Free Romance of the Snob Squad by Julie Anne Peters Page B

turned out.”
    The bell rang, and we scrambled. Hastily Prairie stuck the stack of photos back into the envelope and handed it to Lydia. I should’ve protested. As leader of the Snob Squad, it’s my duty to protect our reputations. Maybe not our current reputations, but any future ones we might acquire. I should’ve offered to stash the pictures until school was out. Or have Max stash them. Nobody’d mess with her. But I didn’t. I just let Lydia drop them in her book bag. Bad move.

Chapter 15
    T he catastrophe occurred during language arts. First hour. As we got up to fetch our books from the book rack, Lydia, renowned klutz of the cosmos, tripped over her chair, bounced off my body, and butt-crashed into Melanie Mason’s desk. Which tipped over backward, taking out the desk behind it and knocking Lydia’s book bag to the floor. Where the photo envelope flew out and skidded across the rug. Guess where? Straight onto Ashley Krupps’s fat feet. As if in slow-motion replay, I watched Ashley pick up the package, open it, and drop her jaw to shriek.
    Naturally everyone had to see what the ruckus was about. Lydia threw a hyper hissy fit, but not before the photos had made it around the room—over our outstretched hands and behind our backs. Everyone whooped.
    I’ve never been so embarrassed. I take that back. The time my lunch sack ripped and a hundred malted milk balls bounced out was pretty humiliating. Especially since most of them rolled to a stop under Kevin Rooney’s Reeboks.
    Eventually Mrs. Jonas intervened. Even though she stifled a guffaw when she caught a glimpse of the pictures, she got them back to us. So much for the glory of glamour photos. By recess we were all the laughingstock of Montrose Middle School. So what else is new?
    “Harley looks sick,” I said during science. We’d just finished putting him through his paces. At least Max was trying to finish. Every couple of seconds Harley would stop and lean, like the Tower of Pizza. Where is the Tower of Pizza? I’d like to live there. Anyway, Harley looked like he was ready to faint. Can a rat faint? As if in answer to my question, Harley shivered all over and flopped flat.
    “He’s just beat,” Max said. “Give him a break.”
    “Maybe we should splash cold water on his face,” Lydia suggested.
    We all stared at her. The stares turned to glares.
    “Look, I said I was sorry about the pictures, okay?” Her eyes welled with tears.
    My eyes dropped. Next to me, Prairie took a deep breath. Her hand reached up to grasp Lydia’s limp shoulder, and she said, “It’s n-not your fault. Any one of us c-could’ve done it.”
    “Yeah, but we didn’t,” muttered Max.
    I shot her a warning look. She folded her arms.
    “At least you weren’t posing like some airhead on
Baywatch,
” Lydia snapped.
    “True,” Max said, which only made Lydia feel worse.
    “W-well,” Prairie piped up. “At least I don’t have to leave my picture in Hugh’s mailbox now.” She sighed. The memory of what had happened in class resurfaced, and we all shuddered. After Melanie handed the pictures to Kevin, he smiled and passed them on. To Hugh. Hugh’s eyes grew big as black holes before he fixed them on Prairie. If I’d had a shovel, I would’ve dug her a hole to crawl in. Right behind me.
    “Hey, it’s over, okay?” I said. “We’re ruined. Big deal. We have a lot of experience at this. As long as no one sells our glamour photos to the
National Enquirer,
I think we still have a future in high school.”
    Max snorted.
    “Thank you, Jenny,” Lydia said. “So, does anyone have a notebook I can borrow the rest of the week until the science fair on Saturday? I better document the fact that Harley’s sick.”
    “He’s not sick,” Max said. “There, look, he reached the end.”
    It was true. On his own, Harley had followed my trail of stale spice cake crumbs to the end of the course. Suddenly he leaned, rocked unsteadily, and rolled right into the