by Carol Snow
“Exactly! Do unto others like you wanna have them do to you. Or not do to you. Sound chill?”
“I guess.”
“Awesome. Number two: do what you’re supposed to do, be where you’re supposed to be. That’s, like, for demonstrations and lectures and stuff.”
“Okay.”
“And last—and maybe least, ha ha—curfew!”
Freesia shook her head. “I’m not familiar with that word.”
“Yeah, so when the wind chimes jingle the first time, you gotta go home, and when they jingle again, you gotta have lights out.”
Imelda strode across the room and took what looked like an oversized cell phone off a shelf. “This here’s your Personal Education Station—PEST for short. Ha ha!”
Freesia took the tablet. Words lit up the screen: Welcome to your adventure!
“Your PEST will be your e-everything,” Imelda said. “Phone, computer, book, movie player, game station. And check it out! Here’s a special cord so you can wear it around your neck.”
Imelda slipped the PEST cord around Freesia’s neck. As far as accessories went, it was far from vicious.
“I bet you’re jazzed to see what the island looks like!” Imelda beamed.
“I know what the island looks like. I lived here for three and a half years. I’m not a new student. I got deleted and then I—ugh.” Talking to this person, this thing, was a waste of time. “I’ll be off now.” Freesia headed for the door.
“Hey, that’s chill. Your PEP is all spelled out on your PEST. And if you ever have any questions—”
Click. Freesia was out the door, through a waiting room, and back on Front Street. It looked just as she remembered it, except for the Taco Hut Guidance Center, which used to be a day spa. But there was the Dressy Dress Shoppe, the shoe store, the coffee shop, and—”
“Cabo!”
He was perched on a bench at the edge of Front Street Beach, chatting with two pretty girls in bikinis. When he saw Freesia, his eyes widened and a smile spread across his deeply tanned face.
She hurried over and gave him a hug. He smelled like coconuts.
“You disappeared one day!” he said. “We thought you were gone for good!”
“You and me both.”
She forced herself to smile at the bikini girls, who glared at her with something close to fury. What? Just because she’d interrupted their fizz to say hello to one of her oldest friends? (“Oldest” being a relative term in Agalinas.)
And speaking of oldest friends, until now, she’d only known Cabo to fizz with Jelissa. She didn’t like the bikini girls. Not at all.
“Freesia, meet Allegra and Blu. They’re new.” Cabo scanned the crowded street. “We’ve had a lot of new people today.”
“Well, yeah. That’s because—” She stopped herself. She wasn’t allowed to mention the outside world. Not now. Not ever.
Cabo grinned. His teeth were super white.
“Is Jelissa around?” Freesia asked.
He shrugged. “Haven’t seen her today. She hasn’t been herself ever since…”
“What?”
“Since you left.” He sighed. “She never goes to parties anymore. Says it’s no fun without you. Mostly she just sits in her house.”
Freesia swallowed hard. Poor Jelissa! If only she could bubble her with the good news of her return.
“Maybe she’ll be in her house now.”
Freesia waved good-bye and headed down the street. She weaved among strolling teenagers in shorts and swimsuits until she reached the switchback road that led to Jelissa’s house. By the time she arrived, her breathing was heavy, and her face felt damp.
She rapped on the door: no answer.
She circled the house and stood under Jelissa’s bedroom window. “Jelly Bean!”
Still no answer. The curtains were shut. Perhaps she was asleep? “JELLY BEAN! I’m back!”
Defeated, Freesia returned to the road and walked up the hillside till she reached her own birthday cake house. It was even prettier than she remembered. The waterslide and infinity pool hadn’t been restored, but she didn’t care. There was her butterfly garden! There was her flagstone walkway!
She pushed open the back door. There was her kitchen! Beyond it was the living room where Daddy liked to read his newspaper, and beyond that was the breezy deck where they ate Mummy’s delicious homemade suppers.
