Carlos sat in Fairy Godmother’s office, his knee bouncing up and down like it had been spelled with a fidgeting curse.
But it wasn’t a curse, it was guilt. He’d let his whole team down the moment he’d decided to put on that dog collar. And he knew it.
“Carlos,” Fairy Godmother said brightly. “How are you? Are you enjoying your very first Auradon Prep Scavenger Hunt?”
Carlos swallowed hard. “I’m quitting the hunt.”
Fairy Godmother flinched, as though someone had just poked her. “What? Why?”
Carlos spoke very fast, trying to get it all out before he lost his nerve. “Because I’m not a good team captain. I let my team down. They deserve someone better. I’m hoping you’ll let them continue on without me, because it’s not their fault. It’s my fault. I’m the one who should be punished, not them. That’s why I’m removing myself from the equation. Evie and Jane should be able to finish the hunt by themselves because—”
“Whoa, whoa,” Fairy Godmother said, holding up a dainty hand. “Slow down, Carlos. Take a deep breath.”
Carlos tried, but it felt like someone was standing on his chest.
“Okay, back up,” Fairy Godmother instructed calmly. “Tell me what happened.”
Carlos’s gaze fell to the red dog collar strapped to his wrist. My mother is what happened, he thought glumly. If she hadn’t given me this dog collar, none of this would have happened.
But even as Carlos thought it, he knew deep down that it wasn’t true. This wasn’t about his mother. This was about him. He was the one who had put the dog collar on. He was the one who hadn’t trusted he could do it on his own. He was the one who’d cheated.
He slowly unclasped the collar and dropped it on Fairy Godmother’s desk. The little bone-shaped tag made a tinkling sound as it clanked against the wood. Fairy Godmother’s gaze slid toward the dog collar but she didn’t say a thing. She was clearly waiting for Carlos to explain.
So he did. “My mother gave me this before I left the Isle. It has magical powers. When I wear it, I can give a command to anyone and they have to do what I say. They have no choice. I used it to command Grumpy to take a selfie with us. I used it to command Lumiere to give us the recipe for the gray stuff. And I used it to command you to make me team captain. I’m fake. I’m a phony. I don’t deserve to be in this role. I’m not a true leader.”
Then Carlos pulled his phone out of his pocket, swiped to the pictures of Lumiere’s recipe and the selfie in front of Grumpy’s house, selected them both, and pressed delete.
Fairy Godmother watched him with silent curiosity. She had still yet to utter a single word since he’d taken off the collar. Carlos nodded and started to stand up. “I guess I’ll go now.”
“Wait,” Fairy Godmother said, raising a hand and then gently lowering it as a signal for Carlos to return to his seat. He did. “I commend your honesty,” she said after a long pause. “And your willingness to forfeit your chance at a victory in order to do the honorable thing.” She nodded toward his phone.
Carlos waited for her to continue. But the longer they sat there in silence, the more convinced he became that she was not going to continue. That she had said her piece and that was that. He prepared to stand up again.
“However,” Fairy Godmother announced, “I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with you.”
Carlos furrowed his brow in confusion. “What?”
“When you said you are not a true leader. I disagree.”
Carlos scoffed. Had she not listened to a single word he’d said? He’d cheated. He’d forced her to choose him as team captain. He’d used magic to get what he wanted. He was as far from a leader as you could get.
“When I chose you to be a team captain—” Fairy Godmother began, but Carlos quickly cut her off.
“That’s the thing. I don’t think you understand what I’m saying. I made you choose me. The collar made you choose me.”
Fairy Godmother raised her hand in the air once again to silence him. Carlos sighed but shut his mouth.
“That collar”—Fairy Godmother flicked her gaze toward the red leather item on her desk—“may have compelled Lumiere and Grumpy to do what you wanted, but it certainly didn’t compel me.”
Carlos stared at her, not following.
Fairy Godmother let out a blithe chuckle. “Carlos, I chose the team captains a week ago.”
He blinked in disbelief. “What?”
