The Mary Shelley Club

by Goldy Moldavsky

  First Freddie had slipped up, and now Thayer. The only facts I had were that they were part of a secret club that was up to no good. I’d already begun to think of them as puppet masters, the invisible hands behind all the strange and scary things that happened to the people at this school. It sounded kind of sinister. Bad. But I couldn’t help thinking that it also sounded kind of … awesome.

  At first it seemed like just pranks, but I was beginning to draw a connection. There had to be an element of horror in the club, too. I mean, the séance could’ve been a scene in a teen horror movie. And the rumors of past pranks all sounded kind of familiar. Like horror tropes, or urban legends.

  I didn’t even know the full purpose of the club yet, but I already knew I had to be a part of it. I wanted that same burst of adrenaline that I used to get from horror movies. The exhilaration of rubbing shoulders with fear and knowing it couldn’t touch me.

  Maybe these pranks could get me there.

  “Rachel?” I jumped when Paul spoke. He was the art teacher, and he insisted that we call him by his first name. This, as he’d told us on the first day of class, was to let us know he wasn’t like the other teachers around here. That and his hair, which was thin and long, just grazing his shoulders.

  “Yes, Paul?”

  “What are you making?”

  I looked down at my three-dimensional human anatomy lump, which I had unwittingly rolled into a sad-looking phallus. I squished the clay between my fingers to destroy it immediately. “Still working on it.”

  Paul winced and pointed to the supply closet next to the window. “Maybe you need more clay.”

  “Great idea, Paul.” I stood and walked to the closet, which was lined with shelves full of gray lumps in plastic wrap. I went to reach for one when another hand snatched it off the shelf. I turned to see who it was, annoyed.

  “Ah, great,” I muttered.

  “Well, hello to you, too,” Lux said. She stepped closer, forcing me to back into the closet. After I’d seen her at the start of class and she didn’t immediately rush to kill, I’d figured I was safe, that maybe she’d calmed down some. Apparently not. I wanted to get back to my seat and out of her way. I reached for a different lump of clay, but Lux grabbed that one, too.

  “Really?” I said.

  “I’ve got a big art piece. The biggest.”

  “Congrats.”

  “You know, I’ve been thinking about you and what happened at the party.”

  “Look, I’m sorry about your exten—”

  “Not that. I’m talking about that boy on your phone, Matthew Marshall?”

  My breath caught. I’d thought for sure she’d forget his name.

  “Matthew Marshall,” Lux said again, watching me gleefully. She seemed to get some weird enjoyment out of saying his name. Or from watching my face as she said it.

  “Don’t say his name.”

  “Matthew Marshall Matthew Marshall Matthew Marshall. I knew you were a freak, but I didn’t know how much of a freak until I looked him up.” She tightened her grip on her clay, leaning into my personal space. “You’re lusting over a dead boy.”

  Everything changed in a flash, dimmed just a little bit. And all the breath I was missing seemed to rush through me in a violent gust.

  “Matthew Marshall Matthew Marshall,” Lux kept chanting.

  I was starting to feel hot, my starched uniform shirt taking on the texture of steel wool. Sometimes being reckless wasn’t a choice. Sometimes it just happened without me even thinking about it. I grabbed the first thing I saw on one of the shelves, only realizing it was a pair of scissors as I raised them over my head.

  Everything went dark as I plunged the flashing blades toward her.

  8

  “TELL ME AGAIN what happened.”

  The only other time I’d been inside the assistant headmaster’s office was on my first day, when he’d welcomed me to the school and told me that he was sure I’d make a fine addition to the “bright young minds” of Manchester Preparatory.

  “She pulled scissors on me!” Lux said. The force of her words propelled her body forward so she was leaning halfway over AssHead’s desk. “She was about to kill me!”

  I sat across from AssHead (a nickname for assistant headmaster that I definitely hadn’t come up with but that there was no way I wasn’t going to use) and tried not to shrivel under his disapproving stare. I was trying not to do a lot of things. Trying not to look at Lux sitting beside me. Trying not to let my nerves take over my body. For now they only controlled my hands, which were starting to twitch as I picked at the edge of the armrest.

