Belle of the Brawl

by Lisi Harrison

  CREATIVE WRITING FUSELAGE

  TUESDAY, OCTOBER 5TH

  10:07 A.M.

  For once, Allie was early to class. She’d hurried through the sun-speckled jungle whispering the lines of a monologue Careen assigned her, and stopped short at the base of the enormous banyan tree that held the fuselage of a Boeing 747 high in its branches. The side of the repurposed aircraft read Brazille Industries: Empowering Women to Aim High in sparkling gold script. Through the glass, Allie spotted the über-serious Hannah Hesse, a published poet and budding novelist who treated writing workshops like they were oxygen—essential to life on this planet. Unfortunately for Allie, slouched in an airline seat across from Hannah was AJ, still wearing her dingy crocheted tam pulled low over her scraggly black waves.

  Allie sniffed the air, but she couldn’t detect Darwin’s cinnamon scent lurking under the smells of rotting passion fruit, mud, and peeling tree bark. After applying a quick coat of lip gloss and a hefty dose of jungle-germ-killing Purell, Allie climbed the spiral staircase carved into the trunk of the tree. The holographic walls of the fuselage had been programmed to project images of delicate cherry blossom petals swirling in the wind.

  “Hey Hannah,” Allie said, pointedly ignoring AJ as she slid her narrow hips into one of the eight airplane seats in the center of the room.

  Hannah lay collapsed on her back on a forest green couch along one wall of the fuselage. All around her were scattered sheets of paper covered with double-spaced prose. Her pierced nose crinkled in agitation as she nibbled the ink-black nails of one hand and wielded a red pen in the other. “I’ve been here all night,” Hannah said in her scratchy voice, her gray eyes pink and raw around the rims. “I skipped my first two periods to try to finish my naw-vel, but I just can’t seem to…” She trailed off and stared at the ceiling, her voice sounding raspier than ever, as if her windpipe had been crushed along with her plotlines.

  “Allie’s not really a writer,” interrupted AJ in her high-pitched baby voice, “but maybe I can help. I have a lot of experience with writer’s block.”

  As Hannah unspooled the details of her latest writing crisis, Allie rolled her eyes and wished a large, heavy writer’s block would fall on AJ’s head. She pulled her electronic writing tablet out of the tray table compartment of her airline seat and started a hate-doodle of a tiny girl being attacked by a giant crocheted hat. But AJ was right about one thing: Allie wasn’t a writer. Now that she had fully committed to the dramatic arts, she had less patience for this class than ever. As an actress, writing was her food—not her craft. Writers gave actors something to chew on, and Allie had always liked to be waited on.

  A few other writing students trickled in behind Keifer, whose novel Fifth Avenue Happenstance had been translated into eighteen languages by the time she was twenty-three. Keifer stood at the front of the room, her slim, angular body and asymmetrical bob partially obscuring the oversized LCD chalkboard behind her.

  “Get your tablets out, geniuses. It’s time to let our souls sing.” Keifer pushed her choppy black bangs away from her face. Allie wondered if the woman cut her own hair, and if she used gardening shears, but just then Charlie walked into the room and slid into the seat next to hers. Seconds later, Darwin showed up and snagged the last seat across the circle.

  “Sorry I’m late.” He shrug-grimaced at Keifer as he took a toothpick out of his mouth and put it into the pocket of his navy blue blazer. Allie stared at Darwin, turning her lips up slightly and angling her head one quarter to the right. Careen had told her that was the perfect position for paparazzi pictures and head shots, but Darwin’s eyes bounced from Keifer to his writing tablet to the floor. Had her fake love toward Mel already made him insecure around her? Allie kicked Charlie’s foot, wanting to thank her again for crafting such a brilliant plan.

  “You’re right on time, Darwin.” Keifer reassured him. “We were just getting started.” She stepped to one side of the LCD board and placed a silver electronic thimble on her index finger. “Or should I say, write on time?” She turned around and quickly wrote those very words in glowing script on the LCD screen.

  Allie fished her own writing thimble out of the little compartment of her writing tablet and stuck it on her finger, praying that today’s assignment would be painless.

  “Today, we’re going to learn how we can say so much by saying very little.”

