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“Are you sure you’re in the right place?” Beatrix said, even sweeter now.
Agatha felt a word swim into her mind—a word she needed, but was still too foggy to see.
“Um, I uh—”
“Perhaps you just swam to the wrong school,” smiled Beatrix.
The word lit up in Agatha’s head. Diversion.
Agatha looked up into Beatrix’s dazzling eyes. “This is the School for Good, isn’t it? The legendary school for beautiful and worthy girls destined to be princesses?”
“Oh,” said Beatrix, lips pursed. “So you’re not lost?”
“Or confused?” said another with Arabian skin and jet-black hair.
“Or blind?” said a third with deep ruby curls.
“In that case, I’m sure you have your Flowerground Pass,” Beatrix said.
Agatha blinked. “My what?”
“Your ticket into the Flowerground,” said Beatrix. “You know, the way we all got here. Only officially accepted students have tickets into the Flowerground.”
All the girls held up large golden tickets, flaunting their names in regal calligraphy, stamped with the School Master’s black-and-white swan seal.
“Ohhh, that Flowerground Pass,” Agatha scoffed. She dug her hands in her pockets. “Come close and I’ll show you.”
The girls gathered suspiciously. Meanwhile Agatha’s hands fumbled for a diversion—matches . . . coins . . . dried leaves . . .
“Um, closer.”
Murmuring girls huddled in. “It shouldn’t be this small,” Beatrix huffed.
“Shrunk in the wash,” said Agatha, scraping through more matches, melted chocolate, a headless bird (Reaper hid them in her clothes). “It’s in here somewhere—”
“Perhaps you lost it,” said Beatrix.
Mothballs . . . peanut shells . . . another dead bird . . .
“Or misplaced it,” said Beatrix.
The bird? The match? Light the bird with the match?
“Or lied about having one at all.”
“Oh, I feel it now—”
But all Agatha felt was a nervous rash across her neck—
“You know what happens to intruders, don’t you,” Beatrix said.
“Here it is—” Do something!
Girls crowded her ominously.
Do something now!
She did the first thing she thought of and delivered a swift, loud fart.
An effective diversion creates both chaos and panic. Agatha delivered on both counts. Vile fumes ripped through the tight corridor as squealing girls stampeded for cover and fairies swooned at first smell, leaving her a clear path to the door. Only Beatrix stood in her way, too shocked to move. Agatha took a step towards her and leaned in like a wolf.
“Boo.”
Beatrix fled for her life.
As Agatha sprinted for the door, she looked back with pride as girls collided into walls and trampled each other to escape. Fixed on rescuing Sophie, she lunged through the frosted doors, ran for the lake, but just as she got to it, the waters rose up in a giant wave and with a tidal crash, slammed her back through the doors, through screeching girls, until she landed on her stomach in a puddle.
She staggered to her feet and froze.
“Welcome, New Princess,” said a floating, seven-foot nymph. It moved aside to reveal a foyer so magnificent Agatha lost her breath. “Welcome to the School for Good.”
Sophie couldn’t get over the smell of the place. As she lurched along with the line, she gagged on the mix of unwashed bodies, mildewed stone, and stinking wolf. Sophie stood on her tiptoes to see where the line was headed, but all she could see was an endless parade of freaks. The other students threw her dirty looks but she responded with her kindest smile, in case this was all a test. It had to be a test or glitch or joke or something.
She turned to a gray wolf. “Not that I question your authority, but might I see the School Master? I think he—” The wolf roared, soaking her with spit. Sophie didn’t press the point.
She slumped with the line into a sunken anteroom, where three black crooked staircases twisted up in a perfect row. One carved with monsters said MALICE along the banister, the second, etched with spiders, said MISCHIEF, and the third with snakes read VICE. Around the three staircases, Sophie noticed the walls covered with different-colored frames. In each frame there was a portrait of a child, next to a storybook painting of what the student became upon graduation. A gold frame had a portrait of an elfish little girl, and beside it, a magnificent drawing of her as a revolting witch, standing over a comatose maiden. A gold plaque stretched under the two illustrations:
In the next gold frame there was a portrait of a smirking boy with a thick unibrow, alongside a painting of him all grown up, brandishing a knife to a woman’s throat:
Beneath Drogan there was a silver frame of a skinny boy with shock blond hair, turned into one of a dozen ogres savaging a village:
Then Sophie noticed a decayed bronze frame near the bottom with a tiny, bald boy, eyes scared wide. A boy she knew. Bane was his name. He used to bite all the pretty girls in Gavaldon until he was kidnapped four years before. But there was no drawing next to Bane. Just a rusted plaque that read:
Sophie looked at Bane’s terrified face and felt her stomach churn. What happened to him? She gazed up at thousands of gold, silver, and bronze frames cramming every inch of the hall: witches slaying princes, giants devouring men, demons igniting children, heinous ogres, grotesque gorgons, headless horsemen, merciless sea monsters. Once awkward adolescents. Now portraits of absolute evil. Even the villains that had died gruesome deaths—Rumpelstiltskin, the Beanstalk Giant, the Wolf from Red Riding Hood—were drawn in their greatest moments, as if they had emerged triumphant from their tales. Sophie’s gut took another twist when she noticed the other children gazing up at the portraits in awed worship. It hit her with sick clarity. She was in line with future murderers and monsters.
Her face broke out in a cold sweat. She needed to find a faculty member. Someone who could search the list of enrolled students and see she was in the wrong school. But so far, all she could find were wolves that couldn’t speak, let alone read a list.
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