The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The First Step of a Random Walk

Previously: "Body Swapping as a Solution" 

"I don't care who we pick or how we do it," you tell Sydney, "as long as that Blake fucker is one of them."

She giggles. "You had fun when you had that mask of him on, didn't you?"

You hesitate, then decide against saying anything about what happened yesterday. If you can swap places with someone—to get you out of the line of fire—that will be enough. And if it's Blake O'Brien, that will be a dividend.

* * * * *

Sydney picks you up very early the next morning—so early that your hair is still plastered down and you've got a cold Pop-Tart between your teeth as you run out the door. Her text telling you she'd be picking you up twenty minutes ahead of schedule came early enough to wake you up, and still you're messy as a scarecrow as you leap into the SUV.

"Hey, hon," Sydney says, and leans across to surprise you with a kiss. "Mm, you taste like processed cherry filling. Hope you don't mind me being so early."

"If it means more time with you, it's great."

She gives you a look over her smile. "Sweet but cheesy. We're picking some people up on the way. I hope you don't mind sitting in the back seat."

"Uh, no. Why?"

"'Cos that way you'll have to talk to them. Well, two of them. I'm picking up three friends and I want to make sure you don't just sit in your corner, which you'll do if you're up front. So sit in the middle when you move to the back."

This sounds like a set up, but you only ask who she's picking up. "Sophia and Maggie and Reagan." Your heart sinks at the last one. "Sophia Van den Berg and Maggie Crenshaw," she explains when you tell her you don't know the first two. You'll like them. I really hope." She pats your knee.

Reagan is the first to be picked up, and you insist on surrendering the front seat to her so you won't get stuck in the back with her. She greets you with a bold look and bluntly asks you if you just got out of the shower. "Your clothes are sticking to you," she explains.

Sophia is the next to be picked up. She lives across the street from the university, in a gingerbread pile that looks like a cross between the Amityville Horror house and the Addams Family mansion. The girl herself is a shy and quiet slip of a thing, with a wide but tentative smile and long brown hair. She hugs her bag to her chest and smiles at you curiously after introductions are made. "Sure I remember you," she says. "We had Mrs. Timmons's math class together in the eighth grade. We sat on opposite sides of the room," she adds when you stare back at her in puzzlement.

The last is Maggie Crenshaw, a bluff girl with corn-colored hair and lungs that could outshout an ocean liner. "God damn it, it's Friday already," she exults as she throws her pack into the back seat, hitting you squarely in the chest. "Fucking hooray, I say! Who are you?" she demands as she bounces onto the seat next to you.

"Will Prescott."

Her eyes light up. "Oh, you're the one." She rears back and looks you up and down from toes to crown. Then she grabs your bicep and gives it a hard squeeze. You pull away so hard you almost knock Sophia (on the other side of you) in the jaw.

"Sydney!" Maggie bellows. "I love everything about him. Do we have any classes together?" she asks you.

* * * * *

You've parted with Sydney in front of the gym—she has a P.E. class first thing—and are nearing your locker when again strong hands are laid on you. You're thrust through the crowd, and a punch to a kidney slams you face first into a locker. Your knees buckle, but the hand supports you as you're wrenched around. You sphincter loosens to find David Kirkham grinning into your face.

Kirkham is a little smaller than you, but he's compact and strong. He rolls the ever-present toothpick about in his mouth beneath the ever-present shades.

He puts his face close to yours so that he can make himself heard without lifting his voice over the mutter of the crowd.

"I hear you're getting fucked these days, Prescott." His voice is soft, but there's a hard rattle in it, like the scales of a serpent sliding over stone. "Wanna tell me about it?"

Your shoulders rise in a weak shrug. It's never a good idea to talk back to David Kirkham—one of the most fearsome bullies at Westside—but it's an even worse idea to say or do nothing when he address you.

"You're not sure?" His grin widens. "What kind of a pussy-sniffer doesn't know if he's getting fucked?"

Now you just swallow.

