Modelland (53 page)

“Love ’em.” Tookie grabbed ZhenZhen’s hands and glanced at the stadium. “Wow! You’re finally competing! Are you excited?”

“Excited—but
scared
!” ZhenZhen giggled nervously. Then she noticed Ci~L beside Tookie. Her straight black hair instantly morphed to mimic Ci~L’s lustrous auburn waves. “Ci~L!” she cried. “OhmyGod, I’m freaking out! I keep
trying
to stay myself, but I keep turning into you! Do you think that’s okay? I mean, my power is Chameeleoné!”

Ci~L touched ZhenZhen’s head, transforming her hair back to its authentic black. “You’re using the power wrong, honey. Chameeleoné is the ability to assume different
looks
—not to impersonate another Intoxibella. People want an original—not a knockoff. The
real
you is far more special than the you who tries to be me.”

ZhenZhen pressed her hand to her breast. “Do you really think so?”

“ZhenZhen, girl, you are way more beautiful than I could ever be. If I was insecure, I’d be changing into you. Every single day.” Ci~L smiled beatifically.

Tookie couldn’t help but grin too. There was something so different about Ci~L ever since she’d shared the story about her dead friends
—and
told them goodbye. It was like a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

Then a horn sounded, and ZhenZhen’s eyes widened. “OhmyGodOhmyGod, that’s for
me
! I have to go!” ZhenZhen’s hair then began zapping back and forth between black and auburn.

“ZhenZhen!” Ci~L said both sternly and lovingly.

ZhenZhen paused, squeezed her eyes shut tightly, and shook her head hard left to right. Her black long tresses returned and she ran toward her Bella mates.

“Smoke the competition, girl!” Dylan yelled after her.

Finally, they made it to the D. Ci~L shuttled them into their bedrooms and flung open their various closet doors. Inside each closet was a shimmering two-tone green leotard bodice with a deep V-neck and a stiff floor-length skirt with a long slit in the front, exposing their bare legs. There were green thigh-high boots as well. “Dress fast!” Ci~L commanded. “And don’t forget your Sentura!”

Once they dressed, Ci~L, now clad in the same outfit as the Unicas, hurried them out onto Beautification Boulevard once more. But eerily, the courtyard was empty. The golden walkway was as smooth as glass. The tree branches rustled quietly in the breeze. The hedge faces frowned disparagingly at Ci~L and her charges.
You’re too late
, one mouthed.

“Not if I can help it,” Ci~L said through her teeth, yanking Tookie’s wrist and pulling her forward. “You four are seeing that ceremony if I have to teleportal your butts inside.”

They sprinted toward the stadium but were too late. Two Mannecants had just shut the big iron doors.

“Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Ci~L yelled as she stomped her foot.

Piper suddenly froze. “What was
that
?”

The others, even Ci~L, stopped and stared at her. “What was
what
?” Dylan asked.

“That noise.” Piper gestured at the wall. “I heard something on the other side!”

Tookie listened hard, which wasn’t easy over the cheers from the stadium. But then she heard a gurgle too. And a snapping twig. Whatever it was sounded close.

“Oh my God!” Piper shrieked.
“Look!”

Shiraz, Dylan, and Tookie followed her gaze. On the top of the wall was a sooty, skeletal, groping
hand
.

Everyone shrieked and jumped away. Five angry fingers twitched as though stricken with palsy. When its second hand appeared, the girls grabbed one another. The hand’s flesh was filthy and bloodied. Each fingernail was long, comma-shaped, and obsidian-black. They looked like the talons of a prehistoric flesh-eating bird.

The top of a muddy head appeared next, followed by two bulbous, demonic, cruddy eyes. Everyone screamed and took another step back.

Two shoulders appeared next on the wall, then an abdomen and legs. As the figure caught sight of them, its eyes widened. A growl emitted from the depths of its belly.

Piper gasped. “It’s a
LeGizzârd
! They killed my father! And now one’s come for me!” Tears streamed down the face of the normally stoic girl.

“What? That’s impossible,” Ci~L whispered, placing her hands authoritatively on her hips. But even she took one timid step backward.

The figure hefted its body onto the top of the wall and then dropped down in front of them in a cloud of dust to rest on its haunches. It had a gnarled, hunched back. It licked its lips as if it hadn’t eaten for days and considered them an acceptable meal. Thick saliva dripped down its chin. Piper shrank behind Dylan. Tookie squeezed her hand.

