Modelland

by Tyra Banks

  The words were like daggers in her heart. She was allowed to keep only two personal items but in reality had come to Modelland with heavy baggage she couldn’t get rid of. Tookie moved her face closer to the mirror. As if knowing why she was doing so, the mirror inched closer to Tookie’s searching face, kindly refraining from spouting any frigid or blazing water. Tookie stared deeply into her multicolored eyes, seeking a clue. She silently begged the mirror for some similarities, for any portion of her face to resemble her father. She took her baby fingers and traced the lines of her face, ending with the outline of her round, full lips.

  Nothing.

  She looked nothing like him.

  Hot tears fell from her eyes. She picked up a spare comb from the counter and ran its teeth through her hair. The comb snagged and then broke into two pieces, just like it always did.

  Moments later, Tookie ran out of the D toward Beautification Boulevard. She was now dressed in the official first-year-Bella green Modelland uniform she’d had on the day before when she’d emerged from THBC. Most of the uniform had been easy to put on correctly, and although wearing the leotard over her pants felt strange, it certainly was a cool look. But Tookie didn’t understand the Sentura at all. It didn’t fit the way it had the day before. It kept slipping off her hips.

  When she’d gone back to the bedroom from the bathroom, a bottle of perfume was on her nightstand. POUSSER, said a sign on the plunger. When Tookie depressed the atomizer, a fine blood-orange-scented mist had spritzed into the air. Slowly, the mist had assembled into an onionskin-thin sheet of paper. It was her schedule for this semester—or quadmester, as it was called in Modelland.

  She shuddered from another abdominal cramp, then looked at her schedule again:

  Bella Assignments for this first day of the

  first quadmester of the first year

  Uno: CaraCaraCara. Time: Midnight-Blue, Sharp

  Dos: Run-a-Way Intensive. Time: Kelly Green, Sharp

  Tres: Mastication. Time: Goldenrod, Sharp

  Midnight-Blue? Kelly Green and Goldenrod, Sharp? Tookie needed to learn how to tell time all over again.

  Tookie stared at the whirling, kaleidoscopic clock on Beautification Boulevard. All around her, girls were rushing past, just as confused as she was about the wacky colored clock.

  She tried going right, thinking CaraCaraCara—“FaceFaceFace” in Gowdee’an—might be in that direction, and found herself on a path she’d never traveled before. An enormous, half-finished stadium loomed in the distance. Hulking male models from Bestosterone worked giant construction machines. Some of them welded metal beams together with silver flashlight-like devices that shot red-hot liquid glue. Others struck overtly sexualized poses for a photographer while they worked.

  Suddenly, a deep voice rang out behind her. “Are you lost?”

  Tookie turned and saw a muscular Bestostero with chiseled features walking toward her, blueprints tucked under his arms. His pecs swelled under his shirt. His skin was smooth and richly colored, and his eyebrows looked naturally arched, which was almost as bad as if he’d been a religious waxer. Tookie had never been a fan of the pretty-boy-arched-eyebrow look. Theophilus’s unique features were more her taste.

  “My name’s Bravo,” he said, looking straight at Tookie. “From Bestosterone. Are you a new Bella?”

  Tookie opened her mouth but then shut it again. The guy was staring at her so pointedly, like she had worms crawling out of her hair.

  “We’re building this new 7Seven stadium for you,” Bravo went on, gesturing to the site. “A couple of years ago, a huge fireball decimated the old stadium. It came out of nowhere, from the other side of the wall. Some people say the spirits over there get pissed at us sometimes and want to burn Modelland down.”

  Tookie still couldn’t say a word. Then two boys appeared behind Bravo, both in fashionable workmen’s uniforms. One had pale skin, an angular face, and piercing hazel eyes, and the other was stockier, with dark skin and the fullest lips Tookie had ever seen—even fuller than her own. “What’s that you’re talking to, Bravo?” the angular-faced one said.

  The dark-skinned guy he was with snickered and nudged him. “Webb, you need to stop trippin’, man,” Bravo said.

  Tookie bristled and turned away. Webb’s insult wasn’t anything she wasn’t used to. She glanced over her shoulder just once. Pretty-boy Bravo was still watching her. Finally, he returned to his friends, and they retreated toward an immense eye made out of shiny metal. Its iris was constructed from green jade and the lid wore yellow eye shadow like a SMIZE.

