06 Love Bites - My Sister the Vampire (2 page)

Ivy thought conversation candy hearts were pure evil, but she took one to be polite.

‘Mine says, “Kiss me”.’ Olivia popped it in her mouth.

‘Well, this one says, “Sweetheart”,’ said Ivy, holding the offensive object like it was a clove of garlic.

‘Aren’t you going to eat it?’ Janie asked.

Ivy forced a smile and bit into the chewy,
dry candy. She grinned wickedly at her sister. ‘I wonder where the expression “sweetheart” came from. Actual hearts? I’m sure mine would be more of a
sour
heart.’

‘Ew!’ Olivia crinkled her nose and Ivy chuckled.

Ivy’s vegetarian twin got squeamish at the mere suggestion of blood.
Good thing she’s the bunny, and I’m the vampire
, Ivy thought.

Ivy and Olivia were twins born to a vampire father and a human mother and had only met each other at the beginning of the school year. Olivia’s adoptive parents had moved to Franklin Grove and the sisters had been getting to know each other, and all about their biological family background, ever since.

Olivia nudged her sister. ‘Has Brendan given you any candy hearts for Valentine’s?’ she asked.

Ivy felt her face form a scowl. ‘He knows I can’t stand all this cheesy Valentine’s stuff.’

Olivia pretended to gasp. ‘No pressies?’

Ivy did like presents, but she wasn’t interested in teddy bears with ‘I WUV YOU’ written on their tummies. ‘I don’t need material possessions to reinforce the strength of our relationship,’ Ivy declared.

‘But Valentine’s presents are the best,’ Olivia replied. ‘It’s my ultimate favourite holiday. I can’t wait to see what . . . you know who . . . will get me.’

‘Jackson’s going to be my Valentine,’ Janie boasted. ‘I’ve saved this one just for him.’ She opened up her hand to show a candy heart that read ‘I HEART YOU’.

Despite the message’s assault on grammar, even Ivy thought it was sweet.

‘Jackson Caulfield is the dreamiest dream!’ declared Janie.

Olivia smiled. ‘He is pretty nice.’

The little girl squealed. ‘Ohmigosh, have you met him?’

Olivia started to explain. ‘Well, a few weeks ago when that film crew was in town . . .’

Ivy’s mind floated back to Brendan. She wondered if he was playing video games or practising tricks on his new dirt bike. Maybe she could call him to help her through the eternity of waiting in this line?

As Olivia chatted with Janie, Ivy rummaged in her big black messenger bag for her phone.

‘Ohmigosh, you’re in a movie with him!’ Janie gushed. ‘You’re like a film star!’

‘No, no,’ Olivia replied. ‘It was just a small part.’

Ivy finally found her phone sandwiched between her notebook and a vinyl record of The Killer Bees.

But as she started to dial his number, she caught sight of a black-clad figure with curly
black hair striding across the lobby. Her pulse raced – it was Brendan.

What is he doing in the mall? By himself?
Ivy thought. The third Dark Violet album wasn’t available until next week and he’d already bought the new sarcophagus racing game. They’d had a tournament yesterday which Ivy had won. What else could he possibly want to buy?

Still clutching her phone, she watched him stop and look in the window of Hannah’s Homewares. He went inside but came out a few moments later empty-handed, with a determined set to his jaw. He glanced at a stationery shop, festooned in red ribbons.
Could he
. . . Ivy started to think,
be shopping for Valentine’s?

‘Ha!’ Ivy laughed out loud.

‘What?’ Olivia asked.

‘Brendan,’ Ivy hissed.

‘In line for Jackson’s autograph?’ Olivia
looked around, incredulous.

‘No, over there.’ Ivy pointed him out. He was peering in the window of the luggage store at a row of big leather purses.

Olivia giggled. ‘Looks like he’s after some material possessions to buy for you.’

‘He couldn’t be,’ Ivy replied. He knew she thought Valentine’s Day was just a made-up holiday to trick bunnies into buying mass-produced emotion.

