The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

A Snow Job

Previously: "The Boys' Choices" 

Yes, the perfect place to spy on Lindsay would be ... as Lindsay herself. And the second-best place to spy on her would be as either her friends Melanie Heath or Paulina Nowack.

But you doubt if Bhodi and his friends would like it if you made yourself a replacement for any of them. Paulina not of all, and probably not for the other girls—even if Joe has suggested Melanie, and even if all the boys are eager to get out from under Lindsay's dominating thumb.

So you ask Joe to describe the other two.

"Well, Lucy's kind of a delinquent, kind of a—"

"Next," you snap. After spending a week as Dwayne Macaulay, you've had your fill of thugs.

Joe blinks. "Okay, who did I say? Bradley White? Okay, um, he's a friend of Ethan Clayborne, so that'd be convenient there. And like I say, Lindsay has a crush on him."

"Does he know that?"

Joe blinks again. "I don't know. But you'd know it if you, uh—"

"You have a picture of this guy on your phone?"

Joe looks both insulted and disgusted, but you badger him into looking online for a photograph. After some thought, he thumbs his way across his cell phone screen to a web page. "This is him," he says as he blows up a thumbnail and hands the phone to you.

He's a good-looking kid, you'd have to confess, though far from scary handsome. Just ... normal and regular and fresh-faced. Kind of rabbity, maybe. His eyes cast a shy, furtive shadow over his wide smile, as though he's both pleased and embarrassed at being photographed. His hair is a blonde mop that hangs past his eyebrows in front and curls over his ear lobes and the back of his head. It has weird curves in it, too, that faintly repel you, until you realize it's "hat hair." He probably keeps it locked under a ball cap most of the time, the way you do. But you wouldn't be displeased to have a face like his, even if his physique is a little scrawny—

"Jesus, he looks just like you," Caleb mutters over your shoulder. You start at his words.

"Yeah," Caleb continues. "Except he's knows how to shave. And to wash his face. Better smile, like he remembers to brush his tee— Oof!" He edges away before you can elbow him in the stomach again.

"So what's the deal with the snowboard?" you ask, for Bradley White is posing with one.

"That's what he's in to," Joe says. "Competitive snowboarding. I guess he's pretty good. I've heard he is." He takes the phone back. "That was the website for the club or whatever it is he belongs to, where I found that picture."

Snowboarding sounds cool—at least it's not a PE-type sport—so you tell Joe that you'll take him.

"Awesome!" he says, sounding relieved. "That'll really help—" He swallows. "And Bhodi knows him pretty good. They played soccer last year, on the freshman team, so Bhodi can probably talk him into—" Again, he swallows.

Caleb catches your eye: it's pretty obvious that Joe hasn't come around totally yet to the idea of kidnapping and replacing some of his schoolmates.

* * * * *

Neither you nor Caleb talk much on the drive back to the Donna. Whatever is preoccupying Caleb, he keeps it to himself. As for you, though—

You're about to embark on a new life, and the realization of it is hitting you hard and sinking in fast. Of course, Bradley White will not be the first impersonation you have undertaken. It's more like the ... you count up names on your fingers ... fifth? Sixth? You're sure you're forgetting someone, but it's been a crowded few weeks. But most of those impersonations, like Dwayne Macaulay's, were strictly temporary. And even when you were thought you were making a permanent switch—like with Bhodi—you had it in the back of your mind that you might go back to being yourself, once all the heat around Gordon and Chen and Dane had died down.

But your old life has changed too much for you to feel comfortable returning to it. So this switch ... This one is going to be for keeps, maybe for the rest of your life. Your stomach twists up hard.

It's like when you moved up into middle school from elementary school, and from middle school into high school. Both times, on about your third day in the new building, jostling with the new teachers and students and routine as you tried to find your footing, you had a vivid fantasy about the new school only being a temporary thing. That in a day or two you'd be able to leave and go back to your old school and your old teachers and old friends, and everything would be just like it was before summer vacation. You'd have your old locker and your old classroom with the old smells, and it would be like you had never gone away.

And that fantasy made it even harder—it almost made you sick with nostalgia and hatred for the new school—to face up to the fact that things were going to be different from now on. That this was the way your life was going to be. You felt so repulsed by the new school that you actually felt repulsed by yourself, as if your new life was so different that you weren't even you anymore, but were someone else.

This isn't my school, and these aren't my teachers, and I'm not a person who should be here.

So that means I'm not me anymore.

It gives you now that same sick, queasy feeling now as you had then. It's like your intestines have twisted up into a fist and are pressing themselves deep into your diaphragm.

You shiver hard all over, and hunch up in your seat. If Caleb notices, he doesn't say anything.

* * * * *

At the Donna you straighten up the room while Caleb works on finishing up a mask and brain band. You talk about how you're going to accomplish the upcoming switch, and then you take over for Caleb while he runs home and then over to Dane Matthias's trailer to get the stuff you'll need to take care of Bradley. He's still out doing that when you get a text from Bhodi confirming that he can help you get hold of Bradley. You back-and-forth with him, and settle on plan that will get Bradley out to the Donna with the excuse that there's a high school party in progress in one of the rooms. When Caleb gets back, you fill him in, then submit to having your brain copied into one of the just finished brain-bands. It is then glued into the mask you made of Dane, and the whole thing is sealed up golem-paint made using your hair.

When you put it onto Bradley, it will turn him into a hybrid of you and Dane Matthias: Dane's body but your brain. That will be easier and quicker than trying to track down the real Dane (inside Gordon Black's body), and you and Caleb both figure it will be easy for a fake you to pretend to be Dane; and if anyone sees a personality change, it can be chalked up to his short, sharp adventure at Putnam Academy.

It's a little before seven when you hear a car park outside your room. Caleb peers out through the curtains. "It's Bhodi and Joe," he says. "Fuck," he adds. "I think they got Paulina with them?"

The fuck? You scramble up to join him at the window. Sure enough, Paulina is in the back seat of Joe's car. But she remains there while as the two boys get out and troop toward the door.

"Hey," Bhodi says after you've opened it. He and Joe don't come in. "Yeah, so Bradley should be out here in a little bit. Like, thirty minutes?" He darts his eyes about. "I guess me and Joe should hang out with you 'til he comes, make it look more like a party?"

"That sounds fine," Caleb says. "Is Paulina coming in too?"

Bhodi flinches.

Joe, who has been listening with an anxious expression, jumps in. "Yeah, about Paulina," he says. "She knows about this. About the masks. What we're doing. All of it."

You feel your eyes pop. Caleb says, "The fuck?"

"She's cool with it!" Bhodi protests. "She wants to help. In fact—" His eyes and his mouth twist up into a haggard half-grin.

Joe steps in again. "She wants to be the one who, uh, becomes Bradley," he says. "She wants to be the one in his mask."

You have to put a hand against the wall to keep from falling over. Bhodi pushes past you and sits on the bed with his hands folded between his knees.

"What's the deal?" you demand. "And can't she come in here and explain it herself?"

"She wanted us to explain it," Joe says. An expression of disgust crosses his face. "It's some revenge play she wants to do. Some girl she's got it in for—" He pauses as Bhodi mutters something you can't make out. "She says if it all works out, the girl will have to switch schools."

You stare at Joe, then look over at Caleb, whose eyes are as wide as yours. You look back at Bhodi.

He's hunched over, and it looks like he's about to throw up.

"There's lots of other people you could be," Joe says. "If not Bradley."

That's all for now.

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