SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

Damn that mask salesman.

If Clint Cargile hadn't shown up when he had, my life would have remained normal - or at least, as normal as possible when you've got a Psyduck as a Pokémon partner. I would have been able to at least pretend that school was my highest priority.

Instead, I spent the rest of that first weekend stressing about the mask and its consequences. At any moment, I thought, one of my parents would barge into my room and demand to know what had driven Jeff and I to explore the city on Saturday without telling them. And I'd have no choice but to spill the beans.

At some point, as the passage of time separated the night of the festival from the present day, this fear faded into the background. But it did not go away. Not completely.

After our little jaunt through the sewer, I'd managed to climb back up the wall in order to return to my bedroom. My paws had something similar to a tree frog's suction cups on them, so this task wasn't as fiendishly hard as I'd feared. Still, it wasn't how I was used to climbing things (or, better said, I didn't normally climb anything like this.)

"You're going to have to tell them eventually, Makoto," Jeff muttered sheepishly on the afternoon of Sunday, September 9. I still remember the scene: I was hunched over my desk, bent nearly double as I pored over endless pre-calc problems. I was not in a good mood to begin with, but my Psyduck's words made it far worse.

"Says who?" I snapped. "What my parents don't know won't hurt them."

"But won't it hurt you to keep your emotions bottled up like that?" my Psyduck wondered aloud. "Besides, the truth will come out at some point."

I glared at my Psyduck. "Are you thinking of telling them?"
"What? No!" Jeff insisted. "I was just stating an unfortunate reality, which is that they'll be suspicious. And they'll be right."

"Whatever" I sighed. "But don't tell them!"

"Got it," Jeff replied automatically.

"I sure hope you do, because loose lips sink ships."

"Right. I'll keep the secret."

Of course, perhaps it isn't right to blame Clint for the predicament I found myself neck-deep in. After all, he might have had the masks for sale, but I'd still chosen to purchase one. His offer would have been meaningless if I wasn't willing to accept it.

The Furret mask remained hung high up in my closet. I had not so much as touched it since Saturday, and for good reason. When I'd returned from our Saturday outing smelling like a sewer, I'd taken a long shower once I became human again. (My mother had been displeased when she arrived home to find the shower taken. That had been a treacherous exchange between the two of us, but I'd escaped it relatively unscathed.)

After that, we settled into a new normal. And routines, I've found, are a lot easier to keep once you're busy again. (Well, more so - a high school senior's work seems to never be done.)

No further subway incidents occurred; at least, none that I heard about. If there were any announcements on the metro's intercom to that effect, I remained oblivious to them, because I no longer took the subway to school.

Instead I began splurging on Uber rides. They might not sound that expensive (and for most people, they aren't), but it all adds up when you're taking them twice a day within the city. And I could have sworn the price had gone up since the accidents on the metro, which would have made sense. It wasn't corporate greed, just the way our economic system worked. Supply and demand.

Every day, when I arrived at school, I kept as low a profile as possible. None of the other students, not even Tiny Tim (with whom I occasionally texted) needed to know about my secret. And if they didn't need to know, they weren't going to know.

I sat in the middle of each lecture so that I wouldn't draw any attention to myself, didn't make eye contact with any other students, and, on the occasions when a teacher called on me, I was typically able to bullshit some answer. It wouldn't have merited more than a C+ most of the time, but it was better than getting tripped up completely as far as my participation grade was concerned.

Still, whatever I was doing wasn't working. Not well enough. I received two notes from Mr. Barnes over the next week, and each note led to a stern talking-to from my parents.

We're not mad, they kept telling me. We're just disappointed. We want you to do better than this. We know you can do better than this.

They never raised their voices when discussing my academic performance, but I almost wished they would have. At least then, I would be able to defend myself without feeling like a total jerk. Rather, they had to guilt-trip me about how I wasn't maximizing my potential at school.

