Goldilocks Breaks In Read online

  Goldie shivered. There was something not quite right about the way that woman smiled. Though her smiles were wide and white, they never reached her eyes and weren’t at all warm. In fact, they were downright cold. Instead of nice — they were ice. Which is probably why they made her shiver.

  “In Principal R’s absence, all volunteer efforts to try to spin a certain magical straw into gold will henceforth be abandoned,” Ms. Wicked went on. “So anyone who has signed up to try their hand at spinning need not report to Ms. Queenharts or myself.” She was referring to the legendary Straw of Gold that Principal R had hoped would end the Academy’s financial problems once and for all.

  “When will Principal R be back?” a girl in a red cloak with red-streaked dark hair dared to call out. Her name was Red Riding Hood. Goldie didn’t know her all that well, even though they were in Ms. Wicked’s fourth-period Scrying class together. But pretty much everyone found Red interesting. She was popular and talented, in a dramatic sort of way. Which was the reason she’d landed the starring role in the drama class’s recent production of a play called Red Robin Hood.

  In Goldie’s opinion, she had played the part not too woodenly, not too flamboyantly … but just right. A new play by some guy named Shakespeare was being cast now, and Red would probably land a starring role in that, too.

  A scowl had flickered across Ms. Wicked’s face at Red’s question. But now she smiled again. “Naturally, we all hope he’ll return soon,” she said in a syrupy-sweet voice. “But as to when that might be, well, we’ll just have to wait and see. And that will be one demerit for the callout, young lady.” At this, Red’s BFFs, Cinderella, Rapunzel, and Snow White, sent her sympathetic looks.

  Reaching up to pat her already perfect hair, Ms. Wicked changed the subject. “Now, I’ve heard some grumbling about the heightened security measures. As I’ve said before, such measures are absolutely necessary for the protection of everyone here.” Bam! She pounded a fist on the railing, causing everyone, including the musicians with their trumpets, to jump. “There’s reason to believe that just last night an unknown intruder entered the library after curfew,” she announced.

  This elicited nervous and even frightened murmurs and rustling from the students. From behind Goldie, Polly whispered, “Wow, I guess we really do need protection.” Goldie had a feeling that making everyone nervous was exactly Ms. Wicked’s aim. If she could keep them fearful, she might be able to distract them from asking any more questions about Principal R or arguing with her rules.

  When Ms. Wicked’s cold, accusing gaze swept over the students, Goldie’s eyes went wide. She scooched over a tad to hide behind Rapunzel, the girl standing ahead of her. Had the gooseknob told on her? If so, it couldn’t have revealed her name. She was pretty sure it didn’t know it.

  Now that she’d pretty much made this into a not-grimmtastic morning for everyone, Ms. Wicked was suddenly all smiles again. “Never fear, students. To help enforce the new rules — especially the nightly curfew and the need to stay within the Academy’s boundaries — I’ve engaged a talented team of guards to keep us all safe.” Glancing down to the open doors at the opposite end of the Great Hall, she called out, “Guards! Enter, please!”

  Apparently, a whole team of guards had been quietly waiting outside the far end of the Hall for her cue, because now they burst in through the tall doors. Led by Papa Bear, with Mama Bear and Baby Bear directly behind him, the guards moved in perfect formation. Five lines of four guards each, they trooped right down the center of the Hall between the two long tables of students. Hop! Clomp! Scamper! Stomp!

  All the guards were animals, and wore navy blue uniforms of short pants and jackets with shiny brass buttons. Goldie did her times tables and quickly figured there were twenty of them. Plus the three bear leaders. Which was a lot of guards for one school.

  She counted two kangaroos, three jackrabbits, four foxes (the same number that had been on her tongue-twister plant!), four zebras, three beavers, two anteaters, and two badgers. Once they’d marched, hopped, and scampered the full length of the Hall, the guards finally came to a halt at the east end. There, they formally saluted Ms. Wicked.

  “Marvelous, aren’t they?” she crowed. Again, her eyes swept the entire room. “Make no mistake, students. For your own good, and the safety of everyone here at GA, anyone caught breaking the rules from now on will face dire consequences. Including time in the dungeon to contemplate their mistakes, and probable expulsion from the Academy.” She paused to let that sink in. Then she added, “And if anyone sees anyone else breaking the rules, or has information that might lead to the capture of last night’s intruder, it is your duty to come forward. Be assured that informers will be amply rewarded.”

