Free The Aristobrats by Jennifer Solow Page A

really special.
    Be the change …
    Ikea rubbed her eyes as she worked. Her eyes were bothering her. The optometrist told her that she could keep her new contacts in for longer than the old ones, but she thought these new ones were seriously uncomfortable. There were always trade-offs in this world. Right?
    Be the change you wish to see in the world.
    She finished typing the words. They shimmered on the screen.
    â€œI like your blinkies.” A new student walked by Ikea’s computer monitor so quietly that Ikea didn’t even have time to click back onto the AJAX assignment.
    â€œOh!” Ikea jumped. “I didn’t see you!”
    â€œNo one here does…” The girl smiled and looked around at the chattering room of Wallys, sitting on each other’s desks instead of working on the assignment. “I’m kind of invisible around here.” Even covered in braces, the new girl’s teeth were bright against her burnt-caramel-colored skin. “I’m Divya,” she said with a small hand out toward Ikea. “Divya Venkataraghavan.”
    â€œI’m Ikea.”
    â€œI know who you are.” Divya laughed. “Everyone in this school knows you.” She smiled again and pointed to the sparkly words on Ikea’s screen. “That’s Gandhi.”
    â€œIt’s one of my favorite quotes,” Ikea said. “I’m thinking about using it for my yearbook page.”
    â€œIt’s one of my favorites too,” Divya told her. They both tilted their heads to the right and stared at the dazzling letters. “It’s a good choice for the yearbook.” Divya smiled and shook Ikea’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
    â€œNice to meet you too.”
    Divya shuffled back to her desk. Her kilt was nearly to her ankles, she wore dusty, brown loafers instead of the blucher mocs that everybody else wore, and her hair was longer and more beautiful than anyone’s at school. But Divya was right—nobody in the room noticed her.
    Ikeastared at the shimmery lettering on her monitor once more before she hit the return bar and typed:
    Be the change you wish to see in the world
    â€”Gandhi
    ***
    â€œI can’t believe I’m actually sitting in front of an Orion 2000 XZ, 27.9 gigs, Nova Core 4 Duo, 7400 GBs with Quartz Extreme eighty-two inch Cinema Display, four-trillion pixel capabilities and THX EX 360º surround sound!” Leonard “McDweebs” Schlaterman was standing in front of the editing computer with his arms outstretched like he just found land after being lost at sea for a hundred years. “Be still my heart.”
    Kiki rolled her eyes and propped her legs up on a spare chair. She’d changed out of her brown school shoes and into the red Valerie Juene platform pee-toe pumps she bought in London. She hadn’t seen them in days and missed them.
    â€œI know, right?!” McDweebs murmured, not joking in any way.
    The sad part? The only thing McDweebs loved more than the Orion 2000 XZ was Kiki. He was Kiki’s boyfriend in second grade before she knew any better. There really wasn’t a populadder back then so people like Kiki and people like McDweebs intermingled freely. They even got “married” (Major Secret. Embarrassing-city) with rings made out of green twisty ties and Bunny Allen’s Schnauzer-Doodle, Snickers, as the flower dog. Kiki got over their love affair in about four hours, but McDweebs took his vows seriously—“in sickness and in health” and all that…and clearly until the “death do they part” part.
    How on earth did the Lylas get chosen to do this? Kiki wondered for the thousandth time. What had they done to deserve it?

Chapter 11
    Parker was standing by the only window in the dark video-edit studio watching Tribb and the rest of the Tigers stretch their hamstrings on the field. It was so sunny outside, so the oppositeof this cramped, stuffy