Monster High 4: Back and Deader Than Ever Read online

  “Our camp interviews are at five.”

  Melody tucked a dandelion behind Jackson’s ear. “That gives us an hour and a half. We’ll be fine.”

  He looked down at the grass. Melody squeezed his hand, using all of her willpower not to use her voice on him. Because how easy would that be? Jackson, listen up. You’re going to support me on all things music-related. And you’re gonna love it.

  To which he would reply, Yes, Melly. Whatever you say, Melly. Can I carry you onstage, Melly?

  To which she would reply, Blech!

  Because honestly, if she wanted a robo-boyfriend, Mr. Stein could probably stitch one up for her by Monday. She needed to know that Jackson’s support came of his own free will. Without that, she’d never know if—

  “I’m in!”

  “Perfect!” Melody jammed her phone into the back pocket of her cutoff jean shorts and grabbed her canvas purse. “Come on. I have to start practicing!”

  Jackson tossed the remaining plastic containers into the basket and hooked his backpack over his shoulder.

  “I guess the picnic’s over.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  T’EAU-DALLY DISSED

  Clawd speared a piece of teriyaki tofurkey, reached across the teak table, and fed a bite to Lala.

  “Mmmmm…” She licked her lips, savoring the flavor of salty meat substitute. “Now you,” she said, feeding a bite to Clawd.

  He chewed. “Rabid good! So much better than the real thing.”

  The undulating sea rocked their yacht like a newborn’s cradle. Mr. D popped the cork on a bottle of Martinelli’s as Lala leaned back in her deck chair, offering herself to the sun. Her black-and-silver bikini was still damp from their swim with the dolphins. Clawd knelt before her, holding a robin’s-egg blue box and wearing a loving grin. Her father stood above them with a camera. Mr. D took off his Carrera sunglasses, allowing a tear of joy to roll freely down his cheek. It was the first time Lala had ever seen him hold a camera, let alone cry with joy. Just as Lala was about to open the blue box, the wind picked up. Clouds rolled in and covered the sun. The sails creaked in protest as the gentle rocking became more of an impatient shake….

  “… I said, time for uppies. You’re late.” Uncle Vlad’s blue-and-white-checked shirt was covered by a navy apron.

  Lala sat up and pulled off her black satin sleep mask. “Huh?” The menagerie of stray animals jumped down to the rug.

  Vlad was hunched over her coffin-canopy bed, shaking the frame.

  She rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock by her bed. It was blinking 12:00. “What happened?” she groaned as her balding mouse, Smoked Buddha, darted under the bed before she let the bat in. “What time is it? Why didn’t my alarm go off?”

  “Your father’s tanning bed blew a fuse. Again. All the power went out. Again.”

  It was hard to believe he would greet her at the breakfast table like a normal father. Hard to believe he had slept in his coffin last night. Hard to believe they would be looking at each other in the flesh and not in high-def. Unless… What if I dreamed him too?

  “Vite, vite!” Vlad opened the heart-shaped windows and let Count Fabulous in. The bat, dressed in miniature flight goggles and pink glitter-specked faux-fur wing covers, flapped to his perch and assumed his upside-down position. Lala removed his night gear, slipped a tiny satin sleep mask over his eyes, kissed him good day, and then flopped back down. “Ugh! I was having the best dream.”

  “Well, now you can have the best time getting dressed. Make like DWTS and get a move on,” he said on his way out the door.

  Lala kicked off her pink-and-black satin duvet. Her father had been home for four days, and her pets were still acting as if he were going to eat them for lunch. The day before, she had to carry Teeny Turner down the stairs and force her outside. Apparently the pooch preferred to wee on the carpet rather than risk running into Mr. D… as if he’d actually suck the blood of a stray. If only they knew who they were dealing with. “Your father feeds on only the finest breeds,” he loved to say.

  He also loved to pressure her about the future, but so far he hadn’t said a word. What if the strays were right? Maybe he had finally lowered his standards. Maybe he was ready to act like a bat and just hang.

  Lala wiggled into a red cashmere pullover, black leggings, and knee-high boots. All the other girls were wearing tank tops and summer dresses, but when she’d tried a plum cotton cardigan, she’d spent the entire day shivering. She brushed her fangs and applied a quick spray of lily-of-the-valley perfume. A swipe of clear lip gloss and a coat of mascara, and this vamp was ready for an old-fashioned family breakfast.

