Alphas

13
NORTH SHORE
THE JUNGLE
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6TH
2:15 P.M.

Allie tiptoed across the dirt (ew!) path and stopped by the monstrous tree at the end. Here on the north side of the island, the air was thick with moisture and smelled like earth, leaves, and bark. Memories of the Rainforest Cafe—or rather, the burger, fries, and sparkling volcano dessert—made her stomach grumble. Memories of Fletcher asking the waiter for two spoons made her heart ache.
From the base of the thick tree, Allie checked her schedule for the third time. Nothing had changed. Hone It: For Writers was located in the Fuselage. And the Alphas Positioning System, a.k.a. APS, on her aPod was flashing. Apparently she was there.
Seeing no other option, Allie began climbing spiral stairs that had been carved into the tree’s trunk, praying with every step that fungus was not hyper-breeding in the humidity and taking root between her toes.
When she got near the top, she began to hear voices. She stopped on what felt like the eightieth step and quickly Purelled her feet. The robo-pedi, with all its exfoliating and scraping, had removed any natural germ shield she had formed, leaving her more vulnerable than ever. And she was over feeling vulnerable.
The stairs stopped at a tree house–type deck outfitted with a hammock, a telescope, and several pine-green couches. Attached to the deck was the Fuselage—a silver Boeing 747 that had been converted into a modern classroom. SOAR was written across the side in silver glitter script.
Eight airplane seats had been arranged in a circle in the center of the cabin. Three were free; girls pulling tray tables from their armrests filled the others. Once unfolded, Allie realized the “tray holders” were actually futuristic writing tablets, their gray screens hungrily awaiting strokes of brilliance. Grass covered the floor, and the windows had been removed to allow a warm breeze to circulate like whispered gossip.
“What is this place?”
“Cool, right?” answered a girl with a scratchy voice. She had dark hair, dark nails, a sapphire nose-stud, and an O-shaped mouth candied with matte red lipstick.
Something flickered out of the corner of her eye. Allie quickly claimed the empty seat beside Scratchy Voice, fearing spontaneous liftoff.
A 3-D wintry forest scene filled the cabin.
Everyone ooooohed in awe.
Then the image morphed into a colorful tea party with a little scone that said eat me. Allie was tempted to do just that, since she had metabolized her vegan lunch during the tree-climb. She reached for it, but a glittering dining hall with floating candelabras replaced the virtual carb, which quickly became a closet door that opened into a sunlit field.
“Brilliant!” Scratchy applauded. She smelled like black coffee.
“What was that?” Allie asked, wishing she had something more meaningful to add.
“Sherwood Forest from Robin Hood. Alice in Wonderland’s tea party. The Hogwarts dining hall. The wardrobe from Narnia…”
“Oh, right,” Allie said faintly. “Love those movies.”
“Movies?” The girl sat back in disdain. “Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Why would I be joking?” Allie tried. “They were great. Just the other night I watched—”
“Watched?” Scratchy screeched. Her voice sounded like a zipper unzipping. “Those scenes are from naw-vels.” She exhaled sharply. “They aren’t meant to be watched. Why not have Hollywood chew your food for you too? Or pump your blood? Or cast your friends like some MTV reality—”
“That’s enough, Hannah,” a woman with short, uneven black bangs and a choppy chin-length bob insisted. Her narrow blue eyes were free of makeup but full of fire. “You can critique her writing, but not her lifestyle. Inspiration is all around us. Don’t let the brain limit the mind.”
“Sorry,” Hannah said to the teacher and then held out her plump hand to Allie. “I’m Hannah.”
“Hey.” Allie shook then Purelled immediately.
“Better. And I’m Keifer Lutz.” Keifer placed a fingernail-shaped thimble on her index finger and scribbled in the air. Her name appeared in 3-D letters on the oversize LCD blackboard at the front of the cabin. “I am here to blow dust off your talent and make it shine.” She began handing out thimbles. “And you are here to dive into your hearts and expose your true selves. Like putting on an inside-out sock, you will need to dig deep and pull through.”
Allie’s stomach dipped. She felt like a sock, all right—dirty, full of holes, and stepped on. She immediately pulled out her aPod and scanned her teacher.
