The Book of Masks (Vol. 4)

Dress Reversal

Previously: "Cursed!" 

The fuck? You start to tremble all over.

You are sitting on the floor of one of the old, smelly portable units behind the school. It is cold and stinks like the inside of an old railroad boxcar. Gloomy light filters in through the dirty windows.

As though in a dream, you remember being carried in here by Seth Javits and his friend Darren Green and thrown to the floor. Seth sat on you. Get ready for some fun, Prescott, he said.

Because that's who you were and are, right? Will Prescott?

Then why does it feel like a dream that someone else had? And how come you have Kelsey Blankenship's face?

More than her face, you discover as you glance down. Your legs are smooth and tawny, and you swallow at the sight of the boobs that hang off your chest beneath your shirt. A long lock of brown hair falls into your face.

You are also dressed like Kelsey, in her tennis shorts and white-and-blue striped workout shirt. Your feet are bare, though, but her sneakers and socks are sitting nearby, next to a bag that you recognize as hers.

A bra is sitting nearby as well, and as you sit up you have to grab a boob to keep it from wobbling freely. The clothes you're wearing are twisted about on your frame, as though you'd fallen asleep in them, or been dressed by someone else.

Seth and Darren! you think in a panic. They got my clothes off me and then they— You bend almost double, feeling like you're going to be sick. What were they planning to do to me out here?

Okay, never mind what they were planning to do. What did they do?

You scramble to your feet and hop over to a window to peer out. You see nothing but the wall of portable opposite. You tiptoe over to the door, and it creaks as you pull it open to peep out. The coast seems to be clear.

I have to get out of here, you wildly think as you shut the door again. I have to get out of here before someone sees me, catches me, before Seth and Darren come back! I have to get home! I'll be okay once I get home!

Except ... where is home? The house in Acheson, where the Prescotts live? Or the house in the country northwest of town, where the Blankenships live?

You decide to worry about that later. The important thing is to get away from the school, to get off someplace where you can do a little thinking without worrying you'll be interrupted.

And as if on cue, as you're snatching up the bra and shoes, your cell phone chimes with a text. Instinctively you check it. It's from Amanda Ferguson: Running late?

You cuss to yourself. You—or Kelsey—somebody—was supposed to meet with Amanda at the Milagro Beanfield Warehouse after school. You hesitate, then tap in a quick, procrastinating reply: Yes be threr when I can.

You have to sweep off your shirt before you can put the bra on, and you chatter to distract yourself as you snap it into place and tuck yourself in. I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe this is happening. What the fuck? You know, what the effing fuck?

Once your shoes are on, you shove your hair back from your face—it's probably a mess—and creep back over to the door. Still, no one is in sight. But as you step out onto the grass you hear voices. You tiptoe to the corner of another portable to have another look around. Shit, you think. Justin Roth and his friend Perry are sprawled a little ways away. Normally you wouldn't mind a chance to talk to them. Justin's hot, and sometimes when you've got the itch bad, it's his face and burning-to-the-touch torso that you fantasize are pressing down on you as you—

Oh, fuck! Where did that come from? You grit your teeth.

Maybe you really are Kelsey. The thought makes you shudder. Because how fucked up would it be if you were Kelsey Blankenship, and you got conked on the head and woke up with the delusion that you used to be Will Prescott?

I mean, really! Gross!

You edge away from where Justin and Perry are sitting, and by taking a wide loop out into the weedy fields that border the school grounds to the west you are able to get all the way over to the Music wing without being seen by anybody. After that you hurry across the front quad until you hit the student parking lot. The latter is mostly empty, for it's nearly ninety minutes now since school let out, and even the students staying late for school athletics—like, er, you, for tennis—have departed. So the only cars of note in the lot are Gordon Black's orange VW Bug, Kelsey Blankenship's little green BMW convertible, and Will Prescott's white pick-up truck.

You grimace. Okay, that's your truck over there, because you're Will Prescott. But you haven't got the keys to it, do you? You drop to one knee to look through your bag. No, you discover. Just my books—well, Kelsey's books—and her makeup case and billfold and her own keys. So does that leave you stuck having to drive her car?

Then a chill washes over you, and the world spins.

Where's the real Kelsey? You whirl and look around.

You've been concentrating so much on your own situation and problem that you haven't even thought about the real girl. Her car's still here, so she's still got to be around someplace, and what is she going to think when she comes out and finds you, Will Prescott, wearing her clothes and carrying her bag and looking just like her? She'll tear your face off!

Which might be the solution to it all.

You shake your head. Your brain is a tangle of weirdness.

Cautiously, you half-skip, half-sprint over to your truck. You can't bring yourself to abandon it, and you have the goofy semi-impression that if you look inside it, you'll find yourself sprawling across the bench. You slow up as you approach, and are chewing your lip nervously as you touch the door. Your skin prickles all over as you put your face to the window to look inside.

The cabin is empty, save for your book bag, which is spilled half-open in the passenger-side seat. That bothers you for some reason, and it takes a distracted moment for you to realize why.

I had my bag with me in the library. I had it with me when I went to meet Keith. So how did it get—

"Hey!"

You whirl guiltily at the shout. A lanky kid with a shock of blonde hair under a sloppy white ball cap is gaping at you from halfway across the parking lot. He stares at you with bulging eyes. Then his mouth twists up into a snarl, and he rushes at you.

"The fuck do you think you're doing?" a very pissed-off Will Prescott demands of you.

* * * * *

The shock of confronting yourself still hasn't worn off, and your nerves are keyed up so tight that you can feel a headache coming on. I shouldn't be drinking this coffee, you tell yourself as you lift the mug to your lips. Even if it is decaf. But you swallow it down anyway. It's long since chilled to room temperature.

And across the formica-topped table, Will Prescott slumps and glares out the window at the street.

He's scrawny and unkempt, with a thick and unruly thatch of hair, like a haystack, piled up under his cap, and with weird hairs sticking out on his chin and upper lip and cheekbones. He looks like a scarecrow, you think to yourself. A couple of sticks that have been tied together, wrapped up in baggy clothes, with a bale of hay-and-burlap jammed onto his shoulders to make a head. Even if you cleaned him up, he'd be gawky and fumble-footed. The kindest thing would be to fold him up and put him on a shelf in a closet.

He seems to sense your gaze, for his eyes slide over to glare at you. "What?" he says.

"I guess I'm just feeling sorry for you," you reply.

"Fuck you," he mutters, and his glare deepens. "You know more about this than you're letting on!"

It hasn't been a pleasant hour. It took you and this guy maybe ten seconds out in the Westside parking lot to figure out who the other really was—that you're Will Prescott, and that he is Kelsey Blankenship—and that you've somehow been "body swapped," like in a bad fantasy movie. Kelsey, always quick to think the worst of others, instantly accused you of being responsible, and even now she doesn't believe your hot, insistent denials. For ten minutes you snarled at each other in the parking lot before agreeing to move down the road to Panera for a more civilized conference. (She insisted on driving her BMW; you drove your own truck, though it left you feeling ridiculous.) She started all up again with the accusations when you admitted that you seemed to remember and know a lot about her, while she claimed to know nothing about you. Somehow, it's all the worse because you can "remember" being accosted in her BMW by Jeremiah James, one of the school's soccer players, while she has no memory of being carried out to the portables by Seth Javits and Darren Green.

So you're feeling peevish when your phone chimes again. That'll be Amanda, you think, wondering if I fell in.

Maybe you should leave. Kelsey is being beyond useless. It would serve her right if you abandoned her and just took over her life, as it now seems to be yours.

Next: "Homework for a Body Swap" 

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