Cruising the plane over the lightbulb-shaped lab where she did her experiments, Charlie felt her heart rev a little faster. The recycled glass building shot up from the jungle like a giant albino mushroom. It was where she felt like she belonged. She squinted through the semi-opaque white walls and smiled when she saw Dr. G, her lab mentor, bent over some slides of her latest project, a spray-foam that dried stronger than cement. With any luck, the foam would be used to build houses for the world’s poor. If she had the lab as a home and Allie as a best friend, Charlie would survive here—maybe even flourish. Even without Darwin.
She stole another glance at Allie, who looked lower than the ocean floor. Charlie tried to imagine how she would feel if the situation were reversed. What if Darwin had broken up with her? She hoped he would want her to be happy, to move on.
It was crazy, but Charlie realized she wanted Allie and Darwin to be together now. Life at the Academy was more competitive than Olympic figure skating, more stressful than the PSATs. Succeeding here could turn you from ordinary to infamous, from mousy to magnetic, from Lisa Simpson to Jessica Simpson. And surviving here was way more likely with a friend on your side.
If Charlie couldn’t be with Darwin herself, then at least she could find a way to make her best friend and her boyfriend—or, rather, boy “friend”—happy.
“Let’s take her in,” she said. Charlie pushed the Twizzler-shaped icon on the PAP’s touchscreen and Bee’s voice acknowledged her selection as the plane angled through the crystalline sky. “Now preparing for landing. We hope you enjoyed your flight on Alpha Airways.”
“Roger that,” said Allie, pasting on a brave smile.
Soon, if Charlie had anything to say about it, Allie would have something real to smile about.
2
THEATER OF DIONYSUS
HONE IT: FOR DANCERS
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH
2:18 P.M.
As the elevator soared above the tree line toward the floating glass cube of the dance studio, Skye squinted her Tiffany box–blue eyes, searching Alpha Island for any signs of a potential audience. Here and there, yellow-bellied finches and orange-and-purple parakeets flitted among the palm fronds. On the westernmost edge of the island, where the curved tail of the island’s @-shape formed a marshy isthmus, she spotted two muses gathering shells along the water’s edge. Actual Alphas were apparently in scarce supply during class periods—hypercompetitive, 99th percentile, leaders-of-tomorrow types didn’t ditch class without a good reason. The glass floor of the studio meant that anyone with the luck to be out of doors and in view of the studio could watch a performance, but so far, it looked like Skye’s comeback would be witnessed by the bun-heads alone.
Correction: the bun-heads and at least three of Shira’s cameras.
The elevator opened with a chime, followed by the British voice recording: “Welcome to the Dionysus practice hall, where dance is your pleasure.” An excited shiver rippled through Skye’s lithe torso. She stepped out of the elevator onto the clear rubberized glass floor of the studio and took a deep whiff of the organic eucalyptus/lemon thyme spray-solvent manufactured by Brazille Enterprises. Most dance studios smelled of corroded toe shoes and sweaty leotards, but this one smelled like inspiration. A tiny, tasteful disco ball hung from the ceiling, bouncing mini-rainbows off the floor and onto the walls.
Triple, Prue, and Ophelia waved at her from the barre, where they were yawning through their usual battement tendu, each girl clad in a slightly different shade of metallic leo topped by a floaty chiffon dance skirt. Skye chin-thrust a greeting in return, quickly shedding her sweatsuit and revealing her silver dance cami and shirred silver boy shorts. Showing off her glutes made her feel powerful and confident, something her elephant-size ankle bandage did not. She suppressed a smile as all six eyebrows at the barre shot up in appraisal of her missing ankle brace and butt-hugging outfit.
Prepare to be jealous, girls.
With Skye’s regulation Alpha-issued dance attire, there was nothing out of place. Her bun was the tightest and slickest in the room, preventing her white-blond curls from whipping around and inspiring her to attempt crazy feats of experimental self-expression during class. Her dance sleeves, the trademark accessory of the old Skye, were now charred around the edges, tucked away in a shoebox under her bed. She’d tried to burn them on the beach one night as part of her commitment to impressing Mimi, their instructor, who had a drill sergeant’s soul wrapped in the body of a world-class choreographer. Unfortunately, the sparkly lycra/viscose blend refused to burst into flame, so she’d watched the sleeves smoke and smolder for a while before stamping them out and giving up. Her body was toned and trim from weeks of salmon, egg whites, greens, and five hundred sit-ups a day, and thanks to countless hours of strengthening exercises, her ankle was good as new—better, even.
