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“As I was saying,” Pollux said testily.
Sophie whipped to Agatha. “What!” she mouthed.
“We need to meet,” Agatha mouthed back.
“My clothes,” Sophie mouthed, and turned back to the stage.
Hester and Anadil looked at the decapitated bird, then at Agatha.
“Her we like,” Anadil quipped, rats squeaking in agreement.
“Your first year will consist of required courses to prepare you for three major tests: the Trial by Tale, the Circus of Talents, and the Snow Ball,” Castor growled. “After the first year, you will be divided into three tracks: one for villain and hero Leaders, one for henchmen and helper Followers, and one for Mogrifs, or those that will undergo transformation.”
“For the next two years, Leaders will train to fight their future Nemeses,” Pollux said. “Followers will develop skills to defend their future Leaders. Mogrifs will learn to adapt to their new forms and survive in the treacherous Woods. Finally, after the third year, Leaders will be paired with Followers and Mogrifs and you will all move into the Endless Woods to begin your journeys . . .”
Sophie tried to pay attention but couldn’t with Beatrix practically in Tedros’ lap. Fuming, Sophie picked at the glittering silver swan crest stitched on her smelly smock. It was the only tolerable thing about it.
“Now as to how we determine your future tracks, we do not give ‘marks’ here at the School for Good and Evil,” said Pollux. “Instead, for every test or challenge, you will be ranked within your classes so you know exactly where you stand. There are 120 students in each school and we have divided you into six groups of 20 for your classes. After each challenge, you will be ranked from 1 to 20. If you are ranked in the top five in your group consistently, you will end up on the Leader track. If you score in the midrange repeatedly, you’ll end up a Follower. And if you’re consistently below a 13, then your talents will be best served as a Mogrif, either animal or plant.”
Students on both aisles murmured, already placing bets on who would end up a tumbo tree.
“I must add that anyone who receives three 20s in a row will immediately be failed,” said Pollux gravely. “As I said, given the exceptional incompetence required to earn three straight last-place ranks, I am confident this rule will not apply to any of you.”
The Nevers in her row threw Sophie a look.
“When they put me where I belong, you’ll all feel foolish, won’t you?” Sophie shot back.
“Your swan crest will be visible on your heart at all times,” Pollux continued. “Any attempt to conceal or remove it will likely result in injury or embarrassment, so please refrain.”
Confused, Sophie watched students on both sides trying to cover the glittering silver swans on their uniforms. Mimicking them, she folded the droopy collar of her tunic to obscure her own swan—instantly the crest vanished off the robe and appeared on her chest. Stunned, she ran her finger over the swan, but it was embedded in her skin like a tattoo. She released the fold and the swan vanished off her skin and reappeared on the robe. Sophie frowned. Perhaps not so tolerable after all.
“Furthermore, as the Theater of Tales is in Good this year, Nevers will be escorted here for all joint school functions,” said Pollux. “Otherwise, you must remain in your schools at all times.”
“Why is the Theater in Good?” Dot hollered through a mouthful of fudge.
Pollux raised his nose. “Whoever wins the Circus of Talents gets the Theater in their school.”
“And Good hasn’t lost a Circus or Trial by Tale or, now that I think about it, any competition at this school for the last two hundred years,” Castor harrumphed. Villains started rumbling again.
“But Good is so far from Evil!” Dot huffed.
“Heaven forbid she has to walk,” Sophie mumbled. Dot heard and glowered at her. Sophie cursed herself. The only person who was civil to her and she had to ruin it.
Pollux ignored the Nevers’ grumbles and droned on about curfew times, lulling half the room to sleep. Reena raised her hand. “Are Groom Rooms open yet?”
All of a sudden the Evers looked awake.
“Well, I was planning to discuss Groom Rooms next assembly,” Pollux said—
“Is it true that only certain kids can use them?” asked Millicent.
Pollux sighed. “Groom Rooms in the Good Towers are only available to Evers ranked in the top half of their class on any given day. Rankings will be posted on the Groom Room doors and throughout the castle. Please do not abuse Albemarle if he’s behind on posting them. Now as to curfew rules—”
“What are Groom Rooms?” Sophie whispered to Hester.
“Where Evers primp, preen, and get their hair done,” Hester shuddered.
Sophie sprang up. “Do we have Groom Rooms?”
Pollux pursed his lips. “Nevers have Doom Rooms, dear.”
“Where we get our hair done?” Sophie beamed.
“Where you’re beaten and tortured,” Pollux said.
Sophie sat down.
“Now curfew will occur at precisely—”
“How do you become Class Captain?” Hester asked. The question and the presumptuous tone behind it instantly made her unpopular on both sides of the aisle.
