The Unfairest of Them All

  “That’s kind of an offensive term,” muttered Nathan Nutcracker, sitting on the edge of a table swinging his little wooden legs.

  “Sorry, Nate,” Apple said. “I mean, the nicest wooden person I’ve ever met.”

  “Well, she’s evil,” piped up Blondie, pointing at Raven.

  “And she’s supposed to be evil,” Apple said. “Or at least be working toward that end. It seems silly to get so upset at someone who just made a mistake. Royals aren’t mean people, are we?”

  Duchess lowered her bananas, and Briar shook her head.

  “I think, in our hearts, we’re not really mad at anyone,” said Apple. “We’re just worried about what we’ll do now that Raven didn’t sign the Storybook of Legends.”

  “Raven ruined Legacy Day for all of us!” Blondie yelled.

  “She did not!” Cedar shouted back. “And I can’t lie!”

  “Raven made a mistake.” Apple gestured to the Rebels side. “And they’re her friends and naturally want to support her. But I believe that they will come around to embrace their destinies again.”

  “Wait,” Raven said. “Is that what you think? That I was just impulsive? That I… I slipped and accidentally chose my own destiny and will go back on that choice any second now?”

  “Of course!” Apple said, beaming. She faced the Rebels. “As president of the Royal Student Council, I mean, co-president…” She smiled at Maddie, who smiled back. She and Maddie had both been elected to the post, though that was taking some getting used to. Apple had always ruled alone. “I want you so-called Rebels to know you are still important to all of us here at Ever After High.” She opened her arms as if to hug them. “Do you hear that, Rebels? We don’t hate you! Not a bit! And we can be patient until you redecide to follow your destiny!”

  “I’m not following my destiny,” Raven said, folding her arms. “That’s the whole point. You know it isn’t fair to force me into being evil.”

  “But it’s your destiny,” said Apple.

  “It should be my choice,” said Raven.

  Grumbles from both sides began to escalate into shouts.

  Something was not right here. Apple was being reasonable. She was exuding kindness and sunshine, and yet the room seemed tenser and angrier than before she’d arrived. She didn’t want the Royals going all big bad on the Rebels, but, of course, the Rebels were making dangerous choices they would simply have to undo or everything good and magical and hopeful in Ever After—all stories and destinies, all magic kisses and Happily Ever Afters—would unravel and disappear!

  “No, listen!” Apple tried again. “I personally still value you even when you make huge mistakes—”

  A spoonful of porridge flipped from Sparrow Hood’s direction and landed with a splat on Apple’s cheek.

  Apple gasped. A stunned silence gripped the Castleteria.

  Briar stood, pushing up her sleeves. “It’s about to get all nonfiction in here.”

  “Bring it,” said Cerise.

  And then the real food fight began. Not just a few bowls of porridge this time. A megaeruption of an all-you-can-eat airborne buffet.

  “Woo-hoo!” Maddie yelled, picking up a blackbird pie. “Now, this is a party!”

  Duchess’s banana bunch slammed into Cedar. Cerise Hood opened up with a barrage of cream puffs faster than Apple could follow.

  Faybelle began to lead a cheer, her words creating a spell that sent food flying from her tray: “One, two, I’m glad I’m not you. Three, four, your aim is poor. Five, six—”

  Someone chucked an entire peck of pickled peppers at her head.

  Projectile hot cross buns flew past airborne pat-a-cakes, slamming into Rebels and Royals alike. Maddie stood on the table, laughing. An easy target, she was instantly covered in dripping eggs and gooey bean curd.

  “How did… what happened?” Apple said, too stunned to move.

  “Maybe it’s us,” said Raven. “Maybe it’s our fault.”

  Apple nodded. Before they’d arrived, it’d been a little tense and a bit porridge-y. But Apple and Raven’s presence seemed to have thrown a lit match into a haystack.

  “We’ve got to—” Raven started, but was interrupted by a large glob of custard striking her in the face.

  “The pot!” Apple said.

