The Only Thing Worse Than Me Is You (32 page)

“That's funny. From what Mary-Anne said, it seems both of those things concern you a lot. You worked really hard to make it to the top ten before the deadline for MIT applications. And Harper getting expelled didn't exactly ingratiate you to your brother—”

“Yeah, okay. Shut up a second,” he said, too distracted to be truly insulting. “I think the others are here.”

I clenched my teeth and folded my arms mutinously over my chest as the sound of thudding footsteps and spinning wheels got closer. B. Calistero came around the corner, his cheeks burning red as he skidded to a stop. I glanced at Jack, who scowled at me.

“What?” he asked. “You said your friends. I thought you liked the frosh. He follows you everywhere.”

B's face went vermilion.

“Have a seat, B,” I said. I was afraid he'd faint from all the blood in his body taking up residence in his skull. “Thanks for coming.”

He tripped over one of the wheels on his rolling backpack. “No problem!”

He settled onto the floor, a few feet away from me. As he collapsed the handle of his backpack, Nick and Brad filed into the aisle—the former short and blond, the latter tall and curly-haired. Meg, Cornell, and Peter followed, wearing matching looks of confusion. Mary-Anne brought up the rear, her pink fingernails sunk into the sleeve of Ben's jacket. She caught my eye and immediately dropped Ben's arm. He took a large step away from her and looked from me to Jack and back again.

“Are you being held hostage?”

“No,” I said.

“It looks like you guys are trying to bring back the feelings circle from Aragon.” Brad snorted.

“Let's sit down,” Peter said, sinking to the floor next to Jack.

Meg made a face. “Oh, I do not think so. Someone had better tell me what fresh hell this is.”

“Keep your voice down,” Jack said. “Haven't you ever been in a library before?”

“Don't you start with me, Jack Donnelly,” she hissed, thrusting her hands onto her hips. “You sent your goons in before any of us had a chance to finish eating.”

“We aren't goons,” Nick grumbled.

“Henchmen?” Ben offered, ignoring the glare that Nick threw at him. “And why did they get goons and I got smacked upside the head by Poet Laureate Barbie?”

“Because you are more combative than the others,” Mary-Anne said. She sat down on my side of the aisle, artfully tucking her legs to the side. She frowned at B and scooted closer to me.

I looked up at Meg, Cornell, and Ben. “It's not a trap. If you want, we can all go back to hating each other the second the bell rings. But I really need your help. Please.”

Meg sank to the ground. “I don't hate you, Trixie. You're just the most bullheaded person on the face of the planet.”

“There should be a book about that around here,” I said, gesturing at the stacks. When her mouth twitched, I let myself smile at her. “You're not a robot. And I am a bullheaded demon monster.”

“A minotaur?” offered B.

“The ancient Egyptians had a bull god, too,” said Brad.

“Apis,” Mary-Anne said.

“And this is what happens when you shove everyone from the top of the ranking list into one place,” Ben grumbled.

I hadn't considered it until now, but it was true. The top nine people on the senior ranking list were here. I felt a twinge of guilt that I'd never talked to Ishaan Singh. He would have rounded us out to the full ten.

I sat up straight and clasped my hands together. I'd never started a meeting before. It seemed best to begin talking before anyone thought of another horned deity. “Okay. Last night I found out something really important—”

Cornell blew out a breath as he sat down next to Nick. “If this is about Harper coming to get you guys after school, it's fine. I already know about it.”

I swiveled to look at him. “You do?”

Meg's leg shot out. She kicked Peter hard in the ankle.

“Ow,” Peter whined. “That was my good leg!”

“I know it was,” she snapped. “You weren't supposed to tell Cornell!”

“Why?” Peter sulked. He leaned forward to massage his ankle. “He deserved to know. I couldn't let him get blindsided. Just because he isn't my VP doesn't mean he's not my friend.”

“He's your VP for another two weeks,” Mary-Anne said idly. “Mendoza won't accept his resignation until after we get back from winter break.”

“Uh, I can hear you,” Cornell said, glowering. “So, if you want to cool it with the pronouns, that'd be great.”

