Hex-cellent Tales from The Boiling Isles

by Disney Books

As Amity exited the classroom, the teacher reached out and removed her TOP STUDENT badge. She could scarcely believe it when he pinned it on Willow.

  “Th-thank you, sir!” Willow said.

  “Hey,” Amity said to Willow as the teacher walked away, “last time I saw you, your abomination was mush. What did you do?”

  Thinking fast, Willow told Amity that she had taken her pep talk to heart.

  But Amity wasn’t buying it. She lowered her eyebrows at Willow and said, “I bet you did. I’ve got my eyes on you, Half-a-Witch. That badge is mine.”

  Amity stormed off as Willow put her hand to her cheek. “Uh-oh, I think Amity is on to us,” she said softly.

  * * *

  “Have you seen Luz?” Eda demanded as she pushed open the front door and Hooty, the strange owl embedded in it, smacked his forehead into the side of the Owl House.

  “I heard her tiny mouse feet walking close by,” Hooty said. “Or that might have been some mice. Anyway, someone started moving in that direction.”

  Eda stared at Hooty, then said, “Are you trying to point, or…?”

  “Look at the weather vane!” Hooty shouted.

  Eda looked up at the weather vane atop the Owl House and watched as it pointed in a particular direction.

  “But the only thing that way is…No!” Eda said with a gasp, and then ran toward the forest.

  In no time, Eda ran down a path leading to a school. As she passed by the classroom windows, she heard the teachers bombarding their students with all sorts of useless information, like the study of runes and the heximal system.

  “Pointless busywork,” Eda muttered. She hoped that Luz wasn’t inside, wasting her time.

  But to her horror, Eda saw Luz sitting in the next classroom.

  “Nooooo!” Eda cried.

  * * *

  Gus and Willow sat at their table in the cafeteria, the abomination vat beside them.

  “Do humans eat PB&Js?” Gus asked.

  “Oh my gosh, I haven’t eaten real food in so long. Please give me some!” Luz sputtered.

  Gus happily split his sandwich in two and handed half to Luz inside the vat.

  Willow warned them to be careful so Amity wouldn’t see.

  As if on cue, Amity jumped onto their table and shouted, “I saw that! Abominations don’t eat!” She yelled into the vat. “I know you’re in there! You can’t hide from me! What are you? Who are you? I want answers!”

  Amity pulled Luz from the vat and shook her. Suddenly, the Abomination teacher walked into the cafeteria and said, “Amity Blight! I suspected a twinge of jealousy, but this…this is just sad.”

  “But I—No! Look at it!” Amity said, holding Luz by her shirt collar.

  But Luz was standing there in the vat, looking all abomination-y, moaning.

  “Report to Principal Bump’s office,” the Abomination teacher ordered.

  “But—”

  “Now!” the teacher thundered.

  Amity ran off with a scowl on her face as Luz and Willow looked on, worried.

  “SO, DID YOU find your runaway student?” King asked as Eda emerged from the forest. He was still busy training Prince Jr., or at least trying to. But King’s idea of training amounted to tossing dog biscuit after dog biscuit to the creature, who had now grown to twice Eda’s height.

  When Eda only glared at King, he said, “By your expression, I can tell Luz has gone and found herself someplace else to learn—which means I have won!”

  “Yes, great, you won,” Eda said emotionlessly. “You have a giant soldier-thing and I have nothing. Congrats.”

  “Oh, Eda, don’t say that,” King replied. “At least you have this!”

  King handed her a conical hat that said SHAME on it, and laughed.

  Eda grabbed the hat, stormed off to a shack attached to the Owl House, and slammed the door.

  “I am so funny!” King announced. “Well, Prince Jr., training complete. Go forth! Make the world tremble at your feet—er, worm stubs!”

  Unsurprisingly, Prince Jr. didn’t so much as move.

  “Go forth?” King asked.

  Prince Jr. still did nothing.

  King shook his box of dog biscuits. But there was nothing left.

  Prince Jr. started to growl.

