The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Dangers from Expected Quarters

Previously: "Guilty Consciences All Around" 

You lick your dry lips with a very dry tongue. "Nothing special about that book," you croak.

David Kirkham stares at you.

At least, you suppose he's staring at you. It's hard to tell. Even inside the dim portable, he's wearing shades.

That's part of his menace. They take away the key to his face, so that it's impossible to read fear, pity or humor behind his hard expression.

So when he snorts softly, it's impossible to tell if he's amused or furious.

"Nothing special?" His voice as soft as chalk powder. "So were you shitting people when you said it was worth a coupla hundred dollars?"

You gulp and glance away with watering eyes. You try to shrug, but only one shoulder moves.

Kirkham steps up close, so close you can smell the cinnamon on his breath. He has to lift his chin a little, because he's actually slightly shorter than you.

"Are you some kind of fucking bullshit artist, Prescott?" he hisses. "You think you can shit me?"

"N-no." Your guts twist with self-loathing at your cowardice.

"You think you can shit assholes like Mr. Barrientos?" His lips peel back in a sneer, disclosing hard teeth, brilliantly white.

You shrug again, and your eyes fall.

Silence envelops the room. The only sounds are those of the blood rushing in your ears, Kirkham breathing in your face, and a few distant, muffled voices.

Kirkham raises his hand and knocks the cap off your head. He grabs a fistful of your hair, and you gasp.

"You put the finger on my friends, motherfucker." His voice is almost a whisper. "How much is it worth to you for me to forget that fact?"

"I don't have anything!" you bleat.

"Then I'm just gonna have to hurt you," he says.

He gives you to the count of three—if you weren't too terrified to count—to shit yourself, then pistons a rock-hard fist into your stomach.

* * * * *

"Pfuuuuck," Keith drawls. He tips back half a bottle of cola, then smacks his mouth and lets rip a belch. "You get no sympathy from me, fucker," he pants. "Walk into a room alone with Kirkham? You were asking for it. Me, I'd'a run."

"Big fucking difference that would make," Caleb snorts. "Do that, and he'a' busted your kneecaps, then beat the shit outta you after he caught you."

"Like he could catch me," Keith sneers with airy arrogance.

"He'd catch you the next day."

"I'd just run off then, too."

"Oh, shut up," you mutter. You still hurt all over from your run-in with Kirkham.

After dropping you with a blow to the gut, he let you gasp and gurgle on the floor for a minute or two before kicking you in the balls.

Keep your fucking mouth shut about my friends, he said while pinning you to the floor with a heavy foot on your shoulder, or we'll make this a daily workout. Understand, motherfucker? You nodded, and he kicked you again before striding out, banging the portable door shut behind him.

The bruises are still darkening. Not that you're getting any sympathy from Keith and Caleb. You're taking an early supper with them out here, at Potsdam Park, where you can gum down cheap hamburgers while watching the light of the setting sun lap at the rippling surface of the river.

"The fuck did he even want with you, Will?" Caleb asks.

"Like Kirkham needs a reason," you mutter back.

Caleb twists almost all the way around to give you a long, direct look. You feel yourself falter under it.

"I'll say this for Kirkham," Caleb says. "He's not like the Molester. Usually when he gets pissed at you, it's for a reason."

"Will pro'ly stepped on his foot," Keith says.

"Yeah, probably something like that," you murmur.

A silence settles over your group. Then Keith changes the subject, to a YouTube video that he's making some guys he knows. You pretend to be interested, but it's all in one ear and out the other.

Caleb rode with Keith out to the park, but he asks you to give him a ride back when your trio breaks up for the evening. "That thing with Kirkham," he says when you're a block away from the park, and you tense at the return of the topic. "Keith was being a real shit. I feel for you, man. I'd rather make it to the end of the year without Kirkham noticing me than graduate cum laude."

"I'm fucked up on both scores," you observe.

"Yeah, well. You sure it was just a random thing with him?"

"Dunno what else it'd be."

"Only I heard that Principal Sagansky came down like a ton of bricks on Thomason and some of those guys just a day or two ago."

"Who'dja hear that from? And what's that got to do with—?"

"Oh, cut me some fucking slack, Prescott. I heard it from Kim, if you gotta know."

"Walsh?" That's the student council president.

