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“It looks like she’s working on the royal yacht club,” said Mal. “Ben’s parents are returning from their cruise, and I think that’s where they’re planning to hold the welcome reception. I heard the work on getting the place up to snuff was behind schedule.”
“How long is she going to be here? My legs are getting cramped,” complained Jay.
“Shush!” said Mal.
They watched as Fairy Godmother unfurled giant banners with the Auradon crest and gave the yacht club sign a little more sparkle.
“There,” said Fairy Godmother. “That should do it.” She began walking away from the dock and back to the harbor entrance.
Carlos found he could breathe again. If they’d been caught stealing the royal speedboat, they would be in so much trouble. It felt as if his stomach had dropped into his shoes ever since he heard their headmistress’s voice.
Mal poked her head up to check, and there was no sign of Fairy Godmother anywhere. “I think she’s gone,” she said, stepping out from behind the boat’s containers. The rest of them came out from their hiding places, Evie hugging herself with her arms and Carlos still looking uncertain. Only Jay appeared unfazed.
“Let’s give it a little more time,” suggested Evie.
“Good idea,” said Carlos, who was not in any rush to get moving.
They waited a little while longer, sitting in the dark and listening to the waves slosh gently against the sides of the boat. When Mal was satisfied Fairy Godmother had left the harbor, she nodded to the team.
“Okay, let’s go,” she said, tapping the steering wheel as she muttered the words of the spell, and the boat’s engine roared to life once more.
Alas, a second later, the entire dock was flooded with light, and this time, Fairy Godmother caught them boat-handed.
“Aha! I knew there was someone here!” said Fairy Godmother triumphantly. She walked down the narrow dock, pointing her wand at the perpetrators. “Mal, Jay, Carlos, and Evie! What are you four doing down here? And with the royal speedboat?” She gasped. “Are you stealing it?”
It certainly looks that way, thought Carlos.
“Fairy Godmother! We can explain!” said Mal.
“Yes! We were, uh…” said Carlos, as he vainly tried to come up with a plausible explanation as to why they had trespassed onto the royal dock.
But Fairy Godmother shook her head, her lips a tight line. She kept the wand trained on the four of them and herded them away from the shoreline. “Shush, I don’t want to hear it till we’re safely back at school!”
She bundled all the four villain kids into her van and drove them to Auradon Prep. They sat in silence in the backseats, miserable and scared.
“What do you think’s going to happen to us?” whispered Carlos from the third row.
“A lot of detention?” Mal whispered back. “That can’t be too bad, right? We’ll just have to bake a lot of cakes?”
“Hopefully she won’t send us back to the Isle of the Lost,” said Jay.
Evie squeaked. “She wouldn’t do that, would she?”
“She could,” said Mal.
“Oh no,” said Evie. “I don’t want to go back there.”
“But it’s home,” said Mal, trying to soothe her friend. “It won’t be that bad.”
“Mal, don’t you understand? Auradon is my home now,” said Evie, looking out the window at the array of lights from the sparkling castles that dotted the landscape.
Carlos nodded. He couldn’t go back to the Isle of the Lost, not after everything they’d seen and done in Auradon. The thought filled him with a heavy dread. He couldn’t go back to scrubbing his mother’s bunions. He wouldn’t.
“No talking back there!” said Fairy Godmother from the driver’s seat. “And no talking on your phones either!” With a flick of her wand, all their phones disappeared.
When they got back to campus, Fairy Godmother marched them in front of her, holding the wand at Jay’s back at the end of the line. The hallways were full of students heading to dinner. Carlos thought longingly of his life in Auradon, convinced this was the end of the tale. He hadn’t even been able to say goodbye to Dude. The school would not look kindly on thievery. Or was it grand larceny? Marine larceny? Worse, it was exactly what the good people of Auradon expected from a few villain kids. Except they weren’t villains anymore, not at all, and they were only stealing the boat so they could help a friend. But what was that saying? About the path to darkness? It was paved with good intentions….
A few students looked at them curiously, but no one said hello, as Fairy Godmother had a very angry look on her usually cheerful face.
