It was the beginning of the following summer. All the monsters usually went back to their own homes at some point between August and June, for school and work (after all they needed to earn the money necessary to pay for hotel expenses). Basically the only exceptions were Dracula's best friends, who liked to also come over for Christmas. Even the werewolf family, since the pups were willing to behave better during that time in exchange for presents.

Johnny had introduced everyone to Thanksgiving of course, but it was solely an American holiday so they never actually celebrated it. To keep Johnny from being too homesick though Dracula bought one of the channels that shows the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade so that he could watch it (the other monsters, especially Mavis and Dennis, sometimes liked watching it too), and the hotel served the usual turkey dinner and pumpkin pie. But only on the years that they couldn't make it to Johnny's parents' home instead (it usually depended on whether Dennis's teacher let him take the week off or not).

But there was going to be something different about this year: for once, someone will not come for the summer.

Dracula's family found this out once the best friends started to arrive. Frank's family, Wayne's family, Griffin and Crystal, Blobby's family...

"That's funny, usually Murray is here by now." Griffin noticed. "Heck, he usually beats us here."

"I hope nothing's wrong." Crystal said.

Murray finally arrived...without his sand. Instead he just slowly walked inside.

"Murray...what's wrong?" Dracula asked worriedly.

"Where's Tracey?" Eunice asked.

Tracey was Murray's girlfriend, the female mummy who always went with him to the hotel. Well, calling her a girlfriend was a stretch since she never seemed to be as into Murray as he was into her...

"She zinged with someone else." Murray shrugged, despite obviously looking nearly heartbroken.

"Aw man...sorry bro." Frank said sympathetically.

"Hey don't despair, you'll find your zing too." Griffin said, for once not in the mood for wisecracks.

"Really? Despite spending thousands of years with temporary girlfriends?" Murray pointed out skeptically.

Everyone hesitated...

"Well...maybe your zing needed to be born first?" Johnny suggested awkwardly. "Like how Dracula couldn't zing again until long after Ericka was born?"

"Maybe..."

"Hey Johnny!"

That was Davis. He and the other foster brothers had just shown up; yes together, most of them took the same plane due to being in the same city. Carter was just a coincidence, since he had recently been in Hungary on another study trip. In fact he actually would've come sooner, but...

"Hey guys, I'd like to introduce you to Amina and Hana Arafa." Carter smiled, pointing to the two women who came with him. "Hana's my new girlfriend, and Amina is her older sister. I met Hana during the archeological dig in Egypt I went on last year."

"That's right, I'm a secretary to one of the archeologists that was there." Hana smiled. "I've always been fascinated with Ancient Egypt, but sadly I'm a little accident-prone so I can't handle artifacts. It hasn't been all bad though, since it allowed me to meet Carter."

"Yeah, she was looking at an urn and accidentally knocked it off the table. I caught it before it hit the floor." Carter chuckled.

"Yes, it's funny now because thanks to you I didn't lose my job. At the time I was mortified about nearly destroying a priceless artifact and getting fired." Hana smirked. "Still, even though I get to see lots of artifacts I wish I could really work with them like Amina instead of simply taking notes and letters and such." She added wistfully. "Amina...er...worked at The Museum of Egyptian Antiquities."

"You mean that cool museum in Cairo?" Murray smiled, cheering up a bit. "I've been there a few times; I like how museums let people see the past without harming it."

"Oh yes, I think I've seen you there before." Amina remembered. "I usually worked in the background looking over new shipments of artifacts to see if they needed anything before going on display. But I have been to the unveiling of new exhibits, and I did like to look around old exhibits to see if they need repairs."

"That's cool of you- Wait, why are you referring to working there in the past tense?" Murray suddenly realized that something sounded wrong about how Hana and Amina referred to Amina's job.

"Well..." Amina sighed. "The truth is I was fired recently. So forgive me if I seem bitter and a bit antisocial at times, I'm just still recovering."

"That's why I invited her to come with me and Carter, I was hoping the trip would cheer her up." Hana admitted.

"It's okay, we understand if you want to be alone often." Wanda said to Amina.

"And if you ever want to talk to someone about it, we're always ready to listen." Mavis added.

"Well actually you probably should avoid talking to Griffin." Wayne smirked.

"Look, just cause you guys don't appreciate my sense of humor doesn't mean I can't be compassionate!" Griffin retorted.

"What sense of humor?" Murray chuckled.

"Hey, my jokes have been funny before and don't you be in de-Nile about it!" Griffin shot back.

Murray glared at him. He was already getting tired of that pun...

Based on the looks on Hana and Amina's faces, they didn't find it funny either.

"Okay, okay, that's enough both of you; let's not make a bad first impression here." Dracula cut in.

"Sorry." Griffin and Murray both muttered.

"Come on, I'll get you your room keys." Dracula said to the foster brothers, Amina, and Hana. "I'm guessing that the extra room will be shared by Amina and Hana?"

"You got it, we thought we'd save money by sharing a room." Hana grinned.

"Plus I don't really want to have a room to myself right now." Amina admitted.

"I understand. The bellhops will of course bring your luggage."

Hana and Amina watched the zombies carry the bags to the elevator with interest.

