Survival Of The Fittest

(Chloé Delacroix pregame start)

Government was the first lesson of the day, in an airy classroom in the Ingenuity Wing. The windows were open, a fan turned lazily on Mr Kennedy’s desk, and the morning sun that lit up the room was an orange omen of the autumn to come. Something of the summer break lived on in this sort of heat, lending even the classroom the gentle relaxation of home. It was nice to be back.

Chloé had arrived early, beating all but a few of her classmates. Even with just a few of them milling about it looked like last year’s seating plan had been abandoned already, so she pulled up a blue plastic chair to a window table and waited on the arrival of her friends. Politics didn’t always bring out people’s friendliest side, but there were a handful of people in this class she got on well with, and she hadn't seen some of them all summer. Hopefully the first lesson back would be relaxed enough to allow time for them to catch up.
-
“Alright then! Welcome back, everyone, I hope you had a restful summer break.”

Mr Kennedy put on his glasses and began to scroll through the roll call on his computer. The gov/econ teacher was a tall, well-muscled man in his early thirties, always sharply dressed around school. He’d been quite handsome three years ago when he first taught this grade, the recipient of many a precocious crush, but as the students grew into their bodies he grew out of his; his hair was thinning and he’d developed a noticeable beer gut. Still, his presence was familiar- some of Chloé’s other first-year teachers had moved on from JEM, and she’d felt a comforting nostalgia when she saw his name on her timetable.

They’d all come a long way since freshman year. Every name Mr Kennedy read out matched a different face to the one it had back then, different even to those she’d seen in July. There were the superficial differences- some sported summer tans, some of the boys had new facial hair, some of the girls were all made up for the first day back- and there were deeper ones, smiles exchanged with different friends, eyes for different crushes and new lovers. But when Mr Kennedy said “Chloé?”, she said “yes” and she was still the same girl she’d been three years ago.

The first thing Ethan learned in the new semester was that Chloé Delacroix had beaten him in the race to reclaim his seat from the last one.

((Ethan Kemp: Pregame Start))

On one hand, this was a small bummer. Ethan liked this seat because it was close enough to the teacher to follow the lessons without trouble, but away enough to doze off or look out the window now and then without the teacher instantly noticing. The best from both worlds.

But on the other, this was no reason to start an argument. Ethan couldn't say that he was close with Chloé, but he knew her as a nice person who was unlikely to try and provoke people. Surely she hadn't had any ill intentions when taking the seat that technically wasn't even his in the first place. Apart from that, one look through the room told him that she wasn't the only one guilty of this "crime".

So Ethan acknowledged Chloé's action by taking a new seat. After some consideration, he sat down on the place right in front of his old one. This way, he might still be able to fly under the teacher's gaze now and then. It wasn't even like he dozed off often. He just enjoyed having the option to choose.

Surprisingly, he felt no disappointment about summer break being over. Sure , the free time had allowed Ethan to work longer on each of his videos without dialing down the frequency of uploads. But ultimately he preferred new stimulis over seeing the same four walls most of the day.

And so, Ethan sat down, readied his utensils and occasionally greeted any friendly face he knew good enough to call out to.

Eventually, the teacher arrived, signalling the start of the roll call. Whatever kind of sorting Mr Kennedy's list used, it wasn't an alphabetical one, because Ethan's name came directly after Chloé.

"Present." Ethan stated while raising his hand enough for the gesture to be seen.

The next name Kennedy read out belonged to Ethan Kemp, who answered from the seat directly in front of her, and Chloé realised with a cringe that she’d stolen his seat.

She’d sat by the door last year, and hadn’t paid much attention to the window wall, but now she thought about it, she did remember him sitting where she was sitting now. If she recalled correctly, he’d made the most of its position to doze off a couple of times with the teacher none the wiser. She couldn’t necessarily relate to his work ethic, but he’d had the right idea nonetheless- this was a nice seat- and she felt a little sorry. Ethan was a really nice guy, and from the way he’d hesitated slightly before settling for the desk in front, she got the feeling he was a little disappointed.

Maybe she was overthinking it; it was just a chair, after all. She probably wasn’t going to swap places with him now, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea to check in and make sure there wasn’t any bad blood between them. Besides, it would be a good opportunity to catch up with someone she probably wouldn’t speak with otherwise. So when Kennedy had finished the roll call and set the class up with a starter activity, she leant over the desk and whispered to him-

“Hey, Ethan! Good to see you again- did you have a nice summer?”

