by Carol Snow
She knocked. And knocked. And—
“I heard you the first time. Geez!” Angel, in a ruffled nightie, flung open the door and stalked back to a giant circular bed covered with a bright pink satin spread. She climbed up and sat cross-legged in the middle.
“I didn’t think you’d be up so early,” Freesia said.
Angel smiled because it was all she could do. “It’s not early. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon. Your time is all messed up there. You’ve been gone four days.”
“But—”
“There’s a bubblepod in my room.”
Freesia scanned the space. She saw a dollhouse, a wicker basket full of Barbies, and a floor-to-ceiling mirror with a ballet barre. “I don’t see it.”
“Not here,” Angel said. “In my real room. In Phoenix. Duh!” She smiled.
Freesia began to shiver. “I don’t understand.”
“Mom and Dad say I’ve left them no choice. They’re sending me to Bright Planet.”
Freesia shook her head. “Tell them you don’t want to go.”
“I did! And they don’t care. They say look what it’s done for Francine—how happy she is. How confident. After living in both worlds, you chose the virtual one. So they think it must be better.”
“It’s not—” Freesia stopped herself. Even with all the changes, Agalinas was her home. She belonged here. “It’s not for everyone. It’s probably better if you stay at Tumbleweed.”
“You need to talk to them, Francine!” A smile remained plastered on Angel’s face, but it sounded like she was crying. “You don’t know what you look like, lying there in your pod, mumbling and sweating and laughing at nothing. It’s like having a zombie in the next room. I don’t want that to happen to me!”
A strange sensation prickled along Freesia’s spine. “Are you in my room now?”
“I don’t like to go in there.”
“But can you take your laptop over to my bubblepod? Tell me what I look like right now?”
Angel smiled. And smiled. And smiled. “Okay.”
She didn’t move from the bed.
“Are you there yet?” Freesia asked.
“No.”
“Now?”
“Patience!”
“Sorry! I just—”
“Okay, I’m here. Right outside your pod.”
In the fancy cake house in Avalonia, prepubescent Angel remained cross-legged on her circular bed.
“And?” Freesia asked.
“You’re standing in front of your recliner. Your posture’s not so good. And there’s drool on your chin.”
“How’s my hair?”
“Flat and matted on one side, sticking up on the other.”
“Oh my Todd.” Freesia touched her glossy locks.
“But your hair isn’t the problem,” Angel said. “It’s your eyes. They’re so dead. You can’t let that happen to me, Francine.”
* * *
Mummy stood at the stove, spooning a white-yellow mess onto a plate.
“I need to talk to Mother,” Freesia said.
“Would you like another cup of Shanghai Moon Green tea with hibiscus flowers and honey?”
“No. Thank you. I would like to talk to Mother, please. Or Father. Now.”
“You’d better hurry if you’re going to make it to your interactive physics demonstration on time!” Mummy placed a slice of grainy bread on the plate and put it on the table. And then she began to hum.
42
Three newbies, two girls and a boy, all dressed in navy tops and khaki bottoms, made it to the zipline before her.
At the edge of the platform, a pretty brunette peered at the drop below. “What happens at the bottom? Will I crash into something?”
Freesia piped in. “Oh, no. About halfway down, warm sea winds will rise up and slow you down. And then, at the very end, the line will angle up, and you’ll eventually stop. Just put your feet down and take off your harness.”
The three newbies examined her. “How long have you been on the island?”
“Three and a half years.”
Their eyes widened. “You are so lucky,” said the other girl, a blonde who bore a remarkable resemblance to the brunette. “This place is awesome.”
“Awesome,” the boy echoed.
Freesia smiled. Everything will be okay, Angel, she thought. Life is better here. People are better here. You’ll see.
“How long have you been here?” she asked the blonde.
The girl blinked her jade eyes. “I have no idea.”
At last, Freesia got her turn on the zipline. As always, the bottom dropped out of her stomach when she first jumped, and she laughed at the sight of the houses and the boats, all looking like toys below her. It wasn’t until she had passed the town that it registered: there was a roller coaster encircling the Rotunda!
