Modelland (13 page)

With a slight, tired,
oh how the old ones always do this
roll of her eyes, the Scout touched the daughter’s shoulder instead. “Oh!” the mother squealed. “Well, of course, of course!” She enveloped her daughter in her arms and cooed how proud she was of her and then let go. But as the Scout and the daughter descended into the worn clothes and rotten food within the cart, there was the tiniest look of disappointment on the mother’s face.

“Three minutes, fifty seconds!” Mayor Rump announced from his VIP perch. Myrracle strutted on, posing and turning. Mrs. De La Crème bit her nails. Mr. De La Crème paced back and forth.

Eruptions occurred all over the square. The reporters swiveled their cameras and microphones, trying to keep up with the mayhem. Walkers to the left, right, front, and back bumped into Myrracle. She walked two steps, posed, turned, and walked again. Even Zarpessa was losing space, walking in a tight circle near the strange obelisks.

“Tookie, climb up here so your sister has more room to walk!” Mr. De La Crème commanded behind her. Tookie turned and saw her parents and Brian standing on the roof of the wildest car she had ever seen: a blinged-out golden low-rider with a pavé roof and hubcaps that spun in place, even when the car wasn’t moving. The gaudy and glam automobile was parked on a piece of marble that had a huge crack down the middle that looked, strangely, like a question mark.

Tookie dutifully climbed onto the shiny bumper. Mrs. De La Crème anxiously compared the time on her watch to the time
on the huge clock in the center of the square. Worry marred her wrinkled face. “We still have time,” she murmured. “A miracle will happen for The Myrracle. I just know it.”

More flashes filled the sky. More Scouts appeared. The candidates walked hungrily. Dozens of fights broke out, and at least six girls lay on the marble ground, nursing their wounds. As Tookie made her way up the trunk of the car, a strange vibrating sensation tickled her feet.
Bzzz
.

What was that?

“One minute left!” Mayor Rump called. Hundreds of people began to count down.
Fifty-nine, fifty-eight …

Bzzz. Bzzz
. Tookie looked down and gasped. A strip of the diamond-encrusted roof of the car had transformed into a thick layer of brilliant fabric. As she watched, even more of the roof disappeared and reappeared as cloth. The fabric looked as if it were being spontaneously woven by a giant loom. “Whoa,” she whispered.

Mrs. De La Crème noticed the fabric too. She kneeled down to within an inch of the strange material and then bounced back up.
“It’s a Scout!”
She jumped off the roof.
“Myrracle, it’s a Scout!”

Brian was right behind her. He shook Myrracle by the shoulders. “It’s a Scout, doofus!”

“Where?” Myrracle halted midpose.

“On the roof of the car!”

Myrracle pushed past girls in her way and scuttled over to the vehicle.

Thousands of crowd members were now counting down the seconds.

Forty-five, forty-four …

Another row of fabric emerged. Then another, then another. Myrracle shrieked. “A Scout, Creamy! A Scout!”

Mr. De La Crème grabbed Myrracle from the square and pulled her toward the car. “Everything we’ve strived for. It’s all coming true, baby!”

Thirty-nine, thirty-eight …

Tons of girls ran for the gaudy car, clamoring for the attention of the soon-to-appear Scout. Tookie surveyed the crowd, noticing how many people were watching the De La Crème family on the roof. Jealous girls, rabid mothers … even Theophilus was in the back of the crowd, looking amused. But strangely, he wasn’t staring at Myrracle, as most of the mob was. His eyes were locked on Tookie. Her stomach flipped over.

“Tookie!” Mrs. De La Crème grabbed Tookie’s ankle. “Get down from the hood! Myrracle needs her space! This is her moment!”

“Uh …” Tookie stared at the ground. The area around the car teemed with so many girls now, she was kind of trapped. Furthermore, Myrracle wasn’t able to climb atop the roof to greet the Scout properly.
This is Myrracle’s moment
, Tookie thought. She had to help her.

“Come on, Myrracle!” Tookie called. She reached out her hand for Myrracle to grab. It took all of Tookie’s strength to pull Myrracle and her twenty-pound dress onto the hood. Once she was up, Myrracle pushed Tookie out of the way, nearly knocking her to the ground.

“I’m here!” Myrracle cried. She stood in the center of the hood, hands in the air, her chin thrust high. “Da-tahhhh!”

“Tookie, for the love of God, get off the roof!” Mrs. De La Crème screeched. “Give Myrracle room!”

