by Meg Cabot
This caused Christopher to snort with laughter.
‘Tween queen. Good one,’ he said. I felt my blush turn into a flush. Of pleasure. Because Christopher had appreciated something I’d said.
Yeah. I’m that far gone. It’s sad really.
‘Anyway’ Christopher went on, ‘I think Em looks fine… ’
Fine! Christopher thought I looked fine! My heart soared. I mean, I know fine wasn’t exactly the world’s greatest compliment, but coming from Christopher it was like being called earth-shatteringly gorgeous. I was pretty sure I’d died and gone to heaven.
‘… and at least she’s not some big plastic phony like her,’ he added, nodding at the screen above our heads.
‘Yeah,’ I said, throwing Frida a triumphant look. Fine! Christopher said I looked fine!
But Frida was barely even paying attention.
‘For your information,’ she snapped, ‘Nikki Howard has taken the beauty and fashion industry by storm. She’s one of the youngest models ever to have done so. Nikki and her friends—’
‘Oh, here we go.’ I rolled my eyes. ‘A lecture on the FONs.’
‘What’s an FON?’ Christopher wanted to know.
‘Friend of Nikki’s,’ I translated. ‘According to last month’s COSMOgirl! she runs with a whole posse of FFBFs.’
‘Wait… what’s an FFBF?’ Christopher looked even more confused. If it didn’t have to do with a computer or computer game, Christopher often didn’t know what it was. This was what set him so adorably apart from every other guy at TAHS.
‘You know. People who are in the media all the time, but they’re only Famous For Being Famous,’ I explained to him. ‘They’ve never done anything to get famous — because they don’t have any talent? They’re usually rich people’s kids, like Nikki’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, Brandon Stark.’ I was in a good mood, on account of the fine remark, so I lowered my voice to sound like a television news announcer: ‘Nineteenyear-old son of billionaire Stark Enterprises owner Robert Stark. Or celebutantes, like Tim Collins’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Lulu. The Tim Collins,’ I went on. ‘Who directed the Journeyquest movie.’
Christopher’s jaw dropped. ‘And completely ruined it?’
‘That’d be the one,’ I said. ‘Lulu’s an FON.’
‘Why do you guys have to be so mean?’ Frida whined. ‘It’s like everything fun you look down on.’
‘That’s not true,’ Christopher said, crumpling an empty Stark Cookie bag, the contents of which he’d scarfed earlier, and stuffing it into the pocket of his copious jeans. Christopher had zeroed in on the bags of cookies Stark was giving away for free, and seized as many as his pockets could hold for us to snack on later. The Commander doesn’t allow junk food in the house. ‘We don’t look down on Journeyquest. Well, the game. The movie freaking sucked.’
‘Besides that stupid computer game,’ Frida said, scowling.
‘Music,’ I said, noting that Gabriel’s voice was still booming over the speakers above us. ‘I like music.’ Well… this music, to be exact.
‘Oh, right,’ Frida said. ‘Name one popular musician you listen to. And don’t name any of that horrible metal crap Christopher likes, either.’
‘One popular musician?’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Fine. How about… Tchaikovsky?’
‘Nice one,’ Christopher said with a burst of laughter and an approving nod. ‘Mahler. He’s good too.’
‘Too dour,’ I said. ‘Beethoven.’
‘That dude is rad,’ Christopher said, raising his fists — thumbs and pinkies upright — in a rocker’s salute to Beethoven. ‘Beethoven rules my world!’
‘Oh God,’ Frida moaned, dropping her head into her hands in mortification.
‘Come on, Free,’ I said, elbowing her chummily. ‘We aren’t that embarrassing, are we?’
‘Yes,’ she murmured. ‘You are. You really are. Don’t you realize that you guys look down on everything normal people like? Like Nikki Howard and her friends —’
It was kind of funny that as Frida said this, Nikki Howard herself actually materialized — along with some of her friends — before us.
Except that Frida didn’t notice right away. I mean, that Nikki Howard was standing in front of her. Well, practically.
That’s because Frida was too busy defending her idol tome.
