Movers and Fakers (10 page)

She slowly climbed the clear spiral staircase to the bedroom, stuffing her hands in the pockets of her yoga pants to hide
their shaking. Stepping into the snow-globe-shaped dome, she flinched, expecting the Jackie O’s to throw things at her—shoes,
pillows, insults,
something
.

But when she walked in, nobody even looked up. The girls were all sprawled on Renee’s old bed, crowded around its new occupant.

The real Allie J.

Ohmuhgud.

“And, you know, when Shira told me what was going on here in my name, I mean, I knew I had to come and set the record straight.
I just felt so
violated
, you know? Like a snake being forced to molt before her time, just for someone’s ugly snakeskin shoes! Which is just so ironic,
because I don’t even
wear
shoes, you know?”

Triple, Skye, and Charlie each nodded sympathetically, as if Allie J had actually been traumatized by the experience of meeting
Allie A.

“You handled it really well, AJ. I don’t think I would have been as nice about it if it were me,” said Skye, wrapping her
white-blond waves into a bun and stabbing a pen through it to keep the hair in place.

She’s AJ now?

Everyone stood up, still pointedly ignoring Allie, and began getting ready for the day. They all vanished into the bathroom
or the study lounge. Allie was alone again with the whole bedroom all to herself. She walked over to her bed and wasn’t surprised
to find it roped off with metallic Alpha-issue scarves. Hanging from them was a sign:

CRIME SCENE—IDENTITY-THEFT ZONE

A chalk outline of Allie J and her guitar had been traced on the ground at the foot of Allie’s bed.
What was it Thalia said about courage?

Allie’s aPod beeped in her pocket and she pulled out the gold device. An envelope with an
A
seal opened on the screen, and a virtual form letter slid out, followed by a schedule.

Dear Allie A. Abbott: Our records indicate that you have not yet declared an area of concentration. As such, your course schedule
has expanded to include more offerings. Failure to choose an ALPHA track by the end of the semester will lead to expulsion.

Allie’s stomach lurched at the word
expulsion
. She scrolled through her new class schedule and felt more exhausted than ever.

Allie thought again about going to Shira and telling her she wanted to leave the Academy. But that would mean going home a
loser. She would have to face Fletcher and Trina and explain the whole shameful fiasco. Exhaling a rattly sigh, Allie realized
she would just have to do what Shira wanted: She would have to find her passion and succeed at it.

Whatever
it
was.

An aPod beeped. Allie looked back down, but it wasn’t hers.

“Well, that was fast. It’s Darwin!” AJ padded barefoot back from the bathroom. The Jackie O’s—everyone but Allie, of course—gathered
around her again. Allie swallowed the knot in her throat and pretended to be absorbed in remaking her already-made bed.

“He says he wants to hang. Huge fan, blah blah.” AJ scanned the message.

Allie stared at her perfectly tucked-in comforter. She wished she could crawl into bed and never get out. This was agony.
How could Darwin move on so quickly?

“Hoo boy,” murmured Triple under her breath. She arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow at Allie. “From awkward to awkward-er.”

Charlie and Skye were strangely quiet, looking from Allie to AJ and back again.

“How’s tonight?” said AJ, reading her message aloud as she typed and pressing SEND before snapping her phone closed with a
flourish. “He introduced himself after my performance last night,” she announced in her high, breathy voice. “Seems cool for
a high school boy. I usually skew older.”

Allie’s newly navy blue eyes filled with tears for the fourth time that morning. Her gaze was inexorably drawn across the
room to Charlie, who was folding a pair of pants with a surgeon’s precision, running her finger along a crease again and again.
Her friend’s jaw pulsed as she stress-chewed the inside of her cheek. Finally, Charlie looked up from the pants, her brown
eyes making contact with Allie’s. Allie registered a flicker of the same panic over AJ that she herself was feeling. But just
as Allie thought that maybe the two friends still had something in common, Charlie looked away, snapping the windows to her
soul shut as if Allie was a total stranger.

Hoping the M&M’s she’d downed wouldn’t make their way back up, Allie bent down to strap on her never-before-used pair of clear
gladiator sandals. Back in Santa Ana, her platforms, ballet slippers, boots, and sandals were the envy of all her less-fashionable
classmates. But nobody wanted to be in her shoes anymore.

Least of all Allie herself.

BRAZILLE RESIDENCE

CONTROL ROOM

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND

5:27 P.M.

Sitting in front of forty-four giant computer monitors and listening to the hum of countless hard drives, Charlie should have
been excited. A roomful of technology usually made her heart sing and her fingers itch to dive in and explore it. But today,
alone in Shira’s basement, Charlie’s usual enthusiasm had flatlined.

Spotting a stack of
Brazille Hour
Post-it notes, she peeled one off and began impatiently ripping the Shira-emblazoned square into shreds. As the computer
rang for the twentieth time, she balled up the paper squares and flicked them at the black monitors. Charlie was trying to
reach her old friend Jessupha Rabate. She’d met the tech whiz in Thailand two years ago, when Shira had taken everyone there
to set up a manufacturing plant. Jess was the first computer genius Charlie had ever known. He had managed to help Charlie
rewire Shira’s Palm Pilot as a satellite that could poach American TV channels. Maybe he could help her rewire Shira’s surveillance
system, too?

If
he ever showed up.

Jessupha Rabate is off-line. Please try again later.

