"Of course you're running!" Virginia practically shouts at me when I explained my dilemma. "Someone needs to represent Horse Hall! No one else in any other years is running."
"But," I squirm on my bed. If I don't run, Virginia is never going to let me live this down. "But Grabby-"
"Oh come on," Virginia rolls her eyes. "You see him for…what? Five minutes in the morning? That's not so bad, is it?"
"At 5 AM in the morning," I huff. "I need my sleep too or else I'll be as crabby as he is!"
"You're running!" Virginia says, as if that puts an end to it. "You already have all of your campaign materials and everything, and you have all of else helping."
I sigh. "Okay, but what about Minnie and Jacob?"
"What about them?"
"She seemed really determined to have Jacob win with her," I say. "I mean, how awkward would it be if Minnie is mad at me all year because Jacob didn't win?"
"Well, then, she wouldn't be a very good class president, would she?" Ellen pipes up. We both turn to look at her. "I just mean that everyone is voting in this, so we all have a say in who gets elected. There are a lot of people who don't like Jacob. Short of bribing people off, I don't know who else is going to vote for him besides her and her friends from Butterfly Hall."
I tip my head to the side. Minnie may not like to admit it, but Jacob's holier-than-thou attitude has made him quite unpopular with the rest of the class. Winning the treasury position may only inflate his ego. "All right," I say at last. "I'll run." Virginia cheered from her bed while Ellen just smiled.
The most awkward part of campaigning last year was how to stand out. "Lady Lampshade Head" was a unique slogan, but it hardly got me noticed in the sea of other people screaming their names and doing magic tricks with sparklers. Finally Donald got the bright idea to let him and Thomas run around and dance with lampshades on their head. Donald was popular with pretty much everybody, or at least known by everyone for his crazy pranks and antics, and so he attracted a lot of attention.
When it came time to recite the speeches, I stuck to the same script that I had written out last year. It won me the slot before, so why not?
Hi everyone, my name is Tori Brown and I am running for class treasurer. In managing money, I will increase accountability through careful record-keeping so that everyone can see exactly where funds come from and how they are used. It will be my job to manage class fundraising events. I will create new events so that we can reach out to new populations and be more successful than ever. And the most important thing that I bring to the table as treasurer is my math skills, because I can count pretty well! Thank you for listening, and please vote for Lady Lampshade-Head!
It's again met with a round of polite applause, broken only by the sound of Donald whooping and stamping his feet on the ground. I sit around patiently with Virginia, Ellen and Donald until it's my turn to vote. I am honestly considering voting against myself when Ellen runs back up to us and tells us that Professor Grabiner is sitting in the room to make sure there is no "funny business" with the elections. I never heard of anything funny with the elections happening before, but I suppose it couldn't hurt to have a teacher oversee everything to make sure no one used magic to rig the elections. Maybe that was one of the things that he was talking about when he said there had been changes this year? Just like last year, I hadn't actually read the book so I wasn't sure.
Slowly we all line up in one giant line, waiting for everyone to have a turn at voting. To ensure the integrity of the votes, we mark our ballots on a slip of paper, no magic allowed. As I walk into the room to place my vote, I notice that Professor Grabiner is sitting in a chair in the far corner, reading a book. To my relief, he doesn't glance up at me when I walk in.
I immediately pick up the first piece of paper on my left and check off Minnie's name on the ballot slip and drop it into the class president box. Just because she didn't want me to win the treasury position didn't mean I didn't want her to be class president again. She had helped me out a lot last year, tutoring me in black magic, and so I kind of owed her one for that.
But I am far less sure on who to pick for class treasurer, as I hover with my hand over the ballot. Either me or Jacob…
I twist my head from the table to look up at Grabby. He still hasn't acknowledged me. As I stand there, leaning over the table, a pulse of emotion flows through me and I immediately drop my eyes. It felt like a vessel just popped in the back of my brain, although I'm not sure why. For some reason, I need to be treasurer in that moment, like I had done something important as treasurer or would do something important, it's not quite clear, but all I know is I'm struck with an overwhelming need to be treasurer again.
I ignore a light tingling in the back of my brain as I look down and see that I had already made a slight mark in the box with my name in it. I sketch it in so it looks like a big check mark and then throw it in the appropriate box. I drop the pencil down and quickly make for the exit. As I'm about to turn the knob on the handle, I hear a faint, almost ghost-like voice behind me. "Good luck, Ms. Brown."
"Thank-thank you, sir," I stammer as I make my way out of the room, almost bumping into the doorway as I did so.
Ellen and Donald are excitedly chatting when I walk back in, while Virginia is talking to some students from the Butterfly house. I contemplate sitting by myself, but ultimately decide to go closer to Virginia. As soon as she sees me, she immediately waves me over. "If you don't win, you can thank these girls. They all voted for Jacob."
"It's fine," I say quickly, immediately regretting my decision to sit with her. Fortunately they start talking about sports, and I sit and listen quietly while I'm waiting for them to finish the voting.
