“Now, tell me what’s wrong with this picture.”
Hannah’s lip stuck out and trembled a bit.
A girl with a short pixie cut and C-plus cups spoke up. Allie quickly scanned her.
NAME: YARA NEGRON, MICHELLE OBAMA HOUSE. LIKES: SHAKESPEARE, BRITISH SLANG, AND WRITING MUSICALS. DISLIKES: LLAMAS, ANGLOPHILES, AND LICKING ENVELOPES.
“Hannah didn’t show us the scene,” Yara said. “She just told it to us. I didn’t feel like I was living it with her. So I had no connection to it.”
“Bridgette Wu from Heidi Klum,” another girl said, tossing a slick black braid over her shoulder. “She expected us to bring our own vision to fill in the drama. I think that’s cool. Very minimalist. Smacks of Dingo.”
“Your brother’s a writer too?” Allie whispered to Darwin.
Darwin laughed like she was joking.
“Disagree,” Ringlets, aka Tatiana, insisted. “Keifer wanted us to create the story. And that’s not our job as readers. It’s hers as the writer.”
“Lazy!” coughed Yara.
Tatiana giggled.
Hannah hung her head.
“I agree.” Keifer nodded. “It is lazy. But chin up, Hannah. You’re great at coming up with brilliant ideas. You wouldn’t have created three successful novel franchises if you weren’t. This is why we’re here. To learn how to write visually. You gave people the bones. Now it’s time to flesh them out and bring them to life.”
Hannah scribbled notes—lazy… chin up… bones… flesh out—over her tablet. They appeared in Times New Roman font. She reduced the font size to 8-point the second she caught Allie peeking.
“Charlie, you’re next.”
Please make Charlie suck, please make Charlie suck, please make Charlie suck, Allie begged the clouds above. Still and serene, they offered no guarantee.
“‘For the first time in my life, I am alone.’” Her voice was small and shaky. “‘I walk around this palace of glass that, in defiance of gravity and zoning regulations, rises up and pierces the sky. The hovercraft technology, the holographs that look friends but fade like jeans, feel like something I dreamed up.’” Her voice grew stronger, more confident. “‘But it’s all real, and I’m here to experience it—by myself. I’m walking down a red carpet with no escort, singing praises into the wind, and writing a story no one will read. As I walk and talk and sit and breathe, I want you with me, your arm linked through mine.…’”
Allie’s fingers tightened around her Purell. Was Charlie trying to make up with Darwin in front of all these people? Was he falling for it? She didn’t dare look. She didn’t want to know.
“‘But it’s time for me to do it on my own. Your absence was the price of admission. Still, I miss you.…’” Her voice trailed like a passing car. She swallowed hard as if bracing herself. “‘I miss you, Mom,’” Charlie finished.
Allie sighed. Darwin ran a hand through his hair and slouched.
“Very evocative, Charlie,” Keifer said. “Now let’s see it.”
The walls went blank. A faceless girl walked through a foggy space alone. Futuristic buildings rose up around her, making her appear smaller and smaller as her journey continued. A blurry figure appeared, and the faceless girl chased after it. It came a little more into focus and then faded away, leaving the girl alone in the fog forever.
“Any thoughts on Charlotte’s piece?” Keifer prompted.
Allie could feel Darwin tense beside her.
“She gave us a window inside what it is to be alpha, which often means sacrifice,” tweeted a sunburned girl with blond eyebrows.
Tatiana spoke next. “Um, you know, at first, knowing it was going to be posted on-screen, I felt like the piece would suffer because of the lack of description. But instead of painting a portrait of her surroundings, she painted her feelings. And that came through. It rang true. I really felt her longing.”
Darwin looked at Charlie for a charged beat and then sat tall. “I thought it was confusing. No, deceptive.” He paused, as if allowing his words to sink in for full sting-effect. “It felt like one of those stupid stories that ends in a dream.”
“Uh, are you saying The Wizard of Oz is stupid?” Tatiana twirled her nose ring in victory. “Because that ended in a dream, and it also happens to be an American classic.”
Charlie smiled her thanks.
