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“Tiara ate those hours ago and she’s fine and her skin looks great. If I’m going to die, I’d rather go out with a full stomach and amazing skin.” Petra smacked her lips, tasting. “Oh wow. These really are good!”
“Told you,” Tiara said sleepily.
“Okay. Here goes nothing.” Nicole crossed herself and bit into one, squirting juice. “Mmm. Oh wow.”
Shanti was weak from hunger, but she didn’t like going into situations in which she was not one hundred percent in charge. The fruit was an unknown. What if it were poisonous? She knew what Mrs. Mirabov would say: “Comrade Singh, you must train yourself to be without. Being beauty queen is like being marine, only harder. Marines do not fight in four-inch heels.” Still, the fruit was so inviting, and Tiara seemed fine. In the end, her hunger was stronger. She allowed herself three small pieces of fruit, marveling at their sweetness.
The sun’s light retreated. Sated and tired, the girls stretched out in the soft grass and watched the pale rind of moon grow more pronounced.
It began as a slight tingling in her fingers, and then Shanti was aware that her vision was more acute and that the edges of the jungle were unfolding, showing her more and more, like one of those accordion birthday cards.
“Anybody else feel … strange?” she asked, trying to keep the panic at bay.
Petra sang another old Boyz Will B Boyz tune to herself and mimed dance steps. Nicole giggled. Tiara stared up at the sky. From the corner of her eye, Shanti caught a colorful bird skating above the bushes. It looked at her and trilled one word: fraud.
“Oh my God.”
“What’s the matter, Bollywood?” Nicole asked, and laughed at the nickname.
“Don’t call me Bollywood,” Shanti snapped, but it only made Nicole giggle more. “What’s happening? I don’t understand — Tiara was fine after she ate that fruit. You didn’t see or hear anything strange, right?”
Tiara’s fingers tried to grab hold of an invisible ladder. “No. Well, the trees were singing funny camp songs to me and I think I saw a big rabbit surfing through the air. But that was all.”
“Oh my God!” Shanti cried, her words floating out in front of her in strings of black type.
“You sound funny, Bollywood. Like a Valley girl.” Nicole giggled anew.
Shanti clapped a hand over her mouth and fought to regain her composure. Carefully, she lifted her fingers, which no longer felt like her fingers but like butterflies, light and free. “Why didn’t you tell us, Tiara?”
“I didn’t want to bother you.”
Shanti blinked desperately, fighting the plant’s power. She liked to be in control — it was her safety net — and she could feel that net being ripped away from her by the star-shaped fruit.
Petra tried to calm her. “It’s kind of like Burning Man without the patchouli.”
“Do you think they’ll give us a pee test when we get back?” Tiara asked.
“Back where? What’s back?” Petra asked, and Tiara nodded.
Shanti fought with everything she had — synchronized Tae Kwon Do moves and circle turns. She shifted through her Bollywood talent routine, but soon her fingers forgot the language. Her head was an overgrown garden, and she was lost inside. She no longer knew where or who she was. Finally, she stretched out beside the others, and the jungle came to embrace her.
“I will search for berries as my ancestors did upon the plains before hunting the buffalo,” Shanti said dreamily.
Nicole rolled her head toward Shanti. At least, she thought she rolled her head. It was getting hard to tell what was what. “You’re not that kind of Indian, Bollywood.”
“Whatever,” Shanti replied. “Hey. Did you just see a purple dinosaur? He was wearing a boater hat.”
“Nice. I love a stylish dinosaur,” Petra murmured.
“I had a dinosaur when I was little. A stuffed dinosaur named Mr. Wiggles,” Tiara said. “One night, I found him under the covers, down, you know, there.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “I think he did the nasty to me.”
Nicole patted her mouth. “My lips are spongy. Anybody else’s lips spongy?”
Tiara grabbed Petra’s arm. Her voice was low and urgent. “Mr. Wiggles. I put him in the back of the closet. I couldn’t look at him after that. He was a bad, bad dinosaur. What if he finds me? What if he finds me here?”
Petra held Tiara’s face in her large hands. “You’re safe. Ride the wave, my Mississippi flower. You’re on a smooth, pretty wave, just floating.”
“Okay,” Tiara said, settling back. “Okay.”
