“How is Melody? Has anyone talked to her?” Jackson interrupted. “My paranoid mother took my phone.”
“Hey, wanna hear something freaky?” Cleo leaned in, ready to dish about the new normie. “Did you know that when she sings—”
Blue cut her off. “Oh, quit your earbashing and stick to the point. Did you throw us under the trolley or not?”
Frankie wished she could have seen Cleo’s face. No one ever spoke to the royal highness like that.
“Bekka acted alone,” Cleo insisted. “The only thing I did wrong was choose a photo shoot over the cause. That’s it. I would never put any of you in danger. Not even for Teen Vogue. Crown my heart and hope to rot in my tomb.” She paused. “Any questions?”
No one said a word. Instead, Frankie heard kissy sounds and all-is-forgiven hug purrs.
“Cooooooool haaaiiir,” Julia droned for the second time.
Cleo giggled. “Thanks, Ghoules.”
Wait! I have a question, Frankie thought. When you said, “Bekka acted alone,” did you mean alone without you or alone without Brett? Is Brett innocent? Is—ouch! Tight. Bolt cramp. Ahhhhhhhh…
Frankie’s body began to hum. White-hot currents zipped along her spine and energized her limbs. Her fingers twitched. Her toes wiggled. Her eyes shot open. Is this how normies feel when they eat sugar?
Her father was leaning over her and squinting intensely, as if trying to read her thoughts. “How’s Daddy’s perfect little girl?”
Frankie nodded slowly and sat up. Her mother’s warm hands supported her back.
“We were so worried about you,” Viktor said. “If Billy hadn’t told us where you were…”
“Frankie, another five minutes and you would have been out,” Viveka explained. “Memory loss, coma…” She shook the horrible thoughts from her mind.
“Here,” Viktor said proudly. A black quilted handbag with bloodred straps dangled from his index finger. “It’s for you.”
Confused, Frankie looked back at her mother. The bag was voltage, but it was an odd time for gifts.
“Go on.” Viveka smiled. “Take it.”
The lair was teeming with parents racing to embrace their children.
“It’s a portable amp machine,” Viktor explained. “Keep it close to your body and you’ll stay charged.”
“We modeled it after a Chanel,” Viveka whispered triumphantly.
Frankie turned the bag around in her hands. It buzzed life. The straps were studded with miniature neck bolts, and the interior had more pockets than her Joie cargoes. She instantly transferred her iPhone 4, black-and-green Harajuku Lovers wallet, rhinestone compact, Fierce & Flawless makeup case, pink Lady Gaga key chain, and bag of assorted saltwater taffy from her now-passé silver backpack. Everything fit beautifully.
“I adore it with my entire heart space!” Frankie beamed, pulling her parents into a gigantic thank-you hug. They smelled like chemicals and gardenias—a scent she had come to associate with love.
“A rather unusual time for cutesy adolescent expressions and hugs, wouldn’t you agree?” A male voice, deep and melodic, suddenly filled the room.
The Steins pulled apart to find a giant monitor lowering from the ceiling. It stopped in the center of the crowded room and hovered ten feet above the stone floor. The RADs quickly stopped commiserating and focused on the screen, which showed a distinguished man seated under a giant sun umbrella. Wearing mirrored Carrera sunglasses and a gold satin robe, he had a seven-layer tan and slicked-back hair that was stiff with comb tracks. The shot revealed very little about his location, other than the polished wood railing of a yacht. Jay-Z blared in the background. Women giggled. Champagne flutes clinked.
“Forgive us, Mr. D,” Viktor said, approaching the screen. “We were just so happy to see that Frankie was safe and—”
Folding his arms across his smooth chest, the man on the monitor shook his head disapprovingly.
“Sorry,” Viktor stated humbly.
Three women click-clacked by on-screen wearing heels and the kind of cutout one-pieces that left Mondrian-esque tan lines. Their long pink fingernails raked along the back of Mr. D’s neck as they passed.
Embarrassed, Lala buried her face in her palms.
Frankie broke away from her mother and inched toward her friends.
