“Mira!” Look! Nina gripped the peacock’s beak and turned it to face Alicia. A tiny round object was dangling from the center of his forehead. “His middle eye is about to fall off and we’re going to get charged for it.”
Stella McCartney’s limited-edition peacock tee flashed into Alicia’s mind. That bird had two eyes, not three. “I’ve never heard of a three-eyed bird.” She giggled at her accidental rhyme.
“Tell that to these guys!”
Alicia forced her way into the bird circle and took a good look around. Nineteen birds and fifty-seven eyes stared back at her—an odd number if she ever knew one. “How is this possible?”
She leaned forward and took a closer look at the dangler. It looked exactly like the nanny cam her mother had hidden in the bread drawer when her father reluctantly went on a low-carb diet. She gasped. Was it possible that . . .
Alicia reached out and yanked the Minicam off the bird’s blue head. The pin-size lens came off with ease, and the peacock fanned his undying gratitude.
“So that’s how she knew what we were doing,” Nina huffed, pulling a third eye off another grateful chick.
It all made sense now: Esmeralda had a bird’s-eye view—literally—of her hotel and its guests. Alicia giggled at the idea, but brought her finger to her lips when she remembered they were still being watched.
Nina nodded in agreement.
Quietly they removed the cameras from all nineteen peacocks and dropped them in a pile of pea-poo.
“Ready to audition?” Nina asked with a toothy grin.
“In these?” Alicia pulled her sweaty uniform away from her even sweatier body.
Nina lifted off the apron and reached into her deep pockets. “No, in these.” She held out two black bikinis with gold RLs hanging from the tops.
Alicia gasped, too speechless to ask the obvious.
“I took them this morning when I went to tell the twins the news.” Nina beamed. “And I covered up the bulge in my pocket with the bug smock.”
“¡Va-moooos!” Alicia threw her arms around her thieving cousin with newfound respect.
After a quick wardrobe change under the peacock palapa, Alicia and Nina ran across the field, holding hands and giggle-panting. Their big boobs, which had been packed into the small black triangular cups, were the only tip-off that the suits didn’t belong to them. But, judging by the expressions of the people they passed, no one seemed to mind.
“Wait!” Alicia pant-shouted at G—or was it P or S—as he hung a TERMINADO sign in front of the now-closed green and white–striped tent flaps.
“Don’t bother. Is over,” a gum-snapping blonde tried to explain in her best English. “Winner is found.”
“But we didn’t get a chance,” Nina shouted toward G/P/S.
“No one did,” her pigtailed friend chimed in. “As soon as they showed up, it was over.”
Celia and Isobel were off the to side, surrounded by envious wannabes and making victory-¡i!’s with their fingers while they smiled for the press.
Without a single word of warning, Nina marched over and jumped in front of the cameras. “What are you doing here?”
“And why are you wearing my suits!” Alicia shouted loudly enough for the reporters to hear. It was important that she got credit for Celia’s leopard-print bikini and Isobel’s blue plunge-ruffled one-piece. It was essential that they knew she wasn’t some SLBR, and that back home those cameras would have been on her.
The twins whipped their glossy brunette heads around, their photo-op smiles still intact.
“You stole our RLs, we steal yours.” Isobel tossed back her bouncy blowout, and the cameras resumed their clicking.
“And nice try with the hoses, little sister,” Celia chimed in. “The gardeners took them off the roof this morning, and poof! It stopped raining.”
Alicia’s shoulders slumped in defeat. The twins, being twins, were a double dose of Spalpha—two for the price of one. And only triplets could compete with that.
HOTEL LINDO
POOL DECK
Sunday, June 21
9:49 A.M.
Alicia and Nina watched from their jail cell, otherwise known as the Toalla Hut, while the twins rehearsed their opposite of complicated dance routine with world-renowned choreographer Jocy O—a routine, by the way, that Alicia could have mastered in fifth grade. But Isobel and Celia, aka the Callas Sisters, as they had been dubbed by ¡Hola! magazine, had been hard at work all week. And thanks to the paparazzi, everyone who read Spain’s answer to Us Weekly knew it.