What had happened to me in there? The light tingling in the back of my brain had faded now, but I was still left with an overwhelming feeling of uncertainty. At first I would suspect that Grabiner had used some type of magic on me to check my own name, but that didn't make any sense. Grabiner didn't prefer me over Jacob, at least to my knowledge, and Professor Potsdam had just gone over how to know when someone is using a spell on us in white magic class last week, and I didn't feel anything. At least nothing besides that weird pop in the back of my brain. What was that about?
Finally, Professor Potsdam comes out and gets us all to quiet down to announce the new class officers. Minnie Cochran, of course, was the class president again and Tori Brown was the class treasurer, again. It takes me a second to realize that she's saying my name, and it doesn't fully register until I feel Virginia hugging me with both arms from behind as she whoops and hollers in my ear. From down on the gym floor, I can see Donald with a lampshade on his head, doing the same dance that he had done out in the quad. For some reason, this is enough to shake me out of my stupor, and I smile and grin along with everyone else and thank everyone who congratulated me – even Jacob.
It's not until I make it back to my dorm later that I am able to register the feeling I had when Professor Potsdam had said my name. Surprise. Most of the discussion in the gym had leaned towards a lot of people voting for Jacob, not me, especially when he had spent his money on those expensive customizable cupcakes. Unless they were lying about who they voted for, how could I possibly have gotten enough votes?
I consider talking to Virginia, or even Ellen about it, but what am I supposed to say to them? I think the election was somehow rigged in my favor? Professor Grabiner was in the room to ensure that no one could do that, which meant that the only person who could have possibly rigged the election was Professor Grabiner himself. And why would he do that? It's no secret he hates me, given how often he's been picking on me in class lately. No, there's no point in talking to anybody about it, there's nothing anyone can do about it anyway. The elections over, and I won, probably fair and square. Maybe I only want the election to be rigged so I can get out of a position I wasn't sure I wanted in the first place.
I let out a deep breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding. Well, however it came about, I'm treasurer now. And my prize? A whole year of 5 AM Saturday mornings with Grabby-pants. Greatttt.
As soon as the last student made his decision, Professor Grabiner stood up and placed the book down quietly behind him. With a flick of wrist, the door's lock clicked into place as he magically sorted through the contents of each box. First: class president. He dumped them all in a large pile and, with a quick utterance under his breath, let them sort themselves. The papers that checked Minnie's name floated to the left, and the papers that checked Suki's name floated to the right. Even halfway through sorting, it was obvious that Minnie won by a landslide.
Moving on to more pressing matters, he started to sort the votes for class treasurer. It wouldn't be hard to rig the votes. After all, he was the only one who saw them, and, especially considering that everyone had forgotten that they were married, assumed he had no reason to favor her in any way. He had already bullied her in class a little more than usual to drive the point home that he didn't prefer her over anyone else.
But as the piles sorted themselves, they seemed to land pretty much…evenly. He paused, frowning at the pile. They looked exactly even. He sighed and pulled over a chair and began to count them the hard way, by hand. It took him a few minutes to count them once, twice, three times, but at the end of the day, Tori won by one vote. He pondered this for a moment: he had been so obsessed with the thought of rigging the election in her favor to keep a close eye on her that he failed to realize that she could win the election on her own merit. It led him to wonder how many other times he had underestimated her.
"Do I want to know what you're doing in here?" Professor Potsdam appeared behind him. "I tried the door but it was strangely locked."
"I was just counting up the votes," Grabiner said evenly. "Miss Cochran and Miss Brown are again the class president and treasurer, respectively."
"And I'll assume that you haven't tampered with these votes in any way to skew them in her favor?" Her voice was sickly sweet.
He let out a deep breath, and for once when he spoke, his voice wasn't full of his usual dry, contemptuous tone. He sounded almost relieved. "Didn't have to. Count them yourself." And with that, he turned on his heel, unlocked the door and left to head back to his quarters.
When he finally returned back to the gym for the freshman voting he was displeased to see that boy, Thomas Howell, getting a large amount of applause for his speech. He again assumed his post of watching the voting, and waited patiently for it to be over. Finally, when the last girl had placed her vote, he emptied out the boxes. He counted the ballots for class president first; he didn't really care about who won that. But when he counted the ballots for the treasury position, he saw that Thomas won by a landslide. Mouth set in a firm line, he closed his eyes and concentrated.
The little white slips of paper began to shake gently on the table in front of him as the black ink started to ooze, the letters slowly dripping into each other in a melted puddle until they were nothing more than a giant smudge. When they finally resettled into their respective letters, the check boxes were still in the same spot, but the names were switched. Thomas had…lost…by a landslide.
With a smug smile playing on his lips, he left the ballots there for Potsdam to find. Whether his actions were right or wrong, it hardly mattered to him. He had a job to do. His role was to protect Ms. Brown, and that was what he intended to do. And he did not trust Thomas, not even a little. From the minute Thomas blew up the wall in the first exam to how much time he spent with Tori, Grabiner did not, could not, trust him, and he was not about to risk them spending even more time together on Saturday mornings. If she developed feelings for him and they kissed, the Manus would take her and he could lose all of his magic and memories. The situation was dangerous for them both, and he would do whatever was necessary to protect both her and himself. The alone time he would then have with her, he assured himself, was simply an unintended benefit, and nothing more.