The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Any Friend of Jenny's ...

Previously: "Four Girls and One Red-Faced Guy" 

"I'm s'posed to get together with Jenny after school," you tell Audrey. Someone bumps you from behind, almost sending you flying into her face.

Her eyes brighten. "Cool! What are you doing?"

"I don't know. She just—"

"I'll work it out with her." Audrey dives into her pocket for her phone. "We'll find a place to meet you!"

Another jostle from behind, and what sounds like a muttered curse.

"I guess I'll see you around," you call back to her as you let the milling crowd carry you away. She glances up only long enough to show you her gums and her teeth. "Uh—"

And then the crowd closes around you, cutting you off.

* * * * *

But despite her promise, that's the last that you see of her that day. When you meet up with Jenny in the student parking lot, she tells you that it'll just be you and her.

Oh, and a third person, but it won't be either Audrey or Dorothy.

"Never mind," she says when you ask her what happened to the other girls. "I worked it out with them. If Dorothy wants to talk to you, she can talk to you tomorrow in class. You have her for first period?" You nod. "You ever talk to her?"

"Um, not really."

"How come not?"

Because she sits on the other side of the room and I don't have anything to say to her anyway? That, at least, is what you mean by the shrug that you make.

"Uh huh," Jenny says. She looks around. "Well, I guess we should drive separate. You like minigolfing?"

"What? Oh, I guess."

"We're gonna go minigolfing. Don't worry, there's no pressure."

No pressure for what? you want to ask, but Jenny just tells you to follow her out to the mall, and to the Monte Viso Mini-Golf and Go-Kart park in back of it.

* * * * *

She gets there first—she drives like a maniac; no way you'd have torn through that yellow-turning-to-red light at the intersection of Fortieth and Borman, the way she did—and with her hands all up in the air is talking to a girl when you arrives. She waves you over, as though you wouldn't come over anyway.

"Hey, this is Joey," she tells you, indicating the girl she's with. "This is Will," she tells her friend. "Prescott," she adds.

"Hey." You nod. The skin all up your back prickles.

Joey? you wonder. Is she a lesbian?

She could certainly pass as one. She is short and wan, with a stick-like figure under the flannel plaid shirt that drapes off her narrow shoulders. Her chestnut hair curls up stiffly on the back of her neck, but you've seen guys with longer hair. But her skin and her eyes are both very clear, and there is something slightly elfin in the point of her chin and the arch of her eyebrows. She nods gravely at you.

"So we're all up for a game of minigolf?" Jenny says. She slaps her hands together. "I call dibs on the red ball."

"Green," Joey says after a pause.

"I'll take blue."

"Way to play it dangerous, Will," Jenny smirks. She tweaks the front of your shirt before turning away.

You find yourself falling in beside Joey as you follow, which was maybe Jenny's plan. "So, um, Jenny didn't mention your last name," you tell her.

"It's Tartaglione," she says quietly. "Josephine Tartaglione," she adds. "But 'Josephine' is kind of a mouthful. So everyone calls me Joey."

"Uh huh." So is "Tartaglione", you think.

"Also," she adds after a fractional hesitation, "it's what you call a baby kangaroo. A joey. So that's what my mom called me when I was little. Her little Joey."

"Will's mom called him Willie Boy," Jenny says over her shoulder.

"No she didn't."

"I'm teasing. She should've." Jenny grins at you. "Her little Willie Boy."

The fuck is going on here? you wonder, and hope that the obvious answer isn't the correct one.

* * * * *

The story emerges gradually as your trio wends it way from the first hole to the eighteenth. Joey is a friend that Jenny knows from church. They were in the same grade for a few years in elementary school, but then Joey's parents pulled her out to home school her. So she doesn't get to hang out with a lot people.

You could have told. She's not much of one for small talk.

They don't carry Mister Pibb, she observes when talk briefly lights on McDonalds and on what you like to get there. Have you noticed that no one carries Mister Pibb?

I was watching some old commercials on YouTube, she says later, on the ninth hole. I think I like commercials better when they're not trying to be funny.

I used to have some rollerblades. I don't know what happened to them.

At the end, when you're sitting in the game room, drinking sodas and crunching ice, she excuses herself to the restroom. Jenny gives you a very narrow, direct look. When you don't say anything in reply, she says, "Would you rather of hung out with Audrey and Dorothy?"

"No," you reply, which is about as feeble a gallantry as you've ever mustered. "This was fun."

"You need to relax, Will."

Joey needs to relax, you irritably think. Joey needs to get a personality.

But then, as if on cue:

"Oh my God!" Joey's voice is tight with excited anguish as she runs back up. Pink spots glow in her cheek. "I think there's a rat in the girls' restroom!"

Jenny gasps. "No! What?"

"In the trash bin! Under all the paper towels!" Joey twists and fidgets on her feet. "Something was moving under them!"

"Should we tell someone?"

"No, come look first!" Joey grabs Jenny's arm. "I don't wanna say anything if it isn't—"

But Jenny is already on her feet, running for the restroom. Joey grabs at you, pulling you up.

Jenny is hopping between her feet just outside the girls' restroom, peering in through the half-open door, when you stumble up, Joey pressing at your back. "I don't—" Jenny starts to say.

"Maybe it got out," Joey whimpers. "Oh, crap! Maybe it's under the sink or under one of the toilets!" She shoves you into the restroom. "Check it out! Look for it!"

"Me?" you yell. "I don't—!"

"Just look around! Look in the trash bin! Maybe it's still there!"

"I don't want to! We should—"

"Do you want us to look for it?" Joey gasps. She looks horrified.

You feel yourself flushing all over.

This shouldn't be your job. You shouldn't even be in the girls' restroom. And if there is a rat (you gulp to yourself), it should be the job of the staff to find it and catch it and get rid of it.

On the other hand, the last thing you want is to look like a jerk or a coward.

So you suppress the tremble in your lower spine, and turn toward the plastic trash bin. It's filled almost to the top with wadded-up paper towels. Why can't they keep this thing emptied out? you wonder as you tiptoe up to it.

"Brush the top of it," Joey says from behind you. "See if you can stir it up to get it moving."

"I don't think it'll want to move," you retort, "if it thinks there's someone looking for it."

"Well, just dig around a little, see if you can see anything."

You grit your teeth and push aside some of the towels. Behind you, Joey hisses fearfully.

Then she shouts, "Oh my God, it's loose! It was under the sink!" You wheel as she grabs the back of your shirt, almost tearing it off you. "It's running up behind you, Will! Oh my God, it's running up your leg!" She pulls your shirt back. Holy crap, it's under your shirt, Will!"

A thing with scraggly claws scrambles down your back.

* * * * *

"It was just a paper towel, Will," Jenny tells you later, when it's just you and her in the parking lot again. "A wadded-up paper towel. It was just a joke."

You dig your nails into the palms of your hands. Yeah, just a joke. If only you hadn't screamed and jumped up onto the sink ...

"And it got you to loosen up, finally," she adds.

It got Joey to loosen up too. She was all grins afterward, and she fell against you, laughing, after you had all run out of the restroom.

"So do you want to hang out some more?" Jenny asks. "Or do you want to go home and be mad?"

That crazy book you used to make the mask, it occurs to you; the way it twisted itself in your hand, as though crafted by magic. Doing that to Jenny and Joey would be a way of getting back at them, maybe.

Next: "Returning a Prank with Interest" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"