The Looking Glass Book Store

[Doriana Taylor]

Doriana blinked. She stared at the Harpie on the other side, and the more she thought about it the more it angered her. Throwing her note pad on the floor, she walked up to Hellene.

"... Hexcuse me?" She asked, crossing her arms. She wasn't a sassy type of ghoul, but this started to anger her.

"Look. I'm sorry. I made a promise that I probably couldn't have taken out, but you know what, at least I'm TRYING. And Draconia is as well. And guess what! You're not. I'm sorry that I was trying to actually HELP my friend for once, but..."

She sighed and looked back over at Marceline. "I always keep my promises." Turning back to Hellene, she raised her eyebrows. "I do not think you'll ever understand, but it needs to happen. And no ghoul is going to change my mind."

She turned and encircled the whole crowd of ghouls around her, staring with astonishment. "I honestly don't think this is considered work. And no," she glanced back at Hellene, "we aren't making an entire gown. I dug through some trunks and found out that I started that same dress awhile back. All we have to do is finish it."

"Now, if we continue just standing around, it will take all night."  

[Hellene Harpie]

Hellene bristled.

"This was your doing?! It's all well and good that you want to keep your promises, but you didn't make a promise for you, you made a promise for everyone else! You didn't even ask!"

Hellene flew directly in front of Doriana, nearly nose to nose but still hovering away from the tables of needles and stacks of tissue paper.

"Did you ever think to ask? Did you ever think maybe I'd want to help if I had even the slightest idea what was going on!? Why did you make this promise? What is this promise? And to who did you make it?! All I know is that I planned a relaxing creepover with my beastest ghoulfriend in the whole world and when I showed up the room was nothing but...but...sewing machines and scissors and do you have ANY idea how hard I worked to make this creepover happen?!"

Hot tears started rolling down Hellene's cheeks and she couldn't keep her voice from cracking as she spoke.

"You're not even sorry that you took over the creepover! You're fake sorry that I don't want to spend a night doing a thing that I don't enjoy at my own creepover just because you say you made a promise! You are the most selfish ghoul I have ever met!"

And with that Hellene zoomed off wildly between the bookshelves and locked herself in the Looking Glass bathroom, sobbing to herself as the ruins of her carefully planned creepover lay in shreds around her like so many scraps of fabric.  

[Doriana Taylor]

She opened her mouth to speak, and to quite frankly answer all of Hellene's angered questions, but Hellene was long gone before she could answer. Doriana stood there in shock, staring at the door of the bathroom...

"I... I... I..."

She felt a cold paw on her shoulder, and turned to see Merabell Ice. They gave each other a small nod, as she turned to the rest of them.

"I'm-I'm sorry..." her voice broke. This was supposed to be the beast creepover that everyone would be talking about... But now it wouldn't be. She sighed. "Let's take it all down."  

[Draconia St George]

"Er, perhaps if we could sit down and discuss-" Draconia began, before being drowned out.

"Or maybe we could all enjoy some snacks first and divide into gr-" She tried to get out, before the sounds of two ghouls shouting at each other cut her off.

"Or perhaps we could point claws and shout at each other and lock ourselves in the bathroom, that seems perfectly reasonable." Draconia muttered to herself as things hescalated far beyond what she'd ever intended. Draconia pinched the bridge of her nose and let out a long sigh. This was becoming a bit of a mess.

"Doriana, do NOT touch a bleedin' thing, do you understand? We are going to have an AMICABLE resolution to this." Steam was starting to come out of Draconia's nose. "Absolutely amicable. Please do hexcuse me."

Draconia went over to the bathroom and knocked politely.

"Hellene? May I come in? We really do have rather a lot to discuss and also this is the only bathroom downstairs and I'm sure someone else will want to use it before the end of the night."  

[Atomica Servo]

"Oooh!" Atomica perked up as some drama started to unfold at the creepover. She sent Gryff a hext immediately.

Quote:

OMG u would NOT believe how hilarious this is Gryff you should have come to THIS creepover instead of that lame other one.

Quote:

LL just called the whole thing a sweatshop OMG LOL because there is like two sewing machines set up I'd TTLY be dying here if I wasn't an automaton

Quote:

Selkie ghoul who RUDELY never introduced herself to me after we TTLY saved her from the circus just TTLY insinuated everyone else was lazy for not making the dress

Quote:

HH is now crying in the bathroom LOL SO MUCH HAD TO MUTE MY VOCAL SIMULATOR

Quote:

Gryff this dress is like SO super easy I swear I could TTLY do it all by myself in like no time at all in fact I think I will just to show them all!!!!