NAME: KEIFER LUTZ. BECAME A PUBLISHING PHENOM IN HER EARLY TWENTIES WITH HER FIRST NOVEL, FIFTH AVENUE HAPPENSTANCE. WITH COMPARISONS TO J. D. SALINGER, HARPER LEE, AND TRUMAN CAPOTE, SHE PROVED THAT A YOUNG VOICE CAN BE RELEVANT, DISARMING, AND BEAUTIFUL. SPENT THE LAST NINE YEARS IN PARIS WRITING NINETEEN INTERNATIONAL BEST-SELLERS AND TRANSLATING THEM HERSELF INTO SIX LANGUAGES. PLANS ON LEARNING SANSKRIT, HEBREW, AND CANTONESE DURING HER STAY AT THE ACADEMY. IS CURRENTLY WORKING ON A BOOK ABOUT FAILED POLITICAL LEADERS AND THE WOMEN WHO LOVED THEM.

So far, impersonating Allie J had been as easy as quoting the odd lyric, concealing her natural beauty, and surviving without shoes. But surely a real writer would be able to see impostor bubble lettered between the lines of her first essay. And when Keifer discovered Allie had no clue how to write in one language, let alone six, she’d no longer be a sock. She’d be a bra—busted!
Charlie shuffled into the classroom and claimed the last seat. Her cheeks were still red from the spa. She took the seat across from Allie, offering a tight smile.
“What are you doing here?” Allie whispered while Keifer helped a girl with ringlets wrestle her tablet out of the armrest.
Charlie shrugged. “It was on my schedule. I don’t have a set major.”
“Yes, you do,” she whispered loud enough for Hannah to hear. “Major pain in my butt.”
Hannah rolled her no-sense-of-humor eyes. Charlie lowered her head, her long brown bangs concealing her sadness like tent flaps.
Allie pictured her alpha crush—sun-streaked hair, hazel eyes, freckle above his lip… How had Charlie ever gotten him? The same way Trina got Fletcher? Was it… talent? Hmmmm. Maybe, just like blind people sharpened their other four senses to survive, plain Janes developed other, non-beauty-related skills to attract boys. But what was Charlie’s?
Allie pulled a handful of hair over her shoulder to check for splits (none) and ran her fingers over her poreless skin for blemishes (also none), reminding herself that as Allie J, she was the full package—beauty and brains. Her days of getting trumped by chumps were over.
A broad-shouldered boy eclipsed the thick band of light streaming through the doorway. His features were backlit but his silhouette was unmistakable. “Darwin?” Allie J heard herself say.
Charlie followed Allie’s gaze to the doorway. She swallowed hard, as if forcing back that barf urge that comes when your ex-boyfriend appears unexpectedly.
“Welcome,” Keifer said, ignoring the hisses of plane seats as the girls shifted nervously on their perches. “Please tuck in your oxford, then take the seat beside Allie J.”
Allie beamed like a raffle winner.
“You’re Allie J?” Hannah whispered. “Wow! Hey, I didn’t mean to harsh on you about the whole movie thing. Songwriting and novel writing are two totally different skills and—”
“Cool. No worries,” Allie muttered as Darwin passed Charlie’s chair. He slowed just a little, as if drawn in by an invisible force field. A force Allie prayed was fueled by the kind of emotion that makes you never want to get back together with someone.
Finally Darwin settled into the empty seat next to Allie. His eyes crinkled hello.
“Everyone’s here, so let’s begin.” Keifer claimed the center of the circle, her bangs more crooked than Tori Spelling’s boobs. “Two rules. One: No hand-raising in my class. I’ll either call on you, or you’ll just speak up. Rule number two: Call me Keifer. Rule number three: No flirting.”
More of the girls giggled awkwardly. Charlie stared at the grass floor.
“Sounds good, Keifer,” Hannah blurted.
Allie and Darwin exchanged an eye roll. She felt a spark all the way down to her muddy toes.
Keifer smiled at her new pet, then pressed a button on her aPod. The roof retracted, giving way to the bright, cloud-streaked sky. “The Fuselage is symbolic of your upcoming journey. There is no limit to where your imagination can fly.”
The girls lifted their eyes and peered out at the endless possibilities. Allie mostly saw a whole lot of blue sky.
