Chapter 3: The Cool Kids

 

School that day wasn’t particularly interesting, other than Billy and Matt having to keep their heads down during recess. So far, their escapades on the construction site had gone unnoticed, and repercussions had been notable in their absence. That’s not to say that those would be postponed indefinitely. Word traveled around the school that some middle-schooler had kicked a senior in the face, and that kind of gossip was hard to keep down. 

After class, the two of them went around the back of the school, where the teachers’ cars were parked, to avoid the goon squad, who were liable to be on the lookout for them. Despite his cavalier aptitude for getting thrown around by people three years his senior, Matt wasn’t keen on repeating the experience. Not today, anyway. He and Will crossed the street quickly, keeping an eye out for any vengeful seniors, and spotted two people trying to look very unimportant. Clearly, they were trying to seem casual while hiding behind a car. They waved at Matt and Will. 

“Is that… Wendy and Franklin?” Matt whispered as they got closer. Will chuckled. “Aren’t they, like, too cool to do something like that?” 

“Evidently not,” Will said. “Come on, they’ve probably got the right idea.” He also crouched down and the two of them hurried from car to car. They came to a rest next to the others, leaning against the car. “Hey.” It was clear Will was trying to be a bit cooler in front of the older kids. Would that work? The last thing Matt wanted to do was to have either of them think of him as childish. 

“Hey,” he said, lowering his voice. “Sup.” Franklin and Wendy both looked at him like he’d grown a second head. Immediately, Matt changed his mind. If he jumped up and shouted a whole bunch, his besties from before could find him and piledrive him into the pavement, professional-wrestling-style. If it worked for the idiots who went up against the Undertaker, it would work out for him, right? 

“You okay?” Franklin asked as Will choked back a laugh, then shook his head. “Anyway, any sign from our new best friends?” They all peered over the hood of the car. 

“Looks like the coast is clear,” Wendy said carefully. “Y’all ready to go?”

“Wait, go where?” Will asked. This time, he was the one to get The Look from Wendy. 

“You heard the kid,” Franklin said. “Meet after school.” Matt was more than a little surprised. Franklin was the school golden boy, Wendy was the closest thing they had to a Rachel McAdams-style prom queen (less Queen Bee, though — more of a loner), so why would they want to hang out with some random middle schooler?

“We promised,” Wendy said, answering the question preemptively. “Besides, they looked really excited, and I want to know what they have to say. You two are coming too.” It was almost a question. The way she looked at Matt, she could’ve told him to eat a bicycle using only a spoon and he probably would’ve done it, no questions asked, so he wasn’t exactly an impartial judge. Still, it was less commandment and more… expectation. And he didn’t want to let her down.

“Yeah,” he said. “Of course.” 

“Of course,” Will echoed. They looked one more time and when it seemed Strong Bad and Friends still weren’t present, they made a run for it, making sure to be around the corner as quickly as possible, slowing down a bit to catch their breath when the construction site came into view. They saw the girl in the flashy jacket shoot them a wide grin as she hopped through the hole in the fence. “Well, looks like we’re all gonna be here, at least.” He scratched his head. “You know. If that kid shows up.”

“Eh, they will,” Wendy said. “I’ve seen them around. Bit hyper, but absolutely the kind to be there when they say they’ll be there.” With that, she slid through the gap in the fence with all the elegance of… well, of a sixteen-year-old who just got out of a growth spurt. Matt really, really looked up to her, but he wasn’t blind to the fact that she wasn’t perfect. In fact, that just added to her charm. 

Franklin, by contrast, moved like an athlete. Like, all the time. Matt had trouble figuring out who to look at. They were both striking in their own ways. “Hey, you okay, man?” Franklin asked. Matt blinked a few times and realized he’d been staring at the gap in the fence, and the other boy standing in it. “Matt, right? I feel like you’ve been out of it. You feeling okay?”

“Uh,” Matt said, like a fucking king. Like an absolute superhero. Like someone trying not to freak out about Franklin fucking Watts knowing his name. “Yeah.”

“Alright. Just making sure. C’mon,” he said, nodding his head at the others, who had already gathered in the shadow of the construction site. Matt hurried through and walked next to Franklin for a moment, feeling very small, and not just because Franklin was almost a head taller than him. 

“Hey, you guys!” the kid said. “I didn’t think you’d all be here! That’s so cool!” If they grinned any wider, the top of their head was liable to fall off. Like a Pez dispenser. 

“Yeah,” Franklin said, “of course. It was the least we could do after that insane stunt you pulled on Lee and his buddies.” He nudged the kid conspiratorially, who seemed more than a little proud of themself. “I don’t think I would’ve had the balls for that one. Franklin Watts.” He stuck out his hand, and it was immediately taken and shaken vigorously.

“Madison Keys,” they said. “But the other kids call me Mads. Or Bonk, because I tried to jump out a window once.”

“I don’t get it,” Will said. 

“It was closed at the time,” Mads said with a shit-eating grin. “Double-glazing is tougher than it looks.” That got a laugh out of all of them. “Anyway, what’s all your names?”

“Matthew Porter,” Matt said. “You can call me whatever. I don’t really care.” He shrugged. 

“William Teague. Billy is fine.” 

“Wendy Carter,” Wendy said. 

“And I know who you are,” Mads said, pointing at the girl, who had taken off her backpack and had sat down against the wall, hands on her knees. “Jackie Daniels, right?”

“Hah!” she said. “Nah, people just call me that because of the jacket. You can call me Jacket too if you like!”

“Works for me,” Franklin said with a shrug. “So, Mads, Bonk, what did you get us all here for? Don’t tell me you invited Lee and his buddies over for a rematch?”

