Monster High 3: Where There's a Wolf, There's a Way

by Lisi Harrison

  “Where did you meet him?” Melody asked, parting the curtains again and peering across the street.

  “Freshman night at Corrigan’s.”

  “Does he know you’re a senior?”

  “Yup.”

  “In high school?”

  “Okay, sniper time is over,” Candace said, dragging Melody out of her room. “Once I’m gone, feel free to crack open a bottle of Windex and have your way with my window. But now you have to leave.”

  “Why?” Melody asked, grabbing on to Candace’s pewter bedpost.

  Candace yanked her away. “Because Shane thinks I live alone.” She shoved Melody into the hall and slammed the door.

  “This is crazy, Can.” Melody banged on the door. “I’m not going to hide just because you’re living a double life. What’s wrong with telling the truth every once in a while? It’s not like you have a hard time getting a date.”

  “Stop shouting!” Candace called. “What if he hears you?”

  “So what if he hears me? Maybe it’s for the best. He’s gonna find out eventua—”

  “Omigod, Melly, the woman! She’s back!”

  Yes!

  Melody dashed outside wearing striped J.Crew pajama bottoms and her black hoodie.

  The cottage across the street was dark and lifeless. Did she already go inside?

  Melody rang the bell.

  “Sucka!” Candace called from her open window. “Call me Kevin, ’cause I am Home Alone!” She slapped her palms against her cheeks Macaulay Culkin–style, then slammed the window shut and closed her blinds.

  Alone on Jackson’s dark doorstep, Melody seethed. Hope hissed from her like an untied balloon. How could Candace toy with her like that? It was cruel beyond—

  The door clicked open.

  “Can I help you?” asked a woman, her voice clear and kind.

  Startled, Melody whip-turned. There, in a pale seafoam-green jersey nightgown and matching robe—both the same color as her eyes—stood the elusive stranger.

  Her quiet beauty was alluring. Messy black curls, skin like buttermilk, red lips dabbed with a hint of shine. Her figure was full, curvy, feminine—not fat. She was the type of woman artists longed to capture. And the type they never could.

  “You’re not sleepwalking, are you?” she asked, eyeing Melody’s striped pajama bottoms and bare feet.

  Melody shook her head and then peered into the dark house, hoping to discover something that could lead her to Jackson.

  The woman closed the door until there was just enough space for her head to poke through. “I’m sorry, what’s your name?”

  “Melody.” She paused so the stranger could introduce herself, but the woman never did. “I, um, I’m friends with the owner. Well, really more with her son, Jackson, and I haven’t seen him for a while, so I came to check in. You know, to make sure they’re okay.”

  The stranger offered nothing but the same warm smile.

  “So, do, um, do you know if they’re okay?”

  She shook her head. “I’m just renting the house.”

  “For how long?”

  “Month to month.”

  “Do you know where they went?” Melody tried.

  “Nope.” The woman shrugged. “All I know is they’re going somewhere next Saturday by private jet,” she offered. “It sounded fancy.”

  Melody’s heart free-fell into her stomach. Was Jackson really leaving this time? And if so, why wasn’t he trying to say good-bye? Her persuasive voice had convinced Ms. J to stay the first time; all she had to do was find Jackson’s mom and convince her again. But what if Melody’s power was deteriorating? That would explain why this woman hadn’t stopped running the other night when Melody called to her. Unless, of course, she was too far out of range. Or it was an eye-contact thing, or maybe the wind diluted its strength, or…

  Melody stamped her foot in frustration. She didn’t know what was happening to her, and she had zero clue whom to ask. She didn’t know who her birth mother was! She didn’t know where Jackson was! She didn’t know how to get him back! She didn’t know anything!

  “Are you okay?”

  “No,” Melody said, surprised by her own honesty. But this stranger was the only lead she had, and she was going to make the most of it. All she had to do was look the woman in the eye, speak clearly, and ask. “Do you know where Jackson is?”

  Melody waited for the blinking. It never came. “I don’t. I’m sorry.”

  “What about a boy named D.J.? Have you ever met him?”

  “No.”

