The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

A Day Like Any Other

Previously: "A Gang of Seven" 

Friday morning. A week since you started started expanding your control of the school. Two weeks since you were called out to the gym to help Chelsea Cooper with a crisis. The cloudy, rainy weather has broken, and though it is in the forties as you hurry across the parking lot for school, the sun is shining in a partly cloudy sky.

"Hey Kim!" You turn in answer to the shout. Jack Li grins at you from a row over, and lofts his hand high to wave. Beside him, Brianna Kirschke and Elle Moore look over to smile at you. "Ignore that text I sent you last night!"

"Did you change your mind?"

He playfully claps his hands over Brianna's ears. "I can't tell you or these two will go around spoiling it!" he yells as she giggles and tries twisting away.

"That sounds like you changed your mind!"

"Eh, not yet, but Chelsea called me later and we had a long talk! She said she had another idea, and—! Well, I told her I'd think about it! This time I mean it!"

"What's her new idea?"

He smiles and touches a finger to his lips. "I can't tell you either, or you'll spoil it! But seriously, forget that text! I shouldn't have said those things anyway!"

"Sounds good!"

Jack gives you a thumb's up, then leans over to say something in Brianna's ear. She titters brightly.

* * * * *

Second period. Steve Patterson slouches in his desk, his long legs stretched out so far his feet almost touch yours, even with them folded up under you.

"Why are you being such a bitch?" he asks you.

"Because you decided to be a bastard," you retort.

"What was I doing that made me a bastard?"

"I wanted to talk. You had other ideas."

"I thought you had other ideas."

"And when I told you I didn't have those other ideas, you wouldn't stop."

He rolls his eyes. "If I thought you only wanted to talk, I would have told you to text me."

"I said I wanted to talk!"

"I thought that was code."

"Where'd you get the idea that 'talk' was code for what you wanted to do last night'?"

He shoots a side glance at Phoebe Beauchamp, who is trying to disappear inside her desk. "From all the gossip I was hearing, it sounded like when you said 'talk,' it was code for—"

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about!"

"Talk, or the thing that 'talk' is code for?"

"Phoebe! Would you explain in English to this idiot that just because he reads online that we're fucking each other, that doesn't mean I want to fuck him in real life!" You turn to glare back at him. "Which is what I wanted to explain to you last night!"

All of this is said, as best you and he can manage, in Spanish.

* * * * *

David Kirkham and Mindy McAdams are making a meal of each other in the doorway of the art classroom, and you have to wait until they break apart before you can try squeezing past. But Kirkham stops you with a hand even as he continues nibbling at Mindy.

At last, with a slap to her butt he sends her inside, then nudges you back into the hallway.

"I just wanted to tell you, Kim," he says, breathing the warm scent of cinnamon onto your cheek, "that I caught a couple of cocksuckers talking shit about you before class. I gave 'em a lecture in manners."

"Oh, Jesus, David, what makes you think I want that?"

"Okay, i guess that was selfish of me," he says. "I wasn't thinking of what you wanted, I was thinking what I wanted. And what I wanted, after hearing what they were saying about you, was to rip one of their ribs out and use it to dig out their spleens."

"Okay, that's ... flattering ... in a way that makes me want to throw up."

"One of them was Martin Gardinhire."

"What? No, Martin wouldn't—!"

"I think he was. Anyway, it sounded like was talking about you, and the things he was saying—"

"You must have misheard."

"Maybe. He told me some other interesting things, though, after I took him somewhere to explain why he shouldn't have been saying those things about you."

"If they're really that interesting, you can DM me."

He rolls the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. "I rather tell them to you mouth-to-ear."

"Eww. DMing is fine."

He shrugs and pads away even as he takes his phone out. He's got a really nice butt, you realize to your distress.

* * * * *

Fifth period. Outside on the quad, with Jenny and her friends. "The trouble is, I can't prove it's Amanda making those posts. But even if I did, it wouldn't matter." You take another bite from the apple, and swallow it with a sour face before handing it back to Jenny. "I don't want any more," you mumble.

"You need to eat," Jenny urges. "You didn't bring any lunch!"

"What you need to do, Kim," says Carson Ioeger, "is dump a tray of mystery stew onto Amanda's head."

