Vampalicious! (4 page)

“I have to,” Mr. Vega whispered. He raised his eyes to them sadly. “We have to go, Ivy. I know it’s difficult for you to accept...but you must try.”

Ivy looked at him in disbelief.
Why are you being so stubborn?
she thought. She tried to think of something she could say, anything that might get through to him and make him realize they couldn’t go to Europe.

Her father forced his mouth into a strained smile that seemed utterly fake compared to the one from a few moments ago. “You should try to think of all the good things about Europe,” he said hopefully.

Ivy shook her head. She turned to Olivia. “I thought he’d listen to reason. Or emotion. Or
us
,” she said softly. “But I guess I was wrong.”

Without another word, Ivy led her sister out of the study. She knew Olivia was struggling not to burst into tears, too.

The next day at lunch with Olivia, Sophia, Camilla, and Brendan, Ivy was still in a pitch-black mood.

“My father is being impossible,” she fumed. “He’s determined to move. I’m not sure there’s anything I can do that will change his mind.”

“Have you tried biting him on the leg?” said Brendan. “My little sister, Bethany, did that once to my dad, and it really got his attention. I mean, he almost had to go to the hospital.”

Ivy couldn’t even smile. “My father doesn’t like hospitals,” she said glumly.

Across from her, Olivia moved a piece of limp broccoli around her plate with her fork. “Do you think he wants to go to Europe to get away from me?” she said quietly to her plate.

Ivy’s heart cracked open like a coffin. Sometimes she forgot that this was just as hard for Olivia as it was for her—maybe harder. “He wouldn’t do that, Olivia,” she said as reassuringly as she could. “It’s the job. It’s a really killer opportunity.”

“Didn’t he say that they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse?” asked Sophia. Ivy nodded.

“But we don’t even know why he separated me and you in the first place,” Olivia said, unconvinced. “Maybe when I was a baby, I bit him in the leg.”

Ivy smiled. “I don’t think he would insist on moving away just because of you, Olivia. He was talking about this job before you even came to Franklin Grove.”

Olivia looked at her gratefully. “You’re right,” she said. “Sorry, I’m just being completely neurotic.”

“What we need to do is come up with something even a great job can’t compete with,” Camilla said.

Brendan nodded, his dark curls flopping in front of his eyes. He was so drop-dead handsome. “With the right reason, your father will decide to stay,” he agreed.

At that moment, Ivy couldn’t imagine being apart from Brendan. She felt herself filling with determination again. “Then we’ll just have to come up with the right reason.”

“Hey, Vega!” a voice called.

Ivy spun around and saw Garrick Stephens and his greaseball goons, Dylan Soyle and Kyle Glass, winding their way toward the table. Instinctively, she rolled her eyes. The Beasts were the lamest vampires in the whole school.

“Word in the dirt is that you’re skipping town!” Garrick said happily.

“What’s it to you?” Ivy said coolly.

“Nothing,” Garrick said, but then he turned and grinned as his friends. “Nothing at all,” he repeated, wheeling back to face her, “except that with you gone the Beasts are going to rule the school!”

Kyle and Dylan laughed idiotically and waited for Garrick to give them high fives.

“
As if
,” said Sophia under her breath. “You tombstones couldn’t rule an empty cemetery plot.”

Garrick pretended not to hear. “So, uh, before you go, why don’t you do an article on us for the
Scribe
?”

Ivy stared at him, but he just kept leering at her. “You’re not serious,” she said at last.

Garrick sighed. “Oh, come on,” he whined. “Once our new band gets famous, you can say that you knew me when...”

Rather than answering, Ivy fixed Garrick with her worst death squint. She imagined she was burning a black hole through the center of his forehead.

“Fine, but don’t think we’re going to send any VIP tickets your way,” he grumbled finally, then lumbered off with the other Beasts in tow.

“Gross.” Camilla giggled.

“I can’t believe they’ve started a band!” said Olivia with a grin.

Sophia tapped the table with a spoon as if it were a gavel. “I hereby call our second emergency meeting to order!” she announced.

“Second?” said Brendan. “When was the first?”

I was worried you’d ask that,
Ivy thought. “Yesterday,” she said, “but it was girls only. Now we’re coed.”

“Good,” Brendan said. “Because I don’t want to miss a moment with you over the next week.”

Ivy’s heart ached, and she took Brendan’s cool hand in her own. “You were studying for your social studies midterm,” she tried to explain.

“Social studies!” exclaimed Sophia suddenly. “That’s how we’ll keep Mr. Vega in Franklin Grove!”

“Homework and pop quizzes wouldn’t tempt me to stay,” Camilla said.

