The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Returning a Prank with Interest

Previously: "Any Friend of Jenny's ..." 

"Hey, remember that mask I showed you this morning in the library?" you ask Jenny. "Wanna see how I made it?"

She grimaces. You glance over at Joey, who is sitting in her car texting. "It's something we can all do together," you add.

"Yeah, I don't know, Will."

"Don't you want us all to hang out?"

It was a dirty trick, playing on Jenny's obvious desire to push you and Joey together. But it works. With a kind of strangled sigh, she accedes.

"Cool. We can't do it at my place," you tell her. "It made kind of a mess, and my dad wanted to kill me. What about your place?"

"You want to make a mess at my place?"

Joey starts her car. "Better go stop your friend," you tell Jenny, "before she drives off and it's just the two of us."

* * * * *

Jenny doesn't look much mollified by your assurances that you know what you're doing, and that you won't make a mess in her family's garage. "I did it up in my room," you explain after you're all at her place. "Out here it'll be fine." She looks skeptical as you set up a makeshift table in the space where she would normally park her car, and she has you move it over away from her parents' minivan.

The sun is setting as you get to work, for of course you had to run home to get the supplies. You have the book at hand, but you're working from a few notes you were able to scribble down, plus your own memory of making the mask. Jenny and Joey stand to one side, watching with skeptical interest. You pretend not to hear when Joey leans over to ask Jenny, "Why are we doing this?"

"Okay, cover your noses," you tell them as you hold a lighted match over the mess in the bowl. "This is the part that's why my dad wanted to kill me." The girls only have time to look alarmed before you drop the flame into the bowl.

"Oh, Jesus," Jenny yelps as a ferocious stench rolls into the garage. Joey covers her face with her shirt and jumps back a yard. You hold your breath. "You'll get used to it," you assure them.

"Oh, God, Will," Jenny says. "If you'd told me it was gonna do that!"

"That's why I didn't tell you!"

"Way to be an asshole!" She glares murder at you.

But is it your imagination, or is Joey grinning behind the collar of her shirt? Certainly her eyes are dancing with what looks like amusement.

"So," you say as you pick up the bowl. "Only two more steps, then we're through."

"Are you gonna set anything else on fire?"

"No."

"Can I set you on fire?"

"Funny, Jenny. No wonder James has a crush on you." Jenny's scowl deepens, but Joey drops her shirt finally, and there's no mistaking the mischief that plays about her lips. "No, first, all I have to do is—" You pour the thin paste over the convex mirror. It hardens instantly. "And now we just have to peel it off."

But you make no move, and only step back from the table to smile at the girls. Their expressions turn puzzled. "How about one of you do the honors," you suggest. "I did the hard work, now you can do the easy part."

Jenny's eyes narrow. "What's the trick?"

"No trick. What makes you think there's a trick?"

"Because you've got a look on your face, Will," Jenny says. "The kind of look that Carson and James get when they're planning to prank the basketball team."

You shrug. The moment hangs. No one moves.

You're about to surrender, and pick up the proto-mask yourself, when Joey steps forward. Jenny clutches at her, but she touches the hardened half-sphere you have cast, then with her fingernails plucks it off the mirror. You bite your lower lip to keep from grinning.

"Huh," Joey says as she turns the thin shell over in her hands. "So what do you do with it next?"

But before you can answer, she cries out and flings the mask away. It rings as it bounces off the concrete floor of the garage. Joey nurses her fingertips and stares haggardly down at it.

"Son of a bitch, Will!" Jenny snarls. "What did you do to her?"

"I didn't do anything! I just showed you how I made that mask. There." You point. "Pick it up and see for yourself."

Jenny snarls at you and doesn't move. But Joey does. She steps forward, then kneels to peer at the shell, which has come to rest on its face. You find you are holding your breath as she gingerly picks it up.

She says nothing as she straightens up and studies it with a bent head. Jenny, noticing her fascination, steps in to bend over it too.

