Like A Girl//Benny Rodriguez fanfic

12.

Barbra's POV: 8th of May 1965
I strutted through the school halls. It wasn't a deliberate strut, that's just the way I walked I guess.
I opened up my locker and grabbed my books.
"YOU'RE HEAD TO HEAD WITH JESSICA IN THE POLLS." Ruby screamed. I had no idea what she was on about. She flipped a piece of paper with had some names on it, but the title said 'Electives for Student Body Representative'
"What?! I didn't even nominated myself."
"I guess the people thought you were fit for the position." Ruby yapped.
"I'll just speak to the newsletter team and withdraw myself."
"You can't do that!" She said stopping me.
"Why not?"
"Because if you win this election, you can make a difference. Every single year Jessica wins by default and never does anything to benefit the people."
"It's not my place."
"Come on Babs. I know you love standing up for people, that's one of the best traits you could've inherited from your grandfather. We need a voice, you can be that voice." Ruby pleaded putting her hand on mine.
"Tell me more about this student body rep." I said. Rubes was right. I love standing up for people and if this is my opportunity then I don't wanna waste it.
Ruby explained the whole thing to me, it was kinda like government. The campaigning starts the day after tomorrow! Jessica had 'Vote for Jess' badges. I had nothin'
"Okay, at lunch; Lucy, Ally, the boys and I are going to help you with your campaign. In the meantime smile and look pretty that's all you've got so far kid." She said running to her class.
Lunchtime
"Thanks so much, Mrs Penstucky." I said closing the door behind me. Ruby half-managed to dragged a blackboard into the centre of the room.
"We have an hour and a half of lunch. You better start talking ideas." Ruby ordered picking up a stick of chalk.
"Okay, how about instead of badges we go with baseball caps. Ya know because it's hot lately and that's what Babe is know for... Baseball." Squints suggested.
"Alright Squints! Now we're talkin!" Ruby cheered scribbling onto the bored.
"Where on earth are we gonna get 750 baseball caps by tonight?" Ham asked.
"Well, my dad works in retail and sewing. He says there's a reject pile, you know, where all the one with typos and misprints go. I'll ask him if he can drop by and get us some." Lucy replied.
"Okay what else? She's got cupcakes."
"We've got lemonade." Ally said.
"Oh yeah yeah, mom was tryna make lemon meringue but all the lemons weren't ripe enough, she put them aside." Yeah-Yeah agreed.
"Ace! We got lemonade!" Ruby shrieked writing it down on the board.
We decided that was enough campaign ideas for today and got started on flyers. Ruby and Lucy were on typewritting, quick at it they were. Ham and Benny on handing them out. Yeah-Yeah and Squints sticking them up. Timmy, Tommy, Kenny and I decorating.
Bertram was on research and development tasks.
This was a full working operation.
Home time
We all met up at the entrance of school.
"Okay gang. We'll go to my dad's workplace to get started on the ironing on the stuff for the caps." Lucy told. We all nodded. I got in the car and sat pretty pleased with myself.
"Why are you so happy?" My mom asked.
"I'm running for Student body rep!"
"Oh my gosh honey! That's excellent!"
"Yeh! But I have to do some campaign work tomorrow."
"Do you know what else helps with campaigning? Good deeds. Go round the neighbourhood and do odd jobs." She replied.

