Riley's Box

Part 12

I didn't get the head girl role. 

We found out the results of the school election later on in the day and while Eric and Whit remained the head boy and assistant head boy, Jason became a member of the senior members of the student council. 

In the meantime, I was made a regular member of the student council. 

The worst thing of all? Susie Caern had been selected as the new head girl. 

Alright, so maybe it wasn't the absolute worst thing that could have happened, but to me, it was still fairly high up there on the list. 

This now meant that I only had one more year of school left to become head girl. I knew with certainty that the role wasn't mine for the ongoing year, so I had to face facts. 

At the very least, both Jason and Miss Richardson had praised me for my speech, so I didn't feel completely disheartened. I supposed that I had maybe been overly ambitious. After all, this had only been my first year of going for the head girl position. I supposed that I couldn't expect to get it on the first try. 

After the student council speeches had finished and the new members had been chosen, it was time for me to get on with the art of multitasking. This involved me getting fairly irritated by the girls who were whispering around me, while I attempted to finish off my essay in the school library in time for class. 

I couldn't focus on the same thing for too long, though, and the girls' talking was definitely not helping me on that matter. 

Thus, I packed my notebooks and pens back into my backpack and decided to make my way to my next class- English literature. 

It only took me a moment to get there and I was greeted with a warm smile by Miss Richardson, so it wasn't the worst thing in the world. 

Yes, I had really wanted to win that head girl position. Yes, I deserved it. 

Nevertheless, there were more important things, right? Now was not the time to get upset about it. 

When English class came to its end, I walked out into the hallway again to join Jason. 

"I'm upset," I said to him. 

Being the compassionate person that Jason was, he wound an arm around my shoulders and sighed, sympathising with my pain. 

"I understand, Riles. Believe me, in my opinion, nobody deserved that head girl role more than you did!" he told me, "However, life doesn't always work out that way, now, does it?" he asked me. I knew it was a genuine question but I couldn't help feeling a little patronized. 

I could appreciate how Jason was probably feeling. He had been picked as a senior member of the student council no problem. Now, he had to console his friend who had essentially failed at getting what she had wanted. He was probably feeling a little guilty, but he really needn't worry. 

"It doesn't matter, Jason," I said. 

It did, in fact, matter. 

Jason seemed to perceive as much, when his eyes flickered with concern. 

"Honestly, Riley, there's always next year. I'm sorry," he said. 

I leant against my locker and drew out a long exhalation. 

"What on earth are you sorry for?" I asked him. 

"It's just what you're meant to say, isn't it?" he replied. 

I shrugged at the question. 

"Apparently," I said. "I'll have to be a little more selective in what I choose to include in my speech next time. It's fine." 

Jason's expression became a little more thoughtful at that. 

"I know that it probably doesn't mean much, but I thought your speech was really great," he said. 

At least, someone did. 

Alright, well that wasn't true. Miss Richardson had, too, but Miss Richardson didn't get to vote in the student elections now, did she? 

"Maybe I judged myself wrong," I said. 

"You're Riley- I don't think your judgement has ever been off about anything or anyone, ever," he said. 

I could hardly believe that to be true, but as I thought back on my time as a living human so far, I supposed that Jason had a good point. 

I should have trusted my judgement of Susie and then I would have known that she would have gone against what I had told her yesterday and applied for the head girl post, anyway. 

What did it matter, now, though? Honestly, the elections may have only happened a few hours ago, but they were in the past now. 

It was time for me to move on in my life. 

The pros of not being a head girl were as followed: I had a lot less paperwork. 

The cons: I wasn't head girl. 

I supposed that in this situation, the cons outweighed the pros, but I did try to be happy for Susie when she bragged about her new head girl status at lunchtime that day. 

When I got to my next class, I realised that I had accidentally left my textbook in my locker.

Of course, I had. 

Had I seriously become the biggest scatterbrain in the world, in the past half an hour? 

Yes, was the answer to that, apparently I had. 

After briefly explaining to the teacher what had happened, he let me go to grab my textbook on grounds of foolish forgetfulness and warned me to not do it again. 

Honestly, I couldn't see what all the fuss was about. It wasn't as though I had purposely left my textbook behind! 

Nevertheless, I wasn't about to argue with the teacher about all this. I felt exhausted from my busy day and I also felt about ready to fall asleep on top of a page all about Pythagorean theorem. Joy. 

Who knew triangles could be so complicated? For a shape with only three sides, they had about three-thousand complications. 

Regardless, I managed to scribble down some answers to the questions that the teacher presented to us, until I fell asleep on top of my textbook.