Villain School (6 page)

“Why does it feel like I'm skipping in slow motion?” I asked.

“Well, you said yourself these obstacles were set up specifically for a girl villain's mind,” said Dodge.

“Do girl villains skip? I've never seen one skip before,” I said.

I could not imagine Jezebel skipping. Great. I was thinking about Jezebel. So far, this lousy plan wasn't working at all.

“Who cares? Just go!” Wolf said frantically, shoving me forward.

He was panting with fear, and I didn't want his drool pool setting off a trap, so I hurried along. When Dodge announced we were safe, we all gathered around the blueprint to see what was next.

As we stepped forward, the floor began to shake, and a hidden panel opened directly beneath us. We stepped back. Soon the hole was too wide even to jump across. From somewhere in its depths, I could hear a hissing sound.

“Now what?” I asked, worried the rumbling would bring teachers running at any second.

“This is going to be tough,” Dodge said. “It seems we have to sing a rhyme.”

“What!” Wolf and I said together.

“Who has the highest voice?” asked Dodge.

As the only boy in the group whose voice hadn't
changed yet, I knew exactly where this was going. It didn't help that Wolf was pointing his furry paw at me.

“No. Way.”

“C'mon Rune,” Dodge said. He handed me the blueprints and pointed to a rhyme written in the corner.

I glared at him and Wolf. They both put their heads together and batted their eyelashes at me. “Pleeeee-ase?” they said.

I sighed.

“Fine. I'm a little villain girl,” I mumbled. The hole grew wider. I could see now that it was crawling with dozens of black snakes.

“You have to do better than that!” Dodge said, stepping away from the widening panel. We were being forced back toward the poisoned darts. I raised my voice a few octaves and sang with more gusto.

“I'm a little villain girl dressed in black. All the little villain boys make me gack!”

As I was singing, the panel began to slide once more, closing the hole.

“Do I have to do this?” I asked. Almost instantly the panel slid open again.

“Rune!”

“Okay! I'm a little villain girl dressed in black. All the little villain boys make me gack! Take a step
forward, two steps back.” Which we did. “Sidestep, jump up, land on the crack!”

We stepped to the side as I sang; the hole was almost closed. When we jumped up, the hole closed completely and we landed on the “crack.”

“That was totally humiliating,” I said.

Wolf and Dodge ignored me. The doorways we'd spotted from the other end of the hall were now tantalizingly close.

“You did great,” Dodge said, absentmindedly patting my shoulder while he examined the blueprints again. “One more challenge.”

“Seriously?” Wolf asked. “The girls do this every time they go to their dorms?”

“No, the traps are only set while everyone's asleep,” Dodge said.

“Well, why didn't we just cut class and come during school hours? Would've been a lot easier!” Wolf said.

“But our chances of getting caught would have been much higher, too.”

Wolf and I exchanged glances, and I just shrugged. The point of this was to get my mind off Jez. So far, it was working pretty well. It was hard to think about one's newly transferred traitorous not-exactly-girlfriend while dodging poisoned darts and snake-filled pits and singing embarrassing rhymes.

“So what's the final trap?” I asked.

“Me,” a cold voice answered.

I knew that voice even before I saw him. Slowly I looked up. Yep. My dad. We were so dead.

Quickly, I tried to think up some kind of lie, some reason that three of us would be in the girls' dorms while the whole school was in bed. Sleepwalking? No, he'd never buy that. A fire? Poison? Famine? I couldn't think of anything. We were toast.

“It's not really him,” Dodge said. “It's part of the trap. It's just a bit of warlock magic.”

“I'll deal with you in a moment,” Master Dreadthorn said, glancing briefly at Dodge before focusing once more on me. “As for you. You will march yourself straight to my study.”

“Don't listen to him, Rune. It's the final test. All we have to do is walk past him,” Dodge said, starting forward.

“If he takes one more step, you will be expelled, Rune!” My dad's eyes flashed.

I reached out and grabbed the back of Dodge's cloak. He stopped, grunting in frustration.

