by Jeff Rosen
“Breakfast started late, and I didn’t get to finish,” Kip explained.
“I think that was my fault.”
Kip stopped in front of what looked like a broom closet and opened it. He pushed aside a jumble of buckets and mops to reveal a large courtyard surrounded by ivy-covered buildings made of giant roots. Students were hurrying to class. An entire school campus somehow managed to fit inside a broom closet, but nothing surprised Caley lately.
“What’s your first class?” asked Kip.
Caley studied the schedule the duchess had given her.
“Something called Interspecies Social Skills.”
“Mine too. It’s good luck you arrived at the start of the school year. You haven’t missed anything except orientation. And that was mostly the first-years trying to find the academy.”
“The castle moves.” Caley nodded.
“Princess Caley.”
Caley turned to the familiar nasally voice and saw Ithica Blight heading her way. The Pingintee cousins stomped alongside her like bloated bodyguards. Ithica bowed to Caley. It looked like it took a lot of effort.
“Would you like me to accompany you to class?”
“Thanks, Kip’s taking me.”
“Kipley Gorsebrooke.” Kip held out his hand to Ithica, who sized him up sourly.
“Gorsebrooke. I read about your family in Peeve’s Peerage. Stripped of your pathetic little title, weren’t they? And wasn’t your father kicked out of teaching here for being revolting?”
“Revolutionary,” corrected Kip, retrieving his unshaken hand.
The Pingintees snigger-snorted, which they seemed to do whenever Ithica said something mean, which meant they were almost constantly snigger-snorting at something with a sound like rooting pigs.
Ithica turned to Caley as if Kip weren’t there anymore. “You might take care who you associate with. This is first year. It sets the tone for your entire future. One slip and you could find yourself permanently backsliding, like the Gorsebrookes.”
She made the world’s tiniest bow and Caley began to bow back, but Ithica quickly turned and headed off again with the Pingintees in tow.
“A Bit Glitchhi,” Kip pronounced, scowling after Ithica.
“Good anagram,” said Caley.
“You’re not supposed to bow.” Kip led Caley into one of the buildings. “You’re the highest-ranking royal. I’m officially the lowest. They took Dad’s title away, which wasn’t much of one anyway, just some baron from someplace no one’s ever heard of. My mom was your mom’s lady-in-waiting. She got me in into the academy. Kids from all over Erinath want to come. It’s where they train future leaders, though Dad says we should be overthrowing the system. But I’m here for one thing, of course: the Equidium.” He stopped and turned to Caley solemnly. “I’m going to win it. And restore the Gorsebrooke honor.”
Caley had no idea what an Equidium was, but Kip seemed so earnest, she nodded enthusiastically.
“You have to stay focused.” Kip set off again with Caley. You can’t get …” Kip was staring at her amulet.
“Distracted?” suggested Caley.
“I like your amulet,” said Kip.
Caley realized her amulet was outside her blouse and tucked it back in, her face flushed.
“I like your bracelet.”
Kip wore a studded bracelet that looked a bit like a small dog collar.
“It’s against dress code,” said Kip, “but Gorsebrookes are born rebels.”
A teacher hurried past, and Kip nervously tugged his shirtsleeve over his bracelet. Kip flung open a classroom door. Inside, a swirling black disc shot out a blinding beam of light. All kinds of things were streaming into it: desks, books, blackboards, students, and a surprised-looking chicken with its neck stretched the length of a telephone line. Kip slammed the door shut.
“Wrong room!”
“Professor Wormington’s class?”
“Black Holes and How to Avoid Them.” Kip gulped, hurrying to the next door. “I don’t know why they tell you to be on time for it. Even if you are, you’re definitely going to be late in some universe or wherever.”
Kip opened the door, and the class stood and bowed to Caley. A small owl-like man in a professor’s gown led her to her seat.
“Class, please welcome Princess Caley,” said the owl-professor.
“Welcome, Princess Caley,” the class dutifully echoed.
A student raised her hand, which looked a bit like a hoof. “Is it true earthlings wear clothes made of animals?”
