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Screaming with vengeance, the black cocoon sucked her deeper like a gelatinous grave, stifling her last breaths, leeching her every last drop of life until there was nothing left to—
Give.
The screaming stopped. The cocoon sloughed away.
Agatha fell back in shock.
In her arms was a girl. No more than twelve or thirteen, with toffee skin and a tangle of dark curls. She stirred, opened her eyes, and smiled at Agatha as if she were an old friend.
“A hundred years, and you were the first who wished to free me.” Gasping softly, like a fish on land, she pressed her hand to Agatha’s cheek.
“Thank you.”
She closed her eyes and her body went limp in Agatha’s arms. Inch by inch, the girl started to glow the color of hot gold, and with a burst of white light, she splintered to sunbeams and disappeared.
Agatha gawked at the lake, empty of fish, and listened to her fraying heartbeat. It felt like her insides had been beaten and wrung out. She held up her finger, healed like new. “Um, was all that . . .” She took a deep breath and turned.
“NORMAL?”
The entire class was dispersed behind trees, including Princess Uma, whose expression answered her question.
Loud squawks pealed from above. Agatha looked up at the friendly dove her teacher had greeted earlier. Only the dove’s calls weren’t friendly anymore, but wild, frantic. From the Endless Woods came a fox’s growl, guttural and disturbed. Then more howls and wails from all around, nothing like the earlier welcome. The animals were in a frenzy now. They screamed louder, louder, building with fever—
“What’s happening!” Agatha cried, hands over ears.
As soon as she saw Princess Uma’s face, she knew.
They want it too.
Before Agatha could move, the stampede came from every direction. Squirrels, rats, dogs, moles, deer, birds, cats, rabbits, the bumbling otter—every animal on the school grounds, every animal that could squeeze through the gates charged towards their savior. . . .
Make us human! they demanded.
Agatha blanched. Since when could she understand animals?
Save us, Princess! they cried.
Since when could she understand delusional animals?
“What do I do!” Agatha shouted.
Uma took one glance at these animals, her faithful puppets, her bosom friends . . .
“RUN!”
For the first time, someone at this school gave Agatha advice she could use. She dashed for the towers as magpies pecked her hands, mice clung to her clumps, frogs hopped up her dress. Batting at the mob, she stumbled up the hill, shielding her head, hurdling hogs, hawks, hares. But just as she had the white swan doors in sight, a moose charged out of the trees and sprang—she ducked and the moose crashed, skewering the swans. Agatha bolted through the glass stair room, past Pollux on goat legs, who glimpsed the onslaught behind her.
“What in the devil’s—”
“A little help!” she yelled—
“DON’T MOVE!” Pollux shrieked—
But Agatha was already charging up the Honor stairs. When she looked back, she saw Pollux deflecting animals right and left, before a thousand butterflies crashed through the sunroof and knocked his head off his goat legs, leaving the herd to chase her up the steps.
“NOT INTO THE TOWERS!” Pollux’s head screeched as it rolled out the door—
But Agatha blew through the corridors into the full classrooms of Hansel’s Haven. As boys and teachers tackled porcupines (ill-advised) and screaming girls hopped desks in high heels (extremely ill-advised), she tried to escape the three-ring hubbub, but animals just snatched mouthfuls of candy and kept chase. Still, she managed just enough of a lead to sprint up the stairs, slide through the frosted door, and kick it shut before the first weasel popped through.
Agatha doubled over, shadowed by towering hedges of King Arthur. The glacial rooftop breeze bit into her bare arms. She wouldn’t last long up here. As she squinted through the clouded door for a teacher or nymph to rescue her, she noticed something reflected in it.
Agatha turned to a muscled silhouette hulking through sun mist. She wilted with relief. For once she was grateful for boys and ran towards her faceless prince—
She jolted back. The horned gargoyle ripped through mist and blasted the door aflame. Agatha dove to avoid a second firebomb that ignited the hedge of Arthur marrying Guinevere. She tried to crawl to the next hedge, but the gargoyle just burnt them one by one until the king’s story was a storm of ash. Stranded in flames, Agatha looked up at the smoldering demon as he pinned her chest to the ground with his cold stone foot. There was no escape from him this time. She went limp and closed her eyes.