  In the middle of the food fight, the monstrous pot of nine-day-old peas porridge was left untouched, as it always was. “Nine-day” was understood to be a polite understatement. Apple pulled Raven behind it, and they huddled there, covered in mess. Or rather, Raven was covered in so much mulberry custard and pumpkin pudding that she resembled a marsh goblin. Apple only had the smudge of porridge on her cheek. A robin passed by, wiped it off with a wing, and flew away.

  “This has gotten royally out of hand,” Raven said, digging some curds and whey out of her ear.

  “I agree,” Apple said. “Go talk to them.”

  “Me!?” Raven sputtered. “I’m not their leader.”

  “Well, the Rebels think you are, after your Legacy Day stunt and all. They’re probably just waiting for you to take control.”

  “I don’t want control. I just didn’t want to be evil. They should do whatever they want. Besides, you’re the co-president of the Royal Student Council! You fix it!”

  Apple ducked lower as a rogue pat-a-cake flew over the pot. “I tried. And got a porridge pie in the face.”

  “That was you trying?” Raven asked. “The whole ‘we love you even though you’re stupid’ bit?”

  “Well, I didn’t say ‘stupid,’ did I? That would have been rude.”

  “Telling people that you don’t hate them is rude.”

  “What? And telling them I do hate them would be polite? That’s just ridiculous!”

  “No! It’s… you don’t understand,” said Raven.

  “I’m really trying to understand, Raven,” said Apple. “But it’s hard to stay cheerful and positive when I see people destroying destinies and causing Happily Never Afters.”

  “But… I didn’t… UGH!”

  Raven dropped her head into her hands and slumped against the pea pot.

  “Ouch, hot.” Raven scooted away.

  Some liked it hot, Apple had heard. Some even liked it cold, though she had never met anyone personally. But what baffled her was that some actually liked it in the pot nine days old.

  Peas porridge aside, everything seemed to be broken and backward. When there was a problem, Apple spoke, people listened, and it was fixed. Maybe what Raven had done on Legacy Day had broken more than just their story. What if it had broken Apple? What if who she was and everything she could do were just… gone?

  She peered over the pot. Hunter Huntsman had always sat with the Royals. After all, he played a part in the Snow White tale and roomed with Dexter Charming. But today he was sitting with the Rebels.

  “Destiny is a prison!” he shouted, and threw a soy turkey sausage patty into the fray.

  The patty struck Ashlynn Ella dead in the face. She looked up at him, tears trembling in her eyes as the patty slowly slid down her cheek. Hunter stepped back, his eyes wide with horror.

  “Ash, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  Her bottom lip trembled, and Ashlynn ran off, breaking into sobs. Hunter raced after her, as a personal-sized fairyberry pie smacked him in the back of his head. The sound of Ashlynn’s wails mixed with Hunter’s pleas broke Apple’s heart.

  Suddenly Maddie appeared around the pot, cherries peppered in her mint-and-lavender curls.

  “Why are you guys hiding?” she asked. “Come join the fun!”

  “It’s not fun,” Raven said. “They’re angry and we don’t know what to do.”

  “Don’t be silly,” said Maddie. “We used to have food fights in Wonderland regularly. Why, if a dinner party didn’t end with a food fight, the host might be downright insulted. Not a single food fight has occurred since I came to Ever After, and I was beginning to think no one had any manners. Wait for me!” she yelled, running back in
to the middle of it and getting splattered by a chunk of grits.

  Maddie squealed with delight, but other voices yelled, raged, wailed, and even wept.

  Apple felt an unfamiliar scowl on her face. This was her fault. She’d promised Headmaster Grimm she would persuade Raven to sign. But Apple had failed and let the entire school down.

  As the future Snow White, one day Apple would be queen of her mother’s kingdom—that is, if she became Snow White. Apple knew she had to find a way to unite the school again and prove to herself she had what it took to be a great ruler. She stood up. It didn’t matter that she might be pelted with porridge or mashed with potatoes. Sometimes doing the right thing was hard… and potentially messy. But a good leader always did the right thing.

  Apple stepped out from behind the pot. But just then, the Castleteria went eerily quiet.

  Masses of porridge, curds and whey, pies, and meats of various sorts were floating, motionless, each food missile halted midway between hurler and target. Both sides, Royals and Rebels, stared with wonder and fear. The food in the air pulled itself into a floating sphere.