“No, not like that at all,” Darwin countered. “More like the writer wanted you to believe one thing and then made it all pointless by saying it was another thing al-together.”
“What did you believe?” Keifer asked, folding her arms across her white tunic and cocking her head.
“I dunno.” Darwin shrugged. “I just thought it was about someone else.”
“I agree with Tatiana.” Keifer blinked. “Charlie, excellent work. Bailey and Tatiana, good critiques. Darwin, you need to expand your mind and open yourself up to the different ways of storytelling.”
Charlie smirked.
“Darwin, why don’t you go next?”
“Fine.” He cleared his throat. “‘It was the day after my apocalypse. My brothers were with me in the fallout shelter. Each took a different tactic. Melbourne was a mercenary. Sydney was sensitive. Dingo was ready to prank revenge. And Taz was ready to climb the Pavilion and shout at the top of his lungs. My brothers insisted the dawn would come—a dawn I believed was doomed. But they were right. There it was, bright and shining. I just had to open my eyes and look.’”
Darwin’s story splashed around the room. Faceless boys were pacing around a sad-faced Darwin in the near dark. And then light rose around them. Darwin smiled. The light didn’t have a face.
Allie suddenly wondered if it was her.
She side-glanced at Darwin, asking with her fake green eyes if she was the sunrise. He blinked back that she was.
Fletch never would have been that poetic. She wanted to reach out and kiss his adorable freckle. But she decided on a smile, which he immediately returned.
“Nice work, Darwin. A promising start.”
“Thanks,” Darwin mumbled modestly.
“Allie J, what have you got for us?” Keifer rubbed her hands together like she was about to dig into a steaming plate of cheese fries. “You aren’t the only talent in the Fuselage, but you are the only celebrity. And I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say I am very anxious to hear your prose.”
Everyone applauded—except Charlie.
Oh no. Allie began sweating. She couldn’t read her piece. It wasn’t ready. It wasn’t written! “But class is over in, like, three minutes,” she tried.
“Then I suggest you start now,” Keifer insisted gently.
The writers’ circle provided no place to hide. Allie cleared her throat nervously and began improvising, just like she had on her acting auditions back in the old days. The days before Fletcher and—
“Allie J?”
“Sorry. Okay. Um, here I go,” she said to the blank tablet. “Love triangle. Obtuse, acute, where do I fit in?” She peered up. Everyone was watching her. Her mouth dried. “So, um, where was I? Oh yeah. Isosceles, equilateral, scalene. What’s your angle? Love triangle.” She giggled with pride at her accidental but fabulous rhyme. “I can’t let her win. Love triangle. Obtuse, acute, where do I fit in? Love geometry. Never mind, I pick me. The heart.”
There was silence when Allie looked up, indicating she was finished. Had she made them all speechless?
“Comments?” Keifer finally asked the room.
Hannah’s brows shot up under her mess of dark hair. Charlie nibbled her unglossed lip. Yara wiggled her nose like she was trying to contain a sneeze—or a snicker. Darwin fidgeted in his chair. Allie tilted back her head, willing the blood to drain from her face and return it to its naturally un-red state.
“Okay, then, let’s see it.”
Allie watched in horror as a thin blue line drew an isosceles triangle. Then an equilateral and scalene. And then a heart.
Snickers peppered the existing tension.
Darwin shot Allie a pitying what happened? look. Somehow, Allie managed to shrug her shoulders, wondering if he’d buy stage fright.
“Catchy,” Keifer finally spoke after a painfully long pause, “but I didn’t want something I could dance to. Or trace for that matter.” She cleared her throat, “I want something I can feeeeeel.” Allie slid down in her chair as Keifer continued, wishing she could power up the jet and fly away from her classmates’ accusing stares. “This is a poem, not a paragraph. I’d say there’s a rhyming dictionary where your heart should be. And not that cutesy heart, either. The bloody one that pumps life into your body every single day.”
“Class is dismissed,” the British voice announced all across campus. Allie had no idea who that voice belonged to, but she wanted to send her a dozen roses and a crate of thank-you chocolates.
Keifer clapped. “Class, I want you to finish what we started here today. Add a hundred words and more description.”
