Claire

Fall 1988

Claire Wheeler was a really interesting kid.

Dr. Abigail Hardscrabble, dean of the School of Scaring at Monsters University, watched the young freshman traipse the halls of the main building with her girlfriends, her signature half-ponytail bobbing on a head of thick violet hair. The girl always showed up in some derivation of the new heavy-metal goth trend that had taken Monstropolis by storm throughout the 80's, usually a black or purple faux-fur skirt with a band T-shirt or, sometimes, simply black jeans and a tank top, always punctuated with thick eye makeup and black lipstick. As the days cooled, she began arriving in a bright blue MU hoodie she'd likely picked up at the bookstore.

Dean Hardscrabble found it hard not to have a soft spot for her on style alone. An alumnus of Eta Hiss Hiss, the sorority known for its tough streak and recent embrace of the new Goth culture, Dean Hardscrabble reckoned she'd have shown up in something very similar had she been in college now. And the kid usually radiated a deadpan, too-cool-to-care vibe that she knew would have served her well in her youth, if only she'd been able to manage it.

But that was not the main thing about Claire that caught her eye. Claire had something special about her, something the dean rarely saw in students, a level of promise for the field that was not easily quantified. She was fairly average, as far as looks went—nothing about her would evoke terror on physicality alone. And, listening to her bored, monotone drawl echo through the stone halls, Dean Hardscrabble didn't see any standout indications of talent in her demeanor, either. Yet she had a hunch, and one morning in mid-October, she dipped into the office of her longtime friend and colleague, Professor Derek Knight.

"Yes, I know," the hulking orange dinosaur snapped into his office phone. "Well, be that as it may, you still sent the wrong component. N-no. No, I don't need a refund. I need"—he knocked the tips of his fingers on the surface of his desk to punctuate—"a working—simulator!"

Dean Hardscrabble let out a soft smirk and crossed her arms, leaning her shoulder against the office door.

"Okay, thank you. Yes, please have him call me. Thank you." He hung up the phone and groaned into his palm.

"Working hard, I see."

"They sent the wrong part. We won't have the simulator up and running for another three weeks, at least." He sighed and clasped his hands on the desktop. "Geez, and finals are five weeks away." He shook his head brusquely, as though to clear his mind. "What can I do for you, Dean Hardscrabble?"

She straightened and took a step into Professor Knight's office. "If you don't mind, Professor, I wanted to ask about Claire Wheeler, the freshman with the purple hair. She's in your 101 course, is she not?"

"Ah yes. Claire. She's in my Tuesday/Thursday class. She's doing quite well. Got a mean zombie snarl. She really gets into it. It's funny, because she's pretty even-tempered on most days. Doesn't wear her heart on her sleeve like a lot of her classmates. But I think she's got a certain dramatic flair that she likes to save for scaring practice."

Dean Hardscrabble's lips pinched, her brow furrowed in thought. "Why do you ask?" Professor Knight pressed.

"I don't know what it is," she said, "but something about her really stands out to me."

Professor Knight chuckled. "Stands out to everyone. She's this little slice of greyscale in a full spectrum of color."

"No. I have a feeling about her. I'm not even sure what the basis is, but…you'll keep me updated?"

"Of course."

"Thank you." She turned to leave, then turned back. "Would you give me that number and the order information? I'd like to give them a little call myself."

Professor Knight paused, then handed over the invoice form. "They're supposed to call me back today."

"Then I'll just expedite the process, won't I?"

"Well, if you're so desperate to take it off my hands, I won't complain. We needed capacitors. They sent us gaskets. Unbelievable." He uncapped a pen to start signing recommendation letters. She backed out of the professor's tiny office, and her feet made their signature staccato sound on the stone floor as she started back down the hall.

"Dean," he called out.

She poked her head back through the door. "Yes?"

"You know my offer still stands."

She offered her signature wry half-smile. "And I am still your boss, Professor."

"Of course." He resumed signing. She returned to the administrative suite.

"Any news today, Imi?" she asked her secretary as she pulled letters from her mailbox.

"U-um," the nervous twenty-something said, shuffling papers on her desk. "Well, another adjunct's quitting."

Dean Hardscrabble frowned lightly. "You don't say. Which one?"

"Professor Dodson."

"No surprise there." She released a small sigh as she found the folded sheet of paper with her name scribbled across the front in Jennifer Dodson's barely-legible handwriting. She pulled a thick claw through the sticker at the opening and scanned the contents. Not returning after Christmas…Fear Tech…full-time lecturer…thank you for the opportunity…will miss MU…all the best. She folded the sheet again. "All right, thank you, Imi."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"And Imi? Hold any calls I get in the next…I'd say half-hour. I have to take care of a little issue on the phone."

"Yes, ma'am."

She unlocked her office and tossed the stack of mail onto the edge of her desk, closing the door halfway in hopes it would deter frivolous questions for an hour or so. She looked over the order invoice briefly, then dialed the customer service number on the bottom. Her eyes caught Jennifer Dodson's letter halfway folded on top of the mail stack. She'd have to pull the adjunct pool and start scheduling interviews again. She punched 0 three times on her keypad and rubbed at her eyes as she hit a wall and got shot back to the top of the call tree, wishing this to not take all afternoon. She, too, had several letters of recommendation to compose.

Though Dean Hardscrabble may have taken an immediate liking to her, Claire Wheeler had quite the opposite impression of the head of her new school. In fact, she felt sick the first time she saw her. She had grown up mortally terrified of the spiders and centipedes that scuttled around the small farmhouse where she'd been raised, crying out and leaping onto furniture whenever she saw a small creature dart across her floor. Too many legs! And they moved so fast.

And Dean Hardscrabble was a fifteen-foot embodiment of her phobia.

She had known, of course, that she'd be meeting her when she entered the program—she had the 1960's-era scare card tucked in the back of her collection—but it was not something she had looked forward to, and hoped she could avoid her as long as possible.

But the woman was impossible to avoid. Claire had heard from her roommate pursuing door engineering that Dean Parker was like a ghost, and other students didn't even know their dean's names. But Dean Hardscrabble was omnipresent, it seemed, observing students in the front hall from the balcony between classes, watching the professors teach from the back of the lecture hall, emerging from a stall in the main bathroom as Claire yanked her fingers through her hair in front of the mirror. One look at her and Claire took off with flames on her heels, racing around the corner and cowering behind a trashcan until the dean emerged, disappearing in the other direction. The sound of her footsteps on the stone floor made Claire's stomach churn.

"You're going to be in her class eventually," said an upperclassman girl who followed Dean Hardscrabble out of the restroom and saw Claire cowering behind the trashcan. "She's the only one who teaches the 431 course. You might as well get used to her."

Claire had no idea how to even try.