11 Flying Solo - My Sister the Vampire (5 page)

An uptight vampire sitting on Ivy’s other side kept playing with her pearls and it was driving Ivy batty.

‘Hey, where are all the boys?’ Ivy asked aloud, looking around at the other students.

No sooner had the question escaped her mouth than every girl around her burst out laughing, including Petra.

‘The boys?’ exclaimed the girl with the strand of pearls. ‘You thought we would have class with boys?’

Ivy shrank back. ‘Sort of?’

Petra leaned over her desk. ‘Have you forgotten? I told you when you first came to Wallachia that boys and girls don’t get to mix. We’re completely segregated! We’re not supposed to talk to them and we never get to have class together.’ She sighed. ‘The only time we come halfway close to mingling is Herbal Science and that’s because there’s only one greenhouse available to the entire student body.’

Ivy did remember now. When she’d visited the Academy to look around, a duel had broken out on the school fields and everyone had run out to watch. It had made Petra’s day because they had got to be with the boys for a while. But it had only made Ivy feel uncomfortable – and she felt the same now.

‘Wow, how third grade!’ she said.
There are some things I still can’t believe about this place
.

The room went quiet again as they waited for their teacher to arrive.

‘Pssssst!’ Petra poked Ivy’s arm with her pen. ‘Have you seen the Gauntlet yet?’ she asked.

‘No, who’s in it?’ Ivy was asking, when suddenly the door to the classroom was flung open. In flew a gigantic black bat, wings outstretched, with beady eyes and long, curved claws. Ivy ducked as it swooped over the heads of the class. Girls screamed and scrambled under desks, while others pinned their bodies against the classroom walls, wailing.
Haven’t they seen a bat before?
Ivy thought.

The small black mammal finally looped back to settle on the shoulder of a statuesque female vampire, who had slipped into the room unnoticed. She was wearing a mustard-coloured, ruffle-necked blouse tucked into a ballooning hoop skirt and her hair was slicked back into a ridiculously tight bun that pulled at the skin of her face.

The woman’s got presence
, Ivy admitted to herself, admiring the confident way the vampire strutted to the front of the classroom.
Even if her fashion sense does seem to be stuck in the nineteenth century
. The woman clapped her hands twice.

‘Students,’ she said curtly, scanning the rows of desks as though she had lasers for eyeballs. ‘I am Miss Avisrova.’ The teacher bowed and Ivy had to stop herself from snorting with laughter. The motion was so formal, so contrived.
Would a simple ‘hello’ not do?

‘As you all know, this is Vampire Etiquette.
Usually
we will be studying such crucial subjects as ballroom dancing, vampire cuisine and the art of telling the difference between finely aged blood and the cheap stuff one would find at a BloodMart.’ Miss Avisrova sniffed the air as if she smelled something particularly foul.

Ivy gulped. She had no idea that the BloodMart was considered so lowbrow. It was her favourite place to grocery shop!

‘But today, as punishment for all the students who reacted in such an unseemly manner to the arrival of a bat –’ Ivy shrank in her chair – ‘we will forego the original lesson plan. I
was
going to teach you the correct way to behave at a ball.’
Well, that’s a relief
, thought Ivy, doing a mental eye roll. ‘Now, however, I will be instructing you in the subtle virtuosities of conversation.’

Ugh
. Miss Avisrova was so dour, so miserable-looking.
Miss
Depress
rova would be more fitting
. Was she playing some sort of character, like in a bad audition for
Transylvania’s Got Talent
 
? If it weren’t for the terror in the eyes of the students around her, Ivy would have believed this was all an elaborate practical joke.

‘Miss Lazar,’ said Miss Avisrova. Ivy kept her head still, even though her instinct was to look around for the student in question.
How unlucky to be called in the very first lesson!
she thought. ‘Miss Lazar!’ their teacher repeated. This time, Ivy couldn’t help pivoting in her seat a little.
Lazar?
It might be a student she was related to, since that was her grandparent’s last name. Ivy, of course, had the same last name that her father had adopted, Vega, but who was this other Lazar character? Maybe a cousin? The silence in the classroom rang in her ears.

