Fangtastic!

Ivy
Vega trudged sleepily into the breakfast room, slid into her chair, and rested
her cheek on the cool stone table. She wished she was still in her coffin.
Monday mornings were the worst.

“Good
morning, sleepy bones,” her father said, placing a bowl next to her head.

“Shh,”
Ivy murmured, her eyes closed. “I’m still sleeping.”

“It’s
your favorite,” her dad coaxed. “Marshmallow Platelets.”

Ivy
peered at the little white marshmallows and maroon bits bobbing in their milky
sea. “Thanks,” she mumbled.

Her
father, already dressed for work in black chinos and a black pin-striped shirt
with French cuffs, sipped his tea and picked up the remote control. “There is
nothing better for a young person’s dull morning mind,” he said, “than dull
morning television.”

He
flipped through the weather and some talk shows before settling on
The
Morning Star
.

“Please
no,” Ivy said. “Just looking at Serena Star’s smile gives me sunburn.”

Serena
Star, WowTV’s best celebrity reporter, had impossibly bright, bleached blond
hair and eyes that looked as if they’d been surgically enhanced to be
permanently wide open in either adoration or shock. Lately she’d been trying to
cast herself as a serious journalist on her own morning news show,
The
Morning Star
. Just the other day, Ivy had turned the TV off in exasperation
after Serena had said, “Tell me, Mr. Senator, how does it feel to have a law
named after you?”

This
morning, Serena Star was standing with her back to a small crowd of people,
talking into her microphone. She was wearing a tiny blue suede miniskirt under
a knee-length trench coat, and the look in her wide eyes said “shock!” She was
in a park or maybe a graveyard. A scruffy, black-clad teenager stood beside her—

Ivy’s dad
flipped the channel.

“Turn
back!” Ivy blurted.

“But
you said—”

“I
know. Turn back!” she repeated.

Ivy
could not believe her eyes. The boy standing next to Serena Star was none other
than Garrick Stephens, one of the lamest vampires at her school. He and his
bonehead friends—everyone called them the Beasts—were always pulling dumb
stunts, like seeing which one of them could eat the most garlic croutons
without getting seriously ill. They weren’t nearly as scary as they smelled,
but they’d been annoying since forever.

What
is he doing on national TV?
Ivy
wondered.

“I
think that’s the local cemetery,” her dad said.

Ivy
realized he was right—this was being filmed less than five blocks from their
house.

The
camera panned over to an empty grave, and Ivy’s dad turned up the volume.

“...yesterday’s
small-town funeral went horribly wrong,” Serena Star was saying off screen. “Local
deceased man, Mr. Alan Koontz, was scheduled for burial here at the Franklin
Grove Memorial Cemetery. As Mr. Koontz was being lowered into the ground,
eyewitnesses say that his casket creaked open.” The camera zoomed in on a shiny
midnight-blue coffin lying open next to the grave. “In a bizarre turn of
events, out climbed an allegedly
live
person!” Serena continued. “Mr.
Koontz’s widow immediately fainted and was rushed to Franklin Grove General
Hospital for treatment.”

Serena
Star’s frowning face reappeared on the screen. “Friends of the family say that
the person who emerged bore no resemblance to Mr. Koontz and was, in fact, a teenage
boy.” The camera pulled back to reveal Garrick, who was licking his palm and
then using it to slick back his hair.

Ivy
was frowning now, too; Garrick and his friends didn’t know the meaning of the
word “discreet.” They probably couldn’t even spell it. Ever since they were
little kids, Ivy had always been amazed at how close the Beasts routinely came
to breaking the First Law of the Night: vampires are
never
supposed to
reveal their true selves to an outsider.

Thinking
about that made Ivy feel uncomfortable. After all, she’d recently broken the
First Law herself. She’d had no choice, though: she couldn’t possibly keep the
fact that she was a vampire secret from her identical twin, Olivia, even if
Olivia was human.

She
and Olivia had only discovered each other at the beginning of the school year.
They’d been separated at birth and adopted by different parents, so Ivy hadn’t
known that she had a twin until Olivia turned up at Franklin Grove Middle
School. And it had been just as great a shock to Olivia.

I
may have broken the First Law, but at least I didn’t reveal myself to the whole
world on national TV!
Ivy thought.

Serena
Star looked squarely at the camera. “I, Serena Star, now bring you an exclusive
interview with the thirteen-year-old boy who was almost buried alive. I think
you’ll agree it’s a story that’s truly . . . INDEADIBLE!” A graphic with the
word “INDEADIBLE!” materialized on the screen over Garrick’s head, and Ivy
rolled her eyes. Serena was always making up lame words for her on-screen headlines.

“Awesome!”
Garrick Stephens grinned.

Ivy’s
head ached.
How in the underworld,
she thought,
are we going to cover
up a vampire popping out of a coffin in the middle of a funeral?

“Mr.
Stephens.” Serena Star turned to face her subject. “How do you feel?”

“I
feel great!” Garrick said.

