Authors: Gitty Daneshvari

The Final Exam (31 page)

BOOK: The Final Exam

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“Monster High employs vaccinated bats as in-house exterminators to eat rogue insects and spiders. With certain members of the student body bringing live insects for lunch, we consider the bats highly regarded members of the janitorial staff. If you have a problem with them, I suggest you take it up with the headmistress. But I highly suggest confirming her head is probably attached before doing so,” Miss Sue Nami grumbled as she rammed into an open door and, shortly thereafter, a slow-moving zombie.

The stunned zombie teetered sluggishly back and forth before collapsing to the ground, eliciting sympathetic whimpers from both Rochelle and
Roux. Miss Sue Nami, however stomped full speed ahead, totally oblivious to the effects of her reckless marching.

“I do not wish to tell you how to contact your business, madame. But I must ask—are you aware that you have knocked quite a few monsters to the ground in the short time we have been walking?” Rochelle asked as tactfully as possible.

"That is known as collateral damage in the school-discipline business. Now stop dawdling and pick up the pace; I’m on a schedule here!” Miss Sue Nami barked. “And if you are capable of both walking and listening, you will enjoy a brief tour along the way. If not, then I am merely reminding myself where everything is! On your immediate right, we have the Absolutely Deranged Scientist Laboratory, which is not to be confused with the Mad and Deranged Scientist Laboratory, currently under construction in the catacombs.”

“Isn’t that going to be unnecessarily confusing?” Rochelle wondered aloud as she glanced into the room filled with Bunsen burners, vials of colorful liquids, plastic safely goggles, white lab coats, and countless peculiar-looking apparatuses.

“I have decided to disregard your question, as I do not deem it relevant. I will now continue with my tour. The laboratory is currently being used for Mad Science class, in which students produce a wide variety of things, such as lotion for the scaly-skinned, antifungal drops for the pumpkin head, fur-calming serum for the hairy, organic oil for the robotically inclined, industrial-strength mouthwash for the sea monsters, and much more,” Miss Sue Nami explained before stopping to shake her body like a dog after a bath, spraying everyone in a three-foot radius with water. Fortunately, as gargoyles are built to deflect water, both Rochelle and her dress spared.

“I love water, and even I think that was super gross,” a scaly-skinned sea creature dressed in flip-flops and well-tailored fluorescent-pink board shorts muttered while she wiped her face with a fishnet scarf.

“Well, at least you don’t have a fur ’fro now,” a stylishly clad werewolf moaned, touching her long and luscious mane of now wet auburn hair.

“Lagoona Blue, Clawdeen Wolf, do not waste your lives standing around in the hallway complaining. Go and complain in private, like the smart, ambitious monsters you are.”

“
Bonjour
,” Rochelle mumbled quietly, offering a painfully awkward smile to Lagoona and Clawdeen.

“A Scaremès scarf as a belt? That’s straight out of
Morgue Magazine
! Totally creeperific,” Clawdeen complimented her, clearly impresses by Rochelle’s chic style.

“
Merci boo-coup
,” the gargoyle called out as she jetted after the fast-moving Miss Sue Nami.

“Next we have the bell tower, just behind which you will find the courtyard and the Creepateria respectively. To your immediate left you have the gym, the Casketball Court, Study Howl, and finally the Creepchen, where Home Ick is taught,” Miss Sue Nami said rapidly while storming through the cavernous purple-and-green halls.

After banging into a row of pink coffin-shaped lockers, the puddle-prone women turned down and adjoining corridor and quickly resumed her tour guide duties.

“Here we have the graveyard, where you can fulfill your Physical Deaducation requirement with Graveyard Dancing, but of course you can also do that by joining the Skulltimate Roller Maze team, which practices next door in the maze. Next we have the dungeon, where detention is
held, and finally the Libury, where both Ghoulish Literature and Monstory: The History of Monsters are taught.”

“Would it be possible to get a map?” Rochelle inquired politely with Roux perched sweetly on her shoulder. “While I have a most remarkable brain for remembering things, I’m all rocks and pebbles when it comes to directions.”

“Maps are for people who are afraid to get lost, or lost people who are afraid to get found, neither of which applies to you. Plus, for the time being all you really need to know is where the Vampitheater is, foe the start-of-the-team assembly.”

“But I don’t know where the Vampitheater is.”

“The I suggest you find out”

“Might you tell me?”

“Absolutely not. We have a schedule to follow, and the Vampitheater is not on the schedule. Now, pick up the pace,” Miss Sue Nami yammered as
she opened a coffin-shaped door into an adjoining wing of the school.

After walking down a large and somewhat empty corridor, Miss Sue Nami and Rochelle came upon a worn and weathered pink spiral staircase.

“
Pardonnez-moi
, madame, but this staircase does not look very sturdy-or up to date with general safety requirements. Paragraph 1.7 of the Gargoyle Code of Ethics clearly states that I must warm others of danger, so I am warning you now: This staircase is a menace!”

“Stop worrying. You sound like a soggy sock!” Miss Sue Nami barked, quickly quieting Rochelle.

While lugging her Louis Creton suitcase up the rose-colored staircase, which groaned mercilessly under her weight, Rochelle felt yet another pang of homesickness. She suddenly missed everything about home, from the Gothic arches of her favorite cathedral to the smooth yet surly manner
in which Scarisians spoke. But perhaps most of all-especially while carting her heavy bag-she missed her boyfriend, Garrott DuRoque. He was as handsome as he was romantic. And while they had never sat next to each other on a bench for fear of its collapsing, they shared a great deal more, including a rosebush he had created in her honor.

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Contents

A PREVIEW OF
MONSTER HIGH GHOULFRIENDS FOREVER

NEWSLETTERS

Copyright

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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Second e-book edition: September 2012

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ISBN 978-0-316-19087-9

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