Beauty Queens by Libba Bray Read Free Book Online

the direction of the volcano. The top disappeared into mist. It seemed unassailable and uninhabitable. She’d probably imagined the lights.
    After a breakfast of rationed airline pretzels and four sips each from the rescued water bottles, the girls worked on their opening dance number. Each girl had received a DVD of the dance steps in her prep packet, but they’d never had a chance to rehearse it as a unit. That’s what this week before the pageant was supposed to be about. Now, without the choreographer, it wasn’t coming together smoothly. Somebody would inevitably high-kick when it was time for spirit fingers, the timing was off on the contagion, and the whole thing was such a disaster that Petra pronounced it “so dinner theater on Mars.” After an hour of work in the hot island sun, Taylor called a break.
    Nicole tapped Adina. “Taylor wants you to play Fabio Testosterone 9 and ask all the questions.”
    “Why me?”
    Nicole faltered. “Um, I guess because you’re smart and good at questions and …”
    “Because you pissed her off,” Petra said, dabbing self-consciously at the sweat on her upper lip. “Count me out. I already know where to find Iran on a map and I have to look for my overnight bag.”
    Nicole whistled. “That won’t make Taylor happy.”
    “Tell her I’ll keep a watch out for a rescue ship. That I’m taking one for the team.”
    “Tell her I’m doing that, too,” Adina seconded.
    “I got there first,” Petra said.
    Nicole patted Adina’s shoulder. “Sorry. Guess you better go round everybody else up, Fabio.”
    Ten minutes later, the girls lined up as they had in every pageant. It was a relief to know this part. All they had to do was be charming and answer the questions with confidence.
    “Remember, don’t show fear,” Taylor called. Over the firewood, she struck two rocks together, trying to catch a spark. “Judges are like dogs: They’ll smell it. If you don’t know the answer, answer it like you do anyway.”
    “Can I get started?” Adina snapped. The heat was making her bug bites itch and she hadn’t had a decent meal since yesterday. “Our first contestant is Brittani Slocum, Miss Mississippi.”
    “I’m Miss Alabama,” Brittani corrected.
    At the end of the line, Tiara raised her hand. “I’m Miss Mississippi.”
    Adina looked from one tan, blond southern goddess to the other. They both cocked their heads to the left and smiled in a practiced, patient way.
    “Whatever,” Adina grumbled. “So, Miss Alabama, Tiara —”
    “Brittani!”
    “Brittani Slocum. First question. The pageant has come under fire for perpetuating an unrealistic image of superthin girls as beautiful, and many people feel this is harmful to girls’ self-esteem. What doyou say to these critics? And what do you personally feel about these narrow standards of beauty?”
    Brittani’s smile remained Vaseline smooth, but her eyes showed fear. “Um, what does
perpetuate
mean?”
    “Keep something going.”
    “Keep what going?”
    “No,
perpetuate
means
to keep something going.” Like I am perpetuating your stupidity
, Adina thought.
    “Oh. Um, well, I would say that being skinny and stuff is good because you can, like, fit into supercute jeans, unlike my friend Lisa? She totally ballooned up to a size six and none of her pants fit, and she had, like, three-hundred-dollar Sandeces 10 jeans!”
    In the line, several girls gasped.
    “Seriously! And she got all depressed and stuff? And she wouldn’t come out of her room or do cheerleading anymore because her uniform wasn’t fitting right and her parents had to do, like, a li’l benefit concert to raise the money to send her to fat camp, and when she came back from fat camp, she was super, super angry and started piercing things. She took a nail gun and nailed all her old Barbies to the wall in a cross pattern just like little Barbie Jesuses. It was so, so freaky. And we had, like, nothing in common anymore, and before she got fat