All Hail (Ezzy's Education: Part 30), by Garrett Murch
“How much longer until we get the results?” Ezzy asked Link and Madison as the three hung out that Tuesday afternoon, waiting in the tidy living room of Link’s house. Voting for student body president had ended more than two hours earlier.
Over three inches of rain had fallen in Ebbing since Monday. Ezzy, Madison, and Link had rushed to Link’s house as soon as school got out, racing to their vehicles through a windy downpour spraying fallen leaves. They had removed their shoes—soaked from running through pothole puddles in the student parking lot—when they stepped inside Link’s house. Their pants were now nearly dried by their own body heat and their hair was dried but frizzy.
“They should be in by now,” Madison said.
The rain had stopped but dark clouds gave the appearance of approaching sunset outside the living room bay window and its drawn bamboo blinds. It was a little past four in the afternoon and Ezzy stood by that window, leaning against the pinkish off-white wall. “The result is a foregone conclusion,” she said. “It doesn’t even matter.” If only I could still believe that.
The Shakira Essentials playlist on Apple Music played at moderate volume from two small speakers resting next to slate coasters on matching ash side tables at either end of the black, faux leather couch. Link’s dog, Thumos, sat upright and alert in front of one speaker, looking at his kids like he was ready to do something fun with them.
Link’s mother, Aurora, glided into the living room and set a round, emerald-green platter of generous-size brownies on the oak coffee table’s dark-pink and white, pastoral-patterned runner.
Ezzy was mystified by Aurora. She’s so graceful. Her eyes are like diamonds. Are there girls like her? She took a bite of a brownie while admiring Aurora’s rouge, collared shirt. Is that silk?
“Thank you so much, Mrs. Fortunato,” Madison said as he leaned over to grab a brownie.
“Please, just call me Aurora.”
“Thank you, Aurora,” Ezzy said. “These brownies are delicious. What’s your secret?”
“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” Aurora said. “The important ingredients are Ghirardelli dark chocolate and almond flour.”
“Well, you definitely know how to make brownies great again!” Ezzy said, leaning forward.
Aurora laughed.
“Thanks, Mom,” Link said from the couch. When he made eye contact with Ezzy, he subtly shook his head. He did the same with Madison a few seconds later.
After Aurora walked away, Madison quietly said, “Dude, your mom is hot!”
Ezzy giggled.
“Thanks, Sherlock,” Link said. “You think I haven’t been told that a million times?”
“Sorry, man.”
Ezzy asked, “Have you guys noticed Verica Navratil hasn’t been in school this week?”
“She wasn’t in school on Friday, either,” Madison said.
“That’s strange,” Ezzy said. “Right at crunch time, she disappeared?”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Madison said. He shifted his weight from his left leg to his right and adjusted his glasses.
“So,” Link said, “Kelile is going to stop by after football practice.”
“Cool,” Madison said.
“And I told Kayla and Jasmine we’d be here, too,” Ezzy added.
“You invited Kayla?” Link asked.
“Of course,” Ezzy said. “She’s back in school and playing field hockey again.”
“She looked shell shocked in the hallway today,” Madison said.
“Yeah,” Ezzy said. “She’s tough, though. I figured I’d let her know she didn’t have to be alone. I didn’t pressure her or anything.”
Shakira’s “Ciega, Sordomuda” was playing. God I love this song. I hope I fall in love someday.
I will. For now I’ll stick with trying to set Link and Kayla up.
“The results are in!” Link yelled.
Ezzy placed her hand on her chin and turned toward Link.
Link’s laptop was next to the brownies and he had been refreshing the Ebbing High School InstaTok page like a boy possessed. Ezzy moved to his left on the couch and Madison moved to Ezzy’s left. The three leaned their heads toward the laptop.
“Here,” Link said.
Loose Lipps Calls Student Body President Race for Lucinda Barron—Ezzy Bello Makes Shocking Showing
By Luci Lipps 4:14 p.m.
Lucinda Barron will be Ebbing High School’s next student body president, Loose Lipps can say with confidence after receiving the results from school administrators. Barron received 129 out of 201 votes counted, for 64 percent of the total. In a complete surprise, non-candidate Ezzy Bello received sixty-eight write-in votes, or 34 percent. Several other non-candidates received one write-in vote each: “Mando,” “Dora the Explorer,” “Eric Cartman,” “Molly, my hamster,” and Ebbing senior Madison Hendrickson. As Loose Lipps reported, votes cast for Trunk Langston were discarded since he was disqualified from the race for attempted date rape. Loose Lipps election monitors were able to determine a total of 268 ballots were turned in by students today. This suggests Trunk Langston received sixty-seven votes, a higher number than we might have expected given recent developments.
While Barron’s victory was considered a foregone conclusion, the president-elect must be alarmed the well-respected Bello, whom Barron courted for an endorsement before turning against in ruthless fashion, received over a third of all counted votes without ever expressing a desire to be president, let alone running a campaign. Loose Lipps has requested a statement from Barron that includes comment on Bello’s shocking results. We will also do some digging to learn how this development came to pass, and we just submitted a request to Bello for a statement.
