Switched by Sienna Mercer Page A

widow’s peak—a
point in the center of his forehead—which made him look vaguely vampiric.
Olivia wondered what color his eyes really were. She pictured him climbing out
of a coffin earlier that morning, pajamas still on.
    Then
she realized that if her goofy math teacher could be a vampire, anyone could!
She turned her attention to a stocky Goth boy with an earring and spiky hair
sitting at a nearby desk. His hand rested next to his notebook, and there was a
leering skull-and-crossbones ring on his pinky. Now that she thought about it,
Olivia realized that she’d never seen him open his mouth. Was it because he
hadn’t had his fangs filed?
    She
could deal with her sister being a vampire, because she knew Ivy would never do
anything to hurt her. It was all the other vampires at Franklin Grove Middle
School that Olivia was suddenly worried about. She surreptitiously counted the
number of other students in the class: twenty-one possible vampires. She pulled
her cardigan more tightly around herself.
    What
about the cheerleaders? she
wondered. Nobody said a vampire couldn’t wear pink. Besides, if anyone had some
evil in her, it was Charlotte Brown. Now I’m being ridiculous , Olivia
told herself. No way is Charlotte cool enough to be a vampire!
    She
looked down at her blank paper and wrote, “VAMPIRES DO NOT EAT BUNNIES” ten
times without stopping. It sort of helped, except that, when she was done, she
realized she’d missed out on how to calculate the area of a trapezoid.
    By the
end of class, Olivia was obsessing about the ball planning meeting after
school. Everyone was nice to Ivy, but what if they discovered she was an
impostor? What if they found out that she knew their secret? Ivy had said there
could be trouble....
    Quickly
Olivia tried to think of some sort of protection she could take with her, just
in case. She had a nearly empty nail polish bottle in her purse. She thought
maybe she could empty it and then fill it with holy water. But, then, what if
that was a myth, too? And where was she going to get holy water, anyway? Would
a pencil count as a stake? she asked herself. She did have two of those in
her purse. Garlic! she thought suddenly. At least she knew that wasn’t
a myth.
    At
lunch, Olivia was hoping for a garlic infused daily special, but no luck. The
specials board announced that today it was crab salad, and as Olivia read it
something clicked inside her head. I get it! she thought. Vampires
are just different kinds of humans, just like crabs and lobsters are different
kinds of crustaceans! They’re pretty much the same thing: one big happy
crustacean family! And from then on, Olivia felt much better.
    She
smiled at everybody she saw for the rest of the afternoon, right up to when she
grinned goofily at Ivy at the beginning of science.
    “How
are you?” Ivy asked in a low voice. “Great!” Olivia said brightly. “It’s like
you’re a lobster!”
    Ivy
clearly didn’t get it, but she didn’t press. “Are you still up for the planning
meeting this afternoon?” she whispered.
    “For
sure,” Olivia said. “I can totally handle the vamp—” Ivy’s eyes widened. Olivia
coughed and lowered her voice. “The meeting,” she said instead.
    At the
end of class, Olivia followed her sister into the girls’ bathroom.
    After
they’d switched clothes, Ivy stood looking in the mirror. “Now I wish I didn’t have a reflection,” she said, pulling Olivia’s pink gym shirt away from her
chest. Then she leaned forward with an eyeliner pencil to do Olivia’s eyes. “Remember
what you said about cherry punch at the meeting?”
    “Uh-huh?”
Olivia said.
    “Myth,”
Ivy said simply. “Vampires don’t just eat meat and drink blood. You can eat the
crackers or chips or whatever’s there.”
    “Okay,”
said Olivia, feeling just a little less nervous.
    “Is
there anything else you need to know?” Ivy asked.
    Questions
raced to the front of Olivia’s mind and raised their hands eagerly.