Louise inched close enough for Skye to notice a gray glob of eyeliner lodged just below her lash line. “Then how about a PAP race?” she dared her. “We all know you have balancing skills. Let’s see how you do in the sky, Skye.”
Skye’s breath caught in her throat. She had zero pilot experience in the Personal Alpha Planes. Meanwhile, Louise was an engineer who specialized in video game design. Her technical ability would surely put her Kabuki’d face in the lead. Skye struggled desperately to find a way to bow out of the over-glammed gamer’s challenge. A fear of heights? Small (spherical) spaces? A sprained groin muscle from ferocious paddling? But at this point refusing to compete was another way of saying, “Why, yes, I’d love to pack up my wheelie suitcase and roll it across the dock while you snicker. Sounds great!”
Still, there had to be another challenge. Just as Skye was about to suggest a parasail dance contest, her aPod pinged with a new message. She pulled it out from the pocket of her hoodie, trying to buy a few extra seconds and hoping it wasn’t a text from her dance teacher, Mimi, telling her to get her ballet buns to class.
Charlie: I pretty much invented the software for PAPs. I’ve been flying since I was 12. With me as your copilot, we can’t lose.
Yay! Skye’s spirits soared. Her genius inventor friend had been paying attention after all, and she was ready to take on lame Louise in a PAP battle. Skye looked back at Charlie, now perched cross-legged on the smoothie counter and whistling casually to herself. They exchanged a quick wink.
Turning back to Louise, Skye grinned confidently. “Pick your copilot and meet us at the runway tomorrow at high noon.” She wasn’t totally sure what “high noon” meant but knew it sounded more intimidating than “twelve” or “lunchtime.”
Louise raised one highlighted brow, a smug half-smile emerging on her powdered face. “Can’t wait.” Skye was annoyed by how confident Louise seemed. In fact, all of her housemates, with their bad hair and bad posture, seemed a little too confident.
“You lose, you leave,” Skye added, just to make sure Louise knew she wasn’t scared, even though she was.
“Same goes, big toes,” Louise smirked. The other girls chuckled.
Skye executed a full pirouette. Big toes my foot!
“Looking forward to watching you sashay yourself off this island.” Louise pulled out a giant compact and searched her round mirror for pores that had long been buried alive. Then the wannabe geisha spun around on her gladiator sandals toward the glass doors, which immediately opened to reveal—Mayday McGrath, the best stunt flyer on the island.
Uh-oh.
Skye gulp-gawked, noting that Mayday was already dressed in a platinum flight suit and aviator glasses, her Raggedy Ann–red hair tucked into a flight helmet and a cocky smile playing on her lips. She told everyone her parents were Blue Angels who had fallen in love in the air. As soon as she was tall enough, Mayday spent summers doing air stunts and winters driving in NASCAR races.
Ugh! Skye’s eyes searched for Charlie’s, but she just shrug-smiled, as if to say no biggie. Skye could have sworn Mayday had been expelled weeks ago, after a go-kart race she organized down Mount Olympus went awry and two girls ended up with concussions. Skye stared up at Mayday’s long, narrow face and attempted a smile, but her mouth refused to cooperate.
“You look pale,” Mayday remarked, her aviator glasses slipping toward the end of her nose until she pushed them back up. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about a little PAP race.”
Mayday was like a bald eagle—awkward and twitchy on land, fearless and beautiful in the air.
“Of course not,” Skye bluffed.
“Great. May the best flier win,” Louise said smugly, sauntering over to Mayday and putting an arm around her copilot. “After we beat you, we’re going to write QE’S 4-EVER in the air.”
Skye didn’t need a pilot’s headset to hear the QE’s message loud and clear: With Mayday aboard, winning this race would be cake. And Skye and Charlie would wind up creamed.
3
JACKIE O HOUSE
LEISURE GARDEN
NOVEMBER 1ST
3:13 P.M.
In the dappled shade of a jacaranda tree, Allie A. Abbott settled back into a white leather chaise lounge next to an excited Charlie and Skye, feeling more relaxed than she had in days. After Skye’s victory in the paddleboard regatta that day, Allie, Charlie, and Skye had decamped to the private garden behind Jackie O to regroup, relive the win, and strategize their next moves, protected from prying eyes by a wall of vines and passionflowers. Every so often, an inspirational quote projected via hologram slid across the sky above them. Currently the phrase Regret for Wasted Time is More Wasted Time was gliding out of sight. Allie shut her eyes and took a whiff of the hydroponic African violets, planted in a scripted A formation on the garden’s lawn beside them.
