فصل 7

7

Grand High Witch Ultimate

“Why do we need to uglify?”

Sophie peeked through her fingers at Professor Manley’s bald, pimpled head and squash-colored skin, trying not to gag. Around her, Nevers sat at charred desks with rusty mirrors, cheerily bashing tadpoles to death in iron bowls. If she didn’t know better, she’d think they were making a Sunday cake.

Why am I still here? she fumed through furious tears.

“Why do we need to be revolting and repugnant?” Manley jowled. “Hester!” “Because it makes us fearsome,” Hester said, and swigged her tadpole juice, instantly springing a rash of red pox.

“Wrong!” roared Manley. “Anadil!”

“Because it makes little boys cry,” Anadil said, sprouting her own red blisters.

“Wrong! Dot!”

“Because it’s easier to get ready in the morning?” Dot asked, mixing her juice with chocolate.

“Wrong and stupid!” Manley scorned. “Only once you give up the surface can you dig beneath it! Only once you relinquish vanity can you be yourself!” Sophie crawled behind desks, lunged for the door—the knob burnt her hand and she yelped.

“Only once you destroy who you think you are can you embrace who you truly are!” Manley said, glaring right at her.

Whimpering, Sophie crawled back to her desk, past villains exploding in shingles. Smoky-green ranks popped out of thin air around her—“1” over Hester, “2” over Anadil, “3” over oily, brown-skinned Ravan, “4” over blond, pointy-eared Vex. Hort drank his draught excitedly, only to see a wee zit spurt from his chin. He smacked away a stinky “19,” but the rank smacked him right back.

“Ugliness means you rely on intelligence,” Manley leered, slinking towards Sophie. “Ugliness means you trust your soul. Ugliness means freedom.” He flung a bowl onto her desk.

Sophie looked down into black tadpole juice. Some of it was still moving.

“Actually, Professor, I believe my Beautification teacher will object to my participation in this assign—” “Three failing marks and you’ll end up something uglier than me,” Manley spat.

Sophie looked up. “I really don’t think that’s possible.” Manley turned to the class. “Who would like to help our dear Sophie taste freedom?” “Me!”

Sophie whipped around.

“Don’t worry,” Hort whispered, “you’ll look better this way.” Before Sophie could scream, he plunged her head into the bowl.

Lying in a puddle on the banks of Good, Agatha replayed the scene from Evil. Her best friend had called her a boob, flying tackled her, stolen her clothes, left her to witches, and then asked for love advice.

It’s this place, she thought. In Gavaldon, Sophie would forget about classes and castles and boys. In Gavaldon, they could find a happy ending together. Not here. I just need to get us home.

And yet, something still bothered her. That moment on the Bridge—Sophie in pink against the School for Good, she in black against the School for Evil . . . “Everything is perfect now,” Sophie said. And she was right. For a brief moment, the mistake had been corrected. They were where they belonged.

So why couldn’t we stay?

Whatever happened, it was a close call. Because once Sophie made it to Good, she’d never leave. Agatha’s breath shallowed. She had to make sure the faculty didn’t discover the mix-up! She had to make sure they weren’t switched to the right schools! But how could she make sure Sophie stayed put?

Go to class, her heart whispered.

Pollux said the schools kept an even number of students to preserve the balance. So for the mistake to be corrected, they both would have to be switched. As long as Agatha held her place in the School for Good, then Sophie was stuck in the School for Evil. And if there was one thing she knew for sure, it was that Sophie couldn’t possibly last as a villain. A few more days there and she’d beg for Gavaldon.

Go to class. Of course!

She would find a way to last at this horrid school and wear Sophie down. For the first time since they were kidnapped, Agatha opened her heart to hope.

Hope died ten minutes later.

Professor Emma Anemone, whistling in a blinding yellow dress and long fox-fur gloves, walked into her pink taffy classroom, took one look at Agatha, and stopped whistling. But then she murmured “Rapunzel took some work too,” and launched into her first lesson on “Making Smiles Kinder.” “Now the key is to communicate with your eyes,” she chirped, and demonstrated the perfect princess smile. With her bulging eyes and wild yellow hair matching her dress, Agatha thought she looked like a manic canary. But Agatha knew her chances of getting home rested in her hands, so she mimicked her toothy beam with the others.

Professor Anemone walked around surveying the girls. “Not so much squinting . . . A little less nose, dear . . . Oh my, absolutely beautiful!” She was talking about Beatrix, who lit up the room with her dazzling smile. “That, my Evers, is a smile that can win the heart of the steeliest prince. A smile that can broker peace in the greatest of wars. A smile that can lead a kingdom to hope and prosperity!” Then she saw Agatha. “You there! No smirking!”

