"Hey Marco, why do you always wear the same hoodie?" I asked one day while we were wandering the halls of the school before classes started.
"Actually, it's not the same one" he said with a grin.
"Whaaaa-" I said, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "Are you sure? I've seen you in that sweater every day I've been on Earth!"
"Actually, I wear a different hoodie every day."
"Ok, you lost me. I demand an explanation." I knew he didn't wash it every night, I would have noticed that.
"Well you see, I like red, I like hoodies, so I bought a dozen of them." He explained.
Sometimes Marco does the weirdest things, it's one of the things that make him so adorable. Like a puppy!
"Hey, it's that magic girl!" someone abruptly shouted, stopping my conversation with Marco.
I looked up to see a large group walking the opposite direction and as they passed, I received greetings from most everyone in the group.
"Hi new friends! HI!" I exclaimed, waving to the group as it passed us. Turning to Marco, I told him "Everyone's so cool here Marco! It makes me wish my parents had tossed me out of the castle years ago!"
Admittedly no one was as cool as Marco and Pony Head, but the rest of the humans weren't bad.
"Oh you haven't even met the coolest guys" said Marco as he pointed over his shoulder. "Alphonso and Ferguson."
I got super excited, if they were even half as cool as Marco they would still be twice as cool as anyone else. I looked over to where Marco was pointing and spied two boys standing by a locker. Alphonso was tall and lanky while Ferguson was short and chubby.
"Quick, here she comes!" said Alphonso as he elbowed Ferguson to get his attention.
Ferguson quickly pulled up his shirt, revealing a face that had been drawn on his torso. Grabbing his fat, the boy made the face to seem to talk, saying "Hey, hey, are those books? Where you going with those books?" to a girl walking past the two.
I thought it was pretty funny and that these two seemed pretty interesting. Unfortunately, the other girl did not share my sentiments. As she passed them, she stopped. She then proceeded to slap Ferguson twice. Once on his face, and once on the drawn on face before turning to stalk away.
"They're usually cooler" said Marco.
With a smile, I told Marco "I need to fix Ferguson up." I had some great plans and knew he would be all for joining.
"No."
I was undeterred by Marco, I had a great plan. Before I could show Marco the error of his ways, we heard a loud noise behind us. Turning to look who it was, we saw that it was Jackie Lynn Thomas on her skateboard. She was one of the cooler Earth people I had met, not as great as Marco, but then again Marco is pretty great.
"Jackie. Lynn. Thomas." squeaked out Marco when he saw her.
"Hey Star Butterfly!" called Jackie as she skated past us.
"Hi Jackie!"
I turned to Marco, intending to talk to him about my idea for Ferguson but when I saw the look on Marco's face, a much better idea had taken its place. He was practically drooling on the floor.
"I need to fix you up." I said, grabbing Marco and pulling him out of his trance.
"What!"
"Oh come on! I'm almost as good at matchmaking as I am with magic" I explained as I passed my wand back and forth between hands. Right as I finished speaking however, I accidentally let lose a blast of magic. Which hit Marco square in the face. When it was done, he had a bald spot on top of his head and some of his hair was on fire.
"I'm good. Let's just go to class."
"Fine, but I'll fix you up first."
Giving him no time to prepare, I launched a blast of magic at Marco as he started to protest. This time my magic worked as intended, mostly, and his hair was wonderful again. Picking the residue from my magic out of his hair, Marco and I made our way to the classroom.
When we arrived at the classroom however, the teacher was not there. I do not do well with waiting around and quickly figured out a way to entertain myself. I reached into the awesome bag Marco had gotten for me, it was purple and had little spikes coming out the back and I loved it. I pulled out a pencil and started doodling on my desk.
"Looklooklooklooklook" I called to Marco as I finished my picture. As he leaned closer to examine it, I explained. "It's my name! It's my name, with a star, inside of a butterfly. And two hearts. And a spider." I gestured to my awesome drawing while I explained, adding the hearts and spider as I went.
