The School For Good and Evil

Hester, Anadil, and Dot plot how to poison Sophie, but they find her crying in their room over the School Master’s riddle. Hester agrees to help her solve it so she will go home. They explain the history of the School for Good and Evil to Sophie. There were two brothers, one Good and one Evil, who protected the Storian and kept Good and Evil in balance. The Evil one decided that to make evil invincible, he wanted to be the only one controlling Storian, so he started the Great War. In the final battle, nobody knew which brother died. However, since only Good has won since the War, people assume the Good brother survived and controls the Storian, making it Good.

The roommates arrive late for class, so Lady Lesso quizzes them on famous Nevers who destroyed their nemeses. Sophie claims no Reader reads those stories because people want Good to win. She asks Lady Lesso for the riddle answer, and Lady Lesso magically seals Sophie’s lips for the rest of class.

Tedros and his friends follow Agatha, mimicking her as a hobgoblin until she shocks him by telling him he started it when picked her instead of Sophie. Agatha finds that Kiko saved her a spot in the next class and makes a joke to her about Professor Anemone’s Scheherazade costume. Anemone retaliates by magically revealing that Agatha has been stealing candy and punishing her with dish duty. Animal communication class is canceled after the wish fish debacle, so Agatha walks through the Gallery of Good for a clue to the riddle. She sees a portrait of herself and Sophie by the lake in Gavaldon and realizes that Professor Sader can move between the fairy-tale world and the real world. She runs to his class to ask him for help but discovers he’s blind.

At lunch, Sophie and Agatha discuss the riddle while Sophie watches Tedros. In good deeds class, Tedros accuses Agatha of putting a spell on him, and Agatha teases him. Agatha interrupts Professor Dovey’s lecture on good deeds by saying the School Master controls the Storian, so good deeds don’t matter. Professor Dovey and Lady Lesso call a joint assembly and announce that the rumors about the School Master controlling the Storian aren’t true. Agatha contradicts them, and Lady Lesso calls her a liar. Sophie confirms Agatha’s story. Beatrix makes fun of Agatha, so Agatha insults Tedros, who punches Tristan to start a fight. The Evergirls charge Agatha, and Sophie tries to help by throwing a tree branch, which hits Lady Lesso. Lady Lesso orders Agatha to her tower and sends Sophie to a place called the doom room. Agatha tries to escape to help Sophie but finds her ceiling tile secret passageway sealed shut.

In the doom room, the Beast, a creature with a human body and a wolf’s head, chains Sophie to the wall and cuts off her hair. When Sophie stops sobbing, the Beast unchains her and cleans the chains in the moat. Sophie shoves him in, and he drowns. She decides the Good rules about forgiving enemies are wrong.

Through Agatha’s history book, Professor Sader narrates the history of the School for Good and Evil. Agatha discovers the dead brother cast a spell to protect the balance of Good and Evil before he died, but she finds no riddle answer. She throws the book at a couple kissing on her wall and realizes she found the answer.

Sophie looks for Agatha, but she’s still locked in her room. Yuba takes her class via the Flowerground, an underground transportation system, to the Garden of Good and Evil. Sophie watches the crypt keeper bury bodies; heroes are buried together, but villains lie in their graves alone. She realizes the answer to the riddle and goes to find the stymph’s nest.

Sophie jumps off a stymph to enter through Agatha’s window. They agree the answer to the riddle is true love’s kiss: If Sophie is kissed by her true love, then she can’t be a villain. This means they have to make Tedros fall in love with Sophie. In his tower, the School Master watches the Storian draw Sophie and Agatha and write, “But no kiss comes without its price” (224).

Tedros stresses over whom to ask to the Snow Ball. He wants to avoid his father’s mistake by choosing a girl who likes his inner self and not just his body. Agatha wakes to find Sophie mooning over wanting Tedros to take her to the ball. Agatha kicks Sophie out, and her roommates laugh at her desire to go. In uglification, Professor Manley gives Sophie a number-one mark for her hideous hair, which moves Sophie’s rank right under Hester’s. Sophie promises Hester she will be gone if she gets her a love spell, so Hester writes to her relatives to ask for help. At lunch, everyone is shocked when Sophie approaches Tedros and asks him to take her to the ball. Beatrix refuses on his behalf.

In forest group, Yuba has the girls climb into coffins, where he disguises them. The boys are supposed to find one who is like them and kiss her hand to reveal her true nature. Tedros is drawn by warmth to the third coffin. Sophie screams when Hort kisses her mouth and kicks him into a bush, where a skunk sprays him. He smashes Sophie back into her coffin, which seals the two of them in together as punishment. Tedros reaches for Agatha’s hand, so she knees him in the chest. He falls and hits his head. Nobody but Sophie sees Agatha switch coffins. Tedros tries the third coffin again to find Beatrix. Agatha tries to hang back with Sophie after class, but Yuba doesn’t let her.