Page 4 of The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back

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 cupcake 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?"

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