Modelland (38 page)

“Huh?”

The doctor lifted up her pants leg and revealed that the skates were actually attached to her body, the same color and texture as skin.

“All doctors here at Modelland have them,” Dr. Erica stated matter-of-factly.

“It seems like there are a lot of … um … different-looking Gurus around here,” Tookie said softly, thinking of Guru Applaussez and its hand-head and Guru Pacifico with his rubber face.

“That’s because hundreds of years ago, Modelland took us all in,” the doctor explained, her hands moving quickly over Tookie’s sliced ankle and then her lips. “Anyone born … different. We would be locked up and tested on without this place. If it weren’t for Modelland, my kind and others like me would be freaks. Like her …,” she said, referring to Purse Drestookill, who passed by in the corridor outside. “All I’ll say is … that’s, uh … not a hat.”

“Whoa,” Tookie whispered.

“It was a blessing for my kind, because the powers that be at Modelland recognized that skates for feet would be put to good use in emergency medical situations,” the doctor continued. “They figured we could get from one patient to the next with speed and
ease. So they trained us all and … here I am. They take good care of us.” She smiled and pointed to a picture of a girl in the corner. “My daughter, Camina Marche, she’s about your age. She’s just like her mama. Got roller skates for feet too. She wouldn’t have a chance in life without this place. She’s in medical school right now.”

“Where?” Tookie asked. A person with roller-skate feet would be big news in places like Metopia and beyond. She was surprised she hadn’t read a news article about it.

“Modelland isn’t just what you see when you go from class to class,” the doctor explained. “There is a whole underground world here. Parts of it are still a mystery to even me, and I was born here.”

“But what about Bellas?” Tookie asked. “Modelland has such strict rules for Bellas to enter. They have to look a certain way. Perfect …”

The doctor gazed at Tookie curiously. “Do they? I have a confession to make, missy: when I first saw you, I thought you were an injured new Guru, not a Bella. Especially with how you helped that sad, desperate girl. Plus, with your protuberance of a forehead and wild dual eye color and poufy hair, kind of like mine … well, you know. But word has traveled about the four, uh … interesting-looking new Bellas this year, so I quickly realized my assumption was wrong when I saw you were with Piper.”

“Okay, okay,
I’m
not really sure why I’m here either,” Tookie admitted. “But seriously. The rules for Bellas, they’re so different from the rules for Gurus … and that doesn’t seem fair. It’s
not
fair. Why is there such a double standard?”

“I don’t know.” Dr. Erica shrugged. “I know it’s wrapped up
in some old Modelland history, though. I wish I could help you. But your guess is as good as mine. And that’s all that doctors do, anyway. Make educated guesses. Get yourself educated, missy, and you’ll find the answers you’re looking for.”

With that, the doctor announced, “Bleeding’s stopped. But before I stitch you up, I want to give you some stronger Zed Med. Lips have lots of nerve endings … pleasure and pain ones.”

The doctor’s tickly mop-hair strands entered Tookie’s nose again, a bit deeper this time, and she could feel them reaching her throat and numbing her skin. “I’ll tend to some others while this sets in,” she said. “Oh, and I know you heard me talking about how children grow up a certain way depending on what their parents name them. Dig deep to see if your name is something to follow or fight against.
Tookie
. The last syllable sounds like
key
. Maybe you’re searching for something, and you have the power to unlock it or set it free. I tell Camina Marche to think about her name all the time.

“Okay, missy, I’ll be back in a few.”

She whipped back the curtain to reveal a long line of beds.

Tookie woozily turned her head to the left as two roller-skate-footed doctors and four purses flopped four new patients onto a single bed. It was the Likee sisters, and they were bucking and kicking violently. Bizarrely, their teeth were enormous, and their blue, green, pink, and purple hair had grown long and morphed into long, flowing Mohawks.

“The Likees practically live in here,” one of the doctors restraining the girls said to Dr. Erica. “None of them can stop hoarding fashion that’s
not theirs.
”

Tookie caught a peek at HerLikee’s arm band.
Clothes Horse
.

Dr. Erica sighed. “Take them to the Intensive Couture Unit and let them hold some hay and straw handbags. That should calm them down.”

The Likees were taken away, making whinnying noises. Just seeing them reminded Tookie of something, and she turned to Dr. Erica. “Do you think you could replace a missing filling while I’m here?” She poked her tongue into the spot in her mouth where her filling used to be. She had a feeling the Likees—the Fraud Quad—had pilfered it after War of Words class.

