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  Chapter 1

  Midnight at Monster High

  Alarm clocks were ringing, sleepy students were yawning, and another normal night at Monster High was about to begin. But as Draculaura always says, “Normal is relative.”

  The alarm clock was shaped like a skull. The hand that hit the snooze button wasn’t a hand at all. It was a tentacle! A beastie named Woolee staggered into her bathroom to brush her tusks with a giant kitchen broom. Elsewhere, muddy water sprayed out of a rusty showerhead. A swamp monster happily scrubbed the thorny vines of his hair.

  Claws and flippers were opening re-odorant, checking lipstick, and unscrewing tubes of hair gloop. It was midnight. School was about to begin.

  “Normal is about how you feel,” Draculaura explained. “Not how you look or what you do.”

  A skeleton, Bonesy, polished his skull with a buffer in front of the mirror. His brother, Skelly, put on a pair of cool shades. Too bad he didn’t have ears to hold them in place; they slipped right off his earless head.

  “Normal is different for everyone,” Draculaura added. She looked at the brightly colored outfit she had laid out on her bed. It didn’t seem quite right. What should she wear today? She looked in her closet.

  Her white miniskirt with the black netting. Her black shirt. Her pink vest. That was the look she was going for. A little Goth. A little pretty. And all vampire.

  Monsters were sleepily headed to the Creepateria for breakfast. A piece of toast popped out of the ghoaster. An enormous mountain of cereal was disappearing from a bowl. Behind it was a gobbling glob of purple goblin. Gob munched spoonful after spoonful of his breakfast, slurped the milk, and ate the spoon. He devoured the bowl and the cereal box. Everything sloshed around in his plump tummy, including the bowling ball and the cowboy hat he’d eaten earlier in the morning. He let out an enormous burp.

  At other tables, monsters dug into their midnight meals—raw steaks and rotten apples, Jell-O and snow cones.

  The school bell was ringing! Monsters of all kinds were hurrying through the forest to get to class on time. Bonesy had an enormous backpack hung around his shoulder blade. He caught up to Woolee. Ahead of them loomed the turrets and towers of Monster High. The moon was full. Fog hung low.

  Draculaura knew that this must all seem very strange to the Normies. But to her—and a bunch of swamp things, werewolves, vampires, and mummies coming together—it was just Monday.

  But how it came to be normal for Draculaura, and how she and her friend Frankie Stein brought monsters from all over the world together, is a kind of amazing story. And it all began one night not so very long ago…

  Chapter 2

  Fright Flight

  A spider lowered himself on a thread from the gutter of a large run-down house with turrets and towers. Swinging back and forth like a superhero, he launched himself through an attic window. He landed right in Draculaura’s bedroom. Home again. What a relief. He curled into a corner to take a nap.

  Draculaura’s room looked like any teenager’s, any “normal” teenager’s—except, that is, for the plush, satin-lined coffin where she slept. Still, everything else was normal. There were clothes in the closet and on the floor. There was a bulletin board with messages to herself. There were posters of her favorite pop stars, including teen idol Tash, the hit sensation sweeping the Normie nation.

  Draculaura had her earbuds in; she was humming and dancing to a Tash song. She waved her hands. She lunged. She wiggled. She jumped. She pretended to sing. She didn’t hear someone rapping at the window. The rapping grew louder and louder and more insistent.

  Webby, her pet spider, couldn’t sleep with all the noise. He swung down in front of Draculaura to get her attention. He pointed with one of his eight legs at the window.

  “Draculaura!” someone was calling from outside.

  Draculaura pulled out her earbuds. She opened the window. A vampire was hanging upside down and peeking in through the glass. It was her dad!

  “Come on, Draculaura,” he said impatiently. “Are you ready?”

  “Hey, Dad,” Draculaura answered. She was in no hurry at all. Until she remembered. She gulped visibly. “Oh, right. It’s tonight.” She took a deep breath. “I can do this.”

  Her father looked concerned. “Why don’t we try this some other time? When you’re more comfortable.”

  “I’m comfortable now, Dad,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “I’m just saying.…”

  Determined, Draculaura climbed out of the window, perching on a ledge near her father.

  “Now remember,” advised her father, “you can never be too cautious. The outside world is a scary place filled with…humans!”

  Draculaura giggled. “Oh no! Not the humans!” she said, pretending to be scared.

  “This is no laughing matter!” Dracula scolded. Her father, still upside down, shook his head. “They may look innocent enough, but humans are one of the most dangerous species on earth.”

  “Oooh,” mocked Draculaura. “More dangerous than a swarm of killer robot bees?”

  Her father was becoming angry. “I was about to make a very critical point.”

  “Stay away from humans.” Draculaura sighed. How many times had she heard it before?

  “Stay. Away. From. Humans!” exclaimed her father, punctuating each word of his warning with a stern look. “It’s essential that you never let one see you. They’re just not ready to accept us, at least not yet. Promise me. Vamp’s honor.”

  “Ugh!” Draculaura squeezed her eyes shut, concentrating. “I promise. Now, if you don’t mind…”

  Draculaura’s eyes opened. She sprinted along the ledge and leaped into the air.

