Monster High certainly wasn't like any other place Jackson had been to. He stood alone in the car park, staring up at the massive facade of his new school. The main campus was a massive gothic-style structure, painted an eerie shade of purple and black, with turrets that extended from different wings of the building.
It was like something out of a catalogue for Transylvanian home-design. Beautiful, but strange.
Now, Jackson had a list of terrible things that could happen to a teenage boy. And number two on that list was 'Transferring to a new school'.
After many personal experiences, Jackson had decided that moving schools would always result in three things: Little to no friends, some light, or heavy, bullying, and, more often than not, major insecurity issues.
In the past, it had been the first thing on the list. Followed closely by eating alone in public, and wearing a snapback unironically.
But as of today, taking the numero uno spot was something else: 'Transferring to a New School as the Only Human Student'.
Unfortunately, the adults in Jackson's life did not seem to understand why transferring to a monster school in the middle of the year was a terrible idea, even when the sophomore in question was Jackson; someone who was, not only awkward and antisocial, but already dealing with significantly pressing problems of his own. Namely, his questionable heritage.
Some students were milling around in groups, so Jackson did his best to keep his eyes glued firmly to his skate sneakers as he trudged towards the main entrance. He was trying his hardest not to make any unwanted eye contact, but couldn't stop himself from peeking through from under the tips of his bangs.
There was a makeshift game of casketball being played by a group of monsters in team jerseys. A stone-skinned girl patrolled the carpark, marking things on a clipboard, while a gelatinous green creature dragged itself across the courtyard. Another two monsters surveyed the crowd with identical golden eyes, grey catlike ears twitching on the tops of their head when they whispered to each other.
A voice at the back of his head whistled slowly, diversity central, huh? And okay, Jackson had to admit that Monster High was certainly winning a nomination in the 'accepting all monsters' category.
Inside the school wasn't any less impressive. A marble staircase spanned the centre of the room, curling out to the upper foyer, which led off into a number of hallways.
Making his way towards the left wing, Jackson's heart continued to pound aggressively in his chest and he hoped desperately that no one would realise the rando human walking around the school. Although, any hearing-enhanced monster worth their salt could probably hear the frantic beat of his pulse.
He pulled out his phone to check the email the school administration had sent, unlocking his screen to the messages he'd woken up to that morning.
Jackson: First day of school tomorrow.
Jackson: How are we going to do this?
Holt: u do it.
Jackson: I'm not taking your classes for you.
Holt: fine. take point but switch out for my classes
Holt: im fronting next tho
Jackson rolled his eyes and swiped into the email application as he walked, sighing when he realised they hadn't thought to include any directions. He looked around at the rather confusing architecture until he finally spotted a sign on the wall pointing towards the headmistress's office. Thank the ghosts for small mercies.
Just as he got to the door of the office and reached out his fist to knock, it creaked open and Jackson came face-to-face with a water-drenched girl. Jackson did a double-take at the fins protruding from her lower arms.
"Hiya," The student said kindly, in an accent that was very obviously Australian. "Here to see Headmistress Bloodgood, I reckon?"
Jackson just nodded mutely.
She tilted her head back to look at him more clearly, "I haven't seen you around before."
"Uh…"
Very smart response Jackson, the voice in his head sniped. Oh, right. "N-No. This is my first day. I'm a transfer."
"Aw sick. Well, it's very nice to meet you. I'm Lagoona," She said, holding out a webbed hand. With a soft smile, Jackson returned the handshake, surprised at the texture of damp scales under his fingers.
"Jackson."
"I'll probably see you around then, Jackson." Lagoona skipped down the stairs. He could hear the soles of her flip flops slapping the marble floor, even as he turned to push open the door tentatively. At the very least, Jackson thought with a hopeful smile, there might be some monsters in Monster High who were nice.
Jackson took one step into the Headmistress's office and staggered to a halt. There was a huge black stallion standing stock-still in the corner of the room, looking at him with intelligent red eyes. It was really unsettling to have an animal look at him like that. The horse's nostrils flared, releasing a warm breath of air that was visible in the chill of Oregon's weather. Jackson swallowed nervously.
"Ah, you must be the new student joining us." Jackson almost jumped at the voice, unnerved by the idea of a talking horse, until his gaze moved to the long hardwood desk. Upon which a decapitated head was blinking at him. This time, Jackson did jump, giving an unbecoming yelp.
The head snorted in surprise, "What's wrong, young man?"
"No! Nothing is wrong," Jackson managed to cough out, trying to cover up his embarrassment. He cleared his throat, "I'm Jackson Jekyll, the new student."
Headless Headmistress Bloodgood was definitely an apt title for owner of the tall, slender body that sat behind the desk. With a churning stomach, Jackson watched as she picked up her head and lined it up to her neck until it was like they were never even apart.
"That's better," Headmistress Bloodgood said. She gestured to the chair on the opposite side of the desk and Jackson plonked himself down, letting his bag fall by his feet in a heap. "Thank you for coming down so early to meet me. We want to make sure your enrolment is a smooth as possible."
