The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Marching to a Different Beat

Previously: "Gimme Space" 

It's probably just as well that Caleb took so long getting back to you. You took advantage of the empty afternoon between the end of basketball practice and suppertime by going up into the fuck room and rummaging through the mask collection. You needed ideas for where to infiltrate the Westside marching band, and you found them inside Jessica Garner's mask.

Still, it took you a surprisingly long time, as you lounged on the crusty old gym mats, playing with your boobs, before you figured out what you needed to do and how you should go about doing it. You started by using Jessica's own instincts to tell you who in the marching band was hot and likely to get lots of pussy. Eventually, though, you realized that, if you were going to copy lots of girls into masks, you would be best off striking from inside the mask of a girl yourself—girls are more likely to hang out with each other, and to lower their guards around them.

Even then, it took you awhile to endorse the idea—it is too easy to imagine Patterson and the others mocking you as "gay" or worse for wanting to adopt a girl as your identity. It was only when you remembered how Patterson promised you "two exclusive identities" that you settled on a plan. You'd pick a guy to be one of your "permanent" identities, and tell everyone else that the girl was who you'd use to steal faces for the gang. You might still get some teasing, but it would be better than if you just gave them the name of a girl when they asked where to find you.

But it still left you with a choice of whether to start off with a male identity or a female identity. Starting with a male identity would spare you maximal teasing. On the other hand, you don't want to lock yourself into a life that, once you got inside it, might not be as good as it looked on the outside.

When all was said and done, Jessica's instincts and memories told you that there were five best candidates:

The first was Anne Starkey, a prim but pretty red-head with lots of friends throughout school. She is also the girlfriend of Cameron Huber, the school's quarterback, and a personal enemy of Gordon and Steve. They might give you a lot of shit about becoming Cameron's boyfriend, but they would probably also chortle maliciously at the idea of Anne being a double-agent secretly working on their side.

The second choice is Susie Lekuawehe, a Hawaiian girl who has lots of friends both on the band and off it, and who with her scatterbrained cheerfulness could probably show up at anyone's house and talk her way in.

For a third choice you entertained a dark horse: Becca Daly, who is a junior. Jessica doesn't really know her, but has the impression that she is well-connected down in the junior class while also still having friends in the senior class, meaning she might be able to cast a very wide net.

For a fourth choice you tentatively set on Jack Li, who is on the color guard. Jack is Chinese-American, smart, good-looking, and with a relaxed and casual popularity that gives him lots of friends throughout the school. He is also gay, which wouldn't be good for your reputation, but would help you get close to girls.

Susie has a twin brother—much bigger and uglier than she is—but after weighing and discarding Sam as a male identity, you tentatively settled on Jesse Hughes as the best of an admittedly short list of marching band members who might make a good impersonation. Most of the band members are kind of geeky, but Jesse is trim and handsome, with a cool, confident manner, and is a smart dresser besides. He's also a junior, which would put some distance between you and the other members of the club.

After settling on these, you took Jessica's mask off and went home for dinner. At home, you let your own instincts then come to the fore, and later one, up in your bedroom, you came to a decision on where you should start.

So when you call Caleb back at Seth's number, you're ready to tell him that you've settled on:

That's all for now.

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"