Behold the Eyes—CHAPTER 2
"Dear Cleo,
You're awesome but I think we should start seeing other monsters. Don't pine for me; it'll make you look pathetic. I'll be fine because I am never stepping foot in Monster High ever again.
Peace, Deuce
p.s. I'd appreciate it if you'd clear out my locker. Do whatever you want with it."
After the letter was read it was ripped apart. The small shredded of the paper were tossed into an open grave.
The daughter of the Mummy wore black pants suit. The trim was hot pink, the buttons were of little white skulls with bowties on their heads. There was a pink ascot under the collar that followed out almost like the pelt of a flower. On the right side of her chest was small golden pin of a winged sun. Her black hair was hylighted with purple and cut short to her chin line.
She stood at the edge of the seven-foot hole. To her left was her bestfriend, the very intelligent and very gentle Ghoulia Yelps. Ghoulia wore a plaid hot pink& white skirt that reached her knees. Her knee socks were solid white with small cherry designs around the end of the band. Her long blue hair was tied into two braids with red-cherry hairpins.
Across from them was Jackson Jekyll, wearing a suit like the mummy's except with a black and yellow tie. The half-Normie boy held Cleo's iCoffin, which was streaming live what it recorded, to all the students connected to her Critter account. It reached the entire student body.
"Personally, I like to hold on to my belongs into the afterlife and beyond." Cleo informed her viewers, "They presently and will later educate monsters on the wonders of my life. Deuce Gorgon (she said with extreme distaste) requested to be forgotten with his sudden disappearance. If I had any respect for him as a man I would just dump them in but instead I will teach my good subjects on what a despicable, wretched, awful boy Gorgon really was! "
The worried blue zombie held up a checklist as four of Cleo's servants walked up to the open grave. One of them was carrying a box filled with the items found in the Gorgon's locker. Which was opened courteously of Cleo's loyal servants.
One of the canine-face servants held up a Bite-ology textbook.
"This text book could be kept for it's scholarly information. It will be buried because that slacker drew dozens of dirty pictures in it! They are shameful because the main subject in those pictures would have never submitted to a third of his unimaginative ideas!"
Cleo snapped her fingers; a servant used a lighter to set it on fire. Then threw the book in the hole. Another one took out the box a bright green iCoffin.
"On this phone are hundreds of pictures of the treacherous snake in the grass as he built friendships with his boy friends, ghoul friends, family members and a thousand more of one beautiful princess that did not receive what she was promised from the weak-chinned, ill-tempered hooligan!"
Cleo ran her index finger past her throat as to initiate death. The servant followed her order and crushed the phone in his hands.
"Next we have his casket-ball uniform. As you probably know, the google-eyed bum was a terrible shot who could never be depended on to slam a dunk. And believe me when I say I mean never!"
In the creepateria, Cleo's closest friends watched her give Deuce's 'obituary' on a laptop.
"Poor Cleo. She's in so much heartbreak" Frankie said, her yellow and blue eye both full of sympathy for her friend.
"Funny how her vile speech is still warmer than the other rumors flying about Deuce leaving." Lagoona said, her webbed hands holding her blue face on the table they sat at.
"The latest one is says he lost a drag-on race and is now working as a grease monkey. In Guam." Clawdeen wolf said as she filed her claws.
"I prefer the one about Deuce giving up on society and roaming the earth in search of great spiritual truth." Lagoona said, trying to bring in positive vibes.
"I just can't believe he's gone. Deuce loved Monster High, and everyone here loved him." Frankie stated, looking over her friends' shoulder at a whimpering Clawd.
The werewolf had his ears down as he sadly watched a ball roll along the table and fall off the end. Clawd's concerned vampire-girlfriend tried to rub his ears but to no avail.
Interrupting the somber mood, Heath Burns joined the ghouls' table. His jacket was open and it could be seen that there were char marks on his sleeves.
"Ya know what's hurts the most about Deuce ditching us, my ladies?" The fire-element asked.
"Without the limit of someone stoning you your obnoxiousness is free to climb the walls?" Clawdeen suggested, catching a warning look from Abbey who had just sat down next to the ghouls as well.
"That at first that was a worry. Now it's the pressure of being the hottest guy at school. I have my baby," he said as he took Abbey's icy blue hand, "but the kids are swarming me! I can't go anywhere without eyes going up and down my bod- like I'm for sale!"
"Really mate?" Lagoona asked in a deadpan sort of voice.
"Hi ghouls. Give Cleo my best." Scarah Screams said as she walked with Hoodude pass the respective group's table.
With her telekinesis she could read the Heath thought her pupil-less eyes were staring at him. The lass didn't want to be unkind, so she just ignored him.
"Did you see that!" Heath waved his arms, "She was almost ravenous!"
"Abbey, please explain to Heath what the situation is really about." Clawdeen asked her Yeti friend.
