by Joan Holub
“You think Ms. Wicked wants us all to be vulnerable to E.V.I.L.?” Foulsmell asked.
“Maybe. Just like she wants to control where we go and what we do by hiring all those animal guards and locking us in at night,” said Goldie.
Foulsmell just shrugged, maddeningly unconcerned. “I prefer to give her the benefit of the doubt,” he said as they neared the Hall for lunch. “Being suspicious of people isn’t a very fun way to live, in my humble opinion.”
“I’m going to have to change your name to Foolsmell if that’s the way you think,” she said, half teasing and half serious. Immediately after the words left her mouth, she stiffened. I did it again! she scolded herself. Said the first rude thing that popped into my head.
However, Foulsmell just grinned. “Sure. If you think that’s a better name for me.” Though he didn’t sound mad, what if she’d really hurt him and he was only covering up his feelings? Had she blown this chance at making a friend?
A uniformed beaver guard with large, prominent teeth was lurking just outside the entrance to the Great Hall. As Goldie and Foulsmell approached, the beaver bent to pick up a pencil that someone had dropped, and then started to munch it. Suddenly, Ms. Wicked appeared. Pointing a finger with a red sharp-tipped fingernail at him, she exclaimed, “You there! You’re supposed to be monitoring for suspicious behavior, not devouring school supplies. Stop snacking and get cracking!”
Goldie and Foulsmell exchanged a grin as the hapless beaver ducked its head and muttered an apology, while at the same time tucking the remainder of the pencil into its jacket pocket. Embroidered on the pocket of his uniform was a large W with a thorny vine woven through it, Goldie now noticed. Was the thorny W a logo Ms. Wicked had created for herself? Great Grimmlets!
Once inside the Hall, a couple of Foulsmell’s friends called out that they’d saved him a place in line. He wiggled his eyebrows at Goldie. “So long, bubble buddy,” he said to her. Grinning, he turned and sprinted across the room to join the other boys.
Must be nice to have friends call you over to hang with them, she thought, watching him go. As she stood in the line, she thought over what he’d said. Was he right about giving others the benefit of the doubt and not being suspicious of everyone? With a sigh, she decided his kind of gullible thinking could get you in trouble. After all, Principal R wouldn’t have given his warning about E.V.I.L. if he weren’t suspicious of the group. For at least the hundredth time since his disappearance, she wondered where he could possibly be.
There was a four-foot-tall, jittery-looking jackrabbit standing guard at the end of the Pink Castle drawbridge. Goldie spotted it as she began to cross over after classes were finally out for the day. “H-h-halt! Who goes there?” it cried, jumping to block her path. Its nose twitched and its ears stood straight up as it spoke. “State your n-name and d-destination.”
“My name is Goldie and I’m meeting two girls to take a boat to Maze Island,” she said. “We’re still allowed to visit the islands, right?” She wouldn’t have put it past Ms. Wicked to tighten the rules even further without warning anyone — but only “for everyone’s safety,” of course. Ha!
“Yes. You may g-go,” replied the rabbit, moving aside. “As long as you’re b-back before d-dark.”
“No problem,” said Goldie, starting to pass. Then she paused. “Hey, where do all you guards stay when you’re not on duty?”
“S-secret locations in Gray C-castle,” said the guard.
Goldie frowned. “The bears, too?”
Suddenly, the jackrabbit regarded her with suspicion. “Wh-why do you ask?”
Just then, some boys out on the Academy lawn shot a large rotten squash from a catapult. Smack! The sound of the squash hitting the side of the school startled the jittery jackrabbit so much that he jumped as high as the second-story windows.
Before he could land, Goldie dashed across the drawbridge so he wouldn’t be able to question her further. The bears in the library had said they were staying on an island. Why weren’t all the guards staying together? Were the bears guarding something? The principal maybe? Excitement filled her. Maybe she’d wind up a hero this very day. If she discovered Principal R’s whereabouts somewhere on Maze Island!
She hurried over to the banks of the Once Upon River. Malorette and Odette were already waiting for her in one of the swan-shaped boats docked there. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d show up,” said Malorette. She seemed impatient to be off.
