Chapter 1 - Draculaura
When my mother told me a school for monsters was being made I didn't believe her. I thought it was going to be one of those projects that never got finished. Two weeks later, there was a huge gothic looking building and creepy teachers ready to make us learn new things. It was scary because I knew right then that this school was going to be efficient. And an efficient school means efficient students. And so help me, I cannot be an efficient student. God no.
"You'll love it soon enough, Lala." my mother said to me as she flipped pancakes on the stove.
I wanted to tell her not to call me Lala, that I'd never given her permission to nickname me what my friends had, but instead I said, "No. It will never be something I love."
"You won't be home anymore. Just holidays." she said, knowing I hated it here. Ever since she and my father had gotten divorced and we had moved in with my new step-dad. He was entirely too energetic. Like some sort of human Ken doll. I guess "human" isn't the right word to describe him anymore since my mother bit him the other night. Now he's a vampire like us.
"That will be just about the only thing I'll end up liking. No more annoying life-sized Ken."
"He isn't a Ken." she said, sighing. She pulled a plate out of the cabinet and stacked my pancakes on it. As she crossed over to me she said, "You know he's not that bad."
"No. No I don't." I sat up a bit straighter in order to keep my clothes clean for school that day. This would be my last breakfast at this table for a long time. I've got four years at the monster school with some strange monsters. I was so happy.
"Fine. I'll be in my room if you need me." she said, taking the stairs two at a time. The only plus side to having her as a mother was that she excused my behavior as "teenage hormones acting up." So I never got grounded. She just tried to help me through as much as she could. And honestly, she never really helped me too much. But she did give me something to think about each time, even if I never get the answers. And I'm sure she knows them, but I'll be darned if I ask her for them.
When the gothic purple bus pulled up outside, I almost didn't go out. But then I thought about how if I didn't go I'd be stuck eating dry pancakes and eating by myself at lunch. I was about to leave my only friend behind and she didn't even know it. Kristy was going to hate me, I was sure. But at that point, I knew I'd never have to put up with that or explain myself. I'd never have to tell her why I couldn't play sports out in the sun or why I didn't eat anything "normal". Because I was going to Monster High School.
I stepped up the three stairs to the gargoyle bus driver. He grunted and held out his hand, a fang sticking up over his upper lip. I placed a dollar bill there and he looked surprised, but I had no time for confusion. I continued on into the bus and he eventually stopped staring after me and the two doors closed. The bus lurched forward and I fell into a seat that hadn't been occupied. I sat myself upright again and smoothed my pale hand over my shiny black hair. I played with a pink highlight that I had just added a few weeks ago.
The bus continued on into neighborhoods and picked monsters up as it went. When I had gotten on, the bus had been empty except for me and the driver, but as the minutes flew by, more monsters got on looking just as excited as I had. I saw a fish looking girl with blue skin and wavy blond hair, a green girl with stitches all up her body and white and black hair, a tan guy with green snakes hissing on the top of his head instead of hair, and a mocha colored girl with chunky black hair and golden highlights that sat down next to the snake haired boy. After we left her house, we pulled up in the cul de sac in front of the school. None of us knew each other except for the guy and mummified ghoul as we walked up those stone steps. The gargoyles on either side of me seemed to follow our every movement as if they might pounce on us at any second. And when fish girl went up and tugged at the arched double doors at the top of the steps, they didn't budge. She backed up and waited. And we waited. Until a woman stepped out of the shadows under the archway.
She looked to be in her thirties, but I couldn't be sure since monsters didn't usually look their age. Take it from me. I had been going to a human high school and everyone had been under the impression that my sixteenth birthday was coming up. But in truth, it wasn't my sixteenth birthday; it was my sixteen hundredth. Now, a huge dark blue horse with purple hair clomped up beside her and she swung herself onto the saddle resting on it's back. She nodded to each of us with a smile on her face.
"Welcome, students, to Monster High, where you can be yourself, be unique, and be a monster. We have brought you here to learn under the watchful eyes of amazing teachers that came here to teach you. I am Headless Headmistress Bloodgood, and I will be your principal for the next four years. Welcome to Monster High."
The day continued to go downhill. I soon learned that my bus was the only bus coming. We were the only students. I guess we were the lab rats, the ones who were going to test this thing out. Or maybe no one else's parents were stupid enough to sign their children up for this nut job school project. Sadly, my mother was one of the stupid parents.
"I can't believe I'm standing in a high school for monsters." the blond haired fish said, looking around with a disgusted look on her face. "We've really begun to separate ourselves from human kind."
"Not all of us. Some people are still sitting in their splintery desks at Green Forest High." the mummy said, leaning against the snaky guy.
"I think this will be good." the green girl said shyly, looking at her black and white shoes. "Maybe this is what we need."
"What do you mean?" the boy asked, arching his eyebrows. I couldn't see his entire expression due to the dark Ray Bans he was wearing. Goodness, we were inside, why did he need them on?
"I mean, when we go to human school every day, we have to hide our imperfections. Imperfections judged by humans. Here, we can come as we are. You can show your scales," she said, pointed at the fish girl, "you don't have to try hiding those snakes," she nodded at the snake guy, "you don't have to wear fake tan and never smile," she turned on me now, "and you can be your royal highness without being called completely snotty with no reason." she finished, projecting her words at the mummy.
