CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MONSTER HIGH

Melody and Jackson had been enjoying a post-dance cooldown in an unpopulated corner of the gym when the incident occurred. A swell of screams from the dance floor didn’t distract her from Jackson’s hilarious stories about their freaky neighbors, or the way he’d punctuate each one with a soft kiss. It wasn’t until Bekka started screaming “Monster!” that Melody decided to investigate.

“What’s going on?” she asked a passing bat.

“They were making out, and this girl’s head fell off!” he yelled as he dashed toward the exit.

Jackson scratched his head. “Did he really just say that?”

Melody giggled at the insanity of it all. “It’s probably just some special-effects trick put on by Weeks.”

“I hope so.” Jackson bit a fingernail.

“Are you scared?” Melody teased.

“A little,” he admitted, checking over his shoulder. “But not of the girl.”

Most of the students and teachers were standing on the tabletops, jabbing chairs into the air and grunting. Those brave enough to fight at ground level ripped at each other’s costumes, hoping to uncover any remaining perpetrators.

“MONSTER!” Bekka screamed. “MONSTER! MONSTER! MONSTER!”

The closer she got to Bekka’s screams, the more Melody overheard. It turned out the boy in this tragedy was Brett, and the headless girl wasn’t Bekka.

Tracking the chaos, Jackson’s crackling hazel eyes moistened with panic. “Melody, I really should get out of here,” he insisted, holding the mini-fan to his face. A student running for the door knocked the fan to the floor, and it skidded across the gym. Jackson tugged Melody’s arm harder.

“I can’t just leave Bekka,” she said, leading him through the chaos toward her horror-stricken friend.

“Why? She’s not in danger,” he snapped.

“Brett just cheated on her!”

“Monster!” A spastic ghost slammed into Jackson, then took off.

Four armed police officers burst into the gym, followed by a team of paramedics with a stretcher.

“Lock up your boyfriends! They’re infiltrating. They’re trying to mate with our species!” Bekka shouted, kneeling beside Brett’s fallen body. She plucked a black thread off his finger and examined it closely.

“Come on!” Melody gave Jackson a final tug toward the dance floor.

Bekka stood up, her cheeks stained with tears, her hair cone at half-mast. “There you are! Did you see what happened? It was awful,” she said, sobbing.

Melody wasn’t sure if Bekka was referring to the beheading or the cheating, but she agreed, either way, that it was awful.

Haylee and Heath were giving their accounts to one of the officers while a paramedic waved smelling salts under Brett’s nose.

He came to with a start.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!” he began to scream.

“He’s in pain!” Bekka called. “Help him!”

They quickly gave him a shot of something that relaxed him into a blubbering baby.

“Are you okay?” Bekka knelt at his side. “You thought that girl was me, didn’t you?”

Brett circled his limp wrist and then giggled.

“Brett! You thought it was me, right?”

He looked at her, then burst out laughing. “What happened to your hair?”

Bekka ignored his question in favor of her own. “She wasn’t wearing mango lip gloss! Didn’t that tip you off?”

“Hey, Bekka wearsmangolipgloss,” he slurred. “D’you know Bek-ka? She’smygurrrrrrrrrl.”

“I knew it, Officer,” Bekka said.

“Actually, it’s Sergeant Garrett.”

“That wasn’t a kiss, Sergeant Garrett. It was a brain suck. That’s what they do! They lure guys in and then drain their brains. You have to find her. You have to stop her!” She handed him the tiny thread. “Send this to forensics. It’s our only lead.”

“I have my best officers going door-to-door right now,” he assured her, dropping the thread into a plastic baggie. “If there are any more nonhumans in this town, I’ll find them. Just like my grandfather did back in his day.”

Jackson tugged Melody’s sleeve. “I should really go.”

The paramedics lifted Brett onto the stretcher.

“Where are you taking him?” Bekka asked.

“Salem Hospital.”

“I’m going with you,” Bekka insisted.

“Are you family?” asked one of the paramedics.

“I’m his bride.”

Jackson peeled off his sweater. His pillow hump fell to the floor. “It’s getting sweaty in here! We should probably go.”

“Melly,” Bekka called, scooting to catch up to the stretcher. “Haylee’s going to stick around and interview the witnesses. You head out and try and find that… thing. I’ll check in from the hospital.”

“You want me to find it?” Melody asked incredulously. “You don’t actually think there’s a real thing out there, do you? It was a trick.”

“That was no trick,” Bekka warned. “Once you find the monster, turn the information over to me, and I’ll take care of it.” She waved. “Be careful!”

“How am I supposed to find an imaginary monster?” Melody asked Jackson.

“I don’t know, but I need to get outside.” He pulled her arm.

“Melody, where are you going?” Haylee marched over and set down her basket of bugs.

Jackson tugged Melody’s arm.

“I’m just going to get some air,” she explained.

“There’s no time!” Haylee snapped. “You need to seize the beast!” She smacked her own head. “Crap! Of all the times to leave my camera in Mr. Madden’s car. I could have taken her picture so we could make posters.” She turned around and urged the few remaining students to hand over their cameras—at least she could document the scene of the crime.

For such a petite girl, Haylee was quite a force.

“Melody, come on!” Jackson tugged her arm again. “If they find out what I am, they’ll come after me.”