  Finally, Tookie found the CaraCaraCara building. It was the massive boat she’d seen during orientation. A bridge made of driftwood led from shore to the vessel’s door.

  “Hey! Tookie!” Dylan stood in front of the building. Piper and Shiraz were standing with her, both bearing the same achy, period-stricken looks the other Bellas had had in the bathroom earlier. “We were lookin’ for you, girl! You made it!”

  “Barely.” Tookie almost considered telling them about the Bestostero and his rude friends, but she decided against it. Why bother?

  The girls walked across the bridge into the floating classroom. An immense bust of the BellaDonna leered from the ship’s bow. “It’s made out of some element that doesn’t exist in the periodic table,” Piper whispered.

  Tookie shivered. She felt like the stony eyes were watching her. Would they ever see the BellaDonna for real, or only bizarre, rocklike representations of her?

  They ducked their heads through the entryway and entered a classroom whose ceiling and walls were made entirely of bleached bones in the shape of a giant skeleton. “Hmmm,” Piper said, examining the interior. “Dermal corset of flexible, collagenous fibers, hexagonal tesserae … oblique and serrated teeth not attached to the cranium. It’s a shark!”

  There were no seats, but Zarpessa and Chaste were standing front and center in the middle of circles on the floor with their names printed in the center. Tookie, Piper, Shiraz, and Dylan found circles of their own in the row behind Zarpessa and Chaste. As soon as they stopped, individual spotlights shone straight into their faces. Piper squinted hard.

  “Is it Lumière?” Shiraz exclaimed excitedly.

  Chaste turned around. “Of course not, little girl. That only happens at night.”

  Just then, a wooden door on the other side of the boat snapped open. In bounded a tall man wearing an embroidered cape and a red jumpsuit with a vibrant multicolored serape sash around his waist. He had poochy lips, a button nose, bushy eyebrows, and twinkly, saucer-shaped eyes that immediately generated a smile from Tookie and all of the girls in the shark-room. His features flapped and twisted as if they were made of something much more flexible than flesh and bone. But despite all that, Tookie thought he was quite handsome in his own special way.

  “Wassup with rubber man?” Dylan whispered to the girls.

  “¡Hola! ¡Hola! ¡Hola! I am Guru Pacifico Cruz from the land of Texicoco!” he announced. “At Modelland, we are not fans of last names, so please call me Guru Pacifico. This, my dear Bellas, is CaraCaraCara class! Being a modela fantástica is all about mastering how to maneuver your face. And speaking of faces, this course will prepare you for what you will face out in the real world too, if you become Intoxibellas!”

  “If?” Zarpessa rolled her eyes. “Not if, honey. When.”

  “Mi clase,” Guru Pacifico continued, “is located within a great white shark not for comedy, no. You sit within the belly of the sea beast to remind you of the real sharks in the world. They will swim around you if you become Intoxibellas. They will want to rip you to shreds, jealous of your fame and fortune. They will wait for you to bleed and then swallow you whole, leaving nothing to bury but your fancy stilettos!”

  Tookie wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry.

  “So my class is muy importante, Bellas!” The Guru’s eyes sparkled. “It will tighten your guts, cement your resistance, and strengthen your core! If you’ve noticed,
we are on a rocky boat. Metáfora intended! And … your, shall I say … cycles have all been synchronized, I’m sure you have noticed by now. Crampy, sí?”

  Groans sounded throughout the room. Tookie pressed on her abdomen.

  “This is not a coincidence, Bellas. Usually it takes muchos meses, many months for ladies’ cycles to, shall I say … organize. But here at Modelland, we have accelerated that harmony.”

  “I knew it!” Piper whispered to Tookie.

  “Why do we do this? Well, Bellas, the life of a model is one of great adventure and many challenges. Modelland tolerates no excuses for tardiness or for faulty or missed assignments. Come hell or high agua, an Intoxibella must be ready to shine. To model through mayhem and mishaps. To perform! To be the very best! No excuses! So today your training begins. Hencio, your Tía Flo is happening right now, yes? How well can you project an image that is opposite of how you are feeling or at odds with your surroundings?

