Cosmic

Election Day

"This will all be over by tomorrow afternoon." Ava said as she and Skye climbed the stairs together on their way to Chem. They had arrived at school super early and had spent the entire morning free period hanging up posters.

"Thank goodness." Ava said. Skye stopped on the landing, brows furrowed in confusion.

"You don't sound all that excited about it." Skye said, studying Ava's facial expression. Ava simply shrugged in response.

"So, what made you decide to run for president, anyway?" Skye asked. The question had been nagging at her since yesterday. Ava didn't really seem all that excited for the election, but Skye couldn't tell if it was Ava being disinterested in general or if it had to do with Waverly basically taking over her campaign. Ava turned to Skye, a surprised look on her face.

"You don't know?" Ava asked. Skye shook her head. Ava gave her a considering look.

"You must have been absent, then. We had a school assembly to discuss it and everything." Ava said. Skye furrowed her brow. She did remember a school assembly, but with all the things that were going on in her life at the moment, she hadn't really been paying attention. Her mother would have scolded her for this.

"A queen must always be attentive, Skye. It is how you spot issues and correct them before they can get worse." Skye winced. Yeah, her mother would be very disappointed in her if she knew about this.

"I may or may not.... have had a lot on my mind." Skye said. Ava nodded in understanding.

"I get it." Ava said, nodding. "Well, some of the candidates had to drop out due to personal issues and I think one got disqualified for misconduct, so there weren't enough kids left over for a fair vote." Ava sighed.

"Principal Barker made an announcement at the assembly that morning, urging students to throw their hats into the ring." Skye nodded, following along so far.

"How did this lead to you becoming a candidate for the presidential election?" Skye asked.

"I was wearing a hat and so, i tossed it up onto the stage as joke and then the next thing I knew, Sammy Decker nominated me right then and there. And then no one else wanted to run and we still didn't have enough candidates, so I talked Kristie into running too. We figured that if one of us won, the other would just help them out. It didn't matter to us, we just thought it would be fun." Ava said.

Skye nodded, considering this. So, Ava had started out genuinely interested in the elections. Something had to have happened to cause her to be much more cavalier.

"That's interesting," Skye said. "But then, things changed obviously." Ava nodded.

"This girl named Hollie volunteered to be Kristie's campaign manager. And then little by little, things started getting competitive. Fancy posters, free candy if you promised to vote for her. And then, Kristie got really busy after school all the time and couldn't spend time with me. Then, Waverly volunteered to help me and then before I knew it, Kristie and I just stopped talking. It was so weird."

Skye nodded. That was weird. Skye couldn't help but wonder if this hadn't been Waverly and Hollie's doing. Maybe, they were intentionally keeping Ava and Kristie away from each other, but for what reason? How would keeping the two best friends apart benefit Waverly and Hollie? They were just supposed to be campaign managers. Maybe Skye was reading too deeply into this, seeing House Nekhun when it was really just a classic case of teenage competitiveness. Skye nodded to herself.

Yeah, that's probably it. Skye shook herself out of her thoughts.

"So, what happens tomorrow?" Skye asked.