The School Years Complete Collection. Soman Chainani

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      uppose mine glows green or brown or something?” Sophie yawned, scratching her legs. Everything in the Malice Common Room was made of burlap—the floors, the furniture, the curtains—like some barbarous itch chamber. “I’m not doing it if it clashes with my clothes.”

      “Just focus on an emotion!” barked the roach on her shoulder. “Like anger. Try anger.”

      Sophie closed her eyes. “Is it glowing?”

      “No. What are you thinking about?”

      “The food here.”

      “Real anger, you oaf! Magic comes from real feelings!”

      Sophie’s face scrunched with effort.

      “Deeper! Nothing’s happening!”

      Sophie’s face darkened and her fingertip flickered hot pink.

      “That’s it! You’re doing it!” Agatha hopped excitedly. “What are you thinking about!”

      “How infuriating your voice is,” Sophie said, opening her eyes. “Should I think about you every time?”

      For the next week, the Malice Common Room turned into a cockroach’s night school. The Mogrify spell only lasted three hours, so Agatha worked Sophie like a slave, driving her to make her fingerglow stronger, to fog a room and flood a floor, to tell a Sleeping Willow from a Weeping Willow, and to even say a few words of Giant. Sophie’s ranks immediately improved, but by the fourth day, the long nights had taken their toll.

      “My skin looks gray,” Sophie croaked.

      “And you’re still ranked 68, so pay attention!” berated the roach on her book, swan crest glistening on abdomen. “The Woodswide Plague began when Rumpelstiltskin stamped so hard the ground cracked—”

      “What made you change your mind? About helping me?”

      “And from the ground, a million poisonous bugs crawled out and infested the Woods, sickening scores of Nevers and Evers,” Agatha said, ignoring her. “They even had to close this school, since the bugs were highly contagious—”

      Sophie flopped back on the couch. “How do you know all this?”

      “Because while you stare in mirrors, I read Poisons and Plagues!”

      Sophie sighed. “So they closed the school for bugs. Then what happ—”

      “This is where you’ve been sneaking to?”

      Sophie swiveled to Hester at the door in black pajamas, flanked by Anadil and Dot.

      “Homework,” Sophie yawned, holding up her book. “Need light.”

      “Since when do you care about homework?” said Hester, looking greasier than ever.

      “Thought beauty was a ‘full-time job,’” mimicked Anadil.

      “Rooming with you is such inspiration,” Sophie said, smiling. “Makes me want to be the best villain I can be.”

      Hester eyed her for a long moment. With a growl, she turned and led the others out.

      Sophie exhaled, blowing Agatha off the couch.

      “She’s up to something,” they heard Hester snarl.

      “Or she’s changed!” piped Dot, waddling behind. “Roach on her book and she didn’t even notice!”

      By the sixth night of schooling, Sophie had risen to #55. But each new day, she looked more like a zombie, skin sickly white, eyes glassy and bruised. Instead of a fancy new frock or hat, now she loped around with dirty hair and a wrinkled dress, trailing study notes all over the tower like bread crumbs.

      “Maybe you should get some sleep,” Tedros mumbled to her during Yuba’s lesson on “Insect Cuisine.”

      “Too busy trying not to be the ‘worst girl in school,’” Sophie said as she took notes.

      “Insects are often available when meerworms are not,” Yuba said, holding up a live cockroach.

      “Look, you can’t expect anyone to listen to you when you’re ranked lower than Hort,” Tedros whispered.

      “When I’m #1, you’ll ask me to forgive you.”

      “You get to #1 and I’ll ask you anything you want,” he snorted.

      Sophie turned to him. “I’ll hold you to that.”

      “If you’re still awake.”

      “First remove the inedible bits,” Yuba said, and tore off the roach’s head.

      Agatha shuddered and hid behind a pine shrub the rest of the lesson. But that night, she almost jumped from her thorax when Sophie told her what happened with Tedros.

      “Everboys always keep their promises!” she said, bouncing on knobby roach legs. “It’s the Prince Code of Chivalry. Now you just have to get to #1 and he’ll ask you to the … Sophie?”

      Sophie answered with a snore.

      By the tenth day of Cockroach College, Sophie was only at #40 and the circles under her eyes were so black she looked like a raccoon. By the next, she’d slipped back to #65 when she napped during Lesso’s test on Nemesis Dreams, fell asleep during Henchmen, knocking Beezle off the Belfry, and lost her voice in Special Talents for another low rank.

      “Your talent is progressing,” Sheeba said to Anadil, who managed to make her rats grow a full five inches bigger. Then she turned to Sophie. “Here I thought you were our Great Witch Hope.”

      By the end of the week, Sophie was the worst villain in school again.

      “I’m sick,” Agatha said, coughing into her hand.

      Professor Dovey didn’t look up from her parchment-strewn desk. “Ginger tea and two slices of grapefruit. Repeat every two hours.”

      “I tried that,” Agatha said, increasing the volume of her coughs.

      “Now is not the time to miss class, Agatha,” Professor Dovey said, stacking papers under sparkling pumpkin weights. “Less than a month before the Ball and I want to make sure our fourth-ranked student is prepared for the most important night of her young life! Do you have an Everboy in mind?”

      Agatha exploded in a paroxysm of hacks. Professor Dovey looked up, alarmed.

      “Feels like … plague,” Agatha wheezed.

      Professor Dovey went white.

      Quarantined СКАЧАТЬ