The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (ebook reader for manga TXT) 📕

The meetings were frequent, happening twice, sometimes three times, a week. The club had its own set of routines. Some, like the impromptu debates, were easy enough to grasp. There were times when I found myself in heated discussions with them about things like who was the worst Bad Guy, Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers.

“Michael Myers hands down,” Felicity said. “He’s a dog killer!”

“Jason killed a dog, too,” Freddie reminded her.

“Kill all the humans, if you ask me, but dog deaths have no place in horror movies,” Thayer said. “I’ll start the petition on change dot org.”

“There’s no way Jason even ranks as a good villain,” I said. “He was just a socially awkward loser who couldn’t swim.”

“Wait, does being a good Bad Guy mean you’re nice deep down or that you’re perfectly evil?” Bram asked. “And does being a bad Bad Guy mean you’re not evil enough?”

These were the kind of deep, existential questions all teenagers ask themselves.

At first, I felt a bit daunted by their closeness. They had rituals, habits, and inside jokes that had been built up over time. But I soon found my rhythm. When we watched Hellraiser (Freddie’s choice), anytime one of the characters disparaged Brooklyn the club would throw popcorn at the screen and cry, “Anything’s better than Brooklyn!” And when we watched The Birds (Bram’s pick), everyone in the group mimicked Tippi Hedren’s over-the-top pose as the birds attacked, her arm arched all the way over her head so as not to block the view of her beautiful face. From that scene forward, we all kept our arms at that ridiculous angle for as long as we could until Felicity was the only one left with her elbow in the air. As the credits rolled, she bent at the waist and took a bow to mark her triumph.

The club’s brand of fandom was wrapped around a healthy dollop of ridicule, the understanding being that we had the right to make fun of our favorite things because we loved them so much. It was something I understood innately, one of the moments when I felt seamlessly a part of the group. I’d never thought a feeling of kinship with a group of people could be so overwhelming.

Just the same, there were times when I was glad I hadn’t been there very long, because some of their rituals were hard-core. The night we watched Us, Thayer involuntarily yelped when one of the doppelgängers showed up. Bram barked a laugh and smashed the space bar on his keyboard. The screen froze, Freddie and Felicity leaped up, and Thayer instantly buried his head in his hands and moaned.

“Thayer, your time has finally come!” Bram said.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Come on, Thayer,” Freddie said. “Show Rachel what happens when a club member gets scared during a movie.”

“But it’s cold,” Thayer whined.

“Rules are rules,” Felicity said.

The next thing I knew, four of us were standing on the balcony and one of us was in the street in his underwear, holding his clothes bunched over his crotch.

“This is cruel and unusual punishment!” Thayer yelled.

“Quiet,” Bram said, having way too much fun, “you’ll wake the neighbors. Now get on with it.”

Thayer let out a final annoyed grunt, then dropped his clothes, threw his hands up in the air, and ran down the block making as much noise as a pack of cans rattling off a newlywed’s car. We watched him go and doubled over the stone railing of the balcony, filling the crisp air with the wispy plumes of our laughter. We laughed until we were dizzy, losing our equilibrium.

After that, I learned never to get scared during movie night. And over the course of several movie nights, I learned something new about each of the members.

Thayer loved gore, the more gratuitous the better, but he was also a sweetheart. When I mentioned I was looking for an after-school job, he hooked me up at the movie theater where he worked, a tiny cinema with two screens. The two of us worked weekends, him at the concession stand and me as a ticket taker. When there were no more tickets to take, I’d join him behind the counter and we’d talk and eat free popcorn all night.

I learned that even Felicity, Mistress of the Dark, was capable of deep, silly, unconditional love. Just not toward humans. We walked to her place after a club meeting one night so I could borrow her Chem notes. (Felicity was a meticulous note taker.) As soon as we entered her apartment, two German shepherd puppies named Hitchcock and Häxan jumped on her and licked her, pawing at her clothes. She pretended to be annoyed, but as I headed toward the bathroom, I turned back and saw her get down on all fours and roll around with the dogs, digging her face into their fur and talking in a baby voice.

But the person I got to know the most about was probably Freddie, just by virtue of the fact that we actually hung out together outside of club meetings. Whenever he decided to skip Film Club, we’d meet up after school to walk to the subway together, where he’d take the train uptown and I’d board the one going down. For the half hour between the double doors of Manchester and the automatic doors of the 6 train, we talked about everything. We theorized about Felicity’s core damage (there had to be something), found common ground that we didn’t talk to anyone else about (we were both Latinos but his Spanish was way better than mine), and argued about movies (he was a purist and a fan of the classics, while I was willing to give reboots and new movies a chance).

As we grew more comfortable with each other, we got into animated discussions. Our most intense argument was about when a scary movie was most appreciated.

“It’s in the moment,” Freddie said.

“No, it’s after the fact.”

“What are