Runaway (Airhead #3)

by Meg Cabot

  Now Stark’s firewalls are impenetrable, their encryption codes unbreakable, and their IT department takes a two-hour lunch every day so they can have Journeyquest marathons.

  And Felix, who got his ankle bracelet removed a few weeks ago, has started bathing and wearing a suit to work. He actually looks almost presentable….

  And because of Stark’s newly implemented sexual harassment training seminars (mandatory for all staff administrators —Christopher’s suggestion), Felix can actually speak to women without making lewd and offensive innuendos.

  Which still doesn’t make it okay that he asked my sister, Frida, to his alternative high school’s prom.

  “It’s not like a real prom,” Frida said, when I made a big deal about this while we were shopping at Betsey Johnson the other day. She was actually planning on getting something there to wear to Felix’s prom with high-tops (thus the “not like a real prom” part. If it had been a “real prom,” she said, she’d have worn heels). “We’re not going out or anything.”

  “But it’s still a prom,” I said. “He’s still Felix. He’s going to try to kiss you. Probably worse.”

  “And that is a bad thing…how?” Frida replied.

  “You’d let Felix kiss you.” I could not believe this was happening. “Christopher’s cousin?”

  “You let Christopher kiss you,” Frida pointed out, flicking through a rack of off-the-shoulder numbers with big poofy skirts. Total prom wear. “All the time, I might add. I hardly ever see you two when you aren’t kissing. Including in school. Which isn’t too disgusting.”

  “That’s different,” I said huffily.

  And it was. Christopher and I had known each other our whole lives, practically. We were made for each other. We finished each other’s sentences.

  Sure, we still fought sometimes.

  But what two headstrong people deeply in love don’t fight from time to time? Especially two people who’d been friends for so long before falling in love. We knew each other so well, we could tell what the other person was thinking half the time.

  Like just the other day, in Public Speaking, when Whitney Robertson poked me in the back before class even started and leaned over to ask, “Hey. Is it true, the rumor I heard… that you had one of those brain transplants they’re talking about on the news all the time, and you’re really…um, Em Watts?”

  She said my name like it was a dirty word.

  Also, I could tell there was no way she believed it was true. How could I, Nikki Howard, lithe, swanlike creature, ever be associated with someone as odious as that hideous, hobbitlike Emerson Watts?

  It had been Christopher who had leaned forward in his seat and said to Whitney, with obvious pleasure, “You know what, Whitney? It is true. And because you were always so mean to her when she was Em, you can pretty much kiss away any chance you might ever have had at getting to meet Heidi Klum and Seal at any of the fall fashion shows. Right, Em?”

  Whitney and her little crony, Lindsey, had both turned their horror-and guilt-stricken gazes toward me. You didn’t have to be a mind reader to see what they were thinking: Please let what he said not be true. Please!

  I thought about putting them out of their misery. But the other thing that had come out of all of this (besides an end to Robert Stark’s newest commercial sales campaign, to sell hot young bodies to his old friends, for them to be hot and young again) was an end to all the lies.

  “He’s right,” I’d said, with a shrug. “I’m really Em Watts. I just use Nikki Howard as my modeling name now. And I’m not really interested in being BFFs with you guys. Unless, of course, you stop spiking volleyballs at other girls’ heads on purpose. And torturing them about the size of their butts in the hallway. You do remember when you used to do that to me, don’t you, Whitney?”

  Now Whitney’s eyes were the size of quarters.

  “B-but,” she’d stammered, “I— I was only kidding around.”

  “Huh,” I said. “Did you notice how I wasn’t laughing back then? It doesn’t hurt, you know, Whitney, to be kind to people, no matter what they look like. Especially because, these days? You never know who they’re going to turn out to be later.”

  “I…” Whitney blinked. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Yeah,” I said. I believed she was sorry. Now. “I bet you are.”

  The best thing about everyone knowing who I was— who I really was— was that my old grades were combined into my new ones and brought my grade point average up quite a bit. Suddenly, I went from being a mediocre student to an above-average one. Not straight As, by any means, like I used to be.

  But considering what I’d been through, and how many classes I’d missed, it was still a relief. With hard work, I’d managed to keep my head above water, gradewise…hard work, and Nikki’s career management skills.

  Because Nikki, another witness in Robert Stark’s grand jury trial, had decided not to go back to Gasper but stick around in New York…as my new agent and manager.