“Got here as fast as I could,” said Goldie, climbing inside the boat, too. “A jackrabbit guard stopped me on the drawbridge.”
Odette rolled her eyes. “Yeah, those guards are crawling, hopping, and stomping all over the place these days.” She didn’t seem too happy about that, despite the fact that she and Malorette were always so admiring of Ms. Wicked.
“You guys can paddle,” Malorette told Goldie, handing her and Odette each an oar. Then she settled back to let them do all the work. Goldie hoped Malorette hadn’t invited her along just to help row. Though a bit suspicious about why the two sisters wanted to hang with her, she decided to go with the flow — literally and figuratively since they were now drifting down the river. If this truly was an offer of friendship, she didn’t want to ruin it. Still, she did wonder why these girls had waited till now to befriend her when she’d already been at the Academy for three months.
As Goldie and Odette dipped and pulled on their paddles, Malorette relaxed on the seat beside her sister. Up on the towers, they could see various guards, some with spy-glasses directed toward them.
Malorette glared at the guards and stuck out her tongue. “Stop it,” said Odette. “Are you trying to get us locked in the dungeon?”
“They wouldn’t dare,” said Malorette. But she didn’t look completely sure about that. As Goldie had sensed, the sisters weren’t exactly onboard with the recent changes. Still, she was surprised to hear them grumble about Ms. Wicked in front of her.
“You’re just mad because she made you give up your skeleton key,” Odette told her sister.
“You had a skeleton key?” Goldie asked Malorette, wide-eyed. A skeleton key was essentially a master key and was much easier to use than a hairpin in unlocking all kinds of doors. Goldie sort of thought that was cheating and prided herself on not needing such a key. She used her skill to open locks.
Malorette and Odette exchanged a hooded look. “It was for … um … trunker checks,” Malorette volunteered.
“To make sure no one was keeping anything in their trunkers that they shouldn’t,” added Odette.
“Oh,” said Goldie. “So you guys did trunker checks?”
“Somebody had to,” said Odette, as if that were obvious.
The girls exchanged another secretive look. “Artifacts were going missing from the library for a while,” Malorette informed her. “That’s all we can say.”
Pulling her paddle out of the water for a moment, Goldie watched the river glide by as their boat sliced through the water. She had a feeling that the sisters weren’t quite telling the truth about those “trunker checks” — or not the whole of it, anyway — but she didn’t call them on it.
Malorette turned toward Odette. “It isn’t fair. We shouldn’t be treated the same as other students. It’s as if Ms. Wicked has decided not to trust us.”
“Or that she’s better than us now,” said Odette.
“So you guys have, like, a special relationship with Ms. Wicked?” Goldie asked, curious.
“Naturally,” Odette sniffed in a hoity-toity way. “We’re all members of the E.V.I.L. Society.”
“Huh?” Goldie was so startled at this frank admission that she dropped her oar. Who just came right out and admitted being evil as if it was nothing? Odette, apparently. Luckily, Goldie caught her paddle before it could be swept away by the river. She’d known that the two sisters were the “bad” characters in Cinderella’s fairy tale, but she hadn’t known they were members of E.V.I.L.!
“But the E.V.I.L. Society i
s a bad thing, right?” she blurted out. “Evil, just like their name. Principal R warned us about the group, and —”
“Whatever,” Malorette interrupted, rolling her eyes. “You really shouldn’t believe everything you hear. E.V.I.L. merely stands for Exceptional Villains in Literature.”
“Yeah,” said Goldie. “I know. Villains.”
“Well, then,” said Odette. The two sisters eyed her appraisingly.
“Well, then what?” Goldie asked in confusion.
“We know your tale,” Malorette said slowly, as if Goldie were a half-wit. “And we’ve decided you are a good fit. So we want to invite you to join!”
They grinned at her as though she was supposed to jump up in the boat right then and there and do a happy dance. But even if she’d felt inclined to do that — which she certainly did not — she wouldn’t have risked tipping over the boat and spilling them all into the water.
