At the academy, I was much too busy to be enjoying the flowers. There was so much to prepare for the Festival of Verdure in both music and alchemy club.
“Albert is too involved with the glee club,” Princess Margaret grumbled.
The princess had initially been excited for the glee club’s performance, but she had now gotten annoyed with the entanglement of our clubs, which didn’t seem like it was going to be resolved anytime soon, likely because President Albert couldn’t let go of the fact that the choir club had complained to the student council.
The music club had its own recital to prepare for. I wished President Albert would focus more on his own club, especially when it came to reviewing the new members’ compositions. I’d listened to Samuel and his three friends’ pieces, and though they were quite good, they felt a bit lacking in oomph. I wanted Albert to advise them on how they could improve their songs.
The student council apparently had had a lot of difficulty determining the schedule for the auditorium. They eventually decided that the glee club would get an hour and a half in the morning, and the theater club would get two hours in the afternoon.
The music club and choir club each got three forty-minute slots. The music club had one in the morning, two in the afternoon, and the choir club had two in the morning, one in the afternoon. This was apparently going to switch every year.
The glee club was the only one to have less time, but that was because it was a brand new club. It had apparently been quite a hassle to get everyone to agree to this breakdown.
“Moving forward, use of the auditorium will be allocated based on votes,” President Rufus announced. “Every student, along with any guardians that have notified the academy of their attendance, will be given a single voting ticket. The number of tickets acquired by each club will affect the following year’s schedule!”
It likely wasn’t the student council president’s idea to propose such a new system. President Albert and President Marcus had likely come up with the idea as a way to harass the choir club. After all, the choir club’s performances had never been that popular.
“Albert needs to watch his back. I won’t be able to bear it if the music club ends up getting the fewest votes.”
Princess Margaret and I both let out deep sighs.
“Most members of the choir club are girls, so they’re likely going to go to other male students and ask them to vote for them,” I pointed out. “I’m worried that President Albert hasn’t considered the possibility of them using such tactics. People won’t only vote based on talent.”
The glee club’s musical was shaping up to be quite the show. Their dancing and acting still needed work, but even the rehearsals were fun to watch. This world didn’t have movies or TV shows, so there were few forms of entertainment. Even the happily ever after that had once seemed stale was enjoyable when played out in the musical.
“That’s a good point. Not every student is knowledgeable about music, and the first-years’ songs need some work.”
I nodded in agreement. Princess Margaret knew what she was doing when it came to music. The new members’ pieces were all made with earnest effort, but they all felt off, perhaps because they hadn’t had much experience. Samuel’s was the best of the pieces, since he had a good ear. Surprisingly, Daniel’s piece was quite stiff and sounded antiquated. Klaus’s song sounded like a patch of weeds that could become a beautiful flowerbed. Valdische’s composition just required a bit of adjustment to be good.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, we were busy helping the first-year students with their compositions. I wished President Albert would help too, but he was always visiting the glee club.
“I’m sure you and Princess Margaret can handle it,” he would insist. Though his vote of confidence was high praise, it didn’t actually help us.
As a result, Princess Margaret was hard at work whipping the first-years into shape, and I tried to help with members’ compositions every now and then. Thanks to our efforts, the music club would likely manage to come in third in the voting at minimum. At least I hoped so.
My only problem now was alchemy club, which had so many inventions to showcase. There was the washing machine, the hair iron, the clothing iron... Those were all inventions that seemed typical of the alchemy club—using them would make it clear how great these inventions were, but they wouldn’t attract much of a crowd.
“Let’s have people ride the bicycles!” President Caesar suggested.
He’d gotten quite excited by that idea and ended up making a third version of the bicycle. Now that our bike had gone through several iterations, it had improved quite a bit, and everyone in alchemy club could now ride properly.
I think this will attract an audience. Boys love machinery like this.
We still had to figure out how we would tackle the ice cream. I had to be in both the music club and glee club’s performances, so I was going to be stuck in the auditorium all morning.
“We must either build many ice cream makers so we can make a lot at once, or build a freezer so we can store a lot of ice cream.” Not only did we have to make that decision, but I was also worried whether the other members would be able to successfully make the ice cream. “We’ll have to do a test run. I also need to teach them how to serve people... This sounds like an impossible task.”
I couldn’t imagine the members of the alchemy club serving people ice cream. The closest comparison from my previous life was a butler café, but these were all people who were usually being served, not serving others.
“I agree,” Caesar said. “I’ll have the high-ranking maids from my house handle the serving.” He then looked only at Benjamin, Arthur, and Bryce, and said, “I’d like you all to ask your maids to help out as well.”
President Caesar didn’t ask the same of me, either because he knew that we only had one maid or because he specifically didn’t want to cause Mary any more trouble.