  * * *

  After lunch, Willow, Gus, and Luz went to the Abomination 101 classroom. The top of the vat came off, and Luz emerged, stretching.

  “Whoo, I’m a sweaty little abomination!” she said. “But now we don’t have to worry about Amity! High-five!”

  Luz held up a hand, palm outward, but Gus and Willow just stared at her.

  “Slap my hand,” Luz instructed. “It’s a human thing.”

  “Oh!” Gus said as he struck Luz’s hand over and over again. “Oh my, oh man, what a rush!”

  Suddenly, the classroom door swung open. Amity stood in the doorway, smiling, with Principal Bump behind her.

  “Good afternoon, students,” the principal said.

  “Principal Bump!” Willow exclaimed. Luz quickly went into her abomination routine and fell to the floor.

  The principal walked toward Luz and grabbed her jaw, moving her head around. He stared at Luz, then took a step back. “Abomination…rise,” he ordered.

  On command, Luz stood up.

  “Abomination,” the principal said, “lie.”

  Thinking fast, Luz said, “Uh, viral fame is a worthy pursuit. Your cat would never eat you if it got the chance. Chemtrails are—”

  The principal broke out laughing. “Oh, no, Abomination. How strange for it to get the command wrong. I mean lie down.” He pointed toward a table.

  Luz grunted, then shambled toward the table and lay down.

  “So very lifelike,” Principal Bump said to Willow. “When Ms. Blight told me about your abomination, I had to come by, see what she’s made of.”

  “Oh! I-I have her list of ingredients right here!” Willow said, digging into her pocket.

  “No,” the principal replied as he pulled out something gleaming.

  A knife.

  “We were hoping for a closer look,” he said. Then he handed the knife to Willow as Amity smirked. “Willow, I’ll allow you the first cut.”

  A panicked Willow leaned in to Luz, whispering, “You can’t just cut open a human, can you?”

  Luz’s eyes were huge as she shook her head.

  Then Gus shouted, “Wait! Principal Bump!”

  Everyone turned to look at Gus, who stood by the abomination vats. Then he said, “High-five!” and knocked a vat over. It smashed into another vat, and that one smashed into another, and all the vats tumbled to the ground, one after the other.

  In seconds, the floor was covered in abominations and goo—so, so much goo.

  “Run!” Gus shouted, and Willow and Luz sprinted from the classroom.

  Pointing toward the door, Amity shouted, “They’re getting away!”

  “No,” Principal Bump said. “The intruder won’t get far.” Then he drew a spell circle on the classroom wall. Mystical energy formed inside the circle and seeped out into the wall itself.

  * * *

  “This is all my fault, Willow,” Luz said, panting. “I just wanted to see what a real magic school was like!”

  “Well, how do you like it?” Willow asked as they hid in an archway.

  “It’s lovely, actually,” Luz replied, and the two friends smiled at each other.

  “Okay,” Willow said, “we should get out of here before—”

  Without warning, the school’s walls began to glow red with etched magic glyphs, and the archways down the halls were blocked by eerie magical shields.

  “—Bump seals us in.”

  EDA WAS SITTING alone in the shack, wearing her shame hat, when King burst through the door. “Help me, help me, help me!” he cried, then jumped into Eda’s arms.

  She had no idea what to make of it until Prince Jr. smashed against the shack.

  “Trouble with your student?” she
asked.

  “Yes,” King said. “Yes!”

  Smash!

  The giant trash slug slammed against the shack once more.

  “Are you sure you need my help?” Eda asked. “Maybe he only wants more of your brilliant lessons.”

  Crash!

  At last Prince Jr. had breached the door of the shack, and he grabbed King’s tail and pulled him.

  “Please, help me!” King begged. “You can call me Mr. Wiggles!”

  Without missing a beat, Eda poked the top of Prince Jr.’s mouth with her staff. The giant trash slug released its hold on King and slunk outside.

  “Okay, Mr. Wiggles. Here’s what we’re gonna do…” Eda said.

  * * *

  Luz and Willow had almost reached the school entrance when the archway in front of them was magically blocked. Whipping around, they gasped as they saw Principal Bump moving toward them in the hallway, leading an entire horde of abominations!