  “Your goal in CaraCaraCara is not to mirror, but to mask. In other words, make the opposite expression of what you see or feel. You see happy …” The Guru made a gleeful expression, his rubbery lips extending well past his cheeks. “You make sad.” He distorted his face into a sappy appearance, his eyes drooping dramatically and his chin sinking, literally, into his neck. “If you are tickled, do not laugh. Frown! Mastering this will get you one step closer to being an Intoxibella.

  “But fail, and you may be relegated to spending your life as, heaven forbid, an actress.” The Guru said this last word in a low, disgusted whisper. “Actresses are incapable of ‘opposite performing.’ They must think about sad times in their lives to project sadness on the silver screen. Nonsense! We mustn’t let that pitiful fate happen to you. Oh, and also, Bellas? You will see that mi clase is the best in all of Modelland.” His face contorted. “So if you like what you see here, put in a good word for me to the Bored, sí? They need a bit of comic relief to join their ranks. They are so god-awful serious all the time.” The Guru’s fingers stretched out from his hand, curved around the girls, and flicked on a light at the back of the shark-room.

  “In just a few seconds you will be tested as you have never been. The challenge begins … now!”

  Pacifico untied the serape sash from around his narrow waist, rolled it into a narrow strip, and tied it around his head, martial-arts-bandana style. “Copy me, Bellas! Copy me!”

  The girls yanked their Senturas from their waists and tied them around their heads. As they did so, Tookie noticed that the boat was tilting more rapidly from side to side, like it was caught in a storm. She suddenly felt off-kilter.

  “Through your crampy pain and sickness from the sea,” Pacifico said, “your Senturas will aid you with power to conjure the opposite expression perfectamente.”

  A shark-bite sound filled the room and then a three-dimensional image of a two-headed vulture picking at a child’s eyes appeared before every Bella. Several girls gasped. Piper covered her eyes, saying it looked like a LeGizzârd. A girl named Bo, who sat on the other side of Tookie and seemed devoid of any expression whatsoever, didn’t react at all.

  “No, no, no!” Pacifico bellowed. “Opposite, opposite, opposite!”

  “Look at me!” Zarpessa cried. She was smiling into the eyes of the two-headed vulture as though it was a cute newborn baby.

  “Fantastico, Bella!” Guru Pacifico patted Zarpessa on the back.

  The boat rocked to the right, making Tookie’s stomach swim. The two-headed vulture morphed into an enormous yellow feather that was as long as Tookie was tall. It flitted around the class, tickling girls. Giggles erupted throughout the class.

  “Bellas!” Pacifico shook his finger. “Use the power of your Senturas to resist the urge to laugh!”

  At once, the Senturas came to life. The two strands that hung at the back of each girl’s head reared up and swatted the feather as it approached. Shiraz’s Sentura swatted at the feather like a boxer hitting a speed bag. Piper’s Sentura took calculated jabs at it. Dylan’s clawed at the feather like it was a girl in a catfight. Chaste’s Sentura shimmied sexily, pulling the feather toward her body. But when the feather approached Tookie, her Sentura remained limp at her head. She couldn’t stop giggling, even as the boat lurched angrily to the left.

  “Tookie!” Guru Pacifico declared. “You are all wrong! Frown! Pretend that feather feels like the mujer-pain inside you!”

  Tookie’s cheeks burned. All these years, she had never been called on in class, and now that she finally was, it was for something negative. Worse than that, her head was spinning. Why is this boat rocking so wildly? It seemed so calm from the shore.

  The challenges zipped by more quickly. They had to react to a steaming pile of rotting food under their noses, then a picture of an earless baby rabbit abandoned by its mother. Some girls instantly reacted to the photos before remembering they were supposed to do the opposite, but Piper studied the images quickly and smiled when the image was ghastly, looked surprised when the image was serene, and gasped when the image was gentle and sweet. “Good, Piper!” Pacifico praised.

