I've completed the Halloween chapter! In the middle of December!
Ah well, what can you do.
There will be a Christmas special, hopefully I can get that done in time. This chapter is a bit of a long one too, I tried to fit all my ideas in at once..
Sunshine: Glad you think so! And yes, that would be fun :)
maegan: Hah, nice try, but I am not making this entire book a Maegan x Bonnie book.
(For those of you that don't know, Maegan is my best friend irl)
Onto the story! Enjoy!
Chapter 18
Tulisa Goes To A Halloween Party!
Tulisa yawned and stretched up, admiring the view of the sun shining over the mountains coming from her window. The light of the misty October sunshine filtered into her room through her filmy lavender curtains, creating little rectangular golden imprints that shone on her floor from her blinds. She yawned again, and Tulisa smiled as she heard the cheerful chirping of robins on the huge gnarled oak tree outside her window.
Tulisa stepped out of bed, into her fuzzy panda slippers. One would think that weekends were for sleeping in, but Tulisa liked to make the most of the day. Usually to the frustration of her family members, all of which preferred to get up after 7:30.
Sleepily, she wandered over to her calendar of past famous women. October was Rosa Parks. It had a black-and-white photo of her smiling at the camera, along with the quote 'I would like to be remembered as a person who wanted to be free... so other people would be also free.'
Tulisa checked the date to see if she had anything important going on that day. She took engineering lessons on Sundays, piano lessons on Tuesdays, and curling lessons on Thursdays, and she knew it was a Saturday, but maybe her mom or dad had written something on her calendar, as they sometimes did.
October 31
Halloween.
"AIEEEEEEE! JOSH! JOSH! JOSHHHH, WAKE UP! IT'S HALLOWEEEEEEN!" Tulisa skidded down the hall and tore into Josh's dark blue room, with posters of famous soccer players plastered all over the walls, so many you could barely see what colour the walls were
"Ah- wha-" Josh asked sleepily. Tulisa busied herself with his red curtains, yanking them open and reeling up his blinds. Josh shielded his face with his arms and hissed.
"Lisa, it's only 9:00! Why must you wake me up now?!" Josh whined, flipping over and shoving his face into his Lions pillow, Hurricane's soccer team.
Tulisa calmly bent over Josh and smiled.
"One, nine o' clock is actually quite late. And two, because, dear Josh, Ruby invited us to her party at Freddy Fazbear's, and she asked me to help set up."
"Yeah. I know. It's a nighttime party, what does that have to do with me?" Josh mumbled into his pillow. Tulisa rolled her eyes and continued.
"I asked politely if you would like to help, and you agreed!" Tulisa smiled. "Wasn't that nice of you?"
Josh looked up from his pillow, his gray-brown hair rumpled and messy. "Why would I agree to do something like that?" He grumbled. Tulisa picked a gray Weimaraner pillow up off the floor and fluffed it out so it was nice and puffy.
"Because, dummy, you were all wrapped up in Large House like usual, so you just agreed with everything I said!" Tulisa cackled, and smacked Josh with the pillow. "Now get up and get dressed and let's gooo!"
~lll~
Josh hit the brakes on their parent's tan minivan. He glanced around at the empty parking lot.
"Where is everyone?" He asked.
"Ruby said we'd meet some friends who'd help us out with setting up," Tulisa said dubiously. The lack of cars didn't surprise her. Hurricane was a small town and Freddy Fazbear's was in the center of it all, everyone usually lived only a block or two away from it, so Ruby's friends could have just walked.
Tulisa and Josh both locked their doors and stepped outside. Josh looked at Tulisa's outfit and snorted.
"I get the dress, but those boots are not suited for dancing." He laughed.
The twins had both gotten dressed in their Halloween costumes. Josh was in a white cloth jacket which he has artfully splattered red paint on. He wore black sweatpants, and he was carrying a bag with makeup and a black wig. Tulisa had offered to do his makeup and trademark bloody grin.
Tulisa herself was wearing a simple black dress with a slit in the side. Her shoes were high-heeled black glove boots with spiky punk chains on them. They were her favourite boots, and she loved them. Tulisa was also carrying a bag with makeup, a inky black wig and black contacts.
