CHAPTER 5 MOVIES
MOVIES
“Remember when we used to be able to take naps at school?” Cipriana asks as she scribbles something in her notebook and slurps Coke through a paper straw.
“Those were the days. Bring a blanket and a stuffed animal and just curl up and go to sleep?” She almost swoons as she lets herself fall headfirst into the memory.
“I’d give anything to go back to kindy.”
“I want to know who decided teenagers don’t need naps,” Caleb chimes in.
He clears his throat and pulls his mask up over his nose.
“COVID came through and beat my ass a couple weeks ago and I’m still tired.
I could really use some sleep right now, but Mr. Forrester says I have to make up all the work I missed.
I deserve a nap, damnit. My lungs feel like they’re gonna flip inside out every time I cough. ”
“That’s awful,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
“And people keep asking me why I’m wearing a mask.” Caleb rolls his eyes. “Next person that asks is gonna get the truth. I’m ugly and contagious. Mind your damn business!”
“You’re not ugly,” Cipriana says. “And I never wanna hear you say that about yourself ever again.”
Caleb waves it off. “It’s fine. Where’s Noah? He said he was gonna help me out with this English assignment.” He slaps a folder full of worksheets on the table. “Anybody know what a preposition is? Sounds like hemorrhoid cream.”
“Umm, no,” Cipriana says. “A preposition is a word or group of words that connects pronouns, nouns, or phrases to other words in a sentence.”
Caleb looks at Cipriana with a blank expression on his face. “What did you just say to me?”
Cipriana rolls her eyes. “Get it together, please. You can’t be half-assing it through every lesson.”
Caleb slides his folder full of papers toward Cipriana. “Best friends help each other out.”
Cipriana slides the folder right back to him. “This is me helping you. Do it yourself. Google is free.”
Caleb scowls dramatically. “Where’s Noah?” he asks. “He’ll help me.”
I scan the cafeteria and spot Noah as he waltzes in.
More than a few heads turn to look at him, but he doesn’t seem to notice as he zigzags through the crowd.
He’s not in his corpse attire and makeup but I don’t know what it says about me that I like the way he looks both with or without it.
He’s tall, broad-shouldered, and his curly brown hair is always falling across his face in a way that makes something deep inside me twist up in the best way possible.
“Umm, I need you to calm down,” Cipriana says as she grins at me. “We’re in school, Meka.”
“Shut up,” I say, embarrassed that the way I’m feeling inside is so obvious to everyone around me.
Cip, still grinning, runs her tongue over her braces and clicks her teeth together. “It’s okay. You don’t have to act like you don’t wanna eat him up right here in front of everybody. We get it.”
The hot rush of embarrassment works its way up my neck and across my face as Noah slides into the seat next to me.
“Dang,” Cipriana says. “Got your whole little fit on today, huh? Who you tryna impress?”
Noah turns and looks directly into my face. “Just one person.” He kisses me gently on the cheek and nudges me with his shoulder. “Movies later?”
“Ohhh yes!” Caleb says. “There’s this new horror movie out, what’s it called?” He turns to Cipriana. “Help me out here.”
“Hold on,” I say. “You ran out of my house screaming the other day. Now you’re tryna go see a scary movie?”
“I wasn’t screaming,” Caleb says. “I was yelling. There’s a difference.”
“I’m pretty sure you were screaming,” Noah said. “And you almost got hit by a car.”
“Whatever,” Caleb says.
“I don’t do horror,” Cipriana says. “Y’all know this.”
“Since when?” Caleb looks confused. “You’re the one that makes us watch all those terrible ass horror movies. You know, the ones that go straight to streaming because they’re so awful. What was that last one called? Killer Couch?”
“ Killer Sofa ,” Cipriana corrects. “And that’s why I like them. They’re not actually scary. You want me to go get scared for real. No thanks.”
Caleb rolls his eyes and turns to me. “Come on, Meka. You’re not scared, are you? You’ll go, right?”
“I can’t,” I say. “We’ve got, like, three guests to prep and I have to help.”
Caleb’s entire frame goes rigid.
“What’s wrong?” I ask. “Having a flashback?”
“Damn, Caleb,” Noah says. “I was wearing a costume. Nobody was actually dead. Please relax.”
“We were in Meka’s kitchen but there were dead bodies in the basement,” Caleb said.
“It’s a funeral home,” Cipriana says. “What? You think the dead folks sit on the couch? At the dinner table?”
“Stop!” Caleb says a little too loudly. He quiets himself and hunches over his lunch. “It creeps me out when you call them guests .”
“I mean, it sounds better than ‘dead bodies,’ right?” I ask.
Caleb looks like he’s going to puke.
