IT’S MORNING AT MONSTER HIGH. THE ANCIENT building sits up on Monster Hill, mysterious and yet inviting, like a story just waiting to happen.79 The cemetery stones gleam, the roof is as shiny as a coin, the bats in the attic are humming in their sleep. Everything seems new, fresh, fixed up, and happy—in a gloriously boo-tiful way.
79 Ooh, that was a bookmarkable sentence, much better than the opening sentences I wrote in chapter 1. I really am improving!
And around the school grounds there’s a definite lack of mist. From the front steps, the view extends for miles and miles across a land that just wants to forget about that weird wall of fog that ominously descended over everything and then just as quickly disappeared again yesterday as soon as Frankie and Draculaura came home from wherever they’d been.80
80 I still write pretty long sentences sometimes. Oh well.
The two ghouls aren’t divulging those secrets as they hurry to history class.
“Hey, Drac?” Frankie clears her throat. “You know, I’ll understand if you don’t want to be my best ghoulfriend anymore. You got along so great with Raven. There are dozens of monsters at Monster High now. You don’t have to stick with me just ’cause I was the only one at first. And I know I messed up our presentation. I’m new at… at everything, trying to figure stuff out, and I just can’t be perfect—”
“Perfect?” says Draculaura. “Who needs perfect? You’re a scientist. Scientists make mistakes all the time! Thousands of mistakes before they make great discoveries. I read that somewhere.”
“Yeah, but—”
“Frankie Stein, you are a silly monster. Now, let’s do an absolutely horrific presentation together, shall we?”
Frankie smiles, but the smile drops away when they stand up in the front of the room. Once again the entire class is staring at her—some with black eyes, some blue, some red, some with eyeballs waving on the tips of tentacles. Their teacher, Mr. Rotter, folds his arms.
From the back row, Clawdeen Wolf gives her two claws up. Frankie smiles wider. She glances at Draculaura, who nods encouragingly. They haven’t had time to prepare a new, exciting, creeptastic presentation—you know, since they spent most of the past couple of days journeying through eerie landscapes, battling deadly villains, barely escaping with their lives, and all that.
A tiny thorn of regret twinges in Frankie’s chest. A report on Shadow High would be just the kind of earth-cracking, jaw-dropping, thrilling presentation she had hoped for all along. But Frankie and Draculaura agreed that it’s also the one thing they can’t talk about. The more people who know about Shadow High and the other lands of the World of Stories, the more likely someone will try to cross lands. Any crossing back and forth risks pulling the lands closer together. With the lands separated, the Unmaking stays down deep in the trenches.
Maybe someday someone will figure out a way to safely unite all the lands. Until then…
“Our report is on… Normie High!” says Frankie.
The class applauds politely.
Frankie and Drac take turns delivering fascinating facts about Normie High.
“In Normie High, the kids use things called ‘drinking fountains’ to drink… water!”
“Ohhhh,” says the class.
“In Normie High, their lockers are shaped like tall, skinny rectangles!”
“Aaaah,” says the class.
When they wrap up their presentation, Draculaura looks at Frankie with a raised eyebrow. Frankie nods. They agreed to a single special effect.
“The End!” says Draculaura. She presses a button on the EffecTacular.
A small burst of fireworks brightens the gloomy classroom with purple, red, and blue sparks of light.
“Oooooh,” says the class.
Frankie smiles. Purple for Raven, red for Apple, and blue for Maddie. Draculaura smiles, too, reaching out to take Frankie’s hand, the new hand her dad attached last night. They stare at the pretty light show, smiling contentedly, until they notice that some of the fireworks sparks landed on Mr. Rotter’s desk and his papers are crackling with flames. Frankie is prepared this time and presses the SIMULATED SWAMP WATER button. The fire fizzles out with a puff of gray smoke.
Their classmates jump to their feet, claws, and hooves, applauding wildly. Mr. Rotter rolls his eyes. Draculaura laughs.
“We did it!” says Draculaura.
“It wasn’t perfect,” Frankie says.
“Eh, perfect is boring.”