“If you all flunk curfew inspections, don’t blame me!” Pollux groaned. “All right. After the Trial by Tale, the top-ranked students in each school will be named Class Captain. These two students will have special privileges, including private study with select faculty, field trips into the Endless Woods, and the chance to train with renowned heroes and villains. As you know, our Captains have gone on to be some of the greatest legends in the Endless Woods.”
While both sides buzzed, Sophie gritted her teeth. She knew if she could just get to the right school, she’d not only be Good’s Captain, she’d end up more famous than Snow White.
“This year you will have six required classes in your individual schools,” Pollux went on. “The seventh class, Surviving Fairy Tales, will include both Good and Evil and takes place in the Blue Forest behind the schools. Also please note, both Beautification and Etiquette are for Good girls only, while Good boys will have Grooming and Chivalry instead.”
Agatha woke from her stupor. If she didn’t have enough reasons to escape, the thought of a Beautification class was the last straw. They had to get out of here tonight. She turned to an adorable girl next to her, with narrow brown eyes and short black hair, fixing her lipstick in a pocket mirror.
“Mind if I borrow your lipstick?” Agatha asked.
The girl took one look at Agatha’s ashy, cracked lips and thrust it at her. “Keep it.”
“Breakfast and supper will take place in your school supper halls, but you’ll all eat lunch together in the Clearing,” Castor grunted. “That is, if you’re mature enough to handle the privilege.”
Sophie felt her heart race. If the schools ate their lunches together, tomorrow would be her first chance to talk to Tedros. What would she say to him? And how would she get rid of that beastly Beatrix?
“The Endless Woods beyond the school gates are barred to first-year students,” said Pollux. “And though that rule may fall on deaf ears for the most adventurous of you, let me remind you of the most important rule of all. One that will cost you your lives if you fail to obey.”
Sophie snapped to attention.
“Never go into the Woods after dark,” said Pollux.
His cuddly smile returned. “You may return to your schools! Supper is at seven o’clock sharp!”
As Sophie rose with the Nevers, mentally rehearsing her lunch meeting with Tedros, a voice ripped through the chatter—
“How do we see the School Master?”
The hall went dead silent. Students turned, shell-shocked.
Agatha stood alone in the aisle, glaring up at Castor and Pollux.
The twin-headed dog jumped off the stage and landed a foot from her, splashing her with drool. Both heads glared into Agatha’s eyes, wearing the same ferocious expression. It wasn’t clear who was who.
“You don’t,” they growled.
As fairies whisked flailing Agatha to the east door, she passed Sophie for an instant, just long enough to thrust out a rose petal marred by a lipstick message: “BRIDGE, 9 PM.”
But Sophie never saw it. Her eyes were locked on Tedros, a hunter stalking its prey, until she was shoved from the hall by villains.
Right then and there, the problem smashed Agatha in the face. The one that had plagued them all along. For as the two girls were pulled to their opposing towers, their opposing desires couldn’t have been clearer. Agatha wanted her only friend back. But a friend wasn’t enough for Sophie. Sophie had always wanted more.
Sophie wanted a prince.
(#ulink_7fae0568-1ae6-5c47-bae8-471b74b6b2f9)
he next morning, fifty princesses dashed about the fifth floor as if it was their wedding day. On the first day of class, they all wanted to make their best impressions on teachers, boys, and anyone else who might lead them to Ever After. Swans twinkling on nightgowns, they flurried into each other’s rooms, glossing lips, poofing hair, buffing nails, and trailing so much perfume that fairies passed out and littered the hall like dead flies. Still no one seemed any closer to being dressed, and indeed, when the clock tolled 8:00 a.m., signaling the start of breakfast, not a single girl had put on her clothes.
“Breakfast makes you fat anyway,” Beatrix reassured.
Reena poked her head into the hall. “Has anyone seen my panties!”
Agatha certainly hadn’t. She was free-falling through a dark chute, trying to remember how she found Halfway Bridge the first time. Honor Tower to Hansel’s Haven to Merlin’s Menagerie . . .
After landing on the beanstalk, she crept through the dim Gallery of Good, until she found the doors behind the stuffed bears. Or was it Honor Tower to Cinderella Commons . . . Still mulling the correct route, she threw open the doors to the stair room and ducked. The palatial glass lobby was packed with faculty in their colorful dresses and suits, mingling before class. Neon-haired nymphs in pink gowns, white veils, and blue lace gloves floated about the foyer, refilling teacups, frosting biscuits, and flicking fairies off sugar cubes. From behind the doors, Agatha peeked at the stairs marked HONOR, lit by high stained glass windows, far across the crowd. How could she get past them all?
She felt something scrape her leg and turned to find a mouse gnawing her petticoat. Agatha kicked the mouse away, which tumbled into the paws of a stuffed cat. The mouse screeched, then saw the cat was dead. It gave Agatha its dirtiest look and marched back into its hole in the wall.
