back to school, ring the bell [mary lou]

Sigh.

A bake sale had seemed like such a good idea at the time. In a way, Mellie supposed it still was. The SGA always needed funds for something, and that was really the problem when everything was student-led. Mellie likes it though. She tells her parents she's active because it builds character and teaches her to be independent, but really she just gets to test out new recipes on her fellow students and gauge their reactions. Mostly it's good, but a little market research never hurt anyone. Getting to skive off classes once in a while didn't really hurt as an added bonus either.

After her summer internship in France (she was too young to actually do anything, but she did make a nuisance of herself by following everyone around and asking too many questions) she realised she's been slacking off. Everyone was so talented, and her she was, thinking she was amazing just because she could make a few—admittedly perfect—snickerdoodles? Get real, Melanie. She needed practice, and she needed a lot of it before she graduated if she wanted any chance of making it into a top pastry school.

But graduating... Mellie sighed again. Her last year in Ilvermorny, and she's been spending the first couple of months still fighting with Lou. She was one of her closest friends! She didn't want to leave without making up with her. Who knows if they'll ever see or speak to each other again if they graduated like this?! Mellie knew that she should 'be the bigger person' or something, and that Mary Lou tended to get tunnel vision when it came to student senate, but she still stubbornly believes that she's done nothing wrong. Unless being popular was a crime. "I think we should pack up soon," Mellie said listlessly to Amanda who was helping her man the stall, which was really just a table with a sparkly sign taped to it. No use sitting here and feel sorry for herself if no one else was going to come by.

@Mary Lou Bird

Being the leader of the free world school was exhausting. Lou was pretty sure she had that weird eye twitch under control now, though. The secret was more caffeine. Her mom said that caffeine was what caused it in the first place, but Lou felt perfectly fine. Great, even. All it took was coffee, coffee, coffee. She poured herself another cup -- thank god for the never ending supply in the kitchens -- and loaded up on the milk and sugar, enough to cool it down for her to take a large swallow immediately without also suffering a major internal burn.

Yeah, that was the ticket.

Lou sniffed and headed out of the kitchen, back toward the grounds -- there was still a little bit of daylight left, so she wasn’t about to study, pfft -- past the corridor where her SGA had a table set up for a bake sale, for one dance or party or something, she couldn’t remember which.

SGA and… Mellie Moraes. Current roommate, former friend; forever nemesis? Lou didn’t think she could ever forgive Mellie for running against her -- Against! Her! Who! Wanted! To! Be! President! Forever! -- last spring. Yes, Lou had won and yes, Lou was President now, but still. It was awful. Mellie was awful. Lou hadn’t expected to run uncontested, but her? Did Mellie think she was really better for Ilvermorny than she was? As if.

Of course Mellie still managed to be elected to the Senate -- Lou didn’t focus on how she had lost the election for Vice President at the end of fifth year and then spent all of sixth year holding no office at all because that clearly had nothing to do with this -- so she couldn’t be completely avoided outside of their shared dorm. Ugh.

“Um. Hi?” Lou had her thermos in one hand, her wand in the other. “The bake sale’s not over for another seventy-four minutes.” She glanced down at her watch like she was just now calculating the time left, like she hadn’t figured out exactly how much there was before walking over. It looked like they had been trying to close down shop early, anyway. Lou didn’t want to investigate the truth, not where Mellie was concerned. “You signed up for the whole shift, remember?” Of course she remembered; Mellie had basically signed up for all the shifts; just one more thing she was doing to try and undermine Lou by making her look like she wasn’t trying hard enough or something. Typical.

The "oh hi" died in her throat as soon as Mary Lou started speaking. Mellie felt her mouth open to form a little 'o' and she turned to Amanda on her left to see if she was reading the situation right. This was a bit much, wasn't it? She didn't go out of her way to make Mary Lou feel dumb, did she? A voice in her head said that there was probably very little that made her feel dumb, since the fellow Wampus was so much smarter and better at things that mattered, unlike her, who spent most of her time reading fashion magazines and relationship advice. She pushed that voice away quickly. She didn't need insecurity right now, she needed righteous anger.

