by Tyra Banks
Tookie and the others exchanged uncertain glances. Tookie thought of the terrifying conversation she’d overheard in the BellaDonna’s chambers not long ago and realized she’d had it all wrong. They were Ci~L’s experiments, all right … but not in the way she thought.
“But … we’re not at Modelland anymore,” Piper said slowly. She gestured around at the Ladornian skyline. “Obviously.”
“And that’s why I’m here. To bring your butts back,” Ci~L said.
“How did you know we left?” Tookie asked. “How did you know to follow us?”
Ci~L put her hands on her hips and looked down at Tookie. “Girl, I have SixxSensa. One of my Triple7 powers, remember? That look on your face when I was taking you to ManAttack … I just felt that something was up.” Then she checked the kaleido-watch on her wrist. “Oh Lordy. They’re gonna notice you’re gone soon, and I can just see Gunnero’s bitchy little face if he catches us. Then you all really won’t be able to come back to Modelland. C’mon now. We gots ta go!”
Shiraz shifted her weight. Piper tented her fingers at her breastbone, thinking. Dylan raked her hands through her long ponytails. And Tookie shivered in her couture underwear from ManAttack.
Go back. Just like that. Back to their Lumière-less D rooms. Back to Zarpessa. Back to Gunnero. Back to Catwalk Corridor and the taunting, loveless BellaDonna and the accusation, always the accusation, that they weren’t as good enough as the others. That they didn’t deserve to be there. The threat that they could still be sacrificed—maybe not by Ci~L, but by someone.
“I can feel what you’re thinking,” Ci~L said softly. “You haven’t had it easy this year. And you probably won’t have it easy your whole life. I know you girls have struggled with all your baggage—but hell, we all do. You’re not wrong if you don’t think you belong there. Because, yeah, you don’t look anything like those girls at Modelland. I know I might sound crazy, and as you know, I kind of am, but I really believe the four of you have the power to kick beauty’s ass and turn it on its head. Beauty really can mean so much more than what the damn BellaDonna dictates every five years—and I want all the dumbass idiots with their heads in the beauty sand to wake the hell up! But I can’t do it alone. I know. I’ve tried.”
The girls glanced at each other again.
“If you go back to Modelland,” Ci~L went on, “you’ll be symbols. I chose you three because I felt you could carry out my mission. And Tookie. Don’t you see how much you’ve changed? You’ve become this … ass-kicker in ManAttack. A winner. A leader. We need more girls like you at Modelland. Please come back with me. Please.” Then she shook her head, gazing at them almost lovingly. “Will you do it for me, at least? Will you try? Because maybe if I know you’re up there, trying, maybe I can let this guilt go.” She gestured to the Obelisks. “Maybe I can let them rest in peace. And let the wounds on my back heal too.”
There was a long silence. Owls hooted in the distance. Leaves on the mountain rustled ominously. The lights from LaDorno twinkled. Tookie considered her friends. By the looks on their faces, she could tell they were thinking about exactly what she was: the positives of Modelland, all the wonderful things they’d experienced there. The amazing architecture and design. The gorgeous fabric flowers and sunsets. ZhenZhen. Kamalini. The D, the E, the classes with Guru Lauro and even Guru Pacifico. The sense of belonging somewhere, even if others didn’t believe they did. Running toward a challenge instead of away from it. No longer being a Forgetta-Girl.
Slowly, everyone began to smile. Dylan reached out and grabbed Tookie’s hand. Tookie reached out and grabbed Shiraz’s hand, and Shiraz took Piper’s, who held Dylan’s, completing the circle. Then Tookie broke the chain and held out her hand to Ci~L. “We’ll only go on one condition.” She gestured to the reed. “Hand it over.”
Ci~L glanced at the reed, looking at it almost like she was about to part with a piece of herself. Then she rolled her shoulders back, stood up straighter, and placed it in Tookie’s hands. “Promise me you’ll stop this,” Tookie said. Ironically, they were the exact words she wanted to say to Lizzie about her sharp objects. She only hoped that someday she could.
“I’ll try,” Ci~L agreed.
“You promise?” Dylan asked.
“Yeah, Miss Bou-Big-Tique Nation!” Ci~L assured her. “I promise.…”
Tookie turned back to the others. She thought about how helpless she’d felt in the past, like she had no control of her destiny. But now she realized it was all about choices. She had much more control over her future than she ever thought she did. “Then I think there’s only one logical choice, isn’t there.”
