Modelland (26 page)

“This is not a coincidence, Bellas. Usually it takes
muchos meses
, many months for ladies’ cycles to, shall I say … organize. But here at Modelland, we have accelerated that harmony.”

“I knew it!” Piper whispered to Tookie.

“Why do we do this? Well, Bellas, the life of a model is one of great adventure and many challenges. Modelland tolerates no excuses for tardiness or for faulty or missed assignments. Come hell or high
agua
, an Intoxibella must be ready to shine. To model through mayhem and mishaps. To perform! To be the very best! No excuses! So today your training begins.
Hencio
, your
Tía Flo
is happening right now, yes? How well can you project an image that is opposite of how you are feeling or at odds with your surroundings?

“Your goal in CaraCaraCara is not to mirror, but to mask. In other words, make the opposite expression of what you see or feel. You see happy …” The Guru made a gleeful expression, his rubbery lips extending well past his cheeks. “You make sad.” He
distorted his face into a sappy appearance, his eyes drooping dramatically and his chin sinking, literally, into his neck. “If you are tickled, do not laugh. Frown! Mastering this will get you one step closer to being an Intoxibella.

“But fail, and you may be relegated to spending your life as, heaven forbid, an
actress.
” The Guru said this last word in a low, disgusted whisper. “Actresses are incapable of ‘opposite performing.’ They must think about sad times in their lives to project sadness on the silver screen. Nonsense! We mustn’t let that pitiful fate happen to you. Oh, and also, Bellas? You will see that
mi clase
is the best in all of Modelland.” His face contorted. “So if you like what you see here, put in a good word for me to the Bored,
sí?
They need a bit of comic relief to join their ranks. They are so god-awful serious all the time.” The Guru’s fingers stretched out from his hand, curved around the girls, and flicked on a light at the back of the shark-room.

“In just a few seconds you will be tested as you have never been. The challenge begins … 
now!
”

Pacifico untied the serape sash from around his narrow waist, rolled it into a narrow strip, and tied it around his head, martial-arts-bandana style. “Copy me, Bellas! Copy me!”

The girls yanked their Senturas from their waists and tied them around their heads. As they did so, Tookie noticed that the boat was tilting more rapidly from side to side, like it was caught in a storm. She suddenly felt off-kilter.

“Through your crampy pain and sickness from the sea,” Pacifico said, “your Senturas will aid you with power to conjure the opposite expression
perfectamente.
”

A shark-bite sound filled the room and then a three-dimensional image of a two-headed vulture picking at a child’s
eyes appeared before every Bella. Several girls gasped. Piper covered her eyes, saying it looked like a LeGizzârd. A girl named Bo, who sat on the other side of Tookie and seemed devoid of any expression whatsoever, didn’t react at all.

“No, no, no!” Pacifico bellowed. “Opposite, opposite, opposite!”

“Look at me!” Zarpessa cried. She was smiling into the eyes of the two-headed vulture as though it was a cute newborn baby.

“
Fantastico
, Bella!” Guru Pacifico patted Zarpessa on the back.

The boat rocked to the right, making Tookie’s stomach swim. The two-headed vulture morphed into an enormous yellow feather that was as long as Tookie was tall. It flitted around the class, tickling girls. Giggles erupted throughout the class.

“Bellas!” Pacifico shook his finger. “Use the power of your Senturas to resist the urge to laugh!”

At once, the Senturas came to life. The two strands that hung at the back of each girl’s head reared up and swatted the feather as it approached. Shiraz’s Sentura swatted at the feather like a boxer hitting a speed bag. Piper’s Sentura took calculated jabs at it. Dylan’s clawed at the feather like it was a girl in a catfight. Chaste’s Sentura shimmied sexily, pulling the feather toward her body. But when the feather approached Tookie, her Sentura remained limp at her head. She couldn’t stop giggling, even as the boat lurched angrily to the left.

“Tookie!” Guru Pacifico declared. “You are all wrong! Frown! Pretend that feather feels like the
mujer
-pain inside you!”

Tookie’s cheeks burned. All these years, she had never been called on in class, and now that she finally was, it was for something
negative
. Worse than that, her head was spinning.
Why is this boat rocking so wildly? It seemed so calm from the shore
.

