The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

What Goes Up Should Come Down

Previously: "First Day Nerves" 

"I like the idea of doing something to someone," you say when no one offers any other suggestions. "You know, pulling them down, opposite of what you were doing with, er, me."

Your heart is beating hard as you speak. Wow, you find yourself thinking. There's no way I could suggest my own idea, not if I'm this nervous just seconding someone else's.

Maria frowns. "That seems kind of mean, don't you think?"

"Seth deserves anything we'd do to him," Cindy declares.

"Does it have to be Seth?" Eva asks.

"Who else would it be?"

"Well, there's really no point in doing it to Seth," Jessica says, jumping in. "I mean, it wouldn't really be Seth, right? It'd be beta-Seth. What's the point of—?"

"You're gonna be switching into his mask at some point, aren't you?" Eva asks Cindy.

"Pff. Fuck, no." Cindy tosses her hair. "Why would I wanna stuff myself up inside an asshole's asshole?"

"It doesn't have to be Seth," someone says, and it takes you a moment to realize that it's you speaking. "It could be someone else we do it to."

"Who?"

"I don't know. Maybe— I don't know." You sag.

All the energy seems to dribble from the room, and the meeting breaks up soon after. Even Keith—who walks with you out to the car—doesn't seem enthusiastic over the idea of ruining Javits's social cred. "Meh," he says when you're outside. "I don't know why we can't just keep doing what we're doing."

"Giving me a social life?"

"You're on your own with that, Will. I mean, why do we even need a project? Why can't we just keep on being these girls? Don't you think that's enough?"

Before you can answer, she leans backwards, and suddenly her long, slim legs are where her head should be; her skirt flips and flashes whitely in the night. Then she's on her feet again, tossing back sheets of platinum hair. You almost swallow your tongue.

"Don't gimme that kind of look, Prescott," she snorts. "You had a chance at having a body like this." She squeezes her breasts. "Though I guess with all of us getting another beta, you still got a chance at scoring one."

You still haven't recovered your voice before she's gotten in her car.

* * * * *

"Where's Will eating these days?" you ask the group the next day at lunch. Caleb, who is just settling onto the grass near you, pauses with his ass hanging in the air, and gives you a black look.

Carson answers with a question of his own: "Where's Jessica eating these days?"

"I'm asking about Will," you retort.

"And I'm asking about Jessica. I don't give a fuck about Prescott."

"She eats in the cafeteria with her friends," Paul Davis. He gives you a worried look—what for, you don't know.

"Aren't we her friends?" Carson honks. "Ashton, aren't you asking her out to your birthday party next weekend? Her and Eva?"

"Sure, but what's that got to do with—?"

"'Cos if they weren't our friends you wouldn't ask them out, would you?"

"Are you asking me to this party?" Caleb demands of you. "'Cos this is the first I've heard about it."

"And it'll be the last you hear about it, too," Carson snarls at him, "unless you straighten out that piece of shit Prescott."

Caleb reddens. "What's Will got to do with—?"

"You're either with him or with us, Johansson!" Carson barks.

"Jesus!" You slap Carson in the shoulder. "What's got into you?"

"You don't want to hear about it, Ashton," he grumbles.

"I do so!"

"Jenny," James says, and with a lowered brow gives you a warning shake of the head.

"God!" You gape at the boys. "What's gotten into you guys?"

"Nuffing," Carson mutters around the sandwich he's shoved in his mouth. Paul gives you a wet, anxious look. Caleb and James lean back and stare up into the sky while eating.

And you? You've lost your appetite.

* * * * *

"The guys were asking about you at lunch," you tell Jessica when you see her in seventh-period English. "You know, Carson and them."

"What about?"

"Just where you are. Why you're not eating with them and me instead of with ... whoever."

She makes a face, then surprises you with what she says next. "Maybe I will start eating with you guys."

"How come?"

"It's better than—"

Then she sits up sharply, looks around, then ducks down to murmur at you in a nearly inaudible whisper. "Maybe we should do that thing to Kelsey," she says.

"What thing?"

"What we were talking about last night. Instead of Seth. Do it to Kelsey."

That would be Kelsey Blankenship, the stuck-up queen bee of the AP kids. She's off to Harvard next year, unless Oxford takes her, and her daddy owns the biggest car dealership in the city, so she's always acted like hot shit. It makes sense then that someone would want to take her down a peg. Still, you ask, "Why Kelsey? She do something to you today?"

"I was at lunch with her, and that's enough. I'm always at lunch with her, and I'm just about ready to shove a tray of mashed potatoes into her—"

"What's this about Kelsey?" That's Marc, the third Garner sibling—the one that's still himself and not someone else in disguise—interrupting from the next row over. He regards you with twinkling interest.

"Nothing, Marc," Jessica snaps. "Just girl talk, go back to sleep." Marc only laughs.

"Well, okay," you tell her. "I guess it's something to talk about. But the guys would really like it if you started eating out on the quad with us. But don't bring up Will Prescott if you start eating with us."

The muscles around Jessica's eyes twitch ever so slightly. "What about Will?"

"Is that more girl talk?" Marc guffaws, and you and Jessica both give him a dirty look.

"It's nothing," you tell him. "Just—"

"Oh, hey," Marc interrupts. "Party at Kelsey's Saturday night. Tell Will he should drop in."

"I'm not—" you start to say, but Jessica runs over you. "No way Kelsey's gonna want Will out at her place," she says.

"What's wrong with Will?"

"Nothing, but—"

"He's got a thing going these days." A wide grin—a white, almost blinding thing—spreads across Marc's tanned, handsome face. "That's why you're talking about him, right?"

"Don't be a dumbass," Jessica says on your behalf. Again, he just laughs at her, but at least he turns around in his desk.

But Jessica only has time to put a long finger in your face and say, "Kelsey," before Ms. Gladstone calls the class to order.

* * * * *

You walk with her to eight-period Calculus, which you also share, which gives her more time to lobby you on the idea of using some betas to pull Kelsey down off her pedestal. But you get an idea of your own not long after you're settled into your desks in math class.

There's no seating chart in Calculus, but this day your usual seats are occupied by Mark Szymanski and Pedro Delao, who for some reason have moved over to sit next to a couple of wrestlers, and they don't move—they hardly even acknowledge you—even after you spend a few moments glowering at them. So that's how you and Jessica come to be sitting only a few seats back of Lisa Yarborough.

Your ex-girlfriend.

This is the only class that Jenny has with her, and you've tried not to pay attention to her or even to think about her. You shy away from even thinking of her name, as one tries not to touch a canker sore with one's tongue, for Jenny and Lisa had some conversations about "Will Prescott" at the end of summer and the start of school, and even without directly dredging up Jenny's memories, you can sense that some unflattering things got said about you. Nothing really mean (you have the impression), and comments were more regretful than condemnatory. But Jenny Ashton, in her original incarnation, doesn't seem to have exactly encouraged Lisa to persist with you.

So you're trying not to look at her as she studies her cell phone. But you can hardly miss it when Geoff Mansfield saunters into the room and looms over her. You can't tear your eyes away even after he has leaned in to nuzzle her.

Right there, in front of the entire class!

He murmurs something at her—it sounds like "tickets"—and he smiles—

Only to you it looks more like a leer.

—as she strokes his arm. He straightens up and looks down at her with a smug smirk, then turns and swaggers out of the classroom.

"Easy there, man" Jessica says as you feel yourself flush.

But now you've got a candidate of your own to propose for ruination at the next club meeting.

Next: "The Dish Best Served Cold" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 4)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)"