“Toad’s-blood shots!” declared Mal, leaping into the room as if she were just another guest. “For everyone!”
And just like that, the party began again, as quickly as it had stopped. It was like the entire room exhaled in one relieved breath. Mal isn’t mad. Mal isn’t banning us from the streets. Mal isn’t renaming us Slop.
Not yet.
Mal could see their relief on their faces, and she didn’t blame them. They were right. The way she’d been feeling lately, it was certainly something to celebrate.
So the crowd cheered, and toad’s-blood shots splashed across the room by the cupful, and Mal, in a show of generous sportsmanship, chugged a slimy cup right along with the rest.
She circled the party¸ pilfering a wallet from one of the Gastons, stopping to share a mean giggle with Ginny Gothel about the dress Harriet Hook was wearing, ducking under an overenthusiastic pirate swinging from the chandelier, taking a bite out of someone else’s devil dog and grabbing a mouthful of dry popcorn. She walked into the hallway and bumped into Jay, who was out of breath after winning the latest dance-off.
“Having fun?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Where’d Carlos go?”
Jay laughed and pointed toward a pair of black shoes poking out from behind a sheet covering the biggest of the bookcases. “Hiding from his own party. Typical.”
Mal knew how Carlos felt, though she’d never admit it. Truly, she’d rather be almost anywhere on the whole Isle than at this party. Like her mother, she hated the sights and sounds of revelry. Fun made her uncomfortable. Laughter? Gave her hives. But a vendetta was a vendetta, and she had more planned for this evening than just Deep, Dark, Secret or Death-Defying Dare.
“Come on,” said Jay. “They’re playing pin the tail on the minion over there, and Jace has like, ten tails. Let’s see if we can make it a dozen.”
“Maybe in a minute. Where’s Princess Blueberry?” Mal asked. “I did a whole loop of this party, and I didn’t see her anywhere.”
“You mean Evie? She’s not here yet. Nobody seems to know if she’s coming or not.” Jay shrugged. “Castle kids.”
“She has to come. She’s the whole point. She’s the only reason I’m even having this stupid party.” Mal hated when her evil schemes didn’t go exactly as planned. This was the first step in Operation Take Down Evie, Or Else, and it had to work. She sighed, staring at the door. Pretending to be having fun at a party when you hated parties was the most tiresome thing in the world.
Mal had to agree with her mother on that one.
“What are you two doing?” asked Anthony Tremaine, Lady Tremaine’s sixteen-year-old grandson, a tall, elegant boy with dark hair swept off a haughty forehead. His clothes were as worn and ragged as everyone else’s on the Isle, but somehow he always looked as if he was wearing custom tailoring. His dark leather coat was cut perfectly, his jeans the right dark wash. Maybe it was because Anthony had noble blood, and would probably have lived in Auradon except for his grandmother’s being, you know, evil and banished. At one point he’d tried to get everyone on the Isle to call him Lord Tremaine, but the villain kids had all just laughed in his face.
“Just talking,” said Mal.
“Evil plotting,” said Jay.
They looked at each other.
Something about Anthony’s handsome face brought to Mal’s mind another handsome boy—the prince from her dream. He’d said he was her friend. His smile was kind and his voice gentle. Mal shuddered.
“Do you want something?” Mal asked Anthony coolly.
“Yes. To dance.” Anthony looked at her expectantly.
She looked at him, confused. “Wait—with me?” Nobody had ever asked her before. But she’d never really been to a party before either.
“Well, I didn’t mean him,” Anthony said, looking awkwardly at Jay. “No offense, man.”
“None taken.” Jay grinned broadly, knowing how uncomfortable this made Mal. He found it hilarious. “You two kids go have fun out there. Anthony, make sure you pick a slow song,” he said, as he slid away. “I have a step-granddaughter waiting for me.”
Mal could feel her cheeks turning pink, which was embarrassing, because she wasn’t afraid of anything, least of all dancing with snotty Anthony Tremaine.