She looked around at her fellow dancers lunging in deep quad stretches against the barre, picturing herself dancing among them, her moves just as tight as her severe bun. Today, she was sure she would finally impress Mimi, who would applaud her for sticking to the routine, for memorizing it perfectly while sitting on the sidelines. In just a few minutes, she’d finally get the praise she so desperately needed to regain her confidence.
“Lookin’ serious, Sleeveless!” joked Prue, winding an errant strand of red hair around her messy bun. “You’re like Britney on her comeback tour.”
Skye glared at the Nicole Kidman wannabe. The comparison to Britney hit her like a punch in the stomach; she’d sprained her ankle, not shaved her head and lost her mind! She made a mental note never to ask Prue to dance backup for her once she’d made it big. You have no idea how seriously I’m about to dominate this studio.
“We’ll see,” smirked Triple. She rolled her eyes like she knew something Skye didn’t… like Skye had been the butt of every joke among the bun-heads during her ankle-healing absence.
Triple, short for Triple Threat, was Skye’s bunk-mate in the Jackie O house along with Charlie and Allie J. Skye wished she could undo whatever computer error was responsible for housing two dancers in the same dorm; putting up with the Goody Tap-shoes “mo-dan-tress” day and night was like wearing a pair of too-tight toe shoes: uncomfortable at best, scream-inducing at worst.
“That all you got?” muttered Skye, turning her back on Triple and surveying the room. She wasn’t in the mood for the girl’s mega-negative vibes.
She had been running through the steps of Mimi’s latest in her head all morning, along with some of Shira’s inspirational Alpha phrases like “there’s nothing prettier than hard work paying off,” and “when in doubt, be the best.” For the last two weeks, ever since Shira had quadrupled the number of surveillance cameras on the island, it had been all dance and no fun for Skye. But today it was finally going to pay off. Skye had been doing everything possible to honor her HADs (Hopes and Dreams), which she’d written on slips of paper and stuffed inside the lavender ballet slipper her mother, the once-famous prima ballerina Natasha Flailenkoff, had given her the day she had received her acceptance package from school.
HAD No. 1: To stay at Alpha Academy.
HAD No. 2: To stay on Charlie’s good side (no more blabbing Jackie O secrets to bun-heads!).
HAD No. 3: To heal and dance by morning.
HAD No. 4: To swear off boys until graduation.
HAD No. 5: To be the best.
The slipper had worked for Natasha, and so far Skye had managed to keep all her HADs alive. For the past week, the elimination assembly the Jackie O’s all feared had not materialized. Shira had been called away on urgent business, and school had chugged along as usual in her absence. Paranoia was running high, what with the additional eyes glued to every ceiling, but Skye had kept her head in the game. She had earned Charlie’s forgiveness for bringing dancers into the tunnel by promising to come clean to Shira and take the blame if it ever came up.
The hardest HAD to honor was actually a spectacular s
uccess. For the past week, she had ignored Taz’s endlessly flattering, dangerously tempting stream of text messages. Shira’s most kissable son, famous for dating models and starlets, was cryogenically frozen in Skye’s heart; she would only thaw him out once she had proven herself to Mimi. The only thing Skye needed to do now was earn the title of best dancer at the Academy. Triple had Mimi wrapped around her calloused toes, but today all that was about to change. The new, disciplined Skye was about to demote Triple Threat to Double Trouble.
Two earsplitting hand-claps and the jangling of twenty thin gold bracelets announced Mimi’s entrance. Intimidating and gorgeous in a low-cut black leotard and an electric blue dovetail skirt that showed off her burnished caramel skin, Mimi inspired awe and fear in equal measure. Skye plastered a toothy smile on her face and stood at attention next to the barre, trying to look nonchalant even though her future at Alpha Academy depended on today’s performance.