From the zipline, she hurried past the beach club bar to the pink sand, where maybe a dozen students in school uniforms sipped cappuccinos and nibbled on scones.
“Decaf,” Jelissa told her, holding up her cup. “And the scones are multigrain. But they’re surprisingly scrummy.”
“Did you see the roller coaster?” Freesia asked.
“It’s for our physics lesson!” Jelissa said. “We’re going to learn about energy and speed and mass and … other physics-y things, and then we’re going to ride the roller coaster and they’ll record our speed.”
“Vicious!”
“I know! It’s even better than eating Korean tacos in cross-cultural immersion class.”
“It’s almost worth wearing these odious uniforms.” Freesia plucked at her polo shirt.
Jelissa giggled. “I thought about wearing red platform stilettos with my uniform. Just to see what they’d say.” The boxy cut of the blue polo shirt hid Jelissa’s curves, and her khaki shorts, like Freesia’s, were much too long for someone so young. They weren’t supposed to wear jewelry with their uniforms, but the edge of a gold chain, hidden under Jelissa’s polo shirt, glinted in the sunshine.
Freesia looped her arm in her friend’s elbow and guided her closer to the water. “At least we don’t have to watch the newbies parading around in bikinis,” she whispered.
At the water’s edge, the girls tugged off their white sneakers and walked on cold, hard sand until the sea scurried up to lick their toes.
“Is it just me,” Jelissa said. “Or do the newbies all look alike?”
“It’s not just you.”
Something flashed in the shallow water. Freesia reached into the bubbly sea and pulled out a perfect white sand dollar.
Jelissa peered at the shell. “It’s good luck if you keep it, but if you throw it back, you get to make a wish.”
Freesia thought for a moment. “Now that I’m here, I’ve got everything I want.” She slipped the white disk into her pocket.
Jelissa peered out at the horizon. When she spoke, her voice was unusually subdued. “One day when you were gone, I found a sand dollar on the beach, and I wished as hard as I could that you’d come back.”
Tears glittered in Jelissa’s cornflower blue eyes. Even though it wasn’t her fault that she’d left, Freesia’s heart ached at having caused Jelissa pain.
Freesia took the sand dollar out of her pocket and laid it on her palm. “I wish our teachers would realize that uniforms are un-utter and they’d let us wear our own clothes.”
Jelissa threw back her head and laughed. Freesia chucked the sand dollar over the water like a tiny Frisbee. It skipped three times over the surface and then disappeared into the blue.
* * *
Ricky didn’t make it to the beach in time to hear their physics instructor, Mr. Einstein, explain something called relativity. (Not that it mattered; Freesia was maybe forty seconds into his confusing lecture before she figured out how to play the hamster game on her PEST.) But just as they were pairing off for roller coaster rides on the plaza outside the Rotunda, Ricky showed up, the last remains of a jelly doughnut in his hand.
> “Ricky, you ride the roller coaster with Freesia,” Jelissa suggested. “I’ll cozy up next to Ferdinand.”
Ricky popped the last bit of doughnut into his mouth and licked sugar off his fingers. “What about Cabo?”
Jelissa peered across the plaza, where Cabo was fizzing with three newbies. “Cabo has no taste. Where is Ferdinand, anyway? I saw him earlier.”
Ricky gazed up at the twisty rails. “I’ve never much liked amusement park rides.”
“You rode a flying unicorn yesterday,” Freesia reminded him. “This isn’t half as frightening.”
Ricky shook his head and spoke quickly. “But I control the unicorn. And there are no sharp turns or sudden drops.”
“Don’t be a fraidy,” Freesia said. “I’ll hold your hand. Even if it is a little sticky from the doughnut.”
Ricky’s mouth quivered. “The last time I went on a roller coaster, I—”
He stopped speaking and froze. Just stood there on the plaza, utterly still, utterly expressionless, his eyes as big and wide and dead as sand dollars.
