The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

An Unexpected Rescue

Previously: "Two in a Crowd" 

There are too many risks associated with trying to find James at that ventilation duct. You'd have to go in through the boys' locker room, just when the basketball team is about to break from practice. So you follow Caleb into Walberg's.

The classroom has already begun to fill, and the sight of your fellow students fills you with sudden terror as you step over the threshold. This is the fatal room, where you deposited the book. You'd told Carson that you doubt Walberg's culpability, but you still can't but blanch as you look at the other students. Any of them might be a fake.

Kelsey Blankenship: Her father is rich, and has political connections to the city council. She herself cruises about the school like a queen: not with the influence and admiration that Chelsea Cooper, head cheerleader, controls, but with the arrogance of a girl who is going places and disdains the company of those who won't be keeping up. Even now she is turned in her chair and looking back at Brooke Galloway with the faint disgust of a social superior who has been disappointed by one of her inferiors.

Laurent Delacroix: The captain of the wrestling team is big and smooth and easy-going with the confidence of a guy who is popular and knows he is popular and knows how to tease the affections of girls who like to rub thick, sculpted biceps. Even now he is peering back at Emmy Moore with a twinkling amusement.

Martin Gardinhire: One of Mansfield's buddies from the debate team, and poured from the same mold, though he dresses a little more casual than your nemesis. Today, for instance, he enters in polo shirt, cargo shorts, and flip-flops. You draw back as he passes your desk and watch as he hooks his backpack over his chair and sits. He keeps his sunglasses on, and you look away as he turns his head in your direction, for you don't want it to look like you're staring at him.

Geoff and Lisa aren't in class yet, and your heart constricts to think that they might also have been--or are slated to become--victims. You fear for Lisa for obvious reasons; and you fear for Geoff because you can't bear to think of something unspeakable, something false and monstrous, insinuating itself into her affections.

As your gaze slowly revolves about the room, it finally comes back around to Caleb, and you find him regarding you with a slightly alarmed expression. "What?" you ask.

"I dunno," he says. "What are we looking at?"

"Nothing," you reply, and hope that you are right.

* * * * *

You have much the same feelings of paranoia in second period, and they press in on you such that you exit the class with your head down, for you find it unbearable to look at the students in the hallways. You hurry out a side door, so you can take an outside shortcut to your next class without having to look at so many faces, any of which might be false.

And so you don't see it coming when a swift hand grabs you and a strong arm hurls you against the brick wall. You look up to find Kirkham smiling at you. "Ready for our little symposium, Prescott?" he says, and puts his face so close to yours that you can smell the cinnamon on his breath. "Not a lot of people I can talk music with, and I've beaten what little they know out of most of them." He taps your jaw with a knuckle. "I hope you've something intelligent to say about last night."

Though he isn't holding you, there's no point in trying to run. Kirkham is swift, and he's strong, and he fights very, very dirty. He'd trip you as you fled, and probably kick you in the balls while you were down. "I don't know anything about music," you say wearily. "If you'd like to teach me--" Your face twists up. Teach me. What a horribly mistaken expression to introduce.

And he grins. "Give you an education, you mean?" he softly gloats. "Do you know how to beat time? We can start easy, with a little two-four time, and the progress up to--"

He suddenly vanishes from your surprised sight, and you hear a soft cracking sound. So swift was the blow that you didn't even see your rescuer materialize. And the sight of Gordon Black towering over a bent David Kirkham turns your knees to gelatin, and you half collapse toward the ground, your back scraping against the wall. You look up in a daze, to see Seth Javits standing over you--but he's grinning and watching Gordon. Behind both of them is Steve Patterson: his face betrays confusion and even alarm.

But though Kirkham is bent and clutching his face, he is far from defeated, and he throws a fist at Black. The basketball captain catches it, though, and spins Kirkham around to slam him face first into the wall, right next to you.