"I'll have you know that these heels are chunky." Tulisa informed him, sniffing like a rich, upper-class posh lady.
"Chunky, shmunky." Josh wasn't impressed. "I still think they're dumb."
Tulisa laughed. They might be twins, but in many ways, they were very different.
As they walked down the sidewalk, Tulisa tried to make small talk with her brother.
"Isn't it weird how Mom and Dad never took us here when we were little? Like I know we moved when we were six but I would have thought that it was like a kindergartener's dream."
"Yeah! Although, to be honest those robot animals in the commercials kinda freaked me out…" Josh shivered. Tulisa nodded, agreeing with him.
"What were their names? Freddy is obvious...there was Bunnie and some sort of duck, and that weird one...Roxy? And then there was that terrifying broken one named Mango or something."
"I'm pretty sure the duck's name is Chonka." Josh guessed. Tulisa laughed at the stupid name.
"Remind me again why Ruby decided to have the party here, let alone work a night shift here?!"
"Beats me. Maybe she just wants some easy money?"
Josh and Tulisa shrugged at the same time, then laughed and slapped hands.
"Twin powers?" Josh asked.
"Twin powers." Tulisa replied, and she opened the front door.
~lll~
The place was dark, the fluorescent lights flicked off to conserve power when not necessary, such as now on a day off. Tulisa shivered. For some reason, dark stores or restaurants had always given her the creeps. But maybe that was just a common fear, she didn't know.
"Huh. Maybe Ruby's friends aren't here yet?" Josh asked. Tulisa was more skeptical, but she let it slide.
Suddenly, her gaze fell on the three deactivated animatronics settled on the stage. They were all frozen in place, Freddy's mouth open as if frozen mid-song.
Tulisa tapped her brother on the shoulder and he looked at her as if confused, then turned to realization as he noticed what she was pointing to. He nodded, and the two twins slowly crept over to the stage to look at them closer and to get a better view.
The floorboards creaked eerily as they snuck through the room. Tulisa wove her way around party tables and chairs with artful skill. Josh, however, didn't even try as he took a flying leap over one black chair with a missing knob. Tulisa rolled her dark cobalt blue eyes at him.
"Shut up, we're trying to be quiet here?" She hissed. Josh returned the eye-roll and walked onto a table, holding his arms out for careful balance.
"Ruby said we're allowed to be here, take a chill pill."
Suddenly, there was a scraping sound of bending metal and the flimsy cheap dollar-store party table Josh was walking on split in two and smashed into the floor, Josh included. He rubbed his head, but gave his sister a thumbs up. Tulisa glanced around nervously to see if anyone heard.
"Relax, Tulisa. There's nobody here to yell at us, just face it! It's not like some sentient robot is going to leap out of the ceiling and smack me for being 'naughty' or something!"
There was a small ping that sounded like a little metal object hitting the floor. Curious, Tulisa picked it up and inspected it. It reflected the light that filtered in through the windows, and it appeared to be a bolt. As Tulisa was looking it over, there was another creaking sound, this time coming up from the ceiling. Josh seemed to notice it too and they both looked up.
They barely had any time to react before a terrifying mess of wires, a white-and-pink blur, and rows and rows of sharp teeth swept down on them and screeched in their faces.
Josh screamed. Tulisa screamed. And the horrifying animatronic wire mess dropped to the ground. Suddenly there was a bright light, which would normally hurt Tulisa's eyes, but they were covered by her hands so she couldn't see just fine. The light was gone and Tulisa bravely peeked through a crack in her fingers and was shocked at the sight.
Where the amalgamation of wires and fox parts had once stood was a teenaged girl with white skin, shaggy white hair, pink cheeks, black nose, red lipstick, a cute black overall-skirt...and white-and-pink fox ears and tail? Not to mention the yellow eye and the seemingly missing blacked-out eye.
The girl put her hands on his hips and glared at Josh with an odd force for only having one eye.
"HEY! Imbecile boy! It's hard enough having Ruby smash through walls and not paying for it, but we don't need idiots like you sneaking into our closed pizzeria and destroying our party tables!"
The twins shared a look. She knows Ruby?
