The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

The Court of the Basketball Kings

Previously: "The Devils One Has to Deal With" 

"Do you ever get tired of being scared of guys like Seth?" you ask Keith as you accompany him into the parking lot after classes have let out.

"Fuck you, man," Keith retorts. "I ain't scared of Seth!"

"No? 'Cos you're doing a really good impre—"

"I ain't scared. I'm just too smart to be anywhere close to where he might find me, is all."

You roll your eyes. "Okay. Do ever get tired of being too smart to—?"

"No one ever gets tired of being too smart, Will."

Whatever. You part company with Keith when you reach your truck, but you're still preoccupied with the issue you raised with him.

Because although you are too cautious—or maybe "too smart"—to help Caleb with his ding-a-ling plan to break into Walberg's desk, you still want a partner on this weird-ass book you've found. And after running into Scott in the restroom, you have the even weirder idea that maybe he should be the one.

* * * * *

It's probably the stupidest thing you've ever done, and all the next day the sense of your own folly presses on your heart like a weight. But even as you remind yourself of what your plan is, you can't help anticipating that it's all going to go horribly wrong.

Make friends with one of them, you mutter to yourself as you take the book from your locker in time for Astronomy, and maybe you'll wind up making friends with more of them.

You don't know how exactly the idea sprouted. It was like a daydream. Scott, who has never gone out of his way to trouble you, made a semi-decent research partner. Maybe you could turn that into a minor kind of friendship. Maybe if his friends caught you hanging out with him, doing schoolwork or other projects with him, they'd figure you weren't a person worth hassling. Maybe if they figured you weren't a person worth hassling, they would tolerate your existence and even your presence when Scott wasn't around. And maybe if they tolerated your existence, they would—

No, not even a daydream can encompass the final ridiculous link in the chain: that maybe they'd become friends with you and include you in their reindeer games.

"Hey man," you murmur as you slip into the desk in front of Scott. (Then you cough the tremble out of your voice.) He's lounging back, feet up on the desk you've taken, studying his cell phone. He looks up at you with wide eyes and parted lips. "So, uh, you ever do any science project type stuff?" you ask. You hate the way your heart is beating hard.

His brow furrows. "You mean like science fair stuff?"

"Well, sort of. Like, you ever look online and see stuff that uh ... Projects you can build?" Sweat pops out under your cap. "You know, stuff you can play around with, learn how, like, things work?"

You feel yourself reddening as Scott's eyes further widen with what looks like alarm. "No," he says.

"Oh. Well. Um." You wish the desk you're sitting in would turn into a fly-trap or something and swallow you whole. "Never mind, then."

You start to get up, but—

"My cousin and I built a catapult last year," he says.

* * * * *

You told Scott you'd meet him in the school library after he got through with basketball practice, but you can't shake the suspicion that he'll forget or stand you up, so you sneak into the gym to watch practice—that way he'll see you and know you're waiting for him.

Normally, you try to avoid the school gym as much as possible—too many horrifying memories from your freshman and sophomore years of being humiliated on the courts and on the fields by guys who were bigger, stronger, faster, smellier, and nastier than you and your friends. It all hits you again as you put your head into the gymnasium, and are socked in the nose by the sour smell of sweat, rubber, polished wood, and filthy socks.

This year's boys' basketball squad is already being touted as a contender for state finals. The guys you ran into in the restroom—Dylan and Ryan and Brendan and Scott—are fast enough and sharp enough that they'd make Westside a contender even if they were the best the school could field. But even they shrink in size and skill next to the two stars of the squad.

Gordon Black is the captain, and he towers over almost everyone else at six-and-a-half feet. He's built like a football player, with tree-trunk legs and biceps that are bigger than your own thighs. He moves across the court like a locomotive, but he can also nail a three-point shot with regularity.

Even taller is Steve Patterson, who is leaner and rangier but can handle the ball with more polish. He's fast, too, and even when he only hustles, he forces the others to sprint.

