# chapters

path: 11414221211
author_id: seuzz
title: Lost and Foundering
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You text Leah the next day after lunch to tell her you're free, but she reminds you that she's doing things with her girlfriends. <i>U want to paint ur toenails w us?</i> she asks.<br/>
<br/>
Jack is even more dismissive, replying with a brusque <i>Busy</i> when you text him. Keith also says that he's busy, and you don't really want to talk to Caleb, so you wind up staying home and jerking off online. It might be for the best. It was an exhausting weekend.<br/>
<br/>
In fact, you feel slightly hungover when you go in to school on Monday, and you have to suppress a wince when Leah summons you over in English to remind you of your lunch date. Caleb is still a little frosty with you when you return to your seat. "Just keep her away from me until further notice," he tells you when you mention you'll be eating with Leah instead of him and Keith.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
She's sitting with a small circle of friends out on the front quad, near the corner of the main office. "Finally, some cock to go with our lunches," she exclaims as you draw up. She grins as you stumble a little at her words. The other three girls gasp, then laugh.<br/>
<br/>
Leah quickly introduces them to you: Susie, Audrey, and Rachel. Susie is a roly-poly Asian-Pacific girl with a waterfall of dark brown hair tumbling around her shoulders. The other girls also sport long, brown hair, but Audrey is a skinny, toothy girl whose gums show when she grins, while Rachel has a prow-like nose and solemn brown eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry I embarrassed you like that," Leah says as you open up your lunch. "But you're the only guy I know and talk to who has this lunch period. Who do you usually eat with?"<br/>
<br/>
"Caleb and Keith. Sometimes I eat with Carson Ioeger and his friends."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, does Carson have this lunch? That's cool." She grins slyly at her friend. "Rachel <i>likes</i> Carson."<br/>
<br/>
"I do not!" Rachel protests.<br/>
<br/>
"Jack doesn't have this lunch period?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"No, he has fourth. Is your friend Caleb still mad at me?" You almost choke on Leah's question. "Yeah, we did a thing Saturday night," she tells the others. "Played Indiana Jones up here at the school."<br/>
<br/>
And then, to your horror, she tells the others all about the raid you staged on the time capsule. They are shocked but amused. "I didn't even tell you the best part," Leah chortles after shushing them. "Christian and some other guys were up here, and Will's friend almost got into a fight with them 'cos they got their phones out and started making a video of what we were doing!"<br/>
<br/>
At mention of Christian's name, you prod Leah. "Is he in the theater program?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I know he helps out. Unofficial stage manager or something."<br/>
<br/>
"Is he in charge of the props?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. Why all the questions?" Leah takes a hard bite from an apple.<br/>
<br/>
"I think I want to talk to him. Not about the other night," you hasten to add. "But Jack sold him a book— Well, it's a long story, but I'm trying to get back this book for my dad that I accidentally, uh, gave away, and I think he's got it."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, come on," Leah says as she jumps to her feet. "We can go see him now. I think he's got lunch this period. Anyways, I always see him going in and out of the theater."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that how come you always want to eat out here?" Audrey teases her as you scramble to your own feet. "So you can ogle Christian?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, he's hot," Leah retorts. "All the gay guys are hot, haven't you noticed?" The others giggle. You don't know where to look, and you jump when Leah pinches the side of your hip. "Come on," she says, and strides off toward the theater, which is on the opposite side of the quad.<br/>
<br/>
All the lights are up inside, and half a dozen kids are sprawled on the stage with their lunches out. Shrill laughter sounds. You recognize only a few of the guys there, and only two of them can you put names to. One is the very snotty and very gay Charles Hartlein, and the other is the guy with the phone that Caleb got in a fight with the other night.<br/>
<br/>
It's the first time you've gotten a good look at Christian Padilla, though like the others in the circle his face is vaguely familiar. He's a brawny Hispanic with dark skin and eyes, and short, coffee-colored hair that stands up in tousled spikes. He's wearing a gray, sleeveless sweater that shows off some strong biceps, and shorts and flip-flops. With the shell-necklace about his throat, he looks like he stepped off a beach in Maui or someplace. He grins with a bright eye as Leah swings herself up onto the stage. You hoist yourself up more carefully.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," Leah greets him, "you still have that video from the other night?"<br/>
<br/>
Christian's expression turns guarded. "No. I erased it." His eye flicks between you and her. "Like I was asked to."<br/>
<br/>
"That's too bad," Leah says. "I wanted to look at it, show it to a few friends. But you remember Will here." She slaps you backhanded across the stomach. "He's got a question for you."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh," you stammer as a dozen eyes swivel onto you. "A couple of days ago, a week ago, did Jack— Did you buy a book from Jack Li? A book in red leather, about this big?" You indicate with your hands. "As a prop for a play?"<br/>
<br/>
Christian pops a chip into his mouth and crunches it thoughtfully as he studies you. "Yeah, I remember that," he says. He turns to Charles. "You remember, I showed it to you, told you it would be perfect for <i>Bell, Book and Candle.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I remember that," Charles says after a fractional hesitation.<br/>
<br/>
"You're all witnesses," Christian tells the others. "Charles looked at it and approved it." He grins. "What about it?" he asks you.<br/>
<br/>
"Would you be willing to sell it back?"<br/>
<br/>
Christian blinks. "How come?"<br/>
<br/>
"I kind of sold it on accident. I sold it to Jack and he sold it to you. But my dad wants it back."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh," Christian says. "Well, I'd have to talk to the program director about it. And to Charles. What do you think?" he asks Hartlein.<br/>
<br/>
"You can do whatever, I don't care. It's just a book," Charles says. His expression is very taut, and he looks pissed off.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll have to go look for it," Christian tells you. "Come check back with me after school. If that's okay?" he asks Charles.<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever," Charles says. He shifts from ass-cheek to ass-cheek.<br/>
<br/>
"Good enough for you?" Leah asks you. She runs her fingertip up the front of your shirt. "We'll see you after class," she tells Christian, the pulls you away.<br/>
<br/>
You can't help blushing at the gush of laughter that breaks out after you and Leah have started for the door.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So you're back at the theater when the final bell rings, with Leah. Charles, who is standing at the foot of the stage with a couple of girls, turns at the sound of your entrance, and beckons you down.<br/>
<br/>
"Christian's looking for your thing now," he tells you. He points into the auditorium. "You can sit there until he gets back. I'll be with you in a minute. You can tell me what you think." He turns back to the girls. "Okay, so, let me see you do your thing."<br/>
<br/>
One of the girls looks past him to smile at you, and you start a little when you recognize her as Laura MacGregor, a girl you used to hang out with in middle school. But before you can say anything, Leah tugs your hand and pulls you away.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know what I'm doing," Charles mutters as he joins you back in the fifth row, where he sinks into a seat on the other side of Leah. "I am so far in over my head," he moans.<br/>
<br/>
Laura and the other girl, scripts in hand, are enacting a rather stilted cat fight when you feel a presence settling into the row directly behind you. "God," the newcomer sneers. "I've seen dying fish that didn't flop around as uselessly as those two."<br/>
<br/>
"If you've got any constructive suggestions," Charles retorts, "I'd like to hear them."<br/>
<br/>
You turn around to glare at the newcomer, and are shocked to see that it's Jack.<br/>
<br/>
"For a start," he tells Charles, "tell them to stop shouting each word. Like. It's. A. Pistol. Shot. Girls!" he shouts, and the two performer stop as he stands up. "Charles has some direction he'd like to share!"<br/>
<br/>
Hartlein slumps in his seat. Then he growls out, "Don't shout each word out!"<br/>
<br/>
"Like. You're. Shooting. Insults. At. Each other," Jack adds.<br/>
<br/>
"I thought that's what we were doing," Laura calls back. "Shooting insults."<br/>
<br/>
"You're a pussycat with a whip, darling, not a sniper on a rooftop," Jack calls back. He pokes Charles in the back of the neck. "That should be <i>your</i> line."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, fuck me for not having a script."<br/>
<br/>
"Me-<i>ow,</i>" Leah murmurs in your ear. Then she pushes you. "Come on, there's Christian." You look, and see that Padilla has stuck his head onstage and is peering out into the stalls.<br/>
<br/>
But he has bad news when you catch up to him. "I can't find your book," he tells you. "Now that I think about it, I haven't seen it I bought it off Jack."</span></div></div>


path: 114142212111
author_id: seuzz
title: Drama in the Drama Department
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Christian Padilla says he has no idea what happened to your book. "I dropped it back in Mr. Wilkes's office so he and Charles could look at it," he tells you. "I don't remember seeing it after that."<br/>
<br/>
"Could you ask Charles or Mr. Wilkes about it?" you ask. He shrugs and says he'll text you. When he asks for your contact info, Leah interrupts to tell him to send the DM to her. "I'll pass it along," she says. She treads on your feet as she pushes you back toward the auditorium.<br/>
<br/>
"What's the deal?" you ask her.<br/>
<br/>
"No deal," she says. "I just want to get back to Jack and Charles before they kill each other. Also, Christian doesn't need your contact info."<br/>
<br/>
"How come not?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because, sweetie, Christian's the kind of guy who would set you on fire for shits and grins. He totally did <i>not</i> delete that video he made of us the other night."<br/>
<br/>
"How do you know?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I <i>know</i> him."<br/>
<br/>
You blunder along back through the darkened auditorium, and Leah pushes you aside to rush up the row toward Jack. "Hey, me and Will are taking off," she murmurs at him.<br/>
<br/>
"Good," he replies.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, how about you come with?"<br/>
<br/>
Even in the dark you can feel the cold glance that Jack turns onto her. But Charles takes her side. "Yeah, how about you all take off?"  he says. "This is hard enough without you all distracting me."<br/>
<br/>
"Distracting you would be the best thing for this disaster," Jack retorts.<br/>
<br/>
"Leah, <i>darling,</i>" Charles says, "be a dear and take your friend off and <i>drown</i> him someplace." She slaps him in the back of the head, but he only screws himself down even more firmly in his seat. Jack, though, lets himself be dragged back out into the sunlight.<br/>
<br/>
"What's got into you?" she demands of him when you're outside.<br/>
<br/>
Jack looses a theatrical sigh. "Nothing," he says. "I just pray I won't be around to see it when that <i>unfolding disaster</i> in there opens."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, who said you had to? I don't even know why you've been going to rehearsals."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know either. Horrified fascination, I suppose."<br/>
<br/>
Leah stares at him, then shakes her head.<br/>
<br/>
"Whatever. Me and Will are going minigolfing. You're welcome to come if you can leave <i>the bitch</i> behind."<br/>
<br/>
That seems to catch Jack's attention, and he gives you and Leah a light but querying once-over.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I can't make any promises," he says. "You two have fun. Maybe I'll go find Parker and Kristina. If you won't let me watch the <i>Titanic</i> go down, maybe I'll go watch for the <i>Hindenburg</i> to blow up." He saunters away, like a very prim house cat.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh Jesus," Leah mutters when he's away. She grabs you by the shoulders and puts her face into the crook of your neck. Every nerve and muscle in your body goes on high alert. "You know why I like hanging around with you, Will?" she murmurs into the side of your head. "Because you don't bring any drama along."<br/>
<br/>
She releases you, and pulls you along toward the breezeway leading to the the student parking lot.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
At her suggestion you end up at the Monte Viso entertainment center by the mall, but you content yourself with pumping tokens into the classic arcade games they have in the main shed. As you play, she tells you about the various dramas of her various friends. Like the girl who's been trying to get herself pregnant, and the girl who not a week goes by without scaring herself that she has gotten herself pregnant. There's the girlfriend who can't stop herself from crushing on the worst possible boys she could crush on, and the girlfriend who got her crush and too late found out he was the worst boy she could have crushed on.<br/>
<br/>
And now it looks like she's got Jack to add to the list.<br/>
<br/>
"Thing is," she says as she rapidly taps the buttons on the <i>Mortal Kombat</i> machine and explodes the heads of foe after foe and foe, to your amazement and dismay, "he's the last one I figure would have, like, a nervous breakdown. He handles his shit better than anyone else I know."<br/>
<br/>
And what shit would that be?<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, well, the typical, you know," she says. "No boyfriend and not much of a chance at one. That, for a start."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Wait, Jack's gay?</i> you barely stop yourself from blurting out.<br/>
<br/>
"And he's got Charles and his mafia to deal with," she goes on. "You saw them going at each other back there. It's like that anytime they get within, like, ten feet of each other. Jack usually just steers clear of Charles, but I guess he's been in a mood for trouble. I hope it's not about Parker. God!" She releases the controls and steps back to take out her phone, letting her avatar get pasted. She hesitates over her cell for a few moments, then with a grimace she puts it away and steps back up to the machine, saving herself from losing just in time.<br/>
<br/>
And who is Parker?<br/>
<br/>
"Jack's best friend forever. Except now he's got a girlfriend."<br/>
<br/>
"Doesn't he like her girlfriend? Jack, I mean. Likes Parker's girlfriend."<br/>
<br/>
"He likes her fine. They're all best friends, do everything together. That was Parker and Kristina he took out with us up to the school the other night. But it's gotta be stressful for him. You know. Best friend getting a girlfriend, and it's one of their friends."<br/>
<br/>
She concentrates on her play, and you let her concentrate until she finally loses. But instead of letting you take a turn, she asks you to take her home. "Sorry, that was selfish of me," she says in a distracted tone as you wander back out to the parking lot. "I just needed to get some stress worked out." You mutter something about your being glad to help, but she makes no reply until you are at your truck.<br/>
<br/>
That's when she pushes you back against its side and presses up close to you.<br/>
<br/>
"You know," she says, "if you really wanted to make me feel good, you'd put your arms around me and pull me tight. You don't have to do anything with your mouth, though. Unless you <i>really</i> can't help yourself."<br/>
<br/>
Your pulse briefly quickens. But when you put your arms around her and squeeze, it feels so good and natural that your pulse slows up again. It doesn't even pop when you put your head to the side and give Leah's ear a quick nuzzle. She pulls in a deep breath, then lets it out again and relaxes limply against you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So your brain is lit up and twinkling like a Christmas tree all evening when you're home. <i>I've got a girlfriend!</i> you tell yourself. <i>At least, it sure looks and feels like I do. Doesn't it? Isn't this what it's like? Maybe I should ask Leah for sure. Or should I just let things drift along?</i> Except that's what you did with Lisa, and look how that worked out.<br/>
<br/>
Which would be worse? Losing Leah because you let things drift, like you did with Lisa? Or losing her because you come on to her too hard, trying to make it a firm boyfriend-girlfriend thing?<br/>
<br/>
You decide to ask Jack, and text him. It takes you a surprisingly long time to craft the text:<br/>
<br/>
<i>I hung out with Leah afterschool and we are seeing lot of each other it seems like. Today she asked me to hold her and even kiss her which I did. I want to go out with her and I think we are kind of going out already but do you think I should make it official like by asking her to be u know in a relationship?</i><br/>
<br/>
And as soon as you send it, you want to take it back. You throw yourself into your homework to try distracting yourself from visions of all the elaborate methods by which you might kill yourself, thereby saving yourself from Jack's reply.<br/>
<br/>
And his reply when it comes (not ten minutes later) is even ruder than you could have feared: <i>Lol sure go for it man.</i> The casual <i>go for it</i> would have been bad enough on its own, but the <i>Lol</i> just seems gratuitously cruel. So you only send back a snippy <i>Sure thx ok</i> when he follows up with, <i>Chr Padilla wants ur contact info I gave it him ok?</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's not until Tuesday, though, that Padilla texts you, to talk to you about your book. Well, sort of. He wasn't able to find it, he explains in the text, but Mr. Wilkes wants to talk to you about compensating you for its loss. The idea makes no sense to you—you didn't lose it, you just want to buy it back—but you agree to meet with him Wednesday at lunch. You're supposed to eat with Leah again, and you're surprised to learn that she's also got business in the theater. "Some drama to do with Elle and Laura," she tells you. "Of course, it's the drama department."<br/>
<br/>
Unlike the other day, the place is empty when you go in, and no one answers as you and Leah call out. The stage, the wings, even in the very back, where the instructor's office is. All deserted. "I'll try to find someone," Leah says with a roll of her eyes as she takes out her phone. "You go wait out front, in case they come in."<br/>
<br/>
You've just reached the main doors, though, when you hear your name called from back behind. "You hear from someone?" you shout back, then trudge back the way you came when Leah just calls back, "C'mere!"<br/>
<br/>
She's sitting on the floor, huddled against the wall when you find her, and you just have time to ask, "Yeah, what's the—?" before you realize that she's asleep, or unconscious. You hurry over and kneel beside her. Her head lolls, and her eyes are open but unseeing.<br/>
<br/>
You sense rather than hear the presence behind you. Something goes over your face, and then you are sinking into darkness.</span></div></div>


path: 1141422121111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Theatrical Trade
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You wake to a sound of thunder in your head, and a feeling like someone or something has twisted you into the shape of a coat hanger, then wrapped a straightjacket around you. You grimace as you shift your limbs, trying to unbend yourself.<br/>
<br/>
It's dim when you open your eyes, and you find yourself ... Where, exactly? You blink, and the pain and the grogginess burn off like fog as you move and stretch. <i>Oh yeah,</i> you think. <i>I'm backstage in the theater.</i> You went to look for Christian Padilla, but Chris Love was the only guy you found. You nodded at him and asked for Christian, and Chris said he was back in Mr. Wilkes's office. You were just turning to walk back there when you felt arms close around you. You thought, <i>This is nice, but I wish Chris had asked permission first.</i> Then you felt something close over your face.<br/>
<br/>
You frown. <i>No, that's not right. I came in with Leah, and I went back out front when we didn't find anyone, and then I heard someone call my name—<br/>
<br/>
So how come I remember meeting up with Chris back here? And why do I remember ... myself ... loping along next to me as we came into the theater?<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it will all get clearer when I find Will,</i> you decide. Then you catch yourself short. <i>No, when I find Leah.</i><br/>
<br/>
You lever yourself to your feet, and you have to catch your pants as they slide off. Your feet are swimming inside your sneakers. <i>What the hell?</i> It's like your clothes have gotten a lot bigger.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey!" you call out, and your voice sounds strange. "Hey! Anyone? Chris? W—?" You catch yourself again. Why the compulsion to call out to yourself like you might come running? "Leah?"<br/>
<br/>
There's a dull thump from off somewhere, followed by the rumble of something heavy slipping to the ground. You slip off your clown-size shoes and, holding up your pants with one hand, jog back toward the stage.<br/>
<br/>
You meet yourself coming back. You and the other you freeze and stare at each other.<br/>
<br/>
His name, you know, is "Will Prescott." Typically he would also answer to "me", "myself" and "I." But when he yelps, it is not your throat or mouth that ripple.<br/>
<br/>
He's a lanky kid with straw-colored hair sticking out all over. He stares at you from out of narrow-set eyes, and his mouth spreads into a terrified rictus grin that is full of yellow teeth.<br/>
<br/>
He is barefoot, and his very short shorts show a lot of fuzzy, skinny leg. His shirt—his <i>blouse,</i> which you recognize from your own closet—<br/>
<br/>
<i>?!?!?!?!?</i><br/>
<br/>
—is unbuttoned and flopping open. A brassiere shows beneath it.<br/>
<br/>
<i>He's wearing my clothes!</i> you gasp to yourself.<br/>
<br/>
You glance down at yourself: <i>And I'm also wearing my clothes!</i><br/>
<br/>
But the real problem, it seems to you with a shock, is that you shouldn't have a pair of small boobs distending the front of your shirt.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Oh, <i>Jesus,</i> Will!" he gasps as he slaps himself into a better-fitting set of clothes. "If this turns out to be your fault—!"<br/>
<br/>
"<i>My</i> fault? How the hell could it be <i>my</i> fault?" you retort as you fumble the bra straps together around your chest.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not saying it is! I'm just saying that <i>if</i> it's your fault—"<br/>
<br/>
You're huddling behind some storage crates in a back corner of the theater, with another storage crate between you. It's not a changing room, but it's the best that you and ... he ... could find on short notice. There was no way you were leaving the theater inside the clothes you were each wearing.<br/>
<br/>
As for who "he" is, well, he looks and sounds like a high school boy named Will Prescott, but he says he's Leah Simmons—same as you look like a high school girl named Leah Simmons, though you very much want to answer to the name "Will Prescott."<br/>
<br/>
"So what happened to <i>you</i> when you came back here?" the boy asks as he hops in place, trying to tie a shoe with his knee hiked up to his chest.<br/>
<br/>
"Someone grabbed me."<br/>
<br/>
"Who?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," you confess. "Though I <i>want</i> to say it was—" You make a face. "Chris Love."<br/>
<br/>
That's another thing you discovered while you and he were frantically trying to sort each other's shit out without freaking out completely. He insisted that he was Leah, but you were a little more ambivalent about which of the two identities jogging around in your head to claim. That pissed him off, especially when you backed yourself with a recital of facts that only Leah Simmons would know about herself. Being grabbed by Chris Love after sending ... Will ... back out front is one of those things that only Leah should remember, but which you do too.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck," he gasps after getting himself sorted out. His face is very red. "How do I look?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hat," you remind him, and he ducks to retrieve the shapeless white cap that you're never without. "What about me?" You shake yourself free inside the blouse and shorts, and splay out your arms and legs.<br/>
<br/>
His eyes widen with horror. "Oh, God," he groans. "Why did I have to come to school dressed like that today?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because all your other clothes were in the hamper, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up! Jesus!" He looks around. "Maybe we could hide out here?" he whimpers. "This has gotta be a dream, right? Fuck!" He whirls on you with eyes the size of dinner plates. "What if we're out there, in class, and <i>boom—!</i> We suddenly switch back?"<br/>
<br/>
"Get a grip, man!"<br/>
<br/>
"We could hide out here, couldn't we? Skip the rest of the day—"<br/>
<br/>
"We'll have to go home sooner or later."<br/>
<br/>
He groans. "What if we switch back <i>there?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"We can't hide out here forever!" You reach across he crate, then catch yourself. The gesture feels both alien and very natural. You give in to it, though, and give him a reassuring grip on the arm. "You'll do fine. And we'll get out of here and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Let's take off now!" he says. "While it's lunch! We'll go— I dunno. Out to the wilderness. And we'll—"<br/>
<br/>
You make a face. "I've got blowoff classes, but <i>you've</i> got an AP Stat class, right? And, you know, if I'm looking this, maybe I should—"<br/>
<br/>
He looks ill, then bolts.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm taking off!" he calls back as he runs. "I'll text you later, set up a place to meet!"<br/>
<br/>
"Will!" you yell after him. "Leah!"<br/>
<br/>
Then you whirl and listen. You can't be sure, but you think you heard a stifled laugh from somewhere nearby.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>I'm Leah Simmons, I'm Leah Simmons,</i> you chatter to yourself as you hurry through the mostly empty halls toward Mr. Muniz's classroom. The bell rang just a few seconds ago, but you can still beat the tardy bell. <i>I'm Leah Simmons,</i> you remind yourself as you break into a gallop as your math teacher steps out to pull his door closed. "Just made it, Ms. Simmons," he says as the bell rings just as you cross the threshold. You pant and nod. <i>That's right, I'm Leah Simmons.</i><br/>
<br/>
It's not hard to keep hold of that fact. It's just that you caught your feet twisting a couple of times to take you toward Will Prescott's classes.<br/>
<br/>
You fall into your assigned seat with a hard gasp and plop your backpack onto the desk. You feel the eyes of the class upon you, and glance down to reassure yourself that you've got a pair of boobs wrapped inside the blouse. For a moment, you are rattled hard by the fear that prediction—<i>What if we switch back suddenly?</i>—might come true.<br/>
<br/>
Out of the corner of your eye you catch Kayla Shea giving you a quizzical smile. You nod at her as you unpack your bag. There aren't a lot of girls in this class. Yumi Saito is one, but she's frosty toward you ... Leah ... for reasons you don't understand. That leaves the feathery airhead Mia DeWitt and the volleyball-playing Kayla as classroom buddies.<br/>
<br/>
So it's no surprise when Kayla times her exit at the end of class so that she can bump into you in the doorway. "So what were you late for?"<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't late," you retort. "I skated in just in time."<br/>
<br/>
"You know what I mean." She grins. "Usually you're here plenty early so you can get lots of stare time with Austin."<br/>
<br/>
You blush and shoot her a dirty look. Austin Dougherty is a rugged soccer player, and by "stare time" Kayla means that you—Leah—likes to stare at Austin's meaty thighs.<br/>
<br/>
"Anyway," Kayla continues, "where are you meeting up with Parker and them?"<br/>
<br/>
"Probably at— No, wait, I'm not." Flustered memory finally catches up to instinct: you <i>have</i> to meet with Will. "Something came up. I'll see you later." You squeeze your way through the crowds, feeling relief as you lose her.<br/>
<br/>
But Kristina Townes is waiting at your—Leah's—locker. "Hey, can I get a ride with you out to the park?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit.</i> "Sorry, something came up, I gotta meet someone else," you  stammer as you spin the combination on the locker. You jump a little when it actually pops open.<br/>
<br/>
Kristina makes a face. "I was hoping we could talk."<br/>
<br/>
That catches your attention, and your heart sinks.<br/>
<br/>
Kristina and Parker Stott are two of Leah's best friends, and they have just started going out. If Kristina wants to have a serious talk, it's probably about that, and Leah would want to give her the chance.</span></div></div>


path: 11414221211112
author_id: seuzz
title: The Girl Who Is You
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Something came  up," you tell Kristina. "I'm real sorry. Maybe tonight we could get together and talk?" You feel your heart tearing a little as you push her away.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," she says, "I'll text you later. I think I'll skip the park too," she adds. "Jack's got a bug up his ass or something these days."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're on some kind of automatic pilot through your last two classes. It's like an out-of-body experience. (Or an out-of-one-body-and-sort-of-into-another experience.) You watch yourself as you brightly greet friends in Chorale and shuffle into place, and you almost faint with astonishment when you find yourself able to hit the right notes on the song sheet in the right order. German proves a little trickier when you wobble during a reading exercise. <i>Wait, how do I know what these words are and how to say them?</i> you ask yourself, and for a moment they become a lot of letters smushed into a random order on the page. Then, like a gyroscope recovering its balance, the language comes back to you and you're able to finish in a rush.<br/>
<br/>
You're half-jammed up inside your locker with your cell phone after the final bell has rung when Wendy Terrill pops up beside you. "Hey, I heard you're bailing out on the park today," she chirps.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I have to meet someone," you reply, and quickly hide your phone with its half-completed text to Will. "Kind of a last-minute thing."<br/>
<br/>
"Gonna take long?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know. However long it takes."<br/>
<br/>
"It's not a family crisis, is it?"<br/>
<br/>
"What?" You wheel at the question..<br/>
<br/>
Her face falls. "Oh God, it is, isn't it? I'm sorry, I—"<br/>
<br/>
"No, no it isn't," you assure her. "Why did you think—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just the way you're acting. Kristina told me you were kind of jumpy in class today. Are you sure everything's okay?" She frowns with concern.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm fine, Wendy! I just had a change of plans is all!"<br/>
<br/>
You give her arm a reassuring squeeze, which sets your heart hammering in your chest. <i>I could hug her,</i> you think, <i>the way I— the way </i>Leah<i> does, and it wouldn't be weird! Well, not for her!</i><br/>
<br/>
Before you can act, though, Wendy pulls away. "Okay," she says. "Just that it does seem like you're changing your plans on the fly a lot these days."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm always changing my plans on the fly!" It is, it now occurs to you, a complaint that Leah has often heard.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, but you were a lot more random before," she says. There's a curious gleam in her eye. "These days it's like—"<br/>
<br/>
"Like what?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
But she laughs and steps back into the boiling crowd. "Never mind. I'll catch you later!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You get a text from your old phone before you can finish the text you started to send, asking if you're out of school yet and up for meeting at the Suffolk Wilderness. <i>On my way,</i> you reply, and scuttle for the parking lot.<br/>
<br/>
<i>This isn't my car,</i> you think as you drive the shabby old Ford through town. It feels weird to be sitting this low to the road, and it also feels weird to have boobs. You catch yourself touching your hair a couple of times, and more than once, at a stoplight, you turn the rearview mirror to confirm the remarkable fact that you now have Leah Simmons's face. It gives you a fluttery feeling all over, and you try to ignore the tingling warmth it gives you in some of the lower crevasses.<br/>
<br/>
Your old truck is parked near the visitor's center, and a tall, skinny kid in sloppy clothes is hunched up beside it. He squints as you pull up alongside, but he doesn't move even after you've stopped the engine and climbed out. "Hey," you greet him.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," he says. He peers at you from under an unhappy brow. "So what happened? Did you stay at school?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. I went to your classes, took your notes, did your— You had a reading quiz in German. I, uh, got you a B."<br/>
<br/>
"You take German too?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. Never. It was— I dunno." You look around. "I just kind of went on automatic and it came to me."<br/>
<br/>
"You talk to anyone?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. Not really. Um, you were supposed to meet Jack and them up at Potsdam Park, and I had to tell them that I, uh, wouldn't. I didn't tell them why, though. I don't think I fucked anything up for you, honest!" you plead.<br/>
<br/>
He grimaces and looks away.<br/>
<br/>
"And how are you?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Freaked. Why aren't you freaked?" His tone is aggressive, accusing.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. I am. But I guess I don't see the point." You glance around. "Um. I guess it also doesn't hurt that, uh— Well, I seem to need to know what I need to know. Like, I took your German quiz, and I know your locker combination—"<br/>
<br/>
He clucks his tongue and looks away.<br/>
<br/>
"And you don't, um, you don't know ... that stuff? For me?" you ask. You want to put your hands on him, but since they're not your hands, and you'd be touching someone who you want to think of as yourself, you don't.<br/>
<br/>
He makes a face, but he doesn't answer, not even with a shake of his head.<br/>
<br/>
"I've been trying to," he finally says. "I got out here, took a walk, tried to calm down. Tried to concentrate. I am getting, like, pictures," he continues. "But I don't know what they are. Like, I don't know if they're people you know, or if I'm— I dunno." He slumps. "Or if I'm just making it up."<br/>
<br/>
"Pictures of what?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Pictures of a family," she says. "I don't know how to describe them. Normal, I guess. Father and mother. And a boy, a little younger than, uh, you."<br/>
<br/>
"What's he look like?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just a boy. Dark hair, kind of shaggy with spit curls."<br/>
<br/>
"That could be my brother, Robert."<br/>
<br/>
"Robert!" he exclaims. "Yeah, that sounds familiar."<br/>
<br/>
"What else?"<br/>
<br/>
"A house. Bedroom. Really messy." He describes an arrangement of bed and dresser and corner table with its old laptop. It could be your room, but it could probably be the room of most any high school boy.<br/>
<br/>
Only when he says she keeps getting an impression of an Asian girl—but not any girl that you know at school—does your heart leap.<br/>
<br/>
"That sounds like Umeko!" you exclaim. "My cousin!"<br/>
<br/>
"Your cousin's Chinese?"<br/>
<br/>
"Japanese. She's adopted. She's a year older than me. I, uh, have kind of a crush on her," you bashfully confess. Then you squeal. "There, you see! You <i>are</i> getting some of the memories!"<br/>
<br/>
"Calm down," he growls as you clutch at him. "Jeez, you're—" He licks his lips and looks away. "You're acting like a girl," he mutters.<br/>
<br/>
That stops you short. <i>I am a girl!</i> you want to retort, but somehow that's not really your own thought—it's a thought belonging to someone else, only it has popped into <i>your</i> head—and besides, you know what he means.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, this is how I got through your day," you tell him. "I just sort of did what felt natural, and it came out right."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's great for you," he says. "But I don't know if I can get through <i>your</i> day—" He groans. "I don't know if I can deal with your <i>family</i> if all I've got is this half-baked, half-remembered stuff."<br/>
<br/>
"So don't go home! You don't have to. Hang out with me! We've been hanging out, um—" You feel momentarily embarrassed. "We've been hanging out a lot already."<br/>
<br/>
He gives you a sidelong look. But whatever he's thinking, he doesn't express it.<br/>
<br/>
Instead, he just says, "Okay. What time do you have to be home for dinner?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't. Gimme your phone and I'll text my mom. And, um," you add as you bend your face over the phone he hands you, so he can't see you blush. "I know <i>you</i> only eat at home about half the time anyway."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wind up eating an early supper at Osaka, a sushi/Japanese place just across from the college campus. It's one of Leah's favorite places, so much so that the tiny Japanese woman behind the sushi counter recognizes and greets you cheerily. Though the place is empty, you huddle at a two-top in the corner so you can talk quietly while splitting three sushi rolls.<br/>
<br/>
You give your replacement some quick lessons on what your home life is like—what he can expect when he goes home, and how to act in character when he gets there—and the lessons seem to take easily. Not that there's much to impart—don't sass your dad but don't let him bully; help your mom at whatever she asks; chase your brother out of your room but don't smack him too hard—but he aces the final quiz when you give it to him in the parking lot afterward. Then, with sky still light from the just-setting sun, you wander through the bohemian district next to the university, rifling through the House of Wax vintage music store and sports-clothing outlet.<br/>
<br/>
You're heading back to where you're parked when you spot two familiar figures up ahead, and freeze. One of them is Elle Moore and the other is Chris Love. Will jerks to a stop when he realizes you've frozen in place. He queries you with a lifted eyebrow.<br/>
<br/>
"That's Chris Love up ahead," you hiss at him. "Remember this afternoon? He was backstage when—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oooh!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. You wanna—?"<br/>
<br/>
Before you can finish, Chris turns in answer to some impulse and sees you. A warm grin breaks out across his face and he stops in place.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey guys!" he calls, and beckons you to join him and Elle.</span></div></div>


path: 114142212111121
author_id: seuzz
title: The Girl Who You Are
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Will's hand grips yours as you run to catch up to Chris and Elle. It's like gravity is pulling you toward him—like you're running downhill—and you can't resist even as you shy from acknowledging what it is that is pulling you.<br/>
<br/>
Leah, if your squirmy guts are any guide, has a crush on Chris.<br/>
<br/>
That shouldn't be a surprise. Chris Love is a soccer player with a slinky build—he has cat-like reflexes on the field, and even on the street he prowls with a panther-like grace. He's a blonde with blue eyes and an even tan, and when he's dressed in a tank-top and shorts (as he is now) he shows off smooth, shapely muscles. His smile is wide and inviting.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," he calls with cheery warmth as you jog up. He puts out an arm and pulls you into a loose embrace. For a moment you think he's going to smooch you on the hair or forehead—<i>which would be awesome!</i>—but he contents himself with giving you a light squeeze. "Who let you run around loose?" he joshes you.<br/>
<br/>
"No one!" You shove him, and he laughs. You blush, not only from the glinting look Chris is giving you, but from knowing that Leah, through your eyes, is watching you melt into a gooey puddle just like she would if she was in your place. "Who let <i>you</i> loose?" you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"Elle came and let me out. We were just heading over to Balducci's. Come with?"<br/>
<br/>
Will says, "We just got through eating." His tone is very stiff.<br/>
<br/>
"But we could still— Oh, wait, sorry." You step back and trying returning Chris's glinting stare with one of your own. "I don't wanna bust in on your date!"<br/>
<br/>
"So we'll make it a double date." Out of the corner of your eye, you see Elle's normally sweet smile tighten into steel. "I don't think I could finish a full pizza by myself."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, so it <i>is</i> a date you're on!" you chortle.<br/>
<br/>
"And I guess it's a date <i>you're</i> on." Chris tries tweaking your nose, and you slap his hand away. "Hey man." He finally addresses Will with a chuck of the chin and an upraised palm. "Be careful with this one." He jerks his thumb at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Didn't you say you saw Chris at lunch?" Will asks you.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Oh, yeah! Backstage in the theater, at lunch." You turn to Chris. "What were you doing back there? And where was everyone else?"<br/>
<br/>
"We were all camping out in the parking lot. Charles had some idea about— I dunno." Chris waves a dismissive hand. "Some idea for an acting exercise. But when did I see you?" His brow furrows.<br/>
<br/>
"Back stage. In the wings! I came in, I was looking for Mr. Wilkes—or for Christian—and you were—"<br/>
<br/>
Chris shrugs. "I don't remember that."<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos you weren't there," Elle puts in. "You were with us." She grabs his hand and squeezes. "Our pizza's getting cold," she groans.<br/>
<br/>
"We haven't ordered our— Oh!" Chris bites on his grin. "Our pizza's getting cold," he tells you over his shoulder as Elle tugs him down the sidewalk. He puts his arm loosely around her waist. She puts her hand on his butt.<br/>
<br/>
"So what do you think of that?" you ask Will.<br/>
<br/>
"I think if you flirted with him any harder you'd have gone down on him."<br/>
<br/>
"I would not!" You punch him. "Anyway, I was just acting in character. <i>Trying</i> to act in character. As you. Not <i>trying</i> to act in character as you, just letting it come out natural. God! What were <i>you</i> thinking, standing there?"<br/>
<br/>
"I was thinking how freaky it would be if I tried going down on him the way you were— Unh!" He grunts when you punch him again. "Whaddayou mean, you were being <i>in character?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know! It just felt like ... that's the way I should talk to him!"<br/>
<br/>
He grunts again. "Yeah, okay. But he says he wasn't backstage at lunch, and I <i>know</i> he was."<br/>
<br/>
"I know it too. So why would he say he wasn't?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because he had something to do with it," Will growls.<br/>
<br/>
You don't have to ask what he means by "it."<br/>
<br/>
But that makes it very hard to voice the next, obvious question. "So do you think he knows that, uh— I mean, do you think he knows ... who we are?"<br/>
<br/>
Will doesn't reply right away, but takes you by the wrist and turns you around to lead you back the way you came.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess he'd have to," he says, then falls silent.<br/>
<br/>
You don't say anything either. You're too freaked out by the implication.<br/>
<br/>
<i>If he knows who I am, then he knows who he was flirting so hard with.</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The run-in with Chris has made things awkward between you and Leah. You know that you want to be alone with your thoughts, and it feels like she does too. After a little desultory talk, you decide to part for the evening. You do ask Leah if she thinks she'll be okay at your house; she shrugs and says that she has to head over there sometime, and she might as well do it now.<br/>
<br/>
Leah lives in the same general area as your friend Keith, in the same kind of small, weathered, but comfortable ranch house. Leah's father is considerably older than her mother—he's in his early fifties, she is in her late thirties—and both of them trust their daughter enough that you don't get questioned when you come home. (Or maybe it's because they're absorbed in one of their British murder mysteries on Netflix.) After a quick greeting to them, you bound into Leah's room to do the homework that you'll need to turn in tomorrow. Even though you know what to expect, you are still brought up short by how pink and frilly the decor is for a girl who seems as tomboyish as Leah is. There's even a Raggedy Ann doll perched on the dresser, and you can't resist the impulse to cuddle it in your lap as you peck away at the laptop.<br/>
<br/>
You also have texts and social media to keep up with, though you grit your teeth in frustration at it. It's not very interesting—just memes shared by girls (and guys) looking for distractions from their homework—but you find it impossible to leave them alone, even after you growl and turn your phone off and hide it under your pillow. (You can leave it there for only fifteen minutes before the urge to pull it back out and refresh Snapchat overwhelms you.) You hesitate long and hard before sending a text to your old phone—would that be weird? should you wait for Leah to text you first?—but finally break down, and the stream of nothings between you and Leah becomes another strand in a thick, knotted rope of distractions, even though nothing much gets said between you.<br/>
<br/>
Worse is to come when it's time to get ready for bed. You brush and floss and gargle and change into a flannel nightgown, the last of which is weird enough all by itself, but then comes the moment you have to give in and squat on the toilet to pee. You pat yourself dry and try not to think of what Leah must have thought when she had to take a piss through your penis.<br/>
<br/>
And then, having touched yourself there, you have to climb into bed and figure out if you're going to keep in character—even alone, even in the dark. You're on the verge of giving in—who would know? Leah wouldn't ask—when a vivid image of Alec "Brownie" Brown pops into your head. He's one of the wrestlers—a brawny guy with a butterscotch tan—and he's a common fantasy for Leah. But though the muscles and nerves down low lunge toward the image, the rest of you recoils.<br/>
<br/>
It is some time before you fall into an exhausted sleep.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're just returning to your bedroom from the shower—where you kept your mind on business while still giving every spot a hard, pleasant scrub—when your phone chimes. It's the first text of the morning and it's from Will, asking to meet you at the McDonald's on the way in to school as soon as you can.<br/>
<br/>
You figure it's so you can prep him with your class schedule and some pro tips, and you expect to meet the same glum, freaked-out guy you hung out with yesterday. But the guy who meets you has a bright, relaxed smile on his face, and he dances lightly back and forth in front of the restaurant as you approach.<br/>
<br/>
"So how was your night?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
There's a knowing tone in his voice that makes you wary. "Why?"<br/>
<br/>
He laughs. "Well, mine was good."<br/>
<br/>
Again, the knowing tone. "Why?"<br/>
<br/>
"I had a good dream. Wow. It made a huge mess and woke me up."<br/>
<br/>
You gawp at him. "You—? <i>What?"</i><br/>
<br/>
He chortles. "Yeah. Freaked me the hell out until I realized what it was, and then I got up and cleaned myself up. I guess I should'a cleared the tubes out before going to sleep."<br/>
<br/>
<i>"Jesus!"</i><br/>
<br/>
"Oh!" He puts a finger to his temple. "I got your shit up here. Woke up with it. All of it. Shit about your dad and mom and Robert, and Caleb and Keith and all them." His grin turns nasty but playful. "It's how come I'm trying to freak the hell out of you now, the way you freaked the hell out of me yesterday." He bounces on the balls of his feet. "We're gonna find out how much <i>you</i> like it, motherfucker."</span></div></div>


