Scholarly

October - The Thing About Votes

Hey, guys! Sorry about the delay in updating this. It's been a crazy week, thus, why this chapter is short. It's not my best chapter, but at least I managed to get something done...heh.

Aspen Secondary Academy's football team may have left more than a little to be desired, but that didn't stop them from taing their homecoming game – and dance – incredibly seriously. As any upperclassman would attest to, the fight for spots on the homecoming court was fierce, and the second voting opened in mid-September, speculation was rampant. There were, as in any school election, the perennial favorites (the senior ASB president, Natasha Pyle, who looked like something out of a Maybelline ad), the raging battles (all of the popular kids became enemies for about three weeks), and intense anticipation. Each class was called in to the auditorium to vote at lunch one day of the second week in September, and it was all anyone could talk about for weeks. 

Vivian, for one, found it all immensely annoying, even after Tristan Myers told her he was voting for her and he'd get all of his friends to do the same (and as much as Vivian despised him, she had to admit it was flattering). She thought the whole thing was unfairly skewed towards the attractive people and made a particular point of deciding not voting for any of them. But the school's unabashed enthusiasm for the event made even her just a little bit excited. When the principal announced, "all freshmen please proceed to the auditorium for voting," at lunch that Tuesday, she already knew exactly who she was voting for. (The irritating buzz surrounding the vote wouldn't stop her from being prepared.) 

Once in the auditorium, the students were instructed to get out their laptops and follow a link on the drop-down screen that had been lowered over the stage for the occasion. Vivian typed in the address, which lead to an exhaustingly long list of students. Lengthy as it was, though, she made quick work of it. 

Freshman Girls. Vivian scrolled through the first list of students until she found Leah Bautista. That one was easy. She was both one of the smartest and nicest girls in their grade, which, in Vivian's mind, was all it took. 

Freshman Boys. This time, she was looking for Brandon Morgan. Also easy. He was one of the few boys in her class who actually tried, and, if she was being honest, Vivian thought he was kind of cute.

Sophomore Girls. She scrolled down and let her mouse hover for a second before selecting Cassia Singh. That one wasn't as easy – Cassidy, her nonbiological, unofficial twin, had been a close second. They were both capable students and very nice, but Cassia  had a higher grade in the one class they shared than Cassidy, so she got the nod. 

Sophomore Boys. That was another easy pick – Jacob Yang, a hardcore overachiever in her math class whose only academic regret was that he had neglected to take Algebra 2, which was "too easy," in summer school, and skipped to Pre-Calculus, which might have been of a more suitable level of difficulty.

Junior Girls. Vivian didn't know too many, so it was somewhat difficult to decide, but she eventually chose Gianna Cardnielli, a very pretty junior in her math class who and was excellent at making puns.

Junior Boys. That was much easier. Vivian had the good fortune to be placed in the same math class as Jorge Villareal, who was, essentially, a walking meme. He was not the brightest student and very disruptive (he seemed to get way too much pleasure out of making irrelevant comments at inappropriate times) -- just the sort to offset the sticks-in-the-mud Vivian had picked in every other grade. 

Senior Boys. That was where it started to get tricky. Vivian could count the seniors she knew on one hand. She picked the first name she recognized. Unfortunately, that was Fernando Herrera, a freakishly intelligent but incredibly weird senior who had allegedly been caught making out with a sophomore behind the lockers (thus, why Vivian had heard about him). The so-called "Sophomore Slayer" was far from her first choice, but she didn't even know enough seniors to have a second choice, and besides, he was smart.