“Pouch!” Shiraz bellowed.
“Thank God,” Ci~L said, rolling her eyes. “Y’all had me sweating bullets there! And ya’ll know how hard I sweat. Now let’s go. Otherwise we’ll miss the whole 7Seven Tournament.”
With that, fabric flowed from Ci~L’s fingers. One of the jeweled tentacles that came from her body gently wiped the tears from her eyes. She glanced at the Obelisks again, then walked over to them and kneeled down. “I love you chicas,” she whispered. “And I’ll never forget you. Ever. But these girls?” She gestured to the Unicas. “They’re going to do it for you, okay?” One by one, she kissed the obelisks, starting with the tall ivory one, then the thicker golden one, and finally the smallest, speckled one. And then, with a swish of her pouch and a stretch of her arms, she swept Piper, Dylan, Shiraz, and Tookie up, up, up into the clouds.
To Modelland once more.
40
THE 7SEVEN TOURNAMENT
Oh my poor, dear dahling. You thought it was over, didn’t you? That the Unicas piled into Miss Used-to-Be-Sweet-Then-Turned-Crazy-and-Now-Is-Sweet-Again Intoxibellas’s pouch-let and sailed up, up, up into the sunset, the end. Dahling, you should be ashamed of yourself. There’s so much more to this story to tattle-tell you.
And how dare you assume otherwise!
It was quite the shocker that Ci~L was not a murderess sociopath, wasn’t it, dahling? Might I suggest the next time you come ’cross another vindictive, vile, venomous creature, you stop, drop, and roll around the idea that maybe the, shall I say, bitch did not spring out of her mother’s birth canal that way. I can money-back-guarantee that her sorrowful, sourpuss saga would be quite interesting, but nowhere near as juicy as this one.
But enough about powerful bitches, dahling. Let’s move on to bewitching powers.
Of the 7Seven kind.
The Stunning, Statuesque, Strobotronic Stars with Stupefying Stratospheric Struts kind, to be exact. For today, the brand-new 7Sevens will be anointed. Seven girls—and only seven, mind you—will graduate to become Intoxibellas, the pinnacle of a Modelland Bella’s existence, dahling. The grand culmination of all of her skills and powers. The chosen seven will join the ranks of the only famous, the most celebrated, and the most admired people in the world. Their whole lives will become the stuff of jealous dreams.
And there are certainly name-calling jealous dreamers among us, dahling, uttering the much more pejorative 7Seven nickname—you know, the one about Stuck-Up, Straggly, Strep-Throated Strumpets with Stenchy Stupid Styes—under their espresso-, cigar-smoke-, and egg-salad-sandwich-scented breaths. (Why is it that bitter bitches have the worst halitosis?) But let’s not dwell on their mouthy stench now. I’d rather stick to sweet-smelling topics. So someone please get them some eucalyptus, bergamot, and ylang ylang breath mints, stat.
Now, while The Day of Discovery can be attended by anyone and everyone—even your one-toothed cousin or hog maw–gnawing aunt—the 7Seven Tournament is Invite-Only and is reserved for a chosen few—forty-three thousand three hundred and forty-seven, to be exact, but who’s counting? The brand-new obstacle course gleams in the new stadium, ready for the upperclassBella challengers. And there’s an extra-special seating section reserved for every living Intoxibella, all of whom are required to return to witness the spectacle. Get your designer shades (and envy daggers) ready, dahling, because
your eyes will ache from all that pulchritude concentrated into one tight space.
Backstage, powers are tested and finessed—a Multiplicity mess-up where a girl spat into two fountains instead of splitting into two of herself here, a Chameeleoné slip-up where an anxious girl accidentally transformed into an actual chameleon there—and Senturas are knotted and reknotted for good luck. And while the The Day of Discovery selection has fixed predeterminations, like college basketball finals scores, the 7Seven Tournament is free of black market schemes, dahling. All I can say is, may the best Bellas win.
Those who don’t must return to society, no powers, no fame, no nothing. A lucky few B-minuses will be selected to become Scouts, choosing future girls at T-DOD, as well as running errands for Modelland as the institution sees fit. But everyone else gets sent thru Gunnero’s famed Home doors. Ta-ta.