"Sure. And why would Sagansky be yelling at Thomason if he didn't think Thomason had something to do with that time capsule thing?"

Your heart flutters to rapid life. "Lotta reasons for him to be yelling at Thomason and his gang," you retort. "Buncha skinheads. One of these days they're gonna do something that gets them on the nightly news, and then the admins' gonna be all, like, shit, bad publicity."

"Maybe." Caleb sounds dubious. "But Kirkham hangs out with 'em—"

"Did Kirkham get yelled at?" Your knuckles whiten around the steering wheel.

"Not that I heard. But, you know, if he did, he's gonna wanna know why he's getting yelled at. And if he hears that you was the one who put Walberg onto Thomason—"

"Will you fucking give it a rest?" you explode. "You're not worried about him and you're not worried about me! You're worried they'll find out that you're the one who dug up the time capsule!"

"I didn't dig it up! You know that, you were there when I, uh, didn't!"

"Well, stop worrying. They're not going to find out what you did."

A brooding silence envelops the truck cab. Then Caleb says, "Actually I am worried about you."

"And how come's that?" you snarl.

"Because if Thomason and them get expelled, they're gonna come looking for you. And they're not just gonna punch you in the balls if they do."

You make no reply. What is there to say? Thanks for reminding me that my life will be very short and very painful if that happens. It never would have occurred to me if you hadn't mentioned it.

* * * * *

Another week or so passes, and the Mystery of the Busted Time Capsule fades from the school's attention, if it ever really occupied it. Other dramas crest and subside. Meghan Farris hosts a disastrous weekend party. A bunch of football players get busted for holding an orgy—complete with underage drinking and dope-smoking—at a cheap motel on the south side of town. Keith makes his internet debut in a YouTube movie-review video that earns ... 934 views.

Then, on a Friday morning—

You're late getting out of Walberg's class, and the next class is streaming in, when Olivia Byrne puts her head in through the doorway and frowns in a distracted manner around the room. Her gaze rakes past you; then she does a double take, hesitates, and gestures you over. "You know Lin Pol, right?" she asks in a low voice.

It's an insult that she thinks you don't know who Lin Pol—cheerleader—is. In fact, Lin Pol knows you, too, by name even. Sometimes she even talks to you!

But you ignore it because Olivia is a swimmer, and she's got boobs and butts and curves in between that have been sculpted by the water currents.

"Think you can go find her in Mr. Leavey's class and give her this?" Olivia presses a flat box, wrapped in brown paper, into your hands.

"Uh, what is it?"

"Doesn't matter to you," she snaps. "Just, can you go give it to her?"

"My next class is in F wing. But sure, I can do that," you hastily add. "Mr. Leavey's class?"

She nods. "I'm in that class with her," she adds, almost as an afterthought, "but I'm skipping this period. So don't let Mr. Leavey hear you tell her that it came from me!"

"Oh sure, I'll be careful."

If you were hoping for a smile and a squeeze of the arm or shoulder, you are disappointed. Olivia looks relieved, but she says no more before stepping backward into the crowded hallway and letting it sweep her away.

Mr. Leavey is one of the foreign language teachers: a prissy little man who favors bow ties. When you step into his classroom, he's fully occupied with—

Coach Acuna? The P.E. teacher is looking distraught and distracted as she thrusts a piece of paper at him and jabbers incoherently.

Lin—a beautiful, shapely Chinese-American girl with long, black hair and an almond-shaped face—accepts the package from you with a wide, warm smile, and she snickers when you lean in close to murmur that Olivia will be skipping class. "She must have a date," she says.

"Really?"

"I don't know, Will. But what about you? You got plans tonight?" There's just the hint in her tone that she wants the answer to be "Yes."

But you can only shrug. "Playing it by ear. What about you?" Every fiber in your body goes on alert, waiting for the signal to stiffen.

"I've heard about a couple of things happening. Want me to text you later?"

"Yeah, awesome!" You put out your fist for a bump, then redden when you realize what you've done. But Lin laughs, and bumps your knuckles lightly against yours.

You're dancing on air as you exit the classroom. Only after you're out in the hall do you stop and frown.

Coach Acuna was talking a mile a minute back there with Mr. Leavey. But where did her accent go?

Next: "Nobody Expects the Tennis Inquisition" 

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