The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Putting on Paulina

Previously: "The Sophomore Candidates" 

You're going to need another mask, no matter what direction you move in, so you drive out to your old neighborhood. Caleb isn't at the community center, and you almost call him so he can come out and keep you company—and maybe do a little of the work for you—but you decide to leave him out of it. He'd probably just yell at you for wanting to make another jump.

In fact, you decide not to tell him what you're doing. Let him think that you made a jump directly into— Well, into whoever you decide to make the jump into.

And that means there's going to be a fourth victim of this mask madness. Gordon into your life, Dane into Gordon's, Evie into Dane's, and someone else into Evie's. You better make this next one count, you tell yourself firmly.

So you give it a lot of thought as you make and polish up another mask with the car buffer. And when you get to the end of it, you have settled on Paulina Nowack.

Evie helps you make the decision. Is it too strong to say that Evie has a schoolgirl crush on Paulina? Yeah, probably. But she's definitely in awe of her friend, who is tall and strong-willed and who as a young child moved to a strange country (which is something that would probably kill you if you tried it) and totally thrived. You feel yourself wishing you had the same confidence and poise, and if it's Evie who is doing the actually wishing, well, hey, maybe she's just helping you feel it more strongly.

But where Evie couldn't do anything to be more like Paulina, you can. More than that. You can become Paulina.

After finishing the mask, you make the raw metal band for copying Andrew's brain before packing up everything you'll need for the ambush. Then you go home and spend the evening carving runes into the metal band and affixing it to the mask.

You also take along Chen's drug drop, to hide in Dane's car in the morning so the real Evie won't be in so much trouble with Chen and Dane's cousin.

* * * * *

You set up the ambush the next day in third-period English, the only class that Evie and Paulina actually share. It takes a little bit of pleading, and you have to hint that there's an extra, unspoken reason behind the shopping trip, but Paulina eventually agrees to meet you up at Nirdlinger's Department Store after school. It's a nice coincidence: Evie's mom has tasked you with buying her daughter some new underthings anyway.

You beat Paulina out there and are lurking in the shoe department when she comes in. She doesn't speak to you, though, even though she glances directly at you as she passes, because you have pulled off Evie's mask (and are dressed in a cheap t-shirt and shorts combo) so as to catch her by surprise. You have Evie's phone, though, and when to your annoyance Paulina only impatiently browses the floor without taking anything back to the changing rooms, you text her to say that you're running late and to start picking stuff out without you. Paulina (you notice) snorts as she reads the text, and it's still a good twenty minutes before—possibly out of boredom—she takes a blouse back to the changing rooms.

You lurk just outside her stall, pretending to be absorbed in your phone, until the door opens. Just as Paulina emerges, you swing in front of her and jam the mask at her face. She squawks and falls backward, dragging you back the stall as you catch her. You're jarred hard as the two of you collapse against the back wall, and sink together to the floor. Frantically, you drag Evie's bag in with you and kick the stall door shut with a bang.

Your heart beating hard as you crouch over Paulina to unbutton her clothes. She's dressed in a light cotton blouse and a gray skirt, with checkerboard stockings up to her knees and Converse sneakers on her feet. Her long, brunette hair is done up into braids with pins and ties that take forever to find and remove. At least she's not wearing any jewelry.

But you have just got her peeled down to her skin when the mask comes out of her. You scoop her things into her purse, dump Evie's clothes out next to her, then bend over her to settle Evie's mask onto her face. It sinks instantly into her, and then it's Evie Cummings sprawled on the floor. Carrying Paulina's purse and all her things in the crook of your arm like a football, you scurry out of Nirdlinger's and into the parking lot. You still have the echo of Evie's memories, so you are able to recognize Paulina's old family sedan and drive it out of the lot and down a couple of blocks to a small strip center, where you park in back where you can't be easily seen.

Only then do you pull out Paulina's things, including the mask, and arrange them on the car seat next to you.

Clothes and mask: All that you'll need for your next—and hopefully last—alias.