Nothing came.
She opened her eyes and found the gargoyle kneeling before her, so close she could see the reflections in his glowing red eyes. Reflections of a scared little boy.
“You want my help?” she breathed.
The gargoyle blinked back hopeful tears.
“But—but—I don’t know how I did it,” she stuttered. “It was . . . an accident.”
The gargoyle gazed into her eyes and saw she was telling the truth. It slumped to the ground, scattering ash around them.
Looking down at the monster, just another lost child, Agatha thought of all the creatures in this world. They didn’t follow orders because they were loyal. They didn’t help princesses because they were loving. They did it because someday, maybe loyalty and love would be repaid with a second chance at being human. Only through a fairy tale could they find their way back. To their imperfect selves. To their storyless lives. She too was one of these animals now, searching for the way out.
Agatha bent down and took the gargoyle’s hand in hers.
“I wish I could help you,” she said. “I wish I could help us all go home.”
The gargoyle lay its head in her lap. As the burning menagerie closed in, a monster and child wept in each other’s arms.
Agatha felt its stone touch soften.
The gargoyle lurched back in shock. As it stumbled to its feet, its rock shell cracked . . . its claws smoothed to hands . . . its eyes lightened with innocence. Stunned, Agatha ran to it, dodging ricocheting flames, just as the monster’s face began to melt into a little boy’s. With a gasp of joy, she reached for him—
A sword impaled his heart. The gargoyle instantly reverted to stone and let out a betrayed cry.
Agatha spun in horror.
Tedros leapt through a wall of fire onto the gargoyle’s horned skull, Excalibur in hand.
“Wait!” she shouted—
But the prince was staring at his father’s memory in flames. “Filthy, evil beast!” he choked—
“No!”
Tedros slammed down his sword on the gargoyle’s neck and sliced off its head.
“He was a boy! A little boy!” Agatha screamed. “He was Good!”
Tedros landed in her face. “Now I know you’re a witch.”
She punched him in the eye. Before she could punch him in the other one, fairies, wolves, and teachers of both schools burst into the menagerie, just in time to see a furious wave crash over the burning roof, lashing the foes apart.
9
The 100% Talent Show
Sophie was sure Beatrix had set the fire to get Tedros’ attention. No doubt he rescued her from the blazing tower, kissed her as Good burned, and had already set their wedding date. Sophie came up with this theory because this was what she had planned to do at lunch. Instead, classes were canceled the next day too, leaving her marooned in a room with three murderers.
She stared at the iron plate on her bed gobbed with soggy gruel and pig’s feet. After three days of starvation, she knew she had to eat whatever ghastly lunch the school sent up, but this was worse than ghastly. This was peasant food. She flung her plate out the window.
“You don’t know where I might find cucumbers i
n this place?” Sophie said, turning.
Hester scowled across the room. “The Goose. How’d you do it?”
“For the last time, Hester, I don’t know,” Sophie said, stomach rumbling. “It promised to help me switch schools, but it lied. Maybe it went batty after laying so many eggs. Do you know of a garden nearby with some alfalfa or wheatgrass or—”
“You talked to it?” Hester blurted, mouth full of oozing pig’s foot.
“Well, not exactly,” Sophie said, nauseous. “But I could hear its thoughts. Unlike you, princesses can talk to animals.”
“But not hear their thoughts,” said Dot, slurping gruel that looked chocolate flavored. “For that, your soul has to be a hundred percent pure.”
“There! Proof I’m 100% Good,” said Sophie, relieved.
“Or 100% Evil,” Hester retorted. “Depends on if we believe you or if we believe the stymphs, the robes, the Goose, and that wave monster.”
Sophie goggled at her and burst into sniggers. “100% Evil? Me? That’s preposterous! That’s lunacy! That’s—”
“Impressive,” Anadil mused. “Even Hester’s spared a rat or two.”
“And here we all thought you were incompetent,” Hester sneered at Sophie. “When you were just a snake in sheep’s clothing.”