"Still. This just goes to show that the monsters have given up trying to persuade the humans to accept us." fish girl pointed out.
"Totally." mummy agreed, starting to walk off down the long and empty corridor.
Stitches spoke up again. "Maybe we should introduce ourselves…"
"I'm Lagoona Blue." fish girl said, waving her webbed fingers and allowing the light to bounce off of her shiny blue scales. When she smiled, she got dimples in her cheeks. She had freckles and big green eyes and her blond hair was actually tinged a blue-green color, like she'd spent too much time in the chlorine infected pool.
"I'm Frankie Stein." Stitches said, also waggling her fingers, though hers weren't webbed. She had stitches on every single part of her body that could move; her wrist, her ankles, her knees, her elbows, and her neck. There was also a stray stitch across her right cheek. Her eyes were two different colors and her hair was black and white. She had a petite figure and a pert nose. She was a cute girl by certain monster standards, but she needed to learn to keep most of her opinions to herself.
"I'm Cleo de Nile." the mummy called from down the hall where she was peeking inside a classroom. She turned back toward us and I noticed that she was also cute by monster standards, but she was mostly beautiful by even more than monster standards. She had long, shiny black hair that was streaked with what seemed to be actual gold. She was also skinny and small with a perfectly symmetrical face. She had crystal blue eyes and her eye liner game was on point. She had long eyelashes and was wrapped head to toe in her mummy linens. I loved her wedges. I wanted those so bad. Goodness. Gracious.
"I'm Deuce Gorgon." snake boy finally said, putting his tan hands in the pockets of his black jeans. He was wearing a loose red tank top with some sort of graphic print on it and was wearing a soft looking vest over that. It was white and gray and looked so comfortable. He was tan and obviously had snakes for hair. Green snakes. He was hot to be completely honest, even though hot tan guys weren't usually my type. I liked shy, poetic guys that were sweet and sensitive. But that was just me.
"And you are…?" Lagoona asked me.
"Oh, I'm Draculaura." I said, folding my hands in front of my trying my best to smile politely. If this school thing worked out, I'd be in school with these monsters for four years. Four freaking years. You had to be kidding me.
Cleo had just walked back up at her leisurely pace and was fluttering her eyelashes like she was tired and drowsy. Which, she probably was. If she'd gotten up as early as me, that is. My mother had woken me up at almost five this morning, even though the bus wouldn't be outside to pick me up until around seven twenty. She wanted to give me plenty of time to get ready. And I would've had some anyway even if she hadn't woken me up at five in the morning. Goodness.
"So what are we supposed to do?" Cleo asked, taking what I already recognized as her place beside Deuce.
"I have no idea." I said, looking around us as I'd already done plenty of times by this point.
"Do they seriously expect us to figure everything out?" Lagoona asked, also looking around the empty hallway.
"Welcome students of Monster High!" a robotic voice called out from the loudspeaker in the corner. Deuce put his hand to his forehead and shook his head.
"Yeah, welcome!" another robotic voice said, and even though it sounded the same in the fact it was robotic, I knew it was a different person.
"I'm Medusa Gorgon, mother of Deuce Gorgon, and the other voice you're hearing is the voice of my twenty three year old daughter, Maddi Gorgon. She's human."
"Hi!" Maddi said, and I could picture her waving animatedly. These two must be the comic relief. Oh, great.
"Instead of constantly hearing from Headless Headmistress Bloodgood from these speakers, you'll be hearing from us." Deuce still looked mortified, like they'd warned him in advance but he hadn't believed them. "And instead of going to class and learning about how the world works, you'll be doing nothing. Nothing at all. And if you want to do something, then do it. But you can never leave Monster High."
A bunch of jaws dropped then, including the one from a gargoyle statue next to a door that used to seem to lead to a classroom. Now I, and everyone else, knew that there were no classrooms. There was nothing. No teachers, no learning, nothing. And our smiles just continued to grow. School was about to become something so much better and we had no idea.
"So explore the school and get to know each other." Maddi instructed, sounding entirely too pleasant for what they'd just told us life was about to be.
Walking through the school, I was amazed at how intricate it all was. If someone had come inside, they would've thought it actually was a school. The classrooms had things already written on the chalkboard, the desks were there, the cafeteria smelled like food, and the fake announcements droned on after Maddi and Medusa talked to us. I thought it was an actual school and I knew the truth.
Cleo was the one to find the first camera. She had been checking her reflection in one of the water fountains in the hallway and she found an small lens in the stainless steel. She called Deuce over and he confirmed.
"We're a show." Cleo said, standing up straighter and widening her blue eyes. "They're using us for their own reality show."
"What? Deuce, did you know this?" I asked, realizing what my life was about to turn into. I didn't want fame and fortune. I just wanted to pass through the world happily and invisibly. Not with millions of people watching my every move.
"I didn't know about it." he said, shaking his head. He just seemed to get more and more disappointed in his family. He started rubbing his temple and I looked away.