Ivy turned her attention back to the front of the class to see that Miss Avisrova was staring straight at her.
Oh
.
Oops
.
Um
. . . Ivy had been about to shrug, but was shrugging allowed in etiquette class? She didn’t think so. Miss Avisrova beckoned Ivy forwards with one long, slender finger. Ivy’s heart pounded like nails into a coffin lid. She slid out of her chair and walked up the long row of desks to the blackboard where Miss Avisrova was waiting.

‘Sit down.’ The teacher snapped her fingers and pointed at a spare chair, which had been pushed up against the front wall. ‘Miss Lazar here will be my assistant,’ she told the class.

‘It’s
Miss Vega
, actually,’ said Ivy, fidgeting in her new seat. ‘Long story, pretty dull.’ She tried to laugh but it came out fake and tinny. She pressed her lips together.
Yikes, stop talking, Ivy
. She attempted to pull the corners of her mouth into a tight grin, but was afraid it was probably more of a grimace.

Ivy snuck a peek at the other students still sitting at their desks. Every one of them was staring at her like she’d just hurled an insult at the Queen of England!
How utterly great
.

Avisrova tilted her head and looked at Ivy. ‘In conversation,’ she said, dragging a chair to sit opposite her, ‘one must never volunteer unsolicited personal information.’
What does that even mean?
Ivy wondered. ‘No, conversation is like a joust. To converse properly, you must probe at the other person. Never pry.’ Avisrova lifted her pinky as if to punctuate this point. ‘You should ask carefully selected questions, to which you will receive carefully considered answers. Allow me to demonstrate.’ She straightened her back. ‘Miss Lazar, please
carefully
select a question for me, so that I may show you how a conversation should proceed.’

Ivy chewed the side of her mouth, thinking.
OK
. . .
How about, Why are you so mad? What makes your posture so straight? Are you against wearing shoes that don’t look Victorian? Why in darkness’ name does all this snooty vampire etiquette even matter?
Ivy pushed back the questions floating in her mind. They were sure to get her into trouble.
Choose carefully
.

Ivy took a deep breath. ‘What’s your favourite show?’
Everyone
had to have a favourite television programme, didn’t they?

Avisrova scoffed, shaking her head. ‘How
American
of you,’ she told Ivy. ‘Such a trivial, meaningless question. Why would you even bother to ask it?’

Anger flared up bright and hot in Ivy’s chest. She heard whispers coming from around the room and Ivy shot one of the girls a death squint. The girl jumped and sat up straight in her chair, making a show of smoothing the pleated skirt of her uniform.

‘Can you believe she said that?’ said another girl, whose hair was plaited into soft braids that fell over each side of her collarbone.

‘So uncivilised,’ remarked another, who was wearing a crimson ribbon as a headband.
Kristina, Anna?
– Ivy couldn’t remember the girl’s name and, right now, she barely cared.

Ivy’s nails sank into her palms. She cleared her throat. ‘I mean,’ she began, feeling a slight snarl creep into the edge of her voice, ‘what’s it like shopping in the 1960s?’

There was a collective gasp.
Fine
, Ivy knew the insult hadn’t
entirely
made sense. After all, Avisrova wasn’t dressed as a hippie. But Ivy had made her point and the astonished reaction coming from her classmates was totally worth it – she hoped.

Avisrova shot her a death squint that it would have taken Ivy herself years to master. ‘You will be punished for that,’ she barked. ‘But don’t worry. This school will train the insolent American ways right out of you, Ivy
Lazar
.’ Miss Avisrova glared down her nose at Ivy. ‘You will report to me at the end of the day. I will be very surprised if either of us get any supper tonight.’

Before Ivy could stop herself, she blurted out, ‘What is this,
Oliver Twist
 
?’

Loud scoffs sounded around the room and Ivy caught more than a few sneers on the faces of her classmates. She sighed.
Today is not off to a good start
.

