Don't Judge a Book by its Cover

Make some noise

Cain POV

Savannah got onto the stage, wearing a pair of reading glasses that matched her purple sweater. She cleared her throat, and glanced at a flash card.

"Good morning everybody. My name is Shalina Levine and I would really, really like to be your student body president..." She launched into an admittedly well-written speech, smiling and relatively at ease on the stage. She was good, and in all honesty, Mervyn was not going to beat her, not in the speaking portion. She had the look of a leader. I got up and slipped backstage, to see how Mervyn was going.

He was not taking it well. I found him pacing up and down a pretty small area, mumbling to himself and messing up his hair.

"Mervyn! Dude, are you okay?" I put a hand on his shoulder, to keep him in one place. Mervyn was disoriented for a second, and then he glared at me.

"Do I look okay?" He hissed. I pulled back my hand, shocked for a second. He sighed, and passed a hand over his face. "I- I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just... Remind me never to go into politics." He said.

I smiled, sort of, and then shook him, maybe a bit too sharply. "Come on. It's about 10 minutes, tops, and then it's over. You need to toughen up."

Mervyn sighed. "I guess you're right." He took a breath to compose himself as Meggie ran over to call him. "Well, wish me luck."

He walked onstage with less confidence than Savannah had, and spent a while fixing his clothes, pushing his hair off his face, clearing his throat, and being generally nervous. It was becoming quite clear that he was having trouble getting anything out of his mouth, when a voice erupted from the audience.

"Yeah Mervyn! Let's go!" I knew that voice. It was Hazel. I couldn't help smiling as the cheers caught on. Mervyn grinned, and ducked his head until they were quiet. He cleared his throat one more time, and took a deep breath.

"Good.. Morning." He paused, apparently spooked by the sound of his voice on the speakers, "...to everyone... who is... watching. I mean present. Good morning. Well, my name is Mervyn Narine, and... I'm running for student president. I guess it's a bit odd this year, since there's two transfer students and all, going for..."

He stopped. There was a very long silence, as Meggie and I started to seriously consider marching onto that stage and making him say something. Anything at all. Then he shook his head vigorously, sighed, and started over. "Look, in all honesty, I don't really want to do this. And if you haven't noticed by now, I have no talent in it either. All things considered, you'd probably be better off voting for Savannah under these circumstances. The only reason I entered this race was on behalf of a friend. A very good friend, who wanted more than anything to be student body president."

Mervyn seemed to relax, as he leaned on the podium (and nearly fell down, though no one noticed) and started to speak more freely. "I think by now, everyone here has heard of the story of Mikelah Grace, the girl who was expelled from this school recently. I also think that you know Mikelah Grace, the girl who started this semester standing in the hallway handing out campaign posters. Mik loved this school, and I think she would have been really happy if she could have finished this election, or served student council in any way at all. But she didn't get to, and for the sake of the whole democracy system that she's always talking about, I took her place in the race.

"But as I said before, I don't really want to do this. Mikelah does. I think it's pretty unfair for a girl who is always so sweet, and kind, and harmless, and who loves the school so much, to be expelled for something that's not really her fault, based on 'principle'. And since the election is pretty much a lost cause by now, I think I'll talk about that for a while. How many of you here knew Mikelah personally?"

A number of hands went up.

"How many of you would have thought that she is someone who should be expelled?"

Every single hand went down.

"You see? That's what I thought!" There was a collective laugh, from everyone except Mervyn. He put a hand through his hair, as was his habit, with an expression that clearly said that he didn't mean anything to be funny. (It had just been his expression at the time.) "Uh- Anyway, me, Meggie... her friends, we struck. Stroke. Striked?" After another second of recovery and another collective laugh, he tried again. "We went on strike. We gathered petitions on our t-shirts, for anyone who remembers that. Sadly, our walking petition sheets didn't really work. There were only four of us. I mean, there were plenty of signatures, I guess, but only four of us really doing anything. We had an article in the school newspaper, which got reactions, but no one did anything. And we're stuck. I don't know what else to do from here. If you get any ideas, let me know.

"And also, please do not vote for me. I can't do this another time. Seriously, I can't. Thank you."

Mervyn nodded a goodbye to the crowd, and started to leave. He was caught halfway by a roar of applause. He froze, clearly wondering why on earth these people were clapping for him, took a sheepish bow and exited very quickly.

Meggie hugged him as he walked off. "That was good! That was amazing! I'm so proud of you!"

Mervyn chuckled, and pulled away from her a little. "Seriously?" He asked her, rather breathlessly. "I thought I was going to die."

As soon as he'd said that, a small and slightly frightened- looking little kid poked his head in the doorway and told Mervyn that he was wanted in the Vice Principal's office.

"Don't relax just yet." Meggie winked.

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