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

the most vicious scream and Sim leaped back, smashing his head against the roof. “WHAT!”

“This is my favorite song!” Jennifer squealed.

“That’s why you screamed?”

“Um, hello, they never play the Ruperts on the radio anymore.”

Sim wasn’t going to sit here any longer. And not just because the Ruperts sucked, but because there was definitely someone outside the car. Sim couldn’t see them anymore, but that noise from earlier was back. On the roof again. Louder. And then the car shook.

“Was that you?” Jennifer whispered. For the first time, concern flashed on her face.

“Quiet, I think there’s someone out there,” Sim whispered, every inch of him tensed and waiting for the next noise. It came from the roof. The undeniable sound of shoes hitting metal. The roof dipped slightly, let out a low groan.

“Boo!”

Sim jumped but it was only Jennifer, giggling hysterically.

“Why would you say ‘boo’ right now?!” he hissed. “Like, why would you choose this moment of all moments to say ‘boo’?!”

“Okay, you don’t want to be my boo, I get it, gosh,” Jennifer said. “What about sweetie? Sugar bear? Pookie?” Her hand caressed his shoulder. “Are we gonna screw?”

No. Not when there were freaking footsteps on the roof of the car! And not with a girl who couldn’t hear anything but that awful Ruperts crap. Damn, Sim needed to seriously stop dating the worst girls.

“Let’s go. Someone’s playing a prank or something,” Sim tried to open the door but it wouldn’t budge. “Are the child locks on?”

Sim jumped again when he heard a tap on the window. But it wasn’t the dull sound of knuckle on glass. No, this was sharper. Like metal on glass. When he looked up, Sim’s heart almost stopped.

It was the Black Hoodie. Holding a big-ass hook.

“FuuuuuuUUUUUUUUUCKKKKKK.” Sim kicked the door open, slamming it into the Black Hoodie, who went down with an oomph.

Sim ran, ignoring the sound of Jennifer calling after him.

But the rows of cars turned the place into a tight labyrinth, preventing Sim from making a clean run for it. He rounded trunks only to smack into bumpers. His hips thwacked against side-view mirrors, eventually tearing one clean off a convertible. His stepdad was going to kill him. But not if this Hoodie freak got to him first.

Sim nearly cried with relief when he saw that the gate was two car rows away. He’d be there soon.

But then the Black Hoodie popped up to block his way.

Sim stumbled back. How had he gotten there so quick? Sim had left the freak behind. Now this dude popped out of nowhere, looking even bigger than before. He was so close that Sim could now see his face. White. Stoic. Scars. It was a rubber mask.

The Black Hoodie pushed Sim hard and he pinballed between two car doors on his way to the concrete. The Black Hoodie was leaning over him, raising a knife in the air, when Sim kicked out. He’d been smart to wear his Acne Studios Jensen Grain boots tonight. They not only made him an inch taller, but also came to a fine, hard point at the toe. He slammed the tip of his boot into the Black Hoodie’s side so hard Sim could feel ribs crunch.

The Black Hoodie let out a grunt and doubled over, holding their abdomen. It was Sim’s only chance. He ran out the gate and didn’t look back.

 24

THE NEXT EVENING, we regrouped at Bram’s house after Thayer and I were done with our shifts at the movie theater and Freddie had finished pitching in with his mom’s catering business.

It was Felicity’s turn to pick a movie. I had pegged her as a fan of black-and-white movies, like Nosferatu, or some weird Swedish silent film from the 1920s. But Felicity ended up going with Urban Legend. At first, I had no idea why, but then it became clear.

“If I could live during any era it would be the glorious—if brief—time in history when Joshua Jackson had his hair bleached,” Felicity said. “Urban Legend and Cruel Intentions. Peak Joshua Jackson, if you ask me.”

And there it was. Felicity: the Joshua Jackson superfan. She watched the screen with rapt abandon as Joshua Jackson tried to make a move in a parked car.

“Ew, no,” Thayer said. “Peak Joshua Jackson was The Mighty Ducks. That movie was my sexual awakening.”

“I can’t believe we’re talking about this,” I said. “Peak Joshua Jackson is The Affair, obviously.”

“You watched The Affair?” Freddie asked, eyebrow suggestively cocked. “Gotta say I’m more of a Fringe guy.”

“Does no one here have any respect for Pacey Witter?” Bram said.

I was back in his house for the first time since our disasterous study session, and so far we’d successfully managed to avoid all interaction. Which was an arrangement we both seemed happy with.

“Okay, a compromise,” Felicity said. “Peak Joshua Jackson is the Joshua in the one episode of Dawson’s where he had frosted tips.”

Felicity was in a surprisingly good mood. Maybe it was Joshua. Or maybe it was the fact that she’d gotten her cheating ex to go running scared into the night. We hadn’t done much beyond dressing in incognito black and scraping a few twigs over the roof of a used car, and yet, I gotta say, it was deeply satisfying. Maybe now Sim Smith would think twice about taking girls to his stepdad’s creepy car dealership.

“Now this,” Thayer said, “this is a beautiful example of the parked-car trope. Take notes, Felicity.”

On the screen, Joshua Jackson was dangling from a tree, his shoes scraping the top of his car.

Felicity scowled. “I don’t need lessons on how to stage a Fear Test from the guy who sent an eight-year-old down the hall last year and called it a day.”

“Thayer paid a girl from the Lower School to stand in the hallway before the final bell rang last year,” Freddie whispered to me. “I think he was banking on the scary-sad-girl-with-long-hair factor, but it was broad daylight and nobody cared. One of the worst Fear