Freaky Fusion

by Perdita Finn

  Cleolei’s left hand reached up and started honking her nose. Her right hand tried to wrestle it away from her face. The two hands were struggling with each other.

  “I am still the queen of this body! You are just visiting,” shouted the part of Cleolei that was Cleo.

  Frankie intervened. “Everybody calm down. We can figure this out. That time teleport got us into this. I’m sure it can get us out.”

  But the teleporter looked hopelessly broken. The lens was crooked. The screwdriver was wedged into the gears. Everything was rusted.

  “Somebody’s just going to have to fix it,” said Frankie, determined.

  Everyone turned to Ghoulia, their eyes pleading with her to use her best spectral smarts to get them out of this fusion fiasco.

  Ghoulia groaned, accepting the responsibility.

  “Thank you!”

  “We love you!”

  “You’re the best!”

  She retrieved Hexiciah’s journal. She had a lot of studying to do.

  “So what do we do in the meantime?” asked Dracubecca.

  Lagoonafire shrugged. “There’s no sense in waiting around down here watching Ghoulia work.”

  “Should we go back upstairs for the rehearsal?” wondered Dracubecca.

  “Sure,” said Clawveenus sarcastically. “But what are we gonna tell Mr. Where when he asks us how we got this way? We can’t tell anybody about the time teleporter.”

  But they had to tell him something.

  A little while later, in the auditorium, Mr. Where was trying to take it all in. “Your Mad Science Class assignment was to fuse yourselves together?”

  The Fusions nodded in agreement.

  “Works for me,” said Mr. Where. “Okay, places, people, places! This play isn’t going to rehearse itself!”

  Clawveenus’s nose wrinkled. “Did our going back in time somehow make his cologne stink get worse?”

  The Venus part of Clawveenus chimed in. “Can I have my old nose back now?”

  The ghouls headed backstage to begin the rehearsal while Mr. Where’s glasses floated above a seat in the empty auditorium. He clapped his hands. “All right, thespians! Today is the day we travel back in time!”

  Frankie had put on a long dress, just like the ones the ghouls had been wearing when she traveled back in time.

  “And… action!” called out Mr. Where.

  The lights dimmed. A monster fired up a spotlight and directed it toward the stage where Frankie was standing. Mr. Where clapped.

  Frankie, who was the narrator for the production, began speaking. “For two hundred years, our great school has stood as a shining example of monster unity.”

  The Fusions, who had been passing by the auditorium, overheard her speech and stopped to listen.

  “All monsters—the big, the small, the hairy, and the clawed,” Frankie continued, “all are welcome to join our freaky family. Come with us now as we take a look back at Monster High—a hisssstory of exceptional acceptance.”

  Neighthan was beaming. “See? I told you Monster High is different,” he whispered to the Fusions. He settled down in a seat in the back of the auditorium. The other Fusions reluctantly joined him.

  The curtain opened and revealed a backdrop painted to show Monster High two hundred years ago. Students dressed in nineteenth-century bonnets and skirts wandered across the stage. Stagehands slid a cardboard cutout of a carriage, and a skeleton horse slid into place.

  “Welcome to 1814!” announced Frankie. “Oh, what’s that I see coming this way? Why, it’s none other than Monster High’s perpetual headmistress, our own Headless Headmistress Bloodgood!”

  Cleolei, dressed like the headmistress, rode a prop Nightmare onto the stage. Behind her, Howleen and Twyla made horse noises.

  In the back of the auditorium, the real Headmistress peeked in to watch the rehearsal. “Not bad!” she said.

  But the real Nightmare was disappointed. He gave a grumpy neigh of disapproval before trotting away.

  From the stage, Cleolei was delivering her lines. “Welcome, monsters, one and all. I declare Monster High officially open. May her walls ever stand as a beacon of hope and acceptance for all monsterkind.”

  Under her breath, Cleolei whispered, “And sorry about that cheap cologne smell. That would be our teacher, Mr. Where.”

  Howleen looked confused. “Is that the right line?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Twyla.

  Cleo and Toralei, two frenemies trapped in the same body, began bickering.

  “Will you cut it out?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “This is hardly the time or place.”

