Chapter #13A Double Muck Up by: rugal b.   "Whoa whoa whoa, what the hell is going on!?" you call out as you approach Keith and the girl who looks like Jenny Ashton dressed in what appears to be Seth Javits' basketball uniform. And that might have been a bad idea because now that girl's attention is on you.
"The fuck is—you!" the fake Jenny snarls. "Wondered where the fuck you were when I saw these two losers. Guess I shouldn't be surprised that your skinny little ass is involved." She decides to leave Keith alone so she can go after you instead but that proves to be a mistake because she tries to grab you with both hands causing her shorts to slip which is enough to send her tumbling face first into the grass.
"Son of a fucking bitch!" she explodes as, in frustration, she yanks off the shorts and tosses them at you. She pops up once more to lunge at you but Caleb is quicker and grabs her which just leads to him getting tackled to the ground. But he maintains his hold on her as she thrashes about, trying to shake him off. "I'm gonna kill all three of you!" she yells.
"He's really gonna do it!" Caleb exclaims as he struggles to hang onto her. "I can't hold him forever!"
"Look just... I'll explain, okay! I'll explain it all just... just calm down," you plead.
"Calm down!? Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do, huh!?"
"Okay, okay, sorry but if you kill me or... or beat me up, then I can't tell you what's happening," you say, "so I'll tell you everything I promise but just... I need to know what the fuck is going on!"
The impostor Jenny glares at you before finally grunting and shoving Caleb off of her. She hops up and heads towards you and you're ready to end up like Keith, still trying to recover from having the wind knocked out of him. But while she gets in your face, she doesn't do anything. "You and your friends fucked up, Prescott," she says with a quiet fury.
"I didn't... I wasn't with them," you insist.
"Whatever. Anyway, practice was about to start and I get a text from Cindy telling me she's waiting for me outside the gym 'cause she wants to see me before she leaves," she explains. "So I go out there and I see she's with Ashton but your boy Tilley is creepin' around behind 'em. So I call him out and tell the girls to get lost because I'll be damned if he's gonna be doing any weird shit to Cindy."
Keith's pulled himself up and is wheezing. "I... wasn't gonna... do... nothin'... 'cept—"
"Shut the fuck up, Tilley, or I'll make you wish punching you was all I did," the fake Jenny growls before turning back to you. "So yeah, they scatter and I take rat boy somewhere private so I can talk a little sense into him. But he does something and I black out and when I wake up I'm a fucking girl!"
"You're Seth Javits, right?" you ask which receives an affirmative. "Okay, well, you're not just a girl you're actually, uh, Jenny."
"Ashton!?" she exclaims in surprise. He then wheels around back towards Keith. "The fuck did you do to us!?"
"He didn't do anything to Jenny," you insist, "well kinda."
"Then why the fuck am I her?" she demands.
You launch into a whole spiel as you explain the book that you found, the spells it contains and the masks. You don't go into every detail, there's no reason to bring up that mask that mixed Keith's and Stephanie's faces for instance, but you do explain most of it at least. She doesn't really interject, only listens with a sour expression.
"This is so stupid," Seth-Jenny finally states. "Just get this fucking thing offa me."
"Sure, okay, and uh we'll be gone by the time you wake up. This was an accident so, you know..."
"Nah, you know that I'll beat your ass if you're still here," she says, which is the same reason you plan on making yourself scarce.
Keith's recovered by this time and Caleb is also fine so they quickly hightail it. You go up to the fake Jenny, reach towards her face while chanting the words and pull the mask off. She collapses and where she was now lies Seth Javits. You want to be amazed but you also don't want to be around when he wakes up so you take off as well, but you're barely past the portables when you spot something you wished you hadn't.
It's those two girls from the theater and they look like they've been there for a while. Even worse, they spot you, call out to you and demand that you talk to them.
* * * * *
"Oh my god," the blonde girl says as she studies you. "You look exactly like me!" She pokes you in amazement, touches your hair even... you jump when she grabs one of your breasts. "Sorry, but I just wanted to make sure it was all real. Wait, so that means that you have—"
"Yes, I do, let's leave it at that, okay!?" you exclaim with anxious embarrassment.
"Go on Addi, touch him. It's the real thing!"