path: 1141422121111211
author_id: seuzz
title: Worlds Turned Upside Down
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Your ears are still ringing and your brains still rattling from what ... Will ... was just saying about waking up with your memories. All the little hairs up and down the back of your neck go up. Is this grinning doofus really ... you? What <i>you</i> are actually like?<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry, what?"<br/>
<br/>
His eyes glint with mischief from beneath the tangle of his stiff, straw-like bangs.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you need to, like, sit down?" He gestures at the restaurant. "We could go in, get coffee, a little breakfast, and talk."<br/>
<br/>
... Yes. Yes, that's what you need. A quiet moment inside, with something firm under your butt to keep you from falling on your ass.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
McDonalds's food is disgusting, so you contented yourself with a cup of hot coffee. You forgot to get it decaf, though, so you were soon vibrating hard.<br/>
<br/>
You've got other reasons to be vibrating, though.<br/>
<br/>
Things got even weirder when you were settled at a tiny, Formica-topped table in the back next to the restrooms. As Will merrily stuffed his face with two sausage-and-biscuits, it hit you that it's <i>Leah</i> whose palate doesn't relish McDonalds food. So if you shrank from ordering anything to eat, and the person across from you was gobbling down all that grease and starch and preservative chemicals like it was his first meal in five days, does that mean that ... you are Leah Simmons and he is Will Prescott? That maybe you and he are just crazy? Maybe someone hypnotized you into thinking that you're the other one?<br/>
<br/>
Except that you <i>know</i> that you're really you, just as <i>she</i> knew and knows who <i>she</i> is. Even when she was belching unashamedly and scratching at the spots on the upper lip and chin where those weird whiskers pop out.<br/>
<br/>
She did most of the talking—gabbling, almost—while you only grunted. So it looked like the decision was to go find Chris Love at lunchtime and confront him. <br/>
<br/>
But later, when you get to school and are talking in the parking lot, and Leah asks you what's wrong, you shake your head and say you don't see any point in talking to Chris. "He's just going to say he doesn't know what we're talking about," you point out. "Like he did when we saw him yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"We could make him," Leah says. "You could hold him down and I could beat him up."<br/>
<br/>
"We're not going to be able to beat up Chris, W—" You catch yourself before you can call her by your real name. "Listen, I'll go talk to some of his friends, the guys he said he was hanging out with yesterday at lunch. If they say he went inside, then we can, you know, confront him with it."<br/>
<br/>
"And then we can beat him up."<br/>
<br/>
"Will you stop it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Go along with me, Will!" he exclaims. Instinctively you punch at his chest, and he hops away with a laugh. "No, that's a good idea, you do that," he tells you. "And I'll talk to some of them too. Between us—"<br/>
<br/>
"You don't know any of them."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure I do!"<br/>
<br/>
"No you don't, <i>Will!</i> I know. In fact, you know that's one of the things we've been talking about. How no one knows who you hang out with 'cos none of my friends—your friends—ever hung out with you! With me!"<br/>
<br/>
You can't help blushing at your confusion, but she only laughs.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So you're really distracted during your first couple of classes. Fortunately, they're not really important. But it does leave you confused when, on your way out of Concert Choir, Delaney McGuire falls in beside you and says, "So I guess there's trouble in gay paradise."<br/>
<br/>
You start. "What do you mean?"<br/>
<br/>
Delaney glances around. You're crossing the open ground between the Music Annex and the main building, so there's no one to overhear as she leans in and says, with an amused simper, "Didn't you hear Alex and Parker back there, bitching about Charles?"<br/>
<br/>
"Charles Hartlein? No, what did they say?" Despite your distraction, you feel your interest quicken.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's what I couldn't hear. <i>You</i> were standing right next to them, though." She follows you into the school. "So what did they say?"<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't paying attention. And if you couldn't hear them, how do you know—?"<br/>
<br/>
"I heard enough to know they were bitching about Charles. Don't you have Christian in your next class? Couldn't you ask him what, you know, is going on with—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why do you need to know?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm just curious, Leah."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be a gossip, Delaney," you tell her coldly.<br/>
<br/>
She smirks back at you. "Who was it that was all telling me about the <i>last</i> catfight Alex and Charles got into?"<br/>
<br/>
You give her a dirty look and leave her. But you do find yourself giving a thoughtful frown to Christian Padilla, who is setting up his writing supplies as you enter the Interior Design class you share with him. You have a question for him anyway.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey." You jab him in the shoulder with a hard finger, and he jumps, and he jumps again when he glances up and sees you. A little of the tan seems to fade from his face. "Where were you guys all at at lunch yesterday?"<br/>
<br/>
He gapes at you, then stammers, "When?"<br/>
<br/>
"At lunch."<br/>
<br/>
"Same as where we always are," he says. But his eyebrows go up, as though his own answer worries him.<br/>
<br/>
"Nuh-uh. You weren't in the theater. No one was. I heard you were having some kind of, like, acting exercise seminar off someplace."<br/>
<br/>
He stares at you, then something like relief washes over his face.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, right," he says. "Yeah, we were out in the parking lot." He shrugs. "Some idea that Charles had."<br/>
<br/>
"Was everyone out there? Was Chris out there with you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Love? Sure." A note of worry creeps back onto his face.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, was he out there with you the whole time? Did he ever go back inside?"<br/>
<br/>
That look of worry deepens, and Christian's glance wanders furtively around the room.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, no. He was outside the whole time with us. Well, pretty sure he was. I didn't notice him, uh, going anywhere." Still he doesn't look at you. "Why are you asking?"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos I'm sure I ran into him inside the theater when I went looking for you guys."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh." Chris seems to be having trouble catching his breath. "What were you looking for him for?"<br/>
<br/>
"We weren't, we were— Me and Will were looking for Mr. Wilkes. On account of that book that Will lost in the drama department.<br/>
<br/>
"Did you find him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mr. Wilkes? No, something came up." You consider asking Christian again about that funky book, but decide it's way less important now than it was before, and it wasn't really that important before anyway. "Well, thanks," you say, and turn toward your own seat.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh hey, Leah!" he calls after you. Now there's a grin warming his face. "How are you and Will getting along these days?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, we're fine?" you reply.<br/>
<br/>
"You're a cute couple!"<br/>
<br/>
Your face tightens. "Thanks. How are things going with Charles?"<br/>
<br/>
That seems to catch him off guard, and he's at a loss for a reply. Then he laughs. "Oh, he's going crazy. Driving <i>everyone</i> crazy!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, that's what I hear."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh my God!" Christian covers his face with his hands, and laughs.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
For third period you have Physics, and you are still twitchy in there, even though the caffeine has mostly worked its way through your system. But Adam Dortch is in there, sitting in the row right next to you. Leah is very friendly with Adam, so you have to talk to and smile at him, though you're rather not. Leah lost her virginity to Adam halfway through their junior year, she still occasionally has fantasies about getting back together with him.<br/>
<br/>
Then comes fourth period English, the class that you and Leah share, though now you occupy different desks (not to mention <i>bodies</i>). You march up boldly to Will and poke him in the shoulder, even though he is staring impudently up at you already. "Hey, are we having lunch together?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure," he replies, and leans back in his desk. "Who with?" He turns his head just enough to glance over at Caleb. "Your friends or mine?"<br/>
<br/>
"Are your friends cool?"<br/>
<br/>
"Meh. Oh, you wanna go try finding that guy in the theater again?" he asks as Caleb rolls his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll think about it." You turn toward your seat, but grab the hat off Will's head as you go. When he shouts, "Hey!" you retort, "Give it back to you at lunch!"<br/>
<br/>
The girls you sit with have been watching you, and they giggle as you slide into your desk. You twirl your old cap on your finger and make a face back at them.<br/>
<br/>
Then you catch Cassie Harper give you a dirty look from a couple of desks over. "What's your problem, Red?" you taunt her. Her glare deepens, and she turns around. <i>Silly little chatterbox,</i> you think.<br/>
<br/>
Mrs. Gladstone makes everyone turn off their cell phones before class starts, so you don't find the text from Kristina until the bell rings for lunch: <i>Could you talk to Jack at lunch today, find out what's going on with him?</i><br/>
<br/>
That reminds you of her request yesterday. Instead of looking for Chris Love—probably a waste of time—maybe you and Will should do as Kristina has requested.</span></div></div>


path: 11414221211112112
author_id: seuzz
title: Friend Zones
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Class ends, and you hurry over to where Will is still sprawling lazily in his desk. "Hey, about lunch," you start to say.<br/>
<br/>
He glances back at Caleb. "Yeah, what are your lunch plans?"<br/>
<br/>
"Same as usual."<br/>
<br/>
"How about we go find Jack?" you suggest.<br/>
<br/>
"I thought he had fourth lunch."<br/>
<br/>
"So we'll have lunch while he has study hall."<br/>
<br/>
Will looks amused. "We can't eat in the library!"<br/>
<br/>
But he must have read the expression on your face, for the smile falls off his face and he levers himself upright with a grunt.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm gonna go hang out in the library," he tells Caleb, who maintains a poker face. "I'll, uh, catch up to you later." <br/>
<br/>
He puts out his arm after he's on his feet, as though to drape it around your shoulders. But you give him a look and take a step back, so with a private smile he falls in behind you as you exit the classroom.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Jack usually hangs out in the library with two of his best friends, Parker Stott and Wendy Terrill, during fifth period, when they all have a study hall. No one's at the usual table when you arrive, but you settle at it in anticipation. Will slumps, but you sit upright and look all around the library, head swiveling like a lighthouse mirror. "Who are you looking for?" Will asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Keeping an eye out for Jack."<br/>
<br/>
"So what's the deal that you're so interested in—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Kristina wants me to talk to him, find out what his problem is."<br/>
<br/>
Will mumbles something back, which you distractedly ask him to repeat. "I said, why are you trying to do such a good job at caring?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, why are <i>you</i> doing such a good job of <i>not</i> caring?" you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"I care. I just got other things on my mind. I thought you would too. I thought we were gonna go find Chris and—"<br/>
<br/>
"He's just gonna tell us he doesn't know anything. Like yesterday, when we ran into him. 'I didn't see you in the theater' is what he said."<br/>
<br/>
"Doesn't mean we shouldn't try."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, hush," you tell him as the library door opens and Parker and Wendy walk in. You shoot your hand up to gesture them over. Will slides lower in his chair as casual, low-key greetings are exchanged all around.<br/>
<br/>
Parker Stott is the guy you had earlier pigeonholed as a Geoff Mansfield clone. Like Mansfield, he is dark of hair, brow and eye, and is well-coiffed and polished over. He wears his thick hair in a pompadour, and white, even teeth show in his smile. But Leah knows him him as a bright, even-tempered guy who excels in some hard-core classes, but isn't a snot or a show-off about it. Wendy, meanwhile, is a small girl with long, thick brunette hair that hangs almost to her waist. Today, as in most days, she has it bunched into a long, loose braid that drapes over one shoulder and over one breast. Like Parker, Jack, and Kristina, she is on the school band color guard. Together, they are a kind of Four Musketeers group who hang out together constantly and take most of the same classes.<br/>
<br/>
"Is Jack coming?" you ask them as they settle in.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," Parker says. "He left early at lunch." He looks unhappy. "He's in a bad mood."<br/>
<br/>
"It's his ankle," says Wendy.<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong with his ankle?"<br/>
<br/>
"He sprained it. He's on crutches."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh no!" you gasp. Jack loves dancing and light gymnastic routines, so a hurt ankle would actually explain his bad mood.<br/>
<br/>
"Kristina says he's faking it," Wendy tells you in a confiding tone.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, don't say <i>that!</i>" Parker tells her.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not saying it! I'm only telling what <i>she's</i> saying!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, she shouldn't be saying it."<br/>
<br/>
"Why does she think he's faking it?" you ask. "Why would he?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," Wendy admits, while Parker rolls his eyes. "He's been weird the last couple of days." She nudges Parker. "You need to talk to him."<br/>
<br/>
"Has anybody talked to him?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
Before anyone can answer, Adam Dortch joins you with a "Hey guys. Who are we talking about?" he asks as he flops into an empty chair.<br/>
<br/>
"No one," you quickly reply.<br/>
<br/>
"We're talking about Jack Li," says Will. His lips twitch into a tiny, insolent smile, and he nudges you under the table. "Go on. Tell Adam about—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh! Jack!" Adam chortles. "What happened to him? I saw him just a little while ago. He's on crutches now?"<br/>
<br/>
"We're trying to figure out if he's faking it," Will says. You give him a hard glare, but he only snickers.<br/>
<br/>
"For what, sympathy?" Adam chortles. "Is that why he was going off with Semple?"<br/>
<br/>
"Adrian Semple?" You wheel on Adam, despite yourself. "Where were they—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Off toward the portables, I guess." Adam pulls a Dr. Pepper from his pack, and after a quick, furtive glance around, cracks it open. "Sympathetic Semple," he muses.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Parker drawls. "Can we talk about something else?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're mad at "Will" for what he said in the library, and you tell him so afterward. "I thought you of all people would know better!" you conclude.<br/>
<br/>
He listened with obvious but quiet amusement as you reamed him out, and even after you've run out of breath, he takes the time to chew and swallow the last of the sandwich he is hurriedly consuming in the between-classes break. He even lets out an appreciative belch before replying. "I was trying to help you out," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you didn't!"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure I did. I got Adam to tell you that Jack and Adrian went off together after lunch."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you pissed everyone off when you did!"<br/>
<br/>
"So? Am I supposed to care if they're mad at me?"<br/>
<br/>
"They're your friends!"<br/>
<br/>
"They're <i>your</i> friends," he corrects you, and touches your nose with a fingertip. "You're sure acting like they're your friends."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, they're your friends too! Aren't they? Don't you want them to be? Don't you see how hard it's going to be for me to, you know, hang out with you with them if they don't like you?"<br/>
<br/>
He laughs. "I don't think they mind. Besides, you can talk me up with them. Can't you? Can't you?" He pinches your shoulder.<br/>
<br/>
Then he pinches your other shoulder. Then he pinches your arm and your shoulder again and the top of your breast and—<br/>
<br/>
"Stop that!" You slap him away. "What are you <i>doing?"</i><br/>
<br/>
"Trying to set it up so people won't think it's funny that we're hanging out together so much."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, how is that—? Oh my God!" Now your face is burning. "Are you trying to set us up as—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't tell me you weren't thinking about." He leans in to give you a heavy leer. "I know how you think."<br/>
<br/>
He leaves you gasping, and turns to trudge back into the school.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Your head is in a whirl the rest of the afternoon. Is Leah right? Does she really know the way that you think? You feel like you know the way <i>she</i> would think—that's how come you tried shutting her up in the library, and why you yelled at her afterward. So if you know how she thinks, doesn't that mean she knows what <i>you</i> think? And does that mean that you would be thinking about you and her maybe becoming ... more than just ... friends?<br/>
<br/>
The thing is, you're pretty sure that you are <i>not</i> thinking that.<br/>
<br/>
Oh, not that there's anything wrong with Leah. She's pretty neat, in fact. Only she's kind of wild, and you're not sure you could keep up with her. Or that she would want to slow down enough to keep up with you.<br/>
<br/>
And yet, she has said and done things around you that sort of seem like she might be into you that way and that much.<br/>
<br/>
But what does <i>she</i> think of you? Because if <i>you</i> know the way that <i>she</i> thinks, couldn't you just ... ask yourself now what she thinks of you?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It turns out you're not the only one who wants to know what you and Will think of each other. At your locker before seventh period, you're interrupted by poke in the back, and wheel to find Adam grinning down at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," he says, and crowds in close, pushing you back against your locker. A crowd of students surges and writhes behind him, so maybe he has an excuse. "So I didn't get to talk to you at lunch about what I wanted to talk to you about," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Which is?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"What are you doing Friday, and who with?" He gives you a hooded smirk, which he probably thinks is seductive.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," you admit.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, are you gonna be doing it with your new best pal? What's his name, in the library with you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. You gonna be doing it with him, or do I still have a chance with you?"</span></div></div>


path: 114142212111121121
author_id: seuzz
title: The Ghost of Boyfriends Past
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It comes surging back to you in memory as Adam's musk—a mix of weed, beer, unwashed clothes, and his skin and hair—fills your nostrils. <i>The night Leah lost her virginity to him.</i><br/>
<br/>
It was almost a year ago, at a party at Brianna Kirschke's house. It was crowded, with too many to control, because Brianna had managed to talk her mom and dad—who are barely on speaking terms with each other—each into thinking that the other would be on hand to chaperone. So the lights were low and the music thumping and lots of kids from the then-junior class were bumping and scraping and groping at each other in the half-light. Leah was a little freaked by it, but also excited, like a dog that has found a pack of other dogs at the park.<br/>
<br/>
Gradually she became aware that Adam Dortch was watching her. His hair wasn't such a landmark back then. Now it is an immense thatch, teased and combed and plumped up to the size of a small tumbleweed. But back then he wore it draped in long, curly locks around his shoulders. Still, though he didn't stand out so much, she felt his eyes on her in the living room and then in the dining room. When she came out of the bathroom he was in the hallway, pretending to study a picture hanging on the wall, but he turned as soon as she appeared, and smiled and said "Hey" to her.<br/>
<br/>
They talked and he got her a drink and then gradually, like a sheepdog nudging the flock toward the pen, he guided her into a corner where he could stand over her and peer down, and she had a choice either of submitting or of shoving him away. She chose to submit as he pressed and squeezed her in the sides and around the shoulders with his long fingers. When she squirmed and sighed in response, he put his lips to her cheek and ears, to alternately blow and kiss. He wedged her deeper into the corner, pinning her there.<br/>
<br/>
After sating himself with kisses, he pulled her onto the backyard deck, to unashamedly—despite or maybe because of the encouraging hoots of onlookers—feel and grope her up and down. But Leah didn't mind. It excited her to be mauled in front of others, it made her warm and ardent all over, and the bites to her neck left her weak and flushing. When Adam put his mouth over hers, she opened to him and aggressively went after his tongue with her own.<br/>
<br/>
Only after the catcalls had died down did Adam suggest that he and she move back into the house. At first she thought that he was going to withdraw, or at least moderate things, but he instead pulled her back into Brianna's bedroom, and then into her private bathroom. Only later did Leah learn that the signals had all been worked out in advance between Adam and some of his friends—this was something they had done before—and so because there was a screen of guys outside Brianna's bedroom door, no one bothered them as he unbuttoned Leah from her clothes, and peeled off and unzipped his own. He was already wearing a condom, so she relented, and like a carpenter hammering a picture to a wall, he did it to her standing up, against the space between the toilet and a linen closet. Afterward, still inside her, he pulled her tightly to him, crushing her in his arms.<br/>
<br/>
There was not much talk between them afterward of what it might mean or where it might lead. With her friends, Leah only admitted that it had happened while trying to spare Brianna the embarrassment of admitting where—though Brianna surely knew, and the air between the two girls was very chilly for a couple of weeks—and word spread among all her friends, and farther, because Adam wasn't shy about telling the guys in his own extensive circle. (For a month or two afterward she was pestered by guys she barely knew, and sometimes didn't know at all.) As for Adam, he did seek her out at the next party they were at together, but he didn't push himself on her even while being, or pretending to be, polite and interested. Leah herself didn't chase him but she didn't discourage him. Not that it did either her or him any good.<br/>
<br/>
But it did have an effect. Where before Leah's crushes had been limited to liking boys with cute notes and great hair and strong thighs, now she found herself admitting that she had a new criterion to judge them by. They would have to have fat, strong, powerful cocks, and not be shy about using them on her.<br/>
<br/>
Nor was she shy in telling her friends that that's what she'd want and need.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're tempted now to grab Adam by the neck and bend his face to yours and to paint the side of your face with your tongue—just to see what he'd do. (And whatever he did, you'd laugh at him.) But you resist. Instead, after grinning at him for a count of five, you say, "Your hair is looking really great these days."<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks," he says, and gingerly touches it on the side. Big mistake—it wobbles a little, and that side of it deflates a little, like a balloon. "It's kind of a pain," he says, oblivious to the damage he's done to it, "but girls dig it."<br/>
<br/>
"Does Kathryn like it?" Kathryn Greathouse is a junior, and the last rumor you heard about Adam was that he and she were circling each other like hungry dogs that had mistaken the other for a juicy bone.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Oh, sure." He affects a nonchalant shrug, but it's unconvincing. "But, you know—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hold still," you tell him, for a wild temptation has overwhelmed you. Carefully you reach up with both hands, as though to catch a butterfly between them. Adam freezes and eyes you warily. But he's too slow and you're too fast. You clap your hands onto his immense bouffant, and bat and shake it until it falls into silky ruins around his ears. He shouts and grabs at his own head.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure we can do something on Friday!" You laugh at him. "If you don't mind me doing that to you again!" You turn back to your locker long enough to pull the last of your books out, and slam it shut. Adam's face is red, but he's grinning at you too. You smack and rub at his crotch as you push past him into the crowd.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Will texts you after school to say he'll be waiting in the school theater. As is typical, you manage to pick up Brianna and Genesis on your way to your locker after last period, and they will not be shaken afterward, so they come trailing after. Even when you tell them you're going to stop in the theater, they come in with you.<br/>
<br/>
Will is standing just inside the doorway, checking his phone, when you come in. Maybe you're still buzzed from your run-in with Adam, or maybe you're in a mood to make a scene in front of Leah's girlfriends, but before he can react you snatch the cap—your old cap, which you returned to him at lunch—off his head and drop it onto your own. "Where do you want to sit?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
Like a cornered mouse, he darts his eyes between you and Brianna and Genesis. "I thought we were going to find Chris and—"<br/>
<br/>
<i>Am I drunk?</i> you wonder as you grab him by the hip and squeeze his ass cheek. He jumps. "Come on," you murmur as you steer him by his butt down the side aisle. "We need to sit down and shut up before Charles comes back to yell at us. Are you coming?" you ask Brianna and Genesis, who are grinning at each other. They hang back a moment, then follow.<br/>
<br/>
You push Will into a seat a few rows back from where Charles is slumped. He glances back at you, does a double take, then returns to staring at the empty stage. Voices sound from backstage, but he doesn't move.<br/>
<br/>
"What are we doing Friday?" you hiss into Will's ear.<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"What are we <i>doing</i> Friday?" you repeat. "You and me. Friday. Doing something. Because it's Friday?"<br/>
<br/>
"Are you asking me out?"<br/>
<br/>
"I was hoping <i>you'd</i> ask <i>me!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Will visibly gulps. "I, uh—"<br/>
<br/>
You clamber up onto top of him and sit on his lap. Brianna, two seats over, gasps and stifles a laugh; on the other side of her, Genesis stares with her jaw hanging open. You give them a dirty look and point. "Eyes that way!" you hiss at them. "This is none of your business!" Their eyes pop, then with a giggle they look away.<br/>
<br/>
"Are we doing something together Friday?" you murmur in Will's ear. The scruffy hair tickles your nose, and the scent warms you all over, so that you feel yourself prickling. "You always do something Friday," you remind the person who once was Leah Simmons, "and I'll be fucked if I stay in when I can be out— Do you want to do something with me, or do I have to go find Adam Dortch and tell him, yes, I'll go out with him on Friday?"<br/>
<br/>
"Adam?" he grunts.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, Adam." You smush your lips into his ear and mumble while nuzzling him. "You remember Adam." You pinch him lightly a couple of times. "You remember you and him. Or would you rather go find him now, like this, the way you are now, and try it a second time? I've heard rumors he—"<br/>
<br/>
Then you bolt up with a gasp. One thought will trample on the heels of another. Adam, with his hair, is stamped by the same mold as Adrian Semple, who is one of Charles Hartlein's sometime boyfriends. It suddenly occurs to you that if you want to do something to shock Jack back into normality, telling Charles that his sometime-boyfriend Adrian went off after lunch with his frenemy Jack might do it.</span></div></div>


path: 1141422121111211212
author_id: seuzz
title: Getting to Know All About Me
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"What got into you?" Will growls at you afterward, when you're in the parking lot. You never did catch up to Chris, who made his own exit via side door or something. So now it's just you and Will, for Brianna and Genesis took off a few minutes ago with your promise that you'd probably—maybe—for sure—meet up with them at Starbucks later.<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean, what got into me?" You pinch him again.<br/>
<br/>
He jumps. Then he pinches you back. "Fine," he says, "if that's the way you—"<br/>
<br/>
"You were the one who was all flirty earlier! You know. So people wouldn't think it's weird when we start hanging out together!"<br/>
<br/>
"There's no one with us now!"<br/>
<br/>
You take a couple of steps back from him. "You want me to stop? Do <i>you</i> want to stop?"<br/>
<br/>
He rolls his eyes and sighs heavily.<br/>
<br/>
"You're doing it on purpose, Will," he says. "This whole act," he adds before you can challenge him to explain himself. "You're trying to act like <i>me</i> with <i>me.</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you like it?"<br/>
<br/>
He makes a face. "It's an uncanny valley thing. Or— I dunno. I don't like, you know, seeing myself like this." He squirms on his feet. "I don't think I like myself like—"<br/>
<br/>
"I like you like this," you tell him. "I like—"<br/>
<br/>
But then you have to break off, and you blush. <br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry," you say. "I'll stop. And if you don't want to do anything Friday, or today or tomorrow—"<br/>
<br/>
"It's not that," he protests. He touches your wrists, which gives you a thrill, then clasps your hands and twines his fingers into yours, which gives you a shiver. He shifts from foot to foot, which pulls you off balance, and then you realize you're also shifting from foot to foot. "Only stop trying so hard."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you think I'm <i>trying?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Aren't you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know." Your breath is coming in short gasps, and you don't know why. "What are <i>you</i> trying to do?"<br/>
<br/>
He stares at the ground and kicks at the asphalt.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno either," he says. "Trying not to mess anything up, I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you scared that <i>I'm</i> going to mess something up?" you demand.<br/>
<br/>
He groans.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm just trying to do what <i>you</i> would do, Will," he says. "What it feels like you'd do."<br/>
<br/>
"But that's what I'm doing!"<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't answer, and almost you pull away from him. But he pulls you close to himself before you can.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, I was flirting with you earlier so you'd know it was okay to flirt back with me. So we could start hanging out lots together— And have it just be the two of us, sometimes— Without people thinking it was weird." His eyes roll in his sockets, showing their whites. "I don't think you have to, um, dial it up higher than that."<br/>
<br/>
You stare at him a moment, then wrench your hands from his.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, Leah," you tell him. "That's the way we'll handle it. We'll be flirty but that's all." You hop back. "I'll talk to you later."<br/>
<br/>
"Will!" he calls. "Leah!" he corrects himself. "Where are you—?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's okay!" you call back as you scamper off. "We'll talk later! Anyway," you can't help adding, "won't it be more believable if we get in kind of a fight? That way people will think we're <i>really</i> serious, and that'll be—!"<br/>
<br/>
But you have to break off and hide your face as you sprint back to your—Leah's—car. <i>God damn it, why does it feel like I'm about to bust out crying?</i> you yell at yourself.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You don't actually bust out crying, though you feel jittery and unbalanced on the drive out to the Starbucks to meet Brianna and Genesis. <i>Maybe it is better this way,</i> you think. <i>I just had a fight with Will, and it'll </i>look<i> like I had a fight with him, but I'll pretend we didn't, and then people </i>will<i> really think we're serious and oh </i>fuck<i> when did I start prattling to myself like this, like a goddamn </i>girl!<br/>
<br/>
So you are all breathless smiles when you settle at the table at Starbucks, where Brianna and Genesis already have their books out so they can pretend like they're studying even as they are busy tapping into their cell phones. They ask you if Will is coming and you breathlessly tell them that something came up and he can't, but though they exchange a look neither one of them says anything to you, and then Susie Lekuawehe comes wandering in—as she usually does, with a faintly addled air and a giggle like she's surprised even herself by showing up—and so the table talk (what there is of it; mostly the others concentrate on their phones while you do your homework) is about whatever Susie wants to talk about.<br/>
<br/>
But Brianna hasn't been thrown completely off-stride, and when you and she are walking out of Starbucks together afterward, she asks you point-blank if Will really had to go do something else all of a sudden. "Ye-e-e-e-es!" you sigh at her in the most melodramatic way you can. When she presses by asking you where, you reply, with even more exasperation, "I don't know! He just said he had to be someplace else!" Then, when she asks if you're going to be hanging out with him tomorrow, you set off a calculated explosion: "I don't know! How about you make some kind of plan that needs both of us along, so we can do something together, and you'll see us doing something together, and then maybe you'll leave us alone!"<br/>
<br/>
You should stomp off toward your car after that, but instead you hold your ground, wobbling on your feet and staring everyplace but at Brianna.<br/>
<br/>
She says nothing for the longest time. Then she says, "You had a fight."<br/>
<br/>
"No we didn't! Jesus! We just— Things just got kind of messed up between us!"<br/>
<br/>
"What did he say?"<br/>
<br/>
For a moment you feel like you've been slapped. <i>Why the hell do you assume it's the guy's fault, </i>my<i> fault?</i> you want to yell at her. Then you realize she is just trying to protect your—Leah's—feelings.<br/>
<br/>
"He didn't say <i>anything!</i> It's <i>my</i> fault! I freaked him out. Oh, God!" You grind the heels of your hands into your eyes. "You saw me in the theater!" You sniffle and snuffle.<br/>
<br/>
Brianna touches your arm. "Did you ... scare him?"<br/>
<br/>
"Apparently!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh!" Brianna put her arms out and hugs you. You clasp her back, and she feels good in your arms. She's a soft little thing, not so much overweight as generously padded all over, and you want to squish her close to you.<br/>
<br/>
After a minute of this, she pats your back and releases you. "Let's go get gelato," she says.<br/>
<br/>
Even though you pretend to be reluctant—you really need to go home, you tell her—you are secretly pleased by the suggestion, and let her pull you along in her wake.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You talk about almost everything with Brianna except Will—Parker and Kristina; Jack; Genesis and her latest crush; classes—and you feel much better when you part an hour later. Texts have built up on your phone by the time you leave, one of them from Will asking to talk, but you have ignored them. Once back in your car, though, you draw the deepest breath you ever have, and return Will's text with one of your own, telling him to call you at his convenience.<br/>
<br/>
"So, I'm really sorry about this afternoon," he says when you talk later that night, after you're home and have eaten.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm sorry too."<br/>
<br/>
"Thing is, I'm trying look at it like, you know, <i>you</i> would. I mean, how <i>I</i> would. How both of us would— Oh, <i>shit!</i> Do you know what I mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think so," you hazard, though you really don't.<br/>
<br/>
"Do you? I mean, I told you that I know how you think. Except I've decided I don't, not really. Or ... sort of? When I'm with your friends I can sort of—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"Is it the same with you? God! I'm totally confusing myself! Trying to figure out what I think and what you'd think, and what <i>you'd</i> because of what <i>I'd</i> think, because of where <i>you</i> are and where <i>I'm</i> at, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"No, yeah, I get it."<br/>
<br/>
There's a pause. "You were acting like I would, when you ran off, weren't you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. Maybe? I didn't feel a lot like myself, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I wasn't acting like myself when I said those things to you."<br/>
<br/>
"What things?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't remember," he confesses after a fractional hesitation. "You know, we've been talking about how, um, we need to act so people aren't ... surprised ... that we're hanging out? Well, I've been thinking, why <i>would</i> they be surprised? We're, like, friends already. Friends hang out."<br/>
<br/>
Your heart plunges. "So we just act like friends?"<br/>
<br/>
There's another pause. And then he says, with a careful neutrality, "Well, that's not exactly what I was saying. No, I was thinking—" You can almost hear the heart in his throat, as he speaks around it. "I was thinking, we're pretty ... intimate ... with each other right now. Just the way things are. Like, all that 'I know what you know' stuff. Right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh." Now your own heart is in your own throat.<br/>
<br/>
"So, I was thinking— It would be okay with me— If— We were— Maybe we should be ... <i>completely</i> intimate with each other? Nothing between us?"<br/>
<br/>
You can't believe it. Is she suggesting that you fuck each other while inside each other's bodies?</span></div></div>


path: 114144
author_id: seuzz
title: A Clash of Values
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Forty dollars would be a nice little chunk of change, and a big profit on the two dollars that you bought the thing for. But you're more worried about your grade in Walberg's class.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, sorry," you tell the guys. "I was gonna text Sean anyway, tell him that something came up and I, uh, had to change my mind about selling the book."<br/>
<br/>
Jack's eyebrows go up. "What, did someone offer you a hundred for it?" He nudges Brent.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm not—" You shoot Brent a wary look. "Would you offer a hundred for it?"<br/>
<br/>
He pales. "No, not a hundred."<br/>
<br/>
<i>That sucks,</i> you think. You'd trade a bad grade for a hundred. <br/>
<br/>
"The thing is," you explain, "I bought it for the time capsule in my Sociology class. And it's due today and if I sell it then I won't have anything for class. And, you know, fuck, there goes my grade."<br/>
<br/>
Brent nods. "Oh yeah! You're in that class with Geoff and them."<br/>
<br/>
You grit your teeth. Geoff Mansfield—who is a friend of Brent's—is one of your least favorite people: a stuck-up, supercilious know-it-all who thinks he's got more brains than you, and judging by his wardrobe, his car, and his hairstyle definitely has more money. "Yeah, that's the class."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, okay," Jack says. "I can pass the message along to Sean." He grins. "Probably better to stick it in a time capsule than to give it to Ioeger for whatever shit <i>he</i> had planned for it."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You follow Jack and Brent out into the hallway, chatting in a friendly way about maybe getting together for a game of doubles this weekend, but once you've parted you sprint off toward Walberg's classroom. <i>Please still be there, please still be there,</i> you murmur under your breath.<br/>
<br/>
The doors are open but Walberg isn't in the classroom. Instead— "Ay! Prescott!"<br/>
<br/>
Dane Matthias sprawls in one of the desks near the front. Dane is a sloppy stoner with a cheerfully glassy grin under a mop of coppery hair. He's dressed today as he's always dressed, in a t-shirt, flannel pajama bottoms, flip-flops, and a smelly old sport jacket. With his hairy arms and hairy legs all akimbo, he looks like an orangutan that's been shoved into cast-off clothes and dropped into the school as a prank. "'T'sup?" he asks you with a grin.<br/>
<br/>
"Is Mr. Walberg here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ol' Walrus-Butt? Yeah, he's around." Dane shifts and looks about with a frown, as though expecting to find Mr. Walberg lurking in a corner.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, when's he gonna get back, and how long's he gonna be here for?" you ask. "And what are you doing here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Detention, man." He shakes his head at the unfairness of it. "He caught me looking for some chalk."<br/>
<br/>
"You got detention for looking for some chalk?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I was lookin' for it in his desk." Dane giggles. "I was gonna write something on the board that would'a <i>really</i> got me detention, but he caught me first, so it's like I'm gettin' off light."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Hmm.</i> No way are you going to leave your time capsule submission on Mr. Walberg's desk where a klepto like Dane could get to it. "How long do you have detention for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Like, a week?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I mean today."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh! Oh. Uh." His brow furrows. "What time is it? Like, another hour or something?" He writhes. "Man, it feels like I been here all day already."<br/>
<br/>
You're about to take a seat when you spot a dark hump rising over the sill of a nearby window. It hangs there a moment, then falls from sight again. You frown at where it appeared. A moment later it reappears, and again vanishes.<br/>
<br/>
Someone is peering into the room. "Be right back, Dane," you say, and scramble into the hallway.<br/>
<br/>
It's a long sprint to the exit, and a long walk back up the outside of the wing. You take it in a looping curve so you can approach the spy from behind.<br/>
<br/>
It's three spies, actually. Three guys crouching under the windows of Walberg's room, poking each other and giggling. As you creep up, one of them turns around, sits with his back to the wall, and raises a hand over the windowsill. He's holding something, and as the other two snerk and clutch each other, he wriggles it as though trying to catch Dane's attention within.<br/>
<br/>
He sees you approaching, and his face lights up.<br/>
<br/>
It's Marc Garner. He nudges the other two, and they wheel around. Steven Buckner and Spencer Osbourne. Definitely an odd trio to be hanging out together outside of Walberg's classroom after school.<br/>
<br/>
Well, maybe not so odd in the case of Buckner and Osbourne. Steven is a stoner like Dane. In some ways he's more obvious about it—he wears t-shirts emblazoned with pro-marijuana messaging; ugly, 70s-style corduroy pants; and a baggy hat woven of hemp—but in other ways he's less obvious, as you've never seen him less than bright-eyed and alert. Osbourne, meanwhile, is a slacker and a troublemaker with a wicked grin and a sense of mischief that sometimes shades into light bullying.<br/>
<br/>
But Marc? Marc is the captain of the boys' soccer team, a clean-cut athlete with a chiseled torso, a healthy tan, and blonde locks chopped short and gelled into spikes. He's an AP student, too. Healthy of mind and healthy of body, he's the last person you'd expect to find with a doobie between his fingers.<br/>
<br/>
But that's exactly what he's holding, what he was waggling in front of Walberg's window. "Hey Will," he calls to you with a bright grin. "Wha'chuptoo?" He rolls his eyes window-ward. "Is Walberg back yet?"<br/>
<br/>
You glance at the window, but the glare against the glass makes it impossible to see into the room. "I don't know. What are you guys doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Teasing a monkey with a banana," Spencer says. His grin is sly and malicious.<br/>
<br/>
"You're gonna get caught," you warn them. "If Walberg sees you—"<br/>
<br/>
But they only snort and giggle. "Who else is in there?" Steven asks. "Dane's in there but there was another guy—"<br/>
<br/>
"That was me. I saw you looking in, came out to see who— If I can spot you, Walberg'll—"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you fucking care, man?" Spencer says. A hard glint comes into his eye.<br/>
<br/>
"No, Will's right," Marc says. "We're gonna get caught. Unless," he adds after a beat, "Will goes back in to be our lookout." He gives you a bright grin.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you guys high?" you demand. "I'm not—! No, wait." You march up to the window and put your face to the glass. Dane, zonked in his desk, is staring at the blackboard. Mr. Walberg is still absent from the room.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I can go back and do the lookout thing," you say. "I could, like, ding you with a text when Walberg comes back."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't believe him, man," Spencer says. "He's gonna narc on us!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not gonna—! I have to see Walberg anyway. I got a thing I have to drop off for him. School project."<br/>
<br/>
"The time capsule?" Marc asks. You look at him surprise. "Whatcha got for him?"<br/>
<br/>
"A book," you stammer, and show him your contribution, which is still in your hand. "This thing. How do you know about the time capsule?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck, it's all I heard from Kelsey and them all last week, the shit they were bringing in." Marc raises up and peers through the window. "Like the fucking future wants anything Kelsey would leave behind." He giggles and drops and turns a bright face up at you. "You're not giving him an old iPod too, are you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I told you, I'm giving him a book. Who's giving him a—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Like they're gonna <i>read</i> in the future," Spencer sneers.<br/>
<br/>
But Marc's mouth has dropped open in a silent laugh. "Will," he gasps. "Give him a joint!" He holds up the brown, papery cylinder. "Give Walberg a <i>fucking joint</i> for the time capsule!"<br/>
<br/>
The other two burst out laughing, but you only gasp. "I can't—!"<br/>
<br/>
"He'd love it, man!" Marc insists. "Guaranteed!"<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "Except where am I gonna get a joint?"<br/>
<br/>
"Pwah?" Marc explodes with laughter as he rolls the doobie between his fingers. <br/>
<br/>
You feel yourself redden. "You'd let me have it?"<br/>
<br/>
"For what, free? Fuck, no!"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't got any money on me!"<br/>
<br/>
"Whaddaya got to trade?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well ... Just this." You show Marc the book. He snorts at it.<br/>
<br/>
But you've caught Steven's attention. "Hey, you were showing that to Keith in Hawks's class, weren't you? What is it?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's a, uh, trick book. A fake. There's a hidden compartment and a hidden lock and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck, listen to this," Spencer jeers. His grin deepens into a demonic leer.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck you guys. I'll catch you later." You blush at their hoarse laughter as you stalk off with as much dignity as you can muster.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
And yet, when you're back inside and loitering by Walberg's door, you have second thoughts. What would be wrong with contributing a joint to the time capsule? It would be unexpected. It would be topical. And contributing a joint wouldn't be like <i>smoking</i> one in front of the teacher. You could probably write a pretty good paper on why marijuana would be a worthwhile thing to send to the future as a representative item of the current era. You've no idea what you would say about the book.<br/>
<br/>
When you see Walberg shambling up, you make a snap decision and run back outside. But Spencer is the only guy crouching under the window, and he's busy texting on his phone.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey!" you shout at him. "Where'd Marc go?" Spencer looks at you, then points off toward the athletic fields. "Where's Steven?" Spencer points at another doorway into the school.</span></div></div>