Consequently, Hayley Hawkeye became an afterthought. Make no mistake: I still thought about her. Every morning when I woke up, I thought about how lucky I was to have gotten to talk to her even once. Just like one-hit wonders had to savor their fifteen minutes of fame, I had to appreciate my five minutes with that girl.

And yet, every night when I slithered under the covers, I lamented not having reached out to Hayley again.

Of course, this was out of necessity. She would short-circuit my brain if I even tried to approach her, and not for the first time I wondered if Billy Talonflame was right about the "diamond on a landmine." If I wasn't careful, I'd get blown to smithereens. (Not literally in terms of my physical body, but my GPA would fit that description for sure.)

I didn't see her in my History of Sinnoh class, nor did I look for her at the Gardening Club. What was the point when it would only cause me more distress?

It was only on Thursday afternoon that I worked up the courage to initiate a social interaction. And I remember exactly how it went down.

At the time, I was riding home from school in the Uber that I'd paid for using my parents' credit card. I was certain I'd get in trouble for this once they found out, but that was a "later" problem, not a "now" problem. Priorities.

Anyway, I whipped out my phone and navigated to the phone book of Pastoria High. And then I found the number and started typing out a message. Pretty soon, we had a conversation underway, and the exchange went like this:

Me: Hey, would you like to hang out over the weekend?

Them: Sure, what's the place?

Me: Well, I haven't given it much thought. Maybe the Museum of Fine Arts, Pastoria Branch?

Them: I didn't know you were such an intellectual, Makoto.

Me: I just need something to do, okay? And I want someone to do it with. We could hang out more often, even.

Them: Someone's eager.

Some months later, these messages would resurface when they were subpoenaed by the Supreme Court of Sinnoh. And when I myself was subpoenaed to testify in July 202Y, they would come back to haunt me.

DA Woods: We have Exhibit 1 here, which we are displaying for the grand jury to see. It is a series of text messages between you and another person. They are dated to September 13, 202X.

Mr. Mutsamudu: Right.

DA Woods: Is this record of the conversation the way you remember it taking place, Mr. Mutsamudu?

Mr. Mutsamudu: I don't remember exactly. It was ten months ago.

DA Woods: But the exchange of text messages was something like this, correct?

Mr. Mutsamudu: It was something like that. Again, I've sent so many texts since then that they all blend together.

DA Woods: Who was the other party to those messages? I presume you remember that, at least?

Mr. Mutsamudu: I remember, Your Honor.

DA Woods: Well? With whom did you make a plan to visit the Museum of Fine Arts, Pastoria?

Mr. Mutsamudu: Arceus, Your Honor, it's not like this was a nefarious scheme to overturn an election. I just wanted to do something cultural with a friend.

DA Woods: Which friend did you choose?

Mr. Mutsamudu: I chose Timothy Morse.

Saturday morning found me eating a bagel with cream cheese at the breakfast table. As I did so, my legs swung beneath the table, though I was careful to do so subtly. (This was in fact a habit of mine I'd possessed since childhood - some people referred to it as "stimming.")

Anyway, as I ate, I would occasionally glance over at my text messages. It was hard not to be convinced that something would go wrong. For some reason, I was sure, Tiny Tim would have to cancel on me, or there would be a different form of snafu that would lead to our museum tour not happening at all. Plans always fell through at the last minute for me, as though everything I touched were destined to turn to shit.

Imagine my surprise when, at the appointed time, I heard a knock on the door.

"I'll get it," I told Jeff. (My parents knew about the planned outing, and, to their credit, they wholeheartedly supported the idea of me doing something social.)

Sure enough, Tim Morse stood on the threshold of my family's apartment. He wore a smile on his face, as well as a small green scarf with yellow trim. "It's a bit chilly today," he admitted.

"Don't worry about the scarf," I told him. "In fact, it makes you look pretty good."

"I guess we should get going," Tim replied. "Isn't our scheduled tour at 10 AM?"

"It is, yes. You're right - we need to be there on time." This should go without saying, but punctuality was something I greatly valued.

"Is Psyduck coming?"

