Total Knockout by Taylor Morris Page A

the rules of the meeting and voting, the more incensed I became. How could our own principal not know the bylaws? I barely paused to think if Mrs. Peoria, our student council adviser in name only, knew about them. It was clear she had no interest in us at all. I realized how weary I’d become of trying to shake everyone into seeing how important and useful the student council was. When they saw those gleaming new vending machines, they’d know that Lucia Latham got stuff done.
    As a test, I decided that if anyone at the meeting mentioned the bylaws, I would halt the vote and scratch the vending machine idea. Everyone had been given a copy of the rules and bylaws immediately after the election results were announced, so they were presumably informed—if they wanted to be.
    After school the next day, I dashed out of last-period science and raced for Mrs. Peoria’s classroom to make sure I was the first one there. I swear, Mrs. Peoria does the minimum required at this school, including the way she presents herself. Her graying hair was barely brushed, and her blouse was only kind of tucked into her slacks. I know it was the end of the day, but still. As soon as I arrived in her room, she collected somepapers and a book and said she’d be in the teachers’ lounge if I needed anything. “I’ll be back in thirty minutes.” She sighed as she dragged her feet out the door.
    The first council meeting was one of my favorite parts of each year. Sure, in the past I’d had unwilling participants who sometimes made things more difficult, or even impossible for me to accomplish (see: Steven Francis), but I loved those moments before the first meeting, when I actually had myself convinced that this was the year that people understood and cared about what I did.
    I arranged four desks in a circle so we could all sit facing each other. My first year as president I had held the meeting standing at the front of the classroom but felt that, after two meetings, the students were resentful of my authority, so I started doing the round table thing. It gave the illusion of us all being on equal footing.
    Cooper was the first arrive, with a little smile when he saw me. He wore his standard baggy polo shirt, and his hair—which needed to be trimmed—was all mussed up in a cute kind of way. I smiled back at him. Melanie came in next, wearing a pink newsboy hat and listeningto music on her MP3 player. When she saw us, she did a little shuffle.
    â€œDid I miss anything?” she asked, taking out her earbuds.
    â€œWe’re just waiting on Jared,” I told her, glancing at the clock. I had avoided admitting it so far, but I was a little nervous about Jared. Only two people had run for treasurer—Jared, who mistakenly thought that being in student council got you out of homeroom, and a girl named Amanda, who failed prealgebra and ran as a dare.
    I didn’t have a problem with Jared per se, but I did have an uneasy feeling that he was always making fun of me. Anytime he said anything to me, there was always a bit of a smirk on his face, like he was in on something I didn’t get, and he liked it that way.
    Melanie popped her earbuds back in. “Hey, we should have a dance contest!” I could hear the rattling of music from across the table. “Wanna listen?” she asked Cooper, a bit loudly. She handed him a bud; he wiped it on his shirt, then tucked it into his ear. Melanie rolled her eyes but kept grooving. “Ah, yeah,” she said. Cooper smiled. “Like this,” she told him, and they shifted their bodies left and right in time to the music.
    â€œY’all,” I said. I didn’t want to be a buzz kill, but (a) we should have started the meeting without Jared because (b) I was anxious about getting the vote going, (c) I hated to be kept waiting and felt it was the height of selfishness, and (d) the truth was, I was a little jealous at being left out of the