Chapter Five: Competency | Part 4
Thirtyx returned to his novel, and Seerla huddled over her notebook as other students filtered in. As the bells chimed 33rd bar, Rhea rushed in, seemingly out of breath. She really was too busy for her own good.
“Sorry, sorry,” she gasped. “I know we just settled on this time, but now with Comps, my schedule is back up in the air, and nothing makes sense, and—” She shook her head to clear it, and Thirtyx watched her shift from Genuine Rhea to Diplomatic Rhea as if she’d put on a glamour. “The point is that time is of the essence, especially for seniors, so I’ll try to make this quick and efficient. The school has generously matched our membership dues for the term, giving us a total of around 300 coin in seed funding for our first event. I’d like to extend a special thanks to our treasurer for petitioning the board for that match.”
Rhea nodded to Thirtyx, which made him extremely uncomfortable, but he understood how much she wanted him to get credit from someone. The board, after all, thought Rhea wrote the letter. Knowing it would give them an infinitely better chance of success, she’d rewritten Thirtyx’s draft in her own hand and signed her own name before sending.
“Now, 300 coin isn’t a lot, but I’ve seen this club do more with less,” Rhea continued. “We just need to be strategic about not using it all in one event, or using it to make more money we can use for future events. I’m not expecting anyone to have any firm ideas right now, but—”
“It sounds like we need to start with a fundraiser,” the vice president, a ninth-year Troll, chimed in. “If we can use a tiny sliver of our seed funding to print up posters, we can collect donations for a worthy cause and still have virtually all our money for another event.”
Rhea nodded. “That’s a direction I was considering. We just need a cause people will actually care about. I don’t want a repeat of the time we raised enough coin to buy exactly one meal for the homeless shelter in Athernel.”
“I have an idea for a cause.” Seerla’s voice evoked a thrill of pride in Thirtyx. “The mudslides in Terre Mackawn.”
Rhea tapped her chin in thought. “It’s a little dated. Do you think people will still care?”
“They will when they find out the mudslides are still happening, and people aren’t getting the aid they need.”
Surprised mutters rippled through the classroom. A few Selkies gave knowing nods and grunts of assent. Rhea’s expression was one of abject shock. “Still happening? How did I not know about this? Why didn’t Grimm tell me about this? I—” Another head shake, and her diplomatic facade fell back into place. “I will have a word with the palace. But yes, if they’re not getting the aid they need, we should help them out.”
“Hang on,” said a devil named T.K. “If even the crown princess didn’t know about this, how do we know it’s true? What if the Selkie state really liked the support they were getting and decided to milk it a little more?”
“Say that to my face, T.K.!” Mercuria, a sixth-year Selkie snapped. “I bet you knew where your sister was during term break while we sat wondering if we’d ever hear from ours again.” Mercuria’s older brother, Farish, nodded stoically beside her.
T.K. snorted. “If I say it to your face, you’ll Selkie-charm the suspicion out of me. Look, I’m not saying you’re lying, but I want proof.”
Before he finished his sentence, Rhea was tracing a sigil in the air. T.K.’s lips snapped closed, his eyes bugging out in alarm. “I will send a raven to Grimmary for confirmation faster than you can apologize to Mercuria—which you will be doing after the meeting if you don’t want me to invoke an officer vote on whether to kick you from the club. You do need this for your scholarship, don’t you?”
Her taunting grin disappeared so quickly Thirtyx wondered if he’d imagined it. She continued, “Now, assuming Seerla and Mercuria aren’t lying, and every living Selkie isn’t part of some wild conspiracy, how would we go about helping?”
“Well, simple fundraisers don’t seem to do well,” Thirtyx pointed out, emboldened by Seerla’s confidence. If she could confront the future queen about her lack of knowledge on a global issue, Thirtyx could, at the very least, perform the role the club had elected him to. “People are way less motivated to donate when they’re not getting something in return, so we either need to get our hands on one big ticket item or several smaller items we can raffle off.”
“I thought the goal was to use as little seed money as possible.” Thirtyx didn’t know the student who spoke, but he’d definitely talked to her at the recruitment fair. “That seems hard to do with a big-ticket item.”
“Yeah, if we’re maximizing our profit, we should probably get as many items as possible.” T.K. spoke slowly and quietly as if afraid Rhea would silence him again. “People are way more likely to donate little things than big things.”
Rhea squinted at the clock. “Okay, I like where this is going, and we have a little time for brainstorming. What are everyone’s thoughts?”
Calley Jones 