The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Challenge

Previously: "Casting a Webb" 

I should to tell Aaron and Elijah about this! you silently exclaim to yourself.

You're smirking at your new reflection in the rear-view mirror as you think it, and it doesn't take much insight to realize it isn't one of your thoughts but one of Andrew's, as though the kid in the mirror had the thought and transferred it to you.

Just like with Evie, you think. I got Andrew in here with me, and whatever he thinks, I can think too!

You scratch yourself under a pit.

So, naturally, you have the urge to run off and tell your friends about this body-swapping stuff. Pretty fucking cool is what it is! You could make some masks of each other, swap around, pretend to be each other. Goof on each other, get each other in trouble. Get masks of other people and prank them, get them in trouble. The ideas practically come up with themselves!

Of course, not for a minute are you tempted to follow through. It's just Andrew talking.

And yet ...

The longer you stare into Andrew's light blue eyes, the harder the reflection's smirk gets. You don't wanna fuck around with me, mirror-Andrew seems to be telling you. You think I'm just gonna freak out and roll over. Fuck you, whatever your name is. I'm'a come getchu. Maybe I'll be all confused and not know what this shit all is, but I'll come after you and I'll fuck you up and by the time I'm done fucking you up you'll wish it was some other fuckers, the one's you were trying to get away from, that was fucking you up. Just watch if I don't.

You look away from the mirror. He's telling you the truth, that kid inside your head with you. You can almost feel his hot breath on the back of your neck. Thoughtfully, you peel off the temporary clothes you put on back at Westside, and pull on Andrew's own.

Before starting the car, you text Aaron and Elijah, to see where they're hanging out. You need to get them someplace where the new Evie is unlikely to find them.

* * * * *

"Fuck me, it's dog barf." Aaron grins down at the soft, orange-brown lump that's slowly puddling on his paper plate. "Cheese covered dog barf."

"Cheese-covered dog turd," Elijah corrects him.

"Yeah, whatever." You grin across the table at them. "Just long as you remember the rules. All in one bite," you explain as you pluck up one of the two "dog turds" befouling your own plate. It's actually a mini-burrito, but it stinks like canned dog food, and some of the gooey sauce and greasy cheese slide off it with a plop. "No chewing," you continue, "and you gotta hold it in your mouth and suck it down like a man, little bit at a time."

"Jesus!" Aaron explodes in a gasping laugh. "You're talking like you're going down on it, like it's fat, Mexican cock!"

You kick at him under the table, but bang your toes into the table support instead. "Shit!" You drop the mini-burrito, and the smelly brown sauce splatters onto you and your friends, who shriek and squeal and cuss you out.

"Fuck you guys," you retort, "those are the rules!"

"What rules? Who says?"

"Garner and Dougherty! And some other cocksucker. They were all hanging out by the portables and they were all, like, talking about how this is how you do it!"

"It" is the Taco Famoso Challenge. Or one of them. Taco Famoso is a famously hideous Mexican fast-food place, where it's said that every order comes with a side of Montezuma's Revenge. It's also said that the food is just as hot on its way out as on its way in, and tastes just the same after as before. But someone must like the food, because the place is still in business and has been for years. Or maybe it's because there are so many people who enjoy taking one of the Taco Famoso Challenges.

"So, we do it all, like, at the same time?" Aaron asks as he pats the sauce off his t-shirt. It just adds another color to the other stains. But Aaron is always a mess, from his curly mop of brown hair down to the shoes that he never ties.

"You're suppose'ta, like, time it," you explain. "Whoever can hold it the longest without spitting it out. No, wait," you correct yourself as Aaron's eyebrows go up. "It's like, if you spit any of it out, you automatically lose. But it's whoever takes the longest to swallow it all down is the winner. 'Cos of, like, the gag reflex."

They stare at you before exchanging an incredulous glance. Then they burst into giggles, and Elijah, who is black, covers half his face with a long hand.

"Oh, man," he moans in his soft voice. "I already can't stand the smell of this stuff. If I gots to eat it— No." He pushes his plate away. "I don't care, I ain't doin' it."