path: 1141443
author_id: seuzz
title: A Dopey Trade
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You gallop off in the direction that Steven went, but of course the hallways are empty, and you've no idea where he might have got off to. Cussing under your breath, you bolt for an exit, to look for Marc out on the athletic fields.<br/>
<br/>
But that, as it turns out, is where you find Steven.<br/>
<br/>
He's out there with Marc, on the grassy fields where the football and soccer teams practice. You sprint out to meet them, but slow up as Marc changes—out there in the open—from jeans to shorts, and only after he is jogging out to the far side of the fields do you finally join Steven, who is lightly tossing a soccer ball from one hand to the other.<br/>
<br/>
Steven Buckner is one dopey-looking guy. He has a long face and dark, sleepy eyes under a heavy thatch of dark brown hair. Perched atop that thatch is some kind of pointy cap woven of hemp, probably, given that the front of his sleeveless t-shirt is illustrated with a round face with x's for eyes and a line for a mouth with a doobie wedged in the corner.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey man," he calls to you in heavy voice. His eye falls to your hand. "Still got'cher book, I see."<br/>
<br/>
"You wanna buy it off me?" you pant.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll sell it to you, my trick book, if you got a—" You mime taking a hit off a joint.<br/>
<br/>
He blinks, then twists to squint at Marc when the latter shouts from the opposite side of the field. "So how's your book work?" he asks when he turns back to you.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," you confess. "That'd be for you to figure out."<br/>
<br/>
Steven mutters under his breath, and takes the book from you, flipping through the pages that do turn and squinting at the pages that don't. He ignores another shout from Marc: "What's the fucking hold up?"<br/>
<br/>
"Eh, sure, whatever," Steven says with a shrug. "But if I ask you to, you gotta trade it back."<br/>
<br/>
"You mean give you back your doobie? I'm putting it in a time capsule."<br/>
<br/>
"What? Well, fuck that, then, I—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll buy you another one," you promise, "if you want to give the book back. I just need a thing now, to give to Mr. Walberg."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuckin' waste of some good weed," he mutters as he drops to his haunches to dig in the backpack at his feet. It seems to take all his concentration to find it, but eventually he extracts a plastic bag with two joints in it, and carefully pulls out one to give you. "Thanks, man," you tell him as his cell phone rings. "You made a bargain."<br/>
<br/>
Steven answers his phone as you turn to go, and as you run off you hear Marc's voice coming both on the wind and from Steven's cell: "God damn it, kick me the ball!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Mr. Walberg only said one word when you gave him the joint—"Interesting"—and you ran out before he could say anything more. You call Caleb when you get home, to tell him that you slid in just under the wire with your contribution to the time capsule. "Cool," he says. "We can get it back, smoke it in celebration, when we dig the capsule up again."<br/>
<br/>
"Are you still doing that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure am. And you are too."<br/>
<br/>
"Who says?"<br/>
<br/>
"I am. Because you'll want that doobie back."<br/>
<br/>
You tell him you're not sure you will want it back. "Then I guess I'll just take it for myself," he says, "along with my thumb drive and anything else in the capsule that looks good."<br/>
<br/>
"You're not serious!"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe, maybe not. It just occurred to me. There might be some good stuff in there, and as long as I'm retrieving my own shit—"<br/>
<br/>
"That's like grave robbing!"<br/>
<br/>
"No one's going to know, Will." His tone is withering. "So, are you in?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not for <i>stealing</i> anything!"<br/>
<br/>
"Then you should come along if you want to <i>stop</i> me from stealing stuff."<br/>
<br/>
You nearly choke on your own outrage.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Still, for twenty-four hours, approximately, you've got a sense of relative peace about your school assignment. Then, the next day at lunch, which you take out in front of the school with Carson Ioeger and his friends (because Caleb is making himself scarce for some reason), you make the mistake of bragging about what you contributed to the time capsule. "Mr. Walberg called it 'interesting'," you boast.<br/>
<br/>
Carson's lip curls. "You know what's really going to be interesting, Prescott, is what happens after you write the paper he's going to assign."<br/>
<br/>
"What paper?"<br/>
<br/>
"The one about your contribution. What you contributed and why."<br/>
<br/>
"That's a just a rumor!" you retort.<br/>
<br/>
He laughs. "That's what the poor cocksuckers had to do last year! So what are you gonna say on <i>your</i> paper? What are you gonna tell your <i>dad</i> if he asks to see the paper you wrote?" He waggles his eyebrows at you. "Never mind explaining how you got the idea," he continues as you feel the blood drain from your face. "How're you gonna explain where you <i>got the weed</i> to give to Mr. Walberg, and how you knew where to get it?"<br/>
<br/>
So you run to find Caleb the first chance you get. "Dude," you pant when you catch up to him outside his math class, "weren't you saying something about breaking into Mr. Walberg's desk to get your thumb drive out?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. Went home at lunch to pick up the other one. Then after it's buried, I'm gonna—"<br/>
<br/>
"I need to get into his desk too! I gotta get that, uh, <i>thing</i> out I gave him."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb stares. "The fuck?"<br/>
<br/>
"I just realized, I can't write a paper on that! What if my dad wants to see it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Walberg already knows what you gave him! You can't steal it back, pretend you gave him something else."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what you're doing!"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm giving him a <i>thumb drive,</i> Will! He doesn't know what's on it. Yet. Which is how come I need to get it out and put the other one in." He gives you a narrow look. "You gonna help me?"<br/>
<br/>
"I will if I can swap out my thing for something else!"<br/>
<br/>
"Will, I told you—" <br/>
<br/>
"Tomorrow! I'll help you tomorrow, after I've got something!" The bell rings. "See you later!" You scamper off, to leave Caleb to glare after you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Then, to make things worse, that evening your dad asks you about that book and why it's gone from his office. When you tell him that you sold it to a guy at school, he tells you to buy it back—if you can retrieve it for less than sixty dollars.<br/>
<br/>
Fortunately, you think you know how you can get it back for less.<br/>
<br/>
So, the next morning, you've got a little speech rehearsed for when you go into second period. Alas, Steven isn't at his desk when you arrive, and you are sweating hard as the minute hand sweeps ever closer to the start of class without him showing up. When you have thirty seconds left, you decide he must be skipping, and grab up your bag to run out the door to look for him. You're stopped by a deep, rumbling voice from behind the teacher's desk. "Are you going somewhere, Mr. Prescott?"<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Hawks is an elderly man, very sere in his looks, with close-shaved white hair, a strong nose, and the scariest glare of any teacher you've ever had. Instantly you crumple back into your desk. If only he were content with having frightened you into staying in class. But after class starts, he makes a point of calling on you first every time he asks the class a question!<br/>
<br/>
So you spend the rest of the day trying to hunt Steven down through every possible mutual acquaintance, but it's not until you're on your way to the last period of the day that you spot him out by the portables, hunching cross-legged with Spencer Osbourne. Your backpack bangs between your shoulder blades as you sprint out to see him.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," you pant as you pull up to them. "You still got my book?"<br/>
<br/>
Steven looks alarmed. "What are you talking about?"<br/>
<br/>
"My book! The one I traded you yesterday! The one I traded for—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, yeah." He snaps his fingers.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, can we trade back? I need it back, and I can get you your—"<br/>
<br/>
"Wait, what trade is this?" Spencer puts in.<br/>
<br/>
"Will traded me this crazy book for a doobie," Steven says.<br/>
<br/>
"What's so crazy about the book?" Spencer wants to know.<br/>
<br/>
"I 'unno. I didn't even look at it."<br/>
<br/>
"So you'll trade it back?" you ask. "I can get you—"<br/>
<br/>
"Now hold on," Spencer tells Steven. "As your business manager, let me handle this. What was this trade, Prescott?" he demands.<br/>
<br/>
You'd prefer to ignore Spencer, who in your experience has never been anything less than a malicious troublemaker, but you answer him: "I traded him this book for a doobie."<br/>
<br/>
"And now you want to renege on the transaction." Spencer grins smugly at you.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not reneging! I just want to trade back!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, either you're reneging, or you are seeking a new trade."<br/>
<br/>
You roll your eyes. "Fine! I'm asking for a new trade, I—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay. So what are you offering my client in exchange for—?"<br/>
<br/>
"The doobie I got from him yesterday! Jesus!"<br/>
<br/>
Spencer folds his hands and offers you a plump smile. "And what else?"<br/>
<br/>
Your gut sinks. "What do you mean, what else?"<br/>
<br/>
"I mean, what else, in addition to the doobie, are you offering my client in exchange for this book? Which is now his?"<br/>
<br/>
You stare at him. So does Steven, for a minute, before breaking out in asthmatic laughter.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't have anything else! I don't even have the doobie!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh dear," says Spencer. "Oh my. Tch tch tch."<br/>
<br/>
"Look, I can get the doobie! And I can get— What do you want?"<br/>
<br/>
Spencer looks at Steven, then returns you a very flat smile. "I will have to consult with my client. If you come find me tomorrow in the cafeteria, before class, we can resume our negotiations."<span class="O"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11414434
author_id: seuzz
title: Up in Smoke
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The bell for eighth period rings, making you officially tardy.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll talk to you guys later," you growl. <i>Except probably not,</i> you add in an undertone.<br/>
<br/>
"Looking forward to doing business with you!" Spencer calls out as you sprint away. You narrowly avoid crashing into Justin Roth, one of the stoners who you often see out at the portables, who is trudging out to join Spencer and Steven.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>Mr. Cash.</i><br/>
<br/>
That's what Caleb leaned over to mutter at you last April, when you and him were watching the James Bond movie <i>The Man with the Golden Gun,</i> and the villain appeared on screen. There's a definite resemblance between Scaramanga and your Astronomy teacher—the long face; the dark, flashing eyes under bushy black eyebrows; the iron-gray hair raked straight back from the pale forehead; the full lips that twists around a mouth full of hard, straight teeth—and not just physically.<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't say anything when you rush in, but he does summon you back to his desk after the last bell rings. <i>We have a tardy bell for a reason, Mr. Prescott,</i> he growls at you in a deep, resonant voice. <i>It's to encourage you, if you are not yet inside the classroom, to spend the next hour in the library or in a restroom or wherever else you please, instead of </i>bursting into my classroom like Hannibal over the Alps<i> after I have already begun my lecture.</i> There is some more in that vein, to the effect that although you were physically in the room for class, technically you were absent and will be recorded as such. At least he doesn't give you detention.<br/>
<br/>
So that is the reason you are late rendezvousing with Caleb and Keith outside Mr. Walberg's classroom, and when Caleb asks why you are late, that's why you tell him, <i>I got shot in the face by the man with the golden gun.</i> And then when he asks if you are having a stroke or something because you aren't making any sense, you tell him, <i>Never mind.</i><br/>
<br/>
Almost you texted him to say you weren't going to show. But you decided to be a grown-up about it, because this afternoon he's going to try getting into Mr. Walberg's desk, and he's going to need your help.<br/>
<br/>
The problem is that Mr. Walberg hasn't got the room to himself. Dane Matthias has detention with him, and that means that, when Mr. Walberg leaves the room (assuming he ever does) someone is going to need to distract Dane while a third person watches for Mr. Walberg's return even as Caleb sneaks into his desk to make the swap.<br/>
<br/>
It was Caleb who came up with the plan, and he's the one who disperses your forces, ordering you to sit on the floor outside the classroom while he and Keith loiter out of sight around the corner. Your job—<br/>
<br/>
"Would you like to take that and yourself someplace else, Mr. Prescott?"<br/>
<br/>
You look up from your phone and almost jump from your skin. Mr. Walberg is looming over you.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? Oh, n-no. I'm just waiting for someone."<br/>
<br/>
"Suit yourself," Mr. Walberg says, and waddles off toward the restroom at the other end of the wing. You close the browser on your phone and text a single letter—"k"—to Keith. A moment later he comes sauntering around the corner, hat on backwards, and goes into the classroom. "Ay!" he calls, and from inside Dane groans an answering, "Ay!"<br/>
<br/>
A count of ten, and Caleb comes sliding from around the corner. He gives you a quick nod, then peeks into the classroom. Satisfied, he tiptoes in and over to Mr. Walberg's desk, where he crouches in a position so he can search the desk drawers while also cocking an eye at over atyou. You shift so you can simultaneously watch Caleb and the hallway. Keith's voice carries loudly into the hall, but you pay no attention to anything he says.<br/>
<br/>
Your heart is thumping as Caleb slides open the big drawer where Mr. Walberg is keeping the stuff. Silently he paws through it, and after a moment takes out and shows you a thumb drive, then digs a little more before taking out a plastic bag containing a marijuana joint. You glance down the hallway, and give him a thumb's up. From his backpack Caleb takes another thumb drive and the busted hair dryer you brought in from home this morning, and drops them both into the drawer. He slides it shut and peeps out over the top of the desk, then on his haunches waddles toward the door. He stops just inside the doorway, his nose twitching inquisitively at you, and you make another glance down the hallway, then gesture him to stand. He shoots upright, and comes sauntering out to join you as you scramble to your own feet. You touch knuckles, and a moment later Keith comes out. Then, fighting the urge to run, you set off the opposite way from which Mr. Walberg went. You make one quick glance back down the hallway before rounding the corner. It is still clear.<br/>
<br/>
Once you're out of sight of the classroom door, the three of you bolt for the nearest exit.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You and your friends drive out (separately) to the old elementary school near your house. It closed a couple of decades ago and was converted into a community center, but you park yourselves on the side of the building farthest from the wing where the center is housed, and there you light and pass around the joint you recovered. <i>Fuck Steven and Spencer and that book,</i> you decided. <i>Let 'em keep it.</i> Half the joint is still unsmoked when you cut short the celebration, and you hide what's left in a cleft in a nearby tree before parting. You feel good, but not so "good" that you don't rush through the living quarters when you get home and run upstairs to spray deodorant all over yourself and change clothes before going back down to help get dinner on the table.<br/>
<br/>
Still, you're relaxed enough that you don't feel any fear when your dad asks about the book, and you tell him that the guy wouldn't sell it back. He fixes you with a sharp glance and asks how much the guy paid <i>you</i> for it. "Thirty dollars," you carelessly reply, and he drops the subject.<br/>
<br/>
The next morning you do <i>not</i> go looking for Spencer, and when you see Steven in Mr. Hawks's class, you tell him you changed your mind and don't want the thing back.<br/>
<br/>
"That's cool," he says. "It actually looks kind of interesting."<br/>
<br/>
"So you're not gonna want to trade it back to me?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. Maybe. I'll let you know."<br/>
<br/>
One of his friends comes in just then, distracting him, and you let the matter drop.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You are given approximately thirty-six hours to feel good about yourself before the roof caves in on Friday morning, when your first-period class troops out to bury the time capsule behind the music wing. It's a dull exercise—Kelsey Blankenship reads a pompous little speech to the class, and then some of her AP friends carry out the actual internment—but you jump like you've been poked with a cattle prod when, on the way back inside afterward, Mr. Walberg himself falls in beside you. "So tell me, Mr. Prescott," he gruffly inquires, "what are you going to say in your paper?"<br/>
<br/>
"Paper? Uh, what paper?" you squeak. You'd been hoping that rumor would prove to be just so much hot air.<br/>
<br/>
"The paper you're going to write on your submission. You're all going to write papers on what you put in the capsule."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh. Uh, I didn't know we were going to write a paper."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you are. So tell me, why did you you choose to put <i>that thing</i> into the time capsule? Go ahead. I really want to hear your reasoning."<br/>
<br/>
And that's when you realize you're stuck for an answer.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"And then the moron actually tried bluffing his way through!" Caleb howls with laughter. "Right there, on the spot, he tried coming up with some bullshit reason why the future would be interested in his busted old hair dryer!"<br/>
<br/>
Everyone else is laughing too.<br/>
<br/>
It's lunchtime, and you're sitting out front again with Carson and James and Jenny and Paul and Keith, along with Caleb, who is entertaining the others with an account of that disaster of a conversation.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what was I supposed to say?" you holler. <br/>
<br/>
"What you should'a done is say you were going to write a paper about putting some weed into the time capsule!"<br/>
<br/>
"But I didn't! I gave him a hair dryer—"<br/>
<br/>
"He <i>knew</i> you gave him weed, Prescott," Carson says. His eyes are watering with amusement. "Remember? He told you it was an 'interesting' submission."<br/>
<br/>
"He noticed the swap," Caleb says, redundantly. "Like I told you he would. But if you'd <i>told</i> him you'd given him weed, he wouldn't'a figured out that <i>you</i> knew about the swap, and that <i>you</i> broke into his desk to swap things out!"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't break into his desk!" you yell. "<i>You</i> did!"<br/>
<br/>
The whole group goes very quiet, all of a sudden.<br/>
<br/>
"I hope, for the sake of your continued popularity with your friends," Carson gruffly informs you, "that you don't intend to <i>narc</i> on Caleb."<br/>
<br/>
Well, of course you don't. <br/>
<br/>
But it all means that now you get to share detention with Dane in Mr. Walberg's classroom for an hour after school, for all of next week. You also have to take home a note to your parents explaining the circumstances of your detention: that you broke into the teacher's desk after first trying to submit a marijuana joint for the time capsule project.<br/>
<br/>
So you are fucked all the way around.<span class="O"></span></span></div></div>


path: 114144341
author_id: seuzz
title: Detention Deficit Disorder
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You knew you were boned good and hard even before you left school, but the reality at home is even worse. Your dad is so angry he doesn't even yell after he's got you alone in his study. He just stares at you like you're some kind of freak of nature that he never suspected could even exist. If Bigfoot walked into your house, took a beer from the fridge, lit up a joint, and said, "Wassup, bitches?" you doubt your dad would blink harder than he's blinking at you now.<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>broke</i> into a teacher's desk to steal something?"<br/>
<br/>
"To get something back," you mutter through clenched teeth.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I see. That's different. What were you getting back?"<br/>
<br/>
"I told you. A joint."<br/>
<br/>
"One he confiscated from you?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I told you. I gave it to him for our time capsule project."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh-huh." He again consults the note from Mr. Walberg again. "You still call these things 'joints', huh?" he asks. You shrug. "You gave him one for the time capsule, but then broke into his desk to get it back."<br/>
<br/>
"I was trying to swap it out for something else. I changed my mind about what I wanted to give him."<br/>
<br/>
"So why didn't you simply tell him you changed your mind?"<br/>
<br/>
Explaining that would mean getting Caleb in trouble too. So you shrug.<br/>
<br/>
He's not buying it, though. "You're not stupid, Will. Oh, you play stupid sometimes, but you're not <i>that</i> stupid. What else is going on here?"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug again. "Nothing. I guess I am that stupid."<br/>
<br/>
All the color drains from your dad's face, and for a moment you really do think he's going to hit you.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," he says in a voice cracking with suppressed emotion, "can you explain why you changed your mind about the project?"<br/>
<br/>
"I heard we were going to have to write a paper. I didn't want to write a paper on, um, the thing I gave him."<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't know what I was going to say."<br/>
<br/>
His eyebrows go up. "So you submitted a joint to this project only as a <i>joke?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
Now you do feel like arguing. "No, I was serious! I thought it'd be interesting. I mean, it's something that a, uh, lot of people use. <i>I</i> don't," you hurriedly add. "But as a, uh, sample of, um, recreational, uh, drug use, current day, it seemed like, um—"<br/>
<br/>
He cuts you off before you can stammer yourself into a stroke. "It sounds to me like you could have written a good paper. So why didn't you want to?"<br/>
<br/>
Through gritted teeth, you confess, "I was afraid you'd want to see it. And then you'd know what I submitted."<br/>
<br/>
He stares at you, then pinches the bridge of his nose.<br/>
<br/>
"You were afraid I'd be mad if you submitted a joint to your class project. So instead you broke into a teacher's desk. <i>Really?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Dad, I didn't want you thinking I smoke weed! That I know where to get that stuff!"<br/>
<br/>
"Where did you get it?"<br/>
<br/>
You squirm. "At school."<br/>
<br/>
"How much did it cost?"<br/>
<br/>
You pray to be struck by lightning, but when a thunderstorm fails to materialize after five seconds of agonizing silence, you confess: "I traded that book to a guy. The book I showed you."<br/>
<br/>
He sinks back to sit on the edge of his desk. "You <i>told</i> me you got thirty dollars for it."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's about what a joint would cost at school." Actually, you have no idea what a joint would cost.<br/>
<br/>
Your dad squeezes his head between the heels of his hands. "Well, at least you didn't trade it for a handful of magic beans," he mutters. "But, getting back to this paper you didn't want to write. If you didn't want me to see the paper you wrote, why didn't you just write a fake paper, that you could show me if I asked. A paper about a—" For a third time he consults the note Mr. Walberg sent home with you. His lips go white. "A busted hair dryer."<br/>
<br/>
"Write a fake paper?" you croak.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. If I had asked, you could have given me a fake paper, if you were really so scared I'd be mad at you about—" He sighs.<br/>
<br/>
You think you see an opening, a flaw in his logic, and you leap for it: "But it wouldn't have had Mr. Walberg's grade or notes on it!"<br/>
<br/>
Your dad visibly ages about five years, right before your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"So you could'a given it to one of your friends, and <i>they</i> could have marked it up with a red pen. Oh, <i>Christ,</i> Will! Why do <i>I</i> have to explain to <i>you</i> how to fool <i>me?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So you're grounded—no cell phone and no internet, either—and on Monday after school you troop into Mr. Walberg's room to take your first day of detention.<br/>
<br/>
You have stayed after school a few times before, to get some work done in the library while waiting to meet up with someone, but you'd never noticed how much activity there could still be inside the school after classes let out. There's so much running and thundering in the hallways outside, in fact, that Mr. Walberg gets up at least twice to bark at the people making all the noise. But at least you get a lot of your homework done, even if Dane Matthias keeps trying to distract you.<br/>
<br/>
The two of you leave together, and Dane, who is friendly even when he isn't baked, throws an arm around your shoulder as he lopes along beside you. "Ay, man, so what you doing now? We should go hang out." He giggles. "We should ask ol' walrus-butt to hang out."<br/>
<br/>
"I have to get home. I'm grounded."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, man!" His expression falls, as though you'd told him your dog died. "Whadja do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Same thing that got me detention."<br/>
<br/>
His eyes pop. "You did it <i>twice?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"No! It got me detention <i>and</i> I got grounded."<br/>
<br/>
"Whadja do again?" He giggles. "<i>I</i> got caught breaking into old walrus-butt's desk!"<br/>
<br/>
"Me too," you reply. But he's not listening. You're walking down the central corridor of the school, and he's glancing down the Arts wing as you pass its entrance.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh hey, I know those guys!" he exclaims, as though he's surprised himself by knowing them. "Come on, let's go—"<br/>
<br/>
"I told you, I gotta get home. My dad's so mad at me that if I'm late—"<br/>
<br/>
But Dane is already jogging into the Arts wing. You peer past him, then turn with a snort and stalk off toward the exit. Ever since you made that trade with him, you regard Steven Buckner (who is one of the guys Dane's running off to meet) as a bad luck omen. And Spencer Osbourne, who is with him, is someone you've never much cared for.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"So I hear you got detention," Carson says the next day at lunch. You didn't want to spend it with him and his friends again, but Caleb insisted. Probably because he could tell from your mood that you'd be awful company if it was just you and him and Keith, as it usually is. "How long for?"<br/>
<br/>
"A week."<br/>
<br/>
He pauses in mid-chew. "Is that all?"<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't that enough?"<br/>
<br/>
"For most teachers, yeah," Carson says. "For most it'd be overkill. For Walberg, though? The fucker must like you."<br/>
<br/>
"Psht. I don't see it."<br/>
<br/>
"Get down off your cross, Prescott" James says. He doesn't look up from the sandwich he is carefully assembling from separate ingredients. "It's just detention. It's an extra study hall at the end of the day."<br/>
<br/>
"It's time I could be spending somewhere else!"<br/>
<br/>
"Doing what? Homework?" Carson snorts. "This is the best thing that could happen to you, Prescott. You get your work done early so you have the rest of the day free."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, piss off! Why don't <i>you</i> get yourself detention, then, if it's such an awesome thing!"<br/>
<br/>
"Who says we don't? Except we don't have to do fuck-headed things like criminal trespass to get it. We just hang out after school, getting our shit done."<br/>
<br/>
"I never see you guys in the library."<br/>
<br/>
"Pff. Nobody gets anything done in the <i>library.</i> The library is where you go if you want to gossip and be seen. Mr. Carr lets us hang out in his room." He gets a nostalgic smile. "Some of our most awesome pranks have been planned right there, right under his nose."<br/>
<br/>
You snort. "Well, I don't got any teachers that'd let <i>me</i> hang out with 'em."<br/>
<br/>
"That's right," Carson agrees. "So don't even <i>think</i> about asking Mr. Carr if you can hang out in his room."<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
"Like James and me would want <i>you</i> in there, cramping our style."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Maybe there's a lot of people who have the same general idea as Carson and James, because for the second day you notice a lot of traffic in the halls while you're taking detention. It's not so bad that Mr. Walberg has to yell at anyone again, but you do notice it. And while you're in the restroom taking a much-needed shit when detention is over, two guys come in to use the urinals and wash up.<br/>
<br/>
It's hard to make out everything they say, what with echoes and the running water and the closed stall door separating you from them, and you don't concentrate on the talk until you hear a name that you loathe:  "So what was <i>Kelsey</i> doing at the Donna?"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you think she was doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck. That takes balls."<br/>
<br/>
"Balls she likes to slurp."<br/>
<br/>
"Cunt. She's not gonna say anything, do you think?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why not? Bitch is—"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos, like, how would she explain how she saw them? I mean, if she doesn't want anyone knowing that <i>she</i> was at the Donna."<br/>
<br/>
"She'd get someone else to spread it around. Or she'd say she was just there to see Kim. Student council business or something, and that's how come she—"<br/>
<br/>
"You think <i>Kim</i> knows?"<br/>
<br/>
"Kim wouldn't say anything. She's too much of a teacher's pet."<br/>
<br/>
A nasty snigger. "So's—" The tearing of a paper towel obliterates the words. Then: "—petting with a teacher, at least."<br/>
<br/>
"More'n petting, if they was at the Donna."<br/>
<br/>
Shoes squeak on tile, and the door opens and closes.<span class="O"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1141443411
author_id: seuzz
title: A Stationary Stone Gathers Some Gossip
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Who are you staring at?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb's voice startles you out of your reverie, and you sit up. The sounds of pre-class first period come rushing back in. "Huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh," Caleb mockingly echoes. "You were staring at Kelsey."<br/>
<br/>
"Who says?"<br/>
<br/>
"I say. I saw you. Not that she isn't easy on the eyes." He cranes to stare at Kelsey, who you <i>were</i> staring at. "But if she catches you—"<br/>
<br/>
You make a face.<br/>
<br/>
It's true that Kelsey Blankenship is quite good-looking, if caught from certain angles. (There are certain other angles, though, where her nose is a little too sharp, and her chin a shade too jutting.) She dresses up nice too, in an expensive, Southwestern-bohemian motif of designer jeans or jean-skirts, sun-faded blouses, turquoise-and-silver jewelry, and either sandals or boots. But she's a conceited bitch, hyper-conscious of her status and the status of her family (her father owns a chain of car dealerships), and more than once she's snarled at some plebe who she's caught looking too long in her direction.<br/>
<br/>
"Let's eat with Carson and them today," you tell Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"Didn't you have breakfast? What are you thinking about lunch for already?"<br/>
<br/>
"I just want to talk to them."<br/>
<br/>
"I thought you were mad at them." In a near undertone he adds, "I'd be mad at 'em if they talked to me like they talked to <i>you</i> yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
"That's just the way they talk. But they hear things, and— Well, I wanna talk to Jenny, too."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb sucks thoughtfully on a tooth, then leans over to murmur, "If there's anything you want to know about <i>Kelsey,</i> Mindy McAdams is the one to talk to."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know Mindy that well."<br/>
<br/>
"I'm just saying."<br/>
<br/>
"How does Mindy know—?"<br/>
<br/>
The bell rings, and Caleb just says, "Mindy is <i>obsessed</i> with Kelsey."<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't clarify, but you don't pursue it either. You're not sure what you really want to know, and are pretty sure that Jenny Ashton and her friends will be able to clear up the mystery of that conversation you heard in the restroom after school yesterday.<br/>
<br/>
And if they can't, well, it's not such a big deal.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Steven Buckner and Andy Tackett are in deep conference when you get to second period, but Steven looks up with a start when he catches sight of you. "Oh hey, man," he says. "I heard you got busted last week for breaking into a teacher's desk."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"That's too bad. Kind of cool, though." He grins. "Didn't know you had it in you."<br/>
<br/>
You'd let it drop, but Tackett says, "Jesus, what'dju do a stupid thing like <i>that</i> for?"<br/>
<br/>
"I wanted to get something out."<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
You shoot Steven a sidelong glance. "I traded some guy something for a"—you mime taking a hit off a joint—"and I wanted to get it back."<br/>
<br/>
Tackett blinks. "The teacher took it from you?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's complicated." You shoot Buckner another glare. "I hope <i>you're</i> having fun with the thing I traded you."<br/>
<br/>
"What thing? Oh!" He grins, hard. "Oh yeah."<br/>
<br/>
Something in his tone catches your ear. "Did you figure it out?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I—"<br/>
<br/>
But at that point Tilley comes in and slaps you on the back of your head, and after you get through saying, "Hey" and "Fuck you" and "Nothing, that's what I did yesterday, I'm grounded, asshole" to him, Steven and Andy are back in rapt conversation.<br/>
<br/>
But it makes you wonder how (and how far) news of your detention has spread. You never got the impression that you were a subject of conversation, even behind your back.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"It's the Donna Motor Courts," Carson informs you at lunchtime. "You did say 'Kim', didn't you?" You nod. "Yeah, then it's the Donna."<br/>
<br/>
"Of course it's the Donna," James says. "If they were talking about Kelsey."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Jesus, you guys are like a couple of old hens," Jenny interrupts. "What's it matter?"<br/>
<br/>
"Facts matter, Ashton," Carson coldly replies. "Without facts there'd be no science, and without science, you wouldn't have that cell phone that so obsesses you."<br/>
<br/>
Jenny makes a face and hunches defensively over her phone. "What's Kelsey and Kim and the Donna got to do with technology?" she retorts.<br/>
<br/>
"What else is there to talk about on that cell phone," Carson ripostes, "except things like Kelsey and Kim and the Donna? I doubt you're reading an abstract on the latest developments in quantum physics."<br/>
<br/>
"Ohhh!" Jenny turns her back on the lunchtime group and dips back into her cell.<br/>
<br/>
It's a clear, warm day, as it has been all week, and you're all lounging on the grass in front of the school, as Carson and his friends always do at lunchtime. Keith isn't with you today, though, for he heard a rumor that Cindy Vredenburg might be joining them, and where Cindy goes, her vicious boyfriend usually goes too. And Seth Javits has long made the abuse of Keith his special hobby.<br/>
<br/>
But Cindy didn't show up, which is good if it means Seth doesn't show up, but which is bad because Cindy probably knows even more about what you've been asking Carson and James about. But they do seem to know enough.<br/>
<br/>
The Donna Motor Courts, they inform you, is a rundown motel on the south end of town. That much you knew. What you didn't know is that the Donna caters specially to a clientele that pays by the hour, for an afternoon or evening of private fun. It is also owned by the family of the very prim student council president, Kim Walsh. (That fact—or rather the fact that they have shared it with you—seems to be what has Jenny so riled up.) As for Kelsey and her relationship to the Donna:<br/>
<br/>
"Her and her boyfriend are banging each other stupid out there every weekend," James informs you. "Now you can do the math."<br/>
<br/>
"What math?"<br/>
<br/>
"Two plus two and four. Kelsey and Karl Hennepin, the Donna, doing something that Kelsey doesn't want the world to know about, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Karl Hennepin!" you exclaim. "Him and Kelsey are—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Didn't you know?"<br/>
<br/>
"No!"<br/>
<br/>
James and Carson exchange a look, and shrug. "Well, they are," James says.<br/>
<br/>
"Shit! Kelsey and Karl? I—"<br/>
<br/>
"Keep it under your hat, Prescott," Carson growls. "Same as Kelsey and Karl are keeping it under his hat. No one's supposed to know. I mean, I guess everyone knows, now that you do." He squints at you. "You really didn't know?" You shake your head. "What about you, Johansson?"<br/>
<br/>
"I heard rumors."<br/>
<br/>
James snorts. "Bullshit."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, everyone knows, but Kelsey doesn't know that everyone knows. She thinks it's a big secret, and everyone's too embarrassed to tell her that everyone from Kookaburra to Cancun knows about it. So keep it to yourself."<br/>
<br/>
"Why?"<br/>
<br/>
Carson gives you a look. "Do you want Kelsey thinking you're the one that blew her big secret, that she's taking Karl in past the tonsils every chance she gets? Exactly," he says when he sees your face fall. "If you think <i>Chelsea Cooper</i> is vicious—" He glances at Jenny's back, but she's too absorbed in typing into her cell.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, Prescott," says James, "it's your turn to give. You said you heard some guys talking about all this in a bathroom yesterday. What <i>else</i> did you hear?"<br/>
<br/>
You confess that that's all, except for something about "petting with a teacher," at the Donna, and you had the impression it was a student they were talking about.<br/>
<br/>
Carson and James exchange a long look. Then: "Mr. Hagerman." "Ms. Simeon." "Ms. Willet." "Coach Schell." "Coach Richards." "Coach Whitney." "Coach Nathan." "Mrs. Oliver." "Mr. Hummel." "Mr. Cant." "Mr. Fernandez." "Bleaaaghhh!" "Could be." "No it couldn't!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh my God!" you cry. "Are you guys serious? Those teachers? At the Donna? With—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Could be," says James.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be naive, Prescott," says Carson. "How do you think some of the AP students around here keep their grades up?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're taking AP classes," Caleb points out, but Carson ignores him.<br/>
<br/>
"You know, that's a thought I didn't have," he tells James with a nudge. "What if the whole Kelsey and Karl thing is a blind? What if Kelsey started that rumor herself to cover up the fact that it's Walberg and Henderson she's blowing?"<br/>
<br/>
Before you can throw up, Jenny turns around to glare murder at him.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't pay any attention to what they say, Will," she says. "It's all just a figment of their sick imaginations. I mean, listen to them! One of them is fantasizing about blow jobs from Mr. Fernandez!"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's your third day of detention, but after yesterday (and your talk with Carson and James) you find yourself paying a lot more attention to the noises out in the halls, and the sight of students walking past the windows outside, than to your homework. You can't see into the hallways, because Walberg has you sitting in the back of the room, but there seems to be an inordinate amount of running, and once there's a very loud shout and the shrill shriek of someone whistling through their teeth. (Right after that, you see Marc Garner galloping past your window toward the music wing.) There's some activity off at the portables, too, with Steven Buckner jogging between them and the school a couple of times, to the apparent amusement of—<br/>
<br/>
"Do you have some homework you can be doing, Mr. Prescott?" Mr. Walberg growls. That's when you realize you are half out of your desk, craning to see who it is squatting by the portables as Buckner goes running past. You sink back into your seat and bend over your math. It's forty minutes before you come up for air, when Mr. Walberg gruffly announces that your detention is over. Dane, who was uncharacteristically quiet all period, is already packed up, and practically bolts from the room.<br/>
<br/>
It's as you're packing that you glance out the window and confirm (to your own satisfaction, at least) that it was Justin Roth and Mindy McAdams who were sitting outside the portables, for they are approaching the school now.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Mindy McAdams.</i> Caleb said she's "obsessed" with Kelsey. Maybe you can catch and talk to her on your way out.<span class="O"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11414434111
author_id: seuzz
title: Noses Out of Joint
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You hustle out of Mr. Walberg's classroom just as Justin and Mindy come into the building. "Hey!" you pant as you fall in beside them.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, man," Justin rumbles. "Where'd you come from?" Mindy hesitates, but he pulls her along without stopping.<br/>
<br/>
"I had detention, I'm just getting out. Um— Mindy, you got a minute?"<br/>
<br/>
She darts you a quick, frightened look, then edges closer to Justin. He says, "We're on our way out, man."<br/>
<br/>
"This is real quick. I just wanted to ask you about Kelsey."<br/>
<br/>
"Kelsey?" Mindy squeaks. Justin slips his arm into hers, and quickens his pace.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. It's— Well— It's, uh, just a piece of news I heard, and I was— Someone told me <i>you'd</i> be the one to ask."<br/>
<br/>
"We're kind of busy," Justin says. Without breaking pace, he shoots you a quick, malevolent look.<br/>
<br/>
Justin isn't a big guy, but he has a powerful physical presence. He wears a thin, ratty t-shirt that clings close enough to his torso to give it shape—the shape of someone with hard muscles—and in his jeans cut-offs he shows off strong, summer-dark thighs and calves. He has a heavy-set face, with a hard jaw, bold nose, lowering brow, and deep-set eyes that easily fall into a don't-fuck-with-me stare, like the one he's giving you now. His brown hair is flat and straight, but twists into little spit curls over his eyebrows and ears.<br/>
<br/>
But you don't see any reason to let him frighten you off. You're all going the same way, so why shouldn't you talk?<br/>
<br/>
"I just wanna know, is Kelsey really going out with Karl Hennepin?"<br/>
<br/>
Justin answers. "That's what I hear."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, why does she want it to be a secret?"<br/>
<br/>
"Why do you wanna know?" Justin asks. "You wanna try stealing him away from her?"<br/>
<br/>
"I only wanna—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Just hold on to your shit a minute, alright?"<br/>
<br/>
You've come to an exit, and Justin stops to pull Mindy close to him. She visibly trembles as he murmurs softly in her ear, and  digs into his' pockets to pull out some keys, which he presses onto her. Then he pushes the door open for her and, after a fractional hesitation, she leaves, her head down. She's just out the door when she breaks into a half-run and hurries off toward the student parking lot.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay now, motherfucker," Justin growls as he turns on you. "You're being a real nuisance and I should kick your fucking ass from here to the river. I got a piece of tail out there just dying for me, but I'll give you one fucking minute of my time. Now what the motherfucking fuck do you wanna know about Kelsey Blankenship?"<br/>
<br/>
You quail. "Jesus! I—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey Roth!" a voice calls. Spencer Osbourne comes sauntering out of the G wing boys' restroom. "I thought I heard your manly voice. What are you still doing here? Where's your girlfriend?"<br/>
<br/>
"Can you talk to this fucker for me?" Justin snarls at him. "He's full of questions about Kelsey."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh really?" Spencer glints maliciously at you. "Yeah, Prescott can be a real nosey-parker."<br/>
<br/>
Justin starts to turn away, then catches himself. "Where's Steven?"<br/>
<br/>
"Bathroom. Splashing some cold water on his face." Spencer eyes you speculatively.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, for Chrissakes, don't leave him in there alone, he's having a bad trip. I can tell."<br/>
<br/>
"You could," Spencer retorts.<br/>
<br/>
Justin snorts, then turns and savagely kicks the door open, stalking out the way Mindy went, and leaving you alone under Spencer's glittering eye. "So what do you want to know about Kelsey?" Osbourne asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing, I guess. I just heard a rumor about her and Karl Hennepin."<br/>
<br/>
He sniggers. "Oh yeah. Her and him are wrestling naked every weekend down at the Donna."<br/>
<br/>
"How long's this been going on?"<br/>
<br/>
"Since the end of summer, at least. She doesn't know that everyone knows, though. She thinks it's a secret."<br/>
<br/>
"So how does she not know that—?"<br/>
<br/>
"You're asking about last year's news, man. Leave it alone, you sound lame even just asking." He glances behind at the restroom door. "I gotta go, I got a friend back there, he got into some bad shit or other. Fucking Roth." His eyes and grin gleam with mischief. "He shouldn't leave that shit laying around were people can accidentally get into it. It's the kind of stuff that can really tear a guy's face off." <br/>
<br/>
He holds your eye a moment. Then— "I'll see you around, Prescott." He disappears back into the restroom.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
On Thursday your daily homework is light enough that, during detention, you finish scrawling out the two papers you owe Mr. Walberg, and hand them in to him early. (Part of your punishment is that you have to write one paper on the hair dryer, and a separate one on the doobie.) He only glances at the one on the hair dryer before scribbling a "D" on it. He takes time to read the other, then puts a "D" on it as well. "I'd've added a plus to it," he growls at you, "if you'd put any actual work into it." You don't reply. There was no point in putting work in, because he already said you'd be getting a D for completing the assignments, and no higher.<br/>
<br/>
On Friday you get a little bit of revenge on the asshole by throwing yourself into your schoolwork, to the point that you force him to stay a little after five as you polish off the last few problems. And it's because you stayed late that, as you pack up, you glimpse some excitement outside. The classroom windows look out into the space between the music wing and the portables. There's some kids out there, including Mindy, Justin, and Spencer, and there's some kind of argument, for as you watch Spencer and Justin scramble to their feet just long enough for Justin to put Spencer back down with a hard punch to the jaw. He then pulls Mindy to her feet and roughly hustles her toward the building. You don't intercept them again, though, and take a different route to the parking lot.<br/>
<br/>
The weekend is dreadful. You are grounded, and your dad takes advantage of that to put you to work all day Saturday, and when that evening you complain of being bored, he suggests you read a book. You try to relieve the boredom of Sunday afternoon by playing games on your console, only to discover that you really only enjoy gaming when it's one of a choice of things you could be doing. When it's the only thing available, the fun palls.<br/>
<br/>
But on Sunday night your dad officially lifts your grounding, and you are done with detention, too.<br/>
<br/>
So why does Monday morning feel like a case of the "same old shit"?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"It's simple," Carson explains to you at lunch. "Your life is in a rut. You got out of that rut for a moment, but now you're back in it."<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't 'get out of my rut'!" you yell at him. "I had <i>detention,</i> asshole! And I got grounded!"<br/>
<br/>
"Which was a break from your routine," James says. "Maybe you didn't like it, but it was a change from your usual, boring old shit."<br/>
<br/>
"He's got a point," Caleb says. "You're not really doing anything with your life, Will."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck you guys." You resettle your cap on your itching scalp. It's been an unseasonably warm couple of days for the last week, and the hot sun is making you prickle. "How about we move into the shade," you suggest.<br/>
<br/>
"There you go," Carson says. "Looking for a break from routine."<br/>
<br/>
"How about you take a different route to your next class," James suggests. "It's pretty clear you hate getting out of your comfort zone—"<br/>
<br/>
"Rut," Carson corrects.<br/>
<br/>
"—so, you know, try taking some baby steps."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, speaking of baby steps," Carson says, "are you looking for help with your math?"<br/>
<br/>
"No!"<br/>
<br/>
"Just asking, man, don't lose your shit. I just saw you hanging out in Mr. Muniz's room this morning, thought maybe you were getting some side tutoring from him."<br/>
<br/>
"I wasn't in Muniz's classroom!"<br/>
<br/>
"I saw you. Second period. I was on my way to my study hall."<br/>
<br/>
You poke Keith in the shoulder. "Tell this guy, was I or was I not in Film class with you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Film class," James snorts. "Fuck me."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, you was there. You was helping me scope out Mia. Oh, man!" Keith's eyes light up. "Guys, I'm tellin' you, she was wearing this tiny little skirt, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"It was hot," you agree.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, whatever," Carson says. "But I saw you, man," he insists. "Wearing your stupid hat and everything."<br/>
<br/>
"Wasn't me."<br/>
<br/>
"Then you have a double here at school." Carson squints at you. "Maybe that's how come I get the impression you're always under foot."<br/>
<br/>
"Bite me. Say, where's Jenny and Paul?" Those two are missing from the group.<br/>
<br/>
Carson and James exchange a quick glance. "A little counseling session," James says. "Davis is feeling a little ... extreme ... about Yumi."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you mean?" Caleb asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Shut up, that's what we mean," Carson says. "Don't say a fucking word. Jenny's trying to talk him off a ledge."<br/>
<br/>
You wince with some sympathy. Paul Davis has the biggest crush you've ever seen, on the cheerleader Yumi Saito.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Carson and James were being pricks, but you have to credit them with a little insight. Maybe last week did give you a break from routine. Certainly, you never realized there could be so much going on after school, even if sometimes it could be a little ... dramatic.<br/>
<br/>
You don't have detention any more, but maybe you could stick around after school, get some homework done if nothing else. But not in the library. Somewhere in the school, where there might be some action.<span class="O"></span></span></div></div>