As it turned out Mr Kennedy was still as savvy as last semester. He knew that his hopes of drilling anything in the students who hadn't seen each other for weeks was slim. So instead of trying to do some harsh learning, he only gave the class an alibi-work and then started working on some papers, allowing the students to have small-talk. Most picked up on this pretty quickly and started to form groups that were surely not focusing on the assignment. However, in order to not test out the limits of Mr Kennedy's generousity, the conversations were quieter than usual.

All of this was expected by Ethan. What Ethan didn't expect was being roped into such a conversation by the girl behind him.

He turned around to face Chloé. Many others were doing similar stuff, so he didn't fear the teacher.

"Yes, I had. Thanks for asking." He answered with a smile, not entirely sure why Chloé was suddenly so interested in him. Feeling that his answer was a little bit too standard, he elaborated.

"I passed most of it working on my youtube-channel and training for the upcoming chess tournaments me and the rest of the club will participate in this year. Now and then I hit up the Arcade at the Willows, of course.

"Oh, and I volunteered with Dawn for some health awareness organization. We spent some days handing out flyers teaching about the importance of a healthy diet."

The latter had been entirely Dawn's fault. When getting the opportunity, she had signed up herself and Ethan before informing him. He didn't mind, since it had been a good excuse to catch a lot of air.

"And how was your summer break?"

The class quickly descended into chatter, so when Ethan turned around to reply she leant back into her seat- well, his seat, technically- and their conversation continued at a normal volume. At first he answered quite abruptly, and Chloé worried briefly that she had upset him after all, or maybe he just wasn’t all that talkative or something, but then he went on to talk in more detail about his summer.

It sounded like Ethan had been keeping busy. He had a YouTube channel, apparently, which was kind of cool, in a geeky way. Did she know that? She made a point of following her classmates on social media, but couldn’t remember seeing any of his videos or anything. He played chess too, competitively, by the sound of it; that was impressive. Chloé probably had the right sort of logical brain for chess, but she’d never really gotten into it. Games in general weren’t really her thing, so she didn’t know much about the arcade he mentioned either, but she could connect with his volunteering experience. It sounded like something Ethan and another girl in their grade, Dawn, did regularly by the nonchalance with which he mentioned it, and Chloé respected that. She vaguely knew Dawn, but not her relationship with Ethan; were they dating, maybe? It seemed a little intrusive to ask, so she just smiled enthusiastically. Besides, immediately after that he asked about her own summer, so the conversation shifted naturally away from him.

“I had a great summer too! I did some volunteering myself, at a local food bank, I don’t know if you know the one? Anyway, I went to see my dad and his family, and went to some parties and stuff, and managed to keep on top of schoolwork.”

She said that last part with a little less confidence than usual. Their workload had been ramping up going into the final year, and some of her study techniques were losing their edge. She’d heard about some ancient emperor who took so many small doses of poison that he built up an immunity to the stuff- that seemed to be where her relationship with caffeine was heading. She hoped getting back into the grind this semester wouldn’t be too much of a shock for her system.

On that note, she glanced down at the classwork and jotted down an answer mid-conversation. Balancing work and socialising was her signature move, after all.

As it turned out, Chloé had also done some volunteering. Ethan knew that there were several food banks in Salem, but he couldn't claim to ever have stepped foot into one. His family was well of, after all.

When talking about learning, Ethan catched Chloé looking slightly distressed. This fit into the picture he had of her being a model student. As if to prove this, she instantly turned her attention to the assignment on her desk and filled in something.

"Sounds good." Ethan said. Then he attempted to drive the conversation away from the topic that had unsettled her. "From what I have heard and seen about our classmates, most others also had a nice time. I guess this is for the best.

"After all, this was our last summer break of high school." Remembering a lecture his mother had hold him once, he smiled wryly.

"It would suck to miss out on the freedom of youth, right?"

(Madeleine Molliqaj: Pregame Start)

It was nice to be back at school, Madeleine thought, starting attentively at Mr. Kennedy as he did the roll-call - sure, there wasn't too much going on, but it was nice to pay attention, or at least to look like you're paying attention! Last year of school, after all. After this, everyone would split up. Go off to a hundred different universities and colleges and into the workforce, and then they'd probably never see each other again, apart from bumping into each other from time to time. Salem was a pretty small town, after all. A lot smaller than her hometown, although of course she didn't remember much about it.

