by Carol Snow
“I’ve heard of this guy,” Angel said.
“Really?”
“He writes about music and movies and TV shows. Lives on an island somewhere—he’s always talking about surf and sand and stuff. I don’t read blogs, but his reviews are always popping up on other sites. I don’t know how he manages to write so much. He must never leave his house.”
Monday, 3 A.M.
BURSTING BUBBLE WORLD
Had a party at my house tonight—whole bunch of people, but no one I really wanted to see. It was warm, the moon was bright, and the air smelled like flowers. Paradise, right?
For a long time I thought so.
In the two years since I started this blog, I’ve had a whole bunch of people ask me about my island. Was it in the United States or maybe off of Australia? Was it big or small, famous or obscure, public or private? Or was I making the whole thing up?
So here’s the thing. I wasn’t making the whole thing up. But someone else was.…
“Wow,” Angel said when they finished the entry, which went on for quite some time.
“I know. Ricky is so much smarter than I ever realized.”
“You really didn’t have to do any work?” Angel asked. “That is awesome.”
Freesia considered. “Depends what you call work. I put a lot of effort into my Foundations of Foundation class.”
“Huh. Maybe I will let you show me how to do makeup.”
“Francine? Come here, please.” Mother called from across the hall.
Freesia went into the office, where she found Mother … not happy, exactly, but less upset than before.
“Sit.” Mother stood up and extended a hand toward her ergonomic chair.
Freesia sat down. On the computer screen, her image blinked back at her. She really needed to do something about those eyebrows.
Mother leaned over to move the mouse. Freesia heard a clicking sound just as the image on the screen froze.
“Perfect,” Mother said. “You can get up.” She sat at the computer and began typing furiously. Finally she said, “There! That’s done.” She clicked some more. “And that.” More clicking. “And that.”
“What?”
Mother let out a deep breath. “This Ricardo person’s story isn’t an entirely bad thing. There’s a hunger for more information. What’s more, there’s a desire to put a face on the story. And that face? Is you.”
“Are you saying you put my picture on your vlog?” Freesia asked, alarmed.
Mother smiled. “Don’t worry, honey. You look nice today. I love what you’ve done with your hair.”
27
“Hey! Yeah, you. Bubble Girl.”
They were clustered together at the back of her chemistry class: two girls, three boys, one sitting, four standing. Two wore black hoodies, two wore black T-shirts, one a gray shirt. Together, they looked like a ferocious storm looming on the horizon.
“Come here for a second,” one of the boys called.
Her mother had posted the vlog just last night. Freesia hadn’t expected the news to travel so fast.
According to the clock above the door, she had three minutes till the bell rang. Chemistry was her first class. She could have filled those last three minutes in the girls’ room or just wandering down the halls. But she was so tired this morning. She was so tired every morning. She just wanted to get to her desk and sit down and tune out. But today she wouldn’t get away with that.
A sixth person, another girl, joined the mob at the back. She wore a red dress and black boots. Her jet black hair was long and full, and her black eyeliner had been applied just right.
Someone showed her something on a cell phone.
“Are you serious?” The girl looked closer at the phone and then swiveled her head to look at Freesia. “Is your name Francine?”
Freesia nodded (though of course she hated that name).
The girl took the cell phone and examined it more closely.
One by one, students filed into the classroom. No teacher yet: he tended to stride in with the bell.
Freesia’s assigned seat was about two-thirds of the way back. Should she just go there and sit quietly, hoping no one would talk to her? She could try claiming a seat up front instead, but that could cause all kinds of new problems.
“Bubble Girl—talk to us. We won’t bite.” That from the boy who was sitting down.
The girl in red slapped his arm. “Don’t call her that.” To Freesia: “Ignore him. He’s a jerk to everyone. All this stuff online, is it true? You spent three years partying in an alternate universe, and you didn’t even know it was made up?”
Tear sprang to Freesia’s eyes. She blinked them back and nodded.
The girl in red looked straight at her. “That? Is awesome.”
“Awesome,” one of the other kids echoed.
“Where do you sit?” the girl in red asked.
“Over there.” Freesia pointed.
The girl slid into her seat and patted the desk next to her. “Kid who used to sit next to me dropped out.”
Too surprised to say anything, Freesia sat down next to the girl in red and slipped her textbooks under the chair.
“I’m Iris,” the girl said. “And you’re Francine.”
“I like to be called Freesia.”
“Yeah? Awesome. Iris and Freesia. Flower power. I like what you’re wearing, by the way.”
The bell rang, and their teacher, Mr. Liu, hurried in on cue, dumping an armload of books and papers on the desk. “Good morning, all! I trust you did your homework that I assigned for the weekend.”
“He says that every Monday,” Iris whispered. “Even though almost no one does their work.”
Freesia stifled a giggle. Maybe Bubble World wasn’t entirely different from reality.
* * *
It was the same thing all day long.
“Are you…”
“Did you…”
“Is your name…”
Freesia was a star. Like any star, she had her detractors, people who gave her long creepy looks or who glanced at her briefly and then broke out laughing with their friends. But the one time someone came right out and said something mean—“Hey, check it out. It’s Bubble Girl! She’s even uglier than her picture”—three complete strangers flew to her defense.
