Author's note:

I decided to do something completely different for this chapter, and instead of writing it just from Sybella's perspective, this chapter will consist of short vignettes from different perspectives of each of the five ghouls.

Enjoy!

Wednesday, March 11

Winnie

A bright and shiny morning full of possibilities.

That's how Winnie had been feeling nearly every morning lately, ever since she had fallen in love with Sidney. At the beginning of this year, Winnie had never in her wildest dreams thought that she would ever find someone to date, much less someone of the same gender. However, the reality was that Sidney was perfect for her. She was super witty, funny, and cared about Winnie more than anyone else had in her entire life. She was the luckiest werewolf in the world.

Winnie bounded down to breakfast with glee, excited to see her friends and Sidney.

"Good morning, babe!" Sidney smiled, as she adorably gave Winnie a hug and a peck on the cheek.

"Good morning!" Winnie reciprocated the witch's amount of pressure on the hug, followed by an obligatory kiss right on the dimple on Sidney's left cheek.

"Sleep well?" Sybella inquired.

"For sure! Lots of dreams about Sidney." Winnie made googly eyes at her girlfriend. Perhaps she was overdoing it a bit, but she felt so madly in love with the witch that she wanted everyone in the world to know it.

"Jeez, this is too much sweetness even for me, and I'm having a huge donut for breakfast." Phantasma giggled. "I might die from all this sugar...oh wait."

Cue all her friends facepalming. Phanty certainly milked that joke for all it was worth, as far as Winnie was concerned.

"Some night we'll have to have a sleepover, then." Sidney winked.

Oh no. Winnie wasn't ready to get that kind of intimate with Sidney. The werewolf was enjoying the cute little peck kisses, affectionate hugs, and face-nuzzles. She didn't want to get into making out, or anywhere further, yet. Besides, she had barely learned about that sort of thing from Coach Micucci's Health class for the traditional opposite-sex pairings. How would she ever know what to do for a girl?

Winnie realized Sidney was probably waiting for some sort of reaction to the sleepover comment, so she simply nodded and tried to let out a giggle.

"Yeah...um...that'd be fun." Winnie simply said, hoping to God the subject would change.

The subject did indeed change, but not in the way Winnie was hoping. The girls were greeted by Isaiah, Phanty's homophobic ex-boyfriend.

"What's up, girls?" Isaiah greeted in a very sly voice.

"What do you want?" Elsa hissed, clearly trying to protect Phantasma from any further heartbreak. The phantom had slowly started to get over Isaiah, but it was taking a while, and surely Isaiah talking to her again would only set her back.

"Yo, Phanty, can I talk to you at some point today?" Isaiah inquired.

"She doesn't want to talk to you, so leave my friend alone!" Tanis defended.

"No, it's okay, Tanis." Phanty sighed. "Fine, if it's important, I will briefly allow you to talk to me before class today, Isaiah."

"Cool, thanks, man." Isaiah nodded. "Whassup, Sidney and Winnie?"

"Hi." Sidney meekly said. It was pitiful for Winnie to see her girlfriend be so shy, because Sidney was always so talkative and outgoing. It was clear she was worried about being judged by Isaiah again like she had been previously. Winnie was willing to emotionally defend her girlfriend if need be.

With that, Isaiah kept walking and didn't bother waiting for a response from Winnie.

What could he possibly want from Phanty? He had pretty much steered clear of his ex-girlfriend and her friends ever since the breakup a month ago.

It seemed the fear of Isaiah's hatred and harassment being directed once again towards the two lovebirds emboldened Winnie to address the other source of discomfort she had experienced this morning. The sleepover seemed somehow less prevalent and not as scary to address now that she had been distracted from the original uncomfortable situation.

"Umm, hey, Sidney…" Winnie stuttered. "Can we wait on the sleepover? I'm just not ready to get, you know...that kind of intimate with you. I like what we have now and I don't want to ruin it by turning our relationship into something weird."

"Oh...that's what you thought?" Sidney laughed. "I just meant like maybe we could have a girls' night sometime. We wouldn't even have to sleep in the same bed if you didn't want to, but if you did, there'd most certainly be cuddles!"

For someone who presented as a bit edgy, Sidney could certainly be incredibly sweet when she wanted to be.

"Oh thank god." Winnie breathed a sigh of relief.