  Well, why not? She knows everything about the modeling business— especially as it concerns Nikki Howard— and obviously has a shrewd business sense (except when it comes to blackmailing people, which she swears on the Lady Clairol Midnight Sky she uses to keep her hair so dark that she’s not going to do anymore).

  She turned out to be serious about business school. She took her mom’s advice and enrolled in classes and is already making her professors miserable.

  Hey. No one can say Nikki Howard’s not bossy and doesn’t know how to get what she wants…especially for her clients (of which, so far, I’m the only one. But she’s working on that).

  It made sense that I give Nikki a cut of what I earned, anyway, since my career was the one she’d launched. We worked out that she got a percentage of all my future earnings, plus everything that had been in the accounts I’d found when I’d been declared “legally” Nikki Howard.

  And since, immediately following the makeover Lulu gave her, Nikki regained her va-va-voom factor with men, she lost all interest in swapping brains (not that we’d have been allowed to do this, even if we’d wanted to: There’s been a total ban on the surgeries, except in the case of life-threatening injury). I don’t know how much of this had to do with the fact that Nikki seemed to get really into being Goth “Diana Prince,” the name and persona she took for her new body, and how much of it had to do with Gabriel Luna being…well, into her.

  But I do know she has no interest whatsoever in selling the loft. She’s perfectly happy staying where she is, living in Gabriel’s apartment, driving Gabriel nuts by taking up all his closet space and insulting his bandmates…

  …and he, in turn, is the most creative he’s ever been, having written three new albums of songs— all about the same wacky girl he lives with— in four months.

  Instead, I’m paying Nikki rent, same as Lulu.

  My living situation had been the source of heated discussion with my parents, who’d assumed I’d move back home once my true identity was revealed.

  But to me, in a weird way, the loft was home now. How could I leave Lulu, who had no family other than me and Steven, who was still away at sea?

  “Maybe when he comes back,” I’d explained to Mom and Dad over pizza at their place one night— pizza I could now enjoy without worrying anyone was spying on me. “And he and Lulu do get married someday….”

  Frida snorted. “Right.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I demanded.

  “You’re not coming back, even if Lulu does get married. You like living in a bachelorette pad,” Frida said accusingly. “Face it, Mom and Dad. She only wants to stay there so she can have Christo—”

  “That’s not true!” I interrupted, although it was, of course, partly true. “And it’s not that I love you guys any less. It’s just that I still have a very busy schedule, what with work and school and—”

  “Oh, please,” Frida snorted.

  “She’s gotten used to being in her own space,” Mom said ve
ry diplomatically, “and wants to keep it that way. We understand.”

  Dad didn’t look like he understood, exactly, but he didn’t say anything. He clearly felt that he was outnumbered by females in this instance, as often happened in our household.

  “I don’t care,” Frida said, shrugging. “So long as I get invited over for your parties once in a while…”

  “Done,” I said. Like I said, Frida had really gotten very mature lately.

  “…and I can bring Felix.”

  “Oh, my God, no! Are you serious?”

  “Felix saved my life,” Frida said truculently. “And yours. How can you be so mean about him?”

  “He didn’t save your life,” I said. “I did. Felix and Christopher helped. A little.”

  “That’s not true. They were equally as important as you. He told me all about it—”

  “Girls,” Mom said. “Please. Both of you are smart, vibrant, beautiful girls with wonderful, talented, handsome boyfriends. Please stop fighting and clear the dishes so your father and I can have some alone time.”

  Alone time is important if you want to build a strong romantic relationship. Christopher and I try to grab as much as we can. Especially at Balthazar, which is one of our favorite restaurants to go to together for dinner…

  …with an appetizer, and dessert, despite Lulu’s assertions that high school boys can’t afford to take their girlfriends there (they can, if they also work part-time in the IT department of a major corporation. And their girlfriend insists she pay once in a while, because I work, too, and it’s only fair for the girl to pay sometimes. I don’t know where this archaic idea that the boy always has to pay comes from).

  It was at Balthazar the other night that I was sitting across from Christopher, happily stabbing a piece of lettuce and goat cheese, when a little girl came up to our table, holding a pen and a piece of paper.

  “Excuse me,” she said to me shyly. “But are you Nikki Howard?”

  I looked over at her, surprised. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight years old. I saw her parents sitting at a neighboring table, smiling at her encouragingly.

  The truth was, I didn’t know what to say. I was Nikki Howard…sort of.

  Except I also wasn’t, anymore.

  But the little girl’s expression was one of such hopefulness… she was in New York City for the night, all dressed up (she was probably going to a Broadway musical later).

