The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Spite and Sweets

Previously: "Tricksie" 

"Listen, don't feel bad," Trixie says as you stagger under the blow of her confession. "I had fun, I liked hanging out with you, I'd like hanging out with you some more. I just don't want you getting the wrong impression. So—"

She glances down at your phone.

"So if you have to go," she finishes, "don't feel like you'd be running out on me or Justine. We'll probably see you around again, even."

She smiles at you, and if you tried you could probably even half-convince yourself there is something wistful in her smile.

But her confession has knocked all the wind from you, and you have no enthusiasm for staying. You don't know anyone else here—Patrick and the rest of them, it seems, have stayed behind at Legends—and the place suddenly feels very alien.

Besides, you do have a curfew.

"Well, um, thanks for telling me," you mumble.

"Don't be like that, Will," she says.

"I'm not being like that," you insist. "I do have to go, in fact. I just—" You break off.

"We'll see you around," she repeats.

And maybe she believes it. You don't.

Still, spitefully almost, you lean around to give her a quick peck on the cheek before wheeling to shamble off for the exit. You'd like to think that you left her frozen and regretful and staring at your back with that parting kiss. But you have too much sense to turn around and see the effect you left her with.

* * * * *

You make it back just before your curfew, and you cut it very close because you remember to stop and change out of your "party clothes" before going home. Your dad is in bed but your mom is still up. She gives you a prim and disapproving look when you come in, which you can't help resenting because you did get home before your curfew, but she only reminds you that you've got church in the morning, so make sure your alarm is on. You brush your teeth and strip off your clothes, and stare at the ceiling for what might only be ten minutes before you fall asleep, but which feels like ten hours.

Church is a drag, as it always is, but it's worse because you feel an exhausting emotional hangover from the night before.

You went out looking at a chance to meet some girls. And you got that chance and you met some girls. They even seemed interested in you. Except they weren't. A near miss like that, you can't help feeling, is much worse than if you hadn't come close at all.

There's also that tantalizing hint Trixie left you with last night, that maybe things might still be retrieved. Surely as long as there is a chance with her (or with Justine) then you should pursue it. And yet, with a heavy feeling of depression, you ask if it is really worth it. Probably she just said those things to be nice. Probably it would only be awkward if you tried finding them again. Probably you would wind up looking and feeling pathetic.

It's in this gloomy frame of mind that suffer through church and lunch afterward. Your mom notices your mood and asks you about it. You deflect her with a wince and go up to your room. Your phone is on your bed, where you dropped it while changing out of your church clothes, and with a heaviness of heart you turn it back on and sit on the edge of the bed with it in your hands, staring blankly at the screen.

But you can't work up the nerve to do anything, and wind up wasting the rest of the day in a stew of self-recrimination.

* * * * *

Monday is even worse, for when you walk into first period you are met with a reminder from Mr. Walberg that all items for the class time capsule are due. You face plant right into your desk, for you had clean forgotten about it.

After class you crawl your way up to Mr. Walberg's desk to give him the bad news, though you frame it as "I forgot to bring it in" rather than "I forgot to do it."

"One letter grade off the final product, Mr. Prescott," he tells you, "if you get it to me by five o'clock this afternoon. Otherwise you fail." You tell him that will not be a problem, and in a daze of horror trudge off to second period. Keith, who sits behind you in that class, frowns at you when you come in, and taps you on the shoulder when you collapse into your desk.

"Happened to you?" he asks.

"I fucked up in my Sociology class," you tell him. "I forgot to do my assignment."

"You had all weekend," he reminds you, unfeelingly.

"Oh, fuck you," you growl. "And I didn't have all weekend, I had more than a week."

"That's worse," he agrees. "Was it big?"

"I dunno. No. Maybe. I was supposed to bring something in for the class time capsule."

Andy Tackett, who sits in the next row over, laughs. "How'd you forget something like that?" he asks.

"I dunno, Tackett," you snarl back, "maybe because it was a fucking dumb assignment."

He snorts.

