The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Caleb Gets In the Way

Previously: "Prepping the Sequel" 

"We can't do this today," you tell Keith.

He rears back, as though slapped. "How come?" he demands.

"Remember how we met Teresa? Remember what we were doing, and how you almost fucked everything up when she caught you doing it?"

He glowers at you.

"So what?" he says. "It all worked out."

"It worked out 'cos Teresa turned out to be cool with it. What if it happens again, but the new girl isn't cool with it?"

"Dude, last night you were all about doing this!"

"Yeah, and I still do. Only I've been thinking, and we don't wanna get caught. I mean, we don't wanna get caught. As ourselves."

Keith's eyebrows knit together. Then they clear up.

"Oh," he says. "You mean we should be in, like, disguise?"

"Yeah. That way we can get away if something goes wrong, and no one'll be looking for us."

"Yeah!" Keith grins. "They'll be looking for—"

Then his face falls. "But the only masks we got are them hoes we made," he says.

"So we'll use them. It'll be perfect, we can get into the girls' restrooms with them and no one'll even look at us."

"Dude!" Keith's eyes pop. "That'll be perfect!"

"Like I said."

"What'd you say?" Caleb demands, for he has suddenly appeared directly behind Keith.

"Tell you later," you say. "We'll do it tomorrow," you promise Keith.

Except Caleb winds up saying something of his own about the plan.

* * * * *

It's late afternoon, and you and he and Keith are sitting outside the elementary school basement, talking things over. Or, more exactly, Caleb is lecturing you and Keith; Keith is yelling about not being allowed to do what he wants; and you are slouching with your arms folded, feeling mad at both of them.

"Who put you in charge?" Keith hotly demands of Caleb. "It's a democracy here, so put it to a vote!" He points at you. "That makes it two to one we do it!"

"I didn't say it's not a democracy," Caleb retorts, "and sure, we can put it to a vote. But I'm just explaining why I think it's a bad idea. And also, if we're gonna put it to a vote, shouldn't Teresa be here?"

"So tell me again," you say, "why you think it's a bad idea. Because that's not what you said before. You just said—"

"I said it would be a bad idea now," Caleb says. "Later, after we've cooked the next golem—"

"Why do we gotta wait on that?" Keith hollers. "I want sumthin' I can put on it when it's done!"

"You've got something you can put on it now," Caleb retorts. "Mickey and those other two girls. Speaking of which, we should glue those brain thingies into their masks while we're here. And then you can come out here, Tilley, and fuck them stupid and yourself stupider."

Keith mutters something about "fresh meat" under his breath.

"But first of all," Caleb continues, turning to you, "we should make some more of those brain things before we go making more copies of girls. I'm sure we'll need them if we're gonna make the golems come alive. Unless, Tilley," he says, turning to Keith, "you want to wear one of the masks like you were going to get today, and let Will and me fuck you before we put on a new mask and let you have your way with us."

Keith blanches.

"That's what I thought. So since we'll need those brain strips to go with the new masks, we might as well make them all out of the same girls when we catch them. But we can't make the new brain things without the book, and," he concludes with gritted teeth, "that's why we have to wait for the new golem to finish cooking. Because that's where the book is."

You say nothing.

"So what you're saying," Keith says mulishly, "is we have to wait a couple of months for that thing to finish."

"It'll be done this weekend," Caleb snaps at him. "You can wait that long. And we should get new masks and the doohickeys to go with them at the same time because it's more efficient that way. Why make extra work now, getting a mask of a girl, and then go back into school to get brain copies of other girls, when we can do it all at once later?"

Keith grumbles still, but allows that what Caleb says makes sense. So you don't even have to take a vote or consult Teresa.

But Caleb must have felt like you all parted on bad terms anyway, because he calls you later that night, while you're doing homework.

"I just got done talking to Keith," he tells you, "and we're all cool. Are you and me cool?"

"Why wouldn't we be?"

"On account of this afternoon. The way I kind of bigfooted you and your plans."