path: 114144341111
author_id: seuzz
title: An After-School Ambush
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>By the time the final bell of the day rings, you've decided to stay after school, just as a break from routine, if nothing else.<br/>
<br/>
But where to hang out? Because even though it would be good to get your homework done, what you're really looking for is something to distract you. Something that isn't one of the same old distractions like you've used a thousand times before.<br/>
<br/>
You start by roaming the halls, just in case you run into someone, but that's a bust. Then you decide to go looking for Carson and James in Mr. Carr's classroom. But the door there is locked and the lights are out. You scan the rest of the rooms in the science wing, but it's only teachers in them.<br/>
<br/>
You make a circuit of the school grounds, making special notice of the space in front of the old portables, but that's empty too. Vexed, you wind up in the library, which is the last place you wanted to land. You linger for a few moments, studying the faces of the students there, none of whom give you so much as a glance back, then decide to bag it. <i>What a waste,</i> you fume to yourself.<br/>
<br/>
But just as you're exiting the library, you run into Jenny Ashton. "Oh hey, Will!" She jumps. "What are you still doing up here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Looking for someone to hang out with," you blurt out before you can catch yourself. "What are you doing up here?"<br/>
<br/>
She reacts with a tight smile. "Just got through hanging out with someone. You on your way out? Come walk with me to my locker."<br/>
<br/>
"Who were you hanging out with?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Yumi, in the orchestra room."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" You fall in beside her as she hustles down the hallway. "I, uh, I heard Paul's feeling kind of, um—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, Mr. Montague!" Jenny sings out. The teacher is lounging inside the doorway to his room, frowning at his cell. "How's the freshman class this year?"<br/>
<br/>
He looks up, and seems to retrieve his attention from very far away. "Oh hey, Jenny. They're fine. They're— Jenny!" he calls sharply, and she stops to turn back to him. "Do you have a minute?"<br/>
<br/>
"I guess. I'm just on my home."<br/>
<br/>
"Well— Could you come in here? I want to talk to you about the Mentor's Club. Since you're asking about freshmen."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, sure. I'm not in Mentor's Club, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I know that. I'm their adviser, so— Well, do you have time to talk?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure." She glances uncertainly at you.<br/>
<br/>
"It'll just be for a minute," Mr. Montague says, "so if your friend wants to wait too."<br/>
<br/>
You shrug, and follow the both into the classroom.<br/>
<br/>
You've never had Mr. Montague, for he teaches the AP English classes. He's a youngish guy, probably in his early thirties, with mild eyes and a brown, close-trimmed beard. There is something slightly ... <i>femme</i> ... in his body language, and you've heard other students claim that he's gay or at least bi-. He's very fussy as he starts putting the things on his desk away without paying attention to you or Jenny, except to say, with a grimace, that he has to go get something from the office before he can talk to Jenny, and he's muttering to himself as he leaves.<br/>
<br/>
Jenny gives you a pitying look. "You can go if you want, Will," she says. "I'm going straight home from here."<br/>
<br/>
"That's okay, I'll wait with you. Or I'll go when he gets back." You pause. "You don't want to talk about Paul or Yumi, do you?"<br/>
<br/>
She makes a face. "You know he's got a crush on her." <i>Well, dur,</i> you think. Paul does everything but walk around with a sign on his neck reading I'VE GOT A GIANT CRUSH ON YOU, YUMI. "Well, he and Yumi got into kind of a tiff—"<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing huge," she assures you. "She got kind of snippy with him, and he's so sensitive—"<br/>
<br/>
"When was this?"<br/>
<br/>
"After cheerleader practice this morning. Totally the <i>wrong</i> time to try talking to Yumi, which he <i>knows</i>, because he said he went out to the gym to 'be there' for her after practice." She groans. "Oh, he's such a sweet, dumb goofball. But she—"<br/>
<br/>
Her phone vibrates, and she checks it. "Hang on," she says. "I'll be right back." She vanishes into the hallway, leaving you alone.<br/>
<br/>
You fall into a desk when she doesn't immediately return, to sit with crossed arms to ponder the sandy waste of arid emotions that separates Paul Davis from Yumi Saito.<br/>
<br/>
Paul is a dweeb who you don't pay much attention to. There's not much to say or think about when it comes to him. He's just a regular kid. He hasn't got the same "science nerd" vibe as Carson and James, either, but seems normal and well-adjusted. He's fairly good-looking too, you suppose, with short, brown hair, an open countenance, and a wide, happy smile that one girl, when you were freshman, told you was very "cute." The trouble is that he doesn't seem to have any interests or quirks. He's not into movies or music or games; he's not noticeably smart; he's just quiet and inoffensive and makes no trouble for anyone. And though he doesn't shrink up and disappear, like some guys you know, he just seems to bob along with a slightly panicked grin, doing his best not to bump into anyone.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe, you think as you slouch further in your seat, that's why you don't like thinking about him. The awful thought wouldn't have occurred to you if Carson hadn't said anything about you and your "rut," but— You don't have any interests either. And you don't have any luck with girls either. Maybe you're just as bland and personality-free as Paul.<br/>
<br/>
So you have empathize with him and his situation, even though your sympathies are much more strongly with Yumi. Because you'd find it pretty damn awkward if a girl as bland and personality-free as Paul Davis acted like a puppy dog around you.<br/>
<br/>
Your hat flies off onto the desk in front of you, startling you badly. But before you can react with other than the panicked thought, <i>It's the Molester! Or Javits! Or  some other asshole looking hassle me!</i> you are slapped hard on the back of the head, and everything goes dark.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Hey. Hey. Come on, sweetheart. Wake up."<br/>
<br/>
The world is a throbbing sensation of blood-red pain, sitting right atop your left eyeball, when next you are conscious of being shaken. You groan and grimace and wrench your eyes open. Mr. Montague, with a pale look of alarm on his face, is peering down at you. "Yeah, there you go, honey, come on and wake up."<br/>
<br/>
You are on the floor with school desks looming up around you. You are also chilly all over, and your limbs are stiff as you lever yourself upright. Mr. Montague scrambles away from you.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, are you girls alright?" he says to someone out of view. "Okay, you all get yourselves straightened out." His voice sounds strangled. "I'll be right outside while you get yourselves together. You! What's your name! You in your clothes yet?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just about," someone croaks.<br/>
<br/>
"That's good enough, out the door, eyes forward. Hey! Eyes forward, I said!" The teacher hurries away, and there's the sound of a door closing.<br/>
<br/>
You sit up and pull your knees to your chest, clasping your arms around your legs. You are naked, you realize with a start, but that headache above your eye is extremely distracting. There's something else wrong, but you can't put your finger on it.<br/>
<br/>
Two figures comes swimming into view: Jenny and another girl, both looking very aghast. You gape numbly at them, for they are stripped to their panties and bras, and as you watch they start fumbling on some blouses.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you okay?" Jenny asks you.<br/>
<br/>
"Um, I think so?" You press your fingertips to that throbbing spot, and it recedes a little. "What happened?"<br/>
<br/>
Jenny and the other girl exchange an uneasy glance, even as they continue dressing. Jenny, in a husky voice, says, "You better get dressed."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah. The fuck am I naked for? I—"<br/>
<br/>
You gasp after dropping your knees. Your chest— There's two giant tumors hanging off it! You shriek and scramble back across the floor.<br/>
<br/>
It takes you a moment to reorient your brain, to shake it free of the horror of the two bags of cancerous cells that are sagging from your chest, and to see that are really just breasts. Engorged, swollen, heavy, utterly alien things, but they are only breasts. Human breasts.<br/>
<br/>
Female breasts.<br/>
<br/>
Though even that last thought takes awhile to form, and not until after you've looked past them and yelped at the discovery that your cock and balls have vanished.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Jenny and the other girl quickly hush up your scream, with the other girl—a pale, skinny redhead with lank hair and too much mascara—muffles your cry and covers your eyes with her hand. "Sh! Shh!" she tries comforting you. "Just hang on, it's okay. What's her name?" she asks Jenny. "What's her name?"<br/>
<br/>
"M-melanie," Jenny stammers.<br/>
<br/>
"Melanie? Does that sound right?" she says to you. "Hey. Melanie?" She drops her hand from your eyes. "What's your name?"<br/>
<br/>
Your eyes rolled in their sockets. "What?"<br/>
<br/>
"What's your name?" the girl repeats in a firmer tone.<br/>
<br/>
You look up at Jenny, in fear and confusion. Her face is very pale, and her eyebrows knitted together with fear. "W-will?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will what?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will Prescott?" you stammer. Your head is reeling with confusion.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck." The girl looks up at Jenny. "Okay, let's cut to the chase. Does that make you, um— Brianna Gould?"<br/>
<br/>
Jenny looks stricken, but she nods.<br/>
<br/>
"That's great, that's just fucking great," the girl fumes.<br/>
<br/>
"Please, is this some kind of nightmare?" Jenny asks in a pleading voice.<br/>
<br/>
"Some kind." The girl's expression is very hard. "Because if this here is Will, then who's that Mr. Montague took with him out into the hall?"<br/>
<br/>
Jenny stares at you. Then she puts the back of her hand to her mouth, to stifle a scream of her own.<span class="O"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1141443411111
author_id: seuzz
title: The Naked Truth
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Jenny hangs back, but the other girl puts her arms about your shoulders and tries to help you up.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, Will," she says. "Mr. Montague's gonna be back in a minute, and you need to start getting dressed."<br/>
<br/>
"What— The— Fuck—?" you gasp. You can't help staring down at yourself. Your body has shriveled to nothing. It is small, slim, pale, and hairless, except for the patch where your dick has vanished. Two breasts are dangling off your chest.<br/>
<br/>
"Get ahold of yourself, Will," the girl says. "You need to get dressed—"<br/>
<br/>
"What is happening?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know, but we need to dressed!" The girl shoots Jenny a hard look. "Don't we?"<br/>
<br/>
Jenny shakes herself, and resumes putting her clothes on.<br/>
<br/>
The other girl, though she is also only half-dressed, concentrates on you. From a nearby pile of clothing she plucks some tiny panties and a bra. She hands you the panties, which you hold numbly while she slips the bra onto you and binds it into place. "Come on, Will," she growls.<br/>
<br/>
You swallow hard, and slip the panties on. They snap tightly into place, and you nearly faint at the vivid confirmation that you've lost your package.<br/>
<br/>
But once the underthings are on, you find it easier to move. There's not much more to put on: a pair of jeans cut-offs, a tight, sleeveless blouse, and a plaid, long sleeve shirt. Gingerly, with your flesh crawling, you pull them all on, and end by slipping your feet into a pair of flip-flops. <br/>
<br/>
You're just finishing when there's a knock at the door, and Mr. Montague puts his head in. His eyes are averted as he asks, "How are you coming in here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just about ready, Mr. Em!" the pale-faced girl squeaks back.<br/>
<br/>
He lets his eyes roam quickly over the room, and apparently decides it's safe to enter. He is pale and shaking when he joins you.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, so tell me," he says in a quavering voice, "what the <i>hell</i> were you all doing?"<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing!" Jenny squeaks.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing?" he echoes in a strangled voice. "I come back from the office and find four—" He chokes. "Four students, without any clothes on, sprawling on my classroom floor? And that's 'nothing'?"<br/>
<br/>
"We weren't doing anything!" Jenny pleads. There's terror on her face. "I don't—!" She looks at you and the other girl. "What did <i>you</i> see? What did <i>you</i>—?"<br/>
<br/>
"I was just coming back from— Er." The other girl bites her lip. "I was just going down the hallway and I— I mean, I was coming from, er, Ms. Willet's room? Because I got a text to go to the library?" She looks pleadingly at Jenny, then at you. "Remember, uh, Melanie?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," Jenny confirms with a visible gulp. "And I was just coming back from, uh, bringing you my student ID? In the office, like you asked?" she says to Mr. Montague. She touches the back of her head. "And someone hit me."<br/>
<br/>
"Me too," says the other girl. "Like, I was just walking along with Melanie, and it's like I got hit in the back of the head. Like with a bat, it felt like."<br/>
<br/>
Mr. Montague looks at you. "I don't remember," you plead.<br/>
<br/>
The teacher puts his hands on his hips and looks from one to the other of you.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," he says, "I don't know what's going on here. But you stay out of my room, and you stay away from me. I don't need—" He puts up his hands, as though to push you all away. "And you don't need any trouble either. Okay? I don't want to have to— And you don't either— Report on— You'd all probably get suspended! Or expelled! You understand?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes sir," Jenny says in a small voice.<br/>
<br/>
"How's your heads feel now?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fine," Jenny mumbles after a pause. "Fine," says the other girl. You mumble, "Okay." It's only then that you notice that that headache is gone.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, so that's how I know your story is bullshit," Mr. Montague says. "You don't get hit on the back of the head, and then everything is fine. So if I hear one word about this <i>bullshit!</i>" Froth and spittle flies from his lips, and he turns very red. "Just get the fuck out of my classroom. I really ought to report this, <i>I really fucking should.</i> But we'll all just pretend this didn't happen, and your <i>fucking prank</i> just— just— Get out!"<br/>
<br/>
You all flee the room.<br/>
<br/>
Out in the hall, the other girl grabs you around the waist and hauls you down the corridor to the restroom. You flinch when you see it's the girl's room, but she drags you inside.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, Will," she says. "I know it's a shock, but you need to snap out of it. Okay?" She presses the flats of her palms to the side of your head and puts her face right into yours. "Okay?"<br/>
<br/>
"Okay." You are utterly bewildered, but by this point you're just eager to get your feet back under you. Even if the dainty pink feet in question look nothing like yours.<br/>
<br/>
"Right." She turns you to face the mirrors behind the sinks. "That's you now."<br/>
<br/>
There's two people reflected there. Neither of them has your face.<br/>
<br/>
One is this girl who's been hauling you around. She's dressed in dark, skinny jeans and a sleeveless blouse a lot like yours. Her dark red hair trails limply past her shoulders. She is very pale, and she is wearing too much mascara, but she's not unattractive.<br/>
<br/>
The other girl, whose movements mimic your own—<br/>
<br/>
She's also a red-head, but it's a lighter shade, and it's tied back in a long braid. (So that's what's been bumping against your back all this time!) Her eyes are green and her complexion mostly clear, save for one zit on her chin and another on her cheek. There is something cat-like about the shape of her eyes, and when her eyebrows go up, there's a certain cool slinkiness in her expression, even though she also looks like she's about to vomit.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Jesus," you mutter, and her mouth moves in time with yours.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay now, what's her name, Will?" the girl says.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know. How would I know?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you know <i>your</i> name, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah! But how I would I know hers? I've never seen—" You pause. Maybe you have, but you're not sure. It would have been in the hallways, if you had. "I don't think I've ever seen her. But who are <i>you?"</i><br/>
<br/>
The girl presses her temples between her hands, and sighs.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, what do you remember, Will, what do you remember after—" She swallows. "After Jenny left you?"<br/>
<br/>
You shiver. "Well, I was sitting in that classroom, waiting for her to come back. She's the girl out there." Your companion nods impatiently. "And— I think someone snuck up behind me. They knocked my cap off— I was wearing my cap— Oh God!" You grab the sink and fight down the nausea. The girl strokes your back until it passes. "And then it was like someone bopped me on the back of the head."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't remember anything else?"<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't remember being bopped on the head out in the hallway?"<br/>
<br/>
"No!"<br/>
<br/>
"Do you remember being in Ms. Willet's classroom with me? You were working on your project and we were waiting for Eric to show up?"<br/>
<br/>
"Eric who?"<br/>
<br/>
The girl loses what little color is left in her complexion. "Oh God," she says. "Oh Jesus!" She grabs you by the wrist and pulls you back toward the door. "We have to find— <br/>
<br/>
"Okay, hold up," she interrupts herself, and pulls to a stop. She closes her eyes, and appears to count to five. "First of all, you're Will Prescott, right? Even though you look like—"<br/>
<br/>
"I know who I am!" you insist, even though are rippling from head to toe with doubts.<br/>
<br/>
"What were we talking about before I left the classroom?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know!"<br/>
<br/>
"Before <i>Jenny</i> left the classroom! You were asking ... <i>her</i> ... about—?"<br/>
<br/>
"We were talking about two friends of ours. Uh, Paul Davis and Yumi Saito."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh God. Okay, that's good, believe it or not. See here's the thing." She swallows, and leans toward you.<br/>
<br/>
"The same thing happened to me and this other girl, what happened to you," she murmurs. "Okay? We got hit on the back of the head, and when we woke up, we were ... different."<br/>
<br/>
"How?" If the world wasn't going crazy, you'd suspect she was.<br/>
<br/>
"The same as you. Different. Except she's now me, and I'm ... her. It's <i>me,</i> Will," she says, tapping her chest. "Jenny. And that girl out there, who looks like me? That's this girl. Brianna Gould. It's like we—" She draws in a deep, shuddering breath. "Swapped bodies."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Well, that tears it, and the girl has to help you stop again from screaming. Because if the same thing that happened to her has happened to you—<br/>
<br/>
The girl—Brianna, you can't help thinking of her as "Brianna," because she looks nothing like Jenny—opens the door and peers out before closing it.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, he's out there," she says, and shivers. "Brianna is with him. I guess they're ... comparing notes. Like us." She squints at you. "Are you sure you can't remember anything about, um, Melanie?"<br/>
<br/>
"Melanie who?"<br/>
<br/>
"Saxon. She plays in the marching band."<br/>
<br/>
"No."<br/>
<br/>
She looks extremely vexed. "Well, then I wonder what's going on with him."<br/>
<br/>
She starts to open the door, but you grab her. "Do you really think her and me, um, that we switched bodies?"<br/>
<br/>
"Look in the mirror again, Will."<br/>
<br/>
You do. You don't look any different. Feeling weak and ill, you follow Brianna out of the restroom.<br/>
<br/>
There's two figures hunching at the end of the wing, talking. It makes you dizzy to look at them. Because one of them is Jenny Ashton. And the other—<br/>
<br/>
—in his floppy t-shirt, cargo shorts, ratty sneakers, and sloppy ball cap—<br/>
<br/>
—is the spitting image of Will Prescott.<span class="O"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11414434111111
author_id: seuzz
title: Streams of Consciousness
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Will and Jenny—<br/>
<br/>
You shudder all over. <i>Oh God,</i> you think, <i>it really does look like her and ... me ... down at the end the hallway. That's what other people see when they see us. And now I can see them that way too because now I'm ... someone else!</i><br/>
<br/>
They're standing just a little apart from each other, their shoulders hunched up defensively. The guy who now is you is twisting from one foot to the other, and his terrified, rictus-like grin is full of big teeth.<br/>
<br/>
Brianna puts her arm around your shoulders, and you lean on her for support.<br/>
<br/>
It's Will who sees you first, and his expression falls. His eyes dart between you and Brianna.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, here we are," Brianna says as you draw up. "Um. Guys."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," says Jenny. Will bops his head in a nod. "What do we do now?" Jenny asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I think we probably better go someplace where—" Brianna looks around. "Well, where Mr. Montague isn't going to see us and split a seam again."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want <i>anyone</i> to see us," Jenny moans.<br/>
<br/>
"Suck it up," Brianna says, even though she also looks ill. "You don't got it so bad. Do you remember where I live?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think so." Jenny rattles off an address, and Brianna nods. "What about you?"<br/>
<br/>
Brianna also gives an address, and adds a phone number and a couple of names into the bargain. She looks at ... Will.<br/>
<br/>
"Um." He thinks a moment, then gives your address and your phone number. "And, um, m'Dad's name is Harris, my Mom is Martha, I got a little brother named Robert, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, Jesus!" you croak, and Brianna has to catch you as your knees buckle.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I'm guessing we all know what we drive?" she says after she's got you propped back onto your feet. "So let's get off campus and meet up at, um—"<br/>
<br/>
"The river?" Jenny suggests.<br/>
<br/>
"Too many people. I know, Potsdam Park! That's close. I'll take, uh, Melanie here. Because I know she doesn't drive," she sourly adds.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You feel very weak, and Brianna hangs back with you while the others go on ahead. You take it slow to the parking lot, where she gently helps you into a tired-looking sedan as though you are an invalid,. "Just try to relax, Will," she says. "Maybe you're panicking."<br/>
<br/>
"Wouldn't you be?"<br/>
<br/>
She bites her lip. "I mean— Can't you remember <i>anything</i> about Melanie?"<br/>
<br/>
"No!" You raise your hands to examine them. They are slim and rather pretty, but you can't help regarding them with horror and revulsion. "I never even—!"<br/>
<br/>
"Shh! Just relax. Close your eyes and try to drift."<br/>
<br/>
You shudder but do as she suggests. But your mind can only race as you replay the last hour, like it's a movie, and you're hoping that <i>this</i> time, when you watch it, it will all turn out differently. So the only thing closing your eyes does is give you a touch of carsickness on top of the existential nausea.<br/>
<br/>
Potsdam Park is a narrow strip of greenery that runs alongside the river. The lowering afternoon sun is glinting off the softly rippling water when you arrive, and it would be a pleasant stroll along the promenade that winds above the riverbank, if you were over <i>there</i> where that scarecrow-like kid with his sloppy clothes and stiff blonde hair is standing, instead of <i>here,</i> like <i>this,</i> where you are instead.<br/>
<br/>
Brianna—or Jenny; she certainly does act like your friend—gets things going by asking everyone to recall and describe the events leading up to this catastrophe. But Jenny—or Brianna; she certainly is a lot whinier than your friend—reminds everyone that she can remember not only what happened to herself, but what happened to Jenny. So what's the point? But Brianna insists.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," Jenny grumbles, "one of the things I remember, I was talking to this Chinese-or-whatever cheerleader out in the music annex, and then on my way back inside I ran into this guy here—" She glances uneasily between you and Will. "And then Mr. Montague—"<br/>
<br/>
She describes Jenny's afternoon, and then the afternoon of the girl she used to be, before passing the baton to "Will." He describes your experiences, including little details like having "his" cap knocked off before getting conked from behind. When it's your turn, though, you can only shrug and let Brianna tell it.<br/>
<br/>
"We were in Ms. Willet's classroom, waiting to meet with Eric Murphy. Melanie—" Like her counterpart, she glances guiltily between you and Will. "Melanie said she wanted to have it out with him and ... me. She was tired of all the fighting."<br/>
<br/>
Will clucks his tongue and rolls his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, Melanie was working on this thing," Brianna continues.<br/>
<br/>
"My coat-hanger sculpture," Will mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"And Eric never showed up, and finally Ms. Willet threw us out because she had to go. And then, while we were walking to the library—"<br/>
<br/>
"Because I wanted to wait for Eric there," Will says while giving you a fishy-eyed glance. "I texted him."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's when we, um—" Brianna shrugs. "Got punched in the head." She looks at Will. "And that's what happened to you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Twice, it feels like." He rubs the back of his skull.<br/>
<br/>
You rub yours. Curiously, considering that you were supposedly knocked out so hard your very souls went flying, there is no bump, no blood, no tenderness there.<br/>
<br/>
"You didn't see anything?" Jenny asks.<br/>
<br/>
Will shakes his head, but Brianna says, "For me it was kind of like with Will. It felt like someone came up behind me. I thought I heard footsteps, but it was all over so fast. What about you guys?"<br/>
<br/>
"I didn't hear anything," Jenny says, and Will says, "I didn't either."<br/>
<br/>
"Okay," says Brianna. "But the next thing I wanna know is, how did we all lose our clothes? And how'd we wind up in Mr. Montague's room? I mean," she adds when no one says anything, "it's sure seems like someone did this to us! It wasn't just a— a thing that happened!"<br/>
<br/>
"How do you know?" Jenny asks in a pinched voice. "There's lots of funky things out there that can do stuff like this."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I know you believe that shit," Brianna retorts, "but I don't!"<br/>
<br/>
"I know you don't, but I do!"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey guys!" Will spreads his arms. "Can we not lose our shit? Maybe it's— Maybe it's just a prank that someone did to us. Maybe it's just a prank, and we'll get a phone call, or tomorrow at school someone'll be all, like, hey guys, pretty funny, huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think it's funny!" Brianna fumes.<br/>
<br/>
"You wouldn't!" Jenny retorts.<br/>
<br/>
"But <i>you</i> would!"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey!" Will shouts. "I said, let's not lose our shit! Now," he continues when silence has fallen over the group again. "What do we do now?"<br/>
<br/>
More silence. Then Jenny says, in a small voice, "Maybe we should go home?"<br/>
<br/>
Brianna sidles up to you. "You really wanna send ... her ... to your home?" she asks Will. He pales.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, okay," Jenny mutters. "She can come home with me."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, hello," Brianna retorts, "she can come home with <i>me!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"You're not her friend!"<br/>
<br/>
"You're not <i>his</i> friend!"<br/>
<br/>
"Will you bitches both shut the fuck up?" Will yells. "Fucking Christ on a stick! How about you leave it up to—?" He looks at you, and swallows. "Leave it up to him."<br/>
<br/>
And of course, you're baffled. "Leave what up to me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Will," Brianna says. "You can't spend the night at, um, Melanie's."<br/>
<br/>
"Why not?"<br/>
<br/>
"Let's put it this way. You don't <i>want</i> to."<br/>
<br/>
You look at Will. "I don't?"<br/>
<br/>
His eyebrows go up. "Don't you know why not? Well, I wouldn't if I didn't have to," he continues when you say nothing. "I mean, this is the grossest and most disgusting thing that's ever happened to me. But at least I've got a good excuse to never sleep at my house again."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh God." Without even knowing what it is that is so awful, you feel again like vomiting.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So it turns out it's not the <i>worst</i> thing, maybe, when they tell you what is so bad about the home life of the girl whose body you now inhabit. She lives in a trailer park, but the bad thing is her mother, who is an underemployed drunk, and a mean one, too. Melanie knows how to handle her ("But it's hard!" she tells you), but everyone agrees that it would be best if you skipped going home tonight. The trouble is, you've got two girls who each think it would be best if you went home with her.<br/>
<br/>
You look to "Will" for guidance. He thinks a moment, then pulls you aside.<br/>
<br/>
"The thing is," he tells you—and again you get the impression of how strange it is to have "yourself" talking to you—"me and Brianna don't get along. Real Brianna, I mean, I don't know—" He glances over at the girl who now looks like Brianna. "Your friend over there," she concludes. "Anyway, me and Brianna don't get along on account of there's a, um, guy who got between us. I mean, you're not ... <i>me</i> ... so I guess I get why she'd be okay with helping <i>you</i> out. So you can stay with whoever. Only it would look sort of weird to anyone who found out if you went home with, um—" She again glances over at Brianna.<span class="O"></span></span></div></div>


path: 114144341111111
author_id: seuzz
title: Hideout for the Homeless
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Jenny?"<br/>
<br/>
Both girls at the name.<br/>
<br/>
"Real Jenny?" you correct yourself. "Can I go home with you?"<br/>
<br/>
Brianna puts out her hand, and you take it as you turn to Will. "Is there anything I need to know?" you ask him. "Like texts I might get from your friends? Your classes? Your schedule?" Your heart sinks as you face the size of the challenge before you—taking over the life of a girl you don't know.<br/>
<br/>
Will chews on the inside of his cheek. "I guess I'll have to text that stuff to you."<br/>
<br/>
"What about her homework?" Brianna asks.<br/>
<br/>
Will grimaces. "You should try your best?"<br/>
<br/>
"I mean, what's her homework for tonight?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll text her that too."<br/>
<br/>
An awkward silence falls. Then Brianna says, "Well, I guess we'll go. This is too weird, just standing around here like this."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't mess anything up for me," Jenny mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"Don't <i>you</i> mess anything up for me!"<br/>
<br/>
Jenny glares at the girl in her old body, but Will pulls her away. "Come on," he says, "let's go." As they drift off toward their cars, you hear him add, "We should go talk someplace," but you don't hear what Jenny replies.<br/>
<br/>
Brianna leads you back to her car. Her mouth is set in a grim line, and you don't dare interrupt her thoughts until you're buckled in, when you say, in a small voice, "Thanks so much for letting me go with you."<br/>
<br/>
"Tssh! I'm not going to go off and leave you, Will." She starts the car, then does a double-take at you. Her eyes narrow, but she doesn't seem to be looking at you. "I wonder what they're talking about," she mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"Who? Brianna and ... Melanie?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes. Except you better get used to that begin your name. God, this is so weird. And then them two going off together. They <i>hate</i> each other." She bites her lip.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Brianna lives west of the river, on a big piece of land in a rambling ranch-style house that looks like it's been added on to a couple of times over the years. She introduces you briefly to her parents, explaining that you're a school friend and are working on a big project, so big that you'll be up a lot of the night and so you'll be spending the night with her because it will just be easier that way. When her mother looks a little alarmed, Brianna explains that it's really <i>your</i> project, that it's due tomorrow, and that you procrastinated to the last minute so she's helping bail you out. "Okay, I think that'll keep Brianna's folks off our butts for tonight," she sighs when you're alone in her bedroom.<br/>
<br/>
It's a shabby little room at the top of a pull-down ladder at the end of a hallway, with a very low ceiling and a hardwood floor. Brianna explains the odd placement, and it's being so cramped, by telling you it's a repurposed part of the attic. <i>Is there anything wrong with the rooms down below?</i> you ask. <i>No,</i> she says. <i>But it was more convenient for everyone this way. Brianna gets her privacy, and her mom gets a sewing room and her dad gets a study.</i> "They all kind of leave each other alone," she concludes. Then she snorts: "We! Like I'm really this girl and that's my family."<br/>
<br/>
"What's it like for <i>you?"</i> you ask. "I mean, I get being in a weird place." You squirm inside your clothes. "But— You know everything she knows? You remember the things she's done?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah."<br/>
<br/>
"Isn't that confusing?"<br/>
<br/>
Brianna thinks a moment. "A little, yeah. It's kind of like banging my head into a rafter or something, when I remember something, all of a sudden. But then I just ... know it. Like remembering where her room is, how to get to it." She slaps the side of her head. "Now I just know it." She thinks a moment, then says, "Do you mind if I change?"<br/>
<br/>
"Go ahead."<br/>
<br/>
She starts to unbutton her blouse, then moves inside a closet, pulling the door just shut after her. You plop onto the bed and try not to listen to the sound of jeans coming off and hangers rattling. When she emerges, she's in a floppy t-shirt and flannel pajama bottoms. "That's better," she sighs. "Those clothes she was wearing— Ych!"<br/>
<br/>
"They looked nice on her."<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>would</i> think that. God, she's such a skank. Melanie would <i>love</i> to hear me say that. Jesus. I wonder what she's saying about <i>me!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't think about it. I'm trying not to think about ... her, and what she's—"<br/>
<br/>
"It's probably working the other way too." She squints at you. "How are <i>you</i> feeling?"<br/>
<br/>
You shrug. With all the distractions, you had almost stopped paying attention to this new body. But now you are conscious again of the heft and weight of your breasts, and the friction of the fabric upon them. Also, when you shift your legs, you can't help noticing how free and clear of ... obstructions ... they are.<br/>
<br/>
"Lemme undo your hair," Brianna says as she drops onto the bed with you. You turn your head so she can start pulling the braid apart.<br/>
<br/>
"You don't know Melanie and Brianna, do you?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"I've seen Melanie around, but I never talked to her. We've got some friends in common, I think. You?"<br/>
<br/>
"No." Then you ask, "What were you saying, about Melanie and Brianna hating each other?"<br/>
<br/>
"They do. On account of this guy. Eric Murphy. You know <i>him?</i> Don't shake your head, you can say yes or no. Well, he was going around with Melanie all summer, but they broke up a couple of weeks ago. He, um— He started cheating on her, I guess. Or more like he was getting restless. Jesus."<br/>
<br/>
"And he started going out with Brianna?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, he's one of the girls that he cheated on Melanie with." A pause. "She came on to him. Hard. That's probably why Melanie has it in so much for her. She's—" Another silence. Then, in a rush: "She went after Eric and Brianna like a psycho!"<br/>
<br/>
"Really? How?"<br/>
<br/>
"Screaming at them. Tantrums. She did go after Brianna at a party a week or so back, kicking and punching at her. They had to haul her off. That's why I don't get it, with Melanie being all nice and stuff to ... Brianna, back at the school and at the park."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, this is kind of a bigger deal than fighting over a guy."<br/>
<br/>
"I guess so." She fluffs out your hair, then bounces off the bed to get a brush from a small vanity table in the corner. "I mean, at least they know each other," she continues as she settles back down, to gently brush out your hair. "Who else is she going to talk to?"<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You get plates from downstairs when supper is ready, and eat up in Brianna's room, and you spread out a lot of papers and books to make it look like there's a major project under way. And in a sense there is. You get texts from your old phone, with a password for your new one, and you and Jenny go through Melanie's phone and Brianna's, looking at pictures so that you'll know who you're supposed to know, and what their names are, and what they are like. It's a lot of names, for Melanie swims with a big crowd. There's another Brianna—Brianna Kirschke—and Susie Lekuawehe and Philippa Hosford and Genesis Lee and Hermione Gilbert and Daniel Lujan and ... and Aaron Flood and ... and Duane Clements and ... and ... and ... and ... At least Jenny can tell you about them, and you copy down notes on them (and discover that you can't imitate Melanie's handwriting, even with a sample of her homework in front of you) and Jenny quizzes you like you're a secret agent going under cover. So:<br/>
<br/>
"Emma Witkin," you say when Jenny shows you a girl on her cell phone. "Plays flute in the band, I have her ... for Parenting class?"<br/>
<br/>
"What period?"<br/>
<br/>
"Third. Ricardo something or other," you answer when she flashes you a picture of a guy. "I got him in that class too, he sometimes hits on me, I tell him to go fuck himself. Brianna Kirschke, she's like my best friend, but I only have her in band practice."<br/>
<br/>
"What's her parents do?"<br/>
<br/>
"One of them owns a restaurant, the other a bakery, and they're not divorced even though they're separated and can't stand each other."<br/>
<br/>
"What does Brianna play?"<br/>
<br/>
"The flute. No! The ... clarinet?"<br/>
<br/>
"Who else plays the clarinet?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't remember," you sigh. "Philippa?"<br/>
<br/>
"And who's this guy?"<br/>
<br/>
Your eyes narrow. It's a face that looks familiar, though you've never seen it. He's a skinny kid in sloppy clothes, with a white cap jammed down low over stiff blonde hair. His grin is wide and cheesy.<br/>
<br/>
"Eric Murphy," you sigh. "My ex-boyfriend. And I'm going to kick his ass tomorrow when I see him because he didn't show up after school like I asked him to."<br/>
<br/>
He did send you a text though, loaded with emojis: <i>Hey babe sorry I forget cu af skul lol did frisbee w guy fgot tell u miss me mabee we try af skul tmrw ttm.</i> You ignored it the way you ignored most of the texts you got.<br/>
<br/>
It's close to midnight, and you're mentally and physically exhausted, before you break off to take a fast shower. You and Jenny sleep together in the bed. It's awkward, because you are sure that Jenny not only finds it weird being in another body, but she is probably hyper-conscious that you, a boy, are in bed with her, but inside the body of a girl. You try not to touch her, or to think about the breasts you've got, or of the place lower down. Fortunately, you're so tired that you quickly drop off to sleep.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The next morning, on your way to school, Brianna stops at a drugstore to buy you an Ace bandage, which you wrap around your right hand. That's her idea for getting you out of playing the glockenspiel in band practice. Or, at least, for not being good at it.<br/>
<br/>
"Shit," Brianna says when she's halfway through winding the bandage around your wrist. "Will, are you left-handed or right-handed?"<br/>
<br/>
"Right."<br/>
<br/>
"Damn it. Melanie is left-handed, I'm pretty sure."<br/>
<br/>
You feel yourself pale. Maybe you'd better just skip school altogether.<span class="O"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1141443411111112
author_id: seuzz
title: Class and Cluelessness
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>It terrifies you: the thought of going to school as a girl you barely know. But what choice have you got? You can skip today, but you'll have to go school, and home, at some point.<br/>
<br/>
"Here," Brianna says as she starts to unwind the half-wrapped bandage. "We'll put it on your left hand. That way you've got an excuse to use your right hand." You docilely let her wrap it all up. "There," she says when she's done. "You remember your class schedule?"<br/>
<br/>
"I've got it on a piece of paper. But ... Band, money class, parenting, food prep, lunch. Um, 3D art, English class, math."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll take your word for it."<br/>
<br/>
"Eat lunch with me?"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, I'll look for you outside the cafeteria. It'll look weird, but—" She gives you a long look. "I guess we'll just tell people we hashed things out yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's really weird going in to school in a strange body, weirder even than you expected, because you didn't know what to expect. For a start, everything is bigger, because you are smaller. Most of the girls are now your size or even taller, and most of the guys you now have to tilt your head to see past their chins and into their eyes. You are also more easily jostled, and later in the day you're thrown against the lockers that line the walls when some football player or other goes pushing through. You also find yourself looking out for your old friends and acquaintances, and you get a jolt when James Lamont looms up in front of you as you turn a corner while going to Melanie's locker. <i>He's so tall!</i> you think. For his part, he doesn't even notice you, which more than anything else leaves you feeling lost and alone and abandoned.<br/>
<br/>
But not completely. There's a guy in a white cap loitering by your locker, reading his phone, when you first go into the school. (Brianna left you to go to "her" first class.) You recognize him, of course. "Hey," you say to him, and he looks up with a start. <i>Is it as bad for Melanie as it is for me?</i> you wonder. <i>Looking </i>at<i> yourself?</i><br/>
<br/>
"Hey, how was your night?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
You shrug, then show him your bandaged hand. "Are you left-handed?" He nods. "Good. I can't do your handwriting, and now I have an excuse. Can you do my handwriting?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah! I got all your homework done. You?"<br/>
<br/>
"No. All my homework was—" You glance at the crowd pushing past. "Learning the names and faces of your friends."<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry. But you can just keep to yourself, if you want to. That's what I sometimes do."<br/>
<br/>
You open the locker and heft your pack onto its lip, then realize you have no idea what to do next. Will steps in to help. "Here," he says as he reaches into your pack. "You only need two books before lunch."<br/>
<br/>
"Do you want to have lunch together?" you whisper to him. "Jenny—my real friend Jenny—is going to have it with me. You can—"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. I'll get, uh, the other Jenny to come in with me. Cafeteria?" he asks. "Okay. Maybe they won't kill each other if there's other people around."<br/>
<br/>
"Were you okay with, uh, Brianna yesterday? Jenny said you and her hate each other."<br/>
<br/>
"It's kind of dumb to hate her now. We need to all get along and help each other."<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks," you say, when <i>Thanks for helping because </i>I'm<i> the one who needs it all!</i> is what you really mean.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
First-period band practice is the one you need to get through. That's what Melanie warned you in your texts last night. It's the class where she has most of her friends, and it's the one where she has to play a musical instrument: the glockenspiel.<br/>
<br/>
Luckily, the bandaged hand proves a good excuse. Dr. Stemple, who is something of a hard-ass despite his roly-poly shape and his soft, close-shaved white beard, enquires in a grandfatherly way about how you hurt yourself, and he shudders with sympathy when you tell him that a knife slipped across your palm while you were cutting something. "You can sit in the back and do homework," he tells you. You tried timing your entrance to the practice room to make it near the start of class, but three girls—Brianna Kirschke, Genesis Lee, and Hermione Gilbert—follow you to the back. They too are full of sympathy about your accident.<br/>
<br/>
"Is that how come you couldn't answer my texts last night?" Genesis wants to know. You tell you turned your phone off.<br/>
<br/>
"Did you really cut your hand?" Hermione asks. She stares at you intently from behind her glasses. "Was it your mom?" Her eyes narrow when you deny it.<br/>
<br/>
"Leave her alone," Brianna tells them. This Brianna, in contrast to Jenny/Brianna, is a short, soft girl with a cloud of dark brown hair that she's pulled back into a bushy ponytail. She has chipmunk cheeks and black-framed glasses that make her look smart and focused, like a financial planner, rather than like a nerd or a school teacher. "Can you write?" she asks you. "Will you be able to do your homework?"<br/>
<br/>
"I can write with my other hand," you tell her. "It'll look awful, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"How did you cut your hand?" Hermione asks. She is frowning at her outstretched palms. "You were cutting with your right hand? Even though you're left-handed?"<br/>
<br/>
Before you can come up with an excuse, Dr. Stemple calls the class to order. You pull out Melanie's math homework—Algebra II, which you weren't brilliant at last year, but which is at least familiar to you—and get to work.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Second-period "money" class—or "Personal Financial Literacy", as it's called—leaves you totally baffled and lost. It <i>might</i> be an okay class—like kind of a boring RPG game, with bills, checkbooks, and stuff like that—if you knew what the hell you were supposed to do with the worksheets, but you don't, and for just about the first time in your life you find yourself wishing that the teacher would just lecture so you could zone out. You try to fake it through by making your handwriting as unreadable as possible after explaining to Mrs. Hoagland that you hurt your writing hand.<br/>
<br/>
 Third period: Of course today would have to be a day that Ricardo Whosits decides to bully-flirt with you in the "Parenting" class. "Hey, girl," he murmurs as he kneels beside your desk on his way to his seat. "I know a school project we can work on. I'll help you get started on it after class." He strokes your shoulder with a fingertip.<br/>
<br/>
You brush his hand away. "Fuck off." He sniggers, and saunters over to his seat. A few rows over, Kendra Saunders and Gloria Rea, exchange knowing glances, and Kendra leans over to whisper into Gloria's ear. Gloria glances over at you, smirks, and nods. It doesn't help to tell yourself that they're gossiping about someone else, not you.<br/>
<br/>
Fourth period is a kind of cooking class. It starts with Ms. Duggan giving a lecture, and then you get to do some hands-on stuff. This class, even more so than Parenting, is filled up with underclassmen, and they all have their little cliques and none of them seem interested in talking to you, except to snippily ask you to pass them something. This is, in part, a relief, because you don't have to try talking to a "friend" you don't know, but it is also gruesome, because it leaves you feeling excluded and lonely.<br/>
<br/>
It's a relief to head out for the cafeteria for lunch.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The line is well out the door when you get to the cafeteria, but Brianna (that would be Jenny/Brianna) is standing off to the side and craning her head, watching for someone. Relief shows on her face when she sees you.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh God," she groans, "how has your day been? Tell me it was awful so I'll feel good about mine."<br/>
<br/>
"Ricardo hit on me and I don't know <i>what</i> I'm supposed to be doing in— Shit!" You've just caught sight of Hermione and Philippa Hosford approaching. You turn your back on them. "I told Brianna and Melanie we'd have lunch with them here," you tell "Brianna" through frozen lips. "I forgot Melanie told me there'd be some of her old friends—"<br/>
<br/>
"Melanie! Hey Melanie!" You glance back at the other girls, and wave at them. "Fuck. I'll see if I—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, it's my favorite girls!"<br/>
<br/>
You do a hard double-take at the guy who's swaggering out of the cafeteria. In the clothes and the white cap and with the blond hair— Except for the shape of his eyes and face, he could almost be you. Certainly he could be a cousin of yours.<br/>
<br/>
Eric Murphy.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey babe!" He strokes your shoulder. "Sorry I forgot about you yesterday, but me and Tim, we ran into some guys after class who were all like, Frisbee!, so we—" He catches himself, and a queer smile lights on his face. "I guess you're <i>not</i> mad!" He chortles.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Why do you think that?</i> you want to ask. Then you realize he's still got his hand on your shoulder. You squirm out from under it. He chortles.<br/>
<br/>
"So I guess we're all friends again," he says. "You girls are talkin', I'm talkin' to you—" He turns to Brianna. "I'm snackin' on Bree here." He puts his hands on her hips and his face in hers.<br/>
<br/>
The world slows down, and seems almost to freeze frame as he puts his mouth to Brianna's. You stare, agape, as Brianna—Jenny—lets him. Her eyes are wide and her mouth is open. To your amazement she doesn't react as he closes his eyes and opens his own mouth. His tongue extends and slips between hers.<br/>
<br/>
The moment lasts probably only one or two seconds, but it seems to stretch for hours—<br/>
<br/>
—before she knees him in the groin.<span class="O"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11414434112
author_id: rugal
id: WQQTLBQX2
title: The Beat of the Humdrum
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>As interesting as it might be to have some kind of dirt on Kelsey, you realize that there's no point. After all, what would you even do with it? You're not a gossip hound like Deanna Showalter and it's not like you're going to be climbing up the social ladder or bring her down since you get the impression that, as usual, you're the last to learn about these things. Now if there's stuff happening between a student and a teacher... but you don't really know who was talking in the bathroom so you wouldn't know where to start looking.<br/>
<br/>
So as you leave Walberg's classroom you resign yourself to simply going home.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Thursday is another boring day of a so far boring week and this time you don't even have the benefit of overhearing a possibly bullshit bathroom rumor to at least make the day a little more interesting. You trudge through your classes and then you trudge back to Walberg's for your detention and this time there's nothing going on outside that grabs your attention. So you instead just focus finishing up the <i>two</i> papers you have to turn in to him.<br/>
<br/>
Because it's not enough that you write a paper on the hair dryer or the joint, oh no. You instead have to write a paper on <i>both</i> items and that kills your attempt to actually try anymore. Well that and the fact that he said he wasn't going to give you anything higher than a D grade. And that's exactly what you get after he's looked over both of them and, with a sigh, he writes the grade on each one. He's as unhappy with it as you but if he wanted you to try then he should have given you a reason, is all you can think.<br/>
<br/>
You get a little bit of excitement on Friday when Yumi Saito joins your group for lunch. It's not an uncommon thing, as she's Jenny's best friend, but she's always a welcome sight for she's a gorgeous Japanese-American cheerleader. Though you find yourself a bit surprised by what she chooses to talk about.<br/>
<br/>
"So, anyone coming out to the Warehouse tonight?" she casually asks. This causes a few glances around the table. "You're looking like I just told you I was going out to a party at Chelsea's," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"Well it's just," starts James.<br/>
<br/>
"You're not the Warehouse type," finishes Carson.<br/>
<br/>
"What's that supposed to mean?" Yumi asks in a rather challenging manner.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think we've ever even seen you out there," Carson answers. "Most of you cheerleader types avoid it."<br/>
<br/>
"Eva and Jessica and Lin all go out there," states Jenny.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, but does Yumi?" James retorts.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe," Yumi replies, "I'm looking to switch things up. You do the same thing day in and day out and you get stuck in a rut, you know? Is there anything wrong with wanting to do something different once in a while?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'd love to switch it up," you say glumly. "But I'd have to get out of jail first."<br/>
<br/>
Yumi looks at you with curiosity, asking (without saying it) what you mean by that. But it's Carson who jumps in with the whole tail about Walberg, the hair dryer and the joint. Hearing it told about you makes it embarrassing and you hang your head in your hands but Yumi's voice gets your attention.<br/>
<br/>
"You know," she starts while finishing up a laugh, "it's not <i>that</i> bad."<br/>
<br/>
"You're right, it's worse," you reply bitterly.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I mean, think of it like this," she starts,"who ever thought of breaking into a teacher's desk so they could plant weed inside of it? It's kind of," she pauses for a second as if trying to think of the right word, "ballsy, I'd say. You wanted to spice things up right? That definitely counts."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<br/>
You would think that would be the end of it but you're given another surprise in eighth period when everyone is milling around in the classroom before class officially starts.<br/>
<br/>
"—can't believe that Tackett would do something like that. That's wild!"<br/>
<br/>
"What'd Tackett do?" you ask as you turn to Andrew Harding. He's a beefy guy—made even beefier by his thick blonde hair—who sits next to you, opposite of the side that Cassie Harper sits.<br/>
<br/>
"Pfft, I'm not the one you gotta ask, Prescott," he says as he motions to Lee Reynolds, his buddy who sits behind him.<br/>
<br/>
"It was last period," Lee starts with a grin. "Me and Spencer and a few guys were out at the portables... you know," he says as he mimes smoking a joint. "So Tackett comes over and we figure he's gonna join us since he's got study hall, right? But nah, he looks <i>pissed</i>."<br/>
<br/>
"Pissed?" you repeat. Andy Tackett, from what you know of him, is usually a pretty even tempered guy.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude, yeah! And he marches up to Spencer and is like 'Why'd you do it?' and shit."<br/>
<br/>
"Do it? The hell is that supposed to mean?"<br/>
<br/>
"Dunno," Lee says with a shake of his head, "and Spencer didn't either. But he's telling Spencer to stop playing dumb because he knows what he did and then Tackett just fucking slugs him, just a big ol' body blow, before storming off."<br/>
<br/>
"Jeez, that <i>is</i> nuts," you admit. "I didn't even know he was here today either since I didn't see him in second period. Today's been kind of weird in general I guess."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" asks Andrew.<br/>
<br/>
"Just, uh, Yumi was hanging out with us at lunch on account of we were hanging out with Jenny," you say, "and she was talking about going out to the Warehouse tonight. But that's the first time any of us have ever heard her talk about that. She was saying something about changing things up."<br/>
<br/>
"Pfft, yeah it's bizarro day or something," Andrew says with a chuckle. "'Cause I share a few classes with her and she actually, y'know, talked to me. Like said hi." He then turns his attention to Lee, "Fuck, maybe we'll see her out there tonight." He turns back to you, "You should come out too, Prescott. Have yourself a little fun."<br/>
<br/>
"Can't," you say with resignation. "My dad flipped his shit over this whole thing with Walberg and a joint."<br/>
<br/>
Harding's eyes go wide. "Oh shit, that was <i>you</i>!?" he asks with surprise. "I'd heard someone planted a spliff in the Walrus' desk but I didn't know that was you." His face lights up and his grin is wide. "Well hey, whenever you're out of jail you should come out to the Warehouse with us some time. Consider it a parole party."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
That turns out to be the highlight of the day and of the weekend. Because with all of your newfound free time, your dad enlists you into doing various chores around the house all day Saturday. Gutter cleaning, weeding, and all of that other fun stuff occupies your day and you're exhausted come evening. Sunday is your "day of rest" but with nothing to do and nowhere to go it turns out to be even more dull than Saturday.<br/>
<br/>
But relief comes that night when your dad officially ends your grounding, albeit a little too late for you to be able to do anything.<br/>
<br/>
Monday at first proves to be as uneventful as the rest of the previous week. You do see Tackett in second period but when you try to ask him about what happened Friday he's evasive, saying only that Spencer "ripped him off" and that he's over it now because "being pissed isn't going to change anything."<br/>
<br/>
You get something a little spicier in fourth period when Caleb tells you that Eva told him in second period—and that James and Carson (having heard from Jenny) and Lin all backed it up in third—that Yumi apparently just walked out of cheerleading practice during first period. None of them know if she's quit or if it was just a one off thing. "Eva said that Chelseas was riding her really hard right beforehand," is all Caleb offers.<br/>
<br/>
So whatever drama there was between Tackett and Spencer seems to have been a flash in the pan but it's been replaced by a new one involving Yumi. And the day keeps getting odder when you find yourself Shanghaied by Andrew before you can even sit down for lunch.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, so you seen Tackett today? Talk to him at all or anything?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"He was in second," you tell him guessing as to what he wants to know about.<br/>
<br/>
"What's this about Tackett?" asks Caleb who you'd been walking with.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothin', 'cept that he punched Spencer's lights out on Friday," Harding says with a grin.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, and he told me that Spencer ripped him off but he was over it," you explain. "You want something interesting though," you say as you glance over at Caleb, "apparently Yumi stormed out of practice this morning."<br/>
<br/>
"No shit, really?" Andrew asks as he practically licks his lips. "Always knew she had a little spice to go with that sugar."<br/>
<br/>
"Christ, Will, why don't I get you a bullhorn?" Caleb retorts.<br/>
<br/>
"It's not like it'll be a secret by the end of the day," you snap back. "You know, that Yumi quit the squad and cussed out Chelsea."<br/>
<br/>
"She didn't quit," Caleb says, "and Eva didn't say anything about her cussing Chelsea out."<br/>
<br/>
"No but that'll probably be the rumor that Chelsea spreads," you reply. You don't want to claim to know Chelsea's mind but given all you've heard from Jenny and the others, you think that's probably what she'd do.<br/>
<br/>
"Well we can ask her ourselves," Andrew says.<br/>
<br/>
You follow his gaze to see Yumi sitting at a table not too far from where you are. But she's not with the usual crew or any of her other cheerleader friends. She's sitting, to your surprise, with Fatima Zahedi and Jelena Petrovic.<br/>
<br/>
And Andrew's started heading over there.<span class="gejfmjfflfin3711"></span></span></div></div>


