Chapter #12Keith's Bodyguard by: Seuzz   Eh, screw it, you decide. You can just wait for Caleb to get the mask to you in his own good time. You go back to the house, do your homework, and wait for Anne to call. It's after dinner before she does, though, and the evening at her house is short and filled with her own homework.
* * * * *
You wake early and can't get back to sleep, so you head over to the school for an early morning jog. Erik Carstairs is there, but the two of you pointedly ignore each other, and manage to coordinate your paces so that you're always on opposite sides of the track. It eventually turns into a contest of endurance, which you win: he heads into the gym before you do. You give him plenty of time to shower and change before you go in yourself.
It's still relatively early, and not many students have begun to show up. Unfortunately for one of your friends, early arrivals include Keith Tilley and Seth Javits. As you're heading across the quad you catch sight of Javits--one of the worst bullies on the basketball team--frog-marching Keith across the grass. You'd intervene, but you're too far away, and it looks like whatever is going to happen is going to hit its climax pretty soon. They draw up under one of the big trees in front of the library. Seth says something to Keith, and your friend weakly tosses something white at the tree; it falls to the ground. Seth whaps him so hard on the head he staggers, and he retrieves the white thing. Seth, with his hands on his hips, speaks again, and Keith throws it harder. Whatever it is, it snags on one of the lower branches. The small knot of kids with Seth hoot and clap; as they depart, Keith just stands there, staring dejectedly at the ground.
Now you wish you'd made a greater effort to get out there, and you walk quickly over to Keith before he can make his way back into the school. He looks up briefly as you draw close, and then ducks his head again. His face is so red it is almost purple; clearly he wishes he'd run off before you showed up.
You look up at the tree: a pair of tidy whiteys is hanging there, close enough to be tantalizing but rather too far to snag. Fucking Javits ... "Are those yours," you ask Keith.
His jaw tightens and he bites furiously on his lips. He gives a curt nod.
You clap him on the shoulder; you'd meant it to be reassuring, but he staggers, and his arms fall limply to his side. "Here," you say. You bend over and form your hands into a stirrup. He doesn't move, and you look up at him. "Come on, Tilley. Alley-oop."
Now he looks at you, with a startled expression. You gesture again with your hands, and slowly he puts a foot in them. He gasps a little as you easily hoist him. "Can you get 'em?" you ask. He flails. "Get on my shoulders! Use me like a ladder!" He wobbles in your grasp, and then his free foot plonks onto your right shoulder. You straighten as he wobbles uncertainly on one foot, and then he tumbles off, skidding off your back and pitching you forward. You spin in alarm, but he's folded himself as he's fallen, and rolls across the grass. He stumbles uncertainly to his feet, and shyly brandishes the underwear in his hand.
"Way to go, Tilley!" you cheer him. "That wasn't so bad!" You jerk your chin at the underwear. "Were those extras, or are you going commando now?"
"I should get back into them," he mutters.
"I'll go with you, keep a watch out." You drape a friendly arm on his shoulder and accompany him to one of the boys' rooms that has a relatively safe reputation. It's empty, but you still guide him toward the stall in the corner. "This is gonna sound like a weird favor," you tell him. "But I'm gonna take the next stall. Would you mind staying in your stall until I come out?"
"How come?" he asks, instantly on his guard again.
"Um ..." You're stuck for a good explanation. "Well, how about let's say that you wanna stick close to me, in case Javits comes back?" He thinks a moment; then, though still reluctant, he agrees.
Inside your stall you wedge yourself between the toilet and the wall. Quickly you pull Cameron's mask off, fighting to stay awake ...
... You fail, but you have the impression you've not been out long. A quick glance shows that Keith's feet are still visible under the partition; he's tapping his toes impatiently. Grinning to yourself, you pull Cameron's pants up around your smaller torso, grab the mask, and step over to Keith's stall. "Can you open up there," you call in a deeper voice than is your wont, and tap on the door. Keith fumbles the door open, and his eyes pop when he sees you grinning back. "Yeah, hey!" You point at the mask in your other hand. "I think this'll help you more than it'll help me." His limbs jerk, but he can't stop you from thrusting it onto his face.
