The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back Read online

  So instead I just shook my head no.

  "Then it would be my recommendation that you get more involved here at the school. Not only will it look good on your applications, but you need to make certain you're current on your volunteering hours. Do you have any immediate plans for becoming more involved both here at school and in the community? "

  I knew she was right, unfortunately. I didn't intend to attend an Ivy League school, but the school I wanted to go to, UC Santa Ana, would want more than good SAT scores, decent grades and an awesome portfolio. I had to show them that I could make the ultimate sacrifice and find some club at school that would deign to have me.

  She stared at me, unblinking, and I wondered how long she could go without blinking. Oh, she wanted me to say something. Immediate plans for volunteering. Right. "I'm, um, helping Ella out with her charity ball." Total white lie, of course, but I knew I only had to ask Ella what I could do to pitch in and she would immediately include me.

  "Ah. Ella." Ms. Rathbone said her name the way all adults did—with this mixture of admiration and approval. So irksome. "That will help with your volunteering hours, but I think you should still find a way to be even more involved here at school."

  She grabbed a bunch of fliers from the table behind her chair and handed them to me. "These are some clubs and groups you might consider joining."

  As I took the fliers, she added, "This might also be a chance for you to make some new friends."

  She said it lightly, but I got the implication. My cheeks flushed. It was really embarrassing that even the headmistress knew that I was a social misfit.

  I started to flip through them. Chess club. Um, no. I wasn't up for social suicide, thanks.

  Football boosters? Again, no. Bunch of wannabes that couldn't make the cheer squad.

  Student government. Hmm. I'd never been much of a joiner, but this one had actual merit. Jake was running for president. I was suddenly struck by the amazing idea of running for a lesser office. Treasurer or secretary or something throwaway like that. Then we'd have another class together and he would have to talk to me and spend time with me because we'd be running the student government together.

  Brilliant.

  All I had to do was get elected.

  Chapter 3

  We had an unscheduled fire drill during third period that bled into fourth, and they finally dismissed us to go have lunch.

  Trent had saved me a place in line. He wasn't hard to spot. He looked a little like a cross between a zombie and an Abercrombie model. Over the summer the school board had decided to make some changes. The first was the introduction of the horrendously awful polyester-blend uniforms we now had to wear. So Trent wore his piercings and guyliner and his hair spiked up in thirty different directions in true emo fashion, but from the neck down he looked pure preppy with a blue polo shirt and tan Dockers.

  I couldn't even tease him about it, because I knew I looked no better.

  "Hey," I said when I got in line. He had his earbuds in and couldn't hear me. I grabbed a tray and tried to figure out which of the things in front of me was the least disgusting. I adjusted my black horn-rimmed glasses, as if they would help me in my selection. They weren't prescription or anything; I just liked the way they looked.

  Malibu Prep may have been a great school, but they had run of the mill cafeteria food.

  Normally you'd never catch me buying my lunch. But in addition to the uniforms, the board had decided to ban lunches from home. We were now required to buy all of our lunches at school.

  They claimed this was to ensure that all the students would eat healthier. I thought it was a way to boost revenue, because nothing in front of me looked edible, let alone healthy.

  The school board had wisely made all of these decisions during the summer when everyone from school had been on vacation. Not our family, because my dad's idea of a vacation was to spend twelve hours in the studio instead of sixteen. But everyone else had left, so there had been no one here to protest.

  Trent finally noticed me, and raised his eyebrows in greeting. I followed him to a table in Outer Siberia. The A-list kids sat in the middle of the cafeteria, and the fringe groups settled in around them. We sat about as far away from Jake Kingston and his friends as possible.

  And just like I had done every day since I was nine years old, I watched for Jake. There. He was laughing at something Scott said to him, and I sighed. So pretty.

  The worst thing about Jake was not just that the likelihood that he would ever speak to me was incredibly low, but that he was totally off limits. And I didn't just mean in our social statuses at school, but as I had to keep reminding myself, he was Ella's boyfriend. Not that you'd know it. I almost never saw them together. Even now Ella rode to school with Trent and me, and ate lunch every day with us instead of Jake and his entourage. I couldn't blame her, because Jake's friends did royally suck.