Two boys and a girl came from down the hall. One of the boys looked relatively normal, with dark brown ruffled hair and brown skin, along with a black tux. Except for the two brown bear ears located on either side of his dapper black top hat.
The other two were painted fantasy colours, turquoise and yellow. They appeared to be a bunny and...a duck? They certainly bore a striking resemblance to the three animatronics that had been performing on the stage…
"Are you Ruby's friends?" Tulisa asked, at the exact same time the guy who looked like Freddy asked,
"Are you Ruby's friends?"
Tulisa and Freddy both laughed, and Tulisa stuck her hand out, and without a moment's hesitation, Freddy shook it.
"Pleased to meet you. I'm Freddy Fazbear, and this is-"
"Cut the formalities, Freddy." The bunny-looking one nudged him aside, but gently. "I'm Bonnie, and these are Chica and Mangle." He introduced himself, pointing to the duck and the scary wire-fox-girl in turn. Tulisa nodded politely to each of them, but Josh was standing up and glaring at Mangle.
"She tried to kill me!" Josh shouted, pointing an accusing finger at Mangle, who just smiled innocently. Although it's difficult to look innocent when you have two rows of sharp teeth stuffed into your mouth.
"And rightly so." Chica huffed, placing her hands on her hips and sniffing.
"I hate to agree with Little Miss Cutesy here," Bonnie gave Chica a Look with a capital L. "But she's right. You should listen to your sister here."
"Yeah, you have no business destroying our party equipment!" Chica muttered.
"I should rip your arm off and grind it into pepperoni!" Bonnie shouted, sharp claws pointed directly at Josh. Tulisa stepped in front of her brother to protect him from the advancing animatronic/person/furry (Tulisa still had no idea) in case he...attacked.
"Alright, alright!" Freddy came in between and held out his arms. "These are Ruby's friends, and they're here to help decorate for the party!"
"You-" Freddy pointed to Josh, "need to buy a new party table. As for the killer bunny - it's not that big of a deal, you don't need to threaten him with made-up stories about pepperoni arms or whatever."
Bonnie shot him a skeptical look. Freddy whirled around to face Tulisa and Josh.
"You two! Introduce yourselves!" He said in an out-of-breath sort of tone.
Tulisa got the feeling that Freddy was the babysitter, the responsible one trying to hold the rambunctious three back.
"W-well, I'm Tulisa Abbott...and this is my twin brother Josh. We met Ruby a few weeks ago, and she got grounded, so she decided to have a Halloween party here, and I offered to help set up, and-"
"And she dragged me into it!" Josh exclaimed.
"Good for her." Freddy said dismissively. Tulisa sighed and rubbed her forehead, knowing that Josh had left a negative impression on these...robot-animal-people...that they'd never forget.
Josh frowned. "So, are you guys like- furries, or something?"
Bonnie hissed, attempting a seat at Josh's arm like a cat swatting at a feather. Freddy held him back and smiled a strained smile at Josh. "It's a little more complicated than that, I'm afraid."
Tulisa took another look around the room. So there's Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Mangle...what about Roxy?
"Wasn't there another animatronic...Roxy?" Tulisa asked the four complicated furries. Josh nodded.
"Yeah. Freddy, Bunnie, Chonka, Roxy and Mango!" He exclaimed confidently.
Freddy looked at Bonnie. Bonnie looked at Chica. Chica looked at Mangle. Mangle looked at Freddy. And they all burst out laughing.
"Roxy, hah!" Bonnie snorted.
"Roxy? Bunnie? CHONKA!-" Mangle wheezed, clutching her stomach. Chica was on the floor laughing.
"Oh, poor Foxy- He always says he's like this big strong masculine pirate…" Chica laughed again. "I can't wait to tell him that you thought his name was Roxy!"
"But...isn't Bonnie a girl's name too?" Tulisa noted. Bonnie whirled around and placed a finger on her lips.
"Shut. Names don't have genders." He said. Tulisa folded her arms and tilted her head to the side.
"You were pretty quick to laugh at Roxy as a girl's name." Tulisa said, smirking. Bonnie glared at her and his long turquoise bunny ears flattened.