So why are you blushing? she thought.
“I’m not really a dancer,” she said lamely.
“I can show you,” he said with a smooth smile.
Mal bristled. “I mean, I don’t dance with anyone. Ever.”
“Why not?”
Why not, indeed?
Mal thought about it. Her mind flashed back to earlier that evening. She’d been getting ready for the party, trying to choose between violet-hued holey or mauve patchwork jeans, when her mother had made a rare appearance at her door.
“Where on this dreadful island could you possibly be going?” Maleficent asked.
“To a party,” Mal said.
Maleficent let out an exasperated sigh. “Mal, what have I told you about parties?”
“I’m not going to have fun, Mother. I’m going so I can make someone miserable.” She almost wanted to share Operation Evie Scheme right then, but thought better of it. She would tell her mother once she had completed it successfully, lest she disappoint her once more. Maleficent never failed to remind Mal that sometimes it just didn’t seem like Mal was evil enough to be her daughter. At your age I cursing entire kingdoms was a familiar phrase Mal had grown up hearing.
“So you’re off to make someone miserable?” her mother cooed.
“Wretched, really!” enthused Mal.
A slow smile formed on Maleficent’s thin red lips. She crossed the room and stood in front of Mal, reaching out to trace a long nail along Mal’s cheek. “That’s a nasty little girl,” she said. Mal swore she saw a glimmer of pride flicker in her mother’s cold, emerald-green eyes.
Mal snapped back to reality as the band finished a punk rock number with clashing cymbals and a drum roll. Anthony Tremaine was still staring at her.
“So why don’t you dance, again?”
Because I don’t have time to dance when I have evil schemes to hatch, Mal wanted to say. One that will make my mother proud of me, finally.
She turned up her nose. “I don’t have to have a reason.”
“You don’t. But that doesn’t mean you don’t have one.”
He caught her by surprise, because he was right.
Because she did have a reason, a very good reason to stay clear of any kind of activity that might hint at or lead to romance. Her missing father. Otherwise known as He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named-in-Maleficent’s-Presence.
So Anthony had her there. Mal had to give him that. But instead, she glared at him. Then she glared at him again, for good measure. “Maybe I just like to be alone.” Because maybe I’m so tired of my mother looking at me like I’m weak, just because I came from her own moment of weakness.
Because maybe I need to show her that I’m strong enough and evil enough to prove to her that I’m not like my weak, human father.
That I can be just like her.
Maybe I don’t want to dance because I don’t want to have anything human about me.
“That can’t be it.” Anthony said, picking lint off his jacket. His voice was uncommonly low and pleasant, which once again brought back to Mal’s mind the handsome prince by the enchanted lake. Except that Anthony wasn’t quite as handsome as the boy in her dream had been, not that she thought that boy handsome, mind you. Not that she thought about him at all. “Nobody likes to be alone.”
“Well, I do,” she insisted. It was true.
“And besides, everybody wants to dance with a lord,” he said smugly.
“Nope, not me!”
“Fine, have it your way,” Anthony said, finally backing away, his head held high. In a hot second, he had already asked Harriet Hook to dance, and she’d accepted with a delighted shriek.
Mal exhaled. Phew. Boys. Dreams. Princes. It was all too much for one day.
“Mal. Mal. Earth to Mal?” Jay waved a hand in front of her face. “You okay?”
Mal nodded but didn’t answer. For a moment she had been lost in the memory of that awful dream again. Except that this time it didn’t seem so much a dream as a premonition? That one day she might just find herself in Auradon? But how could that be?
Jay frowned, holding out a cup of cider. “Here. It’s like you’ve powered down, or something.”
Mal realized that she hadn’t moved from the front hall. She’d been standing there, stupidly frozen, ever since Anthony had left her side. That was three songs ago, and the Bad Apples were playing their current hit, “Call Me Never.”
