“These two Alphas, both invention majors”—Shira swept her bling-encrusted hand toward both girls before continuing—“took a very big risk. They teamed up to create SeeVD’s—sunglasses that play movies. The lenses act as mini-LCD screens, and if used correctly might bring humans one step closer to perfect fusion with technology. I love risk-takers. That’s why you’re all here—to take risks! Risks move society forward. They advance our species.”
Get to the point, Shira.
Singh and Saylene’s smiles were wide enough to park a yacht as they stood onstage, awkwardly receiving Shira’s gushing praise.
“But.” Shira’s expression hardened. Her smile flattened into a thin line. “They made a careless error. The lenses were not properly coated, and they singed the girls’ eyelashes off.”
Ah-ha!
Skye snuck a look at Allie and they both struggled to suppress nervous giggles at the horrible explanation for the girls’ shades.
Shira cleared her throat. “And then, what did they do? Did these two promising Alphas start afresh, with a renewed enthusiasm?”
Skye stared at her cuticles.
“NO.” Shira hate-stared at Singh and Saylene like they
were cockroaches and she was about to unleash a bug bomb. The smiles disappeared from their faces. “They
cried
. Just like they are doing now.” Shira waved her arms wildly, reminding Skye of the monkey bats in
The Wizard of Oz
. The two girls onstage started shaking and began to wipe away silent tears streaming down their cheeks.
“So… that’s all?” Skye leaned over and whispered to Charlie, raising her white eyebrows.
Charlie gave Skye a knowing look. “Shira hates crying. She thinks it’s weak.”
The mogul went on. “Crying is a waste of good mascara. Failure should make you
try
, not
cry
. And therefore, Singh and Saylene, I am afraid I must ask you to pack your bags and board your Personal Alpha Planes. You are both going home.”
“But Shira!” The Texan took off her sunglasses and revealed red, puffy eyelids the size of kneecaps.
Ew!
The room inhaled in a collective gasp.
“No buts. You no longer qualify as Alphas. Therefore, you no longer belong here.”
As the crowed erupted in shocked whispers and girls began adding two more names to the growing list in their aPods of girls who’d been kicked out of the Academy, the two half-blind IM’s shame-shuffled out of the room.
Shira continued once the commotion died down: “The only person I’ve ever heard cry for a good reason is my special,
sensitive,
poetic
son Sydney. And thanks to a very special Alpha in the making, that’s become a thing of the past, too.”
Ohmuhgud.
Skye’s heart began to beat faster than a Cascada song. She pulled her metallic silver hoodie up over her hair, wishing she could disappear. But a cotton-Lycra hood was no match for a Shira-induced spotlight.
“And because my son is happy for the first time in his life, I have decided to let him continue associating with this very special girl.”
Oh please no.
Skye squeezed her turquoise eyes shut, her ears tingling with mortification-anticipation. When the entire assembly discovered she was Syd’s girlfriend, her reputation would be ground into dust. She would be known as Puffs the Magic Tissue for the rest of the year!
But shutting her eyes couldn’t stop the impending shout-out any more than Dorothy could stop the tornado from ripping her out of Kansas. “Skye Hamilton, please stand.”
A hot shame-blush crept up her neck. Skye clung pathetically to her egg chair as if it could keep her from drowning in the floodwaters of embarrassment. Slowly, she pulled her hood down and rose out of her seat, pasting a fake smile on her bright red face.
Skye normally loved an opportunity to have all eyes on her, but not this time. She turned toward the back of the room, where Syd stood, applauding, his skinny jeans and
frayed gray T-shirt, messy brown-black hair, and brooding good looks not obscuring the fact that he was beaming at her like a new bride.
Skye waved feebly at him, cringing inwardly as he pursed his lips into an air-kiss. She looked at Taz, whose bright blue eyes were as vacant as a haunted motel. He looked up and caught Skye’s gaze for a second, raising one eyebrow as his mouth twisted into a mocking smirk. But before Skye could communicate anything in return, he looked back down at his phone.
It’s not what you think!
Skye wanted to shout. She wished she could explain, but she was trapped between a jock and a soft place.
“Skye Hamilton is a great example of how to have a relationship with a boy without sacrificing your ambitions. Instead of rubbing noses with my son all weekend, she was hard at work in the dance studio, keeping her toes—and her priorities—in line.”
Can I sit now?
“And because of Skye, I am lifting the ban.”
Huh?
