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A high school student finds a grimoire that shows how to make magical disguises. |
Previously: "Every Chance You Take"  She is slinky, she is sexy, and you can't believe that you are dancing with her. Like a cat that's been turned human by a magic spell, this girl Sydney is effortlessly smooth and graceful on the dance floor. She must be doing something with her feet, but you can't guess what, because you can't take your boggling eyes off her body. She has breasts and hips, but also tight, lithe curves in between, and her satin dress—the color of ink, but with shimmering highlights—hugs and uplifts and teases her shape. Her arms are bare, as are her legs from the hem of her very short skirt to the tops of her strappy, high-heeled sandals. She is tan all over, and her hair is a golden halo about her head. Standing stock-still, she would be a knockout. In motion, she is one of the wonders of the world. She undulates from side to side in perfect, rocking rhythm to the music, with a sleek, serpent-like grace. She scoops out the air with upraised palms, as though beckoning to you, but when you advance on tottering feet, she slides away, drawing you further and further in. She smiles at you with hooded eyes, and lifts her face now and then with a soft gasp to show you her alabaster throat. You are quickly impaled on your own erection, and on your agonized fear that if you even so much as try to touch her, she will evaporate like an iridescent bubble. So preoccupied, you don't notice the advancing figure until he has stepped between you and her. You stop and blink stupidly, as though woken from a dream, and for a moment you actually wonder if you have not been dreaming on your feet, and that this Sydney girl was not some kind of fantasy. You glare dully at the back of a letterman jacket—it's owner gliding and grooving to the music— Then with an aching sigh you turn and trudge off the dance floor. Of course it had been too good to last. * * * * * You were leading with your chin, and that's probably why you go home a little later. You were already intimidated by her, and were giving some thought to just retreating, but defeat has turned into a rout. You are home well before your curfew, so that your dad, though heading to bed early, is still able to tell you good-night. Sunday morning brings church, and Sunday afternoon brings boredom and self-recrimination. Why did I run away? you chide yourself. What a chicken-shit thing to do. No wonder you can't get a girl to look at you, man! You crumple like newspaper when one of them even looks in your direction. You try working out your frustrations with some console games, but it's rancid and enraging because you know that you're just trying to ignore the humiliation you brought upon yourself. The hours crawl, and to put an end to the day you go to bed way too early, so that you thrash for an hour before falling asleep, and wake up in the middle of the night to stare at the ceiling for a very long time before falling asleep again just before dawn. * * * * * Monday morning. First period. You have to hand it to Mr. Walberg. If you felt rotten before, he finds a way to make you feel even worse. "Last call!" he booms out just before class is ready to start. "Last call, folks! Bring it if you got it!" "Bring what?" you ask Caleb, who is sitting in the next desk over. "Your thing for the time capsule," he says. "You turned yours in already, didn't you? Uh, didn't you?" he repeats with a frown as you feel your face go chalk-white. You bolt from your desk and run to the front of the classroom. Mr. Walberg looks up expectantly. "You got something for me, Mr. Prescott?" he asks. "I— I— Uh—" You tongue doesn't want to work. "I forgot mine at home this morning." His heavy eyebrows go up, and his lips purse beneath the enormous walrus-mustache. "You forgot it every morning last week, too," he says. "You've known about it for seven days." "I didn't get it until this weekend!" "No excuse, Mr. Prescott. If you haven't got it—" "I can get! Can you wait here?" "Deadline is the start of class this morning, Mr. Prescott. If you can't get home and get back in the next—" He ostentatiously checks his watch, and taps it. "Seventeen seconds, then—" "Can't you give me till the end of day?" His face falls. "That's not the deadline, Mr. Prescott. But you catch me in a rare mood of joyous generosity this morning. Get it to me by five o'clock, and I'll only take one letter grade off." He pushes himself from his desk and stands up to call class to order. * * * * * So you have more than an hour after final bell to get home and get back, but you decide to be quicker than that. If you can get it to him before lunch is over, maybe that "rare mood of joyous generosity" will lead