  “Cut it out!”

  Frankie cleared her throat, trying to get their attention.

  “As I was saying,” began Cleolei, returning to her lines. Unfortunately, Toralei was determined to make Cleo look ridiculous. Every time she opened her mouth to speak, she also began dancing. Suddenly, Cleolei began spinning around and around in circles as the fused ghouls fought with each other. Their arms flailed and they crashed into the Nightmare prop. It broke.

  Frankie shook her head before trying to continue the rehearsal. “Everybody remembers the great zombie migration of 1845, when the first zombies arrived on our haunted shores.”

  Dracubecca came out on stage dressed as a fashionable ghoul in a hoopskirt. Deuce and Gil, acting like zombies, lumbered toward her.

  “Where are your zombie costumes?” whispered Dracubecca.

  “Buuuudget cuts,” groaned Deuce in a zombie’s moan.

  “Gentle zombies!” Dracubecca acted. “Bring us your tired, your undead, your sluggish masses yearning to… Ahhhhhhh!”

  Unexpectedly, Robecca’s steam boots fired up and propelled Dracubecca across the stage—headed right toward the zombies.

  “Shuffle away,” said Deuce, trying to avoid her.

  “Shuffling,” said Gil.

  Dracubecca crashed into them with a scream.

  Next up in the play was the war between the vampires and the werewolves. Stitched-together werewolf and vampire props were arranged in a battle scene. Lagoonafire stood in their midst.

  “And did you know that Monster High played an integral role in the Werewolf-Vampire Reconciliation in the early twentieth century?” narrated Frankie.

  “Werewolves, vampires, your scaritage makes no difference,” proclaimed Lagoonafire. “All are welcome at Monster High!” She made a sweeping gesture with her arm but accidentally let loose a blast of dragon fire that ignited the werewolf props. They sizzled and burned.

  “Oops!” said Lagoonafire, and more flames jetted from her hands, destroying the vampire soldiers. “Oops again!”

  Hoodude, who’d been watching from backstage, covered his button eyes. “Oh no! I can’t watch!”

  In the back of the auditorium, the Fusions were mesmerized. Bonita was nervously chewing her clothes. “These ghouls need some serious help. They’re making me a nervous wreck.”

  Avia nodded in agreement. These monsters did not know how to handle being unexpected Fusions, that was for sure.

  The stage had gone dark. When the spotlight turned on again, it found Gigi, Rochelle, and Clawveenus standing together, each holding a single red rose.

  “Every monster is welcome at Monster High,” said Gigi sweetly.

  “Every monster is family at Monster High,” sang Rochelle.

  Clawveenus was about to deliver her lines when she began sneezing. “Achoo! Achoo!” The roses in the girls’ hands grew bigger and bigger until they became a snarling and chomping rose monster. Huge vines shot out of their stalks. One extended into the audience and coiled itself around Mr. Where.

  Cleolei, still fighting with herself, tumbled back onstage.

  “This is my body!”

  “Cut it out!”

  More flames erupted from Lagoonafire. Dracubecca flew across the stage on her steam boots, swirled into the rafters, knocked out a few lights, and crash
ed to the ground.

  Frankie was at a loss for words.

  Meanwhile, Sirena the Fusion had drifted over to the spotlight and was holding up her hands in front of it to create a monster shadow puppet onstage. She giggled.

  Mr. Where, wrapped from head to toe in squeezing vines, was trying to remain positive. “All right. Good. Just a few notes.”

  But it was hopeless. Nobody was listening to him. The dress rehearsal had been a catastrophe.

  Frankie went out to sit on the front steps of the school by herself, but she didn’t realize that the Fusions had followed her. They were watching her from behind a bush.

  “Go talk to her,” Avia said to Neighthan.

  “I don’t know,” he said shyly.

  Avia gave him a shove and he tumbled out of the bush and crashed—right in front of Frankie. He had twigs and leaves in his hair and he looked adorbs. “Um… hey…” he said awkwardly.

  He brushed himself off and sat down beside Frankie. “That was some rehearsal back there.”

  “You saw, huh?”

  He smiled. “Your friends gave some fiery performances.”

