Mallory and the Mystery Diary Chapters 11-15
I wrote a fic based on something I wish had happened. It's under the second read more.
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Chapter 11
Mallory decides to hold a séance to contact Sophie. I’m a total chickenshit and I have no desire to fuck with supernatural creatures. Everyone acts so incredulous at the thought of a séance. Part of me is bitter and wondering if the incredulity is because Mallory suggested it. I’m sure that’s not the reason, though. But haven’t these girls ever heard of séances before? I’m pretty sure Karen has probably held ten séances a month. Well, Jessi doesn’t know what a séance is.
Kristy doesn’t want to have a séance because there’s no such thing as ghosts and spirits. We all know that if Karen said the bathroom was haunted you’d be scared to go in the bathroom and would just shit outside. No, wait, you’d do that anyway. Never mind. I was scared to go in the bathroom after I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because I was afraid a basilisk was going to kill me. Then I wanted a pet basilisk. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Kristy takes Karen’s bullshit about ghosts and stuff seriously.
Besides, didn’t you make your club go to the graveyard at midnight so you can counteract an evil curse? What, you believe in cursed necklaces that cause you to spill your macaroni or burn dinner or suffer from any other minor inconvenience, but holding a séance is too much?
Dawn is into holding a séance because she likes ghosts. Part of me wants to see a ghost or a supernatural creature, but the other part of me is scared. According to my grandfather, putting dog’s eye gunk in your eye will allow you to see spirits. I have not tried it because that doesn’t sound very hygienic and I have no idea what the fuck I’d do if I saw a spirit. The rest of the BSC seems into holding the séance, except Kristy. But it’s totally cool for her to make the BSC go to a graveyard at midnight even if they don’t want to. After all, if their leader speaks, they must obey.
Kristy starts whining like a child because god forbid the BSC want to do something that she didn’t suggest. How the fuck does she have friends? I guess I can kind of understand Mary Anne and Claudia because they grew up with her so maybe after a while they got used to the bullshit. But how many times has Kristy expected them to do things her way regardless of their personal feelings? How many times does she act like she just has to say the word and the BSC will jump to it? Does she ever consider people might not want to do what she wants?
I wish Mallory would just tell Kristy where to shove it. I wish she’d say, “We go along with your ideas all the time without complaint. I’m not going to force you to go along with this if you don’t want to. But you can stop whining like a little kid.” Maybe I’ll write a fic about that when I’m finished with this snark. I don’t see why they need Kristy. She doesn’t want to come. Why force her? Does a séance need to have a certain number of people or something? Everyone’s begging Kristy to come. I have no idea why. If I’m doing a project or something that’s important to me, I don’t feel like having someone there who’s just going to make fun of me and what I’m doing.
Kristy agrees to come as long as she could be the channeler. I’d have been thinking, “Fuck that! Bitch, you didn’t even want to do this, why the fuck should you be the channeler? This was my idea, why can’t I be the channeler?” Mallory thinks that’s bullshit because it was her idea, but she’s one of the youngest members, so she’s a little intimidated by the older members. I would be as well. Mallory also knows it’s pointless to argue with Kristy. Kristy is the type of person who I’d hate arguing with. Even when she’s clearly in the wrong, she’d act like she was in the right and the victim and I’m just being mean or too sensitive. She’s the type of person who makes you feel guilty about arguing and standing up for yourself. And with those people, it’s just so exhausting to deal with them.
Also, why the fuck does Kristy have to be in charge? She doesn’t even believe in ghosts or want to do the séance? Will she just shrivel up and die if she isn’t in charge of every project? Is she going to go into work one day and demand to be put in charge of a project even though she’s only been there an hour and has no experience and there are people who outrank her? Actually, she probably would. I’m just imagining her demanding to be the manager once she gets hired for her first job and getting mad when they tell her they aren’t promoting her to manager when she hasn’t even worked an hour. I can just see her trying to impress them with the fact that she was president of the BSC and her superiors being like, “That still doesn’t mean you’re going to be the manager.”