“Haha, nah,” Mads, said. “Nah, y’all aren’t ready for this.” They also threw off their bookbag and started rooting through it. “No, I was here the other day and I found something, and I figured, since y’all helped me out, I figured I’d show it to you.”

“Don’t tell me you found, like, a bone or something. That’d be disgusting,” Will said with the kind of enthusiasm only a teenager can have for something as macabre as human remains. 

“No no, it’s way better than that,” Mads said. “Here we go!” They retrieved and held up what appeared to be… a coin. It was about the size of a silver dollar, but slightly brown, and clearly well-worn. It looked ancient. 

“What the fuck,” Will said. “An old coin?”

“Okay,” they said, “I get that it doesn’t look like much.”

“I mean, I think it’s cool,” Wendy said. “Can I see it?” Mads closed their fist around the coin and seemed to consider something for a moment, then they shook their head. 

“Not yet. This isn’t what I wanted to show you,” they said. That got them a bunch of confused looks. “Okay, it is, but it isn’t. Look, it’s hard to explain. Let me just… show you.” Before anyone could say anything, they flipped it with a gentle -ting-. It sailed through the air gently. “Heads,” Mads said, and then caught the coin, and laid it down on their wrist. 

There was a weird sound. Like air being sucked through a small hole, and then suddenly going -whoompf-. Where Mads had been sitting was what appeared to be… a Roman emperor of some sort, toga and all. There was a moment of absolute silence, and then all of them exploded in noise and excitement. Will fell backwards, stunned. Franklin and Wendy jumped backwards. Jackie rushed forward, her eyes huge. Matt’s mouth just fell open. There was a lot of whooping, screaming and “what the fuck?”-ing. This wasn’t possible, right? People couldn’t just disappear? That kind of thing was science fiction? 

Matt reached out and poked the person in the arm. It had to be fake. Computer graphics in movies had become super realistic these days, so like… He was sure he’d something like this… 

“Is this like a hologram or something?” he mumbled. Those were a thing, right?

“There’s no such thing,” Wendy said. “So what is this, then?” 

“Dunno,” the Roman emperor said. His voice was low and rumbling. “Cool as shit, right?” He flipped it. “Tails.” When the coin was level again, Mads was back in their original place. “When I ran away from those guys this morning, I was hoping to be able to use it to get away, but they were too close behind me.”

“How would turning into Julius Caesar help with getting away from those guys?”

“It’s someone else every time!” Mads said. “Y’all wanna give it a shot? You just have to call heads in the air. Tails to turn back!” They held out the coin. The five of them all stared at the coin, like it was an explosive, about to go off at any moment. Then three of them reached for it at the same time. Matt’s hand bumped into Will’s, and so Jackie snatched it out of Mads’ hand triumphantly. 

“Heads!” they yelled as the coin flipped through the air. When she caught it, she turned into what appeared to be an older woman with darker skin, wearing a nightgown. “Oh, fuck!” She jumped up and then her excitement turned to pain. “Oh, fuck.” She flipped it again. “Tails,” she said, and immediately the jacketed girl was back. “Shit, my knees hurt so bad when I was like that. That sucked but it was so cool but fucking fuck that sucked.” 

“Okay, my turn,” Matt said, holding out his hand. Jackie gave it to him a little bit hesitantly, clearly wanting to try again. Not that he cared. He wanted to see what would happen. He flipped it.

“Tails,” Will joked. 

“Shut the fuck up, Will,” Matt said as he snatched the coin out of the air. Since he was interrupted, he was going to have to try ag—

-whoompf-

“Yo. What the fuck.” Will said. 

“What?” Matt said with Will’s voice, and he looked down. He was wearing the exact same shirt as Will. And the same jeans. And the rest of him. “Yo, what the fuck?”

“Yooooo,” Mads said. “I never thought about saying something else!”

“You can just say a name?!” Will said. “Let me try!”

“No, I’m not staying stuck as you for the rest of the day, dipshit,” Matt said. “I gotta try something.” He flipped the coin again. “George Clooney,” he said, and caught the coin. 

“Holy shiiiiiit,” Franklin said. 

“No fucking way,” Jackie laughed. 

“This is nuts,” Clooney-Matt said with a laugh. “It feels weird. He’s so big.” He held out his hand and balled his fist. 

“Nah, man,” Will said. “You’re just tiny.”

“Let someone else have a turn,” Franklin said. 

“Hey, fuck you,” Matt said with a glare, and flipped it, just as Franklin looked to his right. 

“What about you, Wendy?” Franklin asked. Matt had caught the coin before he could stop himself. The air displaced again. Wendy’s clothes were a lot softer than his own, Matt realized. He was also strangely aware of the weight on his head which he realized was the hair put up in a ponytail. So him saying the name…

“You know, you’re kinda cute like that,” Wendy said, and winked at him. Matt felt his cheeks burn as he started to blush. “Jealous of how good I look in those jeans, were you?”

“I — no!” Matt squeaked, Wendy’s gentle, feminine voice coming out of his mouth instead of his own. “It was an accident! I swear! I’m sorry!” He fumbled with the coin, which slipped through his now-slender and well-manicured fingers. Will caught it. 

“Nu-uh. For going three times you have to stay like that until it’s your turn again as punishment,” Will said. 

“I’m gonna fucking kill you,” Matt grumbled, but he didn’t make a move. 

“Sure you will, sweetie,” Will said as he flipped the coin. “Matt.” Matt was expecting to see himself sit there, grinning like a dumb idiot, three hairs on his chin proof of the inexorable advance of puberty. He already dreaded having to look at that face. -whoompf-

“Um,” Jackie said. Franklin scratched his head. Mads clasped their hand in front of their mouth.

“Well, one of us is going to have to change,” one of the three Wendys said with a giggle as they all looked at each other.