‘You’re always going on about feminism, Em,’ Frida went on. ‘Well, do you really think Nikki would have gotten where she is today — the Face of Stark, one of the highest-earning models right now — if she weren’t a feminist?’
‘Uh,’ I said. Because I couldn’t believe the person we were arguing about was walking past us.
‘And I don’t see how you can even call yourself a feminist, Em,’ Frida went on, oblivious, ‘when you are so totally mean about a member of your own sex. I mean, Nikki’s just a girl, like you are.’
Except that I could see with my own eyes that Nikki was very far from being just a girl — let alone a girl like I am. For one thing, she was about a foot taller (thanks to a pair of five-inch heels, but even without them, she had to have been about five foot ten), and about half as wide as me. Seriously. Two of her would have fitted into my jeans.
And for another, her shiny blonde hair flowed smoothly down past her elbows, not a strand out of place, even though she was practically running — despite her heels — across the store. Strangely, her filmy dress seemed to cover everything it was supposed to too… despite the fact that it was the lowest-cut thing I’d ever seen — aside from what Whitney Robertson wore to school last year on Picture Day. How did Nikki keep those thin straps of material over her nipples, anyway? Double-sided tape? I’d heard about that kind of thing of course, but never had a chance to observe its use in real life.
And it was a good thing too (that Nikki had thought to use tape to hold in her breasts, which weren’t huge enough to need their own zip codes or anything, but — unlike my own — definitely stood to attention when called to duty).
Because she was carrying a tiny ball of fluff that appeared, at first glance, to be a pompom and, at second glance, to be a small dog, trying frantically to burrow its head between her boobs and get away from all the crazy lights and sounds in the store. If it hadn’t been for the tape keeping him out, well, that dog would have dived right inside Nikki’s dress.
Frida was still going on about what a bad example of feminism I am (about which, can I just say, Hello, Pot? This is Kettle. Yeah, you’re black), completely oblivious to what was going on behind her — even though everybody else in line was staring, slack-jawed, at the rapidly approaching supermodel and her entourage of dog, some kind of agent or publicist (red-haired lady with a briefcase jabbering into a headset), hairdresser (man in a silk shirt and leather trousers, carrying a can of hairspray) and the Number One FON herself, Lulu Collins, an equally skinny, equally pretty seventeen-year-old girl in a faux snakeskin-print wrap-dress, who couldn’t seem to stop looking at her Sidekick, even to watch where she was going.
I swear, it was just like at school when Whitney and Lindsey and the rest of the Walking Dead start their morning promenade from the front of the building to their lockers. Every single person in the vicinity just stopped talking and stared as if transfixed.
And not just the people all around us either. I noticed that Nikki had caught Gabriel Luna’s attention as well. He was still smiling at the girls clustered in front of him thrusting CDs (and their phone numbers) at him.
But he was also keeping a pretty close eye on Nikki…
… as, I might add, was Christopher.
It was at that moment that Frida finally turned round to see what Christopher — his mouth slightly agape — and I were staring at.
And completely lost it.
‘Ohmigodohmigodohmigod,’ Frida cried, waving her free hand (the other was still clutching her cell) in front of her face as if she were fanning tears from her eyes. ‘Ohmigod, it’s her. It’s her. It’s HER!’
‘I do
n’t know what you’re talking about, Free,’ Christopher said. ‘That Gabriel guy maybe sensitive and all that. But he is totally staring at her chest.’
‘Um, he wouldn’t be the only one doing that,’ I muttered, noting — with dissatisfaction — the direction of Christopher’s gaze.
He realized what I meant and began to turn bright red. But I noticed he didn’t look away.
Funny how, all of a sudden, I wasn’t feeling so fine any more.
‘Ohmigod, you guys,’ Frida said, clutching my arm. ‘Lulu Collins is with her! I have to get their autographs. I have to!’
But at that very moment, the line in which we’d been standing for the past hour reached the very table that, mere minutes before, had seemed so very far away and out of reach. Gabriel Luna himself was within autographing distance. Heck, he was within TOUCHING distance.
