"What about a big box of props for the photo- graphs, so that people can pretend to stake each other?" Sophia asked eagerly as she added a chocolate brownie to her lunch tray.
Ivy tried to nod enthusiastically, but her best friend was driving her seriously batty. Lately the ball was all that Sophia wanted to talk about. Ivy scanned the cafeteria for a place to sit. Holly and Collette were both studying for a test in the library, so Ivy knew she had to do something to avoid an entire lunch debating streamers versus balloons.
She spotted Olivia sitting in the corner with Camilla Edmunson, who Ivy and Sophia both knew because she occasionally wrote for the school paper. "Let's sit over there," Ivy suggested. At least with them Sophia would have to take a break from the ball.
"With the bunnies?" Sophia said skeptically.
"Why not?" Ivy answered. "You always like Camilla's book reviews."
Sophia shrugged, and they made their way over.
"Hey," said Ivy, with an innocent nod toward Olivia. "Can we sit here?"
"Sure," Camilla replied.
"Totally," Olivia agreed.
As they sat down, Camilla said, "Your last photo essay in the paper was really great, Sophia."
"Thanks," Sophia replied appreciatively. "Speaking of the paper, I read that book you reviewed last week. You know, the one you gave four devils out of five, The Vortex Effect? You were right. It sucks."
"Doesn't it?" gushed Camilla.
"Where's your food?" Olivia asked Ivy, gestur- ing at Ivy's half-empty tray.
"They ran out of burgers," Ivy explained, rolling her eyes. "What kind of school cafeteria runs out of burgers?"
"We should riot," joked Sophia, and everyone laughed.
"Want some of my beef lasagna?" Camilla offered. "My mom made it. It's the best."
Ivy peered into Camilla's Tupperware. It did look really good, and she was dying for something with meat in it. "Okay," she said gratefully. "If you think you have enough."
Camilla slid a generous piece of lasagna onto a napkin and passed it to Ivy.
"Thanks," Ivy said. She scooped up a hunk with her fork and popped it in her mouth. Right away, her tongue felt like it was on fire. She gagged and swallowed to stop the pain.
Oh, no! thought Ivy in a blind panic. That was the gravest thing I could possibly have done! Her stomach turned, and she felt ice-cold. She started seeing spots--big black and blue blobs at the cor- ners of her vision.
"Ivy?" Olivia said, leaning across the table. "Are you okay?"
She couldn't answer.
"She looks really pale," Camilla said in a far- away voice. "Like, even paler than normal."
Ivy blinked. Her head was killing her.
Sophia grabbed Ivy's hand and turned to Camilla. "Did that have garlic in it?" she asked urgently.
"I, er, don't know," Camilla stammered. "Maybe."
Sophia stood up. "We have to go."
Ivy felt her friend pull her to her feet. The last thing she heard as Sophia dragged her out of the cafeteria was Olivia's voice calling, "Is she okay?" from a million miles away.
"Do you think she's okay?" Olivia repeated as Ivy and Sophia disappeared out the cafeteria doors.
"I don't know what happened," Camilla said, shaking her head guiltily. "Maybe Ivy's allergic to garlic."
"She looked so ill!" Olivia remarked.
"Everybody says my mom's lasagna's great," Camilla tried to explain. "At least Sophia seemed to know what to do," she added.
"Yeah." Olivia wrung her hands. "I just hope Ivy's all right."
After lunch and through the rest of the day, Olivia watched for her sister in the hallways, but she was nowhere to be found. She didn't see Sophia anywhere either.
Olivia started to really worry when Ivy didn't show up for last period. She remembered how, at her old school, somebody's little brother had almost died after accidentally eating a peanut. All through science, Olivia had to fight the urge to rush out of class. She kept staring at the door.
"Olivia?" Mr. Strain was pointing at her with a piece of chalk. "The process by which plants turn sunlight into energy?"
"Er . . . chlorophyll?" Olivia suggested. The entire class chuckled.
It was the longest science class of her life. When the bell finally rang, Olivia had already packed up her things and punched Ivy's phone number into her new cell phone.
She was the first one out the door, hitting Send the moment she crossed the threshold. It rang once. Twice. Three times. Four times.
