The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Field of Play

Previously: "Tales of a Body Swap" 

"Oo-hwa?" Andrew Webb gasps as you clasp him from behind in a bear hug. You rear back, lifting him off his feet. Over his shoulder you see Bhodi and the other guys watching you with slack-jawed stares.

"The fuck are you guys waiting for?" you holler at them. "Didn't you bring a fucking mask to this party?"

They stare at you some more. Then, as Andrew comes to life in your arms, they wheel about, colliding into each other. Caleb starts yelling at them.

He's not the only one yelling. Andrew looses a stream of curses and wrenches himself back and forth in your arms. "Little help here?" you cry out. Andrew's foot cracks you in the shin, and you suck in a sharp breath.

Your arms are weakening, and you feel Andrew breaking free when he suddenly slumps, pulling you down. Voices yelp as a mass of bodies tumbles to the grass. You roll off and away and spring into a crouch, ready to grapple anyone who tries to grab you or to run away.

Three boys are tangled up on the ground. One of them rolls over onto his back: Andrew Webb, his eyes staring and unseeing. Justin and Joe crawl out from under him and help each other up. Bhodi and Andy have gone back to staring at you.

"The ... fuck ... were you guys waiting for?" you scream at them. "Wasn't this what you came out here for? To get a mask on him?"

"We got it done, Will," Caleb snaps.

"After wasting a fucking hour with a lot of fucking trash talk. What?" you yell at Bhodi. "You wanted to play the fucking dozens with him first?"

"Jesus, man," Justin snarls. "We didn't know what the fuck was going on. Who are you?"

You wheel on Caleb. "You didn't tell them I was going to be here?"

He flushes. "I told them you were going to be here, Will! But they don't know Spencer, they didn't know it was you!"

"You didn't tell them?"

"Look, can we all just calm down?" Joe says. "It all worked out."

"Oh, fuck!" You look down at Andrew and around at your exposed position. You snap your fingers. "Get around him, make a circle around him so no one can see what we're doing. Jesus," you add as the others start dropping to the grass. "Why'd you pick this spot?"

"Andrew picked it," Bhodi mutters. "It was the only place we could meet him."

You snort. The whole thing is a cock up, and it's a wonder it wasn't more of a cock up. "Look, let's just be smarter about this going forward," you say. "Who's next on the list?" They all look at each other. "Who's the target?"

"Ethan Clayborne," Andy says. He glances at Justin. "I guess we could go after him next. Andrew, uh, could help us out there." He looks down at Webb, and swallows.

"Anyone else?"

"Uh, Kaylee Mercier. For Grant," says Joe. "And Gabriela somebody for me."

"Oh, that's some A-plus research," you snort. "Don't even know her last name. But from now on you don't do it unless you're inside someplace, and you've got them alone, and you're pretty sure you're not going to be interrupted. Okay?"

"Yeah, that's the ideal," Joe says. "We know that. It's just we couldn't do it in this case."

"Did you try getting any of the others by themselves?"

"Stop trying to run things, Will," Caleb says. "Or at least stop yelling."

"Pfah!" You pace, taking some very deep breaths.

"I'm sorry I flipped out," you say when you're feeling calmer. "Only it's gonna be pretty goddamned difficult to explain what's going on if someone happens to see us."

"We know that, Will," Joe says.

"Alright. Let's just say—" You take another deep breath before resuming, so that you don't rant. "Let's just say that from this point on, we don't do anything unless we are absolutely sure that we can do it without any risk of fuck ups."

"Are you going to be helping us?" Bhodi asks. His stony expression tells you he hopes the answer will be "No."

"I don't think I have to be there," you concede, "if you don't want me, or if it doesn't make sense I'd be there. Same goes for Caleb, by the way." He scowls at you. "But there's at least one I can help you with, probably can do it by myself. The one for Dane's mom. Mrs. Matthias," you explain when they look puzzled.

"It's a girl in our class we picked out for her," Joe says. His brow furrows. "You can help with that?"

"You picked out Leslie Osbourne for her, right? Well—" You drum your chest. "I'm Leslie's big brother now." You can't help grinning at their surprise.