  Without the blinking, it was hard to gauge whether the stranger was telling the truth. Knowing that liars need time to think, Melody served up questions like high-speed Ping-Pong. “Where are you sending the rent checks?”

  “To a post office box here in Salem.”

  “Why are you renting their house?”

  “I need a place to live.”

  The faster Melody asked, the faster the woman answered.

  “Where did you meet the owner?”

  “I didn’t. I got the house through a real estate agent.”

  “Why is it so dark in there?”

  “I’m… well, I guess you could say I’m green.”

  Score! A RAD! Like Frankie!

  “Omigod, I can help you. I’m actually the same as you. Kind of. I’m not green, but I have other attributes. I think…” Melody realized she was rambling, and giggled. “Sorry. I’m just excited. Look, you don’t have to be scared anymore. Just let me inside, and we’ll—”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Can we just go inside?”

  “I’m sorry, but no,” she said, closing the door even more.

  “Listen, I’m on your side, okay?” Melody insisted. “I’m a lot more like you than you know.”

  The woman smiled a distant smile, nostalgic and a bit reserved. “And how’s that?”

  “I have something to hide too.” Melody paused, silently urging herself to hold back. But there was something about this woman that made her feel safe. And everything about her secret felt too heavy to carry alone. “I can use my voice to persuade people to do things,” she blurted. It was the first time Melody had said those words aloud. They sounded even more insane than they did when she was thinking them. But a green woman was in no position to judge.

  Opening the door just enough to reveal herself but not the house, the woman sighed. “Sounds dangerous.”

  Melody raised her eyebrows. Was this woman mocking her? “Dangerous? What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean”—she gripped the gold sailboat charm on her necklace and dragged it back and forth on the chain—“that people need to be free to make their own decisions.”

  “What if their decisions are bad ones?” Melody asked. Like the school board’s firing of Ms. J.

  “Who are you to decide that?”

  Melody’s chest tightened. “I know the difference between right and wrong.”

  The woman refastened her robe and folded her arms across her chest. “Just because something is right for you doesn’t mean it’s right for everyone.”

  Who does this woman think she is, anyway? “Well, in this case it is.”

  The woman narrowed her seafoam-green eyes. “What case?”

  “The person you’re renting this house from was fired because of discrimination, and now she’s leaving in a week and—” Suddenly, Melody’s breath caught on something sharp: a solution. “Omigod, I could just tell Principal Weeks to give Ms. J her job back! I could tell everyone at school to welcome her back and—”

  “Stop,” the woman ordered, her voice firm but still kind. “You can’t do that.”

  “Why?” Melody asked indignantly, again stamping her bare foot on the pavement like a child.

  “Because that would change the course of events and alter her destiny,” the woman insisted.

  “Yeah. For the better!”

  “It’s wrong, Melody. And it’s dangerous.”

  “Well, what g
ood is this power if I can’t use it?”

  “No one said it was good. In fact, it sounds terrible. Find another way to get her job back. A way that doesn’t involve your… attribute. A way that just involves you.”

  “Ha!” Melody said, nowhere close to laughing. “It’s kind of hard to take be yourself advice from someone who’s ashamed of her skin color.”

  “Ashamed? I’m not ashamed of my skin color.”

  “Oh, really,” Melody said. “Well, if you like being green so much, why are you living in the dark?”

  The woman backed into the house and giggled. “To save electricity,” she said, as if it should have been obvious. “It’s one of the many steps I’ve taken to live a more environmentally conscious life.”

  Oh. That kind of green.

  Humiliation zip-lined from Melody’s head to her toes. How could she have been so stupid? So trusting? So desperate? What if this normie was a RAD-hater? What if she called the police? “Um, I’d better go.”

  “Wait.” The woman rested her warm hand on Melody’s shoulder. “If you really care about this Jackson boy, you’ll let things unfold the way they were meant to. Not the way you want them to.” The conviction in her eyes could not be ignored. This woman obviously felt strongly about her message.

  But why? She was just a tree-hugging normie who probably thought Melody had made everything up. Still, she wouldn’t release her grip until she heard what she wanted. “Promise me you’ll try.”

