(February, 612)

For the past thirty minutes, Elizabeth Sawyer had been pressing her fingernails so tightly into her palms that she knew she was bound to draw blood. She unclenched her fists and started fiddling with her black corkscrew curls.

“All I’m saying is that the resources to switch to clean, mage-produced energy exist and using them could drastically reduce our school’s carbon footprint.”

Elizabeth watched exasperatedly as the same pale ninth-grader who’d been plaguing BISM’s student council for the past month once again stood defiantly in front of their tanned, twelfth-grade school president Jake Richter. She unclenched her fists and started fiddling with her black corkscrew curls.

Unlike the last four meetings, Jake didn’t bother to hide his annoyed expression under a strained smile.

“David, for the last time,” he said, “This is not something that’s up for discussion. Drop the subject.”

David looked around the circle of chairs at the other student council members’ faces. Elizabeth joined the majority in looking away, though some kept steady, unrelenting eye-contact with the boy. David’s expression turned from outrage to disgust and back to outrage in a matter of seconds. He turned back to Jake, who had sat down and was rubbing his forehead with his palm.

“You told me,” said David, “If I found out how it could be done you’d talk to the principal about it.”

“I said I’d consider it,” said Jake. A subtle note of desperation crept into his voice. “You have to know that this isn’t something the student council is responsible for.”

David opened his mouth to speak again but Jake cut him off, meeting his eyes.

“David, if you don’t have any realistic ideas you want to talk about,” he said, “Then sit down.”

Elizabeth immediately knew that phrasing it like that was a big mistake. David turned the page of his spiral notebook defiantly as the student council broke into a choir of barely repressed groans.

“Actually,” said David, ignoring their displeasure, “I wanted to bring up my suggestion from our last session about Meatless Mondays again.”

Last time he’d ‘suggested’ this, it had turned into an hour-long screaming match between him and Silvia Rodriguez. Elizabeth was relieved that the eleventh-grader had a Chemistry test that interfered with today’s meeting.

“David.” Jake was reaching his breaking point. “We’re not doing Meatless Mondays.”

“Why not?” asked David, “Give me one good reason—”

“Nobody wants it.” Paul Kowalewicz called out.

David turned his fiery glare at Paul who responded with a contemptuously raised eyebrow. David opened his mouth to say something before thinking better of it and turning back to Jake.

“What’s the point of this student council?” he asked, “None of you do anything. Today we talked about the slipper policy in dorm buildings and having a Mad Hair day.”

Jake looked like a defeated man.

“Sit down, David,” he said.

“No, but seriously,” said David, “Tell me one important thing you’ve changed in your entire time on the council, Jake. Just one and I’ll sit down and shut up.

“Sit down, David,” said Jake.

David took one last furious look around the student council before he sat down. His eyes met Elizabeth’s just one second before she could avert them. For a moment, she thought she saw a silent plea in them. She looked away. For the last five minutes of the student council meeting, David didn’t say another word but just sat silently and scribbled aggressively into his notebook.

“I hear he was actually voted in as a joke,” said Gloria Hunter as they headed back to class.

“Who?” asked Elizabeth, “David?”

Gloria nodded conspiratorially. The 10B-class’s student council representative and her vice-rep Tina Kazlauskas strolled down the halls of the Hawthorne Student Centre with Elizabeth.

“Yeah, you know Isra Saab’s little brother?” Elizabeth nodded. “He got the whole class to vote for him.”

“Awww,” said Tina, “That’s so mean!”

Elizabeth agreed — an entire class picking on one kid seemed unnecessarily cruel. Akeem Saab had always seemed like a nice, if a little immature, guy and Elizabeth wondered whether she should mention this to her friend Isra.

“Totally.” Gloria nodded. “I mean, I would never do that. But it’s like — don’t hate me, but I think it’s a little funny.”

She looked over at Elizabeth with a gleeful smile. Elizabeth returned it.

Truthfully, she was a little conflicted over David Behrends and his passionate crusades for things completely out of the student council’s wheelhouse. In a way his refusal to understand what was and was not relevant to their agenda was as childish as Akeem’s backfired prank. At the same time, she actually liked a couple of his ideas. Perhaps not the one about changing the school’s entire energy supply and replacing it with what Elizabeth assumed were half-baked alternatives and positive thinking. But his past proposals on improving vegetarian meals would be legitimately useful. The vegetarian options were generally the same as the non-vegetarian ones only with the meat half-heartedly plucked out. Still, David had a habit of going to extremes and proposing things like Meatless Mondays, which would get little to no support. That was what made him so incredibly frustrating.

Gloria and Tina had changed the subject to Lucas Pereira’s obvious infatuation with Tina when David stomped past them. It seemed he had stayed behind — Maybe to try his luck convincing Jake in private or because he had been asked to stay back and been chewed out. Either way, the conversation didn’t seem to have gone well as he didn’t spare them half a glance or return Gloria’s pleasant ‘hello’ as he stormed away.

“Well, that was rude,” said Gloria and they kept walking.

The next week, Elizabeth entered the student council room with her short and curly-haired vice-representative Clement. Clement hadn’t been at the last meeting because he had caught a nasty cold but Elizabeth had brought him up to speed before this one. He was even less amused with David’s antics than Jake had been and had claimed that he would give David a piece of his mind if he did something like that again. Elizabeth highly doubted that — Clement wasn’t exactly known for his backbone — but she knew he was just saying what he thought she’d want to hear. They sat down and Elizabeth gave a friendly nod to 10A’s representatives before starting a conversation with Gloria and Tina.

“So what do you think of that David kid?” asked Clement, including himself in the conversation and staring directly at an uncomfortable Gloria.