Suddenly a hand slammed down on my desk with a sheet of paper beneath it, causing me to start. In my surprise I accidentally tossed my pencil, thankfully missing Marco. He likely would have yelled at me some more if I had. I looked up to see the horrifying face of our teacher, Ms. Skullnick as she glared down at me.
"As you can see class, most of you have done a pathetic job" ranted Ms. Skullnick while handing back these test things we had recently taken.
"Not me!" I sang to Marco after looking at my sheet. I held it up for him to see how great I had done, sure he would be impressed. "I got an F for fantastic!"
"That's an F, for fail" Marco whispered to me, popping my bubble.
My look of joy quickly turned to one of confusion. My test had all kinds of cool pictures on it, but apparently that wasn't what the teacher had wanted. I had no idea what was happening anymore with this test thing. "Huh?"
"What, you don't have tests on Mewni?"
We didn't, but the way he said it made it sound like it was obvious we should. I didn't want to seem like a fool in front of Marco, so I quickly changed the subject. "Uhhh, so what grade did you get?"
With a smile Marco held up his test, "Only the best grade you can get! A+. With, a smiley face."
"Oooh, I want the best one too!" I grabbed my test and eagerly made my way up to where Ms. Skullnick was writing on the board.
"Wait, don't!" I heard Marco cry out behind me. I wasn't going to listen though, I was on a mission.
"Oh Ms. Skullnick!" I sang as I approached the teacher.
With a growl, Ms. Skullnick crushed the chalk she was holding and swung to face me. Suddenly my idea seemed not quite as good.
"Hey Skullsy, can you please do me a teeny favor and turn my F into an A?" I held up my test to show her what I was talking about.
"You're whining about a lousy grade!" yelled Ms. Skullnick as she lowered my hand and got into my face. "I finally got a guy with a boat! And he left me at the dock!"
At this point spittle was literally flying from her mouth and I had to hold up my paper as a shield.
"The dock?" I had no idea what that was.
"The dock isn't the important part!"
Putting my wand into my mouth, I started chewing it. I find that it always helps me think.
"I guess I'm doomed to dry land" lamented Ms. Skullnick.
Suddenly I had an idea. I knew how to get my grade fixed, and how to help Ms. Skullnick. That's what being a born leader will do. "I got it! I'll cast a spell to get you the perfect guy, and you can give me the perfect grade."
"What?" Like most Earth people, Ms. Skullnick was unfamiliar with the greatness of magic. My plan was going to change that and make everything better.
"Man Magnet, Love Storm!" I cried, channeling power into the spell as it hit Ms. Skullnick dead on.
Lifting her up in a green glow, she began to transform. When the light disappeared, she dropped to the floor in her new form. Unfortunately for my grade, the magic had not worked as intended. Ms. Skullnick had turned into a troll. A look of shock was plastered on everyone's face, including my own.
Running up, Marco grabbed me by the shoulders and screamed "Star! What did you do?"
"I-I think I turned her into a troll."
Everyone sat in stunned silence for a second, processing what had just happened. Then, one of my classmates jumped up and shouted "Star Butterfly rules!" while the rest of the class started cheering.
"I'm hideous!" shouted Ms. Skullnick, silencing the class's cheers.
"Quick, change her back!" Marco said.
"Oh, okay, right." I let out a nervous laugh as I continued to babble. Then, channeling magic for a spell, I shouted "Lightning, Change Back!"
Ms. Skullnick screamed as the magic hit her. In a flash, Ms. Skullnick, Marco, and I were all transported back to my room at Marco's house. Upon arrival, Ms. Skullnick dashed off, still screaming.
"Where are we?" I asked. I was still getting used to the look of my new room at that point and did not recognize it at first.
"You just zapped us back to the house!" screamed Marco as Ms. Skullnick wandered back over, thankfully quiet.
"Oooh, I wish I knew how I did that. It could really come in handy if I don't feel like using my legs."
That was when Ms. Skullnick started screaming again. With a sigh, Marco and I walked over to calm her down.
"Oh it's not that bad Ms. Skullnick" I said, trying to reassure her. "Everything will be fine."
"So you know how to turn me back? Then hurry up and do it!"
Yeeeah, about that."