With her teacher looming, Agatha tried to concentrate and duplicate Beatrix’s perfect smile. For a second she thought she had it.

“Goodness! Now it’s a creepy grin! A smile, child! Just your normal, everyday smile!” Happy. Think of something happy.

But all she could think of was Sophie on the Bridge, leaving her for a boy she didn’t even know.

“Now it’s positively malevolent!” Professor Anemone shrieked.

Agatha turned and saw the whole class cowering, as if expecting her to turn them all into bats. (“Do you think she eats children?” said Beatrix. “I’m so glad I moved out,” Reena sighed.) Agatha frowned. It couldn’t have been that bad.

Then she saw Professor Anemone’s face.

“If you ever need a man to trust you, if you ever need a man to save you, if you ever need a man to love you, whatever you do, child . . . don’t smile at him.” Princess Etiquette, taught by Pollux, was worse. He arrived in a bad mood, hobbling with his massive canine head attached to a skinny goat’s carcass and muttering that Castor “has the body this week.” He looked up and saw girls staring at him.

“And here I thought I was teaching princesses. All I see are twenty ill-mannered girls gaping like toads. Are you toads? Do you like to catch flies with your little pink tongues?” The girls stopped staring after that.

The first lesson was “Princess Posture,” which involved the girls descending the four tower staircases with nests of nightingale eggs on their heads. Though most of the girls succeeded without breaking any eggs, Agatha had a harder time. There were a number of reasons for this: a lifetime of slouching, Beatrix and Reena intently watching her with their new Kinder Smiles, her mind chattering that Sophie would win this with her eyes closed, and the absurdity of a dog barking about posture while teetering on goat legs. In the end, she left twenty eggs bleeding yolk on marble.

“Twenty beautiful nightingales who will not have life . . . because of you,” said Pollux.

As class ranks appeared over each girl in ethereal gold clouds—Beatrix 1st, of course—Agatha spun to see a rusted “20” hover over, then crash into her head.

Two classes, two last-place ranks. One more and she would learn what happened to children who failed. With her plan to get Sophie home crumbling by the minute, Agatha hurried to her next class, desperate to prove herself Good.

Shingles wouldn’t keep Cinderella from the Ball. Shingles wouldn’t keep Sleeping Beauty from her kiss.

Staring at her pustuled reflection in her desk mirror, Sophie forced her kindest smile. She had solved every problem in life with beauty and charm and she would solve this one the same way.

Henchmen Training took place in the Belfry, a dreary open-air cloister atop Malice tower that required a thirty-flight ascent up a staircase so narrow the students were squeezed into single file.

“So . . . nauseous,” Dot panted like an overheated camel.

“If she pukes near me, I’m throwing her off the tower,” Hester crabbed.

As she climbed, Sophie tried not to think about pustules, puke, or putrid Hort, who was trying to cram beside her. “I know you hate me,” he pressed. She lurched to the right to block him. Hort tried the left. “But it was the challenge and I didn’t want you to fail and—” Sophie thwarted him with her elbow and raced up the last few steps, desperate to prove to her new teacher she was in the wrong place. Unfortunately that teacher was Castor.

“’COURSE I GET THE READER IN MY GROUP.”

Even worse, his assistant, Beezle, was the red-skinned dwarf that Sophie had slapped on the ladder the day before. Upon seeing her blistered face, he giggled like a hyena. “Ugly witch!” Head off center on his massive dog’s body, Castor wasn’t as amused. “You’re all revolting enough as is,” he groused, and sent Beezle to fetch honeysuckle, which promptly restored the villains’ faces. While they groaned in disappointment, Sophie heaved with relief.

“Whether you win or lose your battles depends on the competence and loyalty of your henchmen!” Castor said. “Of course some of you will end up henchmen yourselves, with your own lives depending on the strength of your Leader. Better pay attention then, if you want to stay alive!” Sophie gritted her teeth. Agatha was probably singing to doves somewhere and here she was about to wrangle bloodthirsty goons.

“And now for your first challenge. How to train . . .” Castor stepped aside. “A Golden Goose.” Sophie gaped at an elegant gold-feathered bird behind him, sleeping serenely in its nest.

“But Golden Geese hate villains,” Anadil frowned.

“Which means if you can train one, then taming a mountain troll will be easy,” Castor said.

The Goose opened its pearly blue eyes, took in its villainous audience, and smiled.

“Why is it smiling?” Dot said.