"I'm going to do you a favor, Prescott," he hisses. "I'm going to ride you." He tightens his grip on your collar. "I've seen that girl that you don't know if you're fucking or not. Oooh! If I was with her, she's know she was getting fucked. I'd fuck her into a coma then fuck her back out of it. But I was saying I'm gonna do you a solid."

He puts his face so close to yours you can smell the cinnamon on his breath.

"Starting Monday I'm gonna fuck you up every day, in front of her. Give you a chance to prove to her that you got balls big enough for her. You got balls big enough for her, don't you? She inspires you, doesn't she?" He punches you again. "So I'm gonna let you show her how much she inspires you. And as an extra favor, 'cos I like you so much, I won't pull any my punches."

He drops you, and sniggers as he pats your chest. "So get ready for a good show on Monday, Prescott. Play it like your life depends on it." With another hissing laugh, he melts back into the crowd.

You run into the nearest bathroom and throw up.

* * * * *

You can't say anything to Caleb in first period about your run-in with Kirkham. Not that Caleb could do anything about it except grumble sympathetically. But telling him would involve telling him about your new relationship with Sydney, and you've yet to figure out a way of breaking that to him.

But you don't even get to have a normal conversation with him. He is very white in the face, and when you greet him he just folds his arms and stares at the front of the room with glittering eyes. "Caleb," you say. "Caleb, man, come on!" Even when you wave your hand in front of his face he just turns the color of Antarctica and stares straight ahead.

"The fuck is the matter with Johansson?" you ask Keith when you fall into the desk in front of his in second period. "The son of a bitch went all last period ignoring me."

"It's pro'ly on account of your being such a backstabbing asshole," Tilley replies. He leans back, turns his cap brim-side front, and pulls it down over his eyes. "Can't say I blame him," he adds as he lifts his cell phone to block his view of you.

"What are you talking about?" But with a sinking heart you can make a pretty good guess.

"What you think I'm a'talk about? What's her name? Girl wanted to get to know Caleb only you got to her first?"

You grip your desk and glare. "What are you talking about?" you repeat.

"You know exactly what I'm'a talk about, motherfucker. Girl comes on to Caleb, you sling a lot of shit at him so he don't come back at her, you pick her up and walk off with her instead. Not fucking cool, man." He shakes his head and clucks his tongue. "Not fucking cool."

"Okay, first of all, who told you some girl was coming on to Caleb? And second, what makes you think I'm—"

But the words falter and die. You've never been good at bluffing. Obviously Caleb would have told Keith about Sydney, and about how you talked him into ignoring her; and just as obviously word must have spread back to the two of them that you and her had started going out.

"I tell you one more thing," Keith says, "and then I start talkin' to you like you was a wall. As in, I ain't talkin' to you ever again." You can't help rolling your eyes at Keith's attempt to sound "ghetto." "You better go lookin' for some new friends, 'cos you ain't findin' none where you been findin' 'em b'fore. An' that includes Carson and James." He whistles. "Ain't no one cool wit' what you done to Caleb. You gonna find 'em all cold."

* * * * *

Troubles, they say, always come in threes, and the ride to school was uncomfortable enough to count as the first in the day's trio of mounting horrors. When you catch up to Sydney again at the end of the day you say nothing about Caleb and Keith, or about Kirkham, and only ask why she wanted you to ride out with her friends. "If we're gonna swap with people," you tell her, "why do I need to know any of your friends?"

"'Cos you might get to know one of them a lot better," Sydney explains. "You told me to pick out a face for myself. I'm thinking one of them."

"One of your friends?" you gasp. "You'd—" You gulp. "You'd steal the face of one of your friends?"

"Borrow, Will," she corrects you. "There's going to be ten of them, which is five for each of us, and we'll be shuttling between them, probably. Anyway, I was thinking once we were, you know, in the driver's seat of one of them and Blake, they could start going out!"

Blake? you think. Why not saddle one of them with Kirkham for a boyfriend?

Next: "A Trap for Blake O'Brien" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"