"Er, yeah," Jackson winced, and a feeling of amusement bloomed at the back of his brain. Probably, his other half laughing at his unease. "I think my condition might be a little bit… uncomfortable, for a lot of the students here."
"You have nothing to worry about. Our school is one of the leaders in inter-species relations, and we have one of the most diverse student disembodies in the monster world."
Jackson chewed the inside of his cheek, "But—"
"I admit, a situation like yours will be a first, even for us," the headmistress interrupted. "But all of the staff and faculty have been made aware of you and…"
"Holt," Jackson supplied.
"Yes. And if Holt Hyde is anything like you, it'll be a pleasure to meet him too."
"We're nothing alike." Jackson looked down at his shoes, biting his tongue. He could tell the headmistress anything and everything he knew about his other half. Except his mother had raised him better than that. Holt had the right to make his first impressions himself, just like Jackson did.
She paused to study him with an unintelligible expression before she finished off the forms on her desk with a curly signature at the bottom and a stamp of the Monster High crest. Feeling a little bit surreal, Jackson waited as she turned towards her horse only for the horse to hand her thin stack of papers clamped between its teeth.
"Thank you, Nightmare."
Reading over the papers and deeming them okay, she handed the forms to Jackson. The topmost sheet had 'Student Transfer Enrolment Form' printed in blocky letters at the top. Having already read through all the necessary stuff in the information package the school had mailed, Jackson flipped through quickly and took the fountain pen that the headmistress handed over.
Neatly, on the indicated bottom line, he scrawled his name in red ink – though he couldn't be sure that it wasn't blood – Then he hesitated, before leaning down to scrawl Holt's name next to his. They had the same signatures after all, just with different letters.
The headmistress took back the forms and handed him two more, one printed onto lilac paper and the other on yellow.
"Your timetables for the first week," She explained, as he looked down to compare the classes. The yellow schedule had a double period of mad science, as well as AP clawculus. He looked over the other sheet, picking out art, creative writing and a music class scheduled in for the optional modules when there was a triumphant voice at the back of Jackson's mind, Sweet! I got into music theory.
The rest of the compulsory classes seemed to be split evenly between them, alternating each week. Feeling satisfied at the distribution of classes, Jackson made a mental note to laminate his as soon as possible and slotted the timetables smoothly into a binder that was then shoved back into his bag.
"You will have to work twice as hard with that kind of scheduling," the headmistress commented.
"It won't be a problem at all," Jackson said. He was feeling a certain type of smugness, although the same could not be said Holt.
"Typically, the first few days of the semester are very light on schoolwork, so I encourage you to take this time and get to know your classmates and teachers."
"Uh… sure. And how do I go about doing that?"
The Headmistress smiled softly, "I'm sure you'll find a way. We pride ourselves on making this a haunted home away from home, after all."
"Right." Jackson swallowed, a little peeved at the very unhelpful advice, and picked his things off the floor.
"Oh, and Jackson, Holt…"
Jackson looked back over his shoulder.
"Welcome to Monster High."
Taking a deep inhale, Jackson tried to steady his racing pulse as he stood with his back against the door of Bloodgood's office, backpack slung over one shoulder.
"Let's behave today, yeah?" He said under his breath.
The hallway leading into the left wing of the school had rows of metal coffin-shaped lockers against the walls, which Jackson couldn't help but feel was ridiculously on theme as he made his way down.
About 348 lockers later, Jackson twisted the default code into dial. He slotted his binder onto the shelf, next to a load of textbooks from various classes.
"What the hell is home-ick?" Jackson muttered, reading the spine of one the books with an increasing sense of frustration.
It wasn't that Jackson didn't know the age old adage, 'Don't judge a book by its cover'. In fact, his mother had very deliberately sat him down the day that they arrived to insist that New Salem was a special town where everyone was accepted. And, it would be an understatement to say Jackson was looking for somewhere where all aspects of himself could be accepted. But how in the world did his wonderfully not-normal monster mother think that a human teenage boy fit in at a monster-only high school. And for screaming out loud, who names a school Monster High.
Stop freaking out, snapped the voice at the back of his head, making Jackson bite his lip irritably. He turned on his heel only to all but jump eight feet into the air.
"Hi!"
A short, but rather cute, ghoul was standing in front of him. She had pale pink skin and long black and pink hair pulled into pigtails.
"Hi! I'm Draculaura," the girl said again. "I'm guessing you're Jackson?"
The girl had a light accent that Jackson couldn't quite place.
"Oh um… Yeah I am. What gave it away?"
She laughed lightly revealing a set of little fangs that made Jackson realise – a bit slowly – that she was a vampire. "To be truthful, I'm actually part of the welcoming committee so I got the goss about the two new students. One of them is supposed to be an elemental, I think."
"Right… And I'm clearly not one of those," Jackson said wryly. Draculaura shrugged.
"So, where are you from? I know how nerve-wracking a big move can feel. Me and dad had to flee Transylvania super suddenly on account of the… uh, the locals." She giggled, "Normies, you know?"