Of the other members of the team only Jeremy Richards and Seth Javits are of special note. Javits is the one who takes an interest in abusing your friend Keith, and in abusing you and Caleb when Keith isn't available. He's a horse-faced goon who (you hear) is determined to join Gordon and Patterson to make the dominating duo a dominating trio; and as Black and Patterson have a long-standing reputation for casual cruelty in the hallways, you glumly suppose that you'll have more of Javits to worry about as he tries to keep up. As for Jeremy, he was a friend of yours back in middle-school, back before a growth spurt tempted him into a life of athleticism and jerkwaddishness.

The team is practicing hard now, split into two competing teams with Sax and Tummler watching from the sidelines. The court resounds with the squeak of sneakers and the hoarse shouts of the players. An eerie atmosphere envelops the play, as though it's a pantomime being enacted to sinister purpose with you as the one-person audience; it takes you a moment to realize that you're missing the chatter and roar of a spectating crowd.

But you're not the only one who has turned out to watch. A handful of cheerleaders perch on the bleachers with bags and discarded jackets spread around them. Mostly they're checking out their cell phones, even though two of them—Chelsea Cooper and Cindy Vredenburg—are dating two of the basketball players. Chelsea, who is one of the bitchiest and most stuck-up girls in the school, glances up at you briefly as you stare at them, then returns to her phone.

You hurry over to the bleachers opposite, where a dozen or so students are spread out, and take a seat.

You're soon completely bored, though. You've never been into sports and only understand basketball enough to know that each side wants to put the ball through the other's basket. You are also feeling exposed and embarrassed. Yet you can't bring yourself to take out your phone and go online, even though the cheerleaders are doing exactly that. Nor can you bring yourself to leave for the library again—Scott has seen you, and if you leave now you worry he might think you were just checking in on him to make sure he didn't forget your meeting, even though that's exactly what you're doing.

So you pass a very miserable thirty minutes, pretending to be into the action on the floor, before Coach Brooks calls a halt from the sidelines. He pulls the guys into a brief huddle before releasing them to the changing rooms. Scott jerks his chin at you as he jogs away, but he doesn't come over.

Instead, it's Jeremy who swings in your direction.

And—Oh God, no!—Javits comes with him.

"Hey man, what's up?" Richards pants as skids up to you. From your sitting position, he looks about five miles tall. You're further struck that these are just about the most civil words he's exchanged with you in a couple of years.

"Uh, just hanging out after school," you stammer, trying to keep your eyes off Javits, who is looking down at you with narrow-eyed amusement. "Actually I'm waiting for Scott. We— Uh, I think we might be doing a project together."

"Yeah?"

"Uh huh. Um, we— we worked together on a r-report—"

God damn it, Seth, would you fuck off instead of sneering down at me!

"—in Astronomy. There's something kind of, uh, extra-curricular or other that we, uh, might be doing."

"Astronomy?" Seth says. You cringe in anticipation even before he says it: "Something to do with Uranus?"

"Shut up, man," Jeremy tells him, but Seth snickers to himself. "Well, cool seeing you around, Will. We should hang out together sometime, do something."

"That'd be great," you lie. Jeremy nods at you and turns around. Seth snickers again, and follows. They murmur at each other as they trot to the changing rooms, and you would bet your next five years allowance that Seth is giving Jeremy major shit about having once been friends with you.

* * * * *

It's another twenty minutes before Scott, dressed in a long-sleeve t-shirt and track pants comes out. His mousy-brown hair is plastered down, and the whiskers along his jaw—too short to be a beard, but too long to be a few-days' growth—glint wetly. You stand up as he approaches, but he collapses onto the bench. "Hey man," he groans. "So tell me again about this old arts-and-crafts book you wanted to show me?"

That's how you'd described it in class: an old Latin book that claimed to be magical grimoire and that contained some "experiments" it might be fun to try out.

Before you can answer, though, he leans forward to wave at a blonde-haired girl who is looking into the court. She comes running in, grinning brightly. Then you spot Ryan Shuler and Brendan Tummler and Shawn Sax swaggering your way.

"Will?" Scott says, and you feel your knees weaken as you're swarmed from multiple sides by people you don't know and don't much like.

* To try talking to Scott about what you found: "Show and Tell for Two" 
* To bail on the plan: "The Hobbyist" 
* To try partnering with Jeremy instead: "The Benchwarmer" 

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