She nodded. “So, like I was saying, when I chose you to be a team captain, I did it because I knew you had leadership potential. I’ve seen the way the other kids rely on you. They come to you for help more than they come to the teachers. They adore you, Carlos.”
“Well, they certainly don’t do what I say,” Carlos muttered. He still couldn’t bring himself to believe that Fairy Godmother had selected him all on her own.
Fairy Godmother chuckled again. “Is that what you think leadership is? Getting people to do whatever you say? Bossing people around? Convincing people to follow you blindly?”
Carlos frowned. “Sort of.”
“That’s what a dictatorship is,” Fairy Godmother clarified.
“That’s what my mother is,” Carlos added with a dark laugh.
Fairy Godmother shot him a sympathetic look. “Leadership is about trusting your team. Protecting them. But most of all, leadership is about earning the respect of your team, which you already have. Almost the moment you arrived here, the students began to look up to you and like you. I recognized that a long time before you ever decided to use that collar.”
Carlos glanced at the abandoned collar on Fairy Godmother’s desk, his mind spinning. All this time he’d thought no one saw him as a leader. He thought they only saw him as a friendly helper. But that wasn’t true. There was at least one person who saw him as a leader: the headmistress of the whole school.
Fairy Godmother smiled, as though she could read Carlos’s thoughts. “Being a captain of any team is not about bossing them around. It’s about bringing them together, helping them find their strengths and then using those strengths. And that’s exactly what I suggest you do.” Fairy Godmother glanced at her watch. “But you better hurry, the hunt ends in less than two hours.”
Carlos sighed and stood up, but then his brain registered what Fairy Godmother had said and his head whipped back toward her. “Wait, what?”
“I said you have less than two hours, so you’d better hurry.”
“You mean…” he began, faltering. “You mean, I’m not disqualified from the competition.”
Fairy Godmother reached out and pulled the dog collar toward her. “You surrendered this magical item. You came to me with the truth. You even deleted the pictures of the items you collected dishonestly. I would say, you’ve just proved to be the scavenger hunt’s MVP.”
MVP! Carlos repeated jubilantly in his mind. Fairy Godmother was calling him the most valuable player! Plus, she was giving him and his team another chance! He ran around the desk, wrapped his arms around her, and hugged her.
Fairy Godmother seemed startled by the sudden affection, but eventually she laughed and hugged him back.
“Jane’s lucky to have a mother like you,” Carlos said, emotion choking the words a little.
Fairy Godmother smiled. “And she’s also lucky to have a friend like you.” Then she shooed him away with her hand. “Now, go. Get back out there. Show us what you can do!”
Without wasting another second, Carlos bolted from the room.
I’m gathering my team in the banquet hall, because it makes sense to go back to where we started—where this whole scavenger hunt veered off course. Back to the beginning for a do-over. Except now I’m going to handle things differently.
“Okay,” he said, seating himself next to Jane at the table. “Let’s come up with a strategy. I want everyone’s input. We’re going to conquer this thing together.”
Evie smiled at Carlos like a proud older sister. Her empty hands were folded on
the table in front of her. After Carlos had shared the good news with his team—that Fairy Godmother was allowing him to continue with the hunt—Evie had agreed to silence her phone and keep it in her pocket until the competition was over.
Carlos pulled up the scavenger hunt list on his phone and placed it in the center of the table so they could all see the screen. “Which items seem the most doable to you guys?”
Evie and Jane leaned in and peered at the list. “Let’s forget number three,” Evie said. “That shopkeeper at Belle’s Boutique is going to shoo us away with a broom if we show our faces in there again.”
“And we’re never going to get a bowl of Tiana’s gumbo with so little time,” Jane said. “I had to special-order some during my internship.”
“I wonder if we could find someone who had the recipe and make it ourselves,” Evie suggested.
Jane shook her head. “Not enough time. The gumbo has to stew for at least two hours.”
“Okay, no gumbo,” Carlos said. “What about the fruit picked from the hazelberry tree? Evie, didn’t you say you knew where a tree was?”
