Soman Chainani - The School for Good and Evil

“We are going home right now.”

The branch wobbled, coiled back like a sling, and shot them up like bullets. Before either could scream, they landed on another branch. Agatha flailed for a new match, but the branch coiled and snapped them up to the next bough, which bounced them up to the next. “HOW TALL IS THIS TREE!” Agatha shrieked. Ping-ponging up branches, the girls’ bodies collided and crashed, dresses tearing on thorns and twigs, faces slamming into ricocheting limbs, until finally they reached the highest bough.

There at the top of the elm tree sat a giant black egg. The girls gaped at it, baffled. The egg tore open, splashing them with dark, yolky goo as a colossal bird emerged, made only of bones. It took one look at the pair and unleashed an angry screech that rattled their eardrums. Then it grabbed them both in its claws and dove off the tree as they screamed, finally agreeing on something. The bony bird lashed through black woods as Agatha frantically lit match after match on the bird’s ribs, giving them catches of glinting red eyes and bristling shadows. All around, gangly trees snatched at the girls as the bird dipped and climbed to avoid them, until thunder exploded ahead and they smashed headfirst into a raging lightning storm. Fire bolts sent trees careening towards them and they shielded their faces from rain, mud, and timber, ducked cobwebs, beehives, and vipers, until the bird plunged into deadly briars and the girls blanched, closing their eyes to the pain—

Then it was quiet.

“Agatha . . .”

Agatha opened her eyes to rays of sun. She looked down and gasped.

“It’s real.”

Far beneath them, two soaring castles sprawled across the forest. One castle glittered in sun mist, with pink and blue glass turrets over a sparkling lake. The other loomed, blackened and jagged, sharp spires ripping through thunderclouds like the teeth of a monster.

The School for Good and Evil.

The bony bird drifted over the Towers of Good and loosened Sophie from its claws. Agatha clutched her friend in horror, but then saw Sophie’s face, glowing with happiness.

“Aggie, I’m a princess.”

But the bird dropped Agatha instead.

Stunned, Sophie watched Agatha plummet into pink cotton-candy mist. “Wait—no—”

The bird swooped savagely towards the Towers of Evil, its jaws reaching up for new prey.

“No! I’m Good! It’s the wrong one!” Sophie screamed—

And without a beat, she was dropped into hellish darkness.

ophie opened her eyes to find herself floating in a foul-smelling moat, filled to the brim with thick black sludge. A gloomy wall of fog flanked her on all sides. She tried to stand, but her feet couldn’t find bottom and she sank; sludge flooded her nose and burnt her throat. Choking for breath, she found something to grasp, and saw it was the carcass of a half-eaten goat. She gasped and tried to swim away but couldn’t see an inch in front of her face. Screams echoed above and Sophie looked up.

Streaks of motion—then a

dozen bony birds crashed through the fog and dropped shrieking children into the moat. When their screams turned to splashes, another wave of birds came, then another, until every inch of sky was filled with falling children. Sophie glimpsed a bird dive straight for her and she swerved, just in time to get a cannonball splash of slime in her face.

She wiped the glop out of her eye and came face-to-face with a boy. The first thing she noticed was he had no shirt. His chest was puny and pale, without the hope of muscle. From his small head jutted a long nose, spiky teeth, and black hair that drooped over beady eyes. He looked like a sinister little weasel.

“The bird ate my shirt,” he said. “Can I touch your hair?”

Sophie backed up.

“They don’t usually make villains with princess hair,” he said, dog-paddling towards her.

Sophie searched desperately for a weapon—a stick, a stone, a dead goat—

“Maybe we could be bunk mates or best mates or some kind of mates,” he said, inches from her now. It was like Radley had turned into a rodent and developed courage. He reached out his scrawny hand to touch her and Sophie readied a punch to the eye, when a screaming child dropped between them. Sophie took off in the opposite direction and by the time she glanced back, Weasel Boy was gone.

Through the fog, Sophie could see shadows of children treading through floating bags and trunks, hunting for their luggage. Those that managed to find them continued downstream, towards ominous howls in the distance. Sophie followed these floating silhouettes until the fog cleared to reveal the shore, where a pack of wolves, standing on two feet in bloodred soldier jackets and black leather breeches, snapped riding whips to herd students into line.

Sophie grasped the bank to pull herself out but froze when she caught her reflection in the moat. Her dress was buried beneath sludge and yolk, her face shined with stinky black grime, and her hair was home to a family of earthworms. She choked for breath—

“Help! I’m in the wrong sch—”

A wolf yanked her out and kicked her into line. She opened her mouth to protest, but saw Weasel Boy swimming towards her, yelping, “Wait for me!”

Quickly, Sophie joined the line of shadowed children, dragging their trunks through the fog. If any dawdled, a wolf delivered a swift crack, so she kept anxious pace, all the while wiping her dress, picking out worms, and mourning her perfectly packed bags far, far away.

The tower gates were made of iron spikes, crisscrossed with barbed wire. Nearing them, she saw it wasn’t wire at all but a sea of black vipers that darted and hissed in her direction. With a squeak, Sophie scampered through and looked back at rusted words over the gates, held between two carved black swans:

The School for Evil Edification and Propagation of Sin

Ahead the school tower rose like a winged demon. The main tower, built of pockmarked black stone, unfurled through smoky clouds like a hulking torso. From the sides of the main tower jutted two thick, crooked spires, dripping with veiny red creepers like bleeding wings.

The wolves drove the children towards the mouth of the main tower, a long serrated tunnel shaped like a crocodile snout. Sophie felt chills as the tunnel grew narrower and narrower until she could barely see the child in front of her. She squeezed between two jagged stones and found herself in a leaky foyer that smelled of rotten fish. Demonic gargoyles pitched down from stone rafters, lit torches in their jaws. An iron statue of a bald, toothless hag brandishing an apple smoldered in the menacing firelight. Along the wall, a crumbly column had an enormous black letter N painted on it, decorated with wicked-faced imps, trolls, and Harpies climbing up and down it like a tree. There was a bloodred E on the next column, embellished with swinging giants and goblins. Creeping along in the interminable line, Sophie worked out what the columns spelled out—N-E-V-E-R—then suddenly found herself far enough into the room to see the line snake in front of her. For the first time, she had a clear view of the other students and almost fainted.

One girl had a hideous overbite, wispy patches of hair, and one eye instead of two, right in the middle of her forehead. Another boy was like a mound of dough, with his bulging belly, bald head, and swollen limbs. A tall, sneering girl trudged ahead with sickly green skin. The boy in front of her had so much hair all over him he could have been an ape. They all looked about her age, but the similarities ended there. Here was a mass of the miserable, with misshapen bodies, repulsive faces, and the cruelest expressions she’d ever seen, as if looking for something to hate. One by one their eyes fell on Sophie and they found what they were looking for. The petrified princess in glass slippers and golden curls.