Monster High 4: Back and Deader Than Ever (26 page)

Melody breathed in Candace’s Black Orchid perfume. Maybe if she inhaled deeply enough, the smell would stay with her until August. “No good-byes, remember?”

Candace sniff-nodded. Was she thinking about the last ten months too? The months that made them close in a way the previous fifteen years never had? The move to Oregon? The day they met Jackson? The day they saw Jackson turn into Hyde? Cofounding NUDI? Realizing they weren’t blood sisters? Deciding that it didn’t matter?

Melody propped herself up on her elbow and looked at Candace’s glitter-covered eyelids. “Every day, no matter where you are, you’re going to find an Internet café and update me on what you’re doing.” Candace began to blink rapidly. “I want details. Pictures. And the truth.”

“Lying out,” Candace agreed, spellbound.

Siren 1, normie 0.

Hisssssssssss.
They heard the sound of brakes outside.

Melody and Candace froze.
This is it. One… two… three
… Melody jumped to the sheepskin rug and buried her unpolished toes into the fur.

“Your ride is here!” Glory called from downstairs.

Candace zipped the duffel and shoved it toward Melody. “If you don’t become a rock icon with this wardrobe, you’re dead to me.”

Glory and Beau were waiting for her by the front door, sobbing.

“I’ll see you tomorrow night in Seattle,” Melody said. “And then in Portland, and San Francisco, and Anaheim, and San Diego.” Still, she swallowed a horse-pill-sized urge to cry. Even though her parents would be at every show, and trailing the bus with their equipment, this was the end of an era. Melody was stepping out for the first time. Her world would never be small again—her burgeoning talent would see to that. Like a racehorse, it needed practice to reach its potential. Space to hit its stride. Salem was too small for that. Every step she took toward her future meant a step farther from her past.

Beau ruffled his daughter’s already messy hair. “Don’t drink.”

“Don’t do drugs,” Glory added.

“And no hoodies!” Candace called from upstairs, refusing to have her eyes leak in public.

They laughed and hugged. They exchanged kisses.
I’ll miss you
s. They promised to hit the road after they dropped Candace off at the airport. They were a family sending Melody off to join a new one. They were proof that letting someone go is the ultimate show of love—something Jackson obviously wasn’t willing to do.

The doors of the burgundy tour bus hissed open, sharing the shrill intro to “Paradise City” with the humid afternoon.

Granite dashed out. “I’ll get that,” he said, reaching for her luggage. But Melody continued dragging her duffel bag down the steps as if it were a corpse.

“You’re a manager now,” she teased. “Can’t you have the roadie do it?”

He grabbed the bag and hoisted it over his shoulder. It reminded Melody of the night they met, when he rescued her from the dance floor. “Yeah, well, until we fill that position, I’m kind of both.”

“I’ll have to talk to my buddy Lew about that.”

“Please do,” he said, heaving the bag into the side hatch at the base of the bus. “Ready?” He smiled like someone with a surprise. But Melody knew he was trying to control his excitement. Trying to stay cool. Trying not to climb onto the roof of the bus and shout, “We’re going on tour!” She knew because her insides were slam dancing too.

“Welcome aboard!” Nine-Point-Five shouted over Guns N’ Roses. She and Cici were standing on the black leather couches taping Leadfeather posters to the wood-veneer cabinets. Sage was putting a new plastic Christmas tree together, its skinny branches ready to accept donations from friends they had yet to meet. The bus smelled like a mix of leather and candy—a scent Melody would come to associate with beginning.

Beyond the couches and kitchenette were six bunk beds. Three on each side, they looked more like the shelves in Candace’s closet. Decadent for a walk-in, perfectly no-frills for rock and roll. Behind the bunks was a phone booth–sized bathroom and shower. And behind that were two Bose speakers. It was perfect.

“Ready?” Granite called, starting the engine. As well as manager and roadie, he was their driver.

“Ready!” the band members called.

Melody pushed open the window and blew kisses to her family as they waved and blew kisses back. She turned to look at Jackson’s house one last time, just in case. But like all the other times, he was gone.

As the bus began rolling, Sage doled out the chocolate milk. “To Leadfeather!”

“To Leadfeather!” her bandmates answered, knocking cartons and then guzzling.

Granite turned onto I-5 north. No longer just a freeway, it was now a road paved with endless possibility.

“Say good-bye to Salem,” Cici called.

Sage and Nine-Point-Five clambered onto the sofas and waved. But not Melody. She moved up front and sat beside Granite. She vowed never to look back again.

And then her phone rang.

The number was Jackson’s but the voice—lively and amped—was D.J.’s. “No chance you’re hitting the road without me,” he said, guitar blaring in the background.

Melody laughed—one part surprise, two parts relief. Jackson hadn’t abandoned her; he’d abandoned himself. For her. It was the ultimate sacrifice. It was love. It was awesome.

“We do need a roadie,” Melody said. “The money is terrible, and the food is worse.”

“I’ll take it!” D.J. texted his location, and the tour bus turned around. It was the perfect end of one story and the ultimate beginning of another. Smellody out.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 2

The maple trees had been replanted to form an arch.
From above, the fall leaves—red, yellow, green, orange, and brown—looked like a pixelated rainbow. The redwood-and-glass building at the end of the arch, a pot of gold.

At least that’s how it appeared in the photograph that hung above the entrance.

