Little White Lies

4. Little White Lies

I’d always seen teleporting as a somewhat glamorous thing. After all, only VIPs got to do it. But when Abby and I (and the crowd of paparazzi permanently attached to us) arrived at the teleportation station, I was thoroughly unimpressed. It was just a square gray building. It had the set up of a warehouse since it was just one, long floor. At the front door stood the hostess. She had on a navy blue skirt-suit and straight blonde hair pulled back into a bun. The hostess greeted us with her delicately twanged voice and took Abby and me to our respective “teleport booths.” There were only five in total, and it wasn’t really a booth, it was actually just a round platform.

            “Have either of you ever teleported before?” the hostess asked with a kind, yet lipstick-stained smile.

            “I have,” Abby answered. “She hasn’t.”

            “That must be why she looks so nervous,” she laughed. “Well I’m Julianna and I’ll teleport you myself, that way you won’t have to be as worried. Does that sound good to you, Miss Flare?”

            Something about this woman seemed creepy. I almost got the vibe that she was going to teleport me to a cell in her house where she would hold me for ransom. A second after I thought it I felt really paranoid, but when I looked over at Abby, she had wide eyes and nodded at me.

            Immediately I put on a fake smile. “Well, I wouldn’t want to take you away from your hostess job.”

            Her smile fell. “Oh, well, of course.” She seemed to shake her head and remember what her actual job was. “Well, anyway, you’ll put your luggage on that little square platform right there, and you stand on the big round one. Bernie and Douglass will be your dispatching teleporters today, and I leave you in their capable hands.”

            I got Bernie and Abby got Douglass. Bernie was an older man with white hair and a white moustache. Douglass was younger, somewhere in his late twenties. He just kept smiling at Abby.

            Gross.

            “Good instincts,” Abby whispered. “Apparently the teleporters have an honor code but the hostesses don’t.”

            “Julianna has always given me the heebie jeebies,” Bernie said in his deep, raspy voice. He smiled. “Well don’t you worry now, little miss. I’ll take good care of you. I’ve been a dispatching teleporter for fifty-three years. This’ll be so smooth you won’t even feel it.”

            I thanked him as I stood on my platform and Abby did the same.

            True to his word, Bernie made my teleport much smoother than I had expected. It was nothing like Abby had described and, luckily, I had no accidents during the journey. Actually, it really only felt like I walked in the way of a giant fan and ended up on the other side of the country as a result.

            We landed in a large, over-decorated room. There were red velvet curtains pulled to the sides of four giant windows. All the walls were covered in different colored jewels.And at the end of the room stood two, wooden, wall-length doors.

            “Ms. Zyda, Ms. Abigail, it is my pleasure to meet you,” a man whom I didn’t notice was there said. He was dressed in a tuxedo and held a clipboard in his hand. “My name is Geoffrey, I’ll be your guide for the next hour. The royal family is very pleased that you two have come, and they’re especially excited to meet you, so the queen has given specific orders to bring you to the head of the greeting line. When we walk through those doors , you are going to get some nasty looks from those who have been waiting all day to see the royal family. But that will only last as long as it takes for them to recognize you,” he laughed. “Follow me.”