by Elise Allen
“There was also that thing with the Magical Animals,” Galric said.
This was news to Sara. “The Magical Animals?” Sara asked, leaning forward in her seat. “I didn’t hear anything about them.”
“I didn’t either,” Flissa said. “What happened?”
“It was in Chemistry class,” Galric said. “You probably didn’t hear about it because only Genpos take it. And Magical Animals, since they can’t cast spells.”
“Mostly can’t cast spells,” Flissa said, and Sara knew she was thinking about Raya, the lion who’d captured them in the Twists. She cast incredibly powerful spells, so powerful they’d barely escaped with their lives.
“Right,” Galric said. “Mostly. So they take Chemistry with us; you have Magic Lab instead. I didn’t have it today, but Krystal did. It’s in an outdoor classroom and a bunch of animals had spelled out ‘Animal Independence’ on the floor in, um…well, in…”
He was blushing and pained as he looked at the king and queen, like he couldn’t bear to say the word in front of them.
“Poop!” Katya cried. “You mean poop, am I right? Just say poop! You worked the manure pits, for the universe’s sake, it’s poop!”
Galric turned even redder. “Yeah. Poop.”
“‘Animal Independence,’” Flissa mused. “That’s a lot of poop.”
“How did Krystal know it was a bunch of animals, and not just one?” Sara asked. Then Galric raised an eyebrow and she realized. “Oh, right. Different poop.”
The king let out a deep sigh and pushed back from the table. “So no one’s happy, then. Not the Mages, not the Genpos, not the Magical Animals…”
Sara sat up taller. Just this morning, she’d been aching to go to school, but the entire day had been a disaster. She’d said all the wrong things to all the wrong people, she’d landed in trouble, and she’d completely tanked her magic class. It wasn’t like her. She was always great in new situations. So maybe school just wasn’t her place. It didn’t make her a failure; it just meant she’d learned her lesson and she should stick to what worked for her.
“Dad, maybe it’s not that everyone’s unhappy,” she suggested. “Maybe they’re just not happy with school. Maybe it’s too soon. I bet if you shut it down and started it back up again in a year or two…” Sara quickly tallied up how many more years before she wouldn’t have to go, then added, “Or seven, everything would be a lot better.”
Flissa fixed her with a penetrating stare. “You said that before, that maybe it’s too soon. But I don’t think that’s right. If we give up on Maldevon Academy, we may as well give up on Kaloonification. It’s like Amala said—we can’t let the dissenters win.”
Sara stared at her sister, openmouthed. She knew Flissa hadn’t wanted to go to school in the first place. Not at all. Why was she defending it now?
“You’re exactly right, Flissa,” Queen Latonya said, and Sara’s stomach sank. Their mom rose to her feet and all the other adults—plus Galric, who took a little extra time to first settle Nitpick in his arms—did the same. “We’re all heading to the academy to talk to Amala. Sit, Galric. Enjoy the tea. Then if you have any homework to do, get to it because there will be class tomorrow.”
They all said their goodbyes, Sara’s parents kissing her and Flissa on the tops of their heads on the way out. Katya gathered hugs from all three of them before she left, and Rouen clasped the girls on the shoulder, then tousled Galric’s hair.
“Looks like it’ll all be okay,” Flissa said. She had a weird, giddy smile on her face that Sara didn’t understand at all. “I’m going to head upstairs and start my homework. I’ve got a ten-page paper due at the end of the week!”
She scampered out of the room. Galric stared after her in disbelief. “Is it just me,” he asked, “or did she say ‘ten-page paper’ like a normal person would say ‘It’s my birthday’?”
“Not just you,” Sara assured him.
“I guess we should do homework too,” Galric said. “Maybe we could work together on the Magical Botanicals paragraph?”
Sara considered it—homework would be a lot less miserable if she was doing it with Galric—but what she really needed was a break from all things Maldevon Academy.
“How about a walk instead?” she asked.
