by Tyra Banks
Lizzie just stared ahead into nothingness, not at all unlike Wingtip. Then she spoke in a drone Tookie had never heard from her, as if she was a medium at a séance. “They took her last night. By her feet. The burning continued throughout the night. They cut open her blisters and poured liquid metal into her veins.”
Lizzie then raised the cuffs of her pants, which were dragging on the ground, revealing feet that looked like they had been dipped in battery acid, with open sores that oozed pus. The area near her arches had a hundred little cuts ranged in straight lines, as if they were soldiers ready for battle.
“Lizzie!” Tookie cried. She looked around frantically, hoping someone could help her. “We have to get you to a hospital!”
Lizzie shook her head violently. “No! I don’t need a hospital. They’ll kill me! But … I do need you, Tookie.”
Tookie clutched Lizzie’s hands. “Need me? For what?” But Tookie knew what Lizzie meant.
“Exodus,” Lizzie whispered oh-so-faintly.
Tookie widened her eyes. A shiver went through her. “Wh-when?”
“Tomorrow. Please.”
“Tookie!”
Tookie turned at the sound of her mother’s voice. Mrs. De La Crème was standing near the parked cars, looking annoyed. Tookie swallowed hard, then turned back to Lizzie—but she was nowhere to be seen.
“Oh my God,” Tookie whispered, running her hands down the length of her face. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks. Lizzie had braved this crowded part of Metopia to find Tookie. Whatever was happening to her must have been even scarier than her burns and scars themselves—it was dire. A life-or-painful-death situation.
Exodus. Lizzie was leaving. Had to leave. And she needed Tookie to come with her.
“You all right?”
It was Wingtip. He stood behind Tookie, his face crumpled with sadness, the shoe slung over his shoulder.
“Oh!” Tookie exclaimed. She tried to wipe away her tears. “Uh, I’m fine.” Then she looked away, feeling awkward. It was so rare for her to speak to strangers. Usually, they didn’t notice her. And her mother’s warning rang in her head. What if there was something wrong with Wingtip? What if he was truly a dangerous man?
“What’s got you so sad, little lady?” Wingtip asked.
Tookie shrugged. “It’s nothing. Really. I’m not supposed to look at you, let alone speak with you.”
He chuckled. “Nothing I’m not used to.”
“Why do you talk to yourself?” Tookie blurted out, then clapped her hand over her mouth, fearing she’d been rude.
But Wingtip didn’t look bothered. “Little lady, when your world has been ripped right from under you, you tend to not trust much of what anybody says. Anybody but yourself, that is. And I do a good job of keeping myself company.”
“Okay. Confession time,” Tookie said. “Sometimes I speak to myself too, since nobody else does.”
“It’ll stop you from going crazy,” Wingtip chuckled.
“Crazy? Ha! My mother says you’re crazy!”
“Oh, does she, now? Well, maybe you should listen to your mother.”
“Nah, I think you’re more sad than crazy.”
“Smart little lady you are.” The man fiddled with the laces of the shoe slung over his shoulder. “I know why I’m a sad sap of a man, but why are you crying?”
“Um … because it hurts.”
“What hurts?”
“Everything.”
“I can relate to that.”
Tookie pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and bit down hard to keep from exploding into more tears. Wingtip leaned forward and pointed at her. “You’ve got more important things to do than hurt, little lady. You’ve got a beautiful light that only a few people can see, shining brightly inside of you.”
“A light?” Tookie repeated, hardly believing her ears. Perhaps he’d said a plight instead. Or a blight.
Wingtip leaned closer, offering a genuine smile. “Go for your destiny, girl. Dream big. Take it from a sad and crazy man who talks to himself. Everyone’s entitled to dream, you know. Even you.”
Tookie looked away. “Dreaming is dangerous, though. It just sets you up for disappointment.”
He gave her a shocked look. “Who gave you that idea?”
Tookie ran her tongue over her teeth. My parents, she almost said.
