by Tyra Banks
Dominique and Monique, two girls with large Très Jolie braids coiled around their heads, bent over a fire hydrant, watching water spray from the spout. “Two SMIZEs have been found already,” Dominique squealed. “Only two! Which leaves five still out there somewhere. If a SMIZE comes out now, we’ll cut it in half and we can both wear it to T-DOD!”
Monique squealed happily. “Our chances will improve by forty-five-point-five percent! Not bad!”
“Look!” A girl at the bottom of the B3 steps pointed at the sky. Everyone looked up. Some of the fog at the very top of the mountain had parted, revealing the top tips of what they all knew was a bright eye shining in the sky. “Ooh!” everyone cried.
The grand mountain poked between Peppertown’s wilted trees. Even though Tookie couldn’t see them from here, she knew that camera crews were camped out at the mountain’s base, anxiously waiting for that golden fog to vanish and Scouts to start shuttling girls up to the peak.
“Is this it?” Dominique shrieked. “Is it happening?”
“Not yet,” Zarpessa, who was standing at the curb, said knowingly. “My leg waxer’s father’s sister told me this fog peek-a-boo is just to get us all excited so we’ll buy more souvenirs on T-DOD.”
Then, as if following Zarpessa’s command, the hole in the fog closed, obscuring the mysterious mountain once more. The pandemonium quickly turned to reverent silence. Tookie’s heart slowed its pace.
“Hey, Zar, need a ride home?” Lorelei, one of Zarpessa’s friends, asked. “I’d love to see the gorgeous mansion you live in.”
“Uh, thanks, but no thanks.” Zarpessa twirled her hair. “See, my therapist’s yoga teacher’s meditation guru’s son-in-law told me that my walk to and from school is, well … it’s my time to be by myself. Especially in prep for the big day. Maybe another time.” And then she turned and marched off down a sweltering side street.
Tookie sighed and turned too. She had to walk home as well—but not because some meditation guru told her it was her alone time. As she trudged along the charbroiled sidewalk, she kept a running count of the cracks and the overlapping messages paint-stamped onto the concrete at street corners. Faded stamps read WHERE IS Ci~L? Newer ones painted on top of that said WHERE THE HELL IS Ci~L?
The messages puzzled Tookie. They referred to Ci~L—whose name was pronounced “see-el”—the most magnificent 7Seven ever to grace the earth, a Triple7, a majestic woman with caramel-colored skin and the most intoxicating eyes. For a long time, Ci~L’s visage was everywhere, and monopolized every fashion campaign and runway in every major style capital of the world … until only a few months ago, when her images had abruptly disappeared from billboards, magazine ads, and the sides of buses worldwide. A special news bulletin had announced that Ci~L was no longer accepting work and wouldn’t be the face of her own Ci~L by Jurk perfume, the bestselling fragrance in the world. But there was no explanation.
Tookie walked on past the long lines of accessory factories. Workers rushed in and out, their heads down, their faces permanently creased into frowns. Several children stood on the sidewalk, their eyes hollow, their hair cut short, their bodies swimming in workers’ uniforms. These were the Factory Dependents, children sometimes even younger than Tookie whose parents could no longer, or chose not to, care for them. Greedy industry overlords took them in, housed them in slums, and paid them nothing—servants for life. Whenever Tookie saw them, she felt a rush of pity and dread.
Then she approached a sunglasses factory whose façade was made of long sheets of glass. Her image swam into the reflection, and she winced. She still had that fore—no, five; no, six—head. The slightly too-small weak chin, the multiple-personality-disorder hair, and the woolly-caterpillar eyebrows. Her eyes still spread wide like an antelope’s, one the color of dirt, the other of snot. Yep. Same old Tookie, different day.
A few blocks later, Tookie turned down an alley between two factories and waited in front of an old oak tree. No matter how hot it was, or how tired and dejected she felt, Tookie walked down this narrow corridor and stopped at this tree every single day. It was a special place. The place her friend, Lizzie, called home.