Mr. D, dressed in faded jeans and an untucked black button-down, was standing in front of the satin ribbon that stretched across the glass like gift wrapping. Lala stood beside him, twirling a parasol in one hand and holding gold scissors in the other. Count Fabulous was perched on her shoulder wearing a pink-and-black-striped sleep mask and his new back-to-school tiara.

“Welcome to…” Her father tugged a rope, and a pink-and-black banner unfurled. The crowd gasped.
Radcliffe
was not the name inside the school’s crest. Thanks to Lala’s urgings, it had been changed to something more meaningful. Something that
would remind its students of the night that started everything—the night Frankie Stein lost her head. The night she exposed the RADs. The night normies reordered the letters on the Merston High sign. The night that marked the beginning of the end.

“Welcome to Monster High,” Mr. D said to the hundreds facing them. “The most state-of-the-art educational facility in the country!”

Applause.

“I could spend all afternoon telling you about the acres of land we have made available to our athletes, the portable charging stations, the fountain desks and water lanes, the stone-melting tools, the accessory and clothing design electives, the modern mummy classes, the air-conditioning fedoras, the portable heat lamps, our music program, our animal rescue shelter and grooming spa…”

Lala beamed. Count Fabulous flapped his wings.

“… but I’ll let you see them for yourselves.”

“Woooo-hoooo!” someone cheered.

Mr. D held up his palm. “But first there are several people I need to thank.” He looked out at the crowd and smiled.

Smiled!

“Ram de Nile for funding the project (
applause
) and the Wolfs for their remarkable construction (
applause
). The Steins, Ms. J, and our new voice teacher, Marina, for developing a challenging and nontraditional curriculum that also fulfills all of Oregon’s state standards (
applause
). Mr. Weeks for agreeing to serve as principal (
applause
). Deuce Gorgon and Clawd Wolf for convincing the Oregon Sports Organization to recognize our teams (
massive applause
). And…” Mr. D took off his sunglasses. He squinted
into the sun and then put his arm around his daughter. His touch warmed her in a way that Clawd and cashmere never could. “Most of all, my remarkable daughter Lala and her electrifying friend Frankie Stein. I don’t know many girls who would spend their summer persuading me to open up your school to normies. But they did. And so I have (
enormous applause
). And I assure you they did it without the help of Sirens.” Melody and Jackson laughed. “So without further ado, I give you… Monster High!”

Deafening applause.

The Wolfs covered their ears while Lala leaned forward and cut the ribbon. Everyone charged forward.

Lala watched the stampede but didn’t join in. Her father’s arm was still around her. She was close enough to smell his self-tanner. For some reason, he wasn’t rushing off either. Lala wanted to savor this moment as long as she possibly could.

“Did you really mean that?” she asked, looking up at his strong jaw.

He gazed at her. His black eyes looked more like shiny pearls than stones. “Mean what?”

Lala considered making something up. She was still afraid to show him how much she wanted his approval. Not for fear of what he would do, but rather for fear of what he wouldn’t. Trusting him with her feelings would take time. But she finally trusted herself. And she knew that no matter how he reacted to the things she said or did, she’d survive. She might even thrive.

“Did you mean that I’m remarkable?” she pressed. “Do you really think that?”

“One of the most remarkable women I know,” he said, and
then looked sadly at something far beyond the trees. “I don’t say it very often, do I?”

“Um, I can count on one fang how many times you’ve said it.”

He chuckled once without smiling. “I guess I always assumed you knew.”

Lala pulled herself out from under his grasp, the tender moment broken like a spell. “Why would I assume that?” Her hands began to shake. She popped an iron pill and swallowed it without water. It stuck to the back of her throat, like so many things she wanted to say but never could. “Dad.” She swallowed again.
Bite by bite
… “We communicate by satellite. You live on a boat and talk to a headset. Your take more pride in your tan than your own family. You freak out my pets!” She forced herself to face him. He was looking at his polished black shoes. “Maybe it’s because I don’t eat meat, or I’m dating a Wolf, or I agree with Uncle Vlad that our house would look cool with a splash of color. But whatever it is, I—”

“It’s your mother!” he snapped, fangs bared.

Huh?

“Laura,” he said, using the name her mother had given her. “Do you have any idea how much you look like her?”

Lala showed him her fangs in an indignant attempt to prove otherwise. She regretted it immediately.

“You have her fire. You are the only woman who challenges me the way she did. The only person. You make me question the things I believe in. You take the black and white out of things and try to add… pink.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“Color is unpredictable,” he said, as if admitting something more.

“Like normie death?” Lala asked, catching on.

He nodded. “Like the pain of losing someone you love to something you will never understand.”

Lala stood on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “You won’t lose me.”

“I’m afraid I already have,” he said, his eyes beginning to water.

She fang-poked his arm. “So the first one thousand five hundred and ninety-nine years were a little rocky. It’s nothing we can’t fix.”

Her father sniffle-laughed and pulled her close. “Remarkable.”

Arm in arm, they crossed the threshold to Monster High and joined the others. They looked like every other father and daughter. It was
fang-tastic
!

A very voltage thanks to my editor, Erin Stein.
^*
Your genius and enthusiasm keep me sparking. XXXXX Lisi

Monster High

The Ghoul Next Door

Where There’s a Wolf, There’s a Way

Alphas

Movers and Fakers

Belle of the Brawl

Top of the Feud Chain

The Clique

Best Friends for Never

Revenge of the Wannabes

Invasion of the Boy Snatchers

The Pretty Committee Strikes Back

Dial L for Loser

It’s Not Easy Being Mean