Soman Chainani - The School for Good and Evil

Copyright Copyright Dedication 1 - The Princess & The Witch 2 - The Art of Kidnapping 3 - The Great Mistake 4 - The Three Witches of Room 66 5 - Boys Ruin Everything 6 - Definitely Evil 7 - Grand High Witch Ultimate 8 - Wish Fish 9 - The 100% Talent Show 10 - Bad Group 11 - The School Master’s Riddle 12 - Dead Ends 13 - Doom Room 14 - The Crypt Keeper’s Solution 15 - Choose Your Coffin 16 - Cupid Goes Rogue 17 - The Empress’s New Clothes 18 - The Roach and the Fox 19 - I Have a Prince 20 - Secrets and Lies 21 - Trial by Tale 22 - Nemesis Dreams 23 - Magic in the Mirror 24 - Hope in the Toilet 25 - Symptoms 26 - The Circus of Talents 27 - Promises Unkept 28 - The Witch of Woods Beyond 29 - Beautiful Evil 30 - Never After Keep Reading About the Author About the Publisher

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Start your education at www.schoolforgoodandevil.com

First published in the USA by HarperCollins Children’s Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. in 2013

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2013

The School for Good and Evil

Text copyright © 2013 by Soman Chainani

Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Iacopo Bruno

The author and illustrator assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of the work.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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Source ISBN: 9780007492930

Ebook Edition © JUNE 2013 ISBN: 9780007492947

Version: 2019-09-05

IN THE FOREST PRIMEVAL

A SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL

TWO TOWERS LIKE TWIN HEADS

ONE FOR THE PURE

ONE FOR THE WICKED

TRY TO ESCAPE YOU’LL ALWAYS FAIL

THE ONLY WAY OUT IS

THROUGH A FAIRY TALE

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

1 - The Princess & The Witch

2 - The Art of Kidnapping

3 - The Great Mistake

4 - The Three Witches of Room 66

5 - Boys Ruin Everything

6 - Definitely Evil

7 - Grand High Witch Ultimate

8 - Wish Fish

9 - The 100% Talent Show

10 - Bad Group

11 - The School Master’s Riddle

12 - Dead Ends

13 - Doom Room

14 - The Crypt Keeper’s Solution

15 - Choose Your Coffin

16 - Cupid Goes Rogue

17 - The Empress’s New Clothes

18 - The Roach and the Fox

19 - I Have a Prince

20 - Secrets and Lies

21 - Trial by Tale

22 - Nemesis Dreams

23 - Magic in the Mirror

24 - Hope in the Toilet

25 - Symptoms

26 - The Circus of Talents

27 - Promises Unkept

28 - The Witch of Woods Beyond

29 - Beautiful Evil

30 - Never After

Keep Reading

About the Author

About the Publisher

ophie had waited all her life to be kidnapped.

But tonight, all the other children of Gavaldon writhed in their beds. If the School Master took them, they’d never return. Never lead a full life. Never see their family again. Tonight these children dreamt of a red-eyed thief with the body of a beast, come to rip them from their sheets and stifle their screams.

Sophie dreamt of princes instead.

She had arrived at a castle ball thrown in her honor, only to find the hall filled with a hundred suitors and no other girls in sight. Here for the first time were boys who deserved her, she thought as she walked the line. Hair shiny and thick, muscles taut through shirts, skin smooth and tan, beautiful and attentive like princes should be. But just as she came to one who seemed better than the rest, with brilliant blue eyes and ghostly white hair, the one who felt like Happily Ever After . . . a hammer broke through the walls of the room and smashed the princes to shards.

Sophie’s eyes opened to morning. The hammer was real. The princes were not.

“Father, if I don’t sleep nine hours, my eyes look swollen.”

“Everyone’s prattling on that you’re to be taken this year,” her father said, nailing a misshapen bar over her bedroom window, now completely obscured by locks, spikes, and screws. “They tell me to shear your hair, muddy up your face, as if I believe all this fairy-tale hogwash. But no one’s getting in here tonight. That’s for sure.” He pounded a deafening crack as exclamation.

Sophie rubbed her ears and frowned at her once lovely window, now something you’d see in a witch’s den. “Locks. Why didn’t anyone think of that before?”

“I don’t know why they all think it’s you,” he said, silver hair slicked with sweat. “If it’s goodness that School Master fellow wants, he’ll take Gunilda’s daughter.”

Sophie tensed. “Belle?”

“Perfect child that one is,” he said. “Brings her father home-cooked lunches at the mill. Gives the leftovers to the poor hag in the square.”

Sophie heard the edge in her father’s voice. She had never once cooked a full meal for him, even after her mother died. Naturally she had good reason (the oil and smoke would clog her pores) but she knew it was a sore point. This didn’t mean her father had gone hungry. Instead, she offered him her own favorite foods: mashed beets, broccoli stew, boiled asparagus, steamed spinach. He hadn’t ballooned into a blimp like Belle’s father, precisely because she hadn’t brought him home-cooked lamb fricassees and cheese soufflés at the mill. As for the poor hag in the square, that old crone, despite claiming hunger day after day, was fat. And if Belle had anything to do with it, then she wasn’t good at all, but the worst kind of evil.

Sophie smiled back at her father. “Like you said, it’s all hogwash.” She swept out of bed and slammed the bathroom door.

She studied her face in the mirror. The rude awakening had taken its toll. Her waist-long hair, the color of spun gold, didn’t have its usual sheen. Her jade-green eyes looked faded, her luscious red lips a touch dry. Even the glow of her creamy peach skin had dulled. But still a princess, she thought. Her father couldn’t see she was special, but her mother had. “You are too beautiful for this world, Sophie,” she said with her last breaths. Her mother had gone somewhere better and now so would she.