Heath continued. “I’m the reporter—”
“It’s called a secretary,” Haylee corrected.
“That’s a girlie title,” he insisted. “I like reporter.”
Brett snickered. He made a finger gun and pointed it at Heath. Pow, he mouthed.
Heath whipped his napkin at Brett. It landed on Brett’s desk with a curious thud. He peeled it open to find a half-chewed oat bar. Brett whipped it back, and the two broke into hysterics.
“Order!” Haylee called, slamming her gavel. “Proceed.”
It took Heath a few seconds to stop laughing before he could continue. “Frankie is social coordinator, Jackson is creative coordinator, and Brett is the liaison of cool.” The guys high-fived in honor of Brett’s hard-won title. Frankie beamed. She and her guy had the coolest jobs.
“Ceeee… eeeee… ohhh,” moaned Ghoulia.
“Oh, sorry, Ghouls,” Heath said, flipping a page in his Megan Fox notebook. “You’re CEO—chief executive observer.”
“Mmmmmm,” she smile-moaned.
Heath continued. “Number two: Haylee moved that we create a peer-counseling corner in the library, where students can talk about assimilation problems. Frankie moved we transition to half-days in June in honor of the summer solstice. Jackson wants to turn the cafeteria walls into giant murals, bump up the air-conditioning, and build a recording studio. And then Frankie said she needed a charge, so we adjourned—” Heath gripped his belly. “Ouch,” he moaned.
“What is it?” Haylee asked, racing to his side.
Heath doubled over. “I think I ate too many nut bars.”
Uh-oh!
“Take cover!” Brett shouted. “Fire in the hole!”
Haylee reached for her gear—a fire-retardant backpack filled with an extinguisher, sand, and aloe.
Jackson ran toward the hall. Ghoulia yawned. Frankie shot under her desk. The last thing she needed was for Heath to blow booty and ignite her new tennis outfit. Brett crouched next to her and winked. She blew him a kiss and crossed her fingers.
A blast of heat blew through the room, followed by a blast of foam. The ends of Frankie’s hair sizzled, but her skirt stayed intact. Mint!
“Sorry, guys. You can come out now.”
Brett and Frankie wiggled out from under their desks and into what had become a winter wonderland. Brett’s spiky hair was smoking. Jackson reentered slowly, hand fan cranking. Ghoulia had remained seated the whole time, reading her Dead Fast graphic novel.
“Nice going,” Heath said, high-fiving Haylee. “You got it out before the alarm this time.”
Like an outlaw, Haylee blew the remaining foam bits off the hose and stuffed the extinguisher back into the bag. “Beat my best time by nine seconds.”
A black crater had melted in the chalkboard behind Haylee’s head. She removed her melted orange headband and smoothed her mousy brown bangs. “And now for some exciting news…” she began.
Frankie stood and smiled. “It’s more like voltage news.”
“Not yet,” Haylee hissed, motioning for Frankie to take her seat.
Ghoulia made a noise. It sounded like a laugh being stretched.
“We have been asked by Principal Weeks to host the Senior Luncheon on graduation day,” Haylee said. “Quite an honor.”
Outside the window, three freshman girls were playing Hacky Sack on the grass. They were sharing a carton of orange juice and giggling every time one of them missed a shot. What Frankie wouldn’t have done to be there with—
“Frankie! Are you even listening?” Haylee snapped.
“Huh?”
“Since you’re social coordinator, you’ll run lead on the luncheon.”
Frankie sparked. Throwing parties was not on the to-do-or die list. Attending them was. “I, um—”
“All right, all right,” Haylee said. “I’ll do it.”
“Really?” Frankie asked, unable to hide her relief.
“If it would make you more comfortable,” Haylee said, chewing her bottom lip. If it were a bit, she would have been chomping.
“It would,” Frankie said.
Haylee hammered her gavel. “Done. I’ll run first position.” She crossed one orange Croc over her knee and opened her binder to the section marked SENIOR LUNCHEON. “I was thinking we should do a ‘We Are the World’ theme. We can have steel drummers playing alongside bagpipers, and we can all be in costumes from different parts of the globe. I have a dirndl, and we can rent—”
Frankie cut her off. “I’m so sorry for interrupting, Haylee, but I move that you all listen to this totally mint piece of news.”
