Auradon is all blue skies and butterflies. I mean, what could be better?

How about dreaming up all the ways to be wicked?

What can I say? Some things never change.

Mal and her friends stood around a large steaming cauldron in the dark.

She was wearing her signature tough-as-nails boots, ripped leggings, and leather jacket. Her dark purple hair was longer and thicker than ever before. She looked down at her hands, holding her mother’s spell book, which she had spray-painted with acid-green and purple flames that caged the glinting gold dragon in the center. She glanced up at her three friends. There was something venomous in her smile.

Despite living in Auradon, Mal was still very much Maleficent’s daughter.

Evie, daughter of Evil Queen, grinned at Mal. She wore a distressed blue leather jacket, a graffitied skirt, and a necklace with a red gem topped by a gold crown. Evie tossed back her silky blue hair as she stirred the steaming cauldron brew.

Jay, son of Jafar, held a bucket of shiny red apples. His biceps bulged out of his sleeveless red-and-yellow leather vest, and his long dark hair flowed from under a beanie. Jay emitted great strength and confidence. A light from the cauldron made his eyes sparkle dangerously, and he gazed across the swirling mist at Carlos.

Carlos, son of Cruella De Vil, also held a bucket of shiny red apples. He was a skinny teen with spiky white hair with black roots, and he wore a red, white, and black fur-trimmed jacket. He looked at his three friends and snickered.

Mal smirked, opened the spell book, and read aloud: “‘Wicked ways beneath the skin, let all who taste it now join in!’” She and her friends stared at the cauldron.

The brew began to spit, boil, and bubble. The spell had worked. Mal and her friends cackled triumphantly. Jay and Carlos dumped the apples into the thickening brew. The four Villain Kids (or VKs for short) circled the cauldron, howling, and refilled the buckets with the spelled apples. They were about to make mischief.

They knew all too well the many ways to be wicked.

Within minutes, Carlos was dumping a bucket of the spelled apples down the floor of the bright Auradon Prep hallway in front of the lockers. Cheerful students in yellow-and-blue tourney jerseys, cheerleading uniforms, and pastel-colored garments watched the apples roll past. They dove to snatch them. After biting into the wicked fruit, they whooped and danced in delight, instantly transformed from well-mannered to maniacal. Mal strutted over the apples, slamming the doors to lockers. The locker doors revealed the tag LONG LIVE EVIL!, which Mal had spray-painted there. She stopped in front of a shy girl wearing a large white bow in her chestnut hair.

It was Jane, daughter of Fairy Godmother. She gasped as Mal handed an apple to her. Stock-still, in her blue, white, and yellow cheerleading uniform, she stared at it. She chomped down on the apple, and her mouth twisted into a sinister grin. Jane snatched the spray paint can from Mal and boldly danced out of sight.

The apples had an intoxicating effect as Mal and her friends continued to share them across the sunny campus. They were making everyone—and everything—a whole lot more fun. Outside, cheerleaders with apples did a routine with Jay before he ran off. In the school hall, Carlos slid into a group of guys, who fell over. One student bit into an apple, then screwed his hat on backward and did a flip off the lockers. In one of the classrooms, Evie strolled through rows of students and doled out apples. She strutted to Fairy Godmother’s desk, placed an apple on it, and moved on. Fairy Godmother, the school’s headmistress, bit into the apple. She looked up and saw that chaos had erupted: Evie and the students danced and threw loose papers into the air. Fairy Godmother shimmied and shook out her hair, joining in the madness that had seized her once neat and orderly classroom.

The wicked fever kept on spreading.

On the quad, Jay chucked apples off the balcony with glee. Doug, son of Dopey, was playing the trumpet when one of Jay’s apples landed in it. More apples dropped into the trumpets of other band members, as well. As Jay continued to fire the apples rapidly, the band players scrambled to catch them and chomp down.

In the rose garden, students kneeled around the stone fountain and dunked their faces into the clear water. One by one, they emerged, flipping back their wet hair with glistening apples in their mouths. Everyone wanted a bite of true evil and mad mischief. They couldn’t get enough. Other students who overlooked the busy lawns jumped up and down, waved their apples, and danced victoriously.

Mal, Evie, Jay, and Carlos reunited as a fierce squad at the front of Auradon Prep—the castle-like building with proud blue-and-gold banners rustling from the stone battlements. They rallied the dancing students. Among them were Beast and Belle, who also clutched bitten apples and jived to the sound of wicked rebellion.

Mal marched through a row of hedges and raised into the air the school flag, which was now a dark purple one that said LONG LIVE EVIL! The horde cheered. Mal loved it. She led everyone farther away from the school, climbed a ladder, and spray-painted the fearsome statue that represented King Ben’s father in beast form.

Mal recalled something her boyfriend, Ben, had once said about the statue: My father wanted his statue to morph from beast to man to remind us that anything is possible. Anything was possible, indeed. Mal could laugh at the irony.

She grinned and tossed the last one of the spelled apples high into the air.

It came down, and King Ben, golden boy and only child of Belle and Beast, caught it. He flashed Mal an innocent smile, and his eyes sparkled angelically beneath honey-brown hair that swooped across his forehead. Ben hadn’t been changed—not yet. He bit into the apple and a devilish grin broke over his face.

HA!

IF ONLY.