11 Flying Solo - My Sister the Vampire (7 page)

She stared blankly at the back of the head of the person in front of her as the bearded man asked, ‘What is the lead singer’s cat’s name?’

Olivia felt like someone had shaken her brain and erased it like an etch-o-sketch.

‘Zombie Gray!’ answered the girl, who was wearing fishnet stockings and knee-high boots. She took her tickets and waved them around.

It was Olivia’s turn. She shuffled forwards as if on autopilot.

‘Name?’ the man asked, scratching at his beard and looking bored.

Olivia squared her shoulders. ‘Ivy Vega.’

He rifled through his list of winners. ‘Vega, Vega . . . Ah, here you are.’ He looked from the picture to Olivia and back at the picture again. Olivia held her breath. ‘Right,’ he continued. ‘Your question is: What is the third line in the second song on the first album?’

Say what?!
This was definitely not something they had studied. Olivia felt herself go whiter than the shade of Pale Beauty make-up she was wearing. How was she going to wing
this
?

Eyes wide, she looked over at Brendan and Sophia, who had already begun performing a ridiculous game of charades. Olivia squinted. She knew they were trying to tell her the answer, but what on earth were they miming?

Sophia was furiously tapping her chest with one hand and pointing at Brendan with the other, while Brendan had brought his fingertips together in a sharp point and was making swift prodding motions into the air.

Chest? No. Heart? Love . . . thumping . . . pointy thing . . . crying?

Olivia shook her head, turning back to the man at the box office, who was now reading the sports pages, waiting for Olivia to respond.
Might as well give it a try
, she thought.

‘
This love is like a stake in the heart
 
?’ she said.

He peeled his eyes away from the newspaper to read the answer sheet. ‘Here you go,’ he said, sliding three tickets towards her. Olivia snatched them.
Seriously? I did it?
She wanted to jump for joy, but she was pretty sure goths weren’t allowed to show that much enthusiasm about anything. Instead, she walked coolly over to Brendan and Sophia, wondering:
Who would listen to a song about love and stakes?

Half an hour later, Olivia was busy avoiding getting her toes crushed beneath combat boots in a sea of goth girls and guys, who were all so ghostly pale it almost looked as if they’d drained the colour from the usually vibrant park. The three of them scoped out a spot on the grass and spread a blanket among the other concertgoers, who all sat in clusters, waiting for the gig to start.

‘This –’ Sophia stared up at the blazing spotlights – ‘is killer.’ They were sprawled out in the Winner’s Enclosure right beneath the stage and even Olivia had to admit, it was pretty cool. She had never seen a live band playing this close up.

‘You ready to hear your new favourite song?’ Brendan nudged Olivia playfully.

She dropped her chin. ‘Any song that compares love to being staked will not be gracing my iPod!’

The lights dimmed and a roaring cheer rose from the crowd. Brendan pulled Olivia to her feet just before the crowd surged forwards. The place was a madhouse! She clung to Brendan’s hand so as not to be crushed.
Pall Bearer fans are rabid
.

‘Brendan!’ Olivia yelled, still clutching on to him. His hand was scalding hot, like he had a 110 degree fever. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, yeah,’ he said, letting go. ‘I’m fine.’

Olivia peered up at Ivy’s boyfriend. She couldn’t put her finger on why, but she didn’t think Brendan was telling the truth. He looked hot and flustered.
Something’s definitely wrong
. Before she could ask any more questions, music blasted from the speakers and amps situated at the end of the stage. How could vampires stand this? They had super-sensitive hearing, but Olivia could barely handle it, and she was human! It was the single loudest noise she had ever heard. She would have plugged her ears if only her arms weren’t pinned to her sides in the crowd crush. Now all she could do was cringe. She felt like her parents:
Turn the music down!

Sophia bounced next to her, pumping her fist to the pounding drum beat. A red light illuminated the stage, revealing The Pall Bearers, dressed in skinny jeans and ripped T-shirts. The lead guitarist jammed on the strings of his instrument and what came out was a tuneless, rhythmless mess.

Fright Night, nocturnal delight

Turn out the light and

Scream with all your might . . .

Olivia had nothing against goths, but they had terrible taste in music.
This could not possibly get any worse
. . . Or at least that was what Olivia thought before the dancing started. If it could even be called ‘dancing’. First, the crowd surged one way and then the other, like an angry, writhing snake, and Olivia was wrenched along in the current.

‘Ouch!’ Someone stomped on her toe. ‘Oof!’ An elbow jabbed into her back and she lurched forwards. When she regained her balance, she tried standing on tiptoes so that she could just see over the shoulders of the people directly in front. There was a little clearing within the mass of people, in which a bunch of rowdy boys were shoving and kicking each other, yelling, ‘Mosh, mosh, mosh, mosh!’
And this is supposed to be fun?
Olivia thought.

There was a brief lull between the first and second songs and Olivia jumped at the opportunity to talk to Sophia. ‘Mind if I head out now?’ She tugged at the sleeve of Sophia’s faded Pall Bearers T-shirt. ‘I’m not sure I feel like being deaf tomorrow.’ Her ears were ringing already.

Sophia wrapped Olivia in a tight hug. ‘Thank you so, so much for coming through for us. I was beyond excited for this concert. You have no idea.’

