Lanterns: The School For Good And Evil

Chapter Six: Shall we Swap

The next morning, all of the princesses dashed about the fifth floor as if it was their wedding day. On the first day of class, they all wanted to make their best impressions on teachers, boys, and anyone else who might lead them too Ever After. They flurried into each other's rooms, glossing lips, poofing hair, buffing nails, and trailing so much perfume that fairies passed out and littered the hall like dead flies. Still, no one seemed any closer to being dressed, and indeed, when the clock tolled 8:00 a.m., signalling the start of breakfast, not a single girl had put on her clothes.

"Breakfast makes you fat anyway," Beatrix reassured.

Reena poked her head into the hall. "Has anyone seen my panties!"

Elena certainly hadn't. She had been ready for the past hour. Today she wore a light-yellow dress that had a built-in corset. The sleeves were made of a green vine, with daisy's that trailed down the dress until her hip bone. A simple yet elegant first day look. Meanwhile her roommates including Agatha who they had helped move in last night where still rushing around getting ready.

Elena on the other hand was free-falling through a dark chute, trying to remember how she found Halfway Bridge the first time. Honor Tower to Hansel's Haven to Merlin's Menagerie . . . After landing on the beanstalk, she crept through the dim Gallery of Good, until she found the doors behind the stuffed bears. Or was it Honor Tower to Cinderella Commons . . . Still mulling the correct route, she threw open the doors to the stair room and ducked. The palatial glass lobby was packed with faculty in their colourful dresses and suits, mingling before class. Neon-haired nymphs in pink gowns, white veils, and blue lace gloves floated about the foyer, refilling teacups, frosting biscuits, and flicking fairies off sugar cubes. From behind the doors, Elena peeked at the stairs marked HONOR, lit by high stained-glass windows, far across the crowd. How could she get past them all? She felt something scrape her leg and turned to find a mouse gnawing at her shoes. Her beautiful white shoes that matched her dress perfectly.

Elena kicked the mouse away, which tumbled into the paws of a stuffed cat. The mouse screeched, then saw the cat was dead. It gave Elena its dirtiest look and marched back into its hole in the wall. She lent and pulled out her wand that she had remembered to bring this time. Quickly she fixed her shoe and kept walking. . . . A few moments later, an undersized nymph in a ragged lace veil scurried through the room for the Honor stairs.

Unfortunately, the veil left Elena blind, and she tripped into a nymph, who crashed into a teacher-"Heavens Saint Mary!" Clarissa moaned, dripping with prune tea. As alarmed professors dabbed at her dress, Elena slid behind the Charity steps.

"Those nymphs really are too tall," Clarissa scolded. "Next thing you know they'll knock down a tower!"

By then, Elena had already disappeared into Honor Tower and found her way up to Hansel's Haven, the wing of first-floor classrooms made completely out of candy. There was a room of sparkled blue swizzles and rock sugar, glittering like a salt mine. There was a marshmallow room with white fudge chairs and gingerbread desks. There was even a room made of lollipops, blanketing the walls in rainbow colours. Elena wondered how in the world these rooms stayed intact and then saw an inscription sweeping the corridor wall in cherry gumdrops: Temptation Is the Path to Evil

Grabbing a gumdrop and popping it into her mouth Elena hustled by two passing teachers, who gave her veil a curious look but didn't stop he.

"Must be spots," she heard one whisper as she raced up the back stairs. When she ran from the fairies the day before, her and her friends had stumbled into the rooftop topiary by accident. Today, she could appreciate Merlin's Menagerie, as the school map named it, filled with magnificently sculpted hedges that told the legend of King Arthur in sequence. Each hedge celebrated a scene from the king's life: Arthur pulling the sword from the stone, Arthur with his knights at the Round Table, Arthur at the wedding altar with Guinevere. . . . Elena wondered how Tedros felt about all of this. How could he see this and not feel suffocated? How could he survive the comparisons, the expectations?