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Despite the fact that she was tall... and breathed fire ... and could get awfully cranky if he randomly popped into the Looking Glass broom closet at random intervals past midnight, Draconia was one of the select few that didn't cause Shad to jump randomly ... too much. So when nobody else offered an immediate hexplanation, Shad kinda sorta leaned over and whispered,

"Apparently this cat Harry's goblins caused the Kobolds to blow their jets. Total squaresville so now Woestock has no pad to call its own, dig?"

Shad then turned to look at Kai and asked inn a timid hushed voice, "Does this mean the catacombs are off limits now too because I have to totally still plan my trip down there for Mad Science."

He held a hand to his mouth and said to Draconia, "Trip as in the project, not trip as in... why is everybluddy staring at me?"

Draconia's head was clearly spinning at the infodump Jewels was giving her, but the pause gave Kai a chance to clear his head. After Shad spoke up, an idea struck Kai.

"The Catacombs!" He hexclaimed.

"Wait....wot now?" Draconia asked. "And WHO is she?!"

Draconia pointed at Arillena. Kai couldn't let himself be distracted, though.

"Remember Draculaura's birthday party last year? That gi-normous cavern the party was held in?"

Jewels wrinkled her nose.

"I remember the giant pit of eternal B.O. that was in one corner of the cavern..."

"It's okay, they put up a warning rope, remember?" Kai clapped his claws together. "Come on, you have to admit, it's a possibility!"

"Mmmmmaybe...." Jewels stroked her chin, thinking on it. "But really, isn't this thing kindasorta Harry's baby? Shouldn't he be in on this?!"

"Right. Harry!" Kai whipped out his iCoffin. "Texting now!"

Arillena started to feel just as nervous as Shad might have been and maybe be default took a step backwards behind him. Things were looking chaotic and the Changling wasn't quite sure what to do... The outbursts from everyone was blocking her thoughts.

"Um, Oh!" She said realizing she was being spoken too by someone she hadn't noticed approach. "T-Terribly Sorry, My name is Arillena," She said with a shy curtsy. The British/Celtic lining the timidness in her voice.

A while ago she had been fine, but that was because things were making some sense. Now she felt out of place, like she was only burdening the problem at hand with her presence. The elvish girl had caught the curious glance in the Draconian girl's eye, and instantly misunderstood it as judgmental.

"I- um..." Oh no... Not again... Ari looked down at her hands. The pale color being splotched by shades of purple and orange. Oh dear...Every time! She looked at her hair with started fading green. She could fix this flux in her glamour by calming down but the nervousness and panic only grew as those around her felt the same.

So... she did what she always did.

She turned and ran.

Luckily Ari had noticed and marked where the Girl's bathrooms were. She disappeared in one with a sigh that said "Ghouls" and tried to control her breathing to calm the anxiety. While avoiding eye contact with the mirrors. I won't see, I won't see... The thought of what she would see frightened her. Though if anyone else had seen her at the moment patches of her would look nothing like the formal dressed elf. Those patches would be dark as if hidden by a shadowy cloud.

"Was...." Draconia watched the ghoul, whom had looked terribly unhealthy before but was starting to gain a nice abnormal hue, dash off. "Was it something I said?"

"Can'talknowgottagoSORRY! Ari-wait!" Kai shouted at them and took off like a shot after her. Draconia raised an eyebrow at Shad and Jewels.

"So, who was that? The dance coordinator?" Draconia asked, quite confused at this point. Who else would wear formalwear to school? "I tried to give her my most polite, formal grimtroduction, but I seem to have failed somewhere along the way."

"New student, hacktually." Shad replied, starting to pick up some of the Red Ghoul cans at his feet, since Venus McFlytrap was standing a few feet away with her arms crossed and a death stare on her face. "I thought her look was really wiggy too, but you know, 'you be you'!"

"Oh, dear!" Draconia wondered what had gone wrong. Perhaps the new ghoul didn't like dragons, or was allergic to gold the same way werewolves were allergic to silver? What if Draconia's grimtroduction had been against one of the new ghoul's cultural protocols?! So much that could have possibly gone wrong! "Should I go speak to her? Should I NOT speak to her? Oh, I didn't think today was going to start with a crisis!"

Kai gave her a fanged smile.

"Hey, it's all right. I know...first day at a crazy new school. You're allowed to have a little bit of a freak-out. On my first day last year, you want to know what I did?" The two of them continued their stroll down the hallways, touring as he spoke. "I forgot my lunch. Which doesn't seem like a big deal, but, you saw me back there. Decision-making is my big 'freaky flaw,' like they say here. I have a TERRIBLE time making up my mind. And I stood in the lunch line in the Creepateria, no lie, for nearly forty-five minutes because I couldn't decide what to get for lunch."