For Tookie De La Crème, such options don’t apply. Our favorite not-so-Forgetta-No-See is just reaching the tallest peak of Modelland and landing outside the gates, thrilled to be back on The Land. Safe. Sound. Happy.
But maybe not for long.
When Ci~L’s pouch landed at the Modelland gates, the area was luckily devoid of guards. Putting a finger to her lips, Ci~L rushed Tookie, Shiraz, Piper, and Dylan through the mosaic check-in face, whispering secrets to its pouty tiled lips once more. The face let them pass, whispering “Authentiquated,” “Balidated,” and “Zertified,” and instead of “Entrez” said “Appetizer,” but the gates opened all the same.
They raced past the row of BellaDonna statues as fast as they could. In the distance, Tookie heard the sounds of drums beating, people cheering, and a nonspecific frenzied rumble of activity. “Hot damn, we’re going to be so late,” Ci~L murmured, glancing at her kaleido-watch again. “We’ll probably have to stand.” She paused to rub her feet. “And I’m not standing, ’cause after three of me running after the four of y’all, my dogs are killing me!”
Shiraz looked nervous. “Please, Ci~L, no say the killings word, ’kay?”
As they burst onto Beautification Boulevard, Tookie and the others gasped. Frantic 7Seven competitors dressed in elaborate, otherworldly couture ensembles and the most glittering, complex jewelry Tookie had ever seen—intricate headpieces that draped over entire faces, necklaces that swung around the wearer’s necks like Hula Hoops, a giant tiger’s-eye ring that actually winked at Tookie as she passed—ran in circles around them, as if the Unicas and Ci~L were invisible. They are so obsessed with the 7Seven Tournament, they can’t even see how crazy and muddy we all look right now! Tookie thought. Which was maybe a good thing.
Mannecants rushed to and fro as well, some directing traffic with hefty batons. A long line of Bellas snaked around the outside of the stadium, and a Mannecant doled out wristbands that assigned each Bella to a specific section according to her uniform color. Devin Rump, mayor of Metopia, trundled in with dignitaries from all of Metopia’s quadrants. Their wives followed, more weighted down with fashionable wares than they had been on T-DOD the year before. After them came what looked like a hundred slack-jawed civilians of all ages, staring around at Modelland in wonder and awe.
Contest winners, Tookie thought, looking at them. The people who’d won the drawings that took place in every country, who got to attend the most amazing tournament in the world—in the most amazing place in the world. One of the winners raised a camera to her eyes, but a Mannecant grabbed it away. “Mental memories only!” Another winner plucked a perfect fabric flower from the soil and cradled it in his hands. “A souvenir!” he gushed. A second Mannecant snatched it from his hands. “Pluck another and I’ll pluck you right out of here.”
“It’s crazy here at the Modelland,” Shiraz bellowed, dancing around in a circle.
“Yeah, yeah, mass hysteria, crazy times twelve, the pinnacle of belovedness, chicness, and bedlam,” Ci~L said in a blasé tone. “Let’s move it, chicas. We need to get to the stadium before they slam the doors on us. They don’t let latecomers in.”
But Tookie couldn’t help pausing for a moment and staring up at the majestic buildings all around her. She was back. She wasn’t going to die. It was a better feeling than having cold whipped cream poured down her throat. If she’d had time to sink to her knees and kiss the Land, she would have.
Ci~L paused a few paces away from the stadium and whipped around. “Oh Lordy.” She smacked her hand to her head. “I gotta get you into your dress uniforms—otherwise everyone will know we were up to something.” She pointed to Tookie. “Especially you, Miss Muddy-Undies ManAttacker. Okay, pit stop!” She switched directions and headed for the D.
7Seven hopefuls swished by them in a herd. “My Sentura!” one contestant screamed into Tookie’s face. “Where is my Sentura? Did you see that skank Emerald with it?” Tookie just shrugged—how would she know?
“I tried out Seduksheeon on a Bestostero this morning, and he told me I smelled like a bitch in heat!” another girl shrieked, staring morosely at the 3-D replication of her that had arisen from the gold walkway. “How am I gonna improve my scent in a few minutes?”
“I’m doomed too!” another girl moaned. “The BellaDonna said I was Edgy and Strange—with a capital E and S! I should just volunteer to be a Mannecant now!”
