Chapter #30Sociology in a Tight Skirt by: Seuzz   Cheerleaders.
That's where this "long-term plan" is centered. Fairfax has made it clear that it's his plan, and everyone else is just along for the ride. It's where he'd dropped in the phrase "sociological investigation."
"Have you ever noticed how much it's the case that our school is run from the cheerleading squad?" he'd said. (This was before Mike and Carlos took off to film your video bit.) "All the girls take their cues from the cheerleaders, and most of the varsity squads take their cues from them too, because the basketball team is so tight with them. If the cheerleaders sneeze, the school social scene catches cold."
Carlos and Mike just guffawed and giggled at each other. Fairfax continued.
"So I'm proposing we use these tools—" With the chopsticks he pointed at a nearby mask. "To conduct a sociological investigation. By replacing and impersonating the cheerleaders we'll—"
"Get to play with boobies," Mike snickered. Carlos fell onto his friend, howling his guts out.
When the storm had subsided, Fairfax went on like he hadn't been interrupted. "We'll be able to investigate where the lines of communication run, how the various groups align and react to each other, and collect additional data. This will give us something like a social map of the school, and we'll be able to test our hypotheses at later dates from other locations by conducting the kind of activities that—"
"You're joking, right?" you blurted out. "What are you going to do with his 'data'? What do you need it for?"
Fairfax stared at you. Montoya and Hollister suddenly shut up very tight, but their eyes blazed brightly. Josiah, who had said hardly anything during this lecture, suspended his eating, and looked around the circle.
Keith just breathed very heavily through his nose.
"We don't need it for anything, Will," Fairfax said. "Just having the knowledge by itself would be very interesting."
"Hhhkkkccchhhhhmmmpppphhhhhhgggggmmmmmhhhhh!" said Hollister through his nose. "Shut up shut up shut up," Montoya gasped.
"My friends," observed Fairfax without looking at them, "seem to find the idea very amusing. Probably because they find the idea of guys putting on girls' clothes and cheerleader uniforms hysterical."
Hollister toppled onto his back and sent great, wracking sobs of laughter at the ceiling. Montoya covered his face, and his shoulders heaved.
Keith chortled uneasily, then turned worried. "So you guys, or us, or some of us, are going to turn into cheerleaders?" He jumped as Hollister loosed another canine howl. When Fairfax nodded, he followed it with, "But aren't you going to have to kidnap those people?"
Fairfax had picked up the box of sweet-and-sour pork and eaten without replying. Not until his two friends had recovered themselves had he said, "I wouldn't call it 'kidnapping'," and proceeded to explain how the masks could hide the victims in plain sight without doing them any harm.
* * * * *
"So, which cheerleaders are we going to be impersonating?" you ask.
"Chelsea Cooper is at the apex of the pyramid," says Fairfax. He lays aside the carton he's been snacking from, crosses his legs Indian-style, and grasps his ankles. "Everything presumably flows up to and down from and through her. We're going to put Josiah in there."
Josiah? You can't help swinging around to stare at him, and you notice Keith does too, and that Tilley's mouth actually falls open a little. The weird, big-nosed Josiah to impersonate Chelsea Cooper, the imperious captain of the cheerleading squad? The girlfriend of Gordon Black?
"Mike and Carlos haven't quite got into the spirit of the thing," Fairfax says, and for the first time you hear a note of resentment in his voice. "They're still thinking in terms of panty-snatching and bra-snapping." He frowns. "But the impersonations they've chosen do happen to be perfect for studying certain group interactions. They'll be impersonating the Garner girls. Eva and Jessica."
That gives you a different kind of jolt. Those two giggling clowns in the next room will be impersonating Eva and Jessica Garner? You get a brief vision. You see Eva and Jessica, grinning. But those smiles are not their smiles. They're the smiles of Mike and Carlos. They've also got Mike's and Carlos's eyes.
The vision expands. You see Eva and Jessica, walking across the school quad, the sun shining on their hair and tanned limbs. Coming over to sit with Jenny and to complain about cheerleading practice, or to ask favors. Scrunching their noses and shaking their heads and making faces at Carson when he cracks an off-color joke. Getting up and primly walking away with their firm asses shifting back and forth like boats rocking on the tide.