With a nod, I smiled. "He is."

"Okay. I think you need to put him in his Pokéball for the Uber trip there - I don't trust the subway. Not anymore."

"You and me both."

But Jeff didn't look pleased. "I can't ride in the Uber with you guys?"

"There won't be enough space in the back" I reminded my Psyduck. "And they usually aren't okay with passengers sitting in the front."

"That's kind of odd," Jeff remarked. "Isn't it called the passenger seat for a reason?"

"Well, yeah. But it is what it is. Now, hold still so I can put you in your Pokéball."

Jeff crossed his arms as Tim watched. However, he soon submitted to my press of the button, as well as the flash of cyan light that would encase him in the device. Now he wouldn't bother us.

"Okay, here we go," I said. "Sorry if I don't know what to say. I'm not used to…doing things like this. Playdates, they used to call it."

Tim snorted. "Makoto, we're here to hang out, not to play. There's a difference."

"Right" I muttered, feeling my face turn pink. "There is."

We called an Uber, which Tim was willing to pay for. (It probably wasn't the nicest thing for me to cheap out here, but in my defense, I did save my parents some money.) While we waited, we didn't speak much.

For the most part, all I could think about was the meeting with Hayley. Should I tell him that I'd taken the leap?

No, I didn't take the leap. I'm still at the edge of the high dive, looking down into the deep end of the pool, and I'm too afraid to jump.

"He's here" Tim said eventually, snapping me out of my reverie.

"Right" I stated.

"You're going to be like that radio host before long," Tim told me. "You know, the guy who said 'right' after the President of Sinnoh was accused of being on cocaine."

"Right."

We burst out into laughter as we climbed into the Uber. After confirming our names, and the identity of our driver, we settled in for the ride.

Despite being Saturday morning, traffic was heavy on the way to the museum. The ride should not have taken more than fifteen minutes without the congested roads, but it was at least twice that length by the time the vehicle finally pulled into the MFA's parking lot.

"Thank you, sir" Tim told our driver, handing him a 5-Poké bill as a tip.

"You're very much welcome. Learn something at the museum, will ya?"

I couldn't help but smile at that. Even amidst everything going on, there was still room for a visit to the museum to be lighthearted. This driver, who had to be at least sixty, had given us a directive that I wanted to take to heart.

"I think I can let Jeff out now" I said, pressing the button on the Pokéball. With a flash of red light, my Psyduck materialized in front of me.

"Phew," Jeff muttered. "It was kinda cramped in there."

I frowned. "It shouldn't be like that. Isn't it really comfortable inside a Pokéball?" (That was something I'd learned in Biology class at least thrice.)

"I was just pulling your leg, come on."

"Fair enough" I responded, feeling myself blush a bit at the knowledge that I'd failed to recognize this sarcasm.

It was indeed a bit chillier than usual in the Museum District, and I found myself shivering without a jacket. Fortunately, this wouldn't last long, as we had soon entered the lobby of the grand, imposing brick building.

"Here we are," Tim mouthed. "I've been here once, but I've never done a private tour before."

"I haven't" I replied, which was true. "It's crazy, right? I've lived here all my life, but I've never seen it in person. Only pictures of it."

Tim probably didn't know how to respond to that, which I was okay with, because then I'd have to admit the truth: The reason I had never been to the MFA was because it was a discretionary expense, and my family didn't have much income to spend for discretionary purposes. Even with my parents' desire to see me do something social, it had taken some coaxing for them to allow me this splurge.

"Anyway," Tim asked, "where's the line for the tours?"

I noticed at once just how crowded it was in the lobby. Plenty of high-society couples were milling around; waiting in line for tickets, pointing at some of the exhibits that didn't require admission, or merely holding hands and talking.

Jeff held his paws up to his temples. In hindsight, this should have been a red flag that all was not as it appeared. That, far from overthinking things like I often tended to, I was underthinking this outing.

But I ignored my Psyduck this time. Instead, I pointed over to the ticket counter, at which there was a sign saying: PRIVATE TOURS BEGIN IN THE RED WING.