  Goldie gulped. Could she really be one hundred percent certain that none of the girls in her Ruby Tower dorm — or anyone else in the Academy — had seen her leaving or returning after curfew last night? No, she thought, clasping her hands together in the folds of her gown to hide the fact that they were shaking. She really couldn’t.

  “Oh, and have a happily-ever-after day,” Ms. Wicked cooed to them all at last.

  Huh? Was she kidding? Not a chance after that speech, thought Goldie.

  After that rocky start to the day, students were pretty glum and on edge all morning. Goldie kept her eyes peeled for the library gooseknob, especially on the way to her third-period Bespellings and Enchantments class. However, the knob was no longer where it had been the night before. So the library had already moved elsewhere.

  Good, she thought. She’d been a little afraid that if she passed the knob, it might morph into a goose head again, remember her, and rat her out as the intruder in the library after curfew last night!

  In Bespellings and Enchantments, three long tables were lined up one behind another as usual, facing the teacher’s desk at the front of the room. Goldie’s table was at the back. As she passed the middle table, several boys (most of them princes) were laughing and talking loudly. One of them, the unfortunately named Prince Foulsmell, glanced up. He wore a simple gold crown atop his tousled brown hair. Just in case he was going to smile at her, she quickly looked away before he could.

  On her first day at GA, Malorette had warned her never, ever to smile at this prince. “If you do, he’ll follow you around like a puppy forever after,” she’d said. Well, that was something Goldie definitely didn’t need or want! So she never had smiled at him. However, she had sniffed in his direction once, and discovered for herself that he smelled neither foul nor sweet, but pretty much just right for a boy.

  As she took her seat in the back, the teacher floated up to the front of the room inside a huge bubble of pale blue light. “A magical good morning to you all, class!” Ms. Blue Fairygodmother trilled. The bubble extended with her hand as she tapped her wand on her desk to get everyone’s attention. Then she said, “Open your Handbooks to Chapter Eleven, please.”

  The chapter was titled “Defensive Magic,” Goldie discovered. It appeared to be about ways to protect yourself from the effects of harmful spells. Strangely enough, its first section was called “Bubble-making.” Huh?

  “Today we’ll be learning about protective bubbles,” Ms. Blue Fairygodmother said before Goldie could puzzle it out for herself. “My bubble, for example, is much stronger than it looks. While I am floating around inside it, nothing and no one can hurt me. It’s practically indestructible.”

  Prince Foulsmell smiled goofily and his hand shot in the air. “Can I test that?”

  Goldie sucked in her breath. Her aunt would have called his question impertinent and disrespectful — accusations she’d leveled at Goldie on more than one occasion.

  However, Ms. Blue was unfazed. “Sure,” she said, gesturing for him to come up to the front of the classroom. “Do your worst.”

  With a determined look on his face, Foulsmell went up and gave the big blue bubble a poke with the sharp point of a feather pen. The pen dented the bubble for a few seconds. However, when he pu
lled the pen away, the bubble sprang back into its original shape, unharmed.

  Switching tactics, he charged at the bubble, launching himself against it. “Whoa!” he called out in surprise as he bounced off its surface and away again. His arms cartwheeled crazily as he flew through the air, somehow managing to land on the floor in a crouch. Straightening, he turned toward the class, posing triumphantly. “Yes! I nailed that landing!”

  Seeing that he was all right, everyone laughed and clapped. “That’s some tough bubble,” one of his friends called out to Ms. Blue in an admiring tone. She just smiled.

  As Foulsmell returned to his seat, Ms. Blue handed practice wands around to everyone. “You are to practice making protective bubbles using the instructions in your Handbooks,” she told the class. “But first choose a partner so you can help each other as needed.”

  Hearing that last part, Goldie’s heart sank. In her three months at the Academy, she’d always been chosen last whenever they did pair or group activities in any of her classes. Too bad there wasn’t a bubble that could protect feelings. Then maybe during those times, her feelings of being left out and friendless would just bounce off her!

