After a rough start to the meeting, it seemed like the council president finally got a hold of the room. The council had their work cut out for them, so Rose immediately went into one of the main topics of discussion.

“Alright, we’ll begin,” she sat back down in her seat at the head of the table, “We were given the task of overseeing how the student body is reacting to the new schedule. The school board requests both qualitative and quantitative data from us. Since this is just the first day, we’re not going to hold any of these numbers or responses with much merit, but it will get us into a habit of reflecting and measuring how the student body is doing with the amended schedule. The school board will then take our data and observations into account for further adjustments and changes to the schedule.”

She looked to Chad.

“Since you’re our newest member, would you care to share your thoughts on how the student body responded?”

Since when did being the newest meant you have to go first?

He cleared his throat, “I think the general response from the students was poor given they charged you at the pep rally last Friday.”

“Well yes,” she winced at the topic brought forward, “We of course expected their initial reactions to be erratic. As I said earlier, we can’t make immediate changes just based on the first response. We need to let the water settle before we can truly judge the effect of the school board’s actions.” she paused for a second, “Maybe we should start with the quantitative data, Kate numbers.”

The girl with the brown pigtails sitting opposite from her shot up out of her chair. She then swiftly raised her clipboard and began reading off of it.

“The number of students who skipped today was three point seven percent lower than our prediction. That is a positive. Although, our expected tardiness was much further than the actual. With the calculations I made last week, we were predicting a rise in the tardiness rate of about ten percent. The reported tardiness rate was almost double what I calculated with almost a quarter of students being late to each class,” she readjusted her glasses, “This isn’t even taking into account teachers being late to their own classes. These numbers are skewed in our favor and they’re still horrific.”

After a small silence, Rose thanked her. She then gave the president a quick bow and took her seat.

This is oddly formal for a bunch of high schoolers playing pretend.

“Now that we have a bit of numerical information, does this spur any thoughts from anyone?”

From the level of the tabletop, Kobani spoke up.

“I don’t think Mrs. Wenwir even took attendance today in art class. She was also tardy herself.”

“Yes, I should’ve taken the teachers into consideration when performing my calculations. I’ll make sure to update my other estimates with this new information.”

“You think with this being their jobs and all, they would respect the schedule changes,” Sarah spoke for the first time since the meeting officially started, “But they're just a bunch of children as well. They don’t respect this school or the students. They’re just like the rest of the plebeians here.”

“It doesn’t help when they have students calling them dumbasses.”

Chad’s comment seemed to finally take Sarah’s eyes off her book.

“But they are dumbasses!”

“Thank you all for your thoughts,” Rose said, directing the conversation away from another bickering match between Chad and Sarah, “I think we have established that the passing periods will probably take some time for everyone to get used to. We will make sure to keep track of tardiness rates and see if the shortening of the passing periods has become more of a nuisance than a help. Now, let’s move onto other aspects of the schedule change. A big one was going from a block scheduled lunch to a single lunch period for all students. What responses from the student body did you all observe?”

Silence. Nobody seemed to have a response to her question.

How the hell am I supposed to know what a thousand students think? Half the people I interacted with today are in this room.

Peter and Chivral were the only two other students he had spoken with today.

Wait.

Everyone in this room was a part of the student body. They were also in the student council, but their opinions still reflected the students’. There was no reason to exclude them from the data, they were students too.

“Well I think,” Chad cleared his throat again, “I think going from a block scheduled lunch to a single lunch period was a poor decision. Block scheduled lunches are more efficient in terms of how many students are having lunch at the same time. Having everyone eat lunch at one time can create overcrowded eating areas.”

Since he was above the 3.65 GPA threshold, he didn’t have to eat lunch in the cafeteria. He could only guess that it was overpacked due to everyone eating at the same time. He didn’t know for sure. The only reason he brought the point forward was because his lunch spot was stolen earlier that day.

“Nobody cares what you are thinking,” Sarah said, “You’re just a single data point, meaningless in the grand scheme of things. We want the perspective of all the students, not just a single caveman.”

This bitch!

He retaliated even though he didn’t want to. He needed to try to defend his dignity.