  The duo ducked behind a pillar. “Oh, this is awful. I don’t know what to do,” Willow said. “Amity’s right. I’m just Half-a-Witch Willow.”

  “You’re Full-Witch Willow, and you’re great!” Luz said. “And someone once told me great witches are resourceful.”

  Then Luz reached into her pocket and pulled out a handful of stuff. There was some string, a marble, a bandage, a coin, and the strange rock she had pulled from the trash heap.

  “That’s it!” Willow said excitedly, grabbing the rock.

  “You mean that greasy slime ball?”

  “Luz, it’s a seed!” Willow said. “Thank goodness you had it on you!”

  “Yeah,” Luz said, realizing that maybe there was something special to Eda’s teachings. “Thank goodness someone told me to hold on to it.”

  As Principal Bump and the abomination squad lumbered closer, Willow placed the seed in her lap and raised her arms to the ceiling.

  “Please…grow!” she intoned.

  All at once, vines exploded from the seed into the air and throughout the school. They went everywhere, and some of them entangled the principal and entrapped the abominations.

  For a moment, there was silence. No one said a word.

  Then the silence was broken by Principal Bump, who shouted, “Remarkable!”

  The magic blocking the archway in front of them disappeared, and the girls saw that the vines had pushed open the front doors. They could now escape.

  “There’s the exit!” Luz said.

  But before the girls could leave, someone shouted, “Not so fast!”

  It was Amity.

  “I’m not letting you get away so easily,” Amity said. “I. Want. My. Badge!”

  Amity reached out, her eyes gleaming with anger. “Abominations…seize!”

  Slowly, the abominations obeyed and began to push through the snaking vines toward Willow and Luz. Luz punched one abomination, then grabbed Willow and pulled her toward the doors.

  An abomination blocked their path. Once again, Willow summoned some vines, stopping it.

  “Get outta here!” Willow ordered Luz.

  “No! I’m not leaving you!” Luz shouted.

  “I may get detention,” Willow said, “but you’ll get dissected!”

  The abominations managed to make their way through the vines. Willow yelled, “So go!” commanding another vine to grab Luz and take her to the doors.

  “Willow!” Luz said as the doors closed behind her. “I can’t save you right now, but I know someone who can!”

  * * *

  Prince Jr. was a royal pain.

  The creature was attacking Eda, spewing fire at her. Eda dodged the monster and smacked the thing again with her staff.

  King stood on the awning of the Owl House. He was trying to get a big barrel in place.

  Eda moved closer to the house, and the trash slug followed. “Pour the salt—now!” she ordered.

  “Baby boy!” King said, his voice full of regret.

  He and the trash slug looked at each other for a moment, and King thought that maybe, just maybe, he had reached the trash slug.

  That is, until it lunged for him.

  “I have no son!” King yelled. “Eat salt!”

  With those words, King pushed the barrel over, dumping salt into the creature’s mouth. In no time at all, the trash slug was shrinking, and soon it was once again just a tiny little thing.

  “Yes! I did it!” King hollered from the awning. “I’m amazing!”

  He was so amazing, in fact, that his celebrating caused him to fall. Smiling, Eda caught him.

  “Haha, you helped, too!” King said. “You are a good teacher.”

  Eda’s smile quickly went away. “I wish Luz thought that, too.”

  “Edaaaaaaaaaa!”

  Luz appeared, ran to Eda, and went in for a big hug.

  “Hey, hey, hey,” Eda said. “What is this? I never understand when you do this.”

  “Your lesson worked!” Luz said, talking really fast. “Keeping junk in my pocket saved my life! But wait—my new friends, they’re in danger!”

  Eda was looking at Luz, trying to figure out what she meant, when suddenly Willow and Gus ran up, too. They both hugged Luz.

  “Seriously, what is that?” Eda asked.

  “You won’t believe it, Luz!” Willow said. “Everything is perfect now!”

  “It’s true! I don’t believe it!” Luz said.

