Belle of the Brawl Read online

  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.

  17

  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!”

  The Post-it Note was one of Dr. G’s favorite examples of modern-day success. Something as simple as small squares of paper had made billions of dollars, simply because someone added adhesive. Simple, elegant, effective, Dr. G liked to say.

  Charlie wrinkled her nose, stood up and headed toward the LCD note board that covered a wall of her workstation. She put a writing thimble on her index finger and began to grope for inspiration.

  Improve your life TODAY, she wrote, then ran her palm over the glowing script and erased the phrase. After a moment, the perfect name for her new invention came to her. It was only thing that could improve her life today, but it would be impossible to invent. Sighing, she wrote it down in big capital letters anyway: HEARTBREAK HELPER.

  Charlie smiled at the shimmering board for a moment before heading over to her computer to do some research.

  She Googled “what makes humans feel happy?” and eagerly read the first fifty hits that seemed to have research on their side. Why hadn’t she ever thought to approach her own happiness with the scientific methods she used in her studies?

  In a few minutes, Charlie compiled a list of scientifically proven happiness helpers and hastily wrote them in bullet points on her invention board. After she crossed off everything that couldn’t be simulated, her list looked like this:

  THINGS THAT INCREASE HAPPINESS:

  —Smiling (fake smiling leads to real smiling!)

  —Strong connections to community, friends, and family

  —Sense of purpose

  —Pets, houseplants (though there was that baby seal invented in Japan….)

  —Exercise

  —Nature

  —Aromatherapy (tangerine!)

  Tangerines and smiling. Charlie leaned forward on her lab stool and rested her chin in her palm to think. It wasn’t a lot to work with, but it was a start. Charlie opened up the 3–D rendering program on her laptop and began to sketch some ideas. A few minutes of aimless sketching ticked by, but the faces of Darwin and Allie still loomed more 3–D in Charlie’s mind than any invention.

  Charlie rubbed her tired eyes with fisted hands. She was at a loss. How could she invent something to cure heartbreak when she was such an emotional wreck?

  Beep!

  A blinking box popped up on her laptop screen. It was Bee, wanting to IM from across the Atlantic in Oxford.

  Bee: Hallo luv. How is my brilliant girl?

  Charlie: OK…

  Bee: Just OK?

  Charlie didn’t want to explain the whole sordid story to her mother. After all, Bee had given up a thirteen-year career as Shira’s assistant so that Charlie could attend the Academy. The last thing Charlie wanted was for her mother to think she wasn’t serious about her education or that she was compromising her place at the Academy by stewing over Darwin. Besides, her IM window wasn’t big enough and her time wasn’t unlimited enough to even scratch the surface. So she settled on generic loneliness.

  Charlie: Lonely. Miss you. Miss the way things used to be with Darwin.

  Bee: In this world, you have to count on yourself for your own happiness. And lucky for you, you inherited your father’s talent with his hands.

  Charlie: But what if that isn’t enough?

  Bee: It has to be. You can’t depend on anything in life to always go your way, but your talent is yours forever. Make me proud.

  Charlie: I will. Promise. Gotta run. Big kiss.

  Charlie nibbled on her lower lip and twirled her three cameo bracelets around her wrists—the bracelets were the only things she owned that had belonged to her dad. One bracelet had a picture of Bee from 1980, when her mother looked a lot like Charlie did now. One had a picture of her father in his Royal Navy uniform. And the other cameo was empty. It used to have a picture of Darwin inside it, until Shira forced her to hand it over as a condition of acceptance into the Academy.

  Ignoring the crash of a shattered tray of beakers one of the IM’s dropped somewhere behind her, Charlie ran her finger along the ivory cameos, desperate for an idea. She looked over her shoulder at her notes on the board. Smiling… tangerine… smiling… tangerine.

  Suddenly, a lightbulb went off. She had it.

  Charlie raced over to the LCD vending machine and punched in the components she needed. A few minutes later, a shiny white lab robot that looked like an ottoman on wheels sped up to her cubicle with all the materials: an oscillating fan, which she would repurpose as an aromatherapy delivery device, and a series of pulleys that Charlie hoped would get a user to smile.

  An hour later, Charlie set down her soldering iron and looked up at the clock. She had only a few minutes to test her device. She sat down and put her head through the hole in the helmet she’d rigged up as part of her Heartbreak Helper.

