HI! I AM SO SORRY FOR NOT UPDATING IN SUCH A LONG TIME! I've just had some serious writers block with this chapter and I been really busy with a new job. I've done so much rewriting and editing but I finally managed to get chapter 16 done for you guys. I must warn you things will start to get a little intense. I tried to get this chapter to sound right and I hope it's good enough. Enjoy.
The following morning soon came around. The sun shone its warm rays of light through Nora's windows and onto the bed where she was sound asleep. She breathed slowly as she rubbed her head against the soft pillow and snuggled under the comfy duvet. She was clearly enjoying a perfect night's rest and to top it off, she was dreaming of the love of her life.
When the sunlight reached her face, she moaned as she blinked open her purple eyes. She shifted out from under the covers and stretched like a cat before glancing over at her bedside. She saw that her clock was lying face down. She must have accidently knocked it over before she went to sleep. She reached out, grabbed the clock and turned it over to look at the face. The time read…
"8:55?!" she cried out "SHOOT! I'M LATE!" Work would start in five minutes!
In a frantic state, she dropped the clock, bolted up from the bed and dashed out of the apartment. She took off into the air, flapping her wings like crazy towards Monsters Inc. This was one of the many times she was thankful for having wings, as they gave her an advantage for getting to far off places faster.
Finally, she arrived at the factory just a couple minutes late.
"Made it!" she panted before rubbing her back "Ugh…I really need to give my wings a break from flying…" She pushed her way through the doors and ran down the hall towards the Scarefloor.
Once Nora reached the Scarefloor, she saw that the other Scarers were already going in and out of their doors collecting screams. She quickly headed over to her station where she found Jenny with her arms crossed and tapping her foot. It was evident that she had been waiting for Nora and Nora couldn't help but feel a tiny bit guilty.
When Jenny saw her approaching, she sighed in both a mixture of relief and irritation "There you are! I thought you weren't gonna show up, where were you?"
"I am so sorry…I just…overslept that all" Nora replied quickly
"Why? Late night last night?"
"Err…maybe."
Jenny raised an eyebrow "Any…particular reason why?"
Nora tried to think of something fast "Uh….Movie night?" she replied with a sheepish grin. Nora wasn't sure if Jenny was convinced enough, since she just stared at her with a suspicious look. After a few more seconds, Jenny shrugged it off "Alright, just try to remember not to sleep late on work nights."
"Of course not" Nora assured.
Before Nora started her work, she gazed over at Frank's door station to see him coming out of a new scream filled door, with a satisfied grin.
"Hey Levett! What are you waiting for?" Jenny called as Nora turned her attention back to her assistant.
"Come on let's go!"
"Oh! Okay!" She quickly looked over one last time before beginning her day of Scaring.
As much as Nora tried so hard to focus on collecting screams, she couldn't help but glance over at Frank every now and again. It seemed Frank was having them same problem, because 'he too' would look back at her whenever he got the chance. When they caught each other's glances, they would send each other flirtatious looks or blow a kiss when nobody else was watching.
Jenny was starting to get more and more suspicious and irritated every time she caught Nora staring off in another direction. When she asked what was going on with her, Nora just told her that it was leftover fatigue from last night. But Jenny had a feeling Nora wasn't telling her the whole story. She decided to leave it for now, as she had her job to do. If only Nora would do the same.
The day wore on until it finally came to an end. The bell rang out, the monsters sent their doors back and they headed to the locker rooms. Inside the ladies room, Jenny took off her blue M helmet and placed it back in her locker. As she was about to close it, she stopped when she saw Nora in the reflection of the locker mirror. Nora was holding what looked like a picture of something. She smiled down at it and she stoked it with her finger. Then, she stuck the top half of her body inside the locker to stick the picture at the back of it.
Jenny curiously approached Nora from behind. "Hey! Nora what are y…"
Before she could finish her sentence, Nora jumped in surprise and hit her head on the roof of her locker. "OH! OW!"
Jenny winced a bit as Nora rubbed her head and turned around to face her. "Oh! Jenny...it's you"
"Uh…Were you looking at something?" Jenny asked as she tried to peer into Nora's locker, only for Nora to rapidly slam it shut. Jenny swore she caught a small glimpse of a photo of a monster with a heart drawn around it.
"Oh! No…I was just…trying spruce up my locker a little, that's all. Wanna make sure it's not messy for when I next use it!" she laughed nervously. "Well gotta go! See ya tomorrow!" she zipped out of the ladies room while Jenny just stared blankly after her.
"Oooh…kay…" That was weird.
Jenny couldn't understand why Nora was being so strange. Why would she act all weird? It's just a locker. Unless, there was there something in there she didn't want her to see.
