by Audu Paden
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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!
CHAPTER 2
MEAN GHOULS
Draculaura seethed in the boo-vie theater lobby while she waited for her friends. A sweet ghoul with long black hair highlighted in cherry pink, she hated making a fuss. Still, the history of the vampire queen was so important. She had really hoped the boo-vie would bring this issue into the public eye.
But now everyone was angry with her.
“Thanks for talking the whole time!” said Manny Taur, plowing past her after the movie ended.
Catty as ever, Toralei couldn’t help making a snide comment. “Make way… it’s Her Royal Fakeness!”
Howleen, her punk pink hair glowing brighter than ever, was just plain irritated. “Draculaura, you owe me a movie.”
Poor Draculaura! She was embarrassed, but when she tried to explain herself, she just made matters worse. “Sorry if I got carried away,” she apologized. “But that Veronica. She just frosts my fangs.”
Her good friend Lagoona Blue shook her scales. “You’d better get used to her. The Vampire Majesty boo-vies are the most popular ever made.”
“Popular does not mean good,” insisted Draculaura. She wasn’t going to drop this. She couldn’t. It was a matter of pride in her scaritage.
Hoodude swooned over an enormous cardboard poster of Veronica von Vamp. “Well, I loved it! And her!” He gave the photo of the boo-vie star a sloppy kiss.
All the ghouls laughed. But not Draculaura. “The real story is so much more fangtastic. I should know. I did grow up in Tra
nsylvania. At the royal vampire court. We don’t usually talk about it. Had to leave in a hurry.”
Robecca Steam stopped in her tracks, her gears and gadgets jangling. She was thinking about something that Draculaura had said during the boo-vie. “How is it,” she asked, “that there hasn’t been a vampire queen for four hundred years?”
“Yeah,” chimed in Frankie. “Tell us all the voltageous details.”
“Especially the romantic parts!” added Hoodude, tagging along behind the ghouls as they left the theater.
Her friends’ curiosity helped Draculaura feel a little better. “Well, after the last queen’s reign ended, the search began for the next ghoul in line.”
“I love this!” Hoodude could be such a goof sometimes.
Draculaura continued. “They used an ancient jewel, ‘The Vampire’s Heart,’ which was supposed to magically lead the way to the future queen. The search has gone on for four hundred years, but they still haven’t found her.”
Clawdeen stopped walking. “So the queen could be anybody?”
“And anywhere?” said Lagoona, stunned.
All of Draculaura’s friends gathered around her. What a story she had to tell!
“Yep,” said Draculaura. “Now wouldn’t that make a better boo-vie?”
“I’ll say!” said Hoodude. In his excitement, Hoodude tripped on the curb and accidentally zapped Heath with his volatile voodoo powers.
“Yeeowwch!” screamed Heath.
“Sorry, Heath,” apologized Hoodude. “I still can’t control my voodoo powers.”
The teens had reached the front gates of Monster High. It was after dark and time for classes to begin. The bell tower chimed, announcing first period.
Hoodude stumbled closer to Draculaura. “Maybe you’re secretly the queen!” he said to her.
“Wow!”
“Cool!”
“Claw-some!”
All the kids who had been making fun of Draculaura a little while ago looked at her in a whole new moonlight. Her werewolf boyfriend wrapped an arm around her. “Whoa!” he said in his low growl. “Clawd Wolf, dating royalty!”
Draculaura blushed.
“Allow me, Your Royal Highness,” said Clawd, making a big show of holding open the front door to the school.
Frankie Stein rushed forward, getting into the spirit of it all. “Would you prefer the diamond or the gold crown, my queen?” She held out an imaginary jewel box.
Draculaura giggled. “Come on, Frankie, I think I’d know if I were really the queen.” But she couldn’t resist the fun. “I choose diamonds! They go with everything!”
Hoodude, who still had his popcorn box from the movie, held it up to his mouth like a megaphone. He yelled into it as the group of friends headed down the hallway. “Hear ye! Hear ye! Make way for Queen Draculaura!”
Monsters grabbing their books from their coffin-shaped lockers stared. They were still annoyed at the fuss Draculaura had made during the boo-vie. Draculaura felt embarrassed again.
Clawd headed off to the Creepateria. “I’ll text you!”
“Bye!”
“Bye!”
“See you at Mad Science class!” said Frankie Stein, hurrying down the hall.
Draculaura stepped up to her locker, but before she could open it, Gory Fangtel and two of her sinister sidekicks appeared.
“Puh-lease, you the queen? You don’t even have your vampire powers yet,” sneered Gory. Gory was a super chic vamp with angled bangs, pointed ears, and teeth like razors.
Draculaura withered under her cold stare. “I… I… never said…”
Toralei and her cool cats, Purrsephone and Meowlody, joined the taunting of Draculaura. “You think you’re all bat, but what have you ever done? Meow!”
The ghouls laughed meanly but stopped when they saw Frankie and Clawdeen approaching. There was nothing those cats hated more than that werewolf girl.
“You’d better watch your fangs!” Clawdeen warned Gory Fangtel.
Lagoona Blue wrapped a shimmery arm around Draculaura. “Don’t fret, love. It’s what you think that’s important.”