  An image appeared of a bunch of boys mooning a busy highway. Then one of a hooded figure that looked like Death approaching. The Bellas changed their expressions from happy to sad, confused to angry, sexy to serious with each different challenge, but Tookie continued to fail miserably, over- or underreacting to the photos, finding it difficult to focus. Her Sentura remained comatose on her head. “Tookie, Tookie, Tookie!” Pacifico cried over and over again, which made Zarpessa twist around and smirk triumphantly at her. The only girl he corrected almost as much was dead-faced Bo, who didn’t even freak over a photo of a dead cat giving birth to an octopus on an abandoned road.

  Then an image of an acrobat falling off a dizzyingly high tightrope appeared. Almost everyone else reacted with an opposite expression—boredom, apathy—but Tookie’s face froze in the worst possible way. The performer reminded her of Chris-Crème-Crobat, her father—or, well, whoever he was. The shame of feeling disowned and unwanted washed over her. She couldn’t hide it.

  The ship lurched to the side once more. Tookie’s insides churned, and her lower back contracted in a sharp cramp. She gagged repeatedly and closed her eyes to avoid the next abominable image. But closing her eyes made her seasickness even worse.

  Suddenly, she couldn’t take it anymore. She twisted to the right, leaned over, and threw up. Some of it landed in Bo’s hair, but to her relief, Bo threw up too. Impassively, of course.

  “¡Dios mío!” Guru Pacifico cried. “The wretched scourge of the first-run regurgitators! Seen it before, and smelled it much longer!” The images around them disappeared. “Okay, Bellas. Remove your Senturas from your heads. You will do this again and again this quadmester until you get it right. Do not fret about the mess. Remember, sharks love chum. As far as who did well today …” He paused on Piper, seemingly wanting to point to her, but then looked away. He pointed to another girl instead. “Definitely Bella Zarpessa!”

  Zarpessa smiled devilishly. “Thanks, Guru. But I have a confession to make: my parents trained me for Modelland at a very early age. They got the best coaches—Metopian money was no object. I was being coached up until the Day of Discovery! They spent fifty thousand on my prep, and …”

  She trailed off as she caught Tookie’s eye. Her face hardened into a scowl. Tookie quickly averted her gaze. She didn’t know whether to feel envious of or sorry for Zarpessa. Envious, of course, because Zarpessa had such a vivid imagination with which to escape from her dreadful life, even if it was a new concoction of outrageous fibs every day. But she felt pity as well.

  Guru Pacifico clapped. “Now that you have finished your first CaraCaraCara class, I have two gifts for you!”

  Everyone froze, waiting.

  “I shall let an esteemed special guest tell you the first gift,” the Guru said.

  He gestured to the walls of the boat. Instantly, they peeled apart, revealing the masthead of the BellaDonna at the fr
ont of the ship. The masthead twisted around and stared at them, suddenly alive.

  The masthead-BellaDonna parted her sculpted lips, just as her giant statue in the O had. “Yes, No-Sees, I have a surprise for you,” her voice rang out. “Something young, maturing girls can only receive here at Modelland. CaraCaraCara was your first class, or shall I say, your first period of the day, but guess what … it will also be your last!”

  “Huh?” Chaste pulled out her schedule. “It says I have two more classes after this!”

  “Ah-ah-ah!” The Guru shook his finger. “Not that kind of period, mami!”

  The BellaDonna continued. “This cycle you had this morning will be the last period you will ever have … for the rest of your lives!”

  There was silence. Turned heads. Questioning looks.

  “We want no excuses for you missing class or shoots or shows, so Modelland is ridding you of the pain and suffering of your menstrual cycles and cramps forever,” the BellaDonna masthead explained. “You will still have the ability to procreate as you reach adulthood but no more periods. Period.”

  The Guru beamed at them. “Isn’t that grandissimo?”

  Almost everyone cheered, although Chaste looked strangely forlorn and confused, clamping her mouth shut and biting her bottom lip nervously. And Tookie felt another kind of cramp in her stomach … one of loss and regret. I finally reached womanhood, she thought. I finally got something that Myrracle has teased me about so much. And now it’s gone.

  The masthead twisted back around to its original position and then went still again. “The second gift?” the Guru said, facing the girls. “Now you can view your pictures of today’s session!”

  “Pictures?” Dylan clutched her apple cheeks. “But honey, I didn’t have my game face on!”

  Pacifico smiled craftily, his rubbery lips curling over his teeth. “This was your first Modelland photo shoot, ladies! Go look, go look!”