Same POV: 4th of May 1965
I headed over to Lucy's dad's workplace. We all got there at the same time. Lucy unlocked the big shed and Yeah-Yeah helped her push open the doors. It was cold and a bunch off plain reject shirts, sweatshirts and caps sat in a pile.
"Woah, this is so cool." Ruby exclaimed as we all walked in. Kenny set his radio on the floor nearby and turned it on.
"Good afternoon Utah, it's your host Dave Smalls! It's a nice hot summer day, and whether you're working, washing the car, or making campaign caps, today is your day! For all you Pinewood High School students, Heroes get remembered but legends never die, vote for a legend, vote for Babe Ruth Jr aka Barbra Ruth."
We all dropped what we were doing. And our mouths opened.
"Oh my god! Did you hear that!" Ruby squealed.
"Holy cow! He's talking about us!" Ham said running over to the radio and turning it up.
"This is crazy!" Timmy shouted.
"Crazy" Tommy repeated.
"How did this happen?!" I screamed. Benny stood quietly at the back smirking and looking down.
"You did this!" I yelled running up to him and jumping up on him. I jumped off him and hugged him.
"How'd you do it?" I asked puffing.
"Dave Smalls was my dad's friend." He explained. I grabbed his face and planted a big kiss on his cheek. The girls squealed and boys groaned.
"Okay! We've been pumped up, no we gotta start on these caps." Ruby said.
It was getting hot. We had been working for an hour and had managed to complete 18/750 caps.
Ham leaned again something and a huge cloud of steam erupted from it.
"What's that?" I asked. Benny walked over and blew some dust away from it.
"It's says... Label Compressor." He read out.
"LUCY!" Ruby said throwing a cap at her.
"What?!" She asked twirling her hair in her fingers.
"There was a label compressor here this whole time but you didn't say anything."
"I thought you guys liked ironing." She said defensively. We huffed at her and put around 24 at time because there was two compressors. 24 plus 8 people ironing.
It had been an hour and a half and we had completed 100 caps.
We continue on until two hours. We took a break. We were sitting out infront of the shed when two familiar girls rode by one pink bikes.
"Vote for Jessica." They said throwing flyers at us. I picked up one of the pink flyers and read it:
Vote for Jess is a vote for the best
It didn't even rhyme that well. I scrunched up the piece of paper and took a sip of my water.
We continued work for 3 more hours. We were making amazing progress. 500/750 were made. We decided to leave it at 500 and then use some t-shirts that we found. The were white, navy blue, red and purple. We made about 300 of those in 2 hours. It was getting close to 3 and we still and yet to make the lemonade. We left the clothes we had made at Lucy's house and went over to Yeah-Yeah's nonna's kitchen.
"Ciao bella." She said pinching my cheeks. My nonna lived in New York so whenever I was with Nonna Gina it felt like home.
We used big jugs to put the lemonade in.
"Squints do you know what you're doing?" I asked him as he stirred away.
"Of course. My grandma's special recipe." He said adding a bucketload of sugar.
"Jesus Christ Squints! You're gonna kill us." Ham said gaping at the amount of sugar being heaped in.
"Okay! I'm done with the first batch." He said using a ladle to scoop some liquid into a glass.
"Why is it blue?!" Ally asked looking at the shifty liquid.
"Whose taste testing?" Benny asked.
"There's no way in hell in drinking that!" Kenny said standing back.
I grabbed the glass and swirled it around. I breathed in and threw the lemonade into my mouth. I swirled it around, tryna get a good taste. It tasted so good.
"It tastes amazing!" I exclaimed. We all had a try and loved it. We poured it into ziplock bags and threw them in the freezer. We figured that by the time it was campaign time they would've melted but at the same time be nice and cold.
We were all allowed to spend the night at Ally and Yeah-Yeah's house.
We were all in the living room, it was squishy but we didn't really mind. I jumped into my sleeping bag.
"Thank you guys. I couldn't have done this without you." I thanked them. I really had a great group of friends
"Long live the babe." Ham said lifting his mug of hot chocolate. We all clinked glasses with the people next to us.
After talking amongst ourselves, we fell asleep. I was the only one awake.. Or so I thought.
I felt someone tug on my hair.
"You awake?"
"Yeah. Are you?"
"Well I'm talking to you aren't I?"
"Who is this?"
"It's Benny."
"Oh."
"You really deserve this."
"Thanks."
"I can't wait to see you kick Jess' ass."
"I'll try. Thanks... For being there, you're very good at this boyfriend thing." I whispered.
"You're really good at this girlfriend thing." He whispered. There was a long pause.
"Benny are you awake?"
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight Benny." I said shutting my eyes.