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The boy slouched in the chair on the other side of the principal's desk had all the characteristics of a sullen teenager. He was slouching, as previously noted. He wasn't making eye contact. His head was bowed; he was staring at the floor as though fascinated by the tiles.
"Carlos," the Fairy Godmother sighed. "I'm very disappointed in you."
Carlos gave no sign that he'd heard her. He continued staring blankly at the floor.
"According to Brendan, the head of the school band," she continued, "nearly all of the band's instruments disappeared three days ago. Lonnie mentioned that she helped you carry a set of of drums to your room; you'd told her you were part of the band and wanted some extra practice. There were no instruments in your room this morning, but there was a pile of ashes right outside your window, on the school lawn."
Carlos remained immobile.
"You didn't even try to hide it," she sighed. "What's gotten into you, Carlos? This isn't like you." To wantonly commit an act of vandalism such as this, when all of Auradon was already attuned to every act the VKs made...
Carlos was the smartest of the VKs. What had caused him to act so rashly, so destructively?
It would have taken a lot of effort. Why go to all the bother?
In his seat, Carlos still stared at the floor, not meeting his principal's eyes. Yes, he'd broken into the band room. Yes, he'd carried all the instruments one by one to his room, where he'd hidden them under the bed or in the closet, except for the drums, which he'd needed help with. Yes, he had lied through his teeth when asked if he knew anything about the instruments' disappearance. Yes, in the middle of the night he had climbed out of his window and put all the instruments in a pile and done what he and Diego like to call "pulling an Ivy" and set them all on fire. Yes, he had stood there for hours watching the flames, ash and soot settling on his hair and clothes and orange firelight reflecting in his eyes.
But he had a reason. Didn't everyone?
"Carlos," his principal said, softer now. "What is it?"
For a few moments she thought he wasn't going to answer, but then suddenly he shifted in his seat and mumbled something she couldn't hear.
"What's that?" she asked.
He mumbled again, slightly clearer this time: "They were singing the song."
"The...song?" she asked, frowning. All this over a song?
"You know," he said. "The song. About my mother. Cruella de Vil, Cruella de Vil," he chanted softly. "If she doesn't scare you, no evil thing will..."
His imitation of the tune was spot-on.
"She doesn't like it," he said. That was an understatement. "She heard it once, on television. It was the only time I ever saw her cry."
Carlos remembered that day well, though he'd only been seven then. His mother had been in a good mood, and they were going out and about the Isle with her smiling and greeting everyone she met, which of course just made them even more nervous; the better Cruella's good moods were, the worse the bad moods that followed were. But Carlos had learned to enjoy the good moods while they lasted.
They'd stopped to eat at Ursula's shop, and Carlos had been intent on his food when he suddenly noticed how everyone was staring at them, and how his mother, her eyes bulging, her lips thinning and whitening, and her face draining of color, was staring at the crackly television mounted on the wall.
It had been some sort of musical, and they'd been singing an odd song, he thought then, something about spiders and rocks and-hey, why did they keep mentioning his mother?
No one in Ursula's shop laughed about how the song portrayed Cruella.
They didn't get the chance.
Cruella remained motionless until the final verse.
The world was such a wholesome place until–
The song didn't get the chance either.
Cruella stood up sharply, making everyone flinch. In a single fluid movement she grabbed her ceramic plate and flung it like a Frisbee(food and all) toward the television.
It shattered, glass flying everywhere, leaving its electronic innards open to the light of day.
Cruella screamed, once, a long, wordless, primal shout.
Then:
"Come, Carlos," she said simply, and he hurried after his mother as she picked her way toward the entrance of the shop and through the streets of the Isle, her head high, her shoulders erect, walking at a stately pace, the very image of a noblewoman except that she was hitting anyone in her way, and a few people that weren't, with her cane.
Cruella kept her poise and composure until they reached home.
Then she collapsed into the nearest chair and sobbed.
"She doesn't want to be remembered like that," Carlos told the Fairy Godmother now. "Not evil and sly and inhuman and everything the song says. She wants to be remembered as Estella de Vil, fashion designer, fur lover–" There was an odd light in his eyes the Radcliffes would have recognized.
"Fashion designer?" the Fairy Godmother queried.
He nodded. "She's really good. She could design clothes out of anything. She has hundreds and hundreds of plans for black-and-white fur designer clothes...the House of de Vil could have made millions."
Carlos sighed. "But if the whole world says you're evil," he looked suddenly older and more tired than a boy of fifteen should, "and nothing you say or do can make a difference..."
He shrugged. "Why bother proving them wrong?"