  The food splatter on Raven unpeeled from her skin and unwound from her hair, flying off like metal filings toward a magnet. All the food in the room crept, slid, and floated into the sphere and then slopped to the floor in a heap.

  “What is going on?” Blondie said. “Raven, are you doing that? It looks like evil doings.”

  “It is,” whispered Baba Yaga, who was suddenly standing next to Blondie.

  Blondie screamed. The school’s head of dark sorcery was short, her clothing ragged, her long gray hair snarled and stuck with tiny braids and bird bones.

  “The food hurling is over,” Baba Yaga stated, and then screeched “Detention!” and slammed her staff onto the ground. There was a flash, or rather, the opposite of a flash, a dark burping wave. Baba Yaga was gone, and the food was crawling onto itself and splitting into three large blobs standing on chicken-like legs.

  “Food golems!” shrieked Gretel’s son, Gus, who had an expression on his face that kept switching between fear and joy.

  “Jah, you are right, Gus,” said Hansel’s daughter, Helga. “Food golems. But do vee eat dem or run from dem?”

  The food golems began to strut forward.

  “Uh… I vote run,” said Briar.

  But the food chickens herded the children, nudging them out of the Castleteria.

  “But… but I’m Apple White,” Apple said, her voice quavering. “I should avoid detention at all costs. What will my mother think?”

  The golems didn’t listen. And though starlings came to her rescue, attacking the golems and pecking at their cherry-tomato eyes and granola wings, the golems herded Apple toward the General Villainy classroom, same as everyone else.

  A chill breeze whistled, raising mother-goosebumps on Apple’s arms. Portraits of famous villains leered at her from the walls—pirate kings, bad fairies, dragons, ogres, and the Marsh King. The chairs were black and rigid with spikes. A skeleton dangled from a display hook in the corner. It raised a bony hand to wave.

  Apple sat at a desk and put her head on her arm. She seemed to have a hole inside her where the promise of her destiny used to beat like a heart.

  RAVEN LAID HER HEAD ON THE DESK AND tried to ignore the hole inside her gaping with the uncertain future. But detention was quiet and boring, and Raven had nothing to do but think.

  For as long as she could remember, she feared and fought against her destiny. Now that she was free, what would she do next?

  She’d made a choice, one that she’d intended to affect her alone. But that choice not to sign had been like a pebble thrown into a pond, and the water rippled outward to her friends. From what she’d just seen in the Castleteria, the ripples were forming a tsunami.

  Guilt settled into her empty stomach, where breakfast should have gone. She felt a little sick and close to tears. How had everything come undone? All this business with Legacy Day had stripped her down, made her feel raw and lonely and like a lost little kid separated from her mom at a busy market.

  She glanced at her MirrorPhone and wished she could just call up her mother, say hi, know that she had someone out there who loved her no matter what. Her mother was not the lovey, cuddly, hot-chocolate-with-marshmallows type, but she did always have solid advice. She could call her kind father, but he might not have advice for her current situation. After all, he’d married her mother, a woman he knew he’d never be happy with, because it was in the script.

  When she was six and asked her mother what to do about the kids who’d taped KICK ME, I’M EVIL signs to her back, her mother responded, “Kick them back. Turn them into bedbugs. Or ignore them, and they’ll go away eventually.”

  Raven chose option three.

  PROFESSOR MOMMA BEAR APPEARED AT THE General Villainy classroom door, an eight-foot brown bear in a frilly cap and apron. She smiled, which Raven always found a little alarming—so many sharp teeth beneath those kind brown eyes.

  “Detention is over, my dears,” Momma Bear said. “Headmaster Grimm would like all students in the Charmitorium immediately.”

  “Curses,” Cerise muttered. “I was hoping we’d get some breakfast after all.”

  “If you’re hungry, I could scrape some more curds and whey out of my ears,” said Raven.

  Cerise smiled and seemed about to banter back, but then she shrugged deeper into her hood and turned away.

  Raven was about to go after her when Apple stepped up beside her. Smiling big.

  “Don’t ask, Apple,” Raven said.

