The Assassination of a Student President

Chapter 1

Nothing extraordinary ever happened at Roman Falls High School. There was always the occasional placing of #1 at sport championships and competitions, or a student receiving an award for academic excellence or community involvement, but no scandal ever happened at R. F. High. Until my senior year, that is. If you had told me that such a thing would happen at our school, I would laugh in your face. I’d laugh harder if you told me that I would be involved in such a scandal. And really, who would ever imagine themselves being involved in the assassination of their student president?

Don’t be quick to judge, I’m not a psychopath nor a butcher. I might have been a little off to consider being part of such a thing, which I regret now, but nonetheless, I wasn’t the kind of kid who you’d expect to take part in anything illegal. I was a model student, and with my curly golden locks and ice-blue eyes, I was good with the ladies too. I was very much involved with the school, being a part of half of the sports teams in my age category at my school, the newspaper committee, the yearbook committee, Peer Helpers, Social Awareness, the Graduation Committee, and I was Vice President for two years in Student Council. Not two years to be exact. I had been elected twice for Vice President, but I didn’t serve with our President Julie Careman for long.

Ah yes, Julie Careman, the route of the whole conspiracy. She was in every club and committee you could think of, except for sports (she had never been an athlete because of her asthma), and she was a good girl in general. I should know, I had been in her class since kindergarten. She might have seemed like a typical sweet, smart and phenomenally organized girl, but those who truly knew her knew that there was more to her than that. She had a tendency to get everything she wanted, no - matter - what. That was her real downfall, being way too ambitious and manipulative. She once had a crush on Joe Barker, who at the time was dating Alison Hein, but through her means got them broken up. When Joe wanted to break up with Julie after 6 months of dating, he was mysteriously expelled and was never heard of in the city of Roman Falls ever again. When Mr. Jacklyn gave her a 60 in Music, he coincidentally got fired a week afterwards. I’m not sure about you, but a person with that much potential to see to it that what they want is done is dangerous.

The whole conspiracy started a month after school began. For two weeks there had been election campaigns going on for Student Council, and after counting up all the votes, we would get to hear the results on the announcements during home room on October 2nd.

“I will now read the results for the Student Council elections,” spoke the principal, Mr. McFretter, into the intercom. “The students have elected... Daniel Brooks as Grade 9 Representative, Caitlin Ting as Grade 10 Representative, Matthew Cimbersson as Grade 11 Representative, Tyler Castello as Grade 12 Representative, Cassandra Salieri as Treasurer, Becky Marcus as Activity Coordinator, Brian Hawthorn as Vice President - ”

“WOOH!!! GO, BRIAN!” shouted my friend Tim, who’s comment was followed by the cheer of the rest of the class. However, they quickly hushed to listen to the winner of the Presidency.

“ - and last but not least, our new Student President is Julie Careman.”

“Yes!” shrieked Julie, seated right next to me. She was positively glowing. With a broad smile on her face, she turned around to me and said, “You and I are going to have an awesome time this year in Student Council, won’t we, Brian?”

“We sure will,” I said, not that I meant it. Last year Pamela LePeau was President (I know, that’s a lot of Ps), and she did an amazing job. She had been running this year for President again, with her best friends Freeda and Molly backing her up, but she had gone against Julie, and whatever Julie wants Julie gets.

Students were going crazy during the transition from homeroom to first period. Everyone was cheering, people were singing and hooting, and many of the new members of Student Council were being carried on the shoulders of their peers to class - I was one of them. As my friends Tim and George brought me to class on their shoulders, with the rest of my group cheering around me, I witnessed the shocking scene that happened in the hallways.

Freeda and Molly were pretty pissed at how their friend lost the Presidency, especially since everyone was certain Pam would win. While passing them, I could see Molly’s face going red, and Freeda was on the verge of tears (she had been running against me for Vice President, so she got even angrier when I passed by). Suddenly, Molly took a giant poster promoting Julie as President and ripped it up. The shredding sound pierced the hallway, and everyone’s singing crashed to a halt. Even I fell off my friends’ shoulders at the shock.

“Are you not grateful?” questioned Molly, tears streaming down her face. “Are you not grateful of the things Pam brought to you last year as President? She worked her butt off for you! Have you forgotten the Halloween, Winter and Valentine’s Dances? The Spring Carnival? The Brunch for Breast Cancer?

