After a lot of thinking DaeRi knew what she had to do. It wouldn’t get her homecoming queen, but it might help her get popular enough to win prom queen at the end of the year, which was ultimately her end goal. She was going to campaign for Tamarai, help her get homecoming queen. Then it would look like she cared so much for her old best friend that she would give up on the homecoming queen title and help Tamarai instead.
It was genius, at least DaeRi thought it was.
When Homecoming queen nominations came around it wasn’t a surprise to hear that Tamarai was nominated. Tamarai’s biggest competition was Honey Bell, but Daeri didn’t really think Honey stood a chance.
Now the only question was, how does one actually campaign for someone?
Well she learned quickly enough as only a day after the nominations were announced she found, littering the walls, posters with Honey’s face on them surrounding by hearts and lips saying “Don’t be a sucker, vote Honey bell for homecoming queen!”. Which was kind of sounded a bit rude to DaeRi.
But it did remind DaeRi that the first step to campaigning was posters. But the problem with posters was that DaeRi had little to no money, which meant she couldn’t make the fancy posters that Honey had hanging around and she couldn’t ask her mom for money for something that she would surely call superficial. Not only that, but she would also have to explain homecoming to her mom, and probably why she wasn’t nominated herself, which she did not want to get into with her mom.
So she had to think of something more creative, which is why she found herself in her kitchen on Wednesday night surrounded by what she thought she would need to make cookies. She had her iPod, which was a gift from Harriette a while back, and it was open to a recipe for sugar cookies with frosting. Her idea was to make simple sugar cookies and decorate them with Tamarai’s name, and then pass them out the next day. She had seen other people do this before, like Fedora a few years back when she miraculously won homecoming queen.
She followed the recipe carefully and waited the ten minutes it took for them to cook and was taking the cookies out of the oven when her mom walked into the kitchen.
She looked around and asked, “what are you doing?” in Korean, of course.
“Making cookies,” DaeRi said setting the tray of cookie on the counter.
“Why?” her mom asked, still speaking Korean.
“For Tamarai,” DaeRi said, not bothering to explain anything else. “And can you please speak English?”
“Is she okay?” her mom asked, finally speaking English.
“Yes, I’m just making her cookies,” DaeRi said, picking up her iPod and checking how long she was supposed to let them sit, which was ten minutes. Now she had to make the frosting.
Her mom was silent as she watched her make frosting, again following the directions carefully.
“Hey, do we have any food coloring?” she asked her mom.
Her mom paused then shook her head, “no.”
“Oh,” DaeRi said. Now what was she gonna do? She couldn’t write Tamarai on white cookies with white frosting. She needed orange, the school color. Than she remembered the orange juice in the fridge, maybe that would work?
She got the orange juice and poured a little into her frosting then quickly stirred it. It was orange. DaeRi grinned. How resourceful of her, she thought.
“But does it taste good?” she asked herself. She dipped a spoon into the frosting and took a taste, not too bad. A little weird, but not bad.
She knew what to do next, she had seen other people do it before. She got a sandwich bag and proceeded to spoon some of the orange frosting into it, than she cut a corner off and she had a piping bag.
“You are not too bad in the kitchen,” her mom said, before turning around and going back into the living room, where she was undoubtedly watching one of her Korean dramas she was so obsessed with.
Her mom didn’t compliment her much, AeGuk had always been her favorite, so even just a little thing like “You’re not too bad in the kitchen,” made DaeRi smile.
It had been ten minutes, DaeRi assumed, so she went on to decorate the cookies. Which she thought she did a pretty good job on. They said Tamarai’s name in nice neat script, DaeRi felt proud of her always neat handwriting, and she dotted each I with a heart. They were adorable.
Seeing that it was already way too late DaeRi quickly covered the cookies with plastic wrap and went to sleep, dreaming about one day being popular again. A dream that felt so close.
--
Meanwhile at another house the day that the nominations were announced, Tamarai, Harriette, and Collin sat on Harriette bed in a circle brainstorming on campaign ideas. Even though everyone had thought Tamarai would win, Tamarai still felt a happy shock about being nominated. The thought of actually being homecoming queen was just too much, so she was immersing herself in campaigning to distract herself.
“Posters, of course,” Harriette said, “And Collin can design them! And we’ll make cookies, or those chocolate bars that you can get anything written on. Which do you think is better, Tamarai?”
Tamarai shrugged, “Both?”
Harriette grinned, “Genius! You can design the posters, right Collin?”
Collin looked unsure, “I don’t really know how?”
“I was thinking we’d put it together on the computer and then have it printed.” Harriette said.
“But wouldn’t it be cuter, and more original, if we had a drawing on it?” Tamarai said.
Harriette paused and slowly smiled, “yes! A drawing of you! Oh, please Collin!”
Collin looked unsure again but shrugged and nodded, “sure.”
Harriette hugged him, almost knocking him off the bed, “Thanks!”
“Anything for you,” Collin said.
Harriette grinned, then turned back to Tamarai, “so what should your slogan be?”
Tamarai stopped and thought about it. This was the hardest part, how did people think of slogans?
“What rhymes with Tamarai?” Collin said.
“Cry, die, fly, high, pie...” Harriette saide.
“Bye, tie, guy, dry, fry,...” Tamarai said.
“What about more than one syllable words?” Collin asked.
Harriette looked at her phone, probably searching for words that rhyme with Tamarai. Suddenly she stopped, grinned and looked up at her friends.
“Vote Tamarai, the best in A.L. High,” Harriette said in a sing songy voice.
“That’s cute,” Tamarai said.
“It sounds a bit conceited but it’s good,” Collins aid.
“It’s a homecoming queen campaign,” Harriette said, “it’s supposed to be conceited.”
They all laughed. It wasn’t long before their mom popped her head through the door and told them it was time to get to sleep, and of course they did. Because no one disobeyed Mrs. Brown.
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