Rat Life by Tedd Arnold

Author:Tedd Arnold
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group

24

“. . . so, the first movie is over. There are two more to go. Mr. Huber calls it the Summer Triple Creature Feature. Did I already say that? Three monster movies!”

“Summer?” Leaky asked, looking up at me. He had ridden over on his bike after we’d come home from church and joined us for Sunday dinner. Now he was draped across my bed, while I paced around the room describing last night, my second night of work.

“It’s not summer yet, I know, but they wanted to do this thing while the college kids were still in town. So anyhow. During intermission between the first two movies, Mr. Huber mans the ticket booth. Rat takes me out back to the snack bar. Says we have to do a stunt. See, the second movie is about people turning into radioactive monsters. And our advertisement promised real monsters in the theater.”

Leaky said, “You got the job ’cause you don’t need a mask.”

“Funny. As I was saying, we go into the projection room. Inside, it’s all dark and the walls are painted black. There’s these two big projectors, floor to ceiling. One is playing the intermission film advertising snack bar food.”

“Yea-a-ah,” said Leaky. “Danãng hot dogs make me hungry.”

“I thought you gave up hot dogs forever. Anyhow, the projectionist, Bill, he’s busy getting the second movie started. He’s saying, ‘Don’t touch anything, blah, blah, blah.’ Once the movie’s rolling, Bill pulls out a box full of costumes that came with the movie. We gotta wear the stuff. I’m thinking this is stupid, but Rat’s doing it, like it’s just another job. So. We get dressed. We’re each wearing a full head mask with ratty hair and melting skin. Big rubber hands too, covered with oozing sores. We got humps on our backs and grungy raggedy clothes. Bill’s telling what’s gonna happen. About twenty-five minutes into the movie, we’ll hear people screaming. That’s our signal to go outside and do our monster show. You know, run around and scare little kids.”

Leaky groaned. “Man! I miss all the good stuff.”

“Wait. Here’s where it gets cool. First we’re supposed to get our costumes charged up with light. We do a test. Bill positions us by the machine rolling the movie, and he shows us a drawing on an instruction sheet. We’re supposed to close our eyes and hold our hands in front of our faces, palms out . . .”

I showed Leaky the position as I was describing it.

“ . . . then cover our eyes with the backs of our fingers. Bill says cover up as little of the mask as possible. When we’re in position, he says, ‘Ready?’ He turns away and opens a side panel of the projector. This blazing bright light is burning in there. So bright, I swear, even with my eyes shut and covered by my hands, I can see the bone shadows of my fingers. He counts to five and closes the machine. When the spots in my eyes clear, I look at Rat.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.