The School for Good and Evil (18 page)

“Mmm, I suppose it’ll give our girls incentive to behave,” said the gnome.

Inside the coffins, eight plump princesses stiffened as both Good and Evil boys wandered around them. Hort snuck to a blue mint bush, stepped over a snacking skunk, and tore off a few leaves. He saw Ravan staring.

“What? I like being fresh,” said Hort, munching mint.

“Hurry up and make your choices!” Yuba barked.

In her coffin, Agatha wished Tedros would look deep into Sophie’s heart and see who she truly was. . . .

In her coffin, Sophie closed her eyes and thought of everything she loved about her prince. . . .

Tedros, meanwhile, didn’t want
any
of these girls. But just as he was about to bag the challenge, he felt his eyes drawn to the third coffin. Something pulled him towards its maiden, even though she looked just like all the rest. A warmth, a glow, a spark of energy pulsing between them. Yes, something was there. Something he hadn’t noticed before. One of these girls was more than what she seemed. . . .

“Time’s up!” Yuba said.

Agatha heard a bloodcurdling shriek and spun to Sophie, back in her body, lips scrunched against Hort’s.

Hort released her. “Oh, the
hand
. Oops.” He popped another mint leaf. “Should we start again?”

“You
APE
!” Sophie kicked him and he crashed into the mint bush, onto the snacking skunk, which raised its tail and sprayed him in the eyes. Hort staggered around, ramming into coffins—“I’m blind! I’m blind!”—until he smashed into Sophie’s again, which slammed shut, sealing his skunked body in with hers. Aghast, Sophie rammed the glass, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Rule #5. Nevers don’t trifle with love,” Yuba crabbed. “Fitting punishment. Now come, boys, let’s see who you’ve picked.”

Agatha heard her own coffin open. She turned and saw Tedros lift her thick hand towards his tender lips. Stunned, Agatha kneed him in the chest. Tedros fell back, bashed his head on the coffin top, and slumped to the ground. Everboys crowded around him, and princess clones jumped from their coffins to help, while Yuba conjured a block of ice for the prince’s skull. In the chaos, Agatha slipped out of her coffin and into the one next to it.

Tedros staggered up, with no intention of letting his princess go.

Yuba grimaced. “Perhaps you should sit do—”

“I want to finish.”

With a sigh, Yuba nodded at the clones, who climbed back into the coffins and closed their eyes.

Tedros remembered it was the third coffin. He lifted the jeweled glass over its maiden and kissed her hand with confidence. The princess melted into Beatrix, smiling imperiously—Tedros dropped her hand like a hot stone. In the next coffin, Agatha sighed with relief.

The wolves howled in the distance. As the class followed Yuba back to school, Agatha stayed behind with Sophie.

“Come, Agatha,” Yuba called. “This is Sophie’s lesson to learn.”

Agatha glanced back to see Sophie sealed in with Hort, holding her nose as she screamed and kicked the glass. Maybe the gnome was right. Tomorrow her friend would be ready to listen.

“She’ll survive,” she muttered, following the others. “It’s only Hort.”

But Hort wasn’t the problem.

The problem was that Sophie had seen Agatha switch coffins.

16

Cupid Goes Rogue

S
hielding herself from a morning storm, Agatha accosted Hester in the Nevers’ lunch line.

“Where’s Sophie?”

“Won’t come out of the room. Missed all our classes,” Hester said as a wolf dumped mystery meat into her pail. “Apparently sharing a coffin with Hort robs you of your will to live.”

When Agatha made it to puddled Halfway

Bridge, her reflection was waiting for her, more glum and gaunt than the last time.

“I need to see Sophie,” Agatha said, avoiding eye contact with herself.

“That’s the second time he’s looked at you that way.”

“Huh? Second time who looked at me?”

“Tedros.”

“Well, Sophie won’t listen to me.”

“Well, maybe Sophie isn’t Tedros’ true love, then.”

“She has to be,” Agatha said, suddenly worried. “It can’t be someone else. That’s how we’re getting back home! Who else could it be? Beatrix? Reena? Milli—”

“You
.
”

Agatha looked up. Her reflection smiled hideously.

Agatha’s eyes veered back to her wet clumps. “That is the
stupidest
thing I’ve ever heard. First off, love is something storybooks invented to keep girls busy. Second, I
hate
Tedros. Third, he thinks I’m an evil witch, which given my recent behavior, might be true. Now let me through.”

Her reflection stopped smiling. “You think we’re a witch?”

Agatha glowered at herself. “We’re making our friend win her true love just so we can take her away from him.”

Her reflection instantly turned uglier. “
Definitely Evil
,” it said, and vanished.

The door to Room 66 was unlocked. Agatha found Sophie curled under her scorched, tattered covers.

“I
saw
it!” Sophie hissed. “I saw him pick you! Here I’m worried about Beatrix, when
you’re
the double-crossing, backstabbing fink!”

“Look, I don’t know why Tedros keeps choosing me,” Agatha said, squeezing rain from her hair.

Sophie’s eyes drilled into her.

“I want him to choose you, you fool!” Agatha yelled. “I want us to go home!”