The class regarded Caley with alarm.
“There will be time to explore the interspecies relationships of Earth in the future,” replied the owl-professor, “but let us continue our discussion on the horned lizard. If it thinks you are an enemy, it will shoot blood from its eyes. Who can tell me the best way to approach a horned lizard?”
“Who?” asked a student.
“Who?” the owl-professor hooted back.
“Who?” asked a student.
“Who?” hooted the owl-professor.
The students and the owl-professor continued to “who” back and forth until the professor fell fast asleep.
The class snuck out of the room and spilled into the courtyard, settling into benches under a tree with oddly glowing leaves.
“Useful interspecies social skill.” Kip winked at Caley. “The best way to get free period with an owl is to say ‘who’ until it falls asleep.”
A gangly boy sitting next to them with a serious case of green-tinged bedhead, like a badly trimmed hedge, suddenly slumped over.
“Is he OK?” asked Caley, alarmed.
“That’s Lucas Mancini,” said Kip. “He’s a narcoleptic. This is Taran and Tessa O’Toole,” he added, introducing Caley to a pair of identical twins.
“I’m Tessa,” one of the twins corrected Kip.
“I’m Taran,” said the other twin.
“And that’s Lidia Vowell.” He nodded toward a tall, serious-looking girl whose head was beginning to sprout elk horns. “She’s first-year Head Girl, so watch your step.”
“I’m not a girl,” said Lidia. “I identify as species fluid.”
Everyone plucked the glowing leaves from the tree and stared at them, absorbed.
“You’re famous.” Kip showed Caley a leaf.
To Caley’s amazement, the leaf was like a small tablet computer. It displayed something called “Trixi Tells,” featuring a woman with a mouthful of neon-white teeth and dramatically slicked-back black helmet hair. It reminded her of the gossip magazines she stole from the neighbor’s trash for the Gunch.
The headline read:
PRINCESS FOUND ABANDONED
ON ALIEN WORLD!!
It featured a photo of Caley when she first arrived in Erinath in her roadkill costume. Then the leaves all went black, and a crest appeared from something called the Office of the Sword with a report.
NON-PERSON ALERT!
REPORT SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY TO THE MINISTRY.
IF YOU’RE NOT US, YOU’RE THEM!
According to the report, a wolf had attacked someone in the village.
“I don’t believe it,” said the wolflike boy Caley had seen in the dining hall. “Wolves don’t attack for no reason.”
“I don’t trust anything the government says,” said Kip, crumpling a leaf. “Bunch of lying weasels.”
“That’s speciest,” protested Lidia Vowell. “Weasels do not fabricate the truth more than other animals. Weasels use ingenious concealment methods, such as burrowing, to avoid predators, which has given them an undeserved reputation as being sneaky.”
“Students!”
The class turned, startled, to face Duchess Odeli, who had appeared behind them, silent as a snowflake.
“If you have a free period, please absorb yourselves in quiet study. And someone wake Mr. Mancini.”
The duchess float-fluttered off, the feather-like mulch on her dress flapping soundlessly.
Kip made a r
ude gesture at her behind her back.
“Detention, Mr. Gorsebrooke,” called the duchess without turning.
“The old crow sees everything,” Kip grumbled.
THE rest of the day was filled with classes, and Caley was relieved to discover she shared them with Kip (the classrooms seemed to shift around, like the castle). Kip barely looked where he was going, just sniffed like a dog on a scent, but he always seemed to find the correct room (aside from the false start with Mr. Wormington’s).
The classes themselves were a whole other matter. Even Kip seemed to have a hard time getting his bearings. In science, which was never Caley’s favorite subject (*see zombie frogs), the teacher was the toad-faced man she’d seen in the Council Chamber. She was initially relieved because she felt confident she wouldn’t have to dissect any frogs in this class. But instead of learning about amphibians or atoms, the students were each given what looked like a floating marble. Everyone began setting up heat lamps around their marbles and watering them with eyedroppers. Caley was about to pick hers up to get a closer look when the teacher croaked with alarm and slapped her hand away from it. The marbles turned out to be tiny new planets, and Caley had almost rendered the recently hatched life-forms on hers prematurely extinct. She noticed photographs of past planet projects on a wall. One looked suspiciously like Earth. It was graded a D– (which made sense if anything did).
