The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Class and Cluelessness

Previously: "Hideout for the Homeless" 

It terrifies you: the thought of going to school as a girl you barely know. But what choice have you got? You can skip today, but you'll have to go school, and home, at some point.

"Here," Brianna says as she starts to unwind the half-wrapped bandage. "We'll put it on your left hand. That way you've got an excuse to use your right hand." You docilely let her wrap it all up. "There," she says when she's done. "You remember your class schedule?"

"I've got it on a piece of paper. But ... Band, money class, parenting, food prep, lunch. Um, 3D art, English class, math."

"I'll take your word for it."

"Eat lunch with me?"

"Sure, I'll look for you outside the cafeteria. It'll look weird, but—" She gives you a long look. "I guess we'll just tell people we hashed things out yesterday."

* * * * *

It's really weird going in to school in a strange body, weirder even than you expected, because you didn't know what to expect. For a start, everything is bigger, because you are smaller. Most of the girls are now your size or even taller, and most of the guys you now have to tilt your head to see past their chins and into their eyes. You are also more easily jostled, and later in the day you're thrown against the lockers that line the walls when some football player or other goes pushing through. You also find yourself looking out for your old friends and acquaintances, and you get a jolt when James Lamont looms up in front of you as you turn a corner while going to Melanie's locker. He's so tall! you think. For his part, he doesn't even notice you, which more than anything else leaves you feeling lost and alone and abandoned.

But not completely. There's a guy in a white cap loitering by your locker, reading his phone, when you first go into the school. (Brianna left you to go to "her" first class.) You recognize him, of course. "Hey," you say to him, and he looks up with a start. Is it as bad for Melanie as it is for me? you wonder. Looking at yourself?

"Hey, how was your night?" he asks.

You shrug, then show him your bandaged hand. "Are you left-handed?" He nods. "Good. I can't do your handwriting, and now I have an excuse. Can you do my handwriting?"

"Yeah! I got all your homework done. You?"

"No. All my homework was—" You glance at the crowd pushing past. "Learning the names and faces of your friends."

"Sorry. But you can just keep to yourself, if you want to. That's what I sometimes do."

You open the locker and heft your pack onto its lip, then realize you have no idea what to do next. Will steps in to help. "Here," he says as he reaches into your pack. "You only need two books before lunch."

"Do you want to have lunch together?" you whisper to him. "Jenny—my real friend Jenny—is going to have it with me. You can—"

"Sure. I'll get, uh, the other Jenny to come in with me. Cafeteria?" he asks. "Okay. Maybe they won't kill each other if there's other people around."

"Were you okay with, uh, Brianna yesterday? Jenny said you and her hate each other."

"It's kind of dumb to hate her now. We need to all get along and help each other."

"Thanks," you say, when Thanks for helping because I'm the one who needs it all! is what you really mean.

* * * * *

First-period band practice is the one you need to get through. That's what Melanie warned you in your texts last night. It's the class where she has most of her friends, and it's the one where she has to play a musical instrument: the glockenspiel.

Luckily, the bandaged hand proves a good excuse. Dr. Stemple, who is something of a hard-ass despite his roly-poly shape and his soft, close-shaved white beard, enquires in a grandfatherly way about how you hurt yourself, and he shudders with sympathy when you tell him that a knife slipped across your palm while you were cutting something. "You can sit in the back and do homework," he tells you. You tried timing your entrance to the practice room to make it near the start of class, but three girls—Brianna Kirschke, Genesis Lee, and Hermione Gilbert—follow you to the back. They too are full of sympathy about your accident.

"Is that how come you couldn't answer my texts last night?" Genesis wants to know. You tell you turned your phone off.

"Did you really cut your hand?" Hermione asks. She stares at you intently from behind her glasses. "Was it your mom?" Her eyes narrow when you deny it.

"Leave her alone," Brianna tells them. This Brianna, in contrast to Jenny/Brianna, is a short, soft girl with a cloud of dark brown hair that she's pulled back into a bushy ponytail. She has chipmunk cheeks and black-framed glasses that make her look smart and focused, like a financial planner, rather than like a nerd or a school teacher. "Can you write?" she asks you. "Will you be able to do your homework?"

