Monster High 4: Back and Deader Than Ever (13 page)

THURSDAY, JUNE 16

Frankie’s joints ached. Her fingertips were blistered. Her portable amp purse reeked of flat-ironed Barbie hair. She flopped onto her metal operating table and pulled the fleece-covered electromagnetic blanket over her shoulders. She was beat. Drained. Exhausted. Exhilarated. And finally on her way to the winner’s circle.

Rolling onto her side, she looked into the glass aquarium by her bed. “You guys were so right,” she told the Glitterati. “It was a megawatt success.” Five white rats sprinkled with pink-and-orange glitter stared back, whiskers twitching as if to say,
We told you so
.

“I must have zapped two hundred cell phones today. Those things will hold a charge for weeks. That’s got to be good for major votes.” She yawned. Ghostface Killah rose to his hind legs and scratched at the glass with pink paws.
I wish I could have helped you
, he tried to convey.

“Len Walsh’s car battery died too. So I jump-started it. That alone was probably worth twenty votes.”

There was a light rap on the door.

“Come in,” Frankie called.

A sliver of light entered the room and then splayed out like a paper fan. “I thought I heard voices. What are you still doing up?” asked her mother. She sat on the edge of the table and stroked her daughter’s hair. Frankie inhaled Viveka’s rose-scented night cream.

“I was telling the Glitterati about the contest,” she said, using the last of her energy to roll onto her back.

“How’s it going?”

Frankie yawned. “I’m drained.”

“Remind me why it’s so important to be this ‘It Couple,’ ” her mother said.

“You get to be in ads and stuff,” Frankie answered. “Like real models.”

“And…?” asked her mother, as though that wasn’t enough.

“And what?”

“And what’s so great about that?” Viveka’s violet eyes were wide and expectant, ready to take in Frankie’s answer without judgment.

“Everyone wants to be a model,” Frankie tried. The words came out sounding foreign.

“Why?” asked her mother, wanting to understand.

“Because.”

Viveka waited.

“Because being a model means you’re pretty and—” She stopped. That couldn’t be the reason, could it? She dug deeper. “Brett and I would represent the school.”

“So, it’s more like a political thing?”

“Yeah,” Frankie said. That sounded right.

Viveka considered this for a minute. “I thought you were over politics and just into having fun.”

“I was,” Frankie said, pulling the covers higher. “I didn’t think it would be this much work.”

The Glitterati were sleeping now, curled up and breathing deeply. The glitter on their backs glinted from the light in the hallway.

“You’ve stood up for causes plenty of times. You know how much work that can be.”

“Yeah.” Frankie turned away. “But that didn’t feel like work.”

“It never does when it’s something you believe in,” her mother said. She punctuated Frankie’s forehead with a kiss. She had made her point. The end.

Frankie wanted to explain that she did believe in what she was doing. That winning was the only hard part. That the fun would kick in after that. That being the T’eau Dally High couple would mean photo shoots with Brett. Access to designer shoes and clothes. Inevitable discounts at the mall. More followers on Twitter. Limitless popularity… But how did you explain all that to a science professor? Instead, Frankie kissed her mother back and curled into fetal.

She drifted to sleep soothed by the memory of Cleo’s response to her charging station. The Nile-long line had made the royal gasp; the audible suction had the force of a Dyson vacuum cleaner. Any stronger and her pita chips would have risen off their plate and stuck to her lip gloss. Haylee, on the other hand, said nothing. She simply dropped her basket of individually wrapped “Oat for Me” bars and stared.

Whoever said success is sweet was wrong. It’s mint.

FRIDAY, JUNE 17

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” cried Grace Collard.

Marc Beane kept stabbing her in the chest. The Canon stalked him like the barrel of a sniper’s rifle. But he blocked it out. Being shot was the least of Marc’s concerns. He’d come for blood. “The redder, the better, the deader,” he shouted over Grace’s shrieks.