"There's way too much pressure on people our age to get intimate and start making out. I don't want that for our relationship either. I like it just the way it is." Sidney smiled.

This caused Winnie to return to the thought of how amazing her girlfriend was. She was so glad that Sidney initiated the relationship and asked the werewolf out, because Winnie was certain that she had the most amazing girlfriend in the entire world.

Phantasma

Phantasma reluctantly entered the classroom, worried about what her ex might say to her. Why would Isaiah suddenly want to talk to her after a month of no communication at all? One thing was for sure though, if Isaiah started on any of that homophobic bullshit again, she was going to fucking kill him.

Phanty decided not to give Isaiah the benefit of coming over to her and surprising her, so she marched straight over to his seat and confronted him.

"What do you want?" Phanty snapped coldly.

"I wanted to talk to you." Isaiah vaguely responded.

"What is this about?" Phantasma hissed.

"It's about the lesbian thing. I -" Isaiah was cut off by Phanty shouting at him.

"Fuck no. You're not talking to me about that shit again. I already know how you feel, and I don't care." Phantasma hissed.

"But…" Isaiah started, before Phanty shushed him and walked away.

She wasn't going to put up with any more of that shit. Isaiah could go fuck himself for all she cared.

Phantasma returned to her seat in between Tanis and Elsa, harrumphing and feeling angry. How dare Isaiah try to talk to her again for the very reason that caused them to break up in the first place!

"Hello, class!" the ever-jovial Mrs. Lange greeted. "Today we are going to try something a bit different. I would like you each to pick your own partners. There will need to be two groups of three given the number of people in the class. You will have only two minutes to prepare for this debate. You will argue over the following question: Do you have a moral obligation to forgive someone who has wronged you?"

"No! In fact, I don't forgive you for assigning this project! C'mon Jacob, we're leaving." Joey shouted, as him and Jacob stormed out of the room.

"Never mind, I guess we no longer need two groups of three." Mrs. Lange looked surprised. "Now, everyone, please pick a partner."

Phanty gathered her belongings, albeit a bit slower than usual because she was so peeved about Isaiah. Once she had done so, she looked around and saw to her horror that everyone had already picked a partner. Winnie had picked Sidney, Sybella had picked Kathryn, Elsa had picked Alex, and Tanis had picked Tom. Everyone else in the room appeared to be sitting by a partner as well...everyone except Isaiah.

"So, looks like it wasn't so easy to ignore me after all." Isaiah pointed out.

"Fuck off." Phantasma sneered. "I'd rather fail this assignment than work with a homophobic jerk like you. Sybella was right. I never should have dated you!"

"That's what I was tryna tell you, man. I did some research." Isaiah began, before Phantasma rudely cut him off again. She knew she was being rude to him, but quite frankly, she thought he deserved it.

"Research on what? How to be a better homophobe?" Phantasma harassed.

"No, on lesbians!" Isaiah corrected. "I read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article on lesbians, and that said 'Brynn is the coolest lesbian grrrrl you'll ever meet!' So then I read the second paragraph, and that started tellin' me a lot of informative stuff. I learned that I was wrong to judge Sidney and Winnie. It's cool that they're in love and stuff, and I'm not gonna harass 'em for it."

"So you want to date again, then?" Phanty quirked an eyebrow. It was a relief that Isaiah wasn't just going to say something stupid or uneducated again, but she still questioned his intentions or if he was just making this up to get her to be his girlfriend again.

"Nah, I don't think we were right for each other. We always tried to ignore the issues that were there so everything would be perfect, but we can't just ignore stuff. We need to communicate, and clearly we couldn't do that. I don't know though, I was wonderin' if maybe we could be friends again?" Isaiah inquired.

"I…" Phanty was lost for words. She never would have expected Isaiah to apologize for what he had done, much less for a reason that was not selfish at all. It was clear Isaiah realized what he did was wrong, and wanted to make amends for hurting Phantasma. "We can be friends, sure. I appreciate your apology."

Phanty wasn't sure exactly how close of friends the two of them would be able to be, given how badly he had hurt her and how much of the last month she had spent working up in her mind that she hated him. However, if Isaiah was willing to make the effort to truly understand how he had hurt Phanty and her friends, then Phantasma supposed she too was able forgive him.

"Sweet, dude!" Isaiah exclaimed.

