Chapter 2: Night is meant for mischief ...or maybe not
Carlos' had a mixed first impression of Auradon. On the one hand Auradon was clean and well organized, unlike the Isle of the Lost. Fairy Godmother while being strict still gave off a friendly demeanor just like a mother would. But that was just his guess because his mother was only demanding and overbearing. On the other hand though there was Audrey. It was clear to all the villain's that she wasn't happy in the slightest that they were here. She was just so fake with her welcome it made Carlos almost physically ill watching her. Especially when she greeted Mal and brought up that her mom was Aurora. If Sleeping Beauty was gifted with grace and social etiquette she didn't pass it on to her daughter, with her thinly veiled attempt at letting the past go.
The biggest plus for Auradon so far though was Ben. Carlos would deny it if anyone tried to even hint at it but as soon as he saw the prince he thought he was handsome. When they shook hands he was so embarrassed that he had chocolate on his hand and the smeared it on Ben's, and was enamored by the smile he gave after tasting it and finding out what it was, though he did his best to hide it by sucking the sweat from his thumb. It was especially nice to see how genuinely happy the prince was that they took him up on his offer to come to Auradon, even if it had come with strings he didn't know about. It was something he never experienced form his own mother, so it was nice to see someone happy for his presence. When he was joking around with Mal after his speech Carlos thought how down to earth Ben was, and hoped there would be others that open minded about their arrival.
"Okay so how about a tour, Yeah." Ben said trying to break up the tension that Audrey and Mal had made in the group. "Auradon Prep, originally built over 300 years ago, and converted to a high school by my father when he became king." he lead his new classmates to the statue of his father as he started the tour. He stopped and clapped his hands twice to make the statue morph into his father's beastly form. He heard a scream as it did so.
Turning toward the origin of the scream Ben saw Jay holding a frightened Carlos bridal style. Grinning at the adorable and genuine reaction he said "Carlos it's okay. My father wanted his statue to morph from Beast to Man, to remind us that anything is possible."
"Does he shed much?" Mal asked in a joking manner. "Yeah mom won't let him on the couch." he replied with a straight faced delivery. He smiled when Mal smirked getting his sarcastic joke. Turning Ben, with Audrey clinging to his arm continued the tour. He heard Carlos getting back down and three sets of footprints following him. He smirked when he heard two clap from who he assumed was Carlos trying to get the statue to morph back, and then heard him speed to catch up to the group.
"So you guys have a lot of magic here in Auradon? Like wands, and things like that?" Mal asked as soon as they were in the foyer of the school. Ben thought that her curiosity was due to being out from under the dome that prevents magic from reaching the Isle for the first time, that and the fact that news about Auradon rarely goes to the Isle at all. "Yeah it exists of course, but it's pretty much retired".
"Most of us here are just ordinary mortals" he explained to the group. "Who happen to be kings and queens." she pointed out to him rolling her eyes at the hypocrisy of his point. "That's true" Audrey said taking his hand and wrapping it around her shoulder as she put her two cents in. "Our royal blood goes back hundreds of years" she finished in a self important manner. Ben couldn't help but start to get frustrated with her for undermining the point that he was trying to make, which was that the people from Auradon and the people from the Isle weren't so different. Of course to not make a scene in front of the group he could only awkwardly laugh with Audrey as she laughed for real.
"Doug" he said as soon as he saw him, taking his chance to get his arm back from Audrey. "Doug come down." He moved away from her and went toward the stair landing, wrapping his arm around Doug in a friendly way he continued with "He's gonna help you with your class schedules and show you the rest of the dorms".
"I'll see you later okay, and if there is anything you need feel free to…" is all he got out before Audrey interrupted him again "Ask Doug". Both Mal and Audrey laughed sarcastically, and all i could do was awkwardly laugh as well. As Audrey walked off she pulled on my hand and so I went to. I waited until we were out the doors and alone before i stopped walking and pulled my hand out of her grasp.
She turned around and looked at me surprised that I had just done that. Checking our surroundings once more I looked at her and asked "What was all that about Audrey?" my tone firmer than I had wanted to admit but I was frustrated with how she acted and wanted an answer. "What was what all about Bennie Boo?" she asked genuinely.
I couldn't believe that she didn't see anything wrong with her actions just now. "Oh I don't know, the whole interaction we just had with our new classmates from the Isle" he said hoping she would come to her senses and see that she was acting less princessly that she thought she was. "I don't know what you are talking about Ben" Audrey said, this time less genuine than before, he knew that she was replaying the interaction in her mind.