“Rune, trust me. This isn't your dad. It's just a magical projection. It can't hurt us.”

“I don't know,” Wolf said, twisting his tail nervously between his paws. “It's pretty convincing.”

“Just give me a second,” I said, forming a plan. I had to test and see if this really was my dad or not.

“I can't believe you're talking about expelling me after all the bonding we've been doing lately,” I said.

“What?” Master Dreadthorn asked.

“I mean, after you gave me that birthday present a few months ago, I thought for sure our relationship was, you know, getting stronger, Dad.”

Okay, I was laying it on a little thick, but I had to know for sure if this was my dad.

“I don't care about you,” he said. “That ridiculous present meant nothing. This is your last chance, Rune. You will go straight to my study. Now!”

“Sorry, can't do that,” I said, and stepped forward until I was almost nose to nose with the Dread Master. “You didn't give me a present, old man. And you're ugly. And you're a jerk. And you're not real.”

I walked through the magical projection of my dad, and he disappeared.

“Whoa. That was dramatic,” Wolf said.

“No way. That was
therapeutic
!” I said. “I've wanted to tell him off like that for years. I might go back and do it again.”

“Later,” Dodge said. “First, we have to find Ileana's dorm.”

The doors were before us. All of them looked
exactly the same in the flickering green light of the torches—just wooden doors fastened to the surrounding stone of the cave hallway by sturdy iron hinges.

“So, uh, which one is Ileana's?” Wolf asked as we followed Dodge down the corridor.

“She's a princess. I found out the school had to make special arrangements for her to come here—added security,” Dodge said, rounding a corner and stopping in front of a door that was flanked by two stone gargoyles.

“Seriously?” I asked, feeling my school pride wavering. “We have to collect dragonfire from real live dragons, and they think a couple of stone statues are going to frighten us? Besides, that one looks like an old henchman of mine.”

I pointed to the gargoyle on the left whose doglike features reminded me of Cappy, my ogre-ish former henchman who only
looked
scary but was actually quite good with babies.

Beside me, Wolf stepped forward, reaching for the door handle, when suddenly his furry paw was zapped by some kind of magical current.

“Ouch!” he barked, pulling his paw back and licking at the charred fur.

“The gargoyles are not meant to frighten us away,” Dodge said. “They are magical guardians set to
recognize Ileana's blood. They will only admit the princess or someone who shares her blood.”

“You could've told me that sooner,” Wolf said, still licking his paw.

“Someone who shares her blood?” I asked. “What? Like her mom and dad?”

“Yes, or any other relative—a brother or sister, even.”

“Well, that's it then,” I said, turning to Dodge. “Unless one of us is Ileana's evil twin or something, I don't think we'll be going any farther.”

Something flickered behind Dodge's hazel eyes. Amusement? But he didn't say anything. Instead he pulled out a vial filled with a small amount of thick red fluid. It looked almost black in the dim light.

“Tell me that's not what I think it is,” I said, backing away.

“Here.” Dodge shoved the vial of blood into my hand. “Once you're inside, there's a switch that deactivates the guardians' shields, but be quiet! Don't wake the princess.”

“And you got kicked out of Morgana's for
good
behavior?” asked Wolf.

Dodge flashed him a familiar evil grin that was becoming his trademark.

I examined the vial in my hand, turning it in the
firelight. As a rule, villains should not be freaked out by the sight of blood, but for some reason, it really churned my stomach. I held it gingerly, as if it were a poisonous snake.

“But how did you—”

“No time,” Dodge said, cutting me off. “Just go.”

He shoved me toward the door. Briefly, I wondered why Dodge didn't just take the vial and go first, but he didn't seem in the mood to talk about his strategy. So, armed with a vial of what I assumed was Ileana's blood, I reached out for the door handle, slowly, ready to pull back if I felt even a tingle of the magical barrier.

I didn't need to worry. My hand bypassed the barrier and made contact with the door handle. A moment later, I opened the door and stepped inside. For the first time in my life, I was in one of the girls' dorm rooms. I wanted to savor the moment, but Dodge and Wolf were outside waiting. I could hear Dodge tapping his boot impatiently on the stone floor.

