Belle of the Brawl (11 page)

“Well, nice seeing you,” she finally said, giving Mel a tight smile. “Gotta run!”

“Maybe Mel should walk you to acting class,” Charlie suggested a little too eagerly.

“Sure, I could do that,” Mel said, nodding. “It’s kind of on my way.”

“Nah.” Allie shook her head. “I have a monologue to memorize. Gotta do it solo, of course! Bye!”

Without waiting for a reply, Allie whirled around on the toe of her gladiator sandal and took off, power-walking down the path and not looking back. Charlie was wrong—faking an interest in Mel wasn’t where Allie’s acting talents were needed. She took a breath of the heavy
jungle air and moved her focus back to Operation Puppy Love.

Inspiration! Or was it motivation? Allie couldn’t remember what actors said. She smiled to herself as she walked, realizing that it didn’t matter—she had them both.

THE MIDDLE OF LAKE ALPHA
DANCE BOOT CAMP HELL

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6TH
9:12 A.M.

“Music—on!” In the middle of Lake Alpha, surrounded by tree-capped mountains and with nothing over her head except Mimi’s threats of expulsion, a clear blue sky, and a sparkly black swim cap to protect her blow-out, Triple straddled her surfboard like it was a horse and she was a corseted woman in the eighteenth century. She directed her command to the round waterproof aPod amplifier floating like a buoy a few feet away, where “I Will Survive” blasted from the speakers.

Skye crouched into position, her back arched and her arms pressed tightly together, and snuck a look at Triple before tucking her head down between her shoulder blades.

Apparently, Triple owned the water just like she owned the dance studio. Triple’s black wetsuit was totally dry from the waist up—she hadn’t gotten so much as a droplet of water
on it after swimming out to the middle of Lake Alpha with Skye an hour ago. Skye’s skimpy gold string bikini wasn’t so lucky. Shivering and rubbing her hands along her upper arms to try to generate some heat, Skye looked longingly toward the narrow strip of white sand on the shore, where a pile of towels, hoodies, and yoga pants awaited them.

“Tell me why we keep doing the routine to Gaynor and not Gaga?” Skye whined, clawing at the air as a tiny gust of wind threatened to topple her off the shiny white surfboard.

One of Triple’s tawny, slender arms twitched in time with the music, while the other remained firmly planted on her perfectly proportioned hip. She narrowed her golden eyes and shot Skye a look that said
more dance, less talk.

“Because,” Triple growled, “relying on the music to dictate your dancing is one of many bad habits we’re trying to break. Now stop stalling! Keep your focus!”

Skye sighed, squinting her teal eyes at the pine-topped mountains ringing the lake and watching the air-chairs crawl up Mount Olympus like ants on an anthill. She closed her eyes and tried to astrally project herself into one of the chairs, but when she opened them she hadn’t moved an inch from the gently rocking surfboard.

Taking a deep breath of pine-scented air, Skye tensed her muscles and concentrated on keeping her balance on the swaying board. The surfboard routine was all about
balance. When she practiced the routine in the llama cage, surrounded by well-placed llama poop, it was all about accuracy. One wrong step, and shoes became ews. When she did the routine in the sauna wearing ankle weights, it was all about endurance.

And when she did the routine in her sleep, it was all about insanity.

For the past twenty-four hours, Triple had been following Skye around, tapping notes into her aPod and creating a spreadsheet that she may as well have called
Reasons Skye Sucks and Should Give Up Dancing for a Career as a Dental Hygienist.

Skye had no idea how she was supposed to get through five more days of one-on-one rehearsals with Triple. Unlike Gloria, Skye wouldn’t survive.

“And a-one, two, three, and four!” yelled Triple, raising a pair of huge waterproof binoculars to her eyes so she could view Skye’s moves in sharp detail. “Remember, strong core! Fluid arms!”

Skye nodded. When this week was over, she’d either be good enough for Alvin Ailey or nuts enough for Alvin and the Chipmunks.

As Gloria began to belt, Skye started the routine. Her feet were like suction cups on the surfboard, stepping and sliding so quickly and carefully that the surfboard stayed horizontal, miraculously not tipping her into the deep.