She perked up, not because of the cider or the catchy song but because, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Evie through the floor-to-ceiling window in the foyer. She was coming down the road in a brand-new rickshaw, her pretty V-braid gleaming in the moonlight. She thinks she is so special. Well, I’ll show her, Mal thought. Her eyes wandered over the room and rested upon a familiar-looking door.
It was the door that led to Cruella De Vil’s storage closet. Mal only knew it was there because she and Carlos had once accidentally come across it when they were working on a skit about evil family trees in sixth grade, and Mal had been bored and had decided to go poking around Hell Hall. Cruella’s closet was not for the faint of heart.
Mal would never forget that day. It was the kind of closet that would get the best of anyone. Especially a princess who was making her way up the steps to the front door and would appear at any moment now.
“Jay,” she said, motioning to the front door. “Let me know when Evie arrives.”
“Huh? What? Why?”
“You’ll see,” she told him.
“All part of the evil scheme, huh?” he said, happy to do her bidding. Jay was always up for a good prank.
But Carlos went white-faced when he saw where Mal was heading. “Don’t—” he shouted. He shook off his sheet, almost tripping over the fabric in an attempt to get to the door before Mal could open it all the way.
It slammed shut. Just in time.
But Mal crossed her arms. She wasn’t backing down from this one. It was just too perfect. She glanced out the window again. Princess-Oh-So-Fashionably-Late was at the front door now.
Mal raised her voice. “New game! Seven Minutes in Heaven! And you’ve never played Seven Minutes if you haven’t played it in a De Vil closet.”
The words were barely out of Mal’s mouth before most of the evil step-granddaughters practically trampled her to get to the door. They loved playing Seven Minutes and were enthusiastically wondering with whom they would end up inside. A few of them puckered their lips and powdered their noses while fluttering their eyelashes at Jay, who was stationed by the front door like a sentry.
“Who wants to go first?” Mal asked.
“Me! Me! Me!” yelped the step-granddaughters.
“She does,” Jay called, holding a very recognizable blue cape.
“I do? What do I want to do?” asked the cape’s owner.
Mal smiled.
Evie had arrived.
“Evie, sweetie! So glad you could make it!” Mal said, throwing her arms theatrically around the girl and giving her a giant and fake embrace. “We’re playing Seven Minutes in Heaven! Want to play?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” said Evie, looking around the party nervously.
“It’ll be a scream,” said Mal. “Come on, you want to be my friend, don’t you?”
Evie stared at Mal. “You want me to be your friend?”
“Sure—why not?” Mal led her to the closet door and opened it.
“But doesn’t a boy go in here with me?” Evie asked as Mal shoved her inside the storage room. For someone castle-schooled, Evie sure knew her kissing games.
“Did I say Seven Minutes in Heaven? No, you’re playing Seven Minutes in Hell!” Mal cackled; she couldn’t help it. This was going to be so much fun.
The crowd around the hallway had scattered in fear after it was clear Mal had no interest in having other people join the game—or Evie—inside the locked room.
But Carlos remained standing, his face as white as the tips of his hair. “Mal, what are you doing?”
“Playing a dirty trick—what does it look like I’m doing?”
“You can’t leave her in there! Remember what happened to us?” he asked, motioning angrily to his leg, which had two distinct white scars on the calf.
“I do!” Mal said gleefully. She wondered why Carlos was so concerned about Evie. It wasn’t as if they’d been taught to care about other people.
But Carlos soon made clear that he wasn’t being altruistic. “If she’s not able to get out on her own, I’m going to have to clean up the mess! And my mother will freak out! You can’t leave her in there!” he whispered fiercely, anxiety about Cruella’s punishment written all over his face.
“Fine, go get her,” said Mal with a sly smile on her face, knowing full well that he wouldn’t.
Carlos quaked in his scuffed loafers. Mal knew there was nothing he wanted to do less than go back in there again. He remembered all too well what had happened to him and Mal in sixth grade.
There was a scream from behind the door.
Mal wiped her hands. “You want her out? You get her out.” Her job was done.
Her evil scheme had worked. This was going to be a real howler.