  And here she was in a fancy restaurant, and she’d spotted a celebrity. What was I going to do? Say, No, little girl. Actually, I’m Em Watts.

  “Yes,” I said. “I am.”

  Her face burst into a delighted smile. She was missing her two front teeth.

  “Can I please have your autograph?” she asked, shoving the pen and paper at me.

  “Of course,” I said, darting a look at Christopher, who just grinned and kept on eating his salad. “What’s your name?”

  “Emily,” the little girl said.

  I refrained from saying, Em is my name, too, and wrote Best wishes, Emily, love, Nikki Howard on her piece of paper, and handed it and the pen back to her.

  “Here you go,” I said. “Have a nice night.”

  “Oh, thank you,” she said, and scurried back to her table and her parents, looking overjoyed.

  “That was nice of you,” Christopher said as soon as she was gone.

  “What was I going to do?” I asked. “Kick her in the face?”

  “To tell her you were Nikki Howard, I mean,” he said.

  “I am Nikki Howard,” I said. “As long as I’m stuck with this face, I’ll always be Nikki Howard.”

  “Yeah,” Christopher said. “But it’s not such a drag, is it? I mean, being Nikki Howard has its perks.”

  “It does,” I said, smiling. “But it has its drawbacks, too. As you might have gathered, since even the real Nikki Howard doesn’t want to be Nikki Howard anymore.”

  “Well,” Christopher said. “Maybe this will make you feel better about it.”

  And he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a long rectangular velvet box, which he slid across the table toward me.

  “What’s this?” I asked, surprised, since we weren’t exactly the kind of couple who showered each other with gifts. We sort of had everything we’d ever wanted…which was each other.

  “Open it and see,” he said, a mischievous twinkle in his blue eyes.

  I widened my eyes at him in mock astonishment, then opened the box…

  …and my astonishment turned to the real thing.

  Because lying there inside, on a whisper-thin necklace chain, was a heart-shaped platinum tag, surrounded by tiny diamonds, on which the words Em Watts had been inscribed in elegant cursive.

  “I thought if you wore that, no matter what face you saw every morning in the mirror,” he said in his deep voice, “you’ll never forget who you really are.”

  My eyes filling with tears, I held my hand out across the tabletop. He grasped my fingers, his grip strong and reassuring.

  “As if I ever could,” I said, my voice clogged with emotion, “with you around to remind me.”

  About the Author

  MEG CABOT is the author of the New York Times bestselling series The Princess Diaries, which was made into two wildly successful Disney movies of the same name. Other books include All-American Girl, Ready or Not, Teen Idol, Avalon High, How to Be Popular, Pants on Fire, and The Mediator, 1-800-Where-R-You, and Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls series. Meg divides her time between New York City and Key West, Florida.

  Visit Meg online at www.megcabot.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  EXTRA SPECIAL THANKS TO JENNIFER BROWN.

  THANKS ALSO TO BETH ADER, MICHELE JAFFE, LAURA

  LANGLIE, ABBY MCADEN, AND BENJAMIN EGNATZ.

  BOOKS BY MEG CABOT

  FOR TEENS

  Airhead

  Being Nikki

  Runaway

  The Princess Diaries series

  The Mediator series

  1-800-Where-R-You series

  Avalon High series

  All-American Girl

  Ready or Not

  Teen Idol

  How to Be Popular

  Pants on Fire

  Jinx

  Nicola and the Viscount

  Victoria and the Rogue

  FOR YOUNGER READERS

  Allie Finkle’s Rules for Girls series

  FOR A COMPLETE LIST OF MEG CABOT’S BOOKS, PLEASE VISIT WWW.MEGCABOT.COM

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2010 by Meg Cabot, LLC

  Cover photograph © 2008 by Michael Frost

  Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi

  All rights reserved. Published by Point, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, POINT, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Cabot, Meg.

  Runaway / by Meg Cabot. — 1st ed.

  p. cm. — (Airhead ; bk. 3)

  Summary: When sixteen-year-old Emerson Watts learns the truth about Nikki, the teen supermodel into whose body Emerson’s brain was transplanted, she finds that there is only one person to turn to for help — especially since her loved ones seem to be furious with her.

  [1. Models (Persons) — Fiction. 2. Transplantation of organs, tissues, etc. — Fiction. 3. Identity — Fiction. 4. New York (N.Y.) — Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.C11165Run 2010

  [Fic] — dc22

  2009046813

  First edition, May 2010

  All rights reserved under Internatio
nal and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

  E-ISBN 978-0-545-28295-6