by Tyra Banks
“Hopefully that won’t take long,” said Piper, coming up behind them. She had fashioned the umbrella she’d been given as soon as they’d landed in Modelland into a unique couture-like hat. It shaded her entire face. Yet again, simply by the way she stood, shoulders rolled back, chin up, her eyes mysterious yet intense, she could’ve been an unusual Intoxibella in a high-fashion advertisement.
The girls watched as Bo, the emotionless Bella, walked directly beneath the ball and stood there. Within a few seconds, she was swiftly propelled upward, into the ball.
“Beleza!” Bibiana cried excitedly. “Let’s try that!”
Tookie, Bibiana, and Piper walked up to the ball. After a minute Tookie felt a pull as if a giant magnet was dragging her upward. The other girls were yanked up as well. The magnetic attraction made their bodies go limp. Tookie felt like a marionette.
When they were mere inches from the bottom of the magnetosphere, a circle slid open and sucked them inside a perfectly round room that was the same rose-gold color as the exterior. Girls were standing nervously on a stage that followed the contour of the sphere. Tookie spotted Shiraz and Dylan and grinned. She also noticed the four Likee sisters, as well as Zarpessa.
Over the past weeks, Zarpessa’s wrath toward Tookie had only gotten worse. One night, Zarpessa had used her Sentura to make Tookie’s hand-drawn image on her bedspread attempt to strangle her. No one but Zarpessa had been in the room at the time, so Tookie had no proof of what had occurred. Tookie had had to punch her own image in the face, knocking her bed sketch out cold.
Don’t make eye contact with her, Tookie said to herself now. It kind of reminded her of what Creamy had said about Wingtip.
Tookie wondered what Creamy was doing right now. It felt like she’d been at Modelland for so long. Myrracle must be preparing for next year’s T-DOD already. And Creamy had probably renovated the kitchen nineteen times.
Two metal podiums stood at the center of the circular stage. There was a table in the middle that held small metal tags stamped with plus and minus signs. On one side of the sphere’s curved wall was an immense green-lit plus sign; a red minus sign illuminated the other.
Around the room, necklaces, rings, buckles, and other metal objects were stuck to the walls. A set of miniature railroad tracks adhered to the shiny surface too. When Tookie got closer, she realized they were orthodontic braces.
Tookie’s mouth fell open as she stared at the bizarre wall. Suddenly, she felt a tugging sensation in one of her back right molars. Something dislodged from her tooth and shot out of her mouth before she could stop it. Clank! A piece of metal slammed against the wall.
“Oh. Wow. Cool. Beans!” the Likee sisters exclaimed in their odd one-word-per-girl speech. “Her. Tooth. Filling’s. Stuck!”
Tookie curled her tongue toward her back tooth. Sure enough, her filling was gone.
“Could. Be. Gold. Amalgam?” the Likees said, staring up at the filling. “Hard. Deciphering. From. Here.”
“Looks like the Fraud Quad has their eyes on your filling,” Piper murmured to Tookie under her breath. She, Tookie, Dylan, and Shiraz had begun to notice that the Likee sisters liked to claim things that weren’t theirs as their own, hence their new nickname.
Other girls began to lose pieces of metal from their bodies. A gold anklet whipped off Chaste’s ankle. Bibiana lost a pair of stud earrings.
Tookie felt a pull at her chest. Oh no, she thought. The wall wanted her pin! The pin! The ceiling yanked the T O OKE button from underneath her garden brooch. It sailed upward and clicked onto the ceiling.
Tookie broke her rule of refraining from eye contact and snuck a peek at Zarpessa, who was lifting her chin up to the ceiling at just that moment. Simultaneously, Tookie felt another tug on her chest. Her plant brooch shot upward too, landing precisely on top of the button. Whew. The odd tendriled sprout was beginning to become a bit of a life-saver.
Then Chaste turned to Zarpessa. “Yesterday, in the E, I heard some older Bellas say that someone named MattJoe Von Megalo teaches this class. Vonnn Mehhhgahhhhlo.” She stretched the name out like taffy. “I’m calling firsties, so all you chicks better let go my Megalo.”
At that moment, the circle entrance opened up in the floor once more. A troll of a man entered. He was balding on the left side of his head, and he walked like a seal scoots when on land.
Chaste leaned around HerLikee to get a good look. “Oh mega-HELL no!” she yelled.
