Taz:
In there like swimwear!
Syd:
Can’t wait to see you dance in person.
Yay! Skye loved her idea, and she loved that they loved it. Friday night, she would take advantage of the broken cameras and
create fun from thin air, starring as the hostess with the most-ess and taking her pick between two hotties.
Let the best Brazille win
. She smiled, signing off with a good-night air kiss for both.
She stuck her aPod in its charging dock and curled up in bed, flexing and bending her tired fingers. The stars twinkled at
her through the curved glass ceiling above her bed, and the even breathing of her bunk-mates now seemed peaceful instead of
irritating. The last thing she saw before closing her eyes was Natasha’s HAD slipper, gleaming in the moonlight like a secret
promise.
Skye reached toward her nightstand and fingered the frayed satin edge of the lavender toe shoe. Maybe it couldn’t bring her
success in dance, but at least it might help her snag a boyfriend.
Let Triple be the ballerina bun-head,
Skye thought as she let herself drift off. The only buns she was interested in right now belonged to Taz and Syd.
THE BRAZILLE RESIDENCE
KITCHEN
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21ST
11:07 P.M.
“Charlie!” Shira whispered in an uncharacteristically frantic tone. “Is that you?”
Charlie’s stomach sank as she looked around, trying to source the location of Shira’s voice. She saw immaculate Italian marble
countertops, two ovens large enough to roast a pig in, and a spotless stainless steel fridge.
“Shira?” she called.
“In here!” a voice called from behind the narrow door to the pantry. A veiny hand wearing Shira’s Australian opal cocktail
ring reached out from the crack in the door and motioned her in.
A sliver of light fell over Shira’s face, and it had panic written all over it. “I’m telling you this with the expectation
of the utmost secrecy, Charlie. The cameras are down. They have been down for hours. I’ve been on the phone with Steve Jobs,
with Bill Gates, with CompuServe, and the president of Geek Squad.” As Shira talked, Charlie studied the stacks of cans behind
her: Vegemite, Marmite, Nutella, tuna belly, lychee nuts, mandarin orange segments, Vienna sausages, Spam, water chestnuts,
caviar, pickled plums—Shira’s household could survive for at least a year solely on international oddities and fifties throwbacks.
“No one can help me over the phone, and it seems they’re all currently aiding the CIA with a potential national disaster.
Therefore—” Shira paused, sounding extremely put out. Charlie brought her focus from the Marmite back to Shira’s face.
“There
fore
, Chah-lie. Your eyes and ears are needed, Lolly. Now more than ever. I need to be informed of who obeys the rules of the
Academy and who does not.
Capice?
”
“Okay, but—”
“God, I’m in need of a
mass
age. I gave Jorge the week off, and my neck is so tight, Charlie, you cannot imagine the stress.”
You’re stressed?!?
Charlie wanted to scream, clenching her jaw.
Try living through what you’ve forced me into!
All of Charlie’s loneliness, all of her lies—
everything
was the fault of the woman cowering before her in the pantry. Her mother leaving for England and giving up the job that sustained
her for thirteen years? Shira’s fault. Charlie having to choose between dumping Darwin or moving three thousand miles away
from him? Shira’s fault. And now things had gotten so twisted that Charlie had risked everything to help her friend (who was
a total fake) get together with her ex (who, if she went by today, was now a total jerk). Her head was about to
explode
from the stress.
But Charlie gritted her teeth and swallowed her rage. The new Charlie wasn’t going to let opportunities to impress the Brazille
nut slide by anymore. She’d given up too much already.
“I can fix it,” she said.
“You know a good masseuse?” asked Shira, rubbing her neck and whimpering like a kicked puppy.
“No, I can fix the computer system.”
If I figured out how to break it, surely I can fix it….
Shira snort-laughed, picking up a jar of Vegemite and examining its nutrition label. “Aren’t you adorable, Charlie. There’s
a difference between making nail polish and fixing the most sophisticated camera system on the planet. I hardly think someone
like you would know the first thing about it.”
Someone like me built it!
“Give me a chance,” Charlie said. “I might surprise you.”
And impress you
.
“Fine,” sighed Shira, opening the Vegemite. “I suppose you can’t make things any worse.”
