Modelland (32 page)

While Tookie lay fast asleep in her Lumière-less bed in the D, a plan was in action at the base of the Modelland mountain.…

An enormous sign swayed crookedly in the breeze.
WARNING: ENTER AND YOU MAY PERISH PAINFULLY
. Beyond it was a jungle of tangled barbed plants, boulders, and rotting steel. Every few moments, an eerie hoot, screech, or scream was emitted somewhere from in the darkness. Moans. Grumbles. The sound of nails scraping down a piece of glass. Pops of metal underfoot. An insane high-pitched laugh.

Slowly, a ragtag crowd crunched past the sign and lined up against a large rock. Jessamine, a beautiful teenage girl from the
most prestigious section of LaDorno, and her mother, Meena. Lynne, a woman in her late forties holding a limp advertisement cut from a newspaper in her trembling hand. After them, none other than the hairy Abigail Goode, her T-DOD head injury having healed, and her even hairier mother, who was appropriately named Harriet. The Goode women carried duffels that sported hairy sewn-on patches promoting their pro-hair causes.

Jessamine covered her mouth in a failed attempt to stifle a laugh. “Oh wow! I love what they’ve done with their hair!” she said in a voice loud enough for the Goode women to hear.

A twitching hunchbacked man strode up, pulling a leather hood over his head to obscure his scaly skin, beady eyes, and uniformly pointed teeth. His kind was unfamiliar to the group, but a certain porcelain-skinned girl named Piper would know them quite well. She’d lived with the daily terror of scores of them threatening to penetrate her homeland’s grand protective dome, after all.

All the women nervously stepped back. “What’s he doing here?” Jessamine whispered to her mother. “Everyone knows men don’t usually go on these things, unless they’re die-hard and desperate Bestosterone wannabes, like those dumb architects were.”

“Shhh,” Meena whispered.

Watches were checked. Canteens were uncapped to make sure an appropriate level of water remained for the first part of the trip. Hiking-booted toes tapped. Sweaty brows dripped. Temples pounded in agony. Veins throbbed and bulged. Everyone knew what the others were thinking: would this be a mistake, as it had been for everyone before them who’d made the attempt? For they were victims of the Pilgrim Plague, about to embark on the
treacherous trek up the Diabolical Divide to Modelland. And they had chosen this clear black night to begin the most important journey of their lives. It would take several months.

There would be no turning back.

A final figure emerged from the darkness—their guide, a professional trespasser, or Raider, named Macy Kamata. He wore a large pack crammed with survival gear, the straps cutting into his shoulders. Even though he was as overburdened as a pack mule, Kamata still looked strong and robust. He had weathered, sunburned skin, a thick crew cut, and hooded eyes that constantly darted back and forth. He opened one of the breast pockets on his jumpsuit and retrieved a plastic bag containing several dozen pills. He poured the entire bag into his mouth and swallowed all the pills with no water.

He motioned for the group to line up in front of him. “Time for antibiotics, venom blockers, and miasma inhibitors!” he said, placing a plastic bag of pills in each Pilgrim’s hand. “Swallow them if you want to survive the bites and other deadly forces that lurk on the Divide. If you refuse, you’re asking for certain death the moment we pass the first junction.” The entire group gulped down the pills.

Kamata stuck a needle into his rock-hard butt, injecting a thick, murky liquid. “A booster,” he explained. Again, the Pilgrims lined up as they were told. Jessamine recoiled from the acidic burn of the needle plunging deep into her backside.

“You’re experienced on the mountain, correct?” Lynne asked. “Your ad said you were, and—”

“I am the best damn Raider money can motivate,” Kamata answered gruffly. “But you understand the not-so-fine print, right?
I make no guarantees for your safety, your comfort, your success, your lives. I point, you go. Everyone understand?”

All the Pilgrims nodded. “Okay then. Time to reward the Raider.” Kamata extended his palm.

Everyone handed over thick wads of cash. When it was Lynne’s turn, she stared tearfully at the money in her hand. “This is my entire life savings. Please promise me that you’ll deliver us to Modelland safely.”

Behind her, Jessamine snorted. “What is her ancient ass going for, anyway?”

“Shhhh,” her mother said, pushing a hand over her daughter’s mouth.

“All right,” Kamata said, brushing his hands together. “Are we ready?”

The group gave a resounding “YES!” Satisfied, Kamata pulled a flashlight out of his pocket and beamed it toward the Diabolical Divide.

“Wait!” a voice screeched behind them. Two figures dressed in camouflage combat suits bounded up the ridge. Giant transparent packs full of flares, eating utensils, sleeping bags, axes, a fold-up tent, and lanterns swung from their backs. They both wore night-vision goggles.

“Don’t leave without us!” the taller of the two cried. “We’re on your list! We signed up yesterday.” She rifled around in the pocket of her camo pants and pulled out a stack of crisp bills.

The guide instantly smiled and snatched it from her. “So let’s see here.” He pulled out his registration list. “You must be …”

“Mrs. De La Crème,” the tall figure interrupted, patting her wrinkly tanned skin. “But you can call me Creamy. And this is
my daughter Myrracle. Honey, stop dancing.
Please
.” Myrracle stopped her frantic movements and pulled in her bottom lip.

Kamata nodded. “And what’s that?” He motioned to something Mrs. De La Crème had pressed to her chest.