Despite her full-body discomfort, Olivia couldn’t help but smile. So what if she had to suffer a few bruised ribs and a little hearing loss?
Totally worth it
.
If only Ivy could be here
. . .

Olivia had started to thread her way through the crowd when the lead singer came to the front of the stage with the microphone. ‘For this next song, we’ll need a volunteer back-up singer.’

A million cries of, ‘Pick me, pick me!’ sounded from all around the crowd. One thing was for sure, Olivia was not among them. She looked over her shoulder. The singer was a handsome but wiry goth guy, wearing a dragon-design T-shirt –
or, wait!
– Olivia looked closer.
Perhaps it’s one massive tattoo!

‘We’ve picked one person at random from our lucky competition winners.’ He unfolded a piece of paper and waved it over head. ‘Where is Ivy Vega?’

Olivia stopped dead, her jaw dropping open.
No
.
Way
.

‘Why did we ever think I would be able to pull this off without getting into some kind of weird trouble?’ she hissed to Brendan. Sophia’s eyebrows shot up and she slapped her hands to her cheeks.

So sorry
, Sophia mouthed.

Why am I even surprised?
Olivia thought. Every single time she and Ivy switched places, it caused some sort of craziness – chaos, confusion, embarrassment.
You name it, I’ve had it
.

Before Olivia knew what was happening, she was being hoisted on to the shoulders of the rabid Pall Bearers fans. She had a brief flash of the moment when her classmates at Franklin Grove paraded her around the gym after the school dance she’d planned. But the memory came to an abrupt halt when Olivia was tipped on her back and crowd-surfed all the way to the stage.

She stumbled on to her feet, forced upright by the sheer power of the crowd behind her. Olivia stared out at the ocean of black. The sight of the churning, surging fans gave her a strange, queasy feeling in the pit of her stomach almost like vertigo. The stage lights beat down on her with white-hot heat.

From stage right, she noticed a roadie approaching her . . . with a microphone!
The horror!
Olivia started to panic. She numbly took hold of it. This could not be happening to her. The thought of karaoke was terrifying and this was a hundred times worse. She spotted Brendan and Sophia at the foot of the stage, their mouths open in shock.

The lead singer –
what’s his name again?
– made the devil horns gesture to her with his fingers sticking up behind his ears. Not knowing what else to do, Olivia returned it.

‘Right on!’ he said, performing a high-flying jump and stamping down on the stage. ‘Now I’m sure Ivy knows what to do,’ the singer told the crowd. ‘But just in case she’s a little nervous, why don’t we help her out by reminding her how the chorus goes.’ Olivia wiped the sweat off her forehead, wishing she had a paper bag to hyperventilate into. ‘When I say, “I”, you say –’ he held the microphone out to the crowd – ‘
hate you!
’

‘Got it.’ Olivia nodded.

Ivy’s vampire education had better be worth it
, she thought.
Because next time I see her, she is going to have to use everything she’s learned to talk her way out of trouble!

Chapter Five

I
wonder what Olivia is doing right now?

Ivy had suffered in silence through three full days of classes and Miss Avisrova had still managed to pick on everything Ivy had done in Etiquette class. Ivy used the wrong toothpick on her fangs. Ivy didn’t know which side of the plate her blood goblet should be on. Ivy had no clue how to waltz to the
Vampire Sonata
!

But really, could learning proper etiquette take a
whole school year
 
? Luckily, Ivy had other classes that Avisrova didn’t teach. She never thought she’d be so thankful for History of Vampire Monarchies, but at least it gave her a break.

The biggest bright spot was still, by far, Herbal Science. Every day, Ivy looked forward to her trek out to the greenhouse. For instance, yesterday, Helga had taught them how to cultivate herbs properly. With Petra as her lab partner, Ivy had helped plant, water and fertilise a variety of herbs, some familiar and others vamp-exotic – like the Fang Fennel with its spiky stalks that made a biting motion if a hand came at it too quickly.

Today, Herbal Science was the second class of the day. Ivy arrived carrying a steaming travel mug filled with hot plasma tea, scooted out her stool from under a table on the girls’ side of the room and plopped herself down.

Herbal Science was the only class Ivy had where boys and girls were taught in the same classroom. Otherwise, just as Petra had said, they were kept so segregated that Ivy thought the Wallachia staff might believe it was still possible for students to catch the plague from one another. Even now they were divided by a long table running down the centre of the greenhouse, and the height of the seemingly hundreds of potted plants made it nearly impossible for the boys and girls to see each other. Ivy hadn’t even realised there
were
guys in the class the first day!

Helga clapped her hands to get the students’ attention. She was standing on top of a tall podium so that she could look down on both sides of the classroom at once – the boys’ side and the girls’ side.
Helga’s really growing into a great teacher
, thought Ivy. A small garden hoe and a miniature rake stuck out of the front pockets of Helga’s apron. Her engagement ring flashed in the beams of natural light shining through the greenhouse windows.

‘Everyone, for today’s lesson, first I’ll be showing you the correct way to extract certain types of herbs from the ground so as not to lose their potency, and then I’ll let
you
try doing it. Sound good?’

This was more like it for Ivy – actually
doing
things. She’d never have thought that she would enjoy using gardening tools and wearing those stinky gloves, but she did. It beat stuffy Etiquette class any day.

After Helga had demonstrated gently digging out the roots of a Caped Parsley plant, Ivy retrieved a set of gardening tools from the bins and spread them out on the table.