“How’d he get so bronzed?” Cleo asked Lala.
“Thirty hours straight in a tanning bed,” she whispered back.
“I hate those things,” Frankie interjected, remembering her mortifying electrical surge at the spa. “I felt like I was in a coffin.”
Cleo and Lala giggled.
“Um, something tells me he’s okay with that,” Cleo added.
They giggled again.
Missing the joke, Frankie turned away and whispered into Blue’s beach-blond curls, “Who is this guy?”
“Lala’s pop,” Blue whispered back. “He’s the boomer.”
“The what?”
“The male kangaroo,” Blue said.
Frankie knit her brows.
“The boss!”
“Oh.”
“Cunning as a dunny rat, he is,” Blue continued. “And quite grouse with the sheilas, if you know what I mean.”
Frankie nodded like she did.
Mr. D cleared his throat. “I’ll save the scolding for another time. I suppose being forced out of your homes is punishment enough for now. Am I right?”
Several parents lowered their heads in shame. Some sniffed back tears. Frankie backed up and hid behind Deuce, just in case Mr. D started looking for a scapegoat. But he didn’t seem concerned with blame. Thankfully, no one did. Blame was a luxury they could no longer afford.
“I’ve made the necessary arrangements,” he stated. “My brother Vlad will collect your phones and identification. I have arranged for new mobile devices, phone numbers, and IDs for everyone so you can no longer be traced.”
Lala’s uncle Vlad appeared before Frankie holding open a giant black sack. No taller than five feet, with a mop of gray hair, round tortoiseshell glasses, and a black-and-white formfitting striped tee, he looked like a Happy Meal–sized Andy Warhol.
“Trick or treat,” he said, the tips of his Crest Whitestripped fangs poking his pillowy bottom lip.
Fingers sparking, Frankie searched the crowd for signs of Billy. Her phone had been a gift from him. She couldn’t just—
“It’s okay,” Billy said, as if reading her mind. “I won’t take it personally.”
Uncle Vlad cocked his head and raised his light eyebrows in a let’s go! sort of way.
Frankie reached inside her new bag and gripped her phone. Like a happy puppy greeting its master, the phone charged from her touch. Oh, how they would miss each other.
“Vite, vite!” urged Uncle Vlad.
Frankie released the phone into the dark sack.
“Wallet too, Sparky.”
Not one for being bullied, Frankie considered zapping his pearly fangs into candy corns. But now was not the time to draw attention to herself. Instead, she pulled out her Merston High ID and dropped it into the bag. “The wallet stays with me,” she insisted.
“Meowww,” Uncle Vlad mewed. “Feisty Stein has spoken.”
Frankie smirked at the nickname; she took it as a compliment. He winked like maybe it was, and then handed her a black envelope.
“What’s this?”
“Emergency money, new ID, travel itinerary, and a gift card for a new iPhone redeemable at any Apple Store worldwide.”
“Travel itinerary?” Frankie asked. “Where are we going?”
“Make like a librarian and check it out, Feisty.” Uncle Vlad gestured toward the roomful of people still waiting for their envelopes. “You’re not my only customer.”
He and his ominous black sack moved on to Cleo.
“Forget it, mister.” She clutched her bag to her chest. “I didn’t do anything—I wasn’t on TV!”
Frankie rolled her eyes as she pushed her way to the front of
the crowd.
“A fleet of jets is currently en route,” continued Mr. D. “They will be in the usual spot in three hours. You have been guaranteed safe passage from one of my contacts at the FAA. Remain here until that time. No one is to return home. It’s not safe.”
Murmurs swelled.
“What’s going to happen to Salem when we leave?” asked one of the grown-ups. “Who’s going to run my restaurant?”
“And my law practice?”
“And the fire department?”
“What about my students?”
“And my patients?”
The atmosphere quickly shifted from conflict to panic. These were high-powered people, beholden not only to one another but to the entire community. Did Mr. D really expect them to drop everything and leave? Who would take their places? How would society function without them? And what would become of those left behind?
Forgetting her parents’ rule about not standing too close to the TV, Frankie approached the monitor and blurted, “Are you sure leaving is the best idea?”