If Sara could have asked for one thing to make her day better, the smile Galric gave her would have been it.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’d love that.”
They didn’t go anywhere special, just grabbed the remaining scones and walked the grounds and chatted about nothing and everything. He told her all about his day—all the things that happened when they weren’t together—and seeing the school through his eyes made it seem less awful. She even laughed out loud at some of the stories he told about Krystal. He made her sound funny and goofy and exactly the kind of girl Sara would want to hang out with.
Maybe she’d just had a bad start. Maybe tomorrow would be better. Maybe she’d end up like Galric and Flissa and probably every other person and animal at the school who wasn’t actively protesting, and she’d love it.
“Thanks,” Sara said.
Galric looked confused. He gave a half smile that showed the new dimple under his eye. “For what?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I mean, you know, just…everything. For being my friend, I guess.”
He gave her a goofy look. “Okay. I mean…yeah, of course.”
The “duh” was implied, and it made Sara smile.
“Hey, guess where we are,” she said.
She expected him to say, “The stables,” or “The field,” or some other answer that would be correct, but not what she was going for. Instead he looked right into her eyes and said, “Easy. It’s the spot where we met.”
Sara’s heart fluttered. She expected that even less than she expected him to get the “right” answer.
“Yeah,” she said, suddenly breathless. “The exact spot.”
She met his eyes, and she couldn’t explain it, but for the first time she felt like she was looking inside him, not just at him, and she couldn’t look away. She didn’t want to. And it seemed like he didn’t either.
The fluttering moved to her stomach, and her ears felt hot.
She turned away and nudged a dandelion with her foot, purposely breaking the spell. “I mean, maybe not the exact spot,” she said. “It’s not like I put up a plaque.”
“Right,” Galric agreed, and started ambling back in the direction of the palace. Sara fell into step next to him. “I mean, you commissioned the plaque; you just haven’t put it up yet.”
“Well, yeah,” she said, “of course I commissioned it.”
She looked away so he wouldn’t see how wide she was smiling.
* * *
“Students of Maldevon Academy,” Amala’s disembodied voice rang out over the courtyard.
It was the next day, and Sara felt newly abuzz as she stood with Loriah, Flissa, and Galric. Like the day before, Amala had them all gather together before she opened the doors and magically addressed them from wherever she actually was.
“Welcome back. Yesterday was less than ideal. Today is a fresh start, but with this warning: Maldevon Academy has a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to discrimination. Violators won’t be expelled; you won’t get off that easily. Instead violators will spend even more time in the academic buildings, working closely with myself and the faculty to spearhead our Kaloonification programs.”
People and animals in the crowd murmured to one another. Everyone sounded dubious, but Sara saw the poetry in it. The people under the Keepers robes yesterday would probably love to be expelled, and working on some kind of program to strengthen Kaloonification was a perfect punishment for them. She wasn’t sure how it would work on someone like Skeed, who had real issues with some of the Genpos, but maybe if he and some of the marchers from yesterday had to work together, it would make a difference to them both.
“To that end, I’m announcing an event: a ball, right her
e in our fields. The king and queen will be here, the General Council, and of course all of your parents. The ball will occur in four weeks, to celebrate both the end of the first month of school, and the true Kaloonification of our sects: Mages and Genpos who always lived in Kaloon, Mages and Genpos who lived in the Twists, and Magical Animals. The planning committee, who will report directly to me, will consist of representatives from each of these groups. Will the following students please stand at the top of the stairs by the main doors so everyone can see you?”
Sara thought she knew what was coming, and when she met Galric’s and Flissa’s eyes she saw that they did too. Loriah looked disinterested, but since she generally had resting over-it face, Sara wasn’t sure it really meant anything.
“Skeed! Jentrie! Zinka! Nikkolas! Anastasia!”
