September 25th, 2014

Kinsky, California, USA

Emily and Maurice

“Okay, is the camera on now?”

“No, you gotta… you gotta undo the lens cap first.”

“Oh… like, this?”

The preview video on Rose’s Macbook suddenly roared to life. The friends were huddled together in Kinsky High’s technology room, which was about the same size as a broom closet. Using a video camera they were borrowing for the afternoon, Rose smiled into its lens, a fitted maroon suit and black dress shirt as part of her wardrobe. Her hair was also done up with help from Sadja.

“Hellllooo, Kinsky High!” she shouted enthusiastically. “Wait a minute, shh. Do you guys hear that?”

Aaron rotated the camera left. There sat a rather unenthused Cole. From under the table, Rose kicked his foot, causing him to ring the bell while he barely stopped himself from rolling his eyes. The camera rotated back to Rose.

“That’s right, it’s bad girl hours! And for all my fellow bad girls out there, my name is Rose Kawakami. I’m proud to announce that I’ll be running for student body president, where I’ll be helping you kick the dust out of everything you don’t like! Bad school lunches? Wham! Hall pass requirement for the bathroom? Pow! First-thing monday morning exams? Ka-boom!”

The girl made animated karate effects as she spoke. When she winded down, she moved her suit back into place with her hands, and smiled at the camera.

“So Eagles, if you really want a prez who can clean up Kinsky High, remember to vote Kawakami on your ballots. That’s K-A, W-A, K-A-M-I. And remember…”

Aaron rotated the camera left again. This time Cole was almost caught off guard, and gave Rose a bit of a side-eye as he rang the bell again. Aaron brought it back to Rose.

“…the bad girls of Kinsky stay winning!”

Rose motioned for Aaron to stop the recording, and he did. The whole room seemed to give a deep sigh of relief that they finally finished a whole take without restarting.

“I still don’t think ‘bad girls’ really rolls off the tongue that well,” Lukas commented while sitting on top of a nearby cupboard.

Rose gave him an exhausted look. “Well, it would sound a lot better if Mrs. Henry let me keep in the ‘it’s bad bitch o’clock’ line.”

“Yeah but… what, ‘the bad bitches of Kinsky stay winning’?”

“Because, the line was originally ‘And remember, it’s always bad bitch o’clock somewhere’, but she made me take that one out too. And the bad girl hours thing didn’t really work with it.”

Aaron looked at her incredulously. “And why would you think Mrs. Henry would let you say any of that in the first place?”

“I don’t know! We’re high schoolers, not kindergarteners. Shouldn’t the self-censoring have ended already?”

While the friends bickered back and forth, overall they were just happy for it to be over. The group began to shuffle out of the room when Cole, who planned to make a beeline to the parking lot, was stopped by an icy-toned voice behind him.

“Cole Mulaney. Come over here.”

Cole felt chills go down his spine as suddenly he stopped in place and turned behind him. Kat was there, her arms crossed, leaning up against the white-painted concrete wall.

“Can you at least pretend to be happy for her?”

The boy felt himself flush with embarrassment. “I-I am! Really. It’s just… she had me ringing that damn bell for what felt like two hours! At some point I just wanted it to end!”

“You were ringing the bell for forty-five minutes. And what, a few seconds of work each take is too much for you?”

“I just didn’t know when it would end. It felt like, I dunno, Sisyphus’ bell ringing. Every time I would do it thinking it would be my last, and then we would just restart from the beginning again!”

Kat sighed. She became a little less tense as she put her hand on Cole’s shoulder and leaned up to him.

“Just try and be nice to her, okay?” Kat whispered. “She’s been working really hard on this. It’s been her goal since freshman year.”

Cole lightened up as well. “Yeah, I know. I’ll work on it.”

The two went their separate ways as Cole followed the boys to the lot while Kat followed Sadja to choir practice.

…

As it turns out, things would go poorly for Rose right out of the gate.

Firstly, her polling data – achieved by “spies” she had all around school – told her that her video pitch, which was shown to every homeroom at Kinsky High, was an overwhelming dud. To make the situation even worse, her competitor was a girl who was brand new for that year, and she was already becoming more popular than Rose was.

From a distance, the friends – mostly Rose – spied on this girl from across the quad. She had a large bushy afro, and black thick-rimmed glasses. Freckles dotted her cheeks, and they would flare up when she smiled. A large crowd was surrounding her as she gave out candies and told each of them to vote.

“God! She’s so casual about it, too,” Rose finally let out. “I bet she’s secretly a total asshole.”

“Uhh… I dunno about that, Rose,” Sadja answered rather awkwardly. “I heard from a few choir friends that she’s actually really nice.”

Rose shook her head vigorously as she finally took a break from glaring at her rival. “I can’t believe it. Chocolates. Doesn’t Staff know that’s, like, bribery? Where’s the rule enforcement?”

Kat sat back in the shade, sipping out a Starbucks cup. “I don’t think people take STUGO elections quite as seriously as you do, Rose.”

The boys, who had been sitting eating lunch nearby but not necessarily participating, picked up their bags and started to walk away. “Alright, we out,” Aaron said as he led the other two. “Gonna show the guys something over at the field.”

The girls waved at them as they continued down the concrete pathway through the quad. Lukas briefly turned to look over at the new girl and her parade of followers.

