"Ella!" Lauren shouted, trying to wake her friend from her stupor.
"I'm alive?" she replied, looking down.
The pair was being held onto by blue vines that were attached to glowing tree trunks that whizzed them along. Even though they didn't know it, Ella and Lauren were in the Flowerground.
Lizards strummed guitars while birds and butterflies fluttered about, carrying muffins and blue punch. Clinging to her vine, Ella turned around. At first, she couldn't see anything, then faces appeared, and she was joined by a multitude of girls. Ella noticed she and Lauren were the only one's without massive trunks. Then, just as the thought came to her head, Ella's and Lauren's enormous suitcases rose up and rode along with them.
A couple minutes later, Ella was being pushed through dirt again. She stretched her arms upwards, and burst from the ground, trunk following, similar to a budding rose. Fifty other girls bloomed from the pristine grass, quickly surrounded by three fairies each. Ella was dusted off by fairies herself, and given a cup of peach tea as her trunk also bloomed from the sparkling pasture. Still holding her cup of tea, Ella and her suitcase were hoisted into the air by her team of fairies.
The fairies flew the girls in front of the glamorous castle, setting them gently down on the grass and let them roam freely. Ella caught Lauren's eye and gestured to the slimy moat across from their crystal water. She could tell that Lauren and the other girls were thinking the same thing: Where are the boys?
Facing the palace, Ella noticed a stunning arched sign, complete with mirrored words emblazoned onto the golden curve of the structure:
The School for Good
Enlightenment and Enchantment
Continuing to walk forwards, Ella's eyes flickered between the frosted doors engraved with majestic white swans. When the doors opened, fairies herded girls through the slender, mirrored corridor. Just as the group neared the doors, Ella heard a commotion behind her. She turned around to see Skye, a girl with jade green eyes and big, bouncy, curls the color of rubies, and a cluster of other girls, surround a skinny girl with shoulder length white hair, navy blue eyes, and dressed in a burlap sack, no shoes, and coated in grime. Her teeth were blacked out and her hair cut choppily. A couple of fairies tried to move the group along, but most sat on shoulders and watched. Ella hung near the back, waiting to see what was going to happen.
"Are you lost dear?," Skye asked sincerely.
"No," the girl replied, rubbing an eye.
"Do you have a Flowerground pass?," Skye asked with false sweetness.
"Yeah, actually," she said, pulling out a large gold ticket, proclaiming her name in elegant calligraphy: Avery.
Ella broke through the tight circle and linked arms with Avery.
"C'mon, you can borrow some of my clothes and I can fix your hair," she said, pulling Avery away from the sharks in dresses and lipstick.
"Welcome New Princesses," a floating seven foot nymph said warmly, and moved aside to reveal a magnificent foyer.
"Wow," Avery and Ella said simultaneously.
Lauren came up behind them, "Wow, wha- oh."
The group walked in to see faculty lining the four spiral staircases, two pink, two blue, showering confetti upon their newest female professors wore the same high necked and long sleeved lace dress, each a different color and had a personal accessory. The male teachers, however, were clad in the same bright slim suits, none the same hue, paired with matching vests, slender ties, and colorful kerchiefs tucked in jacket pockets. The one thing that all of the professors had in common, a silver swan glittering over each of their hearts.
Ella noticed the supposedly hidden prods and whispers at the sight of Avery. Tightening her grip on the filthy girl, she threw dirty looks at anyone who gaped at her.(or Avery) As the girls formed a line in front of three floating nymphs with neon hair and lips, Ella got a better look at the majestic stair room.
The wall opposite her had a massive pink painted E, with perfectly drawn angels and sylphs flittering around its edges. The other three walls also had painted letters, spelling out the word E-V-E-R in pink and blue. The four spiraled staircases were arranged symmetrically at the corners of each wall, lit by high stained glass windows. One of the two azure flights had HONOR printed onto its baluster, along with glass etchings of kings and knights, while the other read VALOR, decorated with blue reliefs of hunters and archers. The two pink glass staircases had PURITY and CHARITY emblazoned with gold, along with delicate friezes of sculpted maidens, princesses, and kindly animals.