The eye on the Canon was fixed on her now. “Help me!” she cried.

“And… cut!” Brett called from behind the lens. The audience burst into applause.

“That was killer!” panted Marc, admiring the haunted-castle backdrop, which was now splattered with red syrup.

“You know, you guys can hang out in my horror-movie shed anytime you want. I have all the
Scream
s.” Brett leaned closer to Marc and winked. “You can snuggle during the scary parts.”

Frankie giggled as she offered a pair of authentic bolt earrings to Grace as a parting gift.

“These are so wattage!” The girl shrieked all over again.

Wattage? How voltage!

Sorting bolts, Frankie peered across the cafeteria, evaluating her competition. Cleo was hard at work “Binding Binders”—a fancy way of saying wrapping school supplies in linen. Deuce was by her side winning the hearts and votes of practical jokers by taking off his glasses and turning unsuspecting victims’ homework to stone. Haylee was set up over by the cheerleaders’ table, offering free tutoring and essay revision while Heath chugged soda and burped fire on request.

Someone tapped Frankie on the shoulder. “Make me an ace belly bolt, willya?” asked Blue with a bubbly smile. The linen-wrapped bottle of hand cream poking out of her canvas tote tugged at Frankie’s heart space.
Whose side is she on?

“Aww, come on, Sheila, don’t be cross,” Blue said, her eyes beaming sincerity. “We’re all cobbers here. I can’t choose. Besides, only a square takes sides, right?”

Frankie considered this and then grinned. “And only a star
would see your point,” she said, offering up the shiny peg and her brightest smile.

“Bonzer!” said Blue, twisting it into her belly button.

“Next!”

“I’ll have what m’lass just had,” said Irish Emmy.

For the next forty-three minutes, Frankie attached her father’s spare bolts to fingernails, earlobes, necks, noses, wrists, and an invisible forehead (Billy’s!). The line in front of her table was longer than Cleo’s and Haylee’s combined. And Brett was cranking out movies faster than Jennifer Aniston. Their approval rating was in the Obama-got-Osama range. Everything was positively wattage!

And then the bolts ran out.

“Quick,” Brett said, handing Frankie his camera. “I need a charge.”

Drained from the day before, Frankie’s electric current flowed like expired OPI. Thick and slow, sticky and clumpy, the reboot was taking forever.

“Bolts are for dolts! Horror is a snorer!” Cleo called. “Come and design your own jewelry!”

Deuce was standing behind a table filled with scissors, paper scraps, and dozens of nail polish bottles. Voters were invited to cut their own shapes, and then Deuce would turn them into stone charms. If they wanted something more vibrant than the rock’s natural gray color, they were invited to polish their creation with Chanel’s latest summer palette. Deuce and Cleo were surrounded. All that remained in the Stein-Redding corner were syrup-stained masks, a semicharged camera, an empty box, and defeat. The crowd had definitely bolted.

Brett began packing up. Frankie began picking her seams. So what if her body fell apart? Her heart space was already broken—

“Stop it!” said a floating forehead bolt. Billy.

“Stop what?” asked Frankie, voice pinched, shoulders slumped.

“Stop telling yourself this was a big waste of time. Or that you don’t stand a chance. Or that you’re going to give up and go shopping… again!”

Frankie couldn’t help grinning. He had her pegged like a pup tent.

“I really wanted to win this.”
I’m so tired of failing.

“It’s not over yet,” he said.

Frankie glanced at the fandemonium surrounding Cleo and Deuce. “Sure looks like it.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” he said. And then—
hissssssss
—Billy sprayed his face with Spectra’s citrus-scented visibility mist. The bolt was stuck to the tip of his nose, not his forehead. “See?”

Frankie giggled.

“Cleo may be binding, but you’ve got this thing wrapped.”

“How can you be so sure?” she asked.

“I just nose it,” Billy said, and then began to fade. Hope, however, lingered with Frankie for the rest of the day.