Dr. Erica nodded, then left. After a few minutes she brought a new patient back from the waiting room. Tookie’s eyes widened. It was Bravo. Her heart started to speed up.
It’s just the Zed Meds
, she told herself.
It’s not because
he’s
here
.

Bravo stopped at the edge of an empty bed. “Doctor, I really don’t need to lie down, I’m just getting my stitches taken out.”

Dr. Erica placed her hands on her hips. “The last Bestostero whose stitches I removed fainted right into my arms. Just lie down and relax. Look at it like a mini vacation from building the stadium.”

Then she disappeared.

Bravo glanced in Tookie’s direction, raising his eyebrows in surprise. He looked like he was going to say something, but then Zarpessa materialized at Bravo’s bedside. “No need to wait alone,” she said in a silky voice. “I’ll keep you company until the doctor removes those manly stitches of yours. You poor, poor baby!” She reached out to touch Bravo’s neck.

More injured girls limped over to Bravo’s bed. “Must take lots of muscles to pose with those big tools,” one uttered in a deep voice.

Ignoring them, Bravo walked over to Tookie and sat down on the edge of her bed. Tookie stared straight ahead, not knowing what to do.

“What’s he doing sitting with
her
?” a snarky voice hissed.

“Is that her forehead’s normal size or is it swollen?” another voice cackled.

Bravo cleared his throat, and Tookie snuck a woozy peek at him. “Hey,” he said.

She pushed through her numbness and daze and mustered a sloppy smile. “Hey.”

“What happened to you, Tookie?” Bravo asked. “Just this morning, those lips of yours looked good.”

Tookie stiffened, still not sure if she was the butt of a joke or something else. All at once, the strong medicine’s numbing effects kicked in. Tookie’s tongue felt like it had been strangled by an enormous boa constrictor. Her mouth went bone dry, and she longed for water.

Bravo was still waiting for her answer. “Zats,” Tookie admitted, shakily pointing to her sliced lip. Then she shut her eyes. She’d meant
cats
, but her anesthetized lip had other ideas.

But Bravo seemed to understand. He smiled teasingly. “Zats, huh? So that Zatwalk Zorridor actually exists? Is it really scary?”

“Zarry, zarry zarry,” Tookie said, turning beet-red. She had wanted to say
Very, very scary
. “Do you have a Zorridor at Zeszosterone?” Maybe
this
was the Z effect, she realized. The Zed Meds Z’d up your speech.

“Are you kidding?” Bravo grinned. “We’re not magical like you Bellas. We’re mere mortals. But … there have been a few Intoxibell
o
s in history who have had it, that magic thing. We B boys
hope, but it’s one in a million. If it happens for me, that’s cool. But I’m really here for the architecture of this place. That’s my real love. One day, I hope to—”

“Architecture?” Zarpessa interrupted from the other bed. “Why, that’s my first love too! I’m just here to study the unique Modelland buildings. I could care less about becoming an Intoxibella.”

But Bravo didn’t even glance at Zarpessa. His eyes seemed to be firmly planted on Tookie. That was when her stomach decided to growl disgustingly. She flushed red again.

Bravo smiled. “You hungry, huh? Or should I say
zungry
?”

Tookie nodded, which made her feel dizzy.

“I’m hungry too,” Bravo said. “Can that lip handle some food?”

Tookie touched her tongue to lip. Her lips were so numb, she felt nothing. She continued to run her tongue over the exterior of her mouth, attempting to feel anything. “Uh-huh, I think so,” she said, though it came out “Zuh-huh, I zink zho.”

Bravo stood up from Tookie’s bed and exited the room. He returned with packaged snacks labeled
Modelland Munchies by Guru Lauro
. “I love this stuff,” he whispered. “Tastes like what you want it to taste like, loaded with the vitamins you need at the moment, melts so smoothly on the tongue. We male mortals can’t get this good stuff on our side of the mountain. They load us up on protein only. If it’s not a piece of meat, an egg, or some powder, we don’t eat it. Lucky girl you are.”

Tookie smiled sloppily, ripped off the top of one package, and tried to bite the treat. It landed on her cheek.

“Lemme help you with that,” Bravo suggested. He took the Munchie from Tookie and held it to her lips. She opened her
mouth to take a bite, and as she was wrapping her lips around the sweetness, a thick pool of her bloody saliva dribbled onto Bravo’s hand.

“Yuck!” Zarpessa screeched from her bed. “Too-Too just mouth-pee-peed all over you!”