The troll-man was dressed impeccably. He wore an expensive-looking suit complete with a man-couture ascot and freshly shined chestnut-brown boots. He ignored Chaste’s remark and looked cagily around the room. “Everyone is here. Yep, yep. Very good, very good.” His voice was nasal and high-pitched. He could barely make eye contact with the girls.
“Hello, dear Bellas, my name is MattJoe Von Megalo,” he continued. “Yep, yep. Guru MattJoe.” He bowed and rocked on his heels. “I will be your humble general as we engage in W.O.W.—a War of Words.”
He proceeded to scoot-walk toward Chaste, stumbling over his own feet. Tookie smiled slightly. He reminded her of herself. “You will learn how to use words to convince, to charm, to soothe, and to strike and DESTROY the arguments of anyone standing in your way! And I don’t mean the way thespian dames do, ladies, just reciting lines from cue cards and crying on command. I mean doing so with Modelland CONVICTION!” The Guru delivered his little speech without looking at any of them, but that last bit was spoken with a torrent of emotion.
“Sorry, sorry.” MattJoe ducked his head meekly. “I’m usually not aggressive. I must have learned it from my friend at Bestosterone, Bravo. Yep, yep.” He laughed like an out-of-breath hyena.
“He has friends at Bestosterone?” Chaste whispered to SheLikee. “Yeah, right.”
Bravo? An unwanted excited shiver rippled through Tookie. Bravo was coming up all sorts of ways that day. She thought again about his thumb in her mouth, trying to make sense of what had happened. Was there something she should have done differently? Acted seductive, like Chaste? Snide, like Zarpessa? Even confident and sassy, like Dylan? Instead she’d just stood there, sucking and sucking like a baby.
MattJoe deployed a small mirror and a miniature ruler, measured the space between his eyebrows and the width of his lips, jotted something in a small notebook, then quickly returned the items to his pocket. “Now, where was I? The class. Yep, yep. This is War of Words. In your previous lives, you may have called it debate. Today I will begin by observing your natural skills, and from there, I will mold your use of language so that you are, um … skilled artisans. Bellas, this is, um … the most important class you’ll ever take at Modelland. Why? Well, as Intoxibellas, you must master the art of speaking about the products you are hired to represent, yep, yep. You must clearly convey your love and use of them, whether you adore the item or actually detest it. The job of an Intoxibella is not necessarily to love the products you sell, but to make your public become enamored with them.”
Tookie immediately thought of chocolate. She couldn’t imagine having to eat it and then smile and lie about loving it. Just thinking about it made a bit of throw-up creep into the back of her throat.
“So let’s have a little fun first, shall we?” Guru MattJoe said, his nose twitching like he was about to sneeze. “It’s always nice to start off with a fun and frivolous topic. Anyone have any ideas? Anything at all.”
No one volunteered.
“Nothing’s off limits, yep, yep,” Guru MattJoe said.
“If he says yep, yep one more time, I’m gonna scream,” Dylan whispered in Tookie’s ear.
“I have an idea!” Chaste’s hand shot up. “How about we debate free swing versus firm sling?”
A few girls giggled. MattJoe scratched his bald spot, confused. Flakes of dandruff fell on his shoulders. “Do you wish to debate the merits of different types of hammocks?”
“Kind of.” Chaste seductively twirled a piece of hair around her finger. “Hammocks … for honkers.�
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The giggles persisted. MattJoe remained just as perplexed. Bra versus no bra, Tookie wanted to yell out, to spare him the embarrassment.
But Chaste just kept going. “You know. Bazookas? Cha-chas? Chesticles?”
“Okay, then you go over there.” Guru MattJoe pointed Chaste to the side of the room with the green plus sign. “You’re free swing.”
“And … you.” He pointed to Shiraz as if his finger were a pistol. “You’re firm sling.”
Shiraz hurried to the minus side of the room. “I ready!”
MattJoe hobbled onto his stool. “You see the metal tags on the table. Chaste, please apply a plus sign to your forehead, and Shiraz, a minus sign.”
“I think that plus sign would be more appropriate on Dylan’s buttocks,” Zarpessa trilled, eyeing Dylan.
Dylan’s mouth fell open, but Tookie reached over and squeezed her hand. Since their arrival at Modelland, Zarpessa had been making all kinds of jabs like that at all four of them. The girl is a bully strategist, Tookie thought. She knows to not just attack the enemy, but to hit those the enemy cares about too.