Not that, you know, I was going to reach out and grab a big hunk of his shirt, or anything. I’m just saying I could have. If I’d wanted to.
Up close, he looked even better than on stage. Up close, I could tell he definitely didn’t have any tattoos. Nor was he wearing eyeliner. His eyes really were that blue. And his gaze really was that piercing.
Except that it wasn’t looking anywhere near mine. It was, in fact, still glued to Nikki.
‘Frida.’ I found myself as unable to tear my gaze from Gabriel Luna as he was apparently unable to tear his own away from Nikki Howard. ‘Uh. Frida?’
Except that when my sister didn’t reply, and when I finally forced myself to look in her direction, I saw that Frida had actually stepped from the line and was heading towards Nikki and her entourage — not like she meant to be doing it, but like she simply couldn’t resist the pull of Nikki’s celebrity… kind of like how Leander was drawn into the Dark Castle by the beam of the Ring of Ashanti in the Journeyquest movie (which sucked).
‘Frida?’ I called after her. Then, realizing that Gabriel Luna had finally stopped staring at Nikki and was instead looking curiously at me, I turned towards him slowly and heard myself murmur, ‘Um. Hi.’
‘Hi,’ Gabriel said back. And then he smiled.
And — I’m not kidding — it was like reaching level sixty in Journeyquest. No, it was even better than that… it was like waking up in the morning and hearing your mother go, ‘Guess what? They just cancelled school. It’s a Snow Day’ Seriously, that’s what his smile did to me — gave me a jolt of pleasure that was almost physical, it was so strong.
Which is weird, because I’d felt something very similar just minutes before when Christopher had called me fine. Boys are confusing.
Of course I couldn’t say anything. Of course I could only stand there gazing at him with my mouth hanging open, wondering how anyone so beautiful could be real, and not a product of airbrushing or computer animation.
‘What’s your name then?’ Gabriel asked in his gorgeous English accent.
‘Um.’ Oh God. He was talking to me. He was talking to me. What should I say? Why was this happening? Where was Frida? Where the frack was FRIDA? ‘Em.’
‘Em?’ Gabriel smiled some more. ‘Short for Emily?’
‘Um,’ I said. Oh God. What was wrong with me? Normally I had no problem talking to cute boys. Because normally, all the cute boys I met – Christopher excepted of course — were sexist creeps who needed to be taken down a peg or two. They weren’t sweet British hotties with a voice like an angel and blue eyes that seemed to pierce my soul. ‘No… ’
‘Do you have a CD you’d like for me to sign?’ Gabriel wanted to know, looking questioningly at my empty hands.
Oh no.
‘Hold on,’ I said, my heart pounding. ‘My sister —’
I spun round to find Frida and ran smack into Christopher, who was still staring at Nikki. Only now he wore a look of concern. ‘Uh, Em,’ he said. ‘Look —’
What happened next seemed to unfold as if it was in a dream. Or more accurately, a nightmare. I saw my sister walking towards Nikki Howard and her posse.
At the same time, I saw a guy standing nearby suddenly throw open his trench coat to reveal an ELF T-shirt… along with a paintgun. A Megastore security guy in an earpiece, seeing this at the same time I did, grabbed Nikki by the wrist and jerked her back. Meanwhile, Paintgun Guy, grinning balefully, raised his rifle and fired at the plasma TV hanging directly over Nikki’s head, leaving an enormous yellow splotch across the screen where Nikki’s boobs had been. Actually, it looked like she’d been eating a hot dog with mustard that had slid out on to her chest … something that happens to me not infrequently.
Only this time, the plasma screen came loose from the wires suspending it from the ceiling. First one wire popped. Then a second one.
And standing directly beneath it stood my sister Frida, still holding her pen towards Nikki for an autograph.
‘Frida! Move!’ I yelled, my heart giving a lurch.
I darted forward to push her out of the way just as the last wire holding the giant television in place broke with a pinging sound that was easily audible, even over the music blasting from the Stark Megastore’s speakers.
And then the whole thing came crashing down.
On me.
And — just like in Journeyquest, when I make a mistake and my character loses a life — everything went black.