  I was shaky with not only the realization of what I’d done to Lux, but also what I could’ve done to her. I’d imagined killing her. I’d seen it so clearly. It was only when Lux screamed and Paul ran into the supply closet to see what all the commotion was about that I dropped the scissors and realized what I had almost done.

  “Settle down, Ms. McCray. Ms. Chavez, can you tell us your version of the events?”

  My version of the events, as I remembered them, was as follows: I had white-knuckled a pair of scissors and held them between Lux and me, their double blades forming one sharp tip pointed right at her. I remembered the look on Lux’s face, how her eyes went wide with terror. I remembered the long moment that passed between us. And I remembered that the only reason things didn’t go completely to hell wasn’t because I’d conjured up some self-control. It was because Paul had seen us in the closet and popped his head inside to see if we were finding things okay. If he hadn’t done that, I honestly didn’t know if we’d both be sitting here right now.

  Hence the shaking hands. I hadn’t just scared Lux. I’d scared myself.

  But I didn’t say any of this to AssHead. The deal I’d made with my mom—the one that kept my life devoid of more therapists and counseling and outside intervention—was that I keep my grades up and make friends. Getting expelled would effectively cancel out both of those things. So I shrugged. “I was getting a pair of scissors.”

  “To kill me with. She’s a psycho. What is she even doing at this school, honestly, can you tell me?”

  “Is it possible you got scared and only thought Rachel was threatening you?” AssHead asked.

  “I’m not an idiot,” Lux said. “I know what she was doing. She’s come after me before.”

  AssHead’s eyebrows quirked. “Oh?”

  “At a party,” Lux continued. “She pulled a prank on me and practically tore out my hair.”

  “I didn’t touch your hair.” But I said it in the low, sheepish voice of someone who sounded very guilty.

  “It was your prank. Don’t pretend it wasn’t!” Lux said.

  AssHead sighed. I didn’t know him well enough to know what he was thinking. But whatever he was about to say next looked like it pained him. “You hear of these things happening in other schools in this city. But not here. We have a zero tolerance policy for any sort of violence.”

  Lux’s entire posture changed and she looked at me triumphantly. I had to admit, even when gloating, she was a Maybelline ad. It was deeply annoying.

  “But,” AssHead continued, “there is no evidence of actual violence here. Only the perceived threat of violence.”

  I let myself relax a little. I wouldn’t get kicked out and this might not even affect my mom.

  “Perceived?” Lux said.

  “You say she threatened you with scissors; Ms. Chavez says she was just taking them off the shelf. Your art teacher says he didn’t see anything but two students in the closet. It’s your word against hers.”

  “I screamed,” Lux said. “Why would I scream?”

  “Because you hate me?” I suggested.

  “I don’t believe this,” Lux said. “She’s crazy. Ask her about the prank at the party. Ask her!”

  AssHead humored Lux and looked at me. “Do you care to elaborate on this ‘prank,’ Ms. Chavez?”

  The ‘prank’ was the reason for all of this. If I’d ne
ver gone to that stupid party, I never would’ve bumped into Lux in the first place. If I hadn’t laughed at her, the whispers about me, the posts, never would’ve started.

  I swallowed hard. I knew who was really behind that prank. I could’ve told her right then that there was a club at this school and she’d gotten caught up in their fun. I could’ve really blown it for them with just one word, taken the heat off me and delivered a true, clearer target.

  But I either cared about this group too much or I didn’t care about myself at all, because I said, “It was me.”

  Lux was not expecting that. AssHead seemed surprised, too.

  “You see?” Lux said. “So are you going to expel her or what?”

  “Well, no. Since the prank didn’t happen on school grounds, there’s not really anything we can do about it. But, Rachel, I think you owe Lux an apology.”