* * * * *
"Okay, what you need to do now is go find me--the other me--" You snort. "You know, you should be all caught up in there." You frown at Cameron, who is still looking a little green. "Keith, you need to go find the Will Prescott who is not dressed in Keith Tilley's clothes." You point to his shirt, which is now wrapped around your chest.
"Yeah, I got all that," he says, though his eyes are still very wide. In a possibly unconscious mimicry of your own gesture, he pulls at the shirt he is wearing: Cameron's.
"Then go find him," you continue. "Tell him that Will needs the keys to his truck. There can't be two of me at school, so I'm going to take off for the day."
"Why can't you get rid of him and be yourself? I'd kinda like to talk to you."
"You can always talk to Caleb if you have to. You know that." You thwack him on the side of the head.
"Sorry," he mumbles. "It feels like I've got at least three too many people up here." He thwacks the side of his own head.
"That would be mathematically impossible. There's only two of you in there. Anyway, tell him I'll be back in time to pick him up."
"Who, Caleb?"
"No, Will." You'd hoped Keith would be a little less dense with Cameron's head, but maybe it's left him twice as confused as before.
At any rate, he does manage to get your truck keys to you within ten minutes.
* * * * *
You also have Keith's pants, which means you have his wallet, and since you figure he owes you, you treat yourself to a pancake, ham and egg breakfast at Elmer's Diner, near the university. Then you drive around a bit. At lunch time you decide to crash the strip center across from Eastman High, where there's a bakery and a comic book store. It's a bit risky--you might get spotted as a truant--but you gamble that the lunch hour will protect you. Eastman students hit it during the break all the time.
Sure enough, not long after you land at Munson's Bread Shop, you see two heads go by the window: a dark-haired guy and a blonde-haired guy in letterman jackets. They pause, gesticulating as though arguing; then the dark-haired one shoves the blonde one, and they enter the bakery. "It's empty carbs, Joe," the dark-haired one grumbles, and taps his foot impatiently as the other orders a cinnamon roll. But complaints about calories don't stop him from ripping a few bites from it after they sit at the table next to you. They set a cardboard box between them. "We should put it back where we found it," the dark-haired one continues in the same grumbling tone, and slaps the box contemptuously.
"We will, Frank, but we should take a good look at it first," the blonde one ("Joe"?) retorts. From the box he takes an old-fashioned school notebook. He opens it and carefully studies the first page.
"We already looked at it down there. We know what it is," the other one ("Frank"?) says.
"But this is our first really solid lead," Joe replies. "First confirmation we're on the right track. Might even confirm more by pointing to the university. Though we need to pay that guy a visit anyway." His eyes flick in your direction, but if he's noticed that you're eavesdropping, he doesn't seem to mind. "You don't finish a scavenger hunt by ignoring the clues."
Frank's eyes also flick in your direction. "Since when were you ever smart enough to finish a scavenger hunt?"
"Since when were you ever fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck you, Frank, fuck you," Joe hotly retorts.
Frank slaps Joe on the side of the head. Joe comes half out of his seat with a snarl; Frank cocks a fist, and Joe sits down. He glares at the notebook he's still holding. "Porn," he sneers. "Fucking porn. Hot, steamy, cock-stiffening, mouth-drooling, sends me running home to choke a barnyard of chickens porn! And there's nothing like that in here." He frowns deeply, but continues to stare hard into the notebook.
Frank snorts and pulls something else out of the box.
And you almost choke: It's a mask, like the kind Caleb has been making.
Is Caleb up to something over at Eastman? Is there another club of mask-makers on the loose?
Do you dare introduce yourself to these guys? | Members who added to this interactive story also contributed to these: |
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