The Gladers from the Isle (ABANDONED)

Shenanigans

That evening, Teresa, Mal and Evie strolled into the boys' dormitory. Carlos was playing a game on a large TV screen, Newt was having a nap and Thomas and Minho were talking. "Hey, what are you doing?" Mal asked Jay, who had a lot of shiny items littered on his blue duvet.

"It's called 'stealing'," he replied proudly.

"You better not have stolen from us," Minho called over to him.

"Don't worry, Minho. I don't steal from who I'm staying with; they could steal from me right back."

"Die, suckers!" Carlos shouted at the TV screen, waking Newt up.

"What the bloody hell's goin' on?" He mumbled.

"Sorry, Newt. Jay, come check this thing out, man; it's awesome!" Jay took the two interactive remote sticks from Carlos and started moving as though he were fighting what was on screen in front of him.

"Need I remind you why we're here?" Mal asked. Teresa sat at the table and drank from a bottle of coloured, fizzy beverage. She decided she didn't like it; giving it to Minho, who guzzled it like a feeding calf.

"Fairy godmother, magic wand, blah blah blah," Jay replied dismissively as he continued playing the video game.

"This is our one chance to prove ourselves to our parents: To prove that we are evil." The VKs looked at her, and Newt sat up in his bed.

"Well, you can do your bloody evil deeds somewhere else. I'm tryna sleep and I'm glad to be outta the shuck Maze and off the Isle, and if your shenanigans get us into trouble, we're gonna be sent back to klunk food and bad people." Mal strolled up to him and looked into his defiant dark brown eyes.

"You have no idea what's it's like to have to prove yourself to the four most heartless villains on the Isle," she began, "and you still owe us a favour. So stay out of it."

"He'd be glad to," Teresa interjected, "but don't plot in front of us. If your plan fails and we get questioned, we're gonna have to rat you out."

"Why don't you go back to our room?" Evie suggested, a little agitated.

"Don't be rude, E." Carlos replied.

"No, it's fine." Thomas interjected. "We'll go." The Gladers left the room and headed to the girls' dormitory.

~

"We already know their plan." Teresa began, sitting on her floral duvet. "Can't we just tell Fairy Godmother?"

"They're villains: who knows what they'll do to us if we do," Minho replied, clicking on a frilly table lamp and sitting on the purple carpet.

"They'll be sent back to the Isle," Teresa stated.

"And so might we," Thomas added, plonking down next to her. "Just because we can't remember anything before the Isle, doesn't mean we didn't do something to deserve being put there."

"The only bad thing the VKs did was be brought up by villain parents," Newt argued, sitting tentatively on Evie's bed, "do they deserve to live there?" The group sat silently for a few moments.

"Maybe we should go and meet people," Teresa began, "we can prove to them we're not villains like the others."

"They're not villains," Thomas replied.

"We can't just go out in the middle of the night," Minho replied simultaneously. "We'll do it tomorrow, in our lessons."

Another moment of silence. The moonlight seeped in through the thin, floral pink curtains. "These rooms are so sexist," Teresa muttered.

"You don't like flowers?" Minho chuckled.

"They should have made them plain so we can decorate them," Newt added, stretching out his bad leg.

"Or asked us what we wanted," Thomas agreed. "But it's fine," he looked around at the pictures of past princesses and queens on the chestnut-coloured wooden wall. It was quite obvious that Auradon wanted each person to be a certain way.

"Wait, what if we catch the Flare?" Minho suddenly exclaimed. "We've been invited here when there's a deadly virus going around?" The others hadn't considered this. "Shuck this, we're probably better off in the Isle now."

"Don't say that," Teresa replied, "I'm sure WICKED are working towards a cure as well as they can."

Newt's brow furrowed, "why are they called 'WICKED'?"

"It must be the good wicked, not bad wicked," Thomas suggested, though he wasn't entirely sure either.

"Who's to say?" Minho began, "with these stereotyped bedrooms."

"And perfected expectations," Thomas added. The four sat in silence once more. It seemed as though things were not as they seemed. They felt deceived: As if they'd been offered a golden plate, only to find it was plastic. The boys went back to their dormitory as Teresa prepared herself for bed. They hoped for a better tomorrow. But for now, they focused on having a good night's rest - no matter what the VKs were up to.