But Tookie didn’t want to move. She wanted to see this happen to Myrracle firsthand. The roof had finished its diamond-to-fabric transformation. There was a slight pause, and Tookie felt the world around her go silent. And then the whole roof began to tremble.

Suddenly, the fabric split violently in the very center, knocking Myrracle off the roof. She fell to the ground almost as if in slow motion.

“Nooooooo!” Mrs. De La Crème wailed. Tookie’s father pushed Brian out of the way to catch his daughter. Tiers of tulle billowed into his face. Myrracle’s legs kicked into the air.

“Get back up there, Myrracle!”
Mr. De La Crème screamed, shoving a shoe back onto Myrracle’s bare foot. He pushed her up on the hood.

Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen …

The tear in the fabric grew wider, until a human-sized hole appeared. And then a nearly naked woman emerged from the center of the tear and rose into the sky. She had long limbs and golden skin and wore shiny necklaces strategically placed over her chest and lower half. A gem-encrusted veil covered her face.

Tookie gasped.

The Scout’s hair blew in its own wind. Her arms stretched wide. Her fingers gripped the very ends of the piece of fabric that had materialized on the roof of the car. It seemed as though the fabric had grown from her fingers, an extension of her body itself.

“Wow,” Myrracle whispered. Tookie couldn’t agree more.

Fireworks began to explode in the air, the sparkles showing the numbers as they counted down.

Six, five, four …

The Scout looked at the De La Crèmes and nodded majestically, looking both strong and feminine at the same time.

“Please take her!” Mrs. De La Crème gushed.

“We would be honored!” Mr. De La Crème cried.

Three, two …

And then the Scout reached out her long, slender, radiantly decorated hand and beckoned.

To
Tookie
.

The entire De La Crème family stood dumbfounded. Tookie stared at the Scout’s outstretched hand. Was this some kind of cruel joke?

All sorts of possibilities flashed through Tookie’s mind. Blood pulsed hard from her heart to her head. She glanced at the question-mark-shaped crack in the ground. It seemed very appropriate at this moment.

The Scout’s hand reached closer.

Mrs. De La Crème scuttled onto the car’s hood with the nimbleness of a mountain goat. “Oh no, no, no, my most honorable Scout,” she spouted. “This is
not
the girl you came for.” She pushed Tookie aside. “You want my Myrracle!”

A sparkling slip of paper appeared in the Scout’s hand. Studying it, she first eyed Myrracle, arching her body toward the girl so that mere millimeters separated their faces. Then, in a flash, the Scout turned to look at Tookie. She returned to Myrracle, triggering a hopeful smile on Mrs. De La Crème’s quivering lips. Then she scrutinized the paper in her hand again.

“What’s taking you so long?” Myrracle blurted out. “You want
me
! I’m The Myrracle! I’m wearing the SMIZE! I’m on that list, right?”

Myrracle reached for the list in the Scout’s hand.
Whap!
The Scout jerked back so quickly that one of her necklaces swatted Myrracle’s hand away.

Myrracle let out a sharp squeak. “Ow! Creameeeee! She smacked me with her thing!”

Mrs. De La Crème squared her shoulders. “Oh no, you did not just whack my Myrracle. I may not know who the hell you are, but I do know you have lost your diamond-encrusted mind!”

The Scout’s body tensed, and in the blink of an eye, Mrs. De La Crème changed her tune. “But, I mean, lovely bejeweled goddess, you do indeed know best. You can whack, slap, smack, clobber, knock out, even give my Myrracle a black eye. Do as you wish.
Just choose her!
”

Myrracle pointed accusingly at Tookie. “She’s the one you should be smacking! She doesn’t even care about Modelland!”

“Yes I do,” Tookie said softly. “Not that any of you have ever asked.”

But her words were drowned out by the howls of the crowd, the blares of car horns, and the earsplitting
bonnnnnng
of the giant clock in the middle of LaDorno’s square as it marked the official end to The Day of Discovery.

The Scout consulted a glittering piece of jewelry on her wrist that resembled the top half of a crystal snow globe. It changed colors slightly with every second that passed. Then she extended both hands to Tookie, waving them impatiently.

“Oh, um … okay,” Tookie said uncertainly. It felt like she was in a dream as she reached for the Scout. But just before they touched, two strong hands shoved her from the side. She tumbled off the car, falling straight into Mr. De La Crème’s arms.

He quickly pushed Tookie back up on the roof. “Creamy, what are you trying to do, kill the girl? They want
one
of our daughters—isn’t that good enough? If she wants Tookie, let her take Tookie!”

