The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

The Double-Dog Dare

Previously: "The Man in the Wheelchair" 

You growl in the back of your throat, but surrender. "Fine," you tell Andrew. "I'll be back in a minute with—"

"Oh, no no no!" he cries out. "I'm not going to take your money!"

"No, we made a deal," you insist. "You wanted two bucks to take it off my hands—"

"I was joking!"

"No, a deal is a deal. I'll be right back." You dash from the house before Andrew can stop you.

But you get another idea after you're home, upstairs, digging in your chest of drawers for your cash stash.

"Make you another deal," you tell Andrew when you're back at his house. He smiles at you from his wheelchair, but he doesn't look very amused. "You won't take my money for the book." Andrew shakes his head. "Will you take my money to something else?"

"Like what?"

"Give it what it's asking for. Give it some blood."

The smile falls off his face. "Dude!"

"Ten bucks." You show him the bill. "Ten bucks to give it your blood. I'm daring you. I'm double-dog daring you! Ten bucks says you don't give it any of your blood."

Andrew stares at you, then rolls his eyes and spins around and scoots for the kitchen. "I can't believe I'm doing this," he grumbles. "I haven't been double-dog dared since grade school."

You smirk at the back of his head as you follow. You're not quite sure how you came up with the idea, or why you're daring him this way. Probably it's just because he was irritating you.

In the kitchen, Andrew pulls open a drawer and takes out a box cutter. He sets the book on the counter, flips through it until he finds the sigil, and wedges the pages open with his elbow. With a quick, dirty glance at you, he puts the edge of the box cutter blade to his thumb.

He pauses. "What if I gave you twenty bucks to do this yourself?"

"Not me. I hate the sight of blood. Especially my own."

"You're a fucking little brat," Andrew mutters, and draws the blade across the bottom of his thumb. He grimaces hard, draws it again, then quickly presses his thumb to the book. "Hand me a paper towel, will you?" he asks. Then he says, "There's some Hibiclens in the hall bathroom. Can you bring me it and some bandaids?"

"Whoa! You cut yourself that bad?"

"Just bring me some!" he snaps. "Better safe than—" The rest dies in a grumble.

You do as he asks, and it leaves you feeling guilty for making that dare. You take things too far, Will, your friend Caleb has told you, and you grimace to yourself as you search through the bathroom medicine cabinet. You do find a bottle labeled "Hibiclens," but you have to dig through a small linen closet before you find a metal tin that has bandaids in it. Your head is hanging when you troop back to the kitchen.

Andrew is hunched in his chair, face bent to his lap, when you return, and he looks up with a start when you come in. He gruffly thanks you, and but you hold your tongue as he squirts he ointment on his thumb and binds a bandaid around it.

The book, you notice, is open in his lap. "So what are you gonna do with the thing now?" you ask.

"Huh?" He slaps it shut. "Oh, put it in a box for the next time I have a garage sale. Can I have my ten dollars now?"

"I'm sorry I double-dogged dared you," you say as you hand the bill over.

"No, it's my own fault. I thought I was too mature for that shit." He turns the bill over thoughtfully between his fingers. "If I gave you another ten, would you run down to McDonald's for me?"

"Sure." His request relieves you, for it will make you feel better if you can run him an errand to make it up to him. "What do you want me to get for you?"

* * * * *

"You talk to your dad about that job at his company?"

It's the next morning—Friday—just before first period, and Caleb Johansson, your best friend since third grade, has materialized at your locker. He peers at you with that jutting-chin stare he uses when he thinks someone is screwing him over.

"I'll ask him this weekend."

"How about you ask him tonight, then give me a call?"

"You can't wait till this weekend?"

"You sure you're not angling for the job yourself?"

So that's why he's got his chin out. "I told you I don't want it," you retort, "and I don't know why you do either. It'll just be file work. If you're lucky."

"It's a foot in the door, and I wanna make some contacts. A job at Salopek is, like, a major in."

You grunt. You've never paid much attention to your dad's company, which is some kind of aerospace contractor. But Caleb is deeply into science and engineering; he's the kind of kid who had motorized Lego sets when he was only nine.

Then a thought strikes you. "Oh, hey, what about a job at—? You know my next-door neighbor, Andrew?"

"Which one's he?"

"He's a computer programmer."

"The guy in the wheelchair? Oh yeah."

"Well, what about a job at his work?"

Caleb's eyebrows twitch. "Are they hiring? Where's he work?"

"I don't remember, but if I talked to him—"

"You can talk to your dad."

"But I can talk to Andrew, too."

"Whatever. How about you talk to both of them?

You're about to make a reply, but Caleb sucks in a sharp breath and turns away. "Molester at your six," he mumbles. Smoothly, you drop to the floor and pretend to fiddle with the locker under yours.

As you'd hoped, Lester Pozniak, soccer goalie and bully, passes without stopping.

* * * * *

You text Andrew between classes, asking if you can stop by after school with a friend to talk about the place Andrew works. He says he's happy to meet you and Caleb, but he also asks you to run some errands for him. You'll probably need your dad's credit card, he warns you, but I'll have cash for you afterward. Caleb isn't enthusiastic, but he says he'll go with you, both to meet Andrew and to do the errands for you.

It's a weird list of items that Andrew asks you to pick up, and Caleb quizzes you on what it could all be for, but you're as baffled as he is. But, given that you have to make a stop at a greenhouse/nursery, you hazard that it's something to do with the garden Andrew keeps out back. "Dude in a wheelchair keeps a garden?" Caleb asks. You retort, "If he wants this kind of shit, I guess he does."

It takes longer to make it around town than you would have wanted, but when you text Andrew to say you'll be late, he tells you to pick up some supper for yourself and Caleb and to add it to his bill, so that cheers you. You do have to lay out more than a hundred dollars (which goes on the credit card you borrowed from your Mom), and maybe it's a good thing Caleb did come with you, because he's the one who makes sure you collect and keep all the receipts.

Andrew looks tired and a little drawn when you get to his house, but he beams when he lets you in, and tells you to lay all the bags out on the dining room table. He gives Caleb a hearty handshake, and asks him to wait in the living room while he goes to get the cash to reimburse you. On his way out of the room, he turns, and asks you to follow. There's something odd in his manner, and his voice is strained.

"Thanks for picking that stuff up for me," he says as he leads you into a work room that contains at least three computers and four monitors, one of them the size of your truck's windshield. "That's a real big help. Your parents okay with you putting it on their credit card?"

"My mom was okay with it." You're sure your dad would be too. He likes Andrew, and has run lots of errands for him in the past, and helped him work on his car.

"Well, here's your money," he says as he opens a drawer in a desk and takes out an envelope with the Bank of America logo splayed across the front. He counts out ten twenties. "Keep the change for yourself," he adds as he presses the wad of receipts into your hand. "And one more thing—"

He glances uneasily toward the door, and his expression is haggard when looks back up at you.

"I was looking at that book you gave me last night. You're right, it's pretty screwy. Another one of the pages in it turned loose."

The hairs on the back of your neck start to rise.

"The stuff you bought me today, it's for an experiment. The book—" He licks his lips. "It's got, like, recipes in it, and I'm really curious to see what they do. You're the one who found the book. You wanna stick around, or come over this weekend, and work on it with me?"

Next: "Friday Night Follies" 

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