God Save the Prom Queen

Too Much Pink

When I decided on Monday that I would try my best at winning the title of West Coast High's Prom Queen, I hadn't anticipated the uproar my response would cause. After briefly discussing a campaign plan with David and Hannah, I'd gone home and spent the remainder of the evening as I normally would. It won't be too bad, I told myself. Just make some friends, tell everyone your opinions, look pretty for a few days...

Wrong.

As soon as I stepped foot into my high school the next day, my eyes were immediately overwhelmed with the color pink; all over the walls were bright fuchsia posters proclaiming the same thing.

"Vote Chloe Taylor for Prom Queen".

With a sickening thud in my chest, I realized just how involved David and Hannah were in this. It's not like I could complain—their efforts meant I was one step closer to winning the hundred dollar bet and putting the whole competition behind me. But by simply walking toward my locker, I achieved stares from my peers which made my cheeks as brightly colored as the posters.

Hannah was waiting for me by my locker with a notebook in her hand. When I approached, she grinned enthusiastically.

"What do you think?" she asked me, gesturing to... everywhere.

"Cool," I replied. "Now I know why David couldn't give me a ride this morning. How long did this take you guys?"

"Only an hour." Hannah flipped open her notebook. "I came up with a whole list of things we can do to make people vote for you."

"Like what?"

"First and foremost, I'm going to teach you what to do with your hair," she began. She shot me a sympathetic smile. "It's not that it's bad—it's gorgeous, actually. You just never do anything with it."

"Styling and curling takes too much work," I defended myself, tugging on the end of one of my strawberry-blonde locks.

"Well, I'll help you," she assured me. "Now, let's see... I wrote down a few community service-type projects that might boost some opinions about you. Question: would you rather help out at the senior center or feed cats at the animal shelter?"

"I'm allergic to cats."

"Old people it is, then." Hannah checked something on her list. "Okay, now, we'll also need to stage something really appealing and dramatic that the whole school will see."

As I opened the door of my locker, I shot her a confused look. "Like what?"

"Like, standing up to bullying, or petitioning for a better lunch menu, or buying Mister Gerald a toupee. Whatever sounds best to you."

"Anything else?" I asked, pulling out a Pre-Calculus textbook.

"David is going to set up a campaign table just down the hall from Jessica's," she explained. "There'll be lots of flyers and streamers and propaganda crap like that. It's where you'll promote yourself most of the time. Any questions?"

"Is throwing up in front of all those people a bad campaigning strategy?"

Hannah sighed in her patronizing way. "You'll be fine, Chloe. It won't be the end of the world if you stutter or don't know what to say. It's just high school; most of these people probably won't even remember you in two years."