The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Making a Fourth Maskateer

Previously: "Three Little Maids Are We" 

Wednesday morning.

You're still packing up for school when there's a hard rap on your bedroom door. "What?" you shout. Your heart nearly explodes from out of your chest as you hurriedly stuff the bra into your backpack.

The door opens and Robert puts his head in. "Mom says to get it in gear, you're going to be late."

You flush. "I'm not going to be late!" you snarl. "It isn't even eight o'—"

"Don't you have to drive Dad to work?"

You stare, then cuss. You forgot that your mom has to take his car in to be maintenanced, which means that you get to drop him off.

"I'm almost ready," you tell Robert, and follow it with "Get out!" when he hovers dubiously in the doorway. He smirks at you as he withdraws.

With hammering heart, you shove the rest of Mickey's clothes down into your backpack.

* * * * *

So you are way late getting to school, and decide to just skip first period. Skipping classes is sometimes a dangerous thing, because there's no telling who might be hanging out in the library—your preferred "class ditching" venue, because you can make it look like you're doing a study hall—but it turns out there's no one in there worse than James Lamont.

He's concentrating on his phone when you come in, and starts a little when you materialize at his side. "What are you doing in here?" you ask as you set your pack down next to his.

"Study hall," he waspishly replies as he shoves his phone away. "What are you skipping for? Still mad at Walberg on account of your grades?"

You make a face, and ask, "How do you know I'm skipping Walberg?"

"Jesus. Because you're in here instead of in there?"

"No, I mean— Oh, never mind." You take out your own phone and plop down next to him. "So what are you even doing at school? If I had study hall first period I'd just come in late."

"What have you got that's better to do than come to school?"

"You mean you don't have anything better to do?" you jeer. "What a sad, sad life you lead, Lamont."

Now it's his turn to make a face. "Just as sad as yours, I guess," he grumbles. He puts his phone away and starts digging books out of his pack.

"Don't feel like you have to study just because I dropped in," you tell him, and ostentatiously lean back with your phone squeezed between your palms. "I'm not."

He hesitates, and you brace yourself for another jibe about your grades, but it doesn't come. Instead, with a muffled sigh, he opens his math book and starts poring through it.

I wonder what James would do if he had a mask, if we showed him and Carson these things, you wonder as you squint at him over the top of your phone. Would he and Carson go along with us, doing the same things? Or would they—?

You sigh. Probably they'd grab the book from you and kick you out so they could do their own stuff with it. They're even more snobby about the science stuff than Caleb is, and if Caleb got mad at Keith for fucking things up, you can only imagine what Carson and James would do to him—and by extension to you, because you get the impression they think you're as big of an idiot as Tilley is.

You can't stop a little twitch from popping onto your lips, though, when you imagine James using the metal "memory strips" to get inside the head of Jenny Ashton, the girl he has a crush on, to find out what she really thinks and feels about him. Fuck him and his whole "superior scientist" thing, you think to yourself. With girls he's just as big of a hopeless loser as—

"The fuck are you smirking at, Prescott?" James growls, and you realize too late that you were staring at him, and he's caught you.

"Nothing," you reply, and sink a little deeper into your seat. Then, to placate him, you add, "I was just remembering the time you glued Javits's shoes to the floor."

James grimaces, but you can see it in his eyes: He's flattered.

As for you, you know now whose brain you're going to copy for Teresa.

* * * * *

Caleb, when you catch up to him, is pissed off because you forgot that you had to pick him up for school, and so he had to call Keith for a ride. He's not mollified by your story about giving your dad a ride to work—You're such a fucking scatterbrain, Prescott, he growls—but he's not so mad that he doesn't eat lunch with you. You ignore him, though, because you've got business to talk over with Keith.

"That mask you fucked us all up with last week," you say to him by way of introducing your topic. "You know the one," you add as his eyes bulge and his throat turns green. "The one you used in the bathroom, and Teresa caught you and yelled 'Rape' about."

He flinches. "Jesus!"

