Modelland (42 page)

It was Desperada.

Desperada ran toward the wall. When she was a few feet away, she turned back and spoke to the crowd of gawking girls. Her eyes were puffy and red-rimmed. “My life is not worth living without him! You all can have this Intoxibella nonsense. I am intoxicated by his
love
. I need to be with him!”

She then backed up slowly. When she reached the wall, she turned around and began to scale it nimbly, climbing on the objects jutting out like a narrow staircase.

Oh my God
, Tookie thought. She and the Unicas had just been talking about escaping over the wall at dinner, and Desperada was actually
doing
it!

“Excuse me!” a voice called from the back of the group. Suddenly, Ci~L pushed to the front. She was dressed in a Modelland nightgown. The sheerness of the fabric exposed the welts on her back for all the Bellas to see. Tookie shuddered. Shiraz, Dylan, and Piper took terrified steps away from her.

But Ci~L was only interested in Desperada. “What are you doing?” she screamed to the girl on the wall. “Get down!”

Gunnero Narzz pushed through the girls and eyed Ci~L. “Oh, it’s
you
,” he said, a sinister grin widening across his face. “We let you out of the Ugly Room for good behavior and
this
is what you concentrate your efforts on? You should let the desperate Desperada throw her life away for a lad! It would be some vintage entertainment for our nosy eyewitnesses here. C’mon, Body Girl, you know you want front-row seats to this old-fashioned show.” He motioned to the audience of openmouthed girls.

“Body Girl!” Shiraz whispered. “Now we know what that mean!”

“
Dead
body girl,” Piper said, remembering the terrifying story Tookie had told them. The four Unicas shuddered

Desperada climbed higher. Ci~L leapt up to try to grab her ankles but missed. The moonlight danced upon Ci~L’s hand, and Tookie saw claws on the tips of Ci~L’s fingers, not nails. When Desperada was almost at the top of the wall, she swiveled around and stared at the crowd of Bellas. “All of you who have left your boyfriends back at home are idiots! Do you know what they’re doing with other girls? Other girls who are jealous and wish they were
you
?”

“Desperada, you’re acting like a damn fool!” Ci~L exploded. “If you go, you’ll regret it! What happens to you will be permanent.”

Desperada softened for a moment, looking torn. Sensing that her words were sinking in, Ci~L climbed a few feet up the wall toward her. But that just prompted Desperada to climb even higher, to the very top of the wall.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Ci~L warned. “Once you cross that wall, you’ll—”

“—get exactly what young girls want!” Gunnero interrupted triumphantly. “To mature faster than nature intends! How fashionably late you’ll be. Climb, girl! Climb!”

Desperada stared at Ci~L, then Gunnero, confused. So was Tookie.

Ci~L glared at Gunnero. “Shut up! You’re just miserable about the way your life turned out, so now you’re trying to ruin everyone else’s!”

Gunnero smirked at her. “And you’re happy with the way
yours
turned out?”

Ci~L turned to Desperada. “Well? What are you going to do?”

Desperada was already eyeing the blackness on the other side of the wall. “I have to do this.…”

“Then do it!” Gunnero urged. The scar on his face stood out in the moonlight. “Run-a-Way Intensive to your man, honey!”

Desperada’s face went from panicked to calm. She looked at all the girls’ faces and then jumped down to the other side of the wall. Everyone screamed, waiting for some awful explosion or monstrous roar. Ci~L just stared at the wall blankly.

Then … dead silence.

Zarpessa wrinkled her nose. “Is that it? What a letdown! I thought whoever crossed would—”

A thick lightning bolt struck the wall, making everyone jump back. It sent an immense fountain of color into the air, and the barrier became transparent. Suddenly Desperada was visible on the other side, lying still on the ground.

“Is she dead?” Zarpessa chirped a little too excitedly.

Desperada’s body jolted, and she struggled to stand. Slowly, she rose to her feet, facing away from the crowd, her hair blowing in the howling wind. She brought her hands to her face.

Tookie looked around at her friends. “She seeming okay,” Shiraz said.

Gunnero snorted. “Be patient, little midget, the show has just begun. Desperada, turn to your adoring public!”

Desperada slowly turned to face the wall of girls. There was a chorus of screams. Tookie looked at the girl on the other side of the wall.

Desperada’s body was unchanged. But dark brown spots covered her cheeks and forehead. Wrinkled jowls drooped on either side of her jaws, and deep lines ran from both sides of her nose to the sides of her mouth. Her skin was pale and crumpled, like a cotton shirt that had been rolled up into a ball. The outer corners
of her eyes had branches upon branches of crow’s-feet leading off to her temples. Her hair had turned gray, thin, and brittle, exposing parts of her scalp.

“Oh my God,” Tookie whispered. Desperada’s face looked as though it belonged to someone of almost seventy, not a girl of fifteen.

Lightning struck again, and the wall reflected Desperada’s image back to her. She let out a bloodcurdling scream. “I’m sorry!” she said, pawing at the wall. “Let me back in! He won’t want me like this!”

Gunnero smiled and blew her a kiss.

“Wow, it
is
true,” Zarpessa said gleefully, completely without sympathy. “You age fifty years if you cross without permission.” She turned to the Unicas. “Oh, look, everybody! These four have crossed the aging barrier too! No, wait. They’re still young, but just
naturally
disgustingly ugly!”