"I said shut. Don't mess with me, little girl. The flesh pepperoni may just be a rumor, but I can make it a reality." He growled, his vibrant green eyes sparkling dangerously. Tulisa shivered. While Chica and Freddy seemed nice enough, especially Freddy, but Mangle and Bonnie seemed a bit...scary.
Freddy walked up behind him and promptly placed him and a sort of mock-chokehold. "Don't be scared of Bon-Bon here, he's really just a lil' ol' bunny stuffie, right Bon-Bon?"
Tulisa giggled behind her hand as Bonnie tried furiously to escape Freddy's grasp. "I am not! Ugh, you're strangling me! If I die again, I'm going to scream!"
"Too bad you won't be around for me to hear it," Freddy hummed.
Bonnie groaned, but gave up struggling and went limp. Tulisa was laughing at Bonnie's expression when she suddenly remembered something.
"Wait, where is Foxy? There is a Foxy here, right?" Josh asked. Tulisa was a bit surprised. That was exactly what she was going to say!
Huh. Maybe we really do have twin powers!
"Oh yeah. Foxy's in the kitchen making pizza. He's been up since 4am making them!" Chica laughed.
"Really? Wow, that's one dedicated chef right there!" Tulisa said, bewildered.
"Well, we did kind of make him do it 'cause he was running around the main hall singing The Frigate That Flies from The Pirate Fairy at 4 in the morning." Mangle told them. Josh snorted.
"Really?" He asked scornfully. Tulisa gave her brother a light punch on the shoulder.
"Hey, you used to love that movie. I even caught you singing Who I Am while wearing those old fairy wings of mine."
Josh's face turned red with embarrassment. "I-I don't know what you're talking about, Lisey. I never did that."
"Oh really? Then does this not sound familiar?" Tulisa proceeded to burst into song. "I wanna feel free to be who I am! What I'm about is more than I've been. Ready to show the world who I am-" Josh stopped Tulisa mid-song with a slap on the arm.
"Okay, okay! We get it!"
Tulisa, Chica, and Mangle shot him a mischievous glance, then started up again in a chorus of acapella voices.
"Start letting out what I am holding in. Find my own place to stand, so I could be who I am…"
"Who I aaaam…" came a sad-sounding voice from down the hall. Curious, Tulisa peeked around the corner to see a few doors, one of which was cracked open a bit with light shining through the bottom. On Tulisa's signal, Tulisa, Mangle, Chica, and Josh snuck to the door and slowly creaked it open…
"HOLY CRABAPPLES THAT'S A LOT OF PIZZA." Chica exclaimed, shocked.
Tulisa had to stand on her toes to spot more than just two red ears and a pirate hat over the massive piles and piles of pizza stacked around the gray granite kitchen countertops and island. Cheese, pepperoni, black olive, bacon BBQ, vegetarian, Hawaiian- Tulisa couldn't even name some of the types of pie. And- was that spaghetti pizza? Pesto and cashews? Jam and bananas? Peanut butter and Doritos? Strawberry yogurt and cucumber slices?
"Uh- Foxy, some of these pizzas look a little...funky." Chica muttered delicately.
There was a sigh. "Aye, lassie, I know. I had to get creative when I started running out of ingredients for the-" *dramatic sigh* "thousands and thousands of pizzas me dear Mags forced me to bake for not one, not two, not three, not- uh. Uhhh...not four, but five hours." Foxy faked a swoon and collapsed in Mangle's arms looking up at her with a glittering eye.
"Arg, how are me 'posed ah continue making pizzas for me mates when I'm so, so very exhausted?" He sighed for the third time and went limp, sticking out with tongue for effect. Mangle just rolled her eye.
"Foxy, hon, you are the biggest drama queen I have ever met. Uh- do you want to help us decorate?"
Foxy's eye lit up.
"Yesssss! I'm going teh make Pirate's Cove into a haunted ghost ship. In 1789, lit by only the faint light of a red-and-white peppermint lighthouse, sailed the great S.S Foxy! But one night, our brave hero sailed into the rough waves of a storm…"
Foxy skipped to the storage closet, narrating enthusiastically and jabbing at the chairs with a wooden sword he'd somehow picked up along the way.
Mangle shook her head and laughed.