"We've had enough of your goddamn shit, Kirkham," he snarls at your tormentor. "If you wanna play rough at Westside, play rough with us." He releases his prisoner only long enough to slam him back against the wall. "We're gonna be watching you, asshole, and every time we catch you--"

"Watch it, Gordon," Seth warns, and even as he speaks Kirkham tries kicking backward at Gordon. Black dodges, then hurls Kirkham into Patterson's arms. The latter puts Kirkham into a headlock, but looks at his friend with an expression of incredulity.

Gordon snarls, and grabs Kirkham by the collar, and pulls his fist back, but Javits puts a restraining hand on him. "Don't break anything, Gordon. Leave it for later."

Black seems to struggle, then he lowers his fist. "Yeah, let's." He ostentatiously smoothes down Kirkham's shirt. "But we'll be watching you, Kirkham. So keep your nose clean."

"If you want to meet after school, I'm game," Kirkham mutters.

"You're not that interesting, Kirkham," Gordon says. "And you really don't want us getting interested in you. Not enough that we want to meet you after school." He jerks his head to the side, and Patterson shoves him away. Kirkham gives the trio of ballplayers a sidelong glance, and then slowly walks off.

"You okay there, Prescott," Javits asks, and offers you a hand. You're shaking, but you take it, and he helps you to your feet. "What was that about?"

"Nothing," you stammer back. "Just talking." Seth's expression is open and friendly; Gordon's betrays a slight curiosity; but you have to flinch from Patterson's icy look of contempt.

Javits laughs, and claps you on the shoulder, then he and the others slowly move off.

* * * * *

You're in a daze all during third period. If you'd heard and seen nothing else before the last break, that meeting with Black and Javits would have convinced you that they were not themselves. You have never seen them rescue anyone, and you've seen them go after lots people--with a lot more violence and viciousness than Kirkham has ever shown--many times.

If we can make life healthier for the other poor assholes around here. That was something you and Carson had overheard them saying yesterday, wasn't it? It hadn't really registered in your panic and wonderment as you'd listened and talked about it all afterward. It's precise meaning, like so much that you'd heard, was opaque. But now--

"Will, would you please sit up?"

That's Ms. Gladstone, and you jerk up in your chair, for without realizing it you've laid your head on your desk. But even though you direct your eyes to the front, you're not paying attention.

If we can make life healthier for the other poor assholes around here. Is that what all this "replacement" business is about? They've replaced Gordon and Seth; they're going to replace Steve Patterson; they stepped in to save you--one of the "other poor assholes"--from David Kirkham. Could there be an altruistic purpose to all this? Or, at least, do they intend to pay altruistic dividends to other people?

What they're doing is still wrong, it is still evil. But how worried should you be? You're not a bully. You--and Carson and Caleb and James and Jenny and Yumi and lots of other people--stand to benefit. Even if what they are doing is evil, would it be evil of you and Carson to just let them proceed? It's not even like you know how to stop them. Wouldn't it be easiest to just take what is coming? And how wrong would it be to not fight something that you don't even know how to fight?

As long as they are only replacing assholes and bullies and bitches--

But Kim's not a bitch. Dane's not an asshole. Shit. There's no reason to replace either of them. So Kim is student council president, and a bit of a busybody. Her heart has always and obviously been in the right place. And Dane's a sweet, pot-infused goofball, and there would be no merit or advantage in replacing him. Maybe this isn't as innocent a thing as you've been entertaining.

But maybe they haven't been replaced. It's one of the few theories that makes sense, that Dane is the one who took the book, and he's sharing it with people, somehow. If that wasn't Dane you heard in the bathroom, it might just be one of his more hard-headed friends, pretended to be him while he-- Took over for someone else? Stayed home and got high?

* * * * *

Fifth period. You watch Kim carefully. She is totally in character: Sweet, serious, helpful, gracious. Maybe she hasn't been replaced either. Maybe she's one of the conspirators, and is helping them from the outside? She knows what a shit hole Westside can be.

Let's meet after school, Carson had said to you at lunch. But now you're thinking of going up to the loft, to talk to the conspirators, to tell them that you know what' going on--and ask what they're up to.

Next: "A Collision of Conspiracies" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"