Jenny twists around to pop him on the shoulder. "That won't stop her from posting nasty things about Kim and Steve!"

"No, but if Amanda's going to shitpost anyway, Kim might as well have fun giving her a good reason to."

"You know," says Caleb Johansson, who has brought Will and Keith along, "if the rest of your friends knew Amanda was doing that, they might make her stop."

James makes a face. "Caleb wants Kim to narc," he translates for the group.

"Doesn't matter without proof," Carson retorts. "Without proof, they'd take Amanda's side. Right?"

"Probably."

"This is why I never go onto x2z," Jenny fumes. James gives her a look to the back of her head, and mouths Liar! at her. "It's such a cesspit!"

"Well, look at the bright side," Carson sighs. "You're not knocking around with Patterson. Are you, Kim?"

"No!"

"Good. 'Cos then you don't gotta worry about getting splattered when James and me launch our next wacky scheme."

You glare at him, and turn to the others. "Will? Caleb? You'll let me know if these guys actually start doing something stupid, won't you?"

* * * * *

Sixth period. Amanda, Anthony Kirk, Geoff Mansfield, and a bunch of other people you skipped out on at lunch are already in English class, and you have to walk past them to take your customary seat toward the back. You glance over after pulling out your books, to see Chelsea Cooper, two rows over, tapping intently into her cell phone. "Chelsea," you call. "Chelsea!"

She glances over, and does a double-take of distaste when she sees it's you. But you persist: "Jack told me you talked some more to him last night."

She gives you a look of alarm, and shows you her teeth before half turning her back on you. When you twist back around in your own seat, Deanna Showalter, two seats up and one row over, is almost falling out of her desk as she turns to stare hungrily at you. She points to you, to Chelsea, and then mouths, Jack Who?

You shake your head. She turns around in a pout.

A minute later a text from her pops up on your phone. If its abt jack lie teaching dance to squad i know abt it already. You look up to see her quivering inquisitively at you. You shake your head. "Talking about someone else," you mutter at her. Her eyes pop, and you can almost see the smoke pouring from her ears as she tries to come up with another "Jack" who would have business with Chelsea.

* * * * *

Last period. Amanda and Kelsey are lazily perched in their desks when you arrive. Kelsey lifts her lids only enough to look up and over at you. Amanda doesn't even do that.

"Missed you at lunch today, Kim," Kelsey drawls in a sing-song.

"Liar," says Amanda.

"I felt like getting some fresh air. All that rain last week was depressing."

"Como esta Steve?"

"What? I don't know."

"Don't you have him for second period? That Spanish study hall or whatever it is?"

"Oh. Sure."

"Como esta Steve?" Kelsey repeats. "I heard you were practically throwing tamales and enchiladas at each other." Amanda, in an undertone, says, "The lady was protesting too much, methinks."

"It sounds like you heard all about it from Phoebe."

"But everything you guys said was in Spanish, Kim!" Kelsey complains. "Phoebe can hardly follow along in English!"

"It's not any of your business, Kelsey."

Her jaw drops.

"I thought you wanted my help, Kim!" she squeals. "You know, all those horrible things that people are saying online about— And it sounds like you told him off! So what did you tell him?"

"It's all we could talk about at lunch, Kim," Amanda says. "That and the way David Kirkham dragged Martin off behind the portables and punched the snot out of him. You know, instead of worrying so much about what people are saying about you, Madame Student Council President, maybe you should be doing something about what that psycho is doing to people!"

* * * * *

That was Friday at school. On Saturday and Sunday you rest and let the others play inside their new identities. Some of it leaves video evidence, such as Number Seven busting out some jaw-dropping dance moves at Legends on Saturday night, and Steve in the dark corner of someone's back yard, getting first his hands and then his tongue tangled up in what the poster insists is Phoebe Beauchamp's naked breasts.

But when Sunday night comes, you send out a general directive, summoning your minions to a nine o'clock meeting in the Westside gym, for reports on their progress in fulfilling their first set of directives, and so you can give them new ones.

You're ten minutes late, because Kim's father needed your help rebooting his Kindle, and the traffic lights were against you. So there are six cars and trucks parked next to the gym when you arrive. You park next to them, and march to the side door to let yourself in.

Next: "A Night Like None Before" 

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