“Yes!” Evie said excitedly. “We studied the tree in botany class, and I think there’s one near the dorms.”
“What does the tree look like?” Carlos asked.
Evie pursed her lips, as if she was trying to picture it. “It’s tall and thin, and the branches kind of stick out like…like…” She glanced up at Carlos. “Like your hair first thing in the morning.”
Jane giggled.
“Har-har, very funny,” Carlos said sarcastically.
“And the hazelberry fruit is sort of reddish-purplish, like a plum but bigger.”
Carlos’s eyes shot wide open. “Hold on a second. Did you say ‘like a plum’?”
“Yeah, why?” Evie asked.
“There’s a tree like that outside of Jay’s and my dorm room! I always wondered what it was. I thought it was a plum tree, but the fruit always looked so huge. I just thought maybe plums were bigger in Auradon.”
Evie snapped her fingers. “That’s right! I knew I’d seen one somewhere.”
Carlos doubled-checked the list, feeling his hopes rise. The hazelberry fruit was a whopping twenty-five points. If they could nab that one, they’d be well on their way. Carlos wondered if Jay had remembered the tree, too. He hoped not.
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Carlos said, jumping to his feet. “Let’s go berry picking!”
We’re back; we’ve got a new plan; and I’m rooting for us!
Two minutes later, Carlos, Jane, and Evie burst into Carlos’s dorm room, completely out of breath. Carlos couldn’t remember ever having run up the stairs that fast in his life. They all skidded to a halt when they saw Jay and Mal standing by the open window. Carlos’s hopes fell. So Jay had remembered the hazelberry tree. That meant he was probably only a few seconds away from scoring another twenty-five points.
Jay and Mal both had their heads stuck out the window, and they were shouting at someone. “A little to the left! Yes! You’re almost there! You can do it!”
“I can’t do it!” responded someone from outside. Carlos immediately recognized the voice as Lonnie’s. “It’s way too steep! I’m going to slip. I’m coming back in.” A moment later, Mal and Jay stepped back from the window and Lonnie leapt inside, did an impressive somersault onto Jay’s bed, and sprang to her feet like a gymnast.
She waved at Carlos, Evie, and Jane. “Hi, guys!”
At that moment Mal and Jay seemed to notice for the first time that they were standing there. Jay looked annoyed, presumably because Carlos’s team had discovered the tree. “Don’t bother,” he mumbled. “The roof is too steep to get to the fruit, and the tree is too high to climb. We’ve already wasted enough time on it.” Then he pushed past Carlos toward the door. “C’mon, team. Let’s go. We’re running out of time.”
As Carlos watched Jay leave, a thought passed through his mind. He seems agitated. Carlos wondered if perhaps Jay, too, was feeling the heat of the competition. Had he been unsuccessful in collecting as many items as he’d wanted? That gave Carlos an inkling of hope. The hazelberry fruit was one of the highest-valued items on the list. If Jay’s team couldn’t manage to get it but Carlos’s team could…
“Eek,” Jane squealed, interrupting Carlos’s thoughts. He looked over to see Jane sticking her head out the window toward the hazelberry tree. “That looks impossible!”
Carlos and Evie both darted to the window and stuck their heads out next to Jane’s. Carlos followed her gaze, and his stomach clenched with disappointment. She was right. It did look impossible.
The top of the tree was at least ten feet away from the window. There was no way anyone could reach out and pluck the fruit from a branch. That meant someone would have to climb out the window and scurry across the roof to get close enough to the tree. But the roof near the window was incredibly steep. No wonder Lonnie had dived back through. She had probably been scared out of her mind. And Lonnie was one of the most athletic students in Auradon. If she couldn’t reach that tree, then there was really no hope for anyone else.
Carlos sighed as he ducked his head back into the room. “Well, there goes that idea.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone, then flipped back to the list. “What else is left to do?” He started to skim through the items again.
