Monster High 4: Back and Deader Than Ever (3 page)

“Looks like you’re alone on that one,” Brett said.

The sign-up box was surrounded by at least half the student body. All of the name cards had been used. A normie boy in a blue baseball hat wrote his info on a gum wrapper. Jackson Jekyll scribbled his on a yellow Post-it. Even Cleo was searching for something to write on.

“It’s nice to see her getting involved,” Frankie said, nodding toward Cleo.
Maybe now she’ll be too busy to glare at me.

“She’s probably stuffing the ballot box so she can win,” Billy said.

“What do you have against her?” Frankie asked. “She hasn’t been mean to
you
.”

“I just don’t want you to get hurt,” Billy said with a hint of sarcasm. Frankie smiled. He was obviously making fun of her warnings about Spectra. But it was too sunny outside to care.

“Good luck,” she said, smiling at Cleo as they walked out.

Cleo smirked. “Yeah, you too.” Then she giggled.

Frankie considered telling Cleo she wasn’t going to enter. But why bother? The sooner she got out of there, the faster she’d be hosting a pool party for her friends—which happened to be number seven on her to-do-or-die list. So she simply extended the invitation to Cleo and then bolted for the exit. One day closer to freedom!

In the parking lot, winks of yellow sunlight glinted off the
cars. Lala shaded her sensitive eyes as newly licensed drivers screeched into the first heat wave of summer. She shivered. Why couldn’t the weather warm her the way Clawd Wolf did?

The Chic Freaks—Lala’s proud nickname for Cleo, Frankie, Clawdeen, Blue, and herself—charged across the gum-spotted asphalt, not the least bit tempted by the end-of-day gossip or senior flirt sessions. Instead, their sunglass-covered eyes were fixed on Lala’s Escalade. And she was running out of ways to stall them.

“Quit walking like a bludger!” Blue called over her shoulder. “My scales are crisping.”

“My bolts are burning.” (Frankie.)

“My fur is singeing.” (Clawdeen.)

“Tan lines!” Cleo said, shielding her exposed shoulders under Clawdeen’s thick auburn hair. “I need to get strapless before I turn all tic-tac-toe-y.”

Lala slowed even more. “Do you need parasols?” she asked,
twirling the pink stem of the one in her hand. “I have a bunch in my locker. How ’bout I run back and—”

“Just put some go-go juice in your boots, will ya?” Clawdeen barked, doubling back to yank Lala forward. “Frankie’s pool. Remember?”

Of course she remembered. They’d told her the instant they found her in the corner spooning with her space heater during the assembly. She wasn’t stupid; she was in love. And leaving school without a kiss from Clawd felt like losing a purse and not being allowed to look for it. But try explaining that to his
I-still-can’t-believe-you-think-he’s-cute
sister.

Blue peeled back her sleeve and checked her pink G-Shock watch. “It hasn’t rained in two hundred eleven hours. This town is as dry as the outback,” she said. “If I get on the Balance Board, I’m gonna put pool lanes in the halls and swim to my classes.”

Frankie whipped off her studded sunglasses. “You signed up for that?”

Cleo snickered, as if remembering a joke.

“So did I.” Clawdeen lifted her auburn curls off her fur-lined neck and fanned. “If I get on, I’m hiring a groomer.”

“I’m going to cover the walls with mirrors,” Cleo announced.

“What do mirrors have to do with being a mummy?” Frankie asked.

“Nothing,” Cleo replied with a smirk. “I just like looking at myself.”

The Chic Freaks cracked up as they teetered in their platforms toward the Escalade. A mint-green Vespa zipped by, and Frankie blew a kiss in its direction.

“Want that!” she shouted over the buzzing motor. And then
she turned to Lala. “Looks like we’re the only ones who didn’t sign up for that board thingy.”

Cleo giggled again.

“I signed up,” Lala said, aware of how odd that remark must sound coming from her. She was hardly one to shy away from activism, but animal rescue and preservation had always been her thing, and that cause kept her busy outside of school. “Plenty of people are looking out for us, but who’s looking out for them?” she liked to say when someone asked her to volunteer for something school-related. No one even bothered to ask anymore.

“I thought rescue-animal makeovers were your latest obsession,” Clawdeen said.

“Yeah, what happened to beastiesB4besties?” Cleo teased, recalling Lala’s old e-mail address.

“I did this for a beast,” she explained. “Well, more like a bat.”

“The old fella?” Blue asked, scratching her arms. Fine iridescent dust fell to the hot pavement.

Lala nodded, knowing Blue was referring to the big D, Lala’s dad. “He thinks my leadership skills are suffering because I don’t participate in school activities.”

“Why does a pet aesthetician need leadership skills?” Frankie asked.

Lala lowered the pink ruffled parasol in front of her face. “He claims I won’t get into a good college unless I prove my devotion to Merston.”

“Got it!” Blue said, raising her finger. “How ’bout we find you a lovable little bluey and name him Merston?”

They burst out laughing again.

“What?” Clawdeen called, glancing back at the school. Across
the grassy lawn, out of earshot for non-canines, Clawd was saying something to her.

“What?” she asked again, this time in annoyance. Then, with a sigh, “Fine, but hurry up.”

He fist-bumped his buddies and shuffled toward the parking lot with the enthusiasm of someone going to the principal’s office. No waves, no smiles, no eye contact. No acknowledgment whatsoever that he even knew Lala. Clawd put the
cool
in
school
, at least when the boys were around. Still, her insides began to rev. Clawd always managed to kick up her cardio.

“What did he say?” Lala asked.

“Ask him,” Clawdeen huffed. “He’s coming to see you, not me.”

“He said that?” Lala asked. “In front of the guys?”