* * * * *

They haven't got a mask with them, and it's a half-hour before you can leave to fetch one. First, though, they have to pop Andy's treated mask onto Andrew; then the two twins retreat to Caleb's car to finish exchanging identities. At the end of it all, Andy Jensen and Andrew Webb are back on their feet. Only now Andy is hanging back uncertainly at the fringes of the group while Andrew—back in his clothes and back in his smirk—playfully shoves Bhodi around and Bhodi bashfully shoves him back.

"Jesus," you mutter at Caleb as you watch from the sidelines. "At least it worked out."

"You didn't have any call to lose your shit like that," he retorts.

"We just should'a planned it out better. Maybe I just shouldn't have come along."

"Yeah, maybe you shouldn't have."

"Shut up, Jojo. Oh, by the way, I thought you said Paulina was supposed to be here too."

"She changed her mind, stayed behind with Grant. You're not going to lose your shit about that too, are you?"

"No. Although—"

"Although what?"

"Nothing." Paulina and Lindsay and Evie. How complicated is that going to be if Paulina knows about the impersonations while Evie doesn't, and if none of them know that Lindsay is now a golem? "I need to get home," you say. "I got a kid sister that needs replacing with a duplicate."

Caleb visibly shivers. "You know how creepy that sounds when you say it out loud?"

* * * * *

It does sound creepy, and it's something you've been avoiding thinking about. At least Spencer and Leslie are not very close. In fact, they cordially loathe each other.

You had a number of surprises sprung on you after you were inside Spencer's head (besides the one about getting naked hand jobs from some of his male classmates). One was that the slacker Spencer actually comes from an upper-class family—his father is an architect and his mother an attorney—and that until his sophomore year he was actually a successful student. It would take more introspection than Spencer has put into himself—and more than you'd be willing to put into him—to figure out why he subsequently steered his academic career toward the ground, but Spencer tells himself that he's bored with school, that it's all a lot of busywork, that he's smart enough to get along without it, and that he'll resume serious academic work in college when he can take stuff that's interesting. In the meantime, he goofs off with bullshit classes like Physiology and Zoology and an art class; keeps his parents happy with an "Asian Alphabets" class and a Constitutional Law class; and satisfies his own talents and interests with Computer Programming II, the only class that he reliably attends.

Leslie, on the other hand ... Well, let's just say that in the last few years she's turned herself into a clone of her mother: ambitious, striving, and aggressively uninterested in anything that can't lift her to the top of her classes or among her social peers. Spencer can only wince when he looks at or listens to her, and as for Leslie's attitude toward her brother—

"Where's mom and dad?" you ask as you saunter in to the living room, where Leslie is sprawled on the sofa with school books around her and her cell phone in her hand.

She rolls her eyes at you. "Dinner with a client? They talked about it at breakfast this morning?"

"I was too busy reading the cereal box." You shove your hands in your jacket pockets and rock back and forth on your heels. "Who're you texting with?"

"No one you know."

"You'd be surprised who I know. I think I got lots of your friends in my classes."

"That's right, 'cos you're still taking sophomore classes."

You grin at her forehead as she resumes tapping her phone.

"No, seriously, betcha I can get it in three guesses," you say. "It's Laura, in't it?" Laura Serrano is Leslie's best friend, one who's always over at the house. But Leslie ignores you. "Is it that girl who plays in the orchestra? What's her name. Tiffany?" It's a dark-haired girl you're trying to think of, plays the violin, which makes her the kind of high-class person Leslie wants to cultivate. Still she says nothing.

You search Spencer's memories for the perfect thrust—and find a better-than-perfect thrust. "Is it that wrestler you and all your girlfriends have a crush on?"

Leslie kicks at you, catching you in the crotch. You gasp and hop back. "Oh, fuck me! It is, isn't it?"

"No!"

"It is! What's his name? The kid with the hair and the muscles."

Leslie grabs up a book, but you dive out of the room, laughing, before she can hurl it at you.

Ethan Clayborne. That's the wrestler's name. Pretty soon it won't be him, though, it'll be one of your sophomore friends wearing his face and body. Perfect bait for Leslie.

Or, with the 'rents out for the evening, you have a chance to do it yourself, now, like you bragged to the guys.

Next: "An Age Regression" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"