The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Five Final Chances

Previously: "Stonerhenge" 

Ch'upto?

Is he serious? Did Jamie Rennerhoff just now ask what you're up to? Like, as if you and him might hang out together someplace?

"Nothin'," you mutter, and pull your bag onto your shoulder. "Just gettin' ready to go home."

"Yeah, me too." To your dismay, Rennerhoff also heaves himself to his feet. "Fuckin' Justin." He shakes his head and giggles, as though he's just made a joke. "Fuckin' Justin," he repeats.

You're too freaked out to try making conversation as you and he trudge back together toward the school, and Rennerhoff seems preoccupied as well. To your relief, he doesn't follow when you cut sideways into one of the wings. He does call after you—"See you 'round, man"—and with a nervous jerk you return him a wave.

Freaky! you think.

* * * * *

Your nerves are almost shattered, but you would still like to find a ... test subject ... for your experiment, so you make another trek around the school. But your mind is elsewhere, so after a fruitless and distracted circuit of the hallways, you mutter Fuck it to yourself and decide to go home.

The teacher's lot is still half full, you notice as you exit the front doors, and Mr. Hagerman is standing next to a car. He's a buff young man with rugged good looks. Too well built, you can't help thinking, to be an English teacher (which he is), but maybe too pretty to be a P. E. coach. (Most of the P.E. staff, frankly, look as though they've taken a few too many basketballs to the face.) Though you've given up on looking for a ... test subject ... you keep glancing back as you stump along the sidewalk, and notice Mr. Hagerman sitting halfway inside his car, with the door open, reading his cell phone.

Then you round the corner of the main office, and are distracted by the sight of a small crowd clumped up outside the school theater. You wouldn't pay much heed, except for the way they are all clustered around a central figure, paying him rapt attention.

You do a slight double-take. Whoever that guy is they're listening to, you have to admit, he is one handsome son of a bitch. He looks to be in his late twenties or early thirties, with lush black hair and a very white smile, and he sports a black bomber jacket like he was born wearing it. Between the hair, the smile and the jacket, you decide that he exudes a "Tom Cruise" kind of vibe. Okay, it's a TV version of Tom Cruise, a straight-to-streaming version, not the IMAX-movie screen version. Discount-bin Tom Cruise. Still, you have wonder who he is.

You're not given long to study for him, for as you watch, he claps a couple of guys on the shoulder and makes a break for the corner of the school. You follow at a distance, watching, as he leads his admirers—lots of girls, but more than a few guys too—around the theater toward the student parking lot. There again they all pause to talk, with Discount-Tom listening and smiling with a look of intense but friendly concentration on his face.

You're considering going over to see what it's all about, but are distracted by two figures who come bursting from the gym. You quickly turn your back on them. Seth Javits and Roy Nelson are two of your least favorite people at Westside. Javits is a basketball player and one of the worst bullies in the school: a meaty, horsey-faced fucker who's screwing one of the cheerleaders when he's not giving your friend Keith (and you and Caleb when he can't find Keith) swirlies and wedgies. Nelson is a football player, and though it's been ... two years? ... since he pulled that kind of shit on you and your friends, you've gone out of your way ever since to avoid him lest he decide to renew the fun.

"Hey Will!" You turn with a frightened start at the shout, then sag with relief when you notice it's just a girl—one of the girls lingering with Discount-Tom—calling your name. Kind of a fat girl. Okay, not fat fat, but—

Yikes! You jump a little when you recognize her. It's Laura MacGregor, who you used to hang out with back in middle school and early high school. You haven't really seen her around in a while, so it's a shock to see that she's put on weight. "Hey Laura!" you call back as she breaks away from her friends and trots over to join you. You flinch a little when she gives you a light hug, but hug her back.

"Hangin' around, gettin' into trouble?" she asks you with a grin. "God, I feel like I haven't seen you in, like—"

"Yeah, what classes are you taking?"

"The usual. And theater. God!" She grins back over at her friends and at Discount-Tom. "Isn't this, like, incredible?"

"What is? That guy? Who is he?"

She gasps and shoves you. "Get out! You don't know—! Paul Griffin?" You shake your head. "God!" She grins with obvious embarrassment. "Don't let him hear that!"

"So who is he?"

"Only, like, the most famous guy ever to graduate from Westside! Or to come out of Saratoga Falls!"

"What is he, an actor or something?" you ask on a hunch. "Pop star?"

She gasps again. "Hello? Didn't you ever watch Enchanted U?"

The name rings a bell. Wasn't that some cheesy supernatural soap opera about vampires and wizards on the CW or something? "I never watched any of it," you admit.

"Well, he plays Simon Magus—the junior exorcist—on it!" Laura's grin is almost blinding.

"Oh, so he's one of the stars?" You steel yourself against another exasperated shove.

"Well, no," she admits. "But he still had a pretty big part! Except it got cancelled three years ago." The smile falls off her face, and she grimaces.

"So what's he doing here?"

She gasps again. "He graduated from here! Yeah, he's an alumni! He was in our drama program and everything! Mr. Wilkes is always talking about him!"

"And he came back here to visit? Poor bastard."

She pushes you again, almost knocking you off your feet.

"Listen, it's a really cool thing he's doing," she insists, "coming out here to see Mr. Wilkes, looking around, talking to us. I guess he's here to see his folks. But he— Oops! Looks like he's getting ready to go. I gotta go say bye!" Without bothering to give you a farewell, she runs back over to join her friends and the TV actor.

You edge out into the parking lot after her, but hang back when you see that Seth and Roy are in the parking lot now too, by their cars, on their phones. You wait for Laura to come back, but when whatsisname finally gets in his car and drives off, she and her friends all wander off toward the practice fields.

This leaves you exposed to Seth and Roy.

But are you exposed? Or are they exposed to you? You've got that mask you still want to try out. It might fuck up whoever you put it on, and you can only think of ten or twenty more deserving assholes—Westside is that bad of a school—than them.

If you could get close to them, that is.

You glance around, to see if the coast is clear, and that's when you see Mr. Hagerman, way off in the teachers' lot, stalking head down back toward the school. Did he forget something? Maybe you could follow him catch him in his classroom.

Oh but that would be the perfect way to be recognized, get caught, and get in trouble. Same with Seth and Roy, you add to yourself.

Maybe you should just drive out to Eastman. No one there would know you.

But you know who else wouldn't know you? That actor guy. Paul Griffin? Was that his name? Laura said he's visiting his folks. You bet you could find their address online.

Next: "Jamming with Javits" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"