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Chapter 9: "When I'm With My Peeps"

I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I know, but that which I suppose to be most probably. The evil side of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping efficacy, was less robust and less developed that the good which I had just deposed. Again, in the course of my life, which had been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control, it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted. And hence, as I think, it came about that Edward Hyde was so much smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll. Even as good shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly and plainly on the face of the other. Evil besides (which I must still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body an imprint of deformity and decay. And yet when I looked upon that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance, rather of a leap of welcome.

This, too, was myself. It seemed natural and human. In my eyes it bore the livelier image of the spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine.

And in so far I was doubtless right. I have observed that when I wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at first without visible misgiving of the flesh. This, as I take it, was because all the human beings, as we meet them, are commingled out of good and evil; Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of mankind, was pure evil.

– excerpt from the diary of the late Dr. Henry "Harry" Jekyll

Jackson flashed a smile as he slid into an empty seat at a table on the human side of the cafeteria.

He smile was almost immediately returned by the small cluster of human friends that he'd managed to make in his time at the school.

Chad, Melody, and Kipling all smiled broadly at him and greeted him with a rousing chorus of 'hi!'

Clair lightly punched him on the arm, her way of greeting him, and went back to her food.

Kipling cocked his head at Jackson, his oversized ears shifting slightly. "Don't you normally eat lunch with your monster friends, or whoever...?"

"Well, yeah, I normally do," Jackson admitted with a slight nod. "I usually sit with my cousin, who is a fire-elemental, as well as some of my other... decidedly inhuman friends... but not today."

Chad looked at him curiously.

Jackson sighed. "Today the others are sitting with some new vampire students, and the new vampires have a bad habit of looking at me rather... hungrily. It makes me a little uncomfortable."

The other four humans laughed, even though, since they had been going to school with a large variety of monsters for years, Jackson thought they all probably knew the feeling.

He only half-listened as his friends' conversation (seemed like they were talking about teachers or something) as he began eating his lunch. He decided to skip straight to the desert that he had picked out, a bowl of blood pudding, since it was one of his favorites. Besides, you could only leave blood pudding out in the open air before too long, and then it was no good anymore. Hemoglobin tasted downright nasty after it assumed room temperature!

… Although, maybe he shouldn't be making death puns about his food; it just seemed a bit morbid.

He savored the sweet taste in his mouth, licking the rest of the red liquid off the spoon. He may have been born human, but he had many strange little monster traits that were beginning to show through... and he was enjoying every second of it.

Melody watched in slight disgust as the strange boy sitting across from her sucked on his spoon, determined to drink as much of the icky, gooey, red stuff as possible. Blood pudding was a monster dish in this school, and humans tended to shy away from the gross concoction. Blood was the primary ingredient, of course, and it was never really revealed if it was animal blood or human blood; with monsters, even the nice ones, sometimes it was hard to tell.

Melody wondered to herself exactly how much monster was in Jackson's veins.

Shaking her head, she turned back to Chad, who was talking about some new album from his favorite band coming out today.

Jackson finished his pudding, occasionally conversing with Clair about some oddball class or another. He wasn't paying too much attention, really... his brain was somewhere else completely.

With a small sigh, he allowed his bored eyes to roam the cafeteria (although he personally thought of it as the creepeteria), searching through the many faces of both humans and monsters for one that would interest him.

A flash of green, a shock of black and white... his eyes zeroed in, gaping in awe at the girl that held his attention.

Frankie Stein was sitting with a crowd of girls – er, ghouls – on the monster side of the creepy cafeteria. Draculaura and Clawd's sister were easily discernible to the young mad scientist's eyes, as were Cleo de Nile (who didn't know who she was?) and Abbey, who was some yeti chick that Heath was infatuated with and wouldn't shut up about. Ever.

Frankie was smiling and talking and laughing and joking along with her friends.

Jackson watched from his safe distance, deciding that every facial expression to cross over the green ghoul's face was truly beautiful, none more or less than the last. So inspired was he, he felt like writing a song about her.

He didn't even notice when the fingers of his left hand began to lightly strum on the table, forming some kind of a musical tune.

"Jackson? Jackson?" He vaguely heard Chad's voice calling to him, trying to draw him back to reality.

Clair gripped his shoulder and yelled in his ear. "Hey, JACKSON!"

He jumped, banging his knees on the table in a very painful way. "Ow... What?"

"You're not listening to a word we say," Chad tried to explain. "You keep staring off into space when a funny look on your face like you have a cru—" Realization dawned on him, and he smiled. "Sooo... who is she?"

"What are you talking about?! Just because I'm thinking you seem to think I have a -"

Jackson cut himself off. The short burst of commotion had caused a variety of other students to look towards their table, and Frankie Stein was one of them.

His eyes met hers from across the room, and they both smiled and blushed, feeling embarrassed and happy all at once.

Jackson hardly noticed when Chad, Clair, Melody, and Kipling all started snickering and giggling over their friend's predicament.