“Each girl gets one statement, no rebuttal, yep, yep,” the Guru said. “Ready?”
Shiraz and Chaste nodded.
The Senturas on Chaste’s and Shiraz’s waists slid off and bound their wrists to each other like fabric handcuffs. Neither looked happy with this new development.
“Free swing versus firm sling. Proceed!” MattJoe said.
“To bra or not to bra. That is the question,” Chaste started.
A resounding clap of electricity echoed through the sphere, and Chaste’s and Shiraz’s foreheads were magnetically drawn toward each other. The girls tried to fight the force, but it was no use. In seconds, their faces were mere inches apart. Shiraz shot a frantic look at Guru MattJoe.
“Stay in the moment, ladies,” he said. “Focus on your opponent, yep, yep. Opposing sides can both attract and repel, depending on their position. From the force that seems to be pulling you toward each other now, you are truly on conflicting sides of this matter. With magnets, remember: opposites attract. Positive, go! Now!”
Chaste inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly, and began. “The melon fruit is one to be supremely relished. A sweet treat one should enjoy in its pure rawness, without a fork to spear its tender flesh or a napkin to sop up the luscious juice that drips from our chins. Honeydews, cantaloupes, casabas, crenshaws, muskmelons, and watermelons. Best appreciated without the interference of objects created by man’s hands, mm, mm!”
MattJoe’s face was very red. He turned to Shiraz. “Er, okay. Your turn.”
“Ah, um …” Shiraz cleared her throat, seeming a little knocked off her game. Then she launched into a song. “The boobies high and tight on me.” Everyone laughed. “My knobbies pert and firm, agree? But forever young they will not be. No bra, they’ll sag with grav-i-tee!”
The entire class launched into thunderous applause. Zarpessa even lifted her hands to start clapping, but she lowered them quickly.
Silence fell over the room.
“Chaste offered a passionate argument,” MattJoe said. “She used food as a metaphor for … for … um … yep, yep. But she may have skewed to a more testosterone-laden audience. Shiraz, on the other hand, had a lyrical presentation that used both humor and logic, which appealed to her target audience. Thusly, I declare the winner to be …”
Suddenly, the circle opened up in the floor. Two figures rose through it. The first figure was Persimmon. She held on to a second figure, who was bound and gagged. Tookie gasped.
Ci~L.
The fallen Triple7 had a muzzle over her mouth. Her normally caramel-colored skin was pale, and she wore a baggy gray jumpsuit with a metal zipper up the front. On the back of the jumpsuit, the words UGLY ROOM were scrawled in large black letters.
Persimmon stood at attention. “By order of the most beloved of the beloved, the most esteemed of the worthy, the definer of all things beautiful, and the leader of all of those lucky enough to be led, Ci~L is delivered to the War of Words Magnetosphere.”
Ci~L turned her head away in shame. Tookie felt a lump in her throat. What had Ci~L done?
“She comes here because keeping her at Modelland has not been enough,” Persimmon recited. “She has continued to spout her insolent, disrespectful, heinous messages and vile verbiage that has denigrated all we stand for. And so, as an attempt to truly get through to her so that she understands the hideousness of her actions, we must step things up a notch. Today, Ci~L is returning to her roots to be …” Persimmon paused dramatically. “… a first-year Bella. A No-See.”
Everyone gasped, including Zarpessa and Chaste. Even MattJoe looked uncomfortable.
Persimmon poked Ci~L’s shoulder. “The BellaDonna commands you to remove the ugly suit.”
Ci~L swallowed hard. Slowly, she unzipped the jumpsuit. It dropped to the floor in a dingy pile. Everyone gasped again. Underneath the jumpsuit was a green Modelland Bella uniform.
But it was too small.
Bursting at the seams.
“Now I know what Guru Gunnero means when he calls her Body Girl,” Zarpessa hooted.
Persimmon gazed at the Bellas. “Today, Ci~L is on the same level as all of you—beneath you, actually, as you are in your second quadmester and she is in her first. The BellaDonna has commanded that she return to her Bella ways of yesteryear, when she complied with the rules of authority. After this course, she will return to the Ugly Room for more shock treatments.”
“Persimmon, is all this really necessary?” Guru MattJoe asked, looking pityingly at Ci~L. “To do this to a girl who was so far ahead of everyone in my class not too long ago? To make her suffer so?”