The challenges zipped by more quickly. They had to react to a steaming pile of rotting food under their noses, then a picture of an earless baby rabbit abandoned by its mother. Some girls instantly reacted to the photos before remembering they were supposed to do the opposite, but Piper studied the images quickly and smiled when the image was ghastly, looked surprised when the image was serene, and gasped when the image was gentle and sweet. “Good, Piper!” Pacifico praised.

An image appeared of a bunch of boys mooning a busy highway. Then one of a hooded figure that looked like Death approaching. The Bellas changed their expressions from happy to sad, confused to angry, sexy to serious with each different challenge, but Tookie continued to fail miserably, over- or underreacting to the photos, finding it difficult to focus. Her Sentura remained comatose on her head. “Tookie, Tookie, Tookie!” Pacifico cried over and over again, which made Zarpessa twist around and smirk triumphantly at her. The only girl he corrected almost as much was dead-faced Bo, who didn’t even freak over a photo of a dead cat giving birth to an octopus on an abandoned road.

Then an image of an acrobat falling off a dizzyingly high tightrope appeared. Almost everyone else reacted with an opposite expression—boredom, apathy—but Tookie’s face froze in the worst possible way. The performer reminded her of Chris-Crème-Crobat, her father—or, well,
whoever
he was. The shame of feeling disowned and unwanted washed over her. She couldn’t hide it.

The ship lurched to the side once more. Tookie’s insides churned, and her lower back contracted in a sharp cramp. She gagged repeatedly and closed her eyes to avoid the next abominable image. But closing her eyes made her seasickness even worse.

Suddenly, she couldn’t take it anymore. She twisted to the right, leaned over, and threw up. Some of it landed in Bo’s hair, but to her relief, Bo threw up too. Impassively, of course.

“¡Dios mío!”
Guru Pacifico cried. “The wretched scourge of the first-run regurgitators! Seen it before, and smelled it much longer!” The images around them disappeared. “Okay, Bellas. Remove your Senturas from your heads. You will do this again and again this quadmester until you get it right. Do not fret about the mess. Remember, sharks love chum. As far as who did well today …” He paused on Piper, seemingly wanting to point to her, but then looked away. He pointed to another girl instead. “Definitely Bella Zarpessa!”

Zarpessa smiled devilishly. “Thanks, Guru. But I have a confession to make: my parents trained me for Modelland at a very early age. They got the
best
coaches—Metopian money was no object. I was being coached up until the Day of Discovery! They spent
fifty thousand
on my prep, and …”

She trailed off as she caught Tookie’s eye. Her face hardened into a scowl. Tookie quickly averted her gaze. She didn’t know whether to feel envious of or sorry for Zarpessa. Envious, of course, because Zarpessa had such a vivid imagination with which to escape from her dreadful life, even if it was a new concoction of outrageous fibs every day. But she felt pity as well.

Guru Pacifico clapped. “Now that you have finished your first CaraCaraCara class, I have two gifts for you!”

Everyone froze, waiting.

“I shall let an esteemed special guest tell you the first gift,” the Guru said.

He gestured to the walls of the boat. Instantly, they peeled
apart, revealing the masthead of the BellaDonna at the front of the ship. The masthead twisted around and stared at them, suddenly alive.

The masthead-BellaDonna parted her sculpted lips, just as her giant statue in the O had. “Yes, No-Sees, I have a surprise for you,” her voice rang out. “Something young, maturing girls can only receive here at Modelland. CaraCaraCara was your first class, or shall I say, your first period of the day, but guess what … it will also be your last!”

“Huh?” Chaste pulled out her schedule. “It says I have two more classes after this!”

“Ah-ah-ah!” The Guru shook his finger. “Not
that
kind of period,
mami
!”

The BellaDonna continued. “This
cycle
you had this morning will be the last period you will ever have … for the rest of your lives!”

There was silence. Turned heads. Questioning looks.

“We want no excuses for you missing class or shoots or shows, so Modelland is ridding you of the pain and suffering of your menstrual cycles and cramps forever,” the BellaDonna masthead explained. “You will still have the ability to procreate as you reach adulthood but no more periods. Period.”

The Guru beamed at them. “Isn’t that
grandissimo
?”

