Modelland (39 page)

Bravo rose from Tookie’s bed. “Zoodbye, Zookie,” he said
softly, curling his lips into a lopsided smile. He was looking at her so fondly, like he didn’t want her to leave. When they arrived in the OR-U-OK, he retreated toward the door. Tookie gazed at his hands. They were so lovely. Strong. And his nails were chipped. Perfectly imperfect.

“Zoodbye,” Tookie finally answered. As he slipped behind the curtain once more, she peered up at Dr. Erica.
I must have just hallucinated all that
. Surely Bravo hadn’t just come and sat with her.
Fed
her. Let her
drool
all over him.

But Dr. Erica smiled kindly. As if reading Tookie’s mind, she said, “Yes, Tookie. He was really here. And I think he likes you.”

Tookie’s head spun.
He likes me? There’s no way. Absolutely no way …

Dr. Erica wheeled Tookie under a column of bright lights. “Okay now, relax, missy,” she said. “Close your eyes … count down from ten to one.”

“Zen …,” Tookie slurred.

Something touched her lip, startling her. She opened her eyes and tried to focus on the doctor. “Keep your eyes closed, Tookie,” Dr. Erica said softly. “This lip procedure’s not pretty … but you are.”

Tookie wanted to react—
Pretty?
—but the lights and the Zed Meds were making her sleepy. Dutifully, she shut her eyes. “Zine,” she struggled to say. She
knew
she was hallucinating now. No one had ever called her pretty.

“Zeight … Zeven …”

She had just gotten used to
ain’t half bad
.

“Zix … Zive …”

She closed her eyes and thought of Bravo leaning over her. It was a million times better than Theophilus leaning over her long
ago, asking Tookie if she was okay. Today, she and Bravo had had a whole
conversation. And he’d
fed
her!
A Forgetta-Girl, fawned over by such a gorgeous specimen … was it possible?

“Zour …”

Could she actually
like
him? The guy who was more striking than most girls at Modelland, and one hundred times better-looking than Tookie herself? Could she like a naturally-arched-eyebrowed pretty boy?

“Zhree … Zwo …”

But his nails were chipped, so he wasn’t perfect. Maybe she could like him. Maybe a myriad of things were changing for Tookie De La Crème—and maybe it was time to change with them.

“… One,” Tookie said aloud.

When Tookie opened her eyes, she saw a rainbow of colors on the hazy glass ceiling.
How beautiful
, she thought.
But I don’t remember a glass ceiling in the OR-U-OK
. She brought her hand to her lips. They were smooth, as if she had never been attacked by the vicious cats of the Corridor. Then she sat up. There was no trace of Dr. Erica, or of Purse Drestookill, Zarpessa, or Bravo. She wasn’t in the Fashion Emergency Department Store anymore. She was lying not on a hospital bed, but on a long glass table that had clear glass chairs neatly tucked around it. A floor-to-ceiling window looked out onto the M plaza.

Ugh! I sleepwalked again! Where the heck am I?

The walls were made of glass. On two long tables against the window sat all kinds of optical devices: spectacles of every sort, monocles, jeweler’s loupes, microscopes, viewfinders, magnifying glasses, and even a large prism, which cast a giant rainbow onto the floor. She reached out to touch a pair of ancient-looking glasses that had a pair of cloudy blue eyes drawn onto the lenses. As Tookie stared at them, the spectacles reared up on their earpieces and glared back at her. Slowly, the cloudy film over the eyes vanished, revealing two hazel irises.

She crawled onto her hands and knees and looked down. The golden plaza was sixty or seventy stories below her and it was nearly dark outside. She could barely make out some Bellas using the pliable gold surface as a mirror, fluffing their uniforms and hair.

I’m in the M building!
she thought, starting to panic. All the Bellas knew that this place was strictly off-limits. Being found here would surely mean consequences Tookie feared to even imagine.

She jumped up from the table, feeling a rush of light-headedness.
The Zed Med
, she thought.
There’s still some left in my body
.

Tookie cracked open the glass door just a bit. The hallway walls were also made of glass panels, which went from clear to cloudy, then back to clear. If Tookie was very careful, she could stay out of sight.