"No, you made sense."

"Well, there's a difference between me 'making sense' and you being okay with me."

"We're fine, dude. I'm glad you talked us out of it, 'cos it makes a lot more sense the way you explained it.

"Well, as long as we're fine. Also, are you fine with Tilley going out to the basement tonight and Thursday?"

"For what?" you ask. After a moment's silence, during which you answer your own question, you say. "Oh. Yeah."

"Yeah. To kind of make him feel better, I told him he could have Mickey tonight and Thursday. Um, do you want tomorrow and Friday? Or can you wait until Wednesday?"

"You're making a schedule up for us?"

"Sure. I also dropped off an old sleeping I had at my place, so it'll be a little more comfortable out there."

"When'd you do that?"

"Last night, after I was done with Frida."

"Huh." You refrain from asking him how that went, and to forestall him volunteering, you jump back to the earlier topic: "I don't know why I didn't think about how we needed those brain things to do this. I was thinking it last night, when I went to finish those new masks, how we needed some."

"Yeah, well, I only remembered after I got done with Frida."

"Why were you thinking about it?"

There's a pause. Then Caleb says, "Because I was thinking of making a copy of myself."

You almost drop the phone.

"What for you do that?" you ask, for you've almost lost your command of English along with command of your own fingers.

"I just had an idea that, well— Maybe I could send the golem in to school for me today, or this week, and I could hang out around town. Wearing a mask so no one catches me."

"Holy—! I never thought of that!" The genius of the idea actually leaves you feeling dizzy.

"Yeah, but we didn't have any of those metal strips to copy myself into. It's something we should think about, though. We should think a lot more through this stuff, instead of just letting our peckers do the thinking for us."

"Oh my God, yes!"

The thought of making a fake you, who could go to school for you, do your chores for you, do your homework for you, suffer through classes and the idiots at Westside for you, while you are free to hang out and goof off and have fun—it fills you with a kind of joyful terror so intense that you have to stop Caleb in mid-sentence and ask him to start over again, because you weren't paying attention to what he was saying.

"I said, that's another reason to wait until we get done with the golem. You realize we didn't even look at the next spell in the book? We have no idea what it does or what it requires. I think we should keep all our powder dry, so we don't have to do any extra work if it requires, you know, masks or stuff."

"Yeah, that makes sense," you mutter, and go back to daydreaming about an extra you to have around. You can picture it now, almost, standing in front of your bedroom door, looking at you expectantly, awaiting orders to hike a backpack onto its shoulders and go to school, or reporting to you on what Carson said at lunch and what it said in reply. Good job, you'd tell it, I couldn't have done it better myself.

And it would grin back at you conspiratorially, and you would grin at it, because not even Caleb or Keith would know that it was a fake and not the real you that you sent to school that day.

* * * * *

You let Caleb claim Tuesday night in the basement, and when at lunch Keith whines about it being "too long" until Thursday, you let him take your Wednesday spot instead. For Caleb has given you a lot to think about, so that you feel yourself less aroused by the thought of being with Mickey than you otherwise would have been.

Also, the thought of following where Keith and Caleb have been is slightly appetite-killing.

"If it's alright with you," Caleb tells you Thursday at the start of lunch, while it's still the two of you, "I'm going to give Teresa my spot tonight in the basement, unless you want it."

"She wants on the schedule?" you ask in surprise.

"I'm going to offer it to her," he says. "I don't know if she's going to take it."

You mention this to Keith after school, as you're walking out to your cars together.

"Yeah, 'sfunny," he says. "I had you and Teresa pegged as turning into a couple. Looks like it's gonna be her and Johansson, though."

He says it very calmly, but it staggers you.

"Caleb and Teresa?" you gasp.

"I don't think it's settled yet," he says with a sniff. "I don't think they even know it yet. But yeah, looks to me like that's what's gonna happen."

He gives you a heavy-lidded look.

"So if you wanna make that play for her you been procrastinatin' over," he says, "you better make it now."

Next: "A Dead End" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"