“Ricky? Ricky!”
“What’s wrong with him?” Jelissa asked.
“I don’t know. This happened the other day. I think he loses consciousness.” She put her hands on his arms. “Ricky?”
Just like that, he was back—breathless and frightened, but back.
Freesia took both of his hands and squeezed them. She took several long breaths, wishing as she did so that she could give some of her air to Ricky. Finally, she spoke. “You have to leave.”
He shook his head. “I’ll sit on a bench. You two go on the ride.”
“No. I mean you have to leave this place. You need to get out of your house, out of your room. You need to exercise. To save yourself.”
“I am out of my room.” He kept his voice even.
“You know what I mean. Ricky, I don’t want you to leave. But I’m so afraid that if you stay, you’ll—”
“The line’s moving,” Jelissa said. “Come on, Free. You sure you’re okay, Ricky?”
“Positive.”
Defeated, Freesia gave Ricky’s hands a final squeeze and followed Jelissa onto the roller coaster, where they scored the first row of the second car.
“Just to warn you, roller coasters make me scream,” Jelissa said.
Freesia, still worried about Ricky, forced a smile. “I’ll just scream louder, then.”
As if reading her mind, Jelissa said, “I’ve never seen Ricky look so odd. Do you think he was playing a trick on us?”
“No. I wish he were.” Freesia tried to spot Ricky through the crowd, but now that she was sitting, it was impossible to see over the sea of heads.
Soon, the open car began its steep, jerking climb to the top of the Rotunda. With each moment, more of the town and harbor came into view. At the beach club, a marine biology class set off in kayaks to explore the coastline. On Front Street, a geometry class measured cobblestones. Outside one of the yellow learning center buildings, a small group of students held their arms up high and swayed from side to side. Freesia hadn’t the vaguest idea what they were doing or learning, but she was pretty sure the class was more fun than a single period she’d ever spent at Tumbleweed High.
As they neared the top, Freesia’s pulse quickened. Time to stop looking down. Next to her, Jelissa craned her neck to see the view, the edge of her gold chain glinting in the light.
The roller coaster made a creaking noise. Freesia’s palms grew moist. “What necklace are you wearing, Jelly?” Accessories distracted Freesia like nothing else.
“What, this?” Jelissa looped a finger under the chain. “It’s our bestie necklace.” She pulled out the pendant. It was the right half of a heart, with two letters engraved on it: ST.
Just like that, Freesia forgot about the roller coaster and how high it was going and how far and fast it would drop. “When did you get that?”
“We’ve had them for as long as I can remember. You know that. Oh, no—all your clothes were gone when you came back. Does that mean your bestie necklace is gone, too?”
A lead ball settled in Freesia’s chest, right where her own broken heart pendant would have rested. “I still have the necklace. It’s in my closet. In my house.” She took a deep breath. And then she said it. “In Phoenix.”
Just then, they reached the top of the roller coaster, the paradise that was Agalinas spreading out all around them. And then they dropped. Around and around, down and down they went. Jelissa held her arms up and screamed. Freesia screamed too, but not because the roller coaster frightened her.
The roller coaster wasn’t real. Nothing was. Not even Jelissa.
When they reached the bottom, Jelissa saw her tearstained face.
“Oh my Todd, Free? What’s wrong?” She grabbed her friend’s hands. Her half-heart necklace swung from side to side like a pendulum. Like a piece of a machine.
Freesia looked at Jelissa’s clear blue eyes, her curly red hair, her apple cheeks. Why hadn’t she recognized her before?
“You’re my Insta-friend!” Freesia’s voice cracked.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jelissa’s eyes glistened. “I am your bestie. Now and always.”
“Yes. Because my parents paid to have you created. To make you into the friend I wanted, the friend I’d lost.”
The roller coaster car stopped, and giddy students spilled onto the plaza. Freesia pushed her way through the crowd. She had to find Ricky.
