Rising Storm

looked out on the alley and the brick wall opposite.

Snog rose and enveloped her in a hug. Then he stepped back, his hands on her shoulders.

'Thweetie,' he lisped, 'you tho need a makeover.' Wendy blinked at him in astonishment. 'Hey, thanks, Snog! 'That just caps my day!'

'No, no, no. You don't understand,' he said, grinning. 'Here, sit down before you fall down.'

That didn't make her feel much better, but she let herself be persuaded.

'Cuppa joe?' Carl asked.

'Please,' Wendy said with heartfelt gratitude.

'Decaf,' Yam said, sitting down beside her. They all looked at him. 'I've got some schematics to draw later,' he explained.

'Ah,' they all said at once.

'Here's your passport.' Snog slid a blue booklet over to her.

'I don't have a passport,' Wendy said, confused.

She opened the cover and stared at the photo inside. The girl was a goth-rock vision with multiple piercings on lip, nose, eyebrow, and ears. Her short hair was

purple; in fact, in her physical description the color was listed as brown/purple.

The girl stared out of the picture with an unnerving intensity, as though, somehow, she could actually see Wendy looking at her. Wendy snapped the cover shut.

'Who is this psycho?'

Snog laughed. 'That's my sister, Carolyn. I'll have to tell her you said that; she'll laugh. She belongs to a band in Canada and one time when they pulled her license she decided she needed another ID to get across the border. It's okay, she never uses it anymore since she got her license back.'

'Snog, I don't look anything like your sister!'

'You will once my girlfriend gets through with you.'

'You have a girlfriend?' Yam said.

Carl, who had returned with their coffees, looked askance at Snog.

'Well,' Snog said, pulling his head back and looking down into his cup, 'she's a friend, and she's a girl…' He glanced up at them. 'Okay, she's more a friend of my sister's, but she kinda likes me.'

They all stirred their coffee and he looked around the table at them.

'Hey, she likes me enough that she agreed to make Wendy look like Carolyn.'

'I really appreciate this, Snog,' Wendy said, looking up at him. 'But I just can't

get my face pierced.' Wasn't she in enough trouble without adding physical pain, too?

'No, no, no. This is the cool part.' He held up his hands. 'She's a makeup artist.

She can fix you up with fake piercings. And the great thing is, even if you aren't a perfect match, nobody over twenty-five can look someone with eyebrow piercings in the face.'

'You have a point,' Yam said after a thoughtful sip of his coffee.

'Am I going somewhere?' Wendy asked. 'And if so, where?'

'Yeah, you're going somewhere,' Snog said.

'You can't stay here.' Carl shook his head sadly. 'Brad says the cops are all over your dorm.'

'Is that where he is?' Wendy asked, relieved. She'd been afraid he thought she was guilty.

Snog slid two phrase books over to her, one Portuguese and one Spanish.

She looked around the table at their serious faces.

'John,' Yam said, and shrugged. The others nodded.

'Who else that we know can tell you what to do?' Snog asked.

Wendy looked down, biting her lips, fighting the tears that wanted to come. 'I didn't do it, you know.'

'We know that.' Carl placed one of his big hands over hers. 'But Brad says the cops are acting like they've got something pretty solid on you.'

'Do you know what that would be?' Yam asked.

Wendy nodded, then waved a hand in a negative swipe. 'I'm not going to tell you anything. The less you know the better.'

Snog slid a packet across the table. Wendy opened it to find a ticket to New York and one to Sao Paulo, Brazil. She looked at him, her eyes wide with unasked questions.

Shrugging, Snog explained, 'He once said that if I needed to meet him face-to-face, I should send him a message, go there and wait.' He glanced up at her. 'I assumed he told you the same thing.'

She nodded. Actually, John had trusted her further than that, but saying so might hurt her friend's feelings, so she kept it to herself.

'We should get going,' Snog said, rising. 'You'll need some new clothes of the right type and then we get you made up. Your flight leaves at seven and they like you to be at the airport at least two hours before that.'

'I can't thank you guys enough.' Wendy reached out and touched Carl and Yam, looking up at Snog with tears in her eyes. 'I am innocent, but I can't prove it.'

Snog grinned and spread his arms. 'Hey, that's why we're helping you. C'mon, let's get cracking.'

SAO PAULO, BRAZIL

The customs agent stared at her in fascination and Wendy couldn't blame him.

She felt like a complete clown. Not only was her hair rinsed purple, and her makeup taken to the extreme, her face covered with various types of faux piercings, but both arms writhed with intricate tattoos.

The vintage black velvet dress was hot even inside the air-conditioned building; she didn't want to think what it was going to be like when she got out into the smog-sizzling tropical atmosphere of Brazil's biggest city. It hung on her like a bag, and the brand-new army boots were killing her. Once I get them off I'll probably have to go barefoot for a week, she thought. Her feet and ankles were undoubtedly destined to swell to twice their size. She'd been moving from one form of transport to another for the last fourteen hours.

The customs agent went through his list of rote questions, then hesitated.

'I must warn you, senhorita, that having anything to do with drugs in this country is a very serious crime.'

Wendy smiled sweetly. 'Oh,' she said, shaking her head carefully lest she shake something loose, 'thank you, but I'm not into that. I'm into Christian goth rock.

We sing about the sufferings of our Lord, not sex and drugs. See.' She held out her empurpled arms. 'I'm totally clean. Do you believe that Jesus is your personal savior?'

'Yes,' he said, quickly stamping her passport. 'And I have a very active patron saint. Welcome to Brazil, have a nice day. Next!'

Was that a note of desperation I heard in your voice? she wondered as she moved toward the Hertz counter. Wendy put on a pair of huge, black-rimmed sunglasses she'd bought in New York. She slipped them down to rest on the tip of her nose as she got to the counter and, taking out her Portuguese phrase book, prepared to do battle.

At the sight of the book a look of subdued horror crossed the clerk's face. 'I speak English,' he said quickly. 'American?'

'Yes,' she said, relieved. 'How did you know?'

'The last plane in was from New York. You will pardon my observing that you look like New York. Yes?'

Wendy laughed. 'I suppose I do,' she said, trying to sound as though she enjoyed the way she looked. 'I'd like to rent an economy car.' She plunked Carolyn's Visa card on the counter.

('Don't worry,' Snog had insisted. 'She won't even notice it's missing.') Actually Wendy was willing to bet that she would. At the very least she'd notice when charges from Brazil started showing up on her statements.

'May I see your driver's license, please,' the young man said pleasantly.

She handed over her own Massachusetts license.

'This is a different name from the card,' he said. 'I'm afraid I can't accept this.'

'But it's obviously me,' Wendy objected. 'Carolyn Brandt is my stage name, the