  But even if the heavens parted, trumpets sounded and a great miracle occurred with Jake asking me out on a date, I would have to say no. The Girl Code said that I was not allowed to date my stepsister's boyfriend. And I was absolutely forbidden to try and steal him away from her.

  Not that I could, but the thought had crossed my mind (although in that particular scenario I was half a foot shorter and blonder and thinner and brimming with self-confidence).

  Speaking of stepsisters, I saw Ella out of the corner of my eye. She was one of the few girls at school who could actually carry off the uniform look. I couldn't figure out why it looked so amazing on her and so awful on me. She saw me, waved and then came over to sit with us.

  Which meant she wouldn't be sitting with Jake. Again. I didn't get it. Shouldn't one of the perks of dating the hottest guy in school be spending every waking moment with him, basking in his beauty?

  They were the weirdest couple I'd ever seen.

  "Hey guys!" Did I fail to mention how cheerful Ella was? I mean, I knew it was implied with her being a cheerleader, but she was easily the happiest person I knew.

  It made me grouchy.

  "Nice salad," I pointed to Ella's tray. The wilted lettuce looked particularly unappetizing.

  "I have to eat some food," Ella replied, but she looked as grossed out as I felt.

  "Salad isn't food. Salad is what food eats."

  I was the only carnivore of the group. Both Trent and Ella were vegetarians. This severely limited our options when we all went out to eat together. They also took different tactics in trying to convert me to the dark side. Trent kept trying to show me pictures of slaughterhouses on his phone. Ella attempted to give me tofu, claiming it tasted just like meat. Only a vegetarian would think tofu and meat tasted even remotely the same. At least it gave Ella and Trent something to bond over—what a savage barbarian I was.

  But today they could probably make headway with me given how disgusting the meatloaf looked. I pushed my tray away.

  "I forgot to get some milk," Ella said. "Do you guys want anything?"

  "I want some processed sugar." Ella gave me a sympathetic smile and then turned to Trent, who was still engrossed with his phone. "Trent?" He looked up and then shook his head no.

  "Okay, be back in a second." That was another thing I'd been noticing lately—the way that Trent's eyes followed Ella everywhere. Trent and I had this weird kind of friendship. We sort of fell into it in junior high, as two fellow outcasts. We hung out, we had fun, I made him watch my collection of '80s movies, but to be honest, I didn't know that we had all that much in common other than snarking at each other.

  He wasn't someone I could see myself ever interested in, so I wasn't jealous that he had a thing for Ella, but slightly annoyed that she had taken yet another boy I cared about.

  I knew I wasn't being fair. Ella wouldn't date Trent and she wasn't trying to make him like her.

  But still.

  "I know it's only been two days, but can I say how sick I am of living in this fascist state? If I want to have a lunch that consists of a chocolate cupc
ake and a Diet Coke followed by a Pixy Stix chaser, that's my constitutional right."

  "So do something about it."

  "What?" Had Trent Holden actually just told me to "do something about it?" He was the original laid-back, mellow, do-nothing sort of guy.

  He pulled out one earbud and shrugged his shoulder. "I don't know. Maybe it's time to start doing something. We're both guilty of complaining or wanting something and then we don't do anything to make it better. You want to bring your own lunch again? Then do something." His voice had a tinge of anger in it, which surprised me even more. I'd never heard him mad before.

  "Like what?"

  He shrugged again.

  My next thought was that now two people in one day had suggested I get more involved. Maybe it was a sign from heaven. Or an omen of doom. I didn't know which. My dad had seriously neglected my religious education.

  Before I could ask him why he was upset, I noticed Mercedes Bentley hovering near our table having a conversation with one of her minions. She was our resident token evil girl whose personal credo is "Random Acts of Meanness." I had always flown under her radar until last year when Ella came to Malibu Prep. I was guessing that because she couldn't afford to be vicious to Ella, whom everybody loved, I was fair game. Hurt me to hurt Ella or something.