The pool deck was filled to fire-hazard capacity because cameras were set to roll in ten minutes, and ¡i! was finally going to make an appearance. But for Alicia, this was more about finding ways to make fun of the twins and find fault in the shoot so she’d feel better about not being part of it. Not that she’d ever admit that.
Finally, everything was in place for the video shoot to begin. The rain machine, the twins—even the unseasonably cool breeze and overcast sky, which, according to Fonsi, the director, worked perfectly with the moody-slash-gloomy feel of the video’s story line.
After ten more minutes of waiting, Fonsi made a big show of checking his watch before calling a huddle with G, P, and S. Celia and Isobel hopped up and down in their teeny denim cutoffs and fringed half-shirts, trying to stay warm.
“They think they’re cold now?” Nina snickered. “Wait until that rain machine starts.”
“Point.” Alicia absentmindedly handed a blue towel to someone’s pale arm and smile-thanked it for tossing a euro in the tip jar.
“They better get started before the real storm comes,” said a familiar British accent.
“Hey, Nigel.” Alicia allowed herself to grin. After all, the auditions were over. The ban on Brits was officially over.
“What’s going on?” Nina asked when a hairy-chested man stepped onto the set. The crew quickly swiped some deodorant under his pits and brushed his body hair while a PA rolled a portable blue screen onto center stage.
Celia side-glanced at Isobel. “¿Quien es el?” She demanded to know who he was.
Isobel shrugged, then turned away in disgust.
“Yeah, who is that?” Alicia echoed.
“I hear ¡i! has a terrible flu and won’t be able to shoot,” Nigel whispered with the authority of a TMZ reporter. He leaned his elbows on the Toalla Hut’s counter and took a sip from his bottle of Voss. “So they’re going to use his stand-in and Photoshop ¡i! in later.”
Alicia and Nina gasped in disbelief.
“Quiet on the set!” called Fonsi, waving his tan arms violently.
Someone quickly handed the stand-in an ice cream cone and positioned him between the twins.
“Walking on the pier, take one,” Fonsi shouted. “Annnnnnd action!”
The music began and Isobel, Celia, and Hairy Stand-In began walking in place, the blank blue screen positioned behind them.
“A production assistant told me they were going to put an image of a Ferris wheel behind them so it looks like they’re at an amusement park,” Nigel explained.
“Stand by rain,” Fonsi directed, pointing to the silver rain machine. “Cue the rain. Okay, Leon, drop the ice cream on your chest . . . now.”
Leon did what he was told as a torrential downpour drenched the actors.
“Okay, girls, lick it off his che-sssssst . . . now!”
“Ew!” Alicia shouted.
“It’s all hairy!” Nina screamed.
The twins must have felt the same way, because all they did was stare at the chocolate stream that was spilling down the stand-in’s chest and pooling in his deep belly button.
“Cut!” Fonsi shouted, his temples pulsing. “You need to lick! LICK! Dry them off and reset for another take.”
The twins pretended to gag while the crowd slowly returned to their sun cots and beach reads.
“Didn’t I say you’d regret winning this contest?” Nigel winked.
Alicia looked at him—reall
y looked at him—for the first time since they’d met. It felt like slipping on a great pair of wraparound D&G lenses after staring into the sun for hours. Her gaze could finally linger. And it did. . . .
“How do you know all of this?” she asked his clear blue eyes.
“ADM!” Nina gasped and covered her mouth. “¡i!” she screech-shouted into her palm.
“You what?” Alicia asked her cousin, whose eyes were suddenly bulging from her skull.
“Quiet!” Nigel dropped his Voss and jumped through the window of the towel hut, ducking down by their flip-flopped feet.
“Not me,” Nina whisper-shouted. “¡i!”
Nigel looked up from the tiled floor, and Alicia quickly crossed her legs so he couldn’t peer up her mustard-yellow dress. “I opposite of understand what’s going on here.”
“I am ¡i!,” he said sweetly, not even trying to catch a glimpse.
“You are ¡i!?” Alicia ducked down to join him. Nina followed. “But you’re . . . you’re nawt even Spanish!”
“Shhhhhh.” He waved his hand frantically in front of her open mouth.
