The Franklin Grove goth kids were going to seem really, really strange to their new classmates from Lincoln Vale, and this was totally freaking out Ivy’s dad. The First Law of the Night ordered that a vampire never revealed their true self to an outsider. But the students at Franklin Grove Middle had become so used to the odd spurt of speed or the super-quick catch of a ball that they’d stopped noticing. The same wouldn’t be true at Franklin Grove High. Ivy and her friends were going to have to be extra careful . . .
‘You don’t want to be caught out,’ her dad had warned her, his face even paler than usual. ‘It could have disastrous consequences for the whole vampire community. Do you understand the seriousness of the situation?’
Oh, Ivy understood all too well. She wasn’t just starting at a new school – she was putting her vampire identity on the line. Along with the extra homework, she’d need to be extra vigilant.
Ivy groaned and clambered out of her coffin, the morning light hurting her sleep-deprived eyes. Ha. She gave a pained laugh at the irony. I’ve never felt more like a vampire than I do right now!
She was still rubbing her bleary eyes as she padded downstairs to the kitchen. In the doorway, she stopped dead. Am I still asleep? She rubbed her eyes and looked again. The sight that met her eyes was the same. No way! She gently slapped her own face. I have got to be dreaming!
Maybe marriage had changed her dad . . . but no way would her father ever sit at the kitchen table in a football jersey, with a backwards baseball cap on his head!
I must be in the middle of a spectacularly strange nightmare!
‘Excuse me.’
At the sound of Lillian’s familiar voice behind her, Ivy sagged with relief. Thank goodness. She’ll take care of this madness!
She turned around – and gasped.
It might have been Lillian’s voice she’d heard, but it sure wasn’t elegant, confident Lillian she saw before her. Instead, she saw a mouse of a woman in silly pigtails, with bookish glasses propped on her nose, textbooks tucked under one arm. As Ivy gaped in disbelief, the woman with Lillian’s voice ducked her head and whispered a shy, ‘Excuse me,’ trying to get past Ivy into the kitchen.
‘What is going on?!’ Ivy’s voice rose into a shriek. ‘Did I wake up in Upside-Down Land? What are you two doing? And where did you get props from? And those costumes, oh my darkness – Lillian, do you even know how much Olivia would freak out if she saw those horrific sweater-vests?’
Lillian grinned and patted her textbooks as she set them down on the table. ‘Think of it as a rehearsal. Your dad and I decided we should do some role-play to help you prepare for interacting with the other kids at high school.’
‘And you couldn’t have warned me first?’ Ivy shook her head numbly as she sank down into her seat at the table. ‘I can’t be expected to deal with this kind of thing – I haven’t even eaten my Marshmallow Platelets yet!’
‘He-e-ey now!’ Charles drawled. Hearing the dumb-jock tone in his usually precise voice made Ivy’s head spin. ‘This is deadly serious, dudette! You cannot be taken by surprise when you get there. High school can be, like, so totally, totally lethal!’
‘Did you seriously just refer to me as “dudette”?’ Ivy put one hand over her eyes. ‘Please say I was imagining that. I have to have imagined that part. Or maybe I really am still asleep in my coffin.’
‘Seriously,’ Lillian repeated, ‘there will be a lot of new faces. Like, a lot. You should definitely think about how you’re going to cope with so many extra bunnies.’
‘Gaah.’ Ivy groaned and reached for her box of Marshmallow Platelets.
This was going to be a long morning. She needed all the help she could get.
‘I’ll go through with this dumb role-play if it’ll make you guys happy,’ she said, giving her dad and step-mom a weary look. ‘But, I’m telling you, if I can cope with Charlotte Brown and her cheerleader cronies, with their perma-smiles, I can definitely cope with anything this new school throws at me.’
I think.
Suddenly, she was assailed by visions of a hallway full of perky bunnies . . . and all of their faces twisting in disgust as she walked past them. Euch.
Ivy swallowed hard and concentrated on pouring her Marshmallow Platelets into a bowl, while she felt both her dad and step-mom watching her like hyper-anxious hawks.
Who knew the Wallachia Academy Experience would ever feel like a fond memory?
Promptly at eight a.m., Ivy was sitting outside her house, waiting for her ride to school and feeling like James Bond going undercover.
The week before, Lillian had shopped with her like a fashion master, helping her tear through the stores until they’d found the perfect subtle goth clothes. They were still ‘Ivy’ in style, but nothing that would catch the eye of Lincoln Vale bunnies as being too alternative. Now, she was dressed in all greys instead of blacks, from her deep grey dress, embroidered with a tasteful silver bat, to her soft, dove-grey tights. Her eyes were still lined with kohl, but she’d even changed her usual black nail polish for sparkling silver.
The one thing she had flat-out refused to change was her bat ring. It had been a gift from Brendan when she’d first returned from the Wallachia Academy, and she’d never agree to take it off. It goes where I go!
Now Ivy twisted it nervously around her finger as she waited for the bus. For the first time in her life, Undertaker Hill didn’t feel quite safe. Instead, it felt eerily silent, apart from the sound of the school bus that her vampire ears told her was only one street away. Not long now. It was already on its unstoppable charge towards her . . . and then it would take her all the way to school.