“I mean, Louise actually thought she could intimidate Skye of all people,” Charlie’s voice was an octave higher than her usual measured tone as she sat perched at the edge of her chaise, facing her two lounging companions. “Just wait. We will so take her down in the PAP race, Mayday McGrath or no Mayday McGrath. We’re on a roll! And then she’ll be right back in Tucson.”
“Fresno,” corrected Skye.
“Same thing,” said Charlie, who’d lived all over the world.
“Mmm,” Allie murmured, stretching and wiggling her manicured fingers. “I wish I’d seen it. I was with Mel—”
Charlie cut her off, still too jazzed to keep from planning their win. “We’ll take Darwin’s PAP. He’s got it all tricked out…”
Allie was only half listening to the words coming out of Charlie’s mouth. She sighed contentedly, relieved to finally be a part of the team. After faking her way into Alpha Academy by impersonating Allie J. Abbott, the reclusive folk-rock sensation whose acceptance letter got sent to her by mistake, then being exposed when the real AJ had showed up, the drama was finally behind her. Except in the classroom, of course. Forcing herself to carry on while everyone ostracized her for lying had brought out a passion for acting in Allie. And now, she not only had a direction in life, but she’d managed to get her friends back and rebuild her reputation. She could finally walk the manicured grounds of Alpha Academy without dirty looks pelting her like rubber bullets. No more Alphas sneaking whole milk into her skim latte. No more hate-texts sent from anonymous addresses. And best of all, no more mistrust between Allie, Charlie, and Skye.
With Alphas dropping faster than pounds on The Biggest Loser, people had better things to do than rehash old betrayals.
At least, most people did.
Allie shot her navy blue eyes over to the floor-to-ceiling windows of the Jackie O House and grimaced as she caught sight of AJ alone in the Jackie O study lounge. The petite folk singer was belting one of her new songs into a microphone, enormous headphones covering her multi-pierced ears, her grubby green tam slouched on her head, wiggling her tiny butt as a 3-D holographic crowd projected onto the wall cheered her on.
Ugh! Couldn’t she go five minutes without attention?
Allie shook her head slightly, her thick honey-blond hair tickling her back. She was just about to turn away from Jackie O and focus again on Charlie and Skye, but then AJ whirled around to face the garden, her moss-green eyes making contact with Allie’s navy ones like hate-seeking missiles. AJ lifted one of her tiny, hemp-buttered hands, and Allie braced herself for a taunting, finger-wiggling little wave. Instead, AJ ran her index finger across her neck in a slitting motion, her Burt’s Bees–waxed lips mouthing the words “You’re compost.”
Clearly, the green queen hadn’t gotten over Allie’s little stunt at the Muse Cruise two weeks ago. With AJ stuck at home with the flu, Allie had decided to impersonate her one last time. She’d set up a brilliant Ashley Simpson–esque lip synch scenario for the partygoers, and it had worked… a little too well. Everyone truly believed that AJ was a fraud. Now AJ was hell-bent on revenge.
Allie ignored the ice-cold feeli
ng in her veins and concentrated again on Charlie, who was now busily drawing flight maneuver formations in the dirt with a stick.
“And when Mayday really starts showing off,” Charlie said, waving her stick in a crazy-8 pattern in front of her, “that’s when we throttle ahead—”
Skye shifted uncomfortably in her chaise longue, lowering her voice just in case Louise or one of her minions was listening in. “I know you love a challenge, Charlie, but winning this race is major. It’s life or death. Alpha Island or Staten Island. And let’s be honest, Mayday is an ah-mazing flier. There’s a very real chance we might go home tomorrow.”
Allie sat up, her spine stiffening when she heard the word home. “Won’t happen,” she said, much too quickly. “It can’t.”
But Skye was right—it was possible. But after everything she’d been through to earn her besties back, Allie wasn’t about to lose them over some Queen Elizabeth–inspired air show.