“Don’t say that, you pig.”
“Who are you to talk? Have you checked the mirror lately?”
“She’s been through a lot. Give her some respect.”
None of her teachers, including her father (especially not her father), said anything about her newfound fame until she got to English class. Mr. Janz called her up to his desk to say that he was always happy to meet her before or after school to give her extra help.
“It does explain a lot,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Your work. You’re obviously intelligent. I couldn’t figure out why your skills didn’t reflect that. But as long as you stay on top of your assignments, you’ll catch up.”
“Okay.”
“School’s not all fun and games. You get that.”
“Yes. Of course. But…”
“What?”
“Can’t school be at least a little fun?”
Mr. Janz straightened. She feared she had offended him. But then he looked out over the classroom crammed with kids who looked like they all wished they could be anywhere but here.
“That’s an excellent point … Freesia.”
* * *
She ran into Iris, the stylish girl from her chemistry class, just as she was heading to the student commons for lunch period, which had remained the most excruciating part of her day. As much as she liked Mr. Janz, she was afraid that hanging out in his room would mean more makeup work.
“Hey!” Iris gave her a quick squeeze. “We’re going to the inconvenient store. Come with us.”
The “inconvenient store” turned out to be a corner market that carried packaged snacks, toxic hot dogs, oily pizza,
and frothy ice drinks. “Us” turned out to be Iris and two other fashionable girls, along with a lanky boy with dyed black hair and gold hoops in his ears. The three friends were named Alex, Morgan, and Kendy, though after the initial quick introduction, Freesia was unsure which was which.
“Blue raspberry,” the boy (Morgan?) said, sticking an enormous cardboard cup under a spigot and letting it fill with a neon slurry. “Accept no substitutes.”
“Are raspberries blue?” Freesia asked. She thought they were red, but since everyone knew she suffered from major memory lapses through no fault of her own, she had almost stopped worrying about sounding like a doltoid.
“Raspberries are not blue.” He peered at the blue mass. “Ohmigosh, do you think they put something artificial in here?”
Iris came up behind him and smacked him on the arm. (Iris was a big arm smacker.) “Don’t tease her, Morgan!” (It was Morgan.)
“I tease everyone I like.”
On Morgan’s recommendation, Freesia filled her own enormous cardboard cup with the unnatural looking slush. One sip and she almost forgot where she was. Making up for lost time in math and English might be (would be) painful, but exploring foods of every taste, texture, and color—even blue—was a never-ending delight.
Bells on the front door jingled, and a group of kids entered the already crowded store. The blond girl with the pink cast was at the center, hobbling on her crutches while a burly boy carried her handbag. Angel was at the back of the pack.
“That’s my sister,” Freesia said. Angel hadn’t seen her yet.
“What, with Taryn?” Iris said.
Freesia tensed. “Which one is she?”
“The really annoying blond girl with the cast,” Iris said. “Bet you anything, her leg isn’t even broken. Girls do that to get out of cheer practice. And to get attention. Not that Taryn doesn’t get enough.”
Taryn. Freesia felt like she had been punched in the chest. She had instinctively disliked the girl when she’d seen her in the commons. Now she knew why.
“I went to sixth grade with her.” Her voice was unsteady.
“Ew,” Morgan said. “I hope you weren’t friends.”
Freesia shook her head. “No. We definitely weren’t.”
Taryn, trailed by the boy with the handbag and also by Angel, hobbled over to the nacho machine, where yet another boy dispensed orange goo onto a cardboard tray of chips. Angel, officially an enemy of articial flavors and colors, pounced on the cheese machine the moment it was free. When she was done, she looked up and caught Freesia’s eyes.
Freesia broke eye contact first. “Guess we should pay for this stuff and get out of here. The bell will ring soon.”
“Yup,” Iris said. “One more class, and we’re free till morning.”
* * *
“So are you like best friends with Iris Franco now?” Angel asked after school.
They were waiting outside their father’s classroom. This was the first time Angel had stood next to her rather than hiding around the corner.
Father was staying late to give some kid a makeup test. Father gave tests every Wednesday and had students correct each other’s tests every Thursday. That made for a day and a half every week in every class when he didn’t actually have to teach. Father was a terrible teacher, but he wasn’t stupid.
“I barely know Iris,” Freesia said.
“You went to the inconvenient store with her.”
“Is that really what it’s called?”
“No. Duh.”
Freesia took a step away from her sister.
“Iris is really stuck up,” Angel said. “And it’s kind of weird that you’re hanging out with sophomores.”
“How would you know if she’s stuck up? Have you ever even talked to her?”
“No. Because she’s too stuck up. She doesn’t even know who I am.”
Freesia narrowed her eyes. “So anyone who doesn’t know who you are is stuck up? There are a lot of people in this school. Nobody can know everyone.”
Angel rolled her eyes. “You don’t understand. At all.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
They stood in silence for a while. Finally, Angel spoke up. “People kept asking about you today. They wanted to know if I was your sister.”