"I will. Heath, you not need the worry. I keep eye out for hussies and if one show face I will beat them down like Yak to itty-bitty Yak-biting bug." The ghoul with the sparkling white hair promised her boyfriend, very seriously.
Heath's amber eyes glistened, he felt so lucky to have a girlfriend stronger than other ghouls, and most dudes. Frankie found the moment sweet, Lagoona felt the same but less and Clawdeen felt less than that.
The mint-green girl then heard a beep from her phone. It was a call from a friend who didn't attend Monster High. Yet, Frankie amended in her mind.
"His Claire." She said to her caller.
"Hey. You ghouls still missing a tall guy who comes with sunglasses? Cause I think I found him." The human goth-girl asked over the phone.
Frankie's bolts sparked with excitement. "Oh my ghoul! Where is he? How is he? Is he in trouble? Lost a limb? In with the mob? Married to winged skeleton?"
The others watched her talk but only understood half of what she said.
"Cool down, Frankie before you electrocute all your friends. What's-his-name is at my school. Sleeping. Class just let out but no one has the gull to wake him up."
"Are they freaking out cause of his snakes? They're not venomous, Cleo has bites on her neck and tummy all the time."
"Actually he's wearing a hoodie. A teacher asked him to take it off but he accepted dentition instead."
"Oh thank goodness he's alright! Wait, why is he there? Is he going as an exchanged student? Who did we get? I wonder if the new student was eaten before we noticed- that wouldn't be cool. I-"
"Frankie, these are all very nice questions that I cannot answer. Why don't you come here and see if it's him or not."
"If?"
"Honestly, I don't know if your guy or some guy that looks like him cause he's acting like a real-"
"Monster?"
"I was going to say joyless loser. And that's coming from me." The content goth Normie told her monstrously cheerful companion.
Frankie bit her lip. She debated on whether or not this was good news to tell her friends. And whether or not she wanted to see whom this 'guy' was.
Since the masquerade of Halloween, Normies and Monsters were less scared to see one another. That did not mean, however, that Normies were 100% comfortable with seeing monsters walking in their hallway.
On her five-inch heels, Frankie walked down the halls of Salem High. At her brightly stitched side were the blue-blonde Lagoona and the fiercely furry Clawdeen. At their school they were stared at for being cute and fashionable. At this Normie School, Lagoona felt eyes along her fins that her rolled-up sleeved exposed and Clawdeen resisted growling at smirks towards her pointy ears.
"Hold the phone." Lilith VanHelscream said as she approached the trio of ghouls.
The girl with silver daggers as accessories and combat-ready boots stood straight. She stared at them with condescension.
"Since when do you ghouls have a uniform code? I mean, honestly, your skirts are usually a lot more mini than this." The former-hunter said pointing to Frankie and Lagoona's skirts. Clawdeen wore a pantsuit (with the tiniest designs of moons sewn black in her coat.)
"It's a complicated ordeal to explain- short story is Cleo asked for sorority while she's feeling down in the gullies." Lagoona said, touching the braid her blonde hair was twisted into. It was very messy and decorated with shell-pins.
"Right. I heard that limp-noodle had broken up with her. Little dweeb never deserved a beautiful ghoul like that." Lilith scoffed, but there was a small smiled around the edges of her mouth.
Clawdeen saw the smile, and smelled the eagerness coming from Lilith to 'comfort' Cleo in her vulnerable/ single state.
"Hi girls!" Chad the human said as he saw the bizarre but pretty ghouls stand next to Lilith. He arrived with Claire.
"Nice outfits." Claire said, her raccoon-like eyes in disbelief.
"We're in mourning." Clawdeen explained.
"I thought most everyone was dead at your school. Wait, was that offensive- I'm sorry, I didn't- I mean I don't want to-"
Frankie interrupted Chad's mumbles by kindly saying, "Don't freak- pun intended- we're all friends here."
Seeing the mean-spirited chatter from behind the ghouls, Claire allowed Frankie to be naive. Clawdeen heard it; she folded her arms and sunk her claws into her own fur to keep cool.
"Let's go see why you three are really here." Claire said, curious to how this would play out.
In the British Literature room, there was a sleeping young man. He wouldn't have been surprised to see three girls were watching him. He'd found out recently that some girls found unfriendliness to be romantic brooding in handsome boys. He loathed such dopey girls but in his present state of mind he felt he didn't deserve to be around smart or emotionally stable girls.
Frankie quietly approached him.
"Deuce?" she whispered, she meant to poke him gently but in her nervousness she sent a tiny spark into his shoulder.
The boy jumped awake, he held up a fist but then saw the three ghouls.
"Uhh, no offense, but monsters don't go here." He said, relived his sunglasses hadn't fallen off his nose.
"We-we don't." Frankie stammered, confused by his unfamiliarity.