* * * * *

You're woken by a tickle on the side of your nose. Your eyes still clenched shut, you brush at it. The tickle flies away, buzzing as it goes.

You make a face and wrench your eyes open. You're wedged inside your car behind the steering wheel with the warm sun pouring in. You glance around in puzzlement and find you're parked in a small, shabby parking lot between a brick wall and the grubby backside of a shopping strip. You straighten up, and that's when you discover that you're naked.

The memories fall like a hammer blow to the head. You rest your forehead on the steering wheel as they overwhelm you: the mixed memories of Will Prescott and Paulina Nowack. When the wave of vertigo passes, you raise your head again and find each set neatly sorted into its own network. I'm Will Prescott, you tell yourself, but I answer to the name Paulina Nowack, you add with just a touch of smugness.

You touch and lift your right breast and smile down at the brown tip. The breast itself is small and pointed—shaped a bit too much like a banana—but it is definitely female. As for the bush between your legs, you seek it out with your hand and pull and probe gently at its stiff, hairy coils. It's a little disconcerting at first to find that there's nothing inside it. But when a fingertip brushes a slit, you get a twinge and a reminder that there most definitely is something inside it, only it's way deeper inside.

You pull you hair back and adjust the rearview mirror to study your new face. Your mouth settles naturally into a prim little smile as you lock onto the large, brown eyes that stare back at you. Your face is a little pale and narrow. But the nose is bold and so is your stare. You rake long fingers through your hair as you acclimate yourself to your new face and form. I'm Paulina Nowack, you muse to yourself. I'm Paulina Nowack and I'm a sophomore at Westside High. I play on the girls' junior varsity basketball squad and I'm taking AP classes, and maybe I'm not the most popular girl in the sophomore class, but I've got lots of friends and more than that I'm—

Crap! You scramble for your phone. It's almost five-thirty. I'm going to be late getting home!

Quickly you button yourself up inside your clothes. But your hair is a mess as you bounce out of the parking lot and hurl yourself onto the boulevard. All the way home you cuss yourself under your breath for being so stupidly careless.

And only as you're turning into the driveway do you realize you were cursing yourself in Polish.

* * * * *

He's being a jerk. Call him on his bullshit. You can do better than him anyway.

Your thumbs fly over the screen of your cell phone as you blast cannonballs of advice to Melanie Heath. Her boyfriend's being a dickhead again, and there's no reason for her to put up with it.

This is nice, you have to admit. You're propped up on the lime-green coverlet of your bed, a history book open in your lap as you text your friends. (In addition to Melanie, you've got a screen open with Lindsay Cho, and with the flick of a thumb you can return to Instagram where you were hate-viewing the latest updates from Madison Crawford. But you've only got ten minutes before the timer goes off, when you'll have to dive back into your studies for the next forty-minute study session you've budgeted yourself.

Yes, Paulina has weird study habits. She chops up her homework time like they were periods in the school day.

Melanie isn't answering, but you keep bombarding her. Two can flirt, you remind her. Hit a party this weekend. Something wild. Find a guy and get sloppy with him.

You're still waiting for Melanie to reply when Lindsay interrupts with a curveball: Melanie wants to know if its ok for her to go out with Bhodi.

You blink once, then almost fly off the bed. NO! you quickly shoot back. Wtf? Is she texting you too? Your thumbs tremble. Melanie can't mean it, she's at Eastman, and besides she knows that you're serious about Bhodi! The thought She better be pulling my chain! wrestles with the thought, Dude, chill, you're not really Paulina.

Did you tell her to dump Tyler? Lindsay asks. "Pah!" you yell at the ceiling.

Before you can reply, though, there's a hard thump at the door. You've just wit enough to thrust your phone under the coverlet before the door flies open.

But it's not your mom, as you expected. With eyes blazing and hair flying, Evie Cummings leaps into the room. You squawk as she jumps at you and pins you to the bed.

Next: "Dane's Destiny" 

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