Sophia rolled her eyes. “I mean what we’re
learning
in social studies. We just did a whole unit on the Civil Rights Movement, and we had to watch part of that movie
Gandhi
. There’s only one way to successfully fight the blatant injustice of racism, British colonial rule, or being forced to move to Europe!”

“And that would be...?” Brendan said cluelessly.

“Passive resistance!” blurted Sophia. She looked around excitedly.

“I should’ve known that,” Brendan slapped his head with his palm. “I am seriously going to fail this midterm.”

“You mean like a sit-in?” Camilla asked.

Sophia nodded. “We’ll chain ourselves to Mr. Vega’s car and refuse to move until he changes his mind.”

“That would certainly be dramatic,” remarked Olivia.

“I bet we’d get in the local paper,” Camilla said with a shrug.

Between her recent interview with Serena Star on national TV and all the newspaper and magazine articles about Ivy and Olivia being long-lost twins, Ivy had had enough media attention to last eternity. “I don’t know,” she said tentatively. “We’d miss all our exams.”

“We can do it after midterms,” Sophia adjusted. “As long as we start before the actual day of the move, it’ll still work.”

“What would we eat?” Brendan wondered.

“We’ll bring food,” Sophia countered.

“But what if we run out of food?” Olivia asked.

“Then we’ll be on a hunger strike,” Sophia replied matter-of-factly, stabbing the air with a fork. “That’s what Gandhi did.”

“It’s pretty cold out lately,” Olivia said, scrunching up her nose.

Sophia seemed to sense the tide turning against her. “This can work, you guys!” She waved her fork around. “History is on our side!”

Ivy knew how Sophia could be when she got attached to an idea. She’d cling to it like a bat on its perch—nothing would bring her back down to earth. “How about this?” Ivy said. “Passive resistance can be our last resort. If in a week’s time we still haven’t been able to convince my dad, we’ll start the revolution. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” everyone said, Sophia loudest of all.

“I have an idea,” Camilla piped up. “Have any of you ever seen that old movie about the identical twins who switch places?”

Olivia shook her head. “Ivy and I don’t have to see that movie!”

“It’s our life,” Ivy agreed with a grin. The sisters had switched places a few times since they’d met. Sophia even had photos of Ivy in Olivia’s outfit at a cheerleading practice, which made Ivy want to be buried alive.

“Yeah, but there’s this one part I keep thinking about,” Camilla went on. “In order not to get separated again, these sisters have to get their parents back together. They have to make them fall in love again.”

Olivia’s face brightened, but Ivy frowned. “That won’t work,” she said. “Our mother’s not around anymore.”

“Wait a second,” Olivia interrupted. “Maybe Camilla’s onto something. We might not have our mom, but there are tons of eligible women in Franklin Grove we could set your dad up with.”

Sophia shut one eye and pursed her lips. Then she opened her eye and shook her head. “Nope, I can’t see it,” she said. “I’ve known Mr. Vega for my whole life, and I’ve never seen him go on a single date.”

“He’s shy!” Ivy said, surprised by her own defensiveness. “He could have a girlfriend if he wanted to.”

“What about Georgia Huntingdon?” Olivia suggested. “That lady from... that magazine.” Ivy could tell her sister was being discreet for Camilla’s benefit—Georgia was the flamboyant editor of
Vamp.

“I don’t think that would work,” Brendan said skeptically.

Ivy nodded. Every vamp in America knew Georgia Huntingdon had a very on-again/offagain relationship with a TV soap star.

“We need someone
perfect
,” Ivy said. “He’s our dad, after all.” In fact, Ivy had always thought that the right woman might help her dad relax a little bit.

“So, are we agreed,” said Sophia, “that the only thing that might be more killer than a killer job is a killer romance?”

“Agreed,” everyone chimed, and Brendan started playing footsies with Ivy under the table. If she were a bunny, she would have blushed.

Instead, the bell rang for the end of lunch.

“The second emergency meeting is now adjourned,” Sophia declared as everyone gathered up their trays. “Let’s go find Mr. Vega his Miss Right!”

For the rest of the day, Ivy tried to think of women who might be a good match for her dad. She kept a running list on the back page of her notebook, where she usually wrote ideas for the school paper.

Valencia Deborg from the Vampire Roundtable? Too cold.

The lady at the adoption agency? Too loud.

Marie the florist who specialized in dead flowers? Too
 weird
.

The list went on and on, but Ivy couldn’t come up with anyone she thought her father would be interested in.

After school, Olivia had to meet with her algebra study group to prepare for midterms. Ivy went over to Brendan’s. The door swung open the moment she touched the doorbell.