She clicked on Olivia’s avatar and waited for the connection to kick in. She hadn’t spoken to her grandparents at all since arriving at the academy a few days ago. She’d chatted with her father, Charles, only once. No wonder I keep calling Olivia. I need some contact with the outside world!
Static blinked across the screen. Something’s happening! Ivy sat up straighter. A sharp picture appeared on the monitor. A bright Franklin Grove morning shone through the open set of French doors that led out into Olivia’s backyard. Ivy could practically smell the freshly mown lawns and newly potted pansies from clear across the Atlantic.
‘One second!’ she heard a voice call from off-screen.
Ivy tapped her black onyx nails on the surface of her desk. Olivia was a full six hours behind her, so while it was mid morning for Ivy’s twin, outside Ivy’s window in Transylvania the sun was already setting. Trees cast long shadows across the school grounds; the light outside had grown dim and fuzzy. Turrets spiralled up into the evening sky, and down below teachers in long black gowns scurried to their quarters. Ivy switched on her desk lamp.
Who would have thought Ivy Vega would get nostalgic at the sight of a little sun? I’m a vampire, for goodness’ sake! Pitch black was kind of supposed to be her thing. But she couldn’t help that she missed her hometown. She hadn’t been one hundred per cent sure she’d wanted to attend Wallachia in the first place, even if it was tradition in elite vampire society.
Olivia’s adoptive dad, Mr Abbott, suddenly entered the frame on Ivy’s laptop. He was wrapped in a white bathrobe with the sash tied around his forehead. He was several feet away from the camera lens, in the middle of Olivia’s backyard, struggling to position two stools side-by-side and lay a plank of wood across the top.
This does not look good. Ivy knew that Olivia’s dad was an amateur martial artist – was he going through his routines now? Ivy tried to stay very still so that he wouldn’t notice her image on the computer screen. I don’t want to disturb him. If he breaks any bones, it won’t be my fault!
He took three steps back, slipping momentarily out of the picture, before charging forwards, arms raised in the air like a deranged whooping crane. ‘Hiiiiiyyaaaaaaaah!’ he screamed, slamming the side of his hand down on the plank.
Ivy cringed as Mr Abbott came away shaking his red karate-chopping hand. He picked up the plank and turned it around. As if that’s going to help, Ivy thought. She wanted to cover her eyes but it was like a car crash she couldn’t stop watching.
He wound up again, preparing for his running start. ‘Hiiiiiyyaaaaaaaah!’ he repeated. This time his hand smacked the stiff wood with such force that he lost his footing and slipped backwards, falling hard on the garden mulch.
‘Sorry about that.’ Olivia popped into the frame. She was stirring a bowl of cereal with a spoon. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail and she had a bright purple scarf looped round her neck. ‘Now, where were we?’
‘Um, Olivia?’ Ivy pointed over her twin’s shoulder. ‘Is your dad OK?’
Mr Abbott was struggling to roll over. The white sash tied around his forehead had fallen down over his eyes. ‘Did I break it?’ he moaned, crawling to his feet.
‘Not this time,’ called Olivia happily from just within the open French doors, before turning to whisper to Ivy. ‘Don’t worry. He’s trying to earn his yellow belt. Been working on that plank all week and hasn’t broken a finger yet.’ She shrugged. ‘So, how’s it going?’
‘Well,’ Ivy said, scooping up her laptop, ‘shall I give you the grand tour?’
‘Absolutely! Except right now the only thing I can see is a close-up of your cheek.’
‘Oops, sorry.’ Ivy pulled the webcam lens away from her face. She’d been cradling it as she span in her chair. She angled the video camera and the screen to face the room. ‘Better?’
‘Much!’
‘Here’s my closet.’ Ivy tried to do a quick sweep of the camera across the mess that was her wardrobe, but her sister wasn’t going to be fooled.
‘Ivy Vega,’ Olivia exclaimed. ‘Is that your closet? It looks like a natural disaster hit it! Go back, go back – I want to see the full horror.’ Reluctantly, Ivy turned the camera back on her closet. Crumpled T-shirts, skinny jeans and leggings littered the floor.
‘It’s not my fault!’ Ivy protested. ‘It’s cramped in here. See?’ She made a grand gesture with her arm. ‘This is the rest of my room. Well, my room that I share with five other girls.’ She showed Olivia the row of coffins that were arranged one on top of the other on wooden stilts, just like extra-special bunk beds with velvet-lined lids!
Photo collages of her room-mates and cool vintage posters of black-and-white Hollywood movies were plastered above the coffins, and each girl had a silver name plaque engraved in fancy script – Petra, Katrina, Anastasia, Alexandra, Galina and Ivy. Ivy had personalised her space by taping up a strip of pictures that she, Brendan and Olivia had taken in the photo booth outside the Franklin Grove movie theatre. Ivy was in the middle, making an exaggerated face of disgust, while Brendan and Olivia were kissing her cheeks on either side, smooshing her face in. Good times, thought Ivy, with a sudden twist in the pit of her stomach.
‘Oooh!’ Olivia gushed. ‘You have room-mates! How do you like them? Do you stay up late and gossip, or play Secrets and Lies?’ Olivia was remembering the vampire game they had played together at Tessa’s bachelorette party.
Ivy frowned. ‘They’re OK. But it’s not exactly an Ivy-friendly set-up, if you know what I mean. Six girls, six coffins. That means lots of chatter, especially after “nails-in”.’
‘Nails-in?’ echoed Olivia.
‘The vamp version of lights-out,’ explained Ivy, turning the camera back on herself.
‘Ah.’ Olivia giggled. ‘You’re not exactly Miss Sunshine most days, but a sleep-deprived Ivy? I bet that could scare even the most hardened vampire!’ At that, Olivia’s eyes went as wide as an anime character’s – not that Ivy could find any anime in Transylvania. It was all classic Russian novels and Victorian poetry.
‘OK, OK. Ha, ha. Enough with the fake shocked look.’ Ivy rolled her darkly lined eyes. ‘Surely I’m not that scary, especially not from several thousand miles away through a webcam.’
Olivia’s eyes were still round, and now she was shaking her head slowly. ‘No, it’s not that,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘I don’t want to alarm you, but –’ she touched her finger to the screen – ‘I think there’s a bat in your dorm room!’
Ivy swivelled to check out the bat perched on top of the armoire. Its paper-thin wings were wrapped round its fuzzy brown body and its pointy ears stuck out from its head like an elf’s. She shrugged. ‘Oh, don’t worry, that’s just Ivan.’
‘Ivan?’ Olivia wrinkled her nose as if she’d just smelled week-old rubbish.
‘Yeah, everyone gets a bat on their first day at Wallachia. He’s harmless, but a little – what’s the word I’m looking for?’ She pressed a finger into her dimple, like she was thinking hard. ‘Bitey.’
Olivia shuddered. At least Ivy thought it was a shudder, but it could have been a glitch in the internet connection. Ivy was already getting tired of dealing with the difficulties of overseas communication. ‘No offence,’ Olivia was saying, ‘but if that’s the case, I might not be in a hurry to visit any time soon!’
Ivy swallowed hard. She knew her sister was joking, but she didn’t want Olivia to see that her joke had made her feel instantly homesick. ‘Anyway,’ Ivy said, trying to sound natural. ‘The