Realizing that I had no idea how to reverse the spell, Ms. Skullnick took off running around my room crying. Unfortunately, she was now a troll and was destroying my room.
"Catch her!" shouted Marco, "I'll go get some rope to restrain her."
"Come here Ms. Skullnick!" I called as I took off after her. In her new body, she was very fast and I was having trouble keeping up.
Fortunately Marco showed up, like a hero, with the rope at that moment and we were able to slow her down. After a while we tied her to a chair, just to stop her from taking off again. Unfortunately, her nonstop crying had started to flood my room. Marco ran off and quickly returned with some bauckets.
"Please don't cry Ms. Skullnick" I told her as Marco positioned the final bucket to catch her tears.
"Star, we can't keep stalling! You're gonna have to call your mom. She'll know how to reverse the spell."
I gasped, I had thought Marco was on my side!
"No! I can't ask for help! If my parents find out about this, they're gonna send me to Saint Olga's Reform School for Wayward Princesses! It's a terrible, horrible place and no one who goes there ever comes out the same!" I babbled, finishing it off with a scream.
"Is it all out yet?"
"Almost." I let out another blood curdling scream before telling Marco "Okay, I'm done."
"Look Star, you just need to get the information without letting her know what's going on. You know, dance around the truth."
"I'm a great dancer!" With that, I left the amazing idea boy with Ms. Skullnick and danced over to my mirror. "Mirror, Mirror on the wall, call Mom."
"Calling Tom."
"Whoawhoawhoawh-" I stammered as the mirror decided to call my ex-boyfriend. Someone who is not as cool as Marco, for the record.
"Star!" Tom started hopefully.
"No. No."
"Oh wait. You're here, I'm here."
"I said call Mom, not Tom." I interrupted, not even letting him try. I did not need that in my life while dealing with the Ms. Skullnick issue.
"No! Star!" Tom suddenly morphed into full rage mode, flames rising behind him and eyes glowing he continued "Don't hang up!"
I hung up.
"I really gotta delete him off my mirror" I told myself as I waited for the mirror to call Mom. This was why I had left him. I mean it's not that hard, Marco never has these issues.
"Oh Star darling, what a pleasant surprise" said my mother when she picked up.
"So… Mom… Let's just say that someone accidentally turned someone into a troll with a wand. Not that I would do that, no, because that would be completely irresponsi-"
My nervous rambling was cut off by a large crash and a scream from Marco. Next thing I knew, Marco came tearing across my room with a panicked look on his face. Things had gone bad, and I was not about to let Mom know that.
"Star, what is going on!" demanded my mother with an angry look.
Thinking quickly, I made the only logical choice and hung up on Mom while screaming "Gotta go, bye!"
Turning to Marco, I yelled "What happened?"
"She jumped out the window!" screamed Marco, pointing to a large hole in the wall.
"Quick, we gotta get her and fix this. Mom can't find out about this!"
I ran to the hole, grabbing Marco's hand and pulling him with me. Looking out the hole I was able to easily spot Ms. Skullnick as she tried to escape. Marco jumped down after her and I followed behind him. Marco landed first, knocking Ms. Skullnick to the ground. I then landed on Marco, who makes a great pillow by the way, and knocked the fight out of Ms. Skullnick.
"Wow! Good job Marco!"
Suddenly an unexpected voice taunted my words back at us "Wow! Good job Marco." Looking up, I saw Ludo and his army had shown up.
"Ludo! What are you doing here?"
"Catching you at your most distracted!"
"What? I have been way more distracted than this." Any adventure with Marco was way more distracting than just trying to change back our teacher.
"I don't know, you seem pretty distracted."
Nah, not really."
"Oh well. What's that over there?" Ludo suddenly yelled out and pointed to something behind me.
"What? Where?"
"Get her!"
With a roar, the monsters started to rush us. I hadn't found whatever Ludo was talking about, but something more important had come up. With a scream, Marco and I leapt off Ms. Skullnick's back so we could fall back and regroup.
As the monsters approached, I leapt into the air and readied a spell. "Dagger, Crystal, Heart Attack! Feel the love."
