The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Something Like Witchcraft

Previously: "Hustled and Bustled" 

The problem with looking for Rachel, you realize almost instantly, is that you don't know how to find her. So you spend nearly ten minutes at your locker, fruitlessly thumbing texts to Andy Tackett and other people before giving up and trudging out to your truck.

Then, when you're halfway home: Hey will are u looking for me? It's from Rachel.

You hang a hard right across another lane of traffic to dive into the parking lot of a strip center. With the motor running you thumb back a reply: Yes wat u doing now?

Waiting in gym for friends to finish stuff, she replies, watching basketball practice. Come down sit with me when u r done?

You're not sure what she means by "when u r done," and you sure as hell don't want to hang out in the gym. So you suggest meeting her for a sandwich someplace later.

That be fun, she says, and suggests Besandwiched at five. You race home to inform your mother, and to cadge a little money off her, to augment your own sadly depleted cash reserves.

* * * * *

Besandwiched is one of the many kooky eateries that surround Keyserling College. You don't know why there are so many such places, but there are. Maybe it's a reaction against Keyserling itself, which has a reputation for being a very tech-y, hard-math, hard-science, hard-engineering kind of school. But anyway, there's a bunch of eateries with names like The Flying Saucer, The Crystal Cave, The Milagro Beanfield Warehouse ...

Besandwiched is one of the more over-the-top. Everything there is occult themed, from the names of the menu items to the decor. The most hideous has to be the bone-white, eight-foot, man-faced moon that's painted onto a pitch-black wall on one side of the dining room. Wherever you sit in the restaurant, you can see it out of the corner of your eye. It's like sitting in front of a train tunnel, and the moon-thing is the front of a deranged Thomas the Tank Engine knock-off, charging out at top speed to run you over.

Rachel brings a couple of friends with her, which both a relief and kind of annoying—part of you wants her alone with you, but part of you is also glad for a buffer—and she introduces them as Lily, Ella, and Audrey. They are all three of a type: skinny, frizzy-haired girls with horsey teeth and bright eyes. They fall into the booth with you, laughing.

But Rachel is a lot more quiet and sober than her friends, and you're feeling tongue-tied, so mostly you listen while they gossip and catch up on the day. But after you've gotten your food ordered, Audrey fixes you with a bright, mischievous eye.

"So, who did you get to hang out with today?"

"Um ... no one," you confess. The question seems to have an ulterior meaning you can't grasp. "Just went to class."

"So what class do you have in the gym?"

You stare. "I don't. I'm not taking a—"

"Audrey," Rachel says in a level voice.

"Up at the top of some stairs?" Audrey asks. She takes a long sip of tea while giving you a meaningful look. You stare.

"Audrey," Rachel says again in that same warning tone.

"So, did you hang out up there by yourself?" Audrey says. "Do you have a class up there?"

Lily and Ella break out in muffled giggles, while Rachel looks embarrassed.

It takes you a shamefully long time to figure out what she's talking about. When you do, you blush hard, and hang your head.

You can't believe they're laughing at you about that, and you have to bite down hard to control your anger. Really, how would they like it if Gordon Black grabbed them between classes and hauled them into the gym for a beating?

Or whatever he did to you. You are still not sure what that was all about.

"What's it like up there?" Ella asks. Her eyes flash with curiosity, and there's a hungry shadow behind her grin.

"Up where?" you blurt out. "Up in the fuck room?" The name tumbles out before you can catch yourself.

Ella and Lily burst out laughing, while Rachel squirms. "Yeah!" Ella exclaims. "Is it, like, decorated and stuff?"

Lily pokes her. "Ask him to take you up there the next time he—"

Ella shrieks and punches her friend in the shoulder.

The fuck? you wonder. Do they think I actually wanted to go up there with Gordon?

Then, more wonderingly still: Oh my God, maybe that's exactly what they think! Maybe they think Gordon was taking me up there to hang out with at lunch!

And that thought is chased by a still wilder idea: Pretend that's what was going on. It's less embarrassing than admitting the truth!

