The School for Good and Evil #2: A World without Princes (28 page)

“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

..................................................................

I
t'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 the 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.

Doing this would make Agatha never doubt her again.

In a flash, Sophie ripped out the cork and chugged the potion in one gulp. A bitter, acid taste exploded through her and she grabbed her throat in shock, hearing the vial shatter against the floor. She could hear Agatha scream for her and Yuba holding her back, before their voices slowed to syllabic growls, drowned in her choking gasps. The skin over her face stretched tight, like warm putty, remolding itself over her bones as her hair turned coarser, slurping back into her head.

As the rancid potion flooded her chest, Sophie felt her whole body inflate like a cement-packed balloon, shoulders straining against her girls' uniform, shredding its seams. Her forearms bulged with tight blue veins; her feet swelled and arched, tiny hairs sprouting on her toes; her calves tightened like melons and she careened off-balance, onto her knees. Then came heat, hellish heat, scorching and smoking through every pore, incinerating softness to burn. Every time she thought it was over, the pain spread further, every part of her demolished and reconstructed until Sophie curled up into a ball on the floor, praying this was all a dream, a dream she'd wake up from in an empty grave as her mother held her and wiped her tears, whispering it was all a mistake.

“Sophie?”

No answer came.

Agatha broke free of Yuba's grip. “Sophie, are you okay?”

When no reply came, Agatha gave the gnome a worried look and hustled for the curtain—

Something stirred behind it and Agatha froze.

Slowly a figure stepped out, hooded in Sophie's navy girls' cloak.

The cloak didn't fit anymore.

Agatha's eyes drifted down strong knees, muscular calves, hairy ankles . . . to two big, unsteady feet.

She inched towards the figure, holding her breath. She felt Yuba clinging to the tail of her shirt, peeking behind her. Standing on tiptoes, Agatha slowly reached for the hood and pulled it back. She toppled with a gasp, taking the gnome with her. By the time she looked up, Sophie had already grabbed the glass vase off the table and collapsed against the wall, whimpering in fright at her reflection.

She'd morphed into a powerful, square-jawed version of herself, with short, fluffy blond hair, high cheekbones, straight brows, and deep-set emerald eyes. Long limbed but taut with muscle, she looked like an elfin prince, with big, pulled-back ears, a sharp, regal nose, and a dimpled chin. Her hands gripping the undersized cloak were hardy and big knuckled, her shoulders broad, narrowing down to a trim waist, and her golden, stubbled cheeks streaked with fiery blush.

Sophie wheezed like a punctured balloon. “I'm—I'm a boy—”

Only her voice didn't sound like a boy's at all.

“The spell's one shortcoming. Still have your old sound,” Yuba sighed. “Breathe from your belly and speak in low tones, and it'll sound about right.” He chewed his lip, studying her. “But strong face . . . solid trunk . . . jolly good work, I'd say. None of those lads will suspect a thing.”

But Sophie's eyes stayed on her reflection, doubting the gnome. For as she touched her face and form beneath her cloak, she felt the boy on the outside, hard and toughened, like a rock shell. But inside . . . inside she was the soft, scared girl who didn't want to leave her friend. Look close, and the boys would find her. Look close, and she'd be dead before dawn.

She gazed up at Agatha, who stared wordlessly at the sculpted, sharp-jawed face in the vase's reflection.

“Even better looking as a boy, I have to say,” Agatha marveled finally.

Sophie flung the flowers out of the vase at her and Agatha ducked. Sophie turned away, shaking.

“I don't know how to be a boy,” Sophie said, voice high, tears streaking her stubbled cheeks. “I don't know how to walk or act or—”

“You won the challenge for a reason, Sophie,” Agatha said behind her. “I know you can do this.”