"Right," Tim said, which led to a chuckle from me and a bit of a squirm from Jeff. "I guess I could have looked more carefully. My bad."

"If you aren't more careful," I quipped, "you'll never be a member of the cool boys faction at school."

Tim glared at me, and I understood immediately that this hadn't been the most tactful thing to say. But I had to get over the shame.

"Don't joke about that" he muttered. "I've been trying to get in for quite a while."

"But why?" I wondered aloud. "Why do you need them to validate you like that?"

"You wouldn't understand," Tim stated. "Let's just enjoy this, okay? I paid a pretty penny for that Uber."

In the Red Wing of the museum, which was adjacent to the lobby like the other wings, there stood a relatively short woman with similarly short jet black hair. She held out her hand for us to shake.

"I'm Mrs. Maddox" she told us. "My first name is Sarah, but nobody calls me that."

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Maddox" Tim responded formally, extending his right hand. "You're our tour guide for today?"

Mrs. Maddox nodded, taking Tim's hand and shaking it. "Are you Tim Morse and Makoto Mutsamudu?"

"Those would be our names," I confirmed. "But I don't really like to shake hands." I'm weird like that, okay?

"That's fine" Mrs. Maddox responded. "Believe it or not, I'm not just any tour guide. I'm the art curator here at Pastoria City's MFA. So you'll get the full experience if I do say so myself."

"Wow, how lucky are we?" Tim blurted out.

DA Woods: According to media reports, upon beginning your tour of the museum, you noticed that something "wasn't quite right." Your words, not mine.

Mr. Mutsamudu: That is correct.

DA Woods: What wasn't quite right? Was it…

Mr. Mutsamudu: I don't know what you've been speculating about, but it was just the art itself. It was weird.

Once we were in one of the smaller rooms of the museum's Red Wing, I noticed that Jeff stiffened up visibly.

"What's wrong, Jeff?" I asked my Psyduck. He comforted me frequently, so I figured I might as well return the favor if it was warranted.

But Jeff did not answer. Instead, he stared right into the soul of a painting. (And yes, in my mind, paintings do in fact have souls - their personality is dictated by that of the artist.)

"This painting," Mrs. Maddox informed us, "was produced by a man named Leland Parsons. He's one of the most prolific painters in Greater Pastoria, creating such masterpieces at a rate of roughly three per week."

Tim's jaw dropped. "Three of these…per week?"

The painting in question was of Pastoria Harbor at sunset. The impossibly bright orange disk on the horizon cast various shades of orange and pink all over the sky, even reflecting on the dark blue ocean. Along the esplanade, a variety of people and Pokémon were sitting on benches eating ice cream, or else enjoying a pleasant evening walk.

Needless to say, the painting was incredibly detailed, to the point that I could barely name every species depicted within it. I doubted I could have produced more than three such paintings in a year, let alone a mere week.

Mrs. Maddox nodded. "Yes, this painting is exceptional, as is Mr. Parsons. The fact that he can make three paintings a week like that - and their quality hardly ever suffers as a result - that's pretty incredible, don't you think?"

Jeff swayed from side to side, but he didn't voice any displeasure. Really, though…why should he have been displeased with it? We were staring at the product of one of the most impressive artistic minds alive today.

"It is, Mrs. Maddox" I responded breathlessly. "It is."

"Some people say he's probably got six people chained up in his basement constantly painting" the curator replied. "Personally, I don't know how six people - seven, if you count Mr. Parsons - could possibly work together so effectively. And yet if it's just him, that's insane."

"I bet," Tim muttered. "Pretty impressive."

As it turned out, the whole room was dedicated to the works of Mr. Parsons. There were literally dozens of them nailed to the wall, maybe even more than a hundred. And all of them were exquisite.