Sophie searched her face for a long moment. With a sigh, she turned to the window.

“You don’t know what it was
like.
I still smell him everywhere. He’s in my
nose
, Agatha. They’ve given him his own room until the stench goes away. But who’s to say where skunk ends and Hort begins?”

Shuddering, Sophie turned back. “I did everything you said, Aggie. I focused on all the things I love about Tedros—his skin, his eyes, his cheekbones—”

“Sophie, that’s his
looks
! Tedros won’t feel a connection if you just like him because he’s handsome. How is that different from every other girl?”

Sophie frowned. “I didn’t want to think about his crown or his fortune. That’s shallow.”

“Think about who he is! His personality! His values! What he’s like deep down!”

“
Excuse
me, I know how to make a boy love me,” Sophie huffed, shooing her out. “Just stop
ruining
things and let me do things my way.”

Apparently Sophie’s way was to humiliate herself as much as possible.

During lunch the next day, she sidled up to Tedros in the Evers’ line, only to have his boys crowd her, chomping blue mint leaves. Then she tried to get the prince alone in Surviving Fairy Tales, but Beatrix stuck to him like glue, taking every opportunity to remind him he picked
her
coffin.

“Tedros, can I talk to you?” Sophie blurted finally.

“Why would he talk to
you
?” Beatrix said.

“Because we’re
friends
, you buzzing gnat!”

“Friends!” Tedros flared. “I’ve seen how you treat your friends. Use them. Betray them. Call them fat. Call them liars. Appreciate the offer. I’ll pass.”

“Attacking. Betraying. Lying. Sounds like one of our Nevers is using her rules!” Yuba beamed.

Sophie was so despondent she even ate a piece of Dot’s chocolate.

“We’ll find you a love spell somehow,” said Dot.

“Thanks, Dot,” Sophie sobbed, mouth full. “This is
amazing.
”

“Rat droppings. Makes the best fudge.”

Sophie gagged.

“Who’d you call fat, by the way?” Dot asked.

Things got worse. For a weeklong challenge in Henchmen Training and Animal Communication, students of both schools had to tote assigned creature sidekicks everywhere they went. At first, both schools exploded into chaos, with trolls tossing Nevers out windows, stampeding satyrs stealing lunch baskets, baby dragons setting desks on fire, and animals christening the Good halls with mountains of dung.

“It’s a tradition. An attempt at school unity,” Professor Dovey said to her Evers, clothespin on her nose. “However misguided and poorly organized.”

Castor scowled at Nevers flitting about the Belfry, under siege by their henchmen. “ONCE YOU GET YOUR HEADS OUT OF YOUR BEHINDS, YOU’LL REALIZE WHO’S MASTER!”

And indeed, after three days, Hester had her baby ogre potty trained and spitballing Evers at lunch, Tedros had his wolfhound swaggering behind him, Anadil’s python befriended her rats, and Beatrix’s fluffy white bunny inspired such love she named it Teddy. (Tedros kicked it every time he saw it.) Even Agatha managed to teach her plucky ostrich how to steal candy without teachers noticing.

Sophie, however, found herself with a chubby cupid named Grimm, with bushy black hair, pug nose, pink wings, and eyes that changed colors depending on his moods. She knew his name was Grimm because he wrote it all over Room 66 in her favorite lipstick the first day. On Day 2, he saw Agatha for the first time at lunch and his eyes went from green to red. Then on Day 3, while Yuba taught “Uses of Wells,” he started shooting arrows at Agatha, who leapt behind the Forest well just in time.

“CALL THAT THING OFF!” Tedros yelled as he deflected Grimm’s arrows into the well with his training sword.

“Grimm!
She’s my friend!
” Sophie shouted.

Grimm guiltily put his arrows away.

On Day 4, he spent all of Sophie’s classes grinding his teeth in the corner and clawing at the walls.

Lady Lesso gave him a curious stare. “You know, by looking at him you’d think . . .” She gazed at Sophie, then brushed the thought away. “Never mind. Just give him a little milk and he’ll be more amenable.”

The milk worked on Day 5. On Day 6, Grimm started shooting at Agatha again. Sophie tried everything she could to pacify him: she sang lullabies, gave him Dot’s best fudge, even let him have her bed while she took the floor, but this time nothing would stop him.

“What do I do?” Sophie cried to Lady Lesso after class.

“Some henchmen go rogue,” Lady Lesso sighed. “It’s a hazard of villainy. But usually it’s because . . .”

“Because what?”

“Oh, I’m sure he’ll calm down. They always do.”

But by Day 7, Grimm started
flying
after Agatha during lunch, evading the grasps of students and wolves, until Hester’s demon finally subdued him. Agatha glared at Sophie from behind a tree.

“Maybe you remind him of someone?” Sophie whimpered.

But even Hester’s demon couldn’t control Grimm for long, and the next day his arrows came tipped with fire. After one of these singed her ear, Agatha finally had enough. Remembering Yuba’s last lesson, she lured the rogue cupid into the Blue Forest during lunch and hid in the deep stone well. When Grimm giddily dove down the dark shaft to find her, she clubbed him with her clump and knocked him out cold.