Wincing, Jackson could only nod as the vampire rambled on. The headmistress might have told a handful of students about his and Holt's enrolment, but she had clearly not shared some very particular facts. Jackson wasn't sure if he was thankful for that or not.
"Well anyways, it's nice to have a locker mate again. The Tentacles tend to live in the empty ones, and it's totes annoying. What classes do you have after assembly?"
Jackson tried not to dwell on the fact that there was apparently some sort of tentacle creature dwelling in the empty lockers of the school. He checked his timetable as they walked. "Clawculus with Mr. Mummy."
"Fanging, so do I! Want to go together?" Draculaura asked as they reached the assembly room.
Jackson blanked for a moment, before an exasperated feeling reminded him to answer. "Um, sure. That would be nice."
The screamatorium was a huge hall decked out with rows of chairs in front of a raised stage. A wooden podium carved with the Monster High logo was centred on the stage. Students were cramming themselves between the rows of chairs, laughing and talking loudly as they found friends to sit with.
"So, we have an assembly every new moon. Bloodgood will do some motivating speech, introduce the fleshies, run us through some school rules, regular stuff," Draculaura said, leading him to a seat a few rows away from the stage.
Also seated in the row were three other monsters, one of whom he actually recognised from outside Headmistress Bloodgood's office. They all looked up as Draculaura slid into the seat next to them.
"Where's Cleo and Frankie?" Draculaura asked.
"Late. They were running tumbling drills all morning for Friday," said one of the monsters. She had luminescent yellow eyes and was covered in a luxurious caramel-coloured fur coat that Jackson quickly realised was growing out of her.
Damn, really meeting all types of monsters today. Maybe we should return the favour, the absentminded thought floated at the back of his mind. Jackson shook his head to clear it away.
The other unknown ghoul wore white framed glasses and had pale grey skin. She made a soft groaning sound that Jackson identified as Zombienese, the typical language of the zombies. Unfortunately, his Zombienese was pretty bad, despite his mother's efforts in teaching him the basics of most languages. In Jackson's defence, Zombienese was ranked the hardest monster language for the living to learn.
The werewolf looked between her friend and Jackson with an amused smile, "La-La, aren't you going to introduce us?"
"Oh yeah! Jackson, these are some of my beast ghoulfriends; Ghoulia, Lagoona and Clawdeen," she gestured to each one in turn.
"You're Jackson Jekyll, right?" said Lagoona kindly.
Draculaura shot her a surprised look, "You know each other?"
"Ah, we met this morning," Jackson said, returning a sheepish smile. "It's nice to meet you ghouls."
A small tingle went down his spine and Jackson stifled a frown. Horn dog, he thought, directing the scolding at the presence in the back of his mind.
Patting the chair next to her, Draculaura invited him to take a seat, which he did just as Headless Headmistress Bloodgood walked out on stage. Once again, Jackson felt his stomach churn sickly at sight of the decapitated body holding its own head.
Bloodgood's body placed her head on the podium at perfect height for the gooseneck microphone and cleared her throat. It took a while for all the students to quiet down enough for the headmistress to be heard in the large hall.
"Greetings and skull-utations students!" She began. "I hope you all had a fangtastic spring break."
There was cheering and howling from all the students. Bloodgood's body held up her hand, "Yes, yes! I know every monster is excited, but now it's time to settle back into the bump and grind of classes. I have no doubt that this will be another spooktacular semester full of memories with your fellow monsters!"
"Like that memory of Clawd accidentally burying Skelly's fibula!" called out a green haired boy who was wearing shades despite being indoors. The joke elicited laughs and jeers from most of the students.
"Shut it Gorgon," shot back a werewolf student, tossing a purple basketball at him.
Bloodgood gave the boys a stern look and cleared her throat again, but there was a smile on her lips too. Jackson swallowed, not failing to notice that the werewolf was chuckling despite being the butt of the joke.
The students clearly already had their cogs and gears turning in all the right ways. Jackson felt like the extra screw in an Ikea box.
"If we could move on to the more pressing announcements," the headmistress continued, "I'm delighted to welcome back Ms. Irene Maiden after her two thousand year… break… as a Greek statue. Ms. Maiden will be resuming her post teaching tortureology."
The students cheered and clapped again as a bronze woman draped in a dusty cloth chiton gave a little wave from the stage.
"Lastly, I'd like to introduce two new students joining us for the rest of his deaducation."
Oh, dear gore.
Jackson sank into the spongy seat, wishing the floor would absorb him. Gaze flickering to the side, he saw Draculaura and her friends staring at him curiously. Probably wondering why he was suddenly acting like the crowd was about to eat him alive – Not that that was a farfetched concept.
Bloodgood continued to talk as if her words weren't currently destroying the remaining scraps of his already delicate reputation, "One in particular is a historical moment for us. Mr. Jackson Jekyll will be the first ever human to attend our school. So, on behalf of the staff and students, I welcome you to Monster High!"
This time there was no applause. Jackson forced a shaky smile on his face. Okay, at least no one was mentioning—
"But he's a normie."
Never mind.