A bowl of fruit that looked positively succulent, to the point where I was almost tempted to take a bite out of the painting in the hopes that the fruit's juices would trickle down my throat and elate me. A snowy evergreen forest, with each six-sided flake painted in detail. An elaborate banquet held between Arceus and a dozen Legendary Pokémon. They went on and on, and each painting made me wonder how they'd all come from the same mind.

"I don't get it," I muttered.

Mrs. Maddox frowned at me. "What don't you understand, Makoto? What is there to not understand?"

"How does he do it? How are all these pieces so detailed, and how does he do them all so quickly?"

"You'd have to ask him," the curator stated, her frown turning upside down. "Though I'm far from certain that he'd be willing to divulge his secret."

Of course. No artist lets the world in on their secrets that easily.

"But he must have, like, no life" I pointed out. When Mrs. Maddox looked ready to object, I clarified: "Other than painting these pieces."

The curator shrugged. "It should always cost you something to produce art. Otherwise, it's hardly art, is it?"

"Fair point" I acknowledged.

Meanwhile, Tim stood in front of one of the paintings - this one was a map of what must have been a different planet. His eyes were wide.

"What's so amazing, Tim?" I enquired.

"Just look at this," Tim replied. "It's a map of a world called Earth. Look how much detail he put into it!"

Sure enough, the painting consisted of several continents and oceans; some of them were connected, others were not. My companion pointed at one of the continents, which was referred to as "Asia."

"Look how many islands that is," I remarked.

"Indeed," Mrs. Maddox said, striding up to the painting of Earth. "Legend has it that the planet known as Earth contains nearly two hundred countries, as well as numerous territories and dependencies. Asia in particular has many countries with thousands of islands - one of them, Japan, has well over six thousand."

At the name "Japan", the curator pointed to an island shaped roughly like a backwards L. Every inch of its coastline was meticulously marked in an incredibly detailed display.

"That's quite something" I muttered. "All those lines…there's no way I could do anything like that."

"You'd be surprised at what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it" Mrs. Maddox responded with a wink. "If you think Japan is impressive, look at his depiction of the Philippines."

"The Fill…what?"

The curator gestured at an archipelago significantly to the south of "Japan", which consisted of numerous islands in a variety of odd shapes. She was right - it looked significantly harder to paint than Japan (though the difference here is between "crawling to the moon" or "crawling to the sun", at least for someone like me with less-than-stellar fine motor skills.)

"That country," Mrs. Maddox said, "has well over seven thousand islands, and some are reportedly still being discovered. And Mr. Parsons was able to paint quite a few of them!"

"Sure looks like it" Tim muttered. "But how do you know that Earth is real?"

"We don't," the curator responded. "But if anything, that makes it even more impressive that he was able to paint so many details. If Earth is indeed a fictional planet…".

"...then it takes quite the imagination" Tim finished. "Yeah, I see it now. Stupid question."

"There's no such thing as a stupid question" Mrs. Maddox insisted. "Even what may seem like the simplest questions are often anything but. So don't feel bad."

"Right."

"In any case," the curator replied, "are we ready to move on to the Green Wing of the museum?"

"Sounds like a plan," Jeff remarked.

On the way to the Green Wing, my Psyduck motioned for me to listen to him whisper something.

"Yes?" I enquired.

"Something about that last room gave me the creeps," he told me.

I grimaced. "What about it?"

"It just all looks too good to be true. Like, I don't know how he does all that so fast" Jeff mumbled.

With a shrug, I replied thusly: "Jeff, there are some things in this world that just don't make sense. If Mr. Parsons was able to produce all that art, all those incredible paintings, in such a short length of time, who are we to question it?"

Fortunately, Mrs. Maddox did not overhear our conversation. She was too busy pointing each painting out to Tim, and I don't blame her. It was her job, after all.

There was another reason I was glad the other two people on the tour remained oblivious to this exchange. There was the slightest fear (with the emphasis on slight) that Jeff might end up breaking his promise and mentioning the Furret mask.

He promised not to tell Mom and Dad. He didn't promise to keep it a secret from Tim.

