Freaky Fusion

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  A streak of lightning flashed across the sky and lit up the turrets and towers of Monster High. Thunder boomed. A storm raged. It was a typical night at the school where every kind of teen creature was accepted and welcomed. Another jagged flash illuminated a banner strung across the entrance gate. MONSTER HIGH BITE-CENTENNIAL! it proclaimed. Two hundred years of ghouls and gargoyles, specters and centaurs, vampires, mummies, zombies, and werewolves all learning together and getting along! It was time to celebrate.

  But the halls of the high school were empty and quiet. A poster on the wall showed a green-faced monster happily reading a book.

  The brick wall behind the poster began to shake. Bits of grit drifted toward the floor. A brick popped out. “Raaaahhhh!” screamed an unknown Creature. A cloud of dust rose into the air as a Creature burst through the wall, smashed through the poster, and rampaged down the hallway, roaring and bellowing.

  A moment later, Frankie Stein poked her head through the beast-shaped hole. She had long black hair electrified with glowing white highlights, a cute scar like a beauty mark on her right cheek, and voltageous bolts on either side of her neck. She looked up the hall and down the hall, trying to figure out which way the beast had gone.

  A classroom door swung open and Mr. Rotter glared at Frankie. “Frankie Stein, your assignment was to complete your scaritage report, and instead I find you running through the halls?” The teacher flipped his pencil into the air and caught it.

  Frankie glanced nervously down the hallway. Where had the Creature gone? “Um… Mr. Rotter…” she began.

  But before she could explain what was happening, there was an enormous crash. “Rahhhhh!” bellowed the Creature from somewhere in the school. Mr. Rotter jumped into the air and dropped his pencil.

  “Your friend makes a good point.” Mr. Rotter gulped, quickly stepping back inside the classroom and shutting the door.

  Frankie took off in the direction of the noise—but she was running so quickly, she tripped on her platform shoes and fell to the floor.

  “Graahhh!” The Creature’s shadow loomed over Frankie. She screamed.

  “I’ll save you, Frankie!” A dashingly handsome boy with the hulking height of a zombie and a unicorn’s blue horn charged down the hallway. Neighthan fell to his knees, heroically careening to the rescue like a baseball player sliding into home plate. Unfortunately, he whizzed right past Frankie and crashed into an empty classroom.

  “I’m okay,” he called, emerging with a wastebasket over his head. He pulled it off, threw it aside, and grabbed Frankie’s hand. He pulled her into his arms and whisked her away from the beast at the very last minute. “When we get back to the others, can we skip telling them that part about the trash can?”

  “My hero!” Frankie sighed, wrapping her arms around Neighthan’s neck. Her bolts sparked and sizzled.

  But the Creature was dangerously close. It was stomping toward them, getting closer and closer. It was about to get them when Sirena, the daughter of a mermaid and a ghost, hovered in front of it, distracting it from Frankie.

  “Hey, look here!” she sang in her haunting voice. She wafted across the hallway. “Now look here!”

  The Creature, confused, paused. “Rahh?”

  “Now look at this!” she trilled. She flew graceful circles around the beast’s head, leaving a glowing trail of ghostly haze.

  “Be careful, Sirena!” Frankie warned. Neighthan was galloping away with her in his arms.

  As they ran, Bonita Femur, a skeletal wraith with the wings of a giant moth, and Avia Trotter, a flying harpy with a centaur’s powerful legs, hovered along beside them.

  “Avia! Bonita!” Frankie was thrilled to see them both.

  “Looks like you two could use a lift!” said Avia.

  Both of the ghouls grabbed one of Neighthan’s arms and slowly lifted the couple into the air to safety. Sirena flew toward them, and the five monsters rocketed down the hallway, each one of them a Monster High hero.

  Frankie Stein stepped onto the stage in front of a projection screen. Behind her was a giant frozen image of her in Neighthan’s arms with Avia, Bonita, and Sirena flying around them.