Ben sneered at him. “Hey, man, you peaced out. We've had a full week to adjust to your absence.”

“This is not a student council meeting,” I said. My temples were starting to throb. I reached up and adjusted my ponytail. “And this is not about Cornell and Harper's relationship.”

Jack popped his knuckles. “Thank God.”

“Because their relationship failed to crystallize,” Meg said under her breath.

B's forehead creased into three margins. “But they were your control group, Meg.”

“Ix-nay, Brandon,” she whispered in a singsong.

Cornell turned on her. “Excuse me?”

“I'm really supposed to be in the office,” Nick piped up, putting his index finger in the air. “I help Mrs. Landry with clerical stuff during lunch as part of my scholarship and—”

“I found more tracks in the homework portal code,” I said loudly. “I can prove without a doubt that Harper isn't the hacker, but I need help figuring out who is.”

That shut everyone up.

“It's too late,” Cornell said faintly. He ran the flat of his hand against the grain of his scalp. “She's already at her interview at Marist.”

“Jesus, Peter.” Meg groaned. “Did you have to give him her entire itinerary?”

Peter folded his arms over his chest. “Yes.”

“It doesn't matter,” I said. “Jack was checking for IP addresses, not for time stamps. The person using Harper's IP address was logging in when Harper couldn't possibly have been near a computer.”

Jack did a decent impression of his brother's confused face. “Most of the homework switching happened between midnight and three in the morning.”

I shook my head. “But Harper's IP address was logging into Ben's account at all times of the day. Like when Harper was at the comic book store or on dates with Cornell or picking up her dad's dry cleaning. It didn't do anything in there, which”—I inclined my head to Jack—“is probably why you didn't notice it. It just logs in and logs out.”

“Of Ben's account?” Peter echoed.

“Ben me?” Ben asked.

“Try to keep up, geniuses,” Mary-Anne said.

“Why would someone change Cornell's grades, get Harper expelled, and spy on Ben's account?” I asked, trying to hold on to the thread of the conversation with both hands. “Why go into first, second, and fourth place, but skip third?”

Ben turned to me, his lips pressed into a khaki line. “Are you sure they didn't do anything to my account?”

“Nothing that I could see,” I said. “You haven't moved in the ranking at all.”

He huffed a laugh. “Yeah, well, we can't all default into the valedictorian spot.”

Cornell busied himself examining his fingernails.

Meg scrunched her nose. “They could have been trying to frame you and got Harper by mistake.”

“One, two, four,” B murmured. He combed the hair out of his face. “That's the beginning of a tetranacci sequence. Were there any attempts on number eight?”

“No,” Jack said. “That's Brad. I checked his account when I was going through the code.”

Brad punched him in the arm. “Thanks, man.”

“If it were anyone but Ben,” Mary-Anne said, “I'd think that someone was trying to look out for him. But since his only friends are here”—she quirked an eyebrow at Ben—“your parents wouldn't happen to be psychopaths who would destroy the futures of your classmates in the name of your ranking?”

“No,” Ben said definitively. All the blood had drained out of his face, leaving him the same dingy off-white as his polo. “My dad's a technophobe.”

“Your mom cares about your ranking,” Cornell said. “She talked about it a lot when we were staying with her. All that stuff about how she and your stepdad were their class valedictorians…”

“She's on the other side of the country,” Ben ground out. “She couldn't have taken over Harper's IP address even if she wanted to. Besides, if she rigged the ranking, she'd lose the ability to guilt trip me. And then what would we talk about?”

“Then I'm out of ideas,” Mary-Anne said with a flick of her wrist. “No offense, Benedict, but you definitely have more enemies than friends.”

“That might have been true last year,” Meg said, tapping a finger against her chin. “But not now. Ben has at least four friends.”

“Do I count?” B asked.

“Oh,” Meg said. “Of course. Five friends.”

“Stop,” Ben drawled. “You're making me blush.”

“I told you this was going to turn into a feelings circle,” Brad muttered to Nick and Jack.