Everyone stood.
“Allie J, stay,” Keifer demanded. Allie nodded for Darwin to go ahead, hoping he couldn’t hear her heart beating triple time.
When everyone was gone, Keifer a-hemed and handed Allie a piece of paper. “Sign this.” OMG. Was she making her drop the class, leaving Charlie and Darwin together without her? “I’d like your autograph.”
Relief washed over Allie like a tsunami. So her triangles weren’t that bad! Maybe they were actually genius in their simplicity—like Post-its or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Keifer had probably just been hard on her so the others wouldn’t feel badly about not being brilliant.
“Of course,” Allie said with a smile. “Who should I make it out to?”
“Just sign it,” Keifer ordered, handing her a pen.
Allie executed her perfectly practiced Allie J signature, dotting the J with a messy peace sign.
Keifer palmed the signed piece of paper, wadded it up, then tossed it in the recycling bin. “Now that we’ve thrown away the big star, we can get down to the real Allie J. I want to know what lies behind those green eyes. Somewhere inside you is a talented girl with something worth saying. Your songs are proof of that. And that is the girl I want in my class.”
The branches over the Fuselage swayed in the light breeze, and the sun beat down on Allie’s part. She nodded, her hope fading like her roots. Because underneath the fake mole, Allie was just a heartbroken blonde with no idea what to say.
14
APOD MESSAGE
TO ALL STUDENTS AND FACULTY
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH
6:19 P.M.
PLEASE REMAIN SEATED AFTER DINNER FOR THE G’DAY ADDRESS. ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.
—SHIRA
15
THE PAVILION
AMBROSIA BANQUET HALL
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH
7:02 P.M.
The Pavilion was alive with the sound of gossip as one hundred girls sat around empty tables trying to guess the subject of Shira’s g’day address. Rumors ranged from “She’s opening an academy for boys” to “Shira is actually a famous Australian game show host in drag.” Tired of useless theories, Skye was ready to focus her energy on something more productive. Like, why weren’t the guys at dinner? Why hadn’t she heard from Taz? Why…
Her aPod vibrated.
“Yes!” she blurted, then quickly lowered her voice and turned to Renee. “Taz just texted!” she whispered. Thalia was at the table with them, but Charlie Brown-nose concerned her more. Renee had been calling Charlie out as a spy all afternoon. And even though Skye believed Renee had SOS (Soap Opera Syndrome: confusion over where storylines in soap operas end and reality begins), why chance it?
“What did he say?”
“He wants to know when we can sneak out again.” She waved her aPod as proof. “And I say the sooner the better. Before our spa glows fade.” Skye stroked her cheek, marveling at how smooth it felt. “What good is beauty if it can’t be admired by boys? It’s like cutting the label out of a Chanel dress.”
“Or marrying Spencer without the MTV cameras,” Renee added.
“Exactly.” Skye tossed her hair. “What’s the point?” Without further hesitation, she texted back.
Skye: B there once r muse takes her snooze.
She was about to hit send when Renee smacked her. The aPod flew under the table.
“Are you crazy?” Skye narrowed her turquoise eyes.
“Relax,” Renee insisted. “I know what I’m doing. And you can’t send that text.”
“Why?” Skye scanned the dining hall. Everyone was still seated at their six-leaf-clover tables chatting away. Triple was rolling her neck, making it clear she didn’t care what they were talking about. And Charlie was talking to Thalia about some woman they knew named Bee. “No one’s watching.”
“What’s going on?” Allie J leaned in expectantly.
“I got another message. They want to know when we’re coming,” Skye muttered.
“You have to wait one hundred and thirty-nine minutes,” Renee told her.
“In bed!” Allie J cracked.
Renee rolled her eyes. “It’s kind of confusing, but trust me—I know. Don’t text yet.”
“Triple already told me about your theory.” Skye sat up a little straighter. “But I’m even better at boys than I am at dance. So don’t tell me how to flirt and I won’t tell you how to act.”
“Have you seen Rayne Storm?” Triple chimed in with a provocative grin. “Maybe you should tell her how to act.”
