It was dawning over Crystal Prep Academy. At this early hour only a handful of students were on school property, and even less had already stepped up through the entrance into the elite high school. Nevertheless things were relatively busy, as teachers were hurrying through the corridors towards classrooms. They all seemed to be in a rush, walking through the school with bags full of books and sheets of papers. Aside from being stressed the teachers also all seemed to be in a rather bad mood, grumping and scoffing as they walked through the shining hallways.
While quite a lot of teachers were already on their way to their classes many were also in the teacher’s longue. Out of the door a pink-skinned woman with long, colorful hair was leaving into the hallway. She was wearing a green blazer and skirt, carrying a handbag even fuller than those of the other teachers with her. As she closed the door behind her she sighed, glancing down at the bag hanging over her shoulder. It was brim-full with documents, literally spilling over – she actually had to hold her arm over the bag so they wouldn’t fall out.
Carefully the dean of Crystal Prep Academy moved in direction of her office, her high-heels clapping with every step she made on the hard polished floor. On the way she passed a few students who were already at their lockers, as well as a couple of her colleagues. When passing she showed them a friendly smile, even greeting a few of them. The reception she received however was much colder, both from students and teachers: In the best case they smiled back awkwardly, in most cases she was ignored, and sometime they even turned their heads away with a snobbish snort. Each of those encoutners upset the dean a little further, but she tried nto to let it show as she approached the door to her office. With some effort she pulled out the keys from her pocket without dropping her handbag, and put the right one into the lock. She had already turned the key and was about to open the door, when she stopped as she heard someone call out her name behind her.
“Miss Cadenza?”
A bit startled Cadence turned her head, her bag nearly slipping out of her fingers. “Oh, good morning Principal Cinch” she greeted her superior, putting on a slightly forced smile while she hastily stemmed her knee against her bag to keep it from falling down. "Is something the matter?"
The principal glanced at her bag, before raising her glance to her eyes again. “A pleasant morning to you too” she replied coldly. In her hands she was carrying a rather thick folder, which she then held it out towards the dean. “I have looked over the new time table you have presented to me. One math lesson is missing in the ninth grade.”
Pushing up her handbag Cadence pulled both her arms around it, while staring into the principal’s stern eyes. “I’m sorry, but it wasn’t possible any other way” she explained her. “There were too many subjects overlapping, and not enough teachers available. I’m afraid we have to limit the expansions of the curriculum regarding math and-”
Cinch raised an eye-brow. “Limit mathematics?” she interrupted. She put the folder behind her back, straightening her back as if she wanted to look taller. “Miss Cadenza, math is the basic subject of all natural sciences" she reminded Cadence sternly. "Biology, chemistry, physics, informatics – and of course other subjects as well, engineering and architecture, or statistics in economics, they all require a fundamental understanding of the mathematic principles. Once you go into college, there is basically no way around it. If there is any subject we cannot afford to slack behind in, it is math!”
Cadence pressed her handbag against her chest. “B-but our standards for mathematical education are already among the highest in the whole country!” she argued.
“Among, but number one" Cinch stated, adjusting her glasses. "Also, there are quite a few high schools outside of our noble country with even higher standards.”
At that remark the dean frowned. “We don’t make the schedule for a ranking!” she insisted. “Our interests must always lie with the students-”
A sound like thunder cut her off as the principal stomped with her high-heel o nthe crystal floor. “Miss Cadenza!” she spoke, almost yelling. “Must I remind you my suggestions to expand the time table and curriculum have already been accepted by the school board?” She pulled out the folder from her back, holding it out to her dean once more.
For a moment Cadence and Cinch glared sternly at each other, as if they tried to stare the other woman down. After a while however the dean caste her eyes downwards. “No, you don’t” she sighed. Tightly grabbing her handbag with one arm she took the folder from the principal with her other. “I will get to it as fast as possible.”
