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A high school student finds a grimoire that shows how to make magical disguises. |
Previously: "The Basement"  "Where are you going to get a thousand dollars?" you demand. The offer is ridiculous. "Look, you want it or don't you?" Russ retorts. A chill encloses your heart. If an offer is too good to be true, it likely is. And an offer this good doesn't only sound untrue, it sounds like a trap. "Yeah, I'm not interested, not even for more than a thousand," you tell him. "Also, you can take this back." You push the bottle back at him. He is so astonished, that you have grab his hand and put the bottle into it before he takes it. "Yeah, and don't take this the wrong way," you tell him as you back away, and from the corner of your eye you scan the darkness for signs of any cops. "But I don't really think we hit it off this afternoon. Nothing personal, but I don't see us hanging out." He says nothing, only stares, as you back away. And he makes no move to stop you as you saunter back to your truck (as casually as you can) to drive away. * * * * * Monday is a disaster. First comes the moment of horrified panic in Sociology, when you drop into your desk and turn to Caleb, only for him to hit you in the face with the question, "You bring in something for the time capsule?" That's when you realize that you completely forgot about the assignment, which is due today. That, of course, is entirely your fault. What comes next is also your fault. Class is just about to begin, so you improvise by bolting to the front of the room and telling Mr. Walberg that you forgot your time capsule submission out in your car. He ostentatiously glances at his wristwatch and tells you that you've got four minutes to get it and get it back to him or else it will be a letter grade off. He also tells you that if you miss the final bell, he will not accept it at all unless you bring in a hall pass. You wouldn't have to run a four-minute mile to get to your truck and back, but you can't make it out and back in time, because you were just bullshitting him about leaving something in your truck. It's only after you are rummaging frantically through the glove compartment for something—anything!—that you remember the bag of clothes you stuffed under the truck bench before you went home Saturday night. No way are you going to wear that grimy, embarrassing track suit again, so you haul that out and sprint back to the school. The bell rings before you've even made it past the gym, so you have to go by the office and explain why you're late so they will give you the necessary hall pass. And then when you go into the classroom, Mr. Walberg has to pull those clothes out of the bag, and humiliate you in front of the entire class by sarcastically asking why you are donating your dirty gym clothes to future historians. Everyone laughs, naturally, including (of course) the AP assholes who cluster at the front and who turn around in their seats to smirk at you. Even your friends get into it with you, because at lunch Caleb asks you about those clothes and you wind up telling him about your trip out to the Warehouse on Saturday night. It pisses off him and Keith both that you went out there without them, and not even your protests that it was a rotten time make them happy with you: they only say that you deserve it for not getting them to come along! The topper comes after school. You are in a foul, almost nihilistic mood, expecting the worst of everything, and to confirm that everything is terrible you make a stop by the elementary school to look at the basement. Sure enough, Russ seems to have gotten his revenge on you, for not only is your padlock gone from the door, but metal braces have been drilled into it at the top and bottom, attaching it with screws to the door jambs on both sides. This is obviously the work of the maintenance staff, and it seems obvious that Russ would have been the one to tip them off. It seems like an act of sheer, malicious spite on Russ's part. * * * * * Tuesday is better because Caleb and Keith have forgiven you for the weekend's shenanigans. But it's also the day that Caleb asks you why you gave Mr. Walberg your old gym clothes for the time capsule. "I didn't give him my old gym clothes!" you protest. "I told you, those were the clothes I wore out to the Warehouse!" "You put those clothes in your class's time capsule?" Carson asks with a snort. He's on hand to mock you because you and Caleb and Keith have joined him and James and some of their other friends out front of the school again. "You should've burned them." Before you can retort, James leans forward to punch Carson hard in the thigh. At first you think that James is coming to your defense. But when James jerks his chin and glares at Jenny Ashton, who is sitting on the other side of Carson and is occupied with her cell phone, you understand what is actually going on: Carson very nearly let it slip in front of Jenny that Carson saw you at the Warehouse that night. "Anyway," Caleb says after he has blinked in confusion at this, "I thought you went into town last week and picked something up. Don't tell me it was those clothes." "When was that?" you ask. "Last week," he retorts through gritted teeth. "I wanted to do something with you on Wednesday or some such, and you said you were going into town to look for something for the time capsule." "I don't remember that." "Because he didn't," Carson tells Caleb. "He was too embarrassed to tell you he had an appointment with his gynecologist." You get up on your knees and lean forward to thrust two middle fingers in Carson's face. "Well, anyway, it worked out, I guess," Caleb says. "You got rid of those clothes and you got something for Walberg." "Gonna be fun when you have to write a paper about it," James says. "What?" you and Caleb exclaim in unison and wheel on him. "What paper?" Caleb asks, echoing your own thought. "The paper he's gonna have you write," James replies. "He's gonna have you write a paper about your submission." "No he isn't," Caleb says, and he blanches. "He didn't say anything about that!" "Well, he's gonna. How else is he going to grade the assignment?" "Pass-fail," Caleb quickly replies. "You give him something, you pass. If you don't, you fail." "Please," James snorts. "This isn't the first time he's given that assignment. He does it every year. And every year he assigns a paper to go with it." You and Caleb look at each other in alarm. You, because you have no idea how to explain why you gave him a set of old clothes to put in the capsule. And he, because he gave Walberg a thumb drive full of porn, and so will have the same problem. * * * * * But you have remembered what he was talking about—that trip into town to get something for the time capsule—by the time he comes over to your house after dinner to get some studying in. It's rare that he comes to your house, but he says he wants to talk to your dad about a job out at his work, and he also says he wants to talk to you about that time capsule assignment. "Yeah, I think he's given up on you applying for the job," he tells you after he's left your dad in his study and joined you upstairs in your bedroom. It's a beady-eyed look he gives you, because you had been neglecting to mention Caleb's name to your dad on account of the way your dad had been badgering you to take the job. "So he's gonna give you an application tomorrow to give to me, and you'd better bring to school in the morning." "Whatever," you tell him, and then you tell him that you remembered about that trip into town. "I wound up at Arnholm's," you say, "and I got this book to put in the capsule, but then I changed my mind." "How come?" "I don't know. It was a weird book." Then you frown at your desk, which is the last place you think you saw it. And so while Caleb asks you what he's going to do about that time capsule assignment—because he can't admit to Walberg that he put porn on the thumb drive—you push around stacks of books and papers and notebooks and dirty dishes, sending them tumbling to the floor, until you unearth that book. "So don't tell him you put porn on it," you say as you glance critically over it. "Tell him it's just a thumb drive. Isn't that you were telling Carson and them, at first, any rate, that's what you were doing? Sending a technology into the future that they wouldn't be able to use?" "But there's porn on it, Will! If Walberg looks through it and sees it—" "I thought you said you buried it all inside, like, a million folders." "I did! But if he goes through it anyway—" "If he goes through it anyway, he'll know you gave him porn. If he doesn't go through it, don't tell him you did." "But if he went through it and I don't tell him, he'll flunk me for— I dunno. Lying to him!" "You're worried about something that no one cares about." And you don't care about it either, being absorbed again in the book. You'd forgotten what a kooky thing it was. The creepy feel of the leather under your fingertips. The menace of the pentagram on the spine. The uncanny faces on the first page, morphing from one visage to another. The mysterious Latin. "What's that?" Caleb asks. That's all for now |
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