Not Your Sidekick by C.B. Lee Page A

“But he’s also my little brother. And he’s amazingly smart and applying to colleges already.”
    â€œOh, I didn’t know. Sorry.” Elizabeth’s tone signified that she wasn’t really sorry that she’d insulted Jess’ little brother, and she went on to criticize someone else.
    Jess didn’t want to go back to the school after that, and then middle school had started, and it seemed Elizabeth and, by default, Denise hadn’t wanted to spend time with her anyway. She spent a few lonely lunches by herself, but then she met Bells and Emma and never missed Elizabeth and Denise. Those two went on to join the volleyball team and tried to make the best of their high school career, and Jess, living in Claudia’s shadow, gave up participating in anything.
    The varsity volleyball team is rowdy, still in their uniforms, and, yup, there’s Mrs. Delgado bringing up the rear. They must have just won a game and gone out to celebrate.
    Jess chances a peek and sighs.
    Abby is wearing her hair in a high ponytail, and a few errant curls are escaping from it, gently wafting on the nape of her neck. She smiles at one of her teammates and nods at what the other girl is saying, and then gets distracted by the menu on the wall. While the other girls are wrapped up in conversation, Abby looks around the restaurant, and her eyes light up when she sees the colorful stacked display of pastries and the Vietnamese desserts. She scans the room, and then locks gazes with Jess.
    Jess freezes. She’s not invisible, but she should just be a faceless maroon lump in a school sweater. It’s the sweater; Abby is smiling— smiling! —at her because she recognized the dancing horse, the Mustang’s mascot on the sweater, and it’s because Abby is nice and school spirit or solidarity—
    Oh good, she’s not looking anymore .
    It’s not as if she would have recognized Jess anyway.
    Jess hastily wraps the rest of her sandwich, stuffs it in her bag, takes another slurp of tea, and dashes out to wait for the bus in the rain.

Ch.3...

    The next day, Jess ignores the entrees for the school lunch and gets a plate full of tater tots. Emma eyes Jess’ lunch and rolls her eyes, and then gives Jess a fresh apple from her bag lunch. Bells gives her half of his peanut butter jelly sandwich from home, too.
    It’s not that the food is completely inedible at school—but the government isn’t spending tons of money on the public high school lunch program. There are a lot of important things, like, running the country and making sure that there’s going to be enough food and power for everyone. And stuff like defense isn’t cheap either; having a strong military is important in case something like the Disasters ever happens again.
    Idly scrolling through her messages on her DED display, Jess munches on the crispy potato bites. There are a few funny holos from Bells of cats wearing cute sweaters that she saw already and a whole bunch of notifications from the Captain Orion Fan Club. She’s set up for an alert for anything new about her hero, but usually what she gets is either something she’s already seen or the group discussing stuff.
    Jess deletes one message after another, and then she blinks, startled. “Hey, I got an interview!”
    Bells looks up from his sketchpad. “For what?”
    â€œThis paid internship I applied for at Monroe Industries!”
    â€œWhoa, really? I didn’t even know they took high school interns. Is it like, super-competitive? Did you have to write like, five essays?” Emma asks. “Are you going to be working with the robots?”
    A MonRobot flies by and picks up some trash. The school’s able to afford some of last year’s models. This one is sleek and efficient, chirping a greeting at the three of them as it passes by.
    Jess laughs. “No, I applied for this office position that was pretty vague,