Like Father,Like Daughter - Hugs.And.Kisses (best novel books to read TXT) 📗

they were the size of a small bird's. "Cool!"

Shock grinned. "Can't do magic my ass! The reversal spell is wrog sgniw." I repeated her, and the wings grew back to their normal size. "That's just basic stuff. You could probably make them vanish, but I don't know the spell for that."

"S'okay, this is cool! Wonder if I can set things on fire…"

She rolled her eyes and shoved me. "No way, we've already got one pyromaniac in the house, we don't need another one, especially when they're dating."

I pushed her back. "Don't you shove me!"

"I'll shove you all I want!"

"Ow! You'll pay for that…"

"Ooh, cat fight!" Both of us looked at the door to see Lock and Barrel standing there.

"Breakfast is ready." Lock said, smirking. Both of us stood up and smoothed our costumes back down. I folded my wings as flat as I could, I didn't want to bother with the spell. Zero followed us down the stairs, barking and yipping happily.

As soon as we entered the kitchen, the dog went over and started attacking Jak with kisses, leaving us alone for the moment. "Morning." Sally said.

I looked at the clock. It read eleven thirty. "More like afternoon." I sat down as Sally sat a plate down on the table.

"PANCAKES!" Barrel yelled, grabbing six of them. Barrel was now about an inch taller than me, which was kind of sad, because he'd been about two inches shorter than me last year. His yellow-green hair was now more like green with yellow highlights. He, according to what all three of them had caught me up on last night, was on the freshman football team, though I couldn't remember for the life of me what position he played.

"Save some for the rest of us, will ya'?" Lock muttered, grabbing a couple. Lock's bright red hair wasn't curled up in the front like it used to be, but instead just spiked up a little. He'd obviously gotten it cut to show off the blood red horns that had grown on his forehead. Lock was still almost three inches taller than me, which kind of made me mad, but I'd live with it. His fangs, which showed when he smiled, were sharper than I remembered, but that may have been because one of Lock's actual smiles were pretty hard to come by back when I first met him.

Jack and Sally looked the same as I remembered. There wasn't really much they could change; Sally's a rag doll, and Jack's a skeleton. Sally could cut her hair or something, but she looked fine like she was.

"Aubrey, I've enrolled you back in the High School, so you'll be starting again next Monday."
Barrel grinned. "Oh yeah, we've still got the entire week off!"

I laughed and finished my pancakes. "That's fine with me, otherwise I'd be sitting around here all day getting bored."

The rest of breakfast was… interesting. Barrel grabbed the last of the pancakes before Lock could, Lock set Barrel on fire, and when Barrel tried to put it out, he ended up soaking everyone and everything in the kitchen… except himself. Shock just poured her milk over his head and ended it.

And after everyone had dried off (again, courtesy of Shock) and the kitchen was clean, the four of us bolted. "You feel okay Aubrey?" Lock asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine, but I feel weird." I told him. "I mean, I'm dead."

Shock shrugged. "It's reasonable. So, what happened?"

"I got hit by a car."

"What were you doing, crossing the street?"

"No, I…" I grimaced. "I jumped in front of it."

"WHAT!" Lock yelled.

I winced. "It was a really bad decision, okay? I wasn't thinking straight 'cause I'd been sick and sleep deprived for the last week."

"Okay, it was a bad idea." Barrel muttered. "But getting hit by a car isn't fatal a lot of the time. How fast were they going?"

"Fast. Way above the speed limit." I muttered. "It hit me, I flew back into a tree, and…" I turned away and pulled my top up above my stomach. There was a hole going through straight through where my diaphragm was.

"And apparently got skewered." Shock said, looking at the hole.

"Cool! Does it go all the way through?" Barrel asked. The three of us stared at him. "Uh, never mind."

"Okay, so it wasn't the car." I muttered, pulling my shirt back down. "Well, now that we've figured that out, who wants to go do something fun?"

XXX

Aubrey's idea of 'something fun' include stealing the mayor's hat, stuffing a frog in it, then filling the rest of it with mud. I knew there was another reason I loved this girl! "I can't see Lock!" Barrel hissed. I looked over. A particularly thick tree branch was in his way.

Shock reached down and grabbed the back of his shirt, pulling him up on the branch next to her. "Now shush!" She hissed.

Aubrey giggled as I put my arm around her. "Here he comes!"

The mayor, hatless, walked into the town square, his upset face facing forward. When he spotted his hat, his head spun to the happy face and he flipped the upside down hat over to put it on his head. All the mud, and the frog, fell out all over his cone-shaped head.