“Because it knows we’re wasting our time,” Hester said. “Golden Geese only listen to Evers.” “Excuses, excuses,” Castor yawned. “Your job is to make that pathetic creature lay one of its prized eggs. The bigger the egg, the higher your rank.” Sophie’s heart raced. If the bird only listened to the Good, she could prove here and now she didn’t belong with these monsters! All she had to do was make the Goose lay the biggest egg!

On the Belfry wall, Castor carved five strategies for training henchmen: 1. Command

1. Taunt

2. Trick

3. Bribe

4. Bully

“Now don’t go bullying the blasted bird unless you’ve gone through the other four,” Castor warned. “Ain’t nothin’ stopping a henchman from bullying back.” Sophie made sure she was last in line and watched the first five kids have zero luck, including Vex, who went as far as grabbing its throat, only to see the Golden Goose smile in return.

Miraculously, Hort was the first to succeed. He had tried barking “Lay egg,” calling it a “prat,” and tempting it with worms, before giving up and kicking its nest. Wrong thing to kick. In a flash, the Goose yanked his tunic over his head and Hort yelped about blindly, banging into walls. (Sophie vowed if she had to see this boy one more time without clothes, she’d gouge out her eyes.) But the Goose seemed delighted. It flapped its wings and sniggered and squawked so raucously that it lost control and excreted a golden egg the size of a coin.

Hort held it up in stunned triumph. “I won!”

“Right, because in the heat of battle, you’ll have time to run around naked and make your Goose crap,” Castor snarled.

Still, the dog had said whoever made the biggest egg won, so the other Nevers mimicked Hort’s tactic. Dot made faces, Ravan made shadow puppets, Anadil tickled it with a feather, and bald, doughy Brone sat on Beezle, much to the bird’s delight. (“Smelly witch!” the dwarf howled.) Scowling at all this, Hester walked up and punched the Goose in the stomach. It dropped an egg the size of a fist. “Amateurs,” she sneered.

Then it was Sophie’s turn.

She approached the Golden Goose, which seemed exhausted from laughing and laying. But when the Goose met Sophie’s gaze, it stopped blinking and sat still as a statue, studying every inch of her. For a moment, Sophie felt an eerie chill float through her body, as if she’d let a stranger into her soul. But then she looked into the bird’s warm, wise eyes and swelled with hope. Surely it saw she was different from the rest.

Yes, you certainly are different.

Sophie backed up. She peeked around to see if anyone else had heard the bird’s thoughts. But the rest of the Nevers just glowered impatiently, since she had to finish before they got their ranks.

Sophie turned to the Goose. You can hear my thoughts?

They’re quite loud, replied the Goose.

What about the others?

No. Just you.

Because I’m Good? Sophie smiled.

I can give you what you want, said the Goose. I can make them see you’re a princess. One perfect egg and they’ll put you with your prince.

Sophie dropped to her knees. Please! I’ll do anything you want. Just help me.

The bird smiled. Close your eyes and make a wish.

Overcome with relief, Sophie closed her eyes. In that shining moment, she wished for Tedros, her beautiful, perfect prince who could make her happy . . .

She suddenly wondered if Agatha told him they were friends. She hoped not.

Gasps flew around her. Sophie opened her eyes and saw the Goose’s gold feathers finish turning gray. Its eyes darkened from blue to black. Its warm smile went dead.

And there was definitely no egg.

“What happened!” Sophie twirled. “What’s it mean?”

Castor looked petrified. “It means she’d rather give up her power than help you.” A “1” exploded in red flames over Sophie’s head like a diabolical crown.

“It’s the most evil thing I’ve ever seen,” Castor said softly.

Stunned, Sophie watched her classmates huddle like scared minnows—all except Hester, eyes blazing, as if she’d just found her competition. Behind her, Beezle shivered deep in a dark corner.

“Grand Witch!” he squeaked.

“No no no!” Sophie cried. “Not Grand Witch!”

But Beezle nodded with certainty. “Grand High Witch Ultimate!” Sophie whipped back to the Goose. What did I do!

But the Goose, gray as fog, looked at her as if it had never seen her in its life and let out the most ordinary of squawks.

From the Belfry the squawk echoed across the moat, into the soaring silver tower that split the two sides of the bay. A silhouette appeared at the window and gazed down at his domain.

Dozens of smoky rank numbers—brightly colored ones from Good, dark and gloomy ones from Evil—drifted from the two schools over the waters and wafted up to his window like balloons in the wind. As each one passed, his fingers ran through the smoke, which gave him the power to see whose rank it was and how they had earned it. He sifted through dozens of numbers until he came to the one he sought: a red-flame “1” that revealed its history in a flood of images.

