My Know-It-All Nemesis - Maggie Dallen Page 0,3

be no wiggle room and no excuses. If I get a whiff of tension between you two, or if either of you tries anything unfair…”

“We won’t,” I said.

“You have my word,” Miller said.

I held my breath as Mr. Gentry studied us for another long moment. “Very well,” he said with a small smile. “You two have one more shot to compete like the honest, kind, morally sound young individuals I know you to be.”

I shot Miller another look. I was kind and honest, but Miller? Ha! That was a stretch.

I kept quiet though, and Miller did as well, though I just knew he was thinking the same thing about me.

Jerk.

Mr. Gentry sighed wearily, like he could hear our thoughts even though we’d kept our mouths shut. “Get back to class,” he said. We scrambled up out of our seats and headed toward the door. “One more thing,” he said when we both reached for the doorknob at the same time.

We both looked back to find him watching us with wry amusement. “Don’t make me regret my decision.”

2

Miller

Why do you want to be Student Council President?

I frowned down at the student council application on my lap as the guys in the van around me rehashed the game for the tenth time.

“Yo, Miller,” my buddy Cal smacked me upside the head from where he sat in the back with his friend Luke. “You doing homework, man?”

“It’s game day, dude,” our kicker, Logan, said.

As if I didn’t know. As if I wasn’t just out there on the field alongside them playing a winning game against our rivals.

One of the guys on the bench seat in front of me leaned over and snatched the paper out of my hand. I held back a sigh of irritation. This was due back to Mr. Gentry on Monday, and I hadn’t even started.

No doubt Kate had finished hers up by the end of the day Thursday. Maybe even minutes after Pauline had given us our applications on the way out the door.

Yup. Kate’s application was definitely finished, in perfect penmanship, and lying neat and tidy on top of Mr. Gentry’s desk right now, I’d bet my life on it. And me?

I rubbed at my eyes as the guys around me continued talking way too loudly for the small confines of this passenger van.

I hadn’t even started the stupid thing. I didn’t have the first clue what to write. And now I’d have to fight to get it back and try to iron out the wrinkles after my teammates manhandled it.

“Give it back, man,” I said, reaching forward. But Logan was reading it over.

“You running for student council president?” Logan asked.

“Again?” one of the guys added.

This made everyone laugh, including me. I’d be the first to admit, my rivalry with Kate had gotten a little out of hand last semester. I would not admit that it was all my fault, however much Kate wanted to hear me say it.

The girl was just as competitive as I was, if not more so. And when push came to shove? Well, let’s just say that girl could push her way out of a maximum-security prison if she put her mind to it.

She was fierce. But it was useless trying to convince anyone else of that. All these fools saw was the cheery smile, the long blonde ponytail, and the preppy clothes.

“Dude,” Cal was chuckling in the backseat behind me. “Didn’t you get in trouble for calling her…” He looked to Luke. “What was it?”

“Business School Barbie,” one of the guys up front answers.

“No, MBA Barbie,” someone else said.

They were both wrong. It was Brainiac Barbie, and I wasn’t terribly proud of myself for that particular jibe. Contrary to what Kate liked to tell people, I wasn’t some misogynistic jerk who thought a woman couldn’t be smart and sexy and anything else she wanted to be.

I just couldn’t stand how holier-than-thou Kate had been through the whole campaign. She was telling anyone who’d listen that this wasn’t a popularity contest—as if she wasn’t popular too. She kept bringing up football like it was my life—it wasn’t. I wasn’t even first string, and the only reason I still played was to have the added bonus of a sport on my college applications.

Then she started in on how I didn’t have any original ideas, insinuating that I was somehow trying to buy the election just because I threw the best parties and pulled some strings for my buddies. Did I pull some strings? Sure.