She climbed the stairs. The doors to her parents’ and sister’s bedrooms were closed; they must be napping. Freesia’s door was closed, too. She took a deep breath and turned the knob, terrified of what she might find. But there was no reason to worry. Everything was back just the way it should be, with peacocks roaming on her balcony, Chase Bennett playing on the vicious sound system, and her wide, puffy bed piled high with fluffy pink pillows.
“Thank Todd,” she sighed. She unwound the PEST from her neck and put it on her dressing table. She’d take a quick moment to bubble Jelissa, then she’d shower and change and meet her bestie for a frothy coffee or maybe a mango mocktini.
But—oh, no. Her room was not, in fact, just as it had been. The trumpet-shaped bubble charger was gone from her nightstand, and her bubble was nowhere to be seen.
“You. Have. A. Message.”
At the sound of the strange voice, she wheeled around. On her dressing table, her PEST flashed pink.
“No one told me it talked,” she muttered, crossing to the tablet.
“Would. You. Like. To. Speak. To … RICKY?”
“Yes!” Freesia squealed.
Immediately, Ricky’s face appeared on the screen. The picture quality was even worse than in Angel’s video chats, but still. It was Ricky! Best of all, Ricky looked like Ricky: the blue eyes, the tousled blond hair, the killer cheekbones.
“You’re here!” she said.
“I got in a couple of hours ago. Isn’t it wicked to be back?”
“Better than wicked. It’s magical.”
“I want you to see my house. Come over, please! Take the zipline. I’ll arrange for you to get a ride up from the landing.”
“I will, I will! But first I must shower and change.” For reasons she didn’t understand, Freesia had arrived in Agalinas wearing khaki shorts and a blue polo shirt.
She said good-bye to Ricky and strode over to her closet, wondering as she did so how she’d ever manage without her bubble’s attire assistance function. And then she stopped dead. Her closet still had the skylight, pink chenille couch, giant mirror, and mini fridge, but her clothes were gone. No more artfully torn jeans. No more sundresses. No more strappy sandals or filmy blouses or buttery leather handbags. Instead, her wardrobe consisted of khaki slacks, khaki shorts, a blue polo shirt identical to the one she had on, and a plain white blouse. There was a pair of bright white sneakers, a plain black book bag, and two ruffled nightgowns. That was it.
Were they testing her? Punishing her? What?
She was on the verge of feeling unsettled when she caught a glimpse of herself in the big mirror and did a double take, so surprised, after all this time, to see the beautiful lithe girl with auburn hair looking back.
Even in her borrifying clothes, she looked de-vicious.
She would take a shower. She would put on the shorts and white blouse. And then she would zip over to Ricky’s house and celebrate her return.
All that really mattered was that she was back where she belonged.
38
The zipline platform stood at the end of her street, right where it had always been. She climbed up and strapped herself into a harness, looped her hook onto the line, and jumped. Below her, white boats dotted the brilliant blue harbor. The stores on Front Street shone pink and purple and yellow, while the houses in the flats were all perfectly proportioned, perfectly maintained. She laughed with the joy of it all, thrilled to the feel of the wind on her cheeks.
The zipline landed her between the beach club and the learning center. An unfamiliar serf waited with a hot-air balloon shaped like a cupcake.
“Vicious,” Freesia said. “But wouldn’t an itty car be easier?”
Wordlessly, the serf pointed way, way up the hill, where twin turrets sliced into the brilliant blue sky.
“Ricky’s house … is a castle?”
In answer, the serf opened the door to the balloon’s basket.
Up they went. And up. And up. Freesia was too excited to be nervous. If Ricky’s old house had been out of a dream, his new castle was straight out of a fairy tale, the stone of the palest, glittery gray, the peaked turrets a shiny turquoise. A row of red flags fluttered in the breeze.
At last they landed next to a deep stream dripping with weeping willows. No, wait—that was a moat. (Ricky had a moat!) Freesia climbed out of the basket and crossed a stone bridge. Straight ahead, two cheetahs wearing diamond collars stood guard on either side of a vast open doorway.
The serf held out an arm, instructing her to go inside. She took a deep breath and hurried past the big cats.