“Faulkner, Dickens, Angelou, Rowling, me… You have the potential to be as good as these greats. And do you know why?”
Hannah raised her hand. Keifer shook her head disapprovingly.
“Because you’re all starting from the same place.” She touched her heart with one hand and pointed to their tablets with the other. “The need to express yourself, and a blank page.”
Suddenly, Allie was overcome with inspiration. She had suffered more than any of those so-called writers and experienced more sadness in the last month then they had in a lifetime. So why not share it with the world? Give the people someone real to relate to. Someone other than Oprah. Allie’s innards jumped. Her soul was rising to the occasion.
“This page is a time machine, a teleporter, a magic wand. With it you can create a world. Give life. Take it away. Then resurrect it. But it only works with honesty and specificity, and it all starts here.” She wiggled her thimble-clad finger. “You have fifteen minutes. Give me a paragraph on what you’re feeling right now. One caveat: Don’t overthink it. In fact, don’t think at all. Let your heart do the writing. Begin.”
Allie froze, her soul-jumping inspiration congealing like old sweet ‘n’ sour sauce.
Darwin lowered his head and began scribbling. Allie tried peeking, but his upper body hung half-moon over his tablet.
Allie summoned her sorrow. Fletcher, Trina, identity theft—emotions began to rise again, but stopped just before they reached her thimble finger. They were feelings, not sentences. It was pain, not words. It was a missive on hell, not a beach read.
But wait! This paragraph wasn’t about her. It was about Allie J. The girl who rebounded from breakups like a rubber pinball. So all Allie A had to do was funnel her words through Allie J’s industrial-strength heart and—
“Fingers down.”
“Serious-leh? That was fifteen minutes?” Allie looked around, but no one else seemed surprised.
“It sure was.” Hannah beamed.
“Hannah, why don’t you go first.” Keifer brushed a choppy layer behind her heavily pierced ear.
“Sure.” She cleared her throat and looked around meaningfully at each of her classmates. “I am here because I killed an American girl.”
The entire class gasped. Hannah’s lips curled in a smug smile and began to read. “‘When I was five, I killed my American Girl doll.’”
Everyone giggled with relief except Darwin, whose Y chromosomes prevented him from understanding the sanctity of the plastic childhood treasure. “‘She came with this prefab story of how she’d survived the Depression. But I found the idea of breadlines boring, so I wrote my own. She was the star of my first play, The Case of the Doll Murder. At the end, Barney the Dinosaur, played by my reluctant younger brother, was carted away as the culprit. Miraculously, the doll was revived after a posthumous surgery by a GI Joe medic. But the damage was done. I’d been bitten by the writing bug, and I never recovered.’”
Keifer gave an appreciative smile, which granted the rest of the class permission to applaud. “The moment of recognition for a young writer. Charming. Now let’s see it.”
The 3-D images on the wall returned. This time they contained the bare outlines of a dinosaur, a solider, and a large-headed doll.
“Shira has created Wordz-to-Life software,” Keifer explained. “This program allows us to watch your stories, and help you see where you need more detail.”
“Now, tell me what’s wrong with this picture.”
Hannah’s lip stuck out and trembled a bit.
A girl with a short pixie cut and C-plus cups spoke up. Allie quickly scanned her.
NAME: YARA NEGRON, MICHELLE OBAMA HOUSE. LIKES: SHAKESPEARE, BRITISH SLANG, AND WRITING MUSICALS. DISLIKES: LLAMAS, ANGLOPHILES, AND LICKING ENVELOPES.

“Hannah didn’t show us the scene,” Yara said. “She just told it to us. I didn’t feel like I was living it with her. So I had no connection to it.”
“Bridgette Wu from Heidi Klum,” another girl said, tossing a slick black braid over her shoulder. “She expected us to bring our own vision to fill in the drama. I think that’s cool. Very minimalist. Smacks of Dingo.”
“Your brother’s a writer too?” Allie whispered to Darwin.
Darwin laughed like she was joking.
“Disagree,” Ringlets, aka Tatiana, insisted. “Keifer wanted us to create the story. And that’s not our job as readers. It’s hers as the writer.”
“Lazy!” coughed Yara.
Tatiana giggled.