“Tookie! Guys!” A voice pierced the raucous din. Tookie looked over and saw ZhenZhen pushing through the crowd toward them. She had on a fuschia puffy-sleeved dress that spelled out Zhen~L in 3-D. “Ooh, you wouldn’t believe what happened to me during Go-See-Go!” She lifted her foot and showed off a glittering tan platform heel with long black shingles. “Maurizio, shoe designer to the Intoxibellas, created a shoe just for me! He calls it the Zhenletto! Like them?”
“Love ’em.” Tookie grabbed ZhenZhen’s hands and glanced at the stadium. “Wow! You’re finally competing! Are you excited?”
“Excited—but scared!” ZhenZhen giggled nervously. Then she noticed Ci~L beside Tookie. Her straight black hair instantly morphed to mimic Ci~L’s lustrous auburn waves. “Ci~L!” she cried. “OhmyGod, I’m freaking out! I keep trying to stay myself, but I keep turning into you! Do you think that’s okay? I mean, my power is Chameeleoné!”
Ci~L touched ZhenZhen’s head, transforming her hair back to its authentic black. “You’re using the power wrong, honey. Chameeleoné is the ability to assume different looks—not to impersonate another Intoxibella. People want an original—not a knockoff. The real you is far more special than the you who tries to be me.”
ZhenZhen pressed her hand to her breast. “Do you really think so?”
“ZhenZhen, girl, you are way more beautiful than I could ever be. If I was insecure, I’d be changing into you. Every single day.” Ci~L smiled beatifically.
Tookie couldn’t help but grin too. There was something so different about Ci~L ever since she’d shared the story about her dead friends—and told them goodbye. It was like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
Then a horn sounded, and ZhenZhen’s eyes widened. “OhmyGodOhmyGod, that’s for me! I have to go!” ZhenZhen’s hair then began zapping back and forth between black and auburn.
“ZhenZhen!” Ci~L said both sternly and lovingly.
ZhenZhen paused, squeezed her eyes shut tightly, and shook her head hard left to right. Her black long tresses returned and she ran toward her Bella mates.
“Smoke the competition, girl!” Dylan yelled after her.
Finally, they made it to the D. Ci~L shuttled them into their bedrooms and flung open their various closet doors. Inside each closet was a shimmering two-tone green leotard bodice with a deep V-neck and a stiff floor-length skirt with a long slit in the front, exposing their bare legs. There were green thigh-high boots as well. “Dress fast!” Ci~L commanded. “And don’t forget your Sentura!”
Once they dressed, Ci~L, now clad in the same outfit as the Unicas, hurried them out onto Beautification Boulevard once more. But eerily, the courtyard was empty. The golden walkway was as smooth as glass. The tree branches rustl
ed quietly in the breeze. The hedge faces frowned disparagingly at Ci~L and her charges. You’re too late, one mouthed.
“Not if I can help it,” Ci~L said through her teeth, yanking Tookie’s wrist and pulling her forward. “You four are seeing that ceremony if I have to teleportal your butts inside.”
They sprinted toward the stadium but were too late. Two Mannecants had just shut the big iron doors.
“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Ci~L yelled as she stomped her foot.
Piper suddenly froze. “What was that?”
The others, even Ci~L, stopped and stared at her. “What was what?” Dylan asked.
“That noise.” Piper gestured at the wall. “I heard something on the other side!”
Tookie listened hard, which wasn’t easy over the cheers from the stadium. But then she heard a gurgle too. And a snapping twig. Whatever it was sounded close.
“Oh my God!” Piper shrieked. “Look!”
Shiraz, Dylan, and Tookie followed her gaze. On the top of the wall was a sooty, skeletal, groping hand.
Everyone shrieked and jumped away. Five angry fingers twitched as though stricken with palsy. When its second hand appeared, the girls grabbed one another. The hand’s flesh was filthy and bloodied. Each fingernail was long, comma-shaped, and obsidian-black. They looked like the talons of a prehistoric flesh-eating bird.
The top of a muddy head appeared next, followed by two bulbous, demonic, cruddy eyes. Everyone screamed and took another step back.
Two shoulders appeared next on the wall, then an abdomen and legs. As the figure caught sight of them, its eyes widened. A growl emitted from the depths of its belly.
Piper gasped. “It’s a LeGizzârd! They killed my father! And now one’s come for me!” Tears streamed down the face of the normally stoic girl.