It was Cecilia Forthright, resplendent in a daisy-yellow top with white floral print, a plaid skirt, and tall yellow stockings, with a large yellow purse to match. “That terrible wig isn’t fooling anyone, oddling. You can’t hide those freckles,” she said, words dripping with disdain.

 

Gwendolyn glared at her. “What are you doing here? This isn’t the place for proper girls like you. Run on home to Daddy.”

 

Cecilia scoffed. “Daddy doesn’t care what I do. You’re the one that should be in the Home with all the worthless cases that are such a burden on the City. Don’t they lock you up at night? Like animals?”

 

Gwendolyn stood up so fast she knocked over her chair. “Stop it! I am sick of your bullying! It won’t work anymore, I’ve faced much bigger things than you—”

 

“Me?” Cecilia screeched. She threw her hands in the air. “You’ve been picking on me ever since the Change! I’ve been ignoring you, keeping to myself, but you just won’t leave me alone!”

 

Gwendolyn stopped. That was not the response she’d expected. “What are you even talking about?”

 

Cecilia scoffed. “As if you didn’t know. You’re the worst bully of them all.”

 

“I’m not a bully!”

 

Cecilia came round the table and got right up in Gwendolyn’s face. “Do you think I’m stupid? I hear all the nasty little things you and your friends say behind my back. And I don’t know how, but I know you’re the reason Vivian and Janette won’t talk to me anymore. And then there’s that look.”

 

Gwendolyn was shaken. There was a kernel of truth in what Cecilia said. “What… what look?”

 

“You know exactly what look. The one that says you think I’m worthless. Like I’m nothing. I’m not nothing!” Cecilia said, her voice a hysterical shriek.

 

“I… I don’t…”

 

Cecilia scoffed again and crossed her arms. “You can stop pretending, no one is buying it.”

 

“You’ve been teasing me since our first year at the School! You call me oddling, and freak! You’re horrid to Missy as well!”

 

“Please, stop fighting…” Missy said, trying to edge her way between them.

 

But Gwendolyn wasn’t done. “Not to mention how you held me down and tried to cut off my hair!”

 

“And you scratched me! You made me bleed! Look!” Cecilia leaned in close, and sure enough, Gwendolyn could see faint scars on her cheek. “We were twelve. Grow up. Besides, you cut it all off yourself anyway. Poor little Gwendolyn, desperate for attention, wanting everyone to feel sorry for her. Wrapping all the grown-ups around your little finger so no one notices how you bump my desk every morning. How you knock my books to the floor. How you say nasty things about me to anyone who’ll listen. You trip me, you shove me—”

 

“You tripped me! You stole my diary!”

 

“I never did! I told you, Vivian tripped you! You’re the one who left your diary laying round.”

 

“Stop it!” Missy shouted, uncharacteristically loud.

 

Cecilia’s face twisted into an expression of disgust. “It was about time you got what you deserved. Oh, how my daddy loved your famous parents, he could never stop talking about them. And it was you all along. As if bullying me wasn’t enough. Lying to Daddy, stealing his money—”

 

“I didn’t steal anything!”

 

“But now you’re in the Home, where you belong, orphan—”

 

Gwendolyn slapped her across the face.

 

The three of them stood there in stunned silence, each shocked by what Gwendolyn had done.

 

“Gwendolyn…” Missy whispered in shock.

 

“I… I’m not an orphan,” Gwendolyn stammered.

 

“Whatever,” Cecilia said, rubbing her cheek. “Precious, innocent Gwendolyn. Don’t make me laugh. Just leave me alone, freak.” Cecilia turned and stormed away, losing herself in the crowd.

 

“Are you all right?” Missy said.

 

“I… I don’t know,” Gwendolyn said. She truly didn’t. Cecilia’s words had rattled her. Most of what she said had been true. Was she really the bully here? Gwendolyn shook her head. No, she thought. Cecilia deserves whatever she gets.