Haylee sighed. “Go ahead.”
Frankie smoothed out her skirt and stood at a slight angle so Brett got the best glimpse of her calf muscles. “Lala entered Merston in this contest run by T’eau Shoes and Dally Sports—”
Heath held up one of his enormous white basketball sneakers. “I wear Dallys all the time.”
“And who doesn’t love T’eaus?” Frankie added.
Ghoulia glanced down at her flip-flops. “Oooooooooohs.”
Frankie responded with a polite smile and then explained the contest in detail, right down to the “gritty is the new glossy” part. “… and one last thing: If we win, next year Merston will be renamed T’eau Dally High.”
Ghoulia busted out laughing and then sent Frankie a text:
TO: Frankie
June 8, 3:07 PM
GHOULIA: TODALLY HIGH! THAT’S TOTALLY FUNNY!
Frankie smiled politely at Ghoulia again.
Jackson shook his head and pushed his floppy bangs out of his eyes. “I don’t get it. ‘Gritty is the new glossy’? What does that even mean? How is gritty glossy?”
“It’s like buying jeans with holes in them,” Frankie explained.
“Who does that?” Jackson asked.
Ghoulia sent another text.
TO: Balance Board
June 8, 3:09 PM
GHOULIA: CLEO, CLAWDEEN, BLUE…
“Okay, we get it,” Haylee snapped.
Heath chewed on his pencil. “So who’s gonna be the couple, since Lala doesn’t show up in pictures?”
Frankie grabbed Brett’s hand. “La said we’d be perfect.”
Haylee’s hand shot up with such gusto she knocked the glasses right off her face. Lopsided, they swung from their chain like a broken porch swing. “Heath and I are gritty too.”
“Don’t you mean glossy?” Jackson asked.
Heath and Brett cracked up.
Haylee ignored them. “A normie girl dating a fire-breathing RAD screams merger. The Statesman Journal even has a name for RAD-normie romances. They call it the Double RAmie.”
“Brett and I are Double RAmies too,” Frankie countered.
Haylee stomped her Croc. “Why should it be you and Brett? What about me and Heath?”
Heath sighed. Brett slumped back in his chair. They finger-gunned themselves in the temple. Ghoulia pulled out her iPhone and started playing Angry Birds.
“Come on, Haylee. We’re cute and energetic. Uh, not that you’re not, but…” Frankie sparked. “It’s just that… we just went shopping, and we have some great new clothes, and… we could win this for the whole school!”
Haylee shook her head emphatically. “There’s more to life than being cute and fashionable.”
“In modeling?” Brett pressed. Heath, his best friend, couldn’t help laughing.
Frankie winked. Thank you.
He winked back. No problemo.
“Vvvovvv,” Ghoulia managed to rev while still playing.
“Good idea,” Jackson said. “Let’s vote.”
“Agreed.” Haylee slammed her gavel. “All in favor of me and—”
Slowly Ghoulia lifted her head and met Jackson’s eyes. Her blank stare was illuminated, a candle flickering deep in a cave. She sent another text:
TO: Balance Board
June 8, 3:12 PM
GHOULIA: CLEO AND DEUCE
“What?�
�� Frankie and Haylee burst out in unison.
“They’re not even Double RAmies!” Haylee said indignantly.
Jackson stood up and grabbed his blue backpack. “I move that we open this up to everyone. Anyone can run, and next week the whole school can vote.”
Frankie clapped her hands. “Fun!”
The board members agreed.
Except Haylee, who stormed out. Heath stormed after her.
Frankie grabbed her racket and smiled. “Tennis, anyone?”
CHAPTER NINE
FROM CAMPUS TO CAMP
Melody poked the elevator button for the fifth floor.
Nothing.
She hit it again. And again and again and again. Why does everything move so slowly when you’re in a hurry?! She yanked Jackson’s wrist up and checked his vintage Rolex—3:34 PM. Four minutes late.
“Is this thing right?”
Jackson reclaimed his wrist. “This thing belonged to my father.”
“Right, sorry.” After another finger-bending press of the button, the number five lit up and the doors wobbled shut.