“Freesia! Wait!”
At the sound of Jelissa’s distressed voice, Freesia halted. When Jelissa caught up, she was breathing hard and just barely holding back a sob. “Without you, I am nothing,” she said.
“I know. That’s the problem.”
They found Ricky sitting on a bench, drinking something pink out of a very large cup.
“You look better!” Jelissa said, all traces of sadness gone.
“I feel better.” He began to smile, but when he saw Freesia’s expression, his eyes widened.
“Jelissa is not from Canada,” Freesia said.
Ricky’s head dropped. “I know.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I was afraid it would matter to you.”
“It does.”
Head still down, he nodded.
“I’m going home,” Freesia said.
“No!” Ricky and Jelissa shouted at once.
“Come with me, Ricky. I’ll visit you as much as I can. And we can video chat and text and e-mail and—”
“I hate that world.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“What world are you talking about?” Jelissa asked.
“The only one,” Freesia said.
“It’s odious there,” Ricky said.
“In some ways, yes. But at least they have Pop-Tarts. And my sister, Angel, needs me.”
“I need you more,” Ricky said.
“Me too,” Jelissa added.
“Ricky, you can leave this place. I know it’s hard, but it’s not safe to stay. You have to think of your health. Besides, Todd Piloski is still here, and he’s still determined to ruin everything.” She looked at the sky. “And I don’t care who hears me say it!”
“I’m not leaving Agalinas ever again,” Ricky said, his voice barely a whisper.
“Can I go with you?” Jelissa asked.
Freesia bit her lip. “In a way you’re already there.”
“So this is good-bye?” Ricky looked so lost, so hurt.
“Unless you change your mind.”
“I won’t,” he said, and she knew he was telling the truth.
She took one last look at the diamond-sparkled blue water, the lush green hillsides, the fancy-cake houses—and her two best friends. And then she clapped her hands three times.
“There’s no place like home.”
43
She groped around in the darkness till she found the cold metal tray, the stainless steel cup, one half-eaten nutrition bar, and ano
ther not yet touched. The recliner was still warm from her virtual roller coaster ride. It was oddly comforting, touching things and knowing what they really were, not just what they seemed to be.
She found the handle and let herself out, crossing to the bedroom doorway. The light from the hall made her eyes ache. She stood, blinking, until everything was clear.
Angel’s door was closed. She pushed it open, and there it was: Angel’s bubblepod. It was a bit smaller than Freesia’s, also more oval than round (which made it easier to squeeze in among the bedroom furniture). But the recliner was the same, and the stainless steel table was so new and unscratched that it shone like a mirror. (Angel’s windows had not yet received their blackout treatment.)
“Francine?” Mother stood in the doorway. “I received an automated message from Bright Planet. It said you’d activated the emergency exit system.”
Freesia nodded.
“So it wasn’t an error.”
Freesia shook her head.
“Did something go wrong? Because I’ve been moderating the Bright Planet message boards, and parental satisfaction is measuring in the high nineties. I assumed the students were enjoying it as well.”
“They are. It’s just me. I don’t need it anymore. And also…” It was hard for her to explain exactly what she was feeling. “I don’t want to live in a world without Pop-Tarts.”
Mother wandered into the room and put a hand on the Plexiglas wall. “Angel’s bubblepod arrived yesterday. She’ll be disappointed that you won’t be there to greet her.”
“You can’t send her to Agalinas,” Freesia said. “She doesn’t want to go.”
“She’s left us no choice.” Mother’s voice sounded tired. “I’m too afraid of what will happen if she stays here. She snuck out a couple of nights ago, did she tell you that?”
“No.”
Mother nodded. “Didn’t come home till after midnight. Wouldn’t tell us where she’d been. I almost called the police, I was so scared. At least if she’s here”—she gave the bubblepod an affectionate pat—“we’ll always know where she is.”
“I’ll watch out for her,” Freesia said. “At home, at school—I won’t let anything happen. Father can watch her at school, too.”