Marinette and Alya formally meet the other class representatives, as well as gain the approval of the student council.
The school was abuzz on Tuesday, much in a way it wasn't usually so. Chatter filled the halls, excited and happy, and it was in this scene where Marinette and Alya walked into the building with iced coffees in hand.
"I guess the elections went well," the bespectacled girl commented with a huff of a laugh.
Marinette glanced about, sipping her drink as her short ponytail swayed behind her. "I'll say."
The two made their way up the stairs, the chatter fading somewhat from their ears as they walked.
"Do we know who the other representatives are?" Alya asked, turning to the girl in question. "I'm still not sure how all of this works..."
"No worries," said the noirette with a smile. Humming in thought, she began, "Obviously it's not just our class that had an election - every class for every grade has elections for their class reps, and each grade is grouped together. Once a week we have a meeting with the others in Madame Victoria's classroom, and at least once or twice a month we have to meet with the other grades for things like major school events. For example, if we have a concert or class trips to plan for, or even planning for graduation, we need to make sure we're all on the same page."
Alya nodded, brow furrowed. "I see, I see. Sounds a little like my old school, then, except we had a student council you could run for. Not like they did a whole lot, though; the staff seemed to veto every single idea we had. It wasn't worth trying."
That made Marinette stop in her tracks.
It took the older girl a moment to realize she'd stopped walking, and when she looked back with her head tilted, the expression on the girl's face made her fully turn. "What? Did I say something weird?"
"No, no, it's just, we have one of those too," she explained quietly, intensely. Her blue eyes flickered as she continued, "The student council is made fully of ninth-graders. The thing is, though, their election is essentially confidential - nobody knows who the council is, nor do we really know what they do, but whenever we have a discipline issue with a student, they're one of the first to know. They basically act like a liaison between students and staff."
"Why are you so serious about it? What, do the walls have ears or something?" She tried to quip, the corner of her mouth tugging in a half-smile.
Luckily, that seemed to do the trick, because Marinette let out a little laugh. "I didn't mean to seem scared or anything. It's because..." she bit her lip. Then she shook her head, ends of her ponytail brushing her shoulders. "No, I can't tell you that part. Rose will be upset, and I don't want to talk about that particular incident anyway. All I can say is that the council has a lot more power than you'd think - and that's only a bad thing if you habitually cause trouble."
With that little bit of surprised silence that clouded the air around them, she gestured with her chin. "C'mon, Madame Victoria's gonna be upset if we're late."
As soon as the duo had walked into the classroom, Alya took notice of the desks arranged into a rectangle, chairs all facing each other. Several other students were milling about, most of them sitting and talking amongst themselves.
In the small crowd of faces, a familiar one spotted them. Mireille beamed and made her way over to the two, raising a hand in greeting.
"Marinette!" she said in relief. "I'm so glad you got picked too. I... I'm still not good with crowds yet..."
"Look on the bright side, at least this will help you with your new weathergirl gig." The noirette smiled at her, following her to the table. "Who's your deputy?"
"Oh, Peter is over there." Pointing to a redheaded boy, he glanced up upon hearing his name and nodded at the three girls. "He's been very kind in helping me get used to this new position."
Marinette took a seat next to her, and Alya sat at her other side. Mireille leaned in, her friendly countenance dropping into a more concerned one. "I'm worried about Aurore."
"The class is still treating her badly?" She sounded surprised. Alya looked at her friend in astonishment.
"I mean, they aren't as cold as before, but..." gaze flickering around the room, the dark-haired girl added, "They're still being mean. And they're afraid of Ange now; she hates it. I wish we didn't have to deal with this mess."
"Poor Aurore... poor Ange," Marinette lamented with a quiet sigh. "Well, I heard from one of the others that they wanted to start some kind of akuma support club. How's that going?"
"They had their first session yesterday, I think. Just a preliminary thing to make sure they start off on the right foot."
She nodded in agreement. "It's probably cruel to say, but in the event we do have more akumas here, hopefully they can help reassure people about it."