The séance is going to be on Saturday at Stacey’s house. Kristy comes in dressed in a turban. Kristy also makes them call her Madame Kristin. I’d have been calling her Madam Bossy Bitch under my breath and flipping her off. Kristy totally fakes being able to channel Sophie’s spirit. So she didn’t care at all. Why even have her there? I’m sure that Kristy would flip her shit if someone joked about babies or kids or spoke about anything other than kids at a BSC meeting. But it’s perfectly fine for her to act like something is a big joke as long as she doesn’t care about it. But god forbid someone joke about something she cares about.
I’m sure she’d have taken the séance seriously if it was Karen’s idea. Hell, she’d probably sacrifice an animal if Karen wanted her to.
Chapter 12
Stacey babysits for Charlotte. She tells Charlotte about the mystery. Charlotte says that things aren’t always what they seem. Stacey tells this to Mallory. Yeah, I’m sure there are times when the solution to something is really obvious, but I can’t think of it. That pisses me off. I’m struggling with a problem and I know the solution is totally obvious and I’m going to feel like a real dumbass once I figure it out, but I just can’t figure it out. It’s kind of when I lost something and I know it’s in a really obvious place, but I can’t think of it. In those cases I just stop looking for whatever I’m looking for because I know they’ll turn up when I’m not looking. This one time I lost the pen for my DS and I looked all over. It never occurred to me to check my pockets. There are also times when I try to remember if I have my contacts in before I remember, “I can see. I have my contacts in.”
Chapter 13
Mallory is having another session with Buddy. This time she brought Encyclopedia Brown because the reader can solve the mystery themselves. Buddy is getting along really well with Mallory and his reading is improving a lot. I’m so happy to see Mallory succeed at getting Buddy to read and I’m so happy to see Buddy getting into reading. Mallory tells Buddy about what’s going on with Sophie. Buddy gets excited and wants to see the diary so he can be a detective like Encyclopedia Brown. I’d get excited too. I’d be like, “Holy shit, it’s like I’m a character in a book. I’ve waited my whole life to discover a secret passage or a mysterious diary or a centuries old mystery. My time has finally come!”
Buddy and Mallory go to Mallory’s house so Buddy can read the diary. Buddy says Sophie can’t spell and Mallory wants to know what word Sophie misspelled. Buddy said she spelled happy wrong. Mallory is really proud at how far Buddy has come. I really love the relationship between Mallory and Buddy. I think it’s a much nicer relationship between the one between Dawn and Buddy. Mallory isn’t judging Buddy and saying, “You aren’t allowed to do this because I don’t like it.” When Mallory’s first method didn’t work, she tried to figure out a way to make it fun for Buddy and it worked. I just love how much Buddy is succeeding and how proud Mallory is.
Buddy thinks that maybe the clue is in the trunk. Buddy explores the trunk and gets his hand stuck in a hidden pocket. That is so cool. I want a trunk like that now. I’d hide papers in there and pretend I was part of a spy organization and I was leaving these papers behind as clues for someone. Buddy finds some paper in the trunk. It’s Hickman’s confession. He really was Old Hickory. What happened was Hickman didn’t want to look at his daughter’s portrait because it was too painful. So he hired someone to paint over the portrait, changed the frame, and then moved the painting to another room. His friends asked what happened to the portrait, and Hickman was too embarrassed to tell the truth. He said the portrait must have been stolen, and the townspeople immediately made Jared the scapegoat. Instead of correcting them, Hickman allowed the town to ostracize Jared and his family, and wrote them out of his will. So he knew Jared was innocent and screwed him over for no reason. What a dick. Buddy thinks maybe the painting got moved around so it’s now in Stacey’s house.
Chapter 14
They go over to Stacey’s house and run to the attic. Mrs. McGill says she’s never heard so much noise. Just wait until Stacey throws one of her orgy parties in a few years. They look for the painting. They’re about ready to give up when Mallory finds it. Some of the paint has chipped away on the painting. Mrs. McGill is going to take the painting to a professional art restorer so they don’t ruin the portrait.
