by Erin Dionne
I click on it, and when I see how long it is, I download it to read later.
This is the best homework ever.
“Thing crept, unseen, unheard, yet always in the girl’s shadow.”
Back to the page. Underneath the director info—oooh! Production stills from Mausoleum, a link to an actor’s blog about what it was like to be on the set, and character sketches for the sequels.
I read the blog entry and page through the production stills for A Mausoleum of Monsters, which releases in a couple of weeks. The shots are mainly of the cast in costume. Awesome.
I read the bio of the costume designer.
I click on the link to other films she’s worked on, then go back to Nightshade’s website. The book reader guy finishes the chapter. A pop-up covers my screen. Download A Sea of Serpents audio! On sale NOW! scrolls across it.
I kind of like hearing it. It reminds me of when my parents used to read to me before bed. I click the link and go to the audiobook page. Just as I’m about to set up an account, my door opens with a bang.
“Time’s up, squid. Log off.” Jack plops on my bed, sweaty from track practice.
“Get off my bed! You stink!”
I’m sifting through my desk junk drawer for a gift card that I can use to buy the $12.99 book. Something soft whumps the back of my head.
“Log off!” Yesterday’s dirty socks splat on the floor.
“Wait your turn,” I snap, not taking my eyes away from the screen. “I got on at seven thirty.” We each get the laptop for an hour.
Jack’s bony finger taps the upper right corner of the screen: 8:32. He knocks on my head, too.
What?! Is there a mistake on the computer? Did he mess with it? I spin around—my clock and phone all read the same time.
I’ve lost my hour.
Jack leans over me—reeking armpit in my face, so I squeal and elbow him in the ribs—and logs me off.
“Should pay more attention, squid,” he says. I can’t get the computer back until after he’s done. I lost my audiobook link, and probably the sale price. Not to mention that I’m supposed to be getting this video ready and I hadn’t found anything I could use yet. And I haven’t gotten the Spanish shooting script together. So much for being on top of things.
Hopelessness rises through me, and I put my forehead on the desk. If I don’t get my language arts grade up, I don’t show my movie in the Hoot. I’ll let my friends down.
I could fight the bad thoughts, like Mr. Sinclair suggests, but why bother? They wash over me in waves.
Failing feels awful.
“Mouse Trap! Or Apples to Apples?” Mom’s muffled voice comes from the closet in the den. It’s Friday Night Fun. Once a month, the four of us stay home, eat popcorn, play board games, and watch movies. Mom got the idea from a parenting magazine, and our family’s been doing it since before I got here. Mom’s kind of obsessed. An asteroid could be on a collision course with Earth and she’d insist we finish our turns in Monopoly.
Tonight, I’m grateful for the distraction and glad no one’s talking to me about school.
Jack’s got the opposite problem. He’s standing in the middle of the family room, arms crossed and scowling.
“C’mon, Mom! Charlie’s mom said she’d drive both ways, so you don’t even have to leave.” He wants to go see War Troopers of Blendon, which opens tonight. I don’t know why he wants to go—from the online trailer, I can tell that the story is predictable and the effects aren’t anything special. But Jack likes to watch stuff explode, so …
I take out my camera and turn it on. This might get good.
MOM
(still in closet)
Mouse Trap! Or Apples to Apples?
JACK
You aren’t listening to me!
MOM
I am listening; I’m just choosing not to respond. Mouse Trap! Or Apples to Apples? We haven’t played either in ages. It’s your turn to pick, Jack.
JACK
Neither! I’m not playing.
JACK storms out of the room. Camera follows his back through the kitchen to the foot of the stairs. Before climbing, he spins quickly, reaches out, and grabs the lens.
Darkness.
He pulls the camera out of my hands.
“Hey!”
“Knock. It. Off,” he says through gritted teeth. He thrusts the camera into my chest and takes the stairs two at a time. His door slams before I move again.
Mom pokes her head around the doorframe.
“We’re starting in ten minutes. I chose Apples to Apples,” she tells me, the bright red box tucked under one arm and a fake smile stuck to her face.
I point upstairs. “Jack’s not going to play.”
“Too bad.” She shrugs, like it doesn’t matter to her, but her eyes give her away: They’re dark and hurt-looking. My heart hurts for her. She looks forward to Friday Night Fun, and it’s not fair of Jack to wreck it.
“Where’s Dad?”
“Puttering in the office, trying to work,” she explains. “He’ll be out in a few minutes.” Together, we clear the papers, junk mail, school notices, and decorative bowl off the dining room table. It’s the only space in the house where my super-organized mom loses the Clutter Creep Battle, as she calls it. In the kitchen, I get the red-and-white popcorn bowl from the cabinet and she pulls out the old-school air popper.
She plugs it in and it whines like a hair dryer. I hand her the jar of popcorn and hop up to sit on the counter. She frowns at me but doesn’t say anything, so I stay while Mom buzzes around the kitchen, getting the tray for the bowls, drinks, and dish of mixed nuts that Dad munches on.