And so, with that, Atomica sashayed up to Doriana and plucked the just-begun dress from her webbed fingers.

"Oh my GHOUL you are all such drama were-llamas, I can't even. Look at this dress. Why would you even try to do it when I am right here and CLEARLY the very beast dress-maker in this entire creepover? Just look at my flawless style AND my PatternMonster2.0 software."

Yes, this was a grab for being the center of attention. And yes, Atomica was enjoying it to BITS as everyone turned and looked at her instead of Drama Doriana.

"You. Marceline, right? You're average height, average weight, average average. So I'm going to use your measurements, and then all of you can watch and be AMAZED as I create this dress in complete mathmatical perfection!"

Atomica sat down behind the nearest sewing machine, and fabric bits and thread started flying. She peered around it, her eyes glowing at each and every ghoul in the room. She gave them all a shot of her perfect jazz fingers.

"BE. AMAAAAAAZED."  

[Hellene Harpie]

Hellene sniffled and took a deep breath when someone knocked on the door, but was relieved to hear it was Draconia. She opened the door a cracked and peeked out to make sure Draconia was alone and then let her into the Looking Glass' single but reasonably spacious bathroom (you have to be when so many of your patrons had wings). She was suppressing her tears but it was causing her to hiccup.

"Oh Dra-hic-onia," she whispered, "what happ-hic-ed? It's like every-hic-thing I did didn't ev-hic-n matter. Why didn-hic-t you tell me?"

She muffled her hiccups with a fistful of toilet paper, leaving little paper-lints on her mascaraed eyelashes.  

[Jewels Underne]

Goodness, that was far more dramatic than Jewels had been anticipating. She deflated much like Meme's sad balloons and paused in the unpacking of the cart, looking from face to face and not really knowing what to say now.

Suddenly there was the over chromed Automaton, claiming she could save the day.

"A.. are you sure?" She began, but evidently the machine ghoul wasn't about to be dissuaded.  

[Ascreama Poweurgh]

Ascreama clutched at a satin pillow as Doriana and Hellene's argument devolved into monster tears and the blob ghoul was almost crying over the drama too! "For glob sake, guys.." She muttered and hugged her cushion tighter.

"If we get this done quickly and do a goo-d job, we'll have plenty of slime to do more slumber party things!" She tried to rationalise aloud. "See, Atomica's getting into the spiri- Wait, what?.." She quizzed, worried chaos would ensue once the automaton started work.
"Mathematical perfection may work in theory but.." She trailed off, nervously reaching for a box of crackers and scream cheese.  

[Skinny Sally]

Sally just stayed back as the drama unfolded. Seemed like these ghouls had a lot more they needed to work out. She tilted her head. As everything seemed to calm down, she felt a bit more confused.

"Is this how these creepovers are supposed to go?" she wondered.  

[Draconia St George]

Hellene Harpie

"Oh Dra-hic-onia," she whispered, "what happ-hic-ed? It's like every-hic-thing I did didn't ev-hic-n matter. Why didn-hic-t you tell me?"

Draconia fretted for a bit. Telling Hellene the truth could be dreadfully embarrassing for Maceline...especially now that Hellene was doing some sort of expose on underpriviledged students at Monster High! Draconia sat down on the divan facing the full-length mirror in the bathroom and gave out a long sigh.

"The truth, Hellene, is that when I heard from Toralei that Doriana wanted to make this dress, I felt like I had no choice, because, you see....it's for, er, one of the 'underpriviledged' students. But...but I can't say which one!" She quickly tacked on the last sentence. "And this must all be strictly off the record!"

Draconia bit a knuckle.

"So perhaps Doriana was being a bit....a LOT presumptive when she agreed that everyone at the creepover would work on the dress, but as you can see, she's not selfish! Not even a jot!"

Draconia paused, and looked at the set-up in the bathroom. There was the bathroom itself, of course, but there was also a large, posh sitting-room area with the full-length mirror and fangtabulous lighting. Draconia got an iota of an idea.

"And I know that the floor area in there is a bit bollocksed up with sewing things, but couldn't we do some makeovers right here? In fact, I do think we could start with you, right now!"  

[Hellene Harpie]

Draconia St George

"And this must all be strictly off the record!"

