The School Years Complete Collection. Soman Chainani

Upon arriving at the Ball, you notice your friend’s breath smells unbearably of garlic and trout. However, your friend is going with the person you hoped would ask you to the Ball. Do you:

      A) Inform your friend at once of their foul odor

      B) Say nothing since it is your friend’s fault they smell

      C) Say nothing because you will enjoy watching them be embarrassed

      D) Offer them a piece of sweet licorice without mentioning their breath

      Agatha answered A. She added, “Because at least bad breath is temporary. Ugly is forever.”

      3. A baby dove with a broken wing slips into the Good Hall, crashes to the dance floor during the last waltz, and is in severe danger of being crushed. Do you:

      A) Scream and stop the dance

      B) Finish the dance and then attend to the dove

      C) Kick the dove off the floor while dancing so it’s safe, then attend to it after

      D) Abandon the dance and rescue the dove, even if it means embarrassing your partner

      Agatha answered D. “My partner is imaginary. I’m sure he won’t mind.”

      She answered the next 27 questions in the same spirit.

      Perched at her desk made out of sugarplums, Professor Dovey scored the tests and shoved them under a gleaming pumpkin weight, face growing grimmer and grimmer.

      “Just what I’ve been afraid of,” she fumed, flinging the tests back to the students. “Your answers are vain, vacuous, and at times downright villainous! No wonder that Sophie girl made fools of you all!”

      “Attacks are over, aren’t they?” Tedros muttered.

      “No thanks to you!” Professor Dovey barked, thrusting a red-drenched test at him. “A Never wins a Trial, lays waste to our school—and no Ever to catch her? No one Good to put down a student?”

      She slung tests across a row. “Must I remind you that the Circus of Talents is in four days? And that whoever wins the Circus has the Theater of Tales moved to their school? Do you want your Theater moved to Evil? Do you want to walk with shame to Evil for the rest of the year?”

      No one could meet her eyes.

      “To be Good you must prove yourself Good, Evers,” Professor Dovey warned. “Defend. Forgive. Help. Give. Love. Those are our rules. But it is your choice to follow them.”

      As she went over the tests, excoriating every wrong answer, Agatha shoved hers away. But then she noticed the corner:

      100%

      SEE ME.

      When the fairies chimed the end of class, Professor Dovey shooed all the Evers out, closed the pumpkin candy door, and locked it. She turned and found Agatha atop her desk, eating a sugarplum.

      “So if I follow the rules,” Agatha said, chomping loudly, “I’m not a witch.”

      Professor Dovey eyed the new hole in her desk. “Only a truly Good soul lives those rules, yes.”

      “What if my face is Evil?” Agatha said.

      “Oh, Agatha, don’t be ridic—”

      “What if my face is Evil?”

      Her teacher flinched at her tone.

      “I’m far from home, I’ve lost my only friend, everyone here hates me, and all I want is a way to find some kind of happy ending,” Agatha said, red-hot. “But you can’t even tell me the truth. My ending is not about what Good I do or what’s inside me. It’s about how I look.” Spit flew out of her mouth.

      “I never even had a chance.”

      For a long moment, Professor Dovey just gazed at the door. Then she sat down on the desk next to Agatha, broke off a sugarplum, and bit into it with a juicy squirt.

      “What did you think of Beatrix the first time you saw her?”

      Agatha stared at the candy plum in her teacher’s hand.

      “Agatha?”

      “I don’t know. She was beautiful,” Agatha groused, remembering their fart-filled introduction.

      “And now?”

      “She’s revolting.”

      “Has she gotten less pretty?”

      “No, but—”

      “So is she beautiful or not?”

      “Yes, at first sight—”

      “So beauty only lasts a glance?”

      “Not if you’re a Good person—”

      “So it’s being Good that matters? I thought you said it was looks.”

      Agatha opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

      “Beauty can only fight truth so long, Agatha. You and Beatrix share more in common than you think.”

      “Great. I can be her animal slave,” Agatha said, and bit into her plum.

      Professor Dovey stood up. “Agatha, what do you see when you look in the mirror?”

      “I don’t look in mirrors.”

      “Why is that?”

      “Because horses and hogs don’t sit around ogling their reflections!”

      “What is it you’re afraid you’ll see?” Professor Dovey said, leaning near the pumpkin candy door.

      “I’m not afraid of mirrors,” Agatha snorted.