It wasn’t a home in the normal sense. The day Tookie met Lizzie, the nervous red-haired girl had been fleeing an invisible assailant and had dragged Tookie up this very tree with her. Nestled in the top branches was a tree cottage of sorts, with piles and piles of clothes inside. Nurses’ uniforms and firemen’s boots and mechanics’ jumpsuits. Bags of scones and jugs of water sat in the corner. A twin mattress—who knew how Lizzie had dragged it up there?—sat in the middle, shaded by heavy branches. This was where Lizzie lived. Alone.
Now, as Tookie approached the tree, she thought she saw a branch rustle. She hadn’t seen Lizzie in almost six weeks, which was a little strange. Sure, Lizzie kept an erratic schedule, not going to school, disappearing at night, but six weeks was an awfully long absence. Tookie was worried about her.
Then Tookie spotted a shock of red hair. A figure peered down from a high branch.
“Lizzie!” Tookie cried out. Her heart lifted.
The girl darted down the makeshift ladder that hung from the tree cottage, grabbed Tookie’s hand, and pulled her upward.
When they reached the top, the girls extended their palms out, pointed to the sky with both hands, sniffed each armpit, and then curtsied. This was their silent expression of their secret greeting, What’s up, Hot Queen?
“Is anyone with you?” Lizzie whispered, her left hand twitching.
Tookie snorted. “Is anyone ever? You know you’re always safe with Forgetta-Girl.”
“I hate it when you say that. Stop it!”
Tookie shrugged. “Just stating the truth.”
Lizzie sighed. “Well, I remember you, as clear as this day is hot, so shut up.” Then she peeked down at the ground. There was an unhinged, terrified look in her eyes.
“We’re not being followed, Lizzie,” Tookie insisted. “I swear. There’s no one with me or near me.”
Lizzie exhaled a long-held breath and flung her arms around Tookie, squeezing hard. “I’ve missed you so much!”
“Me too,” Tookie said, feeling both grateful Lizzie was back and frustrated that she’d been gone in the first place. She pulled away and stared at her friend. Lizzie’s skin was oddly smooth, nothing like its normal acne-prone, pockmarked, sunburned state, and she wore a blue hospital gown tied at the back and a pair of doctor’s scrub pants that bagged at the ankles. shivera county hospital was stitched on the gown. This always happened when Lizzie returned after a long period away.
“So tell me everything!” Lizzie flopped down on her mattress. “What have I missed?”
Tookie shyly reached into the pocket of her shorts—which were now quite sweaty from the humid walk—and pulled out the button. T O OKE. “I found this today.”
Lizzie stared at it carefully. “Is it … one of his?”
Tookie nodded. She’d told Lizzie about Theophilus countless times before, describing him in great detail, down to his VOTE FOR LOVE pin. “And he spoke to me too.” She filled Lizzie in, except for the part about how Zarpessa had swooped in and ruined everything.
Lizzie ran her fingers over the dented metal. “Look at how the letters have worn off to spell your name! It’s a sign!”
Tookie loved that Lizzie got her so quickly. No one else did. “Yes, but then she appeared.”
“Zarpessa?” Lizzie guessed.
“Yup.” Tookie groaned. “That girl has everything—gorgeousness, money, Theophilus. Every time Zarpessa touches my Theophilus, it digs at my heart.”
A conflicted look crossed Lizzie’s face, and then she smiled. “Actually, your heart’s not the only thing Zarpessa’s digging.”
“What? What are you talking about?” Tookie prodded.
Lizzie raised her eyebrows. “C’mon. I’ll show you.”
She grabbed Tookie’s hand and the girls climbed down the ladder. Lizzie pulled Tookie along a series of streets
until they arrived at Juan Jorge’s, the only fancy restaurant in Peppertown, which catered to the quadrant’s politicians.
“What are we doing here?” Tookie whispered.
“Shhh,” Lizzie whispered. She led Tookie to a Dumpster at the back of the restaurant. Its lid gaped open, the lock broken.
Tookie looked at Lizzie. “Lizzie, are you hungry? Do you need food?” Lizzie usually Dumpster-dove even though Tookie tried to provide her with as much food as she could.
But Lizzie shook her head. “Look.”
A group of shabby people stood around the Dumpster. Some of them wore masks: the tallest man wore a gas mask, a shorter woman wore a tribal mask, and a what looked like a girl Tookie’s age had on a tattered comedy-tragedy mask. The girl carried a familiar yellow Dream Bag in the crook of her elbow. Tookie frowned.
