The Book of Masks (Abridged)

I'm My Own Best Friend!

CALEB DIDN'T GIVE YOU A CHANCE on Thursday to get close to him, but he's more sociable on Friday.

Or, at least, he's more sociable with you than with anyone else, which is saying something, for with you, in both first period and fourth, he slouches in his desk with folded arms, snarling and snapping when you try talking to him. And yet, when the lunch bell rings he grabs you by the elbow before you can stomp off, and says he wants to eat alone with you. "Sure, if you can stop acting like a tortoise with a toothache," you retort before you remember that you want to get him alone if you can.

"Tortoises don't have teeth," blurts out Michael Hollister, who is standing behind you and trying to squeeze past.

"And I don't give a fuck," you snarl back. "Come on, I'll eat with you anyway," you tell Caleb, and your feet and his feet and Hollister's feet make an untidy dog pile as you all try stepping into the same square foot of aisle space. You jam Hollister back with your elbow and push Caleb in front of you.

Keith is already lurking outside the classroom, but his expression curdles when Caleb approaches. "Fucker," he mutters.

"Fuck you," Caleb mutters back.

"Get off my tail," mutters Keith.

"Get off my dick," Caleb snaps.

"Guys!" Mrs. Gladstone calls out. "Gutter talk."

"I'll gutter talk you, you cow," Caleb mumbles as he brushes past Keith.

"I'm taking Caleb off by himself," you tell Tilley.

"Good. Less I see of that fucking liar, the better."

"So I can't eat with you," you add, for you're puzzled at the way Keith is still lingering by the door.

"Find a shit someplace else, because I don't got one to give," Keith airily replies, and he exchanges hand-slaps with Hollister, Carlos Montoya and Josiah Shank, who have followed you out of the classroom. The four of them plunge into the stream of students and swim the other way.

When you look around, you see that Caleb has gone on without you.

* * * * *

You catch up to him outside, and follow him around the back of the Sciences wing to the wide patch of ground between the school and the tennis courts. He slumps there, in full view of passing parades of students, and you cuss him under your breath for picking such a public spot. "So what's the deal with you and Tilley?"

"He's fucking crazy," Caleb retorts. "They all are."

"Who?"

"Tilley. All the other assholes." He rips open the paper bag containing his lunch, and a plastic-wrapped sandwich and a bag of chips falls out.

"Like who?"

Caleb peers up at you from under hooded brows. "I didn't come around to your place after school yesterday, did I?"

"No," you blurt out before you can think of any but a truthful answer. "At least, um, I don't think so," you add more cautiously. You're beginning to suspect where this is going.

"You're not sure?" Caleb asks. "Weren't you home?"

"Oh. Yes. Yes I was," you assert confidently, and hope that the sweat you feel breaking out all over your body isn't visible on your brow.

"You sure?" Caleb's tone turns sarcastic. "I didn't come by and borrow your truck and drive it all over town?"

"No, it was with me the whole time."

"Then I wish you'd tell Tilley and Ioeger and Lamont that."

"The fuck are you talking about?"

Caleb peels apart his sandwich and stares moodily at the contents. "According to them I was driving around town visiting them when I was actually at Salopek. You know that, I told you that's where I'd be."

"So they're all high," you assure him. "Or they're pranking you. Gaslighting you?" you add. "Is that the thing it's called when—?"

"Well, you just remember," Caleb says, and he jabs you a couple of times in the knee with a very sharp and rigid forefinger, "that I have an alibi and that you had your truck when they tell you that I was driving around town robbing them blind."

His voice is a choke, but whether from anger or a sense of persecution, you're not sure.

"I will," you tell him, and pat his knee reassuringly.

And too late you realize that in giving Caleb an alibi, you might be putting yourself at risk. Now Tilley and Ioeger and Lamont might think you're in on it with Caleb. In fact, now that you think about it, you probably should have told Caleb that he did come by your place, and that some of your own money is now missing.

Well, it's too late now. Or is it?

"Of course," you say, feeling your way cautiously, "I can't say for sure that my truck was at my house all afternoon. I was up in my bedroom. Except—" You lunge toward another idea. "Except when I went jogging."