As more fireworks exploded in the sky, Wingtip sighed. “Little lady, if you don’t dream, you’ll wind up not just talking to yourself but answering your own questions, wearing last week’s clothes, and walking around with a shoe over your shoulder.” He rose, slung the shoe onto his back, and gave her a nod. “I’ll be seeing you.” And then he slipped through the crowd, the old wingtip shoe bouncing against his back. Tookie watched him for a moment, awestruck.
“How dare you abandon us?”
Tookie turned around and saw her mother standing behind her, Myrracle’s Jurk garment bag in her arms. “You dropped Myrracle’s dress on the ground and the crowd traipsed all over it! What were you doing all the way over here?”
Tookie quickly scooped the bag from her mother’s arms. “I’m s-s-sorry, C-Creamy. I was just …” She gestured at the fervor around them, searching for an excuse. “It’s just, um, h-h-hard not to get caught up in this.”
Mrs. De La Crème blinked hard at her. A cruel smile spread across her face. “What does all this matter to a girl like you, Tookie?”
Tookie swallowed. Normally, she would have wilted, turned away, and told Creamy she was right, but it suddenly felt like she’d just put on a steely coat of armor. Exodus, she thought.
Everyone’s entitled to dream, you know. Even you.
“You’d be surprised,” Tookie said, emboldened. And then she turned away.
7
X-O-2
“Damn it, woman! Where were you?”
Tookie’s head jerked up from her pillow with a start. She’d been exhausted after the shopping trip and had gone straight to bed. How long have I been sleeping?
“You came home an hour later than you said you would!” Mr. De La Crème continued with an acidic rage Tookie had never heard before. Then there was a sound of liquid sloshing from a jug, followed by the sharp, sour smell of TaterMash.
Mrs. De La Crème sighed. “You’re drunk, Christopher. For the last time, we were at the mall buying a dress for your daughter and stopped to watch the 7Seven ceremony!”
“Woman, whether you disappear for an hour or days at a time,” Mr. De La Crème scoffed, “you always have some clever excuse!”
Tookie peeked around the corner into her mother’s office, which was next to the kitchen. Mrs. De La Crème was dressed in an ivory satin nightgown with a matching robe that cinched her waist so tightly, Tookie thought it might leave permanent indentations. Creamy sat in a lambskin chair at her massive desk. Brand-new books with shiny covers lined the shelves. Sitting on the long backless couch and the windowsills and in custom displays all around the room was her doll collection, which she’d started years before Tookie had been born.
There were swaddled babies. Dolls with eyes that opened and closed. Dolls that wet themselves and digested food and spoke. Each was positioned just so, an arm curled here, a leg crossed there. Their heads pointed straight at Tookie’s mother, as though she were conducting a meeting with all of them. Tookie wished she could close every single pair of glassy eyes. Maybe if they didn’t stare so adoringly at her mother, Mrs. De La Crème could resist their charms and would share some of her love with Tookie.
Mr. De La Crème stood in front of his wife, his hands balled into fists on his hips. “Oh, I know you stopped to watch the 7Sevens. But I also know you can see that damn show from anywhere in the world. Hell, I saw it right here from our front porch. You could have watched it here with me. But no, you wanted to watch it with your man friend, didn’t you? I know people, Creamy! And I trust what they tell me!”
Mrs. De La Crème tossed her hair. “So now your desperate flabby behind is spying on me?” S
he laughed cruelly. “Oh, Christopher, you have reached an all-time low. I pity you.”
“Spare me,” Mr. De La Crème growled. “The only thing you should pity is that disastrous, petrifying mug of yours.”
Mrs. De La Crème instinctively touched her face. “Oh, so the one-eyed unemployed monster has the nerve to talk about my face? Have you looked in a mirror lately, dear?”
Mr. De La Crème slammed his jug of TaterMash onto his wife’s desk. “That’s what all this is about, isn’t it? You think I’m damaged goods.” He grabbed Bellissima from Mrs. De La Crème’s arms.
Tookie’s mother groped for the doll. “Christopher, don’t you dare hurt her!”
“Her?” He waved the doll in the air. “You say that like she’s a human being. Like she’s more important than me! Where do I fit in your life? Sometimes I think you wish that sword had killed me. So that you could continue your life with her father!”
“What?” Mrs. De La Crème asked, her eyes focused on Bellissima. “Whose father?”
