“I hope Agatha and Tedros break in and kill the School Master!” seethed Arachne. “I hope they bring Good back!”
“Bring Good Back!” Beatrix shouted, and all the students stomped their feet in solidarity, cheering along: “Bring Good Back! Bring Good Back!”
Sophie gaped, speechless. How could she find the spy for Good if all of them were on Good’s side?
“That’s your job, you ninny—” a sharp nasty voice echoed outside.
The door flew open and three students pattered in, tittering loudly.
“—to follow me around and do whatever I say,” grouched a pasty girl with dirty hair streaked black and red and a fearsome buck-horned demon tattooed around her neck.
“Hope I get tracked as a Leader and you as my Henchman,” retorted an albino girl with a throaty rasp and three black rats sticking out of her pockets. “I’ll make sure you spend the rest of your life kissing my—”
“Daddy said he’d buy me a new horse if I made Leader,” chirped a girl behind them, round as a balloon, snacking on a bundle of chocolate daisies. “Killed my last one by accident.”
“Sat on it?” scoffed the albino.
“Fed it too much fudge,” said the round girl.
Suddenly all three girls stopped in their tracks and craned their heads to Sophie. They broke into toothy smiles and dropped into their seats in unison, hands folded over their bags.
“Sorry we’re late,” said tattooed Hester.
“Castor made us clean up after a dragon in Henchmen,” said albino Anadil.
“Dragons poo a lot,” said paunchy Dot, mouth full.
Sophie nearly leapt off the desk to hug her old roommates. “Oh praise heavens! My real friends,” she beamed, so relieved to see the three smiley witches against the sea of snarls. “At least someone’s happy to see me!”
“I wouldn’t go that far,” Hester mumbled. She started opening her book bag—then noticed the furious faces around her.
“Oh here we go,” she moaned. “For the last time, you’re all in the School for Evil now and that means you’re fighting for Evil. Look at me: Aric stabbed a blade in my stomach during the Trial and now I obey his every word. You want to stay alive? You want the sun to stop melting? Then do what the teachers say and help Sophie kill Agatha and Tedros.”
“I thought Agatha was your friend,” Ravan sniped.
“Excuse me? These are my friends,” Hester said, pointing to Anadil and Dot with a glowing red fingertip. “The coven everyone fears and yet wants to be in. The clique that doesn’t give a damn what you think. The sinful, sinistral, all-around-original Three Witches of Room 66.”
“Dot’s even fat again,” Anadil quipped.
Dot frowned.
“Sure, Agatha was likable in a handicapped-dog kind of way,” Hester went on, “but I learned my lesson when I almost died at Aric’s hands defending her. All I ever wanted was for Evil to have a normal school again, where we learn Evil things and learn to be better villains than my incompetent mother was. And now because of Sophie, we don’t just have one Evil school, we have two.”
“Plus for the first time, villains can have a Never After!” Dot reveled. “You know what that means, don’t you?” She gave Ravan a wink. “Evil Valentine’s Day!”
Ravan gagged.
“And if we don’t want love, that’s fine too,” said Anadil, with a repulsed look. “Once Sophie’s storybook closes, Evil will prove it can win, with villains no longer cursed to die.”
“Here’s to free Evil!” hollered Hester.
“Here’s to free will!” hooted Dot.
“Here’s to Queen Sophie!” Anadil proclaimed, banging fists loudly on her desk, as Hester and Dot chanted and three black rats squeaked: “Here’s to Queen Sophie! Here’s to Queen Sophie!”
No one else joined them.
“Did the ‘Bring Good Back’ cheer already, didn’t they?” Dot sighed.
Sophie smiled at her three witch champions. At least she knew who wasn’t the spy.
The door flew open behind her and an obese pink flamingo stumbled in—or rather most of an obese pink flamingo, since a dog head was attached to its body, trying and failing to navigate it. “Apologies for the late arrival,” he smarmed, resting awkwardly against a wall. “Castor was feeling ill, so I took over his Henchmen class and led the students in a rousing anthem I’ve composed for Lord Aric, our illustrious Dean. Would you like to hear it? It’s best performed by a 52-piece symphony and soprano choir, but I’m sure I can replicate the effect—”
He saw Sophie at the teacher’s desk. “Oh. Hello . . . former student,” the dog sniffed.
Sophie glowered at Pollux, one half of a two-headed Cerberus who routinely lost the battle to use their body to his rabid brother Castor. She could have gone the rest of her life without seeing this oily, spineless, brown-noser again, who’d clearly buttered up Aric in order to avoid being imprisoned with the rest of the Good teachers, just like he’d buttered up Evelyn Sader last year to avoid being evicted with the Boys. Even worse, Pollux was clearly lying about why he was late, since her three witch friends said they were just helping Castor clean up dragon poo.
“Would you like to take a seat amongst your kind?” Pollux jabbed, as if reading her thoughts. “I assumed you’d leave the class to me since it has been mine the past few weeks.”