CHAPTER 1
OPENING FRIGHT
Clouds hid the sun. Mist swirled. A giant beast was running through the deserted streets. Horns sprouted from his head. Thick muscles bulged from beneath his hairy body. He had a gold ring in his nose. He was headed toward the local cinema! He snorted as he galloped past a skeleton slumped in the box office. He charged through the lobby and burst through the doors of the boo-vie theater.
Manny Taur was late again!
This jock of a Minotaur had almost missed the opening show of this year’s hottest vampire movie. Everyone was there! All the glamorous ghouls and freaky frights from Monster High were settled in with popcorn. This was the big event. Everyone had been talking about it for weeks because no one wanted to miss a horror movie about one of their own. So many films got it wrong, but this boo-vie’s stars were real-life creature features.
Monsters turned to glare at Manny as he panted in the back of the room, trying to catch his breath. His huge chest heaved under his red T-shirt. Clawdeen and her werewolf brother, Clawd, growled at him to be quiet. Cleo de Nile and her boyfriend, Deuce Gorgon, grumbled as he squeezed in front of them toward an empty seat.
“Sorry, sorry,” mumbled Manny Taur. “Coming through.”
He stepped on Ghoulia Yelps’s foot and she moaned.
“Shh!” demanded the monsters.
Only Draculaura, the sweetest vegetarian vampire at Monster High, didn’t notice the intrusion of Manny Taur. Her eyes were glued to the screen.
A stunning star was descending the winding stairs of an ancient, crumbling castle. Veronica von Vamp commanded the screen. The movie was in black and white except for her lips; they were bloodred. She parted them as she sighed dramatically. She touched her forehead with her hand. “Oooh, I am not brave enough to be your queen, but the Heart tells me I must!”
Draculaura shook her head with disgust. She was not impressed with this performance. At all. She shifted in her seat and watched the boo-vie star proclaim her love for a blond-haired hunk of vampire named Alucard.
“I am afraid to claim my throne,” Veronica von Vamp overacted, “but I am not afraid to reveal my affections for you. Well, one of you.”
Another vampire hottie lit up the screen. His hair was dark. The teenage ghouls in the audience oohed and aahed.
“Be with me, Princess, and my chiseled chin. Not Edweird!” commanded the blond vampire.
Edweird, the swarthy vamp, pushed Alucard aside. “No, Princess, forget Alucard! Be with me and my dazzling dimples!”
Maids dusting cobwebs in the castle swooned as they watched this fang-tastic rivalry.
“Her Majesty and Alucard will make such a regal couple,” one maid gushed. Murmurs of agreement spread throughout the audience.
“Try dusting your eyes,” said the other maid. “Edweird is the clear choice for her.”
“Ooh!” Toralei purred from her seat in the movie theater. “Look at Edweird. Love the dimples!”
“Naw,” Howleen disagreed with her. “I love Alucard’s chin.”
In the movie, Veronica von Vamp couldn’t decide which horrifying hottie she preferred. In dramatic despair, she moaned again, batting her thick lashes. “If they could only see that there is more to me than beauty and royal destiny.”
Draculaura was seething. She hated this movie.
“But, alas! I have a secret!” cried the actress. “I am not the ghoul you think I am!”
“Vampire scaritage requires you to reveal all of your secrets before your coronation as queen,” Alucard reminded her.
“OH MY GHOUL!” shouted Draculaura, no longer able to contain herself. The usually mild-mannered vampire leaped up and began shouting at the figures on the screen. “Totes fake! Vampire royalty has no such rule!”
Her friends tried to get her to calm down. Robecca pulled on her arm. Hoodude, the voodoo doll, made shushing noises. Even Frankie Stein wanted her to be quiet. Draculaura was the only one not enjoying the boo-vie.
“Hey, sit down!” boomed Manny Taur. “Trying to watch a mmmmooooovvie here!”
Heath Burns agreed as his head burst into flames. “Stop blocking my view of Veronica von Vamp! She’s hot!”
Hoodude whispered to Draculaura. “This is the best boo-vie ever. And Veronica von Vamp as the queen? Fangtastic!”
“Puh-lease!” exclaimed Draculaura. “She is a disgrace to vampire scaritage. Hauntlywood got it all wrong!” She was shouting now, and everyone was annoyed. They wanted to find out who Veronica von Vamp was going to choose—Edweird or Alucard.
“Shh!”
“Quiet!”
“Sit down!”
“Well, so-rry!” said Draculaura, not sorry at all and still not sitting down. After all, the reason they all went to Monster High was so they could study one another’s scaritages and bring greater understanding about monsters to the whole world. This movie was no help at all as far as Draculaura was concerned. It was going to set vampire tolerance back eons. Draculaura began lecturing her classmates in the audience while the movie rolled on behind her. “I know how this really works. I was there! At Dracula’s castle. Did you know vampires haven’t had a proper queen for more than four hundred years?”
“SHHHHHHHHH!” the monsters screeched and screamed and howled. “SHHHHHHHHHHH!”
But Draculaura couldn’t calm herself down. “THIS IS TOTALLY FAKE!”
The monster teens exploded, throwing popcorn and candy at her and shouting at her to sit down.
Draculaura stormed out of the theater. As she passed, Manny Taur mooed a sigh of relief. At least now nobody was going to remember him disrupting the boo-vie by coming late!