Ricky was waiting inside the vast stone entryway, two glasses of happy fizz in hand. He wore red swim trunks. Muscles rippled beneath a white T-shirt. A PEST dangled from a cord around his neck.
When he saw her, he hurried over. “You’re here! You’re really, really here.”
“Of course. I belong in Agalinas.”
“We both do.” He handed her a glass. They clinked and sipped.
“Your castle is magical.”
“I built it with my own two hands.” He held out his free hand and wiggled his fingers as if over a keyboard.
She smiled, though, really, she didn’t want to be reminded of anything beyond this fairy-tale room. She tilted her glass and downed the contents in three big gulps. Immediately she felt better: relaxed, happy. She felt like herself.
“You should dress like a prince,” she said. “It goes with your castle.”
“If I am a prince, I will have no choice but to bestow a face-link upon my princess.”
He leaned toward her. She leaned toward him. At once, she felt that warm, tingly, slightly numb feeling that always came with a face-link.
This is nothing like a kiss. The thought flashed through her mind. Without meaning to, she stepped back. That’s when she caught sight of Ricky’s utterly still face. If his eyes hadn’t been open—too open—she’d have thought he’d fallen asleep on his feet.
“Ricky? Are you okay? Ricky?”
Just like that, he was alert again. He gasped. He looked scared for just a smidgy moment before forcing something like a smile. “I don’t know what … that was.… I’m fine. Really.”
Unbidden, she pictured pale, mountainous Ricky in his oversized bubblepod in Newport Beach, blacking out for a moment, struggling to catch his breath.
“Maybe you should take a little time to rest and reboot,” Freesia said.
“Not yet. There is too much I want to show you.”
He showed her a ballroom built entirely of pink marble. He showed her an indoor lazy river with a swim-up mocktini bar and tiny raised alcoves for resting. He showed her a dining room with a table big enough to seat a hundred. Behind the castle, they walked through a sunflower field to the stable, stopping at a soft unicorn with silver wings and a pink heart on its forehead.
“This one is yours,” Ricky said.
“You got me my own unicorn?” Freesia held out a tentative hand, and the creature nuzzled it.
“Of course. You are my princess. All of this is for you.”
If the view of Agalinas from a hot-air balloon was magical, the sight from atop a winged unicorn was mythical. Ricky, astride his own winged unicorn, pointed out some of his castle’s finer features. Then they headed to the interior, where lush greenery and flocks of colorful birds gave way to wild pigs and buffalo roaming through scrubby brushes and dusty fields.
“Not very luminous,” Ricky shouted over the wind.
Freesia nodded, but inside she disagreed. The harsh landscape moved her somehow. There was an unexpected, almost frightening beauty to the sharp shadows, the wild grasses, the graceless creatures.
They swooped around a hillside, and suddenly there were people below: boys mostly, though there were a few girls, all dressed in olive green and jogging in place. Someone shouted something, and they all stood at attention.
“What is that?” Freesia shouted.
“Military academy. Let’s head back.”
Freesia had so many things she wanted to ask Ricky, but even when they’d returned their unicorns to the stable and no longer had to shout, she found herself struggling. She didn’t want to get in trouble by saying anything about the world beyond Agalinas.
Ricky saved her. “You haven’t seen my suite yet.”
His sitting room had wooden furniture with ornately carved feet and arms, along with a slightly creepy jester wearing a lime green tunic and a floppy triple-pointed hat. Beyond, his bed was big enough for Newport Beach Ricky (stop thinking that way) and surrounded by red velvet curtains. In his bathroom, a jetted spa carved out of crystal sat under a wide window with an ocean view. His closet was the size of Freesia’s bedroom, with T-shirts, flip-flops, and board shorts in every imaginable color and pattern.
“I don’t have any vicious clothes,” Freesia sighed, fingering one of Ricky’s ultra-soft tank tops.
“So buy some.”
“How can I shop without my bubble?”
