This choice: Let him think Gordon has them • Go Back...Chapter #25Jobs Begun Badly, Then Bungled by: Seuzz   You're pretty sure that Gary Chen can't hurt or frighten Gordon Black—
Well, you're pretty sure he couldn't hurt or frighten the real Gordon Black, and that he knows that he can't hurt or frighten the real Gordon Black, so he wouldn't even try to hurt or frighten the person who's currently walking around acting like a stoned-out-of-his-head Gordon Black.
So even when Chen rounds on you with some vicious blows—
"You fucking moron! You goddamned, cock-sucking ass-for-brains, you let Gordon find where we've been putting the—! You are so fucking dead when I've calmed down!"
—you don't confess you've got the stuff at another location. Let "Gordon" take the blame!
Chen has a satchel—the twin of Dane's—hanging off his shoulder, and he ends the conversation (with a curse) by throwing it at your head and stalking away. You and Semple are left to stare wide-eyed at each other.
"Gordon found your secret stash?" Semple asks.
"Yeah? Didn't you say he did?"
"I just saw him poking around here." Semple takes the satchel from you and looks through it. He pulls out two joints from its depths, then notices another one on the grass. He scrambles around, collecting the ones that Chen had slapped from your hand. "I didn't know Gary knew about it," he says.
"I guess I'm gonna have to move it," you say.
"You know, Gordon was acting real funny yesterday," Semple says after a moment's thought. "He hung out with us yesterday, last period and after, instead of going to practice."
Of course you heard this from Carson, but you feign ignorance. "No way! Did he, you know—?"
Semple nods. "He got really mellow, started going on and on about Chelsea and all the—" He swallows around a sudden grin. "All these fantasies about stuff he wanted to do with her, how he was gonna try doing it with her. It really freaked me and Tim out. We didn't know what to say."
"Holy crap!" The thought of the Dane-run Gordon trying to talk—let alone get it on—with Chelsea Cooper leaves you dazed. Then you get to wondering what Gordon—watching things play out from Will Prescott's point-of-view—would think of Dane's antics in his body. Oh, but Gordon's trapped at your place because he's been both suspended and grounded.
Semple's voice pulls you from this reverie. "Aren't you supposed to be in Walberg's class this hour?"
Walberg? Oh yeah.
Oh, shit! You hurry off.
He makes you suffer, both that period and in detention after school. But at least you manage to avoid "Gordon."
* * * * *
"I guess that makes sense," Caleb says in a distracted tone.
"You're not even listening! I told you that Gary Chen—"
"I heard you!" Caleb says without lifting his eyes from the book. "Chen beat the crap out of you 'cos you lost Dane's stuff."
"And then I managed to pin the blame on 'Gordon'." You giggle as you make air quotes around the name.
"Clever."
But he's not really paying attention to you. Instead, he's trying to carve some symbols into a piece of metal. You ask him what he's doing.
"Are you high? I'm trying to do the next spell."
You lean in to see what he's doing. He's bending over a strip of silvery metal, about an inch wide and five inches long, and trying to carve some lines into it. Apparently they are supposed to be runes—there's a couple of rows of runes on the page he's consulting in the book—but he's having a hell of a time getting it done. Though he's using a fountain pen with a metal nib, the silver band doesn't want to take any indentations.
"Look, I gotta get home for supper," he says after a little while. "Can I leave this here with you, see if you can get this thing made?"
"What makes you think I can do it if you can't?"
He glowers at you.
"I don't think you can, but I'd like you to give it a try. I'll be back in a little while."
You tell him you'll do your best, but after he's left, your eye keeps returning to the desk where he stashed that metal briefcase that Dwayne Macaulay gave you yesterday. Finally you can't stand it anymore, and take it out and try fiddling with the locks. It won't open. You lay it aside and return to work on the doohickey. You only last another five minutes before you're playing with the briefcase again, with mounting frustration. You hear a noise outside, and quickly return to your work. But when Caleb doesn't come in, you pick up the briefcase again. You end up searching the basement for any kind of instrument you can use to break it open. You find a crowbar.
You bash the case about hard before it finally bends enough that you can jimmy it open.
It's in this attitude—you levering the briefcase open—that Caleb finds you when the basement door slams open. "The fuck are you doing?" he cries.
You laugh nervously. "Just, uh, snooping, I guess, into the—" You indicate the briefcase.
"So I see. But that's not our business. You're supposed to be finishing up that—" He grabs the case away from you. And as he does so, it flies open. His voice dies.
The case is packed tight with stuff like Dwayne gave you yesterday. You feel your eyes bulging. You and Caleb are both silent for a very long time.
"Jeezum Crow," you murmur. "What do you think the street value of that crap is?"
"Less than you think," Caleb says, but he doesn't sound as confident as he words would suggest. He's pale when he looks up at you. "That's what you were supposed to give Chen? Fuck us, no wonder he was so pissed at you."
You sink back onto one of the desks. "Wanna go in as Dane for me tomorrow?"
That jerks him back to the present, and he quickly sweeps the briefcase shut and shoves it back in the desk.
"No, you fucked up, you take the consequences," he says. "Anyway, tomorrow's Saturday, lucky for you. How far did you get on—? Oh, Christ, Will!" He snatches up the metal band. "I gave you plenty of time to work on it! I even went by your house to check up on you-know-who."
"What's going on there?"
"Nothing. He's still barely talking to me. He did say that his dad—your dad—did some calling around, found out what a shit Lynch is, so he's not as mad as he was yesterday. I bet that makes Black feel good, learning that his friends are totally despised. But Jesus." He sighs over the metal strip, then shoves it into the book and sweeps the book into his bag. "I'll finish it at my place."
"I can finish it!"
He glares at you. "Apparently you can't! And look how you fucked up Chen when he gave you an assignment." He peers at you. "You're even beginning to look like Matthias."
That last remark makes no sense, since you have been wearing a defect-free disguise of Dane all this time, and you challenge Caleb on the insult. "I mean, you're getting that whole space-cadet look in your eyes. But if you really wanna help, here!"
He takes out the book again, along with that piece of metal and a piece of notebook paper. "Can you at least try finishing this thing up?" he asks as he copies the down the runes that are supposed to go onto the metal strip. He shoves the paper and the strip at you.
"Oh, sure, I can try," you assure him. You can't stifle a giggle as you say it, though.
He rolls his eyes. "Good. Look, we'll meet here tomorrow. Here, ten o'clock?" You nod. "Lay off the weed."
* * * * *
But you don't take Caleb's advice. You've only had two or three joints ever, and you've never been interested in acquiring the habit. But playing the part of Dane Matthias gives you a once-in-a-lifetime chance, you figure, to experiment and have some fun with it. You enjoyed it last night, when Dane's mom got you high; tonight you don't find her at home, so you take it a little more lightly, and only give yourself a really pleasant buzz while slowly trying to scratch the runes into the metal band. It goes slowly, because you keep pausing to groove on the—
Fuck, man, you're playin' with runes! How cool is that?
So distracted, you only dimly become aware of a hammering at the door, and when you raise your head it ceases. Then—
BAM BAM BAM! It's at the window. You twitch aside the curtains, and shriek.
Dwayne Macaulay is glaring in at you. You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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