‘Oh my darkness, and then you were all like, “What is this,
Oliver Twist
 
?”’

Ivy groaned. Petra was skipping alongside her after class, quoting back Ivy’s run-in with Miss Avisrova for the umpteenth time. They passed the trophy case filled with polished bronze medals, plaques and trophies, awarded for everything from rugby to fencing to spelling bees.

‘I know, I was there,’ Ivy reminded Petra.

A girl with a red-and-black headband and silky brown hair patted her on the back. ‘Good show, Ivy.’ She flashed a grin.

Another student with glitzy diamond stud earrings and a fitted blazer came up and shook Ivy’s hand in the hall. ‘I’ve got to say, you’re pretty brave – if not a bit reckless.’

Ivy bit back a laugh. She didn’t want to offend anyone, but if they thought
that
was reckless, these girls wouldn’t last a day at Franklin Grove Middle School.
And that’s just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill suburban school!

Ivy was about to say as much when she saw Petra peering starry-eyed through the open door of a classroom. Ivy followed her gaze to where a crowd of boys, all dressed in smart black blazers and red ties, were sitting on desks and tossing paper aeroplanes at one another before class.

‘What are you –’

‘Come here!’ Petra pulled Ivy away from her new fan club and into an alcove at the end of the hall. ‘Check it out,’ she said, digging her notebook out of a leather cross-body satchel. Petra flipped through a few pages before folding back half the notebook and holding it up for Ivy to see.

Inside, Petra had doodled a picture of a boy and a girl perched side-by-side on a coffin while holding hands. In curling script, she’d labelled the girl ‘Me’ and the boy ‘Etan’. Hearts wrapped themselves around the border of the drawing, coloured in with red ink.
Petra must have a serious crush!

‘Cool sketches,’ said Ivy, running her fingers over the page.

‘That’s not all. The best bit is the poem,’ Petra explained, turning the page. Ivy scanned the lines of writing, catching words like ‘burning’, ‘passion’, and ‘darling’.

A love poem?
Ivy thought. It was a little cheesy for her taste.

‘I’ve never been able to write my poetry in class before.’ Petra hugged the notebook to her chest. ‘The teachers are always way too eagle-eyed. But while you were keeping Avisrova occupied in the lesson today, I got to pen this! I’m sticking close to you!’ She squeezed Ivy’s arm.

‘Um . . . thanks?’ said Ivy. She was glad she could help Petra, but she hadn’t planned on annoying a teacher so soon after arriving at the Academy, and she wasn’t sure she cared much about giving Petra opportunities to write silly love poems.
Still
, she thought,
at least someone can see a bright side to me getting detention!

Petra stuffed her notebook back in her satchel and pulled out her phone to check the time. ‘We’ve got five minutes until class. We better get going.’

Together, they stepped outside on to the lush Wallachia grounds. The grass sparkled with dew and Ivy took a deep breath, enjoying the aroma of the gardenia bushes that lined the stone walkway. All around them, young vampire students were lounging under shady oak trees, propped up against the trunks highlighting textbooks. Others were running around the lawn tossing frisbees. The scene looked like something out of one of those teen prep-school dramas Olivia watched on TV.

Petra and Ivy headed towards the school hall, where choir practice was due to start.

‘See that over there?’ asked Petra. ‘
That’s
the Gauntlet.’ Petra pointed towards a hill that sloped away from the girls’ dormitory before ending in a dense forest, filled with tall pines and broadleaved evergreens. Poison ivy writhed up tree trunks and red berries hung heavily from bushes. The forest floor was dense with leaves and nasty patches of nettles squatted at the base of tree trunks, waiting to sting anyone walking past.

Ivy stopped walking, cupping her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun. ‘What’s a gauntlet?’

‘
The
Gauntlet,’ Petra corrected her. ‘It’s what Wallachia Academy uses to keep girls and boys apart outside of lesson time. Haven’t you noticed that the only time we see the boys is when they’re on their way back to their dorm rooms or from their lessons? The Gauntlet is what separates our living quarters.’