‘Walk,’ said one of them, a very thin man. ‘Stop. Turn. Approach the desk.’
Effie did these things.
‘Hands,’ said the woman next to the thin man.
Effie showed her hands.
‘Not bad, but you’ll need more hand cream.’
The next thing Effie had to do was explain her beauty regime. Of course, she didn’t have one, so she simply described what she’d seen Crescentia doing the night before.
‘Excellent,’ breathed Madame McQueen. ‘Stunning.’
Effie gulped. No one had ever called her stunning before.
‘The hair,’ said the thin man. ‘May I smell it?’
Effie approached and let him smell her hair.
‘Adorable. And the colour – it’s extreme.’
Extreme? Effie’s hair was, she’d thought before, a very normal colour. It was mainly brown, but had blonde bits from when she’d been in the sun. It was very, very long, mainly because no one could ever be bothered to take her to the hairdresser. Sometimes, when she didn’t brush it for a long time, it went into tendril-like curls.
The judges started to mumble amongst themselves. Effie heard the words ‘fast-track’ and ‘younger than ever’ and ‘stringy’.
‘Go and wait in the room over there,’ said Madame McQueen, pointing in quite a different direction from where Effie had seen the girl before her go. Did this mean that she had failed the audition, despite her ‘adorable’ hair? Would she now be cast out into the forest to die?
The room was cold and small. A display on one wall explained how you should never wear a low-cut top with a short skirt and how you should always take off the last accessory you put on before you leave the house. It was like being in a giant magazine – one of those things you would read at the dentist (if you ever went to the dentist).
Across the room was a display of Polaroid photographs of beautiful girls. FORM 2C, it said at the top. Under each image the girl pictured had written her aim for the year. A girl called Jodene had written to learn to use blusher properly. Another girl, Bonita, was aiming to learn to blow-dry my own hair. Did any of these girls have any academic or sporting aims? No. The closest thing Effie could see was someone called Lisette who wanted to learn to speak the ancient language of dragons.
The door opened and Crescentia came in.
‘Well,’ she said, without smiling, ‘top marks to us.’
‘Why?’
‘We’ve been fast-tracked.’
‘Which means?’
But Crescentia didn’t get the chance to explain, because the door opened and a short man with glasses and a bald head entered the room.
‘Ooh, fast-tracking,’ he said. ‘I love it. L. O. V. E. I. T. Come on, darlings, if we hurry we can get you in tomorrow’s catalogue. It’ll be extreme. Got your things? Where are your things? No things. Did someone take them? Someone took them. OK, girlies, followez moi. Are you following? You’re following. Good. Allons-y, les petites femmes. Allons-y.’
He carried on talking to himself in this way until they reached a small set of winding stairs, at the top of which was a photographic studio. Inside the studio was a photographer with three different cameras and several silver reflectors set up around a bright white backdrop. The girls’ cases were there, and their clothes had been unpacked and hung on rails. One was labelled E. Truelove and the other was labelled C. Croft.
A short, fat woman bustled in and before Effie knew it she was being dressed in every possible outfit you could make from the clothes she had brought, and photographed in each one. The leather trousers with the star t-shirt, the pink skirt with the cream blouse and so on. Then Crescentia went through the same process. She seemed to enjoy having her photograph taken. Effie thought her pictures would look beautiful.
Then the girls had to give all their clothes back to the short fat woman. They were given big pots of cold cream and told to take off all their make-up, even though Effie didn’t have any on. Their outfits were re-hung on the rails and wheeled into a huge cupboard with the words ‘Current Catalogue’ on it. The fat woman bustled back out and gave each of them a shapeless blue smock with the number three on it.
‘What’s this?’ said Crescentia.
‘Welcome to form 3A,’ said the fat woman. ‘Third-form common room is down the stairs, turn right, turn left, round the corner, up the back stairs to the first floor and you can’t miss it. If you hurry you’ll catch the last half hour of lunch break.’