Once she closed it, he continued. “I was lead vocal in a band back in Manchester until a talent scout offered me a contract to go solo. He said Spain was desperate for a pop star and asked if I wouldn’t mind ’elping out, since we’re all part of the same continent and all,” he whispered. “So they airbrushed my face, Photoshopped my body, but kept my voice. No one knows.”
“ADM, you’re Fannish times ten!” Alicia blurted.
“I told you!” He smiled. “G, P, and S are my mother’s nephews.”
“And that rubber hand was—”
“A decoy.”
“I can’t believe you’re ¡i!” Nina plucked a blond hair off his bare shoulder and stuffed it in her bikini top.
“What if your cousins tell?” Alicia asked, quickly calculating how many gossip points she could earn by breaking the news first.
“And give up all of this?” He gestured to the five-star resort outside the towel hut.
“I can’t believe you’re ¡i!,” Nina muttered, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Shhhhhh,” Nigel smile-insisted.
“Why are you telling us?” Alicia asked, knowing full well she’d never be able to keep this from the Pretty Committee.
“Because I am hoping that now you’ll finally agree to hang out with me.” His crooked tooth and fair skin suddenly oozed quirky charm.
“We have jobs, remember?” Alicia insisted, shocking herself with the words she never thought she’d say—at least not in that order.
“Time for early retirement.” Nigel stood, brushing off the seat of his slouchy, skull-covered board shorts. Obviously the trend was still very much alive in Europe.
“I can’t believe you’re ¡i!,” Nina mouthed, a salty stream of mascara trickling down her face and into her cleavage.
Nigel handed her a towel.
“We have debt,” Alicia explained.
“Not anymore.” Nigel slapped his hands together like he was wiping off cake crumbs. “I paid it off.”
“What?” Alicia jumped up and hugged him.
Nina cried harder.
“What can I do to repay you?”
“Keep my secret.” He held out both of his hands. “And spend the afternoon sailing on my yacht. Looks like the sun is about to break through these clouds.”
“Done!” Alicia grabbed hold of his hands firmly, cementing their pact.
She had never chosen loyalty over gossip before. But then again, she had never folded a towel, bonded with Nina, or decided that being an alpha was a lot less fun than just being herself.
“Can we go home and change first?” Alicia asked, rubbing her finger along the embroidered mop for the last time.
“Please! I insist on it.” He chuckled his adorable Fannish chuckle.
Alicia, Nigel, and Nina held hands and walked proud as peacocks past the video shoot. Isobel and Celia were shivering while the hairy stand-in stiffly gripped his fresh new ice cream cone like the Statue of Liberty. Take two was about to begin.
Not just for the twins. For everyone.
Now that you know Alicia’ls summer secret, you’re another step closer to being IN. In the know, that is. . . .
SUMMER STATE OF THE UNION
INOUT
_ Purple hair streaks Summer secrets
_ Confidentiality contracts
_ Euro pop stars
Shark-tooth necklaces
Massie & Claire in Orlando
Five girls. Five stories. One ahmazing summer.
THE CLIQUE
SUMMER COLLECTION
BY LISI HARRISON
Turn the page for a sneak peek of Kristen’s story. . . .
THE CLIQUE
SUMMER COLLECTION
KRISTEN
THE BAXTERS’ SUMMER RENTAL
WESTCHESTER, NY
Monday, July 18
11:43 A.M.
“Rate me.”
“No.”
“Come on, Ms. Gregory. Rate me.”
“No.”
“Kris-ten! Come on, pleeeease. You always rate Massie.”
“No!”
“Just say a number.”
“Fine. Nine.”
“Ehmagawd! I’m a nine!” Ripple Baxter hugged the shell-frame mirror on the living room wall of her father’s sea-inspired summer rental. “I knew this pink snakeskin headband was a must.” She petted her deep-fried blond hair.
“Correction.” Kristen sat on the floor, then placed her over-sweetened lemonade on the nicked surfboard coffee table. “It’s not a rating. It’s your age. You’re nine.” Kristen Gregory leered at Ripple from across the musty garage sale–furnished cottage. “And nine is the square root of eighty-one. Did you even know that?”