Mallory walks Buddy home. Buddy says he’s going to be a magician because he found a box of magic tricks in the attic and Stacey said he could have them. He even thinks he can read the instructions by himself. Mrs. Barrett thanks Mallory for all her help with Buddy. Buddy is much happier now and doesn’t argue with his mom every day about going to school. He doesn’t gag whenever someone mentions books and reading. I really love the relationship between Mallory and Buddy in this book. Buddy is able to read the directions and perform a magic trick. Mallory goes home before her parents call the cops.
I’m pretty sure that the Pikes wouldn’t even notice Mallory was missing. If they did, they’d only notice because the house was a mess, dinner wasn’t on the table, Margo had puked and no one had cleaned it up, and there were spills all over that no one cleaned up. I’m sure everyone would have just sat around twiddling their thumbs until Mallory showed up.
Chapter 15
Stacey has exciting news, but Kristy has to be all uppity and point to the clock. So the girls aren’t allowed to discuss things without Kristy’s permission, but she can make fun of their hobbies and interests all she wants. It turns out the painting Mallory found was the portrait of Sophie’s mom. They’re going to keep it in the house so that their spirits will all be together. I guess Sophie’s spirit is at peace now. Buddy calls looking for Mallory. I wondered why he was calling now. He knows where Mallory lives and he could just go over to her house or call her house if he wanted to talk to her. And if they’re still having tutoring sessions, he could always talk to her then. Then I thought that maybe Buddy had some big news and couldn’t wait to share it with Mallory.
Buddy’s news is that he got moved up from the lowest level reading group into the middle level reading group. That’s awesome! I really loved the plot between Mallory and Buddy and the relationship between them. Buddy says he even read a chapter book by himself and only needed a little help from his mom. It’s an amazing feeling to be able to go, “I understand that!” after struggling with it for so long. Buddy read a Hardy Boys mystery by himself. I was always a Nancy Drew girl. Now I feel like reading Hardy Boys. I just hope Buddy doesn’t limit himself like Claudia does. Mallory wants to buy Buddy a book to reward him for all his hard work and asks Kristy and Stacey if it’s okay. They’re cool with it. I really love the relationship between Mallory and Buddy in this book. I know Dawn was always closer to the Barretts, but I think I prefer the relationship Mallory has with Buddy than the one Dawn has with Buddy.
FIC! Based on the scene in chapter 11 when Kristy was whining about the séance, yet still wanted to be in charge.
It was kind of shocking seeing Kristy whine like Claire. After all, she was thirteen. Thirteen year olds had always seemed so mysterious and otherworldly when I passed them in the halls at school. Now here one was now, whining like a little five year old. I half expected Kristy to stomp her foot or throw herself on the ground and scream. Maybe she’d threaten to hold her breath until she passed out. I’d seen Claire threaten to do that a few times. Of course it never worked out. I kind of hoped Kristy would threaten to hold her breath until she passed out unless she got her way. It would have meant I wouldn’t have to listen to her whining.
As Kristy continued to whine, I found myself getting more and more irritated. It was like hearing a buzzing noise that wasn’t too bad at first, but then it intensified until all you could hear was buzzing. Finally the words slipped out of me. “Kristy, would you just shut up!” I yelled. There was an immediate silence. As Kristy turned to glare at me, I felt like I was gazing at a gorgon and I was about to be turned to stone. For a moment I wondered if Kristy could shoot laser beams out of her eyes. Given the way she was glaring at me, I was sure she was trying to do that. “What did you just say?” Kristy barked.
My hands trembled. My heart raced. I was sure my heart was racing so hard that it would burst right out of my chest and keep running. I wanted to hide. Part of me wanted to apologize and then spend the rest of the meeting staring at the floor and praying the BSC would forget what had happened. But a more courageous part of me took hold. I glared right back at Kristy. “I said, shut up.” I repeated this firmly and loudly. Then it was like a dam had burst. Feelings that I had only expressed in my journal poured out of me. “I’m sick of you whining about this séance! So you don’t want to do it! Fine! But would it kill you to stop whining like a little five year old because some of us are interested in something you aren’t?”
