The Laurent Society

“Thank you, candidates and students,” Mr. Lewis’ voice boomed through the speakers in the auditorium. “Now, please place your ballots in the collection boxes as you exit, and we will have your next student body president by the end of the day!” Despite his attempt at enthusiasm, his excitement convinced nobody. There was no buzz among the students; at least not the kind he was hoping for.

The bell rang, and students shuffled towards their next classes, shoving votes into the boxes as they left. The other candidates and I helped Mr. Lewis carry off the podiums and other equipment that was set up on the stage for the debate. 

My two opponents were Ellie O’Donoghue and Joshua Jacobs. Josh had a good chance because he was a stereotype ripped straight from a teen drama, and everyone loved him for it. Then again, being a stereotype won’t get you far in real life. He would go to college on a football scholarship, end up in a frat house, and then, if he wasn’t hazed to death first, he would probably end up teaching PE in the same high school he was in now. I thoroughly expected to see him back in the LBHS year books four years after he graduates.

Ellie, on the other hand, had a good chance because she was popular for other reasons. She wasn’t the smartest, nor was she the dumbest. She wasn’t an athlete, nor was she in academic decathlon or something. People just liked her. She was charismatic and had a silver tongue. She was beautiful, and friendly, and, since she was such a happy medium of every social class in the school, she seemed approachable to everyone; not above or below anyone. She would probably end up in marketing or public speaking or something else along those lines. I didn’t doubt her potential, but it’s not like she would go to Yale and end up at NASA or anything. I thoroughly expected to see her face on a bench in our town in ten years.

I believed I deserved the best chance, not that I had it. I had the best ideas, obviously, and I had the highest GPA. I never missed any assignments, and I was only taking AP classes. This basically just meant that if the teachers could vote, they would vote for me. Unfortunately, they couldn’t. I knew I was the best candidate and my teachers knew that, but that wouldn’t help my terrible odds. I just needed to hope that the voters would use common sense and vote Artie Fitzgerald for president. I needed this, too. It’s not that I wasn’t involved in my school, but something like student body president would really help make my college applications shine. If all went to plan, I thoroughly expected to see myself as the next face in the tech industry. 

“Hey, Artie?” I heard Ellie call to me from behind. I wasn’t sure why she spoke to me, and, if I’m being honest, it kind of startled me. She never spoke to me before. 

“Uh- yeah?” I asked, preparing myself for a conversation with the best speaker in our grade.

She giggled sweetly before speaking, “You’re standing on the cord.”

I looked down and saw I was, in fact, standing on a cord that ran from somewhere behind me, under my foot, towards Ellie, and up and around her arm in a coil. “Oh, sorry.” I moved my foot, and the cord slinked away as Ellie pulled it up onto her arm. That was the extent of the interaction. 

“Alright, guys, thank you for your help, you can head back to class now,” Mr. Lewis said. “Keep an ear out for the announcements to find out who got elected. Here are your passes.” He held out three passes scribbled on yellow post-it notes with our names and estimated time of arrival on each. 

“Mr. Lewis,” Ellie spoke, “Would you mind leaving the time off of mine? I need to deliver letters for the Laurent Society.”

“Of course, Ellie,” Mr. Lewis replied, scrawling a new excuse note for her. “Anything for a good cause. Just don’t take too long.”

“No problem, sir,” she smiled, “Thank you so much!”

“Uhh… Mr. Lewis-” Josh started.

“No, Mr. Jacobs. Unless the football team has suddenly started facilitating community service and scholarships for our town’s stand up citizens, I suggest you get where you’re going.”

We all filed out of the auditorium and into the hallway. Josh took a turn in the opposite direction, leaving Ellie and me walking through the halls together.

“You had some really good ideas, Artie,” Ellie flashed a grin in my direction. 

“Thanks,” I said, apprehensively. “I really hope to get the chance to put them to use. Maybe make a difference here, you know?” Ellie went to speak, but then stopped herself. “I’m sorry,” I pointed out her hesitation, “I didn’t quite get that.”

“It’s just… you really could make a difference here, Artie. A good one,” she explained, “if only your ideas were gonna get used.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, debating in my head whether I should be offended or not.

“Well, you’re not gonna get elected,” she stated with certainty.

I didn’t quite know how to respond to that. I knew my chances were lower than hers, but you still can’t predict something like that. I still had some chance. Right? “How could you possibly know that?”