"Wait...couldn't that be our debate stance?" Phanty realized. "That you can forgive someone after they've wronged you."

"I don't agree with that!" Eric snapped.

"Eric, the purpose of debate is to actually argue something and make people believe your stance, not just disagree with everything." Mrs. Lange scolded.

"I don't agree with that either!" Eric growled.

"Don't you have a partner to talk with?" Mrs. Lange reminded.

"Oh. Well, yeah, but he's about to be crushed by that projector that's falling right now though, so it'll take him a while to recover from that." Eric said, pointing to the source of a loud crash that occurred when the projector hit the floor.

"Oh my goodness, are you okay Tyler?" Mrs. Lange shouted, as Tyler lifted the projector off of his arm, which appeared to be broken.

"Eh, no harm done." Tyler shrugged, as he effortly popped his arm back into his zombified body.

"Anyway, Phanty and Isaiah, that would indeed be a great debate stance. I was just coming around to inform you that you will be arguing that you can forgive someone after they have done you wrong." Mrs. Lange instructed. "Apologies it took so long. Does this mean that you both are ready to present?"

"Yeah, of course dude!" Isaiah exclaimed. Phanty gave a nod to confirm she agreed.

"Excellent." Mrs. Lange shifted her attention from the two phantoms to the entire class. "Class, it is time for each of you to present. Who would like to go first?"

"We can." Phanty volunteered, as she and Isaiah walked up to the front of the room.

"We'd like to argue that you don't have the moral obligation to forgive someone who has wronged you. In fact, I just forgave someone that I thought had wronged me. Well, it turned out, I had wronged them." Isaiah informed. Much of the class looked confused and surprised.

"For those of you that don't know, Isaiah and I broke up a month ago." Phanty revealed. She wasn't exactly going to let the class know why, as she didn't want to assassinate Isaiah's character after he had redeemed himself, so she left that part out.

"I said some real stupid stuff about people you know very well. Sidney, Winnie, I'm sorry. It was stupid of me to be homophobic like that, and I hope you can forgive me for bein' dumb." Isaiah apologized.

Phantasma couldn't believe that her ex-boyfriend (and "new" friend) would make himself vulnerable like that. It really wasn't like him at all to be that way, which made his apology all the more convincing.

"Who are you forgiving, exactly?" Mrs. Lange questioned.

"I gotta forgive Phanty, for breaking up with me. She has no obligation to forgive me. In fact, I'm the one who wronged her by sayin' cruel things about her friends. So, our argument is that you don't have the obligation to forgive someone who has wronged you, but you have the moral obligation to look deeper and figure out if the reason they were mad at you was your fault." Isaiah concluded.

"Excellent argument, Isaiah and Phantasma. Eric and Tyler, it's your turn to give a rebuttal." Mrs. Lange prompted.

"Well, I think you gotta forgive someone that has wronged you. Otherwise, how else are you going to become a better person?" Tyler argued.

"I don't agree with that!" Eric snapped.

"We talked about this, and they're the ones you're supposed to disagree with, not your own partner!" Mrs. Lange rolled her eyes.

"I don't agree with that either! In fact, I don't agree with this whole stinkin' class!" Eric revealed, storming out of the room.

"Tyler, I will be giving you an individual grade. I'm sorry your partner did not work with you as he should have." Mrs. Lange shook her head.

Maybe Isaiah wasn't such a bad guy at all. Perhaps he was just misguided at first. Phantasma was confident that Isaiah was working to become a better person, and given this, she was more than happy to be his friend. It went to show how people can mess up sometimes in life, but they can always improve and become better people.

Elsa

"Now, everyone, please pick a partner." the Frankenstein's monster heard Mrs. Lange instruct.

Elsa immediately knew who she was going to pick: her boyfriend, Alex. Luckily for her, he was already sitting right next to her.

"Hello, comrade." Alex said in a very formal way, as he always did. He was a man of science, after all!

"Hi." Elsa smiled.

"And hello to you both." Mrs. Lange butted in. "You will be arguing that people do have the moral responsibility to forgive those that have wronged them."

Mrs. Lange quickly bustled to the next student, as Alex spoke up.

"So, how do we approach this philosophical question?" Alex inquired.

"I don't know." Elsa sighed, feeling a bit lost and unknowledgeable. "I wish every class could be science. In this class in particular, I really struggle to come up with anything. I don't know how to come up with a coherent point that's going to convince anyone."