So this was their last hurrah, so she had to make the most of it! Make memories and everlasting friendships and all that cheesy stuff you'd see on Disney channel movies, full of teenagers played by twenty year olds and idealised memories of high school. Sure, it was all sanitised and skipped over anything negative about school, but she had still loved watching them when she was younger. She'd been disappointed when it wasn't like the shows, though.

"Madeleine?" Mr. Kennedy called her name, and she responded with a "Present!", raising her hand enthusiastically. He nodded, and continued with the register.

Two of her classmates, sitting behind her were talking; Chloé with a fancy e and Ethan. She didn't really know that much about them, but there was no time like the present. Hopefully she wasn't disturbing them, or being nosy listening in on them, but there wasn't much to do after saying her name, apart from waiting for other people to get roll-called and then for class to start.

"Hey guys! How was your summer?" She greeted them with a cheery smile, turning around in her chair to talk to them.

The tall girl in front of Ethan, Madeleine, spun around in her seat with a cheerful greeting, so now their catch-up conversation was spread over a three-desk Ethan Sandwich. Work might have to take a backseat after all, since it looked like the topic of Summer Break was here to stay.

“I had a nice summer, thanks! Busy, but nice.”

Chloé smiled warmly at Madeleine. Like Ethan, Madeleine- did she go by Maddie?- wasn’t somebody she knew all that well, but that was perfect. Those sorts of people had sort of, disappeared over the lockdown? Close friends kept in touch, maybe Facetimed or went on mask-clad walks or something, and more casual friendships still lived on in group chats and the like, but it felt like ages since Chloé had just sat and talked with people who were, essentially, strangers with names. That’s where basically every friendship began after all, and it was great to be back at it again.

After she’d brought Madeleine (Or was it Maddie?) up to date on what she’d told Ethan about her summer, Chloé nodded politely at him, inviting him to re-recount his own summertime experience. Then she zoned out a little- she justified that to herself since she’d heard about Ethan’s summer already- and got back to work. The heading needed a nice, colourful highlighting, for one thing.

Kennedy had set quite a lot of questions- he probably didn’t expect the class to get through them all, but it wouldn’t be a great start if the aforementioned Ethan Sandwich got in trouble on their first day back. So she waited for a lull in the conversation, passing the time scribbling down a few more sentences on the paper, then jumped back in-

“Hey, what do you guys think for the third question?”

She didn’t actually need help, but maybe gently pushing her classmates back on track could be her daily good deed.

Suddenly, a third person entered the conversation. Ethan knew a bit about Madeleine. Helpful, cheerful, in some aspects a lot like Dawn. Not a bad person by any means, so Ethan saw nothing wrong with her cutting in.

Chloé retold her summer before nodding at him. Ethan got the message and retold his experience as well.

But before he could return the favor by asking about what Madeleine had been up to...

"Hey, what do you guys think for the third question?" Chloé asked.

Ethan took a look at the paper in front of him.

"Pretty sure the right answer is 42." He said.

Chloé had done some volunteering at a local food bank, which was nice. Madeleine knew the one she was talking about; she passed it on the way to her job, and it always hurt a little to see the people lined up outside it. America was already a great country, but it could be a lot better, and that's what Madeleine wanted to help do when she was in the workforce. Make it a better country. And then Ethan had been doing chess and YouTube stuff, which was good, she guessed? Chess had never been her thing, but kudos to him. Maybe she'd like, see him in a couple of years as a Grandmaster or something, unlikely as it sounded But for now, her idealism and thinking about the future could wait, because she had questions to answer.

"Uhh..." Madeleine studied the question. Something about the Treasury and inflation or something like that, she wasn't an economist. 42 sounded about right. "Yeah. 42 looks good to me!"

Madeleine's summer had been pretty uneventful; hiking with her dad, watching Klinton play some soccer with his club, and of course, the Olympics. They only happened every four years, after all - well, COVID had messed that up a little, but it was all good. She smiled a little, remembering her excitement when little Kosovo got two gold medals in Judo. Hey, maybe they'd get some more next year, at the Winter Olympics, and she could repeat that happiness all over again.

