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

my frilly dress. What kind of unbreathable fabric was this, anyway? And then, a darker thought: What if I fainted? What if they didn’t call me Quiet-Corner Rachel, but Faints-at-Parties Rachel? The corners of the room started to get hazy and white. The fear was settling in. “I need to go.”

“What?” Saundra’s voice came distant.

“I need to—”

There was a tap on my shoulder and the jolt was just the defibrillator I needed. I spun around, breathing hard and suddenly very alert, the edges of my vision crystallizing back into focus.

Felicity stared at me. “Excuse me,” she said.

She wore a towel secured tightly under her armpits, the rest of her bare skin painted in various shades of gray. Her usual bob was tucked under a slick pixie wig. But the pièce de résistance was the shower curtain. She must’ve been wearing a harness beneath the towel that held the rod over her head, and the white curtain itself was spray-painted with the shape of a shadowy figure, knife in hand. She looked like she’d just walked out of a silver screen.

“Psycho.” If there was a touch of marvel in my voice, it had been fully earned. Felicity not only had the best costume here, she had figured out a way—thanks to that shower curtain—to kept people at arm’s length. Everyone had to clear a path so she could pass by. It suited her. And it made me jealous.

“She didn’t mean that,” Saundra said quickly, misinterpreting what I’d said, but Felicity ignored her. Saundra and I both stepped back so that Felicity could get by. She looked me up and down before saying, “Nice costume.” Then she was off, swallowed up by the crowd.

“That was mean,” Saundra said. “There’s no reason to be sarcastic.”

“Who invited Norma Watson?” Thayer was suddenly beside me, looking approvingly at my outfit.

“Who’s Norma?” Saundra said. “She’s supposed to be somebody named Carrie. And who are you supposed to be? A toddler?”

Thayer’s costume consisted of overalls, a rainbow-striped thermal shirt, a rubber butcher knife, and his hair sprayed with red dye. He was obviously Chucky, and I obviously needed to introduce Saundra to some horror classics.

Thayer shot Saundra a horrified look.

“I didn’t know how badly you needed the club,” he whispered in my ear, hand on my forearm. “But it’s clear to me now.”

I felt oddly defensive about Saundra. We may not have had anything in common, but she had stood by me even when Lux was breathing down my neck. And unlike the rest of the club, she actually spoke to me at school. I would’ve told him as much, but he was already on the move.

“Gotta go—my Bride of Chucky awaits.” I watched Thayer walk toward a boy wearing a blond wig and a leather jacket over a white dress and realized I was smiling. And that was a pretty good sign that whatever panic and anxiety I’d been feeling before had subsided.

The masks around me weren’t menacing. With a clearer head, I could see that there weren’t that many masks anyway. Mostly face paint, headbands with animal ears, and the occasional glued-on open wound. Nothing was out to get me except my own imagination.

I turned to Saundra. “So are we going to dance, or what?”

“Hell yeah!” Saundra giggled and jumped into my arms. Her delight was infectious.

 28

SAUNDRA’S STILETTOS DID not impede her dancing at all, and I grabbed onto her just to stay afloat in the crowd. I let the music wash over me, let it fill my ears and head and stomach, feeling it thrum through my skin like I was a human speaker. Just as my feet were getting tired and I was running out of breath, I felt a tap on the shoulder for the second time tonight.

Freddie’s grin was wide, and I could feel my cheeks stretching with my own smile. He wore a homemade costume, too: a fedora, a red-and-green-striped sweater, and a glove with plastic silver knives taped to the fingers. He also had a name tag, in case it wasn’t obvious who he was.

HELLO my name is Krueger.

“Well if it isn’t the man of my nightmares.”

“My friends and I were supposed to dress up as famous directors but I was like, nah!” he said over the booming voice of Pitbull telling us to get wild. “Anyway, you came!”

I’d texted him from the Lyft to let him know I was on my way. It felt good, knowing he had been on the lookout for me. “Saundra needed me!”

“I’m glad! You look great! P.J. Soles?”

“See?” I said, rapping my fingers against Saundra’s arm. “People get it!”

Saundra nodded, but she was distracted by trying to teach an astronaut how to dance.

I looked down at my outfit. “It was the best I could put together on short notice!”

“Maybe this tardy will burn out butter for two.”

Huh? The bass had ticked up a decibel or four, and I couldn’t make out what Freddie had said. I leaned in, positioning my ear closer to his mouth so he could repeat himself.

“Maybe this party will turn out better for you!” he said. Then he winced and rolled his eyes. “It was a Carrie reference. Sorry, that was lame!”

I laughed. “This party is slightly better than Carrie’s prom! But only slightly.”

“Quick, you wanna pour a bucket of pig’s blood on someone’s head? I’ll be your John Travolta.”

My lips curled. “You’re the sweetest.”

“GET A ROOM!”

Freddie and I both turned to Saundra, who was currently draped over the spaceman and had apparently heard every word of the too-obvious effort we were putting into our witty banter. But this was the first time Freddie and I had seen each other since the night in his room, and I couldn’t be sure anymore if my skin was vibrating from the music or from being so close to him.

Saundra said something indecipherable but clearly inappropriate and began to slink away with the astronaut.

“Wanna dance?” Freddie asked. I nodded and pulled him into the crowd.

It was amazing