But it's Mike and Carlos, and as they walk away they look over their shoulders and show their real grins.
You close your eyes and shake your head. Your forehead is very hot.
"What about you?" That's Keith speaking .
"Initially, at least, I'm going to be playing Maria Vasquez," says Fairfax. "That will probably be the best—"
"That airhead?" exclaims Keith.
"She's Chelsea's best friend, so she's probably the only conduit we can use to get to her. But she may be a useful vantage point to collect and study the data. If not, I will shift position. But her, uh, reputation is another advantages for using her. If she has to come back after a few days with something like amnesia, no one will be surprised."
"So who are some of the others we might impersonate?" you ask. You haven't eaten much since wolfing down half a container of chop suey, for your digestion has gotten progressively unsettled. "Kendra seems to be pretty tight with Chelsea too."
"She's definitely a possibility," Fairfax says. He resettles his glasses. "So are Lin Pol and Yumi Saito, for different reasons."
"Which are?"
"Well, like the Garners, they seem to move in various social circles. I've heard that they don't get along with Chelsea—" He stops at the soft snort you made. "So I'm thinking that Kendra and one of those two would be the impersonations for you and Keith to carry out."
"Well, what if we want to impersonate someone who isn't a cheerleader?" Keith asks. He thrusts out his lower lip.
"Who did you have in mind?"
"Well, I don't know," Keith says, and he glances at you again. "I mean, you just now sprang this on us."
"I'd rather it were a person who could, uh, contribute to this study we're making," says Fairfax.
Keith turns a little red, and you know from experience he's about to say something unfortunate. "We'll need to think about it," you say, and twist around to plant a knee on Keith's foot. "I wanna go see what Mike and Carlos are doing with that mask you made of me."
* * * * *
Fairfax sends a text alert to Montoya, then leads you over to their "production studio." Your gut tenses as you prepare to look inside.
The space is brightly lit by the photographers' lamps, and the camera is trained on the desk. Two guys are sitting behind it. Montoya grins at you, as does the other guy --
You know what you're expecting to see, but it still takes you a moment to register that it's you. For a few seconds he's just a high school kid with a sloppy haircut and a shit-eating grin that curves crookedly around big teeth. There's a rodent-like cast to the dark eyes, like they belong to a rat or a rabbit or a muskrat or some other burrowing creature that peeps out of bushes or brambles when something large and dangerous goes by.
Then it hits you in the gut: That's me. That's what other people see when they look at me!
He's stretched out in his chair, skinny hands locked behind his head, with one foot up on the desk. He's relaxed, amused—no, more than that, he's gleeful. He says nothing, but there's an impudent dare in his eye. Yeah, I look just like you, he seems to be saying. Come over here and do something about it if you don't like it.
Something brushes at your head, and you grab at Keith's hand, but it's too late. He's snatched your ball cap off and tossed it to the imposter. "You forgot that," he says.
"Right, thanks," the fake you croaks back. He flaps the soft canvas hat open, and pulls it down over his head. The stiff hair pokes out from under it in all directions. "Guess we have to start over again," he tells Montoya.
"Good, 'cos you were coming across like a total dumbass."
"Have to get in character," your twin chortles.
You turn away. "Okay, I just had to see it," you mutter. "I'll watch the full thing online when it's done."
"You can stay," a voice calls, and as you don't recognize it you have to assume it's yours. "Just don't distract us!" But you've already shuffled back down to the other unit.
"Yeah, it's kind of rough the first time you see it," Fairfax says when he catches up to you. You flinch a little when he pats your shoulder. "One reason is because there's no mirror effect. So you're seeing yourself reversed from what you're used to. Makes it a little uncanny."
Whatever he means, you don't think that was what was bothering you.
"Also, the mannerisms are off. It takes a couple of hours for memories and personality traits to come on line. So Michael was acting like himself in there, not like you."
Doesn't matter. Anyone who looks like that would seem like a jerk and a loser.
"If you have any ideas about who you'd like to impersonate, we can get moving on it tonight."
You raise your head. That soon?
But that would be good. The face and body of a cheerleader would be a vast improvement over what you saw in that makeshift studio.   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
| Members who added to this interactive
story also contributed to these: |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Get MORE!
Shop Memberships
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