  “I’m sorry, Lux.” And I meant it. I had nothing against her except for the fact that she seemed to hate my guts. I didn’t know what had come over me in the supply closet, but I had to make sure I never felt that way again. I couldn’t risk what happened last year happening here.

  Lux paused at my apology, and I felt a flare of hope. Maybe that was all she needed to hear. Maybe she would finally take me out of her cross hair(extension)s and we could put this behind us. But Lux’s expression did not change. She was still tense in her seat, still staring at me like I’d just tried to kill her. Which was fair, I guess.

  “That’s an admission of guilt,” Lux said, glaring at AssHead. “I know how this works, my father’s an attorney.” I knew as much from Saundra, who’d told me that even though Lux’s dad made about a million bucks an hour and her mom traded money on Wall Street, Lux resented her parents for having boring jobs instead of working as editorial directors or celebrity stylists or some other position with cultural cache.

  “I’m bringing suit,” Lux said, shooting up from her seat.

  “Okay, okay, no suing anyone in my office,” AssHead said. But Lux ignored him, grabbing her tiny leather backpack and heading out the door.

  “I don’t think she was being serious,” AssHead said, turning to me, though he didn’t look so sure.

  “She can do whatever she wants.” I stood up to leave, but AssHead stopped me at the door.

  “The school is aware of your past trauma, Ms. Chavez.”

  “My past trauma,” I repeated slowly.

  “Yes, your mother let us know what happened to you last year and we’re here to support you. It can’t have been easy to survive something like that. Just … I don’t want to hear about any more pranks, all right?”

  I avoided looking into his eyes, hoping he wouldn’t see how hot my face was getting. I only nodded and slipped past him.

  9

  IT WAS A LONG way back to Brooklyn. On the subway, I practiced what I was going to say, going over my options on the 6, then settling on my defense on the L, perfecting it all on the walk home, and ultimately blanking on the climb to our third-floor walkup. The door had three locks on it, per my own request, and before I got to the second one, the door swung open. My mom stood on the other side with a scowl on her face.

  “You’re home early,” I said.

  “Mr. Braulio stopped by my class,” she said.

  It took me a minute to remember that this was AssHead’s actual name. “Oh.”

  My mom stepped aside and I came in. Our place in Greenpoint was an adjustment from our old house on Long Island. It was about thirteen hundred square feet smaller, there was only one bathroom, and our downstairs neighbors played classic rock so loud that the floors vibrated. But I liked it here. I actually liked the fact that we were sandwiched between apartments and that there were people and noise at all hours of the night and that when I opened my window, I could smell the Polish food from the restaurant on the corner.

  But right now, standing before my mom, I wanted to be anywhere but here.

  “When I said you should get more involved in school, I meant join the field hockey team. Not get into lawsuits.”

  “Mom, please. I would never join the field hockey team.”

  “This isn’t a joke, Rachel. You know, I was worried you weren’t making friends. I didn’t know I had to worry about you making enemies.”

  “Can I get something to eat first?” I shuffled past her to the kitchen. I stuck my head in the refrigerator in a futile attempt to avoid having this conversation. It’d been stupid of me, confessing to that prank. I still didn’t know why I’d done it. It wasn’t like I wanted credit for it. And I wasn’t trying to protect a club that I didn’t have anything to do with and that wanted nothing to do with me. But maybe a part of me just wished I had pulled that prank. Because Lux deserved it.

  “I’ll never make friends at that school,” I said into the fridge. “The kids at Manchester are different.”

  “Different how?”

  I grabbed a bottle of water and closed the door. “For starters, some of the senior girls are already on the hunt for their perfect debutante gowns and we have Craigslist furniture.”

  “I thought you liked that nightstand we repainted.”

  “I do,” I said. I shook my head, trying to come up with a better example for my mom. “Some of my classmates still have nannies, Mom.”

  “They have housekeepers.”

  “If your housekeeper walks you to school every morning and hands you your lunch, I’m sorry, but you officially have a nanny. It’s like I’m at school with a bunch of aliens. Actually, no, it’s like I’m the alien.”

