16.
The cleanup for the theater went fairly well. We broke for lunch when the pizzas that Kimberly ordered arrived. I thought a bit about how Jennifer might be rewarding her when she returned having finished her quest. With that happy thought, I walked around to check on all the various groups as they ate.
The clubs that would be using the theater were all very excited about the prospects. The Dance Club was already blocking out possible routines and doing exaggerated kick lines while holding slices pizza in their hands. They knew the other students were watching, so they really went overboard until one fell and they all collapsed on each other, laughing with pure joy.
The Journalism Club was everywhere, taking pictures and even doing a quick interview with me and some of the club presidents. I said was looking forward to their first issue. They were going to have a dry-run issue zero on Monday. The president said that it would be mostly mini biographies of the club who would be writing for the paper and introductions, but they hoped they could have an article on the theater renovations too.
The members of the cooking club were the most active. They had the kitchen spotless faster than I had hoped, and were already testing out the equipment. It was all old, but well-made, and still functional. Their advisor from the cafeteria was thrilled. She called it all 'vintage' and said there were places that would give anything to have what they had in such good condition. They would need some basic updates, but most of that could be coopted from the old café. They had the old espresso machine up and running, and once they moved the register and other supplies over, they could be up and running hopefully by Monday. They would need to do some experiments with the oven and stoves, but they reported that they would be able to provide basic breads and snacks in a week or so.
Then there was the club that the Xu sisters were wanting to put together. The members of the club were there and had been doing a bulk of the cleaning of the house area, but the twins showed up late, earning a bit of side-eye from the other clubs. I knew, however, that they had been on time, but they had been spying on Kimberly and me. I could only guess what they had gotten up to after that.
At the end the time scheduled for our lunch break, I called out, "Alright, everybody, back to work! Everyone should have plenty to take care of, but if you run out of tasks on your sheet, come find me and I'll get you something else to handle. Let's really make this place shine!"
There wasn't any cheer this time, but I was more than pleased to see that everyone just nodded and went right to work.
I went over to where the twins were getting their troops organized to try to get a better idea of what exactly their club was. It still hadn't been approved, and yet here they were working as hard as anyone.
Deborah was delegating, so I turned to Cynthia.
"Cynthia, can I talk to you for a moment?"
"Oh, Principal Lee, of course!"
"I went over your club application, and I have several questions. I was hoping you could fill me in on what exactly you are looking to put together."
"Oh. Sure. Uh... It might be better if I get Deborah to join us. It's... well, it's not just a drama club, but... Lemme go get her."
She jogged over to pull her sister from the group. They stopped to discuss something, then Deborah called over another girl to join them as they came back over to me.
"Principal Lee, this is Penny." Deborah introduced the new girl, a rather mousey blonde who looked overwhelmed at the proceedings. "If we can get our club approved, she'll be our secretary and treasurer. She'll help us explain what the club is about. Could we go backstage to talk?"
She asked that last question with a serious tone. Neither of the twins were as reticent or concerned with the rules as the other students, but for they were both acting differently. It was like they wanted everyone in the theater to see them being obedient. I started to get an idea of what their reputation was like among the other students.
"Sure, let's go back to the prop room. There's a table where we could all sit down so we could talk this out."
Deborah looked at Cynthia who nodded. Neither girl looked at Penny.
"Ok." Cynthia grabbed Penny's arm as if she wasn't sure she would follow, and the three of them slipped behind the curtain. I noted that Penny wasn't resisting at all, if fact, she was moving faster than the sisters.
I followed, full of curiosity.
The prop room hadn't been cleaned yet, so it was still a mess, but there was a big wooden table near the entrance. It must have been for some kind of castle scene, because there was one chair that looked more like a throne, and the other sides of the table only had benches. The three girls sat on the benches, one on each of three sides, leaving me no choice but to sit in the throne.
"Ok, what's so difficult about this club that you couldn't fill out the application?"
Cynthia piped up. "The application was kind of a mess, I know. We were still figuring things out. We didn't know what to write. But we've got it all figured out now."
Her sister followed on without a pause. "The Dionysian Club, oh, that's the name. In Miss Lashgari's class, we're learning about mythology, and Dionysus is the god of theater, so we thought that name would be better than just Drama Club, classier."
"The god of theater among other things, if I remember correctly."
They ignored my comment and started going back and forth, nearly talking over each other.
"It's fine for the theater side of thing, but we're not just about theater."
"Right, it's perfect now that Bright Hall Academy is going women-only. We want this to be kind of like a sorority, too."
"We know there aren't any Greek organizations on campus and we don't want to be like that."
"We just want to have sisterhood at the core of what we do, you know? Like, building up women who can rely on each other, and reach out to make things better for women on campus, and teaching women how to go out and get what they want."
I finally broke in. "So, kind of a drama sisterhood?"
"Yes!" Cynthia's eyes shined. "But there's one other side to the club that we're not sure how to put in the application."
"Right." Deborah became more serious and deliberate. "Actually, you helped us decide to make sure this was a part of the club."
"I did? What is it?"
"We knew we wanted to, but this morning, after we saw you in the dressing room, we decided to move ahead right away."
I froze, suddenly remembering all the compromising information these girls had on me. And there were those unknown people who applauded my blindfolded performance with them...
Deborah seemed to be following my train of thought. "Don't worry. Remember, nothing that happens in the theater is real, right?" She smiled. "You will have to trust us though. We haven't done anything to damage you and we won't. Quite the opposite, really."
