Exploding cigars, falling objects, poison, and old age.
—LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH AMONG EVIL OVERLORDS
For most of my life, I'd thought I was a werewolf. My earliest memories are of snuggling with my wolf family, running and playing with them in the forest, and howling together at night. I remember eating out of a bowl on the floor. But then so did my friend Boris, and he's mostly human.
Recently, I thought I might be a vaskor. The vaskor are terrifying creatures with horns and sharp claws, but they use glamour to appear human. My vaskor friend Sara had called me "family." Maybe I've been walking around disguised all this time, I thought, my impressive monster form hidden beneath a runty human disguise.
Nope. I was 100 percent human. It was a disappointment.
And then I'd learned I was the missing prince of Andirat. A prince with a ridiculously long name that I couldn't even remember. The prince's family had been killed in a military coup, and the country had been split up by the generals who'd led the uprising. I'd spent my life dreaming of finding my family ... only to discover that they were dead, my country gone.
There was proof: I'd shown up at Dr. Critchlore's School wearing the Andiratian royal attire and medallion, and at four years old I looked just like the prince in the family portrait. Never mind that I didn't have any princely memories. And I wondered how many princes remember eating from a bowl on the floor.
Still, it was all I had to go on, and I needed that clue because I was cursed to die on my sixteenth birthday. I had thick red bands around both wrists, which had shown up after I'd left Stull. Mistress Moira called the marks "a tethering curse," to make sure I didn't go outside the range of the death curse. So, really, I was twice cursed, and I had no idea why. Learning I was a prince was the first clue I had toward figuring that out.
You can see how all this could get a guy down. But wait—there's more! I'd also lost my best friend, Syke, who left the school after finding out that Dr. Critchlore had killed her mother. Syke's mother was a hamadryad, and Dr. Critchlore had burned down the forest where she'd lived to make room for a boulderball field. We'd always believed that he had saved Syke from a fire when she was a baby. What we didn't know was that he was the one who'd started the fire.
Syke had grown up as Dr. Critchlore's ward, but now she hated him. She hated me too for not telling her when I found out the truth. And also because I'd defended Dr. Critchlore. But I knew there had to be another reason for why he'd done it. The story just didn't add up.
Before leaving, Syke had gotten some revenge by using her Tornado in a Can? to sabotage Dr. Critchlore's office. She'd done some other stuff too, and now, according to Dean Everest, Syke was "persona non grata" at our school. That meant they didn't want her to come back.
She was currently living at the Great Library, next to a forest filled with hamadryads who had known her mother. She took classes at the Kobold Retraining Center, which was kind of ridiculous, because she wasn't a kobold. I had seen her once in the three months she'd been gone, and her anger hadn't faded one bit. She didn't want to come back.
It had been a depressing winter for me.
After my test, I snuck into the kitchen, plopped myself down at Cook's table in the corner, and hunched over my dinner tray, which was piled high with food. I was starving.
Cook leaned against the table, ladle in hand. She tucked a stray hair back under her hairnet and sighed. "Runt, you've always been the happiest kid I've known," she said as I stuffed my face with dinner rolls. She grabbed the last one out of my hand and pointed to my stew.
"I keep thinking things like, I can't wait for third period so I can hang out with Syke and complain about Professor Murphy. Who hates me, by the way." I picked up a spoon and attacked the stew like I was in an eating competition.
"He doesn't hate you," Cook said.
"Yes, he does," I said with a full mouth. Cook shook her head, so I finished chewing before adding, "He's had it in for me ever since Dr. Critchlore selected me as a junior henchman trainee—and then put me back in the program after Professor Murphy kicked me out. Twice."
"Kids always think teachers have it in for them. Teachers aren't like that."
Since when? I wanted to say, but instead I lifted the bowl to my face to finish off my stew. Then I turned to the pasta, mounded high on its own plate.
"It's been three months. You need to get over losing your friend," Cook said. "Tootles and Riga are crushed, you know. They raised her like a daughter ... and then she runs away like that."
"She probably thought they knew the truth too," I said, still wanting to defend her. "She was mad at everybody here. You saw her."
"Well, she's gone now. And good riddance, I say. After what she did to Dr. Critchlore's office? And to the boulderball stadium? And to the Wall of Heroes? She could have seriously injured someone. I'm telling you, Runt, if that girl was still here, I'd forbid you from associating with her.
"Now, then," she went on. "Moping isn't going to cheer you up. You need to get yourself out there. You have other friends—Darthin and Frankie. Eloni and Boris."
"Yes, but don't you hear yourself?" I slurped up the last noodle and moved on to the chicken fingers. "They're already best friends with each other. I'm like the useless third eyeball on a three-eyed cat."
"Well, go out and find a replacement best friend. And it wouldn't hurt to try a vegetable once in a while." She went over to the counter and returned with some green beans. "Syke's leaving was a blessing in disguise. When you attach yourself too tightly to one person, you miss out on meeting a lot of interesting people. And monsters too, I suppose."
She pointed to the beans.
I sighed. I hated green food. Unless it was frosting.
"And cheer up, for goodness' sake!" She put down the ladle and searched her apron pockets until she found her notebook and a pen. She ripped out a page and put it next to my tray. "Write down all the good things in your life ... Go on."
I stared at the blank page, then looked up at Cook.
She folded her arms and nodded at the paper.
I wrote: Cook isn't really going to make me eat these mushy green beans.
She laughed. "Guess again."
I crossed that out and wrote: Hoopsmash season has started.
Cook winced. She thought hoopsmash was too violent. Tackle three-ball was okay, but she did not want me playing hoopsmash, which is sort of an indoor combination of Tackle-the-Pill and Shoot for the Hoops.
Doing well in classes (except for JH). I was acing all my classes: Literature, Math, Monster Biology, and Introduction to Sabotage.
I'm a prince, I wrote, but then I crossed that out. I wasn't sure that was good, or that it even mattered. Could you really be a prince if you didn't have a country?
I live in the most amazing place on the planet.
I've grown two inches since school started.
Janet Desmarais smiled at me this morning.
"That's a good list," Cook said. "Feel better?"
"I guess," I said. I tucked my Good List in my pocket and got up to go. "Thanks, Cook. Do you know when Mistress Moira will be back?"
Mistress Moira had left shortly after my return from the Great Library. Nobody knew where she'd gone. Aside from a letter of instruction on how to get rid of my tether curse, I hadn't heard from her. I was hoping she'd be back before the next full moon, because I had a question about her instructions. There was something on her list that I really didn't want to do.
"Nobody knows," Cook answered. "But I'm sure she'll be back soon."
"Why are you sure?"
"Because it makes me feel better to be sure."
"Okay," I said. "Then I'm sure you're not going to make seafood tetrazzini this week."
She was right. I did feel better.
I left through the cafeteria, which was filled with the rest of the student body eating and talking. I passed the skeleton table, the siren table, the ogre-man table, and the cool shape-shifter table. As I approached my usual spot in the corner to say hi to the guys, the alarm bell sounded—three quick blasts.
The screen at the end of the room blinked on, showing our fearless leader, Dr. Critchlore, smiling broadly. "Everyone, the day we've all been waiting for has arrived! Please, sit down and pay attention."
I sat down next to Darthin, wondering what Dr. Critchlore was talking about.
