She groaned, shoving her face deeper into her pillow. The metallic *hiss-crack-sizzle* of welding cut through the walls, followed by a muffled "Son of a—" and then the clatter of something heavy hitting concrete.

"Morning in paradise," Red muttered, rolling onto her back and staring at her ceiling. It was covered in sketches she'd taped up there over the past year—battle bots with circular saws for hands, robots with jetpacks, mechs that could punch through walls. Her best ideas always came right before she fell asleep, so she'd learned to keep a flashlight and markers within reach.

From downstairs came her mom's voice, sharp and amused: "Babe, if you wake up Bean, you're dealing with her!"

"Wasn't me! The torch slipped!"

"Sure it did."

Red sat up, her bob swinging forward into her eyes. She shoved it back with both hands, scowling at nothing in particular. Her room was a disaster zone—papers everywhere, broken mechanical pencils scattered across her desk, a half-built mousetrap car she'd abandoned last week when she got bored. The sun was barely up, painting everything in that gross gray-orange light that made her want to crawl back under the covers.

But her brain was already awake. Already spinning.

And spinning meant thinking about *him*.

Jojo.

Red's chest did that stupid twisty thing it always did when she thought about him too long. She grabbed her notebook off the nightstand—the secret one, not the one she brought to school—and flipped it open to the page she'd been working on last night.

**JOJO OBSERVATIONS - NOVEMBER**

*- Always sits in the same spot at lunch (northwest corner, near the window)*

*- Brings the same sandwich every day (peanut butter, no jelly, cut diagonally)*  

*- Never raises his hand but always knows the answer when called on*

*- Carries three mechanical pencils (one in pocket, two in backpack)*

*- Writes with his left hand but opens doors with his right*

She'd been tracking him for months now, ever since that day in the library when he'd casually corrected Mrs. Chen about the Dewey Decimal System without even looking up from his book. Most kids would've been scared to correct a teacher. Jojo just... *did it*. Like facts were facts and feelings didn't matter.

Red had been hooked ever since.

She wasn't *crushing* on him—or at least that's what she told herself. It wasn't about his face (though okay, fine, the afro was objectively cool and he had that whole mysterious-genius thing going). It was his *brain*. The way he saw patterns nobody else saw. The way his notebook was full of graphs and predictions and observations that actually *made sense*.

Red's brain was all fireworks—ideas that exploded bright and hot and then fizzled out before she could finish them. Jojo's brain was a laser. Focused. Precise. Unstoppable.

She wanted *in* on that.

She'd tried showing him her sketches once—her battle bot designs, the ones with hydraulic pistons and reinforced titanium plating. He'd looked at them for exactly four seconds, said "The weight distribution is off," and walked away.

She'd gone home and *cried*, which made her so mad at herself she punched a hole in her closet door. (Her dad fixed it without asking questions. Cool guy.)

But the worst part? The thing that made her want to scream into her pillow every single night?

Ace freaking Crow.

That pink-haired, skateboard-riding, homework-dodging *menace* who somehow—*somehow*—had Jojo's complete and total attention just by *existing*.

Red had seen them at recess. Ace would be screaming about something stupid, flailing around like a caffeinated squirrel, and Jojo would be *smiling*. Actually *smiling*. This kid who barely showed emotion was *laughing* at Ace's dumb jokes.

What made *him* so special?

Red slammed her notebook shut, her jaw tight.

"Why him?" she muttered to herself, staring at the battle bot sketches on her ceiling. "What's he got that I don't?"

Besides the ability to be loud and obnoxious and completely unaware that he was hogging the one person Red actually wanted to talk to.

From downstairs, Screamy the parrot let out a ear-splitting shriek: "SWEET CAROLINE! BAH BAH BAHHH!"

"SCREAMY, SHUT UP!" That was Jax, her older brother, probably stumbling out of his room still half-asleep.

"Language!" Mom called from the basement.

"THE BIRD STARTED IT!"

Red rolled her eyes and swung her legs out of bed. Her room was cold—Dad always forgot to turn the heat up—so she grabbed the first clothes she saw: black jeans, her favorite band tee (some punk group her brother got her into), and her red flannel hoodie that was two sizes too big.

She caught her reflection in the mirror as she pulled her hoodie on. Freckles everywhere. Hair that never cooperated. The permanent scowl she couldn't seem to shake even when she wasn't actually mad.

*He thinks Jojo likes Ace,* she thought bitterly, remembering the way Ace had looked at her in the hallway yesterday. That stupid, smug grin when he caught her staring.

He thought she had a crush on *him*. On *Ace*.

As if.

Red grabbed her backpack, shoved her notebooks inside, and stomped downstairs. Sparkplug—their seventy-pound pit bull who thought he was a tiny lapdog—immediately tried to climb into her lap the second she sat down at the kitchen table.

"Off, Spark. You're crushing my organs."

He licked her face instead.

"Gross."

Bean toddled into the kitchen, still in her pajamas, clutching a stuffed dinosaur. "Reddy! Reddy, look!" She held up the dinosaur like it was a trophy. "I taught Mr. Chomps to fly!"

"Dinosaurs can't fly, Bean."

"This one can." Bean made airplane noises and ran in circles.

Red poured herself a bowl of cereal, her brain still buzzing. Today at school, she'd figure it out. She'd get Jojo to notice her. Maybe she'd "accidentally" sit near him at lunch. Maybe she'd ask him about his notebook. Maybe—

"Red!" Her mom appeared in the doorway, tattoo gun in one hand, coffee mug in the other. "You got your homework?"

"...Yeah."

"Liar."

Red scowled into her cereal. "I'll do it at school."

"You're just like your father."

"Thanks?"

Her mom laughed, ruffling Red's hair as she passed. "Get outta here before you're late. And be nice to people today."

"I'm always nice."

"You punched a kid last week."

"He *deserved* it."

Red grabbed her backpack, shoved past Sparkplug, and headed for the door.

Today was gonna be different.

Today, Jojo was gonna notice her.

And if Ace Crow got in her way?

Well.

Red had been *real* nice to him yesterday.

She wasn't planning on making that mistake again.