“ ’Course not,” Clawdeen answered. “He said he had to get his football stuff from the car. But we know what that really means.”

Yay!

Lala tossed her
VEGAN PRINCESS
key chain through the air to Clawdeen, who caught it like a bouquet. “Don’t even think of turning on the AC,” she shouted as the other girls ran for the Escalade.

Finally alone and leaning against the hood of Clawd’s blue car, she grinned.
One kiss, coming right up!

“Whaddaya think of my new heater?” Lala asked, patting the sun-warmed hood as he strolled toward her.

Clawd crinkled his thick brows as if offended. “Something wrong with the old one?”

“You’re my
fur
nace,” she said, ditching the car hood for the warmth of his chest.

As usual, he glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching before he leaned in.

“Am I that embarrassing?” Lala asked, pulling away from his rough football jersey. She lifted her dark eyes to meet his. More yellow than Clawdeen’s, they were like two burning embers.

“ ’Course not,” he said, running a hand over his green mohawk.

“Then why can’t you treat me in public the way you do when we’re alone?” she asked. “Melody Carver’s into the Jekyll-and-Hyde thing, not me. It’s time you let those guys know you care about more than throwing the chicken skin.”

“Footballs are pigskin, not chicken skin.”

“Could have fooled me, chicken,” she teased. “Anyway, why are they made of skin at all? Aren’t there any synthetic options?”

He lifted his hand and pressed it against her lips. “Stop. I have practice in three minutes. Do you want to talk about footballs?”

Lala poked him with her left fang. “No.”

“Good. ’Cause I have something for you” he said, reaching into his backpack.

“What is it? You didn’t need to get me anything….”

He pulled out a rectangle wrapped in aluminum foil.

Lala stepped back. “I’m not trying any more of your gross
Top Chef
experiments! That salty pudding thing was—”

He cut her off. “Just open it.”

She pulled off the foil and uncovered a framed photo of Clawd in a navy wingback chair by a roaring fire. He was leaning intently over a chessboard, hands on his knees. A white queen hovered six inches above the board.

“That was nine months ago. At the Hideout Inn. Remember?” he asked bashfully.

“That was my winning move.” Lala did a victorious booty roll. “I beat you like an egg.”

“It was kind of like our first date,” Clawd said, ignoring the dig. He had a hard enough time losing to a football team. “I know you don’t show up in pictures, but I thought you might like it anyway. You can look at it during the full moon, when I’m not around.”

Chirping birds flapped around the maples behind them. Lala rested her head against his chest, listening to the rapid beat of his heart. “It’s fang-tastic.”

He craned his neck as if working out a kink and mumbled, “You make me rabid happy.”

Lala hugged the photo and then him. He grinned and lifted her chin just as the sounds of Rihanna began pumping from her Escalade. She kissed him anyway. Warm at last.

Honk! Honk!

“Let’s go!” Clawdeen shouted, her head poking out the passenger side window.

“Heel!” Lala called.

Clawd popped open his trunk and traded out his backpack for a black Adidas gym bag. “It’s okay. I’ve got practice anyway.”

Lala smile-nodded. He quickly kissed her good-bye and then sprinted to the field.

“Who’s ready to get ‘On the Floor’?” Lala called as she hopped into the driver’s seat and cranked J-Lo inside the SUV.

“Wooooo-hoooo!” they shouted from the open windows.

“Clawd’s been so much cooler since you guys started hanging out,” said Clawdeen.

Lala beamed. “How?”

Her friend smiled. “He’s never around.”

Laughter exploded from the backseat. In spite of the gusting air-conditioning, warmth enveloped Lala like a cashmere throw.

Just as she turned the Escalade onto Radcliffe Way, Lala’s iPhone chimed its weekly reminder.

“Hold on tight!” she called, and then stomped on the gas pedal. Clawdeen slammed into Cleo’s seat. Blue fell into the center console, and Frankie’s green legs flew up, flashing the girls a glimpse of her striped boyshorts.

Lala screeched to a stop under the canopy of wide-leafed maples in front of her house and hopped out to hurry toward the Victorian mansion, not needing to explain her abrupt exit. It was Wednesday at three forty-five, and her phone had sounded the alert. Her friends knew exactly where she was going.

The hallway—velvet-covered walls and black marble floors lit by dim puddles of light—left visitors temporarily blind. But Lala’s eyes adjusted instantly as the smell of burning firewood welcomed her home.

A familiar
pata-pat-pat-pata-pat-pat
sound, like a mouse scurrying in tap shoes, grew louder. And then, “
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
.”

“Count Fabulous!” Lala cooed, making a perch of her arm. The fist-sized bat relaxed his wings and glided to a stop on her stack of bracelets. He was still wearing the pink bow she’d tied behind his ears earlier that day. But he’d managed to flap off most of the gold wing dust. Typical male.

“I know you’re hungry, but Daddy’s waiting,” Lala told her pet.

“
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
,” he screeched, flapping back up the stairs toward their bedroom. Nine years old and he was still terrified of Mr. D.

Lala tossed her fuchsia microfiber tote onto a black-and-gold velvet bench and then hurried down the hallway that was lined with generations of vampire portraits modernized by high-gloss lacquer frames. The corridor looked more like the celebrity-studded walls of Sardi’s restaurant in New York than a tribute to an ancient bloodline. But there was nothing ancient about Mr. D. He liked his home the way Lala liked her hair: sleek, dark, and luxurious.

She followed the sound of her uncle’s raspy voice to the parlor—which was an homage to Armani’s decadent home-furnishing line. Instead of historical relics or valuable works of art, a sixty-four-inch flat screen was mounted to crinkled-for-effect gold wallpaper.