The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

A Drive-By Ambush

Previously: "The Video Stars" 

Even if this was your last chance to show the book and mask to Laurent, you wouldn't do it in front of Bonny and Josie. Luckily, you share English with Laurent too. When the bell rings, you make a point of trailing him back into the main building.

"What are you doing after school?" you ask as you push along through the crowds behind him.

"Fucking around with friends, probably." He glances back at you over his shoulder, and you have the impression he didn't even know you were there.

"I got this project I wanna show you."

"Your thing for Mr. Walberg?"

"No, something else. It's—" You momentarily lose him as a pack of boys separates you, and you're almost to Mrs. Gladstone's classroom before you catch up again. "It's like a weird chemistry project!" You have to yell it at the back of his head over the roaring murmur of the crowds.

"I'm not taking chemistry!" he shouts back.

"It's not for school!" Together you fall into the relative emptiness of your English classroom.

"Look, it's got great potential for, like, videos and vines and stuff," you assure him. "Or pranks." Yeah, magic disguises that turn you into duplicates of your classmates? There's probably tons of prank material there.

"Yeah, sure," Laurent says. He sounds distracted. "Come hang out with me tomorrow in third. You can tell me about it there."

He greets Erik Carstairs and another football player by slapping their hands. You shrink back as they start talking and guffawing, and after an awkward moment you slink over to your usual seat next to Caleb.

* * * * *

Probably you should have just given up, but by this point you feel like a dog that's got a rope between its teeth. When school lets out you lurk by the breezeway that spills out into the student parking lot. When Laurent emerges, he's in a pack of other meaty gym rats. But after slapping them on the shoulders, he swerves off alone. You run after him. "Hey! Laurent!" you call. "Got a few minutes?"

"Oh hey Will." He doesn't sound annoyed as you scuttle up, but he sure doesn't sound enthusiastic. "Where you off to?"

"I wanted to talk to you some more about that thing I mentioned earlier. That project?"

"Uh huh. I'm on my way out to the soccer fields, me and some of the guys are—"

"Can I get a ride with you? Talk to you about it? I promise, if you're not interested, I'll find my own way back up here to pick up my truck."

Laurent stops in his tracks to give you a direct, and rather skeptical look. "You're not selling band candy or something, are you? You sound like you're working on commission."

"No!" You force out a laugh. "It's just— Like I said, it's a project that's got, like, prank possibilities."

Laurent grunts. "Okay."

He leads you over to a black truck—one that's a lot manlier than yours—and you climb in with him. The radio comes on as he turns the ignition, and a country-western song starts playing. He doesn't turn it off or turn it down while idling and waiting for the traffic out of the lot to clear a little.

You unzip your pack and pull out the book.

"This is the book I'm working out of," you tell him. "I got it at the used bookstore. It's, um, a book of magic."

"Yeah? Like card tricks?" He sounds bored.

"No, like—" You swallow. "I think it's real magic."

Laurent doesn't reply. He's much more interested in the convertible with the three cute girls that is slowly gliding by his front bumper. "I made something with it," you start to say, but you're interrupted by a cell phone chime. Laurent digs his phone out of his pocket and checks the screen.

"Yeah, man," he laughs when he answers it. "Tell me you're not boned." He listens. Then his eyes pop.

"No shit?" he exclaims. "Oh, fuck me! You need a ride out to meet 'em? Well, how long you gonna be?" He listens with glinting eyes, then howls. "Oh, you fucker, you fell into it this time! Yeah? Well, what if they all get in the back and stick you riding shotgun?" You shrink back in your seat as this obscure, one-sided conversation unspools.

And it just goes on and on, interrupted with barks of laughter and good-natured cussing, until Laurent has got out of the parking lot and is speeding into town. In fact, he's halfway across town and still talking when he shouts, "I see 'em!" and lurches across a lane of traffic to turn into a parking lot. The truck bounces hard as he lunges back out onto the street, back the way he came. "Yeah, I'm on their bumper now," he chortles into the phone as he punches the accelerator and dodges around cars. "See you out there." He drops the phone.

