Audrey Delcourt's Story

C L I F F . P A R K E R

Location: Saint Jude's library (conference room)
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The Saint Jude's school uniform never usually bothered Clifford. It was simple and classy enough, even if the options for each day's attire was limited to a few different styles of clothing that the school provided the students with. However, today Cliff felt oddly overheated and had to hang his navy blazer on the back of his chair. He wasn't overheating because of the room's temperature, as that was probably normal, and it also wasn't out of nerves. Today's weekly Student Government Association was being held in the Saint Jude's library conference room. Since classes had only gotten out minutes ago, Clifford wasn't surprised that he was the only one in the conference room, especially considering that the girls had to come from their campus across the street. He and Charlotte were the President of their school's student governments, but since the two schools worked so closely together, Clifford often felt like they were simply co-presidents of one club, rather than two separate ones working together. Sure, he hosted his own SGA meeting for St. Jude's separately once a week, but as he was sure on her end too, the biggest crowds usually came to the conjoined meetings. Events involving both schools tended to grab the attention of more students than the single-sex events, and Clifford didn't expect today to be much of an exception.

Today's meeting was a bit of an impromptu one, as earlier this week, it had been announced that the scheduled senior fall trip to Egypt had been cancelled due to proper accommodation issues. However plausible that that explanation was, he also wouldn't have been surprised if the abrupt, last minute cancellation had been because someone uppity helicopter parent had complained enough about irrational safety concerns about traveling to a country that didn't host one of the famous fashion weeks. That thought in itself bothered Clifford, considering that he had genuinely been looking forward to his first visit to Africa. In an attempt to not work himself up, he decided to just believe the public reason for the trip's cancellation, and focus on the three new options that administrators had given them until tomorrow to decide on. That was the point of this SGA meeting - to decide whether the senior class would spend a week next month in Paris, Berlin or New Zealand. The first two trips would be educationally based ones, focusing on learning about the history and cultures of the two European cities, while the third option would be more service based, getting students involved in learning about the country's ecosystem and helping to preserve it. Clifford had been to Paris years ago, but it wasn't a fresh enough experience where he wanted to rule it out, so he was walking into today's meeting with a pretty open mind. He would see what Charlotte and the other students who showed up were thinking, and go from there.