Romance of the Snob Squad by Julie Anne Peters Page A

an hour every week.”
    “You’re not paying a penny,” Mom snarled. “The cost of all this counseling is coming out of my insurance. Since I’m the only one working.”
    The sofa creaked. I glanced over to see that Vanessa had curled into the corner of the couch, hugging her knees. Her eyes were transfixed on the TV. I’d had about as much of
The Brady Bunch
as I could stomach. Speaking of stomachs…I tossed my half-eaten slice of pizza back into the box, closed the cover, and escaped with it to my room for a brain-numbing blast of heavy metal music and mozzarella.

Chapter 16
    T he next morning as Lydia, Max, Prairie, and I were heading for class, someone shouted, “Hey, guys. Wait.” That someone was Hugh. We all stopped and turned. Hugh smacked right into my back, almost as if he meant to. Weirdo. Something sharp, his slide rule probably, stuck in my spine. Go ahead, I thought, add physical pain to my emotional and psychological distress.
    “Sorry,” Hugh mumbled.
    “Want to get off my foot?” I said.
    He stepped back. “I, uh…” He gulped. “Do you mind if I talk to… to Prairie?”
    “No,” Lydia said. “Go ahead.”
    Bunching up Lydia’s polyester sleeve in one hand and Max’s canvas camouflage jacket in the other, I said, “He means alone.”
    “Oh,” Lydia replied.
    I yanked Lydia and Max ahead. Prairie smiled gratefully at me.
    We couldn’t hear them, but we did see Hugh write something down and nod before he plodded off. Prairie just stood there, gaping. We bustled back to her.
    “Well?” Lydia attacked her. “What did he want? Did he ask you to the dance?”
    “N-no.”
    “Well, did he mention the glamour photos?”
    “Y-yes.” Prairie’s eyes filled with tears.
    Lydia squeezed her arm. “Did he say something about them? Something mean?”
    “N-no.” She sniffled. “He thought they were b-beautiful.”
    “He must need an emergency eye exam,” I mumbled.
    Lydia said, “What else did he want? What did he write down?”
    Prairie bit her bottom lip. “He wanted J-Jenny’s phone number.”
    They all looked at me.
    “Huh? Why would he want my number?”
    Lydia’s eyes narrowed. “Why else?” she snarled. “He’s going to ask
you
to the dance!”
    I heard Prairie tell Mrs. Jonas she wanted to skip science and spend the whole day in the resource room, catching up on assignments. Quickly I rushed over to the pencil sharpener so that I could talk to her before she left. So that I could tell her I wasn’t interested in Hugh Torkerson. Get real. But when Prairie saw me waiting there, she deliberately went out the long way, through the back door.
    Sometimes life stinks. Like most of the time, if you believed Vanessa. Which I was beginning to. Prairie hated me. And I didn’t blame her. I blamed Lydia. “This is all your fault,” I told her on the way to the science lab. “You just had to play Cupid. Stupid, stupid Cupid.”
    “I didn’t do anything,” Lydia flared. “You’re the one who was flirting with Hugh.”
    I shoved her against the lockers. “I was not!”
    Max stepped between us. “Cool it,” she said. “You’re gonna get us busted.”
    Lydia stretched her neck out around Max’s arm. “This was all your idea, Jenny.”
    “My idea!”
    “You’re the one who thought up Herd a Nerd.”
    “Well,
you
had to take glamour photos.”
    Lydia clucked. “That was Max’s idea.”
    We both glared up at Max.
    “Shut up,” she growled. “It’s all our faults. We shoulda just butted out.”
    I took a deep breath. “Max is right. We never should’ve gotten involved in Prairie’s love life. All for one, and one for all. What a crock.”
    Lydia hung her head.
    “Look, it’s my fault, okay?” I said. I was their leader. I was responsible.
    Lydia must’ve taken it the wrong way. “So you
are
interested in Hugh. You admit it.”
    “I do not!” I cried. “And I’m not flirting with him, either. God. Tork the Dork?”
    “He’s not that bad,” Lydia