by Carol Snow
She’d spent the afternoon at the mall; Mother wanted some “bonding time” before Freesia left, and Freesia never said no to shopping. The lace dress looked so pretty on the hanger. She pulled it off the rack and admired it for a moment before accepting that it wouldn’t suit her real-world shape. But Mother swooped in and said she should have something nice to wear to her first (and final) high school party.
When Freesia had looked in the dressing room mirror, she had seen a lovely girl looking back. Now Angel was trying to ruin everything.
“You are in no position to offer fashion advice.” Freesia wrinkled her nose at Angel’s tight jeans, gray hoodie, and bulky brown boots. Aside from her overgelled hair and orange blush, she could have been going camping.
Their rides pulled up at the same time.
“Will there be parents at the house?” Mother asked, a little late.
“I don’t know.” Freesia tried to remember what Iris had said.
Angel said, “Yes.”
“So there won’t be any drinking,” Mother said.
“Of course not,” Angel said.
Freesia was confused. “I would hope there will be water and maybe juice.”
* * *
She was beyond overdressed. Even Iris was wearing jeans (though not a hoodie; Iris had her standards). Jack’s party was nothing like the dances or get-togethers on Agalinas, and not just because tonight’s recommended attire appeared to be “slovenly.” There were no pretty cakes. There were no amusing entertainers. There were no rides or games. And the music hurt her ears.
As soon as they walked into the hot, crowded, ripe-smelling house, all she wanted to do was leave. But since Kendy had driven (and seemed to be enjoying herself), she was stuck.
“Let’s dance!” Iris said once they’d tried talking to three different sets of people over the earsplitting music.
Freesia looked around for a dance floor. “Where?”
“Anywhere!” Iris grabbed her wrist and pulled her to an empty patch in the living room. The other three followed. Iris, arms up in the air, closed her eyes and swiveled her hips.
Right away, Alex, Kendy, and Morgan began dancing, clapping hands, and saying “woo!” a lot.
In Agalinas, Freesia had been a good dancer, but here she couldn’t seem to find the beat of the music. Or maybe she couldn’t stand the sensation of having people stare at her and her friends. In any case, once Freesia began to sweat in her lace dress, she couldn’t stand any more. When one nonsong ended and began to transition into the next nonsong, she shouted, “I’m going to get something to drink.”
Iris grinned. “Naughty girl.”
Morgan clapped.
Kendy said, “Woo!”
The kitchen was even more crowded than the rest of the house, and her shoes stuck to the floor. A door had been left open to let in the cool night air, so at least the smell was better. Plastic red cups, filled to the rim with something equally red, stood in rows on the counter. Freesia picked up a cup and sniffed: fruity.
“Chug it!” A boy spoke right into her ear.
She just managed to avoid spilling the drink. “Is this … happy juice?”
He threw back his head and laughed. His tongue was red, his teeth were pink.
I hate this place, Freesia thought.
“There’s root beer, if you’d rather have that,” someone else said.
Freesia turned, and there was Adam. He was wearing jeans, sneakers, and a plaid shirt over a T-shirt. Adam looked relaxed. Like he belonged there.
The boy with the red teeth leaned too close to her ear again. “Hey! You’re Bubble Girl, aren’t you?”
“Root beer sounds good,” she told Adam.
“Here’s what I keep wondering about that bubble place,” the obnoxious boy said. “What about going to the bathroom? Where did you do that?”
Adam filled a red cup with soda. “Let’s get out of here.”
Outside, the cold air came as a relief. A kidney-shaped pool dominated the small backyard, which was surrounded on three sides by high stucco walls. Kids clustered in small groups on the concrete.
“You look nice,” Adam said. “I like your dress.”
“I should have worn jeans like everyone else.”
“But you’re not like everyone else.”
“Thanks for pointing that out.”
“It’s a good thing,” he said.
She sipped the soda. It was warm and a little flat. “I’m not so sure about that.”
