Ellie Alperton
December 24, 2021 6:08 AM
Vote Ellie! by Ellie Alperton
Ellie was not sure that Jasmine would have agreed, but there were some things more important in life than ball dates and dresses. Especially as she really only seemed likely to end up with one of those two. The prefects had voted for the group dance, which meant she had no excuse to poach Freddie even for a number, and Dathan had zero reason to ask her out. Not that he probably would have anyway. But it was time to channel her inner Tiana, push those kinds of thoughts aside, and focus on a goal. A goal that was about her, and being who she wanted to be, and having some power.She was pretty sure she was the one who had started this trend, when she had done it for Jasmine. She was trying to ignore the fact that that particular campaign had been unsuccessful, and instead to focus on the fact that she was one of the most driven and determined students the school had ever seen, and had been demonstrating that fact since she was in third year. Those points were featured in the mission statement of her campaign poster. It was headed with her name in big, bold letters, the colours of the trans pride flag, and topped with a crown. Underneath it, it read:
‘Driven and determined—I have already worked hard and shown commitment to making Sonora an equitable and inclusive place, and will continue to do so.’
As politics went ‘Hi, I’m trans and I’m gonna make sure this school is hella queer’ was not going to win everyone over. She knew that. And it was tempting to hide behind blander promises in the interests of popularity. But it wasn’t who she was or what she stood for.
On voting day, she also showed up armed with cookies, because heck, it couldn’t hurt in what was, essentially, a popularity contest. She had given up trying to do anything terribly complicated with them (crowns and pride icing had vaguely been on her mind, but had been harder to achieve than expected) and just gone for simple circles with a pool of white icing in the centre, outlined with rainbow sprinkles, and the words ‘vote Ellie!’ in the middle. Thank goodness for copying charms - not on the cookeis themselves, but for the design, which otherwise she was sure would have taken her hours. Sonora seemed like a small school until you were trying to bribe all of it with cookies.
13
Ellie Alperton
Vote Ellie!
1456
1
5