Charlie headed for the basement, and Shira trailed behind her.
“How do you know where the system is housed? I don’t recall telling you.” Shira glared at Charlie suspiciously as she swallowed
a mouthful of crackers.
“Um, well… actually,” Charlie stalled, looking up at the crystal chandelier hanging in Shira’s hallway.
Stupid!
How could she have been so careless? “My mom…”
“Your mum?” Shira purred sarcastically.
Shira’s Vegemite-scented breath ticked her pores. She clutched frantically at the recesses of her brain. Suddenly, an excuse
sprouted up like a weed from the mud.
“My mom, yeah. She kept the blueprints tacked up in our living room while this place was being built. Guess I absorbed them
without even trying?” Charlie flashed a relieved smile.
“Quite perceptive.” Shira’s voice was disappointed but appeased. “Off you go, then.”
Charlie headed down the basement stairs, and the only peep out of Shira now was the rustling of cracker casing.
Realizing she needed to slip into the mainframe closet to reattach the disconnected wires, Charlie cleared her throat. She
needed to distract Shira somehow.
“Oh, shoot.”
“What?” came the voice at the top of the stairs.
“I need to do a total restart. It requires a paper clip.” Charlie cocked her head at Shira, hoping she would take the hint.
“Oh, blimey. All right, I’ll get one.”
As soon as Shira disappeared from the top of the stairs, Charlie slipped into the mainframe closet and switched the two wires
back. She quickly crept out and was back in her original seat when Shira came down with the paper clip. Now all she’d have
to do was a few simple computer commands, and Shira would think she was a genius.
Charlie sat at a desk chair in front of a massive bank of computers just outside the network closet doors, all of which worked
fine, except for the monitors that were supposed to be beaming pictures from around campus. Those were all black. She flipped
a bunch of switches, faking her way along so Shira wouldn’t realize she’d been the one to break the system. Finally, after
enough time had passed, Charlie began trying to repair the code she’d deliberately scrambled yesterday. She typed in a series
of commands and repaired the strings of ALPHA-SQL sequencing she’d disturbed, keeping her toes crossed since her fingers were
busy. She held her breath and pushed the
ENTER
key, practically tasting the victory in saving Shira’s precious cameras and finally proving herself as a tech whiz.
“Incorrect sequence! Shutting down in fifteen seconds,” the computer’s voice calmly informed her, followed by three loud
bleep
s.
“No!” Charlie leaned over and banged her forehead against the table, groaning quietly. Why was fixing something so much harder
than breaking it? And why was that true for hearts as well as hard drives?
After everything that had happened in the last three weeks—ending things with Darwin, sending her mom home, losing the first
friend she’d made on the island, and faking a blackout—Charlie was beginning to think she was better at breaking things than
making them.
JACKIE O
BACK PORCH
WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 22ND
7:07 A.M.
Sprawled out on a white foam chaise longue, Allie reached up to wipe a drop of morning dew from her cheek.
“Ew! Ohmuhgud!”
This was not dew. It was thick and grainy. Worst of all, it was warm! Allie staggered up from her makeshift bed.
Bird poop!
She clawed furiously at her face, every cell in her germophobe heart screaming out in self-pity. But Allie was too tired
to cry over this latest indignity. Besides, her tear ducts were drained dry from too much crying.
“Stupid nature!” Allie grumbled, her throat coated in phlegmy gunk and her eyes crusty and swollen. She’d spent the night
sleeping al fresco, curled up under a towel on the back porch of the Jackie O house. Nature had been up for hours: As the
island came to life under a Creamsicle-orange sunrise, Allie had been tortured by screeching mynah birds, cooing quail, chattering
monkeys, and a horrible insect intent on dive-bombing her ears.
“I’m up! You win!” Now that her eyes were open in puffy slits, it was only a matter of time before she had to face her new
life. If she looked half as beat-up as she felt, it was going to be the longest day on earth.
She took a deep, shaky breath and tried to summon the courage to open the sliding glass door to the Jackie O house, where
soap and Purell waited like old friends. Her only friends, actually, since everyone else was either not speaking to her or
coming up with clever rap lyrics for a song called “Imposter Allie” that was making the rounds among the Alphas.