They claimed a rubber lounge chair and sat down next to each other. The air smelled sweet; something was blooming. Above them, a big moon lit up the sky. She’d be gone before it turned full.
“How’s the Emerson project going?” she asked.
“Ugh.” He rolled his eyes. “Erin’s useless. Every time I suggest something, she’s all, ‘Yeah, I don’t think that will work.’ But she’s so wishy-washy, she doesn’t have any ideas of her own. I’d heard she was the worst person you could possibly work with.”
“Why’d you offer to be in her group then?”
He shrugged. “Because you were in it.”
“Oh.” She felt her cheeks turn warm.
“How are your new classes?” he asked.
“Oh, you know.”
“Right.”
“I’m not—” She stopped. Drank some more soda.
“What?”
She looked at his face. He was cuter than she remembered.
“I’m not staying,” she said. “They’ve changed Bubble World. Made it better. Well, made it so we’ll learn stuff, anyway. I’m going back.”
“When?”
“Monday. I haven’t told anyone else.”
He was still for a long time. Then he nodded and looked across the pool.
She followed his gaze. A few girls were getting loud and giggly while some tall boys loomed over them.
There was a squeal, a shout, and a storm of laughter, male and female. And then she saw her.
“Oh, no.”
“What?”
“My sister. She just spilled her drink all over herself.”
Across the pool, Angel stumbled next to a large boy in a backward blue baseball cap. He steadied her and then draped his arm around her shoulders. She put the red cup to her mouth and tilted it high.
“You mean the one with Jack? The big guy in the baseball cap?”
“Yeah.”
“What year is she?” Adam asked.
“Freshman.”
Adam squinted at Angel and shook his head. “She shouldn’t even be here. And she definitely shouldn’t be with him.”
“Why?”
As if in answer, the large boy, Jack, scooped up Angel and carried her to the edge of the pool. She squealed with hysteria and said, “No! No!”
She dropped her red cup, but it was empty.
“Do it, Jack!” a blond girl called out. Taryn. Her highlighter-pink cast was gone.
Jack turned away from the pool and bent over as if to release Angel onto the deck. Then he spun back around and launched her into the water, where she landed with a sickening splash.
Jack and his friends bent over with laughter. Freesia and Adam sprang off the lounge and hurried to the edge of the pool. When Angel surfaced, Freesia first thought she was laughing, but no: those were sobs.
The pool wasn’t very deep; the water came up to Angel’s waist. She staggered to the edge and scooped out as much water as she could, trying to splash Jack.
“Why did you do that?” She wailed. “That was so mean.” She splashed again but only managed to drench the pool deck as Jack and his friends, still laughing, retreated to a drier spot.
Adam and Freesia circled the pool. Freesia squatted at the edge and held out a hand.
“Come on, Angel.”
Angel stumbled backward and just stood there, arms floating at her sides, tears streaming down her red face.
“Let’s go home, Angel.”
Angel shook her head and kept cry
ing.
Freesia reached her hand out as far as she could without falling, but Angel wouldn’t take it.
“I have a towel in my car,” Adam said. “I’ll get it. And then I can drive you both home.”
“Thanks,” Freesia said.
Around the yard, kids laughed and pointed at the girl in the pool.
“Jack is a doltoid,” Freesia told Angel. “Taryn too. You shouldn’t waste your time on them.”
“Nobody likes me.” Angel’s voice squeaked.
“I like you.” Freesia’s eyes filled with tears, and when they spilled over, her face was actually wet.
There was no point squatting at the edge, reaching out her hand. Angel wouldn’t take it. Freesia had no choice. She put her pink phone on a plastic table, strode over to the edge of the pool, kicked off her shoes … and jumped.
“Oh my Todd!” Jack’s pool was nothing like the tropical waters off Agalinas. It was nothing like tropical waters anywhere. She had never been so cold.
Angel was so shocked that she stopped crying. And then she laughed. And then she cry-laugh-hiccupped. “There goes—hic—your new—hic—dress.”
