Ride of Your Life
By Shevi Arnold
Blurb:
Seventeen-year-old Tracy Miller met the love of her life . . . thirty years after her own death.
Tracy was working at the House of Horrors at the Amazing Lands Theme Park when the fire broke out. Instead of running, she lost her life trying to save eleven-year-old Mack. Now thirty years have passed, and suddenly everything changes with the arrival of two new ghosts: a little girl named Ashley and a cute, seventeen-year-old boy named Josh. Josh would do anything for Tracy, but can he help her let go of the past?
Ride of Your Life is a bittersweet, romantic, YA ghost story that was inspired by a true event, the Great Adventure Haunted Castle fire, which killed eight teenagers in 1984, exactly thirty years ago this May 11th. It is a fantasy novel about undying love, and it won third-place in Smart Writer's Write It Now (W.I.N.) contest in the YA category, which was judged by Alex Flinn, the author of Beastly and Cloaked.
Hang on. Love can be as terrifying as a roller coaster, but it can also be the Ride of Your Life.
Additional information about the Six Flags Great Adventure Haunted Castle fire- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunted_Castle_(Six_Flags_Great_Adventure)
Excerpt:
Mack walked in, eyes opened. He slumped on the wooden chair in the corner, his faced turned away from Tracy.
"I'll stay," Josh said.
"You've already made that clear," Tracy mumbled.
She took off her white, gauzy costume and left the white t-shirt and jeans on. Her t-shirt wasn't all that wet, and the light in the stall wasn't too bright. Still, she folded her arms over her chest, just in case Josh could see something. She sat on the floorboards against the right wall with a bunch of stuffed animals-silly snakes, fish, lions, zebras, hippopotami, and giraffes-behind her. Ashley cuddled up beside her and placed her head on Tracy's shoulder. There was a stuffed, bright yellow hound dog between them. Ashley petted it, but she frowned.
"It's not my Bunby," she said. "I want my Bunby."
"This nice doggie misses someone, too," Tracy said, giving the stuffed hound a pat. "Maybe you can help him feel less lonely."
Ashley nodded and yawned. "I'm hungry."
"Me, too," Josh said, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor. "Why is that?"
"Ever hear of a ghost limb?" Tracy asked.
"When someone loses a leg or an arm, but they still feel it?"
"Well, you've got a ghost stomach," Tracy explained. "Ghost hands, nose, mouth: you've got a ghost everything. You can still feel your body, even though you don't have one. That's why you feel hungry and tired."
"But there's a difference," Mack said. "You don't have to feel hungry and tired. You can choose what you want and don't want your ghost body to feel."
"Like when you chose to not let me hold your hand?" Josh asked.
Mack wrinkled his nose. "You tried to hold Tracy's hand?"
"After I pinched him," Tracy said.
"Oh," Mack replied. "Okay, that makes sense."
"It does?" Josh asked.
"It does if you know Tracy."
"I'm hungry," Ashley said again.
"There'll be plenty to eat in the morning." Mack spoke in a too sweet voice, like the condescending host of an educational television show for preschoolers. "In the meanwhile, you can eat in your dreams. What's your favorite food?"
Ashley put her index finger to her lips and thought a while. "Spaghetti and meatballs."
"The sooner you go to sleep, the sooner you are going to get the best spaghetti and meatballs you ever had."
Ashley smiled and closed her eyes. She rested her hand on the toy hound. "Good night, Old Yellow. If you see my Bunby, please tell him I miss him."
Soon she was fast asleep.
Mack laughed. "Little kids are fun to fool with. This is going to be great. Still wish we could have slept in the bumper cars, though. This stall stinks."
He leaned back. The wooden chair he sat in remained upright and its backrest poked through his shoulders. His legs rose-as did the rest of him-until his body was almost flat. He turned to face the left wall and curled his body ever so slightly in. A ghostly, overstuffed, white recliner faded in beneath him. He sighed. Soon the rise and fall of his chest made it clear that he too was asleep.
"Can we do that?" Josh whispered, pointing at Mack.
"I don't know," Tracy whispered back. "I suppose we can, but Mack is very good at it. It's as if he was born to be a ghost." She paused and then quickly added, "Which is exactly why Ashley shouldn't stay here. We don't want her to get used to this."
Josh continued to watch Mack sleep. "I guess it was his fate."
"His fate?"
Josh nodded.
Tracy huffed. "There's no such thing as fate."
Josh turned to face her, his eyebrows raised. He was clearly surprised, but there was something else. What was it? Sadness, perhaps, or pity. Perhaps a bit of both. Tracy's stomach started to flip flop again, and she looked away.
"You don't believe in fate?" It was a question, not a statement.
She shrugged. "'Course not."
"Why not?"
"Because . . ." She thought awhile. "Fate means you have no control over your life. No matter what you do, it'll determine what happens to you. Your choices don't matter, and that means you aren't responsible for anything. How can you be, when it's all fate?"
"Well, I don't think it's all fate." He ran his fingers through his hair again. "You do have control over most of your life. But I think sometimes something happens that you do have no control over, something that was just meant to be. And that's what fate is."
