Page 5 of The Ugly Stepsister Strikes Back

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 actuallysmiled. 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.

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