Ghost Bird

31: Academy-Con, Costume Contest

After a too-short nap and two bottles of baby coffee, I felt sufficiently awake to go back to the convention. A quick glance at my phone had me practically sprinting through the halls. The costume contest started in five minutes, and I was one of the judges. There were several missed texts and calls from the guys. I flew past short Silases and crazy tall Victors; a Nathan with glasses and a pack of Gabriels, each of them with different color studs in their ears. With three minutes to spare, I burst into a scene of chaos.

People everywhere were frantically making last minute touch ups to their costumes. I made eye contact with Luke across the room. He nudged Gabriel standing next to him, and they both grinned. I smiled back and started to head over when a hand fell on my shoulder.

"Late entry?" a voice asked. I turned around and shrugged off the hand. A young woman wearing an Academy-Con t-shirt glanced down at her clipboard and made a few notes. "Sang Sorenson, I'm assuming?"

My mouth parted. Did she think I was trying to enter, or was she just confirming me as a judge? "Yes?"

She nodded and scribbled something else down. "You'll be entry number five for Sang. You're lucky that there's not a lot of competition in the Sang category. You'll have a decent chance of winning." Her eyes narrowed slightly. "You're shorter than the real Sang, of course, but the rest of your costume is amazing. There's no way the judges won't pick you to win."

"I'm not—"

"One minute!" someone else yelled.

The woman gave me a slight nudge toward the stage. "You can wait over there for the Sang competition. Good luck!"

Aware of her eyes on me, I trudged over to the stage. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Luke and Gabriel cackling. Luke had his phone out and his fingers flew across the screen as he typed out something. I struggled to keep the frown off my face. What did the woman mean that I'm shorter than the real Sang? I am the real Sang! When I reached the stage area and found a spot among the other four Sangs, though, I had to admit that the situation was just a little bit funny.

There was sudden roar from the people around me as the door opened again and Sean entered the room. His eyes sought me out and he winked, making my cheeks tinge red and the girls around me swoon. He sauntered over to Luke and Gabriel. Luke must have gotten him to come be the replacement judge for me.

The woman from earlier walked out on the stage and tapped on the microphone a few times. "Welcome to the costume contest," she said. "As you all know, there will be ten rounds of competition—one for each character—and our three judges will pick a winner from each round. In addition, at the end of the competition, they'll pick an overall winner. That'll be the person they feel best impersonates both their character and Ghost Bird as a whole."

I looked at Luke, Gabriel, and Sean seated at a table a bit off from the stage. All three of them had the stupidest grins on their faces. I'd have to get revenge on them later. They were taking way too much joy from my predicament.

The woman kept on talking, but I tuned her out when one of the other Sangs started touching my hair. "Your costume is so good," she whispered. "I don't know how you matched Sang's haircolor so well. And your face! It looks exactly the same. Did you use prosthetics?"

By this point, all of the Sangs had surrounded me and were actively admiring my "costume". "Where did you get your contacts? They're the most beautiful shade of green," one of them said. She did a decent job of mimicking my look, but her hair was too dark and her clothes were, quite frankly, something I would never even consider wearing. Plus, Gabriel would have a heart attack if I wore a tie dye shirt and a plaid skirt together.