"Well, you know, it's invitation only," says someone in a studied, casual tone, and you're horrified to realize that it's you. "So, you know, you get the invite, and you can go. But, you know, I'm not sure I could bring a, uh, a guest."

Ella laughs, but Lily's expression turns deeply skeptical. "So why do you get to go up?" she asks.

For a moment you're deeply insulted—why shouldn't you get invited to visit the fuck room? But of course it's a totally reasonable question. Almost you confess the truth. But some part of you is still hot about being teased. So:

"I'm tutoring Chelsea," you say, thus doubling—tripling—quadrupling!—the bluff.

Their eyes widen. "Ooo!" Lily says. Audrey asks, "Are you some kind of math whiz?"

"No," you reply with unintended honesty. "But I'm still pretty good," you add, shading the truth to just short of a felonious lie.

"So how'd you get a job tutoring Chelsea?" Lily wants to know.

"Oh, we just got to talking and, um, it sort of happened. Today, uh, that was our first session," you stammer, for you sense that the lie is on the brink of getting completely out of hand. "Maybe we'll have more of them—"

"Is she paying you?"

"Paying me?" You gape.

"With what?" Ella asks. Her smile turns to a smirk. "What's she giving you in return for these lessons?"

"Oh, jeez!" Now you blush extra hard, and the whole table bursts out laughing. Even Rachel, who has been looking very embarrassed all this time, manages a smile.

* * * * *

If nothing else, that every mortifying conversation smashes the ice, and the talk after is pretty free and easy. It doesn't last long, though. The other girls have boyfriends, and one by one over the next thirty to forty minutes they show up, and since there's not enough room at the table for you all, the party breaks up, with Lily, Ella, and Audrey either moving to other tables or going off someplace else. Soon you're alone with Rachel, so it all works out.

But one of the things you learned, to your slight discomfort, is that Rachel is something of a math and science whiz—certainly far above you in talent and ability. Oh, it's not that you are insulted that a girl should be better at this stuff than you. Only, it's kind of an embarrassing thing to learn after you pretended like you were tutoring Chelsea in the same subjects. Embarrassing enough that, before the end of the meal, you return to that story you spun. Not to retract it, but to salve that embarrassment. "So, you don't think it's stupid, do you," you ask her, "that I'm, uh, tutoring Chelsea in math?"

"No," she says. "Why would I?"

"Oh, because—" You blush again; you did an awful lot of blushing over dinner. "Well, I told you I'm not that good at it."

"As long as you're better than Chelsea," she says, "you'll do fine."

"Maybe it's more like we're studying together. That's helpful. Good for both us."

"Sure." She hesitates. "Does her boyfriend study with you too?"

"Huh? Oh. Well, we've just had the one time, you know, like I said," you stammer. "And, uh, Gordon was there. For part of it."

"Right."

Your heart is thumping hard. Is it because of the lie? Or because of the question that's just occurred to you, and that you'd like to ask except you're terrified she'll turn you down: Do you think you could tutor me? It would be a good excuse to hang out with her some more.

But you're too scared to ask it, so the conversation peters out. Not long afterward, you part for the evening, but with mutual assurances that you'll see each other at school tomorrow.

* * * * *

You actually see her friends before you see Rachel. You're up to the school the next morning when you spot Ella and Lily—thick as thieves, as the saying goes—loitering at the front of the breezeway that leads past the gym, chatting a mile a minute to each other. They do a double-take at you, and break into wide, welcoming smiles. You saunter up with a smile of your own.

But you've only just time to say "Hi" and to learn that they're waiting for their boyfriends (Noah and Chuck), when a massive figure looms up behind them. "Chelsea wants to see you," Gordon says, and there's a fell light in his eyes.

Ella and Lily exchange a secret glance, then look to you for your answer. They seem keenly interested in how you'll reply.

It seems like a no-brainer: You told them yesterday that you're tutoring Chelsea. So here's a chance to nail down that story with something that would look like proof. Hell, maybe you could even suggest to Chelsea that you tutor her, thus turning a lie into a truth!

But maybe there's more cred to be had in flipping him off in front of them. To show your independence.

Next: "How to Replace an Absent Friend" 

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