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  A Sneak Peek of Ever After High: Next Top Villain

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  HOW MANY YEARS HAD THE GREAT JABBERWOCK spent trapped in that tiny glass Uni Cairn prison? It had been impossible to keep track in the shimmery, drowsy darkness, with no sun setting, no clock ticking, no sheep counting. After the foolish, slivy little creatures had accidentally cracked open the Uni Cairn, the Jabberwock had fled its prison.

  It curled up in the mountains and intended to rest for ages. Sleep. Soak power back into its fearsome bones.

  But then, the sound of breaking glass.

  Not just any glass. And not another Uni Cairn. No, somewhere, an immensely powerful magic mirror shattered. The sound exploded through all of Ever After, fast and sharp like arrows. Deep in the Dark Mountains, the sound struck the sleeping beast. Nudged it. Woke it.

  Awake far too early for its liking, the Jabberwock screamed its disapproval. The trees around it shook, bent, and splintered. But they shook, bent, and splintered in a completely normal way. Everything here was far too sensical. Wrong. Flat. Right-side-out. And that was infuriating.

  Ever After would know its rage. It would punish the stones, the seas, and the very earth for not being as wonderlandiful as its homeland.

  But first, the Jabberwock would eat. It was very, very hungry.

  LIZZIE HEARTS, THE PRINCESS OF HEARTS, daughter of the Queen of Hearts, heir to the throne of Wonderland’s Card Castle, captain of the Ever After High Croquet Team, and hedgehog enthusiast, was holding a knife. It wasn’t sharp, barely sharp enough to shout “Off with your butter!” Well, perhaps sharp enough to use on a very small man made entirely of butter. Yes, she could use this knife to behead a tiny butter man. If such a thing existed.

  “Don’t tell me you are packing a butter knife,” Duchess Swan said as she practiced her twirls around their dorm room. Duchess, daughter of the Swan Queen, was usually dancing. Even while sleeping, she kept her toes pointed.

  Lizzie stuffed the butter knife into her red-and-gold-checkered skirt pocket and felt her cheeks turn a royal flush red. In Wonderland, having a butter knife at all times just made sense—after all, one never knew when one might come upon some butter. But what made sense in Wonderland rarely made sense in Ever After. Lizzie often felt as confused as an egg full of bats.

  “It’s a field trip, for fairy’s sake,” Duchess was saying, doing pliés while stuffing a silver tiara and a feathery gown into her backpack. “Don’t you know how to pack for a field trip?” Duchess added a pair of black satin ballet slippers. “Why, when I…”

  Duchess continued to talk, but Lizzie had stopped listening. Her mother had taught her that Not Listening was a very important skill for a queen. Lizzie’s hand was still in her deep skirt pocket, and she closed it around her treasured deck of playing cards. Her mother had given it to her before Lizzie escaped from Wonderland with Kitty Cheshire, Madeline Hatter, and a few others. She slid one card out of the deck and read the note scrawled by her mother’s hand.

  Worms speak, indeed they do,

  but not to such as me and you.

  All they ever say is “mud mud food,”

  so you need not listen good.

  Practice Not Listening to worms today.

  And by worms, I mean people.

  On each card in the deck her mother had written advice for Lizzie, designed to make her a better queen, often combined with information about how the world worked. Or how it should work. Even though she’d been at Ever After High for some time, Lizzie still felt incapable of understanding all the strange and infuriatingly reasonable ways of the school. Such as what one packed for a field trip.

  “… a feather! Can you believe that?” Duchess was saying while brushing her long black, white, and lavender hair. Lizzie raised her hand for silence, which did not come. “And it wasn’t even white, not really! It was painted, like with some kind of—”

  “Off with her head!” Lizzie shouted.

  Duchess paused, mouth open.

  “Explain this field trip,” Lizzie demanded.

  Another of her mother’s cards advised:

  Never ever ever ever ever ever ever ever admit

  there’s something you don’t know.

  Because you know everything.

  You may have just forgotten

  a piece of the everything.

