Vote for Effie

by Laura Wood

  “I think they sound really interesting,” I say quickly, as Kevin looks crestfallen. “But I suppose rules are rules. So unfair!” I exclaim dramatically. Kevin looks a bit cheered up by this, and I swiftly gather the remaining biscuits to be disposed of. Carefully. Maybe by men in hazmat suits.

  “Actually, miss,” I say to Ms Shaarawi. “While you’re here … there’s something I would like to discuss with you…”

  CHAPTER Fifteen

  Emergency Highworth Grange School Council Meeting – Monday 7 November

  Minutes recorded by Angelika Lisowski

  Meeting called to order at 3.30 p.m. by meeting chair Miss Sardana.

  Members present:

  Chair Miss Sardana

  Aaron Davis (junior student president) (FOR NOW)

  Matt Spader (junior student vice president)

  Angelika Lisowski (junior student secretary)

  Luna Stanworth (junior student treasurer)

  Effie Kostas (candidate)

  Reading of Agenda

  •Miss Sardana explains that meeting has been called at the request of Effie Kostas. There is huffing noise from Aaron Davis. Effie explains emergency meeting called over lack of clarity of student council debate day proceedings.

  •Miss Sardana agrees the agenda.

  New Business

  •Effie Kostas makes passionate speech about the upcoming student president debates. She is a very good public speaker actually. Some might say that she’d make an excellent president. Not me, of course, because I’m just an impartial observer, definitely not a member of her campaign team.

  •Effie is banging her hand on the table. Even I can’t write quickly enough to keep up with what she is saying because she has such passion. In short: she wants the student council debate rules to be clearly established, but she also says some very stirring things about a revolution that is brewing and how we should not ignore the downtrodden masses and now she is quoting Hamilton lyrics and I’m not sure if she’s going to rap or not but I would fully support her if she did.

  •She doesn’t. :(

  •Aaron Davis says that everyone will find the student council speeches boring and that making them longer will just put people off, which is a bit daft if you ask me. Not that I have a strong opinion either way.

  •Matt Spader agrees with Aaron.

  •Effie Kostas replies that she understands why people find Aaron boring but that she has a lot of interesting things to say.

  •Miss Sardana makes a strangled sort of groaning sound and tells them to be quiet. Both candidates are now silent and glowering.

  •Luna Stanworth reminds everyone that she has to get to netball practice.

  •Effie takes a deep breath. She is talking slower now so I can catch the details. She wants each candidate to get ten minutes to make their campaign speeches and then for there to be a quick-fire section where candidates have to answer a range of questions on various different topics.

  •Snorting sound from Aaron as he asks what she is going to bore on about for ten minutes. Rude.

  •Matt Spader laughs hysterically as though Aaron has made a hilarious joke.

  •There is a humongous thud as Effie Kostas produces a spectacular ring binder. (Note to self: ask Effie where she got that beast from.) It is stuffed full of paper and has many dividers and Post-it notes sticking out of it. On the front is a picture of her face Photoshopped on to Emmeline Pankhurst’s body. She asks if she should go through her issues alphabetically or in order of importance.

  •Miss Sardana nervously reminds Effie that we only have the room for ten more minutes.

  •Luna Stanworth reminds everyone that she has to get to netball practice.

  •Aaron wonders why Effie wants to change everything when “our school is already the best”. I, an impartial observer, would not roll my eyes at this kind of laziness, but I wouldn’t discourage anyone else from doing so.

  •Effie rolls her eyes.

  •Matt Spader agrees with Aaron.

  •Luna Stanworth reminds everyone that she has to get to netball practice.

  •Aaron glares across the table at Effie.

  •Matt glares across the table at Effie.

  •Effie glares back at both of them.

  •Miss Sardana calls for a vote.

  •Motion from Effie Kostas: To increase the campaign speech time limit to ten minutes and to alter the remaining layout of the debate to match her suggestions. Vote: Motion carried 4–2.

  •Luna Stanworth leaves for netball practice.

  Meeting adjourned at 4.00 p.m.

