Sugar Coated

by Shannen Crane Camp

  Already Amber was in a dressing room, excited about something she had just made while Bennett frantically pushed buttons on her screen trying to finish her outfit in time to make her debut with Amber.

  Brynn was concentrating on the dark ensemble she was creating for her upcoming trip, having already stuffed Jonah’s black clothes into a shopping bag that dangled from her arm.

  “That looks very…monochromatic,” Ty said from behind Brynn, causing her to jump slightly.

  She turned to shoot him an icy look, which he saw right through, smiling at his friend’s attempt to be mad at him.

  “I’m trying to be unique,” she lied.

  “You don’t really have to try very hard,” he answered, walking closer to her so that he could look over her shoulder at the clothing creation screen.

  At this proximity she could smell his cologne and she was amazed at the power of smell. The scent instantly made her feel at home, and brought back the hundreds of memories she had with Ty. Even if she was upset with him for always trying to thwart her plans, she had to admit that he did it out of love. She couldn’t really fault him for that.

  She pushed the “create” button on her screen, which caused the wall dispenser to automatically start humming as it made her clothes. While she waited she turned back to Ty. He was standing close and looking down at her with worry lining his features. She stared back up at him, trying to look defiant, but failing miserably. Instead she let her eyes roam over the planes of his face and wondered if she was really willing to risk dying just to prove a point. She wasn’t sure she was okay with not seeing her friends again.

  Brynn brought her hand up to the small freckle right below Ty’s right eye that she loved. He hated it, but it was her favorite thing about his face. It made him so unique. She traced it lightly with her thumb, something she had done many times before, a faint smile on her lips. Ty placed his hand over hers and furrowed his brow.

  “Brynn, I know you’re not telling me everything,” he finally said, his voice deep and serious. “Please tell me what you’re really up to. I’m worried about you.”

  Brynn stared up at her friend, knowing she couldn’t tell him the truth—for his own good. He worried so much about her, that telling him what was going on would only add to his anxiety over her actions.

  “I can’t tell you right now,” she said finally. “Once I have everything figured out, I’ll let you know what’s going on. No reason to give you undue panic,” she tried to joke, her laugh sounding hollow.

  Ty didn’t look amused by this attempt to be lighthearted; it only deepened the look of concern on his face as he let go of her hand. He opened his mouth to protest, but was cut off by Amber’s appearance next to them, which Brynn was grateful for.

  “So?” she asked, doing a little turn to show her latest creation. She wore a knee-length sundress made of hot pink and black striped cotton, complete with pink flats and a black flower in her blonde and pink hair. “I liked the whole stripe trend, but I couldn’t really throw out my signature color,” she stated with a smile.

  Amber was always happiest when she was designing clothes. She and Bennett were geniuses when it came to clothing creation. They were never as crazy or extreme as most people in the city who opted for less subdued looks, but the pieces they made were timeless in a way.

  “I think it’s fantastic,” Brynn said, stepping away from Ty to show him their conversation was over.

  She was glad that Amber’s timing had been so perfect. No matter how much she wanted to keep the truth from Ty for his own good, she wasn’t sure she could lie to him for too long. Eventually she’d look into his deep brown eyes and give in. He was always so trusting that it was hard to keep him in the dark about something so important.

  “Thanks!” Amber said with a clap of her hands. “Ty?”

  Ty had been staring at Brynn intently, apparently having some inner conflict, and didn’t hear Amber’s question until Brynn elbowed him in the ribs. “What?” he asked, not sure what the physical assault had been for.

  “Do you like my dress?” Amber asked again, raising her eyebrow at her friend’s lack of interest.

  “Oh, yeah. It looks really good,” he said unconvincingly, barely glancing at Amber’s creation before he turned back to Brynn, trying to extract the truth simply by looking at her.

  “You’re such a boy,” Amber shot at him with an exasperated sigh. “Brynn, go try on what you made! I want to see it,” she added enthusiastically.

