She sits up with a sigh. “Just a bunch of idiots,” she says. “Patrick Thomas probably got enough people to vote for us or someone rigged the vote. Either way, someone is making a joke of us. Nothing new.”

“Maybe for you,” I say. “But I’ve never been made fun of . . . on this scale.” Unlike Hannah, I didn’t join the town beauty pageant in tenth grade, which was basically an invitation to put a target on her back in some circles.

“How nice for you.”

“You’re not at all freaked out?”

She shrugs. “I’ve got a few weeks left here and currently my biggest concern is going back to class so I can tuck my phone under my desk and watch videos of hamsters sitting on miniature furniture inside customized doll houses.”

“Now that’s an internet deep dive I could get on board with.”

Mom stomps into the office and says to Mrs. Bradley, “Where is he? I need to speak with Principal Armstrong. Immediately.” She sees me sitting there with Hannah. “Oh my goodness. My darlings. We’ll get to the bottom of this. Waylon, where’s your sister?”

I turn to Hannah.

“She’s still in class,” she says. “But she’s all fired up,” she adds in a dreamy way.

Principal Armstrong sticks his head out of his office. “I believe we’re still waiting on Hannah’s grandmother.”

Hannah stands. “She’s at physical therapy, so she’s going to be late. Besides, I’m eighteen.”

I look to Mom and she doesn’t object. “I’m definitely here for Hannah’s benefit as well, and I’d be happy to relay any information to her grandmother.”

The three of us sit shoulder to shoulder inside Principal Armstrong’s office.

Mom sits between us with her purse in her lap. “Please explain to me exactly what happened here, Russ.”

He eyes Mom at the use of his first name in front of students, but Mom doesn’t flinch.

“I’ve spoken with the student government and the faculty volunteers who tallied the nominations. It appears that both Hannah and Waylon did indeed garner enough votes for their respective nominations. Their names were a surprise while the votes were being counted, but the consensus was that their nomination should be included in case they had legitimately tried to garner votes.”

“So basically,” I say, “a bunch of teachers thought I actually wanted to run for prom queen and that Hannah wanted to be king, so they let the student body president and vice president name us as nominees during the live announcements?”

Principal Armstrong loosens his tie. “Yes.” He shakes his head. “We . . . they didn’t want to discount the possibility, and perhaps there was a better way to handle this.” He looks to Hannah, twirling a piece of gum around her finger, and then to me. “I guess I am to understand that these nominations were not the intended outcome?”