  She stepped closer to our table to be sure I heard what she said next. "The likelihood of that happening is about the same as Mattie getting a ride in Jake Kingston's car." Several of her little friends laughed in response.

  I didn't know if that was supposed to be a euphemism, or if she was being literal. I decided she wasn't smart enough to talk with subtext.

  Ever since Jake turned sixteen and got his two-seater car (I didn't know what brand it was. It was one of those red kinds), it was every girl's ambition to be the person in that second seat. The thing was, Jake hardly ever gave anyone a ride. The few girls who had been carted around by him had major bragging rights. You'd think Ella would be riding shotgun every single day. I would. But I didn't think she'd ever been in his car. I didn't know if he was just weird about it and didn't offer, or if Ella refused. Ella and I did NOT talk about Jake, for obvious reasons. Well, obvious to me, anyway.

  The point was that girls had been devious and underhanded in their attempts. One girl faked an injury; another punctured her own tire. Riding with him was a Malibu Prep status symbol.

  So it wasn't like Jake specifically excluded me from his precious ride. Still, my stomach tightened and my brain turned to mush every time Mercedes made one of her little digs at me.

  I, uncharacteristically, found myself floundering whenever she did this. Later on I would think of a thousand perfect retorts, but never any when it mattered.

  The best I could do was, "There's a better 'likelihood' of me getting a ride from Jake than you."

  Mercedes whipped her long, blonde extensions behind one shoulder with her perfectly manicured hand. "You think so? Really?"

  She shouldn't care. She was Scott's girlfriend. Although, if I were Scott's girlfriend I'd upgrade to Jake faster than you could say, "See ya!" I think she was just mad because I dared to talk back.

  "Well," she said in a low voice, "I'll have to run that one past Jake and see what he thinks."

  I didn't know how she had figured out that I liked Jake. But a lot of her catty remarks centered around him and how he didn't like me. She gave me a fake, smug smile and walked away with her little ducklings in tow.

  Round 457 to Mercedes. She had the ability to go to Jake and make me look like some sort of crazy nutjob whose one ambition in life was to get a ride in his car. I watched uneasily as she sidled up to Scott, putting her arms around him and whispering something in his ear. He laughed, and then turned to look at me.

  I had to look down at the table. I couldn't be a witness to the expression on Jake's face when she made me seem insane.

  "I can't stand that girl," I muttered.

  "Someone who was named unironically after two cars is not worth listening to. You can't take anything she says seriously."

  I knew Trent was right. My brain knew it. I knew Mercedes Bentley was a vacuous, spray-tanned, silicon-injected, nose-altered waste of space. I logically also knew that Jake didn't like me and never would.

  So why did it hurt so much when someone as stupid as Mercedes pointed it out?

  Chapter 4

  I watched Trent and Ella walk down the front steps toward his car. She said something to him, and he turned to her and smiled. He actually smiled. He hardly ever smiled. Then he pulled out one of his earbuds and offered it to her. He'd never shared his music with me. She didn't even have to try and this happened.

  I stomped down the hallway and took the northwest stairs. Ms. Rathbone had said detention would be in Room 203. It was the third door on the right on the second floor.

  "Hello, Mattie." My art teacher, Mrs. Putnam, sat at the desk, giving me a look that was a cross between disappointment and a smile. The word I thought of when I saw her was "soft" --like she was blurred around the edges. I noticed that she had pulled her light brown hair into a messy bun held together with a pencil and had several multi-colored streaks of chalk on her face, clothes and fingertips. She was one of the few teachers I actually liked, and it was embarrassing to have her find out that I misbehaved outside of her classroom.

  A laptop was propped open next to the door. It asked for my student ID and password. I entered the number and used my current go-to password that consisted of my birthday and my favorite anime artist, tezuka827. I hit the enter key.