Ignoring her, Ripple turned to the side and examined her new outfit. A long, pale pink hoodie, meant to cover the hips, practically swallowed the top two-thirds of her short, muscular frame. Her knees could have easily been mistaken for extremely saggy boobs, had her purple rhinestone–covered flip-flops not been so close.
“Ripple, your dad is paying me to teach you math, and if you don’t—”
“Ms. Gregory, he does not, not, not care about math.” Ripple fluffed the dark lashes around her light brown eyes. “All he cares about are waves. He just wants someone to look after me so he can drive out to Long Island and surf. You’re more like a tutor-sitter. Heavy on the sitter.”
Funny. Lately Kristen felt heavy on everything. How could she not? While she sweated in a six-week summer school program, Massie was in the Hamptons, Alicia was in Spain, and Dylan was in Hawaii. Even Claire had left town. True, she’d gone back to Orland-ew, but that was better than tutor-sitting a bratty nine-year-old for eighth-grade wardrobe money. When would it be her turn to make memories? And when would Ripple stop with those annoying nickna—
“Actually”—Ripple flipped up her pink hood and checked her reflection—“the only thing you can teach me is how to be Massie Block.”
“You could start by lowering that hood,” Kristen blurted, then immediately angrily pinched her own leg for encouraging the little wannabe.
Ripple did what she was told, then reached into her Coach Heritage Stripe Swingpack knockoff and pulled out ten purple plastic bangles. Glued around them was a white price tag that said 5 FOR $2.00.
“Left or right?” She lifted her wrists. “WWMD?”
Kristen stood and shuffled across the uneven wood floor in Steve Madden cork wedges, her pleated Diesel denim mini swaying below her tight yellow ribbed tank. “Massie wouldn’t do either!” She grabbed Ripple’s soon-to-be- bangled wrists and pulled her back to the coffee table. “They’re H&M!”
“Well, then, what would she do?” Ripple widened her light brown eyes in anticipation.
Kristen squeezed the gold locket Massie had sent her for her birthday—complete with a group photo of the Pretty Committee—and thought, What would Massie d
o? But, not being an alpha, Kristen wasn’t completely sure.
“She would do her homework, okay?” Kristen lied, flipping open Ripple’s glossy math textbook. “Now, if a carton of eggs was one-fifty yesterday and is fifty percent off today, how much are the eggs? A, a dollar; B, two twenty-five; or C, seventy-five cents?”
Ripple plopped down on the green and blue Hawaiian print–covered futon, annoyed. “Why won’t you help me?”
“Because it’s illegal to help a stalker.” Kristen ran her hand along her stubbly calf, thinking that the best part of her pathetic day might be the leg-shave bath she had scheduled before bed.
“I am not, not, not a stalker!” Ripple whipped the bangles across the room. They bounced twice before settling into a cheap plastic heap.
“Then focus and answer the question!” Kristen shouted, grateful that they were the only ones home.
“Wait, I have a better question,” Ripple sniffled. “If your three-week crush told you surf chicks were ‘cute ’n’ all,’” she air-quoted, “but that some sophisticated older girl named Massie Block was super hot, what would you do?” She stood and paced. “A, want to figure out the price of eggs; B, stay true to your surfer roots; or C, ask your dad to hire you the summer math tutor who just happens to be Massie’s BFF?”
Kristen’s stomach lurched. “You’re using me for Massie info?”
Ripple smeared glittery pink drugstore gloss on her droopy bottom lip. “We’re paying you, aren’t we?”
Kristen felt dizzy. In that very instant, her entire world had just been turned upside down and dumped out like a giant handbag. Everything she’d held on to was gone. Being smart and athletic were the only two things she had that Massie couldn’t compete with. No one on the Pretty Committee could.
And that made her special.
But who was she kidding? If the game Rock, Paper, Scissors were real life, it would be called Brains, Beauty, Brawn. And Beauty would beat Brains and Brawn every time.
Someone kicked the front door open. “Hello? Anyone home?”
A thick beam of sunlight seeped inside the dark cabin. A shirtless boy appeared in the doorway, as if summoned by God and delivered by angels.
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