They’d already gotten numbers one and two. Number four—the Auradon Express train ticket—was out. There wasn’t another train arriving from Charmington until later that night. Evie was right that number three—posing in the window of Belle’s Boutique—was probably not their best option. He couldn’t go back to Grumpy’s house to try again at number six. “Maybe we should—” Carlos started, but he was cut off by Evie.
“Wait a minute,” she said. Carlos turned and saw that Evie still had her head stuck out the window. She seemed to be studying the roof with great intensity, tilting her outstretched hand at various angles as though she were trying to calculate the exact slope of the top of the building.
Then, without warning, she ducked her head inside and sprinted toward the door, calling over her shoulder, “I have an idea. But I need ten minutes.”
Jane looked panicked. “We don’t have ten minutes. The hunt is ending in thirty minutes!”
Carlos felt the same reaction rising in him. Jane was right. They were quickly running out of time. But he could hear Fairy Godmother’s voice in his mind.
Leadership is about trusting your team.
“No,” Carlos said, raising a hand. “Give her ten minutes.”
Evie beamed. “Thanks, Carlos! I’ll be right back!”
Jane and Carlos exchanged confused looks. “What is she doing?” Jane asked.
Carlos shrugged. “I have no clue. But whatever it is, I believe she can do it.”
Evie returned less than a minute later, carrying a bag full of shoes and a long red measuring tape. Carlos and Jane watched in amazement as Evie set down the bag of shoes and leaned out the window again. She maneuvered the measuring tape around, measuring different angles and distances on the roof. She wrote everything down in a little notebook she’d pulled out of her shoe bag. Carlos tried to make sense of what she was writing, but it was a bunch of mathematical scribbles he didn’t understand. Evie had always been way better at math than Carlos.
“Uh, Evie,” he said. “What are you doing?”
But Evie didn’t answer; she just continued to work quickly and quietly, measuring and writing, writing and measuring. Occasionally she paused long enough to tap her forehead with her pencil before scribbling something else down. Then, after she was done with the roof, she started to pull shoes out of her giant bag and measure those, too. Carlos noticed that all the pairs had ridiculously high heels on them. Some looked to be at least five inches tall.
“How do girls walk in those?” he whispered to Jane.
“Very carefully,” Jane whispered back. It was as though neither of them wanted to speak too loudly, for fear of
interrupting Evie during her…well, whatever it was she was doing. Carlos continued to check the clock on his phone, his anxiety rising a notch with every minute that passed. He was tempted to tell Evie to forget it. They should move on and find something else on the list to tackle.
But he knew he had to trust her. Even though Carlos had no idea what Evie was doing, she certainly seemed to. So he sat back and let her work. Finally, after what felt like hours had passed, Evie looked up from her notepad. She was surrounded by several pairs of shoes. “Aha! I’ve got it!”
Carlos waited for her to say more, and when she didn’t, he asked, “You’ve got what?”
Evie picked up a pair of shoes from the pile next to her. They had wedge heels that were so high they reminded Carlos of castle walls. Evie held them proudly above her head. “I figured out how to get that blasted piece of fruit.”
This girl has taken fashionably fierce to a new level.
“This is making me very nervous,” Jane squeaked as she and Carlos watched Evie through the open window. She had the high wedge shoes strapped onto her feet and was walking very slowly across the roof.
“Don’t worry!” Evie called back. “I got this.”
And it was true. She evidently did have this. She had somehow calculated the slope of the roof and the height and angle of the wedge shoes so that they counteracted each other. And she’d done such a precise job that she was literally standing straight up. She wasn’t slanted at all. The shoes and the roof were a perfect mathematical match.
“How are you not terrified right now?” Jane called out to Evie, grabbing Carlos’s hand and squeezing it.
“I’m from the Isle,” Evie said, as though this explained everything. But it didn’t for Carlos. He was from the Isle, too, and there was no way anyone could convince him to walk out on the roof wearing shoes like that. But that’s why Evie was a rock star. Nothing seemed to scare her. She was always up for whatever scheme anyone had in mind…including her own.