Every row in the auditorium rippled like sea grass as the eighty-odd remaining Alphas tried to figure out what Shira’s announcement meant. The ban on parental phone calls? The ban on pop culture from the world beyond Alpha Island? The ban on non-reflective clothing? Skye seized the
confusion as an opportunity to sit, curling into her egg chair and waiting for Shira to clarify.
“From this moment forward, consider the ban on the Brazille Boys lifted. You may”—Shira wrung her hands, searching for the right word. “You may
socialize
with my sons outside of class.”
Ohmuhgud!
The cylindrical room erupted with scream-claps. Everywhere Skye looked, she saw smiling Alphas shrieking, giggling, and bouncing out of their seats with excitement. Skye looked at Charlie and Allie, but both of them sat silently.
“But!” Shira boomed, quieting the hysterical crowd in the bleachers. “Anyone who puts the pursuit of a boy before her studies will be sent home. A true Alpha knows that boys are toys—only to be played with after the important things are done. G’night, lollies. And remember, I’ll be watching you. If you stick to your studies, you’ll all enjoy the privilege of attending an inspirational evening organized by your muses on the Brazille Industries cruise ship. October eighth—mark your calendars!”
At that, the panel on the stage slid open again and Shira descended into the island’s rabbit warren–like network of interconnected underground tunnels.
Skye shot her aquamarine eyes over the hysterical heads of her fellow Alphas and searched the back row. Syd was already headed her way. Dingo ran toward the door, looking
terrified as a gaggle of giggling girls chanted his name and ran after him.
“What’s up, ladies?” Taz opened his gym-perfect arms wide and showed more teeth than a great white shark. In seconds, a swarm of girls surrounded him.
Ugh!
It was times like this when Skye wished she could ask her mother, famous Russian ballerina Natasha Flailenkoff, for advice. But Shira forbade all phone calls to the outside. The one piece of her mother Skye carried with her to the Academy was her HAD (hopes and dreams) slipper, a purple satin toe shoe that Natasha said would bring her luck. So far, Skye had written down ten HADs on tiny scraps of paper and kept them stashed inside the toe shoe’s secret compartment.
Skye sighed as Syd made his way toward her through the excited crowd of girls. Unlike his brother, he was a one-woman kind of guy. And soon, she sighed inwardly, he would be hanging by her side like a limp sleeve.
HAD No. 11: Find a way to be sleeveless by next weekend.
JACKIE O
BATHROOM
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26TH
8:02 P.M.
Standing next to Charlie, whose Sultan Sea Mud Mask had dried to make her face look like ancient pottery, Allie stared glumly at her pores in the bathroom mirror. Now that she’d ditched her skunky black hair and skanky green contacts, the beauty she’d always taken for granted stared back at her. But if she looked so good, why was Darwin avoiding her?
Chewing her lower lip, Allie stuck her head into the face-shaped indentation on the vanity mirror and waited for it to take a bio-scan of her pores. Seconds later, a British voice said, “Now dispensing vitamin C scrub with algae crystals. Apply in circular strokes over T-zone.”
Allie put her hands beneath a small A-shaped plastic spout and caught a big poof of cleanser. It looked like blue Cool Whip. As she massaged it in little circles over her face, Skye and Triple Threat (her threats being dancer, model,
and actress, her real name being Andrea, and her presence being reliably annoying) walked in.
Triple was going on about Skye’s party-girl ways finally paying off, but Skye didn’t seem to agree.
“Tell her, Claymation,” Triple lunged into a deep hamstring stretch and thrust her strong jaw toward Charlie, winking one golden, almond-shaped eye.
“
Tellerwhat
?” Charlie asked, the mask causing her to slur each word together.
“How she’s like the Neil Armstrong of this school! One giant step for womankind.” Triple smirk-smiled at Skye. “Not that I’m walking on the moon, mind you. Boys are a bad idea for those of us who are truly destined for greatness.”
“So… you and Syd, huh?” asked Allie, rinsing the algae scrub off her cheeks, ignoring Triple’s outsized ego.
Skye’s turquoise eyes met Allie’s in the mirror. She looked scared and tired. “Um, yeah. Me and Syd. It’s not that serious. We might break up.”
“I can’t believe Shira’s dropping the ban. I never saw this coming,” said Charlie, wiping her mask off with a wet washcloth and sending muddy flakes flying onto the bathroom’s silver foam floors.