Still, I was able to hold back on the panic. Right now I was just enjoying a morning with my friend (or at least, a young man whom I wanted to be my friend) at the MFA.

At least, until we arrived at one work of art in particular.

As soon as we reached it, Jeff started rubbing his nose. That was one pattern I'd noticed - whenever he ran one of his paws along his long beak, it meant that something worried him to a great degree.

It was an elaborate mask, which was encased in a thick layer of glass. Unlike the Furret one I'd bought from Clint, this mask was considerably more colorful - most of it was dark purple, but it also contained a giant pair of multicolored eyes.

Stripped of context, it shouldn't have been an ominous sight at all. But context is a thing, and Jeff closed his eyes.

"This mask is present in some ancient legends from Hisui, the land that would later become the continent of Sinnoh that we know so well" Mrs. Maddox explained. "Some say that this mask had a special power."

I gulped, clenching my fists together. This presentation was going exactly how I'd feared it might.

"What was that power, Mrs. Maddox?" Tim enquired, scratching the ever-so-slight stubble on his chin.

"Well," the curator replied, "they said that anyone who put on this mask would become the creature it depicted. The man who sold this mask to the museum assured us that it was stripped of any power it might have held, and that it is useless for that purpose now. And it likely always was - the transformation thing was a folk tale."

But it's not. Oh, Arceus, this is bad!

Just then, as though an invisible wrecking ball had collided with it, the glass shattered into a million pieces.

Oh boy. Broken glass. My parents are always drilling it in about how dangerous that stuff is!

The rest of the Green Wing knew it too. With only a few exceptions, most of the other people and Pokémon present were staring at the mask that had, until a few seconds ago, been protected by glass meant to last until the end of time.

"Oh, Arceus!" Mrs. Maddox yelled. "How did that happen?"

I was fairly confident I knew the answer, but I wasn't about to admit that I'd lost control over my Psyduck. Instead I simply shrugged.

"I don't know either," Tim admitted.

"You two," Mrs. Maddox responded sternly, swiveling around and jabbing a finger at us like we were pets that had just had accidents on the carpet, "are lying to me!"

"Why would we be?" I asked.

"Because glass like this doesn't shatter if there's no outside force acting on it" the curator insisted. "Which means one of you must have touched it!"

"Touching it wouldn't have made it explode like that" I pointed out. Only when it was too late did I realize that this was an inadvertent admission of guilt.

"So you must have pushed it while I wasn't looking!" Mrs. Maddox shouted. "Oh, what a depraved boy you are!"

I clenched my hands into fists. There is very little that makes me angrier in this world than being accused of something I didn't do.

But I restrained myself, if only barely. I can't get physical. I won't let this devolve into a shouting match.

"I'm sorry" I mumbled, but Mrs. Maddox wouldn't hear any of it.

"Get out of here, now!" she exclaimed. "This tour is over!"

DA Woods: When the glass shattered, what happened next?

Mr. Mutsamudu: Mrs. Maddox snapped at us, and she had a point. If the protective glass covering one of my exhibits suddenly broke like that, I'd be angry too. I'd want an explanation.

DA Woods: Do you deny that you had any role in that incident?

Mr. Mutsamudu: I don't deny it. As my Pokémon, I should have exerted greater control over Jeff's behavior. That's on me.

DA Woods: Why weren't you more careful?

Mr. Mutsamudu: Honestly, I didn't think it could happen here. But it did. I guess I saw Jeff as a partner more than I saw him as someone whom I needed to protect from his worst instincts.

DA Woods: I assume you were ejected from the museum after that?

Mr. Mutsamudu: That's what they told us. Never to return again, even if our lives depended on it. Those were her words.

DA Woods: You understood that, if you ever returned to the museum after that, you would be trespassing?

Mr. Mutsamudu: I did.

DA Woods: Did you ever break that…well, shall we call it a "restraining order" from the museum?

Mr. Mutsamudu: Pardon me?

DA Woods: Did you ever return to the museum despite your ban from doing so?

Mr. Mutsamudu: That's not relevant yet.