“Nor do we,” Sophie lashed, standing up. “That boy is planning our execution as we speak—”
“And Merlin’s spell is our only way into his castle,” Agatha insisted.
“So if you’ll please hand it over,” said Sophie, huffing towards Yuba, “my friend and I can go hom—”
She paused midstride, blinking.
“Aggie, darling? Not to be gauche, but how exactly would Merlin’s spell help us? I don’t mean to imply that our night has been a complete goose chase or that you’ve poorly thought this out, but what could we possibly do with some ludicrous spell that turns boys into girls and girls into . . .”
Sophie’s eyes suddenly popped.
“Here it comes,” Dot mumbled.
Sophie swiveled to Agatha. “But—but you don’t want us to—you weren’t talking about—”
“And if you find the Storian . . . ,” the gnome said to Agatha, “there will be peace?”
Agatha gave him a sad smile. “A wish started this war, Yuba. Now a wish can end it.”
“A BOY?” Sophie screeched, clutching her stomach. “AGGIE, YOU WANT ME TO BE A . . . BOY?”
“It’s the only way to wish for each other without Tedros discovering us,” Agatha said, finally looking at her.
“But . . . b-b-b-b-boys? Two . . . b-b-b-boys?”
Yuba cleared his throat behind them. “I’m afraid only one can go.”
“What?” Agatha said, spinning—
“I left my notes in Sheeba’s classroom, when the butterflies heard me collecting ingredients,” said Yuba, hunching over the flowerpot with the hydrangeas. He dug his fist into the dirt and withdrew a small glass vial, shaped like a teardrop, filled with a fluorescing violet brew. “When I returned later, the recipe was gone. I am old and dodgy of memory and cannot reconstruct it, no matter how hard I try. This is my last dose of the potion.” He looked up at the two girls. “Enough for one of you to last three days in the boys’ castle.”
Agatha whitened. “But how will you teach class—how will you stay at this school—”
“I’m willing to risk my life if it means peace,” Yuba replied.
Neither Sophie nor Agatha said anything for a moment, staring at the smoky potion in his hand.
“I’ll go,” said Agatha, lurching for the vial—
“No! They’ll kill you!” cried Sophie, grabbing her. “We can’t be apart now—not after everything—”
“Someone has to bring the pen back—” Agatha said, wresting free—
“Send Hester!” Sophie shrieked, shoving the tattooed witch forward—
“Me?” Hester roared, shoving her back. “Now I’m being dragged into this?”
“Look, this is my idea, so I’ll go,” Agatha snapped—
“Or Dot!” Sophie said, goosing Dot forward. “She’s always trying to be useful—”
“I don’t want to be a boy!” Dot screeched, and ran around the sofa while Sophie chased her.
“We’ll draw lots!” Sophie gasped, grabbing one of Yuba’s notebooks, desperately ripping up pages—
Yuba stayed her hand. “Lives at stake, two schools at war . . . and you expect to draw straws? No no no,” he said, tucking the vial into his coat. “It should be me who goes, of course—but boys will surely suspect a gnome in their midst, given our penchant for peace. And if I can’t go, there’s only one way to settle this indeed. A proper challenge, just as this school requires. And there’s certainly no reason it shouldn’t be Hester or Dot who goes, or even Anadil, since you’ll no doubt betray everything to her that happened here tonight.”
The girls goggled at him.
“Tomorrow we choose our boy,” Yuba said, shunting them all out. “Forest Groups exist precisely to winnow those who can survive in the bleakest circumstances versus those destined to fail.”
As the girls scrambled from his kale-crusted burrow and towards the tunnel, Sophie brightened with relief. “See? Hester will get the pen! Hester wins everything—”
“Never making friends with Evers again,” Hester grumbled, shoving Agatha hard as she tramped into the trees.
Agatha watched her trail away, stiffening with guilt. “I should be the one to go,” she said to Sophie. “How can he leave this up to a challenge? It doesn’t make any sense—”
Dot butted between them, licking kale off her fingers. “That’s ’cause you haven’t heard the Five Rules.”
“I say we fail on purpose,” Anadil harrumphed.
