The Book of Masks (Abridged)

Bully Sessions

"I WAS GOING TO PUT IT in Walberg's time capsule," you tell Justin, "and I think that's still what I'm going to do."

Justin shrugs. Perry looks amused. Tsosie? Well, if you thought you were going to earn any credit with him, you were wrong. He still glowers as you put the book back in you bag. "Thanks for the talk," you tell them as you stand. "Or maybe I'll give Walberg a bottle of cologne, like you said."

"Do I get half your grade if you do," Justin asks with a grin.

Perry snorts. "What would you do with half of an 'F'?"

"Add it to the rest of my collection," Justin laughs. "Later, uh, Prescott."

And if you're going to give Walberg a bottle of cologne, there's no reason to go see him now. So you just go home.

That evening you ask your dad if you can have his used bottle of cologne for the time capsule. He is, naturally, incredulous, and wants to know what the hell you're thinking. You try explaining it to him, using Justin's reasoning. Your brother, who is listening to all this, laughs hard; you shoot him a dirty look.

"I just bought a new bottle," your dad says wearily. "Throw away your own money on this—."

"Harris," your mother says reprovingly without looking up from her needlepoint. Your dad sighs, and tells you to fetch it. You dash off before he can change his mind.

* * * * *

But the next morning—a Saturday—you have second thoughts after seeing that freaky book lying on your desk. You weren't giving it to Walberg because it would be a smart contribution, but in order to get rid of it, to put it far from mischievous hands. It preys on you all weekend, though your friends don't seem to notice.

"You're not still obsessing over Lisa, are you?" Caleb asks when you've gone a few minutes without speaking. It's Saturday, and you're at the Starbucks on 20th Street, a few blocks down from the donut shop where your other best friend, Keith Tilley, works.

"Huh?" you say, retrieving your attention from the street scene you've been staring at through the plate glass window.

Caleb turns to Tilley, who's bent over his cell phone. "You believe this guy and his 'Huhs'?"

"Huh?" says Keith, his eyes still on his phone.

"That better be a fucking brilliant text, Tilley," says Caleb. "By the way, who are you sending it to? All your friends are sitting at this table."

"James Brewer," says Keith.

"Yeah, so you're not texting a friend."

"Yeah," says Keith as he puts the phone away. "He had a question about our project for Current Issues. You know, we have a team project going there—"

"If Brewer is relying on you, you guys are really fucked."

Tilley flips him off, then sits up and looks around, nose high in the air, like a groundhog scanning the horizon. "Why do we even come here? There's never anyone here."

"We're here," says Caleb, "because you don't want to hang out at your work after you get off."

"That doesn't mean we have to come here," he says. "Let's go over to the Crystal Cave or someplace close to campus. Like, they always got these college chicks dressed like—Oh, shit!" He drops his head onto the table. "Shh, I'm not here," he says.

"The fuck are you—?" Caleb looks where Keith had been staring, and his own eyes pop. "Fuck." He covers his face with one hand. "The ostrich act isn't going to work, Tilley," he says through gritted teeth.

You look over your shoulder, just in time to see Seth Javits materialize by your side. "Is that Tilley," he asks, and sits on the edge of the table. He grasps Keith by the hair on the back of his head and pulls your friend up. "Why aren't you making donuts?"

"This isn't school, Javits," Caleb says. "They got rules here."

"Wanna complain to the manager?" Javits says. "Let's find out what happens if you do."

"It ends with you being kicked out," you say, leaping in with just as little wisdom as Caleb is showing.

"That's how it starts, Prescott," says Javits. "But it ends with all of us back at Westside on Monday, where, as Johansson says, there are no rules." He smiles: an alarmingly strong and toothy thing in his long, horsey face. "In fact, that's where it ends even if you don't complain to the manager." He hops up, and gives Tilley's head on last, soft thwap. "Bring me some donuts on Monday, and maybe I won't make you eat your underwear." He swaggers off to the register.

"This is why I hate Starbucks," Tilley says quietly.

"This is why we hate hanging out with you," Caleb says. "You attract maggots."

* * * * *

In truth, it's not Keith's fault, although he does have a special talent for pissing off Seth Javits, who is one of the bigger and nastier jock-bullies at Westside. But there are so many of them, and they are almost unavoidable.

