Cat cleared her throat. “The inability to find the culprit is hurting all of us. Does the administration have any leads?”
Principal Schwartz smiled. “Leads? Why, we have our responsible party. Mr. Torres, we’ve already called your parents. Probably best if you come with me to the office.”
“That’s not fair.” Angeline looked to Cat, who immediately stepped forward.
“Principal Schwartz,” Cat said. “I’m confident that Leo is being set up. If we put all of our resources into finding out who is behind this sham of a newspaper, I’m sure it’ll lead us to not just the person spreading these rumors but the actual perpetrator behind the Frankengirls.”
“Uh-huh.” The principal bent a finger toward Leo. “Let’s go, Mr. Torres.”
“You can’t—” Angeline started.
“I can. And I can also do this: you’re both disqualified from the student council race.”
The air whooshed from Angeline’s lungs. She sputtered an unintelligible response while searching Leo’s already sucker-punched face.
Principal Schwartz continued, “Obviously this business with the Frankengirls takes you off the table, Mr. Torres. But you and Miss Quinn also managed to violate the honesty pledge by lying about your motivations for running in your campaign speeches at a school-sponsored event. In addition to breaking election rules delineated in the student handbook: Mr. Torres by having an outside professional service contribute to the production of campaign material and Miss Quinn by offering bribes in exchange for votes. So you’re both gone, but you’re leaving a legacy nonetheless. Congratulations on taking this election out of the hands of your fellow students.”
Cat’s brow creased. “But you can’t cancel the election. Students have signed up to run for other positions. That’s in the handbook too.”
Angeline filled with pride.
Principal Schwartz cracked a smile. “You are entirely correct. But that handbook also states that if the student body proves unable to act within the behavioral guidelines of this school, the administration can step in. No more vandalizing and stealing posters. No more unsanctioned debates in the lunchroom. No more news vans and retweets and angel wings. We will choose the proper students to lead, because this student body cannot handle the responsibility that goes with participating in an election this year.” He stood in the doorway. “And you can quote me on that, Editor Quinn.”
Acedia Confronts Its Inner Sloth:
Controversy Surrounding Student Council Unprecedented in Charter School History
A SPECIAL REPORT
Part 5 of 6
But Acedia did trust a jock. In fact, it trusted many of them. Following the accusations against Torres, the administration interviewed the football players pictured in the now viral video in which Tad Marcus conceived of the Frankengirls. Marcus maintained his innocence pertaining to the enactment of his idea. With the two witnesses on Maxine’s couch backing up Marcus that it was Torres in that infamous green sweatshirt, the guilty party seemed to have been found. Though Torres denied culpability, the administration, which had taken quite a bit of criticism from parents, social media, and the local news, seized on him, suspending him pending a complete investigation. A guilty finding might lead to him being expelled, but the fallout from the accusation reached great heights without it.
Media attention expanded outside the Boston metro area when CNN picked up the story, which sparked the usual copycat rounds on the rest of the twenty-four-hour news channels, morning talk shows, and even late night. Soon, “Acedia” and “Frankengirls” were rolling off tongues across the country.
For Torres, his reputation and impending acceptances to colleges were at stake, but reports also suggest criminal charges of child pornography were being contemplated. Such an outcome would fuel the mob already swarming around Eliza Torres. With her son accused of creating something that was such an affront to women, supporters of her far-left campaign struggled to defend her, while those already opposed pounced on her as a hypocrite. With the election mere weeks away, Mrs. Torres’s team had a new battle on its hands. Yet she was not the only one.
The Frankengirls and the rights of female students had become a rallying cry. And Angeline Quinn, the once hero, was now tainted, believed to be a villain. What had started as a position on a charter school student council now threatened to derail the budding influencer’s career before it truly began. She’d given a voice to many—a voice that, at least in her own backyard, was being suffocated.
That, some say, is what led to what happened next.
Baker, who had a prime position on the front lawn of the school that day, said this: “Man, it was like a box of red and blue Crayolas was dumped on the lawn and left in the sun—wall-to-wall reds and blues and ones melted all together into violet. Wicked scene, man, wicked.”
Click for more: 5 of 6
32
When Cat Makes a Plan
2 DAYS TO THE (NOW CANCELED) ELECTION
Cat had been up before the sun, crunching on dry cereal at the round dining room table.
When they’d gotten home the night before, Angeline had been uncharacteristically quiet. Together, with Gramps and their mom, they’d watched the report that hit CNN. Acedia had gone national. Take a candidate for Congress, mix in a bad-boy son, add a dash of sex and a twist of misogyny, and the media had a gift-wrapped package it would tear open and exploit until the next scandal took over the news cycle.
Last night, as they watched, Ravi had texted.
You ok?
Was she okay? Vicious comments on social media were accusing Angeline of using the Frankengirls as stepping stones, but he wanted to know how she was doing. It was nice, knowing someone was thinking of her.
Too bad it had to come because of all this.
As much as Cat loved journalism, she hated this. Hated that this was a story. Her sister, Leo, her school. All because of The Shrieking Violet.
She hit play on the video from the party for what must have been the twelfth time. Using last year’s yearbook, she’d identified two kids on the fringes and was working on a third. The football players weren’t worth her time. They’d already decided to stick to their Leo story. Implicating him took the focus off of them. But someone else, someone new, might be able to prove that the hand sticking out of that sweatshirt didn’t belong to Leo. If she could give another viable option, maybe she could at least slow down the school’s inquiry long enough to conduct her own.
“Got ’em!” she said, pegging the third student at the edge of the video as Andreas Costa based on a glimpse of his lacrosse jersey.