The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

The Piccolo Player

Previously: "Junior Jubilee" 

Can u get annbelle edwards alone someplace? you ask Deanna. Think she mite be best.

It's some time before Deanna replies. Lol c what I can do.

And then, a little while later, you realize that Chelsea would be even better at attracting and trapping Annabelle. Of course, you think as you tap in a text to your first doppelganger. Dur. A girl like Annabelle is probably totally in awe of Chelsea. This'll be the easiest thing in the world!

And yet, the next morning, when you text Chelsea to ask for an update, she tells you that she hasn't even heard back from Annabelle!

* * * * *

"I'm not surprised," Deanna tells you fifth period, which is your lunch and her study hall. You're meeting in the library stacks, muttering to each other over the tops of the books lining the bookcase that separates you. "I get the impression Annabelle's not the kind of girl to jump when someone snaps their fingers. Especially someone like Chelsea."

You actually like the sound of that: it makes you even hotter to start the impersonation. "Is it okay if I work with Chelsea?" she asks when you urge her to redouble her efforts to isolate Annabelle so you can replace her. "Maybe Annabelle won't come when Chelsea calls, but I could use all the help I can get in getting you—" She twinkles at the you through the bookcase, and you get the shivery feeling that she's forming a judgement about you and why you want to turn yourself into a girl.

It's probably best that no one got to Annabelle right away, because when you go out to the school basement after classes, you realize that, in your excitement, you forgot that you still have to finish another one of those metal doodads before you'll have a mask that you can use on her. It takes the balance of the afternoon to complete one, and to glue it into the one polished mask you have on hand, but you tiredly congratulate yourself on not having screwed up by not being ready for Annabelle when the time came.

And so you are ready, when after supper you get an excited phone call—not even a text, but a phone call as you're passing through the living room—from Deanna: "We're meeting Annabelle up at the city library!" she exclaims. "Chelsea and me! We told her—"

"What time?"

"Now! I mean, she's supposed to be on her way!"

"You couldn't give me any more warning than that?"

"It just came together all of a sudden! I got this brainwave for what to tell her, and when I—"

"The city library, you said? Okay, I'll be out there fast as I can. Dad!" you yell out as you close the connection, and your father looks over from the TV. "I have to go meet some, um, guys up at the library tonight."

He stares back. "Uh huh?"

"Well ... I'm just telling you where I'll be."

"Okay. If it's the library, I assume you'll be doing schoolwork."

"Uh ... Yeah!" You feel sweat popping out all over you. "Anyway, just letting you know. I'll be home by my curfew time, though."

"Yeah, you do that," he says. His expression hardens as he holds your eye, and you can see the suspicion forming in his mind that there's more going on here than you're letting on, but you dash for the stairs before he can do or say anything more.

* * * * *

It seems to take forever to get things together: a book bag so it will look like you're going off to study, and the mask and other things you need from the basement. You even forget to take a paintbrush with you, and you're almost to the city library when you remember and have to drive back to the school to get one. You are almost frantic by the time you get to your destination.

The downtown district is all of a piece: immense brick piles built in a Midwestern-Roman motif that was popular a hundred and fifty years ago. The library is a brick box fronted by a triangular pediment of white marble and topped with a greenish-blue metal dome under which, schoolyard lore had it in when you were in elementary school, there was once housed a telescope.

You text Deanna to ask where she and Annabelle are; while awaiting her reply, you go into the restroom to splash some cold water on your face so as to calm yourself down.

Deanna returns your text with a phone call. ""Where are you?" she hisses. "Annabelle's been trying to leave for the last fifteen minutes, and Chelsea and I can't—!"

"I'm on the first floor, men's room. So where are you?"

"Third floor. I'll meet you at the head of the stairs."

There's more confusion, of course, because there are two stairwells, and you and Deanna head for opposite ones. It's a few minutes before you get things sorted out, and finally connect up with her.

