The Book of Masks (Abridged)

Brief Encounters

CALEB'S AFTER-LUNCH SCHEDULE is pretty relaxed: a study hall, then Statistics and AP Physics. The latter two are completely over your head, but you figure Caleb can handle the material even if he misses it, and you sit through them with a glazed smile on your face, anticipating the date to come with Eva.

In fact, you're so distracted that when the final bell rings you don't notice what you're doing, and as you stand up you trudge on someone's foot and fall back into your seat. You start to apologize, but your voice dies entirely when you see who it is.

It's Steve Patterson, and he stops and turns his six-foot, six-inch frame on you. From up where his eyes are to down where you're sitting: It's bad enough when you're standing in his shadow, but it's terrifying to sit inside it. His icy gray eyes lock onto yours.

After a moment of this, you try to stand up, but he leans in close, and you fall back into the chair. You look around nervously, but no one says anything as they shuffle out. No one so much as looks in your direction, and most have their heads down. A room full of Caleb Johansson-like nerds and Brent Pruitt-like preppies, and you have to step on the foot of the one alpha-jock in the class. Even Mr. Krohling, oblivious as ever, is strolling toward the classroom door after erasing the board. Your only consolation is that Patterson can't stand here forever. If nothing else, he's got after-school basketball practice to get too.

But still, he doesn't move.

Briefly, it occurs to you that, as you're looking like Caleb, you'd be perfectly safe pissing him off by trying to shove him out of the way. But you'd still be the one getting hurt when he threw you across the room.

But you can outwait him, right?

After six seconds, a sense of burning humiliation sets in.

You shift the desk sideways. He follows, wedging you back in.

You sit and wait and look anywhere except at him. Isn't he getting as bored? Can't you catch him off guard? And why are you being such a chicken-shit?

Oh, right. Because of the time he and Gordon Black, the captain of the basketball team, held James Lamont upside down in the bathroom, stripped him of his clothes, and redressed him with shirt and shorts swapped, so that he had to go to class with his arms straight up in the air and his head emerging through the crotch of his shorts. And about nine thousand similar incidents that Patterson was on the giving end of.

Finally, you can stand it no longer, and twist the desk violently to the side by ninety degrees and leap to your feet before Patterson can move to block you again. You grab your bag and wheel for the door—

And a hard shove between the shoulder blades sends you sprawling on the floor, and your bag opens and spills its contents across the tile. Patterson stands on your butt and walks up your back, and when he steps off next to your ear he gives it a little tap with his toe. Then savagely he kicks your bag into a corner. From under your brows you watch his tennis shoes disappear through the doorway into the hall. You're still pulling your stuff together when Mr. Krohling returns. "Good heavens, Caleb, what happened?"

"I tripped."

"What were you still doing in here?"

"Hanging out with a friend."

* * * * *

You thought you had an unspoken agreement with Caleb to meet him at the elementary school, but he's not there when you arrive. And since—as "Will Prescott"—he's got the key to your padlock, you can only wait until he either arrives or replies to your texts.

He's not quick about either one, but he looks pleased about something when he does pull up. "Just got back from Salopek," he says. "I finally got to put in that application."

"Awesome," you say. Then the penny drops. "Wait a minute, I don't want that job! You're the one who—"

"I didn't put it in for you, I put it in for me."

"But as who? If you're looking like that—"

"I told them I was putting it for a friend. I picked it up, went around the corner to fill it out, and brought it back. So relax." He grins. "Perfect end to the day, huh? I can't believe it. No one caught on!"

"Why would they? You look just like me, I look just like you—"

"We're both dipshits dipped from the same shit pile," he grins. He tosses a key to you. "Get the door open. I'll go around the corner to get us a bag of ice."

"For what?"

"So we can make some more masks. You were going to do that Saturday night, weren't you?"

"Sure, but do we need to now? Don't you think this is enough?"

