Beauty Queens (39 page)

“Okay. How about this: If we don’t peel off one by one and start running for the yacht by the end of the song, we’re dead.”

“Surprisingly motivating. Teen Dreamers, we’ve got one shot: Place the tampered Lady ’Stache Off at the end of the runway. Aim the flare gun at it and run like hell. Make it back here, then head for the docking cave and pray that Mary Lou and Tane got control of the yacht. Everyone know their parts?”

The girls nodded. Tiara put a hand to her stomach. “Ohmigosh, y’all, I’m so nervous! What if I mess up?”

Adina put a hand on Tiara’s shoulder. “You’re not going to mess up, Tiara. You can do this. You built a hut. You learned to fish and catch rainwater for drinking. You’re a survivor.”

“Okay,” Tiara whispered. “Okay.”

A black shirt strode over, hands at his hips. “What are you girls gossiping about over there?”

“Pageant stuff,” Adina said, forcing herself to sound extrachipper and borderline stupid, the tone that disarmed people, made them think you weren’t a threat. The black shirt smiled. It was astonishing how easily that worked. Adina smiled back. Her smile said,
You will not know what hit you, jerkface.

Jeeps carried them through the jungle. Adina looked for Taylor, but she was nowhere to be seen. The girls’ camp bounced into view, and seeing everything — the huts, the rainwater tarp, the sequined banner — Adina felt a surge of pride. They’d done this on their own, without any help. It was better than any feeling she could remember. And now these jerks wanted to take it all away. She could only hope the girls’ plan would work.

The Jeeps came to a stop on top of the HELP stones. “Not bad,” Agent Jones said appreciatively. He cut one of the fishing lines.

“What are you doing?” Shanti barked.

“You don’t need them anymore, right? Now that you’ve been rescued.”

“Yeah, but you could ask first. We worked hard on those.”

“I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“You didn’t hurt my feelings. You pissed me off,” Shanti said, glaring. “There’s a difference.”

“Remember,” Petra whispered. “Play it cool.”

Shanti forced a smile. “Um, no offense or anything. I’m not mad, I’m just kind of sad. And emotional.”

Agent Jones patted her shoulder. “Understandable. You girls have been through a lot. Tonight, all you have to do is smile and wave.” He cut the other fishing line and let them both drift out to sea.

The black shirts had been busy setting up a performance area on the beach. They’d constructed a wooden stage with a red curtain across the front. Now they were building a runway.

“We’ve run out of wood,” one of the black shirts called.

“Just take it from one of the huts,” Agent Jones shot back, and the black shirts tore the walls from Tiara’s home.

“My place!” she cried.

Petra wrapped her up in a big hug. “Come on. Let’s go get our game faces on.”

Adina took Nicole aside. “I need you to cover for me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to find Taylor, see if I can get her to help.”

“But how? She’s straight-up crazy now.”

“Sometimes, a little crazy is exactly what you need.”

The girls practiced their dance routine loudly. Nicole banged hard on her drum. Adina slipped into the jungle and ran for Taylor’s secret hideaway. It had taken on a ghoulish quality; Taylor had affixed several black shirts to poles outside her cave and lit them to make torches. In the firelight, Miss Miss seemed to undulate in some
ancient dance. Taylor sat before the sculpture on her haunches, swiping mud across her cheeks in long, thick streaks.

“Hey, Taylor.” Adina crept closer. “Whatcha doin’?”

Taylor’s knife was at Adina’s throat quickly.

“Whoa. Taylor, it’s me, Adina. Miss New Hampshire.”

Taylor seemed to be trying to remember something. “New Hampshire … I don’t like you, do I?”

“Not so much,” Adina said, swallowing hard. “Look, I know we’ve had our differences, but you know what? We’re on the same team. There are some bad people out there, Taylor. People who want to hurt us. You were trying to warn us that day, weren’t you?”

Taylor took the knife away. “Lies. It’s all lies.”

“I know. But we’re not going to let them get away with it.”