A Golden Goose throwing away its power for a student? Only one could have such talent. Only one could be so pure.

The one who would tip the balance.

With a chill, the School Master went back into his tower and awaited her arrival.

Curses & Death Traps took place in a bone-numbing frost chamber, with the walls, desks, and chairs made completely of ice. Sophie thought she could see bodies buried deep beneath the frozen floor.

“Itttt’s colllddd,” Hort chattered.

“It’s warmer in the Doom Room,” Lady Lesso replied.

Howls of pain echoed from the dungeon beneath their feet.

“I-I-I feeeel warm-m-er noww,” Hort stuttered, face blue.

“Cold will harden your veins,” said Lady Lesso. “Which need hardening if a Reader is placing first in challenges.” She slunk between rows of shivering students, black braid snapping against her sharp-shouldered purple gown, dagger steel heels cracking on ice.

“This is not a school for unwarranted cruelty. Hurt without reason and you are a beast, not a villain. No, our mission requires focus and care. In this class, you will learn to find the Ever who stands in the way of your goal. The one who will grow stronger as you grow weaker. They’re out there, my Nevers, somewhere in the Woods . . . your Nemesis. When the time is right, you will find and destroy them. That is your path to freedom.” A scream echoed from the Doom Room and Lady Lesso smiled. “Your other classes may be pageants of ineptitude, but not here. There will be no challenges until I see you are worthy.” Sophie hadn’t heard any of this. All she could hear was the Goose’s squawk banging around in her head. Convulsing with cold, she fought back tears. She had tried everything to get to Good: fleeing, fighting, pleading, switching, wishing . . . What else was left? She pictured Agatha, sitting in her classes, her seat, her school, and flushed hot red. And she thought they were friends!

“A Nemesis is your archenemy,” said Lady Lesso, purple eyes flashing. “Your other half. Your soul’s inverse. Your Achilles’ heel.” Sophie forced herself to pay attention. After all here was a chance to learn enemy secrets. It might save her once she made it to Good.

“You will come to know your Nemesis through dreams,” Lady Lesso went on, veins pulsing under tight skin. “A Nemesis will haunt your sleep, night after night until you see nothing but his or her face. Nemesis Dreams will chill your heart and boil your blood. They will make you gnash your teeth and rip out your hair. For they are the sum of your hate. The sum of your fears.” Lady Lesso dragged her long red nails across Hort’s desk. “Only when your Nemesis is dead will you feel quenched. Only when your Nemesis is dead will you feel free. Kill your Nemesis and Nevermore will welcome you to eternal glory!” The class tittered with excitement.

“Of course, given our school’s history, those gates won’t open anytime soon,” she muttered.

“How do we find our Nemesis?” asked Dot.

“Who chooses them?” asked Hester.

“Will they be from our class?” Ravan asked.

“These questions are premature. Only exceptional villains are blessed with Nemesis Dreams,” Lady Lesso said. “No, first you should be asking why stuck-up, stupid, insipid Good wins every competition in this school—and how you’re going to change that.” She leered at Sophie, as if to say, whether she liked it or not, the pink-loving Reader might be their best hope.

As soon as the wolves’ howls signaled class was over, Sophie darted from the ice room, up twisting stairs, until she found a small balcony off a hall. In the privacy of fog, she leaned against the damp walls of the Evil tower and finally let herself cry. She didn’t care if it ruined her makeup or if anyone saw. She had never felt so alone or scared. She hated this horrible place and couldn’t take any more.

Sophie gazed at the School for Good, glass towers glinting across the bay. For the first time, it seemed out of reach.

Lunch!

Tedros would be there! Her shining prince, her last hope! Isn’t that what princes were for after all? To rescue princesses when all seemed lost?

Heart swelling, she wiped her tears. Just make it to lunch.

As she sprinted to Evil Hall for History of Villainy, Sophie noticed scores of buzzing Nevers crowded outside. Dot saw her and grabbed her arm. “They canceled classes! No one’s saying why.” “Lunch will be sent to your rooms!” boomed the white wolf, as fellow wolves cracked whips and drove students to their towers.

Sophie’s heart deflated. “But what happ—”

She suddenly smelled smoke, creeping into the hall from every direction. Sophie slid between the shoving mob to a stone window, where a group of students stared in stunned silence. She followed their eyes across the bay.

A Good tower was on fire.

Dot gasped. “Who could have possibly done something so . . .” “Brilliant,” Hester said, awestruck.

Well, Agatha had the answer to that.