The woman in the tribal mask pushed in front of the rest and grabbed handfuls of untouched fish filets, half-drained bottles of wine, and loaves of day-old Très Jolie bread. “Zar, baby. I’m so sorry. You don’t deserve this. Take the sea bass. It’s still warm.”
“Zar?” Tookie whispered.
Lizzie nodded feverishly, trying not to twitch.
The woman pulled more items out of the Dumpster. “Zar, baby, here’s some sparkling apple cider that’s still cold. Take it, honey, please.”
The girl in the masquerade mask dropped the bottle into her Dream Bag. The same gold glitter that adorned Theophilus’s presidential posters dotted her fingers. Could it really be Zarpessa under there? B3 Zarpessa? The stunning, wealthy girlfriend of Theophilus Lovelaces?
Tookie turned to Lizzie. “But Zarpessa is an heir to the Zarionneaux Peanut Empire! I just saw an ad for their peanut oil in the paper!”
Lizzie shrugged. “I guess they lost their fortune.”
Just then, the masked girl’s head shot up. The dark eyeholes in her mask aimed straight at Tookie and Lizzie. They both ducked, but not quite in time. Zarpessa’s shoulders stiffened. The cider bottle fell out of her Dream Bag, shattering on the ground.
“Run!” Lizzie cried.
They bolted away from the restaurant and sprinted through the sweltering Peppertown streets. Once they were safely out of range, Tookie stopped and bent over, out of breath. “Do you think she saw us?”
“I don’t know,” Lizzie answered.
“I can’t believe it.” Tookie shook her head. “How long do you think she’s been digging through trash?”
“I think it’s been years,” Lizzie said. “She just made the mistake of crossing over into my territory. At the used-clothes dump super-early this morning, I got into a tussle with her over a killer dress. It was deep yellow and it was made with this crazy shimmery fabric. Man, I coulda snuck into some serious black-tie blowouts in that thing. But Miss Zarpessa, she won the tug-of-war. I guess she wanted it more. So, I threw some matching yellow shoes at her. Her shameless butt scooped ’em right up and didn’t even utter a thank-you.”
“Wow,” Tookie whispered. “She’s living one big fat lie.”
“One big fat homeless lie. And—”
Suddenly, midsentence, Lizzie’s expression changed, clouding and contorting into a look Tookie knew all too well. Something else had overtaken Lizzie’s mind. Her body twitched. The muscles in her face stretched and contracted. She glared blankly into Tookie’s eyes.
“Tell them to stop,” Lizzie pleaded in a strange, garbled voice. “They always say it won’t hurt, but it does.”
“Lizzie, come back,” Tookie urged, grabbing Lizzie by her shoulders and shaking her.
“I can take it when they hurt me. But when they hurt Robyn, I feel it more.”
“Robyn again? Lizzie, who is Robyn?”
Lizzie casually rolled up her sleeve and Tookie’s gaze fell to her friend’s bare arm. Three inflamed red marks marred the crook of her elbow, right at the center. A burn scar traversed her bicep. A larger patch of seared skin bubbled on the inside of her wrist. The burn looked fresh. Tookie winced.
Then Lizzie began to search the ground. “Lizzie, don’t,” Tookie said, knowing what was coming next.
Lizzie ignored Tookie and continued her search, finally locating a sharp rock. She picked it up and then brought its jagged edge down to her inner arm, near her wrist. Blood flowed from the fresh slice in her skin. Tookie grabbed her arm. “Stop it! Why do you do that?”
Lizzie lowered her eyes. Her face was a ballet of twitching and wincing. “Because it hurts so much and I feel better when I do it,” she said desperately.
Tears came to Tookie’s eyes. She felt helpless seeing her best friend so tormented.
“Lizzie, what hurts so much? You can tell me,” Tookie begged. “I can handle it. And you know I’m not going anywhere. Ever. You know you can trust me. Does it have something to do with … that place?” She pointed to the embroidery on Lizzie’s gown. SHIVERA COUNTY HOSPITAL. She both wanted to know the answer—and feared it.
