Saint Joseph School

Bryan pushed heavily down on the button machine's arm and plunked another finished button into the hand of boy with a dark olive complexion. "I'll see you in Trig, Manny. I think we may have a quiz today," Bryan said o him as he walked away.

He saw Mal and the furry kid on Mal's shoulder talking, happening to over heard the simian boy's reply.

"Ahh... The West Side Flamingos. My guess is they are working as a united front for Aura," Bryan interjected. "Bri won last year, so I guess they are all going to work together to see her take the crown."

Bryan smiled at the pair and handed Mojo another button. "Great, Aura's a really nice girl and a good dancer too."

Joni blushed on Jessiy's behalf from across the classroom. Maybe this had been a bad idea; at this point Jessiy was a longshot, even assuming Alex could convince her nominators (likely meant as jokes; Alex had pretty clearly not wanted to run when Joni asked) to support their friend instead. Rumors were already flying that Brianna (Brianna, of all people!) was putting the weight of her popularity behind Aura, whom Joni hadn't even expected to be interested in running. She needed to get to know her roommate better.

And it was only a matter of time before Aura asked for Joni's vote, and she was going to have to respond, "I'm sorry, I'm helping Jessiy campaign... I was the one who collected her nominations." Joni wasn't looking forward to that moment.

As class dismissed, she moved toward Jessiy, trying to look confident. It wasn't an expression she'd had much practice with. "Um, so... should we start making posters?"

Mieri smiled to herself at all the happenings. It was so much easier to forget the things she had been thinking about when she thought about homecoming. She foreced a smile and walked up to the table.

"Ciao Bryan, would it be possible for me to get one of your buttons? I think I would like to throw my hat into your run for king no? "

Mieri waited patiently for Bryan to finish what he was doing and address her.

'Del chewed on the eraser tip of her pencil thoughtfully as she gazed down at her clipboard, a habit Aunt Sylvia had tried desperately to break and had only succeeded in part. Aura shouldn't be too hard of a hard sell, she thought. Aura was a likable girl. Trouble was, 'Del didn't know her all that well, and so had no idea how to begin campaigning effectively for her.

Brianna had launched full tilt, judging by the posters of Aura that were beginning to pop up everywhere. Bri hadn't contacted 'Del yet about anything she needed taken care of, but 'Del didn't just want to sit around and wait. Especially when she stopped to think about how she was deferring her own nomination and the chance to become Homecoming Queen her first year at Saint Joseph's. Grrr.

'Del sighed. No use dwelling on it. She'd had her reasons for dropping out of the race, and she wasn't going to backpedal now.

I have to talk to some of Aura's friends. Interview them, get a sense of who she is, and see what we can spin. But was there enough time to do all that? She had to get moving, assess who was actually running against Aura as opposed to--

Suddenly, there was a flash bulb over 'Del's head so bright it threatened to singe her hair.

She had to talk to Brianna RIGHT NOW. Off she dashed.

Bryan opened another package of the mylar covers as Meiri said his name.

"Hi Mieri!" he replied with a smile. "Of course you can have a button! I'd be honored to have your vote."

He pulled out a blue marker and wrote carefully around the perimeter of one of the printed discs that went into the button machine. Keeping his work hidden, he quickly placed it inside the machine with other pieces. Pulling heavily on the handle until the audible crunch came from the finished button.

"Especially for you!" he grinned at the dark haired girl as he handed her the custom button.

Ciao Bella! Vote Baxter! HC 08!

No one saw anything, no one knows who did it... but mysterious additions to some campaign posters start appearing on campus.

Mal immediately looked nervous as he heard of the "plot".

"This isn't like that one movie where the mean girls get the nice girl elected prom queen, and then they pour pig's blood on her, and then the nice girl goes crazy and kills everyone, is it?"

Luke walks by the "revised" poster of Aura and laughs.

"She's got my vote."

Mirage walks by Mal hearing his statement...

"Lets hope not, but just in case, I'll be outside when shes crowned."

Kara is soon seen hanging up Aura posters. She stops and stares at one of the defaced ones, and tears it down to stuff into the garbage. She puts up a fresh one and moves on down the hall, handing out Aura buttons that feature blinking lights. She makes sure to toss one Mojo's way, along with a cheerful greeting and a smile.

Alex rushed around as fast as she could putting up posters. She had wanted to run them past Jessica first but hadn't been able to find her friends.

"I hope she is okay with these," Alex muttered as she taped one up next the other campaigns'.

She glanced at one for Aura King and just shock her head. Someone had doodled all over it.

"Lovely." Alex thought sarcastically as she hurried to the next bulletin board. "I hope we don't get blamed for that."

Jess looked up from her thoughts to Joni, smiling.

"Posters? Heh...I'd love the help. Thanks..." They kept walking out of the classroom, Jessica pulling her notepad back out of her backpack.

"I was thinking something like this, and I thought maybe a cool picture of me, like in my hero gear...you know if we can use the oh my God who did that..."

Jessica pointed, Joni following her finger and gasping at the large picture of Jessica that had been tacked onto a corkboard.

"Wow...well, maybe we DON'T need to do posters for me..."

Bryan unloaded his last bag of button materials. He was eager to get them finished, the button machine was due back to the art classroom after first period.

Last night at Bruno's, Bryan had promised to make personalized button for both Ves and Alex. He took out his blue felt tipped marker and thought for a minute. He grinned as an idea popped in to his head.

He began writing in the margins of a few button designs, making three new custom buttons.

The first for Ves made him chuckle as he wrote.

Vote Baxter! HC 08! Rubber Ducky for VP!

When he began writing the one for Alex, he couldn't help but close an eye and repeat his writing aloud in a pirate voice.

Avast! I spy the Dutchman! Vote Baxter! HC 08!

The last was the easiest to come up with.

On Three with love. Vote Baxter! HC 08!

Ves made a detour to visit Bryan's array of desks only a scant ten minutes before class began. She shifted her weight restlessly from one foot to the other and back again, barely able to contain herself.

"Hey, Bryan! So this is campagin headquarters, huh?" She grinned from ear to ear as she saw Bryan's handiwork. "You can't go wrong with a runnin' mate like that! I know I'm late to the game, but if you want some more of those handed out, I could help."

Kristen came bouncing around the corner at full speed, her face bright and contorted into the large smile she usually wore. She was feeling particularly happy today; it was homecoming, which meant the football game would definitely be awesome, three people had commented on her new shoes, she had managed to "jump" forward for exactly the right amount of time to miss third period english, and lunch was fast approaching. All in all, it was looking to be a grand day.

There was the sound of paper being torn, and it caught her attention long enough for her to turn back around the corner to see what was going on.

Brianna Landers was reaching on her tip toes, pressing a tack thru a poster into the corkboard. Kristen's smile grew, and she hopped over to see what was going on. She giggled lightly at the poster before tapping Brianna on the shoulder.

"Hi! So what's with this voting for Aura? Don't you want to be the queen, cause I was totally planning on voting for you and Brandon cause Brandon is SOOO dreamy and cute and a perfect gentleman I think it would be awesome but I thought I heard some people talking about Kara and Del supporting Aura too is this your idea I'll totally help out if you need me to!"