  Also, don’t tell anyone you forgot.

  So Lizzie added, “Not that I don’t remember exactly where Headmaster Grimm said we’re going and why. I just want to see if you know. Naturally, it’s not just a trip to a field. Um… right?”

  Duchess sighed. “This is a Winds trip. Each year we visit one of the Four Winds. The West Wind was last year, remember?”

  Unfortunately, Lizzie remembered that trip to the beach very well. She hadn’t minded the West Wind himself, even though he kept calling everyone “dude.” He hadn’t looked like actual wind at all, just a man in swim trunks whose blue hair was constantly flapping in a wind no one else could feel. But the after part—the “fun” part—still gave Lizzie shudders.

  The students had brought swimming gear, run in and out of the water, and thrown balls over nets as if such activities were completely normal. Meanwhile, Lizzie had sat on the sand while wrapped in her flamingo-feather-trimmed cloak, sweating. If she’d asked anyone to explain what one was supposed to do on an Ever After beach, they would know she didn’t know everything—and, therefore, that she wasn’t ready yet to be the Queen of Hearts. And she would disappoint her mother and fail Wonderland. So she had just sat there. Sweating. And looking as much like a queen as possible.

  She fingered her feathered cloak now, unsure whether she should pack it again.

  Duchess was still talking. “… his name was Zephyrus, you know? Such a nice guy for a Wind. I was thinking that Zephyrus would be such a lovely name for my destined prince. Or Ryan.”

  Lizzie prepped herself for more Not Listening but found she didn’t quite have the energy for it.

  “I think I hear a hedgehog in trouble,” Lizzie said. In a queenly manner—chin up and lips stiff—she walked to the ornate, heart-shaped door on her red-and-golden side of the dorm room. The door was just her height, and, to Duchess’s perpetual irritation, Lizzie was the only one who could open it. But Duchess couldn’t complain. After all, the magical door had been installed by special permission from Headmaster Grimm himself.

  “Excuse me?” Duchess said. “I was in the middle of saying something.”

  “You’re excused,” Lizzie said, and walked through the door, shutting it firmly behind her.

  At first there was a chilly nothing. Lizzie’s pale skin prickled with mother-goosebumps as she waited for the magic. In the time it took to inhale once, a honey-scented fog rose up, swirled, and flushed away. At her back was the door, but it wasn’t attached to a wall. Lizzie was no longer in the school, transported to the edge of the school grounds and into her own personal garden.

  Lizzie exhaled and felt herself relax from heavy gold crown to gold-heeled red shoes. The air in the Wonderland Grove, scented by Wonderland plants and flowers, brought to mind wet bubble gum, cold fizzy soda, and half-eaten Turkish Delight. Lizzie strolled the crystal gravel path between well-ordered flower beds, carefully pruned bushes, and perfectly
shaped trees. She let her fingers trail over leaves and flowers, greeting with a touch the flora she had planted and tended. Their magic was dimmed in Ever After—the yellow polka-dotted mushrooms that popped up between tree roots couldn’t change your size, for example—but at least they all looked and smelled like home. Lizzie closed her eyes and smiled. Here, she didn’t have to worry if people were watching her to see if she was acting like the proper queen her mother wanted her to be.

  A squeal cut through the air. Lizzie ran to the small shack where she kept gardening tools, croquet accessories, and a few hundred spare packs of Wonderlandian playing cards. Her pet hedgehog, Shuffle, was dangling from its roof by one tiny paw. Lizzie grabbed her and stroked the prickly beast as she shivered in terror.

  “Apparently I was right about there being a hedgehog in trouble,” she said. “How did you get all the way up there, Shuffle-bug?’

  The hedgehog said nothing, because in Ever After, hedgehogs did not talk. No hedgehogs that Lizzie had seen, anyway, and she was quite observant of all things hedgehog. In Wonderland, a hedgehog—or anything, really—might talk one day and not the next, but the talking was always possible. In Ever After, things were what they were, little changing, little speaking (Duchess being a notable exception). So she had to just imagine Shuffle expressing her thanks for the rescue, go on to gush about how much she loved Lizzie, and then give her a recipe for a delicious marshmallow-lime cobbler.