Kristy opened her mouth to speak but I steamrolled right over her. After she steamrolled over people all the time, maybe she deserved a taste of her own medicine. “It’s quite fine when there’s a project you’re interested in!” I yelled. “Then you expect us to drop everything and do whatever you want, no questions asked!”
“Like when?” Kristy demanded.
“What about the time we thought we were cursed and you forced Claudia to go to the library even though she didn’t want to? What about the time you didn’t want Jessi to take that pet sitting job even though it was on her own time just because you had a bad experience? Or-”
Kristy cut me off. “Okay, okay, I get it,” she snapped. “I didn’t realize going along with my ideas was so annoying to you, Mallory.” I felt a tiny pinprick of guilt at that. Kristy had some decent ideas at times. Other times it was just easier to go along with her ideas because she put up such a fuss when we didn’t. The rest of the club had been sitting in silence this entire time. Now Mary Anne spoke. “You guys shouldn’t fight. Come on, Kristy. A séance sounds like fun. We’d really like you there.”
Speak for yourself, I thought, but remained silent. If Mary Anne wanted to extend an olive branch, she could. Growing up with siblings meant that I was used to giving in so I could avoid a longer argument. “Alright, I’ll come,” Kristy said. I managed not to roll my eyes or mouth a curse word under my breath. Kristy wasn’t taking my idea seriously at all and was whining that the others were. I really didn’t want her to be part of the séance if all she was going to do was make fun of me and not take my idea seriously. Kristy wasn’t finished talking, though. “I’ll go to the séance as long as I get to be the channeler.”
My anger flared up again. It was like blowing out a candle only to find that there was still a tiny flame. “No!” I yelled. “Why should you be in charge? You don’t even believe in séances or ghosts! This was my idea and my project and I’m calling the shots! If you don’t like it, I don’t need you! You’re not entitled to be in charge of every project!” I stared at her. My fists trembled as I stared down Kristy. I wanted to look away, but I didn’t want to be the first to give in. Finally Kristy huffed and looked away. “Count me out, then. A séance sounds like a stupid idea.” Now I did roll my eyes. If Kristy wanted to act like a five year old and storm off because she wasn’t getting her way, that was fine with me. I had a séance to plan.
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Chapter 11
Mallory decides to hold a séance to contact Sophie. I’m a total chickenshit and I have no desire to fuck with supernatural creatures. Everyone acts so incredulous at the thought of a séance. Part of me is bitter and wondering if the incredulity is because Mallory suggested it. I’m sure that’s not the reason, though. But haven’t these girls ever heard of séances before? I’m pretty sure Karen has probably held ten séances a month. Well, Jessi doesn’t know what a séance is.
Kristy doesn’t want to have a séance because there’s no such thing as ghosts and spirits. We all know that if Karen said the bathroom was haunted you’d be scared to go in the bathroom and would just shit outside. No, wait, you’d do that anyway. Never mind. I was scared to go in the bathroom after I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets because I was afraid a basilisk was going to kill me. Then I wanted a pet basilisk. Anyway, I’m pretty sure Kristy takes Karen’s bullshit about ghosts and stuff seriously.
Besides, didn’t you make your club go to the graveyard at midnight so you can counteract an evil curse? What, you believe in cursed necklaces that cause you to spill your macaroni or burn dinner or suffer from any other minor inconvenience, but holding a séance is too much?
Dawn is into holding a séance because she likes ghosts. Part of me wants to see a ghost or a supernatural creature, but the other part of me is scared. According to my grandfather, putting dog’s eye gunk in your eye will allow you to see spirits. I have not tried it because that doesn’t sound very hygienic and I have no idea what the fuck I’d do if I saw a spirit. The rest of the BSC seems into holding the séance, except Kristy. But it’s totally cool for her to make the BSC go to a graveyard at midnight even if they don’t want to. After all, if their leader speaks, they must obey.
Kristy starts whining like a child because god forbid the BSC want to do something that she didn’t suggest. How the fuck does she have friends? I guess I can kind of understand Mary Anne and Claudia because they grew up with her so maybe after a while they got used to the bullshit. But how many times has Kristy expected them to do things her way regardless of their personal feelings? How many times does she act like she just has to say the word and the BSC will jump to it? Does she ever consider people might not want to do what she wants?