  Two tiny plastic prongs pushed Charlie’s lips—which had been set in frown mode for so long that they seemed to have lead weights on their corners—into a forced-yet-comfortable smile. Then her own recorded voice said “please close your eyes” and a light mist of tangerine essence filled her nostrils.

  Charlie felt ridiculous under her Heartbreak Helper helmet, but after twenty seconds of forced smiling and sniffing tangerines, she had to giggle at the silliness of her synthetic happiness producer. And giggling made her feel… happy. Which meant the helmet actually worked! For a few minutes, at least.

  When she pulled the Heartbreak Helper off, Charlie did an emotional assessment. She felt a tiny bit less panicked, less miserable, and ever-so-slightly more hopeful that things would be okay, that she would survive this glitch with Darwin and maybe even be a better person for it. Which led her to consider Allie. Post-helmet, Charlie decided that even the Allie question would resolve itself somehow. Allie wouldn’t—couldn’t!—hate Charlie again. Not after everything they’d been through together. Maybe Charlie would manage to make Bee proud after all, even from the middle of the most lopsided love triangle in history.

  Charlie stood up and smoothed out her platinum coveralls and a faint smile spread over her lips, no helmet required.

  18

  HEALTH AND WELLNESS COMPOUND

  ACHILLES TRACK

  THURSDAY, OCTOBER 7TH

  7:08 P.M.

  Crouched in a deep lunge on the clay track, Allie sniffed the air around her. The smell of the ocean mingled with cut grass in the soft night breeze, almost masking the faint tang of sweaty socks still lingering from the Alphas in Motion class. Allie rose from her lunge and swung her arms around in big circles, fully embracing her performance in the role of Casual Jogger. She had dressed the part, donning a reflective Alphas unitard with matching hood that covered everything but her face in stretchy, shiny silver. Patented by Brazille Industries the unitard pressed down body hair and flab, making the person inside it sleek and fast, all while monitoring body heat, wicking sweat away, and cooling the skin. Her Pro-Woman Sneakers—another Brazille product—beamed an LCD display onto the track just in front of wherever Allie stood, informing her of how many steps she’d taken (46), calories she’d burned (12), and miles she’d completed (.04).

  The track was on a low cliff next to the ink-black ocean, and the sounds of crashin
g waves filled Allie’s ears. She cocked her head, hoping to pick up the sound of Darwin’s footsteps. She’d heard he came here every day at seven to run. Unable to pick up any Pumas headed her way, Allie began a slow shuffle around the track, hoping she wouldn’t break an actual sweat and ruin her eye makeup before Darwin showed up.

  But Allie wasn’t here to jog. Not for long, anyway. She was here to fall.

  Getting into character, she forced her sneakers to pick up the pace, careful to keep her stomach sucked in and her shoulders back as she ran—her unitard didn’t leave anything to the imagination. Channeling her inner runner wasn’t that hard. All she had to do was go. Allie pumped her Lycra-encased arms and forced her legs to bound along the rubberized track. In a few seconds, she was already exhausted.

  As the clock ticked, Allie cursed whoever invented such an unpleasant activity. People do this for fun? Allie’s chest felt like someone had parked a car on it, and her muscles burned so badly she could almost hear them shrieking. Channeling Careen’s advice again, Allie tried to turn off her thoughts and pretend that she wasn’t about to take a fall on purpose. She needed to look totally natural when she fell in front of Darwin. But what if she broke a tooth? What if she did permanent damage to her face and needed a nose job or a skin graft, and wound up looking like Heidi Montag?

  She pressed on and tried to focus on how much Darwin would dig dating a fellow runner—especially one he had rescued after a fall. Hopefully, Allie thought as she rounded a bend in the track, he wouldn’t notice how red her face was from the exertion, or the unladylike, extra-large beads of sweat pooling on her upper lip and dripping down her chin…

  Out of nowhere, Allie’s thin-soled track shoes skidded on a patch of gravel, and before she knew it, her upper body was sailing out ahead of her while her legs bent back, sending her feet flying into the air behind her. She was falling for real, and Darwin wasn’t even there to save her! Before she had time to break her fall with her hands, Allie landed chin-first on the clay track.