"No, you gotta," Aaron goads him. "If we do it, you gotta."

"I'm gonna spit it out right away anyhow. If I don't, I'ma gonna be paintin' the walls of this place with my puke. Nn-nhn!"

"No, we all do it," you insist. "Spit it out and lose if you have to, but you gotta at least go along with us at the start." And because Elijah typically gives in to you, he grumbles and delicately picks up a mini-burrito with his forefinger and thumb.

"All together on three," you start. "One—"

"Do we gots to do both of them?"

"Yeah, both. Two. Three!"

You throw your head back, open your mouth, and pop the mini-burrito into it.

It's warm and soft, and at first you taste nothing. You close your mouth around it and gently squeeze it between your tongue and palate. Something oozes out into your cheeks. You glance around the table at your friends. Their cheeks are puffed out, and Aaron looks like he's stifling a laugh, but no one is reacting yet. And it's not really that bad. Why, you think, there's no challenge to this at all if—

Then it hits the back of your throat and nose. That stink of wet dog food, the stuff that slides out of a can like wet shit.

Then you choke. Oh God it's worse than that! It is dog shit! It's dog shit and it's sitting on your tongue!

"Glmph!" Aaron says, and his eyes pop. He turns red, and sweat pops out on his brow. "Gwphheeeewwww!" He blows the whole burrito back onto the plate. You flinch as beans and sauce spray everywhere.

Then a chunk of the same stuff slides down your own throat.

Oh, Jesus, you're going to be sick! You feel your whole stomach rushing up your esophagus, like a squad of linebackers bracing to hurl back an offensive charge. There's a burning fire behind it.

You throw yourself from the booth and rush for the door. Outside, you spray the burrito in a fat, wet splat onto the pavement. Your stomach heaves, and acid pools on the back of your tongue. You cough it out, and with shaking limbs swagger back into the restaurant.

Elijah watches you with dancing eyes, the burrito still in his mouth. But his eyes soon begin to water. At least he has the self control to lift his plate to his mouth and gently drop the burrito back beside its twin.

* * * * *

The Challenge was your idea, to get Andrew's two best friends off someplace where the real Andrew wouldn't find them. Of course, he could always text them from Evie's phone, but that was another reason to hang out with them. When they asked you about your "date" with her, you jeered that she was weird and kind of psycho. "She isn't even my type," you concluded with a sniff. "Too skinny."

When the Challenge is over, the three of you return home, for you all live just a couple of blocks from each other, just south of William McKinley Elementary, where you all first became friends in the fifth grade.

Andrew and Aaron and Elijah. They're like a variation on the trio of Will and Caleb and Keith. Like you and your old friends, they spend more time with each other than with other people. But they're a tighter-knit trio, doing more things together than apart or in pairs, even at parties. But they also hang out with a lot more people and have more complicated social lives. They're a lot bolder, too. The very first weekend after they moved up into the high school, they made sure to hit The Warehouse, the high-schoolers-only party spot that is so hot and so dangerous that the trio of Prescott-Johansson-and-Tilley has never failed to wuss out of visiting.

And they're more ambitious. They're larval jocks, though in different sports, and are pumped about being the best. Or, at least, Andrew and Aaron are. About Elijah you're not so sure. He hasn't got the same hustle as his friends. But officially, at least, he's committed to the same goal as the other two. The three of you are going to be captains of the school's prestige sports squads when you're seniors: Elijah captaining the basketball squad, Aaron captaining/quarterbacking the football team; and you (Andrew) running the soccer team. It goes without saying that one of you, at least, will be dating the head cheerleader. (Current betting is that's going to be Madison Crawford, and Andrew is careful to always attend every party that he's heard Madison will be attending.)

Elijah lives with his parents in a modest tract home a couple of blocks away, but Andrew and Aaron both live in a trailer park just off Carver Road, and have known each other from kindergarten. Andrew's mom works evenings at Eagle Foods, so you have the place to yourself tonight, and Aaron drops a hint about wanting to waste the evening with you. But you should probably get in contact with Caleb, to tell him what's up with you.

Next: "The Webb of Friendship" 

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