“Am I not a part of the student body? Does my opinion not matter?”

“Ugh, my head hurts. Can you please stop talking? I’m losing brain cells with every word you speak.”

Rose scowled at the bickering pair.

“Chad’s feedback is still appreciated. Everyone’s opinion matters, but we cannot make true observations without a bigger data pool,” she turned to Sarah, “Since you are so critical of Chad’s answer, why don’t you provide a better one?”

“It’s impossible for me to tell what beings of lower intelligence are thinking. It’s like if you were to try to interpret the feelings and emotions of a chicken.”

Rose smothered her face into one of her hands, “Ok, how about instead of trying to interpret the feelings of all the students, let’s take Chad’s approach and just give our own opinions. Sarah, would you like to go?”

“Gladly,” she closed her book for the first time since moving back her chair, “I think it's pointless to try to improve the academic performance of a bunch of witless plebs. We should be training them for service jobs and manual labor so they can be of some use. Also, I think we need to address the teachers. They are clearly incapable and cannot perform their jobs properly, with some even completely ignoring their duties. They're just as bad as the cavemen.”

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

What the hell is her problem?

“Thank you for sharing Sarah. That was… something,” Rose turned to her right, “Ko-ko, opinions?”

Kobani kneeled onto her chair into what seemed to be her talking position, where her upper body could fully clear the table.

“I think the teachers are just doing their best,” She rubbed her eyes with one of her sleeves, “I mean, think about it. The schedule change could be interpreted as a direct insult to the teachers. It's as if the school board is saying they are incompetent and need more time to do their jobs. This change put the teachers in a very tough position. They have to adjust both their daily lesson plans and probably their overall curriculum. We should be both gracious and patient with them…” she paused, “Or, uhh… That’s at least… what I think,” she quickly sat back down and covered her face with her long sleeves.

“Thank you Ko-ko. I think taking the teacher’s perspective into consideration is a great idea. We have already seen how we fell short in doing so with the tardiness rate. Even though we are the student council, we shouldn’t solely focus on the student body. Our job is to improve this school, and the teachers are a large part in what Manha High School does.”

Kobani seemed to quiver at her praise.

Rose turned her head forward, “Lastly, Kate. What are your thoughts?”

Kate adjusted her glasses once again before speaking. It seemed to be a habit of some sort.

“Being the head hall monitor, I expected the shortened passing periods to give us a handful. I had my girls working overtime today catching people. We were of course gracious to those who didn’t resist. We let them off with simple warnings.”

“What did you do to the ones who resisted?” Kobani’s question was muffled by the sleeves covering her mouth.

“We would catch them and then bring them to detention as always,” there was pain behind her eyes, “Although, there was one runner who got away from me. It’s the first time in my entire career that someone escaped me in my halls.”

“Is it all that hard to avoid the hall monitors?”

Rose glared at Chad as if she were his mother about to scold him.

“N-not saying I’ve done it before,” Chad backpedaled, “It just doesn’t seem all that hard to not get caught. When I’ve used the restrooms, I’ve never really seen anyone else in the hallways and even if I did, I don’t think it would be all that hard to run and hide.”

“Are you questioning my girls’ abilities?”

“N-no?”

“I’ll have you know that I train my girls for runners. I’ve calculated and mapped out optimal routes for trapping them into dead end hallways. We take rulebreakers very seriously. Nobody can escape us.”

“Didn’t you say somebody got away today?”

“That was a dirty trick,” she looked out the window into the great beyond, “After we trapped the perpetrator at the end of the English hallway, he ducked into the male restroom.”

“Couldn’t you just wait outside until he was finished?” Kobani asked.

“That’s what we did, but that little deviant waited the entire second period until the bell rang. The hallways became crowded and he escaped into the chaos. I was never able to get a good look at him.”

See, not that hard. Anyone could have come up with that plan.

“Why didn’t you just send in another caveman to catch the other one?”

“What?”

“You could’ve just sent a male student into the boys restroom right?” Sarah looked up from her paperback, “He could’ve waited right outside the stall to get a good look at the escapee, avoiding the problem of the crowded hallways. Doesn’t seem all that hard of a strategy to think of.”