“Well…” she spoke, pausing at her locker to retrieve a bundle of letters. “Part of campaigning is actually talking to people, which you didn’t really do, Artie, and Josh and I did. I also made it a point to arrange an unofficial poll of the student body, and, as expected, Josh is getting most of the football team and the cheerleaders and such, and I am getting the, you know, common folk.”

“‘Common folk?’ What does that even mean?” I asked. 

“I mean, you’re getting the votes of some of the kids who might be referred to as ‘nerds’,” she explained, “but the quiet kids, the theater kids, the teachers’ pets, the stoners, and everyone in between, the common folk, are voting for me. That’s why you aren’t going to be elected. Josh and I have the polls in our favor to such a degree that the debate really only mattered between us.”

“Well… you said I had good ideas,” I reasoned, “shouldn’t that make a difference?”

“I would’ve voted for you if that makes you feel any better,” she said, “but common sense isn’t really the driving force when it comes to the decision making processes of teenagers. It sucks, really.” She closed her locker and turned to me. “Anyways, your pass won’t last forever, and I have deliveries to make.”

“You were serious about that?” I questioned. “I honestly thought you were just trying to get out of class.”

She laughed. “Well, they don’t have anything to do with charity, but they are letters for the Laurent Society, and they won’t shove themselves into lockers. Good luck in the election, though. You honestly deserve it.” Then, she went her way and I went mine. She pranced around to different lockers and slipped the letters in them, and I started on my path to English.

By the end of the day, the election results were announced. Ellie was right. She won. It was over. There was no way that MIT would accept some kid from Middle-Of-Nowhere, Oregon on merit alone. I needed something, and that was supposed to be my presidency. Now, that flew out the window along with my hopes of being accepted, let alone with scholarships. Then again, an opportunity may have presented itself that could solve my problem. Charity and community service does look good on applications, and it could give me the chance to get a scholarship.

It was settled. I would join the Laurent Society.

When the final school bell rang that day, I hurried to catch Ellie as she walked out to her car. “Hey, Ellie!” I called out. 

She was opening her car door when I called her name. She started looking around for the source of the sound. When she saw me, she smiled, squinting in my direction. “Artie?” she asked as I ran up to meet her, “Hey!”

I, not a runner or athletic in any way, was panting when I reached her car. “Congratulations, you won fair and square.”

“Thank you,” she beamed.

“I’m very happy for you,” I started, “but now I kind of have a hole in my extracurriculars for my college applications.”

“You’re super worried about college, aren’t you?” she frowned.

“Yeah,” I continued, between my still-panting breaths, “and I was thinking about your Laurent Society stuff, and how it does a lot of community service and offers scholarships, so I was kind of hoping I could maybe-”

“Join?” Ellie cut me off. “Do you even know why the Laurent Society exists, and what we do on a day-to-day basis?”

“Well, I know you do charity and volunteer work, and I know it was founded after that senior, Laurent Prescott, died in the eighties.” I continued, “I also know you offer scholarships and that community service looks really good for college admissions.”

Ellie scoffed. “That’s barely scratching the surface of what we do, and that is definitely not why we do it.”

“I get that,” I pressed, moving closer as she ducked into her car, “and I totally want to help the community for the sake of... helping the community, too.”

“I’m not stupid, Artie,” Ellie sat down on the driver seat of her car. “You’re too worried about college and your future for you to be a good fit in the Laurent Society.” She closed the door and turned on her car. I backed away from the vehicle, disappointed. I was just about ready to go on my way when Ellie rolled down her window with an excited look on her face. “Actually, Artie,” she called to me, “I think your mild obsession with securing your future might make you the perfect candidate for a membership in the Laurent Society!”

“Are you serious?” I laughed in disbelief.

“Yeah, just…” she reached into her bag and pulled out a piece of paper. On it, she scribbled some writing, and reached her arm out the window to hand it to me. “Meet there tonight at nine. Don’t be late, don’t make a scene, and do as you’re told. Do that, and you’ll be a fully inducted member of the Laurent Society by tomorrow morning.”

I followed her instructions, and arrived at the location on the note at nine o’clock that night. It said to meet on the swing set in the playground of the local elementary school. I took a seat and waited. 

Time started to pass, which made me uncomfortable. I was told not to be late, but it seemed to me that everyone else was late. I was literally sitting on a swing, by myself, in the dark of a kid’s playground. Was this a set up? Was Ellie that ashamed of my intentions when I asked to join the Laurent Society that she wanted to make me look like some sort of creep who spends his time alone at playgrounds in the middle of the night?