“It's six,” Cornell said stiffly. “It's been six all year. I don't register anymore?”

“Well…” Meg cringed. She wrapped a lock of her hair around her finger. “No. Obviously not.”

“You did go sit with the role-playing club,” Peter mumbled.

Cornell threw up his hands. “Where else was I supposed to go? Everyone else on campus thinks that I let my girlfriend get expelled so that I could stay at the top of the rank. The role-playing club are the only people who don't want to throw garbage at me when I walk through the halls. I didn't choose them because they hate Ben.”

“It's just a sweet bonus?” Jack asked.

The bell rang, severing any additional remarks.

“Come on,” Peter said, kneeling on his good leg to propel himself upward. “There's no point in being late to fifth.”

Everyone gathered their backpacks. Jack helped Mary-Anne to her feet. He wrapped an arm around her waist and she swatted at him but didn't shy away.
On again.

Cornell left without saying goodbye, his head down as he pushed his way out of the library. Meg watched him go, her mouth set into a tight pucker. She looked up at Peter.

“Why won't Mendoza take his resignation? He's not coming back.”

“It's the bylaws,” Ben said, scuffing his foot against the carpet. “You can't run a club without a vice president.”

“What?” I asked.

“It's a stupid rule,” Peter said, leading the way out of the library. “The vice president is the deciding vote in a tiebreaker. Without him, we don't have a quorum. I tried to get it repealed. Mary-Anne's normally our tiebreaker anyway.”

“Because you are all morons,” Mary-Anne said, flinching as Brad stepped too close to her.

“But we can't have her as acting vice president without a vote and we can't run an election during finals,” Peter finished.

“If any other club VP pulled this, the administration would let them fold,” Ben said with a scoff. “But the bylaws were written by Marxist wannabes, so you also can't have any clubs without the student council, so—”

Something started slithering around in my brain. It was half a dozen thoughts, none of them quite able to link together. I stopped and squeezed my eyes shut until the sound of everyone walking away faded out.

There weren't enough people in the student council to run it. There had to be an emergency election. I pictured campaign posters. Peter would do his best to put his hand on the scale. He'd already chosen Mary-Anne. Mary-Anne had said that Ben had more enemies than friends, but that wasn't true. Meg had proven that.

No one's parents would break into the homework portal. No one's parents understood the pressure of the Mess. No one read the welcome packet. Ben's mom was on the other side of the country and couldn't have accessed Harper's IP address.

The hacking had to be emotionally and mathematically reasonable. Fake Harper needed motive and means. That was easy enough. School for geniuses, all crammed together. Hormones and broken relationships and everybody's limbic system growing too quickly to keep up with their prefrontal cortexes.

But the hacking had to be
spatially
reasonable. That's why Ben's mom couldn't have done it. She was too far away. Most people were too far away. Everyone commuted to the Mess.

A map of town unfolded inside of my eyelids. North, south, east, west. The park, the university, the Mess, the comic book store. It never could have been Meg. Meg was in my quadrant of town. So were the Donnellys. That's why Peter had to drive us to the winter ball. Cornell lived far enough away from Harper that he'd needed to drive to see her.

Fake Harper wasn't a mastermind. It had started methodically, but he or she had let emotions skew the data. There was too much evidence. There were too many footprints left in the code. Spying on Ben. Using Harper's IP address. Switching assignments. Between midnight and three in the morning—when parents wouldn't hear the hum of a computer or the click of keys.

I ran through the library. I could hear the librarian calling after me, but I didn't slow down, even as I burst through the doors and into the rain. Meg and Peter were halfway across the
M
mosaic with B scuttling behind them, his rolling backpack catching puddles. Ben was heading for the math and sciences building, his hands up to protect his hair from the elements.

I bolted, dodging through groups of people and slipping on the wet ground. I knew that I should go to Calculus and accept Dr. Kapoor's patent “Tardy Quiz.” Now that I was holding down the valedictorian spot, I should have worked twice as hard to keep it. But I'd been number three for a long time. I was used to being third. I wanted to graduate with the rank that I'd earned, not at the cost of all my friends.