  Though Brynn didn’t want to show her friends her bizarre choice of outfit, it did present her with an opportunity to get out of her conversation with Ty without him asking her more questions, so she gratefully accepted the excuse and retreated into a dressing room.

  The walls in the dressing room were floor-to-ceiling mirrors, making it look like the small square room went on forever with millions of Brynn’s standing in a curved line. The effect always unsettled her slightly and she felt self-conscious seeing herself that much as she stripped out of her clothing. It always made her feel so exposed.

  Taking advantage of her solitude in the dressing room, Brynn pulled Jonah’s clothes out of her shopping bag and held them up, hoping she had gotten the measurements right. She had used a thick stretchy material so there would be some room for error, though not enough for a huge miscalculation. The black fabric looked especially dark next to her almost transparent skin as she examined her handiwork. The long sleeved black shirt and pants weren’t anything spectacular, but they would hide the pair well in the wilderness at night. She only wished she knew more about fabric and what kind of material would hide their body heat signatures from whatever wild animals might be lurking in the darkness.

  “Brynn, come see Bennett’s outfit,” Amber said with a knock on the dressing room door, causing Brynn to jump slightly.

  “I’ll be right out,” she called back, quickly shoving Jonah’s clothes into her bag and hoping she could conceal them with her own so they wouldn’t raise any questions from her friends.

  She hastily pulled on her stretchy black pants and long sleeved shirt that she knew would absorb sweat if the place they landed in happened to be hot, and hoped the material would offer some warmth if they landed in a freezing cold tundra. She couldn’t help thinking what a disadvantage they were at, not knowing what terrain they were about to face. If the train just had windows, their little adventure would be so much easier.

  Slipping on the black soft leather boots she had made and loosely braiding her long black hair, she looked in the mirror, satisfied with what she saw. She hadn’t exactly been on many covert missions before, but she felt like this was what it looked like to be incognito. Comparing her luminously pale skin to the black material, she wondered if she’d need to somehow camouflage her face and made a mental note to ask Jonah about that detail the next time she saw him.

  She had ordered black gloves and a scarf from the clothing creation screen for her and Jonah in case the weather was cold near Aywon, but decided to leave those out of her little modeling show for her friends. She didn’t want to be too obvious in her motives behind the outfit she’d made.

  Peeking her head cautiously around the door of her dressing room, she saw her friends standing expectantly nearby. Bennett wore a short black pleated skirt with a green and black striped top, her perfect smile beaming at Brynn’s obvious approval of this creation.

  “Bennett, that looks amazing!” she said honestly, wishing she had Bennett and Amber’s creativity.

  “It’s not that great,” she said modestly, though she was pleased by Brynn’s praise. “Let’s see what you came up with.”

  Brynn tried not to register the look of disappointment on her friend’s faces as she stepped around the door. She hadn’t exactly gone to great lengths to make her camouflage look stylish, but at that moment she wished she had just come to the shopping district on her own to complete this part of her mission. Amber and Bennett both adopted looks of strained enthusiasm while Ty just lo
oked like he was growing more suspicious by the second.

  “It really makes your eyes stand out,” Amber offered kindly, grasping at air for compliments on Brynn’s odd choice of clothing.

  “Yeah, and the color matches your hair. Just like our outfits do,” Bennett said, though having black clothes to match your naturally black hair wasn’t quite as impressive as having pink and green clothes to match your stylishly dyed hair.

  “It’s not my best work,” Brynn admitted, trying to sound like she knew it was a flop even though—for her purposes—it was exactly what she needed.

  “It’s great,” Amber assured her, though she quickly changed the subject. “I say we go eat something.”

  “Agreed,” Bennett chimed in a bit too quickly. “I want to go show off my new outfit.”

  “I think I’ll go change. It’s too hot out today for this,” Brynn said, turning back to her dressing room and retreating inside quickly.