“A Miss Teen Dream doesn’t complain. She offers a smile and an ambassador to the world.” Taylor frowned. “No. That isn’t right.”

“Taylor, we’re going to get off the island. Tonight. There’s a boat and we’re going to make a break for it. But we need your help to fight off the guards.”

“A girl’s best weapon is her smile,” Taylor parroted.

“No. I mean real weapons. We’ve got to fight our way out of here before they kill us. Tonight. Look, just meet us at the volcano, okay? Taylor! Are you listening?”

The wind picked up; the fire responded with a surge of desire. Taylor looked around as if she were seeing everything for the first time: the arsenal, the unassailable wall of green, the volcano stretching up from the land like an angry fist of rock. The humidity had wreaked havoc on her hair, which was a tangle of greasy blond. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. Her face was haunted.

“I can’t be what they want,” she whispered, and it seemed to her that those words had come to her from long ago. An expression of childlike confusion came over her face. She put her arms around Miss Miss like a child seeking comfort. “I just wanted to be somebody.”

“You are somebody,” Adina said. “You’re Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins. And you know a lot about the military, dance, bathing suits, kicking ass, and handling firearms. And right now, your Teen Dreams need you. Can you meet us at the volcano after the pageant starts?”

Taylor’s mouth went hard. “They won’t want us like this.” As if snapping out of a dream, Taylor smiled and posed, but her eyes were still haunted. She spoke rapidly. “One thousand strokes will bring the lies to your hair. A lady never and a lady does and a lady always. Shine and sparkle.”

Taylor flitted from spot to spot, turning pirouettes, waving to an unseen crowd. “Do you like me? Do you like me now?”

“Taylor!” Adina snapped, but Taylor was beyond hearing. Reluctantly, Adina turned to go, leaving Taylor behind to blow kisses at an unseen crowd.

The yacht, a sleek luxury model favored by rappers, movie stars, and moguls, powered toward the small island. This particular yacht had once been featured on the show
Pimp My Sails
and on the cover of
Luxury Lifestyle
magazine with a bikini-clad model drenching her body in champagne under the headline, “Get the Latest Hot Accessories.” The yacht had been sold to MoMo B. ChaCha through various channels because it was a symbol of wicked American excess, which The Peacock publicly disdained. But he liked the yacht’s heart-shaped hot tub, where he sat watching Ladybird Hope on a TV news hour calling him a threat to national security.

MoMo chuckled and puffed on his cigar. He offered a cigar to General Good Times, too. “The lady pines for MoMo. Soon we will have our new weapons, and when she is elected president, there will be the big wedding and she will give us a secret McDonald’s in the people’s palace. Excuse me for a moment, General. I must dress.”

MoMo searched his closet for the perfect outfit. He settled on the Elvis in Hawaii bedazzled white jumpsuit. In place of the sequined eagles on the sleeves, MoMo had commissioned ruby replicas of the ROC’s emblem, a fistful of feathers. He added the Elvis wig, the sunglasses, and the blue suede platform shoes, which brought his height up to a full five feet five inches.

In the mirror, MoMo snarled and flipped up his collar. “Get ready, world. I am your Heartbreak Hotel.”

MoMo called for his bodyguard.

“Sir?” the man said.

“What do you make of this arrangement we are negotiating?” MoMo asked, steely-eyed.

The bodyguard looked nervous. “Permission to speak honestly, sir?”

MoMo spread his arms wide. “Of course.”

“This seems like a setup, Ser Peacock.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, Ser. I do.”

“Huh.” MoMo thought for a moment. Then he reached into the gold-plated soap dispenser, pulled out a gun, and shot the guard dead. He pressed the intercom. “I am to need a cleanup on aisle nine, please.”

MoMo didn’t like feeling suspicious. But you didn’t get to have your own country named after you for being a tool. Insurance. Mutually assured destruction. MoMo found the DVD and looked for a place to hide it. He uploaded it to his laptop and labeled the file
Yacht Systems.