  Huh? Allie glared at AJ across from her, who was nodding furiously and writing down everything Keifer said on her tablet. She could smell the green goblin’s aroma of lavender oil and unwashed hair all the way across the room.

  Keifer continued. “We’re going to write a haiku. Take inspiration from the cherry blossom petals falling all around you.” Keifer turned a knob on the hologram panel and suddenly the whole room was filled with swirling white and pink petals. The class oohed and aahed. Allie tried again to get Darwin’s attention, but he stared down at his tablet, obviously deep in thought. Or, Allie hoped, drowning in a pool of jealousy.

  Keifer pursed her cupid’s bow–shaped lips and raised a sculpted eyebrow. “You’re familiar with haiku, right? It’s a Japanese poetic form composed of a line with five syllables, a line with seven syllables, and then another line with five. Your assignment right now is to write a haiku about yellow.”

  Predictably, Hannah’s goth-tipped hand shot into the air. “Can you be more specific, Keifer? How yellow makes us feel? Or, like, things that are yellow? Or what colors make up yellow?”

  “All of that is up to you. Don’t overthink it. Feel it! Annnd…” Keifer pressed the digital timer icon on the LCD board and it began to count down from four minutes. “Write!”

  Allie raised her thimble-covered finger in the air, a tide of ideas rising dangerously fast in her mind. So many feelings were competing in her brain, it was hard to pick just one. She thought of how much she’d rather be onstage right now. How much she wanted Darwin to look up from his tablet and smile at her. How she wished she knew why Charlie was so preoccupied that she couldn’t take a moment to acknowledge her. How she wished AJ would take off her icky hat and begin a love affair with Ivory soap.

  Beep!

  Ugh! The timer ran out, sending Allie’s ideas swirling, and sucking the whole confused mess down the drain like gray bathwater.

  Allie blinked down at her tablet—empty except for her half-finished doodle of AJ. She had nothing.

  She scooted down in her chair and made her eyes focus anywhere but Keifer, hoping she would call on someone else.

  “Charlie, why don’t you start?”

  Whew.

  Charlie fidgeted in her seat, twirling a brown wave between two fingers. “Okay:

  Yellow is my heart

  Afraid of losing your love

  Still, I set you free.”

  Keifer let silence fill the breezy fuselage for a moment before responding. “Nice. I like that you interpreted the color as the emotion of cowardice. Very creative.”

  Charlie blushed and nodded, her eyes still trained on the floor. She was so modest!

  Allie’s gaze crept back to Darwin, who was tapping his thimble on his desk. His eyes were hooded and stormy.

  Allie crossed and uncrossed her legs under her tray table, wondering if she’d gone too far with her Mel-flirtation. She cleared her throat, hoping to get Darwin to look at her so she could reassure him that he still had a chance. It worked—Darwin finally looked up, his eyes making contact with Allie’s as she flashed him her sweetest, most benevolent smile. The one she reserved for back-to-school JCPenney ads and holiday photos. But it was as if she was cellophane. Darwin looked straight through her.

  “AJ, let’s hear what you conjured up under that hat of yours.”

  Why did everyone on earth feel the need to kiss AJ’s flat little butt? Allie put her thimble to her mouth and bit it, hoping AJ had written something lame.

  “Her hair is yellow

  Typical of a mall girl

  She’s always posing.”

&nbs
p; AJ looked up from her tablet and glared at Allie, as if it wasn’t already obvious that the haiku was about her. Allie’s heart began beating out S.O.S. and she felt her face turning red with anger and shame. Doesn’t AJ have other people to make miserable?

  “Huh,” Keifer said, cocking her head at AJ and narrowing her pale blue eyes. “Interesting. A departure from your usual themes of environmentalism and love. What was your inspiration?”

  “Well,” AJ drawled, burrowing one finger under her giant hat and scratching her head, “I’m still working through the personal violation of having my identity stolen. I’m trying to recover through my art.”

  Oh please! Allie sneer-snorted as her eyes shot skyward. A few girls in class, including Hannah, nodded like they knew what AJ was talking about firsthand. Allie felt an angry blush crawl up her neck and spread through her cheeks. This was too much!

  Allie was like a geyser. She could only stand so much pressure before she blew up. But this time she felt confidence brewing inside her. Her voice calm and clear, she spat back a retort. “Get over it! I was acting, okay? Move on already!”

