“You might even save a life,” said Uma, holding up a brilliant painting of a princess cowering as a stag speared a warlock. The princess looked just like her.
“Once upon a time, an animal saved mine and in return, it received the happiest ending of all.”
From narrowed suspicion, Agatha saw all the girls’ eyes widen to worship. This wasn’t just a teacher. This was a living, breathing princess.
“So if you want to be like me, you need to do well in today’s challenge!” chirped their new idol, summoning the girls to the lake. Agatha felt herself shiver, despite the balmy fall sun. If she placed last this time, she’d never see Sophie or home again. As she followed the girls to the bank, sick to her stomach, Agatha noticed Uma’s storybook, open in the grass.
“Animals love to help princesses for so many reasons!” said Princess Uma, stopping at the water’s edge. “Because we sing pretty songs, because we give them shelter in the scary Woods, because they only wish they could be as beautiful and beloved as—”
“Wait.”
Uma and the girls turned. Agatha held up the storybook’s last page—a painting of the stag ripped to pieces by monsters as the princess escaped.
“How is that a happy ending?”
“If you aren’t good enough to be a princess, then you’re honored to die for one, of course,” Uma smiled, as if she would learn this lesson soon enough.
Agatha looked to the others in disbelief, but they were all nodding like sheep. It didn’t matter if only a third of them would graduate as princesses. Each was completely convinced she’d be one. No, those stuffed, mounted creatures in the museum weren’t once girls like them. They were just animals. Slaves to the Greater Good.
“But if animals are going to help us, first we have to tell them what we want!” Uma said, kneeling before the gleaming blue lake. “So today’s challenge is …” She swirled her finger in the water and a thousand tiny fish surfaced, white as snow.
“Wish Fish!” Uma beamed. “They dig inside your soul and find your greatest wish! (Very helpful if you’ve lost your tongue or voice and need to tell a prince to kiss you.) Now all you do is put your finger in the water and the fish will read your soul. The girl with the strongest, clearest wish wins!”
Agatha wondered what these girls’ souls would wish for. Depth, perhaps.
Millicent went first. She put her finger in the water, closed her eyes … When she opened them, the fish had all turned different colors and were gaping at her, confused.
“What happened?” said Millicent.
“Foggy mind,” Uma sighed.
Then Kiko, the adorable girl who had gifted Agatha lipstick, put her finger in the water. The fish turned red, orange, and peach and started assembling into some kind of picture.
What do Good souls wish for? Agatha wondered, watching the fish jumble into place. Peace for their kingdoms? Health for their families? Destruction of Evil?
The fish drew a boy instead.
“Tristan!” Kiko chimed, recognizing his ginger hair. “I caught his rose at the Welcoming.”
Agatha groaned. She should have known.
Then Reena dipped her finger and the fish changed colors, gliding into a mosaic of a burly, gray-eyed boy pulling an arrow into his bow.
“Chaddick,” blushed Reena. “Honor Tower, Room ten.”
Giselle’s fish drew dark-skinned Nicholas, Flavia wished for Oliver, Sahara’s painted Oliver’s bunk mate Bastian. … At first Agatha found it dumb, but now it was scary. This was what Good souls craved? Boys they didn’t even know? Based on what!
“Love at first sight,” Uma gushed. “It’s the most beautiful thing in the world!”
Agatha gagged. Who could ever love boys? Preening, useless thugs who thought the world belonged to them. She thought of Tedros and her skin burned. Hate at first sight. Now that was believable.
With the fish pooped from drawing so many chiseled jaws, Beatrix provided the grand climax, sending her Wish Fish into a spectacular rainbow vision of her fairy-tale wedding to Tedros, complete with castle, crowns, and fireworks. All around girls’ eyes welled with tears, either because the scene was so beautiful or because they knew they could never compete.
“Now you must hunt him, Beatrix!” Uma said. “You must make this Tedros your mission! Your obsession! Because when a true princess wants something enough …” She swirled her fingers in the lake—
“Your friends unite for you …” The fish turned bright pink—
“Fight for you …” The fish clustered tight—
“And make your wish come true …” Uma reached her arm into the water and pulled it right out. The fish transformed into her soul’s greatest desire.
“What is it?” Reena asked, confused.
“A suitcase,” whispered Princess Uma, and hugged it to her chest.
She looked up at twenty befuddled girls. “Oh. Should I give you your ranks?”
“But she didn’t go yet,” said Beatrix, pointing at Agatha. Agatha would have clobbered her, but there was no menace in Beatrix’s voice. This girl wasn’t troubled that a lakeful of fish had just been turned into luggage. Instead, she was worried Agatha didn’t have her turn. Perhaps she wasn’t so bad after all.
“So Reena can have her room when she fails,” Beatrix smiled.
Agatha took it back.
“Oh dear. One left?” said Uma, staring at Agatha. She gazed at the lake, empty of Wish Fish, then at her precious pink suitcase. “It happens every time,” she mourned. With a sigh, she dropped it back into the lake, and watched it sink and bob up as a thousand white fish.
Agatha leaned over the water to see the fish glaring up at her with droopy eyes. For a moment, they had found heaven in a suitcase. But here they were again, genies stolen from the safety of the lamp. They didn’t care that her life was on the line. They just wanted to be left alone. Agatha sympathized.
Mine’s easy, she thought. I wish not to fail. That’s it. Don’t fail.
She stuck her finger in the water.
The fish started trembling like tulips in the wind. Agatha could hear wishes wrestle in her head—
Don’t fail—Home in bed—Don’t fail—Sophie safe—Don’t fail—Tedros dead—
The fish turned blue, then yellow, then red. Wishes swept into a cyclone—
New face—Same face—Blond hair—I hate blond hair!—More friends—No friends—
“Not just foggy,” murmured Princess Uma. “Completely confused!”
The fish, red as blood, started to quake, as if about to explode. Alarmed, Agatha tried to pull out her finger, but the water clamped it like a fist.
“What the—”
The fish turned black as night and flew to Agatha like magnets to metal, pooling her hand in a shivering mass. Girls fled the shore in horror; Uma stood anchored in shock. Frantic, Agatha tried to wrench her hand but her head exploded with pain—
Home School Mom Dad Good Bad Boys Girls Ever Never—
Gripping Agatha’s hand, the fish shook harder and harder, faster and faster, until she couldn’t tell one from the other. Eyes popped off like buttons, beating fins shattered to bits, bellies engorged with veins and vessels until the fish let out a thousand tortured screams. Agatha felt her head split in two—
FailWinTruthLiesLostFoundStrongWeakFriendFoe