"Enough for what?" He slaps you in the chest. "We were going to prank people! And look how easy it is. I bet all we have to do is show up as them."

"But we'd have to try to act like them too," you protest. "I know how to act like you, but I don't know how to act like, well, whoever."

"Pfft, I wasn't even trying to act like you at the end. Come on, get things set up while I get the ice. We'll make some more masks, then switch back and go home."

"Uh, let's do one more night and day," you say, thinking of tonight's date with Eva. "Like, just to make sure today wasn't a fluke."

"I don't want you skipping Chem again," he says.

Damn, that's right. You think quickly. "So, how about we switch back just for third period tomorrow. We'll do it in the bathroom."

"I don't wanna get caught in the bathroom during a break," he says, turning white. "Remember what happened to—"

"Okay, okay. You've got Kowalski second period, right? He won't care if you're tardy, and I know Hawks won't mind, so let's skip second and do it then."

Caleb kicks a little more over it, but finally agrees. You'll both wear jeans tomorrow so that you only have to change t-shirts and shoes when you make the hand-off. Then at lunch you'll make another switch, back into each other.

Down in the basement, you find that you've only enough ingredients to make one more mask. "I got a little bit of money I can toss into the project," Caleb says. "I'll pick up some more stuff tomorrow."

"How many more of these do we wanna make?"

"I figure at least three," he says after a moment's thought. "I wanna try a couple of different body types, see if there's a limit. I mean, you and I are about the same size and shape, but is there a limit we can't go above, or below? Is there a body structure we can't use because we're the wrong shape? There's a lot of variables to consider. So." He ticks off on his fingers. "We wanna big guy, like Richards, and a little kid, like five or six years old. That'll give us the size range. Also a girl."

"Seriously?"

"Pft, yeah! I mean, aside from the experiment, finding out if it'll give us all her equipment—" He sniggers and lightly fondles the air in front of his chest. "Wouldn't you like to play with some of her stuff, just to see what it's like to have?"

You feel yourself redden. Also, stiffen.

"I think those are the three big tests." He chews his lip. "I suppose we could try getting one on an old person, to see if age makes a difference. And if we could find someone who was missing an arm or a leg, that would tell us about missing appendages."

"Won't the girl's mask tell us that?"

He blinks. "Oh, right." Again he fondles his breasts, but this time in a speculative way. "The breasts can be an expansion," he muses. "And the dick can be an amputation. But what about adding an appendage? If we put one of our masks onto a girl, what would happen?"

"She'd freak out."

"Aside from that. Would it generate a new appendage on her? This is really fascinating."

"That's great, Spock, but let's finish up. I don't want your mom getting mad at me for being late."

* * * * *

You clean up as best you can for the date, using what clothes Caleb has: a white long-sleeve shirt, some slacks, and some loafers. There's no point brushing your hair, since it is so short and wiry and curly that it never looks disordered. You smile at yourself, and sink a little inwardly. With his big nose and functional hair and gangly frame, Caleb has a classic "engineering nerd" look to him. But fuck it, that's no impediment to having fun while wearing it. Any screw ups you make on the date will be blamed on him. Not that you want to screw up.

"Don't you look nice," Eva says when she meets you at her door; Marc, who answered your knock, hides a smile and looks away. She herself hasn't dressed up much: blouse and jeans and shoes of the type she might wear to school when trying to look good. She smiles a little ironically when you open the passenger-side door for her.

Your conversation at the coffee shop is low-key and causal and relaxed: You tell yourself you're just two friends hanging out, but you lean in a little more intensely toward her so that she'll know you're interested in more than just the talk, which is gossip about teachers and classes and common friends and common enemies. She has lots of nasty things to say about Patterson, for instance.

But one name feels conspicuous by its absence: "Will Prescott." Eva seems to get along well with Caleb, but you've never felt comfortable with her. As the conversation progresses, you feel a strengthening urge to drop your name into the talk and see what she says.