  Pungent beef smells filled the lower level of the house and were now making their way upstairs. Still, nose to perfumed wrist, Lala managed to push through. Probably some weird blood sausage or kidney pie thing her dad had imported from Europe. The thought made her empty stomach churn. Still, dry heaves were a small price to pay for having him back in her life.

  “Morning, Daddy!” Lala called, entering the black-and-white kitchen. Uncle Vlad insisted on a checkerboard floor and bright marble countertops to avoid chopping his fingers off—an inevitability if he were forced to slice and dice in the dark. Mr. D eventually gave in. When it came to cuisine, Vlad called the shots. A reasonable compromise for gourmet, her father said. Lala plugged her nose. How much for a giant fan to suck out the meat smell?

  “I don’t want excuses; I want results,” her father said, rising from the leather office chair he had obviously relocated to the breakfast table. He always looked like a Hugo Boss model: dark, gelled, and dressed in a fitted suit at places to which others wore sweats. “If he can’t raise the funds by Monday, I’m going to—” He glanced at Lala and then switched to Romanian.

  “Hi, Daddy,” Lala tried again. As she reached for his cold hand, he held up a finger and continued his high-decibel conversation while beating the keys of his laptop. Embarrassed, she grinned at Musclavada, the dark-suited bodyguard standing nearby. Muscles (as Lala and Vlad secretly called him) nodded in reply.

  “What’s going on?” she asked Vlad, who was seated at the table. The Belgian waffles were covered with documents. The muffin basket had been shoved aside to make room for a portable fax machine. And three international cell phones rested on Lala’s empty plate.

  “Whatever could you mean?” asked her uncle in mock shock, obviously annoyed. “We always toss office equipment onto our breakfast.” He scraped almond butter onto Lala’s cinnamon raisin bagel as if trying to spark a flame.

  “Not so hard, it’s gonna—” Just then the bagel slipped from his angry grip and landed facedown on a black marble square.

  “Looks like you’re Os,” Lala joked, trying to lighten the mood. “My turn.” She made an X out of two tofu sausages and placed them on a white floor tile.

  Vlad threw his hands in the air. “Fabulous! Just fabulous!”

  The Count, thinking he had been summoned for a meal, swooped in, scooped up the bagel, and flew back upstairs. Vlad knocked his head against the juicer while Lala tried her hardest not to laugh.

  “It’s okay,” she said, reaching past her uncle for her white mug. “A soy latte is all I wanted, anyway.”

  “I hope you like it cold,” Vlad mumbled from the side of his mouth. “Thanks to my brother—the tan-pire—there is a state-of-the-art tanning bed in my meditation room, and it blew half the fuses in this house.” He handed Lala a twenty-dollar bill. “Hit the drive-through Starbucks.”

  Lala tucked the money in the side of her boot as her father paced the kitchen, his guttural Romanian becoming louder and angrier. “Isn’t this great?”

  Vlad pressed a finger on his twitching eyelid. “What?”

  “We’re like a real family.”

  “Gresit!” Mr. D charged out of the kitchen. His voice boomed down the hallway toward the foyer. Muscles slipped out behind him.

  Vlad rolled his eyes. “Would it kill them to clear their plates?” Pushing the
laptop to the far end of the table, he jabbed at the power button on the remote, muted the flat screen, and then pulled the plastic off a brand-new issue of Architectural Digest. He flipped through the first few pages of furniture ads and then looked up. “The tanning bed. The moisturizers. The staff. The luggage. The heat lamps… He hung a satin robe over the Whitmore!”

  Lala gasped. She knew what that mirror meant to him. According to the book he’d written—Fang Shui: Decorating Tips for Vampires in Need of Positive Qi—the mirror was located where the heart corner and the wealth corner merged. Meaning it was supposed to help Uncle Vlad attract a wealthy lover. Unless it was covered. Which meant he would die poor and alone.

  “He’s probably not going to stay very long, anyway. He never does,” Lala offered. The realization brought a hopeful grin to Vlad’s face. And turned Lala’s blood to stone. Would she ever be good enough to stay put for?

  “I’d better go,” she said, desperate to hit Starbucks before first period.

  A chirping sound came from her microfiber bag. Lala and Vlad exchanged a glance. “Probably someone needing a ride.” She shrugged.

