The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Heist School Drama

Previously: "The Unnameable Dread of Unutterable Things" 

"Oh my God!" Virginia cries. "Shane! You're not serious!"

"I am! Totally!" He grins. "You should be too," he tells you, "if yah really want your old book back."

"I can't break into someone's house!"

"Sure yah can. We can, I'll help. I know how we can do it."

"You'll get in trouble!" Virginia protests. "You could get arrested!"

Shane snorts. "No we wouldn'. Robbie's mom or dad'd be there. I'm not talkin' about breakin' in, like with a crowbar. I can set it up with Zion this afternoon, when I see him next period. We can do it this afternoon," he tells you.

And when he explains his plan, you impulsively throw in with him, figuring you will never have a better chance of getting your shit back from Roberta.

* * * * *

She and her family live in a ranch house not far from your friend Keith, but it's a nicer house on a nicer street than where he lives. You get there about thirty minutes after school let out. Shane drove, and he also laid out in detail how the operation is to work.

"First thing is," he said, "you need an alias. What's your middle name?"

"Uh ... Martin."

"Martin," he echoed, and seemed to roll it around in his mouth. "That'll work, that'll be perfect, even. It could be a first name or a last name. Okay, when we go in there, yer name is Martin. I'll introduce yah. Keep your mouth shut an' let me do the talkin'."

"Why do I need an alias?"

"Because it's yer stuff, an' yah don't want it pegged on yah when it goes missin'. It'll be either me or it'll be Martin who walked off with it, an' I'm gonna be in the sittin' room all that time, so it'll be Martin who gets the blame, unless yah give yer real name, an' then it'll be you who took it. Yah get me?"

"I see."

"Okay, so, second—" He does a double take at you, and with a meaty paw grabs the cap off your head and hurls it into the floorboard. "So second, leave that behind," he orders. "When Robbie asks her mum who this 'Martin' was, yah don't want her pickin' yah out with any identifyin' characteristics, yah know? That hat o' yours—" He gives you a critical once-over. "Yeah, without it yah could pass as anyone, just some jimmy from school.

"Okay, but second," he continues, "when we get in there, after a minute yer gonna excuse yerself to use the little boys' facilities, but instead yer gonna sneak into Robbie's room to snoop fer yer stuff while I keeps her mum occupied. By the way, I'll prob'ly have to tell her somethin' about you needin' to take a mighty dump, so it's b'lievable that yer gone awhile, which you might be."

"Okay."

"Third, when yah find yer things, pop it out her window. There's a bush right outside—I'll point it out when we get there—an' make sure it drops down between it and the wall. That way, when yah come out, yah won't have nothin' incriminatin' on yah. Oh, an' after yah get yer thing, text me." He gives you his number, which you put in your contacts. "Yah don't have t'send a full-on text or nothin'. Just tap in a letter or a number when yer ready to come back out 'n join us. Then, when yer back I'll tell Robbie's mum it was a text from my mum, an' we have to go. Then we're out."

"Whoa."

"An' last, yah keep yer fuckin' phone on, in case I needs t'alert yah. I won't bother sendin' a text niether, just a letter or a number or somethin'. If yah get a thing like that from me, you hide."

"Gotcha."

That was pretty much it. You're on your way to Roberta's on the pretext that Shane needs to talk to her, with you dangling along as an extra, but Roberta won't be there because Zion (as Shane has arranged it) has offered to give her a ride home but will distract her with errands first.

It's all so well thought out that you had to ask him if he does this kind of thing regularly. "Sometimes," he told you, "when I've got a prank I wanna play, which 'tween you an' me is pretty often. But I like gamin' this stuff out even if I don't got a play in mind. Runs in the family, sort of." When you asked what he means by that, he told you that his dad is a colonel in the Australian army, who came up through the special forces, and is currently stationed at Fort Suffolk. When you asked if he himself was born in Australia, he said that he was but has been living in the States since he was nine, and in Saratoga Falls since he was fourteen. You guess that's why you've detected the trace of a non-American twang in his accent.