  Already, students were pairing up. Determined not to be left out this time, Goldie scrambled to ask Mermily, who sat at her table. A split second before she could, however, Mary Mary Quite Contrary popped over to claim the mermaid as her partner.

  Goldie thought next of asking Rapunzel. Gathering her courage, she went over to the goth-looking girl whose long blue-streaked black hair grew so rapidly it sometimes touched the floor. “Want to be my partner?” she asked.

  “Oh, sorry,” said Rapunzel kindly. “Basil already asked.”

  Basil was Rapunzel’s crush, and sat at the same table. If only Goldie had remembered that. Naturally, they’d partner up. What an idiot she was not to think of it before coming over! “S’okay,” she mumbled.

  Panicky feelings welled up inside her as she glanced around the room, looking for someone else to ask. But, things were looking grimm. Everywhere she looked, pairs, pairs, pairs! Argh! It would be awful if she wound up having to work with Ms. Blue. Nothing quite said “loser” like having to partner with a teacher because no one else picked you.

  Not that she didn’t like Ms. Blue. She was actually her favorite teacher. When Goldie had first arrived at GA (without any fanfare or hoopla since she wasn’t royalty), she’d come with a trunkful of dull gray dresses her aunt had considered “practical and appropriate.” In other words, ugly!

  Ms. Blue was the only teacher who had seemed to take notice of her drab attire. She’d spotted Goldie in the library one day, trying (and failing) to use a magic mirror there to make herself new gowns. “Oh!” the teacher had said. “I was just coming to use the mirror to work on my gown-making skills. Why don’t you let me make some gowns for you? It would be such fun!” Then the teacher had proceeded to conjure up a whole new wardrobe of beautiful everyday gowns to replace Goldie’s gray ones.

  Ms. Blue had even made her a couple of ball gowns. Goldie didn’t have the heart to tell her that she wasn’t planning on going to any balls. She had been to one the night after she enrolled at GA. No one had asked her to dance and she’d been too chicken to ask anyone, either. It had been both grimmorrible and grimmbarrassing! Not an experience she ever planned to repeat. She remembered waiting and hoping for some boy to come along and …

  Just then a tap came on her shoulder. She whirled around to see that Prince Foulsmell had tapped her with his wand. “What did you do that for?” she demanded, sensing a possible joke at her expense.

  “Presto! Chango!” he replied goofily, tapping her again. “You are now turned into my partner. C’mon.” With that, he spun around and went back to his desk, obviously expecting her to follow. She hesitated, torn. He was more popular than she was (who wasn’t?). But his goofy humor was something she wasn’t at all used to and didn’t know how to deal with, having been raised by her strict, no-nonsense aunt.

  On the other hand, partnering with him was her best option right now if she didn’t want to have to partner with a teacher. Which she didn’t. Deciding to take a chance on the puppy-dog thing, she trailed after him. It wasn’t like she had any better offers to consider!

  “Okay,” Foulsmell began once they stood together at his desk. “My Handbook says that creating perfect bubbles is a snap.”

  “Yeah, uh-huh,” Goldie said skeptically. As she expected, it wasn’t as easy as their Handbook instructions made it sound. The first bubble she made covered only her bottom half, and it swung her around so she was floating upside down with her feet in the air. She was more than a little annoyed when Foulsmell laughed as she struggled to keep her skirt in place.

  “You’re not exactly an expert at this, either, grape boy!” she said crossly as they each grabbed the edge of his desk to right themselves. His bottom half was encased in a purple-colored bubble he’d made that had also upended him. Once they were both right side up again, she poked her magic wand at her bubble. Pop! Turned out that protective bubbles could be popped only by the person who created them.

  “Isn’t getting good at it the whole point of this exercise?” Foulsmell replied good-naturedly. As he said the word point, he stuck the point of his wand into his own bubble, popping it. Eew! For some reason, his bubble exploded, coating him with a sticky purple goo that made him resemble something halfway between a gigantic plum and a monstrous raisin.

  Instead of getting mad, he just licked a drip of goo off his fingertip. “Mmm. Grape,” he said.

  Goldie couldn’t help laughing at his remark. In fact, many of the other students in class were laughing with equal parts delight and frustration as their bubbles stuck to the ceiling, bounced them around the room, unexpectedly exploded, or took on weird shapes.