  AJ rolled her moss-green eyes and opened her tiny mouth to respond, but Keifer beat her to the punch. “Two more syllables and that would have been a perfect haiku,” she mused.

  Really? Allie managed a tight smile for Keifer.

  “Your words have power, Allie. Work on it.”

  Allie took her thimble off. Even though it was embarrassing to have to defend herself against AJ, at least it had gotten her out of writing a haiku!

  Keifer moved on. “Darwin, we haven’t heard from you in a while.”

  Darwin sighed. “Okay.”

  “Yellow Lab you’re mine.

  I rescued you from the road.

  Saving makes me love.”

  “Tell us where that comes from,” said Keifer, looking out the glassless window of the fuselage as the sounds of screeching macaws drifted in.

  “A couple of years ago, I rescued a yellow Lab that was hit by a car. I pledged my undying loyalty to it. I wanted it to know I would take care of it for the rest of its life.”

  The freckle above his lip bounced as he relived the emotion of saving the dog. His hazel eyes radiated goodness—he was a somber superhero, with magical healing hands that saved the lives of animals. He’d be able to heal Allie from the trauma she’d suffered with Fletcher and during her identity-theft period at Alpha Academy. As soon as she figured out how to get back together with him, they would heal each other.

  “Unfortunately, the dog’s owner came and took him home. But something about rescuing this old dog made me attached, in a major way. It was like we were destined to find one another. He needed someone, and I happened to be there.”

  That was it! Allie’s heart bloomed in her chest like a daffodil shooting out of the ground after a long, cold winter. All Allie needed to do was pretend to be as injured as Old Yeller. If she needed rescuing, Darwin would automatically respond—it was in his DNA to take care of people. And after he rescued her, he would think they were destined to be together. She sat back in her airplane seat and grinned, spinning her blond hair into a high knot on top of her head. She couldn’t wait to tell Charlie about the new plan.

  Allie opened up the compartment on her tablet and pulled out her thimble again. Now that she had a reason to write, the words flowed quickly.

  Be the wounded doggie and lure the rescuing hero!

  “To be continued!” Keifer announced, breaking Allie’s concentration. “Class dismissed. Work on these tonight, and tomorrow we’ll turn them into sonnets!”

  “Ready?” Charlie stood in front of Allie’s chair, an eager smile on her face. She hopped from one foot to the other, looking more than ready to bail.

  “Yeah.” Allie stood up and leaned in close to Charlie so none of the other writers would overhear. “I figured out a plan for—”

  “Let’s get a move on,” Charlie cut her off. Her brown eyes darted around distractedly. “I mean, tell me in a minute. I want to get out of this airplane and back to earth.”

  “Okay….” Allie wondered why Charlie was so impatient. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Darwin hustling down the spiral staircase and hurrying away.

  When Charlie and Allie reached the bottom of the tree, Allie was surprised to see Mel leaning against the gnarled trunk, checking his aPod. He wore his Alphas blazer over a lemon-yellow button-down, khaki shorts, and flip-flops, and his white-blond hair almost glowed in the dappled, leaf-speckled shade of the tree. Not that Allie cared. She was too busy working out the details of her pooch ploy to worry about faux-flirting her way into Mel’s heart.

  “Hey Mel,” Charlie said, doing a terrible job of feigning surprise. “Are you here to see Darwin?”

  “Not exactly,” Mel said, his chiseled cheeks lifting in a smile as he aimed his lavender eyes straight at Allie.

  Allie smiled back at him, but her legs itched to catch up with Darwin. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her pleated mini and cleared her throat. Her eyes shot from Charlie to Mel and back again. Both of them looked at her expectantly.

  “Well, nice seeing you,” she finally said, giving Mel a tight smile. “Gotta run!”

  “Maybe Mel should walk you to acting class,” Charlie suggested a little too eagerly.

  “Sure, I could do that,” Mel said, nodding. “It’s kind of on my way.”

  “Nah.” Allie shook her head. “I have a monologue to memorize. Gotta do it solo, of course! Bye!”

  Without waiting for a reply, Allie whirled around on the toe of her gladiator sandal and took off, power-walking down the path and not looking back. Charlie was wrong—faking an interest in Mel wasn’t where Allie’s acting talents were needed. She took a breath of the heavy jungle air and moved her focus back to Operation Puppy Love.

