LeFou Deux just continued to look nervous. “Anything you guys think I would be interested in,” he said, resorting to his usual flattery.
The rest of the discussion went the same way, frustrating both groups at the roundtable. At the end of the period, not one of the villains took an application form.
When they had the room back to themselves, Jay said what was on all their minds. “Well, that went well. Not.”
“Was the slideshow that boring?” asked Evie.
“It was the best! You even got Dude in there,” said Carlo
s supportively.
“They don’t understand. I thought they would if we came and spoke to them and they saw how we’d changed,” said Mal. “Or maybe this is all a mistake. Maybe we’re just wasting our time.”
Evie turned to Mal and put both of her hands on Mal’s shoulders. “Helping people and showing them another way to live—it’s always worth our time. We can’t give up yet. We’ll figure out how to make them understand—how to make them want Auradon.”
“Oh, they’ll want it, I assure you,” said Jay. “Evie’s right, we’ll figure it out. It’s just that right now all they know is evil.”
“So we have to sell them good,” mused Carlos. “Show them how amazing it is.”
fter the meeting, the four of them split up—Evie to see if she could find the remaining members of the Anti-Heroes Club and convince them to apply, Jay to follow up with Coach Gaston after practice, Carlos to scout some locations for the Auradon Prep posters, and Mal to take a few pictures of the island to show Ben how things were faring there. Except Mal didn’t take a camera with her. She didn’t want to alarm her friends, but she was truly worried about Celia’s warning. She decided to do a security sweep of the island to see if there was any place in the invisible barrier that might have been weakened by Uma.
As she walked around the island, Mal checked her pocket to make sure she still had the remote that opened the barrier and called up the bridge to the mainland. She felt a little spooked that this one small key could open up the island just like that, but that was the way its magic worked. Ben trusted her with it too. Still, though she had never worried about it before, she found that she kept making sure it was there.
So far, nothing seemed amiss on the island. There were no signs of any illicit magic around, and while she did find a trail of tentacle slime, it only led to Ursula’s cottage, where Ursula was watching her “stories,” aka the soap operas she watched on an old DVD player. The old sea witch was annoyed to see Mal at her doorstep.
“What do you want?” she rasped.
“Oh, hey, I was just wondering—Uma hasn’t been around, has she? You haven’t seen her?” asked Mal.
“No, last I saw her was on the news when she was blasting you with her magic!” Ursula laughed. “Good for her!”
“Um, yeah,” said Mal. “Okay, just wanted to check.”
“What do you want to see her for, anyway? Thought you guys weren’t friends anymore,” said Ursula suspiciously.
“Oh, nothing,” said Mal. “Just curious is all.”
She backed up, hoping Ursula wouldn’t take a swipe at her with her tentacles. Ursula closed the door with a bang.
• • •
Mal was heading away when she realized she had no idea where she was going or where she had been. That was odd, wasn’t it? It almost felt like she was daydreaming. She was standing on the sidewalk, a confused look on her face, when she bumped into Carlos.
“Hey, Mal!” said Carlos. “What’s up? You all right?”
She shook off the weird feeling. Maybe she was just spooked to be back on the Isle of the Lost. Too many bad memories. “Yeah, I’m okay. What are you up to?”
“Oh, just figuring out the best places for the posters. I thought we should put up some Auradon Prep billboards too. Really inundate the place.”
“Cool,” said Mal.
“What about you? What are you doing so far from the hideout?” asked Carlos.
“Nothing,” said Mal. She couldn’t remember. What had she been doing? Maybe it wasn’t important—that’s why she couldn’t remember.
“Well, I’ve got to check out a building over there. I think we can paste over your old ‘Down with Auradon’ signs,” said Carlos apologetically. “See you later.”
“Yeah, see you back at the hideout,” said Mal. “Be careful.”