It took a special occasion for Mrs. Huang to take her family out for Sunday brunch, but the occasion demanded it. She had received an email last night from UCLA triumphantly announcing that Juliet had won a scholarship, and with it, admission; the logical thing to do would be to forward it to her immediately, but Mrs. Huang had a better idea. Mrs. Huang admired the chandelier and the lobster tanks, and was happy to be seated quickly by the old lady manning the front desk. She loved the frenetic energy and savory smells that permeated the room; for one, it made her hungry. She quickly conferred with her family before shouting some requests at the waiter who conveniently ambled by, and a few minutes later, an array of steamers and a bemused Juliet were delivered. Mrs. Huang insisted she sit down, and with little fanfare handed her an envelope and waited for her to open it.

"What is it?" Juliet asked.

"What are you waiting for? Open it." Juliet surgically opened the envelope and scanned the letter, her resting flat smile turning into jubilance. A few other tables noticed and began clapping.

"You're a future Bruin. Great school, great food. What's your major?"

"I know before I wanted to do psychiatry, but I chose political science. I think leadership has been good for me; I want more. Maybe you'll see me run for president in thirty years. Why did you come all the way here, Mrs. Huang, for this? You could have just sent me an email."

"Because then I wouldn't have seen your face!" Mrs. Huang excitedly laughed. "And I was hungry. I've been here before, but you must not have been there. I was very lucky today that you were here."

"This occasion calls for celebration," Juliet declared, and she took an empty seat at Mrs. Huang's table and hastily introduced herself to Mrs. Huang's husband with needless formality and her son, who was too young to understand the magnitude of the moment but happy to meet a new friend.

"I've told them such great things about you and Frank, this is no inconvenience at all. Where is he going?"

"He said he knows, but he won't tell me. Probably Harvard or something. He sure does love his secrets."

"People like you two will succeed anywhere. Don't even stress about it—but I guess your stress is over! You still have six months of high school left, enjoy it while you can. Let him enjoy it too."

"UCLA has been my dream school since I was a kid, but I never thought I'd actually be able to attend. Now I just want to leave here and move to the next stage of my life, you know. It seems pointless to stay and keep running out the clock; time is precious."

"Really, Juliet. I thought you loved high school. I thought you loved all of this. At UCLA you will be a nobody, at least at first; here, you are a superstar."

"Every star must fade. I feel like I've aged thirty years in the last few months. Everything that felt special about the new system, the new way of doing things, simply isn't special anymore; it feels like a job. And don't get me wrong—I really enjoy what I do—but it's like if you took a movie and added an extra hour before the credits. It's needless epilogue."

"Every senior feels that way, that's why they call it senioritis. If you think this is needless epilogue, welcome to the real world. I love my job too, but it requires people like you keeping it interesting, otherwise I only have my books and my church to add some energy into it. You can always find something to be happy about; that's a skill I learned long ago, and it's why I'm still at Heller. I bet you're such a smart kid that you can find more ideas for your student council to implement and make the school even better. That should keep you busy. But anyway, let's not talk so much of business here—eat up!"

With the homecoming dance approaching, Frank was faced with a dilemma: he could either maintain it as a bastion of normalcy in an otherwise-uncertain time, or overhaul the entire thing as proof that high school students didn't really care where they were as long as they were with their friends. The choice was obvious.

"Ms. Baldwin, how are you these days?" Frank knocked on her door a few times as warning and let himself in.

"Frank! I've heard such good things about you." Ms. Baldwin didn't have Frank as a student, but they had met in passing at multiple staff meetings, and at that point teachers would have to be living under a rock to not know who he was.

"So for homecoming this year, I was thinking about doing a Pride and Prejudice theme, and Mr. T informed me that you may have some experience on that front. Would you be able to help him lead a dance lesson for any students who want to be adequately prepared?"

"Why does it matter? People just shake their butts in the air all evening. You can't stop that."

"It would be a nice visual effect, and everyone is looking at us with high hopes. It makes us look like hypocrites now if we do something normal."

"Does tomorrow after school work?"

"Perfect, as always."

Ms. Baldwin and Mr. T addressed the assembled crowd of about fifty students, who had already separated themselves into pairs, with an artificial solemnity; they found their audience receptive, mainly because they were scared of losing points if they danced poorly.

"The difference between a lady and a flower girl is not how she behaves, but how she is treated," Ms. Baldwin explained. "Your dance partner needs to treat you with sense and sensibility; he leads, you follow, and when it's time to switch the transfer of power occurs gracefully. If your dance partner handles you roughly, well, we may as well be in the coal mines! Cue the music once more, Jason. Let's run through this again."

John originally intended on avoiding homecoming, as he did most other school dances; they were all the same, he was sure, and having experienced one he had undoubtedly experienced them all. As soon as Regina heard about the dance lesson, and confirmed with Frank that while he much preferred Tom didn't show up, she was perfectly safe, she begged John to go during their tutoring session:

"Come on, dancing is fun! Where else will you get to share your heart and soul?"

"I have no heart and soul to share."

"Don't be silly. John, this was meant for you! You'll finally get to become Darcy."

"Is this something I need a date for, you know, a dance partner?"

"Well, now that you mention it, why don't you go with Beth? She has some experience and those same peculiar sensibilities you have. Be a good sport." Regina would not have been so pushy had she not tried this with Beth before class, who said that as long as John truly wanted to, she had no objections.

"Beth? Why her?" John tried his best to ask innocently, while really imagining her sashaying down the wide marble steps in a midnight-black gown, delicately taking John's hand, and the beat—one two three one two three once again—that beat John could never escape, its melody found in birdsong and car wheels and anywhere the glory of life was to be seen. Regina could see beads of sweat forming on John's eyebrow.