That seemed to lighten the mood. Arillena laughed with a little disbelief.

"No, it's true!" Kai persisted. "You wouldn't believe how mad the monsters behind me in line were!"

They stopped in front of the doors to the graveball field and tennis court.

"Point is, it can be pretty overwhelming to take it all in here on the first day - especially if you're not used to fanging around with dragons and mole people and such. And I didn't mean to get all panic-faced in front of you about the Fearstival...really that's in Harry's hands now. And he's the son of a fairy king or something...he'll make it work."

Kai opened the door, showing some of the graveball players doing warm-ups on the field before school.

"Check out our team, the Monster High Nightmares. We've got a werewolf, a centaur, a bird-guy, two vampires, a peryton and half a dozen other monsters on the team. It's a virtual monster mash out there!"

A couple of the monsters noticed the observers and waved. Kai gave them all the 'fang ten' sign with one hand.

"If you're into sports, the spring sports are going to be holding tryouts soon. There's a ton of afterschool hacktivities to try, in fact. I think most of them are on the list on the second page Headmistress Bloodgood gave you."

The two of them went upstairs, checking out the Clawculus and other math rooms, the Biteology lab, the Dragonomics classes, and lastly, the Home Ickonomics classroom.

"This is the beast-smelling place on campus." Kai informed Ari as they stepped into the kitchen-themed classroom. "Ms. Kindergruber is uhh-mazing at teaching people how to cook. Even people who can burn soup, like me. Just...don't ask her to check if your oven is hot enough. It freaks her out."

The tour continued, all the way up the stairs of the bell tower, and all the way back down to the main floor on the back side of the school. Kai pointed out places of interest, like the stairwell that the trolls hung out under or the many different entrances to the Catacombs that snaked underneath the school.

"We've got just a couple minutes before the first bell." Kai informed Arillena as he checked his watch. "What's your first class of the day? Probably Dead Languages with Mr. Rotter or Drama with Mr. Where."

Draconia was now feeling dreadfully down. The date tonight weighted on her stomach, feeling like a trio of fluttering bats in there, and the strange outburst from the new student felt like her fault as well. Today was not going to be a good day, she just knew it.

Draconia hexcused herself from Shadeaux and Jewels and hurried to her first feariod class - Drama. At least in Drama she could forget about her woes for a little bit as they started work on the one-hackt play they were going to be putting on as their final project. Today was the day they'd find out which student's script was being chosen to perform.

*whump!*

Draconia bumped into a wall of nothingness on the way into the Clawditorium and took a staggering step back.

"Oops! Sorry!" Invisi Billy blinked into view, looking a little panicked. "Wasn't paying attention!"

He dropped to his knees to help Draconia pick up her books.

"It's all right, I should have noticed the floating backpack." Draconia replied. Invisi Billy had to concentrate to become visible, and most of the drama students knew by now to look out for floating objects to gauge where he was during class.

"Today's the big day, huh?!" Billy asked her as he handed her a clutch of science books. "We're going to find out whose script won!"

"I'm rather rooting for Draculaura's Dracu-drama." Draconia responded as she slipped books into her bag. "She let me read it and I was crying by the end!"

"A tragedy, huh? Honestly, I'm sort of hoping yours wins. The one you wrote about the Cirque Sinistaire?" Billy handed her the last of her floored pencils. "I've always loved plays that are based on a true story!"

Draconia smiled. The script she'd written had been based on an adventure her friends and school-mates had hexperienced at the beginning of the Scaremester. The adventure had it all - monsternappings, mind control, drama and goremance, circus acts...she had only hoped she'd done it justice in her script treatment.

"Thank you ever so much!" Draconia smiled at Billy's vote of confidence. "No matter what Mr. Where chooses, I know we'll make it the beast show we can."

The two friends entered the Clawditorium together, fangxious to hear Mr. Where's final decision.

"Good luck!" Kai called out to Arillena as she skipped into the Clawditorium. He was glad to see her looking cheerful again. He resolved to check back in on her before lunch. If it was going well, he'd invite her to the BOJANGLES meeting after school...she'd seemed eager to help out and they could use all the extra claws they could get.

Kai checked his iCoffin. No reply yet from Harry, but that didn't mean anything. He was sure Harry's goblin butler and maid would have told him about the stitchuation with the Kobolds in the caverns. He just hoped Harry would have a solution in mind.

Kai glanced one more time into the Clawditorium to be sure Ari was doing all right, and then headed to his own first class in the Art Room.