  “Okay, okay, I know what you’re thinking,” Frankie said to the assembled students. “Who’s the voltageously cute zombie-unicorn guy and could he be any more adorbs?” She paused. “That or you’re wondering about the big scary monster that was chasing us. Either way, I’ll bet I’ve sparked your attention.”

  Frankie snapped her fingers and a crew of ghouls and Fusions joined her on the stage. “This is a story about family,” Frankie explained. “There are lots of different types of families. And they can sometimes be found in some pretty unexpected places.”

  Frankie snapped her fingers again and the picture on the screen changed. Avia, Bonita, Sirena, and Neighthan were all posing for a photo on the front lawn in front of Monster High. Unlike all the monsters and ghouls, they were each a combination of two different kinds of creatures. They were Fusions: freaky Fusions.

  “But hey, I’m getting ahead of myself,” said Frankie to the school. “Let’s tell this story from the beginning.” She snapped her fingers, but nothing happened.

  “Ahem,” coughed Frankie. “That would be the cue for the opening titles…”

  She snapped one more time and her film began to roll. “It all started on the two hundredth anniversary of the opening of Monster High—the bite-centennial celebration. It was a really big deal…”

  Students were rushing to their coffin-shaped lockers at the beginning of the day. Bite-centennial posters covered the walls, and a large banner hung from the ceiling. Frankie Stein and her ghoulfriends were admiring the decorations.

  Cleo de Nile tossed her head, her gold earrings jangling. “I guess this bite-centennial celebration is a really big deal.” For someone who was thousands of years old, she thought it seemed silly to fuss about anything this recent.

  Clawdeen’s sensitive werewolf nose twitched. “You ghouls smell that? It’s like… cheap cologne.”

  A pair of eyeglasses floated past the ghouls. Someone invisible coughed.

  “Did I say cheap?” Clawdeen hurried to correct herself. “I meant chee… eerfully applied… by our favorite invisible drama teacher. Who loves giving us A’s…”

  “Smooth, Clawdeen,” said Cleo under her breath. “Very smooth.”

  Mr. Where’s eyeglasses hovered near the ghouls. “Are we ready for this evening’s scaritage performance, ladies?”

  “Ready?” asked Frankie. “Why, we’re practically bursting at the seams.” She held up her arm and displayed one of her stitches.

  “I know how you feel,” said Mr. Where. “The whole school is howling with anticipation for the info-tainment event of the century—The Hisstory of Monster High: A Bite-centennial Celebration of Exceptional Acceptance, a Mr. Where Production, Trademark Pending.”

  The ghouls held back their giggles.

  “Do not be late for rehearsal!” Mr. Where warned as his glasses floated down the hallway.

  “We won’t!” called the ghouls.

  As the invisible man disappeared, Clawdeen exhaled. She’d been holding her breath the whole time. “Okay, seriously? That cologne smells worse t
han a zombie’s gym bag. No offense, Ghoulia.”

  Ghoulia, one of the most stylish zombies at the school, waved her hand and groaned, grossed out as well.

  As the ghouls came around the corner, they noticed a cluster of new students, books in hand. They were huddled close together and eyeing the passing students suspiciously.

  “What’s with the new kids?” asked Clawdeen.

  Lagoona Blue, the elegant sea monster, filled them in. “They’re transfer students. Fusions.”

  Draculaura was amazed. “You mean they’re like two different monsters in one?”

  “Exactly,” said Lagoona. “They each have more than one scaritage.” Scaritage was where monsters came from, who their grandparents were, or who’d made them or dug them up.

  Cleo tightened one of the mummy wrappings on her arm. “Two different monsters? Shouldn’t they have to make up their minds?”

  “Cleo.” Clawdeen laughed. “You can’t even make up your mind when you pick an outfit for school.”

  “My midday outfit changes are inspiring to the other students.” Cleo sniffed. “It gives them something to look forward to.”

  Lagoona glanced back at the new students. “I heard this isn’t the first time they’ve changed schools. I guess being a Fusion makes it hard to fit in.”

