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

you talking about? Life is about living in the moment. And there’s nothing more in the moment than being scared—than being alone, out-of-your-mind-with-fear, really sitting with it as the scene is playing out.”

“Yes, that’s good horror,” I said. “But really good horror happens when the movie’s over. If it sticks with you. If, long after you’ve stopped watching, you’re still looking over your shoulder. Then you know you’re really scared.”

We couldn’t come to an agreement on that one, but it was still fun discussing it. But probably my favorite thing I learned about Freddie was that, sometimes, all I needed to do was look at him for a beat too long to draw out the color in his cheeks.

I even discovered something new about Bram. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of horror. He was like Freddie in that way, but while Freddie could tell you how many frames there were in the shower scene in Psycho, Bram could probably tell you what kind of sandwich Janet Leigh ate on set before filming it. If he liked a movie, he’d find its script and commit every word to memory. And if he really liked a movie, he’d even recite the lines as he watched, which I discovered—to my immense amusement—one night when we all sat down to watch I Know What You Did Last Summer and I spied him silently shouting along with Jennifer Love Hewitt, daring the killer to come and find her.

And during the most recent club meeting, I had also learned that Bram had a little sister. She showed up unannounced in the study while we were in the middle of The Omen, with the same slope to her nose and the same shade of brown hair as Bram. She couldn’t have been more than ten.

Bram paused the movie, which was good because we were at the scene right before little Damien knocks his mother over the banister.

“Where’s Celia?” he asked.

“I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Millie.” Bram’s voice instantly took on a parental tone and I hid a surprised smile behind a fistful of popcorn.

“She fell asleep on the couch,” Millie said. “Can I watch, too?”

“It’ll give you nightmares.”

“I don’t get nightmares anymore.”

“We all get nightmares.” Bram got up. “Let’s go.”

As Bram and Millie headed upstairs, Freddie stood up, too. “Snack break,” he said.

Freddie and Thayer went down to the kitchen for refreshment refills. I got up to go to the bathroom, but Felicity slipped inside before I could, shutting the door in my face.

So I headed upstairs. I’d never been to the third floor of Bram’s townhouse but figured there must be another bathroom there. I heard voices as I walked down the hall and realized I must be near Millie’s room. I peeked inside. Bram was sitting on the edge of Millie’s bed and pulling the blanket up to her chin.

In school, Bram was the popular kid. In the club he was just as big a geek as the rest of us. At home he was apparently a sweet big brother. He wore a different mask depending on who he was with.

Bram looked up and caught my gaze. I immediately ducked out and kept walking, but Bram was right behind me.

“What are you doing up here?” All traces of loving big brother were gone.

“I was looking for a bathroom.”

“Downstairs.”

“Taken,” I said.

Bram just gave me a look and the awkwardness nearly pushed me down the stairs. He knew I had been lurking.

“Um, I also wanted to talk to you about our paper,” I said.

Given the subtle furrow in Bram’s brow, he clearly didn’t believe me.

“We could set up a time to exchange notes, narrow down the topics we want to include,” I suggested.

“You want to talk about our paper? Right now?” Bram asked.

I was starting to get less intimidated and more annoyed. “Okay, Bram, good talk.” I skipped down the rest of the stairs, Bram right behind me the whole way.

“Wait,” Bram said finally. “Come by after school tomorrow. We can work on it then.”

No club meeting. Just me and Bram alone for the first time. I was already regretting bringing the paper up at all.

“Looking forward to it,” I said.

 21

WE DECIDED TO work in the dining room.

Bram sat at the head of the table and I sat to his left, the silence stiffly squeezing itself between us now that we didn’t have other people as a buffer. The only other signs of life were outside the room: A woman who was not Bram’s mother was prepping dinner in the kitchen, and Millie and her babysitter were rushing between after-school programs and lessons.

When my phone buzzed with a new text, I picked it up with relief.

Updates!!!

I never should have told Saundra about this study session. I knew that I would have to tell her everything. Not the important things, like how awkward it was to sit here with Bram, but the little things, like what he was wearing.

What is he wearing? came Saundra’s next message. And then, immediately after that: What is his mouth doing right now??

I made a face at my phone. I glanced at Bram, who was reading something on his laptop. His lips were parted slightly, and I could see the small gap between his front teeth.

Bram reads with his mouth open, I texted, and then instantly deleted every word. I looked back at Bram. He must’ve been concentrating hard because now he was biting his bottom lip. I bit my own lip, an involuntary response. His eyes flicked toward mine and I clamped my lips shut and put down my phone. I would not be answering any more of Saundra’s questions.

And I would not look at Bram’s lips again.

Right. Back to Mary Shelley.

“Here, I started typing up her bio,” Bram slid his laptop over to me.

I quickly scanned what he’d written. Mary Shelley was the daughter of a radical anarchist father and a feminist mother. She’d run away from her father’s house with her married lover when she was