"I can write with my other hand," you tell her. "It'll look awful, but—"

"How did you cut your hand?" Hermione asks. She is frowning at her outstretched palms. "You were cutting with your right hand? Even though you're left-handed?"

Before you can come up with an excuse, Dr. Stemple calls the class to order. You pull out Melanie's math homework—Algebra II, which you weren't brilliant at last year, but which is at least familiar to you—and get to work.

* * * * *

Second-period "money" class—or "Personal Financial Literacy", as it's called—leaves you totally baffled and lost. It might be an okay class—like kind of a boring RPG game, with bills, checkbooks, and stuff like that—if you knew what the hell you were supposed to do with the worksheets, but you don't, and for just about the first time in your life you find yourself wishing that the teacher would just lecture so you could zone out. You try to fake it through by making your handwriting as unreadable as possible after explaining to Mrs. Hoagland that you hurt your writing hand.

Third period: Of course today would have to be a day that Ricardo Whosits decides to bully-flirt with you in the "Parenting" class. "Hey, girl," he murmurs as he kneels beside your desk on his way to his seat. "I know a school project we can work on. I'll help you get started on it after class." He strokes your shoulder with a fingertip.

You brush his hand away. "Fuck off." He sniggers, and saunters over to his seat. A few rows over, Kendra Saunders and Gloria Rea, exchange knowing glances, and Kendra leans over to whisper into Gloria's ear. Gloria glances over at you, smirks, and nods. It doesn't help to tell yourself that they're gossiping about someone else, not you.

Fourth period is a kind of cooking class. It starts with Ms. Duggan giving a lecture, and then you get to do some hands-on stuff. This class, even more so than Parenting, is filled up with underclassmen, and they all have their little cliques and none of them seem interested in talking to you, except to snippily ask you to pass them something. This is, in part, a relief, because you don't have to try talking to a "friend" you don't know, but it is also gruesome, because it leaves you feeling excluded and lonely.

It's a relief to head out for the cafeteria for lunch.

* * * * *

The line is well out the door when you get to the cafeteria, but Brianna (that would be Jenny/Brianna) is standing off to the side and craning her head, watching for someone. Relief shows on her face when she sees you.

"Oh God," she groans, "how has your day been? Tell me it was awful so I'll feel good about mine."

"Ricardo hit on me and I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing in— Shit!" You've just caught sight of Hermione and Philippa Hosford approaching. You turn your back on them. "I told Brianna and Melanie we'd have lunch with them here," you tell "Brianna" through frozen lips. "I forgot Melanie told me there'd be some of her old friends—"

"Melanie! Hey Melanie!" You glance back at the other girls, and wave at them. "Fuck. I'll see if I—"

"Hey, it's my favorite girls!"

You do a hard double-take at the guy who's swaggering out of the cafeteria. In the clothes and the white cap and with the blond hair— Except for the shape of his eyes and face, he could almost be you. Certainly he could be a cousin of yours.

Eric Murphy.

"Hey babe!" He strokes your shoulder. "Sorry I forgot about you yesterday, but me and Tim, we ran into some guys after class who were all like, Frisbee!, so we—" He catches himself, and a queer smile lights on his face. "I guess you're not mad!" He chortles.

Why do you think that? you want to ask. Then you realize he's still got his hand on your shoulder. You squirm out from under it. He chortles.

"So I guess we're all friends again," he says. "You girls are talkin', I'm talkin' to you—" He turns to Brianna. "I'm snackin' on Bree here." He puts his hands on her hips and his face in hers.

The world slows down, and seems almost to freeze frame as he puts his mouth to Brianna's. You stare, agape, as Brianna—Jenny—lets him. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is open. To your amazement she doesn't react as he closes his eyes and opens his own mouth. His tongue extends and slips between hers.

The moment lasts probably only one or two seconds, but it seems to stretch for hours—

—before she knees him in the groin.

That's all for now.

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"