“Why would they come after you? You’re not a…” She paused, realizing she had no idea what he was. Did descending from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde really make him a monster?

Haylee stomped back over to them. “Get moving! Melody, you have to come through for Bekka. She would do it for you. Friends first, remember?”

Suddenly Melody felt like a Ping-Pong ball. Getting whacked from one side to the other with very little say in the matter. She wanted to be there for Jackson and for Bekka. But choosing one meant disappointing the other.

“I know, but—”

“Melody, let’s go!” Jackson tugged, his forehead drenched in sweat.

“One second!”

“Do the right thing,” Haylee advised before hurrying off to conduct her investigation.

“Come on!” Jackson demanded through clenched teeth.

Melody sighed. Confusion was swirling all around her. And now it was inside her too. The hand of regret smacked her across the face. Why had she left Beverly Hills? Why had she fixed her downward-facing camel nose? If she had still been Smellody, no one would be fighting for her. And she wouldn’t be in this impossible situation.

Standing in the middle of an almost-empty gym, surrounded by torn costumes, smashed hors d’oeuvres, scattered chairs, and tables marred by boot prints, Melody froze like an overloaded hard drive.

Jackson released Melody’s hand.

She turned to him but couldn’t speak.

His glasses were off, and disappointment filled his eyes. “You again?” He untucked the white undershirt from his jeans. “Why do you keep popping up? No offense, but you’re sooooo serious.”

D.J. was back.

“Where’s my Firecracker?” he shouted. “Fire-crackerrrr, where are youuuuu?”

He lifted his palm to high-five Melody. “No offense, right? It’s just that there’s no music in this place, and I need something more… lively.”

“I understand.” Melody high-fived him back and then waved good-bye. Instead of running after him, trying to protect him, or finding him a safe ride home, she watched him go. She let him go.

Melody took a puff of her inhaler and then charged through the fog by the school doors. She had no idea how she was getting home. No idea who to save first. Best friend or boyfriend? Wasn’t that the eternal question?

Outside, squad cars flashed their lights while police officers urged kids to get home quickly and safely. The wind blew in strong, short gusts, like an asthmatic trying to deliver an urgent message. It rattled the red party cups that littered the emptying parking lot, creating the ideal score for a campy monster hunt—something Melody would have appreciated had she not felt like the biggest monster of them all.

“Need a ride?”

Melody turned to find Candace emerging from the fog-filled doorway. Dressed in a black lace minidress, black glitter wings, and a head full of black roses, she descended the steps with the grace of a Radio City Rockette.

The draining feeling of adrenaline going back to wherever it came from slackened Melody’s entire body. Her limbs loosened, her heartbeat slowed, and her breathing stabilized. Her Scary Fairy godmother had arrived. “What are you still doing here?”

“I couldn’t leave a scene like that without knowing you were okay,” Candace said, like it should have been obvious. “Besides, that was the most fun I’ve had since we moved here. Much more wild than any Beverly Hills High dance, that’s for sure.”

Melody tried to laugh. “Let’s just go.”

“Look.” Candace pointed at the white announcement board in front of the school. Someone had changed the black letters around, so instead of MERSTON HIGH, it now read MONSTER HIGH.

“Ha!” Melody said, without laughing.

On the short drive back to Radcliffe Way, Melody counted seven police cars whooshing by. The silent car stereo created a hush that was louder than any siren. Candace was the type to blast music even when her father asked her to move the car from the driveway to the road. She was doing what Glory did: smoking Melody out of her cave with silence, counting on the fact that the noise in her brain would become so deafening that she’d need to spill some of it out. And where better than the tranquil space they were inhabiting? It was an empty bowl just waiting to be filled.

By the time they got to the top of their street, Melody started leaking. “Question.”

“Yes,” Candace expectantly, eyes fixed on the dark street ahead.

“Have you ever had to choose sides between a friend and a boyfriend?”

Candace nodded.

“Which side are you supposed to pick?”

“The right one.”

“What if they’re both right?”

“They’re not.”

“But they are,” Melody insisted. “That’s the problem.”

“No.” Candace rolled slowly past a police cruiser. “They both think they’re right. But who do you think is right? Which side represents the thing you think is worth fighting for?”

Melody glanced out her window as though she was expecting the answer to be revealed on a neighbor’s lawn. Every house except hers had its lights off. “I dunno.”

“You do,” Candace insisted. “You just don’t have the courage to be honest with yourself. Because then you’d have to do the thing you don’t want to do, and you hate doing anything that’s hard. Which is why you gave up singing and why you have no life and why you’ve always been a—”

“Um, okay! Can we get back to the part where you were sounding like Oprah?”

“I’m just saying, Melly, what would you do if you weren’t afraid? That’s your answer. That’s your side.” She turned into the circular driveway and put the BMW SUV in PARK. “And if you don’t choose it, you’re lying to yourself and everyone around you.” She opened the door and grabbed her purse. “Oprah out!”

The door slammed behind her.

Melody sat back, enjoying the last bit of heat before the car cooled. She forced herself to see both sides. Not from Bekka’s or Jackson’s perspective, but from her own. Loyalty versus acceptance. With every second that passed, a little more warmth left the car.

By the time Melody had reached her final decision, she was cold.