Animals and Botanicals took place deep beneath the castle, judging by how many stairs Caley had to descend, though you never really knew where you were going to end up when you opened a door. The damp, dark laboratory was bursting with bubbling beakers and furiously sparking equipment. There were herbs, potions, plants, bottles, and beakers of bizarre dead creatures stacked to the ceiling on uneven, teetering shelves—or possibly not dead, because Caley saw what looked a giant black amoeba with red horns crammed in a jar turn toward her with burning pinwheel eyes.
“Don’t make eye contact!” cried Kip, herding Caley away from the thing to an empty seat.
“What was that?” asked Caley.
“Slugdevil. It hypnotizes you and sucks your brains out. Then the nasty stuff starts.”
Caley sniffed the air. Something smelled seriously rotten.
A creature that looked like a tree stump with branches for arms and legs in a white lab coat skittered in. He picked distractedly at his bark-beard that grew down well past his knees—or knots—or whatever he had. The beard glowed faintly blue and writhed around on his face as if it had a life of its own.
“Good morning, class,” said the stump.
“Good morning, Doctor Lemenecky,” said the class.
The rotten smell seemed to be coming from Doctor Lemenecky, and Caley couldn’t decide if he was an animal or a botanical himself.
“Where did we leave off?” Lemenecky hopped up on a chair behind his desk.
“We called the tree surgeon to free you from your beard,” replied one of the O’Toole twins.
“Won’t be necessary today. Theoretically …” said Lemenecky, still picking at his beard.
“We were giving our presentations,” said the other O’Toole.
“Ah, yes.” Lemenecky nodded. “Your assignment was to combine animals with botanicals using Fuze-Brew to create something unique. Ithica Blight, I believe you’re next.”
Ithica strode to the front of the class holding up a jar of what looked like fireflies stuck to glittery little flower buds.
“For my project,” Ithica began in her dead-drone, “I combined fireflies with fireworks flowers using Fuze-Brew, then soaked them in Milk of Magnetium. I call it ‘Tiara Magnififlee.’”
She removed her tiara and emptied the jar over it. The firefly goop was immediately magnetized to it. It looked kind of gross.
“It lights up your tiara. Activated by the heat of your head,” explained Ithica, putting her tiara back on.
Nothing happened for a moment, and Ithica’s eyes drifted anxiously up to her tiara.
“That proves it,” Kip said with a smirk. “Her blood doesn’t reach up there.”
The flies affixed to Ithica’s tiara began sparking, buzzing around, and sending up tiny fireworks. The Pingintees applauded rapturously—as if Ithica had just discovered the secret of fire—then the flies began exploding and smoking, like tiny popping light bulbs. Ithica flung her tiara off, mortified. It rolled across the room and toppled over, and one last firefly blew up.
The Pingintees applauded again haltingly, but a scalding look from Ithica froze their fat hands in mid-clap.
Doctor Lemenecky cleared his throat again. “While the concept was … illuminating … initially … the objective of combining animals and botanicals was undermined by the unfortunate demise of one of its principal components. I grade it a C.”
Ithica shoved her tiara back on her slightly charred hair and returned to her seat, refusing to look at anyone.
Lemenecky called Lucas Mancini’s name. He called it again, louder. Lucas was fast asleep.
Kip prodded Lucas and he lurched to his feet, pulling a tattered wad of notes from his pocket that he proceeded to drop all over the floor. He got his notes together and began to read in a halting voice.
“As many of you know, the castle is becoming increasingly unstable. After careful observation, I have concluded that it is rotting. For my project, I used termites …” He fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a vial of termites. “And bound them to planet-based silica with Fuze-Brew. As many of you know …” Lucas lost his place.
“We know this is boring,” someone heckled.
A few kids snickered, but Lemenecky wasn’t paying attention. He battled his beard, which was tossing pencils from his lab coat pocket.
