Chapter 9 - Whistle While You Work
Quinn had only received her cellphone that very morning, but she was already obsessed. She'd made a MyPage account and uploaded at least 20 selfies in the past five hours. Social media was perfect for someone like her, and she already had two dozen followers. Granted, seven of them were fake accounts trying to sell her things, and one was a weird Neverland exchange student named Tonkerbell, but she didn't care.
A notification popped up, and the villain princess squeed. Chad Charming posted another selfie! Quinn had been trying to get his attention since they first met, but he always seemed far more interested in himself, so this was the closest she could get.
"Girl, are you even paying attention?" The girl sitting next to Quinn leaned over, poking her. With her pointy features, copper skin and blue disc earrings, Mata was instantly recognizable as the daughter of Kuzco. "There's like five minutes left in class and your cupcakes aren't even finished yet!"
"Aaaah!" Quinn shot up, screaming. She'd completely zoned out and forgotten about the assignment. Grabbing the icing gun, Quinn began to decorate her pastries with bright yellow icing, trying not to make it look like a rush job. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"That's not my job." Mata rolled her eyes and poked the picarones she'd made. "You're Quinn, right? The Queen of Hearts' daughter? I heard you know a thing or two about fashion." She poked her head over Quinn's shoulder, looking at her work judgmentally.
The VK princess dropped her icing gun and turned around. "I know everything about fashion! And baking. And everything else a princess is supposed to know!" She couldn't believe someone would underplay her abilities like that.
"Then make me a dress for the prom. I'm taking Bobby Hood." Mata said, sprinkling some sugar on her assignment. "And I don't have a dress that goes with fur."
"Come by my room tonight and I'll start on it." Quinn smiled. "It'll be the best dress you've ever seen in your life."
"Are you making a friend, Matty?" Professor Kronk said, interrupting the two girls. Mata groaned and buried her face in her hands. "It's so good to see you socializing with other girls your age, outside of social media!"
Quinn had several questions, but could see that Mata was not in the mood to answer them. Her parents were always embarrassing her, like when the Queen of Hearts asked to see the manager because she found a clam shell in her gruel. "I, uh, finished my seashell pastries, professor."
Kronk finally turned his attention away from his daughter. "Seashells, huh?" He picked one up and squeezed it gently, taking a bite. "This is good, Miss Hearts. That's another A for you. I think you might've found a career for yourself here in Auradon."
Quinn beamed. She didn't bother to mention that these pastries were made to look as close to Ursula's necklace as possible. It was part of Uma's plan, to make sure no one noticed it went missing when they stole it.
0-0-0
"Hey princey, I need something." Dante jumped onto his boyfriend's lap, knocking over the book he was reading. The two boys were in Auradon Prep's study hall, which was thankfully empty today. "Hope you're not busy."
"Dante, if this is what I think it is, not in the library." Aziz sighed. "I'm trying to study, I've got a test next period and it's my worst class." He kissed him on the cheek, then what back to looking at his books.
Dante rolled his eyes. "Not that! I want to go out tonight." He draped his arms over Aziz's broad shoulders, taking a second to admire his muscles, and smiled. "Take me to the museum tonight, I want to see everything."
Aziz paused. "You want to go to the museum? For fun?" He looked Dante in the eye, wondering if something was wrong. "Sweetheart, yesterday you told me history was 'nerd stuff, for dorks'. Those were your exact words."
The demigod cringed. He really made this harder than it needed to be... "I changed my mind. Come on, Zee, I wanna spend some quality time with my big handsome prince~" He nuzzled his boyfriend and played with his shirt, trying his hardest to look cute and innocent.
"Alright, if that's really what you want." Aziz pet Dante's head, smiling. "You're impossible, you know that?"
"I know it's a lot, the hair, the bod..." Dante flexed his non-existent muscles, and Aziz had to suppress a laugh. "But you're staring at a demigod~"
The two boys laughed and kissed each other softly, Dante snuggling into the prince's lap and burying his face in his shoulder. He closed his eyes, feeling safe and secure for the first time in... well, ever.
0-0-0
While her friends were goofing off, Uma was doing research. She isolated herself in the school library and grabbed every book she could find about Fairy Godmother, magic wands, and the Isle of the Lost. She wanted to know everything she could about magic.
"Queen Titania had three daughters. The first and most powerful was Ludmilla, the Blue Fairy. The second, Circe the Enchantress. Third and perhaps most well known, Stella the Fairy Godmother." Uma read from an enormous, ancient book called A History of Fairies.
That didn't tell her anything useful, so she turned to another book, Magic Wands For Beginners. "A fairy's magic wand contains a portion of her power. Anyone who can steal a wand can do anything the fairy can do." So the wand could definitely take down the barrier, since Fairy Godmother put it up in the first place.
The third book was called History of the Lost. "The Isle of the Lost started as a garbage heap for things the kingdoms couldn't get rid of, until Hades was defeated and the gods needed a place to keep him..." That certainly explained by Dante's father was so angry all the time. He'd been there longer than anyone else.
Uma set down the book and sighed. There was a lot of information to take in at once, and she wasn't sure how much of it was actually useful. She rubbed her temples, needing a distraction.
Just then, Uma's phone buzzed. It was a text message from Ben, of all people. [Are you busy?], followed by an emoji. Uma didn't recognize it, seeing as she just got the phone that very day. She quickly texted back [Nope.]
[Great. Wanna hang out?] He replied almost immediately. [I need to get out of my room.] Ben had been isolating himself since his break up with Audrey. Everyone was spreading rumors about it, and the question on everyone's mind was who did Ben really like?
Now was the perfect time to get close to the prince, and closer to the wand, so Uma agreed right away. [Let's get lunch. You're paying, though.] She smirked, this would be easier than taking candy from a baby.
0-0-0
Harry needed to practice his thief skills. He'd managed to pick the lock on Ben's door easily, but that was just a dorm room. Breaking into the museum and stealing Ursula's necklace would be much more difficult.
So he started working on the lockers after Tourney practice. Harry didn't get to bring his thieves' tools with him to Auradon, so he "borrowed" as handful of bobby pins from Quinn. He quickly realized, however, that most of them didn't even lock their belongings up! The AKs were far too trusting.
"Bobby, you gotta tell me." Harry pulled Robin Hood's son aside. "Why aren't you using your locks? Aren't you worried about something getting snatched when you're not looking?" But the talking fox shook his head.
"We trust each other." Bobby shrugged. "Nobody wants to steal anything, and if they did, there's the threat of getting banished hanging over our heads. Kind of scares most people out of doing anything bad."
Harry had several questions and comments, but didn't bother pressing any further. "Sure, I guess that makes sense." He sighed. It wasn't a satisfying answer.
Auradon was so... polarizing. Everything was clean and bright and happy, and there was so little crime that people didn't even use locks most of the time, but it also felt... shallow, for lack of a better word. Like there wasn't much underneath the smile. At least back on the Isle, everyone was upfront and honest with how they felt about you.
0-0-0
Ariana flipped through her phone, looking at the pictures she'd taken. Harry, pulling the lock off Whitney Charming's locker. Quinn, shaping pastries into Ursula's necklace. Dante, setting fire to school property. And, of course, Uma, reading a recipe for a love potion in the school library.
She'd wasted all her free time that day, following the four of them around, but it was worth it. Ariana knew the VKs were doing something suspicious, something illegal, she just needed more proof.
They were all going down, one way or another. She would see to it.