  She looked at her hundreds of reflections in the walls of mirrors around her and allowed a smile to spread across her face. Even though her clothes didn’t hold up to the normal standards of stylishness in the city, she was proud of what she’d created for her trip into the unknown.

  She pulled at the stretchy material and watched as it reshaped to fit her body perfectly once she let it go again. Though the store was a bit stuffy and hot from being so overcrowded that day, she pulled her long black gloves on and wrapped her black scarf around her neck, covering the pale skin that would give her away in the wilderness. The effect was actually quite impressive. With her black clothing and black hair, the only thing that stood out was the white skin of her face and her bright blue eyes, most of which would be easy to cover if Jonah thought it would stand out too much.

  Giving herself silent congratulations, Brynn changed back into her default outfit and put her new clothes into the shopping bag on top of Jonah’s, making sure she tucked them all around his so that her friends wouldn’t ask any questions. She placed the boots on top of everything for good measure, thinking that it would make more sense why her bag looked so full if she had placed boots in there with all of the compact clothing.

  Unbraiding her hair and pulling it back into her signature topknot, she left the dressing room to meet up with her friends outside of the store, glad for the slight breeze that blew through the city on the hot day. Seaside was almost always sunny, but the weather that day was driving everyone out of their houses and onto the streets, encouraging them to soak up the rays.

  This thought instantly brought Brynn back to the library with Jonah. She wondered how he was holding up in the stuffy confines of the dark building. Had he made any new breakthroughs on the lock picking process? Her little trip into the real world hadn’t exactly brought any breakthroughs on the human flight front, but she hadn’t really expected this trip to be terribly productive. Only productive to maintaining her sanity.

  The group made their way through the large city center past the fountain in the middle of the square, with Ty shooting suspicious glances at Brynn’s bag all the while. Wanting to beat him at his own game and make sure the attention was turned away from her, she grabbed him by the arm playfully, causing her friends to stop and look at her.

  “What’s in your bag Ty?” she asked with a mischievous grin. “You’re the only one who didn’t model for us.”

  Though she was sure he would catch on to her plan right away, he actually seemed quite distracted by her sudden playful mood and the grip she had on his arm. It made her realize with a pang of guilt that they hadn’t joked around much lately.

  “What? Do you want me to model it right here?” he asked, grabbing the bottom of his shirt and lifting it slightly as if he were about to pull it off.

  “Yes please,” Bennett said enthusiastically, making Amber roll her eyes at her friend.

  Brynn continued to hold onto Ty’s arm and looked up at him with a devilish glint in her eye.

  “It’s just not fair is all I’m saying,” she said with a shrug. “But I’m going to take a wild guess and say that what you have in that bag is—” she released his arm and brought her hands up to her temples as if trying to pull the truth from his thoughts. “Dark brown canvas pants.”

  Ty’s cheeks flushed a bit at her prediction, but he kept his face neutral. “You think you know me so well,” he said as he tried to subtly place the bag behind his back.

  “Uh, I’m pretty sure she knows you better than your own mother,” Amber said matter-of-factly.

  “I’m right,” Brynn stated triumphantly. To prove her point she wrapped both arms around Ty’s waist as if she were hugging him, catching him off guard for a moment. She used his shock to pull the dark brown canvas pants out of his bag, causing the plastic bag to fall to the ground, and held them up in victory. “I’m so good,” she said with a grin.

  “Like it was a difficult guess. I’m the easiest person to predict,” he said in an attempt to dismiss Brynn’s knowledge of him.

  As he said this, a breeze blew forcefully through the city, picking the bag up and floating it high into the air above Brynn’s head.

  “And now she’s littering,” Ty joked, though Brynn barely heard him, her eyes fixated on the plastic bag that stayed suspended above their heads in complete stasis as the wind buoyed it skyward.

  Amazed that something so simple could spark her imagination, Brynn dropped Ty’s new pants onto the ground, her head automatically making calculations and figuring out how to replicate the shopping bag on a larger scale.