"Hmm, I've felt the same." Alex nodded. "Perhaps, debating itself is a different kind of science that we have to master."

"Ugh, I just hate myself sometimes. I'm so smart in science, math and history, but when it comes to these philosophical humanities classes, I just get stuck." Elsa lamented.

"You shouldn't hate yourself. The mind is a powerful tool, but it is not intended for self-hatred." Alex reminded. Elsa was quite charmed by his scientific fancy speak, but it didn't really help in this case.

"Why am I so dumb?" Elsa facepalmed. "My brain is drawing a blank! Who am I to tell anyone to forgive someone or not? I have no answers!"

"Hmmm...I might have an answer that will help you." Alex pondered. Before he could explain, Mrs. Lange began to speak to the class.

"Class, it is time for each of you to present." Mrs. Lange informed.

Phanty and Isaiah went first and presented quite an excellent argument, which caused Elsa to be a bit jealous of their nomenclatural finesse. Eric and Tyler, on the other hand, did not do such a good job.

"Elsa and Alex, would you like to go next?" Mrs. Lange asked.

"Sure." Alex nodded. Elsa certainly couldn't have been any less ready, but she trusted her boyfriend.

Alex continued speaking when Elsa arrived at the front of the room with him. "Today, we were tasked with arguing that people have the moral responsibility to forgive. However, I would like to propose a different twist on answering this question. I think people have the moral obligation to forgive themselves. Sometimes, we're not as good at something as we'd like to be, and it's important to be understanding and forgiving of yourself for not being perfect. No one is, after all."

"Yeah, he's absolutely right." Elsa improvised, not realizing that's what Alex was going to say. "No one is perfect, so you can't blame yourself for something that no one has attained in life."

"Well, we disagree!" Jonathan snapped. "You shouldn't forgive anyone, or you'll be hurt. Hurt bad. Hurt for life. You've just gotta be a tough OG baller all your life, never forgivin' nobody for nothin'."

"Yeah, that's why you should never forgive anyone, ever. Not even your own mother!" Charlie exclaimed.

"And Elsa and Alex are the winners!" Mrs. Lange announced.

"That just furthers our point, because I will never forgive you for saying that! I think that means we win." Jonathan boasted.

Mrs. Lange didn't follow Jonathan's assertion with any sort of comment, but rather, moved on to the next person.

Wow. Elsa couldn't believe how right her fellow Frankenstein's monster was. Elsa had been spending a lot of the semester beating herself up for not being as talented as she perceived the rest of her classmates were. Maybe Alex was right that she needed to forgive herself for not being perfect. She was so wrapped up in needing to master every subject because she was so talented at science, that she had worked herself up into thinking she was a failure at the humanities. Maybe she wasn't perfect at non-science subjects, but that didn't mean she was a failure. Elsa felt like she had made a huge victory...both in the debate and for her own self-confidence.

Tanis

"Now, everyone, please pick a partner." Mrs. Lange instructed.

Wow, another class project! How exciting! Every new assignment was another adventure to Tanis in the world of learning and self-discovery. She found this one particularly interesting, because of what had recently happened to her friend Phantasma. Oh, how she loved relevant ways to learn new things! Moreover, another reason the mummy was excited about this project is that she knew exactly who she would pick…the only other mummy in the class, Tom!

"Tom! How about you and me?" Tanis chirped, excited to work with her friend once again. Tom and Tanis always worked together on every project, so she assumed this one would be no exception.

"Of course!" Tom exclaimed.

"Tanis and Tom, you will be arguing that it is not your moral responsibility to forgive someone." Mrs. Lange informed, as she quickly hustled over to Elsa and Alex so they had enough time to come up with their argument within the two minute time limit.

"Okay!" Tanis smiled. "How do we want to argue that, Tom?"

"Well, how would you feel if I asked you to go out?" Tom frankly blurted, without a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

Tanis suddenly felt her heart nearly stop. How could he ask that? From her understanding, their friendship was sacred! She wasn't ready to start dating, staying out on late night dates, or doing stuff that only naughty girls do, like wearing lipstick. Besides, boys and girls could be friends without dating! Why did people always assume that opposite sex friends somehow like each other? Sure, sometimes it did end up that way where a friendship burgeons naturally, but it shouldn't always be assumed that a boy and a girl who like each other platonically, like each other in a romantic way, unless one or both parties have made that clear to each other.