A content smile graced the principal’s face. “Good” she said, turning around. She was about to walk off, but then threw a look behind her again. “Also, take a note to cut the theatre group’s budget by half. The critic of their play last night was rather... mediocre.”
The handbag nearly emptied itself on the floor as the dean winced in surprise. “But the newspaper said it was a solid performance, and praised the efforts of the students!” she argued, both desperate and confused.
Cinch waved it off. “Solid is just a more polite term for mediocre. And mediocre is definitely not what this institution is striving for.” With a dignified stance she walked down the hallway. “Oh, and please have the changes to the time table done before lunch” she called out before vanishing behind a corner.
Cadence looked after her, blinking a few times. The corners of her mouth then ascended to a very forced smile. “But of course!” she chirped, trying to sound as confident as possible. “By lunch, why not? It just took me three night shifts to get the first version done…”
Slumping her shoulders she turned towards her office. Since both her arms were occupied it took her a moment before the doorknob finally turned, and she could push open the door with her shoulder. Her eyes gazed upon a sparsely illuminated room, considerably smaller than the principal’s office, but still with a remarkable amount of space. A desk was standing near the middle of the room, shifted a little towards the back.
The first she did after entering was head for the desk, putting her handbag and the folder on it. Once she had relieved herself off the burden she walked over to the windows, and opened the shutters. Dim morning light was streaming into her office, the sun barely having moved over the horizon. For a moment the dean looked out of the window, on the school yard of Crystal Prep Academy. A few solitary students were marching towards the entrance, and down the road she could see the first bus approaching. She would have loved to set her eyes longer on the peaceful scenery. However, behind her she could hear the documents in her handbag and folder silently barking at her.
Taking in a deep breath she turned her back to the rising sun, and moved to her desk. While she sat down on her chair she reached a hand out for the switch of her computer, simultaneously grabbing her handbag with the other. After turning on her computer she embraced her handbag with both hands. Carefully she emptied it on the desk, placing the documents as a more or less neat pile on the side. While her computer was booting she began to look through the various documents. A lot of them were formal requests from her colleagues concerning the changes to the time table, questions about how exactly they should try to transmit all the additional lessons to the students, and what exact chapters from the new college books had become part of the curriculum. A large portion of it wasn’t even in her responsibility as a dean. Knowing how much the actual staff under Principal Cinch had to do these days however, Cadence still put everything on her “to do”-pile.
Mixed into were also quite a handful of applications from the students: Requests to change reservations for club rooms and the sports fields as club meetings had to be put into the late afternoon or evening, several formal inquiries to expand the opening times of the library, even a few complaints which were mostly coming from wealthier students. Cadence roughly sorted everything out, looking steadily more frustrated and tired. She took a glance at the folder with the time table from time to time, everytime letting out a long sigh.
As she had worked down the top of the pile she then noticed her computer had booted. Setting the documents aside she turned her chair towards the screen. After typing in her password and arriving on the desktop the first thing she did was open her e-mail folder. More requests from students and teachers flooded the screen, the number of new emails being overwhelming. The further she scrolled down the deeper Cadence’s eyelids were falling, looking like her head would drop on the desk any desk.
Suddenly her eyes shot wide-open, and she sat up straight. One of the emails had caught her attention: Not only did she know the name in the sender address very well, she was even more excited by the title, "FRIENDSHIP REPORT". Immediately the dean opened the email. A text box appeared on the screen, written in the format of a formal letter. Putting her elbows on her desk Cadence leaned her head against her hands, her eyes slowly moving across the monitor as she began to read.
Dear Dean Cadence,
To be honest, ever since you gave us this task to write you reports about how our friendship develops, and about our attempts to try and spread it among the student body, I’ve been having my doubts. I found the idea rather naïve and childish, even a little silly. Also, for a long time I didn’t even know what I should report to you. In a rather short time however, things have changed quite a lot. Now there is just so much I want to tell you, I don’t even know where to start. But, I doubt you want to read the story in every detail, so I’ll just summarize shortly the lessons the recent experiences with my friends have taught me.
