The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Boxed and Outfoxed

Previously: "When Charity Begins at Home" 

You hate the idea of getting your dad involved. It makes you feel like a grade-school snitch. But you need to get that mask back, and talking to him seems like the only way of doing it.

"Dad," you mutter through gritted teeth as you enter the living room. He tears his attention from the TV with a quizzical frown. "I need your help with Robert. That thing I was telling you about? He's got it and he won't give back."

Your dad's frown deepens, and your mom looks up from her knitting. She watches witha poker-faced expression as, with a deep sigh, your dad pauses the TV and gets to his feet.

* * * * *

Well, the long and short of it is that Robert shrilly insists that he hasn't got your "stupid thing," and your dad doesn't force anything more out of him. Instead, he only tells Robert, in a low and threatening voice, that Will had better find it.

"You took it to your friend's house, didn't you, you little shit?" you hiss at Robert after he's clomped back downstairs. He turns black with fury and embarrassment. "Just remember what Dad told you. It had better turn up."

Robert slams the door in your face. You stomp back to your room.

* * * * *

You and Robert are not on speaking terms the next morning, and you're in a foul mood when you get to school. You swerve away when you see Jenny Ashton loitering near the gym, then change your mind and swerve toward her. "Did you talk to my mom about some charity drive thing?" you ask her.

"What?" she says. She blinks at you, as though trying to put a name to your face. "Oh, yeah. I texted her about—"

"Well, thanks a lot. You only fucked things up for me good is all!"

"What?" she exclaims, but you swing around and march off.

What the fuck are you going to do about that mask? The only thing you can do, apparently, is wait for Robert to come to his senses and return it. You hope that neither he nor his friend Shawn (nor anyone else) does anything stupid with it. Or, if they actually do try fooling around with it, you have to hope that it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, and turn them into a copy of that girl.

Well, that sucks. Thanks to this clusterfuck, you're now hoping that you fucked up the recipe and that the magic won't work.

You're at your locker after third period when you're slapped hard on the back of the head. You quail—it's the kind of slap that usually presages an appearance by "Lester the Molester" or some other bully, but when you look around, you find it's only James Lamont glaring at you.

"You leave Jenny the fuck alone," he warns you. With a dark look, he steps back into the crowd.

You snort at him. Like I'm scared of you, dickface! you think at the back of his head.

* * * * *

Nothing of interest happens at school, and so preoccupied are you with the new crisis that you almost forget to worry about that girl you ambushed with the mask. When you do remember her, and check online, you find no mention of anything about a girl getting raped in the Westside restroom, which is more or less the form you're expecting the story to take (if it ever pops up).

On the drive home from school, though, you get a text from Robert. Mom says ur old cloths r m garGe did u lol thr. After staring aghast at at this mess of letters for the longest time (it takes you almost five minutes to figure out that "lol" means "look") you almost blow up. Of course I looked in the box in the garage! Then you grimly deduce that this must be Robert's way of giving the mask back to you: putting it where it ought to have been, so that you can all pretend that he didn't take it. Fucking little shit of a twerp, you seethe to yourself, and don't deign to send a reply.

But at least this looks like the end of the adventure. You stop by the 7/11 to buy yourself a cold soda to help you cool off.

The garage door is up when you get home, and your mother is bustling about inside. She looks up at you with a tight smile as you hop out of the truck. The sight of her here, in the garage, causes your heart to sink with a horrible anticipation that things haven't stopped going wrong. "How was your day, sweetheart?" she asks.

"Fine," you warily reply.

"Your dad and I were talking about this science project of Caleb's that you're helping with. Is there some reason you can't do it at his place?"

"Uh, there isn't room?"

"There isn't? Why not?"

"I dunno." Sweat pops out all over your body. "He just said he didn't have room for it."

"Well, your dad doesn't want you keeping the stuff here. So you need to give it back to Caleb." She steps to one side, and you see a fresh cardboard box, neatly taped up, sitting on the worktable by the wall. It has Caleb's name written on its side in big black letters.

You feel a headache coming on. Sure, you could give the box to Caleb to hang on to, while you figure out some other way of continuing your experiments. "I'll talk to him about it tomorrow," you mumble.

"Can you do that now?" She gives you a very patient but very meaningful look. "So we can tell your dad tonight that it's all taken care of?"

"Yeah, alright," you mumble. You shuffle past her to pick up the box, and your eyes dart over to confirm that the box of cast-off clothes is still sitting where you last saw it. "Anything else I can do for you?" you sourly inquire.

"No. Thank you, Will." She beams at you. "You know, we're both pleased that you're helping Caleb out with something scientific, and we both want to hear about it. What it is, and all that."

Your heart goes sideways in your chest. "I'll, um, talk to Caleb about it," you gulp. Dodging her gaze, you climb into your truck and back out into the street.

Jesus, you think as you drive around the neighborhood, it just gets worse and worse. Now you have to get rid of the stuff you were playing with. You can't take it over to Caleb's because he's a helpless snoop and he'll want to know what's in the box and why his name is on it and what you're doing with it. And even if you find a place to keep it, where will you go to work on it? You can't work on it at any of your friends' places, or else you'll have to tell them what you've been up to. Which might be an okay thing to do. Maybe you should have brought Caleb or Keith into this project earlier. But you'd still like to play around with it on your own, at least for a little while longer. Get a feel for what the book can teach you to make.

The book. What if your mom finds it and throws it out too? Or Robert steals it? You almost shit yourself at the thought. So much else has gone wrong, it would be perfect if you lost the book, too.

So you drive aimlessly through the neighborhood, nerves quivering, as you wrack your brains for a plan. What to do with the shit in the box? What to tell Mom and Dad about Caleb's project?

In a final desperate throw, you wind up parked at the old Acheson Township elementary school. The school—a Gothic-style brick monster built a hundred years ago—was abandoned a couple of decades ago, but was turned into a community center. One day a year or so back, you were goofing around on its grounds when you found an exterior door at the bottom of a short flight of steps. It had a padlock on it, but you were in a mood for mischief, and you jimmied it off with a crowbar that you fetched from home. Inside you found a dim and dusty basement, stacked deep with old desks and book cases and office furniture (and toilets and sinks and old gym equipment), smelling of grease and dirt and cold metal. You explored a bit, then bought a new padlock that you hung on the door. You showed the place to Caleb and Keith, and the three of you spent a few months turning into a kind of clubhouse. You even spent Halloween there, drinking cheap whiskey and telling each other botched-up ghost stories.

You haven't been back there in nine or ten months, and you doubt your padlock is still on the door. (The custodial staff will have wrenched it off and replaced it.) But maybe you could hide the box of stuff there. You might even renew its use as a secret headquarters, but for yourself alone, to work magic experiments.

So you carry the box over to the basement door. There is a padlock on it, and it looks like it might even be your old padlock. But you haven't got the key with you. That will still be at home, in your dresser.

Assuming your mother hasn't found and thrown that out.

So you leave the box at the foot of the stairs, and drive home to look for that key. On your way through the garage, you stop to search through the box of old clothes, to see if Robert did indeed put the mask back into it.

But the box is now gone—vanished during the short time you were driving around the neighborhood.

"Oh, the kids from your school came over while you were at Caleb's," your mom says when you ask her about it. "You know, for the charity drive."

Next: "The Winding Trail" 

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