Into the Velvet

Forty-Six Days Until

The tension in the room was thick. It pressed down around us, mingling with the Floridian humidity that had us covered in sweat. It no longer felt like October. Mrs. Tucci was quiet and tense beside me, nervously fanning herself with the event schedule.

Upon the raised platform, our junior debating team was sweating, too. Ivy and Dom had their heads bent together, whispering and scribbling and swapping notes with a desperate urgency. Calvin kept his cold attention transfixed on the speaker from the opposition team, standing at the lectern. His hands wrote mechanically onto the lecture pad by his side.

This was their last round — the secret round, which was perhaps the hardest round to win.

Mr. Cain leaned over, whispering to the rest of our group. "'Standardised testing should be abolished?' There was no way we could've prepared them for that question."

Mrs. Tucci shook her head. "No, but I think they stand a good chance of winning."

"They've won all three of their rounds, haven't they?" Thanh whispered, giving Sami an accusatory glance. "They can't lose as badly as us."

Sami invoked her right to the Fifth Amendment.

I tried to suppress a sigh. He was right. The juniors had won all of their rounds in the competition — and this was their final qualifier. The showdown which determined who deserved first and second place.

It was the middle of the afternoon. My team's spirit was that of weariness, of irritability — we hadn't come out so well in our league.

But we'd started off with a bang.

The first round was worth three points, and we'd earned them well. After spending hours of last night delving deeply into the realm of research, we'd come out ahead. Speaking as the affirmative team, arguing the point that climate change was the greatest threat posed to humankind.

Armed with Bianca's righteous environmental fury, the other team had stood no chance.

I opened the debate with an almost theatrical flourish, driving point after meticulously researched point, until the entire room was nodding along with me. Sami followed through with a scathing slam dunk — rebutting the opposition's points like it were child's play, getting a kick out of using their own logic to declaim their argument while fuelling our credibility. And finally, Thanh had come circling in, polishing off what was an unrecoverable annihilation of the enemy.

As a team, we were well-oiled. And we were deadly.

The winners progressed to the next round. My team and I shared a three-way high-five. We were dorks, and it felt good to relish in it — in the heat of battle, I loved my dorks like they were my flesh and blood.

"That was amazing!" Ivy gushed afterwards, as we made our way out of the convention hall. Towards a towering table of snacks.

"You guys nailed that," Dom said, nodding. "You had them looking stupid."

Mrs. Tucci congratulated us gladly. Mr. Cain was mostly amused, and a little impressed. "How did you turn fossil fuel into an example of institutional oppression?"

"Louise's idea!" Sami chirped. She was practically humming with excitement. Her wide eyes were elsewhere; searching expectantly among the throngs of people.

I shrugged. "Because it is?"

"How so?" he pressed.

"Irreversible environmental damage affects the most disenfranchised and disempowered groups the hardest," I stated. It really was as simple as that.