Even the vermin here hate me, she sighed as she tried to salvage her petticoat. Her fingers stopped as they ran over the torn white lace. Perhaps she shouldn’t have been so hard on that mouse. . . .
A few moments later, an undersized nymph in a ragged lace veil scurried through the room for the Honor stairs. Unfortunately the veil left Agatha blind and she tripped into a nymph, who crashed into a teacher—“Heavens Saint Mary!” Clarissa moaned, dripping with prune tea. As alarmed professors dabbed at her dress, Agatha slid behind the Charity steps.
“Those nymphs really are too tall,” Clarissa scolded. “Next thing you know they’ll knock down a tower!”
By then, Agatha had already disappeared into Honor Tower and found her way up to Hansel’s Haven, the wing of first-floor classrooms made completely out of candy. There was a room of sparkled blue swizzles and rock sugar, glittering like a salt mine. There was a marshmallow room with white fudge chairs and gingerbread desks. There was even a room made of lollipops, blanketing the walls in rainbow colors. Agatha wondered how in the world these rooms stayed intact and then saw an inscription sweeping the corridor wall in cherry gumdrops:
Temptation Is the Path to Evil
Agatha ate half of it before she hustled by two passing teachers, who gave her veil a curious look but didn’t stop her.
“Must be spots,” she heard one whisper as she raced up the back stairs (but not before stealing a caramel doorknob and butterscotch welcome mat to complete her heavenly breakfast).
When she ran from the fairies the day before, Agatha had stumbled into the rooftop topiary by accident. Today, she could appreciate Merlin’s Menagerie, as the school map named it, filled with magnificently sculpted hedges that told the legend of King Arthur in sequence. Each hedge celebrated a scene from the king’s life: Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, Arthur with his knights at the Round Table, Arthur at the wedding altar with Guinevere. . . .
Agatha thought of that pompous boy from the Theater, the one everyone said was King Arthur’s son. How could he see this and not feel suffocated? How could he survive the comparisons, the expectations? At least he had beauty on his side. Imagine if he looked like me, she snorted. They’d have dumped the baby in the woods.
The final sculpture in the sequence was the one with the pond, a towering statue of Arthur receiving Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. This time Agatha jumped into its water on purpose and fell through the secret portal, completely dry, onto Halfway Bridge.
She hurried towards the midpoint, where the fog began, palms extended in case the barrier came earlier than she remembered. But as she entered the mist, her hands couldn’t find it. She moved deeper into fog. It’s gone! Agatha broke into a run, wind whipping the veil off her face—
BAM! She stumbled back, exploding with pain. Apparently the barrier moved where it wanted.
Avoiding her reflection in its sheen, she touched the invisible wall and felt its cold, hard surface. Suddenly she noticed movement through the fog and saw two people step through Evil’s archway onto Halfway Bridge. Agatha froze. She had no time to get back to Good, nowhere on the Bridge to hide. . . .
Two teachers, the handsome Good professor who had smiled at her and an Evil one with boils on both cheeks, walked across the Bridge and through the barrier without the slightest hesitation. Dangling from the stone rail high over the moat, Agatha listened to them pass, then peeked over the rail edge. The two teachers were about to disappear into Good when the handsome man looked back and smiled. Agatha ducked.
“What is it, August?” she heard the Evil teacher ask.
“My eyes playing tricks on me,” he chuckled as they entered the towers.
Definitely a crackpot, Agatha thought.
Moments later, she was in front of the invisible wall once more. How had they passed? She searched for an edge but couldn’t find one. She tried kicking it, but it was hard as steel. Peering up into the School for Evil, Agatha could see wolves herding students down stairs. She would be in plain sight if the fog thinned even slightly. Giving the wall a last kick, she retreated to Good.
“And don’t come back!”
Agatha spun around to see who had spoken, but all she found was her reflection in the barrier, arms folded. She averted her eyes. Now I’m hearing things. Lovely.
She turned towards the tower and noticed her own arms hanging by her sides. She whirled to face her reflection. “Did you just speak?”
Her reflection cleared its throat.
“Good with Good,
Evil with Evil,
Back to your tower before there’s upheaval.”
“Um, I need to get through,” Agatha said, eyes glued to the ground.
“Good with Good,
Evil with Evil,
Back to your tower before there’s serious upheaval, meaning cleaning plates after supper or losing your Groom Room privileges or both if I have anything to say about it.”
“I need to see a friend,” Agatha pressed.
“Good has no friends on the other side,” her reflection said.
Agatha heard sugary ringing and turned to see the glow of fairies at the end of the Bridge. How could she outwit herself? How could she find the chink in her own armor?
Good with Good . . . Evil with Evil . . .
In a flash, she knew the answer.
“How about you?” Agatha said, still looking away. “Do you have any friends?”