"Ah...what am I going to do with him? He's almost like a pet, or a small child sometimes...but I know he's not. He can be a mature sixteen-year-old, he just doesn't show it very much."
Tulisa nodded. "Yeah, I get it. Honestly though, I think all boys are pretty immature till at least eighteen."
Mangle snorted. "Eh, more or less, at least with a few of 'em. Here, let's go help poor Chica with that box of decorations. I think she could use a little help."
Chica was staggering towards the couch with a box that looked twice the size of her, and heavy too. Especially for Chica, with her teeny tiny twig arms. Her face was red and she was breathing heavily, but she surprisingly kept it up. However, despite her large amount of stamina, both the other girls could see that Chica needed some help - fast.
"Here, lemme take that," Tulisa offered, picking up the box and tossing it around a little. It wasn't actually as heavy as she thought it would be, just oddly shaped and a bit hard to carry. "What's inside of it, anyways?"
"Wel-l-l, there's lots of little mini pumpkins you can put around the rooms. Ooh! And these cute bat streamers that look like there's bats draped across the ceiling! And these adorable door sticky jellies that look like witch's hats and one that says 'Happy Halloween'! Plus we have these tombstones that I've always wanted to use but I can't go outside but Tulisa you could place them! And there's these cauldron thingies that we could pour punch in and call it witches brew! And there's this black cat stuffie to put…"
Tulisa was a bit taken aback, but she quickly regained her composure. She was Tulisa Abbott! She loved decorating! She just needed to channel her inner interior decorator.
"Alright. Let's do this!"
Ten hours later…
•••
"I literally cannot decorate one more thing." Tulisa collapsed on the floor. "I have never, ever decorated as much as I have today." She rolled over and groaned.
They had decorated the walls, ceiling, stage, couch, front porch, hallway, Pirate's Cove, back alley, even the floor. They'd used up all their Halloween decorations, and when they had run out, they'd used regular party decorations, Christmas decorations, Valentine's decorations, New Year's decorations, Saint Patrick's Day decorations, Fourth of July decorations - seriously, they had decorations for every holiday and beyond. Then they'd cooked cupcakes, poured 'witch's brew', used limp spaghetti noodles and peeled grapes as brainghetti and eyeballs. Then they had put out every single pizza on the table (well maybe they'd eaten one or ten). And after that, Tulisa. Was. Exhausted.
Bonnie flopped on the table, and there was an oof sound. Tulisa craned her neck up and stifled a giggle when she saw that Bonnie had collapsed directly on top of Freddy.
Josh was snoring at the front door, slumped against the wall, when suddenly the door swung open and smacked Josh in the face. He clutched his nose.
"Owwww...I tink id's bwoken…"
"Ah, shush, I didn't even hit you that hard."
Tulisa sat up. Freddy sat up, which caused Bonnie to slide down. Chica sat up. Foxy and Mangle, who had collapsed on the purple star-spangled couch, sat up. They all recognized that sarcastic voice.
"RUBY!"
They all ran up to her and surrounded her.
"Oh my God. Rubyyy, we had to decorate SO. MUCH. You have no idea how lucky you are to be grounded." Tulisa groaned. Ruby laughed.
"First time I've ever heard that in a sentence."
Chica hugged Ruby from behind. "I'm happy you're here." She murmured. Then, as if realizing nobody else was hugging Ruby, she quickly let go. "Ah, sorry." Her face was red.
"No, no, it's okay." Ruby hugged the small girl back.
"Anyways, I'm going to go change into my costume. Lisey, wanna come?" Ruby offered.
"Sure!" Tulisa grinned and followed Ruby into the girl's bathroom.
"So what'd you think of my little friends?" Ruby asked jokingly. Tulisa smiled.
"Well, Freddy seems in way over his head, Chica is sweet, Mangle seems cool, Foxy is...not the sharpest knife in the block, and Bonnie is kinda scary."
Ruby snorted.
"Hah. Ol' Bunny Boy? Naw, he just tries to act tough. He's really just a weakling bunny rabbit, trust me. I hit him with a crowbar my first night."
Tulisa laughed in surprise. "Seriously? Oh my God, Ruby!"
"Ugh. What's that smell?" Ruby asked, wrinkling her nose.
