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“Easy peasy,” she said and waited for the video to load. It was not about yachts. Not even remotely. MoMo B. ChaCha and Ladybird Hope sat in a heart-shaped bubble bath hot tub, rifles in their hands, champagne glasses nearby.
MOMO
Ladybird, you are a hunka hunka burnin’ love. When will you and The Corporation give me my weapons, my little dove?
LADYBIRD
Now, don’t get your peacock feathers all in a ruffle, MoMo. We have to be careful. Nobody can know we’re doing this.
Remember, we’ve got sanctions against you.
MOMO
I know. And it makes MoMo sad. Oh, pretty gazelle!
The Peacock took the swift animal down with one shot. Mary Lou flinched. “Meat is murder,” she whispered. “Bastards.”
LADYBIRD
Nice shot, Peacock! Bag it and tag it.
MOMO
Oh, Ladybird. All this killing and talk of weapons has made The Peacock amorous. A little less conversation and a little more action, please.
Ladybird and MoMo kissed and Ladybird ruffled the dictator’s hair.
LADYBIRD
You let Ladybird and The Corporation set up shop in the ROC, you get your weapons. I’ll arrange everything.
MOMO
Oh, Ladybird. Love me tender.
Mary Lou’s eyes widened. Her mouth hung open. About three seconds too late, she hit stop. “Ew. That was like watching your parents have sex. Your creepy, dysfunctional parents.” She grabbed the laptop and ran back to the bridge.
“You’ll never believe what I … what’s that?” The yacht’s radar blipped and beeped. A large green dot could be seen moving in their direction.
At the helm, Tane frowned. “Gotta be another ship.”
Mary Lou squinted out at the fog, but it was too thick to see anything. “Do you think it’s friendly?”
As if in answer, the other ship fired.
47Ladybird Hope doll, from the Ladybird Hope Destiny Dolls collection. But you should not put anything on a pedestal, least of all dolls who watch you while you sleep, waiting to suck the breath from your lungs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Thump-thump-thump-thump! The trees reverberated with the joyful cry of a Hindi love song from Shanti’s Greatest Bollywood Hits CD. The curtain that had been hung between two poles parted. Decked out in a glittering blue sari, Shanti stood front and center, lip-synching to the Indian love song. Behind her, the girls’ bangled arms fanned out like Kali’s. The music changed to a percussive rhythm. The girls peeled off and formed a line across the stage. They reached behind them for the plane seat cushions, which they tossed to one another like juggling pins while Petra ducked under, scooting to the front. Like a Bollywood flight attendant, she used two fingers on each hand to indicate the location of the exits — forward, back, over the wings. Her execution was flawless.
The girls jerked left, then right, simulating the plane crash in dance. They broke apart, and several of the girls slipped behind the curtains as if being sucked from the plane. They waited until they were sure the guards’ attention was on the stage, then they sneaked behind the Jeep and into the jungle to make their way to the ship.
Under the lights, Jennifer sidewinded across the stage, letting Sosie mock-throw a jar of Lady ’Stache Off at her. Jennifer “exploded” and rolled offstage while Sosie blew on the jar as if it were a gun — eliciting chuckles again — and placed the jar in the sand at the end of the runway. She executed three perfect backflips to applause and joined Jen backstage. Jen jerked her head toward the jungle and the two of them scuttled into the cover of leaves. They climbed the nearest tree and searched for the vine that would carry them to the next tree in a contagion that would take them nearly to the compound.
As Shanti lip-synched nervously, the girls backed toward the curtains, trying to follow her lead in the dance. Petra produced the flare gun from her cle**age, and it was passed from hand to hand until it came to rest with Adina, who dropped into a firing pose. She aimed at the jar of Lady ’Stache Off, but the flare gun jammed in the island humidity. The girls glanced at her in panic, then resumed their smiles. Quickly, Shanti grabbed the gun and tossed it to Petra.
“WTF?” Petra said through clenched teeth as they performed a pop-and-lock imitation of fighting a tsunami.