  Frankie chuckled.

  “So what happened?” asked Neighthan.

  “I’m not sure. An accident. They’ve all turned into, well, Fusions. And with two ghouls trying to operate in one body at the same time, they’re having a lot of trouble keeping control of their powers. I’m really worried they might get hurt.”

  Neighthan nodded thoughtfully. “You must really care about them.”

  “So much,” said Frankie. “And the thought of them in trouble… I just get so emotional.” A tiny spark shot out of her neck bolt and shocked Neighthan.

  “Ow! What was that?”

  “I’m not really sure,” Frankie said apologetically. “It happens sometimes. Sorry.”

  They sat beside each other without speaking for a moment.

  Finally, Neighthan broke the silence. Something had been on his mind since the rehearsal. “Did you ghouls really mean all that stuff you said onstage? About Monster High being like a family?”

  “Everybody’s welcome at Monster High,” said Frankie. It was true. Everyone knew that.

  Neighthan stood up, struggling to balance.

  “Freaky flaws and all.” Frankie smiled.

  “Well, if that’s really the case,” said Neighthan, “I think we might be able to help your friends.”

  He offered Frankie his hand and helped her to her feet. Frankie blushed. He was such a gentleman.

  “We?” she said shyly.

  Avia, Bonita, and Sirena were peeking at them from behind the bush. Surprised, Bonita spread open her wings, and she bit down on her blouse.

  “Do you think she sees us?” she whispered.

  Avia sighed. She really needed some new friends.

  Back in Hexiciah’s workshop, Ghoulia was trying to repair the broken teleporter. She had put on a welder’s mask and gloves and was blasting the gears with a blowtorch. She checked out the control panel and caught a glance of herself in the reflection. Even in her gear, she was a glamorous ghoul.

  She switched on the machine and it hummed. It began to whirr louder and louder and the gears started turning faster and faster. Ghoulia groaned in alarm.

  BOOM!

  The machine exploded in a cloud of smoke. Ghoulia was covered in soot.

  She took off her gloves and her helmet, frustrated. It was back to the drawing board. She was going to have to do a lot more research in the library about Hexiciah.

  Not long after she’d left the workshop, a thin blue flicker began to spark from the lens. The portal was opening. It flashed and disappeared and then flashed again.

  BOOM!

  The vortex opened with an explosion and out tumbled Sparky.

  His hair was standing straight up and was now streaked in white from shock. His lab coat was in tatters. He looked disoriented.

  “What happened?”

  He noticed that the workshop was dirtier, older. He picked up Ghoulia’s iCoffin, which she’d left on a bench. He began investigating it, and the phone’s camera turned on and snapped a picture of him. The flash momentarily blinded him and he dropped it. When he recovered, he picked up the camera and was startled to see his own goofy face. “Fascinating!”

  A monkey skeleton popped out of the clock and wheezed.

  Sparky began pacing back and forth. “Aha!” he said, looking down at the phone in his hands. “This is the future, of course! I must not squander this opportunity. Who knows what futuristic technologies I can access. Perhaps this is where I will find the missing ingredient I need to finally create life!”

  He pocketed the iCoffin and looked around the workshop for more modern gadgets. His eyes fell on Ghoulia’s laptop and he picked it up. It was time to explore the future!

  Ghoulia had picked up a smoothie while she was out doing research, and she was slurping it when she walked back into the workshop. It took her a moment to realize that everything was missing. Her iCoffin was gone. Her laptop was gone. Hexiciah’s Recharge Chamber was missing. There were all kinds of missing tools and gadgets. Worst of all, the entire portal lens was gone. Ghoulia couldn’t believe it. What had happened? Her smoothie splattered to the floor.

  Tick, tick, tick. The clock on the door was moving. The time lock clicked, slammed, and closed. She would have to wait before she could open the door again. Ghoulia was trapped!

  Elsewhere in the catacombs, Neighthan was leading Frankie and the newly joined Fusions to the Fusions’ secret underground lounge.

  Dracubecca was very grateful. “It’s so nice of you and the Fusions to offer your help… but it’s not necessary,” said the other part of her. “I think we’re really getting the hang of this.”