At first I was afraid, I was petrified

Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side

Determination to stay afloat coursing through her chilled veins, Skye hip-swiveled, executed a perfect three-sixty-degree turn, and did a rocker-chic faux-headbanger dip-one-two, her arms pounding the air above her bunned hair. And then she felt it. The board began to go vertical, sliding out from under her like a tablecloth yanked out from a set table by a magician.

“
Nooo!
” Skye scream-moaned loud enough to shake the pine trees on top of Mount Olympus. She clawed desperately at the board with her toes, trying to find her center, but it plunged nose-first into the water. And a millisecond later, so did Skye.

Sputtering and choking as she surfaced, Skye swam-spun around until she spotted Triple, then grabbed the board and swam over to Her Highness. Her Dryness was more like it.

“Nice recovery,” Triple smirk-smiled. “We’ve made progress, even if it doesn’t seem like it. You stayed on a lot longer than the first five times.”

“Have you always been this sadistic, or do I bring it out in you?” Skye swam her board closer to Triple’s and was about to “accidentally” kick a mouthful of water at the dance diva, when Triple pointed a pale orange coral reef–colored fingernail across the lake.

“Check it,” Triple whisper-smiled, pulling her binoculars off and handing them to Skye, pointing over Skye’s right shoulders. “Turn around. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

“You gave me sore quads, paranoia that Mimi hates me, and now a good chance of getting pneumonia….” Skye could have extended her list for days, but when she dog-paddled her board to face east, she fell silent. The
Joan of Arc
, Shira’s yacht, was slicing a smooth path through the lake. She squinted, and through the fringe of her waterproof-mascara-coated lashes, she could make out two figures sprawled out on anchor-shaped couches on the yacht’s deck. “Who is it?”

“Binoculars, Einstein,” eye-rolled Triple.

“Ohmuhgud.” Holy toe shoes, Syd was with another girl! Skye’s heart did a joyous tour glissade. Syd and Seraphina Hernandez-Rosenblatt—a successful fashion designer and budding neuroscientist determined to bridge the gap between brain chemistry and ready-to-wear—looked cozier than a Snuggie commercial. They were passing
The Notebook
back and forth and looked like they were reading aloud. To each other. Skye focused the binoculars to sharpen her view and make sure her eyes weren’t playing tricks on her. She smiled as she saw a lone tear drip down Syd’s chiseled cheek, while Seraphina had already squeezed out several that were now streaking her Botticelli-beautiful face.

“Looks like Syd moved on after all,” Triple remarked, paddling closer to Skye.

“I cannot believe it,” Skye muttered. Sure, she was thrilled to be rid of Syd, but what about all those poems he wrote, all his talk of
undying love
for Skye? “I guess he wasn’t that into me after all.”

“No, he was definitely into you. Those emo boys give it all away up front. They’re obsessed with being in love, more than anything else. They really just need a girl around to stroke their fragile egos.”

“I
so
am not the girl for that job,” said Skye, smiling.

“Nope.” Triple shook her head. “You have major goals.”

“He didn’t even wait a day!” Skye giggled, delirious with the realization that her Syd saga was over.

Triple’s eyes crinkled up in the corners with mirth and when they met Skye’s, the two girls began to giggle uncontrollably. Their laughter soon escalated to hysterical guffaws, which quickly turned to the kind of shaking, silent laughter you only did with real friends. Skye paddled over to Triple and gave her a celebratory hug that nearly sent both of them tipping into the lake. Finally, she was free of Suffocating Syd, and Triple was the one who’d made it happen. The girl had drive, and drive meant power.

When the
Joan
passed them, Skye looked at her frenemy: With her perfect tawny complexion, her fab and always-flawless blow-out, her long limbs that could dance any routine perfectly after seeing it just once, and her wide yet rare smile capped off with twinkling golden eyes,
Triple was a stunner. When Triple let loose and laughed, her beauty—both inner and outer—radiated over the lake like an enchanted mist.

“One more peek,” Skye said. “Just to see if they’re kissing yet.” She put the binoculars to her eyes once more, but this time what she saw wiped the smile off her face like her dance towel removed perspiration after a long workout. Skye scowled, her peaceful moment long gone, replaced by a sinking feeling, along with the hope that the
Joan
might sink along with her heart. Syd and Seraphina weren’t alone on the yacht. Taz was there, too. With company.