  CHAPTER Sixteen

  It is a cold, wet Tuesday afternoon. Not exactly the most inspirational time to be thinking about playing sports outside, if you ask me, but still, we can’t let the weather deter us from our next step on the campaign trail. Ruby and I have agreed on a sort of plan for getting the girls’ football team off the ground and it’s time to put it into action. I think this is just the sort of thing that will get people talking about our campaign, and I’m hoping it will show that we’re going to be a force for good in the school.

  After school seems as good a time as any to approach Mrs Gregory, the PE teacher. Ruby and I track her down at the end of the day.

  “A girls’ football team?” She seems surprised. “We’ve never really had any interest in it. Maybe you’d like to sign up for netball instead?”

  “No.” I shake my head stubbornly. “I don’t understand why there’s a boys’ team but no girls’ team.”

  “It would be cool, miss,” Ruby puts in here, “if we could play matches against other schools? Be part of a league?”

  “But there isn’t is a local girls’ league,” Mrs Gregory says. “Besides which, we don’t have the resources or funding for a team. I’m sorry, girls.”

  “But maybe we could raise money. We might be able to start a league,” I say quickly, “if we start with a team here. All leagues must have to begin somewhere.”

  Mrs Gregory doesn’t look convinced. “Well, yes, I suppose,” she says reluctantly. “But with the best will in the world, you can’t just magic up a league.” She shakes her head. “I’m sorry, girls, it’s just too much to take on.”

  “But I already checked the schedule and at the moment the football pitch is free after school on Thursdays,” I persist, grinning at her winningly.

  “But I coach the netball team then, Effie.” Mrs Gregory is starting to sound impatient now. “I’m afraid I couldn’t be there.”

  “What if we found someone to coach the team?” I jump in. “A parent or something?”

  “Yeah.” Ruby nods eagerly. “My dad might do it.”

  Mrs Gregory looks at us for a moment and sighs. “Well,” she says finally. “I guess it’s a nice idea. If you can get someone to agree to coach, and if you can sign up enough girls … maybe twelve to start with, then I will sign off on you using the pitch … but, girls, I wouldn’t hold your breath. I don’t want you to get your hopes up too high.”

  “Thanks, miss!” we chorus, and then we rush out, flushed with success, and we perform our own improvised victory handshake.

  “Do you really think we’ll get enough people signed up?” Ruby asks.

  “Of course,” I say certainly. “We’ll set up a sign-up table in the canteen at lunch tomorrow and I bet we’ll get loads of interest.”

  “Yeah.” Ruby is enthusiastic. “I feel so FIRED UP! Like I could take on the whole world and win! We could be the start of something for loads of girls.”

  I beam at her, feeling myself pulled along by a surge of enthusiasm as well. “It will be brilliant.”

  The next day I am feeling a little less optimistic. It’s proving harder than I thought to get girls to sign up for our team, especially because lots of the “sporty” girls are already on the netball team. So far we have been here for forty-five minutes and we only have three names.

  The real problem is that all three of the girls who have written their names down are
really enthusiastic about the idea.

  “I’ve always wanted to be part of a girls’ team,” one of the girls, who is called Becca, says. “I don’t know why I never thought of trying to get a group together myself.” She shrugs. “It’s so cool that you’re doing it.”

  Hearing things like that feels really good, but it’s also a lot of pressure. Now there are girls who will actually be disappointed if we can’t make it happen.

  “Do you want to sign up for a girls’ football team?” I call to a girl who is in my maths class. I wave the clipboard enthusiastically, but she sails straight past as though I haven’t spoken.

  “I’m really sorry, Ruby,” I say glumly. “I thought this bit would be easy.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ruby replies, tossing her braids over her shoulder. “We’ll get more people. OI!” she shouts at an unsuspecting year seven. “YOU INTERESTED IN FOOTBALL?” The girl freezes like a rabbit in headlights and makes a squeaking noise before edging silently away.

  A shadow looms over our desk and I look up, about to start my pitch for the football team when instead of a prospective teammate, I am confronted by the figure of Aaron Davis. I have never had a nemesis before, but truly Aaron Davis feels like he fits the bill. He’s the Joker to my Batman, the Voldemort to my Harry, the Gaston to my Belle.

