Monster High, the future
"Miss DeNile-Gorgon, do you think I was born yesterday?" Asked Monster High's one-eyed art teacher.
"Mr. Piacascreamo, with that bushy tail and bright eyes- it's an easy mistake." The sunglass-wearing ghoul told her teacher.
"You really think so- I mean, flattery will only get you so far! You've failed to complete your art project!" The teacher said, his passion shook his body and mood stone necklaces.
"Why? I have an art project." Cali said, crossing her arms as her snakes hiss. She stood next to a statue .
There were giggles around the classroom A fly-faced monster buzzed around his macrooni-painting to say "You clearly stoned a monster instead of carving your own- cheating monsters get Fs."
The young ghoul held up a chisel and hammer.
"Would I chip away at a real monster when I know he'll unfreeze?"
"She wouldn't!" a nervous werewolf yelped, she stood in front of a lunar painting.
"She would." The amphibious boy with the curly blonde hair said. He leaned against a table with a book of fashion design sketches in his fins.
Cali raised the chisel to the stone cyborg's hand. His pose was that of a crouching monster in annoyed fear.
…
Abe Blue sat on the bench outside of the Headmistress's office. His large, bright green eyes were on the new Yves Faint Soonyesh suits.
He was swishing a page with his webbed finger when his closest friend walked out.
"Have you been expelled?" Abe asked, putting the iCoffin in his satchel.
"Two weeks of community service for bluffing about Vextor." The ghoul pushed a snake behind her ear. "Liz Hazard owes me for singing at her kid sister's b-day party. I'm cashing in that favor."
"I've seen that cyborg take gargoyle punches to the solar plexus, his tears after the de-stoing were all theatrics." The amphibian said.
"Honest wimp or not, we need to find a new roadie. If a man's not willing to lose a finger for me, then we can't depend on him." Cali said as they walked down the hall.
The captain of the hockey team caught Cali's snake eye. He was tall, purple and scary looking but after seeing him stick straws in his nose ruined his image. Not for the masses, but for Cali's personal circle.
"You think I'd lose a finger for you?" Abe asked, and behind him the hockey captain waved to Cali.
"Why not, they grow back." Cali smirked and fluttered her fingers; being popular wasn't about making friends, it was about keeping peace in the arena.
The door to 's class was supposed to open to the most prune-like monster on the planet. If Cali had read her iCoffin when it beeped 5 minutes before she would've known the chaos behind the door- and would've ran from it.
As Abe turned the doorknob, a hovering camera flew into Cali's face.
"Little ! Can you describe how you feel about your mother right now?" A ghost with short violet hair asked in a wispy voice.
There was a mic on the side of the blinking camera's eye.
The natural answer would've been indifferent to cover extreme animosity, what Cali said was, "No comment."
She poked the lens-eye with two fingers then walked away from the classroom.
"Aloof, mysteriously, rather beguile. Does she know the news or not yet?" The ghost told her attentive toy-friend.
Her mummy issues were easy targets; it was on principal Cali didn't stone everyone who bugged her. As she walked, there was whispering from all corners. The gorgon walked straight, chin high but her snakes were hissing in all directions around her ears.
Other monsters were on their phones. They were laughing and the muttering grew louder the farther she walked.
Cali felt shame, fury and nausea was entering her stomach as she began to realize the muttering was about something bad that happened in her family.
A wall was about to ram into her face when Cali's arm was tugged. The broken trance relieved the vision of the cutest pink vampire Cali knew.
"Cali, don't start freakin." The big grey eyes begged as the connected hands held Cali's.
"I'm not freakin." The gorgon tried to laugh her friend off, but the wiggling snakes she could not hide.
"EEp! Calm down or they'll go into an Afro!" Lala pulled her into a bathroom.
To empty it, Lala screamed, "Please evacuate the bathroom! Cali is making a list of friends for the week!"
A werewolf, zombie and slime monster rushed out of the ghoul's room.
"What's gone viral?" Cali asked her fanged friend.
Lala tugged at her lacey sleeves and looked at the floor, she then looked up to tell Cali, "Something, well, not great happened to Cleo."
Cali's sunglasses gleamed as she stared at the uncharacteristically quiet Lala.