path: 114144341121
author_id: rugal
id: TKQKP9JW9
title: Mr. Excitement
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Andrew has begun walking over to where Yumi is but as he does he glances back at you and gives a quick flick of his head, telling you to come with him; you comply. "Let's go," you tell Caleb as you begin walking.<br/>
<br/>
"Let's... the fuck are you doing?" he asks, but he's started following you.<br/>
<br/>
"Same thing Harding is doing," you shoot back.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb groans. "Yeah," he says, "that's the problem."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't you want to know what's going on?" you ask him. "Then you can take it back to the others and really impress Eva and Cindy and Lin."<br/>
<br/>
He mutters but he doesn't argue any further as the two of you catch up to Andrew. But now it's your turn to be hesitant.<br/>
<br/>
"You're just going to talk to them?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" Andrew replies like it's totally obvious but he turns at you and flashes his wide grin which, along with that lion's mane on his head, actually feels overwhelming. "You intimidated by them or something?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, uh, no. Not really," you say. Though the truth is you are, or at least you're intimidated by Jelena who has a reputation for being very hip and is thus someone of a far higher social standing than yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"They're out at the Warehouse all the time, they're cool," he says. He then turns to them as you approach the table. "Fatima! Yell! How's it going?" he asks before turning his attention to Yumi. "And Yumi too, now this is interesting ain't it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey Will," Yumi says as she looks past Andrew. "And Caleb."<br/>
<br/>
"Hi," you greet her back nervously as the other two girls eye you. "So you're not going to be eating with the others today?"<br/>
<br/>
Yumi eyes tensely for a few seconds before relaxing. "Like I said on Friday, I'm trying to get out of a rut," she explains.<br/>
<br/>
"We ran into her out at the Warehouse," Jelena explains coolly, "and we got to talking."<br/>
<br/>
"Turns out that Yumi's pretty cool herself," beams Fatima, a stylish Iranian-American girl. "And after a few drinks she had a lot that she wanted to get off of her chest."<br/>
<br/>
"That why you told Chelsea to go fuck herself?" Andrew asks.<br/>
<br/>
Yumi and the other girls give each other a look before Yumi shrugs. "It wasn't anything that extreme. I didn't, like, blow up or melt down or anything like that," she says calmly. "Chelsea was being a bitch and I just got fed up with it."<br/>
<br/>
"So you didn't quit the squad or anything?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing like that," responds Yumi.<br/>
<br/>
"She's really stressed, you know?" Fatima states.<br/>
<br/>
"Right," Jelena chimes in. "She's had some stuff going on."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll tell Jenny and them about it," adds Yumi, "but I a just need some time to cool down because I know that they're only going to keep me fired up."<br/>
<br/>
Everyone's curiosity is satisfied, at least for the moment, so you all decide to part ways with Andrew going back to his own buddies while you and Caleb head over to sit with Keith and James and the others. You fill them in about what's going on with Yumi and they seem mostly mollified. Jenny, however, expresses a little discomfort at who Yumi's hanging out with.<br/>
<br/>
"What's wrong with them?" Caleb asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing," Jenny replies as she shifts uncomfortably. "But Jelena's always given me some weird vibes and she hangs out with Andrea too." She grunts and takes a bite of her yogurt. "And I bet Andrea's an even bigger bitch than Chelsea."<br/>
<br/>
"Why's that?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Because she's aloof. Like she thinks she's better than everyone or something," she states. "So I figure you'd have to be a cunt to get along with someone like that."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The rest of the day passes without incident and things are back to normal at home as well. But it seems like each day brings with it something new. On Tuesday, for example, you're surprised twice at lunch. The first is when you're eating with your usual group and notice Jenny rip off a bit of James' sandwich and pop it into her mouth.<br/>
<br/>
"The hell was that for?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"Just wanted to see if your mom makes a better sandwich than mine," she says with a smirk.<br/>
<br/>
But there's something teasing, almost flirty, to it and it's something you—and the others from all the glances—can't help but to notice. It's not just towards James, either, but towards Carson and even a bit towards yourself and Caleb as well. You like Jenny but she's usually, well, harder edged (if you're being charitable) than she's being today. Like the mountain lion ready to tear someone's throat out has been replaced with a playful kitten.<br/>
<br/>
"You get into some of that shit that Prescott put into Walberg's desk, Ashton?" Carson asks.<br/>
<br/>
Jenny makes a face. "No, I just had a really long talk with Yumi yesterday. I'm glad she actually stood up for herself so I'm in a good mood." Then Carson yelps as she kicks him under the table. "See?"<br/>
<br/>
"Where is Yumi, anyway?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"I saw her with Cindy and the others," she says with a shrug. "Guess Yumi sort of telling Chelsea to shove it has messed with the dynamic some. I was getting texts about how Chelsea barely even looked at her."<br/>
<br/>
"You don't think that's bad for Yumi?"<br/>
<br/>
"Dunno," she replies. "But everyone usually just takes Chelsea's shit and then they seethe. I don't think she knows how to handle anyone <i>defying</i> her."<br/>
<br/>
The second part of the one-two blow comes at the end lunch when you're accosted by Fatima who asks for your phone. She snatches it from you as you take it out of your pocket and a few seconds later hands it back.<br/>
<br/>
"I added my number," she says. "Yumi was telling us about how you were saying that you wanted to get out of your rut too."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, I guess?"<br/>
<br/>
"Are you fine hanging out at Andrea's?"<br/>
<br/>
"Varnsworth!?" you ask in astonishment.<br/>
<br/>
"Duh!" Fatima replies. "Anyway, it's usually pretty open there or at Yell's place or... look, we're all real casual, okay? So if you ever want a break from the routine just hit me up so you can hang out with us."<br/>
<br/>
"Who's us?"<br/>
<br/>
"Me and Yell," she starts as she ticks off fingers, "Andrea, Sienna, Charles, Nancy, whoever. Lots of people, it's fluid. Like I said, it's all pretty casual and open."<br/>
<br/>
That's enough to leave you gobsmacked for the rest of the day.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Wednesday doesn't really seem to bring anything special with it except for the reappearance of Lee who was absent from eighth yesterday. Not that you really know him but with him not around Andrew got to talking to you instead so you find yourself included in the conversation. But it's nothing interesting, just that he claims he got sick Monday night, was feeling like crap on Tuesday, and is feeling only slightly better but that his mom sent him to school insisting that he was faking it since he denied any attempt at going to the doctor.<br/>
<br/>
"It's just a stomach bug or something. I'll be over it in a few days," is all he grumbles.<br/>
<br/>
But Thursday is another matter entirely for at lunch it seems like the excitement of the week has finally died down. Yumi is back at your table and her and Jenny have seemingly settled back into their usual pattern of griping about Chelsea and Jenny trying to rein in the boys. But Yumi says she's only stopping by for a few minutes.<br/>
<br/>
"There's going to be a study group this evening. We're still working out the details but we were thinking of doing it at Brianna's since she said her parents are always out late," Yumi states.<br/>
<br/>
"We?" James asks. "As in, you're helping it?"<br/>
<br/>
"You say that like it's weird," Yumi huffs, "but we're seniors and after this whole thing with Chelsea I feel like I should just start putting attention back on what's actually important. You know, like my grades or my sanity."<br/>
<br/>
"So who's going out there?" Caleb asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno, like I said we're still working it out," she answers. "But me, Brianna, maybe Danielle? We're trying to get a list together by the end of eighth. I figured I'd tell you guys though."<br/>
<br/>
James and Carson are negative on the idea. You, Caleb, and Jenny are noncommittal. Keith is all in until both Jenny and Yumi give him a look that says "no."<br/>
<br/>
This gets followed up in sixth period when you overhear Brianna Kirschke, the girl that Yumi mentioned, talking about it with Genesis Lee. "So, Yumi said you're doing a study group out at your place later?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
She looks at you for a moment and gives you a friendly smile. "Yeah, probably. Were you interested in coming out?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
Again, you're noncommittal and simply say that you were curious.<br/>
<br/>
"Well here," she says as she rips off a bit of paper and writes something—her phone number you realize—down. She hands it to you. "If you decide to come out just message me so I'll know what's up. Just tell me by the end of the day though."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Look at you, dude!" Andrew says as the pair of you exit Mr. Cash's classroom.<br/>
<br/>
With Lee having been sick, you've found yourself talking to Andrew more and more this week and again he's still not feeling well and waves of hanging out with Andrew. And while Andrew's gregariousness can feel a bit overwhelming, you decide that he's a pretty nice guy overall. It feels like your fortunes have changed from only a week ago and in a sense you guess you owe it all to that boneheaded decision.<br/>
<br/>
"Brianna's nerdy but she's hella cute, man, and Yumi... fuck! So you goin' out there?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm still deciding," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"Well shit, you got that invitation from Fatima too right? She's nice too." He laughs a bit. "Oh man, if you're goin' out there or to Brianna's you've gotta let me tag along. I'll owe ya big time."<br/>
<br/>
"Owe me how?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck, I dunno, I'll get you hooked up with someone out at the Warehouse or something."<br/>
<br/>
The both of you laugh at that when a voice cuts in. "Hey, are you two free?" asks Ms. Willett as you pass by her. "I've got some stuff in my classroom that I have to move and I'd really appreciate some help."<br/>
<br/>
Ms. Willett is a teacher who's popular with a lot of students as she's young, pretty and cool. You look at Andrew and you can practically see the gears turning because there's no doubt that you'd be in good with her if you helped her out.<span class="nifiggiffni2610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1141443411212
author_id: rugal
id: HMWN99PDB
title: Study Buddies
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Sorry, I've gotta get going," you say as you continue walking. You pull out your phone and send a text to Caleb asking if he's interested in that study session that Yumi had mentioned at lunch. Then, once you're outside, you send a text to the number that Brianna had given you saying that you're interested in that study session after all.<br/>
<br/>
<i>great!</i> she replies. <i>still working on who else is coming out. give me an hour.</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>ok if some friends come out?<br/>
<br/>
maybe. who?<br/>
<br/>
caleb and andrew harding</i>, is the answer you send to her. You don't get an immediate response back.<br/>
<br/>
"The hell was that?" Andrew calls out as he catches up to you. You hadn't even realized you'd gone ahead of him. "I was gonna help Ms. Willett move whatever it was but she said it'd be too heavy for one person."<br/>
<br/>
"I needed to get back to Brianna," you tell him, "because she'd said that she needed a response by the end of the day. If I was stuck moving stuff then I wouldn't be able to tell her that I wanted to go out there."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?"<br/>
<br/>
"There's probably going to be some girls out there," you say, "so I figure that I don't want to pass the opportunity up. I need to start taking chances." Just then your phone dings and you look at the message, a simple "that's fine." "You coming out there too?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
"You for real?"<br/>
<br/>
"I just got the all clear." You also send a text out to Caleb. <i>there's prolly gonna be girls.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Then I'm there," he says.<br/>
<br/>
It's a back and forth flurry of texts right after that. First is Caleb saying that he'll go along with it but asking when it is just as Brianna texts you telling you to be out there around four-thirty which you then relay to Caleb and tell him to meet you at the library. She also gives you her address. Andrew has his own car so he takes off and says he'll meet up with you out there. You then message your mother to tell her that you'll be home later since you're getting together with some people for a study session.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb shows up soon after Andrew leaves.<br/>
<br/>
"So who all is gonna be out there?" he asks as the two of you take seats.<br/>
<br/>
"I really only know us, and I assume Yumi and Brianna. Harding too."<br/>
<br/>
"You and him are getting pretty tight," observes Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"You think?" you reply. "He's a pretty cool dude."<br/>
<br/>
"Don't fall for him," he snarks.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck you," you retort. "But I dunno, I've just been thinking that pulling that dumb stunt might have been what I needed."<br/>
<br/>
"How's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well it got Harding talking to me for one," you point out, "and I felt confident enough to approach Brianna in class about the study session and now I've got her number."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb snorts at that. "So what, you gonna take the opportunity to try and get with her?"<br/>
<br/>
"Who knows?" you answer with a shrug. "But I guess I was thinking about what Yumi had said too. You know, about changing things up and trying new stuff? Breaking into Walberg's desk like that was abnormal and it got people talking about me."<br/>
<br/>
"As the dipshit who planted a doobie in a teacher's desk," Caleb replies with an eyeroll.<br/>
<br/>
"Harding and Lee Reynolds and those types thought it was cool," you counter. "My point is that it's working so I figure why not keep rolling with it and see where it takes me. And where it's taking me right now is Brianna Kirschke's place. So are you gonna keep being a wise ass because I can tell her that you don't feel like coming after all."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb's eyes go wide for a second. "Nah, I said I was in," he grumbles.<br/>
<br/>
For all that he tries to present himself as smart and logical compared to you, Caleb thinks as much with his lower brain as he does with his upper one. After all, <i>he</i> put a USB drive full of porn into the time capsule. You know he's not going to pass up the opportunity to hang out with some girls so why not take the opportunity to bruise his ego a little bit.<br/>
<br/>
After all, it's not like you're going to admit to <i>him</i> that even if you only take the studying half-seriously, you'd be more comfortable doing it with someone who is both smarter than you. Or that even though you're putting on a confident face, you're still nervous and that you'd be more comfortable having a friend around.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Having a familiar face around doesn't last much past you walking though the front door. You and Caleb turn out to be the last ones to arrive for Andrew is already there and he gives you a warm welcome as the two of you enter Brianna's. You try to suppress any bits of nerves because it's the first time you've really been over to a girl's place to hang out.<br/>
<br/>
And it's pretty much <i>all</i> girls too outside of Andrew, Caleb and yourself. Yumi and Brianna are here, of course, as is Fatima among a host of others.<br/>
<br/>
"Danielle couldn't make it, but Fatima agreed to come out last minute," is what Yumi tells you when you mention that you thought that Danielle was going to be out here too. Not that you're complaining per se, since Fatima herself is very nice to look at. But so is Danielle. Thinking back to what Caleb had sarcastically asked, you think you'd definitely like to try getting with her if you had the chance. After all, your interactions with her have always been pleasant so maybe you'd have had a chance.<br/>
<br/>
But you're not going to mope for you certainly wouldn't mind getting close to any of the other girls here... except for Anne Starkey because she's got a big football player boyfriend.<br/>
<br/>
It's decided that due to the large number of people, you're going to break up into three groups. Brianna writes down numbers onto paper, tears them off into strips, tosses them into a basket, and tells everyone to grab a paper with your group being determined by the number. You reach in and pull out one with a big number three on it and wind up being put together with Yumi, Sarah Bhatnagar and Hope Bianucci.<br/>
<br/>
Caleb, for his part, gets put with Brianna, Katelyn Feaster and Leah Simmons. Andrew, meanwhile, is with Fatima, Anne and Genesis Lee.<br/>
<br/>
Everyone then separates into different areas of the house: your group in the living room, Andrew's out on the patio, while Caleb's goes to Brianna's room. For all of your bravado from earlier, when actually shoved into a group with two girls you find your confidence faltering. Although to be fair, both are rather intimidating in their own ways.<br/>
<br/>
Hope, for example, is an athlete; a member of the basketball team. She carries herself with a quiet intensity well that makes you want to shrink back any time her eyes flick in your direction. It reminds you a bit of...<br/>
<br/>
"You know Stephanie Wyatt right?" you ask her. "Since you're on the basketball team and all."<br/>
<br/>
Hope gives you a sharp glare and you wonder if she's pissed at you for asking that question, like it's a stupid thing to ask. "Yumi," is all she icily says.<br/>
<br/>
An awkward silence falls over everyone so Yumi jumps in to break it. "Do <i>you</i> know her?" she asks you.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, kinda. We shared some classes back in the day," you say, "and she was, um, not very nice."<br/>
<br/>
"Not very nice?" Hope snorts. "Be honest, she was a bitch right?"<br/>
<br/>
"A bitch? Um..."<br/>
<br/>
"Bossy, wanting everything to be her way, haranguing you when you don't measure up to her standards, thinks she's hot shit." Hope looks at you, still with a steely glare and you half-wonder if it's just permanently etched onto her face. "Does that sound familiar?"<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, kind of," is all you can say.<br/>
<br/>
"Then yeah, you know her," she states.<br/>
<br/>
The atmosphere is still heavy thanks to your having brought up Stephanie (Hope does not seem to like her one bit) so you decide to try and lighten it with generic small talk. "So, uh, what brings you guys out here anyway?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"Yumi invited me," Sarah smiles as she casts a glance at Yumi. She seems friendlier than Hope. "What about you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, I guess she did too," you answer. "She mentioned it at lunch and then Brianna asked if I was interested."<br/>
<br/>
"You guys hang out?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"A little, I guess," you reply.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm guessing you get a lot of gossip about the cheerleaders, huh? She doesn't really talk about any of that stuff during orchestra." She then turns her attention back to Yumi. "Actually, she mostly just sticks with Eva and a few others. It's why I was pretty surprised she brought this whole thing up to me."<br/>
<br/>
"Will knows but I'm trying to change things up," Yumi replies.<br/>
<br/>
It's a few minutes later when Brianna comes out carrying something. She claims she's going to get everyone some snacks and hands what she says are plates (odd looking ones) to Yumi. She approaches you with one too but something, you're not sure what, happens and everything goes dark.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>The fuck is going on?</i> you think as consciousness returns to you.<br/>
<br/>
Just a few minutes ago you were with Yumi Saito and some others and then you blacked out. It's a study session and you'd come out because... Sarah Bhatnagar, that was one of the people you were with. Katelyn had asked you to come out because Sarah had been invited and then pestered here into attending too. But Katelyn's not an academic and wanted someone she was comfortable with out here with her so you'd agreed, last minute, to come out.<br/>
<br/>
But you'd been separated into different groups and you ended up with... you open your eyes and are shocked. Yumi and Sarah are lying naked in the living room. You're naked too and on instinct you cover up and start looking around for clothes and as you do you catch sight of that boy, the skinny dumbass who'd asked you about Stephanie.<br/>
<br/>
Wait, no, not "that boy" but <i>you</i>. Because that boy is Will Prescott and that's who you are, or at least who you should be. Because even though you know you're Will, you're suddenly aware that you have both the mind and body of Hope Biannucci.<span class="jgjjffmgii159"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11414434112121
author_id: rugal
id: M3Q5VS8LC
title: Mixed Subjects
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Whatever's going on with you, you realize that you shouldn't be sitting around and gawking. Something happened and it looks like it hit everyone. Maybe they're even worse off than you. "Hey," you call out as you prod and jostle the boy—fuck, it's easier to just think of him as Will—next to you, "wake up."<br/>
<br/>
"Ungh," he groans as he starts to come to.<br/>
<br/>
"C'mon Hope," you say as you continue to prod him, because if you're somehow Hope then maybe you've swapped bodies or something, "you alright?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I'm," he pauses, "Hope? No, I'm..." He stops once more. You watch as he looks down at himself, at his arms, eyes slowly going wide as realization sinks in. "Wh-what's going on?" he asks. He looks up at you, shock that gives way to terror clear on his face. "Hope! Why am I—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not... wait, <i>you're</i> not Hope?" you ask in surprise.<br/>
<br/>
"No! I'm... I'm Sarah! At least I think I am!" He looks down at himself once more. "But this isn't my body! And there's... memories and thoughts in my head that don't belong to me! I think they belong to—"<br/>
<br/>
"Will Prescott?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes! Oh god, how did you—"<br/>
<br/>
"Because," you impatiently cut her off for the third time, "that's <i>my</i> body. Or it <i>was</i> my body."<br/>
<br/>
"Your..." He looks panicked now. "Oh jeez, oh my god, what's happening," he mutters damn near hyperventilating.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know, but that's why we can't freak out," you say in a tone that's stern and reassuring. It seems to be coming naturally to you. Or rather, it seems to come naturally to the voice at the back of your mind that urges you of the need to stay calm in situations like this. <i>Dad's a cop and mom's a nurse</i>, it says, <i>they wouldn't want me flipping out.</i> That must be something you're picking up from Hope, you'd guess.<br/>
<br/>
There's a stirring and you move from the boy—Sarah—to Yumi. "Are you Hope?" you ask as she comes to.<br/>
<br/>
"Huh?" she grumbles in confusion as she rubs a hand against her head. "No, I'm Yumi, why would—" She stops as she notices her own state of undress. "What the fuck!?"<br/>
<br/>
But you ignore her and instead move over to the girl that looks like Sarah Bhatnagar. By process of elimination that means she has to be... "Hope," you say as you rouse her, "you need to wake up." She's coming to when you hear a loud cry, muffled as it may be from the sliding glass door, of the patio. There's also loud voices coming from the direction of Brianna's room.<br/>
<br/>
"Shit!" you exclaim, more to yourself than to anything. "We need to—" Sarah, in your body, is still huffing and puffing so you reach out a hand and grasp her. "Having a breakdown isn't going to do any of us any good," you state firmly. "Just grab your—my clothes and throw them on." You look at Yumi and Hope as well. "Same for the rest of us."<br/>
<br/>
Hope gives you a hard stare with Sarah's dark eyes. "Why the fuck are <i>you</i> acting like you're in charge?"<br/>
<br/>
"Because it's what <i>you'd</i> do, now quit bitching and get dressed!" you bark. That seems to shock her enough that she slinks back a bit and begins to paw through the clothes laying near her.<br/>
<br/>
You do the same and aside from Sarah's still heavy breathing the four of you get dressed in silence.<br/>
<br/>
You guess that you'll probably have plenty of time to get acquainted with Hope's body later but it's still impossible not to take notice of all the bits of it as you pull stuff on. Cotton panties slide over legs that are long and strong to rest over a toned and well-shaped ass. The cups of the bra are filled by breasts that, already a nice size, look larger as they're pushed together and you take a second to brush fingers over washboard abs.<br/>
<br/>
And even though the air is starting to cool, you grab and pull on a pair of short jean shorts (perfect for showing of those legs and that ass) and a loose sleeveless shirt (good for showing off firm arms).<br/>
<br/>
<i>I keep myself in shape. Why shouldn't I want to show off every once in a while?</i> comes a stray thought from a mind that's now yours regarding a body that now belongs to you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
An awkward and uncomfortable air hangs over Brianna's living room where the twelve of you are gathered. There's the odd sight of Andrew Harding—really Genesis Lee—huddling away from everyone and shrinking back when Anne Starkey, in Genesis' body, tries to offer reassurance. What happened to your group seems to have happened to the others and it took a few minutes of crying and yelling to work out who was now who.<br/>
<br/>
You ended up in the body of Hope Bianucci who ended up inside Sarah Bhatnagar who was now you. Caleb was Katelyn Feaster who had become Leah Simmons who in turn became Caleb. Andrew ended up as Anny Starkey while she was now Genesis who now found herself in Andrew's body. Somehow, though they'd blacked out as well, Yumi, Brianna, and Fatima were still themselves. A fact that wasn't lost on some people.<br/>
<br/>
"You did it," Katelyn declares as she points an accusatory finger at Brianna. "And these two," she then points at Yumi and Fatima, "were involved."<br/>
<br/>
"I... what!?" Brianna exclaims. "How the hell did I do this!?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know but I know you did!" Katelyn loudly responds.<br/>
<br/>
"Le—uh, Katelyn," Anne pipes up, "we can't really throw out accusations."<br/>
<br/>
"Then how come they're the only ones who didn't end up like us?" Leah shoots back. "How come <i>they</i> still... still..."<br/>
<br/>
It's an odd sight watching someone who looks like your best friend suddenly begin to sniffle but in the grand scheme of things it might as well be downright normal. Leah's upset, everyone is. She's no longer hyperventilating but Sarah's still very shell shocked so you're sitting with an arm around her to try and keep her calm.<br/>
<br/>
"We were out too!" Fatima exclaims. "I don't know why we weren't switched but we didn't do anything! We're not or... or aliens or something!"<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe that's the point," Andrew says. His demeanor and body language looks odd coming from a girl who looks more reserved and prim. "Whatever did this to us was just fuckin' with us. Like somethin' was just trying to cause chaos." He turns to Brianna with a smirk. "Your family build this place on an Indian burial ground? Maybe the spirits are pissed."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh fuck you!" Brianna venomously spits. "Try to take this at least a little seriously!"<br/>
<br/>
"Everybody <i>is</i> taking it seriously," states Hope, though she does shoot a glance at Andrew.<br/>
<br/>
"So what do we do?" Yumi quietly asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I've got Sarah's memories so I think I can probably be her," Hope says before turning to you. "You've got my memories?"<br/>
<br/>
"More or less," you answer, which is true.<br/>
<br/>
It's how you're able to recognize that Hope is doing what she always tries to do: take charge. It's both her strongest and weakest point. In situations like this, for example, it's an obvious boon. In other cases however, like with the team... yeah, it's easy to see why her and Stephanie don't get along. Two prideful, strong-willed alpha girls who like to be the ones giving, not taking, orders? Clashes were inevitable.<br/>
<br/>
"Then that's what we need to do," she states.<br/>
<br/>
"We just... go home?" Katelyn asks. "I'm supposed to just accept that I'm stuck like this?"<br/>
<br/>
"The hell else are you supposed to do? Do <i>you</i> know how to fix this?" challenges Hope. "Look, it sucks but what else can we do?"<br/>
<br/>
There's grumbling but nobody has a real argument against it and soon everyone starts getting ready to disperse. As they do, Yumi comes over and places a hand on your shoulder. "Sorry Will," she says, "if I hadn't invited you out..."<br/>
<br/>
But you brush her worries off. "It is what it is. I was wanting to change things up anyway," you darkly joke.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wind up echoing Yumi, however, once you're outside. "Sorry for inviting you out here," you say to Caleb.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I really don't know how to process this," he says. The expression on his face is hard but then, Hope's mind tells you, Katelyn always wears a hard expression. <i>She always complains that think that she's going to slug them,</i> you think.<br/>
<br/>
"You've got a nice pair of tits to play with," you weakly joke.<br/>
<br/>
"So do you want to hang out or something?" he asks. "I mean, from what I can tell these two are friends anyway so..."<br/>
<br/>
Yeah, that might be a good idea. However, you see Sarah standing off alone and still looking shaken. She seems like she's having a harder time with it than anyone else. Even Genesis calmed down a bit. Given that she'd practically clung to you from the moment you both woke up and that she's the one inside your body, you feel like it'd probably be a good idea to stay with her for a little bit until she's calm enough to head to your home.<span class="fngigffkfmh3610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 114144341121212
author_id: rugal
id: AMX3J3PTF
title: Talking to Yourself
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>You know why Caleb wants to hang out as it's likely the same reason you want to as well: you're both confused and scared but at least you know each other so that might help calm your nerves a bit. But Sarah seems like she needs calming more than either you or Caleb do and given that it's <i>your</i> body that she ended up in, you feel like you can't leave her in the lurch. You also feel as if that bit of Hope that seems to now exist inside your head would chew you out if you did that. You tell him that you'll catch up with him later and the two of you make tentative plans to meat up at some point tomorrow.<br/>
<br/>
You're heading over to Sarah when you see Hope rush past you towards her direction. Instinctively you reach out and grab her arm. "The hell do you think you're doing?" she asks as she turns back to you.<br/>
<br/>
"We're probably thinking the same thing, yeah?" you ask; she says nothing in response. "Then you'd know as well as I do that's probably not a good idea."<br/>
<br/>
"She needs someone to help her out," says Hope. "Look at her!"<br/>
<br/>
"That's what I intend on doing," you tell her, "and I've got you in my head so I think I can do it as well as you would."<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>think</i>?" she retorts.<br/>
<br/>
With a quick jerk, you pull her towards you such that you can almost feel her against you. "How the fuck do you think she's gonna react if you approach her in her own body?" you counter. "If she talks to me then she isn't gonna be staring at herself the whole time. I mean, if she had to look at her own face and listen to her own voice then that'd probably just make it worse right now."<br/>
<br/>
Hope holds your eye and neither of you seem like you're going to budge.<br/>
<br/>
"It's also <i>my</i> body that she's in," you add, "so if I'm the one who approaches her and I'm calm about the whole thing then maybe that shows her that she doesn't need to freak out since she already knows that we're all in the same boat."<br/>
<br/>
It's a tense moment but eventually it's she, not you, who backs down. "Fine," she simply says as you loosen your grip. "Talk to me in Gelding's tomorrow."<br/>
<br/>
You give it a minute as you watch her turn around and head to what you assume is Sarah's car. Then you turn your attention to the actual girl herself (weird to think of that considering how she looks) and head towards her as others walk past you.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," you greet her while trying to remain calm, "you okay?" That doesn't produce a response, however. "I figure you probably want someone to talk to, right?" Again, no answer, but you press on. "Well, I was thinking that the two of us should go off somewhere so we can hang out. We've got some things we need to talk about, don't we?"<br/>
<br/>
Still nothing and you feel a bit of frustration begin welling up in spite of yourself.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, you know, I thought... but whatever. You're not in the right place to want to do anything so I'm not gonna press you." You start to turn around. "We can talk tomorrow or—"<br/>
<br/>
You're cut off by a hand with a surprisingly strong grip grasping you by the wrist. "No, it's... it's fine," says Sarah. "We, uh, should talk."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Alamo Freeze is a curious little ice cream shop in that it's actually two different stores in one building as the other half is a Dairy Queen. There's actually a divider that runs between the two as the Alamo Freeze is a more upscale place serving higher quality ice cream and gelato. That's the claim, anyway, but Hope knows it's at least partly bullshit.<br/>
<br/>
She worked here for a summer job inbetween her sophomore and junior years so she knows that at least half the stuff is shared between both places. One of the people that she worked with was the owner's daughter—someone she still keeps in contact with—who told her, with some minor embarrassment, that he only started promoting the other half as "upscale" after she got into St. Xavier's to try and attract that type clientele. It at least partially worked which is why you're in the DQ half; Hope can barely stand to be around the mostly snobby mutants that descend on the Alamo half.<br/>
<br/>
You sit there munching on a burger and onion rings while Sarah only unenthusiastically nibbles at the food you bought her. "I know you're hungry so eat up. It's why I bought you something," you tell her with some impatience.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry," she mutters.<br/>
<br/>
"No, it's fine, don't worry," you reply. "You're shocked over what's happened and are having a rough time processing it."<br/>
<br/>
"You're not, though," she states. "You seem like you're fine."<br/>
<br/>
"I do?" you say with a small, nervous laugh. "It's because I have Hope's brain and she's good in panicky situations; without it I'd probably be a wreck. Do you know how fucking weird it is to be talking to somebody who looks and sounds like who I <i>was</i> only an hour ago?"<br/>
<br/>
"Right, I'm not the only one who has it bad," says Sarah. "Ugh, and if I hadn't invited Katelyn then she wouldn't have invited Hope and then Hope <i>and</i> Katelyn wouldn't..."<br/>
<br/>
"Look, it's fine, it's not like it's your fault or anything," you state as you try to be reassuring. You even reach out and place your hands on top of hers. <i>He looks so vulnerable, like he needs me. He wants me to comfort him and care for him. It's so cute,</i> comes yet another stray thought<br/>
<br/>
"I had the same thought too; I invited my best friend out so he got caught up in this as well. But it's not like any of us could have known that something like this was going to happen to us."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, we're all going through the same thing aren't we? Most of us, anyway." She looks at you with an expression that's displaying multiple things at once: frustration, desperation, disbelief, and more. "It's weird how Brianna and them didn't get switched too."<br/>
<br/>
"It is," you agree, "but I don't really know how they could have done something like this. Or why."<br/>
<br/>
"So you don't think they had anything to do with what happened?"<br/>
<br/>
"I think it's unlikely," you answer. "If they did then we'd have to accept that, I don't know, they're witches or whatever. That seems ridiculous."<br/>
<br/>
"Like swapping bodies? Like becoming a girl?"<br/>
<br/>
She's got you there, but even still... "I guess I don't <i>want</i> to believe they had something to do with it," you admit. "Yumi's my friend so I don't want to think that she would be malicious. I mean if she did this, then that makes her an even bigger bitch than Chelsea."<br/>
<br/>
"So you're going to just believe that this happened for some unexplained reason? Like a freak solar storm or something?" asks Sarah.<br/>
<br/>
"It's as good an explanation as anything else," you say with a shrug. "I just don't think that there's any use in pointing fingers or accusing such and such of doing whatever. It happened and as far as we can tel we're stuck so the best thing to do is to try and get on board with the way things are now."<br/>
<br/>
"The way things are now," she repeats absentmindedly.<br/>
<br/>
"Right. I can't... well, I can't stop thinking of myself as Will Prescott but even if I still am mentally, then I'm going to have to accept that to everyone else I'm Hope Bianucci. That this is my life now."<br/>
<br/>
"And I'm Will Prescott now," she states.<br/>
<br/>
"Exactly," you say. "Just like Hope is Sarah Bhatnagar now. And maybe she lives her life the way that you would or maybe she just does whatever she wants. Same with me and you and everyone else."<br/>
<br/>
Sarah sits there for a moment contemplating. "Then, I guess you should just think of her as Sarah and I should think of you as Hope," she says as she looks at you with determination, "and you should think of me as Will."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
When you'd gotten back to Hope's house, your house now, you'd wanted to take the chance to explore and be a little more intimate with yourself but you'd found it impossible. In the shower all you could think about was getting through it and after dinner you had homework you needed to do because Hope, as it turns out, is actually as smart as she is athletic; almost all of her classes are AP ones.<br/>
<br/>
By the time you'd finished everything that, combined with the events of the afternoon, left you worn out to the point where you more or less passed out.<br/>
<br/>
Any exploration of your new body will have to wait until after school today because you definitely don't have the time to get into it in the morning. You get prepared and eat breakfast and then are out the door, fighting traffic on your way to school. And it's as you're crossing the parking lot that you see someone familiar approach you.<br/>
<br/>
"Morning," says Sarah, no Will, as he comes up besides you.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey," you reply with unintended terseness. You're distracted by the worry of whether or not that essay you finished last night for Montague is good. "You seem like you've adjusted."<br/>
<br/>
"Kind of. I had all night to get acquainted with you," he says, leaving you to wonder just how acquainted he got.<br/>
<br/>
"That's good, because I think that I'm more or less going to be fine as Hope now."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, and I think I should be good as you," he states. "Thanks, by the way. For putting everything in perspective. I was so wrapped up in what happened afterwards that I needed to be reminded that I'm not alone in this."<br/>
<br/>
"It's why I did that," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"Right, but even then I've still got some nerves so I was kind of thinking, uh," he suddenly looks unsure of himself, "what if we go out?"<br/>
<br/>
"We <i>what</i>!?" you exclaim as you halt in your tracks.<br/>
<br/>
"We don't have to be, like, a real couple but I think I'd be more comfortable for now with you around so that would give us an excuse to be together," she explains. "Like we connected at the study group yesterday."<br/>
<br/>
You... suppose that makes sense and truth be told you'd feel better being able to keep an eye on your old body too. But there's another thought coming in from Hope's mind. Because Hope likes a guy who shows vulnerability. She's an alpha, take charge type and she wants a guy who she can take care of; a guy who will rely on her. And "Will Prescott," as he is right now, is hitting those buttons hard.<br/>
<br/>
Which maybe means you should shut it down.<span class="fnmnmingeh369"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1141443411212122
author_id: rugal
id: M4PBW34KQ
title: A Hopeful Day
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Look, I get what you're saying but I don't think that's going to be a good idea," you state.<br/>
<br/>
"Right, I know. I just..."<br/>
<br/>
Will trails off, embarrassed, and you understand where he's coming from. But you don't really know how long you're going to be stuck like this for and when Hope is back to herself, would she be happy with you starting a relationship she'd now have to deal with? And what about Sarah? Because technically it'd be her you'd be starting something with. Of course, the "relationship" would just be bullshit but what if something developed for real? When you switch back it'd put everyone in an awkward position.<br/>
<br/>
"It's fine, don't worry about it. I get what you're saying," you tell him, "but I just don't think that'd work as a cover. Way too many complications."<br/>
<br/>
You're ready to leave it at just that but you notice his body language and that he's still uncomfortable. You realize that you need to give him at least <i>some</i> reassurance that you're not going to leave him out in the cold.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, it's not like we can't hang out or anything. We don't need to fake like we're going out or anything to do that."<br/>
<br/>
"No? But we're, you know, a boy and girl so—"<br/>
<br/>
"So <i>what</i>?" you huffily retort. He seems taken aback by that and you realize that you need to rein it in some. Hope, from what you can tell, is definitely a bit hotheaded so you need to get that under control, at least in dealing with the person now wearing your face.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, what I mean is that we don't need to be pretending to date to hang out," you explain. "We met at the study group and realized we had some things in common, like you said, so let's just start off as friends. Nothing says a relationship between a guy and a girl can't be platonic, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Ah, yeah, I guess. Sure."<br/>
<br/>
"It's gonna be fine. Just keep your head down for today and remember that a bunch of us are all going through the same thing," you tell her, trying to be as reassuring as possible.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
First period is essays, one of those classes that Hope picked mainly to fill out her schedule. She doesn't really like it much, though, as it's kind of dull and more importantly, it's filled with a ton of the types of people she doesn't like. People like Alec Brown or George Basham or Charles Hartlein who walk around with unwarranted swagger. It's also the first of the many classes that she shares with Meredith Klein, another member of the team.<br/>
<br/>
But you don't really get a chance to talk to her or anyone because while Mr. Montague isn't the harshest teacher, he still takes his classes seriously enough that you don't attempt to make conversation. You and Meredith do walk and talk on the way to the next class which you also share... but it's AP Constitutional Law and internally you groan. Because it turns out that getting stuck in a new life doesn't mean you're getting away from Walberg. True to form, Walberg is as gruff with this class as he is with his sociology one but Hope doesn't altogether hate the class itself as she finds the material reasonably interesting.<br/>
<br/>
What catches your eye, however, is Almida Jones. She's the nominal captain of the basketball team but she's always rubbed Hope the wrong way. They competed for the captain position on the JV team and while Hope feels that she's always been the better player, but it was decided to go with Almida because because being captain might interfere with Hope's academics. Hope strongly suspected, and still suspects, that Almida went behind her back to plant the idea in the coach's head... not that she has any proof of that, of course.<br/>
<br/>
To make it worse, now that they're seniors and Almida's captain of the varsity team, she basically stands aside and leaves most of the <i>real</i> running of things to <i>Stephanie</i> making it all pointless.<br/>
<br/>
If it's the Hope portion of your mind that took note of Almida, then it's the Will portion that takes note of Jenny and Paul Davis. They're friends of yours, of course, and there's a part of you that wants to reach out to them and tell them what's going on. But you can't do that; they wouldn't believe you. Hope doesn't know them either. Oh, she knows <i>of</i> Jenny and their paths have crossed a couple of times but that's really it. She knows Paul even less than that.<br/>
<br/>
So you resist the temptation to talk to them when class lets out and are even curt with some of the people in this class that Hope is on good terms with like Barbara Powell and Scott Frazier. You also catch Spencer Osbourne leering at you as you walk past him and involuntarily give him a dirty look. <i>He's such a creep</i>, you find yourself thinking for it's far from the first time he's done it to Hope.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Third period is when you finally separate from Meredith but not from more reminders of the life that's been ripped away from you. It's AP chemistry which you now share with not just Paul but also James and Carson. Caleb—really Leah—is there too and the two of you exchange quick glances of silent acknowledgment. You take your seat next to Sarah—really Hope, of course, but given everything it's easier to think of her as Sarah—and find yourself talking as soon as your ass has hit the chair.<br/>
<br/>
"She took me by surprise this morning," you say. "Sarah," you quickly add, "she caught me as I was coming in and suggested we start dating!"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" is all the fake-Sarah slowly drawals in response.<br/>
<br/>
"She wanted to stick together, for comfort and such, so she said it'd be a cover for that."<br/>
<br/>
"You turned her down?"<br/>
<br/>
"I did," you answer. "Gently. I told her we could be friends, though."<br/>
<br/>
Sarah grunts at that. "I'm not surprised, but I'd be careful," she says.<br/>
<br/>
"Why's that?"<br/>
<br/>
She starts to chew on her thumbnail, probably some kind of tic from Sarah because nothing in Hope's mind tells you that she does that. "Just that having had all this time to, uh, get to know her I'm not really surprised," she responds. "She's kind of got a reputation for... going off with guys."<br/>
<br/>
That surprises you but you say nothing in response, a silent indicator for her to keep going.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not going to dump her whole life story or anything," she tells you in response, "but you there's a lot of parental pressure, and her sister is prettier, and she's kind of awkward. So a guy shows a little interest and she wants to rebel a bit and... you get it, right?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, sure," you answer, "but I'm not a guy anymore, so..."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah but she is, now. She's got a guy's brain and his dick and his hormones and, you know, none of the pressure."<br/>
<br/>
You're taken aback by that. "You can't be serious," you retort. "That's not the impression I got from her."<br/>
<br/>
Sarah simply gives you the kind of look that says "come on now." "I said she was kind of awkward but she's not dumb and she's not inept," she tells you. "She's good at picking things up. And you, uh, know what I like, right?"<br/>
<br/>
You nod. Not to say that Hope likes a wimp, and there are plenty of less vulnerable guys she finds attractive, but still...<br/>
<br/>
"I'd bet you were broadcasting it, too." She looks at you seriously. "She's not dangerous or bad or anything but she's not as innocent and vulnerable as you're thinking, is all I'm saying. And when we switch back, I don't need all kinds of complicated shit to deal with because of the two of you and your hormones."<br/>
<br/>
"And what if we don't switch back?" you counter. Sarah simply, and quietly, looks at you before the final bell rings and Mr. Gelding calls class to order.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Kelly Rinaldi grabs you after class lets out to ask if you're doing anything later and you can only give a noncommittal answer. She whimpers at that since it seems like nobody ever knows what they're doing until they're going to do it. You tell her that everyone still has all day to figure it out.<br/>
<br/>
On your way to lunch, which Hope has for fourth period, you're accosted by Anne. "Hey," she says as she leans in close, "you wanna eat together or something?"<br/>
<br/>
"Not really," you curtly reply as you draw on Hope's own natural bluntness.<br/>
<br/>
Not that you want to be rude but there's a part of you that, after that conversation with Sarah, wants to maybe keep some distance with some of the others. Also, Anne and Hope wouldn't be lunch buddies and you think that she's right: it's probably a good idea to keep things in order for when, or if, everyone switches back. Maybe that'll change too but for now it seems like a solid plan.<br/>
<br/>
"Look, throw me a lifeline," she pleads. "Anne and Huber have lunch together so, y'know, he's gonna wanna be touchy feely and all that. I don't wanna deal with that shit."<br/>
<br/>
"Then tell him you don't feel good," you snappily reply. "Tell him you're on your period."<br/>
<br/>
She makes a face at that. "Well, look, you doin' anything tonight? I was thinkin' of hitting up the Warehouse later but, y'know, I'm gonna want someone watching my back."<br/>
<br/>
"I haven't made plans," you say as you spot Meredith. "Look, I'll get back to you later, okay?"<br/>
<br/>
You reunite with Meredith and you sit with Hope's usual crew. There's Haley Flanagan (another team member) as well as Tanya Marconi, Jackie Guzman and Kathleen Sanford from the lacrosse team. You're also joined by Haley Cordero, a softball team member who splits days between your group and Maggie Crenshaw's, her team's captain.<br/>
<br/>
Not that there's bad blood between your group and Maggie but a few members aren't too hot on Sydney McGlynn, the new girl who's set tongues wagging. "A Jezebel," is what Jackie's derisively referred to her as; Hope thinks of her as a Chelsea in the making.<br/>
<br/>
But lunch is mostly the normal mix of gossip, petty dramas, and trying to work out plans for after school that you would expect but as expected, nothing definitive is hammered out by the time it ends.<span class="fmjggefefjk3711"></span></span></div></div>