"So just take in a couple of old batteries," he says. "Or some used Kleenex. Or was there more guidance than that?"

"No guidance. Just something."

"So you were just fucking dumb," he says, and turns away. You glare.

You turn that glare on Keith when he taps you on the shoulder again. "So did you forget the assignment, or did you just forget to get something?"

"What's it matter? It's the same thing. Actually—" You snap your fingers. "I did have an idea for something, I even picked it up. But it was dumb, so I forgot about it."

"What was it?"

"Just a book I found at Arnholm's. But—" You round on Tackett again. "I was smart enough I didn't tell Mr. Walberg that I forgot about the assignment, I told him I just forgot it at home. So I have until five to bring him something in."

Andy rolls his eyes and says nothing.

"You got any ideas?" Keith asks.

"No."

And that's all either of you have time to say, for Mr. Hawks calls the class or order just then.

But Keith does have something to say afterward.

* * * * *

"That's cheating!" Caleb cries out at lunch, when he hears what Keith told you at the end of second. He wheels on you. "You're not gonna do it!"

"I don't got a choice!" you protest. "Besides, it's a dumb assignment!"

It's lunchtime, and the three of you are in your usual spot behind the school. Usual lunch with the usual guys in the usual spot: it's as though Saturday afternoon and night never happened.

There is one difference, though. For once in his anti-intellectual life, Keith has come up with a good idea. Except it turns out he didn't.

"I didn't go online to get my idea for the time capsule!" Caleb fumes.

"I bet you're the only one," Keith cheerfully retorts. "Who else is in that class?"

"What's that matter?" Caleb sneers, even as you answer, "Kelsey Blankenship, Anthony Kirk, Geoff Mansfield, Martin Gardinhire—"

"Oh, them," Keith says.

"Yeah, and you can bet they didn't cheat!" Caleb hollers.

"They don't have to," Keith says. "They just had their butler do the assignment for them!"

It's not a bad jibe, and likely not far from the truth. Those country-club snots you rattled off to Keith get lots of private tutoring, you're sure, to help them get through all the AP classes they're taking.

"Well, don't expect me to respect you, Will, if you go through with it," Caleb tells you.

"And how much is your respect worth in Mr. Walberg's grade book?" you demand. "I'm doing it right after school!"

And you do. You run straight from school over to the nearest dollar market, where with money you borrowed from Keith you buy a couple of bags of candy and a box of Ziplocs; seal the candy up inside one of the bags; and take it in to Mr. Walberg. He holds it up for study, gives you a sidelong look, then acidly thanks you for "contributing to my incipient onset of diabetes" before putting it in his desk drawer.

"Dood," Keith snickers when you tell him about it afterward, in the hallway, where he had been waiting. "He just means he's gonna steal it. No freaking way he's gonna throw away something like that by puttin' it in a box and burying it in the ground!" You wonder if he could be right.

"Well, thanks again," you tell him as you walk down the deserted corridor toward the front doors. "You saved my life, even if I did lose a letter grade. I'll pay you back tomorrow."

"What about paying me back today?"

"Today?"

"Sure, come hang out with me while I do my YouTube thing, bring your money then."

"What YouTube thing?" you ask.

His face falls.

"Mother fucker," he snarls as he wheels away. "I only told you about it—"

"What thing?" you repeat, and hurry after him.

"I told you about it! The video I'm making with Mike and Carlos!"

He turns very red when you only stare at him blankly, and the spittle flies from his face as he explains it all over to you again.

Mike Hollister and Carlos Montoya have a movie-review YouTube channel, and he is going out this evening to help them make one of their videos. He only told you about it "a hundred times," he insists, and asked you a hundred times if you wanted to come out and help.

Normally you'd let him just be mad at you, but you really are grateful to him, so you promise that you will meet up with him and his friends. That mollifies him a little.

* * * * *

At home, as you are getting money from your drawer to give to Keith, you remember that book you found at Arnolm's. One of the guys who is helping Mike and Carlos is Philip Fairfax, a science-fair nerd. You wonder if he would be interested in it as an old curiosity.

That's all for now.

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