To Love or To Scorn

Chapter 10

January 15th, after school (3 more days till the Election)

When the seventh period bell rang, I hurried quickly out the door, with Hailee hot on my heels.

"Em! Wait up!" she yelled from somewhere behind me.

I raised my eyebrows at her but stopped walking. "Are you already out of breath?" I asked, trying to hide my amusement.

"What? Of course not. Don't be silly." She replied, obviously panting.

"Sure...." I smirked. "Are you starting to regret dropping P.E this year?". 

"Oh hell no. By the way, why are you in such a hurry anyway?" She wanted to know.

"Well, I have I guess, some kind of candidate meeting. The principal told me that they're going to "teach me some stuff about being in StuCo" and crap like that. It should start in about...bloody hell! It already started 5 minutes ago!" I said loudly.

She nodded. "Oh yeah...I had to help my mom with something so I couldn't come. Good luck and see you!" 

"Bye Hailee! See you later!" I yelled as I began running towards the appointed classroom.

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215...216....217. Aha! There it is. But before opening the door to the classroom, I started, no attempted, to smooth out my now messy hair, from all that running from corridor to corridor to get to this stupid classroom.

As I opened the door, I heard a loud voice speaking. "-so now let's get going!." it said.

When I walked towards the teacher, I felt everyone's eyes on me. "Ah, Ms. Covington. I'm glad you decided to join us. Now, please take a seat. I'm in the middle of explaining something." she said sternly. Jeez women, chill out. We still have like, I don't know, an hour left. Nevertheless, I found a seat right next to this seemingly nice girl, who gave me a small smile.

"Now, as I was speaking before being interrupted," She glared at me. "This meeting is about learning more about your responsibilities as a representative, if you by any chance, win the student election. I was even generous enough to wrote a worksheet for you to do will the other people running for the same position as you." Shockingly(not really)the moment the words left her mouth, everyone started protesting immediately. 

"Now, now children. This is a chance for you to ah, cooperate with each other. As I was saying, all you have to do is write down all the things that you think you have to do as a representative and at the end of class, just hand it to me and I'll assess it." She eyed us suspiciously, probably expecting some kind of uproar. Peculiarly, no one said a thing and just nodded absent-mindedly. 

"Ok! So let's get started! Presidents in the left corner, Vice presidents in the right corner, Secretaries and Treasurers in this corner and finally, the Commissioners in that corner." she said calmly.

A few seconds had passed but no one moved. "WELL? Get going then! I don't have all day to babysit your ungrateful little asses!" She snapped. Well, no one asked you to. I thought quietly to myself.

I reluctantly moved to the left corner, to where Zach and Stacy were already seated. Great. An hour with my most favorite people in the world. Such a pleasure. 

The moment I sat down, Stacy started talking. "Okay, so since we all don't like each other that much, seeing as we're running against each other, especially you Emily, let's just do this as quickly as we can okay?" She said quickly. Before I could open my mouth to say something sarcastic, she cut me off.

"Okay, how about Emily, you start by saying an idea, then cute guy over there says another one, and I'll write it all down." She continued quickly.

"Jeez, who died and made you king?" I mumbled, loud enough for her to hear. 

"Yeah, and basically, you wouldn't exactly be doing anything, since you're just gonna write what we said, down." Zach said, surprising both of us. I almost forgot he was there. Nah, just kidding.

Stacy then narrowed her eyes at both of us. "Fine. I'll state an idea too. Being the nice person that I am, I'll go first instead." she declared. I snorted loudly.

"Okay. So presidents lead meetings and give assistance, guidance and praise to the student body." she said, seemingly proud of what she just stated and wrote it down.

I pretended to cough into my arm. "Well done, captain obvious. Thank you for the clarification. I never would have guessed that." I replied sarcastically.

Zach started bursting into fits of laughter, which caused Stacy to glare at me. "Well, see if you can state a better one then, since you don't seem to like my idea." She replied angrily.

I thought for a while. "Okay! Here's one: The StuCo president acts as a facilitator during discussion and maintain frequent contact with faculty and administration." I finished proudly.

Stacy glowered at me but wrote it down nevertheless. 

And so, we just kept on stating out ideas with I have to admit, a lot of arguing now and then but at last, our page is full to the limit. 

"Wow, that was long! I'll go tell Ms. Roberts right now." Stacy said exhaustedly, before walking towards her desk.

Zach and I stared at each other in silence. "Emily, I-" he was cut off by Mrs. Roberts arrival.

"Well, well well. Let's see how you president wannabes did shall we?" she said gleefully.

She put on what seems to be her reading glasses, and started skimming over our worksheet.

There was an occasional "Hmm..." and some nods but I took that for a good sign.

After what seems to be ten excruciating minutes, she finally reached the bottom of the page and put down her glasses.

"I have to say, I'm quite impressed with you lot. I didn't quite expect you kids to be so...civilized towards each other, since you kids, after all, are vying for the biggest position in Student Council." She said, shocking us all. I snorted. That, my friend, was an understatement. We weren't even civilized at all; if only she knew the constant fights we get in every 5 minutes.

"Well, since you children finished early and there's approximately 15 minutes left of this meeting, you're free to go." She smiled genuinely. Huh, maybe Mrs. Roberts isn't so bad after all.

I made a beeline to my desk and snatched my backpack before heading to the door. Unfortunately, right before I was about to turn towards the hallway outside the classroom, somebody grabbed my wrist. 

I was about to scream when a hand covered my mouth. I considered licking it but since I didn't know who it was yet, I thought staying put was a better idea. 

"Shh...it's just me." A voice whispered. I knew exactly who it was. Zach freaking Austin.

He started dragging me to an empty hallway before finally letting go of the hand that was covering my mouth earlier.

I shook my wrists free from his other hand. "What the hell Zach? What were you thinking??" I said angrily.

"Sorry, I just wanted to talk. I really like you Em. Why can't you forgive me?" he replied, sounding a bit frustrated.

"Because Zach," I yelled, fuming with anger. "You're such an ass. So please just leave me alone!"

Before waiting for him to reply, I started walking quickly away, leaving him once again, with his mouth wide open.

However, before I reached the school entrance door, I distantly heard him talking with another person, a girl perhaps, with their back to me. I stared at them in disgust; I knew Zach was an ass, but I didn't know he was this big of an ass. 

After a final glare, I stepped out into the cold, humid but unusually sunny weather, and started heading home; what seemed to be the only place that I can take comfort in, despised all the stress, tension and drama that's weighing heavily on my shoulder with every step I take.