The previous hour had played out like a straight-to-DVD comedy. She’d blown out of school in plenty of time to run home, change clothes, and make her three thirty audition, though it meant going to the “bathroom” during last period and not going back to class.
As Melody bounded down the stairs from her bedroom at 3:01 PM, her mother stepped out of the kitchen, arms folded across her SOME MAKE DINNER, OTHERS MAKE RESERVATIONS apron. Her expression was Botox-smooth, but her squint indicated scowling.
Glory launched into a Shouldn’t you be studying instead of running off? lecture (3:07 PM) just as Candace burst through the door with a purple tube dress she’d just picked up from the dry cleaner’s. “Wear this!” Then out came the hairbrush. “And try this.”
Melody pushed her way out the front door while explaining that her messy ponytail, Mudhoney tee, and light-wash skinny jeans were fine and that the Grunge Goddesses didn’t care what she wore. But Candace, as usual, wouldn’t take “fine” for an answer and tackled her sister. Candace was trying to pull off the Converse (3:11 PM) when Melody screamed that she’d take the dress (even though it looked like a sausage casing) and the useless hairbrush and change in the car. But not before she thanked Candace for the newly minted fingernail scratch on her left cheek and her now-trembling vocal cords.
The elevator jerked to a stop on the third floor (3:35 PM).
Seriously?
The doors opened to reveal a dimly lit hallway that smelled like vanilla-scented smoke and skunk. Through the haze, a couple—she in overalls and he in a tie-dyed tee—stepped in, giggling.
Overalls poked the button for the first floor repeatedly. “This thing is Smuckers, man.”
“Smuckers?” asked her guy.
“Jammed.”
He snickered while she poked harder.
“We’re going up,” Melody grumbled.
“Oops. Bad, bad, bad,” she told her index finger. She and her heavy-lidded mate burst into hysterics.
Melody rolled her eyes, but Jackson was too intrigued by the flyer-covered walls to feel her frustration.
The elevator came to another abrupt halt, shook, and then settled. Melody yanked Jackson past the cackling couple and crashed into a skinny boy in tight black jeans and a leather vest.
“Sorry.”
“Not as sorry as my pathetic audition,” he huffed, stomping into the elevator.
Are all college kids this odd?
Melody had always imagined college dorms to be bustling with Top Ramen–eating coeds dressed in study sweats and stressing about some paper that was due in an unreasonable amount of time, their pallid skin proof of the nutrient-sucking rays emanating from their computer screens. She envisioned the cheery decor as a space-saving tribute to the latest IKEA catalog.
Instead, the congested hallway looked more like the hate child of a Paramore concert and an American Idol audition. Jittery wannabes—some pacing, most slumped against the cinder-block walls—were either biting their already-bitten nails, side-eyeing the competition, or getting in the zone by humming their audition songs.
Melody took her place at the end of the line, behind a man in a fedora playing a clarinet. “Don’t chick, grunge, and singer mean anything to these people?” asked Jackson.
Melody managed to smile in spite of the time (3:38 PM).
Jackson powered up his hand fan. “Man, this place is packed.”
He was obviously worried about making it to their camp interview but was too sweet to say it. If he was late because of her, she’d never forgive—omigod, duh! “Be right back.”
The door to suite 503 was blocked by a redhead seated on a stack of milk crates. Dressed in a preppy white button-down, lime-green capris, and pristine sandals, she was clearly a roommate the rockers were forced to tolerate.
“Um, excuse me,” Melody tried in her sweetest voice. Maybe that would be enough.
“No cutting, no matter what,” the redhead said, pointing to the black-lipstick lettering on the door that conveyed the same message. Her New York accent was deep-dish thick and probably inherited from a Brooklyn cop.
Melody leaned close to the gatekeeper. Her hair smelled like fruit salad. “You will let me and my boyfriend in next,” Melody said softly.
As Melody expected, the redhead’s eyelids fluttered. “Just fill out your contact information, and we’ll be all set.”
From the line, a girl with a purple mohawk asked, “Hey, what was that all about?”
Melody turned to face her. “I’m going in next, and you’re so happy for me.”
“Cool,” said Mohawk, with a generous smile. “Good luck in there.”
