Chapter #21A Washout by: Seuzz   "Before you start pumping too much iron," you say, "I found out who did this to us."
Jason almost drops the barbell on his toes. Not that he'd have broken his foot or anything, because Will Prescott's skinny body can't handle serious weights. But he lets the barbell hang down as he gapes at you. "Who was it?" he asks. "An' how—?"
"Turns out it's kind of a funky experiment," you reply. "An' the fella was high." You move over to sit next to Jason, as Tony Peterson's head has just appeared above the parapet. "It was Justin Roth."
Color rushes up Jason's neck and into his cheeks. "So what's the story?" he asks.
You give him an expurgated version, one that doesn't include the fact that you've known all this for the best part of a week and kept it from him—or the fact that you're the one who sold Roth the book that let him do it all.
"So this book he's got makes these magical masks," you tell him. "You can use them to turn people into a copy of someone else. He used them to turn you into me and me into you."
"What for? And why'd he tell you?"
"It was on account of some 'experiment' he was running, and he told me because he's winding it down. Well, winding it down for us. He wanted to see what would happen if you took two people who are, you know, not a lot alike—" You set one of your (Jason's) Popeye-like forearms next to his, and flex it. "And switch them. How would they start acting?"
"Son of a bitch!" Jason looks away, and chews on his cheek for a spell. Then, when he turns back to you, he asks with a faint smile, "So what's he think he found out about us?"
"I dunno. I don't think he found out anything, 'cos he couldn't, you know, get close to me or you, not real close to see what we were doing. I think that's kind of why he came clean with me. He's okay with stopping it and putting us back to normal, and finding out what we did while we were, uh—"
"Fucker," Jason says. The funny thing is, he doesn't sound nearly as mad as you thought he'd sound. "So Maize wasn't part of this?"
"Uh uh. He did himself up to look like Maize, which is why you thought it was him. But it was Justin. Maize isn't mixed up in it."
Jason pulls off his ballcap—your ballcap—and scratches at his head. He looks briefly startled, and mutters, "I need a haircut." Then he sits up. "So are we s'posed to go find him, tell him we're ready to go back?"
"Actually, he showed me how to put us back," you say. "So we don't even need to do that. But, um—" You jog your leg. For as bad as the previous confession was, this next part will be even worse. "Maybe I should try putting things back to normal for you."
The flush that had rushed up Jason's face reappears there. "What happened?"
So then you tell him about the date with Ceres, how it came about, what happened, what Patterson said to you that got you and him dragged into Sagansky's office, and the sequel at lunch and during sixth period. He takes it all very calmly, but when you're done he stalks over to the edge of the mezzanine to glower down into the basketball court where his friends—former friends?—are practicing. The knuckles on his hands whiten as he grips the railing.
For several solid minutes he stands there, until a cold voice calls up, "The fuck are you staring at, asshole?" With a jerk he pulls away and returns to sit next to you again.
"I'm really sorry, man," you say. "After all that shit I gave you about not fucking things up with my friends, I went and—"
"It's okay," he says, but then adds, "No it's not. It's not," he continues thickly, "but I dunno what to do about it. Cocksucking beanpole's been trying to queer it 'tween me and Gordon forever now." He hunches forward with his elbows on his knees. "Probably would'a happened sooner or later." He rubs his eyes. "I s'pose I could talk to Gordon, but—"
He looks up. "I guess we're s'posed to keep this 'experiment' thing a secret? Not tell anyone?"
"Probably best to keep it quiet," you say. "It could cause a lot of trouble, and not just in the school, you know, if it got out about this. Besides," you add, "Justin also said something about, maybe, us helping him with another one of these experiments?"
Jason's head goes up. "Like how?"
"Like, finding some more people to make switches on. Helping him take notes about them." You pull out the paper Justin gave you, which you've been carrying around in the back pocket of your shorts. "To make up for doing it to us first?" You hold out the list.
Jason studies it. Then he snorts. "And this is all for an 'experiment'?" he says. "Shoot, this would make for some first-class pranking."
