The Enemy Hypothesis: A Brazos High Novella

by Sparling, Amy

  Since it’s my day “off,” I stay in bed until lunchtime. I don’t get to sleep very late because my little sisters are extremely loud in everything they do, but as long as I don’t leave my room, they can’t annoy me too much. Once I venture out into the living room, I find Abuela working on a crochet blanket on the couch. Maria is playing on her phone next to Abuela, and Andrea and Pippa are screaming at each other in the kitchen.

  “What’s going on with them?” I ask.

  Abuela shrugs, her attention on her yarn work. “They’ve been at it all day.”

  I don’t bother asking Maria, because at thirteen years old, she only cares about herself. I head to the kitchen and find my two youngest sisters in an all out war.

  “You eat it!” Pippa says.

  “I’m older, I don’t have to,” Andrea says.

  “That’s not fair!”

  “What are you arguing about?” I ask, raising my voice to be heard over their nonsense.

  “I want the last pizza pocket!” Pippa squeals as if this is some life-altering decision. “I got it first, I want it!”

  “I said she can have a PBJ sandwich instead,” Andrea says, lifting her chin as if to make herself seem taller. “She ate a pizza pocket last night and I didn’t, so I deserve it.”

  I roll my eyes. “Both of you eat a PBJ and save the pizza pocket for later.”

  “NO!” they both yell at once.

  “Will you go buy more?” Andrea asks. “I’ll ride with you to the store.”

  I sigh and glance at the fridge, where we have a dry-erase board that shows how much money we have left. “Thanks to your sister Maria, who spent all the money this month, we can’t go get anything else until Mom and Dad send us more money.”

  If I had better luck, my sisters would listen to my explanation, understand, and quietly figure out who eats what. But no, my luck is awful. All they do is start yelling even more. As much as I feel obligated to stay here and fix their problem, I decide I’m not going to. Abuela can handle it.

  I turn right around without grabbing anything to eat despite being hungry, and I go back to my room. But their constant bickering doesn’t end, even after they agree to eat a PBJ sandwich each and to split the last pizza pocket. I’m getting out of here.

  I throw on some workout clothes, get my earbuds, queue up an upbeat music playlist and go outside. If my family won’t stop being annoying, I’ll just leave for a bit. I’m not much of a jogger, so I take a long meandering walk through the neighborhood, trying to enjoy being outside and soaking in all the sunshine and autumn air.

  I am so tired. So, incredibly tired. Tired of my parents being gone, tired of my sisters being brats, tired of trying to win this competition. As embarrassing as it is to admit this to myself, I’m also tired of crushing on Mark. I’ve done a good job of avoiding him lately because just being in his presence makes my heart all warm and my knees all wobbly. I hate it. He’s just some hot rich kid who already has a nice car. He would never be interested in me, despite what he said that day in the storage closet. That was just him trying to mess with my head. And it totally worked.

  I walk for an hour and I’m still not tired, so I keep walking. I’m trying so hard not to think about Mark, but just as this competition is always on my mind, so is the insufferably annoying and impossibly cute guy in third place.

  Ugh.

  I reach the end of a neighborhood and stand on the sidewalk that faces an intersection that leads into town. I could keep walking, just wander around aimlessly, but I’m also pretty hungry. I didn’t bring any money, not that I have any, and the only thing across this road are restaurants and fast food places that probably smell really good. I can’t walk past those. I’ll just go home and make a sandwich. I’m tired of PBJ as well. We’ve had them for lunch all week since it’s the only thing we had money in the budget for after my sister spent it all at the mall.

  I turn around and notice a familiar silver car sitting at the stop sign. The window rolls down and Mark freaking Caputo smiles up at me. “What are the odds?” he says.

  “This town isn’t that big,” I say. “So I guess the odds are pretty good that we’d run into each other.”

  I start walking. The longer I stand here and see him, the faster my stupid heart beats. “Wait,” he calls out. And just like that, my feet stop. Stupid feet.

  “You hungry?”

  Starving, I think. But I just shrug.

  “I was just headed to Caputo’s. You wanna come? The benefit of being the boss’ son means we get all the free food we want.”

  Italian food sounds amazing, but I can’t just say yes. Can I?

  I guess I take too long to say anything because Mark leans his head out the window and curls out his bottom lip. “Pleeease?”

  Oh, my heart. It’s beating so fast. That puppy face he’s making could melt a glacier. I fold my arms over my chest. “Why would you want to eat lunch with me? I’m not exactly nice to you.”

  He smirks. “Maybe I like the attention.”

  “It’s negative attention,” I say.

  His smirk gets a little bit sexier. “Any attention is good attention from you.”

  I roll my eyes and start walking again, if only to catch my breath because holy crap that was hot.

  He puts the car in reverse and backs up a bit. “Garlic bread… pasta…hanging out with me…”

  “Two of those things sound good,” I muse.

  He grins. “They are. And the pasta is pretty good too.”

  He is an Olympic level flirt. And I’m totally falling victim to it. I stop walking.

  “I probably smell bad. I’ve been working out.”

  He shrugs. “We’ll sit outside.”

  I take a deep breath. I am all out of reasons to say no. And my stomach is growling.