"Something like a sweet, little girl dying on a theme-park kiddy ride?" She paused. "You think that was fate?"
"Maybe. I don't know. But I think it's more comforting to think it's a part of some grand plan than a random accident."
"No, it's not." Tracy's cheeks grew hot, and she clenched her teeth. "You saw the look on her mother's face. What kind of grand plan lets such horrible things happen? And how can you believe in a plan like that?"
Josh slumped over and sighed. "All I know is that sometimes things happen in life that can't be explained logically, and fate is really the only explanation."
"Like what?"
"Like dreaming something before it happens even though there's no way you could know it was going to happen."
Tracy snorted. "No one has dreams like that. And if you believe anyone who says they do, I have a nice bridge in Brooklyn I'd like to sell you."
"What if I told you I dreamed that I died trying to save Ashley before it happened?"
Tracy blinked. Was he serious? "If you knew you were going to be killed, why did you get on that ride?"
"I didn't remember my dream until it was already too late, but I knew everything that would happen before it happened."
She didn't know what to say to that. She turned to look at the ribbon of light coming through the gap between the shutters.
Josh paused. "I also had a dream about a girl, the kind of dream you never forget, the kind that feels like it's trying to tell you something important even though you don't know what that thing is. At least until it happens, and then you know . . ."
"What?"
He looked deep into her eyes. The weak light in the stall shined brightly in his. "You know you were meant to be together. You know it was fate."
She stared back at him. Tracy usually had a quick answer for everything, but what could she say to that? The silence between then stretched awkwardly on.
A flash of lightning momentarily brightened the stall, and thunder boomed two seconds later. The rain pounded on the stall's tin roof, beating out a loud, quick rhythm. Tracy slowly returned to her place beside Ashley and rested her own head on a fat teddy bear. She faced the back wall, away from Josh. In the darkness, she heard him sigh. The sky outside rumbled.
"Hey," he said. "Look at that."
Tracy turned around. Josh was pointing at Ashley. A pink, floral quilt covered the little girl, and her head rested on a soft, pink pillow with a matching pillowcase. Under her arm beside the toy hound, she embraced a ghostly, ratty, blue toy bunny.
"Huh," Tracy whispered. "What do you know? She found her Bunby."
Josh smiled, but Tracy worried. Ashley was quickly picking up skills. How long would it take before she got used to being a ghost? And once she did, would they ever be able to convince Ashley that she belonged in the Light?
Author Interview:
What inspired you to write Ride of Your Life?
The Great Adventure Haunted Castle Fire that killed eight teenagers in 1984 inspired the story. It's considered the biggest theme park tragedy in American history. I grew up in Philadelphia, and my family had a season pass to Great Adventure in the early 1980s, so when I heard about the fire, It affected me deeply . I was still a teenager, and even though I never went into the Haunted Castle, it still felt like it could have been me or a friend of mine. I used to talk to the teenage park employees. What if one of them had died in the fire?
I wanted to give that tragedy a happy ending, and Ride of Your Life is the result.
For decades, it was just a story I told myself, like many others that run through my mind when I'm bored or falling asleep. One day, I can't recall why, I mentioned the story to my critique group, and they loved it. They told me I should write it, so I did.
It was weird, because it's a romance, and I generally don't write romance, but it's a romance the way I would write it. It's a love bigger than life or death, but it's very real. Tracy and Josh aren't perfect. They're very realistic teenagers, and I think that makes it easier to identify with them and see yourself in their ghostly shoes.
When or at what age did you know you wanted to be a writer?
I've wanted to be a storyteller for as long as I can remember, but I wanted to make movies or TV shows. If I could be someone else, I wouldn't want to be J.K. Rowling; I'd want to be Joss Whedon. I had intended to study filmmaking as a master's degree, but I took one course in video production while I was earning my bachelor's degrees in English Literature and Theater Studies, and I learned that filmmakers have to deal with a lot of, well, egotistical and incompetent jerks. Writing lets you tell the story exactly the way you want to tell it without anyone else ruining your vision.
What is the earliest age you remember reading your first book?
I honestly have no idea. I'm fairly certain I learned how to read in preschool, and my memories of preschool are rather hazy.
What genre of books do you enjoy reading?
I like all sort of books, but I prefer books with humor, anything from Dave Barry to Louise Rennison to Christopher Moore and everything in between.
What is your favorite book?
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.
You know I think we all have a favorite author. Who is your favorite author and why?
Douglas Adams, because his best works have something worth quoting and hysterically funny on every page. I also love and admire Ray Bradbury, because he was probably the best writer in English in the 20th century. And I love Mark Twain because of his humor and intelligence. He also wrote in a variety of genres, which is something I enjoy doing.
If you could travel back in time here on earth to any place or time. Where would you go and why?
I would go to France so I could buy a Van Gogh painting, which I would bring back to the present and sell for millions. I can use the money. It would be a painting that no one knows exists, so it wouldn't affect history, except that Van Gogh would have sold a second painting in his lifetime.
When writing a book do you find that writing comes easy for you or is it a difficult task?
Writing is easier than not writing. I enjoy writing a lot, and I get frustrated when I don't have time to do it.