path: 11414434112121221
author_id: rugal
id: UQGYTMRHW
title: Court Gossip
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>Fifth period is AP US history and it's something of a whatever class. Like her essays class, it's something of a filler class and outside of Meredith there's not really anyone for you to consort with. Largely because there's a high degree of underclassmen, largely juniors but some sophomores too, that Hope has nothing to do with. Hell, the only ones she does have any communication with are some of the girls on the JV team and even then that's rare.<br/>
<br/>
You're actually struck, now that you think of it, by the fact that a girl like Hope who's taking mostly AP classes, who doesn't even have a study hall period to loaf around in to break things up, doesn't have a math class. But looking around reveals the obvious answer: she hates math. She's not bad or hopeless at it per se but it's way too much effort put in for middling—by her standards—grades. Seniors aren't required to take a math class so the second the last bell of eleventh grade rang, that was it for high school math.<br/>
<br/>
She'll occasionally do some exercises and self-study on her own since she knows she can't (immediately) escape it in college but as a class to attend every day? Yeah, that was never in the cards. Especially not once she joined the varsity team whose practices, like most of the other varsity teams, are two period affairs.<br/>
<br/>
And that's exactly where you're headed next as you nearly bolt out of the room once the bell rings.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Hope is usually one of the first people to arrive in the locker room but in spite of your own anxiousness in waiting for the previous period to end and the speed with which you'd left, you actually take your time getting over to the gym. Part of it is because you decided to wait for Meredith who suddenly got a flash of inspiration and decided she needed to text <i>everybody</i> about possible plans. It actually got to the point where you had to sharply cut in to tell her to get going.<br/>
<br/>
Meredith is a reasonably bright girl but she's almost ADHD in the way her attention span works, flitting from one thing to another before suddenly getting absorbed in one thing and tuning out everything else around her. It's partly why she's a bench rider who mostly plays during garbage time as she's prone to stupid mistakes; a bad pass here or poor shot there that leads to turnovers.<br/>
<br/>
But mostly you're going slow on your own initiative because by the time you finally do arrive, most of the rest of the team is there and getting changed and you want the opportunity to take it in. Not that you want to see all of them, because you could definitely go without seeing Corale Weaver or Nell Hammond in small amounts of clothing, but for the rest...<br/>
<br/>
Your eye is immediately drawn to Meghan Velasquez who's well shaped and whose tanned skin contrasts with the white sports bra and shorts she's currently in. But appreciation from you is tempered by dislike from Hope at one of Stephanie's acolytes. The same can be said for Katy Conlee who's cute in the way a baby chipmunk is but she fawns over Stephanie in a way that elicits utter disgust in Hope.<br/>
<br/>
And you only catch a brief glimpse of Stephanie herself before turning to your own locker but it's enough to whet your appetite for Stephanie is, like Hope, a girl who keeps herself in excellent shape, tall and with well shaped legs and truly nice breasts. Hope Bianucci's interest is purely in the opposite sex but you're still a guy mentally and or a moment your minds mix as you briefly fantasize about letting all of your frustration out on her. Of showing Stephanie who's really in charge by pinning her down and nibbling at her lips.<br/>
<br/>
But the thought quickly passes when Haley cuts in next to you. "You heard about what Stephanie's trying to do?" she asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't keep up with what she does outside of here," you answer as you throw a side-eyed glance towards her. Her face is decidedly average and her breasts aren't big but she keeps in decent shape and you like the way her long, dark hair plays against her pale skin.<br/>
<br/>
"Her and Dominique and them are planning something against Hannah," she informs you.<br/>
<br/>
You don't show much reaction. Hope knows, of course, that Stephanie despises Hannah Westrick, an Eastman transfer who joined the soccer team and started immediately butting heads with Anita Nuevo. Hope's own thoughts about Hannah are decidedly neutral since she doesn't have much to do with the soccer team herself.<br/>
<br/>
"They're going to scare her," Meredith says. "With voodoo or something like that."<br/>
<br/>
That catches your attention but your reaction, a simple "Voodoo?" while cocking an eyebrow is in line with a girl not given to emotional outbursts. Still, the derisive disbelief is apparent because Meredith snickers before talking.<br/>
<br/>
"I saw her pass some book along to Katy a few days ago. Didn't really see what it was but I definitely saw, like, the word voodoo on it," she explains. "And I guess Meghan's in on it too because you know she can't keep her mouth shut about anything so she must have let it slip somewhere because Katrina mentioned it to me last night."<br/>
<br/>
"So then Hannah knows? Since Katrina's part of her crew and all."<br/>
<br/>
"No idea!" Meredith beams. She's not really pro-Hannah—really she's more Hope's buddy than outright anti-Stephanie even—so you can tell that what happens to her doesn't really mean anything. It's just a situation that she finds amusing.<br/>
<br/>
"Knowing Katrina," Haley chimes in, "she'll keep quiet and let Hannah deal with it herself. She takes the team really seriously and put her ass on the line backing Hannah over Anita so if some dumb prank is all it takes to ruin Hannah..."<br/>
<br/>
Yeah, you know the story (or Hope does, at least). Anita's a good player but she's also polarizing and the rumor, at least if one listens to the likes of Tara Weston and Gabriela Costa, is that she got the captaincy because her parents are friends with Coach Puente which also opened the door for Anita's cousin to become captain of the JV soccer team.<br/>
<br/>
But Katrina, so Meredith has told you, sided with Hannah mostly because she thinks she's a better player and leader than out of real antipathy towards Anita. In fact, Meredith sardonically says that Katrina will probably wind up coming back to replace Coach Puente in a few years which wouldn't be unprecedented.<br/>
<br/>
Coach Richards, from what Hope's memories tell you, is a former Westside player who graduated college and started coaching the freshman and JV teams about when the current seniors entered high school. And the buzz among the players is that it's largely just a way of getting her experience so she can replace Coach Tesla as the varsity coach.<br/>
<br/>
Which would probably be a good thing because Coach Tesla is a haggard bulldog of a woman who doesn't so much run practice as sit on the sidelines and watch Stephanie run things... which should be Almida's job but she complains about being busy and Stephanie's a good player and knows what she's doing so just listen to her suggestions. Fat chance. Oh, you do listen eventually but not without some lip or offering your own criticisms.<br/>
<br/>
In a sense it's very frustrating because almost everyone else, including Hope's friends, wilts when Stephanie gets on them. But for you, you remember how she's always intimidated you so it's nice to not have that fear of her; to be able to push back.<br/>
<br/>
It makes you feel good and after practice you take a little bit of extra time soaping and cleaning yourself as you take in an eyeful of Meredith who yammers away about something or other, completely oblivious.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Hey, so you doing anything?" asks Katelyn, approaching as you and Meredith head towards the parking lot. It's the first you've seen of your transformed best friend since yesterday.<br/>
<br/>
You shrug but Meredith chimes in. "I'm gonna be hitting up the Monte," she says. "Got a few others willing to come out too."<br/>
<br/>
"Any guys?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"No, but," she slyly grins, "that's what the Warehouse is for, right? We're just going to pre-game before heading out there. You in?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, sure," you say. "Beats sitting at home." You turn to Katelyn. "What about you?"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll pass. I was thinking of going out to Catherine's tonight," she answers as you note a familiar hunger in her eyes as she says that name, "with Sarah."<br/>
<br/>
"The two of you are all chummy now?" you ask. "Study session from yesterday," you tell Meredith. "Katelyn told me that Sarah Bhatnagar's the one who invited her out to it since she was getting pissy about grades and whatnot."<br/>
<br/>
"Eww, <i>her</i>?" Meredith's face scrunches up.<br/>
<br/>
"She's fine. Definitely not the girl I thought she was," Katelyn replies with a smirk. You want to smack her for that.<br/>
<br/>
Your phone suddenly buzzes and you pull it out to see a text from Will asking how it's going.<br/>
<br/>
<i>got thru the day ok</i>, you answer. <i>how bout you?</i><br/>
<br/>
<i>np I guess. ur friends are alright. u doin anything after school?</i><br/>
<br/>
You almost want to tell him of plan to hit up both the Monte and the Warehouse but if you did that then you feel like you'd be obligated, out of politeness more than anything, to invite him to come out as well. Which could maybe be a good thing for him. But you also remember what Sarah—the real Hope Bianucci—had said to you earlier and you worry that doing so could give off the wrong impression.<span class="fmjggefefmn3711"></span></span></div></div>


path: 114144341121212212
author_id: rugal
id: NP6JSMXSP
title: Saturday Night Horror Shows
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span><i>dunno. just hanging out.</i><br/>
<br/>
That's the reply you send out and when you get one back, asking if you want to hang out, you decide to go from noncommittal to committed and give a more affirmative "no." <i>still kinda exhausted so idk</i>, is what you say which, you guess, isn't a total lie. But that seems to satisfy the person in your body and they say that they'll talk to you again, then. Yeah, no matter what else you don't think you're ready to spend a lot of time with someone who looks like you so you can be reminded of a life that you no longer have... and one that, for all you know, you could never see again.<br/>
<br/>
Though you got through the school day fine and Hope is a fairly even-keeled person, you're suddenly feeling more anxious as the afternoon turns to evening. In a sense you almost feel relieved when Hope's parents—both with a semi-rare simultaneous night off—tell you that they're going out with their friends and ask if you'd be willing to look after said friends' kid for the night. You weakly protest but decide to go with it and so have to (with feigned reluctance) send texts to Meredith saying that stuff came up and you won't be able to make it out tonight.<br/>
<br/>
You're not particularly looking forward to babysitting either, mind you, but lucky for you the kid turns out to be rather easily amused and spends most of the night zoned out on the couch playing some kind of game on a tablet. And you do get paid a small amount for your trouble which is at least a nice bonus.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Saturday is mostly a slow day with nothing really going on and so you spend the first bit of it getting caught up on some homework that was assigned yesterday. It's not until the early afternoon when you get a text from Haley asking if you want to go see a movie tonight.<br/>
<br/>
<i>flattered but aren't you already taken?</i> you snarkily send back.<br/>
<br/>
<i>bite me! raymond wants to see something &amp; i thought make it a thing.</i><br/>
<br/>
Yeah, you figured as much. Haley has only recently started going out with Raymond Koepp and already seems to be regretting it. She complains that he's immature and not altogether serious about things and that he seemed to basically want to start getting intimate almost from the moment she agreed to go out with him. It's said that opposites attract but anyone would be quickly disabused of that notion if they saw Haley and Raymond such that you're not sure why she did say yes in the first place.<br/>
<br/>
You give Haley some tepid approval and decide to see who, if anyone, you can get to agree to come out. Meredith declines, claiming she stayed out way too late last night (meaning she's hung over) but you do get some assurances from Kelly, Jackie and Kathleen that they're free tonight. So you send a text back to Haley telling her that you'll meet up at the Silver at eight.<br/>
<br/>
You spend a decent portion of the afternoon after that getting in a good workout at the gym and then taking a good, long time to appreciate your new body in the shower once you arrive home. Hope keeps herself in good shape and the results are obvious as you scrub and run hands over firm shoulders, arms, and legs. Your stomach is flat and hard as well and your breasts are both a good size and surprisingly sensitive to the touch. It becomes too much and you lower a hand down to the opening between your legs and you bring yourself to climax as you imagine a scenario—for Hope loves coming up with elaborate fantasies when attending to herself—that involves yourself seducing Haley away from Raymond, kissing and fondling her while he can only play the role of humiliated cuckold.<br/>
<br/>
By the time you're finished with everything—the workout and the shower and such—it's now approaching evening so you get to work on fixing yourself up. Hope isn't a knockout like Chelsea or Cindy but she's a nice looking girl who knows how to make herself up and dress in a way that makes her look good when she really wants to. Right now, you feel like indulging and so choose an off shoulder white dress as well as a small denim jacket and brown boots to give off a little bit of a rustic autumn feel.<br/>
<br/>
Once you're ready, it's a little after seven. You merely tell Hope's mother that you're going out with friends (as Hope's parents trust her enough to not get into trouble) before heading out the door.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You arrive at the Silver Cineplex a little before eight where you meet up with Haley and Raymond. Together, you're struck even more by how opposite they are as Haley is naturally high strung and serious while Raymond, an orchestra guy, carries himself with a sloppier demeanor. Even when he puts his arm around her, Haley fidgets before resigning. Hope doubts that they'll last until the end of the month and you half-wonder if they'll even make it to the end of the night.<br/>
<br/>
Kelly, Jackie and Kathleen arrive shortly but so too do Alex Sheehan and Terry Colson, two of his buddies. Alex is another orchestra misfit like Raymond while Terry tends to run more with the rest of his tennis buddies. But, Hope's brain tells you, there's a large overlap between a lot of disparate elements of the school based on a love of parties, weed and going out to the Wilderness. But none of the girls seem overly thrilled—especially not Jackie, a tiny spark plug of a girl who can be as haughty as she is pretty—as Alex takes the lead and decides, as everyone debates what to see, on <i>Cravenmoor</i>.<br/>
<br/>
Nobody really objects since nobody knows what it is besides a horror piece so the tickets and snacks are bought and everyone piles into the theater. The movie, it turns out, is probably the most paint by numbers horror flick anyone's ever made. It feels like some of those old ones from the '70s and '80s, about demon and Satan worshiping cults where the atmosphere is what's supposed to be scary, only done in a way that leaves you seriously bored. You're about eighty minutes in when you excuse yourself to go to the bathroom. Once you've finished with that, though, you turn before you get to the theater and just head outside.<br/>
<br/>
"Guess you hated the movie too, huh?" asks Terry who's leaning against the wall holding a cigarette.<br/>
<br/>
"I've seen better," you casually answer. "What about you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Needed a smoke," he replies, "something good to get rid of the taste of garbage."<br/>
<br/>
"You must have really hated it if you think cancer's better than sitting through a shitty movie."<br/>
<br/>
He gives a small laugh as he flicks away the depleted cigarette and turns to you with a faint smile. "Nice to know you care about my health," he states calmly before adding, "you look nice tonight by the way. Good choice on the dress."<br/>
<br/>
"Thanks, but I wasn't doing it for you," you shoot back.<br/>
<br/>
"Didn't say you were. But who <i>were</i> you doing it for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Do I need to do it for anyone besides myself?" you ask.<br/>
<br/>
"No, that's a perfectly valid reason," he says. "But don't be surprised when someone tells you that you've got nice shoulders."<br/>
<br/>
In spite of yourself, you feel yourself blush at the compliment as the building starts to empty.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Not wanting to necessarily go home immediately, everyone debated what to do when Anne and Cameron emerged from the theater. "I can't put him off forever," Anne had whispered to you, "so we're goin' to the Warehouse. Only way I'm suckin' him off is if I'm blitzed," she'd told you.<br/>
<br/>
And from there the rest of you decided to head out there as well. From there you'd driven over to the Eastman parking lot and from there piled in two cars over to the Warehouse. You'd ended up in Haley's SUV, squeezed inbetween Kathleen and Terry. You don't know him as Will and Hope has never paid him much attention but, and maybe it's her brain and hormones, you can't help but think that he's not a bad looking guy. He's rough but in a way that still looks put together and attractive and as you talk there's a certain charisma and even sensitivity that you feel from him.<br/>
<br/>
Try as you might, you can't help but start to feel attracted to him as you begin to loosen up and, once you're at the Warehouse, begin to get a little alcohol in you. Which is why you're disappointed when he seemingly goes off somewhere else.<br/>
<br/>
"Didn't think <i>you</i> came out to a place like this all that often," says a girl as you absentmindedly sit down at a booth. You realize you're sitting across from Jelena, someone who even Hope has to respect.<br/>
<br/>
"It's not my first time," you tell her. "Is band playing tonight?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, Wholly Ghosts is," she answers but you have no idea who that is. "I was out here with Sienna and Nadine but they ran off somewhere."<br/>
<br/>
"Two lovely ladies all alone on a Saturday night? How heartbreaking."<br/>
<br/>
The words come from a blonde guy, tall, athletic and admittedly handsome as he flashes you both a bright smile. "Don't suppose you girls would be interested in talking?"<br/>
<br/>
"You'd have better luck swimming upstream," Jelena coolly dismisses him. "I've got a pretty hard policy: no boys allowed."<br/>
<br/>
"I getcha," he says as he shoots an eyebrow up. But he instead turns his attention to you. "But what about you? You girls only too?"<span class="ikghggjffnf2610"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1141443411212122122
author_id: rugal
id: SR82PKGNS
title: The Hopeless Romantic
chapter_content:
<div><div style="padding:0px;margin:0px;"></div><div> <span>"Am I—" you start to ask. However you quickly stop yourself because you're in disbelief at the sheer audacity of this guy. Hope's known her share of horndogs—Westside is full of them—but this seems just a little beyond the pale and it's starting to piss you off. "Why's it any of your business?" you growl.<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno, probably because I was hoping—"<br/>
<br/>
"Hoping what?" you challenge. "That you'd just flash a smile and I'd start swooning? You'll probably do it to every girl in the building until one of them says yes and agrees to go down on you."<br/>
<br/>
"Look, sorry if I got you upset or something I was just asking—"<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry we couldn't chat more," you say to Jelena as you stand up and stalk off leaving two very confused people in your wake.<br/>
<br/>
However it's not just the two of them who are confused as you find that you yourself feel confusion over just how angry that made you. True, you have a few drinks in you but it's not just that. Hope, from what you can tell, isn't the type of person who likes a guy being sleazy or laying it on thick (which is the vibe that Blondie gave you) when trying to get with her but you don't think it's that either. No, it's only as you become aware that you're stalking around the Warehouse with purpose that you realize you're looking for someone.<br/>
<br/>
It wasn't just the fact that you instantly found that guy annoying, it's that you weren't wanting attention from him but from Terry Colson. You felt that you'd connected with him earlier in the night so why'd he just ditch you? And why does that make you feel so shitty? You're not really Hope Bianucci, but a guy stuck in her body and thrown into her life so what she wants shouldn't matter a whit to you. And it's not like Hope has ever cared for Terry's attention. After all, they happen to share a class and not once has she really looked at him, talked to him, or even thought about him.<br/>
<br/>
So why, then, is it making her tense and getting her upset? Because even though you're <i>not</i> her, now when she's upset and tense so are you. And why, when you finally do manage to find him in an area near the stage but leaned against a wall as he flips between checking his phone and watching the stage, do the both of you feel so relieved?<br/>
<br/>
"Enjoying the show?" you ask as you walk up to him.<br/>
<br/>
He looks at you and then back to the stage. "Yeah, they're good. Knew they were, though. Harper doesn't half-ass things," he says.<br/>
<br/>
"Who's that?"<br/>
<br/>
"The one up at the mic," he answers as he points you towards a singing and guitar playing brunette girl.<br/>
<br/>
"She a friend of yours? You punk or whatever types all run together don't you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mmm, something like that. We were kind of a thing for a little bit, actually."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah?" you respond simply, focused more on trying to mitigate the prickly feeling his response has given you.<br/>
<br/>
"This was back in tenth. She was... kind of my first girlfriend, I guess," he explains. "I was... going through some shit. We met here. I'd never actually seen her before since she goes to Eastman but we hit it off and she helped me out, a lot."<br/>
<br/>
"That was good of her," you reply unethusiastically.<br/>
<br/>
"It was nice, for a bit, until..." He pauses and you see a small smirk form on his face. "It was messy, I'll say that. A lot of bad feelings. We weren't even on speaking terms for most of last year."<br/>
<br/>
"What happened?" you ask, this time with real curiosity. But Terry dismisses it.<br/>
<br/>
"Not anything I want to get into," he says. "But what about you? You enjoying yourself?"<br/>
<br/>
"I was. At first. But I got reminded of why I don't come out here more often; I don't like random guys trying to pick me up." you answer as you move closer and lean against the wall next to him. "Actually, I like being the one to initiate things."<br/>
<br/>
"Is that so?"<br/>
<br/>
"Mhm. It feels more like I'm making my own choice."<br/>
<br/>
"But when they approach you and you say yes or you turn them down, you're still making a choice."<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, but I'm not making one that was forced on me. I'm more in control of the situation. I <i>like</i> being the one in control of the situation. It's a lot easier to get across the things I want to get across."<br/>
<br/>
"And what would that be?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
But you're interrupted before you can answer by the appearance of Sienna Goldman, a punk rock girl... and someone who Hope regards as a bitch and a skank. She's got two drinks and hands one Terry. "Sorry I took so long, server was bein' a real douche nozzle." She catches sight of you which causes her to give you her attention. You can tell by the way her eyes narrow just a little bit, by how her posture goes from relaxed to tense. She's expecting something and it certainly isn't—and doesn't involve—you.<br/>
<br/>
"We came over on the ride over. Saw a movie with some friends," Terry states, putting Sienna's attention back on him. It seems like he caught it too and is trying to defuse things. But when he speaks again... "Hope, this is—"<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I know," you cut him off. "Sorry, I wasn't trying to interrupt anything," you say to him (but you're really passive aggressively directing it towards Sienna). "I just wanted to thank you for the good time tonight, that's all. Enjoy yourself."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You set off and this time you really have no idea where you're going, you're simply upset and just wandering and you see things that only contribute to that. Especially when you catch sight of... you stop and stare practically slackjawed. Because over in one of the booths you see Yumi and a few others such as Anne and Huber. But that's not what leaves you stunned, no. It's Will—yourself; the person you used to be—sitting among them. And sitting next to him, her arm wrapped around his waist, is Jenny. And then you watch as they all laugh about something and then Will leans over and kisses her.<br/>
<br/>
It's too much and even more angrily you march off until you, literally, run into somebody and realize, to your chagrin, that it's the guy from earlier. "Twice in one night!" he exclaims. "Guess we really were fated to—"<br/>
<br/>
"Stuff it," you angrily tell him. "I'm getting the fuck out of here."<br/>
<br/>
"Whoa, I didn't piss you off that much did I?"<br/>
<br/>
"Yes," you answer but realize that's a little too bitchy even for you. "No. I don't fucking know, okay? Now move." You yelp in surprise when he grasps your hand. "The fuck do you think you're doing!?"<br/>
<br/>
"Just come with me," he replies.<br/>
<br/>
"Hell no! I'll scream and your ass will get beaten, I swear to fucking God!"<br/>
<br/>
"First, watch your language," he chastises, "and second I'm not going to do anything except let you vent. You look like you need it so I'll be your punching bag."<br/>
<br/>
"Fine, whatever," you relent.<br/>
<br/>
He leads you through the crowd and he's big enough and assertive enough that he easily parts them as he goes. The two of you wind up outside where it's much quieter. "Alright, talk," he says as he lets go and turns to you.<br/>
<br/>
On the one hand you don't really want to but on the other hand you feel like you kind of do and so you unload. "I've just been... really fucking confused the last few days," you admit. You almost feel like you want to tell him who you really are but whatever temptation is there you resist. "There's just been a lot of changes, a lot going on and then tonight... ugh!"<br/>
<br/>
"Heh, yeah, sorry," he apologizes.<br/>
<br/>
"It's not you!" you insist. "Well, okay, it <i>is</i> you but it's not <i>just</i> you. I got pissed 'cause I came here with somebody and I was thinking that he seemed a lot nicer than I thought and maybe we could... but I got my fucking hopes up for nothing! He'd already—God, it's always like this!" You realize that for all that she's composed Hope feels her emotions very strongly and maybe it's the fact that you're not used to them and maybe it's because you're a little buzzed that they seem to be seeping out.<br/>
<br/>
"Again, language," Blondie says, "but I feel you, things have been chaotic for me the last... well, month or so. Yesterday especially."<br/>
<br/>
"Is it related to that?" you ask as you point to the arm that you notice he seems to be favoring.<br/>
<br/>
"Kinda," he says. "Was playing some basketball with my brother—I'm on the team, yeah?—when I took a bad tumble and landed awkwardly. Think it's just sprained a bit, nothing big."<br/>
<br/>
"The team? Eastman, I'm guessing? Because I sure as hell know you aren't on Westside's."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, Eastman," he answers. "Actually, me and my brother just moved here not too long ago so I get what you mean about stuff being confusing recently."<br/>
<br/>
That seems to calm you a bit and diffuse tension as the two of you talk about his brother, himself, where he came from (he's a little evasive about that and you decide not to press it), basketball, yourself (or rather, Hope) and more. As it goes on you realize that maybe you had this guy pegged wrong. He's giving you honest and earnest, not just shallow, attention and actually listening to you and it's making you feel good. So good that you actually offer him your number and ask him for his so that maybe you can get together and talk again.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, any time," he says as he asks for your phone.<br/>
<br/>
"Never caught your name, by the way," you tell him.<br/>
<br/>
"Well you never asked," he answers, "but it's Joe. Joe Durras."<br/>
<br/>
As he puts it in you can't help but to wonder just what you're doing. Hope's emotions are strong on you and you know what she'd said about trying to keep things as normal as possible for when you switch back. But then you think about what you saw earlier—Will Prescott with Jenny Ashton—and it seems like Sarah certainly doesn't care one bit about that and you wonder if maybe you shouldn't either.<br/>
<br/>
Because you're stuck in Hope Jensen's body and in her life and you have no idea for how long. There's a part of you that wonders if perhaps this situation is permanent. The thought makes you wonder then, why listen to Hope? If you're Hope, then you should just live as the version of Hope that you feel like being since after all it's your life now and it might be your life forever.<span class="fmjggefeffeg3711"></span></span></div></div>


path: 1141444
author_id: seuzz
title: Joint Ventures
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Hey, you still have that doobie?" you ask Spencer.<br/>
<br/>
He looks up at you from under his eyebrows. "What doobie?" he asks in a heavy voice.<br/>
<br/>
"The one you guys were playing with."<br/>
<br/>
A nasty grin spreads over Spencer's face. "I don't know what you're talking about, Prescott," he says.<br/>
<br/>
You sigh. You don't deal a lot with Spencer, but every time you do, it seems like he's an asshole to you.<br/>
<br/>
"Fine. If you don't wanna sell it." You turn around to leave.<br/>
<br/>
"Maybe I wanna keep it for myself," Spencer calls after you.<br/>
<br/>
"You do that."<br/>
<br/>
"You lookin' to buy?"<br/>
<br/>
You glance back at him. He hasn't moved—he's still squatting under Mr. Walberg's window with his phone—but there's a hungry expression on his face.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm looking to trade." You show him the book. "Trade you this for that joint."<br/>
<br/>
He snorts. "Fuck that."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, how long are you gonna be hanging out here? I got a guy lined up'll buy this book off me. If I can find him and get my fifty bucks, will you be here before—"<br/>
<br/>
"Fifty?" Spencer scrambles to his feet. "Shit, that thing ain't worth fifty bucks!" But he hurries up to join you.<br/>
<br/>
You shrug. "They were selling it at the used book store for two hundred," you inform him. "'Cos it's old. Like, an antique."<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus. Lemme see." Spencer wrenches the book from you, and brushes the cover. "So if you bought it for two hundred," he says, "how come you're selling it for fifty? Or for a doobie?" He gives you a sharp look.<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos I only paid two for it. Two dollars. Yeah, bookstore thought it was an old edition or something, but the pages are all glued shut. Look for yourself. So," you continue as Spencer fumbles with the book, "they sold it to me for two as a paperweight. But I showed it to my dad, and he thinks it's a trick book. A fake. There's a secret compartment or something in it. So, as a book it's only worth two bucks, but as a—"<br/>
<br/>
"How do you work it?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno. We can't figure it out. That's how come I'm getting rid of it. But, like, it's old, and I <i>think</i> it's got a secret compartment in it, with who knows what inside, so I'm asking for more than <i>two</i> for it."<br/>
<br/>
Spencer sucks in a cheek, and he gives you a shrewd glance.<br/>
<br/>
"I've got—" he says as he fumbles inside the pockets of his windbreaker. "You say a guy'll give you fifty for it?"<br/>
<br/>
"If I can find him again. But I want a joint. I like Marc's idea about—"<br/>
<br/>
"You ever buy at school? They'll cost you twenty-five each," Spencer says when you shake your head. He pulls a plastic baggie from his pocket. "So I'll give you two for your book. <i>And</i> the name of the hoser you're—"<br/>
<br/>
"Sean Wilcox."<br/>
<br/>
Spencer starts as though he's been slapped. "Yeah, okay," he says. "Two joints for your book. Is it a deal, man?"<br/>
<br/>
You hesitate—now that the moment has come—then put out your hand. Spencer grins and drops the baggie, with its two joints and some loose flakes, into your palm. "Awesome," he says. "See you around, Prescott, if you're ever in the market to buy again."<br/>
<br/>
You nod and back away. You doubt you'll have anything more to do with Spencer than you can help. Even when he's being helpful, like now, he feels slimy.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Mr. Walberg only said one word when you gave him one of the joints—"Interesting"—and you ran out before he could say anything more. You call Caleb to give him the news. "So I got this extra doobie," you conclude. "You wanna get together tonight, smoke it?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's Monday."<br/>
<br/>
"So?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb sighs. "It's a weeknight. If I'm gonna get high I wanna do it on a weekend. Give time for the fumes to clear before I see my mom again."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't wanna wait until the weekend, man," you tell him. "I don't want this thing in my house where my dad could find it."<br/>
<br/>
"He doesn't search your room, does he?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, but Robert's always digging through my shit, and he'll find it and he'll either steal it or tell my—"<br/>
<br/>
"So leave it in your locker at school. Jesus."<br/>
<br/>
But you get a different idea on your way home.<br/>
<br/>
There's an old elementary school a few blocks from your house. It's an ancient thing, built almost a hundred years ago, of faded, crumbling brick. It closed a couple of decades ago and part of it was converted into a community center. But on the opposite side of the building you one day last year found an outside door. It was recessed at the bottom of a short flight of steps, and nearby was a row of windows that peeped out behind the weeds at just above ground height. It looked like the door to a basement, and it aroused your curiosity. After fooling around with the padlock unsuccessfully, you went home to get a crowbar and jimmied it off.<br/>
<br/>
Inside was another flight of steps that, as you guessed, opened into a basement. It was a large basement, and it smelt of ancient dust and grease, of old wood and old metal. It was packed with cast-off school junk: desks and tables and chairs; bookcases and cabinetry; gymnastics equipment; even old sinks and toilets. By the dim light from the windows you explored, shifting the junk to widen the paths through the debris, and rearranging some of the stacks to make little cubbyholes and hiding places. After an hour or so of poking around, you went home, got a new padlock, and put it on the door.<br/>
<br/>
You returned a few days later, expecting to find you padlock gone, but it was still there, so you poked around some more, then called Caleb and Keith out to show them. They were suitably impressed, and for a couple of months your trio made it a kind of club house, where you hid some whiskey and beer and cigarettes and hung out not doing much. But eventually the novelty palled, and you haven't been back out there in almost a year.<br/>
<br/>
So you are again expecting to find your padlock gone and replaced, but the key you fetched from you house (on a chance) fits the lock on the door, and you let yourself in. It still looks the same, and you recognize the little open spaces that you and your friends made for camping in, where you could sit and hide out without being spotted from the windows or the door. With a short, private chuckle you set the joint on the large conference table that sits directly below the windows. Even if you don't make this place a regular hangout spot again, you and Caleb and Keith could at least come down here one more time for old times' sake, and share some beers and weed.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
At least life gives you twenty-four hours of respite before it grabs you by the lapels and rattles your teeth. You thought you were done with Mr. Walberg's time capsule assignment, but at lunch the next day, after you tell them what you put in the time capsule, Carson Ioeger reminds you that you're supposed to write a paper on it. "That's just a rumor!" you retort.<br/>
<br/>
"That's what the poor cocksuckers had to do last year," he replies, and he sounds very cheerful. "So what are you gonna say?"<br/>
<br/>
"I dunno," you mumble. "I'll worry about it when he makes the assignment."<br/>
<br/>
"What you are gonna tell your <i>dad</i> if he asks to see the paper you write?" He waggles his eyebrows at you. "Never mind explaining how you got the idea," he continues as you feel the blood drain from your face. "How're you gonna explain where you <i>got the weed</i> to give to Mr. Walberg, and how you knew where to get it?"<br/>
<br/>
So you run to find Caleb the first chance you get. "Dude," you pant when you catch up to him outside his math class, "are you still all set on breaking into Mr. Walberg's desk to get your thumb drive out?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb nods. "Went home at lunch to pick up the other one."<br/>
<br/>
"Awesome! I need to get into his desk too. I gotta get that, uh, <i>thing</i> out that I gave him."<br/>
<br/>
Caleb stares. "I thought you got two of them," he says. "Don't tell me you already smoked the first one!"<br/>
<br/>
"No! I just realized, I can't write a paper on that! What if my dad wants to see it?"<br/>
<br/>
"But Walberg already knows what you gave him," Caleb points out. "You can't steal it back, make a substitute, then pretend you gave him something else."<br/>
<br/>
"That's what you're doing!"<br/>
<br/>
"He only knows I gave him a thumb drive. He doesn't know what's on it." He gives you a look. "You are going to help me get into his desk this afternoon, aren't you, for the swap?"<br/>
<br/>
"But I gotta make my own swap, and I don't got anything yet to swap in!"<br/>
<br/>
"I told you, Will, it's too late for you to—"<br/>
<br/>
"Tomorrow! I'll help you tomorrow, after I've got something!" The bell rings. "See you later!" You scamper off, to leave Caleb glaring after you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Then, to make things worse, your dad asks about that book and why it's gone from his office. When you tell him that you sold it to a guy at school, he tells you to buy it back—if you can retrieve it for less than sixty dollars.<br/>
<br/>
So the next morning you reluctantly go looking for Spencer Osbourne.<br/>
<br/>
"No can help you, Willie-boy," he tells you with an insolent grin. "No givebacks."<br/>
<br/>
"But I need it! My dad—!"<br/>
<br/>
"What do you know about it? The book."<br/>
<br/>
"Just what I told you," you admit.<br/>
<br/>
He gives you a sidelong look.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, come hang out with me after school," he says, "and we'll talk about it."</span></div></div>