  “Please poison me with a cursed apple?” she said.

  “Apple…”

  “Please, please, please be royally evil and try to poison me so our story will happen? Pretty please? Charming please? Enchanting please?”

  Raven sighed and started toward the Charmitorium. “Apple, I’m so sorry. I’m royally, rebelliously, forever-after sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. But I can’t be evil. And even though I didn’t sign, I didn’t go poof and disappear, like Headmaster Grimm threatened I would. So that means I have a choice about who I’ll be, and I’m going to take it.”

  “You didn’t go poof yet,” said Apple, following after her. “Who knows how these things work? Maybe on Graduation Day, you’ll just vanish in a puff of smoke? Before that can happen, I have to fix everything and make it all fair again, and setting you on the right path is the only way I can see.”

  “I think I’m already on the right path,” said Raven. “I bet everyone will calm down in a couple of days and things will go back to normal. Well, mostly normal.”

  The massive Charmitorium held hundreds of seats facing the gilded stage. But since the whole school wasn’t gathering today—just the second-year students who had been part of the food fight—Professor Momma Bear directed them down to the seats in front.

  The headmaster, Milton Grimm, stood on the stage before blue velvet curtains as the students shuffled in, his arms folded. He had black hair that was gray at his temples, a small mustache curled at the ends, and a gaze that made Raven wither.

  Don’t look at me, don’t look at me, she thought, sinking deeper into her chair.

  He looked at her.

  Raven was used to the headmaster’s disapproval, but today his eyes were so furious she almost felt the heat of his gaze clawing at her like dragon flame. Raven had been so hocus focused on deciding whether to sign the Storybook of Legends that she hadn’t thought through some of the consequences. Ever After High’s purpose was to prepare the children of fairytales to fulfill their destiny. A destiny Raven had rejected. Would Headmaster Grimm allow her to stay? Would she be sent home, away from Maddie and her friends, and break her kind father’s heart?

  “I am vastly disappointed,” the headmaster said, “in all of you.”

  Beside Raven, Apple gasped, heartbroken.

  “After yesterday’s tragedy,” the headmaster said, still glaring at Raven, “I expected somber students, ash
amed of their involvement in ruining Legacy Day, repentant and eager to resume their studies. I certainly didn’t expect a rebellious riot in the Castleteria! But I suppose that’s the sort of chaos that comes when someone goes off script.”

  Raven felt every person in the Charmitorium turn to look at her. She slipped her hair from behind her ear and let it fall over half her face. Was now the part when he would expel her?

  “Legacy Day is not only canceled, it’s postponed indefinitely. I will not hold it again until you all show me you are mature enough to make wise choices. You know your roles. If we don’t follow the rules, everything gets… messy. As you saw in the Castleteria today. Ahem.”

  He paused as if he had told a joke and was waiting for laughter. Two rows in front of Raven, Dexter Charming raised his hand.

  “I’m not taking questions, Mr. Charming,” Grimm said, and Dexter’s hand dropped. “Despite what happened, your stories must go on. This school must go on. For the sake of our stories, our destinies, and the very existence of Ever After! You all need a reminder of just how important your roles are, and, therefore, I am moving up our annual Yester Day activities. Now, before you protest, changing the day of an activity does not count as breaking the rules.”

  “I don’t think anyone thought that,” Briar whispered to Apple. “Did you think that?”

  “He’s disappointed in me, Briar,” Apple whispered back. “Surely he’s thinking that I failed him and all of Ever After. And I did! I feel worm-riddled and rotten to my core.”

  Grimm was pacing the stage as if he was giving a performance or, perhaps, showing off his perfectly tailored three-piece suit.

  “I’m not above bending the rules, of course,” he said. “But only in the service of destiny. Everything we do is to keep those Happily Ever Afters coming. Yester Day is an important part of your journey to Happily Ever After, connecting you with a grand heritage of stories beyond your own and strengthening a community dedicated to the success of all destinies. As you celebrate Yester Day by meeting with exemplary fairytale characters of the previous generation, may you be inspired to follow your own destiny.” He looked pointedly at Raven and cleared his throat.