This sent a beam full of heart daggers flying into many enemies, taking them out of the fight. Marco meanwhile had been surrounded by three enemies, I knew they would need more than that to threaten him.
"I'm obligated to warn you, I'm a green belt, with a stripe" Marco said as he put on his head band and took up his fighting pose. Next he picked up a rake that was lying nearby and twirled it around at high speed as the monsters began their assault. It was really cool.
Marco quickly swung the rake out, hitting the first monster in the face and knocking him down. Then he turned to the second monster and swung low, taking out the monster's feet. As it fell, Marco spun the rake around and hit the monster in the face with the other end of the rake. As the monster fell, Marco stood up to look for the third enemy, a giant chicken monster.
This one however had gotten behind Marco and started pecking him repeatedly after knocking him down. Right as I was about to step in to help, Marco regained his senses and kicked up, right as the monster was coming down to peck him. This blow knocked the monster out in one hit.
As I saw Marco getting up, the monsters I had previously attacked rushed me. It seemed like they had finally recovered and needed to be taught another lesson from the princess. One of the monsters threw a punch at me. Dodging it, I grabbed the arm and bit down on it. Hard. I let go as the monster reeled back, screaming in pain.
I turned around just in time to see another monster as it tried to take a bite out of me. I quickly hopped back out of range but was unable to dodge the follow up tail slap that it sent my way. As I went sailing towards a monster that was still getting up, I spun to attack him. Once I was in range, I brought my wand down like a hammer and knocked him out of the fight.
Marco was faring less well. A large monster had him in a headlock and was repeatedly punching Marco in the stomach. Leaping into action, I fired a spell at the monster. "Rainbow Blast!" A rainbow beam with hearts and flying rabbit heads blasted the monster as Marco dove out of the way.
I helped Marco up and then leapt back into the fight firing off Narwhal Blasts at each monster. At one point I turned to see that the monster I had knocked off of Marco had somehow found Ms. Skullnick. Best part was they seemed to be in love and oblivious to their surroundings! "Awww, Narwhal Blast." I said, happy for them as I blasted a monster running up behind me.
I turned to watch Marco fight, making sure he didn't need any help. He seemed to have everything under control, his karate was serving him really well and that gave me an idea.
I made my way over to him with a blast of magic and asked "Hey Marco, you can handle this for a minute on your own, right?"
"Oh yeah, no problem." This is what I like so much about this guy, he's so great.
"Cool, thanks!" I said before running off to talk to Ms. Skullnick. As I left, I heard Marco let out a scream, I figured it was probably just one of those karate screams though so I didn't pay it much attention.
"Oh Ms. Skullnick" I sang out as I approached her. She was busy trying to climb over a fence and escape the battle.
"What."
"See that monster over there?"
I pointed to the monster Ms. Skullnick had been talking to, right as he lifted Marco above his head and threw him. I should probably go help him I thought. But first I had to deal with Ms. Skullnick.
"He thinks you're cute!"
"Really?" asked Ms. Skullnick, a silly grin on her face. She hopped down from the fence and asked me, "Oooh, what should I do?"
"Wait right here."
I ran over to where the monster was as he started to pull out a sword over Marco's prone body. "Hey there monster guy. See that troll over there?" I pointed to Ms. Skullnick as Marco dragged himself away.
With unintelligible ramblings, the monsters face lit up and he rushed over to where Ms. Skullnick was waiting.
"Star!" Marco screamed as he tore across the yard, the entire band of monsters chasing him. I figured it was time to help Marco and this party.
"Hey guys! I think you forgot something!" I shouted, channeling energy for a new spell I wanted to try.
The monsters came to a screeching halt and turned to look at me.
"Get the wand!" shouted Ludo.
The monsters all rushed me. I was ready though and unleashed the spell I had been preparing. "Turbo, Nuclear, Butterfly Blast!"
With many rainbows and butterflies, the entire area exploded. When the magic cleared, monsters were scattered everywhere and most things were on fire. All in all, not a bad spell. The charge time was a little long though so I wasn't sure when I would use it again.
