Her mouth falls open. “Seriously? I am?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry,” I say. “I hope it works out for you.”
“Oh. Uh… thanks?” Her expression shifts—suspicious but intrigued. “So, what would it take for someone like you to vote for me?”
“Someone like me?” I draw back slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing bad.” She waves me off. “Just… you’re not like us. You’re one of the Regulars. The common people. You get what they care about. You know how they think.”
She says it with all the gravitas of royalty. It’s absurd, but also, I suppose, kind of true. And the fact she said it with total sincerity rather than malice is weirdly disarming. I have to respect her honesty.
I laugh. “I guess I do.”
“You’re really smart too, Ally.” For once, there’s no sarcasm, no smug twist to her voice. Just a rare flicker of respect. “You have good ideas.”
I pause, momentarily stunned by an honest-to-God compliment from my sister.
“Yeah, tell us, Alysander,” Tiffany chimes in, her eyes wide and earnest. “What should we do to get votes?”
Amber and her friends actually lean in, suddenly attentive, like I’m some kind of expert campaign strategist instead of the person they barely notice most days.
I hesitate.
Not because I don’t have an answer, but because the real ones—the ones that actually work—aren’t the kind people want to hear. Anyone can offer flash: empty promises, shallow charm, performative virtue. That’s what most people do. Say what sounds good in the moment, even if it’s meaningless. Politicians. Royals. Influencers. Half the candidates for Homecoming Court probably do it too—promising free pizza they’ll never pay for, pretending to care about causes they Googled that morning.
But being decent to people? Actually treating them with kindness, with basic respect?
That isn’t transactional. It doesn’t expire after voting week or get walked back in a campaign speech. It’s not flashy, but it’s real. And real matters.
“Have you tried just being nice to everyone?” I offer. “People like nice people.”
“That’s it?” Amber frowns, looking disappointed. “Benice?”
“Hey, it worked for Cinderella.”
I flash a grin and slide into my car.
But as I pull away, the smile slips. Whatever brief warmth I felt toward Amber during those few minutes of almost-normal conversation fades under a slow, simmering resentment. She gets to spend her morning scheming over tiaras and tulle, while I’m stuck unraveling our mother’s mental health issues.
Not exactly fair.
At least Theater History offers a temporary reprieve, and today’s lecture on dramatic adaptations of Dante Alighieri’sThe Divine Comedyis just engaging enough to keep my brain occupied.
“The Divine Comedytraces Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise,” Professor Guppy explains, pushing smudged rectangular glasses up her nose.
Professor Guppy is squat and round, with the voice of a sitcom aunt and the wardrobe of someone constantly under siege by lint. She always looks one strong breeze away from being buried alive in cat hair. Case in point: she’s already retrieved a lint roller fromher desk drawer and is running it briskly over her pants, collecting a fresh coat of fuzz. Rumor has it she lives alone with five cats.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that. I have a creeping suspicion I’m destined for the same fate.
“The poem is divided into three canticas, essentially, three books,” she continues, waving the lint brush now like a conductor’s baton. “Infernotakes place in Hell.Purgatoriois Purgatory. AndParadisois Paradise, or Heaven. We open on Dante lost in a dark wood, pursued by three beasts—a lion, a leopard, and a she-wolf. Of course, this is all allegory.” She paces theatrically, her voice gaining momentum. “Can anyone tell me what the three beasts represent?”
Hands shoot up around the room.
I sink lower in my seat, avoiding eye contact. Between everything else going on, I completely spaced on the required reading for the week. Which is a shame because obscure ancient poetry about eternal suffering is right up my alley.
Thankfully, she calls on Tony, Hayes’s football buddy.
“The beasts represent three types of sin—self-indulgent, violent, and malicious,” he says, all easy confidence, like he’s been waiting all day to show that off.