In the center of the room, alumni portraits coated a towering crystal obelisk that stretched from the milky marble floor to the domed sunroof. Higher up on the cylinder-like obelisk, were gold framed portraits of former students that had become princes and queens after graduation. In the middle, silver framed pictures lined the obelisk with those who had become jaunty sidekicks, dutiful housewives, and fairy godmothers. Last and surely least, bronze framed students, flecked with dusk, who ended up footmen and servants.
Ella, Avery, and Lauren finally reached the pink haired nymph who was handing out pieces of parchment. The nymph smiled and held out one of the pieces of parchment. Ella looked at it with bated breath:
Ella of Woods Beyond
GOOD 1st year
Charity Tower 46
(-)
Session: Faculty:
Beautification Prof. Emma Anemone
Animal Communication Princess Uma
Princess Etiquette Pollux
Good Deeds Prof. Clarissa Dovey
Lunch (None)
History of Heroism Prof. August Sader
Surviving Fairy Tales Yuba the Gnome
(Forest Group #3)
Taking a couple of steps to her left, Ella was handed a basket of books from a green haired nymph, spines peeking out, The Privilege of Beauty, Winning Your Prince, The Recipe Book for Good Looks, Princess with a Purpose, Animal Speech 1: Barks, Neighs, and Chirps. Continuing to move to her left, Ella stopped in front of the next nymph, who had blue hair and her uniform, a white button down thick strapped tank top, pink corset, a couple inches shorter than mid-thigh light gray cotton skirt, and glass high heeled slippers. Ella quickly glanced around to see if any boys had walked down the stairs recently. Seeing none, she slipped off her dress from the dance, putting on her new clothes. Glass shoes clicking, she walked over to Lauren, needing assistance with her corset.
"Can't...Breathe," Ella gasped as Lauren pulled the strings of her bodice.
She walked over to Avery with a wet kerchief and scrubbed the dirt off her face, the black on her feet, and the suffocating grime coating her skin. Ella then took tiny scissors and evened out her hair, cutting the ends stylishly. Once she was finished, after the cleaning, pulling, tying, and makeover, Avery looked prettier than Skye. Ella handed over her pocket mirror, showing Avery the final product of all her hard work.
"Wow," she breathed, enveloping Ella into a hug. "Thanks."
A giant baby blue cloud exploded between the two pink staircases, evaporating to reveal one of the most famous fairy-tale princesses. Cinderella.
"Welcome to the School of Good. If you would come this way," she said with a massive swoosh of her dress.
Stunned girls followed like sheep as she led them upstairs to the different towers. Cinderella pointed them in the direction of their rooms, hugged them goodbye, promised to see them again, and disappeared in another blue cloud.
Ella sprinted as fast as she could to room 46 in glass heels.
Welcome Avery, Ella, and Lauren!
A glittery sign read, marking their new room. Ella burst through the door, revealing three enormous mirrors, canopy beds, closets, and vanities. Elaborate murals of kissing couples blanketed the pink walls, with white silk canopies shaped like carriages stretched over their beds. Avery dragged her giant trunk in, setting it down at the foot of her bed. Lauren opened one of the closet doors, and gasped,
"Look! There's different colors of what we're wearing!,"
Ella and Avery raced to their walk-ins and stared, open mouthed. Heads turned to the sound of jangling fairies. Their door opened, but not by fairies.
"Do you guys have any hairspray?" Olive, a girl with caramel colored hair, blue eyes, and willowy figure asked.
Ella strode over to her suitcase, "I think so,"
She unlatched it and lifted the edge.
MEEEEEEEEEEROOOOOOOOOW
Rumple the cat exploded from her trunk, causing all of the girls to scream. Ella latched onto the frightened animal, holding him still.
"How in the world did you get in there?," she asked, stroking Rumple's back.
Setting the cat down, she tossed Olive the hairspray. Rumple skittered under Avery's bed, caterwauling. Just as Ella was about to get the cat, when the fairies finally got the crowd moving. Ella, Lauren, and Avery joined the moving mass of girls, talking, giggling, and making friends faster than they could talk.