"Since when do you jog?" Caleb demands.

"Since, uh, I dunno." You shrug. "Sometimes I go running."

"Hrmph. And you didn't notice if your truck was gone when you were out running?"

"Oh, I was running for a long time. Like, until suppertime?"

"Bullshit."

Yeah, you pushed that idea too far. "Well, we ate an early supper. But what's the story that Tilley and them are telling?"

So Caleb relates, in bitter, bitter tones, the story that he showed up at people's houses, driving your truck, wasting their time, and walking out with all of their money. And all that time, of course, he was at Salopek getting an orientation.

"Well, there's your problem." You snap your fingers, for an idea really has just occurred to you. "Salopek. There's all kinds of ooky stuff that goes on out there."

"Like what?" Caleb cries.

"I dunno. That's what makes it ooky and creepy. Real Area 51 stuff. More than that. Area 52!"

"Oh God! You are so fucking high!"

"That's one reason I didn't want to work there. My dad won't tell me what goes on out there, and I bet it's because of stuff like happened to you."

"Yeah?" Caleb is scowling so hard that it makes your own face hurt just to look at it. "What happened to me?"

You look around, then lean in close. "You think maybe they made an evil robot duplicate of you?"

Caleb grabs you by the face and pushes you away.

* * * * *

Well, you argue some more, with you insisting with as much sincerity as you can muster that some Top Secret project at Salopek might have got loose and gone around pretending to be him, and that that's what your friends saw. Caleb gets very tired of it very quickly.

But it's given you an idea for how to get that new doohickey onto him.

During your argument, he mentioned that he had to go back out to Salopek to drop off some paperwork. When school lets out, you tail him at a distance, and when you've confirmed he's on his way to Salopek you telephone a cab company. The taxi is waiting for you in the parking lot of a Denny's just down the road from Salopek when you arrive. You had packed Caleb's mask inside your backpack in case you found a use for it at school, so you've got it with you when the taxi drops you off in front of the Johansson residence. You wait until you're inside, and hidden under Caleb's bed, before putting it on.

* * * * *

The dust bunnies will keep bringing you to the verge of a sneezing fit, but you keep patiently hidden for the twenty minutes or so it takes for Caleb to get home. You tense when you hear the front door open and shut, and fight down a grin when his bedroom door bangs open. From under the bed you see his sneakers as he walks in and falls into the chair at his desk. His backpack drops to the floor.

You rub your nose, count to fifty, then groan softly.

Caleb doesn't react.

You groan again, more loudly. "Gwunnggghh."

Still Caleb doesn't move, but it seems like a watchful kind of inactivity. You only have to grunt softly a third time, and one of his feet shifts.

But still he remains seated.

You drum your fingers in the dust, then decide to gamble everything on a single throw.

Striking like a rattler, you grab one of his ankles.

He yelps like a stung chimpanzee, and lunges to the opposite corner of the room. You scramble deeper under the bed, away from the edge so he won't be able to spot you easily.

For a very long time neither nor you move. Then his feet approach the bed. They shift and squirm. He bends at the ankles, slowly.

You slide forward, watching ... watching ... as first his knees, and then a hand, and finally his face come into view. With staring eyes and a mouth like a circle, Caleb peers under the bed and looks into your face.

Into his face.

You shove that metal band at him. With a thump, he falls backward, striking his dresser. When you scramble out, he is as dead to the world as when he donned that mask.

* * * * *

You are lying on your own bed now, out of Caleb's mask, but with that metal band resting on your forehead. Well, inside your forehead, to be scrupulously accurate. It went into you when you tried it on, just like that mask did.

And now you've got his memories flooding around and mixing with yours. The last thing he remembers is seeing his own doppelganger glaring out at him from under his bed.

Which, from your point of view, makes for a way-cool memory.

With his body and his mind, you could go out and be his perfect doppelganger if you wanted. You know he was planning on staying in this Friday evening. You wouldn't run into him if you crashed a party someplace and spread more "doppelganger" mayhem.

Or you could start working on the next spell.