  “Roink,” said Shuffle.

  “Well, yes, I suppose you do talk,” said Lizzie. “Just not the way I do.”

  “Roink,” whispered Shuffle.

  Lizzie smiled. “Roink,” she whispered back.

  “Tweet,” said a sparrow from the top of the shed.

  A finch landed next to it.

  “Tweet,” the finch said, and the sparrow nodded at it approvingly.

  A robin fluttered down to join the group. “Tweet,” said the robin.

  “I don’t speak Tweet,” Lizzie said.

  “TWEET,” all three birds said in unison.

  “Shoo,” Lizzie said, waving a hand at the tiny flock. “Go away.”

  The sparrow cocked its head at her.

  “Look, I’ve got nothing against birds,” Lizzie said. “It’s just that in Ever After, you guys tend to bring other, larger, more demanding things with you.”

  In the distance, somewhere between the last Wonderlandish plant and the official school grounds, someone shouted, “Lizzie!”

  “And that”—Lizzie sighed—“is exactly what I’m talking about.”

  Apple White, the co-president of the Royal Student Council, was running toward her in impractical red-and-gold high heels. Like Lizzie, Apple was destined to become a queen. But Apple was nice. It made Lizzie uncomfortable. Hadn’t the Queen of Hearts warned her daughter about what is expected of a queen?

  A queen stands and shouts in hollow rooms

  when feeling faint,

  for she is her own echo.

  She is the thing that stands between

  the been and the seen,

  and pushes either side wide.

  A queen stands for herself,

  and by herself, and on her legs.

  For legs are what make her stand.

  But not four legs. Or forelegs.

  She also stands for land. Her land. Wonderland.

  Without land, one wonders where one would stand.

  Especially queens.

  In summary: Push. Shout. Stand. Be a queen.

  “Lizzie!” Apple called again, waving now, even though Lizzie was well aware of her own name, so repeating it like that seemed unnecessary. Perhaps it was an Ever After thing. She should try it out, to make the Ever Afterlings feel more comfortable.

  “Apple!” Lizzie shouted, watching Apple jog the last few yards toward her.

  “Hey,” Apple said, a little out of breath but with absolutely no evidence of sweat, her perfect blond curls flowing around her plump cheeks and ready smile.

  “Apple!” Lizzie shouted again.

  “Yeah,” Apple said, clearly a little confused about something, but Lizzie felt it wasn’t worth worrying about.

  “Apple!” Lizzie said again, because the third time’s a charm.

  “Hey, I tried to find you in your room, but you weren’t there, and Duchess wouldn’t tell me anything.” Apple held out a hand, and the finch flitted down to perch on her finger, the sparrow and robin landing lightly on her shoulders.

  “She didn’t tell you anything?” Lizzie asked. “I find that remarkable. She’s always telling things, whether one wants to hear them or not.”

  Apple laughed. “Yes, well, but she didn’t tell me anything about where you were. I guess I didn’t pay attention to the rest.”

  Lizzie nodded. Apple must have gotten the Not Listening lesson from her mother, too. Perhaps they were more similar than Lizzie had thought.

  “Anyhoo,” Apple said, “I sent my sweet little bird friends to find you so that I could offer you a most hexcellent opportunity to connect with the student body, be fairy helpful, and have an incredible shared experience!”

  Then again, perhaps Apple and Lizzie were just as different from each other as Lizzie had originally supposed.

  “I’m busy,” Lizzie said.

  Apple walked past her, taking in the Grove. “This is amazing! How many different species have you planted?”

  “Twenty-two,” Lizzie said, her voice softening against her will, “if you count the two types of fluxberry bushes, three different Wondodendron bushes, and several subspecies of Venus Fairy Traps.”

  Apple crouched by a fluxberry bush, gaping as the berries changed color before her eyes. “You should totally show this place off. I think people have the wrong idea about you.”