“And end up a newt during tracking? No thank you,” Hester grumped, the two witches in black traipsing behind Sophie, Agatha, and blue-uniformed girls flooding through the gates for Forest Groups. “What I don’t understand is how you or I bring the Storian back. The School Master’s tower follows wherever the pen goes. If we steal it, the tower will chase us—”
“Suppose I win?” Dot fretted, catching up. “I beat everyone in the poisoned apple-making tryout this morning!”
“That’s because it involved food,” Anadil muttered.
Humming a cheerful tune, Sophie noticed Agatha still looking glum after last night. “Aggie, it really is the best solution,” Sophie whispered to her, once a few butterflies flew over. “Hester will get the pen in no time. We’ll write ‘The End’ before the Dean suspects a thing!”
Despite her unease over dragging the witches into this, Agatha knew Sophie had a point. If there was one person who could be trusted to accomplish a mission quickly, it was Hester.
“But it’s Yuba’s last dose,” worried Agatha. “How will he survive here?”
“Think he’ll be just fine,” Sophie snorted.
Agatha followed her eyes to the sea of girls, seated in front of the Blue Brook’s bridge, once made of stone, now replaced with rickety planks, suspended by two thick ropes. The girls gaped in silence at the old gnome standing atop the rope bridge, in a lavender dress and wobbly heels, his face completely obscured by bulbous red blisters, his hair hidden beneath a hideous babushka.
“A highly contagious disease of indeterminate duration, so I encourage you to keep your distance,” Yuba huffed in his best Helga voice. “Now, given you may soon need to survive among boys, perhaps it is time to remind us all of the Five Rules.” He flashed a loaded look at Agatha, Sophie, and the witches as he wrote in the air with his smoking staff:
Girls soften. Boys harden.
Girls reflect. Boys react.
Girls express. Boys suppress.
Girls desire. Boys hunt.
Girls caution. Boys ignore.
Agatha grimaced. “These are sexist and reductive—”
“Says the girl ignored, suppressed, and hunted by her prince,” Sophie replied.
Agatha went quiet.
“As you all know from your history classes last year, Ingertrolls are lady trolls, most often found beneath bridges in Netherwood and Runyon Mills,” Yuba declared. “And just for today, beneath our very own.”
The girls all peered under the bridge to see the other female group leaders uncage a bony, blindfolded troll, with saggy skin scaled pink like a salmon’s. It sat in a child’s squat, tongue lolling idiotically, scratching hairy armpits and swallowing flies.
“Ingertrolls are quite fond of young men and will do anything to separate them from their beloveds,” Yuba continued. “If a couple steps foot on their bridge, an Ingertroll will throw the girl off and let the boy pass unharmed. For today’s challenge, then, each of you will try to cross our bridge without being ejected—a feat no Evergirl or Nevergirl has ever managed at this school.” He eyed Hester confidently. “But the truly exceptional student will succeed.”
As all the girls lined up at the bridge, Agatha questioned how 120 girls could each take a turn by the time class ended—and got her answer when Kiko took her first step and was flung squealing into the trees before she took another. Girl after girl barely made it past the first plank, hurled left and right by the hopping Ingertroll, smacking her gums and wagging her bottom.
“Use the rules
!” Yuba berated, tightening his babushka.
But they were no use either. Dot was pitched into the Periwinkle Pines, Anadil into the Blue Brook, and Hester into the Fernfield before Agatha was thrown off, fastest of all, into the Turquoise Thicket.
“At least you got to the second plank,” Agatha sighed to Hester, picking thorns out of her backside. “Looks like it’s you after all.”
“EYYYIIIIIIII!”
They glanced up to see Sophie screeching and holding on for dear life to the rope bridge like a bull rider, while the Ingertroll tried to fling her off. Sophie would have happily allowed this, except for a minor problem.
“MY SHOEEEEEEE!” she bellowed, tugging frantically at her glass heel, trapped in a plank. “IT’S S-S-T-T-UCCCCCKKK—”
“And you say she’s changed?” Hester frowned.