I wish Mallory would just tell Kristy where to shove it. I wish she’d say, “We go along with your ideas all the time without complaint. I’m not going to force you to go along with this if you don’t want to. But you can stop whining like a little kid.” Maybe I’ll write a fic about that when I’m finished with this snark. I don’t see why they need Kristy. She doesn’t want to come. Why force her? Does a séance need to have a certain number of people or something? Everyone’s begging Kristy to come. I have no idea why. If I’m doing a project or something that’s important to me, I don’t feel like having someone there who’s just going to make fun of me and what I’m doing.
Kristy agrees to come as long as she could be the channeler. I’d have been thinking, “Fuck that! Bitch, you didn’t even want to do this, why the fuck should you be the channeler? This was my idea, why can’t I be the channeler?” Mallory thinks that’s bullshit because it was her idea, but she’s one of the youngest members, so she’s a little intimidated by the older members. I would be as well. Mallory also knows it’s pointless to argue with Kristy. Kristy is the type of person who I’d hate arguing with. Even when she’s clearly in the wrong, she’d act like she was in the right and the victim and I’m just being mean or too sensitive. She’s the type of person who makes you feel guilty about arguing and standing up for yourself. And with those people, it’s just so exhausting to deal with them.
Also, why the fuck does Kristy have to be in charge? She doesn’t even believe in ghosts or want to do the séance? Will she just shrivel up and die if she isn’t in charge of every project? Is she going to go into work one day and demand to be put in charge of a project even though she’s only been there an hour and has no experience and there are people who outrank her? Actually, she probably would. I’m just imagining her demanding to be the manager once she gets hired for her first job and getting mad when they tell her they aren’t promoting her to manager when she hasn’t even worked an hour. I can just see her trying to impress them with the fact that she was president of the BSC and her superiors being like, “That still doesn’t mean you’re going to be the manager.”
The séance is going to be on Saturday at Stacey’s house. Kristy comes in dressed in a turban. Kristy also makes them call her Madame Kristin. I’d have been calling her Madam Bossy Bitch under my breath and flipping her off. Kristy totally fakes being able to channel Sophie’s spirit. So she didn’t care at all. Why even have her there? I’m sure that Kristy would flip her shit if someone joked about babies or kids or spoke about anything other than kids at a BSC meeting. But it’s perfectly fine for her to act like something is a big joke as long as she doesn’t care about it. But god forbid someone joke about something she cares about.
I’m sure she’d have taken the séance seriously if it was Karen’s idea. Hell, she’d probably sacrifice an animal if Karen wanted her to.
Chapter 12
Stacey babysits for Charlotte. She tells Charlotte about the mystery. Charlotte says that things aren’t always what they seem. Stacey tells this to Mallory. Yeah, I’m sure there are times when the solution to something is really obvious, but I can’t think of it. That pisses me off. I’m struggling with a problem and I know the solution is totally obvious and I’m going to feel like a real dumbass once I figure it out, but I just can’t figure it out. It’s kind of when I lost something and I know it’s in a really obvious place, but I can’t think of it. In those cases I just stop looking for whatever I’m looking for because I know they’ll turn up when I’m not looking. This one time I lost the pen for my DS and I looked all over. It never occurred to me to check my pockets. There are also times when I try to remember if I have my contacts in before I remember, “I can see. I have my contacts in.”
Chapter 13
Mallory is having another session with Buddy. This time she brought Encyclopedia Brown because the reader can solve the mystery themselves. Buddy is getting along really well with Mallory and his reading is improving a lot. I’m so happy to see Mallory succeed at getting Buddy to read and I’m so happy to see Buddy getting into reading. Mallory tells Buddy about what’s going on with Sophie. Buddy gets excited and wants to see the diary so he can be a detective like Encyclopedia Brown. I’d get excited too. I’d be like, “Holy shit, it’s like I’m a character in a book. I’ve waited my whole life to discover a secret passage or a mysterious diary or a centuries old mystery. My time has finally come!”