Through the round lenses, three others appeared on deck just a few feet away from Syd and sobbing Seraphina. Skye frowned, focusing the binoculars on Taz’s chiseled jaw, surrounded on both sides by the white-blond Trapezoid twins. The Trapezoids (a stage name, of course) were slender, willowy girls who had been raised in a traveling circus family. They were trapeze artists and could swallow fire, and after achieving worldwide YouTube celebrity at age thirteen, they’d gone on to raise millions of dollars for Katrina victims by becoming world-class concert promoters. They brought new meaning to a bunch of words that Skye knew also applied to her:
blonde, party person, boy magnet
. And now they were draped all over Taz like a pair of tacky curtains.

“Forget Taz. Let’s run through it one more time….”
Triple fiddled with the buttons on the aPod, but Skye didn’t have the strength to get back up on her board. She shivered, suddenly desperate to get out of the lake, which had gone from a tepid bath to a refrigerated Brita in a matter of seconds.

“Can we call it a day?” she tried, wiggling her eyebrows as she attempted to put the image of Taz and the twins on simmer instead of a rolling boil.

“Nawt a chance!” Triple’s smile was long gone now, along with any friendship that might have begun to blossom between them.

Skye shivered again, blinking back tears and watching with unsurprised eyes as a few dark clouds came rolling in, blocking out what had been—for a moment, anyway—a gloriously blue sky, full of possibility. The only thing that could warm her up now was the thought that soon her week with Triple would be over.

SCIENCE COMPLEX
MARIE CURIE INVENTORS LAB

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 6TH
3:04 P.M.

“Good morning, creators!” Dr. Irina Gorbachevsky, brilliant nanotechnologist and jolly Alpha Invention Mentor, shouted down from the top of the lab’s iridescent spiral staircase. Designed to mimic the shape of a strand of DNA, the staircase spun dramatically up through the center of the enormous lightbulb-shaped room. Like the building itself, the stairs were made entirely from recycled glass, and covered with holographic scientific formulas.

Dr. G pushed her bright green rectangular glasses up the bridge of her nose and smiled, locking her raisin-colored eyes with Charlie’s and flashing her favorite student a comforting smile. Dr. G was a pioneer in nanotechnology and string theory, and Charlie smiled back at her warmly. Then she put her hands on her laptop keyboard and readied her fingers to record any words of scientific wisdom Dr. G might have.

“Today,” Dr. G continued as she traveled bouncily down the spiral strand of DNA toward her protégées, patting her frizzy gray hair with one of her pudgy hands, “we’ll take a
break on our own projects and do a brain-stimulating mini-invention session.”

The only brain stimulation Charlie had experienced since Darwin dropped her in the jungle was shocks of guilt, confusion, and loneliness. Charlie rolled up the sleeves of her platinum coveralls and spun around on her ergonomic lab stool, her body mimicking her thoughts. She pulled her chocolate brown hair up into a loose ponytail and glanced around the room, waiting for Dr. G to continue.

To the right of Charlie’s cubicle was the workstation of Yvette Chan, a spiky-haired cyber-punk obsessed with touch-screen technology, and to her left was Lydia Bjorgstrum, a half-Swedish food scientist who only spoke in monosyllables and worked 24/7 on developing cloning techniques for cuts of meat. The IM’s were friendly enough, and Charlie appreciated their passion and their drive, but she couldn’t pour her heart out to them. They were more interested in molecules and microscopes than meeting boys.

Charlie sighed and turned back to Dr. G, who had made her way to the invention floor and now stood under the etched-glass section of the lightbulb. It read:
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.
Charlie had read and reread the sentence, but right now her only dream was to be able to confide in Allie again. She was so confused—never before had she been less sure about her and Darwin. Too bad the only person she trusted enough to
confide in about something this important liked him, too.

For Allie’s sake, Charlie wanted to get over Darwin. But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t figure out how. She looked longingly at the lab’s LCD vending machine, where the IM’s could type in whatever tool or material they needed, and receive it instantly via delivery from robot lab assistants that looked like white plastic beetles. Charlie wished she could order up a little bit of clarity with a side of emotional glue to repair her breaking heart.

Dr. G yanked her lab coat down along her protuberant tummy and continued with the day’s assignment. “I want everyone to invent something small, simple, and streamlined. Something that will improve your life
today
, instead of changing civilization as we know it. Set your invention intentions first. Remember, sometimes aiming small produces huge results. Look at the Post-it Note!”