[ Chapter 2 ]
"I mean cool, whatever." Frankie said, smiling at Jackson.
He smiled back, watching as she left. His smile disappeared, Mia sighed from behind the corner wall where she was watching. Jackson, her monster crush, had just accepted to go on a date with Frankie Stein. A frown found her face.
"Oh, Jackson…and just when I decided to find the courage to ask you out." She mumbled.
She jumped at the hand that fell on her shoulder, her shoulders stiffening and her eyes hide. Her head turned slowly as she wondered who had been watching her.
Her eyes blinked, it had been a boy from her fifth period Monsters Lit A.P. class.
Her shoulders relaxed, slumped in their place.
The boy blinked one eye, the other followed. He groaned, slowly lifting his arm to point where Jackson was.
Mia turned her head to where Jackson had been. He'd disappeared already. She sighed again. "Looks like I missed him again…"
The boy groaned, speaking in the language of Zombie. "Ughhhhh…ughhh, ughhh ughhhh ughhh." His voice was a tad bit deep, but more groggily if anything, yet it was still kind and caring.
Mia looked up at her zombie classmate, not sure what he was saying, but thankful that he cared enough to reach out to her. "Sorry, I just started taking Dead Languages so I have no idea what you're saying, but thank you anyway."
His arm falls back down, as does the other one on Mia shoulders. He attempts to nod. "Ughhh, ughh ughhhh ugh ughh."
Mia smiled apologetically, wishing she knew what he was saying. "Thanks for trying to make me feel better,"
His tried to smile, his chapped dry grey-pale blue lips sketched, showing his yellow-white teeth. Mia smiled too, trying to show the boy that his efforts had some affect. He turned around slowly, beginning to walk away. Mia blinked, giggling just a little.
She'd have to thank Ghoulia's cousin with something ( a card maybe? ) next time she saw him.
"Hey Mia, can we talk?" Kim said, sitting her purple-pink try down at the table. She slides into her seat across from Mia.
Mia nodded, not able to look at her as she sucked down her fruit punch juice in a box.
"Alright, well, you see, I want to apologize about being monstrous. I seriously, seriously didn't mean to snap at you like I did. I just…I don't know, that Normie gives me the creeps I guess." Kim shuttered in her custom MH black lettermen's jacket that she earned from being in the Crasketball Team – she'd been the only girl, but that didn't matter to her. She was a hardcore fan of the sport. "But yeah, I just wanted to say that I was sorry. Will you forgive me, Mia?"
"Of course I will, Kim. I know it wasn't your fault, you were just a little crabby about Jackson." Mia smiled at her friend.
"Uh, yeah." Kim said, not having even bothered remembering the Normie's name. She wondered why Mia did. "So anyway…"
"Anyway?" Mia blinked.
"Want a sugar cube?" Kim offered, lifting out her hand. In it was sugar cubes. She smiled at Mia, hoping this would official be the thing that made amends between them.
Mia bursted into giggles. "Sure," she said taking one. "Thanks."
"It's no problem, ghoul friend." Kim said playfully.
Together they flicked the sugar cubes in their mouth, enjoying its high-powered and leaving-an-impact taste. Just before they could start eating their lunch, grey pants and a yellow shirt appeared before them. The sugar cube Kim had just ate was leaving a bad aftertaste in her mouth. She and Mia looked up to find Jackson and his grey and black checker board vest.
Kim's stomach felt indifferent, she felt like she needed to be in automatic defense mode.
Again she wondered: what was it about this Normie that didn't sit right with her?
"Hey there, Mia." He said sheepishly, the collar of his bright yellow shirt.
"You know my name?" Mia blinked, her eyes softening.
Jackson chuckled nervously. "Well yeah, you're in the Chess Club too, aren't you? Ghoulia told me to come and find you since I couldn't speak any zombie and Chess Club is kind of…well, you know."
"Yeah, that place is filled with zombie." Mia offered a friendly smile.
"Right." Jackson smiles back, starting to get comfortable around his new friend.
"Why don't you sit with us?" Mia said, taking notice of the purple-pink tray in his hand.
He nodded. "Sure."
Mia slide over, offering up her seat. Jackson happily took it. "Thanks."
"No problem." Mia said, now perky all of a sudden.
Kim tried to grin at the Normie, showing that was more or less harmless.
"Well…um…welcome to our table! And Monster High, of course. So, um, what do you think of the place? It's nice isn't, yeah, very nice. Don't you think?" she said, speaking so fast that she wasn't sure if Jackson the Normie caught any of that.
He blinked at her for a moment, as if replaying what she'd said. Finally he responded. He hung his said, thinking of the lunch lady who thankfully, for his sake, served Greek Pizza today for lunch. It had been the nicest thing anyone had done for him that week, other than Deuce inviting him over to his and his cousin Heath's table and Mia and Lagoona offering a bond of friendship. "Well…" he started. "I don't know if nice is the right word, but there are some pretty cool ghouls here." He said, trying to use the common lingo.
Kim cringed at the sound of him saying ghoul.
"Um, well…that's…interesting." She looked away, beginning to eat her eyeball soup lunch. Mia smiled at closest friend at Monster High, silently thanking her for at least attempting to be friendly to the Normie that everyone bullied.
"So Jackson, what's your schedule like?" Mia asked, dipping one of her dragon scales into her mixture of spicy mustard and secret sauce that had been provided along with her lunch.
They were also serving Mia's favorite snack today, which made her feel a little better.
"My schedule? Well…" Jackson began to hunt through his backpack. He pulled out a sheet of paper and read it aloud. "First period: Hist. of the Undead, second period: Biteology Lab, third period: Monster Lit A.P., lunch, fourth period: Physical Deaduction, fifth period: Clawculus A.P., and sixth period: Dead languages."
"Whoa," Mia smiled at him excitedly. "I have pretty much every class you have, just not Biteology Lab and Physical Deaduction, plus mine aren't in the same order, but it still counts, right? Wow, that's so cool."
"Oh so you're a sophomore too?" Jackson asked, taking a huge bite of his pepperoni topping Greek Pizza.
"Nope, she's a freshmen, I'm the sophomore." Kim answered as Mia chewed away.
"Ah, I see." Jackson nodded.
"Yeah…" Kim looked away again.
For a while they sat silently, chewing on their lunch food and not speaking. Suddenly Jackson asked, "So, um, asking rhetorically, do either of you know how to express a girl?"
"What do you mean?" Kim asked half-heartedly interested.
"Um, never mind." Jackson gave an uneasy smile and went back to his lunch.
Mia frowned at her lunch, wishing that she could've asked him out first.
The feeling jealously rooted itself in her stomach.