The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

The Morning Rituals

Previously: "Brothers in Mischief" 

That meeting in the living room went off well, but the rest of the evening is "off." At dinner, Riker won't mimic you, so you try to mimic him, but Sydney doesn't know how to send the little signals that warn you she's about to go for the potatoes or pick up the water glass. And instead of following you, she shoots you dirty little looks. Finally, Eric reprimands you with a growl: "Brah, he doesn't wanna play."

After dinner you troop upstairs to do your homework. Again, the rhythms are off because Sydney can't do Riker's handwriting and so can't do his homework. So the best she can do is solve the problems and write out the answers in a notebook, then pass it along to you to copy, for as in almost everything else, the twins strive for an identical, cramped chicken-scratch. By the time you're ready to tumble into bed, Sydney seems exhausted and peevish, and you have to fight back Micah's native urge to whale on his brother.

"Brah," you shout at the bottom of the bunk above, for as Micah you have to take the lower bunk. "If your head isn't screwed on straight at oh-five-hundred, I'm telling the Ishmaelites you have a fever and can't do the morning run. And then you know what they're going to do?"

Silence.

"'Course you don't! They're gonna make you run at the front and take turns smacking that skinny ass of yours with a switch!"

"I'll be fine tomorrow, 'brah'!" he retorts from the darkness. "I just have to sleep on it."

"Well, don't go thinking the Ishmaelites are going to go easy on your butt. Laurent's gonna be there, and you know how gay Alec is for him. Oh, look who I'm asking. You know exactly how gay—"

"Shut. Up. Will," Riker growls. "I'm trying to get to sleep."

You scramble in the dark for one of the baseballs that the twins have rolling around in the mess of their room, and amuse yourself by bouncing it off the bottom of Riker's bunk, until he hollers that he's going to come down there and feed it to you. You grin.

* * * * *

You just have time to hear the alarm bleating when something crashes to the floor next to you. "Wake up!" a hard voice screams in your ear, and you fly up from sleep with a beating heart. "I'll grab the bathroom, you grab our stuff!" Riker yells as he runs for the door.

Habit takes over, and you scramble across the floor on your knees, searching for loose clothes in the dark. You find it: shorts, underwear, shirts. You throw yourself at the door and charge out, right into the waiting arms of Eric.

"Shh! Slow down," he growls. The yellow glow of the nightlight is the only illumination in the hallway. "The officers are still a'bed." You make a face, and hustle on softer feet to the bathroom door, where you tap out the—you have to think a moment—"Wednesday" code. The door opens just enough for you to squeeze through. Riker already has the shower running. He is as naked as you.

Something is bothering you—like soft wings fluttering against the back of your head—but you don't remember what it is until you and Riker are under the hot shower water. Not until your twin brother seizes you by the elbows and puts his muzzle to yours. His lips part, and he jabs at your mouth with his tongue.

Brah, what are you doing? you almost exclaim with a gasp.

Then you remember who you are, and who he is.

You open your mouth to take his tongue, and you slurp softly and shyly at each other. And, even though this is your brother, you get a hard-on as he strokes and kisses you under the steamy water.

But you haven't got time to waste. You break off, then after efficiently soaping each other down, you hop out, give yourselves a quick, rough toweling, and shove your still-damp selves into shorts, t-shirts, socks, and running shoes. Riker pauses in front of the mirror long enough to smooth down his glistening buzz cut, then the two of you run out the door and fall down the stairway to the living room. Outside, in the cold, dark October morning, Eric already has the truck motor running, and he guns it threatening as you race out to jump in the cab. Half a minute later, Alec dashes out the front door, pulling it shut behind him.

Eric doesn't wait, but backs out of the drive, and Alec has to sprint to catch the side of the truck and spring up into the bed.

"Are we doing anything with Laurent?" Eric asks as he steers the truck, like a ghost, down streets that are dark and deserted at this ungodly hour.

"Taking him for a run, I thought," you say.

"No. I mean like we did with you little twerps."

"Ishmaelite!"