All four of us were covering our mouths, trying not to laugh. If we did, we'd get caught. Then the frog, which was still sitting on the mayor's head, let out an indignant ribbit. We couldn't hold it in any longer.

We jumped out of the tree and broke into a run toward the woods, laughing our heads off. "Did… did you see his face?" Shock cackled. Barrel nodded, his hands on his knees for support.

"Th-that stupid frog! If it hadn't… hadn't…" Aubrey couldn't finish her sentence. She leaned up against me, holding her sides.

"Just… be glad that... you don't have… have to breath…" I told her, gasping for the air to form words.

After we'd all calmed down, which took longer than it should have, because Barrel started imitating the Mayor, we started back toward town.

Once I'd taken a quick look around and seen that the coast was clear, we ran back to Skellington Manor. Jack and Sally were sitting in the living room. We all blanched. "Aubrey, Sally and I need to talk to you." Jack said, surprisingly calm. Maybe we weren't in trouble…

"Okay." She followed after them into the kitchen.

XXX

"What is it?" I asked sitting down at the table. There was still a possibility of me being in trouble for the Mayor's hat…

Sally started first. "Well, Aubrey, Jack and I wanted to know if you would be all right with the idea of us adopting you."

That took a moment to sink in. "Wait… you mean, as in, becoming my parents?" I asked.

Jack nodded. "We had planned on doing this last time you were here, but with the… circumstances…"

I paused, looking at the paper Sally had given me. "Can I ask you guy something first?"

"Of course." Sally said.

"Um… do you guys mind if I call you mom and dad?" The smiles on their faces answered for me, and I signed the paper as neatly as I could:

Aubrey Skellington
Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The Pumpkin Princess

I sighed as Lock, once again, attempted to make the fire under his beaker get hotter than he was supposed to, and Aubrey muttered the cooling spell under her breath. A blast of cold wind blew past the devil and put out the growing flame. He turned around and glared at me, and I, in turn, pointed at his girlfriend. She shoved me. "Shock!"

I shrugged. "It's not like he'll try to set you on fire."

After class let out, Lock caught Aubrey in the hall. "You're going to pay for that." He muttered, his tail swishing against her legs. She giggled.

I rolled my eyes in disgust. "I'm outta here." I told them, going to my locker. It was our first day back, and already I was sick of High School again. Oh well, at least Barrel was here this year and we all had the same lunch so we could plot and crap.

It was funny though. Every class we had, (Aubrey had almost every class with either Lock or me) everyone always freaked when they found out it was Aubrey Skellington. We had lunch next, so I headed over to our regular table. Well, technically, it was the regular LSB table, but since Aubrey was back (and it would seem weird to put an 'A' somewhere in there), it was the trick-or-treater's table.

Aubrey and Lock sat down next. "I'm starting to regret this decision." Aubrey muttered, laying her head down on her arms.

"What decision?" Barrel asked. When he'd gotten here, I had no clue.

"The one to let Jack and Sally adopt me."

Lock rolled his eyes. "They're calling her the Pumpkin Princess."

I bit my lip, but it was too late. A giggle had already escaped from my mouth. "Go ahead." Aubrey sighed. Barrel and I both cracked up laughing.

"P-Pumpkin P-pr-princess!" I choked out. "Oh my fucking god that's good!"

Aubrey glared at me from between her arms, her eyes glowing red. "All right all ready, you've both had your laugh, now do me a favor and shut up!"

Gradually, we stopped laughing. Then I caught sight of the cafeteria doors opening and groaned as I saw who was walking through them. "Lock, put your head down, it's Vida."

Aubrey blinked, confused. "Who's Vida?"

Lock growled and sank down in his seat. "Vida Areolas. She's head cheerleader on Junior Varsity."

Barrel rolled his eyes. "She's the leader of what we have oh-so-venomously named the 'pop' squad, which consists of at least all the preps and jocks in school-"

"Save you." Aubrey interrupted.

"Save me, and did I mention that she has a HUMUNGOUS crush on Lock?"

Aubrey's eyebrows shot up. "Really now?"

Lock put a book up in front of his face. "Can we talk about this later…?" He hissed, glancing over the top of his book.

But alas, it was too late. Vida had seen us and was walking over, her ever present group of cheerleaders behind her. "Lock, what are you doing?" She asked. Vida was a very odd mix; half-vampire, half-cat demon. Fuzzy ears poked through her straight black hair, and a tail poked out from under her skirt. Green feline eyes surveyed our table with quite obvious annoyance. She was abnormally pale, even for someone who was dead, and had really, really long canines.

Lock sat up. "Back