“Come on,” Olivia and Brendan and Sophia all chided. “You have to!”
“No thanks,” Ivy repeated.
“Ivy! Ivy! Ivy!” her friends started chanting. And suddenly the people behind Ivy began to join in.
Ivy threw her arms in the air. “All right! I’m going!” Some of the people in line actually cheered.
Ivy squeezed on to the bat’s back, right behind Olivia. Brendan slid his arms comfortably around her waist. Sophia sat in the back.
With a lurch, the bat lifted into the air. Ivy shrieked and grabbed her sister’s shoulders to steady herself. They began to climb higher and higher.
Brendan’s arms tightened warmly around her, and soon they were swooping through the air, high above the crowd. Ivy closed her eyes and felt the wind blowing through her hair. Olivia’s whoops of laughter filled her ears, and Ivy was overcome with joy. I’m riding the HB, she thought, with my best friend, my boyfriend, and my sister. Now that’s vampalicious!
Squeezing Olivia’s shoulders, she bent her head downward. “I wish,” Ivy whispered inaudibly to the bat beneath her, “that I will always be surrounded by the people I love.” She knew the HB heard her wish. After all, it had extraordinary hearing, as all bats do.
[end]