Chapter Text
Jackson Jekyll had never truly felt like he belonged. This feeling had lingered in the back of his mind for as long as he could remember and only grew when his parents made the decision to transfer him to yet another high school: Monster High.
He had only been allowed to enroll due to his ‘unique’ heritage. Though his mother was an ordinary human or a “normie”, as the monsters liked to call them, his father was a fire elemental monster. Much to Jackson’s own disappointment though, Jackson did not inherit any of his father’s monster genes and was instead born a perfectly healthy human boy. Despite all this, he was still considered to be too “monster” for him to be truly accepted at any of the normie schools he had attended. Every time it always followed the same pattern. He would start fresh at a new school, occasionally he even made some friends, and for a brief moment everything would feel like it was going to work out, until inevitably everything came crashing down when someone would catch a glimpse of his father, or he would let something slip about one of his monster relatives, or he would do or say something that seemed just monster enough for them to get suspicious. All this had resulted in Jackson attending 7 different high schools in the last 2 years.
Now that Jackson was entering his junior year of high school, his parents though that a change of pace would be nice. If things aren’t working out at any of the human schools, why not try a monster school? Jackson had only found out about the transfer a week before his first day, when his father had proudly announced at dinner that he had managed to pull some strings on the school board and get Jackson enrolled at what had been an exclusively all monster school for centuries.
“What?!” Jackson exclaimed, his fork slipping out of his hand and landing on the ceramic plate with a loud clang. “Are you seriously thinking about sending me to an all monster school?”
“Sweetie, we’ve exhausted all other options.” his mother said gently. “This is the only school left in the district. It’s not like you’ll be there long, you are already halfway done with high school anyways. It’s only a little while.”
“Mom, you don’t understand. Even at the human schools I looked like I fit in at first. I’ll be the only normie at a school full of monsters. I’ll stick out like a sore thumb. They’ll take one look at me and know that I don’t belong there.” Jackson protested. “Can’t I just be homeschooled until college?”
“We’ve talked about this, we just can’t afford for either your father or I to quit our job to homeschool you. It just isn’t feasible.”
“There are online courses! Neither of you would have to give up on your job!”
“Jackson, you’re only 16. I don’t want you to have to be home alone, all day every day for the next 2 years. I know talking to people isn’t your favorite thing, and I know that you’ve have trouble making friends in the past, but I don’t think homeschooling is going to be the perfect solution that you think it is.”
His father piped up in the conversation. “And it’s not like you won’t know anyone, your cousin Heath goes to Monster High remember? You two used to be great friends when you were younger!”
Yeah, until he stopped talking to me just for being a normie. Jackson thought, groaning and leaning back in his seat.
Sydney Jekyll glanced over at her husband with a worried expression on her face to see that he shared her same worry. Sydney signed and looked back at her son.
“Let’s make a deal then, shall we?” She said.
Jackson raised an eyebrow curiously. “I’m listening.”
“You go to Monster High for the first semester. You don’t complain or make a fuss out of it, and I want you to actually try and make some friends and see how everything goes. If you still hate it by winter break, we can discuss the possibility of doing online classes. Sound fair?”
Jackson thought for a moment, his brain flooding with all the pros and cons of his mother’s offer. He wasn’t thrilled about it, that was for sure. And she didn’t say that he could definitely do online classes, just that she would think about it. Either way he still had to go to Monster High, but at least now there was the possibility of a way out, he just had to make it through the first semester.
“Deal.” He said at last, offering a handshake to his mother to make the deal official. She accepted, finally allowing the family to return to their meal.
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The last few days of summer vacation seemed to fly by as the dreaded first day of school approached. Jackson spent most of him time holed up in his room, making any excuse possible to avoid a conversation with his parents. Although they had come to an arrangement that Jackson unfortunately had to admit was pretty fair for both parties involved considering the circumstances, he was still upset that he had to attend Monster High.
Even though his cousin Heath went there, he wasn’t exactly the familiar face that Jackson’s parents wanted him to be. Sure, Jackson and Heath used to be best friends when they were little, before either of them really knew anything about the tense relations between monsters and humans. However, once they started middle school, it felt like a switch had gone off in Heath’s brain. His new monster friends had convinced him that having a normie as your cousin wasn’t the cool thing that Heath thought it was when they were kids, that Jackson was just an unfortunate luck of the draw, an insignificant blip on the family tree. Since then they rarely saw each other and their few interactions had boiled down to awkward small talk at the occasional family gathering. Even worse, Jackson’s father had told him that Heath had been assigned as Jackson’s guide during his first week of school. This meant a full week of having to follow Heath around school like someone’s neglected puppy.
Graduation couldn’t come sooner.