The first kernels pop in small, short explosions. PA-CHEW! PA-CHING! PA-PA-PA-PA! I slide the bowl under the spout to catch the white, fluffy results. Their smell is a comfort. It reminds me of when I was a few years younger, before I found out about my disorder, when I was just a “quirky kid,” according to Dad, not one that had a problem that needed to be “managed.” Suddenly, a feeling hits me so strong I have to hang on to the edge of the counter because I’m afraid it’s going to make me tip over. It’s not sadness, exactly, it’s more … wishful. I struggle to name it, and then it comes to me: It’s longing. A longing for things to be the way they were when I was eight or nine: one or two homework sheets a night, no projects, and not disappointing everyone all the time.
The bowl fills quickly, the smell fills the kitchen, and then all that’s left are a few scorched kernels, clacking in the empty chamber. I know how they feel. Mom unplugs the machine.
I grab a handful of hot, dry, snacky goodness. If I just keep sitting here and thinking, I might cry.
“Can’t even wait for the butter, huh?” Mom asks.
I shrug.
Dad comes into the kitchen.
“How’d it go?” Mom asks. He tightens his lips into a frown. Not good, I guess.
“Hey, muffin.” He grabs a handful of popcorn, too, and kisses my head. “Where’s Jack?”
“Upstairs. Teenager-ing.” Mom brushes her hand back and forth, like she’s wiping Jack off the table. “We’ll play without him.”
Dad looks like he wants to ask more questions, but stops himself. “Okay.”
The three of us sit around the table in our regular seats and Mom opens the Apples to Apples box. I can’t remember the last time we had Friday Night Fun with just us—had we ever? Maybe when Jack was sick with mono last year? I try to shake this weird feeling.
Mom deals the cards and we play. Dad sets up a barricade so that no one can see his cards. It’s a quieter game than usual; Jack always makes the funniest analogies.
“Awkward,” Dad reads. I throw in oil spill. Mom goes for Kardashians. Mom wins.
“Good one, Hess,” Dad offers.
“Lovely,” Mom reads from a card. Should I go with silence or redwood forest? I drop silence. Dad chooses roses. Mom laughs. I win.
After a few more rounds, the snacks get low and Mom leaves to fire up the popper again.
I have that sensation like someone is looking at me. I glance up, just in time to see Jack’s head pull back around the doorframe. He’s spying.
“All are welcome,” I say loudly. Dad snaps his head in my direction. It’s a line from Poltergeist. I tilt my chin toward the door. Jack hovers there, an unhappy ghost.
“Where’s Mom?”
In the kitchen, the popper whines.
He slides into the room and perches on the edge of his seat, ready to disappear if someone says the wrong thing. He must’ve showered while up there—his hair is wet and he smells soapy.
“Want in?” Dad points to the cards.
Indecision flits across his face. He wants to play, but part of him—a big part—is still mad that he’s missing the movie with his friends. He doesn’t say anything. Dad hands him cards.
“Just in case,” he says.
The popcorn explosions start. Jack seems ready to bolt. I shift in my seat.
“Don’t bring out your camera,” he growls at me.
“I don’t even have it!” It’s not allowed at FNF. Which sucks.
“You shouldn’t be allowed to record people in the house,” he goes on. His anger comes at me, white-hot. “This isn’t a reality show. It’s my life.”
“I didn’t do anything!” I drop my cards and push away from the table.
“You did! You totally got in my face,” he goes on.
“Hey!” Dad speaks sharply, over our rising argument and the top of his card protection wall. “This is not the time or place. Jack, Hess doesn’t have a camera. Hess, don’t film your brother. End of story.”
My brother and I glare at each other across the table. His cheeks splotch red and his jaw is tight. I give him my best narrow eyes of doom.
Mom returns with the popcorn.
“You in?” she asks Jack.
He nods, not saying anything.
We pick up with a new round, the words and feelings as fragile as glass.
After a few hands, Dad reads, “Dramatic.” Jack throws down teenager.
Mom laughs. The tension in the room drains—not completely, but just enough.
And that’s enough for now.
<< FAST-FORWARD >>
Watch Super 8 on the couch with Mom
Stay up really late getting the Spanish stuff ready
Don’t finish; get up early
<< RESUME PLAY >>
“Hey, señora,” I say as Nev comes into my room. She perches the giant sombrero from Jack’s birthday at Arriba’s on her head and wraps my blue throw blanket around her like a poncho.
“It’s señorita,” Max says.
Nev rattles off some Spanish that I probably should be able to understand by now but don’t. I’m really good at asking for a glass of water, though.
Nev flops on my bed, big hat hiding not only her face but most of her chest.
“Now I can see why there are so many pictures of people asleep in one of these things,” she says. “Sombreros are comfy!”
“That’s a stereotype,” I mumble. “And we’re not using those. We’re using cowboy costumes. It’s a Western.” I adjust the camera on the tripod, which is pointed at the backdrop that Max is still painting. We are going all out for this assignment. I fight off a yawn. It’s been a long day already and we haven’t even started shooting.
“Ándale, Max!” Nev says. “I need to be home by six.”
