years. She’s not part of this rivalry.”
“Her brothers are the ones leading the attacks against us,” Kevin snapped. “She’s as much a part of it as any of us. And I have to say, Greg, it doesn’t look very good to have our class president being seen in public with a Trojan.”
Greg stood straighter, holding his shoulders back as he stared Kevin down. “Are you going to do something about it? You’re class
vice
president, not president, remember?”
Even though I worried a little that Kevin might dosomething, I had to admit that Greg looked really hot when he was defending my honor.
“Come on, guys,” said laptop girl from her seat in the booth. “We have a lot of work to go over and I have to be home in an hour. Have your macho showdown some other time.”
The guys stared at each other a moment longer, then Kevin slid into the booth with the other two girls sliding in next to him.
“Tell Elena Argos that Spartans don’t forget people who betray them,” the brunette girl told me, her face twisted into a sneer.
Greg grabbed my arm and steered me toward the door. “I’ll talk to you later, Cassie,” he told me.
“Okay” was all I managed to say before he led me out the door and then returned to his student council friends.
“We have to get them back,” Kelsey said, three days later, thumping her fist on Elena’s desk.
We had gathered in Elena’s room after school. I laid on Elena’s white ruffled comforter, staring up at the ceiling where she’d stuck glow-in-the-dark stars.
“It really bothers me that we haven’t done anything ourselves yet,” Kelsey went on. “Specifically targeting the cheerleaders, I mean.”
“You’re right,” Mallory said. “We can’t let the guys fight our battle. And we can’t let the Spartan cheerleaders think they’re getting away with what they did.”
The run-in with the Lacede student council still occupied my mind. How could people I’d never met before have so much animosity toward me? I hadn’t even had a chance to say something inadvertently insulting or rude to them. Just because I went to Troy, they automatically hated me?
And why did Greg just push me out of the restaurant like that? Was he choosing them over me?
A pillow landed on my face, startling me.
“Stop zoning out and start offering some advice,” Elena said. “Any suggestions about what we can do to get the Spartan cheerleaders back?”
I sighed loudly. “I have no idea. Freeze their bras?”
“We’re not in sixth grade,” Mallory told me. “And how would we get access to their bras?”
“Fine,” I snapped. “Don’t ask me for help if you don’t want to listen to me.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Kelsey asked, shooting an annoyed look in my direction.
“Nothing,” I said.
Elena bounced onto the bed next to me, shaking me around. “Aw, come on, Cassie. You can tell us. We know something’s bothering you.”
“Did you get a bad grade on that algebra quiz?” Kelsey asked, patting my knee. “That’s okay. I heard Ms. Jenkins always throws out the lowest quiz scores at the end of the semester.”
“It’s not algebra,” I said. “It’s boys. Or one boy in particular.”
A squeal multiplied by three nearly shattered my eardrums.
“Tell us all about him,” Mallory said. “Do we know him?”
“Well, um …” I wasn’t too eager to tell Mallory and Kelsey that my boy problem was about a Spartan.
“You don’t know him; it’s a guy Cassie met a few summers ago,” Elena said quickly, jumping to my rescue. She must have guessed who the boy was. “What’s the problem?”
I rolled over and buried my face in the comforter. “What isn’t the problem? I kissed him a month ago and he just hasn’t said anything about it. He’s been acting weird ever since then. I’ve pretty much taken the hint that he doesn’t want to be anything more than friends, but couldn’t he have the common courtesy to just be honest?” I sat up, punching
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