Free Fangtastic! by Sienna Mercer

their trail,” she said slowly, “trying to expose them as
vampires.”
    “That’s
ridiculous,” her dad said briskly.
    “How
do you know?” Ivy asked. “Did they leave a note with the vamp adoption agency
or something?”
    Her
dad threw his hands in the air. “No, of course not.” He started rummaging
around in the fridge.
    “And
you never found out anything about them?” Ivy pressed.
    Her
dad closed the fridge without taking anything out and turned back to Ivy. “I
received nothing but your name, your place and date of birth, and your ring.”
He smiled and gave Ivy a hug. “But no matter. You yourself are all that matters—not
your parents. You must look to the future, my Ivy—”
    “Not
back to the past,” Ivy finished for him, rolling her eyes. “You always say
that!”
    “I say
it,” he said gently, “because it is true.” And with that, he picked up his
newspaper and walked out of the room.
    But
it’s not true for me anymore ,
Ivy thought as she leaned against the counter. I want to know more—not just
for my sake but for my sister’s . She had no choice but to see what she
could find out on her own.
    At the
beginning of lunch period, Olivia bounced into the school’s editing suite and
sank onto a swivel chair in front of a button-packed console. She and Camilla
had reserved the suite so that they could record the voice-over for their
documentary. As she waited for her friend to arrive, Olivia pulled out the
script they’d written and quietly started rehearsing her lines—she was going to
play Great-aunt Edna.
    “My
dear duke,” she whispered. Suddenly, the room’s loudspeaker crackled to life. “OLIVIA
ABBOTT,” boomed a computerized voice. “I COMMAND YOU TO TELL ME THE DEEP, DARK
SECRET OF FRANKLIN GROVE!” Startled, Olivia leaped to her feet. “OR ELSE!” the
voice finished.
    Olivia
peered around, confused and a little frightened. What is this, some weird
Serena Star interrogation tactic? she wondered.
    Suddenly,
a slim door in the corner of the room flew open, and Camilla stuck her blond
curly head around it. “Is this place neat or what?” she grinned. Behind her
Olivia could see a tiny gray room with padded walls and a microphone hanging
from the ceiling. Hers was the voice Olivia had heard.
    Olivia
flopped back into her chair. “You scared the living daylights out of me!” she
wailed.
    “Sorry,”
said Camilla mischievously. “So”— she grabbed the script from Olivia’s hand—“have
you figured out who’s going to play the duke?”
    “I
asked Brendan Daniels, Ivy’s boyfriend,” Olivia answered.
    Camilla
looked pleased. “He’s perfect.”
    “Unfortunately,”
Olivia went on, “he can’t do it. He has band practice right now.”
    “Oh,”
Camilla said disappointedly.
    “Maybe
we can grab someone else,” Olivia said, rising from her chair and sticking her
head out into the hallway. There weren’t many people around, but then she
spotted her sister, trudging along, looking totally ticked off about something.
Olivia caught her eye and waved her over.
    “Hey,”
Olivia said. “What’s wrong?”
    “What’s
wrong,” growled Ivy in a low voice, “is that I’m fed up with having that
bloodhound Toby Decker on my trail! All I’ve wanted to do all morning is call
the vamp adoption agency, but I can’t do that with him watching me all the
time.”
    Olivia
scanned the hallway over her sister’s shoulder and spotted Toby peeking out
from behind someone’s open locker door. Today he was wearing a striped tie.
From a distance, he almost looked like an old-fashioned aristocrat instead of a
slightly dorky eighth-grader.
    “I
have an idea,” Olivia sang, straightening her sparkly pink top and gently
pushing past her sister.
    Toby
noticed Olivia approaching and stepped out from behind the locker door. He
smoothed his hair back with his hand.
    “Hi,
Toby!” Olivia said. “What are you up to?”
    Toby
blushed. “Oh, you know. Nothing,