“My place!” she cried.
Petra wrapped her up in a big hug. “Come on. Let’s go get our game faces on.”
Adina took Nicole aside. “I need you to cover for me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’m going to find Taylor, see if I can get her to help.”
“But how? She’s straight-up crazy now.”
“Sometimes, a little crazy is exactly what you need.”
The girls practiced their dance routine loudly. Nicole banged hard on her drum. Adina slipped into the jungle and ran for Taylor’s secret hideaway. It had taken on a ghoulish quality; Taylor had affixed several black shirts to poles outside her cave and lit them to make torches. In the firelight, Miss Miss seemed to undulate in some ancient dance. Taylor sat before the sculpture on her haunches, swiping mud across her cheeks in long, thick streaks.
“Hey, Taylor.” Adina crept closer. “Whatcha doin’?”
Taylor’s knife was at Adina’s throat quickly.
“Whoa. Taylor, it’s me, Adina. Miss New Hampshire.”
Taylor seemed to be trying to remember something. “New Hampshire … I don’t like you, do I?”
“Not so much,” Adina said, swallowing hard. “Look, I know we’ve had our differences, but you know what? We’re on the same team. There are some bad people out there, Taylor. People who want to hurt us. You were trying to warn us that day, weren’t you?”
Taylor took the knife away. “Lies. It’s all lies.”
“I know. But we’re not going to let them get away with it.”
“A Miss Teen Dream doesn’t complain. She offers a smile and an ambassador to the world.” Taylor frowned. “No. That isn’t right.”
“Taylor, we’re going to get off the island. Tonight. There’s a boat and we’re going to make a break for it. But we need your help to fight off the guards.”
“A girl’s best weapon is her smile,” Taylor parroted.
“No. I mean real weapons. We’ve got to fight our way out of here before they kill us. Tonight. Look, just meet us at the volcano, okay? Taylor! Are you listening?”
The wind picked up; the fire responded with a surge of desire. Taylor looked around as if she were seeing everything for the first time: the arsenal, the unassailable wall of green, the volcano stretching up from the land like an angry fist of rock. The humidity had wreaked havoc on her hair, which was a tangle of greasy blond. There were dark circles beneath her eyes. Her face was haunted.
“I can’t be what they want,” she whispered, and it seemed to her that those words had come to her from long ago. An expression of childlike confusion came over her face. She put her arms around Miss Miss like a child seeking comfort. “I just wanted to be somebody.”
“You are somebody,” Adina said. “You’re Taylor Rene Krystal Hawkins. And you know a lot about the military, dance, bathing suits, kicking ass, and handling firearms. And right now, your Teen Dreams need you. Can you meet us at the volcano after the pageant starts?”
Taylor’s mouth went hard. “They won’t want us like this.” As if snapping out of a dream, Taylor smiled and posed, but her eyes were still haunted. She spoke rapidly. “One thousand strokes will bring the lies to your hair. A lady never and a lady does and a lady always. Shine and sparkle.”
Taylor flitted from spot to spot, turning pirouettes, waving to an unseen crowd. “Do you like me? Do you like me now?”
“Taylor!” Adina snapped, but Taylor was beyond hearing. Reluctantly, Adina turned to go, leaving Taylor behind to blow kisses at an unseen crowd.
CLASSIFIED
The yacht, a sleek luxury model favored by rappers, movie stars, and moguls, powered toward the small island. This particular yacht had once been featured on the show Pimp My Sails and on the cover of Luxury Lifestyle magazine with a bikini-clad model drenching her body in champagne under the headline, “Get the Latest Hot Accessories.” The yacht had been sold to MoMo B. ChaCha through various channels because it was a symbol of wicked American excess, which The Peacock publicly disdained. But he liked the yacht’s heart-shaped hot tub, where he sat watching Ladybird Hope on a TV news hour calling him a threat to national security.
MoMo chuckled and puffed on his cigar. He offered a cigar to General Good Times, too. “The lady pines for MoMo. Soon we will have our new weapons, and when she is elected president, there will be the big wedding and she will give us a secret McDonald’s in the people’s palace. Excuse me for a moment, General. I must dress.”