"Okay, stop pressuring me!" And there opened the floodgate. "Your Mummy was fired from being the toy CEQ position! And she did not take it gracefully! Though her outfit was lovely on the cameras. AND there's a video of it online! And it involves her attacking security guards and-"
in Iscreamistan
"Wow, no one knows how to make the news like Cleo!" Heath Burns laughed as he watched the video on his iCoffin.
As Heath watched this, his field partner/lover broke off the fingers of their suspects. Abbey left the suspects tied in their chairs, and moan in pain. They couldn't talk because Heath's socks were in their mouths.
"Boss has already warned you not to goof the off during missions." Abbey was about to tell him to turn off his phone, but she then saw Cleo use the self-defense move on the security guards trying to escort her out of the building.
"What humiliation; if not dear friend this would be pointless." Abbey said; she resisted the urge to fix Heath's tux. She was trying to let him take care of himself.
"I feel because we know her personally, it's okay to download the remixes." Heath said, then he became distracted by his partner's cocktail dress.
Hundreds of world-saving missions, twenty years together and Abbey was still on fire.
In Scaris
Clawdeen Wolf was on a laptop, chuckling. She then heard her phone ring. It was her brother, Clawd.
"I was about to huff and puff you! I wanted to ask if you're going to their house,and could I send a million gift caskets with you." The millionaire-designer asked.
In Scare Fareisco
"No, sis, I was about to ask you to go for me! I can't leave my team."
"What? Need me to write you a pass?"
"No, I'm only a beta, I can't pull big strings yet." The werewolf regretfully told his closest sister.
"Our loyal reputation is going to be blown away! I can't leave until tomorrow night! And it's not a full moon until the night after!" The monster woman said through her canines to her phone.
"Okay, Deuce is going to get reinforcements from closer kids. I will V-Mail (virtual mail) something clawesome in an hour." The seven-foot tall wolf said as he entered a gym.
"A little big to use 'clawesome' aren't you Clawd." The amber-eyed werewolf stated.
"I've always been big. (beat) Dating a younger woman leaves imprints on you." The wolf-man admitted, thinking of his brunette merghoulfriend.
In the DeNile home
In the family theatre room, Nefera had her nails painted as she laughed at the news.
"I couldn't have set her up better than this!" The teal-haired mummy told her servants.
A servant came in the room with her iCoffin on a golden tray. There was a new text message.
Nefera read it then scrunched her nose. The phone fell to pieces against the wall, her servants began to pick them up.
"Always thinking of that ugly little brat! What happened to MY first born privileges!" The mummy said, snapping at her servants to get her a never-before-worn outfit.
Back in Monster High ghouls' bathroom
"Later, Lala." Cali said as she lifted herself to the bathroom's window.
"Wait! There isn't a tree outside that one!" The Lolita dressed ghoul said as she pulled her crazy friend down.
"It's a bite in the neck that they closed the catacombs last year!" Cali felt she had to leave the building immediately.
She took out her phone and texted Lagoona Blue, Icktorney at Law. For most of her life, Cali could depend on Abe's sugar sweet mother for favors.
It rocked the gorgon's nerves when Lagoona's answering-recording played. Leaving a begging message would help nothing. Cali considered her other aunts and uncles but considering she had to share them with her mother for a support group, Cali decided to call on a monster she knew would be there for her.
The line on the other end answered. Cali's snakes shook in delight.
"Hi, I hope this is a good time…yes, how's the leg?…I'm okay, really. Okay not really, I can't stay here and I know where dad's going and I'm glad he is but I really need someone too and-….thank you, thank you so much." Cali thanked the long list of Gods her family taught her to believe in.
Taking Lala's soft pale hand in her more calloused tan hand, Cali told her, "I have a ride on its way. Get me through the school first? Please?"
The smile showed two little fangs. "Well, the please does make it a special offer."
In the hug, Lala giggled as the snake tongues licked her forehead.
Cali counted to twenty then looked at Lala with a stern face. The vampire tried to copy it as best as she could- the pigtails bounced as she tried to nod like a solider.
The ghouls locked arms then walked out the bathroom with grace and unstoppable style.
The muttering had grown louder but they ignored it as they walked down the stairs.
Right as the quarterback, Meowrina Taur, snickered something loud and stupid Abe had come from right field.
"You want a status report?" Abe asked, Cali shook her head (in a gesture so small it was almost unnoticeable).
The trio was ten feet from the front doors when fluff ball in a jersey came up.
"Cali, baby, I just wanna say I'm sorry your mom is a nutcase." Jeri Wolf told her while he smiled.