Do you have any little fuzzy friends? Like a dog or a cat? Or any pets?
I have a cat. She's a Hemingway cat, quite literary. Hemingway cats have extra digits on their front paws. I figure her thumbs will come in handy if I ever need her to do my typing.
My Hemingway cat
What is your "to die for", favorite food/foods to eat?
I love good chocolate, like Max Brenner's (if you visit New York City and love chocolate, you need to buy something at Max Brenner), but I can't have sugar due to stomach problems, so if I were to eat it, it really would be "to die for." Okay, it's not that bad, but it would give me a terrible stomachache. I'm also not allowed to have vinegar, but I still cheat a little and eat sushi about once a week. I love sushi.
Do you have any advice for anyone that would like to be an author?
Read a lot, but don't read like a reader. Read like a writer. Learn to take apart what you read so you can understand what works and what doesn't. Then apply what you've learned to your own writing. I have about 316 other tips, but learning to read like a writer is a great place to start. You can find more tips on my blog: http://shevi.blogspot.com and (more specifically) http://shevi.blogspot.com/p/100-tips-for-writers.html.
Book Soundtrack:
It's funny, I didn't start out wanting to be a writer. I wanted to be a storyteller, but I wanted to tell my stories as movies. That's why they always have soundtracks in my head. When I hear these songs, they take me back to scenes from my book.
"Fallen" by Sarah McLachlan
I've always envisioned Ride of Your Life Starting with a scene that isn't in the book, the fire that kills Tracy and Mack thirty years before the start of the story. And I've always imagined "Fallen" by Sarah McLachlan playing over Tracy putting on makeup as she gets ready for work at the House of Horrors, talking with her coworkers, hearing Mack's cries for help, getting overwhelmed by smoke as she drags Mack's limp body to the door she can't seem to find, and finally standing hand in hand with Mack as two ghosts looking at the smoldering ruins of the place where they both died. The strong sense of guilt in the song suits Tracy so well, as does the opening line, "Heaven bent to take my hand, lead me through the fire." Just a perfect way to start this story.
"You and Me" by Lifehouse
I picture this for the scene where Tracy and Mack are showing Josh and Ashley through the park from a ghost's point of view. The opening line of the song about how "this clock never seemed so alive" fits very well with how time works for the ghosts in the story, and so does the part about all of the people with nothing to do and how he can't keep his eyes off of her. In the ghost world, reality is what you believe it to be, and Tracy is the one thing Josh knows he can believe in. As long as he can see her, he knows everything else is still real.
"Collide" by Howie Day
Tracy can let Josh touch her, or she can choose to let him pass through her. I think this would be a great song for either the scene when they first touch hands or when they kiss.
"Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls
This is the perfect song for a scene later in the book, although I can't tell you why without spoiling it for you."You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be" and the rest of the song just sums up Josh's point of view in that scene so exquisitely.
"Good Riddance" ("Time of Your Life") by Green Day
I've always envisioned this as the song that would play over the credits at the end of the movie, which would include clips of the characters having fun in the amusement park, so it's like their memories of their best times together as ghosts.
Platlist:
I don't really have a playlist, but I do like to listen to the Fresh 102.7 out of New York City when I write. Some of the songs they were playing at the time reminded me of certain scenes in Ride of Your Life--like "Iris" by the Goo Goo Dolls--and sometimes that moved me to tears.
When I'm writing or drawing, I like to listen to background music that doesn't take over my thoughts but also drowns out external noise, which is one of the reasons why I've set up Pandora stations. They're better than radio, because they have fewer ads. They're also more likely to introduce me to new music I'll like, and I can buy a song when I hear it so I don't forget.
I'm not sure which Pandora station I was listening to at the time that I was writing this book, but it could have been the one I call Shevi's Easy Writing. It includes performers like Pink, Adele, Kelly Clarkson, Sarah McLachlan, Owl City, James Blunt, and Jason Mraz. It's a mix, but it's all music I find easy to listen to and let slip into my subconscious.
About the Author:
Shevi Arnold grew up in Philadelphia, and her family had a season pass to Great Adventure in the early 1980s. She was nineteen-years-old and studying overseas when a fellow college student asked her if she had heard about the Great Adventure Haunted Castle fire. Eight teenagers had lost their lives. Like many, Shevi was shocked by the news. In her mind, she wanted to give that tragedy a happy ending. Ride of Your Life is the result.
Shevi loves writing, illustrating, and making people laugh-and she's been doing all three since 1987 when she started working as an editorial cartoonist for a newsweekly. She's also worked as a comics magazine editor, as an arts-and-entertainment writer specializing in comedy and children's entertainment, and as a consumer columnist. Nowadays, though, she enjoys writing (and sometimes illustrating) humorous fiction, fantasy, and science fiction for children, teens, and geeks of all ages. Her other books include Toren the Teller's Tale, Dan Quixote: Boy of Nuevo Jersey, and Why My Love Life Sucks (The Legend of Gilbert the Fixer, book one). She is currently working on Why It Still Mega Bites, the second book in the Gilbert the Fixer series.