“All she asked from you,” screamed Freeda, “was to let her give you one more wonderful year of high school, and this is what you do to her? You filthy pigs, you selfish hogs, you slime balls, idiots, scum! Come on, Molly, I’ll help you tear down more posters.”

Freeda never got to lay a hand on those posters because she, and Molly, were grabbed by the ear lobes by Vice Principal Estefan, who looked purple with rage.

“You two - in my office - now!” she said. Sulkily, the two girls marched themselves to her office, where they were later suspended. “Continue to your Period 1 classes!” ordered Ms. Estefan, and not wanting to suffer the fate Freeda and Molly had, we willingly went to our next courses.

Later that night we had a dance in celebration of the end of the elections, organized and paid for by the high school administration. Everyone was having an amazing time, so why wasn’t I having fun? I was anchored down into my ocean of worries and my whirlpool of thoughts as I stood at the side at the gymnasium. I was about to go home, when a figure of red mane sneaked up beside me.

“Hello, Brian,” said the figure.

I have to admit, I was caught off guard and jumped from the surprise. Then I saw who it was beside me, and I relaxed. “Oh, hey, Cassy.”

Cassy, or Cassandra Salieri the Treasurer (she had been Treasurer last year too) was a friend of mine since elementary school. We got along nicely, though we were very different from each other. I was calm, loose and laidback, and I loved to get my hands into any project I could. Cassy, on the other hand, was very reserved and serious, though an incredibly gifted girl. It was hard to catch her without a book under her nose.

“Enjoying yourself there, Brian?”

“I’m all right.”

Cassy stared at me intently for a long pause, then asked, “What’s wrong, Brian? You haven’t talked to me in so long, and you look lost in your thoughts.”

“I’ve been busy, Cassy, with the campaigning and everything.”

“That’s not it, and you know it.”

Trust Cassy to look past words and looks and know what’s in your head. “Fine, you dragged it out of me. I’ve been caught up in my feelings and my worries.”

“What are you worried about?”

I took a glance at Julie Careman with her best friend, Becky, as they danced to a hip hop track in the middle of the floor. “I’m worried about Julie. She scares me sometimes. I fear... I fear what she’s going to do with her new powers.”

A spark in Cassy’s eyes lit up, and the freckles on her face seemed to illuminate. “You fear it too?”

“You think the same thing?”

“Of course I do!”

“She just seems so... dangerous at times, because... because...”

“Because what Julie wants Julie gets?”

“Yes!”

“Don’t fear, I know what you mean, and so do some others. I mean, think of what happened to Joe Barker and Mr. Jacklyn! She can get so obsessive, who knows what she’ll do now that she’s Student President. Sure she might fulfill her supposed campaign promises, but what if she wants to do something that everyone else is against? Will that stop her? No! Pam LePeau did a wonderful job as President last year and everyone thought she was going to win, but despite that, Julie wins instead. Isn’t that peculiar?

“All this persuasion and schemes are disgusting, and with her 96 average and being head of almost every club there is, she does seem inhuman at times, but is she a normal person just like you and me? Absolutely! How dare someone walk all over us, with their light of power risen into the air like the Statue of Liberty, staring us down as if we were their inferiors?

“I can remember back in Grade 9 during Phys. Ed class, when we were doing track & field. As we did our laps around the field, Julie called out to me, ‘Cassandra, let’s run together!’ We jogged together, but before we got to half the length of the field, Julie stopped and fell, her hand clutching her chest. She gasped for air, and I realized she was having an asthma attack. I sprinted like the wind to the teacher and as if I was an Olympic runner, bringing the torch, I gave her asthma puffer to her. I saved her that day, but despite that, whenever I try to say hi to her, she huffs, sticks up her nose into the air, flips her chestnut hair into my face, and saunters off, as if she was the Queen and I am just some homely court jester.

“Oh, Brian,” she said, gazing into my blue eyes with her bright green saucers, “if only you knew how people thought of you. The student body and the staff love you. While Julie controls everyone as if she were an Empress, the students of this school hold you in such regard and in such praise as if you’re their unnamed King. If you say something, they will listen to you. You know that if you had run for Student President you’d have won the election without a doubt. Julie is no more of a human than you are. Both of you bleed if you are cut, get cold during the winter, get homework, have feelings, want to be loved... Why should she get everything she wants and not you?”
“Cassandra, why is it that you want me to think so deeply about Julie and myself?”

Cassandra stood agape, lost for words. After a minute, she looked at me and answered, “I think it’s time we do something about her.”
“What? What do you mean?”