Lala and Abe thought of this casketball-player as a guilty pleasure: Cali thought he needed to get lost in the woods.
"That's sweet, I'll hold it close to my heart forever." The ghoul said, pinching her friends as a cue to say 'we're leaving now'!
The wolf wasn't as tall as his famous uncle, but he was still fast as any Wolf.
"Hold up, Honey-pots. You're talking about hearts, we gotta talk more about that since you stole mine." The boy with the pointy ears grabbed his chest.
Abe smiled, despite his loyalty. Cali pouted when she saw it. She let go of her friends' arms.
She put her hand on Jeri's shirt then smoothly slid it up to hold his fuzzy chin.
"Jerri." She said slowly and sultrily, "I think you confused your heart with your brain."
"Okay, sure." The wolf's tongue fell out as he began panting.
It was disgusting enough to break Cali's act. Her snakes whipped around their head, usually they styled to look like she had wavy hair; in their almost-hatred of the wolf, the curled around to try snapping at Jeri's nose.
The werewolf was not fazed. "Oh yeah!"
Cali pushed her way around him and walked on to the exit, it looked so beautiful to her.
Jeri was going to follow her but Abe jumped in front of him.
"So, Jeri, that thing you did last Friday was cool." Abe fibbed, staring as how cool the effortless messy-look Jeri pulled off.
"Thanks, guy." Jeri wondered why a dude would feel the need to use hair products.
Abe knew he was just a distraction but that didn't mean Jeri would never see him as more. "So, I was thinking of trying out for the team; any openings?"
"Dunno." Jeri said, licking his canines as he watched Cali walk away.
"Who wants a frozen boogurt?! I've got coupons!" The vampire said as she locked her arms around both boys' necks.
Through the window's glass, Cali could see reporters standing and waiting for her. She bite her lip but then sucked in a breathe of good air when she saw her grandfather's ride. Her grandfather didn't believe in unicorn-power; he believed in devoted servants to carry his family members.
The reports looked starved for a good story. Cali had star-training from national sensation from The Bloodthirsty Madame (formally known as Operetta), royal diva lessons from her mother (via webcam) and her Grandma Maddy on how to keep a temper in check.
Like all of her terrifying role-models, she knew when was good to scream and when silence was golden. Nothing hurt gossip more than silence.
Before the gorgon pushed open the door the smell of tuna hit her. She turned around to see her tabby headmistress.
"Need a paw?" Headmistress Stripe asked, kind and sincere as always.
Cali exhaled but didn't lose her stand. "Yes, ma'am."
The werecat pushed the door open with one hand and the other with exposed claws pushing cameras away.
The reporters all yelled questions at Cali. They pushed their scales, feathers and detectable hands with mics towards her. Stripe didn't attack anyone, but Cali did hear grumbling under her 3-piece suit.
The engulfing crowd was broken apart by the force of two extra-large DeNile servants.
Seeing the reinforcements, Cali rubbed her Headmistress's furry paw in gratitude then rushed over to her family guards.
She could hear the reporters badgering Stripe. The little ghoul prayed that would go viral- the headmistress could be cruel and catty when she was rubbed wrong.
Cali hopped into the golden chariot. She took a seat but her smile dropped when she saw it wasn't her grandfather across from her.
"Whoa, your mother lets you leave the house looking like that?" Nefera asked.
"Wow, Auntie Neffy, you're sounding super wise today. I hope I'm that smart when I'm as old as you." Cali said, not fearing her Aunt's rebuttal.
Nefera was mean but not clever and not capable of hurting her niece. Not with Ramses always watching out for his 'little sun and stars'.
Usually a snappy comment hushed Nefera but the bitter old ghoul was in a good mood. "Talked to your Mummy yet? I did, and she's falling apart. (smile) Poor thing."
Cali then realized she hadn't called either of her parents. She knew Cleo was busy with even more reporters, probably, but what about the second in command?
Nefera was humming a song with the lyrics 'baby sis in a grave' in them. Cali justified stoning a family member because it was the first person she's stoned since the news hit her.
She took her iCoffin from her jacket pocket. The homepage had her mother's outburst as the most viewed video on Frighttube. Cali figured she may as well know what nonsense her family was being blacklisted about.
She watched it, squinted her eyes five and a half times. As her snakes began to whimper Cali hit the button to phone her father.