The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Stalking a New Body

Previously: "The Sophomore Candidates" 

You're going to need another mask, no matter what direction you move in, so after leaving the restaurant you return to the elementary school basement. Caleb isn't there, and you almost call him so he can come out and keep you company -- and maybe do a little of the work for you -- but you decide to leave him out of it. He'd probably just yell at you for wanting to make another jump.

In fact, you decide not to tell him what you're doing. Let him think that you made a jump directly into -- Well, into whoever you decide to make the jump into.

And that means there's going to be a fourth victim of this mask madness. Gordon into your life, Dane into Gordon's, Evie into Dane's, and someone else into Evie's. You better make this next one count, you tell yourself firmly.

So you give it a lot of thought as you make and polish up another mask with the car buffer. And when you get to the end of it, you have settled on Bhodi Weaver.

You think. You're pretty sure. Yeah, it'll be him.

You have the impression -- from Evie's impressions, at least -- that he'd be a familiar kind of place, sort of like Evie herself, only more so because (dur!) he's a guy. He's been part of her group since middle school, being dorky right alongside them, being into videogames and comic books and even some RPGing. He's still really into the first two, and he takes art classes and he likes to draw comic book kind of stuff -- superheroes and like that. He's kind of shy and kind of gawky, and he gets these enthusiastic fits where he doesn't pay any attention to what he's saying or how he's saying it.

Hell, if he was two years older, he'd probably be a friend of yours.

But he's also got advantages that you didn't have as a sophomore, and that you still don't have now. He's actually on a sports team -- the JV soccer squad -- and he seems pretty good at it. He's got some physical development, and he's working out to get more. There's a pretty good chance that by the time he's a senior he'll have the kind of physique that the big varsity guys, like Patterson and Delacroix and Marc Garner, all have.

Wait, are you really thinking of sticking it out as this guy for another two or three years?

Anyway, beyond that, there's the in he's got with the girls, even if he doesn't realize it. The way some of them crush on him, calling him "Teh Body" behind his back, and giggling. Knowing that a girl wants you is half the battle, isn't it? You just have to collect your prize, right?

So occupied, it doesn't feel like it takes you long to finish the mask. You then make up the raw metal band for copying Bhodi's brain and pack everything you'll need for the ambush. Then, after making one more quick stop for a vital bit of clothing, you go home, where you spend the evening carving the runes into the metal band and affixing it to the mask.

But you take along something else from the basement, which you leave packed in the trunk of Evie's car.

* * * * *

You smile tightly at Andy as he walks toward you. You're sitting in the car, parked near the entrance of the student parking lot, and he has to dodge morning traffic to reach you. Naturally, he saw you as he drove in, and just as naturally he has to come over to talk after he's parked. Guys with crushes do that to girls they've known a long time. You roll down your window before he has to tap on it. "What are you sitting out here for?" he asks.

"Trying to work up the nerve to face the day," you reply. "It's Monday."

"So? Oh." He nods. "I hear you." He shrugs spastically. "So, we could go in together. Like, two against the world?"

"I'll see you inside. I don't want to move, don't want to talk. I kind of want to fall asleep."

"Oh sure. I hear that, too." He shrugs again, takes half a dozen steps backward with a line of worry creasing his forehead. Then he turns, and hops away on long, awkward strides toward the school.

Andy Jensen's not a bad guy, and you'd better get to like him. Because if your plan for the day goes as you intend, by this time tomorrow you'll be wearing the body of his best friend.

But you're not watching for Andy. You're watching for Dane Matthias, and the longer it goes without him showing up, the more nervous you get. If he got himself killed before you have a chance to get him out of trouble with Gary Chen -- Well, you don't know what you'll do, but you'll feel pretty awful about it, you're sure.

Even after the first bell rings at 8:20, you linger, as there are still cars coming in. You tell yourself you'll only wait until 9:05, but to your relief Dane's car rolls in at a quarter till the hour. You duck so he doesn't see you, and watch for him to park.