"Umm...Tom, I…" Tanis stuttered, not knowing how to respond to such a sudden and unexpected advance from her friend.

"Relax, I was asking hypothetically." Tom clarified, to which Tanis's heart immediately returned to its normal beating process. "I don't want to go out with you. We've already established that our friendship is sacred, and it doesn't have to turn into anything romantic unless both of us are okay with it. I was asking because that could be the angle to approach this debate prompt from. If someone says something that really breaks another person's trust, or goes directly against what has been established in a close relationship, then is it required that you forgive them?"

"No." Tanis said uncertainly, still winding down from the scare of having Tom ask to go out with her.

"Exactly." Tom agreed, just in the nick of time, as Mrs. Lange was just letting the class know it was time to come back together as a large group.

"Class, it is time for each of you to present." Mrs. Lange instructed.

Phanty and Isaiah had a surprisingly good argument for why you shouldn't be obligated to forgive someone, and it appeared they had made up, which was great! Elsa and Alex also made a good point, however, about needing to forgive yourself when you're not perfect. Now, it was Sybella and Kathryn's turn to debate. They appeared to be facing off against Ali and Melissa.

"I think it's not your moral responsibility to forgive people. What if someone does something really horrible to you?" Ali argued.

"Yeah, like what if they murder your parent or something? Could you forgive someone for doing that? I don't think you have to." Melissa continued.

"I think you should forgive someone though, if you can. Melissa's example is a bit extreme, but I think it can be good for people to forgive others. Forgiving other people allows you to move on and not hold grudges." Sybella pointed out. Tanis had always found Sybella to be incredibly smart and confident in herself, and this debate was no exception.

"Holding grudges just fosters frustration, and makes you angry at the world and other people. In normal situations, it's better to just forgive and forget, because you never know what the other person might be going through." Kathryn debated.

"Excellent. I think Sybella and Kathryn are the winners here for their well thought-out explanation!" Mrs. Lange announced.

Tanis could see Sybella high-five Kathryn out of the corner of her eye, as she prepared to go up to the front of the room with Tom as the last debaters.

"Tom, Tanis, Winnie and Sidney. Your groups are the last ones to face off against each other." Mrs. Lange prompted the remaining individuals to leave their seats.

"I think you are morally obligated to forgive people." Winnie began.

"Sometimes, people make mistakes that they regret later. Just because someone is a jerk for a moment doesn't mean they're a jerk for life." Sidney backed up her werewolf girlfriend's point. Tanis was pretty sure she was referring to Isaiah with her argument.

"I'd like to build off of a point Ali and Melissa started to make in the last debate." Tom began. "What if someone does something very horrible?"

"Yeah, like something that breaks a sacred bond of friendship or you do something you told someone you would never do." Tanis added.

"Observe." Tom theatrically demonstrated. "Tanis, I know you said you just want to be friends, but would you like to go out with me?"

Tanis fake gasped, as she was obviously notified about what Tom was doing.

"No! You said you'd never pressure me to date you." Tanis responded.

"Well, I changed my mind. We have to date, or we can't be friends anymore, because that's what people expect of boy-girl friendships." Tom rebuked.

Tanis saw what he was doing there! Tom was trying to also argue how ridiculous the pressure that boy-girl friends have to be dating is. Tom was so clever!

"If Tom were really saying this, this would break a significant amount of trust that we've established in our friendship." Tanis debriefed. "If you promise something significant to a close friend and that promise is broken, I'd argue that you don't have to forgive them immediately, if ever. You're allowed to be a reasonable amount of mad, as long as you don't overdo it or let the hate consume you, or blindly stop you from ever rekindling the relationship."

"Excellently argued, Tom and Tanis. You win!" Mrs. Lange announced.

Tanis was incredibly happy that they had won...and incredibly happy to have Tom as such a good friend. He was absolutely right that there was a lot of outside pressure in the world for people to conform to stereotypes, but Tanis recognized how lucky she was to have a caring, loving friend like Tom to support her with whatever happened in life.

Olly

"Oh Olly! Could you bring some paperwork to Ms. Cohn?"

That was the familiar voice of the boss.