Mr. D leaned closer to the camera, its round eye reflected in his sunglasses. “Ms. Stein?”
Frankie nodded.
He leaned back in his white captain’s chair, his fingertips touching. “Yes, I’ve heard about you.”
Frankie beamed. “Thanks.”
A few of the grown-ups snickered.
“Sorry, sir,” Viktor said, placing his hand on Frankie’s shoulder and pulling her back from the screen. “She was just born. What she’s trying to say is that some of us are tired of being intimidated. And we want to stay.”
“Easy for you to say,” snapped Maddy Gorgon, Deuce’s mother. “Frankie wasn’t in the movie.”
“Yes, she was,” Viveka insisted.
“Just her voice,” argued Blue’s aunty Coral. “Funny how she conducted her interviews behind the scenes. It’s like she knew this would blow up in our faces.”
Frankie felt as if a vacuum hose had been attached to her belly button, the dial set to COMPOSURE SUCK. “We only had one camera!” she snapped. “I guess I could have sat on the subject’s lap, or we could have tied it to a pendulum, but—”
Viktor touched Frankie on the shoulder in warning. “Enough,” he mumbled.
“That was awesome,” Billy whispered in her other ear.
Frankie was too worked up to smile.
“What exactly are you accusing my daughter of?” Viveka asked.
On the screen Mr. D was mumbling his lunch order to a waitress.
“I think you know,” Coral said. “That one’s been nothing but trouble since the day she was born.”
Frankie sparked.
“Hold up a minute, Carol,” said Ram de Nile, seated comfortably in a club chair.
“It’s Coral.”
“My Cleo wasn’t in the movie either,” he continued. “Are you suggesting she had an ulterior motive too?”
“Perhaps,” Coral pressed.
“Then I have a suggestion for you,” Ram said as Cleo appeared by his side. “Maybe you need to control your niece.”
“Rack off!” Blue shouted. “I am in control!”
Lala giggled, and Mr. D turned back to face the group.
“Sounds like it,” Ram scoffed.
“Well, I’m not taking any chances,” Maddy chimed in. “Deuce and I are going back to Greece.”
“What?” Cleo shouted. And then to her boyfriend, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I just found out an hour ago,” he whined.
“How long will he be gone?” Cleo asked Mrs. Gorgon.
“As long as it takes,” Maddy said firmly. “Normies all over the world now know who we are. We need to be with family—they’re the only ones we can trust.”
“That’s not true. There are a lot of normies out there who support us,” said Jackson, obviously thinking of Melody.
“What about basketball?” Cleo asked. “The coach will kick Deuce off the team if he misses—” She began to cry. “What about me?”
“Thanks to your smart choices, we’re staying right here,” Ram declared, even though that’s not what Cleo had meant.
Coral waved her black envelope in the air. “Well, Blue is going back to her parents in Bells Beach.”
At that, the sea creature broke into salty sobs. The dry scales on her cheeks glistened beneath her tears. Her aunt’s hushed promises of daily surf sessions and sunset swims along the Great Barrier Reef brought Blue momentary solace, but then the notion of leaving her friends and missing Clawdeen’s Sassy Sixteen tore her up all over again.
“We’ll send video of the party,” Jackson said, trying to console her.
“Excuse me?” said his mother. “We’re not staying.”
“What? I can’t just leave. What about school? My art classes? And Melody?”
“She’s a sweet girl, Jackson, but the least of my concerns right now.”
Fights were breaking out all around Frankie. Parents and kids argued over their futures as Uncle Vlad pried phones from their hands.
Lala was the only one still fixed on the screen. “Does this mean I’m coming to meet you on the yacht, Daddy?” Her voice sweetened with hope.
“La, I’m running an international empire from this boat. It’s hardly a Disney cruise,” Mr. D explained, in a tone that implied this wasn’t the first time he’d said so.
Lala looked down at the fuchsia ribbon laces in her combat boots. After a moment she lifted her moist eyes. “So I’m staying here? With Uncle Vlad?”
Mr. D shook his head.