‘OK, if he isn’t buying you a Valentine’s gift,’ Olivia said, ‘why is he staring at ladies’ luggage accessories?’

Brendan had crouched down by a display of matching green key chains, wallets and bag tags with a big sign that said ‘Leather Madness!’

Ivy pushed the call button on her phone and watched Brendan jump. He fumbled with his jacket pocket, pulled out his phone and
tentatively put it to his ear.

‘Hey, Ivy,’ he said and she could hear the weirdness in his voice. Ivy watched him stop and lean against a wall. He couldn’t see her but she could see him.

‘Hey,’ she replied. ‘Whatcha doing?’

‘Not much.’ Brendan ran his hand through his hair. ‘Just hanging out at the Meat and Greet, waiting for you.’

Ivy narrowed her eyes. Something was definitely going on. ‘But we’re not supposed to be meeting there for another two hours.’

‘Uh, yeah.’ He pushed himself off the wall and started pacing. ‘Since you’re leaving tonight, I don’t want to miss a single minute of our goodbye lunch.’

At the mention of ‘goodbye’, Ivy felt the bats fluttering in her tummy for the thousandth time. A few weeks ago, she and Olivia had done
everything they could think of to find out about their real parents. It took a lot of work and a little luck but they finally discovered that the dad Ivy had grown up with, the dad she thought was her adoptive vampire father, was actually their real father. And, to top it all off, he was the son of a Transylvanian Count. To him, it was no big deal, but to Ivy and Olivia it was unbelievable. Suddenly, they were vampire royalty!

After much pestering, he had agreed to write to his parents with the whole Ivy and Olivia story, even though he hadn’t spoken to them in years. ‘If it will make you happy,’ their dad had said.

‘I know you have to go,’ Brendan said quietly into the phone now, ‘but I’m really going to miss you.’

‘I’ll miss you, too,’ Ivy replied. It would be the only time they’d been apart since he’d asked her out on their first date to the mall. But it would
be worth it. She really wanted to know what her grandparents – the Count and Countess – were like.

Ivy had memorised the letter her grandmother had sent back:

Ivy instinctively reached for the ring that she wore around her neck; Olivia had an identical one. Matching emerald rings with their family symbol – the outline of an eye with a V in the middle – engraved inside. After a lifetime of not
knowing, she was finally going to find out where she came from.

This week in Europe was going to be killer, but first she had to figure out what her boyfriend was up to.

‘So what’s the burger special today?’ Ivy asked innocently, seeing how far he would go to conceal where he was. Olivia covered her mouth to stifle a giggle.

‘It’s, uh . . .’ Brendan looked around frantically. ‘Green leather madness,’ he blurted.

Ivy snorted. ‘That doesn’t sound very appetising.’

‘Well, I’m not going to order one,’ he replied.

‘It doesn’t
sound
like you’re at the Meat and Greet,’ Ivy tried again. ‘I can’t hear any music in the background.’

‘I think they’ve turned it off for a minute,’ Brendan replied, talking faster and faster.

Ivy decided to let him off the hook. He wasn’t going to confess. ‘OK, well, I’ll see you at noon,’ she said.

‘OK, bye,’ he almost shouted and Ivy watched him collapse against the wall.

‘He would
not
keep it a secret if he wasn’t shopping for you,’ Olivia pointed out.

Ivy saw him stride away. ‘I’m going after him,’ she declared.

‘I’ll be here,’ Olivia said, looking morosely at the line in front of her.

‘With me!’ said Janie. ‘Another candy heart?’

Ivy darted across the lobby after Brendan, pressing herself against the walls. She followed him at a safe distance down the east wing of the mall. She had to be extra careful; Brendan was a vampire, after all, and might be able to sense her if she got too close.

What do spies in movies do?
Ivy thought.
Melt into
the crowd.
She looked down at her black skirt and heavy boots.
Well, that’s not gonna happen.
She’d just have to be . . . discreet.