Melody waved Jackson forward and burst inside the suite before anyone began to riot. It was hardly a graceful entrance, but desperate times…
“Cinderella!” bellowed the girl who had pulled her up onstage at Corrigan’s.
Cinderella?
Sage was sitting on the stained gray carpet leaning against a stained mustard-yellow futon, strumming her guitar. Her blue-black hair was stuffed into a floppy green beanie, and her gray mesh shirt hung off one shoulder, revealing the strap of her hot-pink bra. She reached into the mini fridge next to the sofa on which the other two girls were perched. “We would have called you to audition, but you left so fast after the gig at Corrigan’s that we didn’t even get your name, and you’re not in the college directory.”
“Oh, sorry. I’m Melody.” She waved stiffly and then instantly regretted her dorky awkwardness.
The boxy room had obviously been cleared of beds and dressers to make room for the drum kit, amp, and mini air-hockey table that was piled high with pizza boxes, vending-machine candy wrappers, and soda cans. The stale air smelled like burned microwave popcorn. Melody’s pores opened like a fish mouth. It was a good thing Jackson had chosen to wait in the hall. A wind machine would have been his only hope.
The blond stretched out on the futon was elbow deep in a bag of Doritos. Melody recognized the drummer, and not just from the custom sticks in her back pocket. She had a red hibiscus stuck behind one ear, bright blue eyes, and a half shirt that might have been whole on someone who had more ab than flab.
“I’m Nine-Point-Five,” the girl said, lifting her hand out of the bag and wiggling her pinkie. The thimble-sized stub was adorned with a thin stack of silver rings. “I’m missing half a finger,” she proudly announced. “That’s why I’m not a ten.”
Melody giggled.
“I’m Cici,” said the bass player, sitting on the arm of the sofa and drinking chocolate milk. She wore a tiara in her bleached blond hair and an ivory silk slip dress. Very Courtney L.
“You’re making me nervous. Sit down. Relax. We won’t bite,” Sage said, and then winked at Cici. “At least, I won’t.”
Melody laughed a little too hard as she sat in a rust-colored armchair. Beside her, an artificial Christmas tree was hung with pairs of broken
sunglasses, frayed shoelaces, and scarves. This was like hanging out with the cool version of the popular girls in school—something Melody had yet to experience. There had always been someone to hang out with, but a group? Like this? Never.
Nine-Point-Five sat up. The unapologetic belly bulge that slumped over her jean shorts looked like it had just as much right to be there as the rest of them. It was the first time Melody had ever seen a girl this comfortable in her own skin.
“Those feathers are awesome,” Nine said. “Put one on the tree before you leave, will ya? All our friends leave something.”
Friends?
Melody plucked out a couple of strays and rested them on the tree branches. “You can have as many as you want.”
Sage cracked open a can of grape soda. “So, Melody, what’s your deal? You in school? You work? Play guitar?”
Melody stiffened. The interview had begun. She considered using her powers to land the lead, maybe even bestie status. But cutting a line and crossing a line were two totally different things when it came to destiny. If she cheated, it wouldn’t feel rewarding. At least, that’s what her mother said about people who chose liposuction over exercise for weight loss.
Melody chose her next words carefully. “I’m still in school. I go to…” She hesitated. What if Jackson was right, and they thought she was too young? Melody swallowed. She had to earn this. And that meant being honest. “I’m a sophomore at Merston High. I just turned sixteen.” She clenched her abs, preparing for the punch.
Cici adjusted her banana-yellow bra strap. “That’s cool. Nine-Point-Five just turned seventeen.”
“You’re in high school too?” Melody asked.
“No, I go here. I’m really smart”—she laughed—“or really stupid.”
They all laughed.
“So you like grunge, right?” asked Sage.
That was it? No “We don’t hang with high school girls, so get out”? Melody replayed the conversation in her mind. I didn’t say anything Siren-y, did I?
“I love grunge,” she said. “I was listening to Nirvana and Hole back in middle school. The first CD I bought with my own money was Pretty on the Inside.” She paused, allowing the swell of emotion to wash through her. “I went to Beverly Hills High, and I didn’t really fit in. I ate a lot of lunches with my iPod.”
Monster High 4: Back and Deader Than Ever Page 7