The scaly, charred monster turned and stared directly at Tookie. Its sooty eyes narrowed, and hundreds of cracks of dry mud covered its face. Tookie’s gaze fell to the monster’s hands. There was a filthy, tattered doll tucked under its arm. A doll Tookie knew all too well. This wasn’t a LeGizzârd. It was …

“C-C-Creamy?” Tookie cried, and promptly passed out.

“Tookie, get up, damn it!”

The voice sounded foggy and far away. Bright light shone in Tookie’s eyes, and she sat up, looked around, and gasped.

She was in her old bedroom in Peppertown. The room was its usual mess, Myrracle’s things strewn over every inch of space. Myrracle lay in her bed by the window, giggle-snoring happily.

Tookie ran her hands down her face, her heart pounding fast. Everything she’d endured and experienced, Piper, Shiraz, and Dylan, Bravo and Ci~L and seeing her mother climbing over the wall … none of it had been real.

It was all a dream
.

She felt a strange mix of loss, devastation and relief—at least she didn’t have to face Creamy’s wrath in Modelland now. But then tears dotted her eyes, revealing the truth and her disappointment.

“Tookie, get
up
!”

Tookie looked around her bedroom, and before she could respond, her vision went foggy. Giggle-snoring Myrracle started to fade, and once more, Tookie descended into maddening darkness.

“Tookie, I
know
you hear me, damn it!”

She opened her eyes again. And leaning over her was the monster. A giant wall rose up behind it.

“If I have to tell you
one
more time to stand. The hell. Up …”

Tookie sat up and stared at the monster with the voice of her mother. A hot ball of fear simmered in the pit of her stomach. She felt suspended between two worlds.

“C-Creamy?” Tookie whispered again to the creature, drawing back.

Shiraz helped Tookie to her feet. “Who is monster, and how you know it?”

“It—it’s my mother,” Tookie sputtered. The girls gaped at her. Tookie reached out to the cruddy beast. “Are you
real
?”

“Did you fall on your big head just now?” Creamy spat. “Of course I’m real!”

Tookie gazed around dazedly. She felt caught between the Tookie she had been and the Tookie she now was. The M building loomed in the distance. The golden plaza sparkled.

Piper, crouched in a ball, screamed. “Look! Another one!”

Another hand appeared at the top of the wall. An instant later, a second body dropped spastically into Modelland. When
it turned, Tookie’s heart stopped in her chest. Those perfect aqua-blue, single-colored eyes!
Myrracle!

“My sister?” Tookie said in disbelief. The words didn’t sound quite right coming out of her mouth.

“Your
sister
is part LeGizzârd?” Piper asked, looking at Tookie with the same fearful expression she had once reserved for Ci~L. Dylan grabbed Piper’s hand.

Everything seemed like it was happening in both slow and sped-up motion. Tookie felt dizzier and dizzier. Creamy and Myrracle were … 
here?

She remembered Creamy pointing to the sky as if she was cursing Tookie when Ci~L had carried her away in her pouch on T-DOD. Then she thought of what she’d overheard in the BellaDonna’s chambers. How the BellaDonna had switched a girl who rightfully belonged at Modelland with Tookie.

And now Tookie’s suspicions had proven true. That rightful girl was … 
Myrracle
. And Creamy was there on a mission.

“Long time, no see,” Creamy said to Tookie, taking her in from head to toe. “You look … different.” She reached back and yanked the hunch off her back. A cruddy backpack fell to the ground. She then forcefully pulled Tookie up. “Take us to the BellaDonna. Now.”

“Excuse m-me?”

Her mother’s grip on Tookie’s arm strengthened. “Are you deaf?” she mocked.

For a moment, Tookie couldn’t speak. She couldn’t take Creamy to the BellaDonna. If she did, her stay at Modelland would be all over. “Y-you could get in huge tr-trouble, Creamy. Y-you can’t be here.”

Creamy waved her hand dismissively. Then her eyes brightened as she noticed something behind Tookie. She marched ahead, crossing the golden M plaza. Golden exclamation marks followed her as she made her way to the O. “Myrracle, come!” Creamy shouted, snapping her fingers and shifting Bellissima in her arms.

Myrracle and everyone else trailed behind. Tookie turned and felt a momentary jolt of pleasure at seeing Myrracle looking so wretched while she herself wore Modelland Dress Uniform couture.

