The School Years Complete Collection. Soman Chainani

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СКАЧАТЬ the silhouette appeared out of darkness, this time closer, clearer than before. He took one knee before her, lifted his face into light …

      A screech jolted her awake.

      Onstage, the twelve sisters were bellowing and butting each other like gorillas.

      “How can those be princesses?” Beatrix cried.

      “That’s what happens after you’re married,” said Giselle. “My mother stopped shaving her legs.”

      “Mine can’t fit in any of her old gowns,” Millicent said.

      “Mine doesn’t wear makeup,” said Ava.

      “Mine eats cheese,” Reena sighed. Beatrix looked faint.

      “Well, my wife tries any of that, she can go live with witches,” Chaddick said, gnawing on a turkey leg. “In all those pictures of Ever After, no one sees an ugly princess.”

      He noticed Agatha sitting stiffly next to him. “Oh. No offense.”

      By lunch, Agatha had forgotten all about finding a date and wanted to go groveling back to Sophie. But she, Hester, and Anadil were nowhere to be found (or Dot, for that matter) and the Nevers seemed curiously subdued on their side of the Clearing. Meanwhile, she could hear Evergirls chuckling as Chaddick retold his story to different groups, the “No offense” line sounding more offensive each time. Even worse, Tedros kept giving her strange looks between horseshoe throws (and an especially strange one after she dropped her bowl of beet stew all over her lap).

      Kiko plopped down beside her. “Don’t be upset. It can’t be true.”

      “What?”

      “The two boys thing.”

      “What ‘two boys’ thing?”

      “You know, that they all made a pact for two boys to go together rather than ask you.”

      Agatha stared at her.

      “Oh no!” Kiko squeaked, and fled.

      In Good Deeds, Professor Dovey gave them a written test on how they would handle moral predicaments at a Ball. For instance:

      1. If you attend the Ball with someone other than your first choice, but your first choice, who you’re madly in love with, asks you to dance, do you:

      A) Kindly inform them that if they wanted to dance with you they should have asked you to the Ball

      B) Dance with them, but only to a fast-paced rondel

      C) Ditch your date for your first choice

      D) Ask your date what they would feel comfortable with

      Agatha answered D. Underneath it, she wrote:

      “Unless no one would ever ask you to a Ball, let alone to dance. Then this question doesn’t apply.”

      2. Upon arriving at the Ball, you notice your friend’s breath smells unbearably of garlic and trout. However, your friend is going with the person you hoped would ask you to the Ball. Do you:

      A) Inform your friend at once of their foul odor

      B) Say nothing since it is your friend’s fault they smell

      C) Say nothing because you will enjoy watching them be embarrassed

      D) Offer them a piece of sweet licorice without mentioning their breath

      Agatha answered A. She added, “Because at least bad breath is temporary. Ugly is forever.”

      3. A baby dove with a broken wing slips into the Good Hall, crashes to the dance floor during the last waltz, and is in severe danger of being crushed. Do you:

      A) Scream and stop the dance

      B) Finish the dance and then attend to the dove

      C) Kick the dove off the floor while dancing so it’s safe, then attend to it after

      D) Abandon the dance and rescue the dove, even if it means embarrassing your partner

      Agatha answered D. “My partner is imaginary. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

      She answered the next 27 questions in the same spirit.

      Perched at her desk made out of sugarplums, Professor Dovey scored the tests and shoved them under a gleaming pumpkin weight, face growing grimmer and grimmer.

      “Just what I’ve been afraid of,” she fumed, flinging the tests back to the students. “Your answers are vain, vacuous, and at times downright villainous! No wonder that Sophie girl made fools of you all!”

      “Attacks are over, aren’t they?” Tedros muttered.

      “No thanks to you!” Professor Dovey barked, thrusting a red-drenched test at him. “A Never wins a Trial, lays waste to our school—and no Ever to catch her? No one Good to put down a student?”

      She slung tests across a row. “Must I remind you that the Circus of Talents is in four days? And that whoever wins the Circus has the Theater of Tales moved to their school? Do you want your Theater moved to Evil? Do you want to walk with shame to Evil for the rest of the year?”

      No one could meet her eyes.

      “To be Good you must prove yourself Good, Evers,” Professor Dovey warned. “Defend. Forgive. Help. Give. Love. Those are our rules. But it is your choice to follow them.”

      As she went over the tests, excoriating every wrong answer, Agatha shoved hers away. But then she noticed the corner:

      100%

      SEE ME.

      When the fairies chimed the end of class, Professor Dovey shooed all the Evers out, closed the pumpkin candy door, and locked it. She turned and found Agatha atop her desk, eating a sugarplum.

      “So if I follow the rules,” Agatha said, chomping loudly, “I’m not a witch.”

      Professor Dovey eyed the new hole in her desk. “Only a truly Good soul lives those rules, yes.”

      “What if my face is Evil?” Agatha said.

      “Oh, Agatha, don’t be ridic—”

      “What if my face is Evil?”

      Her teacher flinched at her tone.

      “I’m far from home, I’ve lost my only friend, everyone here hates me, and all I want is a way to find some kind of happy ending,” Agatha said, red-hot. “But you can’t even tell me the truth. My ending is not about what Good I do or what’s inside me. It’s about how I look.” Spit flew out of her mouth.

      “I never even had a chance.”

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