The Van Pact

6: Stevie

Mrs. More directed Cleo off stage. The kid looked like she had just bitten into a factory-defective, peanut-butter-less Reese's cup.

"Unless anybody else wants to announce their campaign," Mrs. More continued, "your presidential candidates this year are the same two jokers that ran last year, Darrell Robinson and Cecelia Figueroa." Mrs. More paused for applause.

There wasn't any.

"And since no one is running for vice president again this year," Mrs. More sat down at the edge of the stage, "that position will be given to whichever of those two clowns gets the fewer votes." Her gaze fell onto a spot in the orchestra pit. "Last chance for somebody, anybody, else to announce their campaign."

"It'd be comical if somebody would rush the stage right now," I whispered to Valerie, "and make a mockery of the whole thing."

I expected her to respond with some clever banter, but she didn't. I looked over my shoulder at her to see if she heard me. She must have, because she had a terrible grin on.

"Do you dare me?"

"Do I dare you?" I dumbly repeated.

"Yeah, do you dare me?" Valerie asked me again. "I'll do it if you dare me."

"Sure, ya fruitcase-"

I don't know why I agreed to this. It just came out of me. I guess the prospect of some random chaos disrupting Darrell Robinson and Cecelia Figueroa's campaign speeches (in all likelihood, the same speeches we've heard for three years now) was too much for me to decline.

I should have declined. If I had any forethought, I would have declined. Not for Valerie's sake, but for my own. As soon as I had mumbled the word "sure," Valerie was to her feet. Mrs. More's eyes doubled in size. Someone in the back row started a slow clap that quickly spread across the auditorium. When Valerie took the stage, a pothead-looking kid I barely recognized from last year's gym class got his friends to start chanting "Valerie D!" ad nauseam. I'm not sure how he even knew Val's first name, let alone the last initial. I only have a vague memory of Valerie playing hacky-sack with him outside the locker rooms one April morning. Valerie shot a finger gun at a now-downright-beaming Mrs. More, who eagerly handed her the microphone.

It was like the physical laws of the universe had been commuted. Gravity could very well have been reversed. We could have all been flung up from our seats. That's about as much sense as any of the applause made. We were awash in high entropy. But instead of enjoying the chaos I had just unleashed, all I could do was wonder who was Valerie DiPaolo, actually? And why she chose to be my best friend, and why the clockmaker God of our physically immovable universe decided to intervene for her and Jesus Christ alone?

"I, Valerie Marie DiPaolo," Valerie held the microphone to her lips with her left hand, and, with her right arm and hand extended, pointed at the somehow-still-cheering-crowd, her index finger slowly scanning the auditorium from left to right, "would like to announce my candidacy for Senior Class President."

After she said this, she turned her head to the right, lifted the microphone just above her black ponytail, closed her eyes, and soaked in the applause as if she were Mariah or Beyoncé or heck, even Taylor Swift. I would have laughed if I weren't already in a state of shock.

"Simmer down," she murmured into the microphone. Our class did not simmer down.

Valerie smiled at me with an open-mouthed smile, so that only her upper row of straight, symmetrical teeth and the back of her tongue were visible. I knew this expression well. It meant she had surprised even herself. She nodded, and I instinctively shook my head no. She nodded again. When the applause finally subsided, she began to speak.

"Sweet mercy," Valerie said, and somehow those words sounded cool. "There comes a time in all of our lives when we have got to be brave."

She held my gaze.

"There comes a time when we can no longer take the cynicism, the apathy, the boredom," she smirked. "We have got to be brave. Do what makes us uncomfortable."

And right then, I knew exactly what she was talking about. It wasn't our class elections, or the broken American political system at large. I realized all at once that this was, in Valerie's twisted mind, the first of the "feats of courage" of our pact. I would now have to perform whatever task she decided for me. There would be no getting out of it. I had been bamboozled again. I sank low in my seat.

"And that's why, as your class president, my babies," Valerie stalked across the stage, her neon green patent-leather pumps clacking with each step, "I will not be afraid to do what makes me uncomfortable, if it means I do what is right. I will fight every day for you. I will not allow this office to be besmirched by cynicism, by apathy, or by boredom!"

I looked around the auditorium. The morons were lapping this bullshit up. Even Darrell Robinson looked moved, and student council was his life. He should be devastated to lose an election- especially his senior year election.

"So I will say, Senior Class of Linden Valley Central High, yes we can bring hope and change to the student council. Yes we can make Linden Valley Central great again. Yes we can!"' Valerie lifted the microphone into the air in a dramatic fist pump.

Janey Mac. I pressed my hand against my temple, as visual evidence of my disapproval.

Mrs. More (supposedly the neutral party in this) let out an exuberant whoop. Cecelia Figueroa looked so angry she might have cried. Valerie walked back to center stage to return the microphone to Mrs. More, who attacked her with a bear hug. Before Valerie set the microphone back in its stand, she held it to her lips one last time and shouted, "FOUR MORE YEARS!", as if  that made any quantity of sense.

Then she charged down the stage steps to a standing ovation.

As Valerie high-fived the potheads, hipsters, and edgelords in the rows in front of me, I tried to come to terms with the stunning reality that she was going to be our senior class president.

***

A/N: This section was kind of long, and the next one is kind of short, so I'm going to upload the next section in a few minutes.