The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Slick 'n Slide

Previously: "Alone in the Crowd" 

"Oh, you know, the usual," you reply with studied casualness. You'll be damned if you make any admission to Patrick after the gloating he's done.

"Really?" he exclaims. "Who with?"

"I don't remember her name."

He hoots with glee. "It wasn't someone who came with us, was it?"

"I don't think so."

"So you just—? And you don't remember her name? Oh my God!" He cackles. "Jesus, I wish I could be so casual about it!"

You feel your face burning.

"Sucks you won't be able to go out this Friday or Saturday," he says. "Any way you can cheat it? You're not stuck in the house during the day, are you? Because—" He rapidly outlines schemes for getting together casually with people during the daylight hours. "Or how about during the week? You gotta be home by a certain time all this week?"

Though your dad was not real specific, the curfew seems a good excuse for staying in so you don't have to perform up to the expectations you are now setting for yourself with Patrick.

"Well, let's start thinking about next Sunday, at least," he says. "There's always some action out there on Sunday afternoons, Sunday evenings, though I hear it can get pretty sketchy. Anyway, I'll see you at school tomorrow!"

That seems to you less like a promise and more like a threat.

* * * * *

You're in a muted mood Monday morning when you go in to school. The weekend was a lot more stressful than it was fun, and you got punished for it besides. Lesson learned, you try to tell yourself, but it won't take. Because the lesson you are trying to give yourself—that it was a mistake to even try going out and meeting a girl—is not one that you really want to learn.

"Jesus," Caleb says when you collapse and slump into your desk first period. "You look like shit even for a Monday."

"I feel like shit."

"What happened?"

You glance sidelong at him before looking away. "Got grounded," you mutter.

His eyes widen. "What happened?"

You shrug. Then you explain: "I stayed out past my curfew Saturday night."

"Yeah, doing what?"

You don't really feel like explaining, but you've already started, so you finish.

"You remember those guys we ran into at the minigolf? Patrick and them? I wound up hanging out with them, and we all went out. We wound up at the Warehouse."

Caleb's jaw goes slack. "No shit!" he gasps.

"Yeah. And I got stuck there past my curfew and now I'm grounded."

"Did'ju at least have fun?"

"Not really." You glance around. "Nothing happened I want to talk about."

Caleb hoots softly to himself.

"Well, you're gonna have to take me out there next time you go!"

"Gonna be a long wait, I—"

Just then Mr. Walberg raises his head to bellow out, "Last call for the time capsule! Bring 'em up now! You snooze and you lose!"

You stare at him. A horrible chill ripples down your spine and fills your heart and lungs. Your legs turn to lead.

And yet it still takes for seeming ever for the panicked thought to form in your brain: I forgot to get anything for the time capsule!

"Come on, man," Caleb says. "I don't wanna be the only guy I know who's never been out there. Will!"

"Huh?" You half turn toward him.

"I said I don't wanna be the only guy I know who's never been out to the Warehouse."

"You never been out to the Warehouse?" That's Dean Stratton, who sits behind Caleb, asking.

"I've had other things to do!" Caleb snarls back. "Will—" he starts to say, but breaks off as Mr. Walberg lumbers to the front of the room to start class.

* * * * *

You're so horrified by your failure to bring in something to class—You had one job, dickbrain, you chide yourself—that you can't bring yourself to talk to Mr. Walberg after class. It's not until lunch period that you shuffle shamefacedly into his room to confess your failure. He squats behind his desk like a sour-faced Buddha as you stammer out your apologies.

"It wasn't a hard assignment, Mr. Prescott," he tells you.

"I know."

"I gave you lots of leeway in coming up with something. Pretty much whatever you decided to bring would go."

"I know."

"So what was the problem?"

Since this morning you have remembered that you did get something for the time capsule—that book you found in Arnholm's—but discarded it. You do still have it in your room.

"Well, I did get something for the project, um, sir. It's just that, um, after I got it I changed my mind. And I guess— Well, I guess I just forgot that I changed my mind, and so I forgot that I still had to pick something out." You punctuate this very lame explanation with a very sickly grin.

Mr. Walberg regards you levelly for a very long moment. Then he says only one word: "Jesus!"

"I know, sir, but I—"

"I'll tell you what, Mr. Prescott," he says. "I'll be here until five o'clock today, supervising a detention. If you can get home, get the thing you originally were going to give me, and get it up here before I leave, I'll only take one letter grade off the assignment."