Tookie saw Guru Applaussez having coffee with Guru Lauro Brown. Lauro had her feet propped up on a glass table with a glass mug of coffee in her hand. Guru Applaussez had a crystal coffee cup in each of its three hands. The largest cup was in
its hand-head, its pinkie extended. When Applaussez suddenly turned in Tookie’s direction, she ducked and the glass wall went opaque.
Whew, that was close!
Tookie thought.

Cautiously, she raised her head and peered through the wall across the hall, spying a large set of risers in the shape of a tic-tac-toe board. There were thrones in each square. The throne in the center square looked like it was made of pure diamond and crystal—and Gunnero Narzz was in it.

Tookie’s heart dropped to her knees. The blood rushed from her brain.

Gunnero Narzz. Sitting in the diamond throne. Staring. Right. At. Tookie. With those terrifying gray eyes.

A sly smile blossomed on the Guru’s face. He brought something to his lips.
A whistle? A weapon? I’m going back to Peppertown
, Tookie thought.
This is it
.

Gunnero smeared the mysterious item over his lips. A stripe of red appeared.
Lipstick!
Next, the Guru blew a kiss straight at Tookie. He ran his manicured fingers through unbound locks of flowing blond hair and started to apply mascara to his lashes.

And then it dawned on Tookie: the Guru couldn’t see her. He was admiring his own reflection in a two-way mirror!

Angry voices floated from the end of the hall. Heart racing, Tookie tiptoed along opaque walls before they became clear again. Up ahead, Tookie spotted an
EMERGENCY EXIT TO THE M
sign with an arrow pointing to the left. Her way out! But she would have to pass the angry voices to get there.

Slowly, she slinked closer to the exit sign. The muffled voices grew louder and angrier.
Four more glass doors. Three more
. She rounded the corner and approached a massive set of double
doors. To Tookie’s surprise—and horror—they were slightly ajar. Persimmon stood guard outside, hands folded across her hard, flesh-colored plastic body. But she was facing the doors, not the hallway. Eavesdropping.

A voice floated out from behind the door, and footsteps paced angrily. “So tell me how you did it? Huh? What did you do? Did you use a shovel? Your bare hands?”

It was the
BellaDonna
!
In the flesh
!

Tookie could hear sobbing. Someone was in big trouble with the BellaDonna. And the BellaDonna seemed to be enjoying the show.

“Oh, so now you’re all sad and weak, but to the whole world you act like some damn martyr! You talk such rubbish about abolishing everything this place stands for, spewing trash about undoing the very place that
made
you! You scheming, conniving hypocrite! You phony, worthless wench! The mere sight of you makes me want to vomit!”

“If I’m so bad, so vile, so disgusting, why have me return here?”

Tookie’s eyes widened. It was … 
Ci~L
!

The BellaDonna let out a shriek. “Don’t you dare open your traitor lips to me unless I have granted you permission to speak! Do you know what it took for me to clean up that mess you made? I have been the BellaDonna of this school for ten years, and I thought I had seen it ALL! But what you did … what you thought acceptable to do with those girls’ bodies … it scares even me.”

Tookie blinked hard. “Girls’ bodies”? What did Ci~L do?

The exit sign blazed in the distance. Tookie knew she should
run for it as fast as she could, but she inched toward the BellaDonna’s office door instead, closer to Persimmon.

Ci~L’s sobs escalated. The BellaDonna’s voice lowered. “Yes, dear. You frightened ME. And no one can scare me—at least, that’s what I thought. And now you’ve dug up some new trash. What are you planning to do with that round one, that wee one, and that wan one? They were funny here at first—amusing, even, kind of like hideous-looking masked mascots. But I’m over them. Abolish them now.”

Tookie’s eyes widened. She knew immediately that the BellaDonna was referring to Dylan, Shiraz, and Piper.
But she didn’t mention me?
Tookie wondered, both guilty and relieved that the BellaDonna had left her out.

“Uh-uh. I want to keep them around,” Ci~L said boldly, her voice gaining strength. “And you have no choice but to let me.”

The BellaDonna scoffed. “Why in hell would I do that?”

“Well, contrary to what you—the most
un
loved of the beloved, the
cliquiest
of the chic, the definer of all things
stereotypical
, and the
extreme
leader of all of Bellas unlucky to be led—think,
knowledge
is power. And the knowledge I have will make you do whatever the hell I want. Because if you don’t, I will tell everyone your little secret.”

