The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Four Offers

Previously: "A Flight and a Capture" 

It's not a bad movie, you grudgingly admit when it's over, though you almost bolted when, after two hours, Carlos told you it was only half over. It's long and sprawling and there was some gorgeous shots in it. But on the whole you'd have much rather watched a comic book movie or a video game movie. Something with leather-clad girls somersaulting through the air while firing guns.

"Well, think about something to say about it," Mike says when you announce during the end credits that you really have to go. "And we'll get together tomorrow to do a bit or a spot."

You nod, even as you hope your dad will tell you he needs the garage cleaned out after school.

* * * * *

"So I bet Mr. Hawks'll be pretty stoked when he hears you're doing stuff with Carlos and Mike," Keith says the next day when he falls in next to you and Caleb after fourth period. The corridor, as usual, is boiling with students on their way to lunch.

"Maybe I am, maybe I'm not," you retort. You don't mean to be rude, but your attention is elsewhere: The Molester is approaching, and you turn around so he won't see your face. Caleb and Keith aren't so quick. Caleb's expression tightens just a little, but Keith is oblivious, as he usually is until it's too late, and he just keeps blathering. Fortunately, the Molester passes by without stopping. You let out a sigh of relief.

Keith plucks the back of your shirt as your trio disgorges itself through an outside door. "D'ju hear me?" he says, "I said let's go talk about it."

"Talk about what?"

"About if you're gonna -- "

"You guys go talk about whatever you want," Caleb says. "I'm eating with Jenny and them, in case Eva or Yumi shows up again."

You're inclined to follow, but Keith takes your arm and steers you off around the back of the school. "Come on," he says. "Didn't you have fun with those guys yesterday?"

"We watched a movie, and there wasn't a lot of fun involved," you say. "It was about twenty hours long."

"It was not!"

"Felt like it. Anyway, I don't got anything to say about it for a video."

"You better find something to say, if you're going to get any extra credit out of Hawks."

You sigh. There is that. "Are you doing anything for extra credit in there?"

"Sure! We recorded a bit on Saturday, and I was fucking brilliant if I say so myself." He tugs at the front of his shirt and preens. "Talked about Jaws and the, uh, sym -- Symbolo -- Symbolology of the chaos of the ocean as a, um, primeval -- " He breaks off, and starts chewing on his lip in a worried way.

"Yeah, I bet you sounded really smart." But much as you'd like to mock him, you're thinking that's what you'd sound like, and you have to scratch under your ball cap when the thought makes the sweat springs out on your scalp.

"Look, come on, you're always doing stuff with Johansson. This can be our thing together. Right?"

You sigh again. "Look, I just don't want to make a fucking fool of myself." You get a brainwave. "Here, if I record some stuff for them, can't I talk about some of the shit that we've talked about already in Hawks's class? Instead of stuff like -- "

"Maybe," says Keith, though he sounds dubious. "But Hawks isn't going to give extra credit if it's some of the shit we've already talked about in class. That's what makes it extra credit!"

"Can I at least pick out the stuff I want to see and talk about?"

Keith shrugs. "It's up to them. It's like, their stuff, they're in charge."

"It should be something I've got something to say about, right? Stuff I can talk about without sounding like a moronic dipshit?"

Keith suddenly laughs. "You won't sound like a moronic dipshit, Will. They'll make sure you sound good, like you know what you're talking about."

You snort. "Like they made you sound like you knew what you were talking about?"

"Sure! I told you, I was practically making a college-level type presentation about the symbology -- " He stumbles over the word again. "Of the ocean as, um, devouring chaos of man's hoo -- Hoobris?" He crinkles his brow.

Oh, God.

* * * * *

You shake off Keith with the promise that you'll probably meet up with him and the other guys after school. While he traipses off in one direction, you continue circling the school until you come all the way around the long way to the front quad. Caleb is lounging there with Jenny and Yumi and Paul. You pause before going off to join them, though, for while the two girls are in intent conversation, the two guys are staring off silently in the other direction. with bored expressions on their faces.

You're about to join them anyway when someone jabs you in the shoulder. "You bolted out of Gladstone before I could catch you," says Braydon. His eyelids droop even as his eyebrows shoot up. "What are you doing after school?"

