Monster High 4: Back and Deader Than Ever (5 page)

As the spotlight roamed, Melody caught a glimpse of Spectra. The light moved on, and the purple-haired ethereal beauty in a black tank dress disappeared. “What are you doing here?” Melody asked.

“I’ve been coming here for years. The music is awesome.”

Melody nodded her head vigorously and flashed Spectra two geeky thumbs up. Then she held her arms up and cheered as the band played “State of Love and Trust.”

“Where’s your sister?” Billy asked.

“Shane,” Melody called.

“Look who I met!” shouted Candace, dancing toward them in the center of a three-person conga line. “Rudy and Byron.”

“Brian,” said the guy in the front.

“Then stop saying your name is Byron,” Candace said.

“I didn’t!”

Candace jumped out of the line. “I don’t conga with liars.”

For the next thirty minutes, they danced and laughed through the best of the nineties. Melody’s math book beckoned, but each song was better than the last. She couldn’t pull away from the thumping bass notes and the moaning guitar. From the music that had been her friend when no one else was interested.

Onstage, Davina half-swallowed the microphone and swung her ponytail like a revving chopper. She turned her back to the crowd and slapped her Pilates-toned butt.

The song began to build, and Melody sang along. Bouncing up and down as the chorus peaked, she surrendered to the collective energy of the crowd. Chugging Red Bull while getting shot from a cannon probably felt like this.

A sudden longing for Jackson gripped Melody like a zipped leather jacket. She wanted him there. Needed him to know this part of her. Music roused something inside her the way Jackson’s sweat roused D.J. She had witnessed his transformation, and she wanted him to see hers. Life’s special moments didn’t feel real anymore unless they were shared. That was love. But wasn’t love also leaving him alone so he could study for their math test?

Davina was at the front of the stage, leaning toward the audience. “Catch me, you chapped-lipped weaklings!” she shouted. And then—arms splayed, chin up, toes together—she dove. She glided through the air toward her fans with the assurance of a wide-winged seabird. “Incominggggg!”

Bodies scattered like roaches from Raid.

Thump. Awreeeeeeeeeeee.
The fallen microphone shot feedback through the bar as it—and Davina—crash-landed on the sticky floor with an amplified
ooof
.

Audience members searched the club frantically, as if expecting a friend who still hadn’t shown. The band continued to play.

“My shoulder!” cried Davina. “I think I broke something….”

The bouncer appeared and knelt in front of the injured diva. He picked her up like a baby bird and slung her injured wing around his neck.

She kicked him in the shin. “Oww!” she snapped. “That’s the broken one!”

“Ooops.” He winked at the band as he hauled her off. “My rude.”

The girls onstage suppressed their smiles.

“Aren’t they worried about her?” Melody asked.

“They hate Davina,” Spectra explained. “She’s such a snob. She doesn’t even know these songs—they have to bribe her with clothes or she won’t practice.”

“Why didn’t they kick her out?” Melody asked.

“Her father is Danny Corrigan,” Billy explained, tilting her head to face the neon sign above the bar. “As in Corrigan’s. It’s his place. And right now this is the only place they play.”

“I heard that Sage, the guitarist, paid the people in the front row to drop Davina!” Spectra said, with the certainty of someone who could back up her statement with proof, even though she rarely did.

“Anyone know ‘Doll Parts’?” Sage asked, swaying in her combats.

Melody gasped. She’d been singing that song in the shower for, like, forever. She could sing it backward while chewing gum. But there was no way she could get up in front of a crowd like this. What if her asthma kicked in? What if…

“She does!” Candace called, lifting her sister’s hand in the air.

Melody ducked. But Billy wrapped his arms around her knees and lifted her up.

“Her name is Melly!” Candace shouted. A wavy-haired guy with wire-framed glasses and a face full of study-stubble appeared at her side. Candace hugged him like a returning war hero.
Shane?

“She’s coming!” Spectra yelled.

“Melly! Melly! Melly!” chanted Spectra and Billy. Seconds later everyone else joined in.

“Melly! Melly! Melly!”

