My Know-It-All Nemesis - Maggie Dallen Page 0,4

Sometimes. Like the fact that we were all heading back to Sweet Mountain in Tim’s van rather than the school-provided transportation. Sure, I’d forged some parental signatures, but what was I supposed to do? Ride in the back of a gross-smelling school bus for the entire ride back to town?

I didn’t think so.

Anyway, she’d struck a nerve with all the not-so-subtle insinuations that I couldn’t earn the presidency through merit. Like I wasn’t busting my butt on a daily basis to get good grades and participate in extracurriculars.

Just because my parents had money didn’t mean I was slacking in any way. I worked harder than anyone I knew, and the fact that she made it sound like I was some spoiled, entitled, dumb jock had me seeing red.

So yeah, it had not been my finest hour. But when I’d seen my little sister’s Barbie—the one that came with glasses and a briefcase—it had struck me as funny.

Not ha-ha funny, necessarily, but kind of fitting. All petite and cute with the blonde ponytail, the big blue eyes, and the hourglass figure…the similarity had been striking.

It wasn’t like I’d been making fun of her for being smart, or pretty, or having a smokin’ hot body—more than anything, I’d just wanted to call her out on how she took everything so freakin’ seriously.

She had no clue how to take a joke, especially one at her expense. A fact that was made alarmingly clear by the war path she’d gone down when she’d found that Barbie sign taped up next to one of her perfect, cutesy little posters.

Logan handed the blank application back to me with a little smirk. “You gonna play nice this time?”

I rolled my eyes. “I have to.”

“Or Kate will kill you?” one of the guys said.

I let out a huff of amusement at the thought of an irate Kate. She was cute, in a terrifying kind of way, when she was feeling murderous. I knew this better than anyone because it seemed she pretty much always wanted to strangle me.

“Brainy Barbie,” Tim said with a moronic laugh from the driver’s seat. Tim, who hadn’t seemed to care at all that he wasn’t going to be president. Tim, who’d set out to be student council vice president to make his parents and guidance counselor happy, but who openly stated, on more than one occasion, that he planned to do as little work as humanly possible.

Tim, who was still shaking his head with laughter over a stupid joke I’d made at Kate’s expense nearly six months ago.

The fact that Tim still found it funny made me shift in my seat uncomfortably. Tim had the sense of humor of a fifth grader. I wasn’t exactly proud of the fact that I could make him laugh.

“She was so pissed,” Cal said with a shake of his head. He wore a little smile, and I had a feeling he, too, was thinking about how cute she looked when she was angry.

Cute but lethal. A bunny rabbit with fangs. I kind of wanted to say that to Cal just to wipe that smile off his face.

“It was supposed to be a joke,” I said for the millionth time.

“Mr. Gentry was not amused,” Cal said, stating the obvious.

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously though...how many seventeen-year-old girls do you know who’ve never worn jeans to school?” I asked. “Not once.”

Everybody laughed good-naturedly, but they didn’t comment.

Here was the thing. Everyone loved Kate. They adored her, actually. She was like the school’s unofficial mascot. The one everyone turned to when they needed help with an assignment or needed a shoulder to cry on. She was reliable, dependable, sweet and cheerful.

To everyone but me.

I had no idea what I’d done to her my first week of school two years ago, but somehow, I’d managed to get on her bad side. And trust me when I say, you did not want to be on Kate’s bad side.

Of course, when I made comments like that to the guys, they just laughed. They had no idea. They looked at her and saw a cuddly little teddy bear.

I saw the grizzly bear beneath the smiley facade.

“I don’t know,” one of the guys said right on cue. “I kind of like the way she dresses. She looks cute in those little skirts of hers.”

Her style wasn’t cute, it was conservative. She gave new meaning to the terms straightlaced and uptight. She was like an overgrown Sunday school kid in pale pink dresses with lace collars