Chapter FOUR: The Things Nobody Sees

By Wednesday morning, Isaure had discovered that asking students what they wanted was considerably easier than getting them to answer honestly.

She stood in the student common room with a notebook in one hand and a list of questions in the other. Around her, students occupied the sofas, crowded the tables, and argued over a card game that had apparently become a matter of national importance.

“I only need five minutes,” she told a group sitting near the windows.

One boy looked up from his cards. “Is this compulsory?”

“No.”

“Then I have a meeting with my conscience.”

His friends laughed. Isaure didn't.

“Fine. I'll ask someone else.”

“Wait.” A girl beside him put down her book. “What exactly are you asking?”

Isaure explained her proposal to improve access to academic resources and student societies. She had expected questions about funding and implementation. Instead, the girl wanted to know whether the proposal would help students who struggled to find information about existing programmes.

Another student complained that announcements were often posted in places people rarely checked. Someone else said that certain societies seemed to favour students who already knew their members.

Isaure wrote everything down.

The conversation became more difficult when a boy across the table asked why she was collecting opinions now, when the competition had given her a reason to do so.

“Because I need to understand what students actually need,” she replied.

“Or because you need to convince the judges you understand.”

A few people fell silent.

Isaure had several responses available to her. She could point out her academic record, remind him that her proposal was already more detailed than most candidates' plans, or explain that participating in the competition did not automatically make her dishonest.

Instead, she asked, “What would convince you that I was taking this seriously?”

He seemed surprised that she had asked.

“Come back after you've done something with the answers.”

It wasn't an unreasonable request.

Isaure wrote that down, too.

By the time she left the common room, she had filled three pages. Her original proposal was still useful, but it no longer seemed complete. She had been thinking about resources as things the academy needed to provide. The students had made her consider whether those resources were accessible in the first place.

It was an irritatingly important distinction.

Caspian had accompanied Rafe to a meeting with the staff adviser responsible for student activities, although Rafe had insisted that the proposal was his and the meeting was not an excuse to let Caspian do the talking.

“I know how to speak for myself,” Rafe had said on their way there.

“Then I can leave.”

“You could also try being supportive.”

“I'm supporting you by attending.”

Rafe decided not to continue that argument.

They sat opposite the staff adviser in a small office crowded with folders, notices, and framed photographs of previous school events.

Rafe presented his plan to improve the student publication. He wanted to replace some outdated equipment, introduce an opinion section, and give younger students regular opportunities to contribute.

The adviser listened without interrupting.

“Your intentions are good,” she said when he finished. “But who will edit these contributions? Who will check the information? And how do you intend to manage additional work without neglecting your existing responsibilities?”

Rafe glanced at his notes.

He had considered supervision, but his plan depended heavily on the existing editorial team. If more students contributed, the workload would increase, and the same few people would be expected to handle it.

Caspian leaned forward.

“How many students would you need on the editorial team to make the schedule manageable?”

Rafe looked at him, then back at the adviser.

“Four additional students, perhaps. They'd need training before they could work independently.”

“And who would train them?” she asked.

“I could organise workshops with the current team. We could rotate responsibilities instead of expecting the same people to edit every issue.”

The adviser considered this.

“Revise the proposal to include a training schedule and a realistic budget. I'll review it again next week.”

It wasn't an approval, but it was a beginning.

Outside the office, Rafe tucked his folder under his arm.

“You could have mentioned the workload problem before we went in.”

“I thought you'd noticed it.”

“I had. I hadn't worked out what to do about it.”

“You have now.”

Rafe looked at him for a moment. “Thanks for coming.”

Caspian waved away the gratitude, but he waited while Rafe checked his timetable before they headed to class.

Their friendship had never depended on agreeing about everything. Rafe could tell Caspian when he was being difficult, and Caspian could challenge Rafe without treating his ambitions as a joke. Neither of them needed to make a performance of caring about the other.

That afternoon, the deputy head called a meeting with several teachers involved in the leadership competition.

The discussion began with the candidates' proposals and quickly moved to the limitations of the school's budget.