Tookie turned around and glowered at Zarpessa, fuming with rage. She had never met anyone so foul and black-hearted in her life.

“This would be an opportune time to cash in on our Kamalini Headbangor bet,” Piper whispered. “Unfortunately, none of us won, so …”

“I’ll do it!” Tookie said furiously.

Instinctively, Tookie turned and
accidentally
tripped, shoving Zarpessa hard. Zarpessa stumbled back and fell to the ground, but sprang back up almost as quickly as a blow-up punching bag. When she saw that Tookie was the culprit, her lips spread into a smile.

“Oh, I see, you big-headed Unfortunate-Looking punk,” Zarpessa said so calmly it rocked Tookie to her core. “So, now
you’re ready, huh? Let’s go at it, then!” Zarpessa raised her fists. Tookie tried to summon every ounce of courage that hopefully lived somewhere deep inside her scrawny body.

“I’m ready for you, Zar-Opressa.” Tookie raised her fists as well. But they shook ever so slightly.

Dylan moved and stood between them. “Guys, don’t! Not now!”

“Aw, how cute,” Zarpessa said nastily. “Miss Parade Balloon comes to Miss Watermelon Head’s defense.” Then, shrugging, she stalked off to stand next to Chaste. “Oh, it’s
really
on now, big-head!” she yelled at Tookie over her shoulder.

A gondola-type roller coaster car appeared on Desperada’s side of the wall. “Take this senior ex-Modelland citizen down to her brace-faced teenage fellow!” Gunnero commanded. A large crane picked Desperada up by the collar of her uniform and placed her in the seat of the contraption. A U-shaped bar lowered in front of her, securing her in. Then the car zoomed away. “Here’s hoping your boyfriend is into discarded Modelland cougars!” Gunnero teased.

Thunder rumbled. Lightning struck the wall again, sending shock waves of electricity through it, reversing the transparency. And then a second rumble, far deeper in tone than thunder, shook the entire wall and the ground beneath them. Girls flew right and left as a wave traveled across the solid ground beneath their feet.

Gunnero smiled, then pointed into the distance at the O. The BellaDonna statue glowed, its arms outstretched, vibrating violently. Ci~L just stood there with a foreboding look in her eyes as everything started to crash to the ground around her. Tookie somehow knew that Ci~L, in tandem with the BellaDonna, was
responsible for the devastating tremor. Debris was falling everywhere. Everywhere but
on
Ci~L.

The Bellas all screamed and ran wildly, looking for places to duck and cover. Tookie and the Unicas found shelter under a large wooden table. They huddled there for what felt like forever as potted plants, tree limbs, chunks from the D, even dead birds that had apparently been struck midair, came crashing to the ground. The earthquake lasted three long minutes, until finally, the shaking abruptly stopped. The area looked ravaged and war-torn. Face bushes were uprooted. Statues lay in pieces on the path. The liquid gold in the M plaza was a sooty black. When Tookie looked over at the distant BellaDonna statue, it was no longer there. But immense footprints, each the size of a car, tracked through the once-golden plaza, straight to the M building.

Gunnero turned to address the girls. “The sun’s about to come up and show off those dun-colored faces of yours. Make sure you slap on lots of concealer to cover up those dark half-moons under your eyes, witnesses.”

Everyone trudged back to the D except Tookie, Shiraz, Dylan, and Piper. They stood at the wall, staring blankly at the spot where Desperada had climbed over. In the distance, Ci~L stared at them staring at the wall.

“We can’t leave this way,” Tookie whispered, turning to eye Ci~L. “We have to find another way out.”

Shortly after they returned to the D, Tookie selected a green pen from her journal and began to write in Oktooberfestian.…

The morning sun had come quickly. The rays of light cut through the fog that hung low over the mountain’s post-earthquake debris. Huge tree roots had been yanked out of the ground. Broken bricks from the D were strewn everywhere. As Tookie exited the D, the feeling in the air was funereal, as if they’d all attended a burial ceremony for someone who had died much too young. Even though everyone hadn’t witnessed the incident, the plaza was still atwitter with rumors and speculation.

“I hear it’s the BellaDonna’s doing,” Bibiana whispered as a clump of girls walked to class.

“I think she enjoys tormenting us,” Chaste added. “Every time a Bella ages, I bet she gets a huge shivery thrill up her stony spine.”

“There is something malicious surrounding Modelland!” said Kamalini.

“Maybe bad curse!” Shiraz said.

“Yeah, that’s why the mountain is so deadly,” Bibiana suggested. “I bet that’s why no one who tries to get to Modelland survives. What if demonic dead Bellas live there?”

The group of girls approached the area of the wall where Desperada had made her leap. The air there had a solemn feel to it, the temperature at least five degrees cooler than anywhere else in Modelland. Already, girls had placed bouquets of flowers and trinkets at the base of the wall to honor Desperada’s memory. A handmade sign read
DESPERADA, FOREVER YOUNG TO US
. Piper lit a candle.

As they stood before the wall, Tookie noticed something. She brought her hand to her mouth.
“Look!”

The wall had reconfigured itself to create a collage of Desperada before jumping and after. The image of her before she crossed the divide was made of smooth, lineless, polished stone. But the image of her after she’d crossed was constructed with weathered and cracked wood.