Alya looked from Mireille to Marinette, brow furrowed. "But Marinette... we got trapped in-"
A warning look from the girl made her trail off. Mireille looked down at her notes as Peter took his seat next to her. If she'd heard her whisper, she didn't say anything.
Was it too insensitive to bring up the fact that Aurore had nearly killed Manon with her ice prison on the carousel? The details had been hazy, but rumors spread fast, and people had been saying Mireille herself had been trapped in an elevator with a huge chunk of ice. Why on earth would you not be wary around someone with that kind of power? Honestly, she couldn't say she didn't still feel bitter towards the blonde for all she did. Manon had cried the entire time and was hardly consoled by her mother picking her up once the ice melted - and hadn't Marinette mentioned once before that she didn't have as many babysitting gigs as she did before Stormy Weather?
Still, she shook her head as the last two people wandered in, and the previously sitting Madame Victoria got to her feet in all of her 182 cm glory and announced that the meeting would begin shortly. The woman's dark hair was swept back over her shoulders in ringlets, a pretty velvet bow peeking out from the back of her head pulling graying bangs from her face, and her pale green eyes scanned the eager teenagers with a sort of gentleness that seemed to put the deputy at ease.
"Congratulations to all of you," she began, her voice subdued. Somehow, it still reached even those at the other end of the tables. "You have been chosen by your classmates because they know they can trust you to help your teachers pull together events and fundraisers for your respective classes. I will be your primary chaperone in all representative activities. Please don't hesitate to come to me with any issues."
"Now." Coming to the end of the table, she looked around. "Let's introduce ourselves. I know some of you have been in the district since Maternelle, but many of you likely don't know everyone very well. Starting with Madame Mendeleiev's class?"
"I'm Mireille, and my deputy is Peter," Mireille said, her face flushing a slight shade of pink at the attention.
"I'm Charlotte, and this is my deputy, Georgia," said another with bright red hair, brown eyes, and a face splashed with freckles. Her deputy, a taller girl with short, cropped black hair and matching eyes, nodded.
"I'm Jon, and this is my deputy Gabriel," said a dark-skinned boy with light-brown hair that fell in tight curls about his face, gesturing to another that looked practically identical save for his eyes, which instead of a deep brown were a pale blue.
"I'm Marinette," said the noirette, "and this is my deputy, Alya."
Madame Victoria smiled at the group. "Very good. Now that we've all seen each other and heard each other's names, let's go over a couple of quick points. First, your class needs to vote on a class trip for the end of the year, near spring break. It can't be anything longer than an afternoon - perhaps a day trip to Disneyland Paris, for example, or a sightseeing tour of the palace of Versailles. Once you have your trip picked, you must submit your ideas to me so that we can get them approved with the staff. From there you will need to plan at least one fundraiser a month for your class. I will also be approving those fundraising dates and ideas with the staff so none of you raise money on the same days."
"Do we have any questions?" She straightened her posture, folding her hands primly together.
One of the representatives, Gabriel, Alya surmised, raised a hand.
"Yes, Gabriel?"
"Is there an expense limit for our trip?" He asked, a slight foreign accent chasing his words.
"Great question. For now, I'll say no, just so you can get a few ideas around - but when I meet with the staff, we'll fully go over that and I'll let you know."
Another, the redhead with freckles, slowly raised her forearm off the table.
"Yes?"
"Is there a deadline?" She glanced around the room. "Because I don't know if we'll be able to decide on one otherwise."
"Another great question. We'll give you about a week or so to ask around, but you must have your ideas in by the fifteenth. Either find me during school hours or email me." Madame Victoria paused. "Anyone else?"
No one else spoke up. Alya looked around the table; everyone else was looking around too, gauging each other. Marinette scribbled something down on her paper before Mireille glanced over at it and wrote something down on hers.
"No? All right then." The teacher looked up at the clock on the wall. "You're dismissed to class. Please try not to be late."
