The School Years Complete Collection. Soman Chainani

a love spell on Tedros?”

      The class burst into howls. Sophie turned to Tedros, who couldn’t have looked more enraged. Next to him, Agatha had the same expression. Sophie covered her face and fled, sobs echoing through the forest.

      “Every year, a rascal tries something. But even the sorriest rascal knows there’s no shortcuts to love,” Yuba said. “We’ll start with proper spells next week, I assure you. But for now, on to ferns! How can we tell if a fern is actually a Never in disguise—”

      Agatha didn’t follow the group to the Fernfield. Slouched against an oak, she gazed at the heart-shaped pieces in the grass, just as shattered as her dreams of home.

      Hester came back from supper to find Sophie sprawled on her bed, a puddle of tears.

      Sophie looked up, the red F on her robes even brighter now. “It won’t come off. I tried everything.”

      Hester dumped her schoolbag on the floor. “We’re practicing our talents in the common room. Feel free to join.” She opened the door and paused.

      “I warned you.”

      Sophie jumped at the slam.

      All night she couldn’t sleep, dreading the thought of wearing the F to lunch the next day. Finally she managed to doze off and woke to find the sun up and all her roommates gone to breakfast.

      Agatha was sitting on the edge of her bed, picking dead leaves out of her pink dress.

      “A wolf saw me this time. But I lost him in the tunnel.” She glanced up at a gilded mirror on a wall. “Looks nice in here.”

      “Thank you for bringing it,” Sophie rasped.

      “My room’s happier without it.”

      Tense silence.

      “I’m sorry, Agatha.”

      “Sophie, I’m on your side. We have to work together if we want to get out of here alive.”

      “The spell was our only hope,” Sophie said softly.

      “Sophie, we can’t give up! We have to get home!”

      Sophie stared into the mirror, eyes welling. “What happened to me, Agatha?”

      “You want the Ball without winning your prince. You want your kiss without doing the work. Look, I had to clean plates after supper all week, so I read while doing it.” Agatha pulled a book from her dress—Winning Your Prince by Emma Anemone—and started flipping to dog-eared pages.

      “According to this, winning true love is the ultimate challenge. In every fairy tale, it might seem like love at first sight, but there’s always skill behind it.”

      “But I already—”

      “Shut up and listen. It comes down to three things. Three things a girl has to do to win her fairy-tale prince. First, you need to ‘flaunt your strengths.’ Second, you need to ‘speak through actions, not words.’ And third, you need to ‘parade competing suitors.’ If you just do these three things and do them well, we stand a—”

      Sophie raised her hand.

      “What.”

      “I can’t flaunt anything in this potato sack, can’t act with that she-devil in my face, and have no competing suitors except a boy who looks and smells like a rat! Look at me, Agatha! I have an F on my chest, my hair looks like a boy’s, I have bags under my eyes, my lips are dry, and yesterday I found a blackhead on my nose!”

      “And how are you going to change that?” Agatha snapped.

      Sophie bowed her head. The ugly letter cast shadows on her hands. “Tell me what to do, Aggie. I’m listening.”

      “Show him who you are,” Agatha said, softening.

      She gazed deep into her friend’s eyes.

      “Show him the real Sophie.”

      Sophie saw the faith burning bright in Agatha’s smile. Then, turning to the mirror, she managed a sly smile of her own … a smile that matched one of a grim little cupid, trapped deep in darkness, waiting patiently to be let out.

      ews of Sophie’s failed love spell swept across both schools, and by midmorning everyone waited with bated breath to get a glimpse of her scarlet F. But when Sophie skipped all her morning classes, it was clear she was too ashamed to show her face.

      “You should have heard the things Tedros called her,” Beatrix said to Evergirls at lunch.

      Sitting in a heap of autumn leaves, Agatha tuned her out and looked over at Tedros and the Everboys playing rugby, silver swans glimmering on blue knit sweaters. Across the Clearing, Nevers shunned group activities and sat mostly by themselves. Hester glanced up from Spells for Suffering and read Agatha’s eyes with a shrug, as if Sophie’s whereabouts were the least of her concerns.

      “Now, Teddykins, it’s not her fault,” Beatrix blathered loudly. “The poor girl thinks she’s one of us. We should feel sorry for someone so pathe—”

      Her eyes bulged. Agatha saw why.

      Sophie sashayed into the Clearing, dumpy black sack refashioned into a strapless bodice dress, F shimmering over her chest with devil-red sequins. She’d cut her blond hair even shorter and slicked it down in a shiny bob. Her face was painted geisha white, her eyelids pink, her lips vermilion, and her glass shoes had not only been repaired but heeled even taller, which together with the extremely short dress, showed off long, creamy legs. From the shadows she swanned into sun, and light exploded off her glitter-dusted skin, bathing her in heavenly glow. Sophie strutted past Hester, who dropped her book, past Everboys, who dropped their ball, and glided right up to Hort.

      “Let’s do lunch,” she said, sweeping him away like a hostage.

      Across the field, Tedros’ sword fell out of its sheath.

      He saw Beatrix glaring and put it back.

      During Surviving Fairy Tales, Sophie ignored Yuba’s lecture on “Leaving Useful Trails” and spent the entire class cozying up to Hort and filling her Never pail with roots and herbs from the Blue Forest.

      “What are you doing!” hissed Agatha.

      “Can you believe it, Aggie darling? They have beetroot, willow bark, lemonwood and everything else I need to make my old potions and creams! Soon I’ll be back to my real self!”

      “This wasn’t the ‘real Sophie’ I had in mind.”

      “Excuse me? I’m just following your rules. Flaunt my assets, which are many, as you can see. Speak through actions—have I said a word to Tedros? No. Haven’t. And lest we forget, parade competing suitors. Do you know what it takes to survive lunch with Hort? To nuzzle that rodent every time I see Tedros looking? Eucalyptus, Agatha. I numb my nose with eucalyptus. But in the end, you were right.”

      “Listen, you misun— I was?”

      “You reminded me what’s important.” Sophie nodded to Tedros and Everboys ogling her across the thicket. “It doesn’t matter if you’re a Never, Ever, or whatever. In the end, the fairest of them all wins.” She glossed her lips and gave them a smack. “You’ll see. He’ll ask me to the Ball before the week’s up and you’ll get your precious kiss. So no more negativity, darling, it gives me a headache. Now, where’s that worthless Hort? I told him to stay by me at all times!” She swept away, leaving Agatha speechless.

      In