“Everybody dies, Caleb,” says Cipriana.
Caleb huffs. “I know. Doesn’t mean I wanna talk about it.”
“You wanna hear something creepy?” I ask.
Caleb is about to say no, and I’m about to tell him about the incident in the car but change my mind when I see how scared he already is.
I decide not to torment him right at this moment.
“This little girl came over for her grandma’s funeral,” I say, opting for the marginally less creepy story.
“She drew a picture of herself holding hands with her dead grandma and then she drew a picture of me in a coffin.”
Caleb and Cipriana look at me with their mouths slightly open. Noah blinks a few times and shakes his head.
“See,” Caleb says. “Absolutely not. This is why we need to normalize punching little kids in the throat.”
“Caleb!” Cipriana says. “Stop it!”
“No,” Caleb says. “You draw me in a coffin, we’re fighting. Baby or not. Two jabs to the esophagus.”
I laugh so hard I almost choke.
Noah sets his hand on top of mine. “You sure you can’t go?
We could catch an early showing.” He takes out his phone and looks up the movie times.
“We could go and be done by six.” He puts his phone away and leans closer to me so that his mouth is brushing my ear.
“I can come to your house after, if you want. We could just hang out.”
I grin at him and put my head on his shoulder.
“Are you two gonna gaze into each other’s eyes all night?” Caleb asks. “Because if you are, you’re uninvited.”
“We’ll all go,” I say. Noah grins.
“Cip, you coming or not?” Caleb asks.
Cipriana hesitates.
“Suck it up!” Caleb says. “It’s a zombie flick. I’ll buy you a hot dog.”
Cipriana’s entire demeanor changes at the mention of food. “And a large soda?”
Caleb cocks his head to the side. “Do I look rich to you? A large soda and a hot dog is gonna be at least twenty bucks.”
“I’m not a cheap date, thank you very much,” Cipriana says. “What’s it gonna be?”
Caleb crosses his arms over his chest. “Y’all see this? She’s taking advantage of me and y’all just let her.”
“Oh, I meant to tell you,” Noah says as he traces circles on the back of my hand. “I have something for you. I’ll give it to you later when we go back to your house.”
“Like a present?” I ask.
Noah nods. “Nothing crazy, just something I made.”
Cipriana sucks in a breath and the corners of her mouth turn down. “You made something for her with your own two hands? Like, you crafted that shit?”
Noah chuckles. “Yeah. So?”
Cipriana gazes down at the lunch table. “I can’t even get this bum Peter to buy me McDonald’s.”
“Leave him!” Caleb shrieks, pounding his hand on the table like he’s immediately had enough. “Who names their child ‘Peter’ anyway? Are we in biblical times?”
“My name is literally Noah,” Noah says, holding back a laugh.
Caleb looks absolutely flabbergasted for a second before turning back to Cipriana. “You’re too good for him and you deserve all the chicken nuggets, boo. A whole ten-piece.”
“And a milkshake,” Noah says.
“And a Filet-O-Fish,” I add.
Cipriana’s face twists up in disgust. “Okay, now y’all are going too far.”
As the bell rings, Noah pulls me up and puts his arms around me. “Film studies?”
I nod. It’s the only class we have together and I look forward to it every single day.
Cip and Caleb head off while me and Noah make our way to Mrs. Sheffield’s class.
Film studies is run out of the old cafeteria in the C wing of Ithaca High.
The sparkly new cafeteria is on the opposite side of the building and went up because the original space couldn’t accommodate our universal lunch policy—all students, all grades, all at once.
I sometimes wonder what genius thought having every single person in the school in one cafeteria at the same time was a good idea.
Noah and I get to class just before the bell sounds, and we take up our unofficial assigned seats. We always sit up front, close to the projector screen that hangs from the ceiling.
“Please don’t let whatever we’re watching today be as boring as Nosferatu ,” Sean Abrams, a super-senior, moans from the back row of seats.
Mrs. Sheffield doesn’t even look up from her computer as she sits perched on the edge of a folding chair. “You need the credit this class will earn you, Mr. Abrams. I’m the only person willing to accommodate you. A little less complaining, a little more appreciation. Nosferatu is a classic.”
Sean rolls his eyes and Noah just chuckles to himself as the rest of our class files in.
We’ve only got about fifteen kids because Mrs. Sheffield is picky about who gets to take this class.
Most students think it’s just watching movies and messing around but there’s more to it than that.
Mrs. Sheffield expects reports and in-depth reviews for every film we see.
Mrs. Sheffield gets up and turns off the lights. It doesn’t help much considering the entire east-facing wall is all windows with shades that barely work.
“Our film today will be The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland,” Mrs. Sheffield says.
A murmur runs through our group.