  Inspiration! Or was it motivation? Allie couldn’t remember what actors said. She smiled to herself as she walked, realizing that it didn’t matter—she had them both.

  16

  THE MIDDLE OF LAKE ALPHA

  DANCE BOOT CAMP HELL

  WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6TH

  9:12 A.M.

  “Music—on!” In the middle of Lake Alpha, surrounded by tree-capped mountains and with nothing over her head except Mimi’s threats of expulsion, a clear blue sky, and a sparkly black swim cap to protect her blow-out, Triple straddled her surfboard like it was a horse and she was a corseted woman in the eighteenth century. She directed her command to the round waterproof aPod amplifier floating like a buoy a few feet away, where “I Will Survive” blasted from the speakers.

  Skye crouched into position, her back arched and her arms pressed tightly together, and snuck a look at Triple before tucking her head down between her shoulder blades.

  Apparently, Triple owned the water just like she owned the dance studio. Triple’s black wetsuit was totally dry from the waist up—she hadn’t gotten so much as a droplet of water on it after swimming out to the middle of Lake Alpha with Skye an hour ago. Skye’s skimpy gold string bikini wasn’t so lucky. Shivering and rubbing her hands along her upper arms to try to generate some heat, Skye looked longingly toward the narrow strip of white sand on the shore, where a pile of towels, hoodies, and yoga pants awaited them.

  “Tell me why we keep doing the routine to Gaynor and not Gaga?” Skye whined, clawing at the air as a tiny gust of wind threatened to topple her off the shiny white surfboard.

  One of Triple’s tawny, slender arms twitched in time with the music, while the other remained firmly planted on her perfectly proportioned hip. She narrowed her golden eyes and shot Skye a look that said more dance, less talk.

  “Because,” Triple growled, “relying on the music to dictate your dancing is one of many bad habits we’re trying to break. Now stop stalling! Keep your focus!”

  Skye sighed, squinting her teal eyes at the pine-topped mountains ringing the lake and watching the air-chairs crawl up Mount Olympus like ants on an anthill. She closed her eyes and tried
to astrally project herself into one of the chairs, but when she opened them she hadn’t moved an inch from the gently rocking surfboard.

  Taking a deep breath of pine-scented air, Skye tensed her muscles and concentrated on keeping her balance on the swaying board. The surfboard routine was all about balance. When she practiced the routine in the llama cage, surrounded by well-placed llama poop, it was all about accuracy. One wrong step, and shoes became ews. When she did the routine in the sauna wearing ankle weights, it was all about endurance.

  And when she did the routine in her sleep, it was all about insanity.

  For the past twenty-four hours, Triple had been following Skye around, tapping notes into her aPod and creating a spreadsheet that she may as well have called Reasons Skye Sucks and Should Give Up Dancing for a Career as a Dental Hygienist.

  Skye had no idea how she was supposed to get through five more days of one-on-one rehearsals with Triple. Unlike Gloria, Skye wouldn’t survive.

  “And a-one, two, three, and four!” yelled Triple, raising a pair of huge waterproof binoculars to her eyes so she could view Skye’s moves in sharp detail. “Remember, strong core! Fluid arms!”

  Skye nodded. When this week was over, she’d either be good enough for Alvin Ailey or nuts enough for Alvin and the Chipmunks.

  As Gloria began to belt, Skye started the routine. Her feet were like suction cups on the surfboard, stepping and sliding so quickly and carefully that the surfboard stayed horizontal, miraculously not tipping her into the deep.

  At first I was afraid, I was petrified

  Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side

  Determination to stay afloat coursing through her chilled veins, Skye hip-swiveled, executed a perfect three-sixty-degree turn, and did a rocker-chic faux-headbanger dip-one-two, her arms pounding the air above her bunned hair. And then she felt it. The board began to go vertical, sliding out from under her like a tablecloth yanked out from a set table by a magician.

  “Nooo!” Skye scream-moaned loud enough to shake the pine trees on top of Mount Olympus. She clawed desperately at the board with her toes, trying to find her center, but it plunged nose-first into the water. And a millisecond later, so did Skye.