“Too
-kee
,” Bravo corrected her a little sharply. “Her name is Tookie. You two haven’t met yet?” The drool was still on his hand. He hadn’t wiped it away.

Zarpessa shrugged nonchalantly. “I kinda know her. She’s my D mate. Honestly, most of the time I just call her Unfortunate-Looking. Modelland will enjoy sacrificing her. They can make pea and lentil soup with her eyeballs.” She winked at him, expecting him to laugh, but Bravo only appeared uncomfortable.

“That sucks that those cat-girl mutants scratched your lip up like that.” Bravo reached forward to touch her lip. “It probably hurts, huh? Nothing worse than a cut on your lip when you kiss.”

Heat rose to Tookie’s cheeks. First thumbsucking … now cut-lip kissing?

“Puh-leeze,” a voice butted in. Zarpessa tilted her long, slender legs so that they touched Bravo’s. “Like Chaste would say, there are plenty of other ways to get busy even with a cut lip, right, Too-Too?”

Tookie blinked at her, now feeling both woozy and embarrassed. After a few awkward seconds passed, Zarpessa leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “You’ve never done it, have you, Tookie?”

Tookie lowered her head. Bravo shifted nervously. “Uh, I think you should leave her alone.…”

“You’ve never kissed anyone, have you?” Zarpessa needled, her eyes growing wider and brighter.

Tookie desperately wanted to prove her wrong. Her cheeks blazed with shame. A knot lodged in her throat.

“Tookie is as pure as Shivera snow!” Zarpessa crowed. “Awww, that’s so cute!”

Bravo whipped around and glared at her, his muscles tensed, his eyes blazing. “Look, I told you to leave her alone,” he said in a biting voice. “Why can’t your bitchy little brain understand that?”

The room went silent. Every girl’s eyes widened. Zarpessa’s jaw dropped, and redness crept up her swanlike neck and into her cheeks. “Purse Erica?” she screamed. “This bed hurts my back,” she snapped. “I’ll wait in the waiting room till it’s my turn!”

Before she flounced away, she gave Tookie a dark, sadistic glare.
I can’t wait till they burn you alive
, she mouthed.

Tookie’s stomach made a loud growling noise again.

“Wow,” Bravo said. “You still
zungry
, huh?”

He broke off another piece of the Munchie and fed Tookie. Tookie didn’t drool this time, but she tasted fresh blood, probably from chomping down on her numb tongue and cheeks.

“Zoo zry,” Tookie said to Bravo, trying to say
too dry
. “Zit zeeds …”
It needs
. She reached into her flower brooch and pulled out the can of whipped cream that had dropped in during her first class with Guru Lauro. She sprayed a dollop of cream onto the Munchie in Bravo’s hand.

Bravo stared at the last bite of the cream-covered Munchie, then at Tookie’s flower. “You carry around random stuff on your chest?”

Tookie hesitated. If Bravo didn’t think she was freaky already, this would probably push him over the edge. “ZI’m zalways zungry.”

“Good for you,” Bravo whispered, kindly not pointing out
how strangely Tookie was talking. “Some of the girls around here are afraid to eat, especially around us guys. It drives me nuts. Open up.”

Tookie opened her mouth for Bravo to feed her his cream-topped Modelland Munchie bite. She closed her eyes to fully appreciate the surge of flavor hitting her tongue.

Then Bravo leaned down. “What other kind of stuff does that hold in it, anyway?”

Tookie shrugged.

With a devious look in his eye, Bravo leapt off the bed and grabbed a jar of gauze. He held it up to the brooch, and the flower sucked it up. “Whoa!” he said.

Tookie giggled and pointed to a pair of discarded shoes in the corner. Snickering, Bravo grabbed them and held them up to the brooch. The flower gobbled the shoes up like a Venus flytrap hungry for insects. But the brooch didn’t get any bigger from its new cargo.

The two of them went around the room stuffing more things into the brooch—a pillow, a box of magical sandpaper, a pair of crutches. Tookie was giggling so hard her stomach muscles hurt.
I’m having fun
, she thought.
With a guy. A guy every Bella wants the attention of
. It didn’t seem real.

“Tookie?” Dr. Erica called, peeking around a curtain. “You’re numb enough now. Time for me to work my Modelland magic on those precious lips of yours. We’ll be rolling you into the operating room—or as we say here at Modelland, the OR-U-OK. My own special Lumière lighting and tools are in there for special cases. Time to say goodbye, Bravo.”