And now here you are, ready to put the plan into effect.

As you walk up to the house, Shane points out Roberta's window, and the trim little hedge directly below it. "You'll have to get the screen loose," he murmurs to you. "Also, when yah head off to the can, put on the light and the ventilator, and pull the door closed b'fore headin' down to her room. Gotta make it look real."

The door is answered by a woman who looks like a middle-aged version of Roberta: pear-shaped, with jowls and lines in her face, but also with a bright eye and sweet smile. No, Robbie's not home, she tells Shane when he asks, but she expects her along pretty soon, and would you like to wait inside? Shane nods and mentions it'll be Zion bringing her along "right quick." "Oh, this's Martin," he adds, jerking a grudging thumb in your direction. You smile tightly at Mrs. Barr and say, "Hi."

She leads you into a small living room that isn't messy, exactly, but looks and feels a lot more lived-in than your house. There's magazines and newspapers scattered around, and there's a musty smell, as though it hasn't been vacuumed or dusted in awhile. The TV is turned to a talk show. Mrs. Barr pushes you and Shane toward a low-slung sofa while she takes an easy chair. She turns the volume on the TV down but doesn't shut it off, and her eye darts toward the screen occasionally even as she asks Shane how he's doing and how his classes are going. You're counting down to ten as he answers, meaning to wait until you hit zero before you move, but he nudges you in the side, so you scoot forward and ask if there's a bathroom you can use. Mrs. Barr smiles and points to a hallway leading off in the direction of Roberta's room.

That bathroom is just off the hallway, and you reach in to flick up all the switches and pull the door shut, then pad down to the T-junction at the end of the hall, where two doors face each other on opposite sides of the short cross-hallway. You dip into the one on the left, pushing the door quietly shut behind you after entering.

Roberta's room is small and done up in tans and browns: dark brown carpet, a light-mocha bedspread on a twin-size bed, and faded wallpaper. There's a walnut chest of drawers, and a desk in the corner. Between them is a low bookcase stuffed with paperbacks. School books are stacked up on the chest, and notebooks and papers lean against an ancient-looking PC on the desk. There's clothes scattered across the floor, and you flinch a little when you recognize a discarded bra amongst them.

You tackle the bookcase first, but there's nothing there but paperbacks, some of a fantasy theme, others science fiction, and still others that (judging by their titles) might be true-crime books. Next you paw through the stacks on the desk and chest of drawers. Nothing. You lightly step on each of the piles of clothes, feeling for something ungiving beneath, but without any luck. You fall onto your stomach and look under the bed. At first you think you might be in luck, as there's something about the size and shape of your book, but when you pull it out you find, to your disappointment, that it's just a board game. The dust gets in your nose, and you have to stifle a sneeze.

You've been putting it off, hoping you wouldn't have to, but you next tackle the drawers. It gives you the jumps to tuck back and search through the socks and bras and underthings in the top drawer, and you're scarcely less sweaty as you look through the folded t-shirts and shorts in the second and third drawers. But in the bottom drawer, under a stack of Levis, you finally find something: the mask!

Your heart is straining, like a piece of taffy being pulled every which way, as you lift it out. It seems to glow from within, and the light from the window gleams and scatters over its polished surface. You're about to tuck it under your shirt when you remember Shane's instructions, and move to the window.

But as you're pushing the curtains back, a charcoal-gray sedan pulls smoothly up to park in front of Shane's. You frown at it, then are jolted into a panic as Roberta gets out of the passenger side. She leans in to say something to the driver, then shuts the door and turns toward the house. You let the curtain drop and bolt for the bedroom door.

But as you lay your hand on the handle, you hear Mrs. Barr's voice right outside, muffled but distinct enough to make out her words: "—have it right here in the linen closet." You back away from the door, looking wildly around.

And then your phone dings with a text from Shane: n.

Through the curtained window you see that car still parked there. Is Roberta back for just a minute, or for good? Should you try escaping through her window, or hide in her room until the coast is clear?

Next: "The Closet Case" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"