Standing Room Only

I was desperate to be elected class president.  It was everything I had worked and dreamed for.  I knew I would finally be accepted if I could only win at something.  And that something had to be the presidency.  Otherwise, all of my plans would be for naught.  Everything had started when I was in fifth grade and won the spelling bee.  I was over the moon until my mother reminded me that my older sister had won the spelling bee AND the geography bee.  And because I had come in mere second place over what the capital of Lithuania was, I was second best.  In reality, I knew I had been and always would be second best, but I needed to prove to myself I could achieve the school status Mary never could. 

I wondered about the best way for me to go about getting elected and though it did cross my mind to see about committing voter fraud, I would never allow myself to be put in the same category of certain people of power.  But I was desperate and who would really notice if a few extra ballots made their way into the ballot box?  Certainly not Mary.  I began plotting, but knew I could never write anything down.  I didn’t have faith that my family members didn’t go through my desk when I wasn’t home.  My father was big on his own personal privacy, but didn’t extend the same courtesy to the rest of us. What I wasn’t expecting was for someone else to stuff the ballot boxes for me. Just not in my favor. And I knew how to get Mary back. College wasn’t important, right?