Re-Vamped! (6 page)

“Ivy,”
Brendan said firmly, “we only have three weeks. It’s okay to be sad when you’re
gone. But I don’t want to spend time being sad while you’re still here.”

You’re
right,
Ivy thought.
And you’re mine!
She smiled, and together they raced across the arcade.

“I’m
warning you,” Brendan told her, “my high score is unbeatable!”

A few
minutes later, Ivy had sunk her second five-hundred-point bull’s-eye in a row.
“She’s . . . killing . . . me,” Brendan croaked. He slumped onto the empty next
lane, his eyes closed and his tongue lolling out of his mouth.

Grinning,
Ivy prepared for her next throw. She was just releasing the ball when Brendan
sprang up and hissed at her, baring imaginary fangs. The wooden ball careened
wildly up the slope, shot up against the top of the cage, and bounced out of
the alley.

“Brendan!”
Ivy scolded.

The
ball rolled onto the floor, and Ivy chased after it. For a moment she lost
sight of it among people’s legs, but then she spotted the ball as it collided
with someone’s black wingtip shoe with a hollow thump.

The
man whose foot she’d hit leaned down and scooped up the ball. He held it out in
front of him, staring at Ivy curiously. Underneath a gray wool overcoat, he was
wearing a dark blue shirt. He wore round glasses, and he had wild, graying
curly hair that emanated from his head in all directions. He looked like a
maniacal genius.

“S-sorry,”
Ivy stammered.

The
man dropped the ball into her hand.

“Dad!”
Brendan exclaimed, coming over to join Ivy. “What are you doing here?”

Ivy
turned to look at Brendan and then back at the man standing before her. She
couldn’t believe her luck. Not only was Brendan being more A positive about her
move to Europe than she could ever have hoped but now she was getting to meet
his father without even asking!

Brendan
inched up to his dad. “I’m on a date,” he murmured in a low voice.

Somehow,
Ivy thought,
embarrassment makes
him even more gorgeous.

“Your
mother asked me to tell you to be home in time for dinner,” Mr. Daniels said
haltingly. He glanced at Ivy again, then stared expectantly at Brendan.

“Dad,
this is Ivy. Ivy, this is my dad,” Brendan muttered.

Brendan’s
father extended his hand. “It is a great pleasure to meet you,” he said,
turning Ivy’s hand over in his own curiously. He looked up at her with
sparkling eyes. “I understand you have a twin sister?”

“Dad!”
Brendan scolded. He looked at Ivy apologetically. “My dad’s a geneticist.”

“It’s
okay,” Ivy said.
Mr. Daniels seems just as eager to talk to me as Olivia and
I are to talk to him!
she thought excitedly. “Great to meet you, Mr.
Daniels.”

He
peered into her eyes. “Any health problems as a child?” he asked clinically.

Ivy
thought about it. “No. I got a marble stuck in my ear once.”

“Are
you allergic to garlic?” he asked.

“Of
course,” Ivy answered.

“Inconceivable,”
Mr. Daniels muttered to himself.

“Sorry
to interrupt,” Brendan said, sounding annoyed, “but did I mention that Ivy and
I are on a
date
?” He grabbed his father’s arm and dragged him away.

A
minute later, Brendan reappeared, unaccompanied, next to Ivy at the Skee-Ball
game.

“Sorry
about that,” he said sheepishly as Ivy handed him a ball. “Ever since he heard
about you and Olivia, he’s been desperate to meet you.”

Brendan
shot the ball, and it bounced into the circle just outside the bull’s-eye.
“Four hundred points,” he announced.

“You
want to hear something deadly?” Ivy said, taking a ball. “I was actually going
to ask if I could talk to your dad.” She shot one hundred points and grimaced.

“How
come?” Brendan asked.

“Olivia
and I found a research study that he wrote about whether vamps and humans can
have babies. We kind of wanted to ask him about that.”

“Then
you would actually be willing to come over to our house for lunch on Sunday?”
Brendan said with a hint of relief. “My dad asked me to invite you and Olivia.”

“That
would be killer!” Ivy said.