Buddy and Mallory go to Mallory’s house so Buddy can read the diary. Buddy says Sophie can’t spell and Mallory wants to know what word Sophie misspelled. Buddy said she spelled happy wrong. Mallory is really proud at how far Buddy has come. I really love the relationship between Mallory and Buddy. I think it’s a much nicer relationship between the one between Dawn and Buddy. Mallory isn’t judging Buddy and saying, “You aren’t allowed to do this because I don’t like it.” When Mallory’s first method didn’t work, she tried to figure out a way to make it fun for Buddy and it worked. I just love how much Buddy is succeeding and how proud Mallory is.
Buddy thinks that maybe the clue is in the trunk. Buddy explores the trunk and gets his hand stuck in a hidden pocket. That is so cool. I want a trunk like that now. I’d hide papers in there and pretend I was part of a spy organization and I was leaving these papers behind as clues for someone. Buddy finds some paper in the trunk. It’s Hickman’s confession. He really was Old Hickory. What happened was Hickman didn’t want to look at his daughter’s portrait because it was too painful. So he hired someone to paint over the portrait, changed the frame, and then moved the painting to another room. His friends asked what happened to the portrait, and Hickman was too embarrassed to tell the truth. He said the portrait must have been stolen, and the townspeople immediately made Jared the scapegoat. Instead of correcting them, Hickman allowed the town to ostracize Jared and his family, and wrote them out of his will. So he knew Jared was innocent and screwed him over for no reason. What a dick. Buddy thinks maybe the painting got moved around so it’s now in Stacey’s house.
Chapter 14
They go over to Stacey’s house and run to the attic. Mrs. McGill says she’s never heard so much noise. Just wait until Stacey throws one of her orgy parties in a few years. They look for the painting. They’re about ready to give up when Mallory finds it. Some of the paint has chipped away on the painting. Mrs. McGill is going to take the painting to a professional art restorer so they don’t ruin the portrait.
Mallory walks Buddy home. Buddy says he’s going to be a magician because he found a box of magic tricks in the attic and Stacey said he could have them. He even thinks he can read the instructions by himself. Mrs. Barrett thanks Mallory for all her help with Buddy. Buddy is much happier now and doesn’t argue with his mom every day about going to school. He doesn’t gag whenever someone mentions books and reading. I really love the relationship between Mallory and Buddy in this book. Buddy is able to read the directions and perform a magic trick. Mallory goes home before her parents call the cops.
I’m pretty sure that the Pikes wouldn’t even notice Mallory was missing. If they did, they’d only notice because the house was a mess, dinner wasn’t on the table, Margo had puked and no one had cleaned it up, and there were spills all over that no one cleaned up. I’m sure everyone would have just sat around twiddling their thumbs until Mallory showed up.
Chapter 15
Stacey has exciting news, but Kristy has to be all uppity and point to the clock. So the girls aren’t allowed to discuss things without Kristy’s permission, but she can make fun of their hobbies and interests all she wants. It turns out the painting Mallory found was the portrait of Sophie’s mom. They’re going to keep it in the house so that their spirits will all be together. I guess Sophie’s spirit is at peace now. Buddy calls looking for Mallory. I wondered why he was calling now. He knows where Mallory lives and he could just go over to her house or call her house if he wanted to talk to her. And if they’re still having tutoring sessions, he could always talk to her then. Then I thought that maybe Buddy had some big news and couldn’t wait to share it with Mallory.
Buddy’s news is that he got moved up from the lowest level reading group into the middle level reading group. That’s awesome! I really loved the plot between Mallory and Buddy and the relationship between them. Buddy says he even read a chapter book by himself and only needed a little help from his mom. It’s an amazing feeling to be able to go, “I understand that!” after struggling with it for so long. Buddy read a Hardy Boys mystery by himself. I was always a Nancy Drew girl. Now I feel like reading Hardy Boys. I just hope Buddy doesn’t limit himself like Claudia does. Mallory wants to buy Buddy a book to reward him for all his hard work and asks Kristy and Stacey if it’s okay. They’re cool with it. I really love the relationship between Mallory and Buddy in this book. I know Dawn was always closer to the Barretts, but I think I prefer the relationship Mallory has with Buddy than the one Dawn has with Buddy.
