فصل 9

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 in 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!” For the second time in two challenges, Sophie looked up at the top rank, spewing red smoke above her head.

Panicked, she whipped to her schoolmates to appeal, but they were no longer looking at her with contempt or ridicule. They were looking at her with something else.

Respect.

Her place as 1 Villain was getting surer by the minute.

Up close, Professor Clarissa Dovey, with her silver bun and rosy face, looked even more comforting and grandmotherly. Agatha couldn’t have wished for a better executioner.

“I’d prefer the School Master handle these things,” Professor Dovey said, flipping papers under a crystal pumpkin paperweight. “But we all know how he is about his privacy.” Finally she peered up at Agatha. She didn’t look comforting anymore.

“I have a school full of terrified students, two days of classes to make up, five hundred animals whose memories must be erased, a classroom wing that’s been eaten, a treasured menagerie reduced to ash, and a headless gargoyle buried somewhere underneath all this. Do you know why this is?” Agatha couldn’t get words out of her throat.

“Because you disobeyed Pollux’s simple order,” Professor Dovey said. “And nearly cost lives in the process.” She shamed Agatha with a look and went back to her scrolls.

Agatha glanced through the window at the lakeshore, where Evers were finishing lunches of roast chicken dolloped with mustard, spinach and Gruyère crepes, and flutes of apple cider. She could see Tedros reenacting the menagerie scene for an enthralled audience, sporting his black eye like a badge of honor.

“Can I say bye to my friend at least?” Agatha said, eyes welling. She turned to Professor Dovey.

“Before you . . . kill me?”

“That won’t be necessary.”

“But I have to see her!”

Professor Dovey looked up. “Agatha, you received a first rank for your performance in Animal Communication and rightfully so. Only a rare talent can make a wish come to life. And though there are different accounts of what exactly happened on the roof, I would add that any pupil of this school who would risk their life to help a gargoyle . . .” Her eyes glistened and for a moment so did the silver swan on her dress. “Well, that suggests Goodness beyond any measure.” Agatha stared at her, tongue-tied.

“But if you disobey another teacher’s direct order, Agatha, I guarantee you will fail. Understood?” Agatha nodded in relief.

She heard laughter outside and turned to see Tedros’ mates kicking around a pillow dummy with twig legs, coal button eyes, and black thorns for hair. An arrow suddenly speared its head, spitting feathers everywhere. A second arrow ripped open its heart.

The boys stopped laughing and turned. Across the lawn, Tedros threw down his bow and walked away.

“As for your friend, she’s doing just fine where she is,” Professor Dovey said, thumbing through more scrolls. “But you can ask her yourself. She’s in your next class.” Agatha wasn’t listening. Her eyes were still on the dead-eyed doll, bleeding feathers into the wind.

The doll that looked just like her.