Olly was just a modest octopus who felt he was well-appreciated at Grimwood's Finishing School. While he wished he could speak human, he had studied hard to become a butler at the Cadbury Butling University, and one of the ways he did this was through learning to understand every command of the boss.

The butler job came with a full-time, paid residency at Grimwood's, which over the years had been incredibly beneficial for the octopus. He felt not only like he had a home at the school, but also a family, in the vampire, mummy, werewolf, phantom, Frankenstein's monster, and the boss, the one and only Miss Grimwood.

Hearing the boss's call immediately stimulated Olly to race over to complete the job in a timely manner.

"Oh thank you, Olly. You are a miracle worker!" Miss Grimwood complimented, patting him on the head.

There were times that Olly wanted to respond with a smile to the boss's affection, but nonetheless, an employee had to always stay professional while on the job, so he simply kept a straight face and kept to work.

Olly headed over to Ms. Cohn's room, handing the woman the paper. The octopus felt a tad embarrassed, because he hadn't realized Ms. Cohn was teaching a class, but nonetheless he still felt obligated to do what was asked of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sybella, who was sitting and looking engaged in her seat.

"Oh, I know the answer to that!" a witch with a very masculine-sounding voice, replied. Olly wasn't sure of her name, but he knew that she was on the volleyball team at Grimwood's. "Alcohol is seen as shaped by the user's experience, because the person drinking it could exaggerate their level of intoxication for social approval."

"Excellent!" Ms. Cohn applauded.

Olly wasn't quite sure if the instructor was saying that to him or to the other girl, but nonetheless, he happily assumed it was something about him. Oh, how Olly loved his job!

Miss Grimwood

It was dinnertime once again, and the headmistress was excited to chat with her girls after a long day of paperwork and various other duties she had to complete as the head of the school. The first ghoul she caught eye of was Winnie.

"Hello, Winnie! How was your day?"

"It was great, Miss Grimwood!" Winnie chirped.

"Yeah, something really unexpected happened to Phanty." Tanis exclaimed. "She and Isaiah are friends again. He realized what he said wrong about Sidney and Winnie, and he's trying to be a better person. Can you believe it?"

It was always wonderful to hear that her girls were having new life experiences, which now that the school expanded a few years ago, it seemed like they were having every day.

"That's stupendous, Tanis!" Miss Grimwood smiled. "I made some salamander tail sandwiches for you for dinner. They're all ready, so feel free to dig in."

Olly had just lifted the cover off of the platter, revealing six warm sandwiches. The headmistress herself was sure to take one, as she listened to the rest of the girls' days as they came in.

"Hey, Miss Grimwood. How was your day?" Elsa inquired as she sat down to dinner.

"It was quite marvelous, Elsa." Miss Grimwood replied. "And yours?"

"It was awesome. To be honest, I think our assignment in Debate class really helped me become a better person. I guess I realized I was being kind of hard on myself about not being as good at debate as I am at science." Elsa admitted.

"That's a great realization to have, Elsa. No one is perfect, so you shouldn't hold yourself to unattainable standards." Miss Grimwood advised.

"Yeah, I realize that now." Elsa responded.

"I assume someone's already told you about what happened with Isaiah by now?" Phanty giggled, as she sat down next to Elsa and the empty seat that would be Sybella's.

"Indeed they have, Phantasma. I'm quite happy you were able to rekindle things with your ex-boyfriend. Forgiveness can be an important skill." Miss Grimwood informed.

Before Phanty could respond, Sybella made the dinner table complete with her presence.

"Mmm, smells fangtastic! Salamander sandwiches are one of my favorites." Sybella reminded. "How was your day, Miss Grimwood?"

"It was excellent, Sybella. How about yours?" Miss Grimwood reciprocated.

"My day was amazing! We had a great debate today about forgiveness, and learned about some really cool things in Deviant Behavior. I'm really going to miss being here in a few months, because Grimwood's has the most fangtastic classes!" Sybella chirped.

This is something Miss Grimwood had been thinking about a lot lately. Her favorite five students, whom she had taught for thirteen years, would be graduating and moving on in a matter of months. Some days, this made her sad, because she knew the school wouldn't ever be quite the same without their presence. However, on days like today, she couldn't be more proud of how much her ghouls were growing as monsters, and even if it was hard, she knew that they were ready to fly the coop and start exciting new adventures in their lives.