“It’s better you don’t know,” Lizzie whispered.
Tookie took a step back. The Melancholia Ward, she thought. That had to be where Lizzie had gone—that was surely where she always went. Officials probably repeatedly hunted down the paranoid orphan girl and dragged her off to the infamous mental ward in Shivera County Hospital, since she was too unstable to work in a factory. People in Metopia whispered that the staff at Melancholia ignored the atrocities that went on between the patients. Some said it was worse than the Shivera prison, which housed Metopia’s deadliest criminals. There was never any way Tookie could look for Lizzie in Melancholia either—the Shivera hospital kept no records, as though it didn’t exist.
During the five years they’d been friends, Lizzie had taught Tookie many things: not to be afraid to spelunk into the hidden Peppertown caves, which offered a stunning view of the undiscovered Peppertown platinum mine. How to sneak into the ritzy, no-tourists-allowed areas of LaDorno without getting caught—“It’s all about attitude,” Lizzie had said, donning a hand-me-up dress from Tookie’s closet. And what with Tookie’s strange SPLDs and writing-but-never-sending-letters habit and Lizzie’s screams and paranoia, it was like they were the only two happily crazed screwballs in a sea of sanity.
“Try not to think about where I disappear to, Tookie,” Lizzie whispered, pulling the gown’s sleeves back over her arms. A wistful look floated across her face. “Think about Exodus instead. Sleeping on the beach every night.”
Tookie smiled weakly. “And swimming whenever we want to.”
Lizzie poked Tookie’s thigh. “The whipped cream factory we could build for you, right on the shore.”
“So we’d be in the dreaded factory business, huh?” Tookie said playfully. “Grow what we know. We’ll build a grilled-cheese-dipped-in-strawberry-jelly factory for you.” Grilled cheese dipped in strawberry jelly was Lizzie’s absolute favorite food. Tookie snuck Lizzie sandwiches whenever she got the chance.
“And we’d own the factories, not just work in them,” Lizzie added. “Our workers would be part owners too. And we’d treat them with respect, not like the workers are treated here.”
“And Theophilus would be our mayor!” Tookie swooned.
“And we’d give our leftover lunches to Zarpessa as she waited outside every night in the cold ocean air for our staff’s scraps,” Lizzie said with a devilish grin.
“And there’d be no sharp objects anywhere near our factories,” Tookie said strongly, forcing Lizzie to look into her eyes. “Right?”
Lizzie locked eyes with Tookie, then looked down and rubbed her arm. “Right,” she said. “Okay, so … when?”
Tookie looked off into the distance and her mind flashed with the memories of what she and Lizzie had talked about so many times—leaving Metopia together, forever. Who knew where they’d go? Who knew how they’d get there? But they’d figure it out. They’d be two Forgetta-Girl peas in a pod. They called it their Exodus plan. Their secret code for it was X-O-2; Tookie would write this symbol on the front door of her home when it
was time to go.
“I don’t know, Lizzie. I don’t think I’m ready.” Tookie had never been out of Metopia. How could she live in a tree and scavenge for food as Lizzie did?
“Of course you’re ready,” Lizzie said. “You’re stronger than you think.”
Tookie looked away. She didn’t really believe that. Then Lizzie scanned the alleyway, probably looking for pursuers again. It was empty.
Tookie touched Lizzie’s shoulder. “Lizzie? If I go away with you, will you tell me the truth? About what happened to you?” Her gaze fell to Lizzie’s arm, the hospital sleeve now concealing the burns. She thought about how she both wanted and didn’t want to know this dark secret of Lizzie’s.
Lizzie’s lips parted. She blinked silently for a moment, thinking, running her fingers slowly along her forearm. “No. They’ll kill you if I tell you. You have to trust me.” Then she shuddered and wheeled around. “I have to go. They’re getting close.”
“But I just got here, Lizzie. And you’ve been gone for so long! Don’t go yet!” Tookie pleaded. “Where are you going? Do you need water, more clothes? I can steal some blankets from my house. You know how she gets rid of stuff that’s hardly been used.”
“I’ll be okay. I’ll wait for you to be ready, Tookie. And I know you will be soon. Exodus. Think about it. For real this time. I love you, Tookie.”