  Blocked.

  Vlad sighed and then returned to his magazine.

  She blew a good-bye kiss to Vlad and answered her phone. “Hullo?”

  “Ahhhh. Oui. Ehhh, Lala?” It was a heavily accented female voice. Probably another one of her father’s foreign girlfriends trying to get in good with the daughter, a story older than she was.

  Lala pushed through the saloon doors. “Um-hmm?” Whoever it was would have to talk to her on her way to school.

  “Je m’appelle Brigitte T’eau from—”

  “And Dickie Dally here. Dally Sports Apparel.”

  Clawd? Lala stopped, wondering who could be punking her. He doesn’t even know about the T’eau Dally—

  The woman with the accent cut back in.

  “Votre e-mail était rempli de passion et—”

  “A real home run, Slugger. You’re one of our three T’eau Dally finalists. Well, really, you’re our favorite, but we’re not allowed to say that or the suits will get pissed. Ha!” he boomed, and then cough-cleared his throat. “I’m thinkin’ Frenchie and I will swing by and see you first…. Let’s see… maybe… Thursday the twenty-third? Hey, B, is Thursday bueno for vous?”

  “Mais oui,” answered the woman, her silken cashmere voice a welcome change from his rough poly blend. “Please, uh, Dickie, call me Brigitte.”

  “Super! Okay, huddle up. Here’s the game plan: We’ll scope out the school, make sure it’s not haunted—ha!—and acquaint ourselves with the freaks that are gonna rep our new shoe. The sicker the better. Ugly’ll work too. Ha! Blame that Jersey Shore show—gritty’s the new glossy.” He coughed and then spit. “I mean, who ever would have thought that Dickie Dally would merge with some uptight European broad? Ha!”

  Okay, Clawd would never say “broad.” One time he called her “babe” in front of his football buddies, and she popped his pigskin with her fangs. This was dead real! Lala felt floaty and heavy at the same time, like an anchor being pulled through choppy waters. She waved frantically, trying to get Uncle Vlad’s attention.

  He tossed his magazine. What? he mouthed. “Tell me! Who is it?”

  Lala waved again, this time urging him to be quiet. But that only made him mouth what? even more.

  “Lala?” She heard a different male voice on the line.

  “Uh, yes?”

  “I’m Red, Mr. Dally’s assistant. He had to jump onto another call. And it seems as though we’ve lost Ms. T’eau to a bad connection. Anyhoo, congratulations on being a finalist!” He sounded Midwestern, like Dickie, but in a less coarse, more cottony way.

  A giant smile spread across Lala’s face. “Thanks.” She giggled shyly. And then to Vlad she mouthed, T’eau Dally!

  He began jumping up and down, his hands clasped together in thanksgiving. “My fang shui worked! It worked! I moved the laptop into your success corner, and it worked.”

  “Shhhhhhh,” Lala hissed, still smiling.

  “Okay, now jot this down,” said Red.

  Lala grabbed her deep purple lip liner and rolled up her sleeve. “Ready…”

  1 of 3 finalists… Thurs @ 12ish… I must pik couple 2 present to DD and BT… if win will get national ad camp… If we win, renamed toe-dally high… 1 mill bucks

  “Got it. Okay. Thanks. See you Thursday.” Lala disconnected the call and tossed her phone onto the cracked-leather ottoman. “I’m a finalist! They like me the best! I did it!”

  She shouted loud enough for her father to hear. But the only one who rushed to her side was Uncle Vlad. He pulled her into a sandalwood-scented hug and took her with him on his invisible trampoline. She couldn’t wait to tell her father. If winning a contest and getting a million-dollar donation for her school didn’t prove her worthy of a future, nothing would.

  “Me and Clawd are going to represent the T’eau Dally merger in a national ad campaign!” she announced while jumping.

  “Eeeeeee!” squealed Uncle Vlad.

  “I know!” she squealed back, delighting in the perfection of it all.

