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“Come again?”
“The Library of Forbidden Secrets,” he explained. “Nobody is allowed down there, and only Dr. F has the key.”
“What kind of secrets?” asked Evie, intrigued.
“Forbidden ones, I guess?” Gaston shrugged. “Who cares? It’s a library. Sounds pretty boring to me.”
Finally, they arrived at the classroom’s arched wooden door. Evie stepped inside and made her way to the nearest open desk, smiling at those who came to gather curiously around her. Everyone was looking at her with such awe and admiration, she seemed to be making waves.
The desk she’d chosen had a remarkably large cauldron and a great view of the professor’s lectern. She took a seat, and there was a gasp in the crowd. Wow, these kids sure were easy to please.
Evie was feeling pretty good about her first day until she heard the sound of a throat clearing.
When she looked up, there was a pretty, purple-haired girl standing in front of her cauldron, staring at her with unmistakable venom. Her mother’s “mirror” would have had a few choice words about this one, that’s for sure. Evie felt a cold dread as the memory of a certain infamous party came flooding back. Maybe if she played dumb and flattered her, the girl wouldn’t remember what had happened ten years ago. It was worth a shot.
“I’m Evie. What’s your name?” Evie asked innocently, although she knew exactly who was standing in front of her. “And by the way, that jacket is amazing. It looks great on you—I love all the patchwork leathers on it.”
“Girl, that’s her cauldron. You should bounce,” a student Evie would find out later was named Yzla whispered loudly.
“Oh, this is yours…?” Evie asked the purple-haired girl.
The purple-haired girl nodded.
“I had no idea this was your desk, I’m so sorry! But it has such a great view of the lectern,” Evie said with her trademarked bright smile, so blinding, it should have come with sunglasses. Evie finally realized why the students had been staring at her. They had been watching a train wreck about to happen.
“Yes, it does,” the purple-haired girl replied, her voice soft and menacing. “And if you don’t move your blue-haired caboose out of it, you’ll get some kind of view, all right.” She snarled, brusquely brushing past Evie and noisily plonking her backpack down into the middle of the cauldron.
Evie got the message, grabbed her things, and found an empty cauldron in the back of the classroom, behind a column where she couldn’t see the blackboard.
“Is that who I think it is?” she asked the small boy seated next to her, whose hair was black at the roots but white at the tips. Actually, everything he wore was black and white with a splash of red: a fur-collared jacket with one black and one white side and red leather sleeves, a black button-down shirt with streaks of white, and long shorts with one white and one black-and-white leg. It was a pretty cool look. For a bloody skunk.
“If you mean Mal, you’re right, and I would stay out of her way if I were you,” he said.
“Mal…” Evie breathed, her voice trembling nervously.
“Yeah. Her mom’s the Big Bad around here. You know—” He made horn signs with his hands on either side of his head. You didn’t need to have lived on the Isle for long to know exactly whom he was talking about. Nobody dared speak her name, not unless absolutely necessary.
Evie gulped. Her first day, and she’d already made the worst enemy in school. It was Maleficent who had banished Evie and her mother ten years ago and caused Evie to grow up alone in a faraway castle. Her own mother might be called Evil Queen, but everyone on the Isle of the Lost knew that Maleficent wore the crown in these parts. From the looks of it, her daughter did the same in the dungeons of Dragon Hall.
Magic Mirror on the wall, who’s the stupidest of them all?
Carlos De Vil looked up from the contraption he was assembling and shot the new girl a shy smile. “It’ll be okay. Mal just likes to be left alone,” he said. “She’s not as tough as she seems. She only talks a big game.”
“She does? What about you?” the blue-haired princess asked.
“I don’t have a game. Unless you consider getting beat up and pushed around a game, which in a way I guess it is. But really it’s not that entertaining, unless you happen to be the one doing the beating and the pushing.”
Carlos turned his attention back to the mess of wires in front of him. He was smaller and younger than the rest of the class, but smarter than most of them. He was an AP student: Advanced Penchant (for Evil). It was only right, since the infamous Cruella was his mother. His mother was so notorious, she had her own song. He hummed it under his breath sometimes. (What—it was catchy!) Sometimes he would do it just to send her into hysterics. Then again, that wasn’t so difficult. Cruella’s witch doctors believed she was sustained by pure metabolic fury. Privately, Carlos thought of it as her Rage Diet: no carbs, just barbs—no hunger, just anger—no ice cream, just high screams.
His thoughts were interrupted by his friendly new seatmate. “I’m Evie. What’s your name?” she asked.
“Hi, Evie, I’m Carlos De Vil,” he said. “We met once before, at your birthday party.” He’d recognized her the minute she walked in. She looked exactly the same, just taller.
“Oh. Sorry. I
don’t remember much about the party. Except how it ended.”
Carlos nodded. “Yeah. Anyway, I’m also your neighbor. I live just down the street in Hell Hall.”