“I am not a villain,” she said, slapping her oar in the water for emphasis. “I mean, yes, I do let myself into an empty house in my tale. But I don’t steal anything.”
The sisters arched their eyebrows. “Hello? Bowls of porridge?” Odette said.
“Helping yourself to food when you’re hungry is not the same thing as stealing,” Goldie insisted.
“And you do break a chair,” Malorette added. “That’s vandalism.”
“Entirely accidental,” Goldie protested hotly. “I don’t do it on purpose!”
“Okay, okay, calm down,” said Malorette. By now, the three girls had reached the shore of Maze Island. They hopped out and got busy pulling their boat onto the sandy beach. At least, Goldie got busy doing that. After one or two tugs, the other girls just left the work to her.
“What are we doing here, anyway?” Goldie asked once the job was done.
“You’ll see,” said Malorette. After grabbing a bag she’d stashed under her seat in the boat, she led the other two girls into the extensive hedge maze for which the island had been named. As they threaded their way through the twists and turns of the greenery, Goldie eyed the neatly trimmed hedges cut into various topiary shapes. Some resembled serpents or dragons, others malevolent-looking cats, growling dogs, or fantastical animals about to pounce.
“Cool, huh?” said Odette as they passed a topiary lion with an arched back and extended claws. “The island’s looking really great, thanks to Principal W. She’s been sprucing things up now that she’s in charge.”
“Thanks to who? Oh, you mean Ms. Wicked? She’s only the acting principal,” Goldie put in. “And I think topiaries are kind of creepy!” When the two sisters shared a frown, she immediately wished she could call back her words. Even if she did think the topiary was just another example of Ms. Wicked wanting to control things, she should have agreed with them. After all, she wanted them to like her. Too late!
Since the sisters knew their way, it didn’t take long to reach the gazebo at the very center of the maze. It resembled a giant round, domed birdcage, with benches ringing the inside of it, and a life-size bronze statue of Principal R on a pedestal at the very middle.
Amidst Ms. Wicked’s new and perfectly groomed changes, the old statue struck Goldie as oddly comforting.
Malorette opened the bag she’d brought with her and pulled out a tape measure. “Help me measure the pedestal, okay?” she said to Goldie, handing her one end of the tape.
“Uh, okay,” said Goldie. She held on to her end while Malorette stretched the tape across one side of the statue’s square base. “Twenty-four inches on a side,” she reported.
“Got it,” said Odette. She jotted down the measurement on a pad of paper she pulled from the pocket of her gown, along with a pencil.
“See these slightly melted places down here?” Malorette asked Goldie, drawing her attention to the base of the statue. “An alchemy accident.”
“Yeah,” Odette chuckled. “Principal Rumpeltwit and Ms. Jabberwocky were always trying to turn stuff to gold. Even his own statue. So lame.”
“Let’s measure the height of the statue next,” said Malorette.
Goldie kept her end of the tape at the base while Malorette stretched her end to the tip-top of the bronze statue’s tall hat. “Thirty-five inches,” she reported to Odette, who scribbled down the number.
She looked at Goldie, then gestured up at the gazebo’s barred wrought iron ceiling. “I’ll hold my end of the tape down here. You shinny up and check how much room there is to make the statue taller,” she suggested.
Before Goldie could ask if the statue was to be repaired and why Ms. Wicked would want to enlarge it rather than leave it life-size, Malorette gave her a boost up.
“Whoa!” said Goldie. Quickly, she grabbed on and climbed up the statue till she stood on the principal’s shoulders. Clinging to a hanging flowerpot, she managed to measure the space available above Principal R’s head. Calling out another dimension that Odette recorded dutifully, she started to shimmy down again. But then she looked out over the maze.
From here she could see the island’s shore on all sides of them. And she saw at a glance that there weren’t any cottages around. Which meant that those three bear guards couldn’t be living here. How disappointing!
When Goldie’s feet hit the ground a minute later, the two sisters were eyeing her sympathetically. Had they noticed her disappointment and figured out the reason for it?
