Rising Shards

“Now that…is some Rising Shards school spirit.” Rain said. The video ended, and I thought it looked amazing. We all crowded around KJ as she clicked around on the video files for the commercial. I felt a little proud about my contributions to the fight, which could be seen for approximately three seconds, but I was prouder about about 2.4 seconds of my cell phone footage making it into the commercial.

“Now what?” I asked.

“It’s rendering,” KJ said.

“OK, what does that mean?” I asked.

“It means the video’s processing.” KJ said.

“What that means.” Iris said.

“It means it’s almost done,” KJ said. “Can you all just back off a bit?”

It took about twenty more minutes for the commercial to render. Once it finished, we all rushed back to the computer to watch the finished product again.

“We did it!” I said. “So is the club like officially able to slack off for a bit?”

“Not yet,” Maia said. “It still needs to be judged.”

“So how do we get it judged?” I asked. “Can we do that now?”

“Check the folder,” Maia said to Iris.

“Oh! Right!” Iris said. She paged through the folder she’d been given for club rules and expectations. “It says that we have to schedule at least a biweekly check in with a teacher advisor. And ours is…Penteldtam.”

“Wait, Principal Penteldtam is the one who’s judging this?” I said.

“That could be really bad, or really good,” Maia said. “Let’s just get this over with.”

KJ was not keen on the idea of lowering the video quality at all to send it over email, so we had to go to the library to check out an external hard drive. We also made sure Latte was at least two shoulder lengths apart from the hard drive at all times. Once that was done, we all went down to the principal’s office.

“This is actually pretty exciting,” Penteldtam said as we walked inside. “I’ve been pushing for the Spirit Betterment club to come back for a while now, and I’ve been also pushing to be a teacher advisor for at least one of these clubs, so I’m glad the school board finally let me have a win here.”

It was a bit of a struggle getting the external hard drive into Penteldtam’s computer, as his USB ports were all filled with little light up toy things, and he took a long time debating which to even temporarily unplug to watch a video that was two minutes long. Finally, the folder for the hard drive popped up over Penteldtam’s way too full desktop.

“OK, just click on the file that says ‘schooltrailer0001,’” KJ said.

“Right…clicking…” Penteldtam said, squinting as he looked at the screen.

“Just…use the mouse.” KJ said.

“Uh huh…the…mouse.” Penteldtam said, still not doing anything.

“Here, let me, Principal Penteldtam,” Amara said. “If you’ll just move a little bit, KJ.”

“Oh, is that what that thing’s for?” Penteldtam said. “I just use the touchy screen-y thing.”

Iris started giggling at Penteldtam’s lack of computer skills, prompting Maia to pinch her arm to get her to stop.

I wasn’t sure what Penteldtam would think of the video. I had never really even seen him mad, so I didn’t know what to expect if he hated the commercial as he watched it intently.

“Oh yeah, this is good,” Penteldtam said. “This is season 4 of House of the Kilander House good. I want…at least five more of these.”

“Five?” I said.

“You have the whole semester, right? Let’s make at an even seven!” Penteldtam said.

“Yep, we can do it,” Iris said. “No problem, right guys?”

The group murmured a lazy response in agreement.

“Also, for the next ones, make sure someone is drinking a Redgre soda in each? They have to look like they’re enjoying it, too. I have a box around here somewhere…you know what, I’ll just bring them to your club room. I definitely want to see more of your process in action so to speak, so I’ll be checking in pretty regularly to see your work in action. Or to see your action in work? You get what I mean.”

Maia’s forced smile got a little more forced hearing that Penteldtam would be that engaged in our work.

Penteldtam asked for our meeting schedule, and said he’d have an update within a few days on his availability to check in on our club meetings on a consistent basis.

“Well, this is stupid,” Maia said when we gathered again at our club room.

“We’ll still eventually be able to slack off, right?” I asked.

“Oh, we’ll for sure still slack off, we just have to be more tactical about it if Penteldtam is directly involved.” Maia said.

“Yeah, never underestimate Maia’s ability to go full lazy cat.” Iris said.

“Shut up.” Maia said.

“I’m honestly more surprised Latte didn’t break anything in Principal Penteldtam’s office,” Amara said.

“Hey!” Latte said.

“What, like that’s not fair,” KJ said. “You still owe me for that tripod you broke.”

“I didn’t break it, though.” Latte said.

“Yes, you did,” I said.

“Hm,” Latte said. “I guess we’ll agree to disagree.”

“At least we got it done, right?” Iris said. “We’re not gonna get like club excommunicated.”

“What does that even mean?” Maia asked.

“Like you know, like our club gets exiled from the school or something.” Iris said.

“That actually happened at my old school,” Latte said. “They never found the club members’ bodies after they sent them to sea.”

“Wait, what?” Iris said. “Are you serious?”

Latte took a sip of coffee from a new thermos instead of explaining.

“Well, I say this calls for a celebration!” Rain said. “Shall I check to see if big table is available?”

Given how badly my last trip to the stupid table went for my poor tail, I instinctively grabbed it just hearing the words ‘big table.’

“You guys can go hang out there, I need to go nap or something,” Maia said.

“Yeah, we can go return the hard drive then,” Iris said.

KJ, Amara, and Rain left as Latte inched closer to Iris.

“Hey,” Latte said, tugging on Iris’ sleeve. “Can I hold that for a second?”

“What, this?” Iris asked, holding up the hard drive. “Sure, why?”

I yanked it from Iris as she tried to hand it to Latte. “No, I really, really think it’d be better if you didn’t.”