Okay…she had to be hiding something from her. She was acting peculiar all day; showing up late for work, constantly distracted, hidden pictures...Wait a minute, wasn't that monster in the picture blue with spikes on his head?
He looked…like...Frank… *GASP!* Jenny slapped a hand over her mouth.A sudden realization struck her like a bolt of lightning. 'Could it be?!...Frank and Nora….TOGETHER?!'
How could she not have seen it before? It all made sense, Frank was the one who wanted to bring Nora to Monsters Inc. 'He' was the one to give her scaring tips. 'He' was the onewho wouldn't stop praising her every time she performed a perfect scare.
This made it obvious that he was 'into' her and now she finds Nora hiding photos of him and staring in his direction half the time. Which proved that she was into him too!
Jenny needed to know if her suspicion was correct and she was going to find out for sure. Tonight.
As the monsters exited the lockers rooms, Jenny stayed back a little so she could walk behind the rest of them. Nora was just a few feet in front and Jenny wanted to keep a close eye on her to see if she would do anything. All she had to do was wait and see.
For the moment, nothing seemed to happen. Nora just casually walked through the hallway like all the other monsters did. But once she reached the front doors, she stopped and waited for the other monsters to go out first. Jenny hung back and stayed out of sight as she continued to watch her. After a minute or two, she saw Frank approach Nora. They smiled and said some words to each other before heading out together. Not wanting to miss a chance, Jenny hurried after them. It was already dark outside, the sky had turned a dark blue, like an ocean of ink. She instantly scanned the area to see which way they went. She narrowed her eyes in determination 'where are you?' Then she looked to her left to see them disappearing around a corner. She quickly and quietly pursued them.
She hid behind the edge of the wall and ever so slowly, peered around the corner. When she saw what was there, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. There she saw, Frank and Nora embracing eachother, cuddling up close in a loving way. They stayed like that for a minute before looking into each other's eyes. They had a type look only two monsters in love would make. They then leaned in to kiss each other. Jenny hid back behind the wall with her hands and back pressed hard against it. Her eyes were still wide as planets and her mouth still hung open "I knew it!"
Frank stroked Nora's cheek lovingly "I'll see ya later" He whispered before he walked off into the night. Nora smiled as she sighed blissfully.
She turned around to leave but she let out a terrified shriek when she saw Jenny standing before her "AAHHH! JENNY! Wh..What are you-"
Jenny cocked an eyebrow "Movie night huh?"
Nora's face turned red as she struggled to say something. "I…I…No! No! It's not what you think! I…I..."
Jenny pit a hand up to stop her "Don't try and deny it Levett, It's so obvious. The constant staring you give him, the special training you received from him, inviting you to work here and now, I see you hiding pictures of him…" Nora tensed up.
"You…and Frank…are…Dating" Jenny stated boldly.
Nora sighed in defeat and hung her head to the ground, but then she looked back up in confusion. She didn't understand why Jenny appeared to be calm about the whole situation.
"Wait….you're…not mad?"
"No…just a little annoyed that you lied to me"
"I'm sorry! I just…"
"But it understandable." Jenny continued "I can see why you kept this a secret. I can't believe that all this time, you and Frank were seeing eachother. That's like…incredible!" The tension in Nora's body began to leave her. "How did this even happen?"
Nora looked down in thought "I dunno, he met me, got to know me, and we just…happened" she responded with a small smile.
"Wow…well let me tell you, you must one lucky monster to attract Monsters Inc.'s top Scarer."
Nora looked to Jenny "You're not gonna tell anyone else are you?"
"Don't worry, I won't say a thing" she reassured before putting on a serious look "But I'm warning you, Mr Waternoose will NOT be impressed if he catches you two together. It's against regulations for Scarers to have personal relationships while working at Monsters Inc."
Nora frowned "Why? Aren't two monsters who love scaring allowed to love eachother too?"
"I'm just saying, that's what the rules say" Jenny countered
"Well I don't care what the rules say" Nora said firmly "We're not letting our work affect our relationship."
Jenny could only hope Nora knew what she was getting herself into"….If you say so"
Jenny was true to her word, didn't say one thing about what she saw a few days ago. She wasn't the type of monster to snitch on others. But she still had to keep Nora from getting distracted. When she stared at him, Jenny had to snap her fingers in front of her face and point her back to work. She warned Nora to be careful and although Nora heard her, she didn't seem to pay much attention. Jenny was happy for Nora and Frank to be together, but she was apprehensive over the thought of them getting caught. She didn't know if she had a right to be concerned or that she was just being paranoid. Frank and Nora would get into big trouble if they were caught doing any 'lovey dovey' stuff. But nobody else had suspected a thing and they seemed to keep things low-key. Maybe Frank and Nora did know what they were doing…or did they?