Melody stiffened. She was going to kill Candace… if she herself didn’t die of embarrassment first.

Candace grabbed Melody by the shoulders. Her green eyes were sincere. Loving, even. “You know what Mom always says? What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?” Melody clenched her fists as if knowing the answer and refusing to let it go. Candace winked. “Fear out!”

With the help of Billy, Spectra, and Shane, Candace pushed her sister forward. Sage extended a calloused hand to pull Melody up onto the stage.

“Nice pj’s.” The guitarist grinned, meaning it. “From the beginning?” she whispered, and then tossed Melody the mike.

Melody swallowed the Dr Pepper–flavored barf rising in her throat. Faces glared up at her. If only one of them had belonged to Jackson. They didn’t have the warm, loving expressions he would have. Instead, they seemed impatient, restless, and ready to revolt. Their skepticism rose over the strumming guitar, dismissing her as an amateur before she even started.

Melody closed her eyes. She could do this. She had done this.
She had always dreamed of doing it again. All she had to do was ignore the talking, shut out their doubtful expressions, step back into the shower, and…

“I am doll eyes…”

Her voice was clean. No wheezing. No phlegm. Just pure and haunting.

Suddenly, Melody was back in Beverly Hills. Angry at the world for dismissing her because of a (massive) nose. Reduced to a body part instead of seen as a whole person. Raging in the shower while her family was out and about, enjoying their beauty.

Sage’s guitar was insistent. Melody gripped the microphone with both hands, embodying the energy of drums, the bass. Her indignation grew, gathering force like a spiraling tornado.

“Yeah, they really want you, they really want you, they really do…”

The music began to slow. The song was winding down. She adjusted her voice accordingly. From anger to vengeance to vulnerability to surrender.

“Someday, you will ache like I ache…”

With a final strum, the song ended. The room was silent. Melody opened her eyes.

Applause popped like a piñata.

She smiled humbly.

“Know any Nirvana?” Sage asked.

Melody nodded.

Count Fabulous swooped down from the top of Lala’s
black canopied coffin bed. Claws extended, he gnashed his tiny yellow teeth and headed straight for—

“Stop! It’s not a real mouse!” She caught her leathery pet before he touched down on her keypad and messed up her document. As she scratched his downy head, a string of bat drool dropped onto her pink silk pajamas.

“Ewwww!” Irish Emmy scampered off the ruffled throw pillows and smashed into the silver handles that lowered the top of Lala’s custom coffin bed. The hardening clay mask on her face fissured.

“Everyone drools in America, Emmy,” Blue joked, polishing a caramel-colored poodle’s toenails. “Look at Teeny Turner.” The aforementioned maltipoo pup, who smacked of the singer when her curls were combed out, was snoring peacefully. Beneath her muzzle a wet spot slowly spread across the black satin chaise.

Irish Emmy looked around at the fidgety rescue pets in stacked wire cages and dog crates lined with yellow-stained newspaper. “I know. It just feels like I’m a chiseler again back on the farm.”

“No need to grizzle, Sheila,” Blue said. “You’re behind the scenes of a ridgy-didgy rescue-animal fashion show. Ain’t nothing farmy about it.”

“Fur real,” Clawdeen added. “I thought you wanted to help us,” she said, referring to her video blog, Where There’s a Wolf, There’s a Way. They were about to film her DIY line of animal accessories, and Irish Emmy had volunteered to work the camera.

“Cheers, I do,” insisted Irish Emmy as she fanned the air with a quesadilla.

Lala wanted to tell her friends to keep it down. Between their endless unintelligible chatter and Blue’s bonzer playlist 7.0, it was impossible to concentrate. But the letter she was writing should have been done by now. What was supposed to take hours had taken days.

“Can’t we open a window?” Clawdeen asked, looking at the assortment of screened and tinted windows near the vaulted ceiling. “Teeny Turner’s paw-dicure will never dry in this humidity.” Her luxurious auburn fur was jeweled with droplets of mist from the frog-shaped humidifier that breathed steam over the terrarium for Kale and Sprout, two turtles with denim pockets glued to their shells.

