To Mom and Dad for finally giving in and letting me buy that horror movie
Chapter One There is no greater place on earth than the cinema I don’t mean the big chain movie theaters with fancy seats and overpriced food I mean the old cinemas The kind that smell like butter and stale popcorn The kind with threadbare threadbare seats The kind with sticky floors The kind with velvety panels barely clinging to the walls 1
Vi holds my hand as we walk through the lobby of my favorite cinema The Chestnut Tell me about the posters I say as she guides me past the ticket booth and into the cinema’s lobby She doesn’t have to guide me I know this place almost as well as I know my own living room But I always let Vi hold my hand Her skin is soft and warm Same posters as last week Preston she laughs Dracula Versus the Zombies Sweet Tooth The Untold Love Story of the World’s Two Greatest Chocolatiers and Secret Agent Granny You’re making those up I nudge her and she lets out a chuckle You’ll never know she teases Vivien Henry always teases me If it were someone else maybe I would be bothered by it But Vi is one of the few people who knew me before I was blind We met when we were babies 2 Mere Joyce
Our mothers are friends and we’ve grown up together Besides I can barely remember a time before I got glaucoma and lost my vision So it doesn’t bother me when Vi makes up fake movie titles and tries to pass them off as real films I think it’s actually pretty awesome Vi’s a serious girl usually I’m lucky to be one of the few people she jokes around with Come on she says now leading me past the concession stands Mrs Colander’s waiting for us up in the booth Mrs Colander is the teacher in charge of our school’s film club She’s the one who helped us organize the amateur film festival The Chestnut will be hosting two nights from now Are the others here yet I ask Janelle’s babysitting so she can’t come Vi says as we head into the theater When we start up the stairs leading to the projection booth she is 3 Shadow