It wasn’t until ten minutes had passed that a single other person showed up. 

They arrived, and without speaking, took a seat on the swing next to me. 

“Hello,” I said, turning to look at them. Most of their face was hidden by a black hoodie they had pulled over their head. They didn’t look back at me, but I could see a slight sheen on their face. It was moonlight glinting off of plastic that covered their face. They were wearing a mask.

Then, more people started to arrive in a similar fashion. They said nothing, made no noises, and just took their place among the swings and playscapes across the area. 

A few sat facing me, so I could make out what kind of mask everyone was wearing. They were those translucent, plastic masks that had fake makeup on it. Some of the people had elected to wear the kind with a fake mustache and others chose the kind with bright blue eyeshadow and red lips. Though the masks were clear, the plastic shine, rosy cheeks, and permanent smile on each of the masks did a good job of hiding who’s face sat behind them. 

It wasn’t until ten o’clock when someone actually spoke. 

“Laurent Prescott,” someone said. “A promising young man. Valedictorian. A student at Lincoln-Bell High School: the school damning its students to spend the rest of their sad lives in this sad town, everyone but him. He was going to Princeton. He was going to be president. He was going to be someone. How? He worked hard. He spent his days and nights studying. Every free second he had went towards community service and homework. Nothing could stop him from taking the world by storm. At least… it seemed that way.” During this address, no one moved. There were no fluctuations in the speaker’s voice, and there was no way of telling which masked face the sound was coming from. All I could tell was that it was seemingly male.

Then, another voice took over. This one was feminine and softer. “On August tenth, nineteen-eighty-three, Laurent went to the emergency room for stomach pain. On August twelfth, nineteen-eighty-three, Laurent was dead.” There was a pause. No one moved.

The next voice also belonged to a woman. “Laurent spent his entire life preparing for a life he never got. He spent his youth being groomed for a time that never came. He died never having lived.”

“Well screw that!” a young man yelled. “We can live now and have a future tomorrow, but now is now and tomorrow may never come! To the cars!”

Suddenly, everyone started whooping and cheering. They all made their ways to the parking lot, sprinting and leaping, and piled into various vehicles. The two people who sat beside me had tied a blindfold to my face as I got into one of the cars. They guided me by the arms into what felt like the back of a van. I thought about fighting their grip, or protesting the blindfold, but then I stopped myself. Don’t cause a scene, I thought.

The car ride was black, and filled with the cheering and laughter of different teenagers. “Clothes off, people!” the driver ordered when the car finally stopped. They removed my blindfold, and I could see everyone stripping down to their underwear.

“You too, newbie,” one of the guys insisted. 

Do as you’re told, I thought. I followed instructions, and climbed out of the car where all of the other half-naked teens were. Unlike me, however, they all still had their masks on. The whooping and shouting continued as they ran into the forest before me. I debated whether I should follow when my arm was grabbed by one of the ladies. “Come with me,” she said, pulling my arm towards a part of the forest. “We shouldn’t keep the others waiting!”

The path we walked through the woods let out at the top of a cliff that overlooked a large lake. The cliff curved around the body of water, and there was a waterfall a little ways away from where I stood with the masked girl. 

Then, she bent down and picked up a small metal box of matches that was left there and lit a large fire that was already built. The fire engulfed the wood in a few seconds. The heat of the roaring fire took me by surprise, but it was skillfully controlled. It was far from any trees or leaves and was placed carefully on the stone edge of the cliff.

When ours lit up, similar fires blazed all the way around the lake from other points of the cliff. I could now see the silhouettes of the other people who came with us. They were stationary, facing me.

“You spend so much time worrying about your future, that you’re not making a past. What stories do you have to tell your future grandchildren about when you were young and wild? What are you gonna reminisce about when you’re writing your memoirs?” the girl asked. Now, I could recognize her voice a bit more. It sounded like Ellie, but her face was still augmented and her voice was distorted by her mask. “Of course, you could turn back now, if you want. You would lose your chance at a membership, obviously. You also could never speak of what you’ve seen or you would need to explain your expulsion from the Laurent Society and your psychotic ramblings to every college interviewer for the rest of your life.” Ellie took a moment after relaying that passive threat before speaking again, “Or, you could start us off.”

“Start what?” I asked.

Ellie gestured to the edge. “They’re all waiting on you.”

I stepped closer to the edge. Was this wise? No. Did I want to? I’m not sure. I took a deep breath. 

Then, without thinking, I jumped.