I slump onto Ms. Jennings’s chair behind her music stand and turn to Alex. “I slapped together a silly little audition video for Fiercest of Them All. Not a big deal, honestly. And really it was just a joke.”

Kyle smiles in that glittering, charismatic way that reminds me he is such a politician. “Didn’t seem like much of a joke to me. I mean, can you imagine what an inspiration it would be for the younger members of Prism?”

I grin and bite back whatever sarcastic remark is trying to claw its way free. “Wow, Kyle. I hadn’t even thought about that.”

Clem nods, like wow, Kyle is such a genius. Wow, Kyle, what a big genius brain you have.

“That makes the club sound like a charity case,” says Corey, the quiet ninth grader who usually stands on the riser below me. Their curly blue hair is vivid against their light-brown complexion and they wear a shirt that says I EAT GENDER NORMS FOR BREAKFAST. “But you really should come some time, Waylon. For some of my friends, you’re like one of the first gay people they heard about in town.”

I think I was supposed to find that touching, and I do, really. But suddenly, I feel very old, like I’m one step away from referring to Corey as a youth.

Kyle clutches his chest and looks at Corey like a proud papa. “Corey’s taking the reins next year.”

I look past Kyle and smile at Corey. “Congratulations.”

Ms. Jennings breezes through the door of her classroom, and I don’t use the word breeze lightly. Somehow the goddesses of the universe have gifted us with this woman due to the fact that her wife (You heard that right! A gay teacher! In Clover City!) signed a deal with the city a few years back to do some kind of revitalization project that’s supposed to drag us into the twenty-first century twentysomething years later.

Ms. Jennings, a tall Black woman, with her natural hair always playfully styled into two pom-poms on the top of her head, is a little bit chic and a little bit eccentric. Her patron saints are Lauryn Hill and Tori Amos, and her room is decorated in concert posters from shows she’s actually been to, including some for a thing called Lilith Fair that she swears was her own personal awakening. Sure, she’s a little stuck in the nineties/aughts, but it’s charming in a relic-of-the-past kind of way.

“Ah,” she says, her voice melodic. “Waylon, my dear, thank you for keeping my seat warm.”