  “They don’t look very friendly,” said Cleo.

  But that’s not what Frankie was thinking. She couldn’t stop looking at the handsome zombie-unicorn. What a hunk! He noticed her looking at him and gave her a shy smile. Frankie, smitten, smiled back… and crashed into a bite-centennial banner in the middle of the hall and fell over.

  “Oh my ghoul!” exclaimed Draculaura.

  Frankie was a little dazed.

  Neighthan galloped over and crouched down beside her. “Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?” He reached down to help her up.

  “Yeah… I don’t know what happened. I just…” Frankie felt all wobbly. “I’m Frankie,” she whispered.

  The boy smiled at her but didn’t seem able to speak.

  “And now would be the part where you tell me your name,” she said.

  He cleared his throat. “Uh… I’m…”

  Avia Trotter bounded over, a look of disgust on her face. “His name is Neighthan.”

  Frankie was taken aback by how rude the harpy was, but she tried to be friendly. “Welcome to Monster High. I think you and your Fusion friends are really going to like it here.”

  Neighthan smiled. “Sure!”

  Manny Taur and Heath had been watching all of this. “So, I don’t get you Fusions,” said Manny, scratching the horns on his head. “Like, are you a zombie? Or are you a unicorn?”

  “What’s not to get?” sneered Avia. “It’s like how you’re a Minotaur, but you’re also a slimeball.”

  The flames of Heath’s hair sizzled. “Burn!”

  “Come on, Neighthan,” said Bonita. “Time to go.”

  Cleo pulled Frankie aside. “Told you they didn’t seem very friendly.”

  Ghoulia groaned in agreement.

  Neighthan looked down at his feet uncomfortably. “Gotta go…’bye, Frankie.” He turned to follow his Fusion friends and slammed into another bite-centennial sign. He dropped to the ground but popped up immediately, embarrassed. “Heh, sign.” As his friends dragged him away, he looked back over his shoulder. He couldn’t take his eyes off Frankie.

  Frankie watched him go. Had there ever been a cuter boy at Monster High? She didn’t think so.

  Mr. Rotter was sitting at his desk twirling his pencil while Cleo gave her scaritage report in the front of the classroom. She was standing beside a massive stone slab covered in hieroglyphs. Anubis guards with doglike heads flanked the chiseled family tree. Cleo was wearing a particularly large Egyptian crown on her head as she lectured the class.

  “… which brings us to the most important branch of the de Nile family tree. Next slide,” she instructed the guards.

  The guards pulled out hammers and chisels and began furiously chipping away at the stone slab. Stone dust flew up into the air, landing on Mr. Rotter’s head. But he barely noticed. The guards stepped away and revealed an ancient image of Cleo.

  “So in conclusion,” Cleo continued, “because my family has more pharaohs and queens than anyone else’s, my scaritage project should win first prize.”

  Mr. Rotter removed his glasses, dusted them off, and put them back on. “The scaritage report is an assignment, not a competition.”

  Cleo raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Just so long as we’re all in agreement that if this were a competition, I’d win.”

  Mr. Rotter sighed. “Robecca Steam, your turn.”

  Irritated, Cleo returned to her seat while her guards struggled to carry the enormous stone out of the classroom. Frankie, in the front row, was nervously holding a photo album and a rolled-up piece of poster board.

  Meanwhile, Robecca was setting up her display. Robecca rocked her robot style with steampunk sass. Mechanical copper legs automatically extended from a canvas-covered portrait, creating an instant easel. Robecca cleared her throat and pulled a cord. The canvas dropped to reveal a rugged-looking man with a strong jaw and bushy mustache. He was clenching a great steam-powered mechanical arm.

  “This is my father, Hexiciah Steam,” explained Robecca. “He was a brilliant mechanic, a revolutionary inventor, and a teacher here at Monster High.”

  Mr. Rotter looked smug. “I was well acquainted with Professor Steam. I was his favorite student. And who could blame him?” He flipped his pencil into the air, fumbled, and dropped it.