Skye instantly forgave Triple for her spa defection.
Renee’s violet eyes darkened with rage. “Maybe you should tell yourself to shut—”
“G’day!” Shira’s sharp accent hacked off the end of their conversation. The glass dome became silent.
She was rising from some mysterious place beneath the stage, wearing a tight black tube dress and an even tighter smile.
“Congratulations. You all survived your first day.” She grin-paused for applause, then lifted her chin, nudging them back into silence. Skye’s stomach lurched. “You all came to the island for one year of intensive training in your field of expertise. But I want to give you more than that.”
A few girls applauded. Shira lifted her hand, and they stopped at mute-button speed.
“I have no doubt that you’ve spent many sleepless nights imagining yourselves dancing on the best stages, cooking for monarchs, accepting Oscars, and building a better tomorrow. I know this because I used to do the same. And I have since accomplished it all.” Shira glided around the edge of the stage, making sure to connect with each girl as much as someone in dark sunglasses could. “So believe me when I say that I am here to make your daydreams come true. Not only while you’re on my island, but while you are on my planet. When you graduate, I will put all of my resources—of which there are many—behind you. My power and your talent will ensure that you are the biggest contributors in your fields for the rest of your life. You have my word.”
Everyone burst out of their seats, their excitement exploding off the Pavilion’s glass walls like fireworks. Their futures were set. Their wishes granted. Fame and fortune guaranteed.
Amid the chaos, Skye crouched down to retrieve her aPod from under the table. Taz had texted again.
Taz: 11:30 observatory sounds kl. We can climb the dome and slide down. Mjr rush!
“Huh?” Skye said to the screen. “Who said anything about the observatory?”
“I did,” Renee gloated as they took their seats. “Isn’t it a great idea? Totally romantic.”
“That was your idea?” Skye narrowed her turquoise eyes in confusion.
“Yup. I just sent it and he responded in like half a second. I mean, Sydney is cute and all, but Taz is so much fun…” Renee twirled a strand of pink hair around her finger. “I guess I know a thing or two about boys after all.”
Skye’s heart began punching her chest. Her ribs held it back like a bouncer. “What about your one-hundred-and-thirty-nine minute
rule?”
“It’s definitely been that long for me.” Renee winked. Gotcha.
“Ohmuhgud, you’re such a—”
“Shhhhhhhh.” Thalia silenced them from the other end of the table with a butter-colored finger to her lips.
“But as I’m sure you all know…” Shira continued from her perch on stage. The last standers quickly took their seats. “There can only be one alpha.”
Smiles dropped like stocks. Murmurs rose and morphed into grumbles. Skye strained, anticipating further explanation. But all she heard was blood pumping against her eardrums.
“Will Renee Foraday please stand up?” Shira pressed her hands together as if in prayer and tapped them against her lips.
“Me?” Renee gushed, obviously drawing from an old Emmy speech. “You pick me?”
Shira nodded yes. “I pick you.”
This time the applause was sparing, like the last few snaps of popcorn in the microwave.
Renee’s wet violet eyes met Skye’s hard turquoise ones as she stood. She extended her arms for a hug but Skye remained seated, weighted down by a billion questions. Most of them starting with, What about me?
Allie J smiled in a good-sport kind of way. Triple Threat began shouting at Thalia about the unfair edge celebrities had over people with true talent. Charlie lowered her head into her hands. Skye felt uncomfortable, like she was trying to squeeze into toe shoes three sizes too small.
The roof retracted just enough to let the moonlight illuminate Renee as she stepped onto the stage. A guarantee from Shira and a kiss from the universe—what next? Her own handbag line?
Renee stopped beside Shira, then waved at the unlucky ninety-nine with no regard for their crushed dreams. No idea how cheated they felt. No clue that they wanted to scratch her eyes out.
“Renee, you are a stunning example of hubris,” Shira began.
“Thank you,” Renee mouthed, bowing her head in gratitude.
Shira pursed her lips. “The Greek word hubris refers to the excess of ego and pride that often leads to a hero’s downfall. Hubris was the biggest sin in ancient times.” Her voice hardened.
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