Hannah hung her head.
“I agree.” Keifer nodded. “It is lazy. But chin up, Hannah. You’re great at coming up with brilliant ideas. You wouldn’t have created three successful novel franchises if you weren’t. This is why we’re here. To learn how to write visually. You gave people the bones. Now it’s time to flesh them out and bring them to life.”
Hannah scribbled notes—lazy… chin up… bones… flesh out—over her tablet. They appeared in Times New Roman font. She reduced the font size to 8-point the second she caught Allie peeking.
“Charlie, you’re next.”
Please make Charlie suck, please make Charlie suck, please make Charlie suck, Allie begged the clouds above. Still and serene, they offered no guarantee.
“‘For the first time in my life, I am alone.’” Her voice was small and shaky. “‘I walk around this palace of glass that, in defiance of gravity and zoning regulations, rises up and pierces the sky. The hovercraft technology, the holographs that look friends but fade like jeans, feel like something I dreamed up.’” Her voice grew stronger, more confident. “‘But it’s all real, and I’m here to experience it—by myself. I’m walking down a red carpet with no escort, singing praises into the wind, and writing a story no one will read. As I walk and talk and sit and breathe, I want you with me, your arm linked through mine.…’”
Allie’s fingers tightened around her Purell. Was Charlie trying to make up with Darwin in front of all these people? Was he falling for it? She didn’t dare look. She didn’t want to know.
“‘But it’s time for me to do it on my own. Your absence was the price of admission. Still, I miss you.…’” Her voice trailed like a passing car. She swallowed hard as if bracing herself. “‘I miss you, Mom,’” Charlie finished.
Allie sighed. Darwin ran a hand through his hair and slouched.
“Very evocative, Charlie,” Keifer said. “Now let’s see it.”
The walls went blank. A faceless girl walked through a foggy space alone. Futuristic buildings rose up around her, making her appear smaller and smaller as her journey continued. A blurry figure appeared, and the faceless girl chased after it. It came a little more into focus and then faded away, leaving the girl alone in the fog forever.
“Any thoughts on Charlotte’s piece?” Keifer prompted.
Allie could feel Darwin tense beside her.
“She gave us a window inside what it is to be alpha, which often means sacrifice,” tweeted a sunburned girl with blond eyebrows.
Tatiana spoke next. “Um, you know, at first, knowing it was going to be posted on-screen, I felt like the piece would suffer because of the lack of description. But instead of painting a portrait of her surroundings, she painted her feelings. And that came through. It rang true. I really felt her longing.”
Darwin looked at Charlie for a charged beat and then sat tall. “I thought it was confusing. No, deceptive.” He paused, as if allowing his words to sink in for full sting-effect. “It felt like one of those stupid stories that ends in a dream.”
“Uh, are you saying The Wizard of Oz is stupid?” Tatiana twirled her nose ring in victory. “Because that ended in a dream, and it also happens to be an American classic.”
Charlie smiled her thanks.
“No, not like that at all,” Darwin countered. “More like the writer wanted you to believe one thing and then made it all pointless by saying it was another thing al-together.”
“What did you believe?” Keifer asked, folding her arms across her white tunic and cocking her head.
“I dunno.” Darwin shrugged. “I just thought it was about someone else.”
“I agree with Tatiana.” Keifer blinked. “Charlie, excellent work. Bailey and Tatiana, good critiques. Darwin, you need to expand your mind and open yourself up to the different ways of storytelling.”
Charlie smirked.
“Darwin, why don’t you go next?”
“Fine.” He cleared his throat. “‘It was the day after my apocalypse. My brothers were with me in the fallout shelter. Each took a different tactic. Melbourne was a mercenary. Sydney was sensitive. Dingo was ready to prank revenge. And Taz was ready to climb the Pavilion and shout at the top of his lungs. My brothers insisted the dawn would come—a dawn I believed was doomed. But they were right. There it was, bright and shining. I just had to open my eyes and look.’”
Darwin’s story splashed around the room. Faceless boys were pacing around a sad-faced Darwin in the near dark. And then light rose around them. Darwin smiled. The light didn’t have a face.
Allie suddenly wondered if it was her.
She side-glanced at Darwin, asking with her fake green eyes if she was the sunrise. He blinked back that she was.