The crowd murmured and shifted to let the five students through. Three of them were no surprise—Flissa had told Sara late last night about Jentrie, and she’d told Flissa about Skeed. Of the other two, one was a tall boy who looked old enough to be in his completion year. His thick dark hair hung perfectly straight, he wore round glasses with thin wire frames, and he even had a light goatee. Given that the fifth one up there was Anastasia the boar—the same boar Sara had inadvertently insulted yesterday—the boy had to be Nikkolas. He was the only one who looked happy to be up there, smiling and nodding to friends in the crowd. Skeed, meanwhile, slouched and examined his fingernails, while Zinka stood with her hands defiantly on her hips, and Jentrie crossed her arms over her chest and seethed. Anastasia…well, to Sara she still just looked the way big bristly boars look.
Galric leaned close to Sara and murmured, “Guess we know who was behind the poop-fest in the Chemistry room.”
“I know,” she whispered back. “So not cool of Nikkolas.”
They both pursed their lips together so they wouldn’t laugh. Sara was sure Amala would know if they did.
“So, everyone,” Amala’s voice rang out, “give a warm Maldevon Academy welcome to our first…Ambassadors of Kaloonification!”
Sara looked at Flissa, and Galric—should they applaud? The rest of the crowd seemed to wonder the same thing…maybe because Jentrie, Zinka, and Skeed all scowled like they dared anyone to do it. Then Loriah hooted at the top of her lungs. “WOOO-HOOO!!! Kaloonification! Zinkaaa!” She clapped loudly enough for the sound to echo through the courtyard, which made other students join in. As they did, Loriah grinned and leaned closer to Sara. “I hate that girl,” she said.
Sara laughed and joined the applause.
“Listen to that,” Amala said. “Already bringing everyone together. Well done. Look for scrolls so you’ll know when to meet me, Ambassadors. Until then…”
The bell rang and everyone piled into the main building. Sara left her sister and her friends with a huge smile, positive that today would be a perfect day.
She was wrong.
It wasn’t the worst day, she just wasn’t herself. She didn’t want to mess up, so she sat in the back of all her classes, kept her head down, and didn’t talk to anyone. She didn’t even talk to Flissa in Magic Lab because Flissa was deep into some kind of Zinka drama—something about her first Ambassadors of Kaloonificaion meeting getting in the way of hoodle tryouts. Sara couldn’t even enjoy seeing Galric at Magical Botanicals since she had to hang out with Dame Yentley, and lunch was a bust because Skeed was convinced the king and queen gave Amala the Ambassadors of Kaloonification idea, and he blamed Sara for it. She had no energy to convince him he was wrong, so she left the table to roam the topiary garden. She thought maybe she’d at least enjoy the solitude, but even that backfired when she got lost and wound up late for Athletics. Teacher Lazando didn’t give her a detention, but she fell during Dodge ’Em and spent the rest of the day with a giant grass stain on her butt that wouldn’t come out, no matter how much she tried to magically erase it. Even her Art class, which was taught by her friend Dorinda the glassblower, was a disaster because when she went up to hug Dorinda, the whole room laughed at her grassy rear end.
When the final bell rang, Sara nearly cheered out loud.
She’d been wrong to give school a second chance. It wasn’t for her, and she had to find a way out of it…but first she had to go home and sleep for as long as humanly possible.
Maybe the next seven years.
Instead, the second she stepped out of Art class, a flying scroll smacked into her face. Confused, she opened it.
Detention. The one she’d received yesterday. She’d totally forgotten. Her heart sank when she realized she’d have to stay in this building for at least another hour.
Second floor, the scroll said. That’s where she had to go.
Sara didn’t know the school had a second floor.
Then she saw ink bleeding through from the scroll’s back side, where she found a map. She followed it over undulating hills in the floor to a spot in the middle of a hall.
There were no steps in the middle of the hall.
How was she supposed to get to the second floor?
“Look up.”
Sara turned and saw Zinka, Flissa’s friend.
Flissa’s friend. It was a weird thing to think.