 

But she couldn’t help noticing Cecilia across the room, sitting by herself at a table with a single untouched drink. She looked very small and lonely, and Gwendolyn couldn’t help but remember how that felt. It was true that since Gwendolyn had returned from Tohk, Cecilia’s friends had kept their distance.

 

Meanwhile, Gwendolyn’s own friends sidled back up to the table.

 

“See anything good?” Gwendolyn asked, trying to shake off her encounter with Cecilia.

 

“Loads!” Tommy said. “There’s this new artist who’s making animals entirely out of scrap metal, painting them in bright colors, and—”

 

“Shh!” Jessica said, waving for him to sit down. “Zelda’s starting.”

 

A woman was stepping on stage, a beautiful brunette somewhere in her early twenties. Even amongst the Revelers she stood out, clad in a dress with layers of shimmering rainbow fringe that shifted color with the slightest movement. She wore one of the glittering bands around her forehead that seemed to be the hottest style, with a white feather sticking up from one side. When she mounted the stage, the entire crowd went quiet.

 

“What a posi-toot-ly splendorous party! It’s good to see all you dappers and dames, you sweets and swells, all dolled up in your glad rags and coming out to tap your toes and wear out your dancing shoes.” She spoke in a rapid-fire patter with a confidence and strength that contrasted with her high-pitched, girlish voice. “Thank you all for sharing your lovelies. Your stories, your music, your art and your fashion. It’s people like you who are pushing our City forward, showing the stodgy old codgers what a glittering future might lay before us if we swing to a new beat.”

 

The crowd cheered. Jessica leaned forward in her seat. “She’s amazing.”

 

Gwendolyn had to agree.

 

“I’m pleased as punch to see so many new faces pop up around here. Where’s Wendy? Stand up, Wendy.”

 

Everyone craned their necks to look around the room.

 

Tommy nudged Gwendolyn. “That’s you, remember?”

 

“Oh! Right.” Tentatively, she stood and waved at the Revelers. There was a fresh burst of applause, and a few whistles.

 

Zelda gestured to her. “That story of yours was real jake, darling, the cat’s pajamas. The rest of you better watch out or these little flappers might show you all up. Take a bow, sister.”

 

Gwendolyn did, and eased back into her seat.

 

“But it ain’t all giggles and glamor, gang. Have you seen these posters pasted up? ‘A return to values,’ they say.”

 

A chorus of boos rippled through the room.

 

“We all know what that means. Back to way things were. Back to grey and dull and dreary and dumb.  For the first time, we’re awake, and they’d rather us go back to sleep. Well, we’ve had enough of their ‘values’! If there’s to be any returning to be done around here, it’s us, taking things back to before the old-timers fouled everything up, to the days of color and bright and bubbling!” Zelda threw her hands in the air, and the crowd rewarded her with a raucous cheer.

 

“But it won’t come easy, you pretty things. The council wants to take away your books. Your stories. Your music. Your art. They want you chained to a desk, doing the same pointless work your parents did, and your grandparents, and so on and so forth into boring antiquity. But we want more than some drowsy, dreary, day-to-day!”

 

Her tone grew serious, and her sparkling eyes traveled across the room, making contact with each Reveler in turn. “We’ve seen their world and it’s a milquetoast metropolis of mindless mediocre men, and women with no more to do than clean the house and care for the babies.” She pointed a bejeweled finger. “But we can show them the possibilities. We can show them the wonderful things you’ve all created. Change isn’t coming, it’s already here, and we—”

 

But Zelda’s fiery speech was interrupted by a shout from a young man who ran into the room and jumped up on a table. “Beat it! It’s a raid!”

 

The crowd burst into a frenzy. Several headed for the exit, only to be met by a group of uniformed men with nightsticks. And at the front of them all was the Childkeeper.

 

“Many of you are unsupervised minors engaged in delinquent activities.” Her voice was as calm and controlled as ever. “Gentlemen. Round them up.”

 

The men fanned out through the room and started grabbing Revelers, hauling them roughly toward the door. Zelda was suddenly nowhere to be seen.

