West Ark High

Robot? More Like Ro-Not

Jasper looked like a mess.

His hair was disheveled, his eyes had dark circles under them, and not even coffee seemed to keep him conscious for more than ten minutes at a time.

But Clarke thought he deserved it.

They had two and a half weeks to design and create a robot for the Regionals competition and Jasper had blown off Monty every time he tried to approach Jasper with an idea. Now after four days of constant designing, test runs, and tweaking, the two boys were able to develop a robot that at least qualified for the competition.

Clarke was more concerned about Monty who was trying hard not to doze off in her back seat. His head would bob every few seconds and then spring back up in a jolt, his eyes becoming panicked. At one point he put his head on the window and didn't move again, not even when the road got bad and the car shuddered uncomfortably.

Monty had been the one who had really committed from the beginning and had poured almost every waking thought into how he was going to pull off creating a Regionals qualifying robot while the person who got them into the mess was out prancing around with his girlfriend. Clarke must have made at least eight Starbucks runs and a few to Tim Horton's just to help keep his morale up while he and Jasper busted their butts in the basement over the last few days to finish their entry.

Clarke glanced in her rearview mirror to peak on Monty—he still hadn't moved since she looked his way a few minutes earlier—and then looked over at Jasper riding shotgun. His mouth hung open and he clutched a paper cup in one hand. It had held coffee in it less than twenty minutes earlier, but something told Clarke that it had run empty a while ago.

"Are you nervous?" she asked.

Jasper cackled, his features becoming dark. "I'm too tired to be nervous."

Clarke shot him a warning look. "Don't get all snappy with me," her voice was hard, "it's your own fault that you didn't take it seriously from the beginning. Monty tried getting you to help him on more than one occasion and—"

"Yeah, I know," Jasper interrupted. They rode in silence for a minute. Clarke checked on Monty through the mirror again. Jasper discreetly looked over at Clarke and she pretended not to notice. "So, how was school?" he tried.

She blew out a large breath. A strand of blonde flapped in front of her face."Well, we have another project in European History and Finn tried being partners with me so that was awkward."

Jasper made a face. "You're not right?"

"Just because I'm disappointed in what he did doesn't mean that I'm not friends with him anymore."

"That's stupid, Clarke. Don't tell me that you still have feelings for that guy."

"I don't," she hissed defensively. The truth was, she wasn't sure how she felt towards Finn anymore. At first it was complete bliss and adoration and then it was pure hatred, both of which were strong enough feelings to keep her somewhat occupied. But now that the initial shock of the betrayal was gone, she couldn't bring herself to hating him. Deep down, she worried that she did still have feelings for him and that was something she didn't want to be discussing with Jasper right now.

"I don't," she repeated, this time more calmly, and then switched the radio on to drown out her thoughts as well as Jasper's words.

The ride wasn't much longer, but she was relieved that she didn't have to listen to her brother's criticism regarding her love life. The nagging annoyance did return, however, the moment she pulled into the parking lot of Mount Weather High.

If West Arke students and Trikru students were rivals, then West Arke and Trikru were sworn enemies with Mount Weather students. They were from the wealthier side of the district, so naturally they were snobby rich kids with big attitudes. Even the teachers carried themselves as superiors to those who taught at the other high schools. Just because Mount Weather was an award winning school didn't mean that they had the right to treat everyone else in the district poorly.