  “I know you feel that way now, Rachel, but every teenager feels that way, too.”

  “You don’t get it.” I tried to walk away, but you couldn’t get very far in this apartment. I thought about escaping to my room, but I know my mom would have just followed me.

  I flopped down on the couch. My mom sat next to me, forcing herself into my line of vision. “Okay, I don’t get it. So tell me.”

  There was so much I wanted to say. The words filled my mouth like spit that I couldn’t swallow, threatening to spill through my clenched teeth. But I didn’t know how to say what was wrong. I didn’t know how to say that I didn’t feel like myself.

  Not since what happened last year.

  I couldn’t tell my mother that ever since what AssHead called my “past trauma,” it was like there were two sides of me at war with each other. I was either a regular teenager or I was a monster, and the one that I should’ve been—the normal, happy-go-lucky girl—felt like an imposter.

  I was trying to do all the things I was supposed to. I was forcing myself to go to parties and meet people and gossip with Saundra in our corner of the lunchroom. And maybe it would’ve worked at a different school, but at Manchester, I stuck out. I couldn’t blend in in a place where everyone was a perfect specimen, carefully curated to belong like priceless museum pieces. After the attack, I had been labeled a freak at my old school, and now it was following me here.

  But I couldn’t tell my mom any of that. Instead, what came out was, “You don’t get how alone I feel.”

  With those words, I felt the mask I’d chosen to wear to survive Manchester—to make my mother think that everything was okay—starting to slip. I could feel it coming down with the tears. I wiped my cheek quickly before my mom could see. But my voice betrayed me.

  “Mom, what happened last year … it changed me. It turned me into…”

  My throat tightened before I could finish. And there was no point hiding the tears anymore either. Mom cupped my no-doubt blotchy, red face in her hands.

  “You went through something that no one should ever have to go through,” my mom said. “There is nothing wrong with you.”

  I bit my lip to try to stop the tears from coming and nodded.

  But there was something wrong with me. It clawed at my insides, desperate to get out. Like the chestbuster from Alien. It hadn’t burst out of my rib cage yet, but people could tell. No matter how well I wore the mask, people saw it.
Lux saw it better than anyone.

  “I know starting at a new school is hard,” Mom said. “But it’s going to get better. You just can’t go picking fights.”

  “I know, I’m sorry.” When my mom hugged me, I leaned into it. She smoothed my hair with her hand and it instantly made me feel better.

  “My little Jamonada.” She sighed. “Wanna watch a scary movie?”

  I smiled into her shoulder.

  10

  THE NEXT DAY at school was a nightmare.

  When I walked into a room, people did one of two things: They either started talking about me among themselves, or they stopped talking altogether. It was one thing to choose not to associate with people and another thing to have them actively shun you. The dominoes had been set up in AssHead’s office and Lux’s penny loafers had kicked them all down.

  I got to Women in Literature early and took the corner seat in the back. I watched as my classmates filed in, all of them spotting me, all of them electing to sit in the seats farthest away from me. Even Thayer, the only person I’d actually had a conversation with, steered clear of my shame corner. I was an island, and the longer the desk next to mine stayed empty, the more it seemed to glow with glaring obviousness.

  Class had already started and Ms. Liu was writing something on the board when Bram walked in late. I watched as he saw the empty seat next to me and searched the room for another. But there wasn’t one. He walked over to me with a resigned expression.

  As he sat down, I got a whiff of pine and lime. His shampoo. Against my best efforts, the scent brought our kiss back to the forefront of my mind. If I could’ve cast the memory out of me with holy water, I would have, if only so that Bram couldn’t see how fiercely it was making me blush. I wondered if he could tell what I was thinking about and began blushing. Then I wondered if he ever thought about it, even by accident, and blushed even harder.

  No, he probably never thought about our kiss. Which was a good thing, because it almost meant that he hadn’t told Lux about it either. For that, I was grateful.