“I don’t really like it anyway.” Freesia pushed her wild hair off her face.
Kids moved closer to see what was going on, to see who had fallen in.
Freesia submerged herself and then popped back up. “Everybody in the pool!”
One girl ran to the edge and then, seeing herself alone, retreated.
“Or not.”
Angel sniffled. “You’re a freak, Francine.”
“I don’t mind being a freak. But please don’t call me Francine.”
* * *
Wet, Angel’s gray hoodie weighed about five pounds. Freesia wrung it out as best she could and put it in Adam’s trunk. Bundled in the towel, Angel staggered onto the back seat and lay down.
“My phone,” Angel moaned. “I think it’s broke. The water broked it.”
“She’s acting weird,” Freesia murmured to Adam. “I know she’s upset.…”
“She’s pretty wasted,” Adam said.
Freesia shook her head with confusion. She shivered from the cold.
“Plastered,” Adam said. “Polluted. Drunk.”
“You mean … from the happy juice?” Freesia hugged herself and jiggled up and down on the pavement.
“That’s a new one,” Adam said. “But yeah. From the happy juice. Sorry I don’t have another towel for you.”
“Sorry I’m going to get your car all wet.”
“I don’t mind.”
They got in the car, and Freesia twisted around to look at her bedraggled sister. Freesia tried to think of a single time when a party on Agalinas had ended badly, but she came up with nothing.
When they pulled up in front of Freesia’s house ten minutes later, Angel was asleep.
“I’ll help you get her in the house,” Adam said. But he didn’t move.
“Thanks.” Freesia didn’t move either.
“So I guess…” He left the sentence hanging.
“Yeah.”
They looked at each other and smiled at the exact same time.
“Be nice to Erin,” Freesia said. “She’s pretty okay when you get to know her. If I were staying, I’d—well, just try to be patient.”
“I will,” Adam said. “Will you be able to call from…”
“No.”
He nodded, and they sat in silence for a bit. Then they hauled Angel out of the back seat and helped her up the walkway. Freesia unlocked the front door, and Angel made a beeline to the bathroom.
Freesia and Adam stood in the open doorway. Adam put his hands in his pockets. Freesia hugged herself. Wet, wild curls hung around her face. She thought: I must look like a mess. And then she realized, with a shock, that she didn’t care.
“Well,” he said.
“Well.” She had to crane her neck to look up at him.
He had such an interesting face. The light eyes, the long, slightly crooked nose, the wide mouth. She’d never seen anyone who looked anything like him.
So fast she didn’t see it coming, he bent over and pressed his lips to hers. Just as fast, it was over. But she could still feel his warmth, still taste a hint of his root beer.
“Bye,” he said.
And just like that, he was gone.
36
“You’ll visit me, right?” Freesia asked Angel in the bathroom Monday morning. Angel was putting on makeup. Freesia resisted the urge to tell her to go easy on the glitter eyeliner.
“Well, yeah. It’s not like I’ve got anything better to do.”
After Jack’s party, Mother and Father had grounded Angel till pretty much forever. Freesia tried to protect her sister by telling them that an obnoxious boy was to blame for her drenched state (her own soaking was a little harder to explain), but they could tell that Angel was under the influence of something even stronger than adolescent hormones.
Apparently, this wasn’t the first time Angel had gotten, as Adam put it, “polluted.” Or even the second. But she had promised it would never happen again, and her parents had believed her.
It didn’t matter that Angel’s phone was ruined. Her parents would have taken it away, anyway, just as they’d confiscated her MP3 player. She could only use her computer to do homework or visit Freesia in Bright Planet. Technology, they explained, was “a privilege, not a right.”
“They can’t watch you all the time,” Freesia said. “I bet you can sneak some video chats with Tyler.”
Angel shook her head. “That’s over.”
“Sorry.”
Angel twisted her eyeliner tube and chucked it into a drawer. “He dumped me for another girl he’s never met.”