“You still have a bubb—I mean a Bright Planet account. You just access it through your PEST now.” Ricky unlooped the tablet from Freesia’s neck and tapped at the screen. “There. Let’s see. You have eighty shells available. But don’t worry. Once we begin our personal education programs, you’ll earn more.”
Freesia put the PEST back around her neck. “Eighty shells won’t buy me much. I need a whole new wardrobe.”
Ricky scooped up his own PEST and began tapping. “There. Now you can shop.”
“What do you mean?”
“I transferred some shells—a lot of shells—into your account. You can buy anything you want.”
“But, Ricky—”
“Come.” He strode to the end of the closet, pushed some hanging terry-cloth robes out of the way, and pressed his hand against the wall. Cracks of light appeared, quickly taking the shape of a rectangle the height of a door.
* * *
Ricky’s new secret room looked exactly like Ricky’s old secret room. But Freesia was less concerned about interior decorating than she was about asking forbidden questions.
“Why is there a military academy in the middle of the island?”
“It was part of my father’s deal with Piloski. In exchange for giving up control of the virtual school, he gets to use the platform to test war games. Only a handful of Bubble World students signed up. Taser’s there, of course.”
“But that’s the last place he should be! He was so wiggy the last time we saw him.”
“Don’t worry about Taser. They changed his medications. He’s fine.”
“Okay, then. What’s the deal with these awful tablets?” Freesia flicked her PEST in disgust. “I want my bubble back.”
“PESTs are more like what people use on the mainland,” Ricky said. “A Bright Planet education is designed to prepare us for the so-called real world. In case we ever go back.”
“I don’t ever want to go back.”
“Then you never have to. Here. Let me show you how to send messages on this thing. You should tell Jelissa you’re here. And tell her that she’s invited to my castlewarming party—tonight after the moonrise.”
A castlewarming party! Now that was something to look forward to. Freesia was so happy to have things to look forward to once again.
39
“You’re back! You’re back! You’re back!” Arms outstretched, Jelissa toddled across the Front Street cobblestones on hot pink platform sandals. She was retro-fabu as usual, in a white sundress with black polka dots and a wide fuchsia sash. An enormous black-and-white-striped hat shielded her pink skin from the sun.<
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“I am! I am! I am!” Freesia rushed toward her bestie, enveloping her in a giant hug. Her tablet jammed into her ribs. “Don’t you have a PEST?”
Jelissa slipped a hand into her white patent leather purse, pulled out the PEST enough for Freesia to see, and dropped it back in. “I was going to put rhinestones on it, make it glammier, but then I realized it was better to keep it out of sight as much as possible. I’m not fond of gidgets.”
“Me neither,” Freesia said.
Jelissa laughed. “Here we are talking about gidgets and rhinestones like we picked up a conversation right where we left off. You can’t imagine how much I missed you, Free.”
“Yes I can, because I missed you just as much.”
“Why did you—” Jelissa stopped. She put a hand over her mouth and shook her head. Then she took a deep breath and dropped her hand. “I told myself I wouldn’t ask you. Just … promise you’ll never leave again?”
“I promise.”
“Because I couldn’t bear it.” She wiped away a shiny tear and smiled. “All that matters is that you’re back. We’re getting a new school program, did you hear?”
“I heard.”
“It’s okay with me as long as no one messes with our snacks. Or our bestie time. Or our parties.”
“That reminds me! Ricky told me to invite you to his castlewarming party tonight.”
Jelissa’s eyes widened. “Ricky’s back, too?”
“Of course! Who else would have a castle?” Freesia pointed to Ricky’s palace on the hill.
Jelissa tilted her head to one side. “Wasn’t that always there?”
“No. He just built it.” Freesia felt cold all of a sudden. “It’s the only castle in Avalon.”
Jelissa smiled. “You mean Avalonia, of course.”
Freesia opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“You’ll never believe who’s gone,” Jelissa said.
“Who?”
“Chai!”
Freesia bit her lip. It didn’t matter whether or not Chai was gone because Chai didn’t exist. But of course she couldn’t say that. She shouldn’t even think it. Instead, she said, “Where does that leave Dare?”