Creamy marched right up to the BellaDonna statue and stared at it. “BellaDonna!”

The statue remained still. Creamy stomped her sooty foot. “BellaDonna! I know you hear me!” Creamy roared. Brown spit spewed from her mouth with every syllable.

“Lady, today Madame BellaDonna may be a bit stone-faced and temperamental,” Ci~L said in a teasing, confiding voice, leaning close to Creamy. “Especially ’cause today’s the 7Seven Tournament.”

Creamy rolled her eyes, which, after months of starvation, looked like deep pits far back in her skull. “The 7Seven Tournament? That idiotic pomp and circumstance?” She turned back to the statue. “BELLADONNA!” she roared. “STOP IGNORING ME!”

“Oh my God! Look!” Dylan shrieked. The BellaDonna statue’s eyes began to blink. Her hands moved from their alluring pose. She arched her neck way down and gazed upon the filthy woman in the O. Her brow furrowed. The corners of her mouth dipped into a frown. Then she burst into song.

Creamy stomped her foot again, interrupting the BellaDonna’s song. “Will you stop that ridiculous singing?”

Tookie and the Unicas exchanged shocked looks.

The BellaDonna continued to scowl. Her gaze scanned the others. Her eyes narrowed, especially when she noticed Ci~L. “Of course
you’d
be part of this,” she hissed.

“I don’t know what
this
is, but it’s pretty damn entertaining,” Ci~L said.

“Well?” Creamy stared at the statue. “Where the hell are you? You and I need to have a serious talk!”

The BellaDonna paused. More cheers exploded from inside the 7Seven stadium. Drums beat wildly. Tookie waited for Modelland security to approach. She knew the BellaDonna would not conduct a visit with a mere mortal just as the most important tournament of the year was about to begin. Not with her public waiting. Not with grand, important, life-changing decisions to be made. Not with the entire Bored waiting for her.

Amazingly, the giant BellaDonna statue sighed and stretched her arm toward a thick hedge. “All of you, go to the last ZipZap on the left through there!
Now!
”

Tookie gasped.
Seriously?
Then the statue went stiff, the decision made.

Everyone marched off toward the hedges to the ZipZap. “Creamy!” Myrracle cried. “Do we
have
to go inside that jiggedy-aggedy thing?”

Tookie turned to Ci~L, who lingered outside the hedge with her. “You’re coming with us, right?”

“I don’t think so, Tookie,” Ci~L said, scratching her back. “Your mom and your sister remind me of when I, um … when I dug up my …”

Then Tookie heard a horn blare behind her. When she turned, she saw a familiar face staring with wonderment at the brand-new stadium. His hair slicked back, his formal Bestosterone uniform tightly fitted to his body, and a little bruise over his left eye, perhaps from where someone smacked him hard during ManAttack.

Bravo
.

He turned, as if sensing Tookie watching. When he saw her, his expression was one of utter confusion. The last he knew, she had said she was leaving Modelland.

Everything Bravo had told Tookie just before they fought in ManAttack flooded her brain like a disease.
I made a bet. The weird-looking ones … they’re the ultimate challenge
. She let out a sniff. But as she was about to turn away, she noticed the look on his face, as if he didn’t want her to break eye contact. And then he licked his thumb and pantomimed wiping Tookie’s eyebrows.

Tookie’s mouth fell open. How dare he do
that
, of all things? She made up her mind that she would never forgive him.
Ever
.

You might as well be dead to me, Bravo
.

“We’re waiting!” Creamy said from inside the hedge.

Ci~L backed away. “I’m sorry, Tookie, you’re on your own with this one. I’m so sorry, but I’m feeling the urge to go find a reed.”

But Tookie looked at Ci~L pleadingly. This was all too much: her mother’s return, Myrracle, the stress of Bravo … “Please, Ci~L? I can’t do this alone. And I don’t want
you
to be alone right now.”

Ci~L wavered for a minute, then nodded.

Tookie walked into the clearing and approached the ZipZap on the end. She glanced over her shoulder and then ducked inside. Creamy followed. In seconds, they had all slid through the long tube and emerged at the end of a dim corridor.

Piper inhaled. “Blood oranges.”

“At least
somethin
’ smells fresh,” Dylan said, eyeing Creamy and Myrracle.