In the cafeteria one afternoon, the monsters were sitting at their lunch tables talking about today's events as well as their personal lives. Frank and Nora's tables were opposite each other, their friends were busy chatting to one another but they weren't really engaging in their conversations. Instead they just sat off to one side with rather bored expressions, until they looked over at eachother. Frank smiled at her and then gestured to the door, Nora eagerly smiled back and nodded.
They checked to see if the others were looking and when they were weren't, they both silently got up from their tables, made their way towards the open doors and slipped out together.
Ernie the janitor whistled as he pushed a cart full of cleaning supplies down the hallway. He had just finished mopping up the floors in the bathrooms and was about to put the cleaning supplies back in the janitors closet. He reached for the doorknob but suddenly paused.
"Huh?"
Did he just hear something? It sounded like it was coming from inside the closet. He put the side of his head to the door. 'What in the heck?' He could definitely hear something in there. He immediately peeked through the keyhole and his eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"HOLY SMOKES!" He exclaimed as he stumbled back in pure shock.
Back in the cafeteria, the monsters were still eating and talking amongst themselves. Both tables had yet to notice Frank or Nora leave, they seemed to be too caught up in their own conversations. That was until they heard someone yelling from outside the cafeteria.
Both tables turned to see Ernie running towards Mr Waternoose's office shouting his name hysterically.
"What's up with Ernie?" One of Frank's pals asked
"Looks like he just saw a human" Another one said
"This is a scare factory Man, scaring human children is the kind of the main purpose." A third monster specified "Besides there's no way a human can get out through the scarefloor"
"Well then, what's the deal?"
"Whatever it is, it has to be something big"
"Then what do you say we check it out?" Hank suggested.
Before they could give an answer, Hank already got up to follow Ernie. The rest of the boys exchanged looks before doing the same.
The girls still sat there, looking bewildered "Do you think we should go too?" One of them enquired.
Jenny stared at the door for a second before looking across the table. She just realised Nora was missing and she noticed Frank was gone too. An alarming thought suddenly dawned on her. 'Oh no.' Jenny immediately shot up from the table and took off running after the boys.
"Hey Jenny! Wait up!" the remaining girls called as they got up too.
Jenny had a horrible feeling of what might be up. She could only hope that it wasn't was she thought it was.
When they got to Mr Waternoose's office, they found Ernie already inside trying to explain what he just found, as quickly as possible. Although they couldn't make out what he was saying, it was clear that he had just seen something that alarmed him.
Then all of a sudden Mr Waternoose yelled out "WHAT?!" The loud noise made the monsters jump away from the door and back up against the wall. The door immediately shot open and Mr Waternoose charged out of his office like an angry rhinoceros. He teared down the hallway with Ernie in pursuit. The monsters looked at eachother before quickly following them to see what was going on.
As soon as they reached the janitors closet, Mr Waternoose grabbed the doorknob and swung it open to reveal a stunning sight. Frank and Nora were in the closet together clasped in each other's arms. They were in the middle of sharing a kiss, when they suddenly looked up and were horrified to see their boss and co-workers staring at them and gasping in absolute shock. Startled, they let go of each other. They could feel many eyes of aghast monsters staring upon them.
Frank suddenly recalled the flashback to when mike went into his door without knowing and Frank came out to see all the monsters staring at him. But this time, he was the one who was terrified. He felt completely paralyzed, like his body had been turned to stone. For once he didn't know how to react. Nora was frozen with fear, she couldn't breathe; like an invisible force was squeezing her tight. All she could do was just stare back with a look of deep dread in her eyes. She could see Jenny amongst them, she had a look of disappointment and horror plastered across her face. Nora wished she was just dreaming, but alas, she wasn't.
For both of them, it was as if time had suddenly stopped. They didn't know what to do. They couldn't move, they couldn't speak, they couldn't think of anything, except for the fact that their big secret had just been unravelled. Oh no.
Mr Waternoose's shocked expression soon turned into a menacing glare, one that no one would want to see. "What…is...THE MEANING OF THIS?!" he shouted so loud it echoed throughout the whole factory.
"I…I…Uh!..Er!…"Frank and Nora stuttered as they tried to say something but no words came out.
"Both…of…you...in…my…office" Mr Waternoose growled "NOOOWWWW!"
AUTHORS NOTE: UH OH! Frank and Nora are in Trouble now! Once again I am so sorry for this long delay. I will try to get more chapters done but I don't know when they will be. I want to make sure they sound good enough so they make sense and that they are enjoyable. I won't leave the next chapter hanging for too long. I also promise you that no matter how long it takes to write chapters, I will get them done.