"What?!"
Andrew's shout rang out across the hallway, immediately drawing a crowd of curious students.
Will's face darkened. He shot Andrew a withering glare and shut his mouth.
The thing was, Will had been quietly nursing a secret crush on President Maya for a while now. Nothing would ever come of it — he knew that — but just being able to look at her was enough. Or so he'd thought. Then, two days ago, he'd gone to the corner store to pick up some adult magazines, and of all the people in the world to run into, he'd run into her — the very object of his quiet admiration — browsing the same rack. And she hadn't reached for the editions marketed toward women or the ones aimed at gay men. No. She'd only picked up the exact kind he regularly browsed himself.
Which meant... Maya might be a lesbian?
Will couldn't wrap his head around it. When he overheard Andrew and his crew talking this morning, he realized Andrew was Maya's neighbor. He'd decided to pressure Andrew — the guy had a squeaky-clean academic record, so he'd have plenty to lose — into sharing what he knew about the President. He just wanted to find out whether she really swung that way.
What he hadn't counted on was Andrew being a stubborn pain in the neck who immediately squared up with a fist.
So Will had played his only card: he told Andrew what he'd seen, hoping to trade gossip for gossip. That would have worked if Andrew hadn't immediately bellowed it loudly enough for half the school to hear.
Now a ring of students had formed around them. Will swallowed his plan and walked away. He wasn't an idiot — he'd felt the weight of President Maya's authority before. If word got back to her that he'd been talking, he was finished, one way or another.
If she wasn't a lesbian and it turned out to be a false rumor — dead.
If she was a lesbian and he'd just outed her — dead, but slower and more painfully.
Either way, no good ending.
Will quietly made his way to the student council office, signed his name and class number in the disciplinary log, and resigned himself to losing his beloved dreadlocks that night.
Meanwhile, President Maya herself had no idea that her little errand for Tom — picking up some reading material — had already become a topic of school-wide fascination.
After standing watch over the disciplinary check-in for a few minutes and confirming that every delinquent on the list was behaving themselves without a single outburst, she returned to her office and settled in to review the spring sports meet proposal Nana had submitted.
One skim through was all it took for a small frown to crease her brow.
The registration numbers were abysmal.
It would be a mistake to assume American students were inherently more athletic than their counterparts elsewhere. Plenty of kids were perfectly happy staying indoors, regardless of nationality or background. It was just a matter of personality.
In past years, President Maya had handled this personally. She'd go directly to the sports clubs — basketball, volleyball, and the rest — and assign each of them specific events to fill, like a general handing out orders. Once the clubs covered their slots and the general registration trickled in on top of that, the sports meet had always been packed. Loud. A genuine event. The principal loved it every single time.
This year, it seemed Nana had failed to persuade any of those clubs to budge.
Speak of the devil—
The thought had barely formed before the office door swung open and Nana came barreling in.
Now, the 1990s weren't exactly a golden age for hair. Perms and dye jobs were the height of fashion, sure, but the technology just wasn't there yet. The silky, luminous straight hair that would become standard a decade or so later was still an impossible dream. Back then, even shampoo commercials caused a sensation because flowing, healthy hair on-screen was the real thing — and audiences ate it up.
All of which was context for what Nana was currently sporting: a fluffy, umbrella-shaped perm.
It was the classic look of the era: shoulder-length hair blow-dried and permed into a perfectly round, fully voluminous sphere that fanned out from her head like an open umbrella. Clearly, she'd spent the weekend treating herself.
Maya reached up and touched her own waist-length hair, which was also quite fluffy — a bit like young Hermione Granger's wild mane from Harry Potter. Then again, that story was set in the same era for good reason.
Nana stepped into the office and immediately spotted Maya leafing through her spring sports meet proposal. Her cheeks flushed slightly, and she fidgeted with the hem of her jacket.
"I'm sorry, Maya. I know you assigned me this because you wanted me to build up my student council experience — something that would help me later in high school and with college applications. And I blew it." She looked down. "I'm really sorry."
Maya studied her for a moment, and quietly revised her opinion upward.
So she actually understood.
That was precisely why Maya had arranged this for her. Their community school had elementary and middle divisions that were managed separately but physically connected — same campus, same hallways, and when you moved up, you were just reshuffled into a new class. Everyone already knew everyone.
Except for a rare few — those with standout academic records or serious athletic talent. They could escape to more competitive schools. President Maya herself was one of those cases, and so was that unfortunate held-back student, William Baker. For everyone else, the path ran straight from here to the local high school.
Nana's grades were average — average even by the modest standards of this school. She wasn't going to claw her way to a magnet program on test scores alone. The student council was her ladder.
And the community school's student council was essentially the same crowd as the elementary division's, just reshuffled. If Maya were still around, she'd be President there too — even the senior members from two years above her had once been her subordinates. New leader, new order. Simple as that.
But Maya wouldn't be there. Which meant Nana needed to prove herself now, before the handover, or she'd get pushed to the margins in high school.
Nana obviously understood all of this. Unfortunately, she simply didn't have Maya's kind of authority. Nobody listened to her. Nobody wanted to sign up for the sports meet.
You couldn't blame it on ability. People were cautious and tongue-tied around Maya because they were terrified of her. Around Nana, there was no such awe, so there was no compliance. It had nothing to do with skill — it was entirely a matter of how people related to the person they were dealing with.
There was nothing Maya could do about that directly. She was the president; she couldn't pull strings behind the scenes without undermining the whole point.
The student council's internal process was clear: a project lead was assigned, results determined the lead's standing, and standing determined their future in the organization. That was why young Maya had risen so fast — she'd handled several major things perfectly in her first year. Everyone believed in her capabilities because she'd proven them. Nobody could argue with results.
That was how it worked.
As the outgoing president, Maya was close to stepping back. Nobody had said it out loud, but everyone understood: this year's project scores would determine who led both the elementary and high school student councils going forward.
President Maya couldn't break those rules and play favorites. And honestly, she wouldn't be able to even if she wanted to — in a few months, the election would proceed without her, and she'd have no say in it.