  “What do you want?” I growl.

  Aaron picks up the clipboard and looks it over. “Didn’t take you for a footballer,” he says, his eyebrows raised.

  “I’m not,” I snap, and I don’t know why but it feels like he’s just insulted me terribly.

  He looks at me, a frown of confusion appearing between his eyes. “So if you don’t play football, why are you trying to start a girls’ football team?”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” I reply, snatching the clipboard back and placing it neatly on the table in front of me.

  “Well, no, I don’t,” Aaron says. “It seems like you’re just getting all worked up over nothing. Why are you making this a big deal? We’ve never had a girls’ team before and nobody cared.”

  “You mean you didn’t care,” I say, my hair quivering, and I’m starting to worry that it might get so big and angry that it actually throttles him. “What if there wasn’t a boys’ team? Would you care then?”

  “But there isn’t a boys’ netball team,” Aaron points out, “and you don’t see the boys getting all upset about it.”

  “Well, maybe they should be.” I find I have jumped to my feet and I’m pointing my finger at him. “Boys should be allowed to play netball if they want, just like girls should be allowed to play football. That’s what equality is all about.”

  “But what if boys don’t want to play netball?” Aaron asks, pushing a hand through his hair.

  “Why wouldn’t they?” I say quickly. “Netball is fun, it’s hard work, you have to be skilled to play it. If boys don’t play it, it’s because they’ve been told that they shouldn’t want to.”

  “It’s a girls’ sport,” one of Aaron’s Neanderthal friends pipes up, appearing at his shoulder. I think his name is Luke. He’s like the king of the baboon squad. “No boy wants to play girls’ sports. It’s embarrassing.”

  “But why?” I ask, taking a deep breath to try and remain calm. “Ask yourself why. Why is it so bad for a boy to play a girls’ sport? Why do we separate things like that into girls and boys?”

  “I dunno.” Luke shrugs. “Probably because girls can’t play sports like football very well. It’s like science or something. You’re not fast enough. You don’t have the stamina or the strength. Look at your arms … so weak. Puny.” Here, he flexes a beefy arm and I battle the urge to punch him in the face and show him just how puny my arms are.

  “Well, I think there are a load of INSANELY brilliant women footballers who could kick your stupid bum, Luke Travers,” Ruby snaps. “Including me, probably.”

  “You?” Luke snorts. “Not likely.”

  “Yeah me,” Ruby retorts. “Unlike you, my strike rate isn’t a total embarrassment.”

  Luke’s face reddens at this. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway, I don’t know why we’re even arguing about it. Things should just stay as they are. The girls have their sports and we have ours. Why can’t you just leave things alone? Just … you know … pipe down, yeah?”

  “Just. Stop. Telling. Me. To. Be. Quiet.” I grind out. “I am SICK of you and your friends telling me to pipe down, or chill out, or stop being so loud. And anyway, I think that’s rubbish.” I fold my arms across my chest, where righteous anger is whistling away like a boiling kettle. “It’s not fair to boys OR girls. It’s like saying there’s only one way to be a boy and one way to be a girl. If a boy wanted to play netball, then he’d be called a girl LIKE IT WAS AN INSULT. Like the worst thing a boy could be is like a girl. You just said it would be EMBARRASSING. And when you say things like that then what are you really saying you think about girls? That they’re somehow worse? That being like a girl is bad?”

  Luke rolls his eyes. “That’s stupid,” he says.

  “I don’t know what to say to that,” I sit back down, wearily. “It’s not an intelligent argument.”

  “But why are you starting a girls’ football team if you don’t like playing football?” Aaron asks again now. He’s been quiet while Luke was arguing with me and Ruby, his eyes moving between us.

  I look at him. “Because being a good president isn’t about just doing things for yourself,” I say. I lift the list and wave it at him. “Whatever you say, there are girls in this school who want to do this and at the moment they can’t. I think that’s wrong and so I want to do something about it. Even if that means sitting here every lunchtime for a week.” I slam the clipboard on to the table defiantly. “And you’d understand that if you weren’t such a complete and utter Slytherin.”