Then he spied a BellaDonna bust across the sphere and straightened up. “Of course, I assume the esteemed Madame BellaDonna has her reasons for doing this.…” It was as though the BellaDonna was in the room with them. Maybe she was.
“Ci~L poses a risk to herself and to all of us,” Persimmon said. “She must be reformed by any means necessary.” The Mannecant stepped up to Ci~L and removed the muzzle. Little droplets of blood oozed from the corners of Ci~L’s mouth.
Zarpessa snickered. “Wow, the famed Intoxibella is slumming it with the No-Sees.”
Tookie whipped around, filled with rage. “Yeah, well, you’re no stranger to slumming it yourself!” she snapped before she could stop herself.
Zarpessa’s eyes blazed. Uh-oh, Tookie thought. You’ve done it now. And anyway, Ci~L is crazy! Why did you even defend her? At least, I think she’s crazy.
“Listen, you crazy-eyed, watermelon-headed freak who’s only here for a Modelland sacrificial science project—”
“Stop!” MattJoe intervened. “Save the passion for the War of Words!”
Persimmon spoke. “Make sure Ci~L is assigned the argument that will aid her best in reform. The one that will please the BellaDonna most.” The circle in the floor opened once more, and Persimmon disappeared.
MattJoe faced the girls and cleared his throat. “Sorry for the interruption, Bellas. Let’s continue where we left off. Okay then, I guess the next debaters have chosen themselves! You there”—he pointed at Tookie—“and you”—he pointed at Zarpessa.
“Oh, I can’t wait,” Zarpessa growled, strutting up to the podium confidently, her shoulders thrown back and her head high.
Tookie froze, petrified. She couldn’t debate Zarpessa. There was no way. She peeked over at Ci~L, who was no longer staring at the floor but directly at Dylan in the same spooky, hypnotized way she’d gazed at Shiraz during the very first Run-a-Way class. She started moving her mouth, chanting inaudibly. Her body rocked steadily.
“She’s practically frothing at the mouth,” Zarpessa whispered from the podium, eyeing Ci~L.
“All right,” MattJoe said. He looked at his roster. “Tookie versus Zarpessa. But let’s add another ingredient—partners!”
He extended his arm again, looking down it like he was aiming a
rifle. At first he set his sights on Chaste, but then he decided to continue hunting. He spun around and brightened at Ci~L.
“Bang!” he yelled. “Ci~L. Join Zarpessa.”
Ci~L just stared at him catatonically.
MattJoe looked nervously around the room. “Ci~L, she’s probably watching you,” he said in a whisper, clearly meaning the BellaDonna. “You used to ace this course in your sleep. Just get it done.”
Ci~L snapped out of her trance and walked to the podium.
Then Guru MattJoe turned to Dylan. “And, um, the recently attacked should have a chance to have her say as well against her, uh, oppressor. Dylan, please join Tookie.”
Dylan reluctantly climbed up the steps. She gave Tookie’s hand a nervous squeeze.
MattJoe pointed at Ci~L and Zarpessa. “The topic for this last debate is going to be unusual physicality versus defined beauty. You two will argue that atypical features are superior to conventional beauty.”
“Are you sure?” Ci~L looked skeptical. “That’s exactly the opposite of what you know she wants.” Ci~L peered at the BellaDonna bust across the room.
The Guru ignored her, turning next to Tookie and Dylan. “And your team will argue for narrowly defined beauty and that anything else is absolutely worthless. Like the kind of defining we do here at Modelland.”
This should be easy, Tookie thought. All she has to do was concentrate on Myrracle’s perfect face and speak from her soul.
The girls placed the respective negative and positive tags on their foreheads. Instantly, Tookie shot across the podium and landed forehead to forehead with Ci~L. Dylan was locked to Zarpessa. Their Senturas released from their waists and bound them together as one. Tookie had never been this close to anyone in her life, not even Lizzie. The extreme proximity was beyond uncomfortable.
“War of Words starts … now!” MattJoe proclaimed.
Zarpessa jumped right in. “Funny-looking people like you two girls and your mini and pasty friends over there”—she paused, indicating Shiraz and Piper—“deserve to feel attractive too, even when you are nowhere near even average-looking and have everyone at Modelland beyond flummoxed as to why you Unfortunate-Lookings—ULs, for short—are even here. But let me leave you with something positive: you UL’s are beautiful too, even if it’s just way deep down within the depths of your insides. And I mean mining-for-coal deep.”