  Willow told her that Principal Bump was so impressed by her plant work he was switching her to the Plant Magic track! Willow snapped her fingers, and her school uniform magically changed to green.

  “Yes!” Luz shouted.

  The girls were hugging and twirling when Luz asked, “What about Amity?”

  “Last we saw, she was asking Bump if today could count as extra credit,” Gus replied.

  Luz smiled at her friends. “Well, I can’t wait to see you in action next time I sneak in!”

  “About that…” Gus said. “You’re kinda, sorta…”

  Gus pulled out what looked like a wanted poster featuring Luz—or rather Luz in her abomination disguise.

  “Banned!” Gus finished.

  “That’s my girl!” Eda said proudly.

  Willow excitedly told Luz that they would come to the Owl House and teach her what they learned.

  “Aw, that would be nice,” Luz said. “But I have a pretty great teacher already.” She smiled at Eda, who couldn’t believe what Luz had just said.

  Eda smiled back at Luz. “Yeah, that’s right! Luz is my student. Back off, academy twerps!”

  Then Eda looked at the wanted poster and appeared to get a little misty-eyed. “Baby’s first wanted poster. Good job, kid,” she said, patting Luz on the head. “Looks like I taught you something after all.”

  LUZ LOUNGED ON a couch in the living room of the Owl House. She was reading a HEXSIDE FACTS AND TRIVIA pamphlet and scratching King’s back while he slept.

  “King, listen to this!” Luz said.

  King stirred from his slumber and gave Luz an annoyed look, because her scratching had slowed down. “Less read-y, more scratch-y!” he said.

  “Sorry,” Luz said. “Now that I’ll be a student at Hexside, I want to learn all about it. I’ve got a new crush, and her name is Education!”

  Eda poked her head through the doorway and said, “Hey, freeloaders! Guess what today is!”

  “Is it your birthday?” Luz asked.

  “Is it myyyyy birthday?” King suggested.

  “It’s my birthday!” Hooty said.

  “No!” Eda said with excitement. “It’s Human Treasure Day!” She showed off what looked like a suitcase.

  Then the suitcase unfolded into a door, and a garbage bag fell out of it and disintegrated, revealing a pile of trash.

  “Ahhh, fresh garbage!” Eda said proudly.

  “Oh, gimme, gimme, gimme!” King said as he ran to the garbage pile. He dug right in and grabbed a stuffed teddy bear. “Yes! Another worthy addition to my army of terror!”

&
nbsp; He pulled a string coming out of its back until it wouldn’t give any more, and let go. The teddy bear said, “I love cuddles and kisses!”

  “Truly horrifying!” King said.

  King and Eda began to sort through the garbage pile full of treasures from the human world. But Luz didn’t so much as move from the couch. She was still engrossed in the school pamphlet.

  “Yo, kid,” Eda said, “your trash pile’s getting cold. While mine’s getting hot!”

  Eda dug through the pile and pulled out a wire coat hanger. “I’ve never seen such an extravagant earring!” she marveled.

  But Luz wasn’t paying attention. “You can have my trash,” she said. “Did you know that Hexside was built on the bones of its rival school? One it literally conquered?”

  She held out the pamphlet to show a picture of Hexside students standing atop their defeated rivals.

  Eda didn’t bother to look at it. She was gazing at her reflection in a handheld mirror, with coat hangers dangling from her ears. “Yes, I know all these things,” Eda said. “I went there. It was the most harrowing period of my life.”

  “Can you imagine it?” Luz continued. “Me, in the halls of Hexside, studying with Willow and Gus and…maybe even Amity!”

  As soon as she said the name, something clicked inside Luz. “Amity! We’re supposed to meet so I can get my Azura book back!” Luz said, jumping up from the couch and running out the front door.

  A moment later, she opened the door and stuck her head in. “I love you guys!” she said.

  “And I love you, Luz,” Hooty replied as Luz slammed the door again.

  “Eh, who needs her?” Eda said.

  “Yeah! This bear can be our new Luz!” King suggested.

  He pulled the teddy bear’s pull string, and the stuffed animal spoke once more: “Being without you is just un-bear-able!”