The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (17 page)

HALLOWEEN

From:
[email protected]

To:
Porter Welsch [[email protected]], Matthew Livingston [[email protected]], Dean Enderby [[email protected]], Callum Whitstone [[email protected]], and 7 others . . .

Subject:
Halloween. A Change of Plans.

Delete this as soon as you have memorized its contents. Delete it from the server, too, you wiener dogs. Got it? Good.

There is a change of plans for Halloween. The old plan is too dumb. We need a prank on a large scale that will give the proverbial F-U to the establishment and amuse our fellow students to no end at the same time.

Each of you will be given separate instructions. Porter and Sam will carry out the most dangerous parts of our mission, but this operation is large-scale, and everyone has got to participate.

Some of you will have to snatch climbing equipment from the new gymnasium and be prepared to use it with a reasonable degree of skill.

Others will need to acquire a large quantity of ladies’ underclothing in amusing colors and patterns.

Still others will get the painting supplies from the basement of the old theater and make signs.

I have copies of all keys you’ll need to complete your operation and have left them in an envelope under Livingston’s door.

Oh, and I had a parachute FedEx’d to Enderby. So don’t forget to check your mail, dog.

All other purchases should be made on the down low. Pay cash when you can and burn receipts. The necessary Internet purchase tasks have been distributed broadly among those of you who have bottomless credit cards.

Do not get caught.

The name of the mission? In the Ladies We Trust. Over and out.

Before this missive arrived, the Basset Halloween plan had been tangled and disorganized. Members of the Loyal Order had disagreed as to what constituted something funny, and what was worth the trouble.

Dean had suggested they all dress as pirates—but was vetoed because pirates were so 2006, and besides, that wasn’t a prank. Alpha had suggested painting the Guppy again, but Matthew shot that down as repetitive and too un-Bassetty. Sam had thought they should mow the shape of a giant basset hound into the grass of the quad, but it was argued that no one would know what it was and the lawn mower would make too much noise for a covert operation. Callum had argued for getting hold of thirty pumpkins, writing “Loyal Order of the Basset Hound” on them in Sharpie marker, and piling them in front of the door to the main building, obstructing entry. This would be done at five a.m. and would cause a great fuss when students first tried to go to class. But Alpha pooh-poohed this as dumb, while Matthew argued that facilities maintenance would remove the pumpkins before anyone even noticed them.

Finally it was agreed to fork the main quad (tines up) so that, viewed from above, the forks spelled out BEWARE THE BASSET. Sam and Porter were assigned to heist several jumbo boxes of plastic forks from the Front Porch. They and two less significant (but older) members of the Order were to wake at dawn and shove the forks into the grass, with Tristan and Callum overseeing from their dorm room, which had a window onto the quad.

Thursday morning, however, with Alpha departed for yogaland, all Bassets received the above e-mail, canceling the forking in favor of In the Ladies We Trust. In addition, each member of the Loyal Order received a private e-mail detailing his particular mission.

When Alabaster students awoke on Halloween morning, they found that the portraits of headmasters, literary figures, and board members on the walls of the main building, the science building, and the arts complex had been adorned with colorful brassieres in varying sizes. The founder himself wore a pink floral demi-cup, while the previous headmaster wore an enormous, navy blue support garment. No paintings were damaged in the process; each bra was affixed with clear plastic wire that tied around the back of the frame.

A small nymph statue near the pond wore a practical underwire in beige. The Guppy wore a hot-purple A-cup. Even the large tree in front of the library sported a bright red double-D from the sale bin at Victoria’s Secret in town. The tag was still on, flapping gently in the October breeze.

The Hazelton library dome, which stood so proudly at the center of the campus, had been outfitted in a large, pale brown parachute—the kind designed for after-school activities and pee-wee gym class. In the center of the parachute, the dome’s nub had been painted a rosy pink, and in case anyone missed the idea, from the front of the library hung a large, painted sign reading: IN THE LADIES WE TRUST. On every campus notice board there was posted a note, a replica of which was soon delivered to every mailbox, both student and faculty.

REGARDING THE HALLOWEEN MASQUERADE

Even the dead among you will notice that our esteemed headmasters and board members— together with Mark Twain and the uninteresting scientists whose portraits hang in the sciences building—plus the tree in front of Hazelton, the Guppy, the nymph, even the dome itself, have finally, after years of watching the students’ Halloween festivities with unabashed longing, dressed up for the holiday.

No longer must they stare sadly from the confines of their frames and architectural moorings. Now they can celebrate with the rest of us.

In the Ladies We Trust!

Happy Halloween.

At the bottom of the page, each notice was stamped with the rubber stamp that replicated the sealing-wax design on the golf course party invitations: a droopy-eared basset hound.

On Halloween morning, Frankie Landau-Banks, though she hadn’t slept all night, had been in her bed from ten p.m. until shortly before breakfast.

When the portrait of the second Alabaster headmaster that hung in the lobby of the caf revealed himself in an electric-yellow padded bra, Frankie evinced sleepy-eyed, innocent surprise. She ate with Matthew and the other Bassets, all of whom looked pale and heavy-lidded, but among whom there was a distinct (though unspoken) atmosphere of triumph. Frankie wondered if any of them suspected her, half wanting them to know, and half hoping they’d never find out.

Over the course of the morning, no one spoke of anything else. As she left history class, Frankie caught up with Trish, Star, and Claudia.

“Why bras? That’s what I wonder,” Claudia was saying.