  Poof!

  Draculaura transformed herself into a bat! But something was the matter. Her wings were too tiny. Way too tiny. She was flapping them furiously, but they weren’t big enough to support her. With a gentle thump, she landed on the flat roof of her house.

  “Ugh.” She was disappointed with herself. Flying was just so hard.

  Her father hovered close. “Not all vampires get the bat transformation on their first try. Second time’s the charm!”

  No longer a bat, Draculaura psyched herself up for another go at it. She took several steps back on the roof. She geared herself up and exploded into a sprint, running as fast as she could. She leaped into the air.

  Poof! She was a bat again. This time her wings held her. She fluttered. It seemed like she was going to swoop and soar.

  But Draculaura was wobbling. She couldn’t steer. She careened downward, hitting the sloping tiles of one of the turrets. She bounced, turning back into a ghoul. She bounced, turning back into a bat. Bat. Ghoul. Bat. Ghoul. Bounce, bounce, OUCH!

  From the window of her bedroom, Webby watched. He winced.

  “I’m all right. I got this,” she said. But she didn’t.

  Draculaura tumbled down, down, down, finally landing in some overgrown bushes near the house. With twigs and leaves in her hair, she climbed back up the stairs to the roof. But she felt defeated. “I can’t do this! It’s impossible,” she cried.

 
“Not impossible. Just challenging,” encouraged her father. “Come on, let’s try it together. One, two…”

  Dracula lifted into the air effortlessly. With a graceful turn, he transformed into a bat. He fluttered over to Draculaura and nodded his head supportively.

  Just one more time. She could do this. Yes, she could. Draculaura leaped up toward her father. Poof! She was a bat.

  Her wings were the right size. She was echolocating. She could do this.

  The two bats wafted through the night air together.

  “I did it!” exclaimed Draculaura.

  “That’s my ghoul,” said Dracula proudly.

  Together, the bats soared above Monster Hill. Their silhouettes were dark against the moon. They were gliding above the trees near Normie Town when a huge billboard caught Draculaura’s eye. It was Tash! Draculaura’s idol! Her favorite singer ever. The billboard was announcing her Flawless tour. Singing a Tash song to herself, Draculaura dove through the air happily.

  Zonk!

  Draculaura hadn’t seen the telephone pole. She turned back into a ghoul as she fell through the air to the ground. Her father, still a bat, hovered beside her. “Drac, Drac, are you all right?”

  Draculaura rubbed her head. “Yeah, fine, I think.”

  “One must never get distracted while flying,” her father reminded her.

  Draculaura jumped up and turned into a bat again. She and her father wafted past the billboard of Tash’s beautiful, blond perfection.

  “What were you thinking?” Dracula asked his daughter.

  “Pop?” asked Draculaura. “Can I ask you something?” Without even waiting for an answer, she continued. “Okay, there’s this amazing girl. Tash. She’s a big star and all. The Normal girls my age are obsessed with her—”

  “Normal girls?” interrupted Dracula. “You mean human girls.”

  “Tash is totally, undeniably creeptastic!” Draculaura exclaimed. She couldn’t keep it in anymore. She had to ask her father. She just had to. “Can I go to her concert? It’s only, like, three towns over, and I’ll be super careful. Please? Pretty please with cobwebs on top?”

  Dracula hovered to a standstill in the air, thinking. “Drac, no,” he said sadly. “I’m sorry. You know it’s just too dangerous. Monsters don’t belong in the human world.”

  Draculaura’s wings beat furiously. She was upset. “But…please…I just…please,” she begged.

  Dracula sighed as he headed back toward their home. He wasn’t going to fight with her. The answer was no.

  Draculaura took one last lingering look at the billboard. “Then where do I belong?” she wondered out loud.

  What good was it to know how to fly if she couldn’t go anywhere? She sank down into a field of flowers. She turned back into a ghoul again. “The human world is too dangerous!” She shook her head. “Well, I’m in danger of losing my mind.”

  Realizing his daughter wasn’t following him, Dracula had turned around to search for her. “Draculaura, where are you?” he called.

  Draculaura lifted herself up. She turned into a bat again. She flew up, up, up, and as she did, she passed an old creepy-looking window with peeling paint. The light was on in an upstairs room. Her father saw her a moment later.

  “What were you thinking?” he whispered. “Someone could have seen you.”

  What he didn’t know was that someone had seen Draculaura. Peeking out of her bedroom window, Frankie Stein had marveled to watch a ghoul transform into a bat. Electricity flashed in her eyes.

  Chapter 3

  Fast Friends

  If only Draculaura had someone to talk to other than her father and Webby. She just didn’t know any other vampire ghouls. She paced back and forth in her room, frustrated. She flipped on her computer and began to record her vlog.

  “I mean, I am almost sixteen hundred years old,” she vented. “I’m extremely responsible. I do all my chores, I maintain every single cobweb in this house, and I’ll always be stuck here, hiding in this attic, hidden from the world.” She turned to address the webcam directly. “But at least I have you guys,” she said cheerfully to her unseen viewers, “my trusty Vampology vlog followers.” She squinted to check out how many people were now subscribing to her posts. Zero. No one. She was sending her messages out into the world, and no one was listening and no one was watching. No one knew that there was a vampire teenager out there who needed a friend.