"Deuce, why are fanging out in a Normie school?" Clawdeen asked, not impressed by the boring gray hoodie he was wearing.
"Sorry to disappoint you, but my name's Larry. Larry Smith. I am not the monster you're looking for."
"How'd you know we were looking for a monster?" Lagoona asked, suspicious of the bloke with the bland attitude.
"Why else would three beautiful monster babes be in a school filled with us boring, lifeless, boring Normies?" Larry asked, seemingly bored with the conversation.
"Okay, this is creepy- and not in the good way. Deuce, tell us what you did and why you're acting so, well, douchey ." Clawdeen demanded, felling less than patient with the weird dude who reminded her very much and not at all of Deuce Gorgon.
"Larry; Lare-Ree." He pronounced slowly. "And if you don't mind, your cutting into my sleep schedule."
Resisting the urge to quiver her lip, Frankie turned around the huddle with her friends.
"I don't think he's Deuce- I mean, they have the same face, body, speech pattern and voice but I don't think it's the same boy." Frankie whispered to her fellow ghouls.
"A dead-ringer but I'm jut not sure." Lagoona said, "Did you gills notice the lack of hissing coming from him? I've heard his snakes snore while sleeping so that's fishy already."
"Should've done this first." Clawdeen said. She broke from the huddle and walked to Larry. He tried to stop her but he couldn't overpower her werewolf strength. The fuzzy ghoul pulled away his hood and yelped in shock to see not snakes but limp mammal hair fall on his head.
"What were you looking for?" Larry asked as he took off his shades. The ghouls flinched but saw he had normal, dull brown eyes underneath.
Clawdeen held a paw to her lips and blushed in embarrassment. "Oh my ghoul, I didn't I mean, I thought you were… I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted. Now good bye." Larry said, dismissing the ghouls by putting his head on the table.
Clawdeen lifted a heel to turn around with her ghouls to leave but then she saw something. She saw with her bright yellow eyes a scar on the back of 'Larry's' neck.
The ghoul then put one paw on his head, to keep him still as she pulled back his dumpy sweater.
"Clawdeen! This is not good for Monster-Human relations!" Frankie said as she and Lagoona rushed over to pull Clawdeen away.
"I knew it! It's Deuce! He still has the crescent shaped scar on his back that Clawd gave him!" Claween howled as her friends tugged at her shoulders.
They stopped tugged to look at Larry. He looked angry.
"If you didn't get that scar from wrestling the werewolf who's been your best bro since forever then how you'd get it!? How!?" The she-wolf challenged walking back to look at the 'Normie's' face.
Larry balled his fists and looked furious at Clawdeen. The fury broke into defeat and self-pity.
"Deuce, what happened?" Frankie asked, horrified that her friend had become so helpless. And pale. And HUMAN!
"It doesn't matter, Frankie. Yeah, it is me but I'm not Deuce Gorgon anymore."
"Who decided to name you Larry?" Lagoona asked, afraid of his lack of scales.
"It's the most Normie sounding name ever. It's what I go by now." Deuce admitted to the ghouls.
"How in the hell did you turn into a Normie? Did you lose a fight to a witch or-"
"It doesn't matter, Clawdeen. I'm stuck this way for the rest of my loser life and I can't change that. I don't need everyone to know, and looking at me like you three are doing right now." Deuce said, squinting at their pitying looks.
The human boy put his shades back on; he wasn't adjusted to bright lights after wearing sunglasses for seventeen years straight.
"But Deuce! Everyone been scared to their deaths! We've been imagining the worst and Cleo- "
"Will move on, believe me. She's too strong to ever even think of letting herself be held down." Deuce said, putting his hood back on.
"But she loves you." Frankie said, holding her hands to her heart.
That helps absolutely nothing, Deuce thought.
"How did she dispose of my locker stuff?"
Frankie squirmed in discomfort. "Broadcasted burying it seven-feet deep."
"And?" Expecting his ghoul… his ex-ghoul to be more creative than that.
"Asked rival Casketball teams to spit on the grave. Then put a trash can on top of it." Lagoona admitted, knowing Deuce was getting a small kick out of the attention.
"I'm pretty sure she hates me now for dumping her. And with her capacity to hold grudges, she's not going to come hunting for me any decade soon."
"She wouldn't miss the opportunity to scream her hate-sonnet at you when we tell her you're a ten-minute drive away." Clawdeen said.
"You aren't going to do that. It's too mean and none of you ghouls- not even you, Clawdeen- have it in you to be that mean." Deuce said smugly.
Lagoona debated on her ruthlessness but then saw a dart zoom past her waist and hit Deuce in the neck.
He instantly fell numb on the desk. The ghouls looked at the open classroom dorm to see Lilith with a small wooden dart gun between her lips.
"I wanna make sure this break-up is full swing on both sides." The blonde said, smiling at the uneasy monsters.