The Hero Next Time: A Novel of the Terribly Acronymed Detective Club (Book 4)

Chapter Thirty-Two: Sunny, Wednesday

Sunny never expected the debate to devolve over an innocuous institution like May Day.

He was up at his podium in the large meeting room at Century House, with its view of the playground at Moody Park, empty now because evening came early this time of year. On either side of him stood the other candidates for Council at their own podiums, Regan Nakamura a few over from him. It had gone all right up to that point, discussing items like property values and city services, and he did his best to answer questions from the packed audience by pivoting to planks in his platform, when one of the audience members, a middle aged woman, stood to give her question. 

"We've gotten indications from staff at City Hall that Council wants to make changes to May Day next year," she said. "What will the candidates do to preserve a tradition that has gone on for over a hundred and fifty years?"

Sunny had the misfortune of having the debate moderator ask him to answer first.

He thought furiously about how to answer this question, as he had no interest at all in it as a subject. He noticed Lauren at the back of the room, sitting with Rachel, and suddenly remembered all of them being driven across the bridge in a school bus from Queen Elizabeth Elementary over to Queens Park, where the ceremony was held.

"I attended Queen Elizabeth Elementary when I used to live in Queensborough," he began. "I was there from Kindergarten to Grade Seven. I attended May Day every year I was there, did the circle dance in Grade Three, and then the dance around the Maypole in Grade Four." He cleared his throat and said, "I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I was just a kid, after all, and as much as the teachers tried to give us the history of the tradition, most of my concentration was focused on learning the dance moves. I still had two left feet back then." Awkward laughter followed his self-effacing statement, and he still couldn't think about what to say about this. He snuck a glance at Tori, standing in a corner in the back, very close to Joe, oddly, who probably didn't even know who she was, because they hadn't been introduced. Tori was trying to mouth something to him, but he couldn't understand what it was.

"It never occurred to me to question why we were doing this, spending so much of our time learning a dance we would be performing on one day, when we had other school work to do. For me it was a little variety in an otherwise dull school year, punctuated by other holidays like Christmas, Valentine's Day, Halloween, et cetera. We had a trip in a bus to a place far from home, and it was exciting. Speaking of buses, the children of Queensborough would benefit from a school bus that could take them to New Westminster Secondary School, where they would otherwise have to wait for public transit, unless their families owned a car to take them across the bridge. I'd like to work with the school board to enact a program where we could have a bus; Queensborough kids suffer an obstacle the other New West kids don't have, the bridge, and if they could have safe, reliable transportation to and from school, it would help narrow the gap in their education outcomes."

Silence. Sunny saw Tori close her eyes and shake her head.

 The woman who asked the question cleared her throat and said, "While I do appreciate your answer, because I do live in Queensborough and would appreciate a bus for my high schoolers, that doesn't answer my question about May Day."

"If I may interject," said Harvey Wilcox, the candidate standing beside him on his left, "I've lived in New West all my life and attended May Day every year I was in elementary school. I'm appalled at the notion Council wants to make changes to such a long standing tradition, and I would vote against anything that drastically alters it."

"Changes have happened before," said Beverley O'Connor, over at the other end of the line of podiums. "Sometimes the community needs to evolve with the times, and reexamine practices that might not make much sense in a modern setting."