"Really, so you don't know anything about constantly interrupting me just now. Or being overly clingy with me as if to show off that we are together" he started. He waited a minute to see how she would respond, and when she didn't he continued "Oh how about trying to demean and lower them by pointing out our social status, and their lack there of". She frowned at that but still didn't say anything. Ben's temper,which he got from his father, was on building up steam now so he brought up the worst mistake that Audrey had made. "What about trying to start something with Mal by bringing up the fact that her mother cursed your mother and the kingdom she belonged to".
That got her to react "Well what do you expect when I'm confronted with the daughter of my families worst enemy Ben" she said in a hiss. "I expect that you don't bring up the crimes that her mother did, because news flash Mal isn't Maleficent" he told her.
Before she could say anything he continued "Look, I don't expect you to be best friends with her right away, if ever. Hell I know this must have been really hard for you, but that doesn't give you the right to bring up something that she had no control over" Ben started. " You know that they are in a new place, and if the first thing we do is bring up their parents crimes than all we are telling them is that they are just offshoots of their parents. All that you did with that is make it clear to everyone present that you weren't going to give them a chance to prove that they aren't evil" he told Audrey. He watched as her eyes watered, and Ben being Belle's son well couldn't help but want to go comfort her. Especially because it was his temper that had caused her to cry.
So he walked toward her and held her tightly against his chest. "Well what about her trying to defend what her mother did by bringing up the fact that my grandparents didn't invite her mother to the christening of their daughter" Audrey said in a thin attempt to justify her actions. "Mal was only trying to protect her mother as anyone would, and while that doesn't make it right she was only reacting to your actions first" he said trying to play peacemaker because the other side wasn't there to defend herself.
In a more soothing voice he said "I'm not telling you to forget what Maleficent did to your family and kingdom, what I'm asking of you is to not let that control how you interact with Mal or the others. They aren't their parents and deserve a chance to show us that". He rubbed small circles on her back with his hand to comfort her.
"Let's just forget that this happened and try not to let it affect any future interactions we have okay" he asked her after she had calmed down some. Audrey nodded after a few seconds. Ben walked her back to her dorm and he went to his. As the door to his room closed behind him all he could think about is what had happened. Even though he told Audrey that they should forget about what had happened he couldn't. His relationship with her really wasn't as strong as he had thought and he was having second thoughts about it. What he really wanted in a relationship was someone who was genuine, and had thoughts beyond royal peerage and proper etiquette.
He couldn't help but flash back to the embarrassed look on Carlos's face from the chocolate incident, or how he almost jumped out of his skin from his father's statue transforming. Everyone else in Auradon would have said how impressive it was in fear of insulting the king, but Carlos just reacted. Ben shook his head, took off his jacket, unbuttoned his shirt and pants and slide out of them. in just his blue boxers he reached for his towel and went to take a shower to clear his mind, hopefully things would between him and Audrey would be more clear in the morning.
After Ben left with Audrey Doug decided to introduce himself to us. "Hey guys, I'm Dopey's son. As in Dopey, Doc, Bashful, Happy, Grumpy, Sleepy… heigh ho" he was counting the dwarfs on his fingers as he named them, but gasped and let slip the heigh ho as soon as he saw Evie. She noticed and introduced herself "Evie, Evil Queens daughter" she said flirtatiously. The rest of us were trying not to laugh at the irony of Doug finding Evie attractive.
Doug shook his head to clear it and so "So about your classes I put in the requirements already, History, Safety rules for the internet, and uh … Remedial Goodness 101" his voice squeaked at that last one for obvious reasons, but Mal being Mal just had to say something about it. She took a caramel that she had from the limo unwrapped it and popped it in her mouth as she said "Let me guess, new class". Doug just nodded.
"Come on guys, lets go find our dorms" Mal told us as she dropped the candy wrapper and took the lead. We all followed her up the staircase that Doug just came down from. Doug was nice enough to stop us with "Oh uh yeah your dorms are that way guys", and pointed to the opposite direction of where we were heading. He went back to naming the seven dwarfs, and seeing as how he was the second person to treat us like actually human beings I decided to help him out by naming the last one "Sneezy" is what i told him as I left to follow the others.
We ending up finding the our dorm first so after planning to meet up again later tonight in it we bid the girls goodbye. When Jay and I opened the door I took in the view of our room. There were two twin sized beds with bedside tables, a table in the center of the room, two desks off on the sides, and best of all a smart tv above a fireplace, with a gaming system and motion sensing devices . The beds even came fully furnished with comforters and pillows and even blankets. I wouldn't tell this to anyone but Evie, but i was so looking forward to sleeping on a real fully furnished bed for once. "This place is pretty sweet, right Jay?" I asked him after settling my stuff on the bed on the left. "It's decent" was his reply but i could see that he was looking around on the furnishes in the room and calculating how much he would be able to get for them if this was back on the Isle. He was impressed in his own way.