The girls tried their best to follow the instructions but soon ended up lost in the basement. Effie kept looking for some way out, but there didn’t seem to be any.
‘What does fast-track actually mean?’ she asked Crescentia. ‘And what’s this catalogue?’
‘It’s like we’ve basically come top of the class without really doing anything. We’ve been moved up to the third form. We should be first-formers, obviously.’
‘But why . . .?’
‘Some law stops the dragon from choosing anyone from below third form. But as you can see, that doesn’t stop the staff putting whoever they want in the third form. Anyway, we’re in the catalogue now. Start praying.’
‘What exactly is the catalogue?’
‘It’s what he uses to choose which princess he’s going to eat and what he wants her to wear. Like I said, cross your fingers. Where is this stupid common room?’
Around another corner came the smell of burnt toast, cigarette smoke, perfume, incense and hairspray. There was loud, bass-heavy R&B playing. Effie and Crescentia approached. This could not be the third-form common room, surely? FIFTH FORM ONLY KEEP OUT said a sign on the door. At least, that’s what it used to say. Someone had crossed out FIFTH FORM and written in the word SURVIVORS instead. There was a little glass panel in the door and through it Effie could see girls dancing. The girls looked – well, it was almost impossible to describe – but Effie immediately wanted one of them as a big sister.
They were completely different from the girls waiting for their auditions, with their tiny arms and legs and their long hair brushed just so. These girls were bigger, for a start – but not just because they were older. Their clothes stretched over them in ways that made them look like real, grown-up women. Although they were wearing the same smocks that Effie and Crescentia wore, they had taken theirs in with darts and pleats so that they were extremely flattering – each in an individual way. They had embroidered them with various slogans, not all of them that polite. War on Dragons read one of the more repeatable ones. Badass gristle said another.
‘Wow,’ said Crescentia.
‘I guess if you got to fifth form here you would want to celebrate,’ said Effie.
‘Yeah, unless the dragon decides he wants a more mature meat.’
The door opened and a tall girl with long black hair came out. She had a pierced lip and a tattoo across her collarbone that read Make a wish, sucker.
‘Who are you?’ she said.
‘We’re new,’ said Effie. ‘We’re looking for the third-form common room.’
‘If you’re new, you want the first-form common room.’
‘No, babe, they fast-track the most delicious little morsels now,’ said another girl. ‘Straight to third form, straight in the catalogue, straight in the mouth of . . .’
‘God, they’re disgusting,’ said the first girl. She looked deep into Effie’s eyes. ‘Are you scared?’ she said.
‘Um, sort of.’
‘Are you scared?’ she asked Crescentia.
‘Yes,’ said Crescentia.
‘All right, I’ll give you a tip. They can’t stop you doing press-ups. Even if they put you in a crate, you can squat. Get some muscle on you and you won’t get chosen.’
And then she and her friend went back into the common room and shut the door behind them.
19
The rest of the day went quickly. Effie and Crescentia eventually found the third-form common room, but it was hard to make friends with girls two years older than th
em who already knew each other very well. So they stuck together. They stood in line together in the dining hall, and then ate their tiny salads together. They sat next to one another in double hairstyling, and when it came to practising using heated rollers, they did each other’s hair. Effie found herself missing her real school. And she kept wondering how exactly she was going to get out of here and find her way back to Truelove House. And then go home.
‘I think it’s wearing off,’ said Crescentia.
‘What?’
‘The effect of the drugs.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I really am very scared,’ Crescentia said.
Effie looked at Crescentia. As the day had gone on she’d grown paler and paler.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Effie. ‘It’s all right. We won’t get chosen. Not on our first day. I mean, some of those girls in the fifth form must have been in hundreds of catalogues, and they’re still around.’
But if they didn’t get chosen, someone else would. Effie kept thinking about the fifth-form girls. They were clearly against what was happening, but hadn’t worked out how to do anything about it. Or maybe they didn’t care now that they were – more or less – out of danger. After all, bad things happened in the world all the time and you couldn’t necessarily do anything about them. Effie was quiet for the rest of the day, thinking and thinking.