“Maybe
to you,” remarked Brendan. “You don’t have to listen to him talk about work all
the time! But at least this way he can get all his scientific mumbo jumbo out
in one dose, and you and Olivia can ask any questions you want.”

“He
doesn’t know that Olivia knows about, you know, though, right?” Ivy said
cryptically.

“Ivy,”
Brendan assured her, “I would never tell anyone your secrets.
Especially
my parents.”

Smiling,
Ivy picked up the ball and aimed for the bull’s-eye. She’d invite Olivia to
lunch with Brendan’s family when she went to Olivia’s house for lunch tomorrow.
Ivy bowled the ball up the ramp, and it sailed into the five-hundred-point hole
in the center. “Yes!” she cried.

Brendan
sighed. “At least when you go,” he said, “I can have the high-score record for
North America back.”

Olivia
skulked to answer the door on Saturday afternoon. Since finding out that Ivy
was moving, her mom’s Ivy-related plans had become way too intense. Olivia
glared at her own makeup whitened face in the foyer mirror before opening the
door.

Ivy
looked her up and down. “Don’t you think it’s a little risky to try and switch
for lunch with your parents?” she whispered. “Besides, I would never wear black
pants and black flats like that— it looks far too businesslike.”

“I’m
not trying to be you,” Olivia seethed through clenched teeth. “My mom’s making
us all go Goth in your honor!”

Ivy
started laughing. “If you think
I
look funny,” Olivia huffed, “wait till
you see my parents!”

She
led Ivy to the dining room, where her mom had set the table. “Despite it being
weeks ago, we’re pretending it’s Halloween,” said Olivia glumly. Her mom had
draped the table with a black tablecloth on which she’d ironed white appliqué
skulls. In the center of the table was a candle, and there were cheesy napkins
with jacko’-lanterns on them from a costume party they’d had when Olivia was
like six.

“Ivy’s
here,” Olivia called in a loud voice.

Ivy
looked around, clearly confused that Olivia’s parents were nowhere to be seen.

Suddenly
there was a creaking noise, and just outside the French doors that opened onto
the patio, the basement cellar door was flung open. Out climbed Olivia’s dad
dressed in black leather pants, a dark purple button-down shirt, and a black
tie with glow-in-the-dark eyeballs on it. His breath looked like clouds of smoke
in the cold December air.

“Is
your father wearing eyeliner?” Ivy whispered.

Olivia
nodded, speechless with horror.

“Deadly
to see you, Ivy,” her father said haltingly as he opened the French doors and
came in.

“Hi,
Mr. Abbott.” Ivy smiled. “Nice pants.”

Suddenly
a few notes of eerie classical music boomed through the house, so loud that
Olivia and Ivy both put their hands to their ears. Somebody turned down the
volume abruptly, and then smoke started pouring out of the cellar.

“Dry
ice,” Olivia’s father said proudly.

A pale
hand emerged, quivering, from the cellar. Then Olivia’s mom floated up the
steps in a shredded black dress and bunny ears that she’d spray-painted black.
She was wearing heavy black makeup: eyeliner, mascara, lipstick—the works. She
was even wearing gray blush, which made her look sort of dead.

“Welcome
to the Abbott haunted house,” Olivia said under her breath.

Her
mom entered the dining room. “Greetings, Ivy!” she said dramatically—in a
British accent for no apparent reason.

Ivy
giggled and curtsied, which only made things worse.

They
all sat down to lunch, and Olivia’s mom proudly served up the Beef Ghoulash
she’d made. It smelled really gross, so Olivia tried not to breathe through her
nose at all. Her mom had made “blood” (tomato) soup specially for her, so she
stuck to that and helped herself to the blackened blue potato salad.

“So,
Ivy, Olivia tells us you live in quite a . . . pad?” Olivia’s dad attempted.
Olivia’s mom shook her head disapprovingly at him.

“Quite
a house?” he tried.

“One
as nightmarish as you can do better than that, Steve,” Olivia’s mom challenged.

“Quite
a ...crypt?”he said tentatively.