The bubblepod updates took longer than expected. It was almost eleven when Freesia, wearing her old black stretch pants and a giant T-shirt, gave her mother an awkward hug and settled into the reactivated recliner.
She hadn’t sent her Tumbleweed friends a group text after all. It felt too impersonal. And she couldn’t find the right words.
“I’m sad you’re going,” Mother said. “But I’m happy that you’re going to be happy.”
Freesia forced an expression of pleasantness onto her face, but when she met her mother’s eyes, she was shocked to see that they were shiny. Was Mother actually crying?
“All the things that I said on my vlog,” she continued, “they were true. We did it for you, not because we didn’t want you around. You couldn’t find a place for yourself in the real world, but in the virtual world, you blossomed. I’m still angry at Todd for his deception, don’t get me wrong, but I’m so grateful that Bubble World gave you the opportunity to grow into the young woman you were always meant to be.”
Freesia nodded. Her heart pounded, and her hands shook. She was going home. Why did that make her so nervous?
“You’re sure you want this?” Mother said.
Freesia nodded.
Mother handed her a glass of pale orange liquid. Freesia peered at it with suspicion. “Memory blocker?”
Mother shook her head. “The rest of the students will still take them, but not you. I worked it out with Dick Levine. Though of course you’re not allowed to talk about the outside world once you’re there.”
“What is this, then?”
“Something to relax you and induce the right hypnotic state.”
The orange liquid was sweet with a slight metallic taste. Right away, she found herself feeling loose and happy—ready to meet her friendlies on Front Street and swim in the sea.
Mother said, “And remember what I told you about the emergency exit system. You ever want to leave Bright Planet, just clap your hands three times and say, ‘There’s no place like home.’”
“Clap hands? Why not click heels?”
“Copyright issues.”
Freesia snuggled back against the recliner headrest. “I won’t want to leave.”
Mother checked the control panel. “All systems are ready
. Are you?”
“Hm?” Freesia felt sleepy.
“Shall I launch the program?”
“Yes, please. Thank you, Mummy.”
Mother paused. “You’re welcome. Now, close your eyes and count to twenty. When you open them, you’ll be there.”
37
When a salty breeze stroked her cheeks and the clang of buoys tickled her ears, Freesia knew she was back in Agalinas, her magical Pacific Paradise off the coast of … somewhere. It didn’t matter where Agalinas was. Or wasn’t. For Freesia, it was home. A smile on her lips, she opened her eyes slowly—only to discover, with a start, that she was sitting in an unfamiliar (though comfortable) chair in an unfamiliar (though lovely) room.
“Hey, girlfriend—what’s happening! Welcome to Bright Planet. I’m Imelda, and I’m gonna be your BPGC—that’s island speak for Bright Planet Guidance Counselor.”
Freesia sat up straight in her overstuffed easy chair and checked the surroundings. She was in a sunny room with pale wood floors and floor-to-ceiling windows that looked right at Avalon Harbor, without any hillside, street, or buildings to mar the view.
“Are we on Front Street?” she asked Imelda, an angular girl with skin the color of milky coffee and eyes an unnatural shade of gold. Imelda sat cross-legged on a low table. She wore jeans and a fluorescent yellow T-shirt that said BPGC.
Imelda spread her arms. “Right now we’re in the Taco Hut Guidance Center, conveniently located on the water side of Avalonia’s main street.”
“You mean Avalon,” Freesia corrected.
“Avalonia is the main town on the awesome island of Agalinas,” Imelda said. “Also the only town. Anyways.” She unfolded her legs and pulled herself to her full height—which was rather high. “I’m here to help you put the final touches on your personalized education program. Also known as your PEP. After that, I’ll show you around the island and take you to your new abode. You down with that?”
“I’m, uh…”
“Awesome! But first I gotta go over some island do’s and don’ts. Number one: you know the Golden Rule?”
“Don’t mix with silver?”