FIC! Based on the scene in chapter 11 when Kristy was whining about the séance, yet still wanted to be in charge.
It was kind of shocking seeing Kristy whine like Claire. After all, she was thirteen. Thirteen year olds had always seemed so mysterious and otherworldly when I passed them in the halls at school. Now here one was now, whining like a little five year old. I half expected Kristy to stomp her foot or throw herself on the ground and scream. Maybe she’d threaten to hold her breath until she passed out. I’d seen Claire threaten to do that a few times. Of course it never worked out. I kind of hoped Kristy would threaten to hold her breath until she passed out unless she got her way. It would have meant I wouldn’t have to listen to her whining.
As Kristy continued to whine, I found myself getting more and more irritated. It was like hearing a buzzing noise that wasn’t too bad at first, but then it intensified until all you could hear was buzzing. Finally the words slipped out of me. “Kristy, would you just shut up!” I yelled. There was an immediate silence. As Kristy turned to glare at me, I felt like I was gazing at a gorgon and I was about to be turned to stone. For a moment I wondered if Kristy could shoot laser beams out of her eyes. Given the way she was glaring at me, I was sure she was trying to do that. “What did you just say?” Kristy barked.
My hands trembled. My heart raced. I was sure my heart was racing so hard that it would burst right out of my chest and keep running. I wanted to hide. Part of me wanted to apologize and then spend the rest of the meeting staring at the floor and praying the BSC would forget what had happened. But a more courageous part of me took hold. I glared right back at Kristy. “I said, shut up.” I repeated this firmly and loudly. Then it was like a dam had burst. Feelings that I had only expressed in my journal poured out of me. “I’m sick of you whining about this séance! So you don’t want to do it! Fine! But would it kill you to stop whining like a little five year old because some of us are interested in something you aren’t?”
Kristy opened her mouth to speak but I steamrolled right over her. After she steamrolled over people all the time, maybe she deserved a taste of her own medicine. “It’s quite fine when there’s a project you’re interested in!” I yelled. “Then you expect us to drop everything and do whatever you want, no questions asked!”
“Like when?” Kristy demanded.
“What about the time we thought we were cursed and you forced Claudia to go to the library even though she didn’t want to? What about the time you didn’t want Jessi to take that pet sitting job even though it was on her own time just because you had a bad experience? Or-”
Kristy cut me off. “Okay, okay, I get it,” she snapped. “I didn’t realize going along with my ideas was so annoying to you, Mallory.” I felt a tiny pinprick of guilt at that. Kristy had some decent ideas at times. Other times it was just easier to go along with her ideas because she put up such a fuss when we didn’t. The rest of the club had been sitting in silence this entire time. Now Mary Anne spoke. “You guys shouldn’t fight. Come on, Kristy. A séance sounds like fun. We’d really like you there.”
Speak for yourself, I thought, but remained silent. If Mary Anne wanted to extend an olive branch, she could. Growing up with siblings meant that I was used to giving in so I could avoid a longer argument. “Alright, I’ll come,” Kristy said. I managed not to roll my eyes or mouth a curse word under my breath. Kristy wasn’t taking my idea seriously at all and was whining that the others were. I really didn’t want her to be part of the séance if all she was going to do was make fun of me and not take my idea seriously. Kristy wasn’t finished talking, though. “I’ll go to the séance as long as I get to be the channeler.”
My anger flared up again. It was like blowing out a candle only to find that there was still a tiny flame. “No!” I yelled. “Why should you be in charge? You don’t even believe in séances or ghosts! This was my idea and my project and I’m calling the shots! If you don’t like it, I don’t need you! You’re not entitled to be in charge of every project!” I stared at her. My fists trembled as I stared down Kristy. I wanted to look away, but I didn’t want to be the first to give in. Finally Kristy huffed and looked away. “Count me out, then. A séance sounds like a stupid idea.” Now I did roll my eyes. If Kristy wanted to act like a five year old and storm off because she wasn’t getting her way, that was fine with me. I had a séance to plan.