Her stomach gurgled, and it wasn’t just late-afternoon munchies. It was the sick realization that unless she found a way to guarantee victory, her two best friends would be kicked out by this time tomorrow and she’d be stuck with AJ all alone in Jackie O. She nibbled at an errant cuticle on her thumb while scouring her brain for ideas. Sugar in the QE’s gas tank? No, the planes ran on biodiesel and electric. Ex-Lax in Louise’s morning tea? If only she had some. Maybe Mel could send one of his brothers to bat his boy-lashes at Mayday so she’d miss the race altogether? And then it came to her. Taz!
“You guys must have forgotten that we know the best fliers on the island.” Allie jumped out of her chaise while simultaneously pulling her aPod out of her pocket.
“Uh, no kidding, Allie. Mayday is the best,” Skye said glumly.
“Better than Mayday,” Allie said patiently, waiting for Skye and Charlie to get it. But they just stared at her, their eyes emptier than a brand new hard drive. “The Brazille boys started flying long before even Charlie did. I have an old Us Weekly somewhere that says Taz successfully landed a small aircraft at nine years old. ” Allie turned to Charlie. “True or tabloid?”
“True,” Charlie nodded. “They were all flying before they were ten, but Taz is definitely the most fearless.”
“Do you really think it’s a good idea?” Skye interrupted, her voice crackling with nerves. “I mean, everyone’s watching. How will we even get them onto the plane without Louise noticing?” Skye turned to gaze at the blue-green faux-cean visible in the distance through a gap in the garden wall.
Allie’s eyes met Charlie’s, silently communicating her agreement about needing to get the boys’ help. Skye was obviously just anxious about being near Taz. Every time his name had come up lately, she got all quiet and un-Skye-like.
When they’d first started at the Academy, Skye and Taz had seemed destined to be the Brangelina of the island. But then Skye had started dating Syd, Taz’s brooding older brother. Skye’s feelings for sulky Syd had soured faster than milk in the tropics, but Skye had to fake being into him under strict orders from Shira, who thought she was finally curing him of his emo ways. And even though Skye and Syd had long since broken up, Taz had never gotten over it. He wanted nothing to do with her, even though it was clear as the water in Lake Alpha that Skye still adored him.
“Skye,” Allie said quietly, putting a hand on her friend’s toned, sinewy shoulder. “I’m not letting you give up. We have to start taking risks. Shira expects us to, and I think she’d actually approve of our ingenuity. With so few girls left now, only the sneaky will survive. Trust me, I know,” she giggled softly.
Skye sighed. “I guess.”
Allie walked back over to the chaise longue and perched on the edge of it, trying to think of a plan to get the Brazille boys onto the plane. They hadn’t been a part of any Alpha-on-Alpha competition, because as Shira’s sons there was no way they’d be kicked out. They’d never be Alphas for life, but they’d never be sent packing, either.
“Well, Allie?” Charlie plopped down next to her. “You’d better be formulating a brilliant plan and not just daydreaming about Mel’s pretty eyes,” she warned before joke-nudging her friend in the arm.
“Thinking… shhh…” Allie muttered. Mel did have pretty eyes, she smiled to herself. Wait, that’s it! “Ohmuhgud, Charlie. You are a genius.”
“What’d I do?”
“We have to make them pretty. Pretty enough to pass for girls!”
As Skye and Charlie giggled and began discussing what color eye shadow would work best on each Brazille boy, Allie took out her aPod and started to type.
Allie: You know how you always say you’ll try anything once? How about a little makeup and an Alpha uniform? We need you to fly in a PAP race with us tomorrow.
She hit send and waited, hammering her index finger against the side of the phone impatiently.
Ping!
Mel: Always knew my legs would look good in a mini. But Taz and Darwin are way better. Not the legs, the flying. My legs are def the best.
Allie: Can you get them to help?
Mel: I’m the oldest. They have to do what I say.
Allie: Thx. Makeovers 4 downunders. Can’t wait!
Allie slid her aPod shut. “Mel’s in, and he’ll convince Taz and Darwin. But he seems more into the idea of wearing my clothes than the actual flying. Should I be worried?”
Charlie bit her bottom lip. “Only if he can’t zip them up.”
