Excuses

Miss Brimstone stood tall in the entrance to the cave. Madam Garcia was buzzing in the air beside her.

“How did you know?” Trixie said. Her eyes widened and an enormous smile spread across her face when she saw another familiar face peep around the corner. “Maria!” she screamed.

“Gloria let me out while they were waiting for you to distract the pishtaco,” the centaur said. “I raced back to the school as quickly as I could.”

“Diego, I’m so disappointed in you,” Madam Garcia said forlornly. “I never would have expected you to do something like this.”

“I would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for you meddling monsters,” Diego said bitterly.

“We gave you everything, Diego. A job, a place to live. And to think you’ve repaid us like this...” Madam Garcia trailed off. Trixie thought she could see tiny teardrops running down the fairy’s cheeks.

“You’d never understand,” Diego said.

“I think I do,” Trixie offered. “You wanted to belong. They didn’t believe that you were a monster, so you set out to prove them wrong. I’m lucky that most of the monsters at Monstacademy have accepted me for who I am. Maybe if the monsters at Escuela de Monstruos had treated you better, this might never have happened.”

“Exactly,” Diego said, “they’ve never accepted me.”

“What do you mean?” Madam Garcia asked.

Maria and Xavier took it in turns to explain how the other monsters had ridiculed Diego for years. For her part, the headmistress looked genuinely upset and shocked that the caretaker had been treated this way.

When they had finished the story, Diego looked relaxed. A weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

“Of course, we can’t just let you go,” Madam Garcia said, dropping the weight straight back down. “You’ve kidnapped dozens of young monsters and hidden them away in this horrible cave. I won’t even ask what that enormous cauldron was for.”

“But you heard the story,” Diego pleaded. “They tormented me, and you did nothing.”

“I’m sure Madam Garcia feels quite terrible about her poor handling of the situation,” Miss Brimstone chimed in. She seemed to enjoy pointing out her old friend’s mistakes a little bit too much. “But you can’t go around doing terrible things every time somebody is mean to you. For goodness sake, poor Trixie would never get any work done.”

“Thanks for that,” Trixie said sourly. She didn’t need reminding that Heston Gobswaddle and his cronies were waiting for her back home.

“It’s always important to remember that there is always a choice.” Miss Brimstone looked from Diego to Trixie and her friends as she spoke. “You always have a choice with everything. It may not be a choice you like, but there is a choice, nonetheless. But no choice is free from consequences. In fact, the choice of consequences makes all of the others pale in comparison.”

“Enough of that,” Madam Garcia said, her face almost purple with rage. “I’ll take care of this.”

The tiny fairy drew herself up to her full ten inches and rolled up her sleeves. She started to wave her hands around in a strange fashion, but Miss Brimstone got there first. The banshee muttered something under her breath and flicked a finger towards Madam Garcia. The fairy spun in the air and landed in a heap on the floor. Trixie giggled when bright yellow stars appeared in the air and spun around her head, just like a cartoon.

“There are people out there who fear monsters. They’ve heard the rumours about the pishtaco and want to know what’s going on. If you do something...messy...in here, then they will never trust you that it is safe. He must be handed over to the police. Let them deal with him in the open and then,” Miss Brimstone raised an eyebrow and a finger to prevent Madam Garcia interrupting, “only then, might they begin to trust you again.”

Miss Brimstone had declared Colin’s leg nothing more than badly bruised, but she had conceded that he needed to rest it while the others cleared up. Trixie noticed he was feeling more cheerful by the minute.

It took them a while to unlock all of the cages and release the monsters. Diego seemed to realise that there was no point in fighting. Miss Brimstone had tied his arms and legs together with strong rope and he spent the time looking forlorn in the corner.

“You could almost feel sorry for him,” Maria said to Trixie and Gloria. She was hammering her hoof on a particularly stubborn padlock, trying to force it open.

“I don’t,” Trixie said. “I understand what he was feeling, but I don’t feel sorry for him. He spent his whole life angry because he wasn’t accepted into the school. Imagine what he could have achieved if he’d set out to do something positive.”

Suddenly, there was an almighty scream from the other side of the room, followed by a heartfelt groan from Colin. Trixie spun around, ready to fight whatever monster was attacking them now. When she saw what was happening, she couldn’t help but laugh.

Somebody had released Devon from her cage, and the cyclops had raced straight over to Colin to thank him for saving her. Despite his best efforts, she’d thrown her arms around his neck and was giving him a hug.

“Told ya she’d fall in love,” Gloria said, and they both laughed even harder.

By the time the convoy of monsters made it back to the school, rumours were already spreading. Trixie was the pishtaco. Or maybe she’d beaten him and rescued Diego. Or Diego was the pishtaco and had eaten Trixie. Trixie didn’t have the energy to argue, plus it was nearly dawn and she suddenly realised how hungry she was.

“We can deal with all of these tomorrow. Or later today. Or whatever. Right now, I need some breakfast.”

The five of them headed down to the hall where an enormous breakfast of fried pork, sweet potato, black pudding and a steamed cake that Maria told them was called humitas was piled high on the long tables. Trixie didn’t think she’d ever seen Colin so happy.