THE PAVILION
AMBROSIA BANQUET HALL
MONDAY, OCTOBER 11TH
7:19 P.M.
Charlie rubbed sleep from her eyes and swallowed a spoonful of yogurt, granola, and blueberries. She and Darwin had gone hiking with Mel and Allie yesterday, and even though they ended their double date with a late-night snack of Nutella-banana crepes, Charlie still ate with the gusto of an Olympic athlete. She took another bite and smiled at Allie across the table. Her best friend held a breakfast burrito in one hand and her aPod in the other, texting Mel non-stop.
Skye plopped into an empty seat at the table, a Belgian waffle sliding around her tray like an air hockey puck. She put her tray down on the table and stretched her arms high over her head, grabbing her elbows with the opposite hands and pulling until her shoulders popped. Her platinum wavelets shone as the morning sun beamed down on them from all eight giant windows in the octagonal dining hall. Skye took a bite of her waffle and leaned back in her chair. “Quiet around here.”
Skye was right; it was quiet. Until Shira’s surprise spree on Friday, the dining hall was always packed tighter than a sardine can. Alphas would squeeze in tightly around the shiny white tables, and the sound of chatting girls filled the giant room.
Charlie looked around the dining hall, absorbing the new, subdued relaxation in the air. Now that there were only thirty Alphas left, none of the tables were full and many stood empty. The entrance to the spa beckoned to Charlie on one side of the dining hall, and on the other was the door to the assembly room. Between the two stood six different boutiques where the girls could purchase new clothes and makeup with aBucks, earned by getting A’s.
Charlie hadn’t set foot in the boutiques in weeks, but suddenly she hungered for something more exciting to wear than her basic Alphas uniform, her old party dresses, and her lab coveralls. After all, she was officially Darwin’s girlfriend again. She might as well look the part. Even if he didn’t care what she wore, feeling pretty would only add to her newfound happiness. She looked in the windows of each boutique and decided that after breakfast she would try a few things on.
Her concentration on a cute sparkly shrug was broken when Allie elbowed her in the ribs. “AJ,” Allie leaned in and whispered in Charlie’s ear, tipping her head to the right.
Charlie followed Allie’s forehead thrust and saw AJ seated all alone at a corner table, still wearing her dingy green tam and scribbling in a notebook.
“She keeps trying to tell everyone it’s a mistake since she slept through the Muse Cruise,” Skye said. “But nobody’s buying it. Now she’s writing songs about being a misunderstood genius.”
Allie sat back in her chair and picked at her cuticles. “I think I’ll forgive her for lip-synching,” she said, and smiled. “In a few days, she’ll be a more humble person.”
Charlie nodded. “Maybe you’re right. I hear everyone hating you does wonders for your character.”
“Mimi hating me definitely turned out to be a good thing,” Skye chirped, waving to Ophelia and Tweety, who sat at a table across the room. “Working with Trip made me the best in the class.”
“Doesn’t hurt that Triple is gone, either,” Charlie added gently.
Skye’s eyes sparkled mischievously above a sly smile. “True.”
AJ looked up from her notebook and caught Charlie’s eyes for a second before looking back down and scrawling more lyrics. Charlie wondered if she’d ever grow to like AJ—it was hard to imagine, but you never knew. Now that she had Darwin back as a boyfriend and Allie and Skye as besties, she was open to anything.
Charlie leaned back in her chair and texted Darwin to see if he was coming to breakfast. She hadn’t felt this relaxed since before the Academy opened. With only thirty girls left, the school seemed less like a shark tank and more like a school of minnows swimming peacefully toward Shira’s finish line.
Alphas at the few occupied tables talked quietly among themselves. Everyone looked less haggard, less like a hamster on a wheel and more like what they were: lucky girls on an amazing island. Under the blow-outs and ponies were relaxed smiles, the faces of girls who knew they’d passed one of Shira’s biggest tests.
“Attention, Alphas,” the British voice of Charlie’s mom intruded on Charlie’s thoughts. “Please stand by for a special message.”
The brise-soleil shades on the Pavilion lowered over the windows, turning the bright dining hall pitch-black. A screen lowered over each window, and suddenly Shira’s face appeared in close-up on each one—giant, forbidding, and unreadable behind her dark sunglasses.
Giant-head Shira sat in a white leather passenger seat with massaging leather “fingers” extending from it. An A-shaped window next to her revealed palm trees, ferns, and the Delphi Observatory. A glass of sparkling water sat untouched in the foreground of the shot. Charlie knew that chair, the glass, and the window—Shira was broadcasting from the cabin of the Brazille Force One, her luxury Learjet.
“G’day, lollies,” Eight Shiras boomed from the screens. The view of trees framed in the A-shaped window began to move. “As you can see, I’m headed to the mainland. A situation there demanded my attention, unfortunately, and I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone.”
Charlie’s eyes met Allie’s, then Skye’s. Both of her besties looked excited, but Charlie knew Shira too well. This had to be another trap, test, or trick. When her eyes returned to the screens, the plane had gathered speed. Outside the window of Brazille Force One, trees whizzed past in a green-brown blur.
All eight Shiras continued. “I have good news. While I’m gone, you will discover a leader. That person, whoever she may be, will distinguish herself through her ability to be fair, to be strong, to survive. Someone with vision. This visionary Alpha will receive special privileges upon my return. For one, she will be an Alpha for life. And the rest . . .” Shira paused dramatically, a thin smile appearing on her face for a fraction of a second before vanishing. “The rest will remain a surprise. Good luck, girls.”
All eight screens instantly went dark and slowly rolled up along with the brise-soleil shades, flooding the enormous room with light again.
Charlie hit SEND on her message to Darwin and put her phone in her skirt pocket. For a split second, the dining hall was quiet enough to hear a bobby pin drop.
Then Seraphina Hernandez-Rosenblatt—normally shy, sensitive, and introverted—did something out of character. She unclipped her long brown curls, shook out her hair so it was wild and full, then leapt out of her chair and climbed up on one of the tables, raising her hands high over her head like she’d just won a marathon. “Freedom!” she yelled, smiling wide and looking around the room, wiggling her thick eyebrows as if daring the other girls to embrace their new Shira-free existence.
Milliseconds later, the room burst into commotion like a cork had been popped from a bottle of champagne. Charlie looked around—there were no muses in sight, no teachers to speak of. In seconds, someone hacked the audio system in the pavilion to play the Black Eyed Peas “I Gotta Feeling.”
“If you can’t beat ’em…” Skye shrugged and jumped up to join the bun-heads in a celebratory dance-off.
Charlie and Allie watched as a few girls ran toward the boutiques and began tearing clothes off their hangers as if aBucks no longer applied.
Charlie wanted to be happy. She wanted to be free. But she also wanted to be an Alpha for life. She ran a hand uncertainly through her mahogany bangs and looked out the window, just in time to spot Brazille Force One slicing through the perfect blue sky.
Charlie’s fingers itched the way they always did when she wanted to create. She needed to get to the lab. It would take a lot of thinking to come up with a way to lead this crazy Alpha crew. For one, Alphas didn’t like to let others lead. That’s what made them Alphas.
But there could only be one. She knew that now.
Turning in a slow circle in the middle of the chaotic room, Charlie wiggled her wrist until she heard the reassuring clank of her three cameo bracelets. She made a silent promise to herself: to rise to the top, and to do it without any of her classmates noticing. Once her leadership was secured, Charlie would make sure Shira knew all about it.
After all, she didn’t come here to play. She came here to win.