The Enemy Hypothesis: A Brazos High Novella

a new car up to thirty thousand dollars. Holy cow!
“So what are you waiting for?” he says as he retrieves a phone from the back pocket of his khaki pants. “Download the Un-bully app now. Then select your school and sign in with your student ID. You’ll find that you already have points. That’s because your teachers have been secretly using the Un-bully app for the last two weeks. Yep, that’s right!” He grins at the camera. “You all already have kudos or demerits from the last two weeks and the algorithm has been hard at work. So log in and see what your teachers have had to say about your actions toward your fellow classmates. That’s all for now,” he says, waving at the camera. “Good luck!”
The room fills with chatter. Everyone is freaking out about the new car. I’ll admit, I’m freaking out a bit, too. A new car? I can’t even imagine how amazing that would be. Here I am wanting just a cheap used car but a brand new car would be the coolest thing ever.
Unfortunately, there are hundreds of students in our school and only one person wins. As much as I’d love a new car, it’s pointless to get your hopes up about that kind of thing. Brittany grills Mrs. Ashlee about the app and she says that all teachers were supposed to be secretly awarding kudos or demerits to students lately. Mrs. Ashlee assures us not to worry and says she’s given all of us kudos over the last few days.
Everyone rushes to download the app. Mrs. Ashlee informs us that the school is making participation mandatory and you won’t get your final report card if you don’t participate. Part of me wonders if that’s even legal, but the school provides tablets to any student who wants one for schoolwork, so I guess there’s no one without a way to use the app. As if they don’t give us enough work already, they want us to use some dumb app now? Ugh.
I’m mentally trash talking my school as I watch the Un-bully app download on my phone. This is so lame.
I type my student ID and log in. It makes me go through some tutorial showing me how to use the app. First you search for the student you want, either by typing their name or using the app to list all of the students in your proximity. To my horror, I realize they’re using everyone’s yearbook photos from last year in the app. My hair might have looked okay in that photo, but my face certainly doesn’t. I cringe. Hopefully there’s an option to change my user photo.
After selecting the student, you can click the thumbs up or thumbs down icon to award them kudos or demerits. It’s all pretty self-explanatory, so I quickly click through the tutorial. Once it’s over, it takes me to the main dashboard. I see my name and ugly yearbook photo. And then there’s a number right underneath it.
Chills prickle over my skin.
“Abby, holy crap!” someone says. I guess they just saw the same thing.
How is this possible?
My vision blurs and my pulse races as I stare at my phone. Surely it’s some kind of mistake, right? Because right now on the score board of every single student at Brazos High… I am ranked number 4.
“Holy crap,” I whisper under my breath.
“Wow, Abby,” Mrs. Ashlee says. “You could actually win this thing.”

Four
MARK
Welp. Someone should call the Guinness Book of World Records. We need to get them out here and show them the video my school just showed us so they can award Brazos High the honor of having the Lamest Video Ever.
Seriously. That was so cringey. That guy and his khaki pants and lame polo shirt had more energy than anyone ever needs to have. He was like an infomercial on crack. And he tried way too hard to get our attention. We’re teenagers, not infants. Just talk straight with us, man.
Finally, after what feels like forever, the stupid video ends and my math teacher tells everyone to download the app. Everyone is freaking out about winning a car. It does sound awesome. A new car would allow my parents to stop paying for my lease, even if it is just a cheap thirty thousand dollar car. Knowing my parents, that wouldn’t be good enough for them. They want us all driving luxury vehicles to maintain our fake wealthy status. So maybe I could win the car and sell it and give my parents the cash. I’d forever be their favorite son if I did something like that.
I chuckle as I download the app on my phone. My parents don’t really choose favorites between Julian and me, but if they did, I bet he’d win. He deserves it, too. He does work all day long, every day at Caputo’s. He’s their most valuable employee. I only work part time, and only when they force me to because my parents don’t pay me to work there. They can get free labor since I’m family and I save them the trouble of hiring more outside employees. Thirty grand wouldn’t solve all of their problems, but it would help.
Maybe I’ll try to win this car. All I have to do is be nice to people. How hard could it be?
I load up my profile on the app. All around me people are comparing their current rank on the scoreboard. I hear someone shout that they’re number twenty three, and a few others are down in the one or two hundreds. I skip the tutorial on the app and click around trying to find my rank. I’ll need to see how many people I need to pass up in order to win this car.
My ranking is right under my profile picture. And it can’t possibly be right.
I stare at the number and then click around, trying to see how to fix my