Sybella

Thursday, March 12

Today will be one of the toughest days of all teaching Coach Micucci's health class...the drugs and alcohol day. I remember how bad my experience was learning about drugs and alcohol in the coach's class...I basically learned nothing. Clearly, neither did anyone else, as many people in the class had drunk underage at least one time at the party. I'm sure they've done it other times, too.

Lately, my mission in this lighter last semester has been to be a good teacher. I want to use this unique opportunity to turn Coach Micucci's class around and get some real, hands-on experience teaching.

Dreading what was to come, the vampiress headed into Coach Micucci's classroom. Much to her fear, she saw the coach cueing up a VHS tape.

"Alright class. Today we're gonna learn about drugs and alcohol. But why have me tell you, when I could have this cop say it for me!" the coach attempted a flawless transition, by pressing play on the VCR right as he stopped talking. With a few second lag, the VHS started to run.

"DRUGS! God, they just make me SICK!" the familiar cop shouted, as he walked past a man walking out of a grocery store holding a bottle marked 'ibuprofen.'

"Hey buddy, don't you realize by purchasing that particular product, you just bought some DRUGS?" the cop screamed in the man's face, much to his confusion.

"Umm, coach...don't you think that this might be a bit too over-the-top?" Sybella inquired.

"Nah. Why do ya say that?" Coach Micucci questioned.

The vampire princess simply pointed up to the screen, which currently showed the cop dramatically breaking down the glass door to a coffee shop, shattering it into pieces on the ground. "Alright, this is a bust for DRUGS! Give me all the coffee beans in that sack, and slowly!" the cop screamed. "Hey everyone, are you enjoying your morning cup of DRUGS?"

"Alright, maybe that's a little much." Coach Micucci shrugged. "But, ya know, it's easier than coming up with a lesson plan!"

Sybella's eye caught the screen again, which featured everyone running out of the building in terror.

"Alright, this is a controlled explosion to get rid of the DRUGS!" the cop yelled, now at least 50 feet away from outside the building with his hand on a detonator. After everyone was safely out of the building, the police officer pressed the detonator, causing a gigantic, ear-piercing explosion that completely destroyed the coffee shop.

"Alright." the cop breathed heavily. "Now at least there are no more DRUGS!"

"Man, my head hurts!" a man walking past with his wife said.

"Here honey, have an aspirin. You'll feel better." the wife reassured, opening a bottle of aspirin to give to her husband.

"So. Many. DRUGS!" the cop screamed.

"Instead of listenin' to this cop, Sybella's got something to say." Coach Micucci interrupted the video, after which he pressed the stop button.

"You don't have to be as worried about drugs as the cop is telling you. Some drugs can be helpful, like aspirin for a headache or catnip for medicinal purposes. But you want to make sure that you never take any illegal drugs, because the reality is that they can really mess up your body."

"Yeah, um...I took some catnip once for non-medicinal purposes." Jordan admitted.

"And what did you learn from that experience?" Sybella prompted.

Jordan's face looked very somber for a moment, before slowly forming into a smirk. "No consequences whatsoever! I was high as a kite and felt like I was on top of the world! I would highly recommend taking drugs of all kinds!"

"Well, I wouldn't." Alyssa spoke up, before Sybella had to step in. "My brother took illegal drugs once, and it really messed up his mind. It took him a long time to get back to normal. You should never take drugs unless they're prescribed to you. I really appreciate you giving us your insight, so that people know not to ever try drugs."

"Great insight, Alyssa." Sybella smiled. She was glad that at least one person was affected by her teaching today. Some students were always going to be hard to teach, but she lived for the great students whom she could truly make a difference in their lives.

Matches

A closed metal door.

The girls were doing something in that room. Several days a week, the purple-haired one entered that room with a few other people, and stayed in there for hours and hours. They would growl with frustration, they would talk loudly, and they would laugh.

For so long, the dragon had wondered what was in that room, and today, he finally had worked up the bravery to find out.

Upon entering the room, he saw his purple-haired master, as well as a werewolf, a witch, and another vampire sitting at big, glowing devices. His masters seemed to spend a lot of time looking at those, for whatever reason. He certainly didn't see the big deal.

"For the love of god, would you stop chewing ice?" That was the witch, who appeared to be frustrated with the werewolf.

"Geez, sorry! Didn't know it would bug y'all so much." the werewolf rolled her eyes, as she spit the ice she was chewing out in the garbage.