“Your daughter’s father, Creamy! Don’t play dumb.”
Mrs. De La Crème blinked confusedly. “Myrracle’s father?”
Mr. De La Crème laughed heartily. “Oh, you wish I was talking about Myrracle! You wish it were Myrracle I had doubts about—that would make her all yours! But no, Creamy, she belongs to both of us, and we will both reap her rewards. You can’t push me out that easily!” He pointed at her. “You know who I mean. The other one.”
Tookie widened her eyes.
Mr. De La Crème prowled around the room. “Every time I look into that child’s mismatched eyes, I see—or shall I say, I don’t see it.”
Mrs. De la Crème paled. “But Christopher, you have one green eye! Just like hers!”
Mr. De La Crème glowered at her. “There is nothing about me that lives within that girl. That circus freak. She is uncoordinated, unattractive, and unmemorable.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about! You are the only man I have ever been with!”
Tookie waited for her to say more, to deny that she thought Tookie was uncoordinated, unattractive, and unmemorable. But she didn’t. It was the equivalent of saying she didn’t love her. Tookie bit down hard on her inner cheek.
“I do too know what I’m talking about,” Mr. De la Crème said calmly. “She’s not mine, Creamy. I haven’t felt like she was mine from the second she hit puberty. She went from adorable to atrocious almost overnight.”
“What?” Tookie whispered, pressing her spine against the back wall. She felt dizzy. Was this a nightmare?
“Creamy, let’s be real,” Mr. De La Crème continued. “As soon as you got pregnant with her, you had to go off to some special medical facility to deal with all the complications you said you were having, scary things that could’ve made you lose the baby. I was on the road and couldn’t go with you. Remember? I had to keep working to make sure we could put food on the table for our growing family. Then, nine months later, you had her—thousands of miles away from here. You refused to let me be with you to see her take her first breath. My first child, Creamy! You denied me that right. How come you never let me talk to the doctors who delivered her? Was there another man in the room while you gave birth? Her real father? Was that why you called me only after it was over?”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about!” Mrs. De La Crème spat.
But Mr. De La Crème barreled on. “You told me they didn’t know if you or the baby would live. And after that, you said you couldn’t have any more children—your insides were ruined. But two years later, Myrracle came. Thank God. A real miracle. The spitting image of her father …”
Tookie’s mouth dropped open. Did he really believe that? Was a child’s life worth more the more they resembled their parents?
Mrs. De La Crème scoffed. “You have lost your mind! That sword must have sliced your sanity!” But she sounded less resolute than usual. Her face was pale. Her wrinkled lips pursed.
Mr. De La Crème shut his one good eye. “Woman, I cannot take your lies anymore! Just stop it!” He turned and faced the wall. And suddenly … crack! He pummeled his fist through the flimsy plaster. A cloud of dust billowed everywhere. Tookie shot back and ducked behind the curtain across the hall.
Tookie’s mother whirled around. “Christopher, you have gone crazy!”
Mr. De La Crème’s skin flushed puce. “Well, Creamy, if I’m crazy, you sure are breaking your number one rule, because you’re making a hell of a lot of eye contact with a crazy person right now, aren’t you?”
Tookie’s mother shot to her feet, grabbing Bellissima from her husband. “I’ll say it again: not one bit of your ridiculous accusation is remotely true.”
“Oh, but it is, Creamy. And you know it. And I’m going to tell everyone I know after I prove my gut instinct to be a scientific fact.” He removed a yellow toothbrush, its bristles worn and bent, from his pocket and waved it in front of his wife’s face. Tookie squinted and realized it was hers. She had brushed her teeth with it earlier that night.
Mrs. De La Crème lunged for her husband and pinned him against the ruined wall. “Oh no you won’t!”
“Oh yes I will!” Mr. De La Crème cried, trying to push her aside. “Right after Myrracle gets chosen tomorrow, I have an appointment at the DNA paternity lab. This very toothbrush of your daughter’s will prove she’s not mine. And once I find that out, I’m sending Tookie away. I don’t want her in this house anymore. I’m sending her to the factories.”