Hellene cocked her head to one side, "Off the record? What are you tal-hic-ing about? You know I'm not the gho-hic-ly gossip!" Hellene thought back to her text and was startled right out of her hiccups, "Oh Draconia! You know I'd never do anything to hurt anyone, I'm working on organizing a Cursed Food Drive, you gave me the idea, but I needed the cooperation of Bloodgood to do it because I can't just go setting up tables willy nilly around the school, and there's going to be an announcement in the paper on Moanday. I guess I shouldn't have tried to keep that a secret from you either."

She pulled herself together and collected her thoughts.

"But Doriana is selfish. She didn't tell anyghoul what was going on, she didn't explain anything, she just bossed everyone around and she said that nasty fake apology," Hellene took a deep breath and paused, "But she's not the most selfish ghoul I ever met. Her heart was in the rightish place."

She wiped away the last of her tears and gave Draconia a big hug.

"I shouldn't have snapped like that, I was just so frustrated. I'm sorry I contributed to a such a scene, I should know more about conflict resolution with my mother dragging my sisters and me to all those diplomatic functions and having to politely and calmly refuse foods that are still somewhat crawling around. Let's not keep anything like this from each other ever again!"

As the ghouls were hugging it out, Hellene saw herself in the mirror over Draconia's shoulder, her eye makeup smudged so that she looked more like a drowned werecoon than a harpy.

"Gracious pinfeathers!" she gasped, "I think you're absolutely right about the makeovers, that is a hexcellent idea."  

[Atomica Servo]

Stitch, stich, stitch.

Snip!

Ruffle!

Trim!

Atomica was assembling based off of Doriana's pattern with clocklike efficiency. It really was soooo simple. Cut this, sew on a sleeve. Cut that, sew on another sleeve. Cut again, and sew on a third sleeve. Gather at the waist, cinch in trim!

As an added bonus, the sewing machine was friendly and was a great listener.

"So then I said 'just hand me the chrome polish and I"ll do it myself,' but he was sooooo determined that he do it HIS way. Well, it was his own fault then when Lin accidentally and totally not on purpose caused the werecatalytic converter to blow up in his face, right?" The sewing machine hummed in agreement as Atomica sewed on another level of lace.

This creepover was turning out all right!  

[Draconia St George]

Draconia peeked her head around the corner to see how things were going in the creepover. Well...at least Atomica seemed happy. She was chatting with the sewing machine as she zipped out a dress that did seem very close to Doriana's original design, other than that third sleeve coming out the back. Must be a glitch, Draconia reasoned. It was probably best not to call attention to it while Atomica was tooling along on the dress so peacefully.

Instead, she turned to look at the other ghouls, all sort of separated into tiny groups and not really interacting with each other. This would not do! Draconia decided to leap into action.

"Marceline! Layla! It is ESSENTIAL that you two come into the bathroom immediately! Bring your makeup kits! Stat! We have a makeover emergency, and only the two of you can save the patient!"

With those two getting in gear, Draconia looked at the snack table with all of the unopened food.

"Jewels, your style is so impeccable, could you and Sally put out the food and get the soda pop out of the ice box? And, Meme! The store's speaker system is behind the register up front. Let's hear some proper creepover music!"

Draconia pointed at Doriana and Ascreama.

"It would be ever so wonderful if you two could assist by setting up the creeping bags in a circle. It will be essential for the game of Truth or Scare we'll be playing later!"

With everyone sorted, Draconia led Marceline and Layla to the Looking Glass bathroom, so that Hellene's much-needed makeover could begin...and hopefully this creepover could begin to be salvaged.  

[Skinny Sally]

Sally had curiously been watching Atomica sew and talk to the sewing machine. She tilted her head, wondering what the sewing machine was really saying.

Quote:

"could you and Sally put out the food and get the soda pop out of the ice box?"

Sally looked over at Draconia, then at all the food everyone had brought. It looked really random the way it was placed on the table. She turned to Jewels "Guess we better get started then." She nodded.  

[Jewels Underne]

Probably best to leave the robot ghoul to this whole sewing thing, and fixing the extra sleeve later she decided. Glancing to Doriana and hoping she was thinking the same.

Jewels grinned stupidly at Draconia's complement. Impeccable? Why she'd never been told that before.

"O.. of course! Let's get this party started!" She squealed excitedly, this party could be saved after all! Right?

Nodding to Sally, the two ghouls set to work organising the food neatly and prettily. Jewels opted for some attractive geometric patterns for each plate, savoury one end of the table, sweet the other.

"Isn't this exciting?"