Brendan went into Trudy’s Beauty Palace and Ivy ducked in and hid behind a rack of shampoo bottles. She peered between two mannequin heads displaying blonde wigs to see Brendan browsing the accessories in the glass counter. There were sparkly bracelets, dangly earrings, rings and brooches – nothing that her gorgeous goth boyfriend would ever buy for himself.

Oh my darkness!
Ivy thought.
He
must
be shopping for Valentine’s.

Brendan turned around and Ivy ducked behind the hair pieces, just in time.

If he’s buying me something, I have to buy
him
something,
Ivy realised.
A present that is as good as whatever he gets me.
As Brendan left the store empty-handed, Ivy decided she had to follow
him until she saw what he bought.

She crept along behind him, staying out of sight.

Be like water,
Ivy told herself. Olivia’s martial-arts-obsessed dad had taught her that. She slid from a tall fern to a marble column to a sunglasses stall.

It was going well until, just outside the camera store, Brendan looked back over his shoulder. Ivy was next to a booth selling self-help books, so she ducked behind it. An old woman with a wart on her chin, sitting on the stool and tending the booth, looked at her.

Ivy smiled like nothing was abnormal, but then she noticed a security guard on the other side of the walkway staring at her. He pointed two stubby fingers at her, and then pointed them at his own eyes.
I’m watching you,
he was saying.

Ivy immediately straightened up and tried to
look innocent by grabbing one of the books from the display and opening it to a random page.
Bald is Beautiful!
it declared in large print.

Ivy panicked, slammed the book shut and shoved it back on the shelf.

‘Can I help you?’ the old lady said in a scratchy voice.

‘Uh, just browsing!’ Ivy turned away to check where Brendan was, but the one thing she really didn’t need to happen had happened.

Brendan had disappeared!

I can only feel two of my toes,
Olivia thought. Ivy had been gone for half an hour and the line hadn’t even started moving yet.

‘Ohmigosh, I just can’t believe you got to be in a movie with him!’ said Janie. ‘So, how come you have to wait in line with the rest of us?’

Olivia wondered if there was actual steam coming out of her ears. ‘That’s a very good question, Janie.’

Just then a huge collective shriek erupted from the front of the line. Olivia stood on her tiptoes to see that the doors to the
bookstore had finally opened.

The line surged forward and, despite being about 200
^th
in line, she got all the way to the front door of the store very quickly. There must have been another 200 people behind her. She tried to peer past the window display, to see if she could catch Jackson’s attention – or even
see
him – but the store was so packed with people clutching copies of his new book,
Jackson’s Journal,
that his signing desk was hidden from view.

‘Look what he gave me!’ squealed a girl who was leaving the store. She was the ice skater from the front of the line and was waving something red and heart-shaped over her head. ‘It’s a picture frame and he signed it: “Love, Jackson”. He loves me!’

The girls still waiting for their chance to meet Jackson all crowded around her, desperate to see. Olivia got jostled around like she was
holding the last purse in a sale.

Janie turned to Olivia and clutched her hands. ‘I have to have one,’ she said. ‘I just have to!’

Olivia sighed. Even though Valentine’s Day wasn’t until the end of the week, this was her only chance to see Jackson before she left for Transylvania.

It doesn’t matter,
Olivia thought to herself.
Once I get to the front of the line and give him his V-Day present, this will all be worth it.
She touched the crinkly wrapping paper on the small box in her jacket pocket and smiled. The Valentine’s present she’d bought for Jackson was silly, but sentimental. It was a little pair of ceramic cowboy boots. She’d painted a red heart on the front of both and put her initials on one and his initials on the other. The first thing she’d ever said to Jackson was, ‘Yeehaw’ and ‘I like your boots’ and he teased her about it all the time.

‘Could you stop
mooning?’
said an impatient girl behind her.

Olivia blinked and realised the line had moved way inside the store.

‘Sorry.’ She scurried forwards into a wider aisle with ropes down either side. At the far end, she could see a big pink backdrop and could just catch a glimpse of Jackson’s blond hair. When she caught up to the line, Janie turned around with tears in her eyes.