Page 37 of The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back

"Well, you two have fun."

But Ella being Ella, she stopped me before I left the room. "Are you going to be okay?"

So selfless. "Tonight is about you. Don't worry about me."

Trent had gone out to the hallway and opened the front door. "Promise me you won't obsess about stupid Mercedes. I think the worst is over."

I should have told her to knock on wood.

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Chapter 13

I don't know what time she got home, but the next morning on our way to school, Ella bubbled over with excitement as she described her date with Trent in excruciating detail. It made me feel like I had actually been there. Which was kind of creeping me out.

We pulled into the mostly empty parking lot. Ella wanted to record the announcement spot and for us to put up some more posters. I wasn't sure that there was any blank wall space left, but she was determined.

Dad had lent us his car, and Ella had put our posters in the back. She picked them up and started looking around.

"What's going on?"

"I swear I put a bag in the car that had a bunch of sticky-tack in it. I don't see it."

I looked in the backseat and on the floor and didn't see it either.

She sighed. "I need that. I'll have to go home and get it."

"Wait, so you just want me to go to the recording studio by myself to wait for Jake?"

"You can face him. But if you're being a coward, you can go hide in a bathroom. I'll text you when I get back."

The cowardly way sounded very appealing. I went through the school's front doors and noted the absolute silence before stopping short.

Every single wall was covered with copies of all of my Jake pictures. The breeze I caused by opening the doors made the ones in the hallway ruffle before settling back down. They were in every color imaginable; every picture I had ever drawn of him up there on the walls for every kid in school to see.

I grabbed one off the wall. Someone had circled my signature in the bottom right corner. At the top of the pictures it said, "Even Mattie Lowe wants you to vote for Jake Kingston."

The breath in my throat solidified and I felt like I was choking. I started ripping the posters off as fast as I could. My heart pounded in my chest, and a million cold, slithering snakes wound themselves into knots inside of my stomach.

Who did this?

How would I get them all down before school started and everyone saw my pictures? I mean, it was bad enough Jake had already seen them. It was like someone had posted pages of my diary up. Like they'd ripped my heart out of my chest and tacked it on the wall.

I would never get these off the wall in time. With fumbling hands I pulled out my cell phone. It took me forever to send a text to Ella explaining what had happened because I kept pressing the wrong keys. I told her to get Trent and come to school as soon as possible, that we had an emergency on our hands.

I continued yanking the pictures off the wall until I heard someone say, "What do you think you're doing? I spent a lot of time putting those up."

Whirling around, I found myself face to face with Mercedes Bentley. "You did this?"

She looked at me smugly, and her expression reminded me of the snake we'd had as a class pet in second grade. Cold, vicious and predatory.

"What is wrong with you?"

"Wrong with me? I'm not the one everybody makes fun of. You're so pathetic with your little crush. Jake knows how you feel about him. Do you think he's your friend? Do you think he actually likes you?" With every word she said, she took a step closer to me. She let out a little laugh. "So, so sad. I'll be honest with you since nobody else will be. Jake is using you. He's not over Ella."

"He said he was over her."

She laughed again. "Aw, did he tell you that he was? That he never really liked her? That's what he told us he'd say. He laid out his whole plan for us. All he cares about is getting back together with her, and he's using you to do it. And by the time he's finished with you, you'll be so heartbroken that running for president will be the last thing on your sad little mind."

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