  Except for her father.

  Dracula had been coming up the stairs, and he heard his daughter talking to herself. He poked his head in through the door. “Oh…er…I was just…how about I make us a nice pot of bat tea?”

  Draculaura tried to smile. Her father was so sweet. But he didn’t understand how lonely she was. She wanted friends. Just as she was about to answer him, the doorbell rang.

  The doorbell never rang.

  Dracula looked at Draculaura. They were horrified. Who could it be?

  Dracula raced out of the room and down the stairs, trying to be as quiet as possible. Draculaura followed him on tiptoe. Her father held his finger to his lips. They both listened. The bell rang again.

  “Someone’s at the door?” whispered Draculaura.

  “Nobody’s rung that bell for a hundred and fifty years!” answered her father in a hushed voice.

  Someone was pounding on the door! “Hey, I know you’re in there!”

  Dracula looked at his daughter. “No one saw you, right?”

  Draculaura gulped. She didn’t think so. “Of course not. I was—”

  “Hey! I know you’re in there. I saw you! I saw you turn into a bat!”

  Dracula glared at his daughter. What a disaster!

  “Oops,” whispered Draculaura. What was going to happen now that they were found out? Would they be driven out of town? Would they have to move?

  The voice on the other side of the door called out again. “You can open up,” it said. “I’m one of you.”

  What? Amazed, Draculaura tiptoed over to the door. She looked through the peephole.

  Standing at the entranceway was a teenage ghoul. She had long black and white hair with silver highlights. She was wearing a totes adorable blue tank with a white collared shirt underneath. Her skin was green. There were shiny bolts in her neck. There were stitches along her cheek and arm. As Draculaura watched, the ghoul casually pulled out the threads that attached her hand to her arm, held up her detached hand, and waved.

  Draculaura gasped. This was not a normal ghoul! She swung the door open.

  Dracula tried to stop her, but it was too late. The new ghoul had already stepped into the front hall.

  “She’s one of us!” Draculaura told her father. She’d never been so excited.

  They told each other their names. They filled each other in on what it was like being a monster. All of this happened within the first five minutes of them meeting.

  Draculaura led the new ghoul, Frankie Stein, into the living room. They had so much to tell each other about all the details of their lives. Dracula disappeared and returned with huge mugs of steaming bat tea.

  “Thanks, Mr. D.,” said Frankie. “It’s really lovely of you to have me stay here.”

  Dracula’s eyes widened. Draculaura rushed in to explain. “She can share my bedroom.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Dracula exclaimed. “Let’s just pump the proverbial brakes for a minute here. I haven’t seen another monster in decades. We still don’t know who she is or where she came from.”

  “Like I said, I’m Frankie. My pops is Frankenstein. After the great monster Fright Flight, he went into hiding like all other monsters. Things get a bit boring when you’re hiding out all by yourself.”

  “Tell me about it,” agreed Draculaura.

  Frankie tried to stifle a yawn. She was tired. It was almost morning.

  “Come on,” Draculaura urged her father. “You can’t send her back. I never had a real friend before!”

  “You have Webby,” protested Dracula.

 
; The spider, who had followed them downstairs on a thread, raised his head. “Huh?”

  Draculaura batted sad puppy-dog eyes at her father. “Please?” she begged.

  “That’s not going to work on me.” Her father crossed his arms under his cape. But he couldn’t take his own eyes off his daughter’s. He was transfixed. Hypnotized almost. Vampires could do that—glamour someone to obey them!

  Draculaura’s eyes grew wider. Her father’s eyes grew wider. “I’m telling you, you are wasting your time.…” he said softly.

  Her father could not resist. He groaned, defeated. “Enough! Okay! She can stay!”

  The ghouls hugged each other, delighted and relieved. They both had needed a friend for a long, long time. As tired as Frankie Stein was, she still wasn’t ready to sleep. Draculaura took her up to the roof, and the girls spread out blankets and sleeping bags. A few last stars twinkled in the sky. The ghouls had so much still to learn about each other.

  “Favorite color?” Draculaura asked Frankie.

  “Electric blue! You?”

  “Black,” Draculaura answered instantly. “Definitely black. But also pink. Oh, oh, and sunlight!”

  Frankie looked confused. “You’re a vampire. Don’t you burn in sunlight?”

  “That’s only in the movies.” Draculaura laughed.

  “Favorite song?”

  Draculaura smiled “That’s a no-brainer. ‘Flawless.’ It’s Tash’s new hit single.”

  “Who’s Tash?” Frankie asked.

  Draculaura couldn’t believe it! “Who’s Tash? Have you been hiding under a rock your whole life?”

  “No, a secret lab, remember?” explained Frankie.

  Without another word, Draculaura dashed down to her room and returned with armloads of posters, books, and magazines. Pictured on every one was the flawless, blond superstar.

  “Tash is the world’s most coolest, most awesome, amazing, beautiful rocker,” enthused Draculaura. “I have all her albums, and I’ve seen all her videos, even the really super obscure one that she shot secretly in Tokyo.”