“Think we can sneak over there and score some candy? I heard she’s giving out Twix.”

Cole looked over at the boy, laughing. “And incur the wrath of Rose Kawakami? We’d be dead within seconds.”

Aaron led the boys out to the Kinsky Eagles football field, where a couple of guys were playing a pickup game. He led the two others to the bleachers, where they watched the game from a distance.

“There, right there!” Aaron quickly pointed out only a few moments after they got seated. A young black student had broken out of a tackle and sprinted towards the opposite end of the yard. As he crossed the red zone, the players all agreed to count it as a score.

“Damn, he is fast.” Cole commented as he put on a pair of sunglasses to protect against the high sun.

“I know, right? Name’s Maurice. He’s new this year. Omar and I have been trying to convince him to try out for the team. Just imagine, Rus on defense and this guy on offense? We might finally be able to kick Ravenwood’s ass this year.”

Lukas nodded his head, smiling. “Coach Haa should start paying you for your scouting skills.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying! Oh shit, watch here. Mickey on the outside, no one to guard him…”

The three boys continued to watch the game on the field, oblivious to any of the drama that was going on back at the quad.

…

Flash forward to about a month later, and the inevitable had occurred: Rose had lost. There was a party in the school afterwards to celebrate the new girl’s victory, and while Rose had gone to it out of chivalry she ended up spending most of the time moping at the basketball court’s bleachers. Kat and Sadja had both come to check on her numerous times, but she had told them adamantly that she wanted to be alone.

That is, until a surprising new guest appeared.

From a distance, Rose saw the president-elect politely leave the group she was talking to, and begin to approach her. She sat down next to Rose, not so close that it was uncomfortable but close enough that she would be in earshot.

“Umm… hey,” the girl let out awkwardly.

Rose looked at her, almost annoyed. “What, here to offer me a position on the Spanish Honors committee?”

“No. Well, not unless you wanted to.”

Rose looked back towards the group of students congregated in the court. “What is it then?”

“I don’t know, I… just wanted to say sorry, I guess.”

The words confused Rose. “Sorry? You won, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but… I didn’t want to do it while hurting anyone’s feelings. Really I just needed something to put on my resume, but everything leadership-wise is always so aggressively competitive… I figured no one would really care about STUGO, you know, since that’s the way it was at my old school. But people had told me that you were really gunning for it, and… well, I just felt bad. I don’t really do good with competition, truth be told.”

Rose was inclined to believe the girl was lying, and yet every word out of her mouth sounded as genuine as it could be. She turned towards the girl, loosening up a little.

“Nah, it’s not your fault. I really fumbled the ball on the entire thing. Truth be told, I didn’t even really want it that much…”

“Strict parents?”

Rose’s eyes lit up. She began to smile. “Yeah. Asian, y’know.”

The girl smiled back. “Same here. My mom would’ve killed me if I didn’t have a leadership position by the end of the year. To be honest, I would’ve taken anything. Even Spanish Honors.”

The two girls let out a little laugh amongst each other. Someone from a distance began to call out the school president’s name, and so she got up from the bleachers.

“But yeah, no hard feelings I hope,” the new girl continued. “And by the way, if you and your friends want to hang out in the council room, it’s all yours. No strings attached.”

“Thanks, Emily,” Rose responded back, for the first time referring to the girl by her name. “You really aren’t so bad.”

Emily winked back at her. “I try not to be.”

As the two girls finished up their conversation, on the other side of the court the three boys were in line at the catering table. In particular, Lukas and Cole both looked rather miserable, both slouching and holding their heads in pain.

“Oh, God…” Lukas muttered while putting a slice of pizza on his plate. “I really don’t think we should’ve pregamed this, Cole. I feel fuckin’ terrible right now.”

Aaron slapped the boy on the shoulder. “The pregame ain’t the problem. It’s that you pasty-ass motherfuckers need to learn the difference between a pregame and a drinking binge!”

Cole looked as though he was getting stabbed as he shoveled wings onto his plate, almost to the point where the instability of the paper tray gave in. “I thought you were only supposed to feel like shit the morning after, man!”

Aaron was about to continue, when he felt someone tap him on the shoulder. As he turned around to see who it was, he smiled.

“Yo, Maurice! What’s good, brother?”

“Well, I wanted to tell you…” the strongly-built new student began, “…I decided to take you up on what you said. I’m gonna be trying out for running back.”

“Ayy, let’s go!” The two dapped up while Cole and Lukas watched from the sidelines. “Hey, you want to hang with us? We’re over at the table in the corner, near the doors.”

Maurice shook his head at Aaron’s invitation. “Nah, would love to, but… gotta go support my sis and everything.”

Aaron looked at him strangely. “Your… sis?”

Maurice looked back at him, with equal if not greater confusion. “Yeah. The whole reason we’re here? She won the election.”

“Wait, Emily is your sister?!” Cole let out rather stupidly.

Maurice turned towards him, clearly holding back laughter. “Yeah. Maurice Bryant, Emily Bryant? Both black, both came to school at the same time? Y’all really never made the connection?”

Aaron, Lukas, and Cole all looked at each other dumbfounded. Maurice just gave them a grin.

“Man, you three are some funny guys. Like I said, we’ll hang later.”

Maurice walked back out towards the crowd, where eventually he found Emily.