"No, I'll... I'll pass," her friend says. She's been staring at you in nervous disbelief the whole time.
You're back at the basement, along with Caleb and Keith, showing the two girls everything because they'd demanded to know everything. Well one of them—the blonde—did anyway. But they it wasn't demanded out of anger, much to your surprise, but excited curiosity. It turns out that you hadn't exited the theater as stealthily as you thought. They'd come back into the auditorium to tell Mr. Wilkes that the blonde had fainted and was going to be going home but as you'd gotten up to leave they'd spotted you.
The second girl then followed you out to the portables but stopped because, she said, she'd heard yelling and what sounded like a fight. But she'd texted her friend and told her to come out so they could get you when you left. Because the blonde had mentioned the mask and that she remembered you shoving it in her face before she passed out so the story you'd given had unraveled as soon as you'd told it. But you couldn't talk there because you were still worried about Seth so you decided that since you were screwed you'd bring them to the basement to physically show them everything, texting Caleb and Keith to meet you there.
You'd also learned just who they were. The girl you'd copied is Brittany Fitzsimmons while her friend is Addison Ricci. They're also freshmen. This you'd learned because the reason Brittany had gone to "touch up her makeup" was simply a way to waste time because she's in the drama program but is annoyed at having to do basic intro classes on account of being a ninth grader even though she—she'd proudly said—she already knew what she was doing "better than most of them." Brittany does these little time wasters all the time, Addison (who isn't in the the drama program but was simply hanging out with her friend) had said.
Brittany simply smiled and said that she gets away with it because everyone realizes she's a total prodigy so they ca't do anything but grin and bear it.
So when it was your turn and you'd explained the the book and the masks (again) and insisted that copying Brittany had been a total happenstance thing, honest, they didn't get mad. Addison seemed more confused than anything but Brittany seemed excited... which you guess makes sense given that she's an actress (she'd made sure to correct you all when Caleb had said that she "wanted to be" one). She's even more excited now that she sees the results first hand, not showing even the slightest hint of hesitation even as she looks at a clone of herself.
"Just think," she says with excitement, "you wear this and spend the day as me, fooling everyone else. It'd be the ultimate performance. Or I wear one of," she picks up the Jenny mask, "this person. Could I pull it off? Could you? Oh god, this is so much better than those stupid basic lessons that Wilkes has me do! Soooo much better!"
She puts the mask down but looks at all of you, grinning. "I'm excited to see what we can do with all of this," she states.
"Don't remember anyone telling her that she could join," you hear Caleb mutter.
But you realize that you probably couldn't tell her no if you wanted. This girl seems forceful and the second you showed her everything she'd probably already made up her mind about it. She seems like she's used to getting her way so you'd guess that nothing was going to stop her and thus you don't really have a choice. Her friend, by contrast, is much quieter and even seems to lean more towards shy... surprising given she has all the visual hallmarks of a Grade A alpha girl type.
Once you've broken up she doesn't even have much to say until you've dropped off Brittany (who lives in the chic condos near Keyserling) and she doesn't seem upset, simply apologizing for how brash her friend was being which you dismiss as not being a big deal. "When you were explaining everything," she says, "you said there was these bands that copied someone's mind?"
"That's what we think, Keith had the blank one but, uh, he didn't get to try it."
She nods and you ask what's up. "No, I was just thinking. You could use those things to really become someone, right? Like if you really wanted to understand someone else." She shifts nervously in the passenger seat. "I guess I just thought that was a little interesting, that's all."
"Are there people that you want to, uh, understand better?" you ask.
She looks shyly surprised at that. "Maybe," is all she quietly says.
* * * * *
So the thing with Brittany and Addison turned out to be... okay? Not as bad as you'd have thought? Certainly not as bad as the whole thing with Javits which, hopefully, is now in the rearview mirror. But the events of the day are exhausting all the same and you don't bother putting that mask of Brittany back on once you get home. In fact, you go to sleep pretty early.
The next morning, you're feeling alright and maybe a little excited despite your protests yesterday about involving others. But that all evaporates when Keith—looking rough—finds you and Caleb before first period. Seth found him and wanted him to deliver a message.
He wants to see all of you after school.  You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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