"Yeah, well, it happened. But what'd you do with the mask. Fuck me!" You feel yourself pale. "You didn't leave it with her, that girl, did you?"

"The one I was making? No, I got it! That's how come Teresa caught me, because I was, um—" Now he turns very red. "She came in while I was, uh, getting the mask off her. The other girl."

You glance at Caleb, who is staring very levelly at Keith with a cheek bulging with unchewed, unswallowed sandwich. Keith glances between you. "What?" he demands.

"What were you doing with her?" Caleb asks around his mouthful. Keith crimsons very deeply, and gasps like a gutted fish. "Never mind," Caleb mutters. "I think I get the idea now, and I don't want the picture."

"I—! No!" Keith hollers. "It was just— the way I was, uh, squatting over her to get the— the— the—"

"I don't want a picture, Keith!"

"Alright, alright!" you jump in. "Jesus, I don't want a picture either, and I also don't want— Look, I just wanna know what you did with that mask."

"Nothing," Keith mumbles. "Got it at home. You guys wouldn't—"

"Well, I want it."

"What for?"

"For Teresa. I want to do her up a thing like we got. You know. Face and new personality and everything."

Now you feel yourself changing color as your two friends turn to stare at you.

"We were talking about this!" you protest to Caleb. "About getting—!"

"Keep your voice down!"

"About getting Teresa some, you know, stuff." You hike your shoulders in a quick shrug. "So this's what I'm doing." You turn to Keith. "So 'cos I don't wanna make up a totally new mask—and because I don't wanna fuck things up more by, you know, trying to rape a girl in the bathroom—"

"I wasn't trying to—!"

"Will you both shut up?" Caleb hisses. He glowers at Keith, then at you. "What are you planning to do?"

"Well, Tilley's got that mask that's already got someone in it, right?" you explain. "So we just have to put Teresa's face in it to make a new face, like we did with ours, and then she's got a new look. And for personality—"

You snap your fingers, because it kept slipping your mind up to this point.

"Did you bring that metal doohickey like we all made, like I asked you to?" you ask Caleb. "I'm gonna use it to get her a new personality to go with her new look."

Caleb's eyes bulge, but it's Keith who speaks. "Oh," he jeers. "So it's okay if you rape a girl in a—"

"I'm not—!"

"Shut! Up!" Caleb says. "Will, you just got through saying that you didn't want to—"

"We don't got a fresh mask, and we don't need one. But I can get the personality today, though, if you brought—"

"Leave to Teresa," Caleb says. "If she even wants this, she should be the one to do it, not you, because—"

"I brought a disguise, so it'll be safe." You pull over your backpack, unzip it, and tip it toward them so they can see the edge of "Mickey's" mask. "I'm gonna put this on seventh period, and then—"

"You should still leave it to Teresa," Caleb says, and purses his lips.

"She hasn't got a disguise!"

"You can loan her that one."

"What's the difference between me wearing it and her wearing it? Besides, I won't even have to go in any bathrooms to—" You glower at Keith. "I got it set up, I'm meeting Jenny Ashton after school in the library."

Caleb looks bewildered. "What's Jenny got to—?"

"She's the one I'm gonna pop the dingus onto. Gonna copy."

Caleb looks pained. "You should still give Teresa her choice," he says.

You roll your eyes.

"Okay, I will," you say. "I'll give her Jenny's thing-a-bubby, and if she doesn't like it we'll make her— I'll make her," you correct yourself, "a new one and she can use it on whoever. But I don't think she's going to say she wants one. I think she does want one, but she doesn't want to say she does." You shrug. "So this is a way of helping her get over the hump."

Caleb shakes his head, but with a sigh he unzips his pack and takes out the metal strip he told you he'd bring.

* * * * *

And yet you are hesitant, and as seventh period begins your will begins to waver. Maybe Caleb is right, and you shouldn't just spring a personality onto Teresa, even though Jenny's personality—strong-willed and independent—seems like it would mesh with Teresa's while bringing some much-needed sparkle. Maybe you should just give the strip to her and let her use your mask to copy someone of her choice.

Next: "A Sex Change at School" 

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