So she allowed Vi and Eric to ride their bikes to the movies by themselves. But there were rules: They had to ride the back roads to get there （too dangerous on the main road at night）， they weren’t to talk to anyone while they were there （Gran had given them endless warnings about pervy child molesters and drug pushers eager to get young kids hooked）， and they had to come straight home after. Gran even gave them ticket money, but Vi and Eric never paid to get in; they’d discovered a loose section of the chain-link fence that ran along the back parking area and sneaked in each week—leaving them with more money for popcorn, Cokes, and candy.
And now there they were, just like each Saturday night of the summer, careening through the darkness, heading for the Hollywood Drive-in.
Only this time was different. This time, they had Iris with them. Gran had been hesitant. She’d instructed Vi to watch Iris carefully, and if there was any sign that she was uncomfortable or overstimulated, they were to come back immediately.
“Have you ever been to a drive-in?” Vi had asked Iris. But Iris didn’t know. Couldn’t remember.
“What about a regular movie theater? You’ve been to one of those, right?”
“No,” Iris said, and shook her head.
Vi couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have no memory of anything; of any part of your past.
She had been “giving reports” to Gran every evening. Gran knew that Iris was talking now—she’d started talking a little more each day, and Gran was very pleased with her progress. And Gran had explained a little about why people sometimes didn’t remember things. It was called amnesia, she told Vi, from the Greek word for forgetfulness. Vi nodded. She’d seen characters with amnesia in TV shows.
“What causes amnesia?” Vi asked.
“Sometimes it’s physical, like a head injury or taking a certain kind of drug. Sometimes, a deep psychological trauma.”
Vi wondered what had caused Iris’s amnesia. If Gran knew, she wasn’t saying.
And now that Iris was talking, Gran wanted to know everything Iris said. Vi told her some of it, but there were still a lot of things she kept secret.
She’d told Gran that Iris didn’t remember anything, not even her own name, but Vi left out the part about how she had promised to help Iris figure it out. She also left out the fact that Iris had been helping them with their monster book, because the Monster Club was top secret. “She can write,” Vi reported. “Her writing is bad, kind of like someone just learning, and she can’t spell at all, but she knows her letters and stuff.”
Someone must have taught her, Vi knew. She imagined a family somewhere, Iris going to school, having friends, even a real sister maybe.
Gran had nodded as she absorbed all this new information, then leaned forward and clasped her hand around Vi’s wrist, fingers feeling her pulse in their familiar way, their own secret handshake. “You’re doing a wonderful job with Iris,” she’d said, giving a gentle squeeze. “And it’s making a difference. I’m proud of you, Violet.”
* * *
THE HOLLYWOOD DRIVE-IN was pretty much the most exciting place in Fayeville—people came from all over to go to the drive-in, and on some weekend nights in the summer, it was totally packed, cars lined up in each row.
The Hollywood had two screens, and every Saturday at sundown, they had two current movies in a row on the main screen, but on screen two they did a Creature Double Feature: two classic horror movies. Vi and Eric had seen them all, of course, both at the theater and whenever they were on TV. Vi scoured the TV Guide each week looking for horror movies, for anything that held even the hint of a monster.
Tonight the main screen was showing Harper Valley PTA and The Cat from Outer Space. The Creature Double Feature was Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man—two of Vi’s favorites. She couldn’t wait for Iris to see the big screen, the snack bar where they loaded up on popcorn, Junior Mints, Twizzlers, and Charleston Chews （Eric’s favorite）。