“He’s okay,” she said, curtly.

Tina nodded and gave Gloria an amused smile.

“Don’t gossip about him when he’s here,” said Elizabeth, admonishingly.

“We’re not gossiping!” said Clement, “We’re exchanging opinions about a person.”

Even Gloria and Tina didn’t buy that.

“Besides,” said Gloria. She leaned forward and gave them a look that meant she had some serious gossip to share. “He’s not coming today.”

Elizabeth looked around the room.

“He’s not?” she asked.

“His brother told me,” said Gloria, “You know, Max?”

Max was like a taller, blonder Clement whom Gloria had inexplicably taken a liking to. He trailed after her like a pitiful puppy she’d rescued from the pound. Elizabeth couldn’t help her surprise at finding out that David and Max were related — let alone brothers. The only time Elizabeth had ever heard Max utter an opinion was when he suggested Gloria get the orange juice in the cafeteria before changing his mind when Gloria said she preferred water.

“He said David’s passing out fliers instead,” said Gloria.

Tina snorted and the two exchanged grins again.

“They should kick him off the student council,” said Clement, filled with self-righteous rage.

“That’s a little harsh,” said Elizabeth.

She ignored Clement’s retraction of his statement as Jake started the meeting. They had a few topics — The administration had decided not to have a Mad Hair day because they felt the idea was repetitive. They had also disagreed with their ideas for a slipper policy in the dormitories.

Elizabeth found herself dozing off several times throughout the meeting and was glad when it came to a close. Gloria, Tina, Elizabeth, and Clement walked through the Hawthorne Student Centre and onto the courtyard.

It was an unseasonably sunny day considering it was February. The courtyard was just about overrun by students in big puffer jackets trying to soak up some sunshine after yet another dark and gloomy winter. Students sat on the benches and on the edge of the snowed in fountain. One group seemed to have stolen some chairs from the coffee shop and Elizabeth made a mental note to make sure the chairs found their way back home later.

In the midst of it all, stood a pale David wearing a thick black parka and passing out fliers. A dark-haired boy, whom Elizabeth recognized as his soft-spoken vice-rep Olivier Montagne, stood on the other side, rushing after people and having a much harder time approaching them. Great, thought Elizabeth, so nobody from 9C knows what went on at the meeting. She tried to repress the part of her that asked what difference attending the meeting had made anyway and watched David, who was in a one-sidedly heated discussion — his side — and was trying to convince people to join his cause. She didn’t notice her fellow student council members grow anxious to leave until Gloria tapped her on the shoulder.

“Liz, are you coming?” she asked.

Elizabeth looked over at her and then back at David.

“Shouldn’t we at least find out what this is about?” she asked.

Tina sighed but Gloria’s curiosity was captured and so they walked over to David to get a flier.

“Hey, you missed student council,” said Clement, accusatory glare in place.

David looked unimpressed and proffered a flier. Elizabeth took it and the others reluctantly followed suit when David offered each one of them one.

“I wanted to do something that mattered,” he said.

Way to be dramatic, thought Elizabeth. She pushed down her doubts and took a look at the violently red flier in her hand. The bold, bright yellow words ‘DEMAND VEGAN AND VEGETARIAN MEALS’ shot in her eye. Underneath it said something about ‘the meatless revolution’ and ‘standing up to inequality’.

“We’re having a sit-in tomorrow in front of the teacher’s lounge,” said David.

“Not inside?” asked Elizabeth, despite her better judgment.

“Ollie said people might be scared of getting expelled,” David answered. He rolled his eyes as if expulsion were a ridiculous thing to be afraid of. “The teachers will let us sit outside, but if we enter their lounge we’ll be in trouble.” He looked at a passing group of goth kids and suddenly seemed eager to leave. “You can bring a sign if you want — We’ll be making some too.”

He started to turn away but Gloria wasn’t about to leave without getting the full scoop. She shot him a smile that she usually wore when she was trying to figure out how she was going to retell a story later.

“How long are you protesting?” she asked.

David brushed his chin-length, blond hair out of his face. His eyes kept darting to the goth kids.

“Uh, not sure yet,” he said, “Until they offer vegan and vegetarian meal options.”

Gloria nodded slowly. The goth kids left the courtyard and David was visibly dejected. He sighed and looked around for his next victims.

“Anyway,” he said and turned to walk away again.

Gloria and Tina also seemed to be ready to leave and Clement’s eyes were jumping from person to person as he tried to figure out what to do.

“Wait,” said Elizabeth.

David turned back impatiently and she found herself at a loss for words. She wasn’t sure what she wanted to tell him — ‘I’ll come to your sit-in’? ‘Don’t lose your fighting spirit’? ‘I applaud what you’re doing but it’s never going to work’? So instead she opened her notebook and ripped out the few notes she’d taken during the meeting.

“Here you go,” she said.

David looked at her notes suspiciously.

“Notes from the meeting today,” she said, “Since both of you were missing I thought — Well, you should still stay informed.”

He didn’t seem ecstatic and she wondered if he was judging the fact that she hadn’t even filled half a page.

“Won’t you need these?” he asked, his voice surprisingly devoid of the derision she had expected.

She hadn’t thought about that and didn’t immediately have an answer for him. After a slightly awkward pause she responded.

“Uh, you can just give them back to me at the next meeting.”

He nodded and, lo and behold, even shot her a smile.

“Cool,” he said, “Thanks.”

He turned away and walked towards a messenger bag leaning next to the fountain as Elizabeth tried not to feel embarrassed. She ignored the looks Gloria and Tina were shooting each other as the four of them walked away.