caught a glimpse of the email Jackson had been in the middle of
writing.

She jerked her eyes away quickly . . . but there had only been one line written so far, and it had already burned itself into her brain.

I just don’t know what to do about

. . .
Me?
Olivia silently wondered.

Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears as she backed hastily away from the computer.

Had Jackson been writing to someone about her? Was the reason he hadn’t said anything decisive . . . because he was
nervous
?

Olivia shook her head. She’d always seen Jackson as being so confident . . . but inside, what if he was just as unsure about her feelings as she was about his?

All this time, she’d been waiting for him to make a gesture . . . but now it felt like the time for Olivia to make a gesture for
him
.

By the time she reached the Hair and Make-up trailer, Olivia was light-headed with panic and possibility.
Can I really do this?

She looked through the door and saw Jackson sitting with his back to her, familiar and perfect. No one else was there to overhear them. It was the perfect moment.