  The screen flashed, "THANK YOU MATILDA LOWE. DETENTION CHECK-IN TIME 2:37 P.M."

  I told you it was an expensive school. (That, and Ms. Rathbone was obsessed with computerized record keeping.)

  Room 203 was bright and airy. The windows on the outer wall started halfway up, curved at the corner where the ceiling began, and made up part of the roof. This wing had the art studios because of the excellent light. Beyond the classroom I could see the landscaping crew tending to the bright green grounds (not fields, thank you, but grounds).

  Realizing that Mrs. Putnam was giving me a strange expression while I stared out the window, I quickly picked a desk in the middle of the room, sat down and dropped my bookbag on the floor next to me. I leaned over and pulled out my sketchpad and a pencil from my bag. I knew I should probably do my homework, but if I was going to sit in silence for the next hour, I was at least going to enjoy myself.

  I had just started sketching a rough outline for my Ms. Rathbone-inspired warrior when suddenly every ion in the room became electrically charged.

  Jake.

  I was so aware of him that it was actually lame. I knew when he walked in a room even if I didn't see him. I felt it. The air was different when he was breathing it.

  I heard the keys clicking on the laptop and watched as he entered his information into the computer. Jake had detention? Here? With me?

  Then I wondered why Jake would have detention. Jake was not the kind of person who ended up here. He didn't have a problem with authority figures like I did. What had he done?

  He looked up and I looked down at my sketchpad. I didn't know if Mercedes had already talked to him, and I didn't want to see pity or disgust or confusion or any of the expressions I imagined him having.

  "Hi, Mrs. Putnam," he said in that deep, rumbly, smooth voice. It had the tendency to melt my insides into a pile of goo.

  "Hello, Jake," she responded with an ever-so-slight flirtatious lilt at the edge of her voice. No woman was immune to the powers of Jake Kingston's charm.

  I kept my eyes trained on my sketchpad, still not wanting to look up. It wasn't an easy battle because I loved looking at him.

  So it shocked me when, out of the twenty-nine other seats in the classroom he could have picked, he sat down right in front of me. I would know the back of his head anywhere. Given our last names, Kingston and Lowe, I had been seated behind him in every class we'd shared for most of our lives.

&
nbsp; He pulled his phone out of his pocket and started typing. Electronic devices weren't allowed in detention, but rules didn't typically apply to Jake. I leaned to one side to see if Mrs. Putnam would say anything. But she looked distracted and a little anxious. She kept checking the clock. I again noticed the colored chalk on her fingers and blouse. She had the look of an artist who had been working on a piece and wanted to get back to it. Trust me, I knew this look very, very well.

  I wasn't the only one who noticed her fidgeting. "Mrs. Putnam, if you need to go, I think Mattie and I are responsible enough to watch ourselves."

  He knew my name! Well, obviously, he knew my name. He was dating my stepsister. But I didn't think I'd ever heard him say it out loud before. My heartbeat sped up.

  After I got over that initial shock of hearing my name pass across Jake's lips, I realized the brilliance of his plan. If Mrs. Putnam left, I'd be alone with Jake. For an entire hour.

  "The art studio is right down the hall," I pointed out helpfully. "You could come back and check on us and we would just log out when our hour is up. We promise to be quiet and stay put." I was trustworthy. She knew me well. And Jake was the center of Malibu Prep's universe. It wasn't like we were hardened criminals or something.

  "I shouldn't…" She had an expressive face, and I could see her desire to go fighting with her duty to stay. She looked at the clock again.

  "We'll be fine," Jake reassured her.

  Several seconds passed before she stood up. "I will be in my studio if you need anything and I will come back to check on you."

  I smirked. No she wouldn't. If she was anything at all like my dad, she'd get so caught up in whatever she was doing that a couple of hours would pass before she'd remember us.

  Her high heels made a clickety-clack sound as they walked across the laminate floor. She paused at the door, giving us a stern look. "Right down the hall," she reminded us one last time and then she left.