You can't help grinning. And he sees you grinning, and he grins too.
"Tell you what," he says. "You got this date with Ceres." He pauses, and his gaze goes distant. "That's a fucked up thing you got going there. But anyway, since you got that going, and you say you want to try smoothing things over with Gordon—" Again he hesitates, and a pained look comes into his eyes.
"No, let me try to do something about that," he says, "if we can change ourselves back. But let's keep going on like this for a little while." His lips twitch. "I think I can handle the Molester and them better'n you, and you can try to set things up with Ceres. Or someone else."
"What about the baseball team?"
His expression falls. "That's a problem," he says. Then he winces. "At least as much of a problem as your calculus class."
After talking it over, you agree to get together each day from 3:45 to 5:45, with the first hour devoted to you showing him how to pass Calculus, and the second to him coaching you on how to throw a ball. You're pretty confident of being able to do the last, of course, but you'll have to pretend at first to be less competent than you actually are. But for the time being you'll continue pretending to be each other.
* * * * *
"What's that?" you ask Ceres as she hauls a box out of the car. You put out your hands to take it, but she keeps hold of it even as she pushes her car door shut with her butt.
"Picnic basket," she says.
"Picnic?" you echo. "We gonna have a picnic on the gym floor?"
"No. Out on the baseball diamond. Come on." She brushes past you, and you hurry to keep up.
"But it's dark!"
"That's why I brought an electric lantern."
"You're crazy, girl!"
She laughs. "Who's crazier, the crazy girl who does the crazy thing, or the guy who goes along with her craziness?"
"I think you're gonna wind up makin' me crazy!" You laugh in turn. "But why not have the picnic in the gym? I can get us inside—"
"Because I want room to run if I have to run away from you again!"
You stop short, and she races along another six or seven yards before she notices you've fallen back. She turns around. "What's wrong?"
"Look, I told you I'm sorry about what happened last night. I didn't mean—"
"I know that!"
"And I'm not gonna try anything like that again."
"I hope you try something at least a little bit like that!" Her smile is bright enough that it floats like a ghost in the gloaming. "I'm giving you permission to get a little bit like that!"
"Well, okay then." You jog up to her. "But you slap me if I start to go too far."
"You like the Fifty Shades stuff, huh?"
She spreads out a tablecloth in the outfield just behind second base, and holds it down with an electric lantern and half-a-dozen Tupperware containers. Still, it's hard to make out most of the food items, except for the obvious ones like boiled eggs and pickles and carrot sticks. Not until you've made a dent in the "nuggets" does she tell you they're fried tofu, but even fried tofu tastes good if you slather enough sweet-and-sour sauce on it. She's got brownies for dessert, and she slaps your arm when you ask if they're marijuana brownies. "I'm not going to get you goofy until our fourth date at least," she says.
You make another joshing comment, and when she goes to slap you again you catch her hand and squeeze it. It isn't long until you've pushed the food away and are lying together, side by side, gently kissing and squeezing and nibbling at each other. It surprises you a little that this should happen so easily and without much terror on your side, as Jason has no experience for you to lean on. Later that night, as you're thinking about it, you decide that not being you gave you enough confidence to not worry about it.
* * * * *
Jason is late showing up the next morning—a Friday—so you get through most of practice without him seeing you. And when he does show up, you turn pitching duties back over to Cam and trot over to the bleachers to talk to him. He plunges right into business.
"This 'experiment' that Justin's running," he starts to say.
"Have you talked to him about it?"
"Nah, thought I'd let you take the lead there," he says. "I'd like to go with you, though." You nod. "But there's one name not on the list I'd like to put there."
"Who?"
"Steve Patterson."
You look over in surprise. His expression is very taut and grim.
"Him and Chelsea, I think," he says. "I'd give my nutsack— Well, your nutsack, I guess," he corrects himself with a crooked smile, "to see them two trying to carry on inside each other's bodies."
TL;DR: "A Face Graft"   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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