“Amazing!”
Serena commented, with a slight frown. She had clearly been expecting Garrick
to be upset. “How long were you in that coffin?”

“Like
seven, eight hours.”

“That
must have been very unsettling,” Serena Star prompted sympathetically.

“Only
when those pallbearer guys carried it around and woke me up,” Garrick said,
shooting a peeved look off camera.

“Are
you saying you were asleep in there?” asked Serena Star, her wide eyes widening
even further.

“Yeah,”
Garrick answered. “I slept like I was dead.”

Ivy
winced as Serena Star shook her head in disbelief. “You almost sound like you
enjoyed yourself.”

Garrick
shrugged.

“Mr.
Stephens,” Serena Star said, a hint of disapproval in her voice, “what kind of
person sleeps in a coffin?”

“It
wasn’t my idea.” Garrick shrugged.

“Oh?”
said Serena Star. “Whose idea was it?”

Garrick
was about to answer, but then he seemed to think better of it. He crossed his
arms. “I don’t want to get them into trouble.”

“Are
you saying the people who did this to you are
friends
of yours?” Serena
Star asked.

“Totally,”
Garrick replied, grinning.

“You
mean—”

“We’re
the kings of Franklin Grove Middle School!” Garrick cried, mugging wildly. “Yo,
Kyle, Ricky, Dylan! I’m on TV!”

What
an utter dork!
thought Ivy.

“What
exactly did your friends have in mind?” Serena Star probed.

“They
dared me to climb in,” Garrick explained, his eyes glinting mischievously. “That’s
why I did it.”

Ivy
could tell Garrick was lying from the smug look on his face. He was just
pretending it was a dare to avoid revealing any vampire secrets—like the fact
that they slept in coffins. Still, it was a pretty lame alibi, especially
because he kept going on about how it was “the best sleep” of his life.

“The
Interna 3 is the sweetest coffin ever,” he gushed, grabbing the microphone. “When
they say ‘rest in peace,’ they mean it!”

“Mr.
Stephens, please,” Serena interrupted. “That still doesn’t explain how you
ended up at Mr. Koontz’s funeral.”

“Oh,
right. My friends just sort of thought it would be funny to leave me in there—thanks
a lot guys!” Garrick winked. “Then the funeral home got the coffins mixed up.
Did you know the Interna 3 is the best-selling coffin in America?”

Serena
Star yanked the microphone away. “Are we to believe that this was really just
an innocent student prank?” she said to Garrick, who shrugged again.

“Or,”
she continued, turning slowly to the camera, “is there something
more
sinister
at work?”

Uh-oh.
Ivy thought.
Serena Star smells blood.
“Clearly, a gruesome obsession with death,” Serena went on as the camera zoomed
in for a close-up of her shocked face, “nearly cost this misguided young misfit
his life!”

“Who
are you calling misguided?” Garrick’s voice whined off-screen.

“And
he isn’t alone,” Serena said, ignoring Garrick. “One look around this sleepy
town reveals a dark obsession consuming the minds of its children.” The live
feed cut briefly to footage of the mall, showing a group of Goth sixth-graders.

“Are
the youth of America next?” Serena asked ominously, as she reappeared
on-screen. Then she frowned with determination. “I, Serena Star, will not rest
until I find out the evil truth behind what’s happening here.”

Oh
no,
Ivy thought.
She’s going to say that line of hers.

“Because
the Star of truth must shine!” Serena Star declared dramatically, pumping her
microphone in the air. It really was the worst journalistic sign-off Ivy had
ever heard. “This is Serena Star. Wake up, America!”

A
commercial came on, and Ivy’s dad shut off the TV. “You must promise me,” he
said, “that if you are ever on television, you will make a better impression
than that boy Garrick Stephens.”

“It’s
not funny, Dad,” Ivy said. “If Serena Star starts seriously investigating Goths
in Franklin Grove, you know what she might find. What if she scoops the
existence of vampires? None of us will ever be safe again!”

Her
father put down his tea. “Ivy,” he said, “we are talking about a woman best
known for her special exposé on the footwear of the rich and famous! I very
much doubt she’s capable of finding any real proof. Besides, the moment there’s
a new bit of Hollywood gossip, Serena Star will forget all about Franklin
Grove.”

Ivy
sighed. “I hope you’re right,” she said, standing up to take her empty bowl into
the kitchen, “because if not, it’s going to be really hard to get Marshmallow
Platelets around here.”

As
they pulled up in front of Franklin Grove Middle School on Monday morning,
Olivia Abbott was applying her pink lipstick in the visor mirror when she heard
her mother gasp. Olivia flipped up the visor to see the front steps of the
school packed with people and a string of TV news vans lining the curb.

“Wow!”
said Olivia. Her mother double-parked and started to get out of the car.

Olivia
grabbed her mom’s arm. “Where are you going?”

“I
want to see what all the commotion’s about,” her mother replied.

Olivia
shook her head. “You can’t come with me into school.”

“Why
not?” her mother asked.

“Because
I’m in eighth grade,” Olivia explained.