  Aaron looks at me for a moment, and I don’t know what he’s thinking. That little line has appeared again between his eyes. He looks a bit surprised, like that wasn’t the answer he expected. He rubs his nose thoughtfully.

  “Just leave her, mate,” Luke says, tugging at his arm. “She’s a psycho.”

  I glare at him and stick out my tongue. It’s not my most mature, sensible argument, but I can’t help it.

  Aaron shrugs and turns to leave. “Oh, and just for your information,” he calls back over his shoulder, into my disbelieving face, “I’m actually not a Slytherin. I’m a Ravenclaw.”

  CHAPTER Seventeen

  I trudge home, still annoyed by the scene in the canteen. I mean, some people are still really living in the dark ages. How can we possibly leave the future of our school in the hands of an ignoramus like Aaron Davis? Ravenclaw, I snort. In his dreams. When I turn my key in the lock on our front door a little later the house is strangely quiet. Not that I really care. Since the INCIDENT in which my family WOUNDED me with their thoughtless DISREGARD of my hopes and dreams, we haven’t been making an awful lot of conversation. The only person who seems to be enjoying the atmosphere in our house is Lil, who remarked yesterday that she’d never had so much peace and quiet as she gleefully sat eating Skittles and watching back-to-back recordings of her programmes in what she referred to as “blissful silence”.

  “I’m home,” I call out carelessly now, about to stomp straight up to my room.

  “Through here.” I hear my mum’s voice from the living room. Dumping my bag, I sigh elaborately and make my way inside.

  “SURPRISE!” three loud voices shout, making me jump so hard that I almost fall over.

  What I see makes a huge, cheek-aching grin spread across my face.

  My mum, dad and Lil are all wearing matching white T-shirts with VOTE FOR EFFIE written on them in purple glittery pen. Behind them, a big banner is stuck to the wall that says EFFIE FOR PRESIDENT in rainbow letters.

  I feel a big lump appear in my throat as they all smile at me.

  “We’re really sorry, Effie,” Dad says.

  “We’re always on your
team,” Mum chimes in. “We can’t help worrying about you … we are your parents, but if you want to do this, then we support you all the way.”

  I really think I might cry now and there’s a little pause as I try and blink the pesky tears away.

  “I was told there would be chocolate,” Lil’s voice breaks in loudly.

  We all laugh then. Well, apart from Lil, who is folding her arms mutinously and muttering about Maltesers and how she won’t be silenced with a “treat-sized” bag. Only full-sized confectionary is acceptable.

  “Thank you,” I choke out, while being bundled into a big group hug. “This is just SO what I needed today.”

  “Anything we can help with?” Mum asks.

  “No,” I say, “just something I need to do. Some stupid boys were going on about how girls can’t play football and it made me cross.”

  Lil’s eyes narrow dangerously. “What boys?” she asks. “Give me names. I can take care of it.” She traces a line across her throat with her index finger. “I know people.”

  “How about instead of acting like a gangster, you lay the table, young lady.” Mum rolls her eyes.

  Lil huffs a loud sigh. “I’m so unappreciated.”

  “I appreciate you,” I say. “I’ll let you know if I need any legs breaking.”

  Lil gives me a thumbs up and disappears into the kitchen, whistling a happy tune.

  “She is joking, isn’t she?” Dad whispers, watching her retreating back.

  “I think so,” I reply. “But aren’t you glad she’s on our side?”

  At the end of the week we have another campaign meeting. The cupboard is looking a lot better these days. Ruby and Jess are sprawled on the big purple cushions. The shelves are full of glitter pens and coloured card and blank sheets of paper. A VOTE FOR EFFIE banner is stuck along one wall. Kevin is sticking up another poster on the other wall.

  “Oh, cool,” Ruby says, going over to look. It turns out Kevin is really, REALLY good at art and he’s covered the walls in brilliant drawings. This poster is a picture of me in a superhero outfit, my fist pumping in the air as I fly through the sky. On the ground below me are the rest of the team, cheering and waving and holding VOTE FOR EFFIE banners.