When you work on something by yourself, and you put a lot of effort into it, it’s easy to think of it as something great and fantastic. However, when you approach your work from a more critical perspective, or even better let some of your friends have a look at it, you might find what you thought as great is really just average. In those moments it is important not to feel sore and be offended right away. You have to listen to what your friends are saying, for they usually mean no harm to you, and only want to help you see things as they truly are. In the end, you often find that you benefit more from listening to their honest criticism instead of stubbornly putting your own work on a podium just because you feel it belongs there.
Also, I’ve learned that while comedy isn’t the most dignified form of theatre, it still is a satisfying feeling to see people laugh and just be happy about what you wrote. Even more, laughter seems to be able to spread friendliness in some way - now that I write it’s probably something every little kid knows, but lately, I’ve begin to think here at Crystal Prep we begin to forget a lot of things we learned when we were smaller. More so, a good laught can also help take off the bad vibrations and stress from everyone’s heart. We can’t always be serious and deep, even in theatre – it’s just as important to relax sometimes and goof around a little.
Last, but everything not least, I've learned that while it’s true that friends are always there for you, and you should be able to count on them no matter what, it doesn’t mean you can force them to do everything you want the way you want to. Even if they owe you one, you can’t expect them to do everything for you, or perfectly perform any task you ask them of (especially to play an average theatre play brilliantly). Being a good friend also means to consider what your friends are capable of, keep their interests at heart, and be aware of what they want to do. If you take that into consideration, and plan in the strengths and unique traits of your friends instead of forcing something onto them, the results of your combined work can be a lot more astonishing than anything you could have accomplished on your own.
I hope this is what you had in mind with these reports. I'm positive you will hear more from me an the others very soon, but for now, I have to end it here - my friends are waiting for me.
Your faithful student,
Sunny FlarePS: I hope “faithful” doesn’t sound too up-high, but I found it a nice touch.
As she read down the screen the dean’s lips were curling up to a smile. Putting her hand on her mouse she made a few clicks, then turned towards her printer as it sprung to life. After a few seconds it threw out a single page, with the contents of the email on it. She reached out her hand for it, but then paused. Smirking she turned towards her handbag. From the bottom she pulled out an issue of the newspaper. Unfolding it she turned the pages, until she found what she searched: In the arts section there was the article about the play from last night. The majority of it was about the act of the theatre group– as Cinch had said, it wasn’t overly enthusiastic, though it did praise the student’s efforts and skills as actors. What caught her interest much more however was a short note about the little prelude before the main act, a “light-hearted and joyful little ride through the various facets of comedy, never too serious or ridiculous with some well-placed moments of self-irony and a hint of self-criticism.”
Cadence placed the page on her desk. She took a pair of scissors, carefully cutting out the whole article. Once she was done she took the page from the printer, also grabbing a paperclip as she got up from her chair. With the newspaper article and Sunny’s report in her hand she walked over to a shelf, filled with boxes containing folders. Her fingers went through the folders of one particular box, the labels reading “Parent-teacher day protocols”, “school trips” and the names of other social events - notably a large amount of the folders were either very thin or completely empty. At one particular at the very end of the box, slightly hidden behind the others her fingers then stopped. She pulled it out of the box, revealing the label on top: “Friendship reports”.
She put the email from Sunny into it, staring at it for a few seconds, a content smile on her face. With the paperclip she attached the article to the email, then closed the folder and put it back into the box. Turning around she returned to her desk, sitting down again. A lot more energetic than before she took the folder from the principal and opened it. The time tables of all grades were squeezed into it, each page filled from side to side with handwritten notes and corrections.
“All right” Cadence said confidently as she took a pen. With her other hand she pulled out the time table for the ninth grade. “Let’s see if we can somehow squeeze another math lesson in there…”