You Must Remember This

Chapter 11: Those Good Old-Fashioned Values

The new sophomores flooded the halls on the first day back from summer vacation invigorated with new purpose. They had a sacred responsibility, or so they were told, to mentor the younger generation just as they had been mentored themselves. While they got to arrive at school late and act casually for a bit, as soon as the second bell rang, all bets were off. They looked no different than the freshmen: perhaps on average they were a bit taller, and spoke with deeper voices, but to the juniors and seniors, who also populated the halls with their own new purpose, they were still young and innocent. It was a simple binary in their mind: if a student were younger than they, they were cute, innocent, and naïve. If older, they commanded a grudging respect while they waited for them to graduate and clear the stage.

Frank, Alan, and Pranav had chosen to arrive early to debrief all that had occurred over the summer; walking as a group of three, they were stopped by one overzealous teacher by the parking lot asking if the young freshmen needed any help finding the theater before another teacher waved hello and rescued them from ignominy.

"To be young again," Frank laughed. They made their way past the locker rooms and up the ramp to the central courtyard, choosing a table that was not damp from condensation. As soon as they sat down, Frank pulled out folders from his backpack containing last-minute paperwork and notes.

"Why aren't the other club officers here? And why is this guy here?" Alan asked, pointing to Pranav, who Alan thought did not look at all like a sophomore.

"It's early, and I wanted to make sure the most important people were here," Frank answered, looking at Pranav knowingly. This was technically true, if not in the sense Alan thought: Alan was there so he would be suitably on-board with the club activities that day. Frank had neglected to tell Alan, and all the club officers in fact, that their club was grounded in a satirical text; he did not view this as an important detail. It was rare that clubs met on the first day of school, but a good person plans ahead, and Frank certainly wanted his first day to go off without a hitch. If his social media experiments were any indication, a sizable percentage of the "popular kids" were going to attend, either of their own volition or because their friends insisted. As to not disrupt Mr. T's bemused tolerance of the impending chaos, he had announced that membership would be capped at thirty members, with all meetings recorded on the off chance someone really had nothing better to do after school (Mr. T just so happened to keep expensive recording equipment in his cabinets of wonder). This announcement, made the night before school, prompted fast responses from people like Juliet and Behrooz, all gleefully announcing their intentions to be there. Frank woke up the following morning and forgot for a happy few minutes exactly what he had done over the last few weeks until he checked his emails to see a few anxious freshmen trying to reserve spots in the meeting. This is bound to be interesting, he thought.

"That doesn't answer my question: why is he here?" Alan did not like surprises, and with his belief that the draconian methods Frank had planned for that day were good person boot camp, any deviation from his conception of lunch that day was already a failure on his part, and Alan did not like failure.

"Pranav," Frank said, emphasizing his name with mild disappointment that Alan was being so bossy, "is a consultant. Yes, he's a consultant. He has extensive leadership experience, and has studied the text extensively. He's a mentor, in many ways, to me." Pranav nodded in approval, and resisted the temptation to chuckle. The plan was simple: Alan would be the only officer who knew of Pranav's involvement, and even he would be misled. Armed with his self-assured superiority, he would keep the secretary and vice president in line for Frank, Pranav, and all of their other friends who wanted to get in on the action. Pranav didn't even know the other club officers' names, and he suspected Frank didn't either.

"Cool. So, Pranav, what will you be doing during the meeting today?"

"I'll be in the back. Just watching, taking notes, consulting." Alan seemed disappointed. "I'll also be in charge of the ID cards. That sort of boring stuff which really should be handled by experienced people." They kept talking until more people started to show up and their secret meeting could not really be considered secret. Alan saw Behrooz walking up the ramp, and went off to greet him; Frank and Pranav waited for him to leave, then fist-bumped each other.