You've never been to the third floor of the city library before, which accounts for at least part of the reason you got so confused. It's the floor (Deanna explains) where the administrators have their offices; where the audio-visual rooms and special collections are housed; and (more to the present point) where conference rooms are located.

"My aunt works up here," she prattles as she leads you down a broad hallway, lined with office doors, that runs the length of the building, "so I kind of get the run of the place. The conference rooms are only supposed to be for staff use, but after hours, like now, if you know about them and if the staff knows you, you can come up and use them for studying or whatever."

For whatever? you reflect to yourself. And isolated up here, after everyone has gone home? That could be useful.

You come to an intersection where the two broad corridors that bisect the library along each axis pour into a circular balcony that runs in a great ring under the dome. You peer over the polished, cherry-wood balustrade that runs around the edge of the balcony, to glimpse through an open space the floor below, where the periodical section is. You also glance up into the dome, and reflect how silly are the stories about it once being an observatory. There would hardly have been room for a floor to mount such a telescope on.

Deanna hangs a left to lead you down one of the library's wings. "Good, she's still here," she says as she stops in front of a door, half of which is solid wood and the rest a thick pane of glass; most of the wall to one side of it is also glass. Through these windows—which don't afford the room inside as much privacy as you'd like—you see a carpeted room painted an off-white shade, and the long conference table it contains. You also see the two girls inside the room. "She's been making noises for the last half hour about her ride coming to pick her up," Deanna mutters.

You're hardly listening, though. You've already pulled the mask out of your bag, and now you barge into the room and make straight for the girls. Chelsea's eyes pop with pleasure when she sees you, but the other girl—

Well, she hardly has time to do more than shoot a puzzled glance in your direction before you are looming over her, pressing the mask into her face. It fades away under your palm and then you are mashing your hand against the bare face of Annabelle Edwards. The light fades from her eyes, and she slumps onto her side. "Wow, boss," Chelsea gasps. "I mean— Will! You don't fuck around, do you?." She grins.

You ignore her, and twist around to get your first good look at the girl whose body and identity you are going to steal.

She's not beautiful, but she's not bad looking either, with a plain, symmetrical face of no striking distinction. Her dark blonde hair is pulled back severely by a light-green plastic hair band. Her black tank top shows off toned shoulders and arms, still sun-touched by the summer. It also gives you a good idea of the size of her breasts: small. Ducking to peer under the table, you see she's wearing baggy jogging shorts and sneakers. A plain red back pack sags on the floor by her ankles.

She's not someone you would have ever looked twice at, and that seems good, as it's just what you're looking for in an alias.

As you are studying Annabelle, her phone, which is resting screen-side down on the table, dings with a text. After a moment's hesitation, Chelsea picks it up. "That's probably her ride," she says. "She's been going on and on about having to wrap our meeting up, because they were going to be here soon."

"Who's she getting a ride with?" you ask, though not with any great interest. With her memory and personality, you will be able to fool anyone who came to fetch her.

"Her boyfriend."

That gets your attention. "Boyfriend?" you exclaim, and wheel on Deanna. "You didn't mention she had a boyfriend!"

"Well, I didn't know!" Deanna says. She gapes at Chelsea. "How do you know she—?"

"She said it after you went to meet the boss— To meet Will. She got a text and said, My boyfriend says he's on his way now, can we talk about this later?"

You didn't figure on having to deal with a boyfriend. "Well, who is it?" you stammer. "And how serious are—?"

Deanna takes the phone from Chelsea. Her eyes pop when she reads the screen. "Oh, Jesus! It's Luke Romero!"

"Who's he?"

"He's in the marching band, and he says he's downstairs now! Oh God, I'm sorry, boss!"

"Why?" you ask with a beating heart.

"Because he's scummy!" she says with a shudder. "He deals shit at the Warehouse! Oh my God," she wails. "Him and Annabelle? Since when?"

The mask is already copying Annabelle. But that doesn't mean you have to put it on tonight and get a ride home with her scuzzy, drug-peddling boyfriend.

Next: "Marching to a New Drummer" 

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