LITMIR.BIZ

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then chests, then up and up until they stretched their arms into fluffy blue sky and planted delicate slippers upon the ground. But it wasn’t the sight of sprouting girls that unnerved Agatha most. It was that these girls looked nothing like her.

      Their faces, some fair, some dark, were flawless and glowed with health. They had shiny waterfalls of hair, ironed and curled like dolls’, and they wore downy dresses of peach, yellow, and white, like a fresh batch of Easter eggs. Some fell on the shorter side, others were willowy and tall, but all flaunted tiny waists, slim legs, and slight shoulders. As the field flourished with new students, a team of three glitter-winged fairies awaited each one. Chiming and chinkling, they dusted the girls of dirt, poured them cups of honeybush tea, and tended to their trunks, which had sprung from the ground with their owners.

      Where exactly these beauties were coming from, Agatha hadn’t the faintest idea. All she wanted was a dour or disheveled one to poke through so she wouldn’t feel so out of place. But it was an endless bloom of Sophies who had everything she didn’t. A familiar shame clawed at her stomach. She needed a hole to climb down, a graveyard to hide in, something to make them all go away—

      That’s when the fairy bit her.

      “What the—”

      Agatha tried to shake the jingling thing off her hand, but it flew and bit her neck, then her bottom. Other fairies tried to subdue the rogue as she yowled, but it bit them too and attacked Agatha again. Incensed, she tried to catch the fairy, but it moved lightning quick, so she hopped around uselessly while it bit her over and over until the fairy mistakenly flew into her mouth and she swallowed it. Agatha sighed in relief and looked up.

      Sixty beautiful girls gaped at her. The cat in a nightingale’s nest.

      Agatha felt a pinch in her throat and coughed out the fairy. To her surprise, it was a boy.

      In the distance, sweet bells rang out from the spectacular pink and blue glass castle across the lake. The teams of fairies all grabbed their girls by the shoulders, hoisted them into the air, and flew them across the lake towards the towers. Agatha saw her chance to escape, but before she could make a run for it, she felt herself lifted into the air by two girl fairies. As she flew away, she glanced back at the third, the fairy boy that had bitten her, who stayed firmly on the ground. He crossed his arms and shook his head, as if to say in no uncertain terms there’d been a terrible mistake.

      When the fairies brought the girls down in front of the glass castle, they let go of their shoulders and let them proceed freely. But Agatha’s two fairies held on and dragged her forward like a prisoner. Agatha looked back across the lake. Where’s Sophie?

      The crystal water turned to slimy moat halfway across the lake; gray fog obscured whatever lay on the opposite banks. If Agatha was to rescue her friend, she had to find a way to cross that moat. But first she needed to get away from these winged pests. She needed a diversion.

      Mirrored words arched over golden gates ahead:

      The School for Good Enlightenment and Enchantment

      Agatha caught her reflection in the letters and turned away. She hated mirrors and avoided them at all costs. (Pigs and dogs don’t sit around looking at themselves, she thought.) Moving forward, Agatha glanced up at the frosted castle doors, emblazoned with two white swans. But as the doors opened and fairies herded the girls into a tight, mirrored corridor, the line came to a halt and a group of girls circled her like sharks.

      They stared at her for a moment, as if expecting her to whip off her mask and reveal a princess underneath. Agatha tried to meet their stares, but instead met her own face reflected in the mirrors a thousand times and instantly glued her eyes to the marble floor. A few fairies buzzed to get the mass moving, but most just perched on the girls’ shoulders and watched. Finally, one of the girls stepped forward, with waist-length gold hair, succulent lips, and topaz eyes. She was so beautiful she didn’t look real.

      “Hello, I’m Beatrix,” she said sweetly. “I didn’t catch your name.”

      “That’s because I never said it,” said Agatha, eyes pinned to the ground.

      “Are you sure you’re in the right place?” Beatrix said, even sweeter now.

      Agatha felt a word swim into her mind—a word she needed, but was still too foggy to see.

      “Um, I uh—”

      “Perhaps you just swam to the wrong school,” smiled Beatrix.

      The word lit up in Agatha’s head. Diversion.

      Agatha looked up into Beatrix’s dazzling eyes. “This is the School for Good, isn’t it? The legendary school for beautiful and worthy girls destined to be princesses?”

      “Oh,” said Beatrix, lips pursed. “So you’re not lost?”

      “Or confused?” said another with Arabian skin and jet-black hair.

      “Or blind?” said a third with deep ruby curls.

      “In that case, I’m sure you have your Flowerground Pass,” Beatrix said.

      Agatha blinked. “My what?”

      “Your ticket into the Flowerground,” said Beatrix. “You know, the way we all got here. Only officially accepted students have tickets into the Flowerground.”

      All the girls held up large golden tickets, flaunting their names in regal calligraphy, stamped with the School Master’s black-and-white swan seal.

      “Ohhh, that Flowerground Pass,” Agatha scoffed. She dug her hands in her pockets. “Come close and I’ll show you.”

      The girls gathered suspiciously. Meanwhile Agatha’s hands fumbled for a diversion—matches … coins … dried leaves …

      “Um, closer.”

      Murmuring girls huddled in. “It shouldn’t be this small,” Beatrix huffed.

      “Shrunk in the wash,” said Agatha, scraping through more matches, melted chocolate, a headless bird (Reaper hid them in her clothes). “It’s in here somewhere—”

      “Perhaps you lost it,” said Beatrix.

      Mothballs … peanut shells … another dead bird …

      “Or misplaced it,” said Beatrix.

      The bird? The match? Light the bird with the match?

      “Or lied about having one at all.”

      “Oh, I feel it now—”

      But all Agatha felt was a nervous rash across her neck—

      “You know what happens to intruders, don’t you,” Beatrix said.

      “Here it is—” Do something!

      Girls crowded her ominously.

      Do something now!

      She did the first thing she thought of and delivered a swift, loud fart.

      An effective diversion creates both chaos and panic. Agatha delivered on both counts. Vile fumes ripped through the tight corridor as squealing girls stampeded for cover and fairies swooned at first smell, leaving her a clear path to the door. Only Beatrix stood in her way, too shocked to move. Agatha took a step towards her and leaned in like a wolf.

      “Boo.”

      Beatrix fled for her life.

      As Agatha sprinted for the door, she looked back with pride as girls collided into walls and trampled each other to escape. Fixed on rescuing Sophie, she lunged through the frosted doors, ran for the lake, but just as she got to it, the waters rose up in a giant wave and with a tidal crash, slammed her back through the doors, through screeching girls, until she landed on her stomach in a puddle.

      She staggered to her feet and froze.

      “Welcome, New Princess,” said a floating, seven-foot nymph. It moved aside to

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