A few more dancers had arrived moments before, still in chat mode as they unzipped their hoodies. Mimi narrowed her golden eyes at them, her mouth pursed in a glossed, furious O.
“Mouths closed, toes pointed! If I wanted to hear what you had to say, I would have become a shrink and not a choreographer!” Mimi made eye contact with Skye and acknowledged her with a slight tilt of her chignoned head. “Show me how you feel with your bodies! Music… on! Up-tempo, major key, updated funk!”
A half second later, the studio’s voice-activated music library made its selection, and the room was a swirl of drums, horns, and booty-shaking soul. “Positions, please!” Mimi yelled. “Sleeves, far right, front corner! Let’s see what you can bring to the sequence. We’re picking back up from the step-ball-change, dancers! Ah-one, ah-two, ah-one two three four!”
The floor of the studio bounced with the pressure of the sequence, a series of jetés and leaps combined with the hip-pops and boom-shaka-laka drop-and-recovers in a kind of hip-hop-meets-classical-dance hybrid. Skye felt the rhythm of the dance reverberate through her legs and spread through her whole body. She knew every twirl, every flip of the hand and roll of the hips, because she’d studied them so carefully while sitting on the sidelines. Her muscles twanged like the strings of a guitar. She could make them sing any song she wanted today. And she wasn’t even tempted to throw in a Skye-style flourish. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Prue and Triple hip-thrust-and-turn and up-two-three-four in perfect synchronicity with her. Her body and spirit soared with the music as she matched her fellow dancers step for step. Mimi’s appraising eyes rested on her, but she continued to look straight ahead, smiling.
She was back.
When the music stopped, Skye let her shoulders roll back and planted her feet in second position, panting from exertion. She’d nailed it.
“Sleeves, again. Solo this time,” said Mimi. “Music, repeat!”
On top already! Skye danced the sequence again, careful not to incorporate any of her usual head bobs, extra hip swivels, or anything else where her desire to express herself overshadowed the routine. Finally, she was doing the thing that set her free, that made her feel beautiful, like she was on this earth for a reason beyond boys, beyond besties. It was the way she always felt at Body Alive, her old dance studio, where she was such a huge star that her instructor, Madame P, left her in charge of the entire class during pee breaks. The drums throbbed through her, guiding her switch-twirl, her body as stretchy and pliable as a rubber band and as strong as a racehorse, powering through every move.
When the music stopped and Skye dropped her arms, a smattering of grudging applause erupted from the dancers. That showed them.
Skye smiled, trying to look modest while soaking up admiration she knew she had earned. She raised an eyebrow at Triple, feeling cocky and letting it show. Triple looked away, and Skye could almost smell defeat oozing from her invisible, exfoliated pores. Ha!
“Nice kick at the end, Skye,” said Prue, flashing her a thumbs-up.
Skye thought she heard her aPod flash from the corner of the studio, where she’d left it stuffed under her hoodie. Couldn’t Taz leave her alone for half an hour? She quickly replanted her gaze on Mimi.
“Sleeves, can you tell us what you were thinking about while you were dancing?”
That I was onstage at Madison Square Garden with a hundred thousand people chanting my name? That I was kicking Triple’s conceited butt? That I was the best? None of these answers would do, obviously.
“I was thinking about how much I still had to learn from everyone, from you, and how I wanted to stick to the essence of the routine. And I thought about the tradition of jazz dancing, the fundamentals, and how important it is to master those core moves before I make my own additions.” It was butt-kissy, but it was the kind of answer Mimi would eat up. Skye smiled brightly at her instructor, anticipating long-awaited words of praise.
“And that,” said Mimi, turning on the three-inch heel of her Capezio Salsa Moderna, facing the dancers gathered on one side of the studio, “is why Sleeves is out of sync with the music.”
What?
“The mind should be quiet when dancing. Feel, don’t think! Your answer was still all about you, Sleeves, about where you fit in. It needs to be about the dance, about your spirit, not your ego. Andrea is the only one of you who dances with her spirit.” Mimi looked over at Triple Threat, who was suddenly all smiles and noticeably puffed up like a person with a shellfish allergy who’d just downed a sushi boat.