Tulisa opened a bathroom stall to check and gagged.
"Euwwww. Does the staff even clean these toilets?"
"Rude." A transparent girl stepped out of the stall and crossed her arms. She was wearing a short black skirt, a long black cloak, and was carrying a dark leather plague doctor's mask. She had long red hair and hazel eyes, with a smatter of freckles dotting her nose and cheeks.
Tulisa shot a questioning glance at Ruby. "Uh, are guests supposed to arrive yet?"
Ruby checked the reflection in the mirror lazily instead of just turning around, and dropped her wand in shock.
"Uh, no. Is that- what?" Ruby turned around to get a better look. Tulisa's face turned slightly pale.
"Is- is- is that a ghost?" Tulisa stammered. Ruby snorted.
"Hah! You scared of her? She can't do crap to either of us, she's dead! I could kick her across the room right now!"
The girl crossed her arms and squinted her eyes. "I'd like to see you try."
"Oh, you wanna go? Huh?" Ruby put her fists up Mortal-Kombat style. The girl sighed, then in a flash, easily gave Ruby an uppercut, which Ruby blocked, grabbing the girl's arm and using it to spin her around. The ghost girl slammed into a stall door with surprising force, then kicked off the door and rammed into Ruby.
"Looks like you've met your match, eh Rubes?" Tulisa called from the side.
Ruby wasn't done yet, however. She grabbed something small out of her pocket. Then, all of a sudden, there was a hissing sound and the ghost girl was covered in hundreds of long, thin, multicoloured strands of…
Funny String?
The girl shook the strands off in frustration as Ruby cackled evilly. "Hah! I win!"
"Whatever! I didn't come here to get covered in crap, I came here to enjoy my Halloween like any normal ghost!"
Ruby tilted her head to the side. "Oh, so you are a ghost."
The girl rolled her hazel eyes.
"Yes, and it's so cliche, but on Halloween, all the ghosts get to come down to the real world for one night. Unless, of course, you're one of those haunting ghosts…" She shrugged. "Anyways, bye!"
The ghost concentrated for a moment before disappearing with a small pop!
Ruby placed the eyeliner she'd been using on the counter.
"Pass the mascara." As if what had just happened was completely normal.
Tulisa rummaged around Ruby's bag and pulled out a little mascara wand. Tulisa had already painted her face white, so she dabbed a little mascara onto her eyelashes. When she finished, she capped it and handed the tube to Ruby.
"I honestly don't think half the staff even tries with cleaning this place." Ruby said. She took out a little contact lense and fitted it in. Now her right eye was an electric, vibrant, green colour.
"This place isn't how it used to be. It reached its peak about fourteen years ago. But then there were child murders, kidnappings rumoured at the pizzeria - both of the owners had their own children go missing, I'm pretty sure. I read something about the co-owner actually killing himself from it…"
Tulisa winced. "Yikes. Did all that really happen?"
Ruby pulled a small cold silver pocket watch from her red grocery store free-with-purchase bag. The pocket watch turned out to be a sort of monocle that Ruby fit onto her right eye. She beamed, seemingly proud of herself, and kept talking.
"Like I said, these are all just rumours. But what I do know for sure is, five kids went missing at that pizzeria, one of the co-owners killed himself and the other just... disappeared. They suspected him, but nobody's seen him for years. The sort of secretary person, Christian Lee, took charge, but after meeting with him a few times, he is certainly not the best manager. After that, and with all the rumours, this place just sort of...fell apart. Now there's only a small staff group, and the place just isn't how it used to be."
Tulisa stared at her, open-mouthed. "That is not what I expected to hear. I was thinking that like the staff was just lazy."
"Oh, they are. Three of them just gossip, one of them shows up late all the time, and the rest are decent, but they just don't work long enough."
"And then you, who gets all buddy-buddy with the animatronics and hosts all-nighter parties with high school kids. And even a bit more than buddy-buddy if you know what I'm saying…" Tulisa winked suggestively and wiggled her shoulders.
Ruby snorted. She applied another layer of bright vermillion lipstick and capped it, popping her lips.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Tulisa rolled her eyes, now an inky black from the contacts. She adjusted her wig and continued. "You do know. You and Chica? Come on, she's totally into you."