  A werewolf and a vampire. Did it get more merge-y than that? They were T’eau-Dal opposites. Furry and freezing. Meaty and lean. Pack man and lone girl. She imagined the shoot…. A limousine pulls up to a studio in midtown Manhattan. The driver jumps out to open the door. Her pale, stockinged leg emerges. Lala steps out wearing a violet wrap and Harry Winston diamonds. Mr. D is waiting on the sidewalk as a sunglassed and mohawked Clawd emerges. In the studio, makeup artists decide their job is pointless—Lala’s so beautiful already. Stylists agree that her own clothes are better than anything they could have pulled. Mr. D turns off his phone and unclips his earpiece, not wanting to miss a second of this experience. He sips Perrier as he watches his daughter, in awe of her fabulousness. Lala and Clawd pose against a soft gray backdrop. The camera clicks. They’re naturals. They take five to look at the proofs… but only Clawd is there….

  Lala stopped jumping. Vampires don’t show up in photographs—hence the blank box above Lala’s name every year in the Merston High yearbook and the Where were you on photo day? caption below it. Oh, well. Her father wouldn’t let a simple thing like that get in the way, and so neither would she. She’d just have to find someone else.

  Muscles entered the drawing room, followed by Mr. D, who shouted a final few Romanian words into the cell phone before jabbing his finger at it to end the call.

  “Dad! You’re never going to believe who just called!” she chirped the instant he hung up.

  He began texting. “Hmmm?”

  She blocked his path. “Guess!”

  He stopped just before crashing into her and finally met her dark eyes. Lala raised her eyebrows and flashed him a full-fanged smile.

  “Draculaura, I don’t have time for games. What is it?”

  Lala’s smile faded. But only for a second. He was going to be so proud…. “I won this contest, for Merston, and—”

  His BlackBerry beeped. “I have a call. Later, okay?”

  Uncle Vlad gasped.

  “But—”

  Mr. D glared at Muscles, who stepped forward and lifted Lala out of the way. The duo then hurried by and entered the kitchen.

  Lala rolled down her sleeve and slid on her sunglasses. There was no fanging way she’d let her dad see her cry.

  Ping.

  TO: Lala

  June 8, 8:11 AM

  FRANKIE: WHERE R U? WE R LATE!

  Lala kissed Uncle Vlad on the cheek, grabbed her car keys, and let the door slam shut behind her. She’d rather tell Frankie the good news, anyway. She might spark. But she’d never bite.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ON YOUR MARKS… GET SET… T’EAU!

  Frankie’s outfit was no accident. One look at her yellow tennis skirt and white warm-up jacket, and the Balance Board members would assume she had a match after school. And, in the name of consideration, might hurry
things along (unlike the board’s first meeting, which had lasted two hours and nine minutes). But so far, not so good. Frankie had been in the school’s chemical-scented bio lab—like I don’t smell that enough at home!—for fifteen minutes, and the meeting hadn’t even started. So much for subliminal dressing. The only one who noticed her outfit was Ghoulia, and that’s because Frankie had left the price tags on.

  “Order! I bring this meeting to order!” called Haylee Barron-Mendelwitz, slamming a gold-plated gavel (a gift to her father from his law firm).

  Frankie was one minute closer to freedom. All she had to do was announce Lala’s great news and then—

  “Before we get down to business,” said Haylee, reaching behind her floral jumper and pulling out a plastic container, “let’s make sure our blood sugar is up. Some homemade flaxseed-and-cranberry-oat bars?” Haylee began handing out the brown blocky things with the urgency of a Red Cross volunteer.

  Ever since Bekka (Haylee’s former social overlord/Brett’s vengeful ex-girlfriend) transferred to Whitmore High, Haylee had come out of her shell like a molting crab. No longer forced to live in the shadows, she sought the spotlight. But not the fun kind that comes with wardrobe stylists and hair and makeup teams. More like the bossy spotlight, which tended to be fluorescent and not very flattering.

  Heath Burns, her fire-burping boyfriend, took two bars and then passed the plate to Jackson, who passed it to Brett, who passed it to Frankie. Frankie took the smallest bar, just to be polite, and handed it to Ghoulia. The zombie eyed the selection. “Mmmmmmm…” she moaned, but didn’t take one. She was clearly too smart to bite.

  “I’d like to make an announcement,” Frankie said.

  “Not before we recap.” Haylee popped open her green faux-crocodile case and pulled out a legal pad. “First item on the agenda…” She glanced at Heath over her beige glasses. He stood and faced the room. The sleeves on his blue-and-white plaid button-down were too short. His pale wrist bones stuck out like bolts.

  “Uh… number one: We agreed that Haylee is chair—”

  Frankie giggled. How can she be a chair?