path: 11414441
author_id: seuzz
title: Extra Bodies, Just Laying Around
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"You're fucking with me," Caleb says a little later, in Walberg's classroom, when you show him the hair dryer you brought from home. "You're not putting that in—"<br/>
<br/>
Into the time capsule, to replace the joint? Yes, you are. It's the only thing you could find at home during a frantic, last-minute search for a substitute submission. Besides, it's busted. It can either go in the trash or into the time capsule.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, we've got another problem," you friend sighs. "I was scoping the scene out yesterday. After you ran out on me," he adds with a growl. "Dane Matthias has detention in here in after school."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I know."<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>know?</i>" Caleb frowns.<br/>
<br/>
"What's the big deal?"<br/>
<br/>
"The big deal is we can't—"<br/>
<br/>
He glances around the classroom, which is filling up rapidly, then leans over to mutter at you. "We can't do the switch while Dane's in here. He'll see and he'll say something to the teacher."<br/>
<br/>
"Dane won't narc on us."<br/>
<br/>
"It's Dane. He'll giggle and prattle and Walberg will know that something's up. So, we need a third man on the job. The desk man, the look out, and someone to keep Dane distracted."<br/>
<br/>
"Spencer Osbourne," you interrupt Caleb. He frowns at you. "I need to talk to Spencer after school anyway. He'd totally be up for a thing like this, and he knows Dane."<br/>
<br/>
"No," Caleb says. "No fucking way am I getting Osbourne involved."<br/>
<br/>
"But—"<br/>
<br/>
"No! We'll just get Keith. That's what I was going to tell you."<br/>
<br/>
You give up with a shrug.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
But privately you don't drop the idea, and instead of going to your third-period blow-off class (Career Planning) you go looking for Spencer. He's on his way to being a dropout, and you figure you've got a pretty good chance of finding him skipping classes behind the school.<br/>
<br/>
There's a circle of scruffy guys squatting out in front of the old, ratty portables, right where you'd expect to find Spencer, but most of them have their backs to you, so you cautiously approach them in a wide circle. You're still peering at them, trying to recognize Spencer by the back or side of his head, when one of them spots you and calls out. "Hey, Prescott! You skipping Peters today?" <br/>
<br/>
You give a little start, then recognize the guy—a chimp-faced lout in a muscle shirt with long blonde hair tucked under a trucker hat—from your Career Planning class.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah!" you call back. "You?"<br/>
<br/>
He and his friends only guffaw. It takes all your courage to squeak out a follow-up: "Any of you guys seen Spencer Osbourne around?"<br/>
<br/>
That provokes an even louder burst of laughter. "Yeah, he's back there," says monkey-boy, "giving Roth a hand job." He jerks his thumb toward the portables. <br/>
<br/>
"Blow job," corrects one of his friends.<br/>
<br/>
You freeze, uncertain how to proceed. Monkey-boy laughs again, then lifts a cigarette to his mouth and crinkles his eyes at you through the wafting smoke. "You lookin' for that kind of action?"<br/>
<br/>
"I just want to talk to him."<br/>
<br/>
"You can talk and get a hand job at the same time. Talk and <i>give</i> a hand job at the same time."<br/>
<br/>
You grimace and shift from foot to foot. "Well, how long's he gonna be?"<br/>
<br/>
"Shit." Monkey-boy leaps to his feet. "Well, you just gonna fucking stand there, man?" he jeers as he turns toward the portables. You pale. Then, cowering a little under the glances of Monkey-boy's friends, you hurry after him, into the narrow alleys between the portables.<br/>
<br/>
Monkey-boy leads you in a winding loop between them, smoking and muttering to himself. When he comes back out where he started, he turns and plunges back into the cluster, brushing impatiently past you. "Hey, Roth!" he shouts. "Osbourne!" He bangs on the door to one of the portables then stalks on to bang at another door without waiting for an answer at the first. After making another circuit without success he gives you a baleful glower, takes a quick hit on his cigarette, and tells you to look in the portables if you're that "fucking stoked" to get a cock massage. Then he trudges off.<br/>
<br/>
You're left standing awkwardly at a corner where four portables cluster, and trying to figure out how to get past Monkey-boy and his friends without them seeing you, when you hear a hiss behind you. "Hey! Prescott!" You glance back. Spencer is peering out at you through a crack in the doorway of one of the portables. "Up in here," he murmurs, and pulls the door open another inch. You hurry up, and Spencer lets you in.<br/>
<br/>
It's dim inside the portable; the only light has to filter in through the tiny, murky windows. The interior smells of dust, grime, and old wood, with notes of mildew and paper. The floor sags toward one corner of the narrow portable, and the place is empty save for a teacher's desk that squats, like a sacrificial altar, at the far end of the room.<br/>
<br/>
Spencer grips your shoulder as he shuts the door. "The fuck are you doing back here, man?" he asks.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm looking for you."<br/>
<br/>
"Thought you didn't want to talk to me," he sneers.<br/>
<br/>
"I changed my mind. I need your help after school. You know Dane, right? He has detention after school—"<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck are you babbling about?" Spencer demands with a deepening frown.<br/>
<br/>
"Me and a friend need to break into Mr. Walberg's desk after school. When he leaves to go to the john or something, we're gonna sneak in and break into his desk to get something out. But Dane's in there and we need someone to distract him while we do that, and I thought, you know, you knowing Dane, you could—"<br/>
<br/>
"Shit." Spencer brushes past you to stalk over to the teacher's desk, and stares at the floor behind it. "Are you fucking with me, man?"<br/>
<br/>
"I figured you'd be up for a prank."<br/>
<br/>
He glowers at you for a long moment, then snorts.<br/>
<br/>
And then he changes the subject. "That book I bought off you," he says. "You still interested in it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well—"<br/>
<br/>
"'Cos why would you want it back?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, my dad wants it back, and—"<br/>
<br/>
"So what does <i>he</i> know about it?" Spencer's tone is quarrelsome and peevish.<br/>
<br/>
"Nothing! Just what I told you. It's a trick book with a secret compartment—"<br/>
<br/>
"There's no secret fucking compartment, man, so ditch the bullshit. Did you <i>look</i> at it, try reading it?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's Latin. I don't—"<br/>
<br/>
"You know how to find an online translator, don't you, dipshit?"<br/>
<br/>
You bristle. "Yes. But there wasn't much to translate."<br/>
<br/>
His eyes narrow. "You translate the bit about signing it with blood?"<br/>
<br/>
The air in the room seems to chill. You'd actually forgotten all about the book, save for the fact that the pages were glued shut, but it comes back to you now: that single sentence that had mysteriously appeared, telling you to "sign" with blood. <br/>
<br/>
Spencer's voice drops to a soft hiss. "You didn't sign it, did you?" You shake your head. "Pussy," he sneers.<br/>
<br/>
Then he seems to change his mind about something, and gestures you over to join him at the desk. "Come take a look at what you passed up on," he says, and returns to staring at the floor behind the desk.<br/>
<br/>
Your knees don't want to unlock, but you force them, and creep cautiously over. You suck in a sharp breath when you see what's there.<br/>
<br/>
It's a person, sprawling there on his back with his head your and Spencer's feet. You have to tilt your own head to make out his features, and it takes you a moment to recognize Justin Roth, one of the class-skipping stoners who hangs out in this part of the school grounds. His eyes are open but unseeing, and he doesn't move.<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck?" you breathe. "What's—?"<br/>
<br/>
"Keep your shit together, man," Spencer warns. "He's just passed out is all—"<br/>
<br/>
"But—"<br/>
<br/>
Your jaw freezes as a blue glow encompasses Justin's face. Spencer grabs your elbow. "Just in time," he murmurs, and from the corner of your eye you see him consult the screen of his cell phone. "Just under eleven minutes."<br/>
<br/>
You're too fascinated to ask what he means. The glow fades, but it has left Justin's face distorted: smooth and flat and featureless. Spencer's windbreaker crackles as he squats by Justin's ear and plucks at his face. You suck in a sharp breath as he pulls Justin's face off—<br/>
<br/>
Oh, but it's not his face, you realize with a start. It's a mask. A smooth, blue-tinged mask, the same size and shape and with the same frozen blank expression as a tragedian's mask. Justin's face, now exposed, is unchanged, except that his eyes have fallen shut.<br/>
<br/>
But how did the mask get there? It wasn't there a moment ago.<br/>
<br/>
Spencer nudges you. "This is what the book makes," he says as he shows you the mask.<br/>
<br/>
"What is it?"<br/>
<br/>
His voice drops. "A magical disguise. Look," he adds. "See? Justin's face is inside it."<br/>
<br/>
The statement baffles you until you see it. Though the mask is featureless, it gleams in the darkness, and the highlights form another face, like a holographic image inside the mask. It's the face of Justin Roth.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not showing you this for shits and grins, man" Spencer says. His voice is tinged with threat. "I'm showing you this 'cos I figured you knew about it, or figured something out about it." His grip on your elbow tightens. "Well, did you?"</span></div></div>


path: 114144411
author_id: seuzz
title: Spencer Explains
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You shake your head, even as you can't tear your eyes from the gleaming mask that Spencer is showing you.<br/>
<br/>
"No," you say. "I didn't get into the book. I just saw the thing about the blood, and I said, Fuck this shit. Then I showed it to my dad— Not the stuff about the blood, just the book, and we figured it was a trick book, 'cos none of the pages would turn. An' I brought it to school, and then I saw you and—" You trail off.<br/>
<br/>
Spencer snorts. "Well, a fucking lot of good <i>you</i> are."<br/>
<br/>
You bridle. "Fuck you. Tell me about this thing."<br/>
<br/>
You reach for the mask. Spencer doesn't let go, but he doesn't fight you either, and you wrest it from him.<br/>
<br/>
It is surprisingly light, as though made of a lightweight ceramic or alabaster. It is thin, too, but it feels sturdy between your fingertips. You turn it over in your hands. It is a deep, glowing blue on all sides, and in the dim portable you suffer the brief, vertigo-inducing illusion that you are holding a piece of the sky.<br/>
<br/>
Spencer makes a face. "Well, at least <i>I</i> figured out how to make the book work," he boasts.<br/>
<br/>
"You mean you found the hidden compartment?" You continue studying the mask. It fascinates you.<br/>
<br/>
"I told you, there ain't no hidden compartment, dumbass," he sneers. "You can turn the pages in it no problem. Except you have to do some stuff first."<br/>
<br/>
"Like what?"<br/>
<br/>
You look up when he doesn't answer, to find him studying you with a critical eye. <br/>
<br/>
"Come on," he says after a moment's thought, and sweeps a backpack off the floor. "Let's go find someplace else to talk."<br/>
<br/>
"What about Justin?"<br/>
<br/>
"He'll be okay. He'll just wake up wondering if he smoked a whole blunt an' passed out, that's all. Anyhoo, he's how come I don't wanna be here when he wakes up. Don't wanna explain anything."<br/>
<br/>
He's at the door before you get your own self in gear, and after squinting up and down the alleyway, he crosses to try the door of the portable across the way. It won't open, so he darts farther up the alley, trying knobs until he finds another portable that's open. It smells and looks much like the other: dank, dark, and dirty.<br/>
<br/>
Spencer squats under a window to unzip his pack, and you squat next to him. He pulls the book from his pack, and you shiver a little at the return of the sight of its cover of blood-red leather.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, so, you gotta sign the book with your own blood," Spencer says as he opens it. "Only after you do that do the pages start turning loose. 'Cept they don't all of them turn loose, it's only one page at a time, okay? Rest of the book is still locked up"—he demonstrates that almost none of the pages will flip—"and it's like you gotta unlock each page by doing something different each time. But here is the first spell in the book."<br/>
<br/>
He turns it around so you can see better. The words are unreadable in the dim light of the portable, but they take up the top half of the page. The bottom half of the page is covered in a wheel-like design that would probably look very intricate if the light was better.<br/>
<br/>
"That's the spell that makes a mask," Spencer says. "After I made one, I was able to turn this page. Like this." <br/>
<br/>
He pulls the mask from your nerveless grasp and briefly sets it onto the open page, then lifts it and turns the sheet.<br/>
<br/>
"It's like a key or something. And that's the way it is for all the pages in the book, I think. See?" He points to the page he's uncovered, which looks almost identical to the first: paragraphs of text, and a wheel-like design covering the bottom half of the page. "Each time you do a spell, it makes something you can use to unlock the book. I'm through the first two spells." He turns another leaf, showing a third page that looks like the previous two. He pulls at it, but it won't come away.<br/>
<br/>
"That's pretty freaky," you say.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, it's not half so freaky as the stuff it makes. Like that mask." He sucks in his upper lip. "You saw what it did to Justin."<br/>
<br/>
You're not sure what it did to Justin, so you don't answer. Spencer glances around and licks his lips. "I haven't tried one out yet," he says. <br/>
<br/>
"Tried what out?"<br/>
<br/>
"One of these masks. That's why I want someone around, to watch in case something goes wrong."<br/>
<br/>
"What could go wrong?" you ask in some alarm. Your face feels pale, and your hands have gone cold.<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know," he says. "That's why I want someone around."<br/>
<br/>
"Are they supposed to <i>do</i> something?"<br/>
<br/>
Spencer blinks.<br/>
<br/>
"Sure, didn't I tell you?" he says. "They're magical disguises."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
They copy people, he goes on to explain, so that when you put on a mask that contains you've used to copy someone, it turns you into a copy of that person. He made a mask of himself to start with, but it didn't seem to work on him. "I don't guess it makes sense to disguise yourself as yourself," he says. But now, with a copy of Justin, he is prepared to see if the masks actually what the book says they are supposed to do. <br/>
<br/>
"And you believe it?" you ask of the book.<br/>
<br/>
He gives you a look.<br/>
<br/>
"I already seen it do some crazy shit," he replies. "So I believe it when it says—"<br/>
<br/>
He breaks off to look down at the mask. It seems to remind him of something, and he shakes himself. "Well, first you gotta finish prepping it."<br/>
<br/>
That means coating its inner surface with some kind of transparent paste, which is in a plastic tub that he takes from inside his bag. He uses a paint brush to carefully draw the stuff over every bit of the mask's inner surface. He blows on it, and touches his fingertips to it. "Dries right on," he murmurs. "Here, see it for yourself." He offers you the mask, but you hang back.<br/>
<br/>
"Alright, if you're going to leave it to me," he says, "you need to know what to look for. I'm gonna put it on—" He pauses to kick off his shoes. "And I don't think I need to take my clothes off. Anyway, I'm not going to. But if this works as advertised, it should turn me into Justin."<br/>
<br/>
You glance over your shoulder at the door. Voices have been drifting on the wind, and you wonder if any of Spencer's friends are going to come looking for him, and for you, and what they might think if they find Roth passed out in the other portable. But Spencer recalls you to the moment by nudging you with his foot.<br/>
<br/>
"So it should turn me into Justin, but I don't know if I'm gonna be, like, awake for it. When I put this one on Roth, it knocked him out, so it might knock me out too. But go ahead and try to wake me up, though, if it does."<br/>
<br/>
Part of you wants to reach out to stop Spencer. But you're paralyzed, not from fascination or anticipation, but from a dumbfounded disbelief. You can hardly believe you are even here—with Spencer Osbourne, in a ratty old school portable—let alone that you are helping him out with some kind of experiment in magic which is literally incredible. Even as he cradles the mask in his hands, and licks his lips, you expect him to break into a wicked grin, and to shout <i>Gotcha, asshole!</i> and then all his friends will pile into the portable and the lights will go on and everyone will jeer at you for your gullibility.<br/>
<br/>
So you are frozen in a crouch when he puts the mask to his face.<br/>
<br/>
For a moment his palms cover his face. Then they fall away, and he falls backward. The back of his head cracks loudly as it bounces off the floor of the portable. You wince and gasp and scramble over to check that he's okay.<br/>
<br/>
But he's not Spencer Osbourne anymore. The incredible has—incredibly—occurred.<br/>
<br/>
It's Justin Roth sprawled now in front of you.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Whoa, wicked cool," Spencer says as he gently strokes his forearms. There's a wondering expression on his face.<br/>
<br/>
On Justin's face, which he is wearing. He has Justin's voice too, you suppose, for his jeering tenor is now a resonant baritone. But he is still in his own clothes.<br/>
<br/>
He was unconscious when you looked into his face, and you had to shake him hard for nearly half a minute before he finally roused himself. He complained of a headache, but those complaints vanished when he heard his voice. He looked at himself on his cell phone, gently stroking his cheek, before peeling off his jacket and touching himself under his shirt.<br/>
<br/>
"I guess it works," you say.<br/>
<br/>
He freezes, and looks up at you with a wicked gleam in his eye. "You wanna try?"<br/>
<br/>
Without waiting for an answer, he pulls his bag to him and opens it up to show you: three more masks.<br/>
<br/>
"I can go copy someone now," he says. "Roth'll get the blame, and you and me can have some fun after school."</span></div></div>


path: 1141444111
author_id: seuzz
title: Spencer's Gift
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>The world seems to tilt and shift, and you have to lean to one side to keep your balance.<br/>
<br/>
To all appearances it is Justin Roth you are talking to, in one of the dark, smelly portables in back of the school. That would be weird enough—you don't even know Roth save by face and name and reputation.<br/>
<br/>
But it isn't even really Roth. It's Spencer Osbourne, another scruffy bottom-feeder who you hardly know. He's used some kind of magical doohickey to turn himself into an exact duplicate of the other guy.<br/>
<br/>
And he's showing you this stuff, and he's asking if you want to play too.<br/>
<br/>
"Easy there, man," the guy-who-looks-like-Roth says, and he grabs you by the bicep and supports you before you can topple to the floor.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe it was that gesture of physical support that decides it for you. You don't know anything about this magic, and you don't know Spencer, and you don't much like what you do know about him. But he did grab you to keep you from fainting, and he's holding you upright now, when he could have let you fall, and laughed over you.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah," you croak. "Yeah, I'll—"<br/>
<br/>
"Cool," he says. "You'll like it. You okay now?" You nod, a little uncertainly, and he hesitates before releasing you. "You'll do fine." He pats you on the shoulder. "I know this seems freaky now, but wait'll—"<br/>
<br/>
He jerks his head around to stare at the door. Those voices you heard earlier are growing louder. With a surprising lightness, he leaps to the door and quietly twists a lock in the knob. Then he presses himself up against it, and motions you to get on the floor behind the tottering pile of desks in the middle of the room.<br/>
<br/>
You hunch there as the voices sound on the other side of the portable wall, and you hear the sound of a knob being twisted. A muffled voice sounds through the wall—"get into only like a couple of them"—before it sinks beneath the babble of other voices. You peep through a lattice work of chair legs and desks, and see the shadow of a bobbing head appear at one of the windows. A face, shielded by hands, peers in briefly, then drops. The voices move on.<br/>
<br/>
"Okay, I better get out of this," says Spencer. "There's a trick to it, and I might need your help."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The "trick" was that someone needed to grab the top of his face, between the nose and temple, with fingers and thumb, and pull while chanting some kind of phrase. Spencer couldn't seem to get his hand in the right position, so you had to do it for him. It almost made you throw up when, on your third try, something came away in your hand. At first you thought it was the front of his skull, for it was bony and hard, and it had the shape of a face, but it turned out only to be that mask. Something thumped against the floor beneath you, and when you threw the mask aside you found it was Spencer, again, unconscious. You shook him awake.<br/>
<br/>
Together, you snuck out of the portables and hightailed it across to the Music Annex without being seen, and you hid back there through fourth period and lunch. Spencer only had time to tell you a little about how he made the masks—it was a stinky process, but the really tedious part was polishing them with a car buffer—before being interrupted as some of his friends found you and him. One of them, a dark-haired kid in a backward-flipped baseball cap—recognized you from earlier, but didn't make a big deal of it. You heart beats hard through the rest of your double-length lunch period, waiting for someone to say something about Justin Roth, but the subject never comes up.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe Spencer was waiting nervously for the same thing, for he breathes an audible sigh of relief after the end-of-lunch bell has broken up the gang. "That was pretty intense," he says with a wide, terrified grin when it's just you and him. "I kept waiting for Roth to show up."<br/>
<br/>
"So when are we getting together?" you ask him.<br/>
<br/>
"After school. I'll tell my sister she has to ride the bus home." He pulls at his nose. "Meet me by the tennis courts after final bell."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It's four o'clock, and Caleb's cusses are still ringing in your ears as you stalk down the big school corridor toward the east exit. You'd totally forgotten about your promise to help him break into Walberg's desk to make the time capsule exchange, and when he reminded you right after the final bell, you hesitated hard before giving in and keeping your promise.<br/>
<br/>
But you had to rush off to find Spencer first, to tell him you'd be late meeting him, and Caleb was fuming when you caught up to him and Keith outside Mr. Walberg's room some ten minutes later. The teacher had just returned from an errand, and Caleb was angry that he'd missed a chance to get into the desk, and his frustration boiled higher and higher the longer the three of you lurked. Finally, after fifteen minutes, you told Caleb that you <i>had</i> to keep another appointment, and that you'd help him try again tomorrow. He didn't take it well.<br/>
<br/>
Spencer is leaning against the back wall of the Gym Annex, hands in the pockets of his windbreaker, and watching the tennis team practice with a dreamy expression on his face. He jerks his chin at you as you draw up, then goes back to watching the tennis players. "It's a beautiful sight, isn't it?" he says.<br/>
<br/>
Kelsey Blankenship, looking very crisp and fit in tennis whites, is playing against Brooke Galloway, who is wearing neon colors. Both girls look good, but Kelsey, with her tan and her sculpted legs, is delectable. It's too bad she's one of the snootiest cunts in the school.<br/>
<br/>
"Sorry I'm late," you tell Spencer. "I had to help—"<br/>
<br/>
"That's okay," he says. "I ain't in no hurry." The back and the forth of the tennis ball seems to mesmerize him, and his jaw hangs open in a silly grin under his glassy stare. You settle back against to watch along with him. You flinch a little when Kelsey, readying a serve, glances over to give you a quick, nasty glare.<br/>
<br/>
Time passes. Then, with a spasm, Spencer lurches into motion. "C'mon," he says, and slaps you in the chest. Head forward, in a half-hunch, he hurries around the tennis courts toward the baseball field. You trot along behind, and when you catch up, Spencer breaks into a run. Together you sprint all the way to the other side of the school grounds, circling around the back of the Agricultural Annex and coming up on the portables—which Spencer approaches slowly in the manner of a stalking tiger—from behind. When he judges the coast clear, he slaps you again in the chest and leads you in between them, trying doors until he finds one that's open.<br/>
<br/>
This one is completely bare of any furniture, and there's a dark hole in one corner where the floor has caved in. You flinch at the sight of it, for you have a sudden, frightening vision of a giant snake, or a cockroach the size of a sofa, crawling out of it from beneath the portable, but Spencer seems not to notice.<br/>
<br/>
"So I scored a mask for you," he says as he crouches on the floor and opens his backpack. "We'll have to go shopping, find some good clothes to go with it." He looks you up and down. "You need a better sense of style, man."<br/>
<br/>
<i>So do you,</i> you want to retort. His body swims inside the cheap, oversized, black polyester windbreaker he is wrapped in, and his bare legs show very whitely between his red shorts and his black Converse sneakers.<br/>
<br/>
Maybe he feels the same way, for he adds, "I gotta pick some clothes up for myself too. We'll hit a thrift store when we leave here."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll have to stop at my house and pick up some money."<br/>
<br/>
"I'll cover you, you can pay me back." He digs out a mask and holds it out to you. "Here."<br/>
<br/>
"Who is it?" you ask as you take it.<br/>
<br/>
"Take a look."<br/>
<br/>
You turn the mask this way and that, straining to recognize the face inside it. There's a great mass of hair, it looks like, and your heart skips when it occurs to you that maybe Spencer has copied a girl. But the there is something bold and masculine about the face. After a lengthy silence, though, you have to give up. "I don't recognize 'em," you confess.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus. It's Semple."<br/>
<br/>
At first you think he said "simple," and you're about to make a sharp retort, before you make the connection. Adrian Semple, that's who he copied into the mask. That's another one of the stoners that hangs out behind the school. He was with you at lunch—a grinning maroon who talked in broken sentences that began nowhere and ended nowhere—so you don't know why you didn't place him right away. Maybe you were hoping for someone better looking. Semple has a giant nose, an impudent mouth, and masses of hair that hangs in filthy pseudo-dreadlocks, like a dirty, unwashed mop.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, try it out," Spencer says. "It's all ready to go for you."<br/>
<br/>
You shoot him a skeptical look, and you tremble all over, now that the moment has come. </span></div></div>


path: 11414441111
author_id: seuzz
title: Old Clothes for New Looks
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You hesitate. "Are you going to put on the other mask?" you ask Spencer.<br/>
<br/>
"Of Justin? Not until we get to the thrift shop or wherever," he says. "I don't wanna run into him accidentally."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to run into Adrian accidentally!" you exclaim.<br/>
<br/>
"You don't have to worry," Spencer sneers. "I saw him leave. While we were hanging out watching the tennis girls." You blink at him. "Come on, are you going to or not?"<br/>
<br/>
"Alright," you grumble. "I'm just ... nervous."<br/>
<br/>
"Come on," Spencer repeats, even more impatiently.<br/>
<br/>
You remember they way he sank in a swoon when putting on the other mask, so you sit down on the floor, then lay on your back with your knees in the air. Spencer looks down at you. Maybe he doesn't mean to smirk, but his lips are pursed in an ugly way. Almost you chicken out.<br/>
<br/>
Then you flush. <i>Fuck that,</i> you think. <i>Just do it.</i> You hold the mask over your face, lick your lips, then slowly lower it.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It was very heavy, for a just a moment, as it lay on your face. Then it got infinitely heavier, and you felt your face turning into soft goo, and the mask sinking into you. You wanted to cry out, but you couldn't move. Your whole body turned to ooze and jelly. But it was a warm ooze, a warm jelly, and even as the mask, like an anvil, sank through the front of your skull, and out the back of your skull into the floor beneath, dragging you with it down a deep, dark, obliterating hole, you felt warm and relaxed and cozy all over. The last thought you had, before being swallowed up, was, <i>This feels nice!</i><br/>
<br/>
It is a lot less pleasant waking up. You are cold, and someone is shaking you roughly. "Come on, man, sleep on your own time," a voice is urging you. You make a face, and open your eyes.<br/>
<br/>
Spencer is kneeling beside you, scowling, and even when he breaks into a smile, the scowl doesn't leave his eyes. "'Bout fucking time," he says. "Was I that hard to wake up?"<br/>
<br/>
"The fuck are you—? Oh!" You sit up, then fall back with a gasp. Your cargo shorts are pinching you hard in the gut, and you grapple with the top button, twisting it loose. You let out a sigh when you sit up, and frown at your lap. The front of your shirt drapes over a pot belly.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, you put a little weight on, didn'cha?" Spencer snickers. "Come on." He puts out a hand, helps haul you to your feet. Your shorts sink a little, but don't slide off. Hair falls into your face, and you gingerly brush it back.<br/>
<br/>
"You look good, man," Spencer says with a smirk. "Well, you look like Semple, and that means you look like dog shit, but fuck!" He gives you a once-over, up an ddown "'Cept for the clothes, you could totally pass as him." You blink at him, and he snickers again. "Wanna see?"<br/>
<br/>
You take the cell phone he offers and flick over the screen until you bring up the camera app, then turn the phone onto yourself. Your eyes widen as you examine yourself.<br/>
<br/>
At first, it's like looking at a video selfie of someone else, and it is hard to imagine that the face you are looking at is your own. Only it begins to mimic your movements—blinking, crinkling its eyes, touching its puffy lips with blunt fingertips, and showing its teeth—does a tingle of awe (shot through with a jolt of horror) run up your back. <i>That's me,</i> you think. <i>Except my face is totally different!</i><br/>
<br/>
It's a face you only know by sight: Puffy, with big lips and a fat, reddish nose. Dirty brown hair falls in loose curls down the side of your head, making a curtain around your face. You twitch a hank of it under your nose and sniff. It stinks like it hasn't been washed in days. Your fingers are short, with well-chewed nails at the end of each. You look down, past the little belly that hangs out over the top of your shorts, to stare at calves that are a little thicker than your own, and that have a lot less hair. Your shoes hang loosely on your feet.<br/>
<br/>
"So I'll go check the coast is clear," Spencer says, and he claps and kneads your shoulder as he says it, "and we'll trot around to the music building. You can wait for me while I go get my car and bring it around to pick you up."<br/>
<br/>
"I can't just go with you out to the parking lot?" Your voice sounds a little different in your ears—a little higher in pitch, maybe.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you can. But I figure you don't wanna take a risk running into someone. Think you can do a Semple imitation?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know him."<br/>
<br/>
"Right. And the clothes are all kinds of wrong." Spencer gives you an amused look. "We'll have you wait for me by the music building."<br/>
<br/>
He goes out the door, and returns a minute later to gesture you to follow. Together you tramp across the open spaces toward the Music Annex, passing some late-straggling students as you go, but they all look like sophomores or juniors, and none of them speak to either you or Spencer. "Hang loose," he tells you before leaving you at the corner of the teachers' parking lot.<br/>
<br/>
It's not too bad, waiting, and you kill the minutes by sending your mom a text telling her that you'll be skipping dinner at home to eat with friends. You watch as a couple of teachers come out the front of the school. One of them is Mr. Trencher, who you took an art class from, and he waves at you, and you wave back. It's with relief that you pile into the old sedan that Spencer drives up in.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You go downtown, to a thrift/vintage clothing store called Second Pickins. Spencer sends you in ahead, with instructions to look for anything in a tie-dyed t-shirt and jeans cut-offs, while he remains behind to change into the mask of Justin. You've found what he asked you to get when he joins you, but he makes you put them back and start over again.<br/>
<br/>
You're glad, before you leave, that you told your mom you wouldn't be home for supper, because you and Spencer spend nearly an hour putting together a wardrobe to go with your disguises. Spencer is particularly choosy about his own, and he tries on most of Levis in the place—all off them scuffed and torn—in different shades of blue and black, before he settles on a pair that satisfy him, and he takes even longer to settle on a flimsy brown t-shirt with a picture of a coiled rattlesnake on its front. He takes nearly fifteen minutes to try on every pair of sunglasses, staring and grinning in the mirrors at his—Justin's—face. It gives you a lot of time to notice that the body he's put on is a lot more fit—hard and flat in the middle, with strong thighs and calves, and rounded biceps—than yours. Adrian has a soft and droopy belly, and flabby pecs. But once changed into a floppy tie-dyed t-shirt (hardly different than the one you originally picked out—and a pair of greasy, gray trousers cut off just above the knee—you'd have to admit that Spencer is probably right that you'd have an easy time getting laid with your new look. "Provided the girl is skanky enough," he adds with a raffish grin. He picks out a pair of sunglasses for you (in cheap, white plastic frames) and pays for it with a credit card. Together, you swagger out into the parking lot, feeling like a couple of new men.<br/>
<br/>
And it turns out he was at least ninety-percent serious about "getting laid" with your new looks. When you ask him in the car what you're going to do now, he says, "Hang out, get spotted, get in trouble."<br/>
<br/>
"What do you want to get spotted for?" you gasp.<br/>
<br/>
"To get in trouble. Get <i>Justin</i> in trouble." He grins at you, and for the first time you notice what enormous dimples he's got in his handsome face. "Get <i>laid,</i> man!" he guffaws, and claps your knee.<br/>
<br/>
"Are you serious?"<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck, yeah! You know how much pussy Roth gets?" When you don't answer, he says, "I know where we can get some, too."<br/>
<br/>
"Where?"<br/>
<br/>
"Over at Eastman. Well, not at Eastman itself. But I know who we can crash in on."<br/>
<br/>
"But what if Justin's there?"<br/>
<br/>
"He won't be. He doesn't even know those guys. But they know him. Fucker's famous all over town with people he's too stoned to know. Girls who'd bend over and take it doggie style, if he just showed up and asked 'em."<br/>
<br/>
You feel very faint. "What about Semple?<br/>
<br/>
"You could pick up some pussy too."<br/>
<br/>
"I mean, what if he shows up there? Does he know these guys?"<br/>
<br/>
Spencer's silence tells you the answer.<br/>
<br/>
"Well," he grunts after a moment, "if you don't wanna take the chance, I can drop you where you need to go. I just figured—"</span></div></div>


path: 114144411112
author_id: seuzz
title: A Dane Disguise
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"Yeah, I wanna do something," you assure Spencer. "But if we get caught—"<br/>
<br/>
"We're not gonna get caught," Spencer sneers.<br/>
<br/>
"But what if we do? Look, I'm totally up for doing something with these, uh—" You point to your face, which is now Adrian Semple's, just as Spencer's face is Justin Roth's. "But I wanna plan it better. You know?" You hate the quaver in your voice. "Like, make plans for when we <i>know</i> these guys aren't gonna—"<br/>
<br/>
"What a fucking pussy you are." Spencer's eyes glint with contempt.<br/>
<br/>
But then his expression turns thoughtful.<br/>
<br/>
"Eh, maybe you're right," he says. "We don't have to rush into anything." He gives you a sharp look. "Tomorrow after school," he says. "If I find out what Justin and Adrian are gonna be doin'—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'd be all in for something then!"<br/>
<br/>
But then you remember Caleb, and his plans for getting into Mr. Walberg's desk. "Oh, but—"<br/>
<br/>
"What?" Spencer snaps.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm supposed to help a friend out tomorrow after school."<br/>
<br/>
"Shit."<br/>
<br/>
"I was supposed to help him out today, but it didn't work out. It's how come I was late. It's also what I was looking for you for, at school." Spencer looks curious, so you continue. "We need to break into a teacher's desk."<br/>
<br/>
His eyebrows go up. "Oh yeah, you said something about— What for?"<br/>
<br/>
"It's Mr. Walberg. Our class is putting together a time capsule, and my friend Caleb changed his mind about what he wants to put in."<br/>
<br/>
"Uh huh?"<br/>
<br/>
"So we need to break into his desk and swap out things. Take out the thing that Caleb gave him and put in the new thing."<br/>
<br/>
Spencer stares at you. Then he leans forward and says, "Why can't he just ask your teacher if he can change the things out? Why does he have to break into— Oh, fuck it," he says when you just stare back.<br/>
<br/>
Because it's a pretty good question, now that you think about it. Why can't Caleb just bring Mr. Walberg a new thumb drive, and tell him he wants to put <i>that</i> one in and take the old thumb drive back?<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"Because, you dumb piece of shit," Caleb says, his voice honking out of the phone, "I don't want him thinking there's anything funky about the original thumb drive! I don't want him saying, 'Well, lemme just look at that first thumb drive, see if I like better what you put onto it."<br/>
<br/>
You try reasoning with him, but Caleb mulishly refuses to give in. After you hang up, you explain all this to Spencer, who is driving you back to the school.<br/>
<br/>
You had to take Semple's mask off before calling Caleb—and you managed it one-handed, so you know it can be done—and while you were unconscious, Spencer drove back to his house. He arrived there, ran in to get what he wanted, and came back out, while you were unconscious. ("Twelve minutes, more or less exactly," he answers when you ask how long you were out.) He is still in Justin Roth's mask, and he doesn't explain how he got in and out of his house under an alias. You figure Roth just must be that good of a friend of his.<br/>
<br/>
You explain Caleb's reasoning to Spencer, but he doesn't seem that interested. Not until you explain why you wanted his help with the heist does he perk up.<br/>
<br/>
"Right, Dane and his detention," he says. Then he laughs. "Oh, fuck! I know exactly how to help you cocksuckers out!"<br/>
<br/>
He doesn't explain, though, just jerks the car onto a new course and goes racing up to the north end of town. "Put Adrian's mask back on," he tells you. "Don't worry, we ain't gonna run into him or Justin."<br/>
<br/>
Spencer shakes you awake a little while later, and you find you've come to rest in a run-down trailer park, where mobile homes sag on weedy lots behind crooked chain-link fences. "Come on," Spencer says, and gets out. A slavering Doberman barks at you from behind the fence next door, but Spencer snorts when you flinch from it. "If he wanted to get at us, he could clear that fence no problem," he tells you. "He's just telling us to keep to our side." You mount a sagging set of wooden stairs, and Spencer knocks at the door. You have to wait at least one full minute, and Spencer knocks a couple of more times, before it opens.<br/>
<br/>
"Ay! Justin!" Dane Matthias's eyes pop when he sees Adrian Semple and Justin Roth (so he supposes) standing on the steps. "Adrian, my man!" He steps back to let you in, then takes each of you, in turn, in a soft, lingering embrace that leaves you feeling very weird. "I was just, uh—" Dane glances over his shoulder into a small kitchen. It is piled deep in dirty dishes, and there's a pot boiling on the stove. "Shit." Dane hugs Spencer again, even longer this time. "So glad you showed up," he murmurs into the crook of his friend's neck.<br/>
<br/>
"Jesus, man," Spencer says after pushing Dane away. "How many blunts you had?"<br/>
<br/>
"Huh? I dunno. Can you help me out here?" Dane treads carefully into the kitchen, as though the floor is booby-trapped. "I put the water on. But—" He stares down into the pot.<br/>
<br/>
Spencer joins him, and together they stare into the pot for what seems the longest time. There's no room for you to join them, so you glance around the place.<br/>
<br/>
It's brown. Very brown. A brown shag-rug carpet, and brown, smelly furniture, including a sofa that looks like a dead bear. The floor and furniture are covered in magazines, loose sheets of newspaper, and dirty dishes. You're no neat-freak, but you have to fight the urge to start moving dishes into the kitchen.<br/>
<br/>
The other two start talking, and Spencer searches the cabinets. He finds a box of spaghetti, which he pours into the pot. From the refrigerator he takes a jar of sauce, which he pours into a bowl and puts in the microwave. Then joins you in the living room.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude's baked out of his skull," he mutters at you. "He put some water on to boil, and I think he'd been standing there, like, thirty minutes, staring at it, before we came knocking. Fuck, this'll make it easy."<br/>
<br/>
"Make what easy?" But Spencer just winks at you and trudges back outside. You look over at Dane, but his attention has been caught by the boiling pot again, and he stands there with his back to you.<br/>
<br/>
Dane Matthias is not a bad-looking kid. He's got a paunch, but he's otherwise pretty well built, and he's got a handsome face with regular features. But his coppery blonde hair is a bird's nest of tangles, and he sports an eternal five-day growth of beard. He wears pajama bottoms to school, and dirty t-shirts, which he covers with a dusty sports coat. But he's now cast off the sports coat and the pajama bottoms both, and stands over the stove in nothing but a tank top, boxer shorts, and fuzzy slippers.<br/>
<br/>
Spencer has his book bag when he returns. He gives you a steady look, points into the bag, then points back at Dane. You look in the bag. There's three more masks wedged inside it. You look up at Spencer, and cock an inquiring eyebrow. He answers by point at you.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, Dane!" Spencer shouts. "Adrian's got something he wants to show you. Dane! Jesus, man," he mutters as he trudges in to join Matthias at the stove again. "I'll take over here." He lays hands on Dane's shoulders and wrenches him away from the stove; Matthias turns a blank face onto him. "Go talk to Adrian," Spencer orders him with exaggerated patience.<br/>
<br/>
Dane stares vacantly at you. Then he seems to see you, and a wide grin breaks across his face. It's a nice grin—a wide, relaxing, cheerful thing—and Dane follows behind as it pulls him toward you.<br/>
<br/>
"Ay, Semple Simon!" he croaks, and puts his arms out for another hug. You steel yourself and take him you your arms. He snuffles in your ear, but doesn't resist as you wrench him into the living room proper, and push him backward onto the sofa. He giggles as he bounces, then melts back into the cushions. "Man, it's so great seeing you again," he says, and his eyes wet like he's going to cry.<br/>
<br/>
"It's great seeing you too," you tell him. "I got something to show you." You yank one of the masks out of Spencer's bag. You glance at Spencer, who is watching from the stove. He mimes putting something onto his face. "This is really cool," you tell Dane. "Just relax, and—"<br/>
<br/>
Actually, there's no point in telling Dane to relax. He is smiling up dreamily as you bend over him, and not a muscle in his face twitches as you cover his face with the mask. Gently you push it onto him—<br/>
<br/>
And you have to stifle a scream when it vanishes. It's like his face is wet putty, and you've pushed it into him. You catch your breath and clutch at your chest, where your heart is trying to burst out through the breastbone. But Dane just goes on dreamily staring back at you, and when you wave your hand in front of his face, he doesn't react, unless his gaze goes even more vacant.<br/>
<br/>
Spencer has an armful of clothes when he joins you a few minutes later, and he dumps them into Dane's lap: pajama bottoms, t-shirt, boxers, and ratty sneakers.<br/>
<br/>
"So, there's a full-body Dane Matthias disguise for you once the mask is done," he says. "I'll get him off campus end of the day tomorrow, then you go in and take detention for him." He winks at you. "Then you can get into your teacher's desk and get Jojo's dingus out for him."</span></div></div>


path: 11414442
author_id: seuzz
title: Stoned-Cold Stupids
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>"You're fucking with me," Caleb says when you show him the hair dryer you brought from home. "You're not putting that—"<br/>
<br/>
Into the time capsule? Yes, you are. It's the only thing you could find after a frantic, last-minute search for a substitute. Besides, it's busted. It can either go in the trash or into the time capsule.<br/>
<br/>
It's first period, and you shook Spencer off by saying  you had to get to class. <i>Good riddance,</i> he probably thought. Neither of you have ever had much to do with each other.<br/>
<br/>
"And we've got another problem," Caleb continues. "Dane Matthias has detention in here in after school."<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, I know."<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>know?</i>"<br/>
<br/>
"Sure. What's the big deal?"<br/>
<br/>
Caleb glares. "The big deal is—" He glances around the classroom, which is filling up. "We can't break into his desk," he continues in a low mutter, "while Dane's in here. He'll see and he'll say something."<br/>
<br/>
"Dane won't narc on us."<br/>
<br/>
"It's Dane. He'll get the giggles and Walberg will know something's up. We need a third man for the crew. A desk man, a look out, and someone to distract Dane."<br/>
<br/>
You instantly think of Spencer. Sure, you dropped him like a cigarette butt earlier, but he knows Dane and he would be totally up for this kind of thing.<br/>
<br/>
Except then he might think he had something to hold over you and Caleb. You wouldn't put extortion past Spencer Osbourne.<br/>
<br/>
So you only nod when Caleb pulls out his phone to text Keith Tilley.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
It should have been a disaster, but the heist goes off perfectly. You and Keith and Caleb are loitering in the hallway after school lets out, trying to look innocent, when Mr. Walberg comes waddling out of his classroom. Caleb pokes you in the ribs, and you saunter in, to find Dane splayed with glassy-eyed boredom in a desk. He comes alive when you nod at him, though, and turns around to talk to you when you perch in the desk behind. This gives you (but not Dane) a clear view of the front of the room, and of Caleb as he creeps in and disappears behind Walberg's desk. You keep your voice high and loud while he rummages, and it only takes him a minute to reappear, give you a thumb's up, and tiptoe back out. Twenty seconds later, you and he and Keith are running hard for the exits.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, shee-it," Keith drawls thirty minutes later, after you've rendezvoused inside the basement of the old school near your house. He inhales down to his toes. "That was smooth!"<br/>
<br/>
"It was professional," you agree as you take the joint in turn. The smoke is harsh and acrid as it hits the back of your throat, and it seems to go straight to your brain.<br/>
<br/>
"It was lucky," says Caleb as he takes his turn with the joint.<br/>
<br/>
You were already feeling buzzed as you fell, laughing with relief, into the student parking lot after escaping the school, so you excitedly proposed going to the old "clubhouse" for a few quick, celebratory hits off the doobie that Caleb liberated as he swapped your hair dryer and his thumb drive into Walberg's stash of junk. Your friends eagerly agreed.<br/>
<br/>
"Dude!" Keith groans at Caleb. "You are <i>high</i> if you think—"<br/>
<br/>
"Not yet, I'm not."<br/>
<br/>
"—if you think that was just luck! We should seriously think about turning professional."<br/>
<br/>
"It was just a simple job, Tilley," he says as he passes the joint back to Keith. "Even three monkeys like us could pull it off. We're just lucky we didn't have, uh, bad luck."<br/>
<br/>
Keith cough and hacks at his last hit, and you rescue the joint from him. "We were lucky it was Dane in there, not someone else," you agree as you wet your fingertips and extinguish the burning tip. "I think he was already high or something, I don't think he barely knew I was—"<br/>
<br/>
"What are you putting it out for?" Keith wails.<br/>
<br/>
"That's enough," you say. "I don't wanna be stoned when I get home. Shit, I don't wanna <i>stink</i> like I've been smoking this stuff. Do I smell like weed to you guys?"<br/>
<br/>
"Whole inside of my nose and mouth smells like weed," Caleb says.<br/>
<br/>
"Shit. 'Cos Dane stank of the stuff when—"<br/>
<br/>
"He probably burned half a dozen before going in to detention."<br/>
<br/>
"Fuck. You got any clothes I can borrow?" you ask Caleb. "So I don't smell like—"<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>are</i> high, Prescott," he honks, "if you think I'm gonna strip so you can wear my shit home."<br/>
<br/>
"When are we gonna finish the toke?" Keith asks.<br/>
<br/>
You and Caleb look at each other. "Friday," you say in unison. "Out here," you add. You grin at Keith. "I picked up a second one the other day." Keith's eyes light up, but his face falls when you add, "It'll be your job to supply the beer."<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You must not smell so bad that your mom catches a whiff as you race through the kitchen, and you quickly change upstairs and spray your old clothes all over with about half a can of deodorant. Maybe it's the adrenaline and maybe it's the fading buzz from three deep hits off the joint, but you are lightheaded all through dinner. This, you suppose, is what gives you the courage to tell your dad that you can't get the book back. "Sounds like it turned out to be valuable," he dryly observes when you say that the guy refused to part with it for any price. You only shrug and dig back into the mashed potatoes.<br/>
<br/>
That was Wednesday. Friday morning comes, and with it the official burial of the time capsule out behind the music wing. It's a dull exercise—Kelsey Blankenship reads a pompous little speech, and then some of her AP friends get to carry out the actual internment—until you all turn to troop back to the classroom. You jump like you've been poked with a cattle prod when Mr. Walberg himself falls in beside you on the march back. "So tell me, Mr. Prescott," he gruffly inquires, "what are you going to say in your paper?"<br/>
<br/>
"Paper? Uh, sir?"<br/>
<br/>
"The paper you're going to write on your submission. That's what I'm going to announce when we get back to the classroom. That you're all going to write papers on what you put in the capsule."<br/>
<br/>
You think you see a few heads turning in your direction. Apparently the others in the class haven't heard the rumors.<br/>
<br/>
"Uh, I haven't thought about it."<br/>
<br/>
"Then why don't you practice on me?" he says. "Tell me, why did you you choose to put <i>that thing</i> into the time capsule?"<br/>
<br/>
And that's when you realize you're stuck for an answer.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Carson Ioeger claps his hands and howls with laughter. "And what <i>did</i> you say, Prescott?" he asks as he ostentatiously wipes away a tear of mirth. "You miserable little luckless fuck?"<br/>
<br/>
It's lunchtime, and you and Caleb and Keith are eating out front with him and his friends. You wanted to eat in your regular spot, but Caleb insisted on eating with Carson, and himself introduced the awful tale to them with a chortling grin.<br/>
<br/>
"He didn't say anything, did he?" James Lamont suggests. Like Carson, he is stretched on his side. "He shat himself so hard he blew out the seat of his pants, and that's when Walberg said 'Gotchya!' Right?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, the moron tried bluffing his way through," Caleb says. He's laughing along with all the rest. "Right there, on the spot, he tried coming up with some bullshit reason why the future would be interested in his busted old hair dryer—"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, fuck you guys!" you yell. "It wasn't a bluff! That <i>is</i> what I'm going to write my paper on!"<br/>
<br/>
"I told you," Caleb says, "that he was going to notice the swap. When he went to pack the time capsule. Did you really  think he wasn't going to notice that a doobie had disappeared and a hair dryer showed up in its place?"<br/>
<br/>
You flush furiously with anger and embarrassment. "Then why didn't you stop me?"<br/>
<br/>
"I tried. You insisted."<br/>
<br/>
"So what was I supposed to do?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, clearly, you should have told him you were going to write a paper about putting some weed into the time capsule. Then he wouldn't have known that <i>you</i> knew about the swap, which means that <i>you</i> were the one that broke into his desk."<br/>
<br/>
Which is indeed what he figured out. So now you get to share detention with Dane in Mr. Walberg's classroom for an hour after school, for all of next week. You also have to take home a note to your parents explaining the circumstances of your detention, including the fact that you first tried submitting a joint for the time capsule.<br/>
<br/>
So you are fucked all the way around.<br/>
<br/>
At the least the subject wanders off your humiliation and onto the general subject of weed, how much there is at the school, and who uses. Even Jenny, who is usually too prim for the subject, gossips that Marc Garner—who, she says, is something of a pot head despite his clean-cut looks, AP classes, and athletic build—was stoned out of his head when he came to school this morning, and missed soccer practice. "And he's captain of the squad!"<br/>
<br/>
And you are humiliated anew when you learn that the typical joint does not cost twenty-five dollars, as Spencer told you, but only eight. In other words, you traded that book to him for only a third of what he said he was paying you for it!<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
That evening you are grounded and grounded hard—no cell phone and no internet, either—so you don't get to hang out with Caleb and Keith at the "clubhouse" to smoke the rest of your micro-stash, and Monday afternoon you troop into Mr. Walberg's room to take detention. At least you get most of your homework done. But as you're leaving—<br/>
<br/>
"Hsst! Prescott!" a voice hisses.<br/>
<br/>
It's Justin Roth, one of the scruffy, shaggy-haired guys who likes to skip classes out by the portables. "Gotta minute?" he asks. And when you shake your head, he shows you a joint. "Trade you this for five minutes of your time."</span></div></div>


