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

her in the eye this time because this definitely wasn’t a lie. “No.”

“No plans with Felicity Chu either?” Saundra teased.

I blinked and began tearing up a new stub. “Definitely not.”

After school the next day, Felicity and I met on the steps of the Met. It had been her idea, so we could blend into the crowd. There must’ve been hundreds of tourists there, but I was pretty sure we both still stood out in our matching uniforms. Felicity in particular looked like an undercover PI in her trench coat. I had no idea what she had planned for us, but I was pleasantly surprised that she’d asked me to go on this top secret mission with her. She wasn’t exactly my favorite person, but it was still nice to feel wanted.

“So where are we going?” I asked.

“Meatpacking District.”

I checked my subway app to figure out the fastest way to get there. “We could take a bus and transfer to the West Side, or we could walk across the park.”

Felicity looked at me long and hard. After a few seconds she started down the stairs, without any indication that I should follow her.

My cautious excitement started to ebb as I realized I didn’t even know why we were going to the Meatpacking District to begin with. My mind filled with visions of a frozen locker filled with raw cow carcasses. And me in the middle of it. Alone. With Felicity. Maybe she’d asked everyone else in the club to help her with this. Maybe I’d been the only one stupid enough to say yes.

But this was part of the club rules. Felicity’s Fear Test was coming up, so she got to assign roles and tasks. I had to trust that Felicity had a plan for me that didn’t involve locking me in a meat locker, and in the meantime, I was taking notes for how to do things when it came to my own Fear Test. I followed Felicity down the stone steps, and by the time we got to the curb, a black town car with tinted windows had pulled up.

The driver got out and opened the back door for us. Felicity ducked inside without a word, but I hesitated. The last time I’d gotten into a vehicle with tinted windows, I’d had a hood yanked over my head.

“Get in!” Felicity barked.

I sighed and scrambled inside. The driver closed the door behind me.

As we drove through the park, Felicity made it very clear that she wasn’t in the talking mood. She pulled a worn paperback copy of Misery from her backpack.

“Stephen King is cool,” I offered.

“He’s the greatest living American writer,” Felicity corrected me. “Also, there’s the hotness factor.”

“The what?”

“Don’t pretend he’s not good-looking.” She flipped to the author photo on the back and looked at me expectantly. It was clear to me that I would have to choose my words carefully here, so I thought my best option was to just smile and nod appreciatively. Felicity turned back to her book.

“So, where are we going?” I asked. I had no idea if this was even Felicity’s car. Did she have a personal driver, or was there an app like Uber but for rich people who only wanted to ride around in huge town cars?

“I told you, the Meatpacking District, are you slow?” Felicity did not look up from her book as she said this.

“I mean, like, for what purpose?”

“Supplies.”

“Okay, and what do you need my help with?”

“Talking.”

“Talking to who?”

“People! Just people, Rachel!” She took a deep breath and composed herself. “I’m not great at … talking to people.”

“No kidding,” I muttered. Any excitement about doing something secret, maybe even dangerous, was all but gone. Now I was really regretting not taking Saundra up on her smoky-eye adventure.

Felicity dropped the book on her lap, let her head roll back, and let out a guttural sigh. “Okay, fine. I, like, snapped at you,” she said. It wasn’t exactly an apology, but it was probably as good as I was going to get.

“We could try again,” she said.

I was confused. “Try again?” Then I got it. “To have a conversation?”

Felicity nodded but also kind of squirmed in place.

“We really don’t have to,” I said. As awkward as this car ride was, we only had about fifteen minutes left and I was perfectly happy to spend them in silence. But Felicity was suddenly an open book.

“Ask me whatever you want,” she said. “We can bond. Or whatever.”

Okay. “Who’s your target for your Fear Test?”

“Sim Smith.”

I still wasn’t familiar enough with every student at Manchester, so it took me a minute to place him. “That sophomore who’s really into gold chains?”

Felicity gave a curt nod. “We dated at the end of last year. I was a sophomore and he was a freshman. You don’t have to say it—I know it’s embarrassing.”

That he was a freshman? Not that he looked like he raided his mom’s jewelry box?

“It’s not embarrassing,” I said. I tried picturing Felicity in a relationship, but all I could imagine was a praying mantis devouring her partner.

“Anyways, that little freshman turd cheated on me,” Felicity said. “So now he has to die.”

“What?”

“I’m joking,” Felicity said. As if her joking tone wasn’t exactly the same as her regular speaking tone. “I can’t kill him. But I can scare him. And I’m going to really scare him.”

“Great,” I said in what I hoped was an encouraging-girlfriend tone. “That’s really good for you.”

“Did anyone ever cheat on you?”

I shook my head.

“Did anyone ever date you?” Felicity asked.

“Well, there was this guy in ninth grade,” I said. “I was really into him and I was pretty sure he was into me. We flirted a lot, actually. He would write me these little notes in English class that were—”

“So you never dated anyone.” Felicity’s eyes roved over me. “Didn’t think so.”

The car came to a stop and the driver got out. He opened the door on Felicity’s side and she stepped out while I quickly opened