“Kale has a cough,” Lala said. “The cold air is bad for him.”
And me!

“Well, something’s gotta give,” Irish Emmy said. “The reek is right brutal in here.”

Lala turned away from her computer with a frustrated sigh. “Count Fabulous, open the top, please.”

The bat flew up to the ceiling and began poking his head against the pink-and-black-striped wallpaper. One by one, heart-shaped holes appeared. Beams of moonlight seeped in, and the stale air drained out.

“Cheers!” Irish Emmy clapped. “I’m feelin’ like a critter in a shoe box on show-’n’-tell day.”

“Clawd made them for me after a crow flew in the regular window and snatched Snake Gyllenhaal from his cage,” Lala said.

Irish Emmy pouted as though that was the most adorable thing she’d ever heard.

Someone knocked. Teeny Turner jumped off the bed and ran toward the door. Small beaded braids on her soft woolly ears bounced and clacked.

“Come in,” Lala called.

Uncle Vlad balanced on one foot and used the other to nudge open the door. The dog pounced and scratched at the toe of Vlad’s custom-designed purple-and-red-checked Vans. “Down, Mariah—or whatever your name is…. Make like Michael Jackson and beat it!” Dressed in bright plaid shorts and a turquoise Hollister sweater, he balanced a precarious stack of steaming quesadillas on a gold tray as if he were some kind of circus clown. Soda cans began to wobble. Blue jumped up to take the tray.

“Wow, I haven’t seen so much glitter since my Studio 54 days,” Vlad said, taking in his surroundings.

“Thanks.” Clawdeen smiled proudly.

Vlad strutted toward the computer to the beat of Katy Perry’s “California Gurls.” He leaned over Lala’s shoulder and
tsk
ed at the computer screen.

“I know, I know. But it’s only…” She peered up at the sky and
evaluated the position of the moon. “Seven forty-five.” She glanced at Clawdeen, who confirmed with a nod. “I still have fifteen minutes.”

“C’mon, Sheila, give us a peek,” Blue said, patting Kitson, an orange kitten with a belly chain and magnetic clip-on hoops (engineered for sensitive feline ears).

“Yeah, make like BP oil and spill,” Uncle Vlad said.

Lala spun slowly in her chair, wishing she were alone with the animals, as she usually was. Dozens of moist eyes watched her lovingly, without judgment. Her animals didn’t give a hoot, a bark, or a squeak about college applications or leadership skills. They were grateful just because she cared. They never wanted to leave on business trips or cut phone calls short because they were late for a meeting. They were more humane than most humans.

“Hurry up,” Clawdeen urged, anxious to start filming her video blog.

Lala took a deep breath. If she had a beating heart, it would be racing. Where to begin? She considered taking them back to the phone call she had with her dad, and her online search for an extracurricular activity, but her deadline was approaching, so she went for the bottom-line version. “Brigitte T’eau Shoes and Dally Sports Apparel have merged—”

“Pause!” Vlad lifted his palm like a crossing guard. “It’s not pronounced
Two
; it’s pronounced
Toe
.” He took off his tortoiseshell glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose like someone who couldn’t take it anymore. “If that mademoiselle heard you butcher her last name like pâté, you would be dead meat.”

The girls giggled.

“Sorry,” Lala said. “So… the French designer Brigitte
Toe
and Dally Sports Apparel merged to create a shoe that brings together fashion and function. It’s called the T’eau Dally.”

Uncle Vlad clapped. “
J’adore!
What’s next? Jimmy Choo and Reebok? They could call it ChooBok-a.”

Everyone laughed but Lala. She was too stressed for jokes. “Anyway, they’re holding a contest to find a school that brings together different kinds of people, the way they did with their shoes. And Merston would be perfect.”

Emmy cracked open an icy soda. “What’s the prize?”

“The winner becomes the first sponsored school in America.” Lala spun faster in her chair. “And gets a million dollars to upgrade.”

“More pools!” (Blue.)

“A grooming kiosk!” (Clawdeen.)

“Bang-on cafeteria food that doesn’t taste like donkey arse!” (Irish Emmy.)