him to knock nothing off your grade. So when fourth period ends, you sprint out the front doors of the school and gallop around to the student parking lot. Driving not so fast as to break any speed limits, or so recklessly as to attract the attention of any cops, you get home in fifteen minutes. And what will you be picking up? The only thing you can think of at short notice: that crazy-ass book you snagged at Arnholm's last week. After all, the thought of dropping it in the time capsule was the reason you even picked it up. And at this point, it doesn't matter if it's a plausible submission or not. It would all have gone off fine, except that your mother intercepts you. "What are you doing home?" she demands as you come bounding in the door. "Iforgotsomethingandhavetogetitandgetbackuptotheschool!" you shout as run for the stairs. "Come back here!" You screech to a stop, and return. "First of all," she says, "I don't know why you're here, but good. Your dad called and needs some papers taken up to him at work, so you can do that for me. I've got to get out to the church—" "But Mom!" "I need your help, Will! Wait here." "I gotta get the thing I came home for!" "Then get it and meet me in the garage." Cussing to yourself, you run upstairs, push the junk off your desk to the floor, and kick through it till you find that book. Back downstairs— "Here, this is what he needs," she says as she shoves a couple of manila folders at you. "I'll call him and tell him to meet you at reception. Are you skipping class?" Now her tone turns suspicious. "It's my lunch break, but I'll be late if I have to drive out to—" "I'll tell your dad to give you a note. He needs this, Will, and Mrs. Stewart at church—" "Alright! I should just go, okay?" You run out the door. * * * * * You expect to get it in the neck from your dad for leaving school during school hours, but after taking those folders from you with a gruff thanks, he only asks you why you needed to run home. You tell him you forgot the thing you were supposed to bring for the time capsule. He cocks his head and asks what it is. "Just an old book," you say. "What old book?" "Just something I got at Arnholm's." His expression lowers. Then he tells you wait, and goes out a side door onto the main property. He had been talking to a lean, rangy man when you came in, and that man takes advantage now to ask where you go to school. He then asks if you know Sean Mitchell. You shake your head, and he falls silent. When your dad comes back in, it's with large manila envelope. "Give your teacher this," he says. "They're design specs for an obsolete thruster we were working on. Something technical like that might be of interest to the future." You boggle a little as you take the envelope. "Thanks!" It is, indeed, better than a weird old book whose pages are stuck together. Before you go, though, the other man holds you while he tells your dad that "one of my guys called to say he has car trouble and can't come in." Then, after glancing at you, he adds, "If your son could give him a ride—" And that's how you come to give a stranger a ride from school after final bell. * * * * * "I gotta thank you for doing this, man," Sean Mitchell says after climbing up into the truck cab with you. Some texts between his boss at Salopek, and you and your dad, had arranged for him to meet you outside the doors of the school office. "Especially since we don't even know each other." You're not the types to hang out, you suspect. His cap, his attire, and his bulk scream "football player." Which, he confesses during the ride, he is. "I'm on the wrestling team, too," he says. "Yeah," he laughs. "I'm one of those guys." You smile, and give him a sidelong look. He has a pleasant aspect, despite a general beefiness that you associate with meaty shitheads. But his eyes crinkle with friendliness, and his mouth curls into a nice smile, and if he exudes an air of athleticism, it's one of health, not of bullying. "What about you?" he asks. "Track?" "Not really. I don't play, except on a console." He laughs, but not meanly. "I seem to be sitting on something," he says, and shifts. "Oh, shit, I was sitting on your book." He pulls out the book from Arnholm's, which you had abandoned in your truck. "What is it?" "Just something I picked up at the used book store." "Oh yeah?" he says, opening it. And then he falls silent. When the silence becomes awkward you look over to find him staring, mesmerized at the front pages of the book. He must have felt your gaze, for he shakes himself. "What's it about?" he asks. "I dunno. I was gonna get rid of it." "No! What did you pay for it?" "Two dollars." "You're shitting me." He hesitates, then says, "I'll buy it off you for ten." That's all for now |
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