  “Okay,” Melody said. “I’ll try.”

  Satisfied, the woman smiled and then closed the door, leaving Melody alone and in the dark once again.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  A WHIRLWIND

  BROMANCE

  It was that time of the month.

  Clawdeen didn’t have to look up to know the moon was almost full. She could feel it. Every time Lala urged her to “brake” or “turn the wheel,” she wanted to cry, rip her friend’s tongue out, or both.

  “Why don’t we skip the parallel stuff and try regular parking?” Lala said, eyeing the empty lot in front of the inn. Her pallor was no longer caused by hunger or lack of sunlight (thanks to Harriet’s cooking and Lala’s daily hikes with Clawd) but rather by Clawdeen’s jerky driving.

  “What’s the point?” Clawdeen pouted. “I’ll never get my license.”

  “Anything’s possible,” Lala said. “Watch.” She popped off the cap of her matte red lipstick and swiped it across her mouth with newfound confidence. “Not a single smear on my cheek.”

  “How’d you do that?” Clawdeen asked, knowing how hard it was for the vamp, who couldn’t see her reflection, to color inside the lines.

  “I can do my eyes too.” Lala smiled, batting her smudge-free mascaraed lashes.

  “Did you learn that in Romania?” Clawdeen asked, casually turning down the heat.

  Lala leaned forward and turned it back up. “No, today. While you were napping. Clawd helped me.”

  “Clawd?” Again?

  First he persuaded Lala to taste steak. Granted, she fang-speared it and then spit it into a napkin, but still. It was the closest she’d ever come to a real bite. Then he got her to embrace natural light (and a lack of sleep) on their parasol-free sunrise hikes. Now this?

  “Yeah.” Lala giggled at the memory. “He made a papier-mâché mold of my face, and we practiced on that.”

  “That hairy, football-playing meathead helped you put on makeup?” Clawdeen asked, knowing Clawd was a much better catch than the oaf she’d just described. But the guy who arts-and-crafted a mask to teach Lala how to apply MAC was not the Clawd she knew. The Clawd she knew cared about yard lines, not lip lines; blitzes, not blushes; formations, not foundations. Maybe he was feeling the effects of the waxing moon? The stress of life in hiding? Or ball withdrawal.

  Lala rubbed her fangs to check for lipstick. For the first time in the history of their friendship, her index finger came back clean. “Well, he won’t be hairy for long.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Clawdeen asked, hearing the possessiveness in her own voice. But who was she possessive of? Her brother? Her best friend? Or the way she used to be the first to know?

  “It means we made a deal,” Lala said, wrapping her black cashmere scarf around her slight shoulders. “He said if I mastered my makeup, he’d let me give him a mohawk.”

  “Fur real?”

  “Yup, as soon as your driving lesson is done. Signed a contract and everything.” She pulled a piece of paper from her skinny-jeans pocket and flashed Clawd’s signature.

  “Shut the duck up!” Clawdeen stomped on the pedal under her foot. The truck lunged forward. “Ahhhhhh!”

  “Stop!” Lala screamed as they careered toward a metal Dumpster by the side of the inn.

  Clawdeen jammed on the brakes with the force of someone who just realized her older brother had a crush on her best friend. The scrappy jock who liked peppy blonds and the serious brunette who insisted on a gentleman? Really? And then, SLAP! The air bags inflated.

  Everything became silent.

  “I think that’s enough for today,” Lala mumbled, her perfectly painted lips pressed against the puffy cushion. “Wanna come watch the haircut?”

  Clawdeen shook her head. She felt snippy enough.

  Instead, she opted to keep her face hidden inside the cornstarch-scented pouf until life made sense again.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  JOE KSONYOU

  This lunchtime playlist is mocking me, Melody thought as she and Candace raced around the cafeteria on Friday afternoon gathering signatures to the tune of Britney Spears’s “Till the World Ends.”

