Graveyard Slot, Michelle Schusterman [top novels to read txt] 📗

“Nope, I’m awake!”

I smiled, but my heart fluttered against my rib cage. In the haze of delayed flights and neck-cramp-inducing naps at the airport, I’d managed to put the fact that tonight was the night I would make my television debut mostly out of my mind.

By nine o’clock, all eight of us were crammed into Lidia and Oscar’s room. The warm scent of coffee filled the air, and the adults all looked much perkier. I was, too, although my adrenaline had more to do with fear than caffeine.

Mi Jin crouched by the TV with her laptop, face scrunched in concentration as she tried connecting them with different combinations of cables, cords, and adapters. I could see Fright TV’s website on the laptop screen; all episodes were available to stream at the same time as they aired on television back in the US.

“Got it!” Mi Jin said triumphantly, and everyone cheered as the network’s site appeared on the TV. I faked a cheer, too, shrinking back into my pillow. As if he’d read my mind, Dad slung his arm around my shoulders.

“Don’t worry,” he said as the opening credits started. “I watched this about a thousand times while we were editing. You and Oscar did great, so just relax!”

I tried to smile, thinking of the memory card in my pocket and the secret it held. Just. Freaking. Relax. Hoping no one else could tell how nervous I was, I leaned into Dad and squeezed my balled-up fists in my lap.

But it turned out Dad was right. The first time I saw myself on TV, I winced a little. After a few minutes, though, I was used to it. Sort of.

Oscar was way better at this than me; that much was screamingly obvious. Everything I said was clipped, and sometimes I mumbled. I also turned away from the cameras a lot. But Oscar spoke clearly and was pretty much the opposite of camera shy. If anything, he came off as a little too eager, at least in my opinion.

My favorite part was near the beginning, when we were setting up camp. Mi Jin must have sneaked up to the ledge, because she’d recorded me and Oscar joking around about Elsa battling the Abominable Snowman, right before I jumped into the pool. Neither of us knew she was there, so we both sounded like ourselves.

All of the non-me parts of the episode were great. Sam had been in top form, picking up all sorts of emotions from the residual haunting, piecing together a story of what he thought happened to the campers. Dad added to that with facts he’d learned about them—their families, where they went to school, their interests—which made Sam’s increasingly intense descriptions of their fear and panic as they realized they were going to die even more sympathetic and horrifying. And just when things would get really heavy, Roland would lighten the mood with a quip. Until the last few minutes.

In a voiceover, Dad talked about why the waterfall was likely the perfect example of a residual haunting, while clips of our hike back to the van played. But at one point when we stopped to rest, Jess took her camera over to Roland and Sam, who were sitting on the rail of a rusty train track, passing a water bottle back and forth. Roland’s expression was distant, and I suddenly remembered that this had been filmed just a few hours after the whole Ellie conversation.

“So, what’s the verdict, guys?” Jess asked. “Skeptics argue that the reason anyone feels anxiety or fear at the site of a supposed residual haunting, the reason they think they hear or even see the event replaying, is simply because of the story itself—the same reason people think they hear noises in the attic or check under their beds after watching a scary movie, even though they know it’s fiction. Can we ever prove this kind of phenomenon is real?”

Sam opened his mouth to respond, but Roland beat him to it.

“It doesn’t matter.” His voice had none of its usual sarcasm. “Proof doesn’t matter. What matters is whether you believe or not. Maybe . . . maybe sometimes belief is enough to make it real.”

With that, he handed the bottle to Sam, whose eyes were so comically round with surprise that everyone in the room started sniggering.

“You out Sam’d Sam,” Mi Jin told Roland between giggles, and he grinned. But I couldn’t help noticing that his eyes looked sad.

“My granddaughter, the television star!”

I snorted, cradling the phone with my shoulder and scrolling through the newer comments on my last blog post. “I don’t think star is the right word.”

“You were fantastic,” Grandma said for, like, the hundredth time. “If you hadn’t sent me that e-mail about being nervous in front of the cameras, I never would’ve known. Did you try practicing alone?”

“Er . . .” I touched my pocket self-consciously. “Yeah, once.”

“And it helped?”

Yes, but not with my stage fright. “A little,” I replied. “I feel pretty dumb talking to myself, though.”

“You should recite something,” Grandma suggested. “Just pick a movie and start quoting it. My monologue near the end of Return to the Asylum is particularly good. Or . . . what’s that now?” Her voice got muffled, and I could hear someone talking in the background. “Oh, of course . . . Kat?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m going to pass the phone over to your mom, okay?” Grandma sounded way too chipper all of a sudden. “It’s getting late, and she has to head home soon.”

I clicked over to my inbox, realizing I still needed to respond to Trish. My heart leaped when I saw a new e-mail from Jamie. “Sure.” As Grandma handed Mom the phone, I opened Jamie’s message.

To: acciopancakes@mymail.net

From: jamiebaggins@mymail.net

Subject: ALL CAPS WARNING

THAT EPISODE WAS AMAZING AND YOU ARE EVEN MORE AMAZING AND HEY GUESS WHAT I’LL SEE YOU TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was grinning like a dork when Mom got on the phone.

“Hi, Kat.”

“Hey.” I decided to respond to Jamie entirely in emojis. Sun. Beach. Sandals. Ghost. Skull.

“How cool was that?”