“I thought he’d kill you,” Sophie wept after they sealed the well with a boulder.

“I can take care of myself,” Agatha said. “Look, the Ball is less than two months away and things with Tedros are getting worse. We have to try a new—”

“He’s
my
prince,” Sophie stiffened. “And I’ll handle him myself.”

Agatha didn’t bother arguing. When Sophie was ready, she’d listen.

While both schools went off with Castor and Uma to free their henchmen back to the Blue Forest, Sophie stole away to the Library of Vice.

It took all of her will not to run out the moment she came in. Perched atop Vice’s top floor, the Library of Vice was like a normal library, only after a flood, fire, and tornado had swept through. Its rusty iron bookshelves were skewed at odd angles, with thousands of fallen books all over the floor. The walls were furry green with mold, the brown carpet was moist and sticky, and the room smelled like a mix of smoke and sour milk.

Behind a desk in the corner was a gelatinous toad, puffing a cigar and stamping books one after one before tossing them on the floor.

“Subject of interest,” he burped.

“Love spells,” Sophie said, trying not to breathe.

The toad nodded to a dank shelf in the corner. There were only three books left on it:

Thorns, Not Roses: Why Love Is a Curse
by Baron Dracul

A Never’s Guide to Ending True Love
by Dr. Walter Bartoli

Foolproof Love Spells & Potions
by Glinda Gooch

Sophie threw open the third, ran down its list of spells until she found “Spell 53: The True Love Heart Hex.”

She ripped out the page and fled before she fainted from the stench.

Dot, Hester, and Anadil hunched over it during lunch. “‘Once a boy is under this spell, he will instantly fall in love with you and do whatever you ask,’” Anadil read. “‘Works particularly well with eliciting proposals of marriage and invitations to Balls.’”

“All you have to do is mix the prescribed potion into a bullet and shoot it at your true love’s heart!” Sophie read excitedly.

“It won’t work,” Hester crabbed.

“You’re just mad because
I
found it.”

Hester snatched a heap of letters from her bag. “‘Dear Hester, I don’t know of any love spells that work’—‘Dear Hester, love spells are notoriously dodgy’—‘Dear Hester, love spells are dangerous. Use a bad spell and you can warp someone permanently’—”

“It’s ‘foolproof’!” Dot said.

“Says who? Glinda
GOOCH
?”

“I say it’s worth a try if it means we don’t have to talk about Balls and kisses anymore,” Anadil said, red eyes studying the recipe. “Bat heart, lodestones, cat bone . . . These are all standard ingredients. Oh. We need a drop of Tedros’ ‘
scent
.’”

“How are we going to get that?” Dot said. “If a Never even gets near an Ever, the wolves are on us. We need an Ever to do it.”

Agatha plopped down in a heap of pink. “What’d I miss?”

Sophie only got five words out.

“No! No spells. No hexes. No tricks!” Agatha scolded. “It has to be true love!”

“But look!” Sophie held up the page and its painting of a prince and princess kissing at a Ball. The caption: “ONLY AUTHENTIC SUBSTITUTE FOR TRUE LOVE!”

Agatha crumpled the page and dumped it in Sophie’s pail. “I don’t want to hear about it again.”

Sophie spent the rest of lunch picking at her loaf of cheese.

Two days later, Hester felt a jab in the middle of the night. She stirred to see Sophie standing over her bed, sniffing a blue tie with a gold
T
.

“Smells like heaven. I’m sure there’s enough here.”

For a moment, Hester looked confused. Then her cheeks swelled, ready to detonate—

“What about a Villain’s Choir?” Sophie said. “I think that’ll be my second proposal as Captain.”

Hester stayed up all night mixing the ingredients. Using her mother’s old crockery, she blended them into a frothy pink potion, distilled the love potion into shimmering gas, and poured the gas into a heart-shaped bullet over the fireplace.

“Just hope he doesn’t die,” Hester growled, handing it over.

Sophie practiced her aim for two days before she knew she was ready. She waited until Surviving Fairy Tales, when Yuba and the group were climbing trees to study “Forest Flora.” When Tedros reached for a blue hornbeam branch, she saw her chance and drew the bullet into her slingshot—

“You’re
mine
,” Sophie whispered.

The pink heart shot off the sling and flew straight for the silver swan on Tedros’ heart, only to turn crimson, ricochet off him like rubber, and smash back into her with a violent, alien scream. The whole group spun in shock.

Sophie’s black robes were splashed with a giant, bloody letter
F
.

“For Failing to abide by the rules.” Yuba glowered from a tree. “No spells until
after
the Unlocking.”

Beatrix picked the broken heart bullet off the ground. “A love spell? You tried a love spell on
Tedros
?”

The class burst into howls. Sophie turned to Tedros, who couldn’t have looked more enraged. Next to him, Agatha had the same expression. Sophie covered her face and fled, sobs echoing through the forest.

“Every year, a rascal tries something. But even the sorriest rascal knows there’s no shortcuts to love,” Yuba said. “We’ll start with proper spells next week, I assure you. But for now, on to ferns! How can we tell if a fern is actually a Never in disguise—”