Alphas (14 page)

Darwin lowered his head and began scribbling. Allie tried peeking, but his upper body hung half-moon over his tablet.

Allie summoned her sorrow. Fletcher, Trina, identity theft—emotions began to rise again, but stopped just before they reached
her thimble finger. They were
feelings
, not sentences. It was pain, not words. It was a missive on hell, not a beach read.

But wait!
This paragraph wasn’t about
her.
It was about Allie J. The girl who rebounded from breakups like a rubber pinball. So all Allie A had to do was funnel her
words through Allie J’s industrial-strength heart and—

“Fingers down.”

“Serious-leh? That was fifteen minutes?” Allie looked around, but no one else seemed surprised.

“It sure was.” Hannah beamed.

“Hannah, why don’t you go first.” Keifer brushed a choppy layer behind her heavily pierced ear.

“Sure.” She cleared her throat and looked around meaningfully at each of her classmates. “I am here because I killed an American
girl.”

The entire class gasped. Hannah’s lips curled in a smug smile and began to read. “‘When I was five, I killed my American Girl
doll.’”

Everyone giggled with relief except Darwin, whose Y chromosomes prevented him from understanding the sanctity of the plastic
childhood treasure. “‘She came with this prefab story of how she’d survived the Depression. But I found the idea of breadlines
boring, so I wrote my own. She was the star of my first play
, The Case of the Doll Murder
. At the end, Barney the Dinosaur, played by my reluctant younger brother, was carted away as the culprit. Miraculously, the
doll was revived after a posthumous surgery by a GI Joe medic. But the damage was done. I’d been bitten by the writing bug,
and I never recovered.’”

Keifer gave an appreciative smile, which granted the rest of the class permission to applaud. “The moment of recognition for
a young writer. Charming. Now let’s see it.”

The 3-D images on the wall returned. This time they contained the bare outlines of a dinosaur, a solider, and a large-headed
doll.

“Shira has created Wordz-to-Life software,” Keifer explained. “This program allows us to
watch
your stories, and help you see where you need more detail.”

“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-hem
ed 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.

PLEASE REMAIN SEATED AFTER DINNER FOR THE G’DAY ADDRESS. ATTENDANCE IS MANDATORY.

—SHIRA

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.”