Jillian sighed and pointed out the ones they knew the baby dragon liked the most. “Gummy worms? Snickers? Kit Kat? M&Ms?”
Joy gazed up them with pure delight on her face and nodded.
“Which ones?” Jillian asked.
“Candy!”
“I think she wants one of each,” Louise said. “She’s been really good so far. We owe her.”
“All this can’t be good for her.” Nevertheless, Jillian used her phone to buy one of each type of candy. “We’re lousy mothers, you know. Our mom would never give in to us. She’d give us that look and we knew we’d better behave and we would.”
Louise felt a sudden floodwater of sorrow rise up. “I know.”
“What are we going to do about the babies?” Jillian whispered. “Joy is good at taking care of herself, but what are we going to do with real babies?”
Louise steeled herself against wanting to cry. “I don’t know. We don’t have any way for the babies to be born yet, so let’s not worry about it now.”
“When they’re born, we’ll work hard and be the best mothers ever.”
“How can you be our mothers when you’re our sisters?” the babies asked.
“Oh!” Jillian used one of their parents’ distraction tricks. “We’re going to have to get new phones.”
Louise gasped as she realized that they would need phones to purchase everything from Joy’s candy to new clothes. (They hadn’t been stripped down like Crow Boy, but their clothes were blood-soaked and reeked of smoke.) Ming would be able to track every purchase and chart their movements through the city via their old phones.
“We can order replacement phones and pick them up at an automated kiosk.” It would mean severing ties with everyone they knew as they changed phone numbers. Should they call their Aunt Kitty and warn her? Her last text had her on a plane heading back to California; she needed to keep working if she had any hope of gaining custody.
Louise took out her phone and turned it on to check for recent text messages from Aunt Kitty. There were five hundred and six new texts. The last dozen all from their classmates.
Louise had gotten a handful of texts after their parents were killed. Their friends had wanted to know if they were okay. She hadn’t answered any of them. She didn’t know how, because the true and obvious response was “no.” After a few days, the incoming texts trickled to nothing.
Why had she gotten over five hundred since this morning? As she stared at her phone, it vibrated with a new text.
It was the middle of the night. Why would anyone be texting this late?
The text was “Where are you?” from Iggy. The one before was from him, too. “Are you okay?” And before that was “Call me!”
A quick scroll downward showed that all five hundred were from her classmates.
What in the world had happened?
She scrolled down and found the first text.
It was from Elle Pondwater, and all in capital letters. “OMG! OMG! I DIDN’T DO IT! I SWEAR!”
Oh, this did not bode well.
The next one was from Iggy. “Someone leaked your names to the press. The world knows you’re Lemon-Lime.”
“Oh no,” Louise whispered.
Zahara pointed the finger at Elle with: “That witch sold your pictures to the tabloids!”
And then another from Elle. “That horrible photographer from my party figured out who you were! He’s sold the picture of you two made up as elves!” And then a minute later, a second text. “YOU’RE PRINCESS TINKER’S SISTERS?” Followed by a series of “?” and “!” marks.
“No, no, no,” Louise whispered, scrolling down. How did anyone know that?
Iggy texted again. “They’re just making wild guesses by saying that you know all that stuff about Elfhome because you’re Princess Tinker’s little sisters. Right? Yeah, you look a lot like her, but that’s not because you’re related. Right?” And then an hour later. “How did you know that Princess Tinker saved Windwolf?”
Zahara reported more damage. “Elle says she didn’t do it, but her mother had her photographer film the play. He recognized your music. He started a bidding war for the video.”
Louise groaned. She’d been so stupid. Pressed for time, she’d used all their normal music-composing tools that included the digital recreations of the Elfhome instruments. Any claims that they were the creators of the Lemon-Lime videos might have been discounted if not for the corroborating evidence of their signature music.
Zahara had reported more bad news while they were locked in Yves’ magical cage. The Jello Shots had waded into battle, a hundred thousand strong, determined to find out the truth. Like data locusts, they’d swarmed the school computer, found the student list for the twins’ class, and gone after home computers looking for evidence. Unlike the twins’ personal systems, the other students’ were easy prey.
Louise called up the Jello Shot forum and winced at what their fans had stolen. Everything from the anti-mermaid music video to set designs to costume sketches were mined, shared, compared to existing Lemon-Lime work, and debated in detail. In Giselle’s computer, the Jello Shots had found the ultimate proof. While the twins were working on their response to Nigel’s shout-out, they hadn’t noticed Giselle filming them. She sat behind them in class and managed to get a clear shot of Louise animating the first act while Jillian wrote dialogue. Louise always thought that she crawled through the process, but removed by time and place, she realized that she worked at an amazing speed. She pulled up old sets from previous videos, worked camera angles, blocked in characters, did special effects, and fiddled with lighting angles. And then, proving to be a ninjalike stalker, Giselle managed to film them recording the lines in the girls’ restroom.
“Lemon-Lime is so super amazing awesome cute!” The Jello Shots mostly agreed (there were still hold-outs that didn’t believe the evidence), and then tore into the twins’ life. In the course of an hour, they knew everything that could be known about the girls. The dust explosion in their playhouse. The bomb outside their school. Their connection to the bomber. Their parents’ death. The custody battle.
The Jello Shots reeled at what they found and poured out their sympathy. To Louise’s alarm, their attention moved from what the twins had done in the past to where they were now. “They’re only nine years old! Has anyone seen them since the play? They weren’t at the funeral! Why didn’t they go? Where are they? Did something happen to them?”
How did the Jello Shots find out that they weren’t at the funeral? She discovered there was an entire thread of the fans calling the funeral home and grilling the staff as to who attended.
Louise’s phone vibrated.
It was Iggy texting again: “Please let me know you’re okay!”
Was it really Iggy texting her? Or was Yves using Iggy to find the twins? Was Iggy in danger, too? If Yves wasn’t using Iggy, then contacting him directly might make him a target.
She took out her tablet and found an unsecured network and tapped into it.
“Who are you calling?” Jillian asked.
“Iggy. Something’s wrong.”
He picked up on the first ring with a cautious, “Hello?”
“Say ‘Who is this’ if there’s someone threatening you.”
“What?”
“Is someone looking for us?”
“Huh? I am. And half the free world. Where are you?”
Louise considered possible answers. “We’re safe. For now.”
“You weren’t hurt in the explosion?”
“Which one?” She winced. People normally didn’t have multiple explosions in their lives.
“The one in Alpine! Your grandmother’s house blew up! Lemon-Lime Love just broke the news a few minutes ago.”