"You might even say it would be ice if you'd stop." the other vampire, the one who was not her master, replied.

The dragon's eye drifted over to a new, exciting stimuli. What was that big stack of books over in the corner? He had to investigate!

The dragon scurried over to sniff the foreign objects to see what they might be. One of his masters, the purple-haired vampiress, rushed over to stop him.

"Matches, no! Please don't bother the yearbooks." the vampiric master scolded.

Matches immediately felt sad and regretful. He certainly didn't mean to irk his master. He just wanted to see what was going on. Apparently, she could tell that she had made him sad.

"Aww...I'm sorry, Matches." the vampire apologized, patting him on the head. Oh, how he loved affection and reassurance from his master. "Do you want to come over and sit by us while we work?"

Oh boy, oh boy! Did he ever!

Matches rushed over to where the girls were working, nearly tripping the vampiress a few times with how underfoot he was being. With that, Matches hopped in a small little bed that his master had brought over for him to sit in, and sat there, enjoying the company.

But then the master sat. And sat. And sat.

Okay, he was seriously bored now. Maybe this room wasn't quite as exciting as he thought it would be. Oh well. Back to exploring the outdoors for him!

Eric

"Eric was struttin' down the hall, thinking he was the coolest guy ever because, in fact, he was." Eric referred to himself in the third person. "Then, Eric saw a goblin walking right past him."

"Hey Eric, why the hell are you narrating everything?" Johnny the goblin asked.

"Eric looked at Johnny, angered at the questioning of his 100% official macho dude authority." Eric continued to narrate. "Eric gave the goblin a stern glare, as he continued on the quest of coolness that was his life. Before long, Eric bumped into Tyler in the hall. 'What's up, Tyler?' said Eric."

"Hey, man, I don't wanna start anything, but maybe you really should have thought more about the debate before you argued against your own partner. Just sayin', man. See you later." Tyler pointed out.

"This enraged Eric so much that the anger took over every part of his body. His nostrils flared, his eyes narrowed, which along with his irritating narration, caused Tyler to be aware of the blowup that was about to come." Eric continued to narrate his life. "'Spaghettí er skíturinn minn, náungi!' Eric screamed."

"You just said 'Spaghetti is my shit, dudes' in Icelandic." Tyler pointed out. "I know because my grandpa was 1/16th Icelandic, along with 14/16 European blood and 1/16 Wiccan blood on his mother's side."

"I hope you also know that I'm never wrong!" Eric reminded the imbecile. "Just don't forget that I'm the coolest guy around. Hey, by the way, have you seen Sybella anywhere?"

"No, why?" Tyler asked.

"Well, she's usually the one to give some kinda lesson at the end or something, from what I'm told, but I guess it's up to me." Eric sighed, as if he was inconvenienced. "Remember dudes, no matter what happens, always keep it brazy!"

Author's note:

I'm barely cool enough to know what "brazy" means lol. Urban Dictionary defines this term as "a step above absolutely redonkulous" which is exactly what I was going for with that joke at the end lol.

This chapter was definitely quite a departure from the norm, so I really hope you still enjoyed it and that it was fun to get to read from all the girls' perspectives. I also wanted to include a couple of brief scenes from Matches and Olly's perspectives just for fun, and I also included Eric just because it was a silly way to end the chapter lol.

There's only a few more times I'm going to be able to say it, so enjoy it while it lasts...it's reference time!

- Tanis innocently mentioning "wearing lipstick" as being something only naughty girls do is a reference to the main character of Girl Meets World, Riley, making the same comment in the episode "Girl Meets Upstate."

- Cadbury Butling University is named after Richie Rich's butler, Cadbury.

- Tyler's grandfather having 1/16 Wiccan blood is a reference to how Thorn from the Hex Girls mentions she has 1/16 Wiccan blood on her mother's side, which I always found to be an oddly specific line. I initially thought it was odd because Wiccan is a belief system and not a race, it wouldn't be possible to have Wiccan blood. However, I did some research on it for a blog post, and apparently some Wiccans believe that blood is not a physical concept, but rather it's something that's only in true believers of Wicca, similar to how one drinks the "blood" of Christ in Christianity.

Favorites, follows and reviews are always greatly appreciated, and remember everyone, always keep it brazy!