“And what secret is that?” the BellaDonna asked, in a voice that was nervously subdued.

“You made one grave mistake,” Ci~L said. “And I don’t mean torturing me for a half a friggin’ year. Or making me redo War of Words in my first-year uniform. Or demanding I answer calls at the Modelland agency, where I’ve had to tell clients ‘Ci~L is not available to model for you because she’s an ingrate.’ Or forcing me
to clean the floors of the Ugly Room with my tongue. Or gagging me like a horse while you pry my eyes open and make me watch old Modelland propaganda films for seven hours at a time while you drip saline in my eyes so they don’t dry out. Or denying me food for three days in a row to slim my ‘thick hips.’ Or making me feel so crazy and deranged that I have to freeze my face into a half-pleasant expression to hide the agonizing pain my body is truly suffering from every day!”

Ci~L stopped and gasped for breath. “No, woman, you made the mistake of insisting I work in the admissions department. Where I have full access to the new Bellas’ admissions records. Do you want to know what I saw? What I was shocked to see?”

The BellaDonna was silent.

“Before we go there,” Ci~L continued. “Let’s go over the three most important rules that each BellaDonna must abide by.”

The BellaDonna gasped. “That’s highly confidential! How do you know those rules?”

“I
read
them when I was enslaved in your admissions room, you idiot. So let’s go over those rules. I’ll let you go first, out of respect.”

“I will NOT play your little game,” the BellaDonna growled.

“Fine, then I’ll list them for you, in case you’ve forgotten,” Ci~L said. “One: You must set a world-changing definition of beauty and stick to it for five years. Two: All Gurus must have a combination of a defect and a power. And last but not least, three: Do not tamper with the predetermined admissions list!”

Predetermined?
Tookie thought. She’d never heard that. Girls everywhere trained and practiced and walked, hoped and dreamed! Nations made their fortunes promoting their local
T-DODs; companies reaped massive profits selling beautification methods for hopeful competitors, pushing the message that the dream was alive for all! Desperate girls lost their lives every year to the Pilgrim Plague, certain that Modelland got it wrong! She thought of the protest signs in the square:
IT’S ALL A SHAM! A PHONY EXAM!

Were they … right?

“You tampered with the official list of new Bella candidates,” Ci~L said. “You scratched out one worthy candidate. And you know the consequences. You’ll be forced out. You’ll live a life of immense physical pain and suffering. The Ugly Room would be just the beginning.”

There was a long pause. Tookie waited, her heart pounding hard.

“Ci~L, what do you want?” the BellaDonna demanded.

“You’re not abolishing those girls.
I
want them.”

“Why?”
The BellaDonna’s voice was laced with something that almost sounded like fear.

Ci~L laughed devilishly, almost evilly. “You
know
why. They’re my experiments.”

“If you don’t let me, what I did to those girls’ bodies just might have to happen again. This time, I’ll be successful—let the death march begin! C’mon,
Belly
Donna. You’re up for a little sacrifice, aren’t you?”

The BellaDonna sucked her teeth. Tookie bit down hard on her tongue to keep from crying out.
Experiment? Bodies? Sacrifice?

There was another long pause. Then the BellaDonna uttered one word in a tiny voice Tookie hadn’t thought the woman possessed. “Okay.”

“Good girl,” Ci~L said, like she was speaking to a dog that had just sat at his master’s command. “You hold up your end of the bargain and I won’t say a word about
your
little experiment either. How you replaced a worthy candidate with …

“Tookie De La Crème.”

“Tookie De La Crème,” Myrracle’s voice floated from the back of the line of Pilgrims, “and
Intoxibella
. They don’t really go together like ballet and tap shoes, do they, Creamy?”

“Of course they don’t,” Creamy snapped, stepping gracefully over a rocky outcropping.

The Pilgrims had been hiking for months. Bruised and battered, hungry and dirty, the Pilgrims trudged to an overlook and collapsed against the rocks.

Suddenly, ominous winds blew in. The Pilgrims raised the makeshift weapons they’d fashioned from random metal items they’d discovered on the mountain and sharpened: Abigail held
up a piece of metal siding; Harriet, a rusty belt buckle; Lynne, what looked like a piece of a twisted car bumper. By now, they knew that as soon as these winds kicked up, horrible creatures known as Tumble Terrors blew in with them.