Nameless guards started dragging away the body of the unfortunate guard. MoMo stepped over the dead man on his way out. The yacht slipped into the secret docking cave. Flanked by a contingent of black shirts, Agent Jones waited to greet the dictator.

“Ser Peacock,” Agent Jones said, bowing slightly. “An honor.”

“You do not acknowledge my advisor, Agent Jones?”

The stuffed lemur sat on The Peacock’s shoulder.

“Welcome, General Good Times.”

A black shirt approached Agent Jones. “Sir, corporate can’t make a decision: Should we go with blue one or blue two on the lights?”

Agent Jones’s eye twitched. “I don’t care.”

“Blue one is sort of a cerulean, and blue two is more of a sapphire.”

“What is going on?” MoMo demanded.

“It’s nothing. Just a beauty pageant.” Agent Jones glared at the black shirt.

“A beauty pageant? Here? On the island?”

“Miss Teen Dream,” the black shirt answered.

MoMo let out a cry of happiness. “Ladybird Hope was Miss Teen Dream. Most famous pageant. General Good Times and I accept commission as judges.”

Agent Jones mopped at his brow with a handkerchief. “MoMo — I mean, Ser Peacock. You can’t be seen. You understand the nature of our deal is private.”

MoMo waved Agent Jones off with his fingers. He took a back seat in the Jeep beside the lemur. “The general and I will be very quiet. No one will to notice us in the back. I love the pageants. So much sparkle. Like Elvis. And explosives.”

“But the weapons, Ser Peacock.”

“Weapons later. First, pretty girls. Drive, Agent Jones. Before I lose my patience.”

Reluctantly, Agent Jones climbed behind the wheel and gunned the engine. He was already regretting not filling out the early retirement form.

Back at the camp, the girls rushed around, pasting sequins on their faces, sewing palm fronds into gowns like plumage, making last-minute touch-ups. They welcomed the old routine, the surge of adrenaline associated with pageant nights. But tonight, there was a little something extra.

Adina made it back just as the cameras were put in place. The black shirts had torn down another hut to make way for a sound booth. They’d rigged the stage area with lights, the wires feeding into a generator mounted on a rusty Jeep.

“I was starting to worry,” Nicole said. “Taylor?”

Adina shook her head. “She’s too far gone. We’ll have to do it without her.” She shimmied out of her shorts and tank and into her official pageant dress, a blue cocktail number with a poufy skirt. If Adina did die, she hoped to God it wouldn’t be in this tulle-and-lace monstrosity.

“Remember the plan: Jen, you and Shanti are throwing the race. As soon as they announce Top Five, whoever’s not named needs to make a break for the volcano and the control room and let the world know what’s really going on. During the musical number, the rest of you peel off and head for the boat. The minute they announce the winner, we’ve got to run like hell. Mary Lou and Tane should have the yacht ready to go.”

“Do you really think we’ll make it?” Tiara asked.

Adina looked into Tiara’s trusting face and thought about Alan holding out his arms, waiting to catch her, promising he would. She
hadn’t believed him, but her mother had, and Alan had come through for her. In the past several weeks, Adina had learned to take that fall, and these girls had proved to her that you could still trust in the world, that there was good among the bad. Sometimes, that was all you needed to keep going.

“We’ve made it this far, haven’t we? Don’t count a pageant girl out, Miss Mississippi.”

Tiara smiled weakly. “You sound like Taylor.”

“Well.”

“I can’t believe I used to worry so much about people not liking me. Seems so unnecessary now,” Nicole said, watching a group of black shirts laughing over some private joke. “I swear, if I get out of this, I’m going to tell my mom to back off and let me live my own life.”

“I’m going to go to law school and start changing some things,” Miss Ohio said. She dabbed at her eyes. “Crap. Is my mascara smeared?”

“You’re good,” Petra said, wiping a smudge from Miss Ohio’s cheek. “I’m going to hunt down Sinjin St. Sinjin and get my heels back. And then beat him with them.”