"Hello?" Ivy's sickly voice answered.
"Ivy!" Olivia cried. "Are you okay?"
"Hi, Olivia," her sister said weakly. "I'm all right. I just had a . . . grave reaction to . . . the gar- lic in Camilla's . . . lasagna."
"You sound awful," Olivia told her, leaning against a locker.
"I'll be better . . . in a day or two," Ivy said drily.
Olivia felt tears spring to her eyes. "I was really worried." She gulped.
"Really, I'm okay," Ivy said reassuringly. "I just can't . . . practice today. I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about that," said Olivia. She'd been so worried she'd actually totally forgotten they were supposed to cheer together this after- noon. "Just get better! Do you need anything?"
"No thanks," Ivy whispered. "Just rest."
"I'll call you later," Olivia said.
After she'd hung up, Olivia spotted Camilla by her locker and went over to give her the update. "Ivy's okay," Olivia said. "She went home."
"What happened?" Camilla asked, her eyes wide with concern.
"She's allergic to garlic," Olivia explained. "She needs some time to recover, but she says it's really no biggie."
"I'm so relieved she's all right," Camilla said, sliding a book into her bag. Then she looked up at Olivia. "Are you doing anything after school today?"
"I did have plans," Olivia replied, "but they got canceled."
"Want to go to a book signing at the mall?" Camilla asked, swinging her bag over her shoul- der. "It's this guy who's, like, a minor deity in the sci-fi world."
Olivia thought about it for about half a second. Her parents weren't expecting her home until dinner. "Sure." She grinned. "I'd love to."
Thursday afternoon, Ivy stretched in her back- yard and waited for Olivia to arrive.While she still felt a little stiff from the lasagna incident, she was seriously ready to reenter the land of the living after two days in bed.
She sat down and leaned over her outstretched legs to touch her toes. It had rained the night before, and the still-damp grass soaked through her black sweats, so she scrambled to her feet again.
As she did so, her sister bounded around the corner of the house with an excited, "Hello!"
Ivy smiled, and they hugged tightly.
"You have one bite of garlic and you're out of commission?" Olivia poked her in playful disbe- lief. "That's insane!"
Ivy stepped back and shrugged uncomfortably. "I had too much garlic as a baby," she mumbled. "It doesn't agree with me."
"That's weird," Olivia said. "Especially because we had the same parents until we were one. And I love garlic."
Can she tell I'm lying? Ivy wondered.
Fortunately, her sister didn't say anything more about it. Instead, Olivia did a double clap and said, "Okay, on Monday, you made it pretty clear you can cheer. But your shouting looked more like pouting!"
"Are you rhyming on purpose?" Ivy asked.
"Yes," Olivia replied enthusiastically. "So let's see whether today you can sell the yell!"
Ivy rolled her eyes. Then she stood up straight, turned up the corners of her mouth, and launched into the "Ashes to Ashes" cheer. During the past two days in bed, she'd come up with a trick to help her smile: she imagined the four Beasts standing in a graveyard, wearing nothing but pink briefs that said I'M WITH STUPID on them. It worked like a charm.
"Go, Ivy!" Olivia cheered as Ivy finished. "That was much better! You even smiled!"
"Thanks," Ivy responded, slightly embar- rassed.
Olivia patted her on the back and said, "Want to work on roundoff combinations for a new cheer?"
"Okay," said Ivy. They moved closer to the house and turned to face a distant line of thorn- bushes. Olivia counted down, and together they took a few running steps and leaped into the air.
One, two, three roundoffs. Out of the corner of her eye, Ivy saw Olivia stick her last move.
Deciding to go one better, Ivy put her hand to the ground, ready to push off into a double hand- spring. But her palm slipped on the rain-slick grass, her arm went out from under her, and sud- denly she was flying wildly through the air.
The thornbushes came spinning toward her like a kaleidoscope. "Owww!" Ivy cried as she slammed into them.
Olivia came running. "Ivy!"
"I'm okay," Ivy called, feeling like an utter loser. She stood up from the bushes and brushed herself off. "That's what I get for trying to show off."