Four
Images. That’s what I became aware of next.
Like the kind you see floating on the back of your eyelids if you press the heels of your hands against them when you have a headache. Just shapes really, floating in space.
I watched them, wondering what they were. They looked like amoebas … no, like Christopher’s hair, underwater in the swimming pool, when they made us do laps in PE last time, and I was spying on him with my goggles…
Wait a minute. What was I doing in PE? Had I fallen underwater? But I wasn’t wet. At least, I was pretty sure I wasn’t… I didn’t feel wet. Did I?
How could I be seeing Christopher’s hair underwater if I wasn’t wet?
Maybe my eyes weren’t open. Were my eyes closed or open? Why couldn’t I lift up my hand to feel my face and see? My hand felt so heavy … I couldn’t even lift it…
Why was I so tired?
So tired…
I heard voices. The voices were saying things. What were they saying? I couldn’t tell. I couldn’t understand them. I was too tired to understand them. Who kept talking? Why wouldn’t they let me sleep?
Wait. That was Mom’s voice. Mom was the one who was doing all that talking. Mom and… who else? Dad. That was Dad. Mom and Dad were talking. They were saying things. They wanted me to wake up. Why? Why couldn’t I just go on sleeping?
I knew I should listen to them — whenever Mom tells us to do something, Frida and I always do it. Eventually anyway.
But I felt like I couldn’t move. Like I’d been turned to stone. I just wanted to go on sleeping forever.
Still, I could hear Mom, her voice charged with urgency.
‘Em! Em, if you can hear me, open your eyes! Open your eyes, Em. Just open your eyes for a minute, Em.’
I knew that old trick. The second she knew I was awake, Mom would make me get up and empty the dishwasher or go to school or something equally hideous. I wasn’t falling for that one.
‘Em! Please! Please, just open your eyes.’
She sounded pretty upset, though. Maybe the apartment was on fire. Maybe I should do what she said. Just open my eyes for a second to see what she wanted.
‘Please, Em… ’
She sounded like she was crying actually. I didn’t want to make my mom cry. That’s the last thing I wanted to do.
So I tried to open my eyes. I really did. I wanted to.
But they just… wouldn’t open.
My eyes wouldn’t open.
I heard my mother crying, and I heard my dad comforting her, murmuring, ‘It’s all right, Karen.’
‘In cases like this,’ I heard another, unfamiliar man’s voice saying, ‘it’s not unusual
for —’
I didn’t hear the rest of what the man was saying because I was too busy concentrating on trying to make my eyes open. Only I couldn’t get my eyelids to lift. I really couldn’t. It was like they were made of lead, and I was just too weak to raise them.
So then I tried to open my mouth to tell my mom not to cry, that I was fine, just so tired. Maybe if they let me rest a little more…
But I found I couldn’t open my mouth either.
That was a little scary. For a minute. But the truth was, I was really just so tired… it was so much easier to go back to sleep. I’d tell Mom later, I decided… about my being too tired to do what she asked. I’d explain it all later, when I wasn’t so sleepy. I needed to get my energy back. I’d be fine with a few more hours of sleep.
Finally I managed to open my eyes. Not because anyone was calling my name. Not because I was seeing amoebas behind my eyelids. My eyes just… opened.
All by themselves.
But when they did, and I looked around, I was surprised to find I wasn’t in a swimming pool, or even at home, but in a bed in a hospital room.
I could tell that I was in a bed in a hospital room, because even though it was pretty dark — it had to be night-time — nothing looked familiar to me. The walls were beige, not the Navajo White I’d painted my walls back home in a fit one day, because I couldn’t stand the bland eggshell the rest of the walls in our apartment were.
And all my posters — from the Journeyquest movie, which I know had sucked, but the posters were cool — were gone. So were all my postcards from that field trip we took to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Instead, all I could see were wires. Wires that appeared to be coming out of me. They were hooked up to machines beside the bed I was in, which were whirring softly and occasionally making pinging noises.
Fortunately I didn’t get scared or anything, because sitting in a chair next to the machines was my dad. He was sleeping.