Why hadn’t all the girls in the school just walked out? Together they’d be a match for any evil forest tribes. They could do what they liked, if they all acted together. They could walk through the forest together and . . . What then? Have to endure the shame of their families, who would probably have to give back the money the school had given them?
And there’d still be the problem of the dragon.
After supper, Effie and Crescentia were allocated a dorm. Although they were officially in the third form, the dorms with spare beds were all for first-formers, so they ended up with four girls Effie recognised from this morning. Each girl had a single bed, a small chest of drawers with a mirror on it and a bedside cabinet with a lamp. Each chest of drawers had a tub of thick white cold-cream on it, apparently for taking off make-up, and various expensive cosmetic products.
‘Apparently it’s all product placement or something,’ said a girl called Blossom. ‘Or, like, sponsorship or whatever. We were given a talk about it this morning while you were being photographed. When the papers interview you before you go off to be killed you have to say the dragon chose you because you used Oil of Perfection or Fourflower Lotion or whatever. Rich old ladies apparently lap up all that stuff. They want to pretend to be us. And the companies give your family money, too. After, well, you know.’
‘You’re so lucky, going straight into the catalogue,’ said another girl, Nell. ‘You know you were the only ones to be fast-tracked from first form to third form?’
‘Yeah. Whoopee for us.’ Crescentia got into bed and put a pillow over her face. It sounded as if she were trying to hide the fact that she was crying.
‘Is she scared?’ asked Blossom.
‘Wouldn’t you be?’ said Effie. ‘Why do you all – do we all – put up with this?’
No one answered. Everyone started brushing their hair – a hundred times, or you faced detention, apparently. Effie’s last detention had, of course, been quite interesting, although it felt as if that happened in a different time or a different world from this. She remembered Wolf standing there with his sword. Could he be a match for the dragon? But Effie wouldn’t even know how to get a message to him. And of course the last time she’d seen him he had been helping the horrible charity man take her books. But Maximilian would be out there somewhere using the spectacles to help her. And Lexy might be doing something with the crystal. She had two true friends, at least. They just seemed a very long way away.
Effie had expected to spend the whole night awake, but suddenly it was morning. There was one bell that told you it was time to wake up, and another bell for breakfast. After that all the girls got ready in their blue smocks and went to assembly. On the way there, Effie decided that she really had to find some way to escape today. She had to obtain a calling card somehow and then go to Truelove House. This was what her grandfather had meant her to do; she just had to work out how to do it. And after all that she still had to get home and rescue his books.
Madame McQueen stood up on the stage to address the school.
‘I am extremely happy to report that we have broken a record today,’ she began. ‘For the very first time, the special honour of being the dragon’s consort is going to a girl who appeared in her very first catalogue only yesterday.’
‘What does that mean?’ hissed a girl in front of Effie.
‘The dragon’s chosen a new girl,’ said another girl.
Effie gulped. A cheerful pop song started playing up on the stage.
Then a picture flashed up. It was Crescentia, wearing the black suede dress that Effie had so admired the day before. This time she had paired it with leggings and high-heeled boots and the mushroom necklace. This was the outfit the dragon must have chosen. Effie could sense all the girls admiring it, making mental notes about it.
‘Please come up to the front, the lucky, the beautiful, Crescentia Croft!’
Everyone clapped as Crescentia started walking towards the stage. Effie noticed that she almost stumbled, and that she had to wipe a tear from her eye. But by the time she reached the stage she had composed herself, just as she had yesterday morning.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘It’s impossible to describe the honour I feel at being chosen. I will represent the school and my family with dignity and purpose.’
‘And who will you choose to be your handmaiden?’ said Madame McQueen.
‘Euphemia Truelove.’