Tookie’s eyes goggled. But that would mean she’d become … a Factory Dependent. She closed her eyes and thought of the shaved-headed, dull-eyed, miserable, penniless children trudging through the factory doors. That would be her life—forever. Did her father really want that for her?
Mrs. De La Crème shook her head slowly, but she said nothing. Once again, she didn’t defend Tookie. Nor did she debate his decision to send Tookie away. Maybe she wants to get rid of me too.
Tookie couldn’t help it. She let out a squeak. Her mother didn’t hear her, but her father—or whoever he was—turned in the direction of the sound and locked eyes with Tookie. At first, he looked surprised—even panicked. And then he stood up to his full height, possibly relieved. “Just go,” he said gruffly, staring at her with his good eye. “For all of us.”
Tookie gripped the rough curtain fabric. She wheeled backward out of the house, leaving the front door wide open. The words vibrated in her brain like a clapper in a bell. There is nothing about me that lives within that girl. That circus freak.… I’m sending her to the factories.… Just go. For all of us.
Her chest seared. It felt like her father’s hands were squeezing all the air out of her body. She staggered down the porch stairs into the evening’s heat. Her bare feet skidded over the dead grass. The pain was so deep, tears did not even streak her face. I have to get out of here. To somewhere far away. But where?
And then she realized. Of course she knew where.
Exodus.
The zipper of Tookie’s bag made a loud scrittttch as she tried to pull it closed. She winced, looked around to make sure no one heard, slipped her T-Mail Jail into the left pocket of her cargo pants and the T O OKE button into her right, and tiptoed out of the clothes-strewn bedroom. She paused in the doorway to glance at Myrracle, who was sleeping soundly, letting out a giggle-snore here and there. This might be the last time Tookie would see her sister. Ever. Tookie wondered how she’d be able to fall asleep once she was separated from Myrracle. Myrracle’s signature giggle-snore had sort of become Tookie’s sound machine, lulling her to sleep every night.
“I know you’ll get in,” Tookie whispered. “I hope Modelland is everything you and Creamy always wanted … and more.”
Dawn was breaking as she crept down the stairs. Tookie had stayed awake all night, plotting and planning. She now knew for certain that this was her only option. This was what Wingtip was talking about—this was her “dreaming big.”
&nbs
p; Last night, after hearing her parents’ conversation, she’d painted X-O-2 on the front door of her home, her secret signal to Lizzie. Less than two hours later, Tookie had heard a soft shriek outside her bedroom window. She looked out and saw a barren tree trunk bearing the same symbol: X-O-2. It was accompanied by a smiley face and the number seven, the time in the morning when they would meet.
Tookie was escaping Peppertown forever. Escaping her parents. Escaping with Lizzie to the place of their dreams and being in total control of their destinies.
She could start her whole life over … and become a Rememba-Girl.
Two more steps. One. Tookie curled her finger around the doorknob. She could taste the freedom.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Tookie jumped and spun around. Her mother stood behind her. She wore tight-fitting, iridescent bone-colored jeans with a matching one-shouldered top made of silk jersey that read MODELLAND NEEDS A MYRRACLE! Her cheeks shone with Wrinkle Redux. Bellissima, whom she’d tucked under her arm, wore the exact same ensemble, minus the face cream.
For a moment, Tookie couldn’t move. This was the first time she’d faced her mother since overhearing the dreadful conversation the night before. Instantly, all the feelings of shame and betrayal and rejection rushed back to her.
“Well?” Mrs. De La Crème repeated, her gaze shifting from Tookie to the bag. Her face brightened. “Oh, Tookie … what a good sister you are! You’ve already packed the extra supplies for Myrracle for today. That’s very thoughtful of you.”
Tookie’s heart pounded. How could her mother act like last night hadn’t happened? Creamy had all but agreed that Tookie should be sent off to work in one of Metopia’s horrible factories.
Tookie swiveled her head back to the narrow window at the side of the front door. The sun was over the tree line. “I j-just wanted to go outside for a m-minute.”
“There’s no time for anybody but The Myrracle today, Tookie.” Mrs. De La Crème turned to the stairs. “And here she is now.”