Sophie tried to stop giggling but couldn’t.
“Bet she has a Special Talent that blows ours away,” said Dot, munching what looked to be a tiny chocolate foot.
“I don’t understand,” Sophie snickered. “Where does all the chocolate come from?”
“What is it?” Anadil hissed. “What’s your talent? Night vision? Invisibility? Telepathy? Fangs filled with poison?”
“I don’t care what it is,” Hester snarled. “She can’t beat my talent. No matter how villainous she is.”
Sophie laughed so hard now she was weeping.
“You listen to me,” Hester seethed, fist curling around her plate. “This is my school.”
“Keep your crummy school!” Sophie hooted.
“I’m Class Captain!” Hester roared.
“I don’t doubt it!”
“And no Reader is going to get in my way!”
“Are all villains this funny!”
Hester let out a mad cackle and flung her plate at Sophie, who dove just in time to see it tomahawk into the Wanted poster on the wall and slice off Robin’s head. Sophie stopped laughing. She peeked over the scorched bed at Hester, silhouetted against the open door, black as Death. For a second Sophie thought her tattoo moved.
“Watch out, witch,” Hester spat, and slammed the door.
Sophie looked down at her shaking fingers.
“And here we thought she’d fail!” Dot chimed behind her.
Agatha knew it had to be bad if they let a wolf take her.
After the fire, she was locked in her room for two days, allowed out only to use the toilet and accept meals of raw vegetables and prune juice from scowling fairies. Finally after lunch on the third day, the white wolf came and took her away. Digging claws into her singed pink sleeves, he pulled her past the stair room murals, past glowering Evers and teachers who couldn’t even meet her eyes.
Agatha fought back tears. She already had two failing ranks. Inciting an animal stampede and setting the school on fire had earned her a third. All she’d had to do was pretend to be Good for a few days, but she couldn’t even manage that. How did she think she could ever last here? Beautiful. Pure. Virtuous. If that was Good, then she was 100% Evil. Now she would suffer the punishment. And Agatha knew enough about fairy-tale punishments—dismemberings, disembowelings, boilings in oil, skinnings alive—to know her ending would involve both blood and pain.
The wolf dragged her through the Charity Tower, past a bespectacled woodpecker jabbing in new rankings on the Groom Room door.
“Are we going to the School Master?” Agatha rasped.
The wolf snorted. He dragged her to the room at the end of the hall and knocked once.
“Come in,” said the quiet voice inside.
Agatha looked into the wolf’s eyes. “I don’t want to die.”
For the first time, his sneer softened.
“I didn’t either.”
He opened the door and pushed her through.
Apparently the fire had finally been brought under control, because classes resumed after lunch on the third day and Sophie found herself in a damp, moldy classroom for Special Talents. But she could barely focus with her stomach rumbling, Hester throwing her murderous looks, and Dot whispering to other Nevers about their “100% Evil” bunk mate. It had all gone wrong. She had started the week trying to prove she was a princess. Now everyone was convinced she’d be Evil’s Captain.
Special Talents was taught by Professor Sheeba Sheeks, the rotund woman with boils on both ebony cheeks. “Every villain has a talent!” she bellowed in her thick singsong voice, pacing the room in a busty red-velvet, pointy-shouldered gown. “But we must turn your bush into a tree!”
For the day’s challenge, each Never had to show off a unique talent to the class. The more potent the talent, the higher the student’s rank. But the first five kids failed to produce anything, with Vex whining he didn’t even know his talent.
“Is that what you’ll tell the School Master at the Circus?” Professor Sheeks thundered. “‘I don’t know my talent’ or ‘don’t have a talent’ or ‘don’t like my talent’ or ‘want to trade talents with the Ooty Queen!’”
“She had me till the last bit,” said Dot.
“Every year, Evil loses the Circus of Talents!” Sheeba yelled. “Good sings a song or waves a sword or wipes their bottom and you have nothing better? Don’t you have pride! Don’t you have shame! Enough! I don’t care whether you turn men to stone or turn men to dung! You listen to Sheeba and you’ll be number one!”