  “What idea do they have?” Lizzie asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know, like you’re often yelling, talking about chopping off heads, and altogether imperious,” Apple said, petting the furry purple Wondodendron leaves.

  That sounded about right to Lizzie. Loud and imperious was how books about Wonderland usually described the Queen of Hearts. Perhaps she was doing an okay job of turning into Mother after all. So why did the thought make her feel like the last kitten left in the local village’s FREE KITTENS! box?

  “But you’re way softer than that,” Apple said, leaning over to sniff a six-headed bellflower. “I mean, you must have a soft heart and an amazing amount of patience to create and tend a garden like this! In here, it’s like I’m seeing the real Lizzie.”

  The real Lizzie? She had clearly let her guard down for Apple to say something like that. Feeling suddenly too visible and Not Perfect Enough, she put on her queen face.

  “I do not have time for whatever helpy-sharey thing you have come to enlist me in, and trying to flatter me with interest in my Grove will not change my—”

  “Oooh!” Apple squealed. “Hedgehogs! You have cute little hedgehogs in here!”

  “Yes,” Lizzie said, grabbing one of the little creatures. She started to pet it but stopped, not wanting to appear too soft. “They make excellent weapons.” Lizzie tossed the hedgehog at the garden shed. Wonderlandian hedgehogs were nearly indestructible on the quill side. That’s what made them such excellent croquet balls.

  “Oh! Poor little thing!” Apple gasped, running to where the hedgehog was now stuck to the shed’s wall, its quills embedded in the wood. It gave Lizzie a little wave. Lizzie waved back. Clearly, Apple White didn’t know everything after all if she thought a Wonderlandian hedgehog could get hurt from a little hurling.

  “Are you okay, little guy?” Apple said, prying the beast free.

  It plopped to the ground and ambled into the nearest bush.

  “It looks like he is okay.” Apple turned to Lizzie. “How could you? You—” Her eyebrows lifted with a thought. “Well, you are destined to sort of be a villain, aren’t you? I can’t fault you for following your destiny.”

  “If you haven’t packed for the field trip,
Apple, I think now would be a good time,” Lizzie said, her discomfort growing.

  “Yes! Of course! The field trip!” Apple went through the motions of dusting herself off, even though she had absolutely no dirt on her. “That’s why I came! Headmaster Grimm needs you in the Royal Student Council Room—for the, as you said, helpy-sharey thing.”

  “Oh!” Lizzie ran to the heart-shaped door that led back to her dorm room. “I’ll meet you there.”

  Apple followed her. “I’ll just—”

  Lizzie whirled. “You’ll just nothing!” No one but her had ever gone through the heart-shaped door.

  Apple widened her eyes. She seemed almost afraid. And that was what Lizzie wanted, wasn’t it? For people to be afraid of her?

  Advice from one of her mother’s cards:

  It is better to be gloved than bearded,

  and better to be fearded than loved.

  Lizzie pulled on her black lace–hemmed gloves tighter. She affixed her most fearsome expression on her face and said to Apple, “You go on foot. I will meet you there.”

  She entered her dorm room and slammed the magic door behind her. Perhaps her mother would be proud. But instead of buzzing with power and joy, Lizzie felt a little lonely, as perhaps a hedgehog dangling from a garden shed might, no one near to hear its squeak.

  Lizzie power-walked through the corridor, under the school’s pillar trees, and down the stone steps. What could Headmaster Grimm want? She hadn’t broken any rules, had she? One never knew in this un-peculiar land. After all, Maddie had nearly been banished just for trying to celebrate the Swappersnatch Gyre. True, the Uni Cairn had tragically broken right at her feet, releasing the Jabberwock, but that hadn’t been Maddie’s fault. Besides, Baba Yaga said the Jabberwock would likely curl up on a mountaintop somewhere far away and sleep for years.

  Just as Lizzie reached the Royal Student Council Room door, Apple flew in through a window. That is, about a hundred songbirds carried her through and set her down beside Lizzie. With wings and beaks, they arranged her hair and clothes in perfect order before flying off.