"Whoa!" This time however, it was awesome and I was going to revel in it. Sadly, Marco had not escaped the blast. He was heavily singed and there were butterflies all over him. I probably wouldn't use the spell again if he was nearby.
"Get up! Get up!" screamed Ludo as he shook one of his monsters, trying to rouse them to continue fighting.
"Told you I wasn't distracted" I said confidently as I walked up to stand over Ludo. "Wait, did I just kill that guy?"
"No, he's not dead. He's probably just bleeding internally and being a total baby about it." Ludo screamed the last part at his soldier, trying to get him to rise. When that didn't work, he kicked the monster and strode off angrily, pulling out his dimensional scissors.
"Get up you dipsticks!" he cried after opening the portal. With much effort and groaning, the band of monsters peeled themselves out of the ground and trudged over to the portal.
"Oooh, you are so muscly!"
Turning, Marco and I saw Ms. Skullnick walking over arm in arm with the monster I had sent her way.
"Sooo, now that I hooked you up, how 'bout that A?"
"Honey please, I'd give you an A+ if I was still a teacher. I'm setting sail with Captain Triceps here."
"What about my A?" I called out as they walked away.
"Try studying."
"Wah Wah." Marco suddenly felt the need to chime in, adding his views of course.
"Oh hush you!" I told him, punching him in the arm. With a laugh, we both made our way inside to fix my room and get something to eat.
The next day at school, I told everyone the story of how Ms. Skullnick got her new boyfriend, ending the story by saying "So, anyway, long story short, Skullnick ran off with this weird man-bull-guy-thing to another dimension and she is gone forever."
After a brief pause, what was apparently my biggest fan hopped up and said "Star Butterfly rules!" before the rest of the class got up and crowded over to my desk.
"Wow Star that is so rad girl!" said Jackie Lynn Thomas.
Looking over at Marco, I saw that his desk had been shoved aside to make room for everyone around mine. Well that just would not fly, especially with Jackie giving out praises. I needed to get my boy Marco in on this.
"Thanks." I said, squeezing through everyone I made it over to Marco. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back into the middle of everyone with me. "But actually, it's Marco who deserves aaall the credit."
"Really?" asked Jackie, looking at Marco with respect. Marco on the other hand looked like a deer in headlights. "That's awesome."
Marco let out a nervous laugh as the class started cheering again. I stood off to the side, pleased with myself for helping my bestie. I put my hand on his shoulder and we shared a smile. The moment however was ruined as a portal opened in the ceiling and Ms. Skullnick fell through onto her desk.
"Ms. Skullnick?" asked Marco.
"He dumped me, I think. I don't know! I couldn't understand a word he was saying!"
"Welcome back Skullzers" I said with a nervous twirl of my wand.
Whipping around in fury, Ms. Skullnick pointed to the class and screamed "Get ready for the worst pop quiz of your lives!"
I took my hand off of Marco's shoulder as everyone milled back to their seats. Jackie gave Marco a despairing look before sighing and heading to her seat. Marco reached out for her, weakly, as a sigh escaped him. Marco's desk was angrily kicked back into position and he collapsed into it.
"Sorry Marco, I didn't mean to embarrass you in front of Jackie." I whispered when I saw how sad he seemed.
"Are you kidding?" He said as he turned to face me, suddenly full of excitement. "That's the most she has ever talked to me!"
"Then that means I'm even better at matchmaking than I am at magic!" I said, confidently passing my wand back and forth between my hands. In typical fashion however, that was the moment I lost control of my magic for a split second and blasted Marco's face again. This time when the magic cleared, Marco's head had sprouted butterfly wings, antennae and his eyes had become bug eyes. Also, one of the antennae was burning.
"So wait, you just left your teacher as a troll?" asked Ruberiot.
"Yeah, I couldn't figure out how to turn her back and she didn't seem to mind that much anymore."
Looking thoughtful, Ruberiot jotted some additional notes on his pad, deep in thought. "What about Marco? When did you fix him?"
"Oh I fixed him immediately." said Star as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Couldn't have him walking around all bug faced now could we?"