"I hope this doesn't sound insensitive, but how come only zombies are your bellhops?" Hana asked curiously.

"Oh I let them try other jobs, but apart from helping with cleaning they messed up too much." Dracula shrugged. "Especially in the kitchen...you need quick reflexes if you're working in a kitchen professionally."

"Frankly, you need quick reflexes if you're working in a kitchen period." Amina gave Hana a teasing smile.

"Oh come on, the cookies were still edible weren't they?" Hana retorted back with a smile.

"Yeah, after we cut off the burnt parts. Thank goodness you learned to use a timer after that."

"Hey I would've used our timer then but I couldn't find it, you know that." Hana rolled her eyes still smiling.

"True, but that's why you ask for help."

"Yeah yeah..."

Everyone couldn't help but smile at Hana and Amina's relationship. It was obvious that despite being drastically different the two were best friends.

'Drastically' isn't an understatement either, they were different in multiple ways. While Hana was thin, pretty, always smiling, and sociable Amina was stocky, plain, always looked serious, and not very sociable. Plus Hana was more adventurous and Amina was more bookish. But they still had enough in common to get along, not just their shared love of Ancient Egypt but also the fact that they both enjoyed parties and cooking. Plus the usual love of music, movies, books, and other works of entertainment that sisters can have in common (with a few exceptions here and there).

Their differences still stood out often enough for strangers to wonder how they got along though. Like after they got settled into their room: Hana wanted to go out and meet the monsters while Amina wanted to rest from 'jet lag'.

"Amina, I'll let you rest today but tomorrow you really should make an effort to make some friends." Hana said. "It's not like history will repeat itself."

"I know, and I will. I wouldn't have accepted your invite otherwise." Amina promised. "Besides, I wanted to meet your boyfriend's family and see if they're the right family for you to join."

"Sis, we just started dating." Hana rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, and how many of your past boyfriends have lasted this long?" Amina pointed out.

"Touche." Hana had to silently admit that her past boyfriends quickly got irritated with her clumsiness. "Well, I'll let you know what they're like later tonight. I'm going to officially meet them first."

Amina just nodded with a small smile. Hana didn't blame her for not sounding more supportive, since despite the previous statement Hana had been luckier than Amina when it came to dating. Amina had only two boyfriends, one who dumped her for a more attractive woman and the second...well, that will be explained later.

Fortunately, Hana warmed up quickly to the vampire family and vice-versa after introductions were made. She hoped that Carter was finally the one, since she was tired of guys who were only physically attracted to her. Fortunately Amina's first boyfriend was not one of her past boyfriends. He had dumped Amina for Hana, but Hana already knew him as Amina's boyfriend and not only turned him down but also punched him in the face. That alone prevented Amina from holding a grudge over the incident. Being dumped did hurt, but if her sister had agreed to date her ex that would've hurt even worse.

Anyway, after meeting the vampire family Hana officially met Dracula's closest friends and their wives/girlfriend (Crystal to be specific). In fact Hana chatted with the wives and Crystal separately so that they could have 'girl talk'.

"Too bad humans don't zing unless it's with a monster, then you can know for sure whether Carter's the one or not." Eunice said after Hana admitted having wondered about her relationship with Carter.

"Zing?" Hana asked.

"Yeah, that's when you feel a spark flowing through your body and telling your heart that the one you zinged with is the one you're meant to spend the rest of your life with." Crystal said with a smile in her voice.

"Oh. I assume you all zinged with your husbands?" Hana smiled.

Everyone confirmed this except...

"Well...actually Griffin is my boyfriend and we haven't zinged yet." Crystal admitted sadly. "But I still want to be with him despite that..."

"Well...maybe you and Griffin don't qualify as monsters enough for zinging?" Ericka suggested. "I mean...technically you two are just invisible people right?"

"More or less. We also became immortal, or at least long-living, which is the 'less' part." Crystal said with a shrug in her voice. "The 'more' is that we both definitely have the bodies of people, like vampires only without the fangs. So maybe you're actually right."

"Well, either way don't worry about it now. You two have only been dating a little over a year so there's no need to rush." Mavis smiled.

"Yeah, like Drac and Ericka did." Crystal chuckled.

"Well we zinged didn't we?" Ericka retorted good-naturedly.

"Yeah, but so did Mavis and Johnny and they dated for seven years first." Crystal retorted with a smirk in her voice.

"That was only because I had just become a legal adult when we first met, and Johnny wanted to take a few classes in college about running a hotel so that he could help me and dad properly." Mavis laughed. "We had to work out when he could take the classes and still see me often, and finally decided that I should take the classes too. Especially since the hotel was slowly accepting human guests, making it a good idea for me to socialize with humans as often as possible."

"Oh...right..." Crystal friendly-pouted over having lost the argument.

"Well, anyway...I still can't help wondering why Carter has been more patient with me than my past boyfriends. They would always quickly become irritated with my being accident-prone, but so far Carter has just laughed it off." Hana said.

"I believe you can thank Johnny for that." Mavis smiled. "He's a bit accident-prone sometimes too, so I think Carter simply got used to it when Johnny's parents fostered him."

"Ah, I see." Hana smiled, feeling better.