“Ooh, did you see the little pink demi-cup on the founder? That one is seriously cute,” said Star. “I would totally wear that.”

“I think it’s like making fun of women,” said Trish. “Like saying, look how stupid these old guys look wearing clothes that women wear every single day.”

“I think it’s more like objectification.” Claudia shook her head. “Like making the library dome into a giant boob so everyone could gawk at it. All these guys were making boob jokes in math this morning.”

“Same thing,” said Trish.

“I don’t think so. One is objectification and one is denigration,” said Claudia, ever the poser.

“Don’t they go hand in hand?”

Frankie began wondering if she could make an inpea from
denigration
.
Nigration
: appreciation, upholding of value.

Maybe not.

“I just think it’s funny!” Star was saying. “Maybe it’s just saying, boobs are great! Because they are. I bet guys secretly wish they had them. Like they made the library into a giant goddess boob. Don’t you think that could be it?”

“Couldn’t it be pointing out how there are like, no women in any of the paintings on campus?” said Frankie. “Couldn’t it be saying, ‘Where are the women to fill out these bras?’”

“That’s true, too!” cried Star, wiggling. “The nymph is the only girl.”

“Did you know,” Frankie went on as casually as she could, “that girls make up fifty-two percent of the student body here, but only about twenty percent of the upper administration?”

“Oh, wow. Now you’re geeking out,” said Star.

“Shut up.” This from Trish.

“Well, like who knows that kind of thing?” Star asked. “It’s so weird that she would know that.”

Frankie ignored the insult. People were talking about what she’d done. She was happy just to be on their minds, whatever their opinions. “Ooh!” she cried, as if she’d just had a thought. “What if we consider that maybe all those bra-wearing founders and headmasters are trying to get in touch with their feminine side? They’re dressing in drag, the way so many guys do on Halloween, because it’s their only chance to experience any of the power of femininity?”

Claudia raised her eyebrows. “I don’t think so.”

“But the note said ‘In the Ladies We Trust,’” persisted Frankie.

“I still think it’s making fun of us,” said Trish.

“Yay for the power of femininity!” cried Star.

The brassieres remained up until after lunch, when the maintenance team finished the usual morning tasks and began to untie them. The library boob (or “Library Lady” as we shall henceforth term it) remained up for most of the day, until workers equipped for scaling the roof could be located and hired. Mail delivery at noon, containing a copy of the aforementioned note for every member of the Alabaster community, started everyone talking all over again.

Matthew was positively buoyant, Frankie could tell—though he didn’t say a word to her about the prank beyond feigning innocence and admiration.

Frankie was glad he was gruntled.

And she was angry that he wouldn’t tell her why.

Both.

A VAMP

When Alpha Tesorieri arrived back

on campus Sunday evening, a last-minute meeting of the Loyal Order convened in the dark by the bridge at the edge of the pond. Frankie watched from the woods.

Stiff from four days of yoga, he rapidly consumed a large bag of potato chips while his dogs reported to him. Alpha’s mastery of the situation was remarkable.

Frankie had expected him to be furious at her hijacking of the Halloween prank. Expected to witness a thrashing and scolding of the dogs.

Eventually, she figured, he would suspect someone outside the pack and finally accuse her, angry but admiring her genius, acknowledging her as the superior mind.

But that is not what happened.

Though it was clear to Frankie that at first Alpha had no inkling of what had transpired at Alabaster over Halloween, he coolly and jovially lobbed back every conversational ball that came his way.

“Dog, I’m so glad you had us ditch the forks,” said Sam. “I was not looking forward to that.”

There was only the smallest beat before Alpha said, “It wasn’t good enough.”

“Brilliant,” said Matthew. “I mean, really brilliant. You’re an evil genius.”

Alpha slapped him on the back. “That’s my aim. Evil genius.”

“Seriously,” continued Matthew. “No one could have done better.”

“Thanks. Dog, you and I should talk later.”

“Where’d you find that parachute?” asked Callum.

“What?”

“The parachute.”

“The Internet, where else?” answered Alpha.

“The e-mails were excellent,” said Dean. “I don’t know why we never thought of that, doing stuff through a mailing list.”

“And how did you know where to buy the bras, dog?” asked Callum.

Alpha vamped. “Bras? You mean, bras?” He cupped his hands to his chest.

“Bras.”

Alpha’s voice betrayed none of the confusion he must have felt. “Hello. I have a girlfriend. But don’t worry. I got the info out of her without her suspecting a thing.”

“That letter was genius.” Dean shook his head.

“You liked it?” He was poking for more information.

“Oh, yeah. ‘In the Ladies We Trust!’”

“I did that before I left.”

“How’d you get the gym key?” Sam wanted to know.

“Oh, I have my ways. My secret contacts.”

“Porter nearly killed himself on that roof.”

“Hey, Porter. Proving yourself worthy of the crown, excellent.”

“Alpha,” called Porter. “I have a question—”

“Dogs!” interrupted Alpha. “I have some serious caloric deprivation to make up for, and I haven’t seen Elizabeth in four days. Can we cut this short now, if there’s no agenda? I’ll be in touch.”

“Yes, oh Basset King.”

Frankie sat on her sweater, some ten feet back from them in the dark. She didn’t move until every one of them had wandered away.

She should have known this would happen. How had she not foreseen?

Alpha was taking credit.

Well, if he was going to play it that way, Frankie was going to raise the stakes.