He's very long in getting out of the car, and he's hunched over, and he looks around furtively once he's out. And he only looks sort-of like Dane, for he's missing the sports jacket, and he walks in short steps instead of long, Bigfoot-like lopes, when he heads toward the school. Poor Evie, you think. But also, grimly and selfishly, Better her than me.

After waiting a few minutes to make sure the coast is clear, you get out and hustle over to Dane's car. The back door is unlocked, and into the foot well you shove the other thing you took from the basement: the briefcase with all the weed in it. Then you run toward the school and hide in the library until the end of first period. During the break you go looking for Karl Hennepin and from the puzzled senior get Dane's locker number. You make yourself tardy to second period so you can slip a note into that locker, telling its new owner that "Chen's shit" is in the back of Dane's car. You disguised your handwriting, so you don't think Evie will recognize it as her own.

"What happened to you during first?" Andy asks when he sees you during fifth-period AP Biology. You tell him you fell asleep.

* * * * *

You get more and more nervous as you approach eighth-period Geometry, which Evie shares with Bhodi. It's almost a sexual nervousness. In a way it is, as you're proposing to get extremely intimate with "Teh Body." And, anyway, Evie herself has something of those sexual feelings for him, so they're mixed up with your own sense of anticipation.

He's not even paying attention when you come in, being absorbed in his cell phone, and even when you say "Hey" to him, he doesn't look up. Evie's memories do him a reasonable amount of justice, you suppose. He is tall and broad-shouldered, even if he's all limbs, and he wraps his ankles around the legs of his chair as he hunches forward. He has that slightly unnerving "Indian" look, meaning that he has the chocolate coloring of a Hispanic or Native American, but European features that wouldn't look out of place on an Englishman. His coal-black hair is thick but straight, and he parts it in the middle so that it flops on either side of his forehead before sweeping back to cover his ears. When he looks up, his dark eyes are thoughtful and distracted. "Hey, what are you doing there?" you ask him.

"Huh? Oh." Bhodi looks away, but shows white teeth in a shy smile. "Nothing. Just texting about what to do after school."

"We should hang out," you tell him. "Just you and me."

He looks startled. "We should?"

"Something wrong with me?"

"Huh? Oh. No!" A plum-colored flush shows in his cheeks. "If you want. Do you want to? What do you want to do?"

"Go walking in Suffolk Wilderness, take notes on the birds and the bees?"

He stares, and his eyes widen, and he grins. It's not a grin of happiness, though. It's the green-tinted grin of someone afraid they're going to throw up. "You'll have to give me a ride. I mean -- !"

"I can do that," you say. You meant to ignore the double entendre in "give a ride," but it probably shows in your eyes, and Bhodi looks even sicker, so sick he has to put his head on his desk and cover it with his long arms. Lucky for everyone, class starts right then.

* * * * *

You're merciless about keeping that appointment, even though you'd forgotten that Bhodi hasn't got a car. Fortunately, you're prepared, for you thought through the scheme yesterday afternoon, and made the necessary trip and purchase.

So when you park at the Wilderness with the silent Bhodi, you only have to roll down all the windows and pick up Evie's purse and tell him to wait in the car while you make a quick trip to one of the outdoor restrooms they have near the park entrance. You go into the women's bathroom, but you're not a girl when you come out several minutes later. You're Will Prescott again, and you're in a cheap pair of shorts you bought specially at the thrift shop. You circle around the back of Evie's car, and Bhodi doesn't see you before you have the mask onto his face from behind. You crawl back inside the car, strip him of his clothes, stuff them in his bag, and drop Evie's things in his lap. Then, when the mask comes out of him, you put her mask onto him, gather his stuff, and take a long walk on cheap flip-flops into the wilderness.

You'll have to call Caleb to pick you up after the coast is clear.

* To continue: "Stalking a New Body, Part 2" 

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