A catty smile spread over Triple’s perfectly proportioned face as she pushed a purple button in the wall designed to turn the bathroom into a steam bath. Soon, eucalyptus-scented steam shot out from ten tiny vents in the walls. “Did
you guys hear what Ophelia did to try to lure Dingo? She reprogrammed one of the billboards in the Pavilion to say DINGOPHELIA: THE NEW BRANGELINA and beamed it into the sky over the Brazille house.”
“Oh no!” Skye scream-gasped, covering her mouth as if she’d witnessed a flirting crime of epic proportions. “It sounds like a disease.”
“She’s obvious-leh desperate,” Allie commented.
Just then AJ walked through the open door into the steamy bathroom, pulling her crocheted green tam from her head and letting her scraggly black hair fall down her back. “Everyone knows
subtlety
is key when bagging a bro,” AJ added.
“You don’t exactly radiate subtlety, AJ.” Allie spat back.
The folksinger narrowed her murky green eyes and made a face like she’d just tasted something sour. “Um, Skye? What rhymes with pathetic?”
Skye shot her toothbrush into the air like a baton. “Balletic!” She executed a quick twirl to illustrate the word.
“Thanks, Skye,” Allie giggled. “AJ can’t stop writing songs about me. Hey AJ,” Allie went on, gaining courage, “why do you keep wearing that hat everywhere? Isn’t it illegal?”
“I got permission from Shira,” AJ snapped. “It’s my creative cap. I use it when I’m in writing mode.”
“It’s not Shira I’m worried about. It’s the fashion police. You’re wanted for fugliness all over the island.”
Skye and Triple snort-giggled through mouthfuls of toothpaste.
AJ turned on her heel and headed back to the bedroom. The others followed a few minutes later, leaving Allie alone to stare at the mirror. Even without any makeup on, she knew she was prettier than 99 percent of the population. Her heart-shaped face, button nose, and wide mouth had gotten her modeling work in catalogues for years. But at Alpha Academy, most girls were beautiful. And Alpha girls had what Allie lacked: a talent that they’d been pursuing for their whole lives. Something they were the best at.
Allie sighed, breathing in the eucalyptus-scented air. Then she grabbed her aPod, resting next to the sink on the bathroom counter, and stabbed the GPS icon with an eager finger. She typed D-A-R-W-I-N into the navigation bar and waited for her aPod to find him so she could, too.
Ping!
Seriousleh?
Allie’s eyebrows jumped in surprise. The blue GPS locator dot showed Darwin was only fifty feet away, in the rose garden just south of Jackie O.
Allie’s heart did a cartwheel. Darwin had come to see her!
She whirled around to face the mirror again for a quick once-over. Teeth: spinach-free. Hair: wavy-cute. Lips:
slightly chapped. She smeared a coat of tinted lip gloss across her rosebud mouth, adjusted her shiny platinum pj’s, pinched her cheeks, and barreled through the Jackie O bedroom and down the spiral glass staircase.
At the last second, she grabbed a blue glass vase stuffed with four bird-of-paradise flowers. Clutching the vase, she slipped on a pair of flip-flops and slid quietly out the door.
The hybrid garden was sandwiched between the Jackie O and Queen Elizabeth houses, and was encircled by an ivy-covered brick wall. Allie pushed the gate open and looked around, sniffing the air in the hope of catching a whiff of cinnamon. Her heart was beating like the wings of the hummingbirds that flitted among the exotic flowers. “Anyone here?”
“Oh, it’s
you
.”
Allie turned toward the voice and nearly ran into Darwin. His light-brown hair shone in the moonlight, and his soulful hazel eyes blinked rapidly in surprise.
How cute—he’s nervous!
The thought put Allie at ease, and she straightened her posture, holding the blue vase in front of her with both hands.
She smiled her best easy-breezy catalogue grin. “Hi.”
“Hi.” Darwin held a fistful of hot pink peonies, each bloom the size of a soccer ball. His cheeks were almost as pink as the flowers.
“Are those for me?” Allie reached out and took the
flowers, noticing they smelled like cotton candy. Allie delicately plucked a petal off its stem and put it in her mouth, grinning as it dissolved on her tongue like pink cotton candy.
Darwin remained silent.
Where was his un-mute button?
“I’m really glad you came. It’s so great we can be out in the open now,” she babbled, dumping the bird-of-paradise flowers onto the ground. “Your mom has perfect timing, don’t you think? Now we can start over. We don’t have to hide!” She stuck the peonies in the blue vase with a flourish, as if now that she had the flowers it was official: She and Darwin were
back
.