For a long moment, no one says anything. Then Joey looks up at you. Her eyes are wide. "How did you do that?" she asks.

Now you do allow yourself to smile. "Do what?"

Joey wrenches the mask away from Jenny. "This!" She shows you.

It's another mask, like the one you made last weekend. A convex oval with bumps and protuberances like a forehead, nose, cheekbones, lips and eyes.

* * * * *

It was stupid of you not to foresee the consequences of your "prank." Now both girls want to see the instructions for making that mask, and demand to look at the book. Three times they ask, "Where did you get it?", seeming not to believe it when you insist you got it at Arnholm's Used Books for two dollars. You hover over them as they examine the book, studying the shifting faces at the front, and frowning at sealed pages that follow.

You might have been more forthcoming if it was only Jenny when they ask about those sealed up pages, for you're still undecided about Joey. But they press until you admit that you got the first few pages unstuck only after giving it some of your blood. You point to your bloody thumbprint. Jenny recoils, but Joey looks intrigued.

"Oh, God, Will," Jenny says when she finally pushes the book back into your arms. "This is really creepy."

"Hey, you wanted to know how I made that mask."

"No I didn't. You're the one who wanted to show me."

"Well, someone was asking me in the library this morning how—"

"Listen," Joey interrupts, "I have to get home for supper." It is now dark outside, and you've turned on the garage overhead light. "Are you guys still gonna be here when I get back?"

"I dunno," you confess. You told your mom as you headed out that you'd be eating with friends, and you are now starving. "I need to get something to eat myself."

"Me too," Jenny says. She glances over at the door leading inside. "My supper's probably in the oven."

"Well, if I come back over after supper," Joey starts to say, but Jenny interrupts her.

"Let's pick it up tomorrow," she says. She gives you a dark look. "If there's anything more that you want to show us."

You hadn't been planning on it, but now that the preliminaries are out of the way, you decide that Jenny at least, and maybe her friend, can be the partner you were looking for when you brought the mask to school this morning.

"Yeah, there's more," you tell them. "I'm still figuring the thing out. And there's rest of the book to get through."

"Oh God," Jenny says. "You're not getting me to put any of my blood in the thing." But though she looks grim, you can tell that she's surrendered, and that she will meet up with you again to look at the book and the masks you've made.

* * * * *

You have a text from Caleb when you get home, asking about Walberg's class and the time capsule. You call him up so you can brag about your afternoon. "Spent it with a couple of girls," you tell him.

"Your mom doesn't count," he says.

"Fuck you. It was Jenny Ashton and a friend of hers. A home-schooled girl. I'm pretty sure Jenny is trying to set me up with her."

"How desperate is this girl?"

"Fuck you. She was cute. She has a real sense of humor, too." You've not forgiven her for the "rat" prank, but there's no way you're going to tell Caleb about that.

"Well, she'd have to, if she's going to go out with you."

Fuck you, you almost say. Instead, you change the subject over to Walberg's class, and hang up without talking any more about Joey Tartaglione.

That's because you're still not really keen on her. But you're wondering: If you got Caleb out to Jenny's tomorrow, you could show him the book and mask and maybe distract Joey with him.

* * * * *

You had been planning to look for Jenny in the library third period (another excuse to skip that dumb Career Planning class) but she finds you first, in Walberg's class, just before first period.

"When we get together this afternoon," she says after hauling you out into the hallway, "is it okay if I have Carson and James there to watch? They're the science guys."

You're still figuring out how to respond to that (unintentional?) insult when she grabs you by the shirt and pulls you in closer.

"I'm trying to get Joey into some kind of circulation," she says. "I mean, you figured that out, right? Well, having them over would be someone else she could maybe get to know, start hanging out with."

You blink.

Does this mean you totally misread the cues from yesterday? Maybe Jenny doesn't mean for you and Joey to maybe start going out?

You don't know whether to be relieved or even further insulted.

Next: "Projects, Both Yours and Others'" 

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