path: 114144421
author_id: seuzz
title: Portable Bodies
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You don't know Justin that well, and have never hung out with him. He has a mixed reputation. He is shabby and unkempt, dressing in sloppy t-shirts and torn jeans. His shaggy brown hair hangs down over his eyebrows and ears, and he has a stoner's stare, and his baritone is scuffed with a smoker's rasp. He hangs out at the portables with a tough crowd, and you've heard rumors that his drug intake is considerably wider than just weed. But he's no bully, and you've heard he's a lot smarter than he lets on—that if he's flunking his classes, it's because he's more interested in harder stuff than what the school teaches.<br/>
<br/>
You can spare him five minutes. You reach out to take the joint.<br/>
<br/>
But he yanks it away. "Nuh-uh, not so fast there," he tells you. "You get paid for your time afterward." He turns away.<br/>
<br/>
"Five minutes," you tell him as you scuttle after. "I'm on a schedule and I have to get home."<br/>
<br/>
"Whatsamatter, you taking medicine?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I'm grounded, and I hafta get home or else I'm gonna get grounded even harder!"<br/>
<br/>
Justin sniggers. "Then you <i>definitely</i> want five minutes with me!" <br/>
<br/>
He throws open the the back door to the school and lopes out toward the portables. You make a face at him, but follow.<br/>
<br/>
The portables—never used now because they are old, smelly, broken-down, and probably infested with black widows and rats—are behind the school, next to the Agricultural Annex, arranged in a double-row that bends into a U-shape. The open area in the middle is a hang-out spot for the pot-heads, skateboarders, and slackers, but lots of other types will hang out there too, if it isn't too crowded, and it's big enough that you can get a couple of different clusters huddled between the enfolding wings of the portables. Now, though, an hour after school has let out, it is deserted. As you approach, Justin breaks into a trot, then a run. He dives into a narrow alley and runs to the very back. You follow, and catch up to him at the last portable. Its door is open.<br/>
<br/>
"Go on in, man." Justin points to the door and squats beside a backpack that's sitting on the ground.<br/>
<br/>
"What for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Got a thing I wanna show you, talk to you about."<br/>
<br/>
"What is it?"<br/>
<br/>
"Don't be a dumbass. You came out here, that means you wanna see it."<br/>
<br/>
You stare at him. Then, even though you realize you are being transparently bullied, you step up into the portable. It's better than being jeered at.<br/>
<br/>
It's dark and shadowy inside the portable, for the daylight has to shove its way through some small, grimy windows to get in. It is empty save for a teacher's desk squatting at the far end, like a pagan altar. Your eyes sweep past it, then are dragged back. It looks like there's a pair of feet sticking out from behind it.<br/>
<br/>
Heavy footsteps creak behind you, and a strong arm goes around your chest. Something dark covers your face.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You wake with a fuzzy feeling inside your head, like your brainpan is being used to store fur coats. You blink and grimace at a shadow-shrouded ceiling, then sit up. You break out into a short but hacking cough.<br/>
<br/>
<i>What happened?</i> you ask yourself. <i>Where—?</i><br/>
<br/>
It comes back to you, though only as a foggy kind of memory, as though you are remembering something that happened to someone else. Justin came and found you after you got out of detention—<br/>
<br/>
<i>No, it wasn't detention,</i> you correct yourself. It was after basketball practice, and you were at your locker changing out books prior to going home. You heard a sound and looked over and there was Justin, leaning against the locker next to yours. He waggled his eyebrows at you and said—<br/>
<br/>
But that's not right either.<br/>
<br/>
Anyway, you followed him outside to the portables because you didn't feel going running off and to join up with Chelsea again just yet. And even though he's scruffy, Justin is also seriously hot. But as you were walking along Justin darted behind you and grabbed you—<br/>
<br/>
No, you were inside a portable when he grabbed you. There was something he said that you'd want to see there.<br/>
<br/>
Either way, you felt something go over your face and then you couldn't breathe and it felt like you were being dragged down into a hot, dark place.<br/>
<br/>
You lever yourself upright and shake out your clothes, which are bunched up in a funny way around yourself. You are frowning at them, trying to figure out what is wrong with them when they are so obviously right, when you hear a soft squeak and moan. You look around.<br/>
<br/>
Huddled up in a corner of the portable is a skinny figure, staring at you with saucer-like eyes. You've seen him around before.<br/>
<br/>
But when you remember that his name is Will Prescott, it's like being struck in the small of the back by a sledgehammer.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
<i>One hour of acrid, vicious, terrified screaming and fighting later ...</i><br/>
<br/>
"I can't do it," Will Prescott whimpers as he teeters in the doorway of the portable. His face is a grinning rictus of fear as he peers out, blinking, into the late afternoon sunlight. "I can't do it!"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, you can't spend the rest of your life living in a school portable," you fume back. You are so sick of his shit.<br/>
<br/>
"But people will see me!"<br/>
<br/>
"People see you every day." You push him outside. "No one gives a shit."<br/>
<br/>
He stumbles and snuffles, and you roll your eyes. It looks like he's going to bust out crying again, for the third time since you found each other inside the portable.<br/>
<br/>
It was a real freakout for both of you, and that's an understatement, and the first few minutes of shrieking talk were wasted with the two of you accusing each other of being yourselves. But once you agreed that, yes, <i>you</i> were Will Prescott and <i>she</i> was Kendra Saunders—<br/>
<br/>
Yes, you're Kendra Saunders, and somehow it didn't surprise you when you took out a sticker-covered phone and turned its camera onto yourself, and saw her slim, Kenyan face squinting back at you. It was a very familiar face, and you remembered it and the body and clothes that went with it, and even the friends and family that were Kendra's. You stared at your face for a very long time, until scarecrow-boy squealed at you to stop <i>scoping yourself out!</i><br/>
<br/>
Anyway, after settling the question of who was who despite appearances, there came the screams and accusations, and the person with your old face tried running off, only to come scampering back into the portable, whimpering with fear and horror. The same fear and horror she is showing now as she creeps down the lane between the portables, with a look on her face—your old face—like she expects to be scalded by the sunlight.<br/>
<br/>
"Come <i>on</i>," you say, and lay a slim brown hand onto the kid with the scarecrow build and the scarecrow hair jutting out from under a sloppy white ball cap. (Such loathing on his face as he pulled your clothes on. That was another oddity—you each woke up in a new body, but were wearing your old clothes.) "We can't spend the night here, you know."<br/>
<br/>
"But I can't go home like this!" he wails. "What'll I tell my ... my ...!" Tears well up in his eyes.<br/>
<br/>
"No, you can't go home like that," you agree. "But I can't go home looking like this, either. We'll just have to go back to each other's houses and do the best we can."<br/>
<br/>
"But I don't know anything about you!" His expression is haggard.<br/>
<br/>
Then it hardens, and his lips curl back.<br/>
<br/>
"You <i>did</i> do this!" he says for about the tenth time. "You <i>want</i> to go back to my house! You want—!" He swallows. "Oh God! You want to <i>be me!</i>"<br/>
<br/>
You have to stifle a scream. He has circled back to the start of the drama—the accusation that <i>you did this to her</i> even though you and Kendra both remember Justin Roth as the one who lured you into some kind of ambush.<br/>
<br/>
But you're too tired to argue. No, you don't <i>want</i> to be Kendra Saunders—the snooty, top-of-the-school-pyramid cheerleader—but you think you can handle it. For whatever reason, she has your body but hasn't got your memories, while you seem to have everything that belonged to her. You're pretty sure you can fake your way through.<br/>
<br/>
And if this teenage boy started accusing you of "stealing her body"? You're <i>for sure</i> certain you could talk everyone into thinking he was crazypants. It might even get you a lot of sympathy in the school.<br/>
<br/>
So why should you care what happens to this other person? Maybe you should just go off and let him hang.</span></div></div>


path: 1141444212
author_id: seuzz
title: Study Buddies
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You turn away in disgust. "Don't leave me!" shouts the person who now has your face. You pause.<br/>
<br/>
You weren't going to leave him. You just needed to master your own emotions. It still takes you to the count of five or so before you feel like you can turn around and face him without throwing up.<br/>
<br/>
His face—your face—is pale and staring, and the little whiskers that stick out on his lip and chin and upper cheek stand out against the chalky pallor of his skin. His mouth is open and he's breathing hard, and his stiff hair springs out from under his sloppy ball cap like it's trying to escape.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not going anywhere," you tell him. "I'll help you out, okay? I'm scared too, you know." You put out your hand, but still he makes no move toward taking it.<br/>
<br/>
"Come on, we have to go," you tell him. "I'll tell you how to get to my house, and I'll even take you there. I'll talk to my parents. I mean, I can't tell them what happened—like, no one'll believe us, you know! But I'll make it as easy as possible. Okay?"<br/>
<br/>
He whimpers a little, but suffers to put his hand in yours. It is rough and hot.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You have to drive out separately—yourself in Kendra's little red Sentra and her behind the wheel of your truck. Your heart is in your throat all the way on the drive back, and you spend most of it watching her in your rearview mirror, expecting her at any moment to lose control and plow into the oncoming traffic. But you make it home okay.<br/>
<br/>
"Listen," you tell Kendra when you're in your driveway, "you're going to be in trouble, alright? You're supposed to be grounded, and you were supposed to come straight home after detention." Her eyes bulge. "I'll take the blame. Just let me do the talking."<br/>
<br/>
Your mom is in the kitchen (where she usually is, it seems like), and she does a double take at you and the guy you're with when she hears you come in. Her expression is very measured. But Kendra says nothing, and after an awkward moment you sigh and step into the silence.<br/>
<br/>
"Hi, Mrs. Prescott?" you simper at her with a wide smile. "I'm Kendra? Kendra Saunders, from school? I'm a friend of, uh, Will's?" Your hand instinctively finds his, and you grip it tightly. He grips it back. "Listen, I know Will is supposed to be grounded— I mean, I know he is. But it's <i>totally</i> my fault he's late getting home today, and I <i>promise</i> it won't happen again!"<br/>
<br/>
You hear footsteps behind you and glance back. Your little brother, Robert (a pestilential thirteen-year-old) is standing behind you, and raking your up and down from behind with undisguised, lustful interest. You catch his eye, but he doesn't look away, and only brightens a little with obvious pleasure at having caught your attention.<br/>
<br/>
You turn back around, to find your mom still giving you a long stare. "Um, it was on account of cheerleader business?" you desperately improvise. "We— I was trying to move some stuff outside the gym? And I knocked it over and I couldn't get it moved because it was so heavy and hard to move?" You hate the interrogatory sing-song you've fallen into. It sounds sweaty and unconvincing, but you can't shake it. "And Will was coming along right then, 'cos he was getting out of detention? And I asked him to help me, and he was <i>so sweet</i> and he totally helped me. And then we got to talking and we totally lost track of the time. And I know he's really late, but he was already going to be late because he was helping me, and, um, well ... Sorry?" You actually go up on tiptoes as the last word squeaks out.<br/>
<br/>
Your mom still says nothing for a moment. Then her eyes flick over to the person who looks like her oldest son, and she says, "You can wash up and set the table. Robert!" she calls over your head. "You can help too."<br/>
<br/>
Both boys shuffle off, leaving you alone with your mom. You grin at her with embarrassment, and feel your eyes rolling around in their sockets.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, thank you for coming along and explaining, um, Kendra," she says. "I guess I'm glad he stopped to help you."<br/>
<br/>
"He is <i>soooo</i> sweet, Mrs. Prescott," you gush. "You did a really great job raising him!" Sweat prickles on the back of your head.<br/>
<br/>
Her eyebrow flexes just the tiniest amount, and you can read her thought. <i>No, he only stopped to help you because of what you look like.</i><br/>
<br/>
"Um, about his being grounded," you hurriedly add, for you've had a new thought. "Does that also include having friends over? Can he—? Because he said something about—"<br/>
<br/>
"He can't have friends over."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh." You pout at her. "That's too bad. Because, um, he's taking a Calculus class. And I'm taking calculus too." (Which is a lie. You have Kendra's class schedule at your fingertips, just as, somehow, you have her address, and her passwords, and secret friends and secret enemies lists at your fingertips as well. But Kendra isn't even taking a math class this year.) "And I was just thinking, or hoping—" Again you go up on point. "We could do a little studying together tonight? My quiz scores lately haven't been that good."<br/>
<br/>
Your mom looks stunned, and even after the wheels in her head have begun spinning again, you can see that she has no idea where to come down on your request. "Well," she says, "I suppose—"<br/>
<br/>
She's interrupted by a harsh hissing from the stove: water boiling over out of a pot. She hurries over to sweep it off the burner, and you have catch yourself from running over to help.<br/>
<br/>
"Yes, I suppose that would be fine," she tells you. "Set a time with— Will!" she calls over your shoulder, and you turn to find that Kendra (and Robert) have rejoined you. "Kendra's going to come back over after supper to to study math with you." Kendra gives you a quick glance. "We'll be done eating and cleaning up around seven-thirty. So—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'll be over around eight," you say. "Is that okay, Will?" You turn a bright but worried glance onto him. He looks panicked, but nods his head. "Thanks, Mrs. Prescott," you tell your mom, "and I'm so sorry again that I made Will late!"<br/>
<br/>
"That's alright. We'll see you later," she says as she fights to regain control of the meal she's preparing.<br/>
<br/>
Kendra accompanies you back out to the garage, to tell you her address and to give you some quick instructions on how to handle her parents. You don't tell her that you felt like you knew exactly what to do—namely, call them and tell them that you'd be eating and studying with Chelsea Cooper, the head cheerleader, who Kendra is typically joined at the hip with—and only nod. "I'll see you around eight," you tell her, and can't resist tugging and straightening your old shirt on her frame. "I think my mom will take care of my dad. I mean, my mom and dad here. You should Just nod and tell him you'll do better and that you're sorry."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't have a calculus class," she reminds you.<br/>
<br/>
"You do now," you tell her. "That's another reason I want to come over. So we can do your homework. You're in enough trouble without you start flunking <i>my</i> classes."<br/>
<br/>
<i>In enough trouble?</i> That must be some kind of world record for understatement, you think, as you drive back to the Kendra Saunders's house in Kendra Saunders's car, and in Kendra Saunders's clothes and body.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
You're back at your old house by eight—having camped out at Panera in the meantime, to do some thinking—and you and Kendra spend the next hour-and-a-half working silently at the dining room table. Once or twice your father wanders through on his way to the kitchen, and you can tell he's checking on the two of you to make sure you're busy. And you are, though in different ways. You are doing Will Prescott's homework, even though your handwriting keeps wanting to imitate Kendra's, while Kendra fields the texts and DMs that keep popping up on her phone. You are exhausted when it is time to go, and because you didn't feel free to talk while studying, you are only able to talk a few minutes on the front porch when you go to leave.<br/>
<br/>
"Stick to your room," you tell Kendra. "Get out of the house tomorrow as soon as possible, and let's meet at—" You consider where to rendezvous, and settle on Salvation Donuts, which is on the way to school. "We'll go over our class schedules then."<br/>
<br/>
"I don't think I'll be able to get through your classes," she stammers.<br/>
<br/>
"Let's just see what happens. You didn't think you could get through tonight with my parents, and you did. Right?" She makes a face, but nods. "You'll see, it'll work out." You wish you were as confident as you are trying to sound. She was totally useless at doing any school work. No surprise, as she is taking nothing but blowoff classes this year.<br/>
<br/>
And that is all you are able to say to her before a tap at the window tells you that your dad wants to call a halt to this interruption of your grounding. You squeeze Kendra on the forearm, and skip off to the street where you parked.<br/>
<br/>
So you didn't get a chance to talk to her about what you were thinking about at Panera, which may be just as well. When you left there, you were full of fire and determination to find Justin Roth at school, and force him to confess what he's done to the two of you. But now, after seeing what a limp noodle Kendra is, you're less inclined toward bold action.</span></div></div>


path: 11414442122
author_id: seuzz
title: Derp with a Side of Donuts
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>Kendra's parents are watching TV when you get home, and they only look up long enough to greet you.<br/>
<br/>
Which is fine. It's what you want. It means you don't have expend any more mental energy after an exhausting day, and can go upstairs and do what you've been dying to do for the last eight or so hours.<br/>
<br/>
In the private bathroom that is Kendra's own, you peel off all your clothes, and turn to study yourself in the mirror.<br/>
<br/>
It's a lovely sight.<br/>
<br/>
Kendra is black, of Kenyan descent (she is quick to inform anyone if the chance arises) and if her physiognomy is any indication, her ancestors spent most of their time sprinting across the savannas after wild game. She isn't tall, but she gives the impression of being tall, for she is lean and rangy, with a track runner's physique. That's not exactly what you want in a cheerleader, for Kendra's breasts are small and pointed—"Turnip-Chest", she was taunted as a freshman—and her hips are very lean, and she only has curves because her stomach is <i>very</i> flat and hard—but she is lithe and graceful, and is flexible enough to be able to do a series of backflips while keeping at least one hand or foot on the ground at all times. She is very strong, too, in spite of the seeming slimness of her limbs.<br/>
<br/>
Her face—your face, now, that you cradle with a sense of wonder between your slim, tapering hands—is narrow and angular, with high, prominent cheekbones that taper to a strong chin. Your mouth is full and sensual, with pillowy lips; your nose prominent but well-shaped; dark, almond-shaped eyes set wide apart under a sculpted brow. Best of all, in your opinion, is the hair, which falls in tight ringlets past your shoulders. It is dyed an auburn color. Your skin is a creamy milk-chocolate complexion.<br/>
<br/>
After you have given yourself a shivery chill by standing naked in front of the mirror for ten or fifteen minutes, turning and studying yourself from every angle, you turn on the shower, making it as hot as you can, and step in under the water. You didn't ask to acquire this body, and Kendra is no friend of yours, and she was a pain and a pill all afternoon and evening long, so you feel absolutely no shame or embarrassment as you brush the water all over you, and crush a sudsy washcloth to your neck and breasts and stomach. You scrub and rub all over, thrilling to the scrape of rough, wet cloth over tender skin. After washing your arms and legs and ass, you splat a fresh shot of body wash onto the cloth and cover your bush with it. A groan squirts out your throat as you squeeze it and a couple of fingers up inside the slit that is hidden there. You grab the shower nozzle with your free hand and clench your eyes shut as you grind your fingers deeper inside yourself. <i>Fuck me, oh! fuck me!</i> you groan to yourself, and then your breath starts to come in quick, sharp pants as little electric shocks shoot through your thighs and up the small of your back. <i>Oh God, I'm going to cum!</i> you think, <i>I'm going to bring myself up and over the brink because—</i><br/>
<br/>
You stumble at a sudden and unwelcome memory of Steve Patterson's hair-matted chest beneath you, and of the even sharper memory of his steely cock ramming far deeper and further than you can get your own fingers. <i>Oh, fuck,</i> you gasp as you lose the momentum and stumble. You hang from the shower nozzle by one hand as the undischarged tension dribbles from you. It makes you want to weep, and even after you have washed yourself all over with scalding water for a second time, you are shivering all over when you step from the shower.<br/>
<br/>
Afterward, in your bedroom, you change into a filmy nightgown, shut off your phone, and crawl between snowy sheets under a light comforter. You are asleep almost before you know it.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
"See, I told you it would be okay if you just chilled out," you say.<br/>
<br/>
It probably came out more primly than you intended. But that's still no reason for Will to reply by giving you a dirty look.<br/>
<br/>
<i>God, I hope I didn't use to go around looking like that,</i> you think, though it is a rather forlorn hope. The teenage boy hunched on the other side of the tiny, formica-topped table at Salvation Donuts wears a hooded, rabbity expression. No, it's even worse than that. His expression is resentful, offended, and mistrustful. It's the face of a kid who feels he has been wronged and expects to be wronged again, and is too much of a chicken-shit to do anything about it except shoot dark, passive-aggressive looks while malingering on the sidelines, looking for sympathy. <i>No wonder he doesn't have any friends!</i><br/>
<br/>
You flinch inside at the thought. After all, until yesterday after school, that was your face and body.<br/>
<br/>
And you're pretty sure that's what you went around looking like, because Kendra has told you that she knows <i>exactly</i> how to act and think like you.<br/>
<br/>
How it happened she can't explain, nor can she explain why she couldn't do it yesterday. But  it was a much more confident—even insolent—version of the drip you helped out yesterday who came loping into the donut shop five minutes after you arrived. He didn't waste time, and shot over to the counter to get three chocolate donuts while you contented yourself with a very bad and lukewarm cup of coffee.<br/>
<br/>
"Yeah, well, I still don't like it," he mumbles around a mouthful of gooey donut. His glance is sharp, and he throws it all around the donut shop as he eats. "And do you think you can get through my day?"<br/>
<br/>
"Perfectly."<br/>
<br/>
He makes another face at you, and you feel your own expression tighten. "Well, tell me how it goes at practice this morning. 'Cos knowing my locker combination isn't the same as being able to do a backflip."<br/>
<br/>
"I did one this morning," you inform him, and he stops in mid-chew. "In my bedroom. Just to make sure I could."<br/>
<br/>
"Huh. Well, I guess we'll talk at the end of the day. Are you going to come look for me in Mr. Walberg's room after school?"<br/>
<br/>
"I can do that. What about after that? You think we can swing another 'study session' tonight?"<br/>
<br/>
"What for?"<br/>
<br/>
"Well, to talk."<br/>
<br/>
Before he can answer, you wave him to silence as the bell over the front door chimes hollowly as it opens. You freeze all over, and try willing them into ignoring you, as two of your classmates lope in.<br/>
<br/>
Fat chance of that. Ryan Shuler and Shawn Sax are on the basketball team. Like comets wrenched out of orbit by a passing planet, they swerve hard after entering, and swing over to your table. Each of them drops a guttural "Hey! Kendra!" into your lap.<br/>
<br/>
And you smile up sweetly at them and pretend to pant with pleasure at running into them.<br/>
<br/>
"What're you eatin' donuts for?" Shawn teases. He's black, like you, but dark as ebony, and he dresses like a gangbanger. "Chelsea gonna have <i>words</i> for you if—"<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not eating donuts!" You blush.<br/>
<br/>
Shawn is wearing shades, but you see his head shift toward Will. "Whazzat? You ain't sharin'? W'as wrong wit'chu?"<br/>
<br/>
"Hey, I offered," Will weakly protests. But it's a really bad look for him, because he has goopy chocolate frosting smeared all around his mouth.<br/>
<br/>
"You're going to be late for practice," you chide the boys.<br/>
<br/>
"We're already late," Ryan snorts. He's a fireplug of a guy, shorter than you or any of your friends, but he is packed all over with muscle, and the few times you've seen him play you've noticed he can bounce and jump like he's got coiled steel springs in his legs, and he can nail baskets from far off.<br/>
<br/>
"May as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb," Shawn drawls.<br/>
<br/>
"Buy some donuts for Steve and Gordon," you say, "and maybe they won't kill you."<br/>
<br/>
You can see them both bridle at the suggestion that they try bribing the two brutes who run the basketball squad, but you only widen your smile.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, that's a thought," Shawn grumbles. "Or, you know—" He leans over to give you a bloodshot look over the top of his shades. "<i>You</i> could put in a good word for us. With Steve. He's <i>always</i> going on about how much he likes you."<br/>
<br/>
A thrill of horror goes through you as you remember the image—snipped from a dozen or more such encounters between Kendra and Steve—that came to you in the shower last night. But you pretend to be flattered. "Sure," you reply. "But what's in it for me?"<br/>
<br/>
A little speck of saliva shows whitely against the red of Shawn's mouth.<br/>
<br/>
"Oh, I got a thing I could give you, that you would really, really like," he gloats. He gives you a lingering look, then straightens up. "Catch you 'round after practice," he says, and he and Ryan, still staring hungrily at you, back their way across the shop to the counter.<br/>
<br/>
Will's face is almost purple with anger and embarrassment when you turn back to him.</span></div></div>


path: 114144421221
author_id: seuzz
title: A Day as Kendra Saunders
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You have cheerleading practice first period, which is good, because that gets it out of the way. It is the worst class of the day, and far away Kendra's least favorite.<br/>
<br/>
Which is a funny thing to say, considering that cheerleading is just about the only activity at school that really keeps her engaged. (Well, that and the gossip.) She dreamed very early of being a cheerleader, and worked hard at her gymnastics all through elementary school and middle school so she would be prepared. It almost destroyed her will to continue living when her breasts came in, and the rest of her figure developed, and she discovered that she was never going to have the plump curves that she wanted. It was worse when she found that all the other girls who were vying for a place on the ultra-exclusive Westside cheerleading squad were all perfectly endowed in those departments.<br/>
<br/>
So Kendra hitched her star to Chelsea Cooper, who had exactly the right shape, into which she also poured a ruthlessness that quite took Kendra's breath away. One by one Chelsea's rivals dropped away, felled by mysterious accidents at inopportune moments, or by social disasters that left them unable to face their peers, until only one girl stood between Chelsea and the squad captaincy that Chelsea lusted for.<br/>
<br/>
Chelsea got the position, and Kendra got onto the squad.<br/>
<br/>
And she found that being on the squad was like swimming in a scummy lake that was a playground for water moccasins.<br/>
<br/>
And Chelsea is in a particularly foul mood this morning for some reason, and her mood isn't improved by the fact that her best friend, Maria Vasquez, has failed to show up to class. At least she is taking it out on everyone but you.<br/>
<br/>
"Yumi, I keep you on this team only because you're the perfect height for the capstone of our pyramids! If you can't get your ass to the top I'm gonna talk to Coach Tesla about firing you! I saw that look you gave me, Lin! Five laps! And if the Bobbsey brats over there—<i>I'm talking to you Eva and Jess!</i>—don't stop mumbling to themselves, they'll take the laps with you!" She puts her face into her hands and whimpers.<br/>
<br/>
So first period is really no fun, and not even the two visits into the girls' changing room, where you can surreptitiously ogle the naked cheerleaders at their lockers and in the showers, can make up for it.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The rest of the morning is better, though you have to spend second period (Interior Design) with Chelsea and third period (Parenting) with Gloria Rea. Kendra loathes the sight of Gloria (and the feeling is mutual) but she and Kendra are Chelsea's two prime suck ups, who she depends upon to feed her a steady supply of poisonous gossip. You congratulate yourself that you can feed Chelsea the tidbit of seeing Shawn and Ryan at the donut shop, and how much trouble they knew they'd be in with the basketball squad's captain, who is Chelsea's boyfriend, but she turns it back on you with a snarl: "What were you doing at a donut shop, Kendra? You're no good to anyone if you get fat!" You keep your mouth shut and your face down during fourth period lunch, where you have to sit with Chelsea and Gloria both, along with most of the rest of the cheerleading and basketball squads, at the alpha table in the cafeteria. Once, you might have dreamed of sitting here. Now, you'd like nothing better than to crawl away and hide in that ratty old portable.<br/>
<br/>
The day climaxes in eighth period, which is a study hall you share with Chelsea and Gloria, and which you take in a table in the very center of the school library. You all ostentatiously spread out books and notebooks and paper, but the hour is spent sharing and talking over the malicious little stories and whispers that you and Gloria have been able to pick up. You haven't been able to pick much up, though. But to your relief, neither has Gloria. It leaves Chelsea in a deep funk.<br/>
<br/>
"Did you ever find out what happened to Maria this morning?" you cautiously ask her as she slumps in her chair with arms folded and eyes burning.<br/>
<br/>
Chelsea's golden curls seem to weave and waver, like living snakes, as her face splits into a rictus of anger. "She says she's taking a <i>spa day!</i>" she spits. "Can you believe that shit?"<br/>
<br/>
You and Gloria can't help sharing a glance. Gloria says, "You mean she's actually skipping school so she can go to a—?"<br/>
<br/>
"No! Don't be a ninnyhammer! It's her way of saying, 'Fuck you, Chelsea'!" She rubs her eye and sighs. To your amazement, it looks like she's going to start crying.<br/>
<br/>
Before you can react, your phone goes off with a ding. It's a text from Meghan Farris, who Kendra has been cultivating as a source for a few weeks now. (Meghan <i>so badly</i> wants to be part of the in crowd, and Kendra has been stringing her along with a lot of cheap flattery while joining Chelsea in laughing at her behind her back.) You blink at it, and your mouth falls open.<br/>
<br/>
Instinct—and a desire to get away from Chelsea—overcomes you, and you scoop your things into your bag. "Where are you going?" Chelsea demands as you stand up.<br/>
<br/>
"Gotta go see someone," you tell her. "I'll—"<br/>
<br/>
"Kendra! Come back here!" Chelsea shrills.<br/>
<br/>
"I'll be back in ten minutes!" you shout over your shoulder as you go. You can't help flinching a little, though. Chelsea and Gloria both look shocked at your sudden flight. But Gloria's expression turns smug even as you watch. <i>She's going to try getting Chelsea really mad at me,</i> you think. <i>Well, we'll just see if she stays mad after I tell her—</i><br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
The portables are your destination, and they're on the other side of the school. You probably should take the outside route, but then you'd be exposed to the sight of every teacher with a classroom in B and C wings. Not that they could stop you, but you'd rather not get spotted by so many people. Instead, you stick to the hallways until you emerge out the far end of C wing, even though the interior route leaves you vulnerable to being stopped and sent to the office for not having a hall pass.<br/>
<br/>
Once outside, you drop your bag and lean against the corner of the wing, and while pretending to gaze off toward the horizon you study the little group sitting out front of the portables.<br/>
<br/>
It's the usual crowd, but in an unusual arrangement. By the backs you recognize them: Adrian Semple, with his dirty mop of curly hair that hangs in faux-dreadlocks to his shoulders. Perry Small, whose pale blonde hair sticks out in every direction, like he woke with the worst case of bed head, then accidentally jammed his fingers into an electrical socket. Spencer Osbourne, in his comically oversized black windbreaker and red shorts. Marc Garner, in his shiny crimson-and-gold soccer jersey and gel-spiked hair.<br/>
<br/>
But instead of lazing on the grass and passing a blunt around, they are on their feet, and are pushing someone deep into the horseshoe-shaped well formed by the enclosing arms of the portables. You can just make out the bobbing head of the kid they're assaulting, but you know who it is from Meghan's text.<br/>
<br/>
<i>omg marc n guys r fighting w justin</i><br/>
<br/>
You glance down the side of C wing. Meghan must have a class on this side of the building, if she has spotted the fight. Why a teacher hasn't, you don't know why. But it's the math wing, so maybe they're all too busy solving for <i>x</i> or some shit like that.<br/>
<br/>
But hoarse shouts and curses are floating up from the fight, and someone is bound to notice soon. You hesitate, wondering whether to run over and insert yourself. Not that you could break up the fight physically. But the sight and presence of a <i>cheerleader</i>, you can't help flattering yourself, might—<br/>
<br/>
Oh, but then it's suddenly too late. One of the burly Ag teachers come trudging out of the nearby Agricultural Annex, and stalks over to the fighters. It's Mr. Barrientos, who used to be the wrestling coach, and with a few hoarse shouts of his own he forces the boys to part. After some shouting, he points to the main building, and with flushed faces and hanging heads, the five boys come stalking your way. They break into two groups, though, with Adrian and Marc marching in your direction, while Justin, Spencer and Perry break away to head toward the doors that lead into B wing.<br/>
<br/>
You better hurry, if you're going to figure out who you want to talk to.<br/>
<br/>
On the one hand, here comes a chance to talk to Justin, to confront him if not with an accusation then at least with your presence. He must know what happened to you and Kendra, and now's your chance to see how he will react.<br/>
<br/>
But it was Marc's name in Meghan's text that pulled you outside to see the fight. Marc is the captain of the soccer team, but he came to school yesterday too stoned to play—a useful bit of gossip that Chelsea could use with malicious effect against his sisters, Eva and Jessica, who are two of her enemies on the cheerleading squad. Marc getting into a fight, and maybe getting detention or even suspended from school, would be even juicier. It would really get you in good with Chelsea if you could report that.<br/>
<br/>
It's not until Marc is significantly closer to you do you notice that he's wearing a leg brace over his blue jeans. It extends from his hip to his ankle on his left leg.<br/>
<br/>
<i>That</i> is something new in the last twelve hours.</span></div></div>


path: 1141444212212
author_id: seuzz
title: Gallons of Gossip
chapter_content:
<div><div> <span>You waver, uncertain what to do. Wait to talk to Marc? Run after Justin?<br/>
<br/>
Then you get a look at Marc's face, and the expression he's wearing. That makes the decision for you. You sweep your bag onto your shoulder, and with a quick, pained smile at Marc and Adrian, you dash off to try intercepting the other guys.<br/>
<br/>
<i>Oh, the look on Marc's face! The anger! The fury!</i> His face was red-turning-purple, and his teeth were like a streak of white lightning between his snarling lips. Adrian also looked pissed off to the extreme.<br/>
<br/>
Is it going to be the same with the others? Justin has his face to the ground, but Perry and Spencer have their heads up, and are walking along with a cocky jaunt.<br/>
<br/>
"Hey!" you call as they reach the doors before you can catch up. "Hey!"<br/>
<br/>
Justin gives you a mulish look as he pulls the door open, and doesn't stop for you. Perry glances back, and his expression is more appreciative, but he follows Justin inside. Only Spencer waits behind for you, an open leer distending his face. "Hey, Kendra!"<br/>
<br/>
"Oh my God, what happened out there?" You are panting as you catch up to him. <i>Must be the excitement, and the fear,</i> you think. <i>I'm not out of shape, not with this body!</i><br/>
<br/>
Spencer shrugs, but hias grin doesn't flicker.<br/>
<br/>
"Fuckin' Marc, man," he says. "Dude's been smokin' too much of the loco weed. Him and Adrian been hanging out together too much." He leans in and waggles his eyebrows at you. "Think maybe there's somethin' goin' on a'tween them? Adrian, you know, he likes a tight, muscular ass."<br/>
<br/>
You blush despite yourself. "Well, what was it about?" you squeal.<br/>
<br/>
"I 'unno. Just that Marc and Adrian came bustin' in on us. We were just hangin' out, mindin' our own business, and they was all hot under the collar about something when they found us. But say, how're you doing?" He puts a hand on your shoulder, and gives it an appreciative knead. "I don't ever get to see you no more, it seems like."<br/>
<br/>
You fight to keep the smile on your face, even as you twist out of his grip. <i>Never see him no more?</i> Kendra knows who Spencer is, but that's about all!<br/>
<br/>
"I'm fine. But Justin—"<br/>
<br/>
"Whaddayou wanna bother him for?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't want to bother him! But I've got him sixth period, in English—"<br/>
<br/>
"I know. I got <i>you</i> in there too." Spencer smirks.<br/>
<br/>
You return him a pained smile. "Well, um, Justin wasn't in class today—"<br/>
<br/>
"Me neither."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Shit.</i> "Does he have the homework? The reading?"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I guess not. I don't either. You give it to me, though, and I'll pass it along to him." Spencer glances into the school. "I gotta catch up to him, you know. Mr. Barrientos sent us in to— Hey!" His eyes light up. "How about we all get together tonight for a study group! You got the reading, we can all—"<br/>
<br/>
"No, I've got other plans tonight. Or maybe—" You temporize, teetering between the desire to get Justin somewhere you can talk to him alone, and the desire to avoid Spencer. "I'd have to change my plans," you gasp. "But if I could text him or DM him—"<br/>
<br/>
"You can text or DM me," Spencer says. "Here."<br/>
<br/>
He takes a pen from his windbreaker pocket, clicks it, then grabs your wrist and wrenches it toward him. He grins at you as he writes a word on the back of your hand. Loathing crawls all over you, inside your skin and out.<br/>
<br/>
"I'm not gonna let you back out, Kendra," Spencer gloats. "I'll see you t'night. Oh, and bring a friend, okay?" He clucks his tongue at you, and with a trailing backward glance steps into the school.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
Chelsea is still moodily slumped in her chair when you return to the library. She doesn't speak, but she does listen with a hooded interest as you tell her what happened out by the portables. You embellish it with as many details as you can, including Spencer's (frankly impossible) speculation that Marc and Adrian might be having "fun" together. But whatever has blackened her mood, your news is not enough to get enough to relieve it.<br/>
<br/>
Still, you can tell that you've erased whatever demerit you earned by running out on her. You also have earned yourself an excused absence for having to dance attendance on her after school, for she nods when you offer to snoop out what happened to the guys after seeing the principal.<br/>
<br/>
But has Mr. Sagansky already dealt with them, and sent them on their way, while you were back in the library? You lurk and linger near the front office without seeing them for nearly fifteen minutes after the final bell has rung, and the crowds have mostly filtered out by the time you risk making a quick circuit of the halls to see if any of the guys are at their lockers. You don't spot them, and when you return to the main office it's with the sinking feeling that one way or another you've managed to miss them.<br/>
<br/>
But maybe you can partially retrieve the situation when you spot Maria striding down the hallway. You do a double-take at her. <i>Where has she been?</i><br/>
<br/>
Well, there's one way of finding out. You call her name, and run over to meet her.<br/>
<br/>
She doesn't break stride, but with only a quick glance in your direction hurries on. "Maria!" you squeak. "What happened to you today? Where were you?"<br/>
<br/>
"Medical emergency," she snaps back. "I had to see a doctor."<br/>
<br/>
"Oh! Well, is it serious? We didn't hear from—"<br/>
<br/>
"I texted Chelsea. I think." She stops and stares and blinks. "Fuck." She resumes walking.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what did you say to her? Because I've <i>never</i> seen Chelsea in the kind of mood she's—"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know! I just told her I wouldn't be in today. She's not my fucking babysitter, okay? I—" Again, she stops short in mid-stride, and her expression goes blank. "Oh my God, Kendra," she says in a dead-voiced sing-song, "I'm such an airhead, maybe I forgot to text her. Is she really pissed at me?"<br/>
<br/>
You stare at her doubtfully. "Well—"<br/>
<br/>
She lurches back into motion. "Then maybe I better skip talking to her."<br/>
<br/>
"Well, what are you doing back here?"<br/>
<br/>
"Getting books from my locker. I still have schoolwork, you know."<br/>
<br/>
You glance around. "But your locker's back that way." You point the way she came from.<br/>
<br/>
Maria has a great mane of dark hair, and it visibly crawls over the top of her scalp.<br/>
<br/>
"I know where my locker is, Kendra," she says through gritted teeth. "If I needed your help, I'd ask you to come along. Now, would you mind <i>fucking off now?</i><br/>
<br/>
You fall back, shocked into silence, as she continues stiffly on her way. Maria is a sweet girl—mild-tempered and hardly talkative. She is also, frankly, a ditz and an airhead. You have never heard her talk so brutally before, to anyone, ever. In fact, you're not sure you've ever heard her speak so cogently, either.<br/>
<br/>
<div align="center">* * * * *</div><br/>
So when you catch up to Chelsea in the gym, where she is perched halfway up the bleachers, watching her boyfriend and the other basketball players at practice, you are full of news that you'd rather not share, particularly not in front of Gloria, who is with her. Chelsea forces you to, though, and you confess that you weren't able to catch up directly with Marc or any of the other guys to find out what happened. More tentatively, you tell her that you saw Maria, and that she seems to be "in a bad mood."<br/>
<br/>
But Chelsea doesn't seem to be paying much attention to you. You're not sure what she's paying attention to, because she hasn't got her phone out, and she doesn't react to any of the play down below. After five or ten minutes, though, she does take notice of a text that chimes on her phone. After glancing at it, she gets up and slowly makes her way down to the floor below, and skirts it to duck under the mezzanine, where the coaches have their offices.<br/>
<br/>
"Shit," Gloria says.<br/>
<br/>
"What?"<br/>
<br/>
"Looks like it's time."<br/>
<br/>
"Time for what?"<br/>
<br/>
Gloria gives you a dirty look. "The fuck do you think I'm talking about?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know, Gloria!"<br/>
<br/>
Gloria looks disgusted. "Oh, for fuck's sake." But then she does a double-take at you. "You really don't know?" She laughs.<br/>
<br/>
"Would you like to share?" You feel your hair starting to go up on end.<br/>
<br/>
"No, I don't think so." Gloria gathers up her stuff. "I'll go down and wait for Chelsea. She'll want someone sympathetic—and who knows what's going on—to talk to."<br/>
<br/>
You start to follow, but halfway down you get a text of your own, from Will, wanting to talk to you during the short time she has between exiting detention and going home. <br/>
<br/>
"What happened today?" he breathlessly asks while he changes out books at your old locker. You fill him in about the fight that Justin got into with Marc, and about Chelsea's terrible mood, and how she is now in a meeting with Coach Tesla. That last gets Kendra's attention. "So is it happening?"<br/>
<br/>
"I don't know what 'it' is!" you protest.<br/>
<br/>
"It's Cindy. I heard about it at lunch from your friend James, of all people. I don't know how <i>he</i> found out about it, but Cindy's been talking to Coach Tesla about changing the squad lineup. You know about that girl Sydney McGlynn, right? Please say you do."<br/>
<br/>
You nod impatiently. Sydney McGlynn is new to the school, and she was a cheerleader at a school that went to national championships. Chelsea's been keeping a wary eye on her.<br/>
<br/>
"Well, Cindy's talking to Coach Tesla about getting Sydney onto the squad, and apparently Coach Tesla is listening."<br/>
<br/>
<i>Whoa!</i> you think. <i>That is huge if true!</i><br/>
<br/>
Then your phone buzzes. The text is from Spencer, and you wonder with irritation how he got your number. <i>Hanging out w justin,</i> he writes. <i>U shld be here.</i></span></div></div>