4
THE BRAZILLE RESIDENCE
THE GREAT ROOM
NOVEMBER 2ND
11:10 A.M.
Skye lay curled up in the corner of a giant white leather L-shaped couch in the Brazille mansion’s great room, trying to take up the least amount of space possible and stay out of harm’s way. And out of Taz’s way, she thought glumly, ducking her head to avoid being hit by a mascara wand as Charlie tossed it to Allie. Skye had expected Operation Beautify the Brazille Boys (OBBB) to be hard, for Taz to glare at her and take some cheap shots. But it was worse when he was pretended she didn’t even exist. Kind of awkward when they were stuck in a room with only four other people. Luckily for Skye, Syd’s heart had recently been crushed by yet another Alpha, Seraphina Hernandez-Rosenblatt, and to cheer him up, his brother Dingo signed them both up for a celebrity motorcycle race across Africa. They’d left a few days ago, and with any luck they would continue racing around Africa for the foreseeable future. Skye shudder-gagged at the thought of the unfortunate African girl who would have to deal with Syd’s smothering affection next. She’d take being ignored by Taz any day over that.
Still, Skye couldn’t help sneaking peeks in Taz’s direction. Allie stood over him, struggling to pull the coppery wig she swiped from the props room over his thick brown hair. “Stay still,” she grumbled. Skye could see stress-sweat accumulating on her friend’s forehead. Getting the Brazille boys to look like girls had been a bigger project than any of them would have guessed.
“Do I seriously have to shave my legs?” Darwin yelled from the landing, worry creasing his tanned forehead. He aimed his hazel eyes at Charlie and ran a nervous hand through his wavy light brown hair.
“Yes!” Allie, Skye, and Charlie all yelled back in the same exasperated tone.
“Seriously?” Darwin tried again, the cinnamon-flavored toothpick he chewed on wobbling as he spoke. “I’m a manly man. It’s gonna take forever.”
“That’s how long it will be before you see me again if we get sent home,” Charlie said, sternly placing her hands on her hips. Darwin sighed and then stalked toward the bathroom.
“Some girls don’t shave their legs,” said Mel, struggling to pull a pair of silver leggings up over his own lower half.
Allie whipped her head around to glare at her boyfriend. “Alphas shave.”
“Except AJ,” Charlie reminded her. “She claims she’s naturally hairless.”
Skye envied Charlie and Allie for the easy banter they had with their boyfriends. Back in Westchester, Skye had always had her pick of gu
ys to choose from. And even here, she’d had no problem finding two Brazille brothers who were interested. For the millionth time, she wondered what on earth had made her choose Syd over Taz, then inwardly kicked herself for not being able to prove to Taz that she’d picked wrong.
A minute later, Darwin clomped back downstairs in a pair of low-heeled booties, wearing a silver Alphas bubble skirt, a white blouse, and a thin silver cap-sleeved cardi, his legs now girly-smooth and smelling like baby oil–scented shaving cream.
“What would Mom say if she saw us now?” Darwin ran a hand through his honey-brown locks, looking terrified.
“Let’s just be glad she can’t see us,” Mel chuckled. Skye gave her housemates a wary look. If only they knew…
“Dude, you’re a pretty cute girl.” Taz joked, springing out of his chair wearing nearly the same outfit as his brother. “Metallic really makes your eyes sparkle.” He almost toppled over, then glared down at his metallic wedge heels.
“You too,” Darwin snickered, knocking Taz in the ribs. “I had no idea you had such toned calves. You must have logged some time at the dance studio when you and Skye were dating.”
Skye froze. She looked up at Taz, whose ice-blue eyes caught hers for an awkward second before looking away. Luckily, their discomfort-bubble was popped by Mel.
“Do my legs look bulky? Be honest.” The eldest and tallest Brazille brother, clad in silver leggings and a boatneck blouse, did a slow turn for Allie, sending Skye and Taz into simultaneous fits of hysterical laughter.
Regaining composure, Skye wiped her eyes and blinked at Taz. She wondered if maybe they stood a chance after all. Wasn’t a similar sense of humor the foundation for any relationship? Maybe this little PAP excursion wasn’t all bad. At the very least, it could be her chance to finally explain to Taz why she’d chosen Syd.
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