  “They’re not that bad,” Ty said to her, picking up the pants and dusting them off.

  As the wind died down and the beacon of hope slowly fluttered back down toward her, she jumped into the air and made a grab for the bag, holding it tightly to her chest.

  “Sorry, I can’t stay for lunch—I’ve got somewhere to be. Thanks for the fun day though,” she said in one breath, not even looking at her friends as she made a beeline for the library. “Ty, I need to borrow this bag,” she called over her shoulder as an afterthought as she pushed past people in the busy city square, sprinting toward the one person who would be excited about the new possibility of human flight.

  She had found their ticket off of the train in a plastic bag.

  Chapter 19: Revelations

  It didn’t take long to find Jonah in the dark quiet library. Brynn hurried past the Worker at the front desk, sure that her watchful gaze meant she knew they had ripped the map from one of her precious library books. Ignoring her fear of the woman, she flew down the carpeted staircase to the basement where Jonah sat at his normal armchair, which he had pushed over to the sturdy wooden table. His hair was standing on end as if he had run his fingers through it countless times in frustration and he sat hunched over a book of locks, scribbling things in pencil across the page.

  “You know that Worker is going to kill us if she finds out all the ways we’ve defiled her library books,” Brynn joked, still clutching the shopping back to her chest and panting from her run there.

  “You won’t care what she thinks when you hear my good news,” Jonah said with a victorious smile on his handsome face.

  “What is it?” Brynn asked, trying to contain her own news.

  “Turns out, pin tumbler locks aren’t hard to pick at all. In fact, they’re one of the easiest locks to pick,” he said, holding the book up to show Brynn a diagram of a lock that she didn’t understand in the slightest. “They aren’t electronic, so the lock won’t alert the train that we’ve picked it, and there’s no code to figure out.” Jonah placed the book back on the table and leaned back in his armchair with a smug smile on his face, obviously very proud of his discovery.

  The effect was slightly dampened by his messy hair, but Brynn stopped herself from giggling at his appearance and focused on his genuinely good news.

  “That’s definitely a relief to hear,” she said honestly, coming to sit in the armchair beside him and trying to catch her breath for her own revelation.
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br />   “Did you run here?” he asked, looking quizzically over at her disheveled appearance.

  “I have some news of my own,” she said mysteriously.

  “I’m guessing it has something to do with that bag you’re gripping for dear life?” he asked with a grin. “At least, I hope it does, because this looks really weird otherwise.”

  “Yes, it has to do with my news,” she said with a shake of her head. “And at least I don’t look like I stuck my finger in an electrical outlet,” she countered playfully, finding that she was in a good mood now that they were making progress on their mission.

  Jonah brought his hand up to his hair cautiously and made a face at what he felt there. “It’s the new style,” he finally said with a shrug, not fazed at all. “So how’s the bag going to save our lives?”

  “Really it’s pretty basic. I can’t believe we didn’t think of it before,” she began, trying to keep her words from coming out in a quick, jumbled mess. “Ty dropped this bag outside and the wind picked it up like it was nothing.”

  “Well, it kind of is nothing,” Jonah pointed out, looking skeptical at the direction this conversation was taking.

  “Okay, so maybe a weightless bag isn’t the same as a huge replica with people strapped underneath,” she admitted. “But a little breeze is also not the same as wind rushing at us from the movement of the train. We could harness that wind into one of these and it’ll pull us up and off the train safely,” Brynn insisted, though in all reality she hadn’t given much thought to the practical aspect of her plan.

  Jonah was silent for a moment, looking as if he were mulling this over. His eyes took on a distant look as he gazed past her at a spot on the wall before he finally said, “I think this could work.”

  “Really?” Brynn asked excitedly, feeling like until she had Jonah’s stamp of approval, her idea was just an idea. It was nice knowing that someone who knew as much as he did thought her plan was worth pursuing.