“My prince will rescue us,” said Casey, ruffling her yellow tutu nervously with her fingers. “He has twenty-three racing cars, plus he’s a veterinarian.”
Stacey stepped forward. “My prince will save us,” she enunciated, “because he’s really rich and he has a mustache.”
The moms giggled.
“They waited and waited,” said Ivy. “Accountant-O’s dungeon was really gross.” She reached into a plastic bag full of props. “There were worms.” She reached out a hand and showered the girls with cut-up pieces of string.
“Eeeewwwwww!” they screeched.
“And there was a monster chained to the wall in the corner,” Ivy added. She gave a huge roar, and the girls ran around screaming. Ivy reached into her prop bag and pulled out a spray bottle. She sprayed the girls with mist. “It sneezed on them.”
“Yuck!” the girls yelled, shielding their eyes.
“But still their princes did not come,” Ivy intoned. Casey and Stacey pouted dramatically. From the shadows, Mr. Abbott laughed evilly again.
“Princess Casey and Ballerina Stacey grew impatient,” Ivy said.
Stacey reached into an imaginary pocket in her pink tutu and pulled out an imaginary cell phone. “Where are you?” she said. “You were supposed to be here hours ago!” She listened like a real actress, and then hung up. “I don’t know what his problem is,” she huffed.
Casey crossed her arms. “Boys!” she exclaimed. “They’re so unreliable.”
“Finally,” narrated Ivy, “Princess Casey and Ballerina Stacey decided not to wait around any longer.”
“Let’s get out of here,” Casey said to Stacey.
“They snuck up on the evil wizard AccountantO,” Ivy went on, following the girls with the lamp as they tiptoed up to Mr. Abbott, who was punching things into an imaginary calculator and muttering numbers triumphantly.
Casey tapped him on the shoulder.
“What the—?” Mr. Abbott spun around in mock surprise and leaped to his feet.
Stacey balanced on one foot and raised her hands over her head, howling like a kung fu master about to execute a killer move.
Mr. Abbott’s eyes widened. While he was distracted, Casey ran up and stamped on his foot.
“Ouch!” he cried. Ivy winced. They hadn’t rehearsed that part.
Stacey karate chopped him in the back.
“Ooh!” Mr. Abbott said.
“You meanie!” Casey said and kicked him in the shin.
Doubled over, Mr. Abbott craned his neck and shot Ivy a desperate look. “Happily ever after!” he whispered. “Happily ever—”
Both girls leaped on his back, and the three of them collapsed to the living room carpet with a crash.
“Uh, then Princess Casey and Ballerina Stacey ran away,” Ivy said quickly.
The girls sprang off Mr. Abbott and dashed out of the room.
“And they lived happily ever after as best friends forever!” Ivy concluded.
The moms leaped up from the couch, cheering wildly. Casey and Stacey skipped back into the living room and curtsied daintily to their audience.
“Bravo! Bravo!” Audrey called. “You take a bow, too, Steve!”
“I can’t,” Steve groaned from the floor. “My back,” he said apologetically.
Ivy helped him to his feet and settled him into the easy chair. Then the girls came over, took her hands, and dragged her back in front of the couch. Ivy bowed with a flourish, her ponytail whipping forward.
I’m getting almost as good at being Olivia as Olivia! Ivy thought proudly. I wonder how she’s doing being me right now.
I will never switch with Ivy during mealtime again, Olivia thought. Her fork was still poised before her lips, with the same tiny chunk of black pudding on it. She kept trying to psyche herself up into putting the stuff into her mouth. Mr. Vega’s going to get suspicious, she thought desperately. I’ll have to do it now. Suddenly the phone rang in the next room.
“I’ll get it,” her father said, dropping his napkin and rising from the table. She waited for him to leave the room before leaping from her chair. Then she rushed to the garbage can and scraped her two black pudding hockey pucks into it with her fork, burying them under some crumpled paper towels. She’d just gotten back to her chair when Mr. Vega reentered the room.
“Who was it?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant.
“A telemarketer.” Her father grimaced as he took his seat. “He refused to take no for an answer. I kept telling him we do not use coffin wax.” He noticed Olivia’s bare plate. “You’ve already finished?”
“It was delicious.” Olivia gulped.
“I knew you’d like it,” her father said. “I’ll get you another helping.”
“No!” Olivia blurted. “I mean, no, thank you.” She patted her belly like she was full. “But thank you for going to all the trouble of making it for me.” She smiled and her father smiled back.
Chapter 8
Early Saturday morning, Ivy quietly slid open the basement window at the back of her house, climbed inside, and crept down the stairs to her room.
Olivia was curled up on top of her bed, wearing Ivy’s pajamas with the gravestones on them and hugging a black cat pillow.
Only four days until Dad and I move, Ivy thought sadly as she looked down on her sleeping sister. And then who knows when I’ll see Olivia again?
She decided to let her sister sleep for a few more minutes. She slipped into the chair in front of her desk and powered up the new laptop computer her dad had gotten her for boarding school. Ivy waited anxiously for her new e-mails to appear on the screen. Her heart sank when they finally did; there was still no response from the art museum. She let out a colossal sigh.