Andrea? Triple Threat?! But she’s a dance-bot! She has no passion! Skye blinked back tears and swallowed a mouthful of rage.
“Andrea, please dance the sequence solo. Music, repeat!”
As the bass pumped out of the speakers and Triple moved in her usual robotic, uninspired style, Skye’s eyes wandered toward her sweatshirt crumpled in the corner of the room and then returned to the somber group of her fellow dancers, all of whom nodded as if they actually saw a difference between the two dancers, as if Triple really was better. Traitors! Philistines!
That was when a realization hit Skye, more powerfully and offensively than the reek of two weeks of unwashed leotards: No matter what she did, no matter how hard she worked or how much she tried to suppress her own style, she would never convince Mimi that she had passion. Triple would always be number one, because Mimi had already made up her mind.
Then what’s the point in trying? Skye watched Triple dance, but instead of music, she heard the beating of her own heart thundering in her ears. Mimi hated her, and dancing at Alpha Academy was nothing more than adapting to new forms of humiliation. Skye would never achieve her HADs from within these transparent walls. She wasn’t going to make her mother proud and become a world-famous dancer.
And just like that, as if a jangly hand-clap from Mimi had stopped her in the middle of a routine, Skye reset her priorities.
You win, Triple. You can have all of this.
“Class dismissed!” barked Mimi. “Work on it, Sleeves!”
Skye looked at the floor and nodded, vowing that nobody in this room would get the satisfaction of seeing her cry. By the time she had crossed the room to retrieve her pile of warm-up clothes and check her phone for forbidden texts, it was obvious what the next step was. If Plan A fails, move on to Plan B.
Plan Boys.
3
JACKIE O
ALLIE A’S BED
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20TH
8:46 P.M.
The sleeping quarters of the Jackie O House reverberated with the soothing sounds of Peruvian wind instruments, but Allie A. Abbott was anything but soothed. Next to a nightstand littered with gum wrappers, Allie lay curled up like a comma on her bed. Her Alpha-issued gold nightgown was more than warm enough for the September night, but Allie shivered as her mind ran through the events of the past two weeks. She rolled over, trying not to think about it.
Allie looked around at her fellow Jackie O’s, each girl sprawled on her canopied bed in a posture of pseudo-relaxation. Aft
er nearly three weeks on Alpha Island, Allie felt certain that nobody ever really let their guard down at Alpha Academy. The girls chosen to attend Shira’s new school had grown up working their butts off to be the biggest fish in their small ponds, and now that they were gathered together, the place was a shark tank.
Skye lay in the bed to Allie’s right, her blond wavelets reaching almost to her butt, cracking her wrists in bed and brooding about dance class. Allie could hear her muttering, “One-two-three-four, I’m not dancing anymore” under her breath as she flexed and pointed her feet. Skye’s champagne-shiny cami and boy shorts skimmed a perfect dancer’s body, lean and toned like a cheetah, capable of executing any combination of moves. Allie knew she was mega-talented—Skye was just going through a post-injury setback. To Allie’s left sat Charlie, cross-legged and serious, hunched over a laptop and absorbed in a furious bout of pre-sleep coding for one of her ingenious technological projects. She chewed her lower lip in concentration, and Allie marveled at how well she pulled off her geek-chic style: Charlie’s mahogany-brown hair, piled high on her head in a messy bun, perfectly complemented her nerd-core rectangular black plastic glasses. Luckily, she only needed them for close-up stuff like coding and reading.
Whether it was an innate talent from birth or from growing up around Shira, dreaming big was something Charlie knew how to do. It had been Charlie who had arranged for Allie to meet up with Darwin in the island’s secret underground tunnel for the best few minutes of Allie’s life so far: kissing Darwin’s pillowy, cinammon-scented lips. It would be Charlie—the girl who had made life at Alphas not just livable but truly fun—who she would hurt most of all if the secret of her middle initial was revealed.
Allie A, aspiring mall model, had faked her way into Alpha Academy by pretending to be Allie J, the famous eco-songwriter pop star.
Movers and Fakers Page 2