"Fuckin' Brownie," he laughs. "Ratliff didn't have room in his car for 'im, but while they was arguing he gets this call from some girls out at Eastman, s'posed to meet us out at the fields." He pounds his steering wheel with mirth. "They're on their fucking way over to Westside to pick him up!" He points to a red subcompact that's just in front of you. "God damn!" He punches the trunk console with the heel of his hand, and bounces in his seat.

"That's cool," you admit without enthusiasm. Almost you give up and tell him to drop you off at Westside again. But you make one last stab: "Um, that thing I was talking to you about?"

"Uh huh?" Laurent is concentrating his full attention on the car ahead, and his grin is blinding as he tailgates it. "Oh, yeah."

"Well, I made something with it, and I thought you'd like to see it."

"Yeah sure. You said it was a chemistry project." He laughs and waggles his finger at someone in the car ahead. You glance up in time to see a blonde girl in the back seat turn her head and duck.

"No, it's a magic trick. Real magic."

"Cool."

You sigh, and pull out the mask you made. There is no way, you realize, that you're going to get Laurent to pay attention. And yet the more he flirts with girls and cusses with his friends, the more you want him to pay attention to you. The more you want some of that attention directed at you.

There's only one way to do it.

"Hey man, can you look at me a minute," you ask him, and he turns to give you a quick glance. "It's me in here with you, right? And we're driving down the street? Well, don't freak out, but watch this."

You suck in a deep breath and lift the mask to your face.

* * * * *

Someone is shaking your shoulder, and then you feel sunlight on your face. You wince and squirm. Go away, you grumble beneath your breath. Wanna slee—

You're shaken more rudely, and pry your eyes open. Your head is muzzy and you feel half-paralyzed, as though you've been woken suddenly from a very deep sleep. You sit up and blink stupidly as you look around.

You're in a truck cab, parked and facing a boulevard. Oh, right, you remember. You were getting a ride from—

You look over. Behind the wheel, Laurent Delacroix is staring back at you. The whites of his eyes show, and his lips are peeled back in a fearful leer. A sickly green glows beneath his brown cheeks.

It's when a lank lock of black hair falls into your face that it all floods back. You look down, to find your shirt bulging out with a great pair of globes.

You can't help smile as you look back up at Laurent. "Hey man," you say. "I told you I had a kick-ass magic trick to show you."

* * * * *

Laurent is properly freaked out of course, but the evidence of his senses is so strong that he can't really question it. Though his eyes nearly start from his head, you are able to quickly prove to him that you are, despite appearances, the same Will Prescott who begged a ride from him, but that the hair and hands and boobs that you are now sporting are real and solid. He can hardly speak, though, which at least gives you a chance to pull out the book and show it to him and tell him about it. How much he understands, though, you're not sure, for his hair stands on end, and he starts to tremble all over. When you offer to "change back," he can only jerk his head up and down in a mute nod.

You wake again to find yourself still parked, but back in your own form. Laurent is holding the mask, and gingerly examining it with his fingertips. "I told you it was a mask," you remind him when he neither speaks nor looks up. "A magical mask."

"Uh huh." He swallows hard.

"You can try it on yourself."

He jerks his head up to give you a hard look. You add, "But only if you want to."

Laurent swallows again, and goes back to examining the mask. "Why'd you want to show me this?" he asks in a hollow voice.

"I thought you'd be interested."

"How come?"

"Aren't you? I mean," you continue when he doesn't answer, "it's the kind of thing you can do pranks with, you know? Pretending to be other people? Or just have fun pretending, like, you've ... got that kind body? Better than dancing while wearing a wig," you can't help adding.

He slowly raises his eyes to regard you from beneath his brows. You can see the question in his eyes: Have you been pretending like you've got Maria's body? You hope he can read the answer in yours: I bet anyone would like to pretend they've got her body.

"Show me how to put it on and take it off?" he quietly asks. After you nod, he says, "Let me take the thing home and try it out?"

Next: "Wrestle Mania" 

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