“We would if we could, but the hall monitors are all girls. We don’t have any male students on our team.”

“Pretty simple solution,” Sarah pointed to Chad, “We got a pea-brained one right here. He would do fine with some easy to grasp instructions.”

“Hell no!” He found himself becoming irate with Sarah, “No way in hell I’m joining the hall monitors, my schedule is already busy enough!”

“Someone’s a bit pissy today, aren’t we?”

“Enough,” Rose continued to mediate the discussion, “Thank you Kate for your thoughts. Although we often work in conjunction with the hall monitors, I would like to keep this discussion focused on what we can do as the student council. What can we do to help our fellow students?”

Chad took his hostile eyes off of Sarah and sat back in his chair.

Is this what all the meetings are going to be like?

“If that is that, I would like to quickly run through our plan on how we’ll prepare for homecoming next week. We are responsible for almost all activities and events going on that week and we’ll have to start some foundational work this week.”

Kobani’s small hand reached out into the air above her.

“Uh,” Rose looked a bit confused, “Ko-ko, you don’t have to raise your hand to speak. Always feel free to bring your thoughts and questions forward.”

“O-oh, ok,” she assumed her talking position, leaning onto the table with her hands, “Are we still running the concession stand for the girl’s soccer game this Friday? It seems like we have a lot to do.”

Concessions?

Sports games usually didn’t start until at least six or seven o’clock after school and lasted until around ten at night. This doesn’t sound good.

“Yes, you’re right that we have a lot of work these next two weeks, but we are still running the concessions. I know with homecoming and the responsibilities of overseeing the new schedule our workload has drastically increased, but I believe in everyone’s capabilities.”

“What’s this about concessions?” Chad asked.

“We’re working the concession stand this Friday from six until ten. Try using some context clues, numbskull.”

What?

Ignoring Sarah’s provocation, he looked at Rose with wide eyes.

“You told me the only thing I had to do was these meetings?”

“What do you think we do?” Sarah scoffed, “You think we just sit around all day with our thumbs up our asses? You have to put in work as a council member, otherwise it wouldn’t mean anything on a resume if you didn’t have to do anything.”

“Well-”

He didn’t really know what student council members did. In a perfect world, he would’ve never had to know, but Rose forced this decision onto him. Rose. She had betrayed his trust and lied to him. It seems like he would be pushed into much more responsibilities than he was promised.

His eyes went from Sarah to Rose so he could plead his case, but he found her seat empty. A figure appeared directly next to him and a stern voice came from above him.

“You’re a part of the student council now,” Rose reprimanded him, “There’s going to be a lot of work and responsibilities. That’s just the way it is. Grow up and deal with it.”

Lowering his head, he mumbled, “Yes ma’am.”

She’s so different at school. So much… scarier.

Rose looked at her silver watch.

“I don’t think we’ll have enough time to productively go over the rest of what I wanted to. We’ll use the first half of tomorrow to plan for homecoming next week and then immediately begin moving things out of storage. We’ll call it early for today. You’re all free to leave, have a nice day.”

She went back to her seat and resumed typing on her laptop. Everyone else started packing up and heading out.

Sarah was the first to leave. She swiftly shut her book with one hand and grabbed her bag with the other. In one smooth motion she stood up and used her long legs to quickly exit the room.

Kate was second. After neatly putting away her calculator and clipboard into her bag, she thanked Rose for holding the meeting and left.

Kobani seemed to hesitate leaving her chair. Is she afraid she’ll fall off? After a moment of what seemed to be her planning her landing, she hopped off the chair and trotted away.

Chad looked at Rose. Her eyes didn’t move from her laptop. He could see the reflection of her screen in her glasses. She seemed to be typing in a document with a lot of words in it.

Is she writing a meeting summary?

She sat at the head of the table with perfect posture, emanating an aura of regality she held all her actions to high standards. She fit the role of student council president, there was no doubting that.

Not wanting to be there any longer than he needed to be, Chad got up to leave the room. Before walking out the door, he looked back to say goodbye, but she didn’t look away from her laptop. He ended up leaving without saying a word.