“Why not?” she asked, burying her pale hands in the sleeves of her boyfriend cardigan. “I’m not like you. I don’t show up on camera. No one saw my face.”
“They know where you live.”
“But—”
“You’ll have fun in Transylvania,” he insisted.
“No.” Lala backed away from the screen. “Not the grimparents, please!”
“Stop calling them that. You’ll be safe there. If you’re lucky, they might even teach you a thing or two about being responsible and taking charge.”
Vlad rolled his eyes, taking the dig personally.
“They drink meat shakes and stay inside all day!”
“So, they’re a little old-school,” admitted Mr. D.
“Dad, when I told Grumpa I wanted to be a veterinarian, he said I already was because I don’t eat meat. He doesn’t even know the difference between a veterinarian and a vegetarian!”
“They raised me right, didn’t they?”
Lala didn’t respond.
“Hang in there,” Mr. D urged.
“Pun intended,” Blue whisper-giggled.
“Grandpa’s just teasing you. Give them a chance.”
“But, Daddy—”
On-screen, the waitress returned with a sizzling steak on a silver tray.
“I’m afraid I have another meeting,” he announced. “Maddy, the phones.”
Uncle Vlad emptied the black sack onto the floor. Deuce’s fashionably lithe mother stepped forward. “Eyes closed,” she called, gripping her black Diors. Everyone closed their eyes and she lifted the sunglasses. The room quickly cooled and then warmed as she lowered the lenses back over her eyes. “All clear,” she announced.
Before them sat a stone statue made of their discarded cell phones, wallets, and IDs—another obscure piece of art to clutter their underground hideaway. The latest tribute to their ongoing struggle.
“Good luck to all of you,” Mr. D said over the sound of sobs. “And remember, hide with pride.”
“Hide with pride,” everyone muttered back. Everyone but the Steins.
The screen went black, and the monitor ascended toward the ceiling.
From across the room, Aunty Coral, who was still consoling Blue, fired a round of hate squints at the Steins.
“We should probably get going,” Viktor said, placing a protective arm around Frankie’s shoulders.
Frankie found it hard to believ
e her parents were seriously serious about staying. “So that’s it? We’re just heading back to Radcliffe?”
Viveka knelt down and took her daughter’s hand. “That’s it,” her violet eyes steady and sure. “We’ve been doing it our way for centuries, and it hasn’t gotten us very far. So now we’ll try it your way.”
“My way?” Frankie sparked and then pulled back her hand. Imagining herself the leader of a successful revolution felt more uplifting than underwire. But spoken aloud, those words were heavy, weighted down with responsibility and consequence. And after her many failed attempts as a freedom fighter, she questioned her ability to carry that burden alone. “It’s not like I have a plan or anything.”
“Good.” Viktor snickered, obviously thinking of her track record too. “Because right now all we need to do is stay put and stay safe. Our goal is to continue living our lives. Business as usual. That’s it. Nothing else. Not yet. No plots, no plans, no schemes. Not until we know what and whom we’re dealing with. Got it?”
“Got it,” Frankie agreed, even though she didn’t. Not completely. But she would. As soon as she found Brett at school on Monday and asked—no, demanded—that he cop to his role in this mess. Then, once she’d dealt with him accordingly, she’d agree to her father’s rule.
Amid tearful good-byes and a few vengeful glances, Viktor led his family toward the old wooden door. Along the way Frankie and Viveka broke off to hug friends and wish them well.
“You’re really staying?” asked Ms. J, reaching under her thick black glasses and dabbing the corner of her eye with a balled-up tissue.
“We are,” Viveka said, grinning at Frankie. Frankie grinned back.
“I wish Jackson and I could, but—”
“With all due respect, Viv,” said Maddy Gorgon, cutting Ms. J off. “Do you really think staying is in the best interest of your daughter?”
“Absolutely,” Viveka said, her certainty reflected in the lenses of Maddy’s Diors.
“It was my idea,” Frankie said, rushing to her mother’s defense.
“We’ve learned a lot from her over the last few months.” Viveka beamed at her daughter.
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