“The old Sophie would have stopped Tedros from kissing me,” said Agatha, wincing as Sophie unleashed a torrent of rather unfeminine words.
“And you believe her? That someone else caused her symptoms? That she’s Good now?”
“I believe what I see now,” Agatha said as the troll flipped the bridge and Sophie continued her squawking upside down. “And that’s a friend willing to do anything to get me home safe.”
Hester paused, taking this in. “Look, I’ll endure this hideous spell and get you two home. But only if it’s what you really want this time.”
Agatha turned, surprised. For a moment, she forgot about the howling girl behind her.
“Will keeping Sophie make you happier than a prince?” Hester said.
Agatha looked away, tense. “Once upon a time, all I needed was a friend to be happy, Hester. Then I thought I needed more. It’s the problem with fairy tales. From far away, they seem so perfect. But up close, they’re just as complicated as real life.”
Hester glared at her. “Will you be happier with her, or a prince.”
“Tedros never loved me. If he loved me, he would have trusted me.”
“Her or a prince.”
“I don’t belong here. I don’t belong with a prince—”
“Agatha—”
“There is no choice anymore, Hester!” Agatha cried, voice cracking. “There is no Tedros!”
Hester was speechless.
Agatha recovered, managing a smile. “Besides, who could ever love me as much as Sophie?”
“AGATHHHHHAAAA, HEELLLPPP!” Sophie’s voice mewled, and the two girls turned back to see her straddling the bridge ropes like a demented ballerina—
“How that girl gets out of bed in the morning, I have no idea,” Agatha sighed.
Finally the Ingertroll stopped shaking the bridge and tried to dislodge Sophie’s foot from the shoe—only to receive a firm slap.
“How rude!” Sophie scolded the stunned troll. “Even Cinderella’s prince asked permission!” Sophie pried her shoe loose and smacked the troll with it. “And that’s for causing trouble between perfectly happy pairs,” she said, smiling at Agatha as the troll swelled furious red, about to smite her. Sophie peered down at it. “You know, I used to be just like you.”
The troll deflated, confused.
“But now I have my friend back,” Sophie whispered. “A friend who makes me Good.” She patted the troll’s head. “One day I hope you’ll find a friend too.”
She left the gaping creature behind and moseyed forward, settling on a rock to replace her shoe. “Now I see why Agatha wears those odious clump—”
Sophie realized where she was and bolted to her feet.
Yuba was wide-eyed on the other side of the rope bridge.
“No no no—” Sophie yelped, waving him off—
“Each of the girls’ rules disobeyed so skillfully that you’ve managed to convince the most discerning of monsters you’re not a girl at all!” Yuba pipped.
A gold “1” rank exploded over Sophie’s head like a crown. “It—it was an accident!” she cried, batting it away as all the other girls’ ranks appeared—
But the gnome was giddily waddling towards his hole. “Looks like a girl, acts like a girl . . . who knew!” he babbled, grinning back at Sophie as smoke rose subtly from his staff into the air . . .
9 o’clock
Sophie turned green. Slowly she looked down and saw “Agatha and the witches even more gobsmacked than the rest of the class.
Because the one girl who they could never, ever imagine surviving as a boy was about to become one.
UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
HarperCollins Publishers
..................................................................
16
A Boy by Any Other Name
It’s what you always wanted, isn’t it? A part big enough to hold you!” Agatha prattled, slipping with Sophie through the Tunnel of Trees. “And who better to play a part than you?”
Pulling her cloak tighter, Sophie raced ahead into the snow-sprinkled clearing, dimly lit by two torches on the Blue Forest gates. She’d insisted that the witches stay in the castle tonight. Having a gnome and her best friend there would be humiliation enough.
Yuba had picked 9 o’clock carefully, for most of the girls were bathing, at club meetings, or busy studying for the next Trial Tryouts, while the butterflies tended to settle on rafters or banisters in the foyer, dormant to everything but the most egregious noise. With Beatrix at Elf fluency lessons and the Dean in her office, they’d have enough time to go through with the plan. How Agatha would explain her friend’s disappearance, Sophie asked repeatedly—but her friend shooed the questions away, no doubt because she didn’t have the answers.
