Chapter One
Question: How did I get through most of seventh grade without saying more than two words to half my classmates?
Answer: Because kids be kids, even at Benjamin Banneker College Prep, Colorado’s #1 school for unusually competitive students. (That’s what it says on the B-B website anyways. Except for the kids be kids part. That’s 100% me.)
Other than the competition thing, B-B kids are like kids everywhere. We find our crew and stick with them. No matter what. Just like in Lord of the Flies. Which, for the record, I’m pretty sure was based on a true story.
Also for the record, B-B is packed with STEAMers: a.k.a., science heads, technovengers, enginerds, arts peeps, and mathatrons. There are a bunch of sportsters too, but they’re only here because their parents love B-B’s academics. I’m the only visionary inventor in the middle school though. And I have a puny crew. Just me and my best friend and gadget-making assistant, Huey Linkmeyer.
We usually meet in front of the auditorium at 8:10, five minutes before morning assembly. But today . . . ugh! Everything goes wrong.
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Contributor Notes
J.E. Thomas spent her early summers stuffing grocery bags with books at the local library, reading feverishly, then repeating the process week after week, so it's not surprising that she thinks books + imagination are the best streaming service around. A Colorado native, she has bachelor degrees in Mass Communications and Political Science, and a master’s degree in Public Communications. Control Freaks, published by Levine Querido, is her first book. She's now beginning work on her debut YA novel. Fun fact: She includes the name of at least one of her dogs in every book.