  Robecca continued. “My father had a workshop down in the catacombs where they say he invented something new every single day.” She smiled. “And one day, he invented me!”

  Mr. Rotter pointed at himself. “Favorite student. Right here.” He tried to flip his pencil and, again, he dropped it.

  Robecca held up an elaborate box constructed of hexagonal metal panels. “This belonged to my father.” She set it down on a small shelf that extended from the easel. As she did so, a series of magnifying lenses emerged from it, giving the class a much closer look at its detail.

  The class was studying it with a great deal of curiosity. What was it? What did it do? How was it related to Robecca’s scaritage?

  But Robecca didn’t have any answers. “I don’t really know what it is,” she told the class. “Father went missing more than one hundred years ago, so I’ve kept this to remember him by. Every time I look at it, it reminds me how grateful I am that Hexiciah discovered the secret to creating life… to creating me.”

  Everyone clapped supportively. Mr. Rotter beamed at her. “Very good, Robecca. And now… Frankie Stein.”

  Frankie stared at Mr. Rotter, frozen with fright. Finally, she stood up, clutching her photo album. She was visibly shaking.

  She tried to smile. She waved at the class. “Um… hi… how’s everybody doing?”

  “I’m good!” shouted Heath in response.

  “Quiet, you,” snapped Mr. Rotter. He turned to Frankie. “You’re stalling.”

  “Right.” Frankie took a big breath. “My scaritage. So… my grandfather was Victor Frankenstein and he built my dad, and that’s all I know. Thank you.”

  She was headed back to her seat when Mr. Rotter stopped her. “That’s it?”

  “I th-think Grandpa went to Monster High,” she stuttered, close to tears. “Oh, and I have these.” She unrolled a set of life-size blueprints. “These are for making me,” she explained.

  “And the photo album?” questioned Mr. Rotter.

  Frankie held it up. There was nothing inside it but ripped-out pages. “That’s all I’ve got. Thank you.”

  Mr. Rotter shook his head. “Frankie Stein, I am most disappointed with this report. You are completely unprepared.”

  “But my mom and dad won’t tell me about my—”

  But Mr. Rotter wasn’t listening. “When I was a student here at Monster High, I was always prepared. It
’s like Professor Steam always used to say, If you’re always prepared…”

  “You’ll never be scared,” completed the class, who’d heard this about a hundred times before from Mr. Rotter.

  “Correct,” said Mr. Rotter. “Frankie Stein, you are to redo this assignment and present it again first thing tomorrow. Abbey Bominable, you have the floor.”

  The icy-cool daughter of a yeti strode to the front of the class in her shaggy fur boots. Following along behind her was a pair of yaks pulling a frozen ice block. Abbey tossed her mane of long white hair and began speaking in her thick Russian accent. “Family history starts with Ice Age. Fasten seat belts. This could take while.”

  Frankie sank down in her seat, more embarrassed than ever. What was she going to do about her project when her scaritage was such a family secret?

  Frankie sat with her friends in the Creepateria, but she didn’t feel like eating. She couldn’t stop thinking about her project. The other girls were chatting away.

  “Could somebody pass the dead sea salt?” asked Clawdeen. Beside her lunch tray was an open sketchbook filled with fashion ideas.

  “I’ve got it!” said Draculaura, reaching for the salt at the same moment that Robecca also extended her hand.

  “Sorry about that,” Robecca apologized.

  “After you,” said Draculaura.

  They both reached for the salt, knocked it over, and apologized to each other.

  “Oh, for dying out loud!” Clawdeen grabbed it herself.

  Lagoona noticed that Frankie was almost as blue as she was. “Don’t fret, love. A bad grade on your project isn’t the end of the world.”

  “No, it’s not that, Lagoona.” Frankie sighed. “It’s just… you ghouls all seem to know so much about your scaritage. But I don’t know anything about mine.”

  Ghoulia was examining Robecca’s mysterious mechanical box. Ghoulia could only speak in moans and groans, but she was still the cleverest student at Monster High.