Her
mom nodded approvingly, and Olivia put her head in her hands.

Ivy
grinned. “Our house is one of the oldest in Franklin Grove,” she answered.

Olivia
couldn’t believe that her sister actually seemed to be enjoying herself. She
decided to try and steer the conversation away from Gothrelated topics, so
that, just maybe, her parents would stop embarrassing her.

“You
know, Ivy was once a cheerleader,” Olivia said brightly.

“Really?”
Olivia’s mom asked eagerly, her regular perky self showing through for a
moment.

Ivy
nodded. “It’s true,” she confirmed. And as she told Mr. and Mrs. Abbott all
about it, Olivia hoped she’d hit on the one subject her parents couldn’t
possibly turn Goth.

Olivia’s
dad cleared his throat. “Go on, Audrey,” he said encouragingly. “Let your
darkness shine!”

“Well,
actually,” Olivia’s mom began, “when we were decorating today, a little Goth
cheer happened to come into my head.”

Olivia
groaned. “Please, no!”

Ivy
elbowed her sister and said, “I’d love to hear it.”

Olivia
shot her a death squint as her parents stood up and moved to the side of the
table. Her mom struck some sort of zombie pose, her dad did the same, and
Olivia wished the floor would open up and swallow her.

“We
are Gothic. We are dark!” Olivia’s mom moved jerkily as she chanted and struck
a new zombie pose when she stopped.

“We
are Gothic in the park!” Mr. Abbott chimed in.

Olivia
rolled her eyes. Then her parents started chanting together.

“See
us brood and see us prowl. We will scare you with our growl! Grrr, grr, grr!”

Ivy
clapped loudly. “I’d love to see Olivia and the squad do that one,” she said,
grinning.

Olivia’s
mom looked hopeful as she sat back down at the table.

“Maybe
you could teach it to me later,” Olivia said wearily.

After
what seemed like hours, everybody finished eating and Olivia jumped to her
feet. “I’ll clear the table,” she volunteered.

“I’ll
help,” Ivy offered.

Olivia’s
mom started to protest, but Olivia said, “Have a seat, Elvira!”

“It’s
customary in Goth culture for the twin girls to clear the dishes,” Ivy added
with a smile.

“I
guess we could get used to that,” Olivia’s mom responded, grinning at her
husband.

Once
they’d made it into the kitchen, Olivia set the plates down and turned to look
at her sister. “Are you freaking out?” she blurted. “Because I’m freaking out!”

“No,”
Ivy answered. “Why?”

“You
don’t think this is strange behavior for parents?” Olivia demanded.

“Olivia,
my father won’t even meet you!” Ivy said. “At least your parents are trying.
Besides, if you think you’re embarrassed by your parents, you should have seen
Brendan at the mall last night when his dad showed up.”

Olivia
put down the sponge. “You met Brendan’s father?”

Ivy
nodded. “He wants you and me to come over to their house for lunch tomorrow.
Apparently, Mr. Daniels has been dying to talk to us. Can you come?”

“Sure!”
Olivia said, rinsing a plate. “Do you really think he might be able to prove I
have some vamp in me?”

Ivy
glanced nervously toward the doorway to make sure no one was around. “You can’t
say anything like that tomorrow at the Daniels’, Olivia. If Brendan’s parents
find out that I told you, who knows what might happen?”

How
are we supposed to talk about anything with Brendan’s father,
Olivia thought,
if we’re not
allowed to talk about anything?
At the same time, she knew her sister was
right.

Olivia
was drying the last dish when she realized she was dreading returning to the
dining room, where her parents were still posing as Goths.

“Would
it be okay if I didn’t go shopping with you and my mom?” Olivia asked Ivy
tentatively.

“
Yo u
don’t want to go
shopping
?” Ivy marveled.

“I
can’t take any more of my mom’s weirdness,” Olivia admitted. “I could stay here
and do more research on the Internet—like, looking up twins in Owl Creek.”

“Okay,”
Ivy agreed. “I’ve never had a mother before. It’ll suck to have one to myself
for a whole afternoon.”