  “You’re doing great, everyone,” Ms. Blue called out as she floated here and there to offer tips. Including how to magically remove the goo after an accidental bubble explosion. “If your first efforts seem like flops, don’t worry,” she told them. “Like most things, bubble magic requires lots of practice.”

  Encouraged, Goldie tried again. Her second bubble did turn out a little better. Though it was bright red and rather flat on the bottom and lumpy on top, at least it covered all of her.

  Foulsmell regarded her critically. “You look kind of like one of Mistress Hagscorch’s Heart-of-Despairberry Tarts,” he teased.

  “Thanks a lot,” grumped Goldie. Apparently, she wasn’t the only one with a bad habit of blurting out exactly what she thought.

  A friend of his, Prince Awesome, bounced over in his bubble just then and overheard. “That’s a compliment, coming from him. He loves those tarts!” the prince informed Goldie.

  “Ha-ha! What a bunch of bubbleoney,” said Foulsmell, giving him and his bubble a push off. However, as Prince Awesome bounced back to his partner, a blush crept from Foulsmell’s neck to his cheeks and up to the roots of his tangled hair. Quickly, he created another bubble around himself, as if for protection against whatever she might say back.

  Was it the word love that had made him blush? Goldie reached with her wand to burst her bubble. He couldn’t have a crush on her, could he? Though she felt a little alarmed at the idea, she also felt flattered. To her knowledge, no boy had ever had a crush on her. Not that she’d been around many of them before coming to GA, of course. But she suspected that her tart tongue kept most boys at bay, the same way it seemed to do with potential new friends.

  Before she could come up with anything to say to Foulsmell, the classroom door flew open. And there stood Ms. Wicked. Er, Principal Wicked. No! Goldie refused to think of her as the actual principal.

  Ms. Blue was busy helping to separate two girls whose bubbles had stuck together, so she didn’t notice when the new arrival clicked her way into the room. A sour expression came over Ms. Wicked’s face as she stood for a couple of minutes observing the lesson.

  “What’s her problem?” Foulsmell wondered quietly
.

  “No clue,” Goldie replied with a shrug.

  “Ahem!” Ms. Wicked said loudly. All chatter within the classroom instantly stopped.

  Ms. Blue whirled around inside her bubble. “Oh! I’m sorry,” she said at once. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

  “We need to talk,” Ms. Wicked said abruptly. “Outside in the hallway, please. Now.”

  The students all stared at one another as Ms. Blue followed Ms. Wicked out the door. Then they went back to practicing. The period was nearly at an end when Ms. Blue reentered the classroom. Normally unflappable, she now looked quite shaken.

  “I wonder what Ms. Wicked said to her,” Goldie whispered to Foulsmell, who was encased in a wobbly bubble that resembled a giant jellyfish.

  “Good question,” he replied. He popped his bubble, but then had to battle his way out of it since the top half had stuck to him.

  A few minutes later the clock began to bong and class let out. Goldie hadn’t quite gotten the hang of bubble-making, but she was surprised how much fun she’d had trying.

  “Hey, wait up,” Foulsmell called to Goldie as she left the room. Catching up to her outside the door, he fell into step beside her on the way to the Great Hall for lunch. Uh-oh, thought Goldie. Was this the kind of thing Malorette had tried to warn her about? Was he going to follow her around like a puppy now?

  But she wanted friends, right? And Foulsmell’s goofy cuteness was growing on her. He had turned out to be both funny and fun. Ignoring Malorette’s warning, she found herself blurting, “Do you think Ms. Blue chose this week to teach us defensive magic so we could protect ourselves from Ms. Wicked and her guards? I mean, Ms. Wicked is an evil villain in the Grimm fairy tales. And it wasn’t that long ago — right before Principal R’s disappearance, as a matter of fact — that he told us about E.V.I.L.’s existence and warned us to be extra vigilant.”

  E.V.I.L., which stood for Exceptional Villains in Literature, was a secret society that had flourished during the Dark Ages but had been defunct until recently. Though Principal R hadn’t made the group’s aims very clear, he’d stated plainly that they were up to no good and would be happy to see the Academy fail.