The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Cheerleaders Galore

Previously: "Three by Three" 

"I know I just said we didn't have to do any cheerleaders," you start to say.

"But you want to do it with some cheerleaders," Sydney finishes for you.

"Just three of them!"

"Any three in particular?" There's mischief in her smile. It's like she can read your mind.

"Well, you just said we should start with the team captains," you stammer. "That makes sense. Chelsea— She would know who would be best." You feel yourself redden.

"I don't have a lot to do with her," Sydney says. "I hear she's kind of a bitch, though. And isn't she dating the captain of the basketball team?"

"Well, yeah."

"Would you be okay with that, Will? With, um—" Again, she smiles mischievously. "Me going out with him?"

You feel yourself pale. "Would you?"

"I assume you'd like me to spend some time being her. Or—" She bites down on a hard smile. "Or were you thinking of taking her part for yourself? Were you thinking that you could be the head cheerleader at school?"

Your face is about to burn off the front of your skull. We'll talk about it later, you mutter.

* * * * *

While Sydney shoots texts around, trying to find a way to get Chelsea by herself, you drive around town and pick up supplies to make more masks. You've already got two more or less ready to go, but when Sydney can't set anything up with Chelsea—it's Friday night, and she's busy of course—you grab some barbecue and take everything back to the old school to work on making some more.

As you work and eat, Sydney scrolls through cheerleader photos online and prattles helplessly about which identities you might appropriate. Chelsea, she agrees, is a given, and she suggests Eva and Jessica Garner too. ("Wouldn't it be fun to be sisters?" she gushes.) But she admits she doesn't know that much about the girls on the squad, for she mostly steers clear of them. You ask her why that is, given that she used to be a cheerleader.

"It's because I used to be one, I guess," she explains. "It was fun, I'm glad I did it, and if I was back in Kansas City I'd still be doing it. But joining up at a new school? I don't think so."

"It's not a fun thing at Westside," you admit. "The stories I hear— Well—"

"I hear them too. But who do you hear them from?"

"I'm not a total loser!" you protest. "I was friends with some of the girls on it!"

"Really?" She laughs, but not in a mean way. "Who?" You're sitting close as you work, and she reaches over to grab you by the knee. "Who am I supposed to be jealous of?"

You pull away, but tingle all over with pleasure.

"Well, I sometimes hang out with Yumi Saito. Sometimes Lin Pol. We, uh, have friends in common," you add, so that your brag will be closer to the truth.

"You have a thing for Asian girls, Will? I could be one of them for you."

"Oh God."

She laughs and asks you who else you know on the cheerleader squad.

"Just them, actually. Sometimes Cindy Vredenburg will come out and, like, sit where I'm sitting. She won't talk to me, though."

"She's stuck up?"

"I'm just not the type she'd notice." You give her a sidelong glance. "You wouldn't have noticed me. You more or less told me so."

She smiles, but it's a tight one.

"That's all over," she tells you. "You got my attention." She cocks her head. "So I wonder if it would have been the same with Cindy. If you'd got Cindy's attention with these things"—she gestures at the masks like they're prizes on a game show—"I wonder if she'd be all into you. We could find out!" She leans in to brush your cheek with her nose and lips. "Make me her, and she'll start paying all kinds of attention to you!"

You almost explode with delightful shivers. "She has a boyfriend!" you gasp.

"Mm. He doesn't have to know. None of them have to."

* * * * *

You get four masks cast and polished, and make four raw brain-bands to go with them, before you break for the evening. You might have got more done, but you take a couple of breaks to go for a walk in the dark of the evening with Sydney, holding hands and pulling each other close. At home, you ignore your homework—you'll be someone else come Saturday night; Sunday at the latest—and instead finish up some of those memory strips.

Sydney texts you the next morning at a little after eleven: Chelsea can let me have 20 min w her ths afternoon, she writes. Pick me up at 230. She doesn't have to tell you to bring masks and other whatnot along.

"Yes, the Great and Powerful Chelsea Cooper is giving me twenty minutes of her time." Sydney intones when you pick her up, and she says the words so that you can hear the capital letters. "I told her I wanted to talk to her about cheerleading stuff. You're coming along for moral support."