Cleo de Nile sauntered over. “Do you want me to unleash a plague on them?” she asked Draculaura, raising one perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Because I have a new amulet that I’ve been dying to try out.”
The mean monsters took a step back. Everyone was scared of Cleo… even her friends.
“Thanks, ghouls,” said Draculaura meekly. “But… I… can fight my own battles.”
“You’ll be queen when trolls fly!” Gory laughed, and with that she turned into a bat and swooped down the hallway to class.
Toralei hissed at Draculaura before she too sauntered away with her friends.
Draculaura slumped against her locker. She was upset. “They’re right.” She sighed. “I have never done anything important. That’s why I don’t have all my vampire powers yet.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lagoona Blue.
“Gory got hers a couple of hundred years ago by saving a vampire lord from a sunburn. SPF, like, a thousand. I haven’t done anything close to that. I may never get my powers.”
Draculaura’s friends crowded around. They knew how special she was—but how could they help Draculaura to realize that?
“You have something amazing in you,” said Robecca. “I feel it—in here.” The beautiful girl with the steampunk style touched her own heart. She wasn’t making this up to help Draculaura feel better. She could really feel something glowing within her when she was close to her friend. Draculaura really was special. “You are going to surprise everyone.”
“I hope. Thanks, Robecca.”
But Draculaura still didn’t have much faith in herself. What could she possibly do to gain real vampire powers?
CHAPTER 3
LORD STOKER’S TERRORTORY
A swarm of bats swooped past the turrets of an ancient castle on a hill. A lone wolf howled. Lightning flashed across the sky. It was an ordinary night in Transylvania at the ancestral home of Dracula.
In a study filled with books, a distinguished man with slicked-back hair was looking out the window at the storm. Worry lines creased his forehead. Lord Stoker turned as the heavy wooden door to his study was thrown open and a squat servant heaved himself into the room on short, fat legs.
“Master,” panted Ygor. “The Royal Court of Vampire Dignitaries seeks audience with you at once.”
A sinister smile lit up Lord Stoker’s face. “Very well.”
Ygor staggered over to the windows and threw them open. A cascade of bats swooped into the room, emitting high-pitched squeals. Eek! Eek! Eek!
“What seems to be the problem?” said Lord Stoker, addressing them directly.
One by one, each of the bats transformed into a vampire. They were well-dressed officials with medals and ribbons.
“Lord Stoker, we demand to know how the search for the queen is going!” said the first dignitary.
Lord Stoker arranged a pleasant-looking expression on his face like a mask. “Well—” he began.
“You’ve had four hundred years!” interrupted another of the dignitaries. “Where is she? We think you are enjoying your temporary role as our leader much too much!”
Lord Stoker drew himself up to his full height and glared at the assembled vampires. “I assure you that I have everything under control. The search for the queen—”
But the vampires had been hearing this for centuries. They were fed up. “This is taking too long!” shouted a vampire. “We need a true leader. Vampires are forgetting their scaritage.”
“We just heard that Vampire Prep, our most prestigious vampire academy, is on the verge of closing!” chimed in another vampire.
With a stern look, the oldest of the dignitaries stared at Lord Stoker. It was time to issue the edict. “The Vampire Court has voted. If you do not find a new queen by the end of the week, you will be fired.”
Lord Stoker steadied himself against his enormous oak desk. He splut
tered as he tried to collect himself. “Eh… eh…” he said. “Well… you are in luck.”
The dignitaries cast cold vampire eyes on him.
“Because… because…” Lord Stoker improvised. “I… I…”
The dignitaries exchanged suspicious glances.
“I already found the queen!” blurted out Lord Stoker.
Ygor scratched his almost-bald head. This was news to him.
“Really?” The vampire dignitaries were startled. “Really?”
“Really?” muttered Ygor, joining in.
Lord Stoker was an expert liar. “Yes! I used the Vampire’s Heart and, why, just today, I found her. Isn’t that right, Ygor?”
Ygor looked confused. “No, no, you lost the Vampire’s Heart when—Owww!”
Lord Stoker had squashed his boot down on top of Ygor’s foot. He smiled charmingly at the dignitaries.
Ygor tried to wriggle loose but he couldn’t. “Ygor means yes, Master. Yes. Oooh! Oooh! Oooh! Yes! Yes! Yes!” What did he have to say to get Lord Stoker to let him go? “In fact, her coronation is next week!”
Lord Stoker lifted his foot and Ygor breathed a huge sigh of relief. He gave Lord Stoker a thumbs-up sign.
In their excitement, all the dignitaries turned back into bats. They began flying around the study. “Eek! Eek! Eek!” At last they would have a queen again! Four hundred years was a long time, even for the undead. “Queen! Queen! Queen!” they said in their high-pitched squeals.
Just as he flew out of the window into the storm, one of the bats turned back to Lord Stoker. “Good. We meet the queen next week, Stoker.”
“Or it’s daylight for you!” added one of the other dignitaries. With that final warning, they screeched back into the night. Lord Stoker watched as they flew into the clouds.
As soon as he was sure they were gone, he turned on his servant. “Next week?! Ygor, have you lost your mind?!”