“Sorry about that.” Freesia’s voice oozed sarcasm.
“It’s okay.” Angel was impervious to the ooze. “It’s almost like you’re a celebrity or something. So that makes me a celebrity’s sister.”
“Is that why you got to go to the inconvenient store with Taryn?”
“How do you know Taryn?”
“I don’t. But it’s weird that you’re hanging out with juniors. Plus, from what I’ve heard, she’s not a nice person.”
“Nice is overrated.”
“Hey.”
Freesia was so deep in sisterly nastiness, she hadn’t noticed Adam approaching.
“Hi!” She looked up, surprised at how glad she was to see him.
He said, “The stuff that everyone’s been saying. About, um—”
“It’s all true.”
“Not the stuff about you getting your own reality TV show,” Angel said.
“This is my sister, Angel. And she’s right about the TV show, though I hadn’t heard that.”
Adam nodded. “It makes sense, kind of. I mean, how you didn’t want to say much about where you’d gone to school before this. And how you acted kind of strange when we got to Erin’s house—no offense.”
Freesia shrugged. “I didn’t act half as strange as I felt. Anyway, now you know why I had to go down in English. I hope you’re not still mad at me for dropping out of the group.”
“I was never mad about that. I wasn’t mad at all. I was just … whatever.” His posture changed. He held up a hand. “I hope things work out for you. I wish you the best.”
With that, he walked away.
“He wishes you the best?” Angel said, once Adam had disappeared around the corner.
“Isn’t that a good thing?”
“No. It’s what grown-ups say when they never want to see you again. And it’s what a kid says when—it’s something a kid just doesn’t say. That guy is a freak.”
“He is not a freak!” Freesia’s anger surprised her. “Just because someone doesn’t say or do the exact same things as everyone else doesn’t make him odd. It makes him interesting.”
Angel’s mouth twitched. “And I thought Ricardo was supposed to be your boyfriend.”
“I don’t even know what a boyfriend is. The rules are different here. Ricky likes me, and I like him, but what does that matter if he’s still there and I’m stuck here? I just like Adam as a friend. And I don’t want you saying bad things about my friends.”
Freesia waited for Angel to point out that her “friend” didn’t seem to want to see her. But Angel stayed silent.
28
When they arrived home from school, Mother was waiting in the kitchen looking shiny, happy, stylish—almost pretty. Mother looked like Mummy.
“Three hundred thousand and forty-two,” she announced. “That’s how many hits my website got today. Last I checked, anyway. I’m sure it’s more by now.”
“What are hits?”
“That’s not even counting the mentions in other blogs and news reports,” Mummy continued.
“Nice work.” Father patted her arm and headed for the den.
“Some of the reaction has been less than kind,” Mother said.
Father, always polite, stopped to listen.
“Some people don’t understand that we chose Bubble World because it was the best environment for Francine,” Mother continued. “Not because it made our lives easier. But that doesn’t bother me. There’s nothing like controversy to generate intelligent discussion. Freesia, did you know Ricardo Leisure in Bubble World?”
Freesia willed Angel to remain silent. Miraculously, she did.
“Uh—sure. Everyone knows Ricky.”
“D
o you know his real name?”
She tensed. “I didn’t even know my own name.”
Mother sighed. “I’ve spent the entire day trying to get in touch with him. But there’s no contact information on his blog, and he didn’t respond to my comments or tweets. I’d do anything to meet him.” Mother gnawed on an unpolished fingernail. “According to his latest tweet, he’s just been kicked out of Bubble World, too. So he might be available for an interview.”
“What? Ricky got deleted? Because of me?”
Mother shook her head. “He violated his contract. It’s all on his blog.”
Freesia met Angel’s eyes, and Angel nodded toward the stairs. Together, they hurried up to her room (for once, Freesia didn’t trip) and opened the laptop.
Tuesday, 2:22 P.M.
BANISHED
It’s not like I didn’t expect this. In fact, I’m surprised it took so long.
When it happened, I was floating on a raft in my pool, staring up at the sky. The sun showed the first suggestion of late-afternoon orange. (In Agalinas, you can look directly at the sun. I do not recommend it in the outside world.)
I was thirsty, so I paddled over to the edge of my pool and called out for a tangerine sipper, but before it arrived, everything was gone: the pool, the sky, the sun, the island.
Like they had never even existed.
They never really did exist. But I believed in them anyway.
It took my eyes a few minutes to adjust to the darkness of my bubblepod. I checked my Bubble World account on my laptop. I wasn’t surprised to see that it had been closed.
I have been banished from Bubble World for violating my contract. In other words, for telling the truth on this blog. In the ethereal land of Agalinas, beauty is everywhere, entertainment is the order of the day, and no one has to do anything they don’t want to do. No homework. No chores. Nothing but laughter and pleasure and fun.
But freedom of speech? Not a priority.
So here we are.
In the real world.
Don’t tell anyone, but reality is overrated.
Freesia went back downstairs. Her mother was in the kitchen, brewing an individual cup of coffee.
“When you said you wanted to meet Ricky, did you mean meet meet him? Or just video chat?”