 

“You can’t do this!” Jessica shouted. “There’s no law against it!”

 

“A new policy, directly from Mr. Pump and the City Council. All unsupervised minors engaged in delinquent activity are to be detained and sent to the Home for Unclaimed Children. There we can teach you to be of service to your community.” The Childkeeper gestured to a policeman and pointed at Missy. The man stepped in and grabbed her by the arm.

 

“Let go of her!” shouted Tommy. He pounded on the officer’s arm, but the man just shoved him aside.

 

More policemen approached. One of them darted forward and snatched Gwendolyn’s wrist. “You’re coming with us, little girl.”

 

She tried to pull away. “Let go of me! I’m not going back, I won’t!” Even living on the street would be better than going back to the Home. She struggled, but the man was too strong, and she fell

 

She hit the floor and looked back up at the policeman, and time performed its peculiar trick of freezing in place. The man’s tall hat cast his face in shadow, making him seem every bit as faceless as Mister Five and Mister Six. A wave of memory roared up inside her, triggered by the sight of this man with a face she could not see. Instead she saw her mother, standing over her in the ORB just as the policeman stood over her now, grabbing her wrist the exact same way. She heard the sickening crunch as her own mother broke that wrist. She saw her Mother’s face vanish into the nothingness of a Faceless Gentlemen.

 

And Gwendolyn Gray lost her mind.

 

“Get away from me!” she shrieked, the last word stretching out into a furious animal scream. She screamed, and she screamed, completely out of control. But when she stopped screaming, the sound continued. It grew louder and higher until it was an ear-splitting whine as if the very air was screaming in pain.

 

Everyone stopped and covered their ears, including the policeman, his face no longer in shadow. Lying flat on her back, she kicked him as hard as she could. He stumbled to the ground, still holding his ears. She flipped herself up onto her feet.

 

But a surge of exhaustion knocked her back down.  She gasped, struggling to catch her breath. Darkness clawed at the edge of her vision.

 

Then she saw why. A hole had appeared in the air, filled with a shimmering white haze. Gwendolyn recognized a portal when she saw one.

 

Tommy took his hands from his ears. “What the flip is th—” yelled Tommy, but Gwendolyn cut him off.

 

“Quick! Inside!” She scrambled to her feet, summoned whatever energy she had left, and gave Tommy a shove toward the hole in the air. He hit it, and disappeared.

 

“What is that?” Ian said, the children recovering faster than the adults.

 

“No time!” Gwendolyn shouted over the shrieking sound. “Do you want to get arrested?”

 

“My parents would murder me if I was arrested, so death’s not much of a risk, I suppose,” Ian quipped.

 

“Gwendolyn, are you sure?” said Missy, barely audible amid the noise.

 

“Just go!”

 

“Let’s bail,” Ian said. He dragged Missy inside, and they vanished as well.

 

“Jessica, come on!”

 

The policemen were starting to stir, taking their hands from their ears and shaking their heads.

 

Jessica looked from the men to Gwendolyn, then nodded. “Fine. I trust you.” And she jumped through.

 

A man lunged at Gwendolyn, but suddenly Puck was there. She dealt a blow to the back of the man’s head and he crumpled. Another man appeared, but Puck kicked him so hard he flew through the air and slammed into a stack of crates, sending sculpted metal animals and bits of splintered wood everywhere.

 

Now it was Puck who grabbed her arm. “You promised me a night of fun, but the night is not yet done. These men’s sport gives me much delight, I’ve longed to have a proper fight.”

 

“You’re own your own,” Gwendolyn said. “I’m not going back to the Home, and I’m not leaving my friends out there.”

 

Puck Robin’s expression turned hard, and her eyes flashed with fury. “If you leave, your debt is unpaid. A steeper price I’ll make you pay.”

 

“Rhyming paid with pay? You’re losing your touch, faerie,” Gwendolyn sneered back. The hole in the air was already shrinking. Gwendolyn tore herself free of Puck Robin’s grip and flung herself through the portal, just as it sealed itself behind her.