“Hurry up, Drexler,” he whispered.

I reached out my hand, ran it along the wall until I found the switch that deactivated the guardians. The guys joined me in the darkness.

“Now what?” Wolf whispered.

“Now you explain what you're doing in my room,” a new voice said.

There was a sound of a match striking. I blinked at the brightness, and when my vision cleared I saw Princess Ileana staring at us, candle in hand.

“Is this part of the test, too?” I asked, thinking of the projection of my dad.

I reached out my fingers to see if Ileana was real, and she smacked my hand away.

“Ow! Guess not.”

“How did you even get past the guardians?” Ileana asked.

I just stood staring stupidly for a second, then I remembered the vial of blood. I quickly tucked it into my cloak pocket.

“A villain never reveals his secrets,” I said.

“That's a magician, numbskull,” Ileana snapped, but she was smiling.

“Oh.”

“So, what
are
you doing here?” she asked.

“Rune needed a little cheering up,” Dodge said. “He's upset about the vampire girl being transferred.”

“What!” I said. “I'm not upset about that. I was just surprised she didn't even
tell
me.”

Talk about pouring salt in a wound. I thought this trip was supposed to help me
forget
about my girl troubles.

“It's okay, Rune,” Ileana said. “I'm sure we all will, um,
miss
Jezebel.”

“Sincere. Very sincere,” Wolf said.

“Well, I didn't know her that well, but …”

I didn't hear what Ileana said next, though, because I was concentrating on Dodge. He was taking advantage of Ileana's distraction. I noticed him casually moving behind her and rifling through her things—her bedside table, books on her shelves. He noticed me noticing, raised his finger to his lips, and motioned for me to keep talking.

“Rune? Are you even listening?” Ileana asked.

“Of course I am,” I said. “Uh, so, what do you think I should do?”

“Do?”

“About Jez. You know. You're a girl. Should I, uh, send her a gift or something?” I glanced at Dodge.
Again, he signaled for me to keep talking as he knelt next to Ileana's bed and looked beneath it.

“You'll have to do better than a gift. If you want to get a girl's attention, you need to let her know you care about her interests. What is Jez interested in? Besides biting things and looking down her nose at everybody?”

“Uh, I don't know. Uh—”

But I was saved, because just then Dodge rejoined us.

“Well, thanks, Ileana. I'll try that. You've been a big help,” I said.

“But we didn't even—”

“Talk tomorrow. Gotta get back to bed. Good night!” I said, pulling the others to the door and leaving a very confused and slightly annoyed princess behind.

When we returned to the hallway, I heard the faint buzzing sound of the barrier as it was reactivated.

“What was that all about?” I asked Dodge.

“Master Stiltskin,” he said.

“What?”

“Hello, boys,” a voice said.

I turned to see the bent, wrinkled form of Master Stiltskin standing a few feet away from us. He was wearing some kind of old-fashioned nightgown and one of those weird nightcaps on his head. His beard trailed down almost to his feet, which were covered with
fuzzy slippers. He looked like he'd just fallen out of a Mother Goose rhyme.

“What are you three doing here at this hour?” he wheezed.

“Um. Sleepwalking?” I said.

I expected us to get in some serious trouble, but Stiltskin just chuckled.

“Not to worry, Rune. Believe it or not, I was once a young villain, eager to prove myself to the villainesses.”

“What? No, that's not what—”

“Now, no need for alarm. I won't tell your father,” Stiltskin said with a wink. “But you should be careful, boys. Not every Master at this school would let you get away with this.”

No kidding. I don't think
any
of the other school Masters would've let us get away with sneaking around the girls' corridors. Did I mention Master Stiltskin wasn't really very villain-ish? And that he actually seemed to
like
teaching kids?

“Wait. How did you get past all the traps?” I asked. I mean, let's face it, Stiltskin wasn't exactly in his prime.

“Get past them?” he asked, looking confused. “I just used the switch to deactivate them.”