“Silica is one of the ingredients in cement,” Lucas soldiered on, “and if the termites find anything rotten, they will eat it and excrete a cement-like substance. This will turn all the rotten parts of the castle as hard as rock, hopefully making it stable again.”
“Genius!” Kip nodded admiringly.
“Now for the demonstration …”
Lucas began to empty the insects onto one of the wall roots. To everyone’s surprise, they skittered from the root to Doctor Lemenecky—who was on his knees—or knots—trying to pick up his pencils. The termites swarmed Lemenecky’s beard, and he began to race around the lab, his little stick-arms swiping wildly at the termites while his beard thrashed about, knocking over beakers, Bunsen burners, bottles of bat wings—everything in its path. He almost knocked over the slugdevil, which teetered alarmingly on the shelf as everyone screamed and covered their eyes.
“Mr. Mancini! Do something!” shouted Lemenecky.
Lucas was fast asleep again.
“Out! Everyone out!” cried Lemenecky. “I’ll deal with this. Technically … And someone call the tree surgeon!”
Kip woke Lucas as everyone ran out the door and up the stairs leading from the lab.
“Doctor Lemenecky should be locked up along with all the other boggers,” declared Ithica Blight. “He’s a disgrace to the academy.”
“For once, I almost agree with her,” Kip told Caley.
THE last class was something called Know Your Baest. Kip opened the door for Caley, and as soon as she entered, she figured the castle had moved because she was in some sort of jungle. She turned back, but Kip was nowhere to be seen. The door was gone, and in its place was a large, moss-covered rock. She looked behind the rock and out pounced a huge gold cobra. Caley stumbled backward, helpless, as the cobra slowly rose up in front of her, spreading its hood and baring fangs, which for some reason had braces. From out of the jungle leapt a dog in a studded collar, snapping and snarling at the cobra. The cobra slithered under a thorny bush. The dog backed off and, to Caley’s absolute astonishment, turned into Kip. A moment later, the cobra slithered out again and transformed into Ithica Blight.
“Suppose you think that’s funny, do you?” Kip glared at Ithica.
Ithica pretended to throw a stick, and Kip went bou
nding off after it.
“No, that’s funny,” Ithica smirked. “Stupid mutt.”
Kip turned back to Ithica, red-faced, his hair bristling. “I’m a bloodhound. Ninety-eight percent.” He wheeled around to a pair of snorting boars gorging greedily on the bush. “Quit it, you two!”
The boars transformed into the Pingintee cousins. A pair of Siamese cats appeared from the jungle and transformed into the identical O’Toole twins. An elk transformed into Lidia Vowell, and she shook the bush with her antlers.
“Lucas! Wake up!”
The bush turned into Lucas Mancini, fast asleep. He woke up groggily, staring perplexed at his chewed-up pants (courtesy of the Pingintees).
“Looks like Lucas needs some pruning,” said Ithica.
“That means he’s constipated,” grinned Pansy Pingintee.
“Contaminated,” said Petunia.
Kip glowered at Ithica and the Pingintees. “I’m warning you, leave Lucas alone.”
“Can’t he look after himself?” asked Ithica. “Oh, I forgot, shrubs have no spines.”
“That’s speciest,” said Lidia. “Plants may not have vertebrae, but they have highly sophisticated structures. They transport nutrients through xylem and phloem and have roots for taking up water and minerals.”
Ithica eyed Lidia’s elk horns. “The rest of us are human again, by the way. Or are you rutting?”
The Pingintees snigger-snorted and pretended to know what “rutting” meant.
“Some of us prefer to remain boggers, it seems,” Ithica went on with a disgusted tone.
“Some of us, like you, were never human to begin with,” Kip countered.
“What’s going on here?”
Everyone turned to a portly bald man in an elaborate robe and cap in a peacock-feather pattern striding toward them.
“Oh, Master Aramund,” said Ithica, affecting an innocent tone, “we were getting to know our baests. But it seems Princess Caley doesn’t have a baest. I forgot; she’s an earthling.”