“Her name is Bellissima,” Creamy said with annoyance.

“A doll going up the Divide?” Kamata blinked. “Well, that’s a first.”

He hitched his backpack higher on his shoulders and opened one of its many compartments. “Take these,” he said, handing them the packs of pills. He then gave Creamy and Myrracle shots in their derrières. Creamy turned Bellissima over and exposed her hard plastic rear end. “Give her a shot too!”

Kamata studied Creamy. “Whatever you say, lady.” He had to push hard to get the needle to penetrate Bellissima’s fanny. “I hope you’re ready for what lies ahead.”

“Ready? I just let you shoot my Myrracle and Bellissima with God knows what! We’ve never been more ready in our lives! Someone up there has made a grave mistake, and she’s going to pay dearly for what she’s done.” There was such an intense look in her eyes that everyone took a small step away from her.

“Okay then,” the guide said. He turned to the Pilgrims. “Off we go.”

Tookie selected a purple pen and began a letter in Très Jolie.…

Our most unusual tale picks up at the start of the next Modelland quadmester, three months and four days into the Bellas’ first year at the unusual, untouchable, and never uneventful fantastical land at the top of the mountain.…

Tookie stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom of the D, brushing her tongue with her toothbrush. As she rinsed her mouth, her thoughts turned dark.
She’s not mine, Creamy
. Every morning when she brushed her teeth at Modelland, her mind would inevitably return to that dismal memory of her father, but it was happening later in the tooth-brushing process each day.

Just minutes later, Tookie, Dylan, Shiraz, and Piper walked
toward the E. They neared the new stadium, now almost completed.

A group of sweaty Bestosteros were picking up construction debris.

“Hey, what’s up. It’s Tookie, right?”

It was Bravo. For a moment, Tookie just blinked.
He’s not talking to me. But he
did
just say my name
. He was coming toward them, carrying a thick tree limb over his shoulder like it was a toothpick. The other girls’ mouths dropped open.

“Uh, hi … and
bye
,” Tookie said, remembering how Bravo had oh-so-rudely pointed out the snot hanging from her nose after her first Mastication class. She hadn’t seen him much since—and she certainly hadn’t been looking for him. “Good luck with your manly-man stuff,” she added flippantly. “And don’t forget to pout your perfect lips and contract your rippling muscles for the cameras.”

Dylan shot Tookie an
are you cuh-ray-zee
look and nudged her in the ribs.

“I’m more than just a model or a manly-man,” Bravo said. Then he laughed uncomfortably, shaking loose bark and dust from the tree limb. Some landed in Tookie’s hair and on her face.
Great
, Tookie thought.
Now he’s covering me in splinters. Is it this boy’s mission in life to torment me?

“Oops, sorry.” Bravo stepped closer to Tookie. “The BellaDonna wanted us to clear away some of these dead trees for a better view of the new stadium. Didn’t mean to get you, there.”

Tookie noticed his irises were a familiar salted-caramel color.
Try not to swoon
, she told herself.
You’re not into pretty boys, remember? Especially ones who are training to become male models
.

Then Bravo lightly patted Tookie’s hair clean of dust and gingerly plucked a piece of a small shard of wood stuck to her bottom lip. His thumb touched both of her lips, then entered her mouth just a bit. He removed the last traces of chipped wood, but his thumb lingered between her lips and made slight contact with her tongue. Tookie wanted to bite down hard on his hand to teach him a lesson to not touch her like that, but instead she closed her lips on his thumb, locking it inside her mouth, her body betraying her. She smelled him, a mixture of tree bark, sweat, and blood orange, and felt the heat of his sweating body sail toward her. Her knees wobbled, her heart started to flutter, and she felt a warmth gush through her core.

One corner of Bravo’s mouth curled into a crooked smile. “Um … do I taste good?”

Tookie realized what she was doing and released his thumb. She didn’t even
know
this guy. What had gotten into her? She glanced at her friends. To her horror, they were trying to contain their laughter. They all had their thumbs in their mouths, playfully mocking her.

Tookie turned back to Bravo. “Hi,” she said awkwardly, as if she hadn’t been speaking with him the last few minutes.

“Hi,” he said back, breaking into the lopsided smile again. The hairs on the backs of Tookie’s thighs stood up.

“Um … we have to run,” she said, but her feet were planted in place.

And then, suddenly, three figures tumbled out from behind the stadium—Bravo’s Bestostero friends Webb, Alexander, and and a guy named O’Neil.

“Well, lookie here!” Webb shouted in a nasty, oily voice.
Alexander made slurping kissing noises. O’Neil thrust his hips forward lewdly like a humping dog. The three of them laughed, their handsome faces twisted and callous.

Tookie stepped away. She could feel their mocking, disparaging stares all over her. “See you, uh, not later, Bravo,” she muttered.

“Tookie, wait.”

But Tookie didn’t turn around. “Come on,” she hissed to her friends. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Pretty boy kooky over Tookie, and want her nookie,” Shiraz said sexily to Tookie as they jogged away.

“You sound like Chaste,” Tookie reprimanded, not laughing back. Deep down, she felt … flushed. Overwhelmed. Confused.
His thumb entering my mouth. Yum—I mean yuck! Was that all just a joke?

Or something more?