  Dracubecca stopped walking and all of the other ghouls bumped into her. “We stopped. No, you stopped. After you. No, after you.” Draculaura and Robecca were having a war of politeness—within the same body. It was just so confusing.

  “No, you go ahead,” said the part of Dracubecca that was Robecca. Her steam boots fired and knocked the Fusion off her feet. She crashed into the others and they all tumbled to the bottom of the stairs.

  “Any help would be fangtastic,” said Dracubecca to Neighthan.

  A door opened in front of them into a small den-like room. It had an oozeball table, a vending machine, and comfortable couches. Torches flickered. Green vines stretched along the walls.

  Bonita, Avia, and Sirena were huddled around a table, playing cards.

  “Hey, Sirena,” said Bonita. “Got any skulls?”

  Sirena was balancing her cards on her head like a hat.

  “Skulls, Sirena!” shrieked Avia, trying to get her attention.

  Sirena jumped and the cards scattered. “Go squish,” she said.

  Avia noticed the new arrivals. “Hey, look, it’s the new combos. You ghouls put on one heckuva show this afternoon.”

  “Frankie and friends,” introduced Neighthan, “I’d like you to meet Avia Trotter—part harpy and part centaur.”

  Avia nodded.

  “Bonita Femur,” said Neighthan. “Skeleton-moth.”

  Bonita chewed on her blouse nervously.

  Finally, Neighthan introduced Sirena. “Mermaid-ghost.”

  “You ghouls gotta check out this bug crawling on the wall,” said Sirena, distracted as usual.

  “We’re all Fusions,” said Neighthan.

  “And what makes you think you’ll be able to help us?” asked Clawveenus. She emitted a haze of pollen and sneezed.

  “Because we’re Fusions and you’re Fusions now, and we all have our freaky flaws to deal with,” explained Neighthan. “Like Bonita. She’s… jumpy. And Sirena. She’s a free spirit.”

  “Go, little guy! Go!” said Sirena to the bug on the wall.

  “And Avia,” continued Neighthan. “Avia—”

  “Interrupts a lot,” interrupted Avia.

  “Right,” said Neighthan. “Anyway, we understand wh
at you’re going through. And we want to help.”

  Cleolei wasn’t so sure. “Fusions being nice? Are you sure we came back to the right timeline?”

  “Listen,” said Avia. “We’re sorry we gave you ghouls the cold shoulder before.”

  Bonita nodded in agreement. “We’ve had so many bad experiences with the monsters at our other schools. We just don’t trust anyone anymore, ya know?”

  “Monster High is different,” Frankie assured her. “We’re all a family, and now you’re part of it.”

  Avia looked uncertain. “We’ll see…”

  Lagoonafire was staring at Neighthan. “You didn’t tell us any of your freaky flaws.”

  He looked uncomfortable. “Who, me? Well, I get some healing powers from my unicorn side. But my zombie side makes me… what would I call it?”

  He walked across the lounge and accidentally put his leg into a small trash can. He tripped, flew forward, waved his arms to steady himself, and crashed into the vending machine. It clinked like a slot machine and snacks began pouring out of it.

  “I’m clumsy,” Neighthan admitted.

  Frankie couldn’t help but smile. He was totes adorbs!

  Sparky was experimenting in a secret laboratory. A coil sparked with electricity. He had created an elaborate device involving the Recharge Chamber, the iCoffin, the laptop, and the teleporter lens all connected by a tangle of wires that led to a giant mound underneath a white sheet.

  Sparky typed a set of instructions into the laptop. He texted on the iCoffin. He laughed maniacally.

  The iCoffin camera flashed and knocked him over. He rubbed his eyes and checked out his accidental photo. “Looking pretty good in this one! Now, where was I? Oh yes!” He cackled.

  What was he up to?

  Frankie was hurrying down the hallway when Mr. Rotter stopped her.

  “I trust you’re making progress on your revised scaritage report for tomorrow?” he said.

  Frankie panicked and recovered. “So, so much progress,” she lied. “It’s scary.”

  Mr. Rotter narrowed his eyes. “You’d better be. Or it’s going to be lights-out for your scaremester average!”