"You will?" you exclaim. "Oh, thank you, uh—!"

"It's my gift to you, Mr. Prescott. Though if you'd explained this at the end of class instead of waiting until now, I would've taken off only half a letter grade. You can stop groveling now," he adds, and you take the hint to retreat.

As you go hurtling out of the classroom, who should you bump into but Patrick.

"Hey, Will!" he exclaims as he catches your arm. "You on your way to lunch? Or coming from it?"

"Going to it," you tell him.

"Dean 'n Lorenzo and them have this lunch period too," he says. "You can catch 'em in the cafeteria, if you want. Talk to 'em about what you want to do this weekend!"

"Um—"

"That girl Saturday night," he says. "Is she here?"

"Huh? Oh, no. Um, I don't think she goes to Westside."

His eyes widen. "Was it Sara?"

"Who?"

"Sara! From Saturday night! I set you and her up—"

"Oh, no, it wasn't her."

"Does she go to Eastman?" Then he catches you arm and grips it tightly. A manic grin spreads across his face. "Does she go to Agape?" he asks. "'Cos if she goes to Agape—"

"I don't know, I didn't ask! I mean, we didn't really talk about it."

"Well, if you run into her," he says with a widening grin, "try to talk her into coming along this weekend. You know, even if you're not interested in her."

"Oh, I will!"

"Cool! Okay, catch you later, I got t'get to class!" He pats your shoulder and turns away.

* * * * *

You go looking for Caleb and Keith in your usual lunchtime spot in back of G wing, but they aren't there, so you cut all the way through the school to look for them on the front quad. As you guessed, they are sitting with Carson Ioeger and his friends. Only when you see Carson, splayed on his side eating a sandwich, do you remember running into him at the Warehouse. You slow up.

Before you can backpedal and go looking for Patrick's friends in the cafeteria, though, Carson spots you. Instantly he leaps to his feet and comes striding over, a glower on his face.

"Prescott," he says as he grabs your shoulder, and swings you around to lead you back toward the school. "Johansson was telling us that you were out at the Warehouse last Saturday."

"Well, yeah," you say. "You remember, you saw me—"

"How could I remember seeing you at the Warehouse," he says, "when I wasn't there."

"Sure you were," you say. "I saw you, came over to talk—"

"I wasn't there," he says through gritted teeth, and his grip on your shoulder tightens.

"Oh!" you gasp. "I see."

"Exactly. I wasn't there, James wasn't there, you certainly didn't see us, you never suspected we might be there."

"I get you. Um, why?"

"Why would you ask why we weren't there, when we weren't there to give you the idea we might be?"

"What?"

"The answer, Prescott, is 'shut up'."

* * * * *

Whatever is going on with Carson and James, it's too deep for you, so you drop the idea of eating out on the quad and go into the cafeteria instead, where you do wind up eating with Patrick's friends. It's a friendly table, and it would be a decent time, except that word of your exploits on Saturday night have spread, so that you have to improvise without details an account of how you came to seduce at least one conquest. The girls listen with a rapt interest, while the boys affect a greater disinterest.

On the way out, though, Lorenzo catches you at the door and asks about the class project in Walberg's: "I hear you're in there," he says, "and you're going to bury a time capsule on Monday."

"I guess that's the plan," you tell him.

Then he asks what your contribution was. He looks bothered—even offended—when you tell him it's a book you found at the used book store.

"I heard that Kelsey Blankenship is contributing some boot spurs that used to belong to Barry Goldwater," he says, "and Gardinhire is putting in a golf ball autographed by Tiger Woods. Is your used book anything like that?"

"I don't think so," you retort, and feel yourself flushing. He's got that same look on his face as he had up at the minigolf on Saturday, when he was comparing math classes with Caleb. "It's an old book," you explain, "it was in their special collections, but I don't know anything about it."

"Then why did you pick it out?" Before you can answer, he says, "How would you like contribute something like what Kelsey and Kirk are putting in?"

"What?" you ask.

"A photo of Paul Griffin, taken in front of our school when he was a student here."

"Who's Paul Griffin?" you ask.

"An actor. He was on a CW show, but he went to school here."

He smiles tightly.

"That's something you could brag about to Kelsey and her friends," he says.

* To accept his offer: "One-Ups All the Way" 
* To contribute the book: "A Knot in the Improv" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"