It was when the bell had rang and the girls were heading down to the locker room in a group. Mylene was hanging out with Ivan, so it was smaller than usual today. Rose chattered excitedly about this or that, Juleka listened intently, bright eyes glued to the blonde beneath her bangs, and Marinette and Alya listened to Alix discuss her new roller skates.
"-Yeah, it's totally awesome!" She said proudly. "The best part is that I'll be able to keep wearing them for a while. Pop made sure to point out an extendable pair for me, and they were exactly what I wanted."
"That's so cool," Marinette sighed. "I wish I could roller skate. I'd probably fall on my face."
That made the two laugh, Alya poking at the noirette's flushed cheeks. "I'll let you hang on to me if you want," she teased. "Though if you take us both down, I might change my mind!"
"All you gotta do is practice keeping balance," Alix added. "Doesn't your mom still do tai chi with you?"
She hesitated, then answered, "Well, not really. Mama and Papa have been so busy with the bakery lately that they're often working when I wake up. And there is no way I can get up at three every morning just to do fifteen to thirty minutes of exercise. I'd fall asleep!"
To punctuate her words, she opened her locker - and a note on top of her books made her take pause.
"Whoa, are you getting admirer letters already?" Alix wondered, peeking in over her shoulder. "You'd think they'd learn to take a hint by now, right?"
"Cut him some slack, he was only at school for, like, a month." She sighed at the memory. Poor Claude followed her around like a lost dog for a week straight until Rose told him point-blank that it was a useless endeavor. "Still, it's not like anyone just does that anymore, right? It's not Valentine's Day."
Alya chimed in, "Hey, I got one too. Weird."
The girls' chatter faded to a stop as Rose and Juleka looked over.
Rose let out a disappointed sigh. "I don't have to step in again, do I?"
"No," Alya answered with a furrowed brow as she flipped the note over.
"Oh," Marinette and Alix breathed in unison at the neat handwriting on the back of the note.
"How the heck did they figure out who won already? It's only been a day!" The pinkette balked.
"It's the council," Juleka finally spoke up for the first time. At her deeper voice, the others turned. She shrank away slightly with a pink hue. "Since when don't they know who the representatives are?"
"Still, that's a little weird," Alya commented as she finished scanning it through. It was nothing except for a polite little introduction and a wish that she do the best job she could as a deputy.
"It's how things are done here." Marinette shrugged, tucked the note into her purse, and put her books away. "If the council thought you were a bad pick, they'd have said something already through Miss Bustier. At least, that's what older students have said. Remember Marceline?"
Rose's frown deepened and Alix shook her head. "It was pretty awesome how she stood up to Monsieur Lambert like that. It's thanks to her that we don't have to put up with him." When she saw Alya's confusion, she elaborated, "You know Madame Mendeleiev? Multiply that by two; and he was a weirdo. When my brother went here he always told me that I'd be better off with her than him - at least Madame treats everyone equally."
The way she emphasized that made her stomach clench a little. There were many ways to take that, but Alya could think of a few that seemed most likely, and she hated all of them.
"If it wasn't for the student council vouching for her, I think Miss Bustier would still be teaching elementaire," Rose commented quietly.
"Luka never liked him either." Juleka added. "I don't think he ever did anything, but they still got rid of him quickly after. I wish I could've been in the room when that happened."
The darker girl couldn't help but let a shiver ripple through her spine from top to bottom. Just who was this "council"? The whole idea of some nebulous group having that much power over the rest felt... weird. Foreign. She couldn't decide if she was more wary about crossing paths with them, or having to watch from afar as they dispose those they decided were a threat.
Marinette lay a hand on her shoulder with a reassuring face. "Don't worry about it. Everything's gonna be smooth sailing now that Chloe isn't ruling our class, right? The hard part is done."
"Yep!" Rose chirped. "All we need to worry about is picture day tomorrow!"
Juleka froze in her spot. Her one visible eye was wide with panic. "P- Picture day is... tomorrow?!"
A/N: Shameless in admitting I was very inspired by the AO3 fic "The Council" in implementing the student council - but definitely not the exact same as the one in the fic! Highly recommend you give it a look.
Please tell me what you thought!