Everyone clapped again. The girls near Effie turned and smiled or touched her hands or said things like ‘Yay!’ or ‘Good luck’. Effie had no idea what it meant to be a handmaiden, but as the girls all filed out of assembly she was asked to stay behind.
She and Crescentia were taken off to a different room, where they were instructed in what were chillingly called the ‘final preparations’. Crescentia kept asking for more peppermint tea, because she was sure it was drugged and said she didn’t want to feel anything. Effie tried not to eat or drink anything suspicious. She wanted to keep her wits about her. But what was she going to do? Time was running out to save Crescentia, and she’d have to do that before even thinking about escape herself.
The rest of the day was like being best friends with a celebrity. Effie helped Crescentia to prepare her bath of almond milk and rose petals, and arranged all the products that she needed before she got dressed. Oil of Perfection, obviously, as well as Moonflower Petal Lotion, which had tiny pieces of real gold and diamond blended in with it. Effie watched while Crescentia had a manicure and pedicure, drinking peppermint tea all the while. The more she drank, the calmer she became. Then Crescentia dressed carefully in the outfit the dragon had chosen. Then it was hair and make-up. Then a press conference. It would almost have been quite fun, had this not been a preparation for death.
Effie bathed and dressed carefully as well. As Crescentia’s handmaiden she would be travelling to the dragon’s lair with her, to put any last finishing touches to her hair and make-up before she went in. As handmaiden she was expected to look beautiful as well, to represent the school to any villagers who turned up to watch.
At five o’clock Effie and Crescentia were picked up by a horse-drawn golden carriage. The carriage made its way slowly through the village so everyone could look at the latest young woman who had agreed to sacrifice herself to save the lives of the villagers and to ensure they would not starve this winter. People threw confetti, flower petals and even dried blackgrain, which apparently brought luck.
Too soon, the carriage had left the village, looped around the big dark forest and was entering the approach to the dragon’s lair. The day before, the girls had looked at the dragon from
the village green and had seen only the raised grounds and very top level of his sunken castle. Now they were about to start the journey down the twisting narrow lane, past the roots of the great trees of the forest, deep down to the underground moat and the sunken drawbridge over which Crescentia would go and never return. The carriage paused while the driver fitted something to the wheels to make them capable of such a steep descent.
Crescentia gulped and took out a small hand mirror to check her hair and make-up. Her hand was shaking so much she could hardly hold it.
Effie’s silver ring started to grow warm. She suddenly felt strong and fearless and . . .
‘Wait,’ said Effie, before she could stop herself. ‘Let me go instead.’
‘But . . .’ Crescentia clearly wanted to agree, but didn’t know how she could. She was not a very brave girl really, and had no idea how she was going to face the dragon alone. ‘How?’
Effie dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘We just need a bit more time.’ She raised her voice. ‘Driver?’ she said.
‘Yes, miss?’
‘Please could you drive around up here for a few more minutes. Our preparations are not yet complete. Avoid the villagers if you can.’
Then Effie drew the curtains of the carriage and, as it bumped over the uneven roads on the edge of the huge forest, she and Crescentia swapped outfits.
‘I don’t see how it’s going to help if you get eaten instead,’ said Crescentia. ‘I mean, it’s very kind of you, and brave, but . . . I’ll probably get expelled when I go back to the school.’
‘If my plan works, then . . .’ What? The school was hardly going to be happy with Effie if she found some way of stopping the dragon eating princesses. After all, providing the princesses was the only thing the school did. But it simply wasn’t right that this dragon should be allowed to eat as many girls as he wanted, that a school should exist to supply those girls and . . .
‘You have a plan?’ Crescentia’s eyes widened in admiration.
In actual fact, Effie did not have a plan. She was still thinking of one. But she had her silver ring, which was somehow making her feel braver than usual. And she also had a strange, desperate urge to meet the dragon, to look at those wings again. To . . . to do what? She didn’t know. To talk with him, to get him to see reason? But surely that wouldn’t work. He’d probably just roast her to death instantly.