I, Claudia: Part I

The idea of putting a king on trial was novel to the English people—so novel, in fact, that no one noticed until it was too late that Oliver Cromwell and his New Model Army were insane and that they’d just replaced an innocuous king with a full-blown tyrant.

Marcus, who was a rising senior, was so much older that I barely registered as a person to him, and Augustus was so popular that he could afford to be magnanimous.

Cal had a flair for verbal repartee that came in from the side, slightly cockeyed with an absurdist bent.

Ty was the sort of stiff, taciturn person for whom hugs were acutely painful but who would never do anything that seemed rude, so he hugged her, and then Cal hugged her probably a little longer and closer and more creepily than Livia would have liked.

I sniffed, enjoying a moment of vindication—and a little bit of relief. There was nothing magical about this person.

They acquired the trappings of Angeleno success: a pool they never used, a personal trainer, Botox, teeth whitening sessions, an electric car, a storage unit for their wine, and a stylist for special occasions.

A cursory search revealed hundreds of emails, each containing long strings of credit card numbers and expiration dates.

I still have the usual preemie problems: allergies and asthma. I’ve had three heart surgeries and steroids shot into my lungs. I’ve worn glasses since I was three (though now I sometimes switch them out for contact lenses). And then I have a few other ailments, impediments, maladies, and shortcomings.

There’s the stutter that, despite my speech therapist’s assurances, never quite resolved itself and a sibilant “S” that still gives me trouble if I try to pronounce the letter while thinking about it too much or not enough.

Chudnuff was unnerved by it and suspected that something unseemly—by 1898 standards, anyway—was going on, so he put a stop to it.

They conduct the investigations, provide counsel to the accused, call the witnesses, render the verdicts, and dish out the sentences, which can range from probation or community service for a minor infraction to expulsion for a serious one.

Right on the heels of Cassidy’s offense, the eighth-grade language arts teacher, Mr. Arnold, caught Livia with a To Kill a Mockingbird cheat sheet concealed under the sole of her shoe during a quiz. Mr. Arnold handled the matter discreetly. He asked Livia to stay after class, where he informed her that she’d receive a zero.

But then, Octavia began to recite lines of verse, verbatim, from the sheaf of poetry that had been found in Cassidy’s locker.

She knew how close she was to losing everything she valued, everything she was. If ever her indomitable spirit was cowed in the slightest, I believe it must have been then.

So, if she was such a monster, why was my beatific older sister such good friends with her?

I covered the news beat for the school paper, reporting on school board meetings, the show choir, and the trials and travails of the academic decathlon team.

Had he been less rich or less white, he would have done a dozen stints in juvie by his sophomore year, but since he was these things, people considered him reckless, fun, and generally a good person to know if you liked prescription medications.

He was their perfect, deferential, appropriately grateful ward, and he never did anything that would suggest even a hint of trouble.

I held both legs out straight in front of me to demonstrate the veracity of this claim.

I tried to talk her out of it, but the more debauchery was promised, the more impossible it was for Julia to stay away.

They listened to complaints and settled student grievances.

“Is this it?” I heard Soren say in his affable way. “I thought there’d be more of you. I thought you’d be wearing robes and old-timey wigs or something.”

“We only need four for a quorum,” Livia said.

As stuffy and old-fashioned as the words he spoke were, there was no chuckle in his voice, no sardonic humor.

And the musical theater dorks would be so shocked and titillated to receive such an invitation that they wouldn’t have dreamed of missing it.

The entire hearing was a farce. Lewd conduct? Even Augustus seemed skeptical about that.

He was too honorable to go looking for trifling non-offenses to pin on someone he didn’t like.

“I wish the rest of the council was here. This seems like something we should all discuss.”
“We can. We should,” Livia said, placating him.

When she made doleful complaints at the lunch table about how the Honor Council “would be able to do so much more if all of us were on the same page,” even I knew who she was talking about.

Augustus didn’t say a word. It was like he’d enlisted Livia to act as his proxy, and clearly, she relished the job.

Marcus recused himself from the hearing, which I get, and your sister wasn't there, which means that the two Honor Council members most inclined to believe me didn't even get to weigh in, and I know that wasn't an accident.

Not that I thought they were doing a bang-up job or anything, but I know enough about history to know that it’s difficult to unseat an incumbent, even if that incumbent is a thoughtless clod like Chris Gibbons.

“Esme’s giving up her seat on the Senate to run for Honor Council,” Livia explained, and everyone at the table nodded in tacit approval because there was a freshman Honor Council representative they very much wanted gone.

Shortly after his election, Chris Gibbons decided that these people were his constituents, and that what they most wanted from their Senate was for all of its members to be taken down a few pegs.

I am scrupulously honest, hardworking, and will do a good job.

As I scanned the cards, I saw that Livia had included all the usual platitudes about my commitment to service, my love for Imperial Day, but there was some edgier material as well.

Imperious in a gray sleeveless sheath dress, Livia eyed my outfit from across the room, and I did my best to ignore her disapproving stare.

Suddenly, Mrs. Lester, the AP Government teacher who was ostensibly coordinating this thing, was standing by my side and clutching my arms in her hands.

Running for office had certainly brought out a kind of overt, blunt cruelty, but the only difference was in its scale.

Was she already dancing on the tables that now she was absolved of trying to make Imperial Day a better place?