“I bet you’ve been made to feel bad about being villainous all your life, haven’t you?” Malorette surprised her by saying.
Goldie scrunched her nose, considering. Have I? she wondered. “I–I’m not sure about that.” It was true her aunt had denied her many pleasures growing up, but she’d never said it was because Goldie was villainous.
“You may not realize it, but the so-called good characters in fairy tales look down on us,” Malorette added, as she began to wind up the measuring tape.
“They do?” Goldie said. While she hadn’t yet made a ton of friends at GA, no one had been awful to her. Was it possible that they really did look down on her? What a grimmorrible thought!
Odette slipped her pad of paper and pencil back into her pocket. “Don’t worry. With Principal W in charge, that’s going to change!” she crowed.
“But are you sure it will be a change for the better?” Goldie asked in earnest. “You said it yourselves. All of us students have fewer liberties now than ever before, with Ms. Wicked in charge.”
Malorette frowned as she slipped the tape measure into her bag. “That’s only temporary,” she said.
“And it’s for our own good,” added Odette. Only she didn’t sound as if she quite believed that herself.
Still, Goldie decided not to push things. Malorette and Odette seemed to be genuinely offering her their friendship. Although she wasn’t sure if they truly liked her or just wanted her to join a Society she’d really rather not have anything to do with, she was not about to nip their offer in the bud. So she would not indulge in her usual bad habit of saying exactly what she thought. Which was that the security changes were only for Ms. Wicked’s own good!
“So I guess Ms. Wicked plans to repair the alchemy damage to Principal R’s statue, huh?” Goldie said as the three girls started back through the maze. “That’s why we were taking measurements?”
“What? No way!” said Malorette. “She’s going to have that old statue torn down so she can erect one of herself in its place.”
A cold chill ran down Goldie’s spine. “But what about when Principal R returns?” she asked levelly.
“Oh, he probably won’t be back,” Malorette said, exchanging a sly smile with her sister.
“What? Why do you say that?” Goldie asked.
“Just a hunch,” said Odette. The girls grinned at each other, sending another chill down Goldie’s spine. She recalled what she’d overheard them saying in their dorm room yesterday about the principal’s fate being sealed and wondered exactly how much they knew.
“Do you know where he is?” she asked
point blankly. “Or why Ms. Wicked called a halt to his straw-into-gold spinning trials? I mean, if the Academy needs money, it seems like she’d want to continue them.”
Both girls shrugged. “No clue,” said Odette. “But in my opinion, those trials were pointless. That straw is a dud. Everyone who has tried spinning it says so.”
They exited the maze just as another swan boat landed on the shore. Three animal guards — the same beaver Goldie had seen outside the Great Hall at lunch, plus two more beavers — climbed out of the boat. Each had a sledgehammer lifted to its shoulder. Dressed in their navy blue uniforms and walking upright on two legs, they came up to the girls.
“Principal W said we’d find you here,” said the pencil-chewing beaver from lunch. His words whistled through his large top and bottom teeth, and his broad tail slapped the ground. “We’re the demolition crew. Now, where’s that statue we’re supposed to take down?”
Malorette pointed over her shoulder. “At the center of the maze. If you need help finding —” Abruptly, she stopped speaking. The three beavers had already taken off! She glanced at Odette meaningfully. “Talk about eager beavers!” she said with a laugh as the girls climbed back into their boat.
Odette grinned at her sister and recited, “The big bad eager beavers bit the bigger, better badgers.” She looked over at Goldie. “I made that tongue twister up for Enchantments class when we grew those plants for the festival, remember? What did you grow on yours?”
Goldie stared at her as they both used the oars to push off from shore. “Furry foxes and fuzzy bears. So those beaver guards we just saw … and the others …”
“Just worked that out, did you?” Malorette said, sounding amused. “Yes. Clever of Principal W to save the magic blossoms from all of our tongue twister plants and magic them into a security force for the Academy, huh?”
“Um, yeah,” Goldie muttered. So she’d guessed right about that. It was alarming to have her guess confirmed. She needed to talk about this to someone. But who? Not these girls.