"I'm gonna look around the school some more, so I'll see you later Carlos" Jay said to me, which I knew was code for him going around to look at what he could steal. "Sure thing Jay, just make sure you're back before Mal and Evie get here" is all I said in response. I heard the door close and was thus left alone. taking out my things and putting them away didn't take to long so I looked around the room, memorizing the way things went in case I need to clean up real quick. This of course was a force of habit from living fourteen years with mom. I found a fire drill map pointing out the points of exits in case of a fire, as well as a school map which I memorized so as to be able to find the shortest route and shortcuts away from people, just in case. With all that done I decided to take a shower in the private bathroom the dorms had, but changed into the same clothes cause they were mostly clean anyway.
I then did what I had been wanting to do since I first entered the room. I found a game on the system and started it up. It didn't take me to long to figure out how it worked and by the time Jay came back, and the girls came by I had gotten to level three.
"Jay, what are you doing?" I heard Mal ask as soon as she walked in.
"It's called stealing" was his response. "Okay so what's the point?" Mal asked again.
"Well, Mal, it's like buying whatever i want, only it's free" was Jay's smart aleck response. Evie was checking out our room while this exchange was going on and decided to touch up her make up on my bed, which was the only one free at the moment with barely anything on it.
"Okay so you can do that, or you can leave all of this here and pick it up when we rule over the world" Mal told him in her I can't believe you're not getting this voice. Evie chimed in with " You sound just like your mom".
This was a big compliment to Mal, she has always been trying to live up to her mother's expectations of her. "Thank you" is what she said and really meant it.
"You do it your way, and I'll do it mine" is all Jay said as he approached where I was playing the game. "Die suckers. Jay come check this thing out, it's awesome" I said quickly before Mal and Jay could get into a fight.
"Guys, do I have to remind you what we are all here for" Mal said getting all of our attention. "Fairy Godmother, pow pow pow, Magic Wand" was Jay's response as he played the game.
"This is our one chance to prove ourselves to our parents" was all Mal had to say to get our attention, we all turned toward her. "To prove that we are evil, and vicious, and ruthless, and cruel. Yeah".
"Yeah" was Carlos's halfhearted response.
"Evie, mirror me" Mal rallied us at the table.
Evie took out the mirror and spoke the rhyme to find the wand "Mirror, Mirror in my hand, where does Fairy Godmother's wand stand". It showed us a picture of the wand.
"Zoom out" I said cause we could only see the wand. "Magic Mirror not so close" was Evie's response. After fiddling around with the zoom on the mirror, and I mean really when someone says not so close they don't mean zoom out to outer space, we found out it was in the Museum of Cultural History. "Do we know where this is" Mal asked. I just typed the name of the museum into the internet search bar and found the address for it. "Two point three miles from here" was how I answered her as i showed them the location and direction to our destination.
"Well then, lets get going" Mal stood up and said as she headed for the door.
"Hold up, Mal" I said nervously, after all she did have a temper and was narrow minded when chasing a goal at times. "What do you mean hold up Carlos, we know where it is so let's go get it" was her impatient response.
"I don't think that's the wisest of idea's" was all I got out before she glared death at me. Luckily Evie was kind enough to come to my defense with "Let's just hear him out Mal, after all it's all of us in on this". That got Mal to calm down and sit down.
So while she was only glaring at me annoyed I began to explain myself. "We don't even know anything about this place. Before we go charging in we should do our research. After all isn't that what all the teachers at Dragon's Hall, and our parents keep telling us" was how I started. "Haven't they always told us that they were teaching us to be smarter than they were, not to make the same mistakes they did. Well just charging into a place we know nothing about isn't being smarter than them" Carlos added quickly.
"So what do you suggest we do, and how long do we wait for. I mean it's not like we know for sure we can get information on the museum or anything" Mal said in anger. It seemed to me she thought I was holding us back
"Just give me until tomorrow night okay, I mean i don't expect to find a detailed floor plan of the place but there has to be some information about the exhibits and the security measures, and some information is better than no information right" I asked all three of them hopefully. "He has a point Mal" Jay agreed with me quickly. "A one day delay wouldn't kill us right" was Evie's helpful response.
"Alright fine, but only one day. Come tomorrow night we go no matter what info you may or may not have found out Carlos" Mal finally capitulated. The girls then got up, checked to see if the coast was clear, and left back to their dorm room.
"That took some balls Carlos" Jay said as he slapped by back in a way to go man kind of way. "Especially cause now Mal has access to magic, so if anything went wrong you may have ended up a squirrel or something" he said with a laugh. I could only let out a sigh of relief as I took the laptop and laid down on my bed. His joke reminded me that Mal really could do things now that she couldn't before, so I forgot all about my game and got to work. After all tomorrow night was going to be mischievous one way or another.