Last night, she’d been too ashamed to face her bunk-mates, too devastated after her confrontation with Darwin outside the
Pavilion to defend herself to them. Darwin didn’t want anything to do with her ever again, and she was pretty sure the Jackie
O’s felt the same way.
As Allie furiously wiped her face with her hand, the sliding glass door of the Jackie O house slid open. Thalia, their house
muse, stepped out, wearing a silky yellow robe and holding a steaming mug in her enormous hands. A former point guard for
her college basketball team, Thalia had turned to her psychology major after a knee injury sidelined her b-ball career. Since
she couldn’t live her dream, she helped others live theirs.
“Hi Thalia.” Allie drew in a shaky breath and straightened her slumped shoulders.
“Hi Allie. I thought you could use some tea.” Thalia passed her the mug. “It’s got milk thistle and chamomile in it, both
of which have calming properties.”
“Thanks,” said Allie, rubbing her poo-hand on her yoga pants. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes over Thalia’s kindness. She
wondered how she could possibly have any more water in her body after all the crying she’d done last night.
“Waste not fresh tears over old griefs, Allie. Euripides,” Thalia said softly, sitting down next to Allie on the edge of the
chaise.
Allie took a dejected sip from her mug and stared out at the tangle of trees, their branches home to dozens of yellow-bellied
finches. She wished she could be as carefree as those stupid birds.
“People will forget. They’ll move on, and you’ll start over. Mary Pickford once said, ‘You may have a fresh start any moment
you choose, for this thing we call “failure” is not the falling down, but the staying down.’ ”
Allie nodded slowly, blinking as she examined Thalia’s pretty, poreless face. Allie had been down so long, she wasn’t sure
she would recognize “up” if it landed on her like that pile of bird poop.
Thalia continued to fill the silence with her relentless optimism. “There is a reason you’re still here. Shira has faith in
you. If she didn’t, she would have sent you home. Everything will feel more manageable after you head inside and face the
music.”
Would everyone please stop using that corny expression?
Allie blinked back her tears and rubbed her aching eyes. Her contacts felt like tiny circles of sandpaper. Trying to embrace
the bright side of her miserable situation, she plucked them out and threw them into the bushes. “I guess I don’t need these
green lenses anymore.” The gravelly sound of her voice surprised her. How many hours had it been since she’d spoken a word
to anyone?
“Good, that’s a positive step forward.” Thalia beamed. “The Greek philosopher Thucydides said, ‘The secret of Happiness is
Freedom, and the secret of Freedom, Courage.’ You have the chance to find all of that now.”
Allie shrugged. Actually, throwing away her lenses did feel kind of freeing. Now her navy blue eyes would be free to shine
again. And someday, her dull, dyed black-brown hair would grow out and her sandy-blond mane would return. Allie was voted
best tressed two years in a row in junior high, after all. And now she could finally stop worrying about that dumb “mole”
on her upper lip; no more sleeping exclusively on her left side for fear of smudges! Thalia was right—Allie would only be
happy once she was free.
Free to be herself, to stop acting like she knew what a carbon footprint was. Free to wear shoes! To Purell a hundred times
a day if she wanted! Free to quote her favorite lines from Katherine Heigl rom-coms. Free to wear makeup and eat meat and
keep up with celebrity gossip. She could stop pretending she cared about the earth and focus on the stars.
But if she were so free, why did she still feel so trapped?
“Go on,” said Thalia, motioning toward the open door.
Allie nodded, summoning her courage. She swallowed hard and stood up, putting one bare foot in front of the other. “Okay,”
she said in a tiny voice.
Her heart clanging like a firehouse bell, Allie stepped into the climate-controlled study lounge. She placed her palm on the
“SnakScan” touch-screen snack dispenser and waited as the machine performed a bio-analysis to determine what she should eat.
Expecting a packet of kale chips or a PowerBar, Allie smiled when the Plexiglas slot in the wall popped open and offered her
a little yellow bag of peanut M&M’s.
Allie ripped open a corner of the bag and poured the M&M’s into her mouth, chewing furiously in an attempt to quiet her growling
stomach.