  I climb into his car.

  It’s a short drive to his family’s restaurant. I’ve been here a few times, but not lately because we haven’t had the money. It’s an upscale Italian place for sure.

  Mark parks in the back of the restaurant and we go inside through the employee entrance. I’m expecting to see a kitchen, but it’s actually a hallway with a few offices back here. Since it’s the lunch rush, the place is packed and servers bustle around. We go to the takeout window and Mark tells me to order anything I want. I get pasta alfredo and he orders the chicken parmesan with extra garlic bread.

  “So what have you been up to this weekend?” Mark asks as we find a table in the far back corner of the patio seating area.

  I shrug. “I took today off.”

  “Oh? Where do you work?”

  I snort out a laugh. “I don’t work. I wish I could, but I don’t have a car.”

  “So what did you take the day off from?” he asks, reaching for one of the breadsticks in the middle of the table.

  I unfold the cloth napkin in front of me and put it in my lap. “I don’t know. Everything. Volunteering. Working hard to suck up to everyone. That kinda thing.”

  “Ah,” he says with a nod. “All this kudo-getting is exhausting for sure.”

  “Yep,” I say, exhaling. “And it doesn’t look like I’ll win anyway, so I wish I could just stop trying.”

  He rests his chin in his palm and watches me. A few seconds pass and I’m feeling a teensy bit awkward. I don’t even look cute right now. I have no makeup on and a frizzy ponytail. I have to say something or this silence might stretch on forever.

  “So what did you do today?” I ask, reaching for a breadstick. I was absolutely starving a few minutes ago, but now that we have food in front of us, my stomach just feels nervous.

  “I did…” He glances at his phone, which lies face down on the table. “Things.”

  I roll my eyes. “Of course you did. Things to earn kudos, no doubt.”

  He grins. “Something like that.”

  A waiter brings out our entrees and suddenly my appetite is back. This alfredo pasta smells so good, there’s no way Mark’s gorgeous smile could make me
too nervous to eat it. There isn’t much to talk about while we eat, but that’s okay. This food is so good I don’t care about awkward silence.

  My phone makes a weird sound. It’s a notification chime unlike any one it’s ever made before. Frowning, I set down my fork and reach into the side pocket of my leggings. “Sorry,” I say. “I know it’s rude to be on your phone while you’re eating but I’ve never heard that sound before.”

  “You’re not offending me,” he says. “I’d probably enjoy your company even if you were on your phone the whole time.”

  “Look at you,” I say sarcastically. “You’ve gotten so used to giving out stupid compliments for kudos that you forgot to turn them off in front of me.”

  He winks at me. How my entire body doesn’t turn to mush right here, I’ll never know. I swallow, try to regain my composure and wipe the goofy grin off my face. Then I check my phone.

  CONGRATULATIONS, ABBY!

  My eyes widen. It’s a notification from the Un-bully app.

  “What the…” I open the app and turn the screen so we can both look at it. A cute little confetti-filled animation dances across the screen. When it finishes, my name is inside a huge gold medal on the app’s dashboard. I am in first place.

  “How is this possible?” I say, noticing my points on the app. It’s about the same as it was this morning. I haven’t gained the five thousand I would have needed to surpass Annabel.

  “What’s the top ten look like?” Mark asks, casually shoving another bite of food in his mouth.

  I click on the Top Ten list. My name is first, followed by Mark Caputo. I scan all the way down and I don’t see Annabel’s name at all.

  “She’s gone,” I breathe, hardly able to believe my eyes. “Annabel isn’t on here.”

  When I look up at Mark, he just grins. “That’s what I did today. You’re welcome.”

  Twelve

  MARK

  The algorithm is working. Now that Annabel has been kicked out of the competition for cheating, every day there’s a new person in first place. Abby never drops below second or third place, and she’s frequently at the top, but occasionally someone will do some big gesture at school and they’ll get bumped up to the top for a few hours. There is less than a week left in this month, and the pressure is on. But at least it’s an honest competition now.

  After seeing how stressed Abby was, I decided to take matters into my own hands when I saw the assistant principal playing tennis at a park near my house. I asked him if we could have a meeting “off the record” and he agreed. Then I told him about Janelle’s secret meeting with me, and how I was worried that it could be a trick. He assured me it wasn’t a trick, that the Un-bully people specifically didn’t allow tricks in this competition and he said he’d look into it. Rumor has it, Annabel has been suspended. No one has seen her in school all week.

  Now the competition is fair. I am still in the top five, and I could win this thing and help my parent’s financial situation get a little bit better. Lately, they’ve been fighting nonstop. I’ve actually spent more time working at the restaurant just so I can get away from their arguing. Every time a student from my high school comes in to eat, I give them the employee discount of 50% off. I know it’s not exactly great for business, but it’s great for my Un-bully score. Word has gotten around, and now I’ve been waiting tables for dozens of my peers every day this week. Unfortunately, none of them have been Abby.

  Every time the hostess seats a new table, I get my hopes up just a bit. And every time, it’s never her. I know she likes our food because she told me so, and thanked me several times for getting her free food last Sunday. Even if the food wasn’t free I would have bought it for her just to spend time with her.