“Brian, think about it. If she’s this bad now, what makes you think she won’t get worse? You’re forgetting that this is our last year of high school. After this, she won’t be limited by the walls of Roman Falls High, but the real world. Who knows what she’ll do if she gets into the federal government.”

“Oh my gosh...”

“See what I mean? It’s not only you and I who think this too, there are others who agree with us. She needs to be stopped.”

“Julie Careman is too ambitious...”

“Exactly, and we’ve got to do something about this.”

I stared at her in confusion. “Do what?”

“Whatever it takes to stop the destruction she causes.”

“Cassy... this is a bit too intense for one night. I’m going to head home. I’ll see you around?”

“All right,” she sighed, as I headed out of the gym, but before I even got near the doors, she called out to me. “Brian, just think about it what I said. We need to do something.”

It was hard to digest the conversation I had just had with Cassandra. We need to do something about Julie? Do what? And was Julie that bad? I had known her since kindergarten, and though she may have been ambitious, she was a friend of mine.

I was walking to the gym doors, about to take out my cell phone to tell my parents I was going home, when I bumped into Julie - how ironic.

“Hey, Brian!” she said with a giant smile spread across her face. “How’s it going?”

“Pretty good, you?” I couldn’t help but think of what Cassy had said to me about Julie.

“I’m fantastic. Who were you talking to back there?”

“Just Cassy.”

“Oh, Cassandra,” she said in an irritated voice. She took a quick glance around her to check if the coast was clear, and whispered into my ear. “I cannot stand her.”

This situation seemed to become more ironic than I expected. “May I ask why?”

“Gosh, she is so uptight! She rarely smiles, doesn’t enjoy herself, reads too much and is always looking at things so critically. And to tell you the truth, I don’t think she likes me.”

“Don’t bother with her, she’s... not as bad as you think. She’s pretty cool once you get to know her.”

“Well you have been friends with her since we were kids. Speaking of when we were kids, remember that kindergarten graduation dance, and we did the Macarena together?”

“How can I forget?” I said with a chuckle. “I have to go now, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay, see you tomorrow!”

I pushed open the doors of the gym and walked out of the school. I drove home, where my parents as always asked me how my day went and how I was. But was I going to be okay? I couldn’t stop thinking about my discussion with Cassandra all week. I felt like everyone knew about the idea of Julie. When I walked by students talking, I swore I heard “Julie” in there, and every time someone looked at me, I thought deep down they were secretly saying to me, “What are you going to do about Julie?” Was it my duty to do something about her?

It seemed that all my paranoia and self-questioning reached its peak a week later. I was the advice columnist for the newspaper, and anyone with a question that wanted to be answered emailed me for my opinion. That night as I signed into my email to see who needed some help, I found a dozen emails in my account. That’s odd, I thought to myself, I never get that many emails. I clicked on the first one, and read it through.

Dear Advice Man,

It’s just been a week since the Student Council elections, yet already I’m worried about our President, Julie Careman. I didn’t vote for her, and neither did anyone I know. Doesn’t this seem strange? She already has a reputation for being bossy and demanding, so I’m worried what she’ll do as President. If only Brian Hawthorn could have run for President, then none of this would have happened. Should I be concerned, or do you think it’s just my imagination and I should stop worrying?

- Worry Wart

I had to read the letter a second time to grasp the situation. It wasn’t just Cassandra and I who were worried about Julie. Then again, this was only one email. And the thought that someone wished I could have run for President! I couldn’t help blushing. I opened the next email and read it.

Dear Advise Man,

What’s up with Julie Careman getting voted for Student President? The last time I checked, everyone was going to vote for Pam LePeau. This seems totally unfair, she could have cheated. I voted for Pam LePeau, but personally I would have voted for Brian Hawthorn if he ran for President. (My gosh, someone else wished I could have run for President!). Now there’s a guy who knows what to do with power, he always makes the right decisions, but that’s beside the point. Should I ask the principal to do a recount? Because I’m very suspicious about this election.

-Suspicious Kid

A second letter about Julie? I couldn’t believe it, but as I read the rest of the emails, my shock grew more intense to discover that all the emails were about Julie. Not only that, but in each one, the person wished that I had run for President. The trust and respect these students gave me was unbelievable. At that moment, I made a decision about the offer Cassandra gave me.

I highlighted all of the messages in my inbox and clicked onto “Reply All”. With certainty, I typed in my message: “Don’t worry, Julie Careman will be taken care of.”