"Okay. One, I don't know how to drive a car, let alone a motorbike. Two, she knows we're just friends, and that's all we want. Bang, boom, conversation over." Ruby said with an air of finality.
"I guess I should have guessed you don't ride, considering you literally crashed my car into the front of this exact building." Tulisa said sardonically.
"True. Hey, are the other guests arriving?" Ruby noticed, clearly changing the subject. Tulisa jolted a little.
"Ack! Who is it?"
"Well, there's Isaac, Leah, Tiara, Bella, Jaya, Booker, Caleb, Opie...oh yeah, and Matt."
Tulisa's mind went into overdrive. "What?! Oh God, Matt's here? Does my wig look straight?! Is my makeup okay?! Do I have any pimples?! Does my dress look fine?! Do the-"
"Lisey." Ruby put her hands on Tulisa's shoulders. "You look great. Now let's go out there and you show him what you got!"
Tulisa nodded enthusiastically.
Ruby shrugged on her gray jacket, Tulisa shrugged her's off. And they both left the bathroom to face the music.
"Wooooooah…"
The place looked even better at night. With the cool neon string lights, jack-o'-lanterns, and blaring dance pop music from the huge amps, the place looked phenomenal. Tulisa even spotted one kid, dressed as what looked like Betelgeuse, doing the worm with a semicircle of kids around him, clapping and cheering wildly.
The doors swung open, and lights dimmed. The music slowed. Smoke covered the room. And four girls emerged from the smoke, striking various poses. Tulisa recognized them as Camilla, Risa, Mitzi, and Abbie. They were, according to Ruby, the most popular, and the most annoying, juniors in the whole school.
They appeared to be dressed as-
"Sexy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." Ruby hissed under her breath.
Cammie was dressed as Michelangelo, Risa as Rafael, Mitzi as Leonardo, and Abbie as April.
Abbie's gaze swept across the room like a hawk. She flipped her dark brown curls over her shoulder, and suddenly her intimidating stare flashed onto Tulisa. Tulisa flinched as the four girls sauntered over to her.
Abbie gave Tulisa a wide smile.
"Hey, Tulisa. Cool costume. Are you like, Betty Boop or something?"
Cammie, Risa, and Mitzi each giggled in sync, almost as if it was planned.
"Ah- no. I'm Jane the Killer, from those creepypastas? And my twin brother Josh is Jeff the Killer. Have you ever seen those? You probably haven't. Ha." Tulisa rambled. From the blank look in Abbie's eyes she could tell she was losing interest.
"Oh. We're the Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles, and I'm April."
"Who's Donatello?" Tulisa asked, craning her neck to see she could spot the other turtle. Abbie gave her a big, white, school-picture grin.
"Mattie is! So we're like April and Donatello from the show!" Abbie squealed.
"Isn't that like, so romantic?!" Mitzi giggled, flipping her straight blonde hair.
Tulisa nodded awkwardly. Of course Abbie liked him. He was gorgeous, and so was she. They'd make the perfect couple. "Ah. Yes. Um, are you two dating?"
Abbie opened her mouth, but before she could say anything, Risa butted in.
"Well, not really. He doesn't know she likes him. But he totally likes her, so-"
"RISA." Abbie snarled through gritted teeth. Her glare was so full of fire, Tulisa wouldn't be surprised if Risa burst into flames at that second.
"Well, Jane the Killer is a much more creative costume." Ruby bragged cheerfully. "And I'm Clockwork."
Abbie's cool gaze landed on Ruby. "Ruby. Hi. Nice costume, I guess. What did you call them, scary spaghetti?" Abbie asked dryly. Her henchwomen giggled on cue.
"It's an internet scary story, basically." Ruby explained. "Not that you would know. You like, totally don't read."
"At least I have a social life instead of holing myself up in a hermit cave with a bunch of dusty books." Abbie told her, rolling her dark chocolate-coloured eyes.
The two girls stared at each other coldly, until Abbie turned her all-powerful gaze back to Tulisa.
"Anyways. We heard you set up this party. You did a good job, the place looks amazing."
"Beautiful."