“Ezzy!” Link screamed. “You got one-third of the vote!”
The intensity and volume of Link’s voice rattled Ezzy. She looked at Link. “It wasn’t truly one-third since the votes for Trunk weren’t counted,” she said. “But still, how on earth did I get so many votes? And Madison, I’m your one vote. I voted for you. Congratulations, you’re as popular as Dora the Explorer!”
Aurora returned and stood at the room’s edge.
“What’s most interesting to me,” Madison said, “is only 268 students voted. That’s barely a third of our student body. Almost five hundred students didn’t vote.”
“Well, everyone knew Lucinda would win,” Link said.
“Sure,” said Madison. “But if students were genuinely excited about Lucinda, they still would have voted to demonstrate their support. Lucinda and her girls were all over the place today—and yesterday for that matter—telling students to vote.”
“True,” Link said. “It looks like Lucinda was relying heavily on anti-Trunk voters. Without Trunk to vote against, only about a quarter of students bothered to vote for her. And look at Trunk’s support. As fired up as his supporters have been this week, they must have all still voted for him. So his core of support wasn’t as big as I thought.”
“Less than 10 percent of the student body,” Madison said.
Ezzy had her index finger on her lips. “I never asked anyone to vote for me,” she said. This is so weird. “How did that happen?”
“Link says you are a highly respected girl at school,” Aurora said. “And I can already see why. You are very modest, yet I sense a fiery vibe in you.”
Whoa. I’d never thought of myself that way. Fiery vibe? I’ll take it!
“It’s true, Ezzy,” Madison added. “You’re the wiz kid with hidden pizzazz. Are you going to give Luci Lipps a statement?”
This still makes no sense. “Madison,” Ezzy said, ignoring his question.
“Yes?”
“What did you do?” I know he had something to do with this. I’m not giving Luci a statement.
No more drama.
After a few seconds Madison said, “You are held in high regard by classmates in our chemistry and biology classes.”
”Madison!”
“Yes?”
Aurora hid her smile with her hand, just as Link hid his.
“You told them to write me in, didn’t you?” I know he did.
“I may have presented them with an option.” Madison smirked, his eyes happy beneath his glasses.
Aurora smiled at the teenagers and walked away again.
There was a knock at the door. Link jumped up and answered it. “K! Get in here!” K was still sweaty from football practice.
“Hey K!” Ezzy said.
“Glad you could make it, Kelile,” said Madison.
“You’ve got to try these brownies, K,” Ezzy said.
“I’ve got to run to the bathroom,” Link said. “Can you guys fill K in on the election results?”
“I saw them already,” K said as Link walked away. “I’ll take a brownie!”
There was another knock on the door. Ezzy got up this time and answered it. “Kayla, Jasmine, come in! You’ve got to try these brownies; they’re the best I’ve ever had.” The girls smiled and stepped inside.
“So Ezzy got a third of the vote!” Kayla said. “One of them was mine.”
“And one was mine,” said Jasmine.
“I think the rest came from chemistry and biology classmates,” Ezzy said. “Madison put them up to it.”
“That’s not even close to sixty-eight students, Ezzy,” Madison said. “I think you have more friends than you know.”
“Way more,” Kayla said. “Ezzy, you have no idea.”
Ezzy blushed. Am I actually popular? I’m not exciting. I’m not bubbly. I don’t even say much at school. I guess I’m real. I do care about people. She held back a tear.
“I should have gotten the students from English class to vote for Ezzy,” Link said as he re- entered the living room and sat back down on the couch. “Lord knows they owe Ezzy for getting them A’s on group projects the past four years.”
“Link, stop. Don’t you think most of them are on board with Lucinda’s ‘thou must repent’ agenda? Mr. Catty is for sure. He makes that clear every class.”
“I doubt it,” Link said. “I bet a lot of them don’t like it. But they stay silent about it like we do.”
What Link said took Ezzy by surprise. Well, if he’s right, those students definitely don’t show it. They seem fine with Mr. Catty basically telling us we need to join the Justice Party to be good people. Maybe they’re afraid of putting their grades at risk. I couldn’t blame them for that. Maybe they agree with Mr. Catty. Or maybe they just don’t care? “I call the class Advanced Political English,” she said. Her friends laughed.
“Oh! Update!” Link yelled. “We have a statement from Lucinda.”
Geez, Link, this isn’t a spectator sport. I guess we all sorta treat it like it is. Ezzy slid further to her left on the couch, closer to Madison. “Kayla, we’ve got room for you right here.” She tapped the couch cushion.
“Thanks, Ezzy,” Kayla said. She sat down in the space between Ezzy and Link. Kelile and Jasmine moved to the sides of the couch, behind the side tables, and the six of them leaned in, eyes glued to the laptop screen.
Ezzy's Education, the first novel by recovering Washington, D.C. political professional Garrett C. Murch, can be purchased here as a paperback or an eBook.