Charlie clicked on the green CALL icon again, drumming her fingers anxiously on the enormous metal desk. As the computer rang,
she looked at the ceiling, studying the geometric patterns in its white-tiled surface. A sliver of her brain was occupied
with listening for Darwin’s footsteps. By the sound of things, he wasn’t home.

During each of her seven classes, Charlie’s thoughts had ricocheted between anger at Allie and panic over Darwin. Knowing
he wasn’t home made Charlie’s left eye twitch. She pictured him hanging out with AJ. She shivered as she imagined AJ droning
on about factory farming in her babyish Paris Hilton–pitched voice while Darwin nodded admiringly. Somehow it felt different—more
dangerous—for Darwin to be with AJ. Kind of like AJ was stealing Charlie’s soul, or at least her soul mate. And if Darwin
spent too much time with the eco-noying AJ, he wouldn’t be Charlie’s soul mate anymore. He’d be Al Gore.

Beep!

Jessupha Rabate is off-line. Please try again later.

Ugh!

“What am I going to do?” she whined, pounding her forehead with her fist. If she didn’t fix the cameras soon, she would miss
out on her chance to impress Shira. Even worse, she would practically guarantee a romance between AJ and Darwin.

Charlie took a deep breath and clicked the green CALL button one last time.

“Come on, my little Thai buddy…,” she whispered, listening to the computer ring. Jessupha had never let her down before. She
thought back to two years ago when they were twelve. Shira and her entourage—including Charlie and her mother—were in Thailand
setting up an overseas plant that would employ thousands of operators to take orders for Shira’s FEWW (Female Empowerment
Workshop Workbooks—thanks to Shira’s talk-show promotions, they remained on the
New York Times
bestseller list longer than any other self-help titles). Jessupha’s father was hired to run the plant, and he brought Jessupha
along to his meetings with Shira as a sort of tween Thai ambassador. Charlie liked Jessupha; he was great with technology
and taught her what to order at the local restaurants, explaining that the only way to calm a hot chili overdose was with
rice, never water.

But Jessupha more than
liked
Charlie. He luved her. But Charlie
loved
Darwin. Besides, Jessupha may have been a tech whiz, but he was also a scrawny kid with a bad case of early-onset acne and
heavy-duty Thai braces on his teeth, with twice as much metal as the American kind. It was a relief for both Darwin and Charlie
that Jessupha was un-crushable: If he’d been cuter, Charlie might have fallen for him. Darwin appreciated her talent, but
Jessupha furthered it. Their connection was intense but strictly platonic.

“Hi Charlie!” said a deep, Thai-accented voice. Then the video popped up and Charlie had to swallow a gasp. The white-sand
beach and teal water behind Jess were just as beautiful as ever, and the calm breezes gently flowing through the leaves of
the palm trees made the whole scene look like absolute paradise.

But it was the boy on the beach who was postcard perfect.

“Jessupha?”
For a second, Charlie didn’t recognize the person staring at her from across the ocean. He had put on at least fifteen pounds
of muscle, and above those broad shoulders was creamy Proactiv skin, an Invisalign smile, and the same kind nut-brown eyes
as always.

“I go by Jess now,” he said in his new baritone voice, looking thrilled to be seeing her again. “It’s great to see you, Charlie!
I’ve always wondered why we lost touch.”

“I guess I was just busy with school and stuff.” She blushed, suddenly self-conscious. If only she’d thought to put on lip
gloss and fix her hair before the video chat! But how could she know that her old friend had turned into such a babe? “What
have you been up to?” Her voice cracked a little, and she winced inwardly.

“Thai Twitter, of course. I’m developing a lot of applications for that… and I’m still hacking phones, just for fun. I turned
my iPhone into a hologram projector last week!”

“That’s amazing, Jessupha—I mean Jess.” A shiver shot up Charlie’s spine. She could almost feel Jess’s hundred-watt smile
melting her brain into gooey marshmallow fluff.

“And what about you, Charlie? Are you”—Jess’s voice got even deeper—“still seeing Darwin?”

Charlie glanced behind her at the slice of light under the door at the top of the basement stairs. What if Darwin had come
home and was listening in through the door?

“No,” she said, clearing her throat, which suddenly felt as if it was stuffed with cotton. “We broke up a little while ago.”

Charlie thought she detected a blush creeping up Jess’s neck and into his face. “I just broke up with someone, too. A local
model. Beautiful but boring. Not everyone can be both gorgeous and brilliant.” He smiled meaningfully, sending tingles along
Charlie’s arms.

Charlie giggled nervously. She leaned out of the camera’s view for a second to fan herself with her shirt, desperate to slow
down her racing heartbeat.
Computers, Charlie, think about computers.
Sitting upright once more, she changed the subject back to the thing that turned both of them from chic to geek. “Do you
think you could help me channel my brilliance a little? We have a serious tech glitch going on here.”

“Anything for you, Charlie.” He grinned.

Charlie took a deep breath and leaned in closer to the screen, launching into an explanation of how she managed to game her
own system.

“Remember how you showed me what I could do to spike a string of HTML and JAVA to kind of trick the phone and override the
normal security measures? Well, I did the same thing with our security firewall—” Charlie stopped to wiggle her eyebrows dramatically
so Jess would understand she’d sabotaged the security system herself. “And now I can’t seem to re-securitize.” If Shira was
listening, she hoped that what she’d just admitted would go over Shira’s technologically inept head.