“We cannot allow students to promise changes that require resources we don't have,” one teacher said. “The position carries influence, but it doesn't give the winner authority over every department.”

“Agreed,” the deputy head replied. “However, if we restrict the candidates to ideas we have already approved, we defeat the purpose of asking them to lead.”

The staff adviser opened a folder containing the preliminary judging criteria.

“Then we need to assess more than presentation skills. A candidate should be able to explain the problem, demonstrate that they've consulted the students affected, and show how the proposal could work within our policies.”

Another teacher leaned back in his chair.

“What concerns me is that the most confident student will probably be the most convincing speaker. That doesn't necessarily make them the best candidate.”

“Which is why we need practical assessment,” the deputy head said. “Let them defend their plans against questions from the panel. We should also consider whether they respond constructively when their assumptions are challenged.”

They spent the next half hour discussing how to assess the proposals fairly.

By the end of the meeting, the criteria included feasibility, financial planning, student consultation, and the ability to respond to criticism. The teachers also agreed that the winning candidate would work with staff representatives to implement the approved initiative.

The position would carry genuine responsibility, but no candidate would be permitted to promise unlimited funding or changes that contradicted school policy.

The deputy head closed the folder.

“If we want responsible leaders, we must give them a realistic understanding of what leadership involves.”

Isaure was revising her proposal when Séverine returned to their room that evening.

The bed was covered with papers, and Isaure had drawn several arrows between sections of her draft.

“You've rearranged everything,” Séverine observed.

“Not everything.”

“Your original introduction is on the floor.”

“It wasn't working.”

Séverine picked up a page.

“What changed?”

Isaure explained what she had heard in the common room. She described the students who struggled to find information about existing programmes and the ones who felt excluded from societies they wanted to join.

“I thought the main problem was that we didn't have enough resources,” she admitted. “Now I'm not sure that's the whole problem.”

“Does changing the proposal make it weaker?”

“No. It makes it more complicated.”

“Those aren't the same thing.”

Isaure took the page from her and studied the revised outline.

Her original plan had focused on identifying additional resources and improving access to them. Now she wanted to begin with a clear directory of existing academic support and student societies, establish a more reliable system for announcing opportunities, and identify gaps that genuinely required further funding.

It would take more work to justify, and the budget would need careful planning.

But it answered a problem the students had actually described.

“I still want to win,” Isaure said.

Séverine sat down beside her. “I would be worried if you suddenly stopped.”

“I don't want to win with a proposal that sounds impressive and does nothing.”

“Then don't.”

The simplicity of the answer made Isaure laugh softly.

She returned to her notes.

For the first time, she was building her proposal around something other than the argument she expected to have with Caspian.

She encountered him in the library the following afternoon.

He was working at a table near the reference shelves, with several printed reports spread in front of him. Isaure had come to check figures for her revised budget, and she would have preferred not to explain her work to him.

Unfortunately, he noticed the changes before she could sit down.

“You've abandoned part of your original proposal.”

“I'm revising it.”

“Because the first version didn't work?”

“Because I spoke to the students who would be affected by it.”

Caspian looked over the new outline.

“Your plan depends on students actually using the directory.”

“Which is why I'm proposing a consultation before deciding how it should be organised.”

“And if they want different things?”

“Then I'll have to establish which needs can be addressed first.”

He considered the outline for another moment.

“That's a better approach.”

Isaure looked at him, uncertain whether she had heard correctly.

He returned to his reports.

“Don't look so surprised, Valcourt. I can recognise a sensible idea.”

She sat opposite him and opened her notebook.

“Your budget still needs work.”

“So does yours.”

“I'm aware.”

“Good.”

Their disagreement continued, but it was no longer an argument about who deserved to win. They challenged the practical details, questioned each other's assumptions, and occasionally found themselves agreeing before either was willing to acknowledge it.

When Isaure left the library, she had two useful suggestions written in the margin of her notes.

She had also identified a weakness in one of Caspian's assumptions.

Three weeks had seemed generous when all she needed was a winning idea.

It seemed considerably shorter now that she had begun discovering what winning would actually require.