“You might even enjoy being a boy,” Agatha gibbered on, clumps crunching onto snow. “Think of it as a costume—think of it as a show—”
“Only the audience is trying to kill me,” Sophie growled.
She heard her friend’s clump crunches slow behind her.
“How can I leave you alone with him?” Agatha whispered, shivering in her cloak.
Sophie stood still, listening to the Valor tower clock toll and fade, snowflakes smothering against her neck. “Everything Good in me is because of you, Agatha. Isn’t it time I did something Good for you too?”
She turned to see Agatha, snow caked in torchlight and smiling crookedly like she had in those first days as friends, so surprised Sophie wanted to spend time with her.
“I’ll owe you one, all right?” Agatha said, eyes glistening. “Even if I have to sing in your musical.”
Sophie cracked a smile back.
They both noticed Yuba’s white staff poking out of a hole in the distance, wagging impatiently.
“Listen, try to get on tower guard—that’s how you’ll get to the pen—” Agatha jabbered again as she gripped Sophie’s hand and pulled her into the Forest. “And watch out for a strange-colored spell—that’s what Tedros used against me—”
But Sophie couldn’t hear Agatha’s voice anymore, only the frantic thumps of her own heart, knowing the time had come.
“Any questions about the plan once Sophie transforms?” Yuba whispered to Agatha, his face clear of the magical pox he’d given himself during class. He eyed Sophie, pumping herself a glass of water in the kitchen, and lowered his voice even more. “It is her surest way into the boys’ castle.”
“B-b-but are you sure it will work?” Agatha whispered back, appalled by what the gnome was proposing. “Suppose the crogs think she’s a—”
She held her tongue, for Sophie had stopped pumping water and could hear them now.
“Sophie, we were just waiting for you,” Agatha called quickly, hands shaking as she unfolded a bamboo curtain in the corner of the den. “Remember the spell only lasts three days—”
“Which gives Sophie only until the Trial begins,” the gnome said. “Sophie must retrieve the pen and storybook before then.” He stoked the fireplace with his staff, and his den swathed in hot glow. “Remember, the School Master’s tower will chase Sophie once she takes the Storian—and t
he boys will know they’ve been tricked. Agatha, you must be waiting the instant she returns, ready to make your wish. The pen will write ‘The End’ in your book, and you’ll both be gone before the boys attack.”
Agatha’s throat bobbed. “And Sophie can revert to a girl as soon as she escapes?”
“The same way she’d un-Mogrify—without any residual effects.”
“Hear that, Sophie?” Agatha said, hanging her friend’s cloak on the curtain hook. “You can revert without any—”
But Sophie was still hunched in the kitchen, staring mournfully at her reflection in a glass flower vase.
Agatha came up behind her. “We have to get you there before curfew.”
Sophie took one last long look at her face, then forced a smile and huffed past Agatha towards the curtain, babbling to herself. “Boys played girls all the time in old theater, didn’t they? . . . A good old spot of make-believe . . . a tour de force, even. . . . Brava! Brava!”
Agatha waved at Yuba to give Sophie the potion as quickly as possible.
A few moments later, Sophie stood behind the bamboo curtain, clutching the vial. “Just a spot of make-believe,” she cooed, starting to feel rather cocksure about all of this.
“Drink it in sips,” Yuba’s voice said on the other side. “It will ease the process.”
With a deep breath, Sophie yanked the glass cork from the tear-shaped bottle. A blast of sandalwood, musk, and sweat blinded her, and she recorked it, hacking and wheezing. She held the vial far away from her and stared at the violet potion smoking dangerously. This wasn’t make-believe.
Silence festered in the gnome’s lair.
“I’ll go if you can’t,” Agatha’s voice said gently. “Just say the word.”
Sophie thought of all the torments her friend had endured for her last year—flying through flames as a dove, surviving for weeks as a cockroach, risking her life in a sewer, facing the murderous School Master. . . .
“I need more than a friend,” Agatha had told her prince.
Sophie gritted her teeth. Doing this would show Agatha just how much she needed her.
The School for Good and Evil #2: A World without Princes Page 20