That same anger also meant she could feel her face starting to burn, and she didn't need a mirror to tell her that it was probably getting red and blotchy like how it always did when she got upset, and Mellie hated being upset. In fact, she hated it almost as much as looking ugly, but right now she's pretty sure she's a combination of both. "I know when the bake sale ends, I was the one who even gave you that dumb proposal to look over," she rolled her eyes and picked at her polished nails testily. She knew Mary Lou tended to get intense with her proper "procedures" and paperwork, but sheeeeesh.

"Of course I know I signed up for the whole shift, but I think you should also know that this entire shift wasn't going to make much profit anyway." Mellie never played around when it comes to things like customer flow and strategic positioning for maximum sales; she might not be smart in terms of theory or doing math or whatever, but this was practical knowledge stuff, and she definitely had the upper hand over Mary Lou when it came to stuff like this. "Honestly, this is just a marketing ploy to make the SGA look good, and make some of us look like we're doing anything at all." The 'I'm doing you a favour really, no need to thank me' wasn't said out loud, but Mary Lou should be able to infer the implied meaning.

“Wow, sorry for picking your dumb proposal then.” She rolled her eyes right back-- next time Mellie needed to put some thought into her proposals, she guessed, now the she knew she would be expected to put in some actual work. It had been a good proposal, of course, but now Lou was leaning more toward: bake sales were easy to suggest, easy to plan, easy to run. Mellie had suggested the easiest fundraiser. The most appreciated fundraiser. What was different about this bake sale from the last one? A new sign.

Lou nodded, shifting her thermos to her other hand. “You know that for sure?” When did Mellie get good at divination? Last she checked, Mellie and Lou had pretty similar grades, and Lou was not an overachiever at anything academic. She rolled her eyes again and looked at Amanda; she looked quickly back to Mellie once it was clear she wasn’t going to get any support from the other girl.

She raised her eyebrows and let out a sharp, “Ha!” Okay, Mellie. Lou caught her drift, the implication that Lou wasn’t doing anything. Of course she was doing things-- just because she didn’t make an effort to do everything publicly, basically asking for recognition and attention, didn’t mean she wasn’t doing anything. Lou had her own presidential initiatives to deal with: later curfew, early days on Fridays, some other stuff that wasn’t about missing class…

“Thanks so much for making us look good. What would we do without you?” Have fun, probably. “Are the goodies not… good?” Lou looked down at the spread on the table -- the cupcakes and cookies really did look delicious but she was trying to make a point -- before looking back up at Mellie. “Is that why no one’s buying anything?”

"I wouldn't have had to write my dumb proposal if you didnt make everyone write one before even the tiniest idea could be approved! Did we really need one for the pep ralley, something that happens every single year? No! But did we write one? Hell yeah!!" Mellie didn't realise that she'd unwittingly called her own proposal dumb, but she was too worked up to care. Why was Mary Lou so, so... uptight about every little detail? Hadn't she heard of the phrase 'live and let live'?

She tossed her hair over her shoulder and ran her fingers through the tangled ends, wincing a little when they tugged at her fingers, which were getting increasingly sweaty. She looked back at Mary Lou with some triumph when Amanda seemed to be clearly on her team, and not the president's. Just because she was the president of a student organisation it didn't mean she was immediately the boss of everything. Or even right about everything. This was just like Mary Lou, the compulsive need to be right all the time and show everyone how much better she was than everyone else.

Just when she was about ready to calm down, the other Wampus did the unforgivable. What was she saying, that Mellie didn't make any sales because the things she made were not good enough? Webster, Isolt, and Chadwick, how dare she! "You take that back right now, or I'll... I'll..." Damn. It's so annoying that she didn't have anything on Mary Lou in terms of blackmail material. She probably had loads on her. "You take that back or I'll tell everyone that secret I swore to take to my grave in our second year!"

It was probably pretty low of her to dig up old bones, and she was vaguely aware that she's acting like a thirteen-year-old brat, but she wasn't thinking rationally. Her honour was at stake here.