"Is that all I'm along for?" you ask.

"I expect you to help me with the mask, Will," she retorts. "Which reminds me, are you there to help turn me into Chelsea, or am I helping turn you into her? Or are we just going to do a thing to her like we did to Nicholas, make her a pedisquos?"

You chew on a lip, and then groan. You're halfway to Chelsea's, and only now do you remember that the stuff you have with you will turn her into a servant of you, not of Sydney.

"So I guess you're going to be Chelsea." Sydney grins. "Clever of you to arrange it that way."

"I didn't—!"

"I'm just giving you crap, Will. Though, do we have to put any of that stuff into it at all, if one of us is going to wear it? We didn't have to when I put on that mask of your friend Caleb, or when you put on that mask of Blake."

"I guess that's right."

"So either of us could still put her mask on."

"Uh huh."

She gives you a sidelong look. "We're coming up fast on the moment of truth. Better decide."

Your heart is already going a mile a minute, which is faster than your truck can manage in the Saturday afternoon traffic.

* * * * *

But it won't matter if you can't get Chelsea by herself. There's lots of cars parked in front of her house when you arrive. You recognize one of them.

"Shit," Sydney mutters when you tell her that Lin Pol is there. (And the expletive surprises you; Sydney you've noticed hardly ever cusses.) "Chelsea's ambushing me."

It looks like she is, because it's Yumi Saito who answers the door when you ring the bell, and the Garners are hanging out just inside the foyer. Feminine voice drift in from a farther room.

Yumi only has time to say, "Oh, hey" in greeting before an older version of Chelsea comes bounding in. Like Chelsea she is short and blonde with hard boobs. But her face is slightly more lined, and it has the look of skin that is beginning to think about going to leather. News of Sydney's coming has apparently preceded her, for Mrs. Cooper—it can be no other—greets her by name.

"So I hear you used to be a cheerleader too," Mrs. Cooper says.

"Er, yeah," Sydney says. For the first time since you've met her, she seems discombobulated. Under the laser-like focus of Mrs. Cooper and the hot stares from the other girls, it looks like she might start sweating.

"I heard you went to a state championship at your old school."

"Regional."

Mrs. Cooper beams. "We can't wait to hear about it, can we?"

Then she does a slight double-take at you. Sydney follows her glance, and introduces you as her boyfriend. She reaches out to squeeze your hand.

Now it's your turn to almost melt under the amused glance of cheerleaders. Mrs. Cooper only beams at you. "Well, if you'll just follow us in," Mrs. Cooper says, and with an arm around Sydney's shoulder she pulls her toward an adjoining room. "I think we're all just about here.

"So why'd you come out too, Will?"

You jump at Yumi's very blunt query; only after staring at her do you realize your mouth is hanging open. You flush.

"I'm her boyfriend. You heard. I came out for, uh, moral support."

Her mouth twitches into a faint smile. "You sure landed on your feet, didn't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Listen, I want to talk to you when this over."

"What about?"

"Stuff." She pulls at the front of your shirt. You can't help being aroused by her touch, and by the light of mischief in her eye.

She pulls you toward the doorway that Sydney went through—the Garners have already drifted through it—but Sydney comes barreling out first, and she pushes you back until your heels hit the front door.

"You don't want to be here for this," she murmurs at you. "But if we're going to do the other thing, we need to be prepared. Like, don't we need a mask to put onto Chelsea? To hide her?"

"Well ... Yes." It's more complicated than that, but Sydney's frown tells you this isn't the time for nuance.

"You have one ready?"

"No."

"Then how about you go make one. Go sit out in your truck."

She gives you a quick kiss and dives back into the house.

In a daze, you go back out to your truck, to pull out one of the blank masks you have ready. You just have to put it to put it to your face, and after it has copied you can seal it.

As you are working up the nerve, another car pulls up and Cindy Vredenburg gets out.

All these cheerleaders. Chelsea might be hard to get, but there's others you can probably grab instead.

Next: "Stalking Chelsea Cooper" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"