Frankie and Lagoona had begun walking down the hallway as Cleo had stopped for water. We still hadn't found a bathroom.
"Hey, guys. Come over here." Lagoona called, not turning back to look at us, instead just standing there, still looking starstruck. Frankie did the same.
The three of us walked over to them and we ended up standing the same exact way as the other two had. All five of us stood there for about a minute more and then we composed ourselves again.
What Frankie and Lagoona had stumbled upon was the next part of Monster High. I knew there had to be a place for us to stay because it was classified as a boarding school. These were the dorms we were staring at. The tiled purple and lavender floor was replaced by light purple carpet that led into a living area. On either side of the half circle shaped room were staircases that went up floors and floors and floors. We all looked up as far as we could see and it abruptly ended at the fifth floor doors. There were about three doors per floor and they each had a short description above them in fancy writing. Frankie walked up the stairs to the left and started checking out the door there.
"'Daughter of the Sea Monster. Lagoona Blue.'" she read, looking back down at Lagoona. She raised her eyebrows. Lagoona walked up to where Frankie was and turned the knob. It didn't open. The door was locked.
"How come I can't even open my own room?" she asked incredulously.
"The key," a different robotic voice echoed through the small space said, "is in the vase on the center table."
Lagoona looked up and then down and her eyes set on the small, round, wooden table in front of a group of five arm chairs circled around it. I took the vase and rummaged through it until I found a blue key with small shells set into it. I walked up to the balcony Lagoona was standing on and reached up to give her the key. She took it and nodded. Then she stuck the key into the doorknob and turned. The lock clicked and the door swung open quite neatly. Lagoona stepped inside and started peering around.
"All my stuff's in here from home… That's strange. I only brought a few outfits…" she mumbled to herself the whole way through her room and no one followed her inside.
One by one I dug the keys out of the vase and handed them to the obvious new owner. There was one key wrapped completely in linen, another had snakes engraved inside the green stone, one key had stitches on it, and mine had fangs on the skullette face. We all opened our doors and took a look inside. No one went inside anyone else's room except Cleo and Deuce because they were obviously a couple. I had a feeling this wouldn't be the last time they saw each other's rooms.
When we all came out and went back down to the living area, it was late. The arched windows showed a scene of a dark and stormy night with no sound. The windows were only screens, not actually showing what was going on outside. I guess they showed us what they wanted us to see. A fire was burning wildly in the fireplace in front of the chairs. And three women were standing just inside the light purple carpet.
One woman had snakes all over her head. Green snakes. And she also wore sunglasses like her son. She stood there with no smile on her stony face and the rest of her body also showed no emotion. She was tall and also tan. She dressed in dark clothes that looked serious.
The younger woman beside her was blond and wore no sunglasses. She had bright green eyes that couldn't have been human, but the rest of her was completely ordinary. She had to be a human. She had brown hair and tan skin just like the woman beside her. I was pretty sure the older woman was Medusa and the blond one was Maddi. Maddi actually smiled, though, and she waggled her fingers at us when we were all still.
On the other side of Medusa stood a werewolf. She must've been the one that told us about the keys. She had a deeper robotic voice than the other two. She was black and had wavy brown hair that only ended at her elbows. She had sharp canine teeth and hairy arms and legs. I didn't know her name. She hadn't formally introduced herself.
"Hey, everybody." Medusa said, only now smiling. She looked at Maddi and noticed her wide smile. "Maddi, what happened to seriousness? They have to take us seriously."
"Mom, they need to be comfortable with us. They'll be listening to us for the next four years."
"So? They need to take us seriously."
"Mom. Comfort is key."
"No, Maddi. R-e-s-p-e-c-t." she sang the letters to the tune of the song.
"Maddi! Medusa!" the werewolf exclaimed. Maddi and Medusa froze and put on their best faces for us. As if we hadn't just seen this entire exchange.
"Hello, everybody. And welcome to Monster High." As if we hadn't already heard that ten times today. "I'm Medusa Gorgon, the woman you'll be getting news, announcements and activities from." Activities? Oh goodness. Now we're Total Drama Island. Or the Challenge. This is gonna bite. "Actually, all of us are going to be what we like to think of as your mentors. Introduce yourselves." she said, gesturing to Maddi and the werewolf.
"Well, I'm Maddi. Hi. I'm Medusa's daughter. Deuce's older sister." she said, eyeing Deuce who only shook his head.
"I'm Shouti Wolf. I'm going to be your lunch lady." I had to hold myself together. I looked her up and down and my stomach rolled with the thought of all of that hair in my food. I shivered and I swear Cleo did too.
"You guys should get some sleep before tomorrow. We've got some fun coming for every single one of you." Medusa said, a look her face that told me that it wasn't going to be fun for us, but for them.
The three women turned and walked off down the hallway of the school and left us in the living area of the dorm. We all looked at each other. Everyone went up to their door and went inside.
When I got inside my room, I felt like I was home. The sounds coming from the other side of the door were sounds from my home with my mother and her Ken doll. The scene outside my windows were my old neighborhood. I felt oddly comfortable in the strange room that looked like my own. It was my room. It had to have been. But it wasn't and I knew that.