She and Flissa had always had the same friends. Maybe Loriah was a little closer to Flissa than to her, but she was definitely friends with them both. If anything, Sara had always been the one to have friends outside their twosome, even if she was living a bit of a lie with them as Princess Flissara.
Zinka, however, was definitely Flissa’s friend…so it was weird she seemed to know where Sara was going.
“How do you know?” Sara asked.
“You’re trying to go upstairs, right?” Zinka asked. “Me too. For this stupid Ambassadors thing. Look up.”
Sara did. There was a door right in the middle of the ceiling, complete with a round, dangling knocker.
“Yo,” Zinka called. “Open up.”
The door swung open and a rope ladder dropped down. Zinka jumped onto it. “See ya,” she said, then scrambled up the rope and disappeared.
Climbing. Climbing was not Sara’s friend. She closed her eyes, tilted back her head, and moaned, which was of course the exact moment when a pack of older boys walked down the hall and laughed together about the “crazy princess.”
Perfect.
Sara sighed and grabbed hold of a high ladder rung, put her feet on a lower rung…and immediately the ladder started swinging back and forth.
“Oh no…” she said under her breath. “Oh no…”
She could barely keep her balance and struggled to put each hand and foot higher than the other. She remembered climbing up the long stone wall beneath the palace, that night she and Flissa slipped away with Galric, and she thought about his advice: Don’t look down.
She didn’t. She kept her eyes focused on the doorway, even when she heard snickering voices below.
“Is that the princess?”
“What is she doing?”
“Check out her butt—that’s a huge grass stain!”
Soon she was covered in sweat and it felt like she’d been climbing forever, but the ceiling was no closer. How was that even possible?
Knowing it was a bad idea, she looked down.
The students below were ants.
That’s how it was possible—the building had stretched while she was climbing. She forced herself to speed up and try to outpace the magically growing academy. By the time she smacked her hands onto the second level and rolled onto the floor, she was soaked, panting for breath, and every muscle ached.
“I hate this school,” she said out loud. “I hate it so much.”
Still lying on her back, she unfurled her detention scroll again. Sure enough, a new map had appeared, one detailing the second floor. Sara struggled to her feet and followed it.
The upstairs halls weren’t like the ones below. Whatever mansion the builders of Maldevon Academy had smacked down on top of the others to make this level had stayed relatively intact…ju
st upside down. The furniture had been rearranged so it was now right-side up, but Sara had to watch her step as she walked because the floor was clearly once a coffered ceiling, with protruding beams and wooden carvings.
Sara followed the map to her detention room. The door began above her knee level, and was flush with the ceiling instead of the floor, so she clumsily climbed in. The room was filled with student desks and a larger desk for a teacher, where a pelican sat reading a book. Without looking up from it, he pointed to the blackboard behind him, which read Detention: No Talking and Do Work Until Dismissed.
Krystal and Galric were already at two adjacent desks. Sara collapsed into the seat on Galric’s other side and leaned back, gulping for air.
She heard a light tap on her desk, then looked down and saw a folded piece of parchment had landed there. Next to her, Galric checked to make sure the pelican wasn’t looking, then raised his eyebrows as if to say Open it.
Sara did. U ok? it said. U look terrible.
Sara turned his parchment over, pulled a pen from her bag, and wrote back, Rope ladder up here the worst. How u and K get here so fast? She folded and tossed him the note. He frowned as he read it, then wrote back his response. What rope ladder? We took moving stairs outside lower rotunda.
Sara let her head flop down onto her desk and didn’t move again until the pelican shook her shoulder.
“You fell asleep,” he said. “Detention’s over. I already sent the others away.”
Sara hadn’t even realized she’d been napping. She felt thick and disoriented…and she really had to use the bath-room. She got directions from the pelican, but once she clambered over the high threshold of the doorway, she had no idea where she was. She wandered the bizarrely upside-down halls, looking for someone she could ask. Then she heard a familiar voice.
“What you have to understand is that Mages are naturally superior to Genpos.”
It was Amala.