"What?"

"We weren't planning on it." Riker, who is pinned in the middle, looks over at you. "We didn't bring any stuff."

"He'd be a keeper," Eric says.

"There's lots of keepers," Riker reminds your brother-thing. "You know lots of keepers." Eric shrugs.

"We'll tell you when we figure it out," you say, then settle back in your seat with the cell phone you and Riker share.

* * * * *

Eric makes one short detour only, swinging into the parking lot of the Lazee-Nites Motel. He slows to only a few miles an hour but he doesn't stop, so the shadowy figure waiting there has to run and leap onto the back bumper, and Eric is roaring out the lot and picking up speed fast even as the hitchhiker is scuttling across the bed to join his friend Alec.

It's five-thirty when you pull into the parking lot in front of the Suffolk Wilderness Ranger Station. Naturally, it is deserted. Eric shuts the motor off and you all pile out to join Alec and his best friend, Laurent Delacroix, who is the captain of the wrestling squad. A short walk takes you to a meadow, where you all stretch out and warm up for the cross-country run. No one talks, but concentrates solely on getting warmed and limber.

Then you start to run.

Dawn is only a gray smear on the horizon, but the trail is wide and smooth for most of the way. It carries you deep into the wilderness, over gently rolling rises and across smooth shoulders. For the first half mile you all take it fairly easy, for you don't want to hit the hard trails until there's more light. But as the limb of the sun peeps over the horizon your quintet quickens its pace as it approaches a fork in the trail. With Eric in the lead, you turn onto the narrower trail that winds up into rougher country.

The ground is soon lost in shadows under the overhanging trees as it runs up a hillside, and there are a couple of spots where it steepens into an incline like a staircase. Soon your legs are burning and your lungs are seared with each breath you take. The air is cold but close under the foliage, and sweat prickles your hair and forehead. Halfway up the hillside, you slow down to nurse the stitch in your side.

Whap! You yip with shock and pain as the switch slices across your buttocks—your shorts are so thin you might as well not be wearing any padding at all—and leap like a fawn, brushing past Riker. A moment later a "Yipe!" from him tells you that he just got a lash, and you put your head down, jogging hard to stay ahead of him. "You little pukes don't catch up to Eric before we hit the summit," Alec barks from the darkness behind you, "and we'll pin you down and take turns whipping you till you bleed."

Three more times you get tapped on the ass, the last time hard enough that you find reserves of stamina you didn't know you had, and burst forward at a pace that at last keeps you out of reach. The sun is fully up when you break cover near the top of the rugged Mt. Suffolk—the highest ground for twenty miles around—and catch sight of Eric's shirt up ahead. A sharp "Quit it!" warns you that Riker and Alec are close behind, and you spring forward to fly up the steep trail to the top.

Your legs and lungs are aflame when you reach the top, and you are gulping down raw oxygen by the lungful. Riker's face is chalky and haggard, and you know that yours is too. You failed to catch Eric—most mornings you don't—but you don't get beaten for your failure. Instead, Alec makes you do twenty push-ups on trembling limbs.

After your company has silently rested, you make the return trip down an alternate trail. The return jaunt is easier on the heart but a lot harder on the legs. At the bottom of the mountain you alternate sprints and walks as you circle the hill the long way about to rejoin the main trail, and then it's back to merely a hard jog to the parking lot. A ration of Gatorade is shared around when you're back at the truck, and you all silently walk off the exhaustion and stretch out some more. Eric has the cab to himself on the drive back into town—it's well past six-thirty—as you and Riker, Alec and Laurent, sprawl in the truck bed to enjoy the clean, cool air. "Good job," Alec tells you.

Eric swings back into the motel parking lot, and Alec and Laurent both spring out as he slows to only five miles an hour before the burly truck guns back out into the street. "It was so much easier," Riker groans as he falls onto his back, "when I was being one of the Ishmaelites."

Ten minutes later, Eric swings into the drop off in front of Proctor Middle School, and you and your brother hop out.

Next: "The Middle School Muddle" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"