“What were you saying again?” Dad chuckles. “About this movie being old?”

Oscar huffs. “Well, it’s definitely old.”

“Still pretty scary, though,” says Dad as he plucks a piece of popcorn out of my hair and eats it. “Oscar, am I going to be in trouble with your mom for showing you a scary movie? Your mother is one heck of a lioness.”

“My brothers have scarred me for life, so I’m pretty sure you’re safe, Mr. DiMarco.” Oscar looks around. “Should I get the, uh, vacuum to clean all this up?”

Dad surveys the popcorn damage. “I really need a dog.” He shakes his head and crosses his foot over his knee, leaning back into the sofa. “We’ll leave it for the morning. Don’t want anyone to miss any of the good parts.”

“There are good parts in this movie?” I squeak.

Dad puts his arm around me and tugs me closer to him. “I’ve got a thing or two to teach you yet, Sweet Pea.”

I glance around at the popcorn all over the floor and our laps. Mom would freak out, but Mom’s not here.

Oscar and I lie in my room all tucked in, him on the air mattress purchased for the camping trip my mom refused to go on, because she has a fear of snakes (I wanted to be annoyed at her for that, but snakes freak me out pretty big-time too), and me in my bed. Well, my second bed.

There’s something about the way the shadows are cast against the wall in this room that makes the whole place feel haunted. I don’t actually think there are any ghosts here, but this room reminds me of a bad guy in a crummy disguise. Like, the kind you might see in a cartoon where the bad guy just puts on a fake mustache and a trench coat and somehow manages to fool everyone except me.

Oscar falls asleep first, and then I begin to drift, but only for a moment before my eyes shoot open and I gasp. There’s nothing worse than being shocked awake by the realization that you forgot your homework or to clean your cat’s litter box. (To be honest, I don’t know which of those is worse.)

I was supposed to go over to Miss Flora Mae’s today, and I 250 percent forgot. I slide out of bed and tiptoe around a sleeping Oscar. The clock on my bedside table says it’s nearly one in the morning—what Cliff VanWarren would call the witching hour. I suck in a deep breath as my bedroom door creaks shut behind me.

Down the hallway, a glowing blue light from the TV leaks out from under the door of Dad’s bedroom. Sometimes Mom would sleep on the couch because she couldn’t fall asleep with the TV on and Dad had a hard time falling asleep with it off. Mostly, they’d just set a timer, but now I wonder if Mom sleeping in the guest room wasn’t really about the TV.