“It’s four thirty,” Max says. “Chill out, amiga.” He puts the paintbrush down and turns toward us. “Oh! Hey! How’s this: Chill out with Billy’s Frozen Flan! So creamy, it’s dreamy!”
“Terrible,” Nev mutters. I giggle.
Max sighs and adds the finishing touches on his cactus and ranch house, and I pass out the scripts we wrote—okay, Nev and Max did most of the Spanish lines; I did the shot list.
“Did you rewrite it?” Max says, fanning the pages. “It’s, like, a two-minute skit, not a thirty-minute TV show.”
“It’s a shooting script,” I explain. “It has more than just your dialogue in it. It lists all the shots I need. Without it, I’d have no plan.”
Nev snorts. “You, plan something? That’s hilarious.”
“Really, Nev?” I say. I stick my tongue out at her.
“Well, you don’t,” she responds.
Do I want to go down this road? We don’t have a lot of time. I take a breath, hold it for the count of five. Let it out.
“There’s a first time for everything,” I say, hoping it’s enough to end things.
Nev doesn’t answer. Instead, she pushes the costumes to the side and she and Max look at their scripts.
Spanish Skit: Where Is the Horse?
EXT. The desert.
MARIA sits in front of a cactus. The sun beats down. It’s hot. PACO enters from offscreen.
PACO
Where did the horse go?
MARIA
(looks around)
The horse?
PACO
Yes, the horse! My horse!
CLOSE-UP: MARIA.
MARIA
(shrugs)
I don’t know. Where did you leave the horse?
WIDE SHOT: PACO.
PACO
(pointing to cactus)
Right there! You were watching it!
MARIA
I’m sorry. The horse left.
PACO
(getting angry)
Where did it go?
MARIA
(testily)
I don’t know.
PACO stomps to the far side of the set and whistles.
PACO
Hombre! Come!
Hoofbeats from off camera. HOMBRE appears, dusty from being in the desert.
HOMBRE
(whinnies)
PACO
You returned!
MARIA
There is the horse!
End scene.
“I thought you were going to be in it?” Max asks from his spot on the floor. “We had lines for you.”
“I am in it. I’m doing the camera stuff. I kept the lines, just gave them back to you guys.” I adjust the tripod and zoom in so you can’t see the walls of my room. The backdrop fills the screen.
“We’re all supposed to have a part,” Nev points out, sitting up.
“I do have a part,” I say. My face heats and my gut bubbles. “I’m also Hombre.” I point to the stuffed brown pony on my bed. He’s dusty from the basement, which is great—instant authenticity.
“Señora Garciaparra is not going to give us credit if we don’t all participate.”
“Let it go, Nev. I helped write the script. I’m shooting the skit. I am the horse. What else is there?” My voice is a little louder than it probably should be.
“Um, speak Spanish?” Max says quietly. “That’s kind of the point of this—to speak Spanish.”
I’m not good at speaking Spanish. I don’t want to be in front of the camera. I’m tired and want to capture this before they have to go home.
“You can’t record your way out of this,” Nev says.
Heat flashes through my body. What is her deal? For as long as we’ve been friends, Nev’s known that I don’t like doing stuff in front of people. I try to control myself and think of a way out of the situation.
“Look,” I say, making a peace offering, “how about I record a voice-over at the beginning, introducing our skit and who we are? In Spanish,” I add, in case they don’t get it.
Nev and Max have a silent conversation with raised eyebrows, cocked heads, and shrugs.
“Fine,” Nev says. “At least that way, if Señora doesn’t give all of us credit because you didn’t participate enough, we can argue that you did something.”
“We’re going to get credit,” I say, brushing off her comment. “But we won’t get anything if we don’t do it.”
“Let’s get started,” Max says.
“Places!” I say. I hold up my clapper board, a souvenir that my uncle brought back from a visit to Epic Stud
ios. “Where Is the Horse? Scene one. And … action!”
I scramble behind the camera and hit RECORD. Max takes his place in front of the cactus. He reads the lines from his script, stumbling through the Spanish. Nev responds, the words rolling off her tongue like she’s a native speaker, not like she spent her childhood watching Dora the Explorer, but trips over the hem of her huge cowboy jacket.
We do it again, but Max flubs a line.
And has a sneezing fit during take three.
“Max!” Nev snaps. She fans herself with the prop ten-gallon hat.
“El caballo es demasiado … polvoriento!” he says.
“Reset.” I point them to their places. “This time, Max, make sure you hit your mark so you don’t block Nev.” He rolls his eyes and makes funny faces through take four.
Nev loses her place during take five. She takes off the jacket and there’s a damp spot on her back. “These things are hot,” she grumbles.
“Cut!” I holler, midway through take six. “Cut!”
“What?” Max says.
“You could totally tell that you were reading the script,” I tell them. “It was obvious.”
“But we were reading it,” Nev says.
“It didn’t look good.”
“It was three words,” Max throws in.
“It’s been six takes. Don’t you have it memorized by now? I do.”
Silence. That sounded way snarky, but still … it’s not like the script is long! It’s barely a page.