"You really did a good job."
"Wow, you must have spent forever decorating."
The three minions tittered. Abbie smiled.
"And we were wondering if you'd like to sit with us at lunch sometime after break?"
Funny. She'd said it like an offer, but it felt like a demand that Tulisa felt obligated to follow.
"Um...yeah, that would be fun. Maybe in the new year?" Tulisa told her nervously. From the look on Abbie's face, Tulisa could tell she didn't quite approve of Tulisa's decision, but she kept her cool.
"Alright. We'll be by the snack table if you need us."
"Bye!"
"See you soon!"
"Have a nice night!"
Abbie gave her a little wave, and the other three girls copied her. The music boomed as they headed to the snack table to inspect the food, especially the weird pizza.
"What do you wanna bet that on Wednesdays, they wear pink?" Ruby asked jokingly. Tulisa turned to Ruby.
"They seemed nice."
"Nice?!" Ruby exploded. "How is she nice?! Lisa, she's moving in on your man!"
"Well...you can't know that for sure."
"Tulisa, how do you not see it? Besides, she was so mean!"
"Why was she so cold to you?" Tulisa asked. Ruby sighed and adjusted her silver monocle.
"Ah, she pissed me off back in eighth grade by making fun of my outfit right in front of my crush. So I pissed her off right back by pushing her in a kiddie pool full of slime at the school's fundraising fair."
"Mm." Tulisa nodded. It was becoming increasingly more obvious that even though she'd spent nearly a month at Lakeview High, she was still the new girl.
Ruby changed the subject. "Hey, look! Your brother's on the dance floor! C'mon Lisey, let's go join him!"
Ruby grabbed Tulisa's arm and pulled her onto the dance floor, laughing as they watched Josh get asked to dance by a shy girl dressed in a Pikachu onesie. From the corner of her eye, Tulisa spotted Mangle and Foxy doing a sort of weird hip-hop tango, Bonnie and Freddy up at the music booth, Chica at the snack table happily stuffing her face with pastel, multicoloured cupcakes, and that ghost girl chatting with two other ghosts with matching plague doctor masks. She scanned the room for Matt, but she couldn't see him over everyone else. Maybe-
Tulisa was so busy staring at everyone else, she didn't realize there was someone directly in front of her until she smashed right into them.
Tulisa tumbled onto the floor, midair cursing her 'chunky' heels. Suddenly, she felt a pair of strong arms grasping her and lifting her up. She looked up to see who it was.
They had ruffled chocolate-brown hair and skin the colour of caramel, but most of that was covered by a fancy black suit and a plain white mask. Tulisa was so busy staring, she didn't even realize her shoes had come off. But the masked stranger seemed to have noticed, and from out of a nearby bag, they pulled out two scuffed red Konverse and handed them to her. Somehow, miraculously, they were a perfect fit for Tulisa's small feet.
"I'm sorry. Are you okay?" The person asked. Tulisa could now identify this person as a male, judging from the deeper, more masculine voice. She pulled the shoes on awkwardly as she tried to make eye contact with him.
"Yes! I should be apologizing to you. I'm so sorry, I'm very clumsy, I should have been watching where I was going." Tulisa rambled. The stranger didn't seem to mind, and he waved his arm to all the couples now dancing to the slow music.
"Want to dance with me?" He asked her. Shyly, Tulisa took his hand and they began to waltz.
Tulisa leaned into him and accidentally breathed in his scent. He smelled like lemons and oranges, pleasantly citrusy. Tulisa could spot Mangle and Foxy doing a tango, Chica and Ruby dancing together, and Bonnie and Freddy working at the DJ booth. Tulisa smiled, closed her eyes, and let the music overwash her, enjoying the moment.
This had been one of the best Halloweens ever.
Oo, a masked stranger! Wonder who that could be…
And, a ghost girl! I'm sure you can all figure out who that was ;) plus the introduction of Abbie and crew! Perhaps they will be important later in the story!
Also, if you have any suggestions or ideas for this book, please don't hesitate to leave them in the reviews! They could be plot ideas, characters, pets, even just random stuff! I'm a bit short on ideas right now, so feel free to let me know of yours!
Bye for now!
~Ghost