You'd much rather hang out with Carlos and Mike and Keith than with Braydon, but you're careful not to lunge for that excuse. "Not got plans for sure yet," you reply. "Why?"

"Come run an errand with me? About that book?" Braydon rubs the side of his nose, and that giant silver ring he wears on his forefinger flashes in the sunlight.

"I told you, I don't remember any more about -- "

"I found a guy, a professor at the university, who knows about this stuff," he says. "He says he maybe could help identify it, if you could describe it to him."

"I already -- "

"Come on, Will," he says. "He's pretty sure he knows what book it is, but you gotta ID it for him." He draws up close to you. "He says it could be really valuable. He says he'll pay us, like ten percent of the value if we help him find it."

"How valuable?" you ask, despite your trepidations.

"He says it's a one-of-a-kind book, the only copy in existence, if it's the one he's thinking of. He said it might be worth twenty or maybe even thirty thousand dollars."

Holy shit! You paid two dollars for a thirty thousand dollar book and then let it get away?

Greed would have overwhelmed you right then and there, but you're checked by a sudden thought. "Wait, what makes him so sure it was this valuable book? I could hardly describe it."

"That's why he needs you to identify it for sure," says Braydon. "I got the title from Ted Arnholm -- like, De Persona Fabricum, or something like that." He purses his lips, and you can see it in his eye: He knows you were at Arnholms', and got the title, and didn't tell him. "He also told me who they bought it from, that it was this professor, so I went and talked to him about it, to see if he could tell me what was in it, and where I could find another copy, and if it was worth looking at, or anything. And he said it was really valuable and that -- "

"Wait, wait!" You raise your hands. "The book belonged to this professor, and he sold it to Arnholms' even though it's so fucking valuable?"

"He said it was an accident. That's why he wants it back."

"Uh huh." This is sounding very fishy, all of a sudden. "Well, the title sounds real familiar, and that was probably it, but -- "

"But you should come with me and talk to him," says Braydon.

"You should get him to describe this book he wants," you retort. "Then I'll tell you if it's the book I lost. Anyway, I can't help more than that, because I don't know where it is now."

Braydon's brow clouds over. "This guy will give us, like, three thousand dollars if we find it for him, Will -- "

"So get him to describe it for me so I can -- ! Look, Braydon, I gotta go, I'm meeting someone." Without waiting for a reply, you hurry off toward the library, just to get away from him, and wind up hurriedly swallowing your meal back in the stacks.

You're hustling in to Calculus -- tardy -- when your phone dings. It's a text from Braydon, and you've just time to glance at it before diving into the classroom: atleast come talk to the guy.

* * * * *

You're pretty ambivalent about going out with Braydon after school. The prospect of several thousand dollars is really tempting, but you're held back by a sense that there's something very odd going on with this offer. It seems very strange that someone should accidentally part with a super-rare and valuable book, which leaves you doubting the offer.

You're also ambivalent about hanging out with Carlos and Mike and Keith. Their company is certainly preferable to Braydon's, and Keith is correct that you could get some extra credit for it. But it doesn't sound very interesting.

So when you bump into Paul Davis in the math wing after Calculus, you ask him what Carson and James are up to. "Dunno," he says. "You thinking of hanging out with them again today?"

"Again?"

"Like yesterday."

Did you mishear him? The hallway is crowded and noisy. "I didn't see them yesterday."

"You didn't?" Someone jostles you hard, and you catch only the end of what Paul says: " -- with them at the mall Sunday." You're quickly separated by the crowd, so you don't get to ask him about it. But Paul's remark reminds you that Carson and James offer possible escape from both Braydon and the YouTube crew.

And to your immense surprise you get a fourth option at the start of Astronomy. Stephanie does a double-take at you as you come in, and after a moment's hesitation she gestures you over. Your nerves quicken.

"You own a truck, right?" she says. And when you nod she says, "Can you give me some help moving something after school?"

* To meet Keith and his YouTube friends: "Special Effects" 
* To go with Braydon to meet that professor: "The Magic Word Is "Money"" 
* To go with Carson: "Putting the Magic Back in the Tricks" 
* To help Stephanie move her stuff: "The Turkey Shoot(s His Mouth Off)" 

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