Case in point: Monday morning. You take the long, back way around into the school, avoiding the gym. This route—the same that you took on Friday when you tried returning to Walberg's room—again puts you close to the portables. And again you hear loud voices and laughter. Foolishly, you decided to follow the noise. After all, the portables are safer during the school day than after class, for there are more types of students to mingle in that area. Whoever is laughing, though, is around a far corner, so you are out of sight of the main building when you pull up short in front of the scariest bunch of assholes in Westside.

Well, per pound they are not the scariest: that would be the basketball players, like Javits and Gordon Black and Steve Patterson. But these cocksuckers are bad enough, and there are a half dozen of them. You rapidly backpedal, and run into something hard and unyielding. You scramble round and—

It is barely eight o'clock, and this already the worst day of your life. Joe Thomason grins down at you. "Hiya, Prescott," he says. He shoves back into the circle of the others.

Jeff Spencer. Joshua Call. Nicholas Horner. Jamie Rennerhoff. Rich Austin. Tanner Evans. They hoot and howl. "Siddown, Prescott," Thomason says as he pushes you to the ground, and to make his point he sits on your shoulders, clasping your face between his thighs. "Check out my chubby," he chortles, and slaps the sides of your head with his open palms. "Five inches and fat, too. Lessee how long it takes me to cum."

He knocks your cap off, and through your bangs you see Spencer put it on. He has a fat face and dead eyes and bangs trimmed so short he looks like he's suffering from a receding hairline. He sniggers until Rennerhoff snatches it away with a whinnying giggle. A short scuffle ensues, ending only when Joshua Call, the brawniest of the bunch, grabs it for himself.

There's no use fighting, even if all the blood in your veins hadn't frozen solid with fear. Thomason, Rennerhoff and Spencer are basically skinheads. Call, Austin and Evans: the kinds of brawny, oil-stained thugs you might find wielding a tire iron. Horner: a grinning suck up and wanna-be. The worst part is that even if they beat on you until the bell, they will likely beat on you long afterward. They rarely show up in class, and are likely to ring you in for as long as it amuses them to humiliate you.

"Any of you homos got my chubby in a class?" Thomason asks.

"Spence and me got him third," says Horner. "Hey, I need a look at his homework. We haven't been in Peters in a week." He tears open your backpack with a shrieking laugh and empties it on the ground. He and Spencer paw through it.

"Hey, that cunnysack's almost big enough for me," says Thomason. "Give it here." He jams your backpack over your head. "Oh, yeah," he moans. "It's so hot and wet. Nnhn!" He strokes your cheek through the rough fabric.

Then, with a shuddering blow, he topples off you. You fall over as well, tangled up with him. You bat your backpack off your head and blink up.

"Yeah, I'm calling you a bunch of cocksuckers!" Sienna Goldman screams at them; behind Jelena Petrovic also glares at them.

Spencer scrambles up, his face a bright red, lunging at the girls. But he's misjudged the angle and the target: a solid kick by Sienna sends him rolling to the side. "Fucking bints!" someone hoarsely shouts.

Things might have gone badly for the girls—notwithstanding everyone being on school property—but Mr. Barrientos suddenly appears from the nearby Agricultural Annex. He's like a Hispanicized Walberg: portly and tall, with a massive, drooping black moustache. "What's going on back here," he demands.

Arguments break out, which he silences in rough fashion by demanding that everyone separate. As he sorts things out, you quietly pull your things back into your backpack. You keep your head down, and only once glance up, to find Rennerhoff—his face split into a Joker-esque grin, lit from above by gleaming eyes—staring down at you. After scooping everything up, you retreat even before the girls and Barrientos leave.

You do linger by the corner of C wing, though, and mumble a thanks at your saviors. "They oughta throw 'em in a pit and cover it with a tarp": That's all that Sienna says; Jelena doesn't even say that much. Your sense of humiliation only deepens.

And it deepens more during third, where Spencer and Horner—making a special appearance—pelt you with paper clips when Mr. Peters isn't looking. "Get your shit back?" they tease when they block you at the door. It's up to Nathan Hall—a football player—to break the logjam by shoving you through their barrier.

At your locker you discover what they likely meant: That magic book isn't in your backpack when you go to swap out books at your locker.