  In school on Wednesday, I decide to give fate a little push in the right direction. After our lesson in accounting class, I walk up to Abby’s desk then kneel down so that we’re eye level. The rest of the class is talking with each other, so it’s not like this stands out or anything.

  Abby looks over me, one eyebrow lifted. “Hi.”

  “Hi,” I say. Nerves swell up in my chest and now I’m all nervous, wondering why I walked up here like this. Now I have to talk to her. Being so close that I can smell her flowery perfume makes the term “butterflies in your stomach” seem like nothing. This sensation I feel in my stomach is more like…dragons.

  “So anyway,” I say, trying to regain focus. “I don’t know if you heard, but I’ve been giving out fifty percent off at Caputo’s to everyone who is a student here.”

  “I have heard,” she says, giving me a sardonic grin. “That’s very clever. Too bad I don’t have a family restaurant to bribe everyone.”

  I chew on the inside of my lip. She’s somehow even cuter when she’s being mean to me. “Well… I just wanted to let you know that the food is free to anyone in the top ten. So you should come by sometime.”

  She peers at me through those long, beautiful eyelashes. Several seconds pass. “Maybe,” she says. “Maybe I will stop by.”

  “You should.”

  “The week is almost over,” she says, turning back to her accounting assignment. “I might not have any free time to stop by before I win that car.”

  I chuckle. “You mean before I win the car.”

  “You haven’t been first place yet,” she says, writing an answer on the worksheet. “I have.”

  “Wait…” I look over the problem she just answered because something seems off. “That’s not right. You’d need to calculate the interest yearly not monthly.”

  “Huh?” She looks back at the problem. “Oh crap, you’re right.”

  She erases her answer and reworks the math. “I’m not giving you kudos for this,” she says under her breath.

  I snort. “Oh, and my free food offer is good forever… not just for this week.”

  She glances over at me. “Wow… thanks.”

  “Bring those sisters of yours as well if you want.”

  Her expression brightens. “That’s really nice of you. Still not giving you kudos.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say, standing up. “You won’t give me points for anything, I know. Despite the that fact I’ve given you points.”

  “Wait, you have?” she says curiously.

  I nod and then walk back to my desk. A few minutes later, my phone vibrates from my pocket. Back at my desk, I pull out my phone and check it because this teacher is cool and doesn’t care if we have phones out so long as he’s not giving a lesson. My score has gone up by one hundred points, putting me in second place.

  I look over at the back of Abby’s head. I think I just got my first kudos from my crush.

  Thirteen

  ABBY

  I have discovered the one thing that can make all three of my little sisters behave: winning a car. Well, the possibility of winning a car. I guess they didn’t take it too seriously when I first told them about the competition at the start of the month. But then when Un-bully emailed everyone the newest promotional video they had made with the footage they took of us at the dealership, my sisters were intrigued. They too, love the red Jeep.

  My Abuela is feeling hopeful about the whole thing. She keeps telling me how proud she is of me for maintaining such a high ranking on the app. I don’t even think she cares about the new car as much as she’s proud of her granddaughter for being a friendly, caring person.

  “You should offer to babysit!” Maria says while we sit around the kitchen table eating sandwiches.

  “Kids can’t give me kudos,” I say, reaching for a Cheeto.

  “Yeah, but teenagers in the high school can. Offer to babysit their siblings so they don’t have to. Everyone hates babysitting.”

  “That’s a really good idea,” I say, but then I throw a Cheeto at her. “As if you have any idea about babysitting!”

  “Hey, I have to watch Pippa all the time!” she says, flipping her hair over her shoulder.

  Abuela and I just laugh. We both know that we do all the
babysitting around here. After lunch, I promise Maria that I’ll offer to babysit in order to keep my first place status for this last day.

  Yep.

  Today is the last day. It’s Sunday, thirty days after the competition started. At midnight, whoever is in the lead will officially win the car, and then Un-bully will move on to the next school they’re going to torment with this competition. Sure, some of this month has been fun, and the idea of getting a car is so exciting now that I’m in first place, but I’m still tired. This was hard work. When I win the car, I will totally deserve it.

  I clean up everyone’s plates in the kitchen and then I check the app. I’m still in first place, and Mark is still in second place, just like last night. Third through tenth place has changed a lot, though. I’m only six hundred and twelve points ahead of Mark. Mark is two thousand points ahead of third place. It’s coming down to us, and there are only twelve hours left until midnight.

  Since Maria’s idea was actually amazing, I head to my bedroom and close the door to keep my sisters away, and then turn on Netflix. I pull up Instagram and go through all the people I’m following, trying to remember which of my classmates have little siblings they might get stuck babysitting from time to time. I type up a nice message that says I’d like to offer them a free babysitting session, redeemable whenever they want over the next year, then I copy it and paste it into DMs as I go down my Instagram list.

  While I’m casually scrolling and sending DMs, a new message icon pops up. I sit up in bed, hoping that whoever messaged me is about to accept my offer and then give me kudos. Only Mark Caputo’s face stares at me from his tiny profile picture.

  Why is Mark messaging me?

  Mark: Hi there