Fletch never would have been that poetic. She wanted to reach out and kiss his adorable freckle. But she decided on a smile, which he immediately returned.
“Nice work, Darwin. A promising start.”
“Thanks,” Darwin mumbled modestly.
“Allie J, what have you got for us?” Keifer rubbed her hands together like she was about to dig into a steaming plate of cheese fries. “You aren’t the only talent in the Fuselage, but you are the only celebrity. And I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say I am very anxious to hear your prose.”
Everyone applauded—except Charlie.
Oh no. Allie began sweating. She couldn’t read her piece. It wasn’t ready. It wasn’t written! “But class is over in, like, three minutes,” she tried.
“Then I suggest you start now,” Keifer insisted gently.
The writers’ circle provided no place to hide. Allie cleared her throat nervously and began improvising, just like she had on her acting auditions back in the old days. The days before Fletcher and—
“Allie J?”
“Sorry. Okay. Um, here I go,” she said to the blank tablet. “Love triangle. Obtuse, acute, where do I fit in?” She peered up. Everyone was watching her. Her mouth dried. “So, um, where was I? Oh yeah. Isosceles, equilateral, scalene. What’s your angle? Love triangle.” She giggled with pride at her accidental but fabulous rhyme. “I can’t let her win. Love triangle. Obtuse, acute, where do I fit in? Love geometry. Never mind, I pick me. The heart.”
There was silence when Allie looked up, indicating she was finished. Had she made them all speechless?
“Comments?” Keifer finally asked the room.
Hannah’s brows shot up under her mess of dark hair. Charlie nibbled her unglossed lip. Yara wiggled her nose like she was trying to contain a sneeze—or a snicker. Darwin fidgeted in his chair. Allie tilted back her head, willing the blood to drain from her face and return it to its naturally un-red state.
“Okay, then, let’s see it.”
Allie watched in horror as a thin blue line drew an isosceles triangle. Then an equilateral and scalene. And then a heart.
Snickers peppered the existing tension.
Darwin shot Allie a pitying what happened? look. Somehow, Allie managed to shrug her shoulders, wondering if he’d buy stage fright.
“Catchy,” Keifer finally spoke after a painfully long pause, “but I didn’t want something I could dance to. Or trace for that matter.” She cleared her throat, “I want something I can feeeeeel.” Allie slid down in her chair as Keifer continued, wishing she could power up the jet and fly away from her classmates’ accusing stares. “This is a poem, not a paragraph. I’d say there’s a rhyming dictionary where your heart should be. And not that cutesy heart, either. The bloody one that pumps life into your body every single day.”
“Class is dismissed,” the British voice announced all across campus. Allie had no idea who that voice belonged to, but she wanted to send her a dozen roses and a crate of thank-you chocolates.
Keifer clapped. “Class, I want you to finish what we started here today. Add a hundred words and more description.”
Everyone stood.
“Allie J, stay,” Keifer demanded. Allie nodded for Darwin to go ahead, hoping he couldn’t hear her heart beating triple time.
When everyone was gone, Keifer a-hemed and handed Allie a piece of paper. “Sign this.” OMG. Was she making her drop the class, leaving Charlie and Darwin together without her? “I’d like your autograph.”
Relief washed over Allie like a tsunami. So her triangles weren’t that bad! Maybe they were actually genius in their simplicity—like Post-its or Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Keifer had probably just been hard on her so the others wouldn’t feel badly about not being brilliant.
“Of course,” Allie said with a smile. “Who should I make it out to?”
“Just sign it,” Keifer ordered, handing her a pen.
Allie executed her perfectly practiced Allie J signature, dotting the J with a messy peace sign.
Keifer palmed the signed piece of paper, wadded it up, then tossed it in the recycling bin. “Now that we’ve thrown away the big star, we can get down to the real Allie J. I want to know what lies behind those green eyes. Somewhere inside you is a talented girl with something worth saying. Your songs are proof of that. And that is the girl I want in my class.”
The branches over the Fuselage swayed in the light breeze, and the sun beat down on Allie’s part. She nodded, her hope fading like her roots. Because underneath the fake mole, Allie was just a heartbroken blonde with no idea what to say.