Almost everyone cheered, although Chaste looked strangely forlorn and confused, clamping her mouth shut and biting her bottom lip nervously. And Tookie felt another kind of cramp in her stomach … one of loss and regret.
I finally reached womanhood
, she thought.
I finally got something that Myrracle has teased me about so much. And now it’s gone
.

The masthead twisted back around to its original position and then went still again. “The second gift?” the Guru said, facing the girls. “Now you can view your pictures of today’s session!”

“Pictures?” Dylan clutched her apple cheeks. “But honey, I didn’t have my game face on!”

Pacifico smiled craftily, his rubbery lips curling over his teeth. “This was your first Modelland photo shoot, ladies! Go look, go look!”

The Guru pointed to the exit at the far side of the shark. A second boat had appeared where the bridge had once been. As soon as the girls stepped inside the cabin, the boat moved away from the dock and began to float down the long river. Then three-dimensional images of the Bellas during the CaraCaraCara exercise appeared in midair. The images moved and morphed, showing each of their many expressions.

“Ooh!” some girls squealed. “Yuck!” others cried. “Can I erase this one?” Bo murmured stoically. And Chaste batted her eyelashes at herself. “Honey,” she said to her image, “if I were a guy, I’d want a piece of you.”

“Look at
that
hideous thing,” a voice called from the other side of the boat. It was Zarpessa, and she was staring at Tookie’s repeating loop. Zarpessa nudged Chaste. “You know those rumors about Scouts choosing civilian girls to come to Modelland to be used as sacrifices, experiments and food?
I
certainly wouldn’t want to eat
that.
”

Tookie moved to the front of the boat to look at her images. In each, she looked awkward, confused, and just … wrong. She looked over at the Guru. His eyes narrowed and he shook his head slowly from side to side. These were the type of photos that
would fail her. The type of photos that would get her kicked out of Modelland and sent back to Peppertown.
Forever
.

She closed her eyes and thought about the fate that awaited her in Peppertown. A family who didn’t want her … a best friend who probably hated her now that she’d abandoned her … a life as a Factory Dependent.
I can’t go back there. I can’t get sent home
.

But then she thought about the sacrifice rumor. Torturing girls in dreadful experiments. Siphoning their blood for ancient ritual. Making an offering to whatever magical beings had founded Modelland in the first place. If
that
was in store for her, she couldn’t imagine staying here either.

Cold fear trickled down her neck. Had she come this far … only to be a human guinea pig?

Tookie stepped into her next class, Run-a-Way Intensive. It took place in a long, narrow building the length of the Sapphire Esplanade Mall and the width of a half-dozen bowling lanes. A curved staircase led up to a vast mezzanine; each tread bore a hologram of an Intoxibella famous for her runway walk. Tookie spied many Intoxibellas she recognized, including Ci~L. Her hologram was extremely faint, though, a ghost slowly disappearing.

She thought about that terrifying vision of Ci~L beating herself. Had it been a dream?

Shiraz immediately skipped over and grabbed Tookie’s hand. “Yay! We are in the Run-a-Way class together too! Stand by me!”

As they scuttled into the classroom, Tookie could feel two pairs of familiar eyes BitterBalling her again.

Zarpessa wrinkled her nose at Tookie like she smelled raw sewage. “I see they haven’t turned you into Too-Too Barbeque yet.” Chaste laughed so hard she snorted.

Tookie gritted her teeth. She was dying to retaliate and whisper something clever about digging through Dumpsters. But then she closed her eyes and thought of Ci~L’s advice.
Don’t stoop to her level. Don’t stoop to her level
.

Dylan and Piper entered the room as well, beaming as they spied Tookie and Shiraz. Besides the four of them and Zarpessa and Chaste, Tookie recognized only two other girls in the room, tear-streaked Desperada. She was crying even harder now, if that was possible.

Then Gunnero Narzz whirled through the door. Everyone bristled.
Ugh, not him
, Tookie thought.

“We meet again, my dear No-Sees,” he growled, sweeping his gray eyes over the crowd. “As you know, I am not only the administrator of the terror-filled THBC, I am also the official, the omnipotent, the one and the only Pace Parader, Sauntering Serenader, Gangway Gallavanter, your Run-a-Way Intensive educator. If you thought you came to despise me during your time at Thigh-High Boot Camp, think again, because you have yet to experience me teach the strut in all of my sumptuous, unfettered glory!”