Mrs. De La Crème glowered at him. “Oh, so
now
the circus freak is your daughter?”

Mr. De La Crème looked up at Tookie. “Tookie, don’t listen to her. You know I love you, right? Always have, always will. You’re Daddy’s special baby girl.”

Tookie’s chest burned.
Daddy? Special? Love?
She had a strong feeling he didn’t mean it, but she couldn’t help letting his warm words affect her anyway.

“Just go,” Mr. De La Crème told Tookie. “For all of us.”

As if it had been waiting to be released her entire life, a single tear dropped from Tookie’s eye. Did he want her to go because he just wanted to be rid of her? Was he truly proud of her and thought she really deserved this? Or was he now willing to be her daddy because she was the Scout’s choice?

Suddenly, something in the crowd caught her attention. There on one of the huge screens was her face. Her six-head. Her multiple-personality-disorder hair. Her mismatched eyes. This image was projected all over Metopia—all over the world. Hundreds of
bewildered spectators in LaDorno Square stared at the screen. Thousands of hopeful girls wailed to their mothers,
Why does she get to go? She’s crazy-looking!
Millions of people all over the world saw Tookie’s image right now and thought,
What the …?

Trembling, Tookie remembered the words Wingtip had whispered to her outside the Esplanade the day before:
Dream big. Even you
. Perhaps this was what he meant. This was the biggest dream any girl could have. Especially a Forgetta-Girl.

Tookie swallowed hard, and her trembling hand finally met the Scout’s bejeweled one.

A flash of golden yellow light surrounded them. A strong sucking sensation pulled at Tookie’s feet, then her legs, and then her stomach and back. Her body tumbled into a brilliant, sheer fabric that spewed from the Scout’s fingers. More fabric surrounded her, enveloping her bottom and legs, and the force of a billion hands lifted her up and buoyed her into the air. Suddenly, Tookie was in some kind of translucent mesh pouch.

She looked down through the gossamer fabric. LaDorno Square swung beneath her. Myrracle fell to her knees on the car’s hood, letting out a scream so piercing Mr. De La Crème covered his ears. Mrs. De La Crème’s brow was dripping with sweat. She gripped her head and the veins in her hands looked as if they were about to burst. She raised her hand in the air like it was a pistol aiming for the Scout. “You think you are flying high and mighty, but I will whack, slap, smack, clobber, knock out, and give your bedazzled ass a black eye!”

It was too painful to watch them anymore. Tookie shifted her gaze ahead. The Scout floated in front of her, her arms stretched out behind her in a V, the fabric of the pouch protruding from
the tips of her shimmering fingers. The grand buildings around LaDorno Square moved swiftly past. As Tookie sailed up and up, people looked dumbstruck, as if they were wondering why on earth such an odd-looking girl was in a Scout’s pouch.

Tons of parties were taking place: in a fifth-floor window, Tookie saw silver-haired men in shiny silver suits and young women in the finest gowns, all holding bright, bubbly concoctions in their hands. Higher up she waved to a group of grinning children with cake-smeared faces. One cherub-faced girl was pressed so hard against the glass that Tookie worried she might push through some unseen crack and plunge to her untimely death.

This is a dream
, Tookie kept repeating to herself.
I’ve dozed off during the ceremony. I’m going to wake up and Myrracle will have been chosen
. She squeezed her eyes closed tight and then popped them open. But she was still in the strange pouch.

The streets of LaDorno spread out in a grid beneath her. Not surprisingly, every other part of LaDorno was virtually unpopulated at this particular hour, nearly all of its residents crowded around the square for T-DOD. It was strange to see no pedestrians, no buses trundling past, no cars waiting at the stoplights. But then Tookie noticed a red flash—a figure darting down a dark alleyway.

Tookie pressed her face hard against the translucent fabric. The figure ran crookedly down the alley, arms spread wide. Then the person abruptly stopped and looked straight at the pouch.

“Lizzie!” Tookie’s jaw dropped. “We have to stop!” she yelled to the Scout. But the Scout kept flying.

Tookie grabbed a handful of the pouch’s fabric and pulled with all her might, trying to tear a hole in the side. A horrible
thought struck her:
What if Lizzie saw my face on those humongous screens? What if Lizzie saw me willingly take the Scout’s hand? What if she thought I skipped out of Exodus because I wanted Modelland more?
“I didn’t know about this, Lizzie! I swear!” Tookie screamed.