Twenty pairs of eyes stared at her. “Which monkey is next?” she boomed.
The woeful displays continued. Green-skinned Mona made her lips glow red. (“Because every prince is scared of a Christmas tree,” Sheeba moaned.) Anadil made her rats grow an inch, Hort sprung a hair from his chest, Arachne popped her one eye, Ravan burped smoke, and just when their teacher looked completely fed up, Dot touched her desk and turned it to chocolate.
“Mystery solved,” Sophie marveled.
“I’ve never seen such a parade of uselessness in my life,” Sheeba gasped.
But Hester was next. Leering at Sophie, she gripped the desk with both fists, clenching tighter, tighter, until every vein bulged against her reddening skin.
“Turns into a watermelon,” yawned Sophie. “Special indeed.”
Then something moved on Hester’s neck and the class froze. Her tattoo lurched again, like a painting coming to life. The red-skulled demon unfurled one wing, then the other, swung its buck-horned head to Sophie and opened slitting, bloodshot eyes. Sophie’s heart stopped.
“I told you to watch out,” Hester grinned.
The demon exploded off her skin in full-bodied life and tore towards Sophie, shooting red fire bolts at her head. Stunned, she fell backward to dodge them, knocking a bookcase to the ground. The shoe-sized beast swooped, launched a bolt that ignited her robes, and Sophie rolled over to stamp out the flames. “HELLLPP!”
“Use your talent, incompetent blond girl!” Sheeba barked, wagging her hips.
“She should sing,” Dot quipped. “Would kill everyone in the room.”
Hester circled her demon for a second attack, only to see it snare in the cobwebbed, spiked chandelier. Sophie crawled under the last row, glimpsed a fallen book, Encyclopedia of Villains, and ripped through pages. Banshee, Beanighe, Berserker . . .
“Sophie, hurry!” Hort screamed.
Sophie wheeled to see the winged beast slash through the cobwebs as Hester’s eyes flared across the room. She flipped desperately. Crypt Bat, Cyclops . . . Demon!
Ten pages of small print. Demons are supernatural beings that come in an astonishing variety of forms, all with
different strengths and weaknesses—
Sophie swiveled. The demon was five feet away—
“Your talent!” roared Sheeba.
Sophie threw the book at the demon and missed. With a lethal smile, it held up a bolt like a dagger. Sheeba lunged to intervene and Anadil tripped her. Screeching, the demon aimed at Sophie’s face. But as he slung his bolt, Sophie suddenly remembered the one talent all good girls had—
Friends.
She spun to the window and let out a gorgeous whistle for a kind, noble animal to save her life—
Black wasps smashed through the window and swarmed the demon on cue.
Hester jolted back, as if she’d been stabbed.
Sophie’s eyes bulged in horror. She whistled again—but now bats stormed in, sinking teeth into the demon as the wasps continued to sting. The demon crumpled to the floor like a burnt moth. In her seat, Hester’s skin went white and clammy, sucked of blood.
Alarmed, Sophie whistled louder, higher, but then came a cloud of bees, hornets, and locusts, besieging the foaming creature as Hester violently convulsed.
In the corner, Sophie stood paralyzed as screaming villains batted them away from the demon with books and chairs, but the swarm had no mercy, savaging it until Hester heaved her last breaths.
Sophie threw herself over the demon, thrust her hands at the swarm—
“STOP!”
The swarm went dead still. Like scolded children, they whimpered obediently and fled out the window in a dark cloud.
Wheezing, the wounded demon clawed to Hester and collapsed back into her neck. Hester choked and coughed up phlegm, brought back from the edge. She gaped at Sophie, flooding with fear.
Sophie dove to help her. “I didn’t mean—I wanted a bird or a—” Hester recoiled from her touch.
“Princesses call animals!” Sophie cried into silence. “I’m Good! 100% Good!”
“Thank you, Beelzebub!”
Sophie whirled.
“Looks like a princess! Acts like a princess! But a witch,” Sheeba whooped, wobbling to her feet. “Mark my words, my useless ones! This one will win the Circus Crown!”