They’d all arrived at the same answer, which was a good sign. Even better, from what she could overhear of other people’s conversations- when they very occasionally strayed into the subject of schoolwork- Chloé and her own conversation partners were keeping pace with the rest of the class’s progress through the activity. She made a start on the next question, drifting in and out of the conversation for a few minutes, and when she felt they’d exhausted the topic of summer memories Chloé shifted the conversation forward a couple tenses from past to future.

“So, last year, huh? Have you guys got plans for after high school?” She asked a little absentmindedly, whilst listing the functions of the Treasury in the space below question five.

Chloé's question caught Ethan a little bit off-guard. After all, they were just starting their final year of highschool. As far as Ethan saw it, the future was a topic that only adults brought up at this time of year.

But fact was that he had an answer.

"I plan to turn my hobby into a profession and create professional movie critics." He explained to the girls cornering him. "Maybe I will study journalism, but I am not that sure if I want to do that. Judging from the current media, they are way too political for my taste.

"Or maybe I will stick to growing my channel. This would mean more freedom, but some other limitations and being on the mercy of the almighty algorithm." He gave a weak smile.

"Both options kinda suck, but I want to do what I love, and I love the cinema.

"And you two?"

After high school, huh. She had actually been thinking about this a lot! There were a lot of options; teaching, going to university and trying to wrangle a job in the State Department somewhere, or heck, maybe she'd have a whole new idea by June next year.

"I'm, uh, thinking of becoming a teacher maybe! I dunno, heh. Peer aide's fun and all that, and I think I'd make a good teacher! But then I also sorta wanna go to university and get a degree and, uh, maybe work for the government?" She shrugged. Ethan wanted to be a YouTuber or something, which seemed... sorta unwise, and then the comment about journalism being too political made her raise an eyebrow. Ah. One of those kinda guys. You know, the sorta guys who made a 2 hour video on how the Last of Us Part 2 was some SJW plot to make men weak or something stupid like that.

Well, at least he didn't seem too openly like that.

"What about you, Chloé? Do you have any plans?"

Noticing her slightly raised eyebrow, Chloé guessed Madeleine was sceptical of Ethan’s idea of making a living on YouTube. From what she understood of the video sharing platform, it wasn’t impossible to get by, or even get rich, off of it, but Madeleine’s doubts weren’t unjustified either. There was definitely some naivety in expecting to get lucky and go viral or whatever. She was pretty sure Charlie had wanted to be a professional YouTuber for a month or two, sometime before wanting to be a footballer and after wanting to be a dinosaur. Ethan’s weak smile and comment about the algorithm suggested he was at least more aware of the difficulties than her kid brother had been.

Journalism might be a more stable career, if perhaps not as exciting. Unless you were reporting from an active warzone, but that would be the wrong kind of exciting, and probably even more political than media commentary. To be fair, Chloé sympathised with Ethan’s frustration there. She was a very political person, but the state of the world brought her down too. There should definitely be places to just… escape the politics for a while. Hopefully Ethan managed that with however he ended up following his passion.

Madeleine wanted to be a teacher, which was a noble career, if even more thankless than journalism. Some of Chloé’s past volunteering had involved tutoring, and it was hard work. Teacher, or civil servant- that was cool too. Something in the public sector either way, and Chloé respected that a lot. Even if Madeleine didn’t seem certain on where exactly her life would lead, it sounded like it was headed in a good direction.

Chloé liked to think she could say the same of her own. “Mhm, I’m applying to a couple different universities, to do something with politics and-slash-or economics.”

Rather than boasting about exactly which universities she had in mind, she picked up the worksheet in front of her and held it next to her face, smiling with self-depreciating humour. "Behold, my true calling."

Sarcastically, she mimed putting a gun to her temple and blowing her brains out.

It seemed like both Chloé and Madeleine had some ideas about what they wanted to do. Ethan wondered if most others were the same.

"I suppose in the end what's important is that we all do what we enjoy." He said. "At least that's what my mother says. And she seems pretty happy with her lot in life, so there has to be something to it."

With that, he took another look at the assignment.

"Question 15 is hard. I know that the president with the shortest presidency died like one month after inauguration, but I can't remember his name. Do you two know this one?"

Most of his paper was filled out and Ethan was sure his anwers were correct, but this one was a though nut to crack. But again, the class was only halfway over, so they still had time.