  If only she had marched into Principal Weeks’s office on Monday morning, like she wanted to, and demanded he give Ms. J her job back. Maybe then Jackson’s mom would be teaching bio this afternoon. And if Melody had told every normie in town to accept the RADs and welcome them back to Salem, maybe Jackson would be with her right now. But she hadn’t. Instead, she’d let some stranger with seafoam-green eyes persuade her to get them back the normie way. To avoid altering destiny and changing the course of events forever. Ha! Like the current course was something worth clinging to.

  Still, Melody had promised not to use her powers of persuasion on Principal Weeks, and she intended to keep that promise. So she used Candace’s.

  Unfortunately, the Monday morning meeting hadn’t gone the way she hoped. Rather than caving in to the blond, as most guys did, Principal Weeks stood his ground. He explained that the decision to let Ms. J go had been made by the board, not him. Appealing was an option, but only if they drafted a letter asking to reinstate the teacher and got it signed by one hundred students. If he had it for his weekly Friday conference with the board, he’d present it. If not… well, that didn’t matter. If not, Ms. J and Jackson would be en route to who-knows-where the following night, and Melody would hunt down the woman with the seafoam-green eyes, flick on all her lights, and make her pay.

  Ping!

  Melody stopped in the middle of the buzzy cafeteria and checked her phone.

  TO: Melody

  oct 29, 12:33 PM

  CLAWDEEN: HAVE YOU TOLD EVERYONE THE SASSY IS STILL ON? ####

  Oops. She had completely forgotten to spread the word. But she would, the minute her petition was complete.

  TO: Clawdeen

  oct 29, 12:34 PM

  MELODY: YUP. IT’S GOING TO BE PACKED.

  Candace clicked her pen. “Come on, Melly. We only need six more.”

  “You’ve asked everyone in here,” Melody said, somehow managing to take her sister seriously in what had become Candace’s “NUDI duty” uniform: a beige trench coat, stilettos, artfully spray-tanned legs, and her “reading” glasses. She was convinced the sexy-flasher-meets-university-lit-major look conveyed both NUDI and duty. Which it did… when her audience was male. Females, however, were less responsive. It took all of Melody’s control not to grab the clipboard and force everyone to sign. But she had made a pr
omise.

  It was 12:38. There were seven minutes left until the bell bwooped. “Maybe we should try the bathrooms,” Melody suggested.

  “Ew, no.” Candace shuddered. “The lunch special was bean burritos. There’s got to be someone we missed.” She scanned the zoned-off cafeteria and began muttering. “Peanut-Free for RADs—got ’em. Gluten-Free for RADs—yup. Lactose-Free for RADs—check. The Fat-Frees were anti-RAD, and we hit up every guy in the Allergy-Free Zone.” She tapped her pen against the clipboard.

  The music on the playlist began to mellow, an indication that lunch period was winding down. Soda cans were being crunched, milk cartons stomped on. All around them, students were taking their final bites as Alicia Keys appropriately sang “No One.”

  “Maybe if you were wearing clothes, the girls would sign,” Melody snapped, feeling the pressure.

  “What are you talking about? I got Frankie Stein, Cleo de Nile, Julia Phelps, Abbey Bominable, Spectra Vondergeist—”

  “I mean normie girls,” Melody hissed. “What about them?” Six wannabe fashion-forward ninth graders were busing their trays.

  “They already said no,” Candace insisted.

  “Try again,” Melody insisted back, cheating just a little.

  Candace blinked rapidly. “ ’Scuse me,” she said to the group.“I’m sure you already know that biology teacher Ms. J has been—”

  “Look!” said the brunette with shoulder-length waves and green glitter shadow. Instead of eyeing Candace’s provocative “uniform,” she was pointing at Melody. “Cute feathers!” Then to her friend she gushed, “Mandie, see how they stay in her hair? We need that kind. The ones you bought at Michaels were like scraps from a stripper boa.”

  The others nodded in agreement.

  “Maybe next time you should go,” Mandie mumbled under her breath.

  Her so-called friends exchanged quick eye rolls.

  “ ’Scuse me.” The blond with a side braid and a plaid fedora tugged the sleeve of Melody’s striped sweater. “Would you ever in a million years tell us where you got those feathers? We won’t post it.”

  Melody smiled. “They kinda just fell from the sky.” Now will you please just sign!