"I don't know, maybe because I think she fancies you?" John turned toward Regina with wild eyes. "It's just a theory, a hypothesis as you smarties put it, I don't know. There's only one way to find out."

John stared down into Beth's eyes as they moved back and forth in the patterns that thanks to Ms. Baldwin's drilling, were becoming routine. She looked back warmly, but was there anything else in that implacable expression of hers? Any sane person, John thought, would consider dancing inherently romantic; even when they switched partners with other pairs in the room as they went through partner dances, they inevitably returned together at the end.

"Beth, want to go to homecoming with me?" John slipped out suddenly, trying to sound as casual and suave as anyone else would.

"Yeah, sure, why not?" Well, that was easy. Across the gym, Regina had made the mistake of choosing Alan as her dance partner, simultaneously feeling bad for his lonesomeness and seeing her actions as enabling upward mobility.

"Isn't this fun?" Alan nearly shouted as he stepped on Regina's foot once again, an example of an ongoing trend where Alan forgot left and right in the intensity of the movement. At least Alan could keep a beat; the music program had clearly done him some good, but Regina counted herself fortunate she had never entered those unhallowed crypts by the boys' locker room. Who knew what went on there that spawned such people like Alan.

"Yes, um, it certainly is."

"Where's Tom? Is there a reason, if you know what I mean, that you're here without him?"

"God no!" Regina exclaimed in disgust. "Originally neither of us were to be allowed in here, but Frank made a special exemption for my artistic experience. You're dancing with an Epsilon, you know—does that bother you?" Alan suddenly thought Regina's hand claw-like, her grace unnatural, and her face sinister. If Alan revealed that he had been duped, he would be the laughingstock of the entire school; instead, he shook his head and pretended this was part of a master plan.

The school could have afforded a classier venue for homecoming than the same gymnasium where the dance lesson took place, but by then it was established tradition for each dance to occupy an increasingly-ostentatious venue; the day of homecoming, the student council and an elite squadron of other leadership students stayed after school, scrubbing the room clean and carting in luxury decor. The spectacle gradually spilled out of the gymnasium, which would remain the dance floor, into the surrounding hallways, all so students would have places to dine and relax; by sunset, even the central courtyard was decorated and ready for visitors.

When Behrooz had confirmed that despite his DJ talents, he could not simultaneously play the violin and flute a few days prior, they had booked Heller students to act as the band; they showed up as a group with pizza stains on their face and expressions of terror.

"You spent hours rehearsing, right? This should be easy. You're all becoming Epsilons if I hear mistakes," Alan warned them. The Beta carrying the cello gulped and promised that under penalty of social death, they would make no mistakes. Slowly the guests began to enter from the student parking lot, walking through the covered path now flanked by displays of flowers and ribbon; Deltas dressed in tuxedos offered them snacks from platters.

"Not bad at all, not bad at all," John admitted to Frank, Beth standing safely at his side.

"I thought you hated these things, John. Did, um, Beth convince you otherwise?"

"I asked her, actually. I've spent four years waiting for good things to happen to me, so I thought, why doesn't silly old John be that good thing for someone else?"

"That's a great sentiment. Are you and Beth an item, or are you just here as friends?"

"We're just as much of an item as you and Juliet," Beth laughed. "I didn't see you two at the dance lesson, where were you?"

"For one, I would appreciate it if you didn't imply we were joined at the hip. I apologize for making the assumption about you and John—this is the 21st century, anyone can go do whatever they want with anyone else without any presumption of guilt. Secondly, we were busy." Frank knew he wouldn't be helping his case if he admitted that at Juliet's insistence, they had gone to Ms. Baldwin's room to practice the other day. They pushed all the desks to the edges of the room, and while Ms. Baldwin graded papers and occasionally offered feedback, Frank and Juliet danced until Juliet could not convincingly say the purpose of their activity was educational.

As the band launched into another waltz and new students filtered in (the PE teachers promised their students extra credit for participating appropriately, in what Frank believed was a gesture of goodwill but really was an experiment by Ms. Stevens to see how desperate her students were for points), Frank couldn't help but feel proud of himself. All of his favorite faces were there—even Tom and Regina, who Juliet had begged Frank to let in long enough that he finally assented, under the caveat that Tom spend an hour shining shoes—and it seemed like people were having a good time. He was no classical dance veteran like Mr. T or Ms. Baldwin, but they looked upon the display approvingly in their period costumes, and anything beat the ceaseless thrum of the human mob at most events. Sure, he knew a few people had ditched homecoming to go to a trendier party, where they'd probably be getting stoned right about now, but if they were here they'd undoubtedly have broken up the perfect tableau in front of him. There was certainly a bit of acting involved in the otherwise-picturesque image before him—Beth had to nearly drag John onto the dance floor, and Alan was elbowed in the face by a freshman and currently had an ice pack clutched to his forehead—but as long as people looked like they were having fun, did it matter? In an hour or two, undoubtedly after he'd be pulled onto the dance floor himself again a few times, they'd have to pack up the festivities and turn their space back into a basketball/volleyball/badminton court, but the magic could last until then.

"Can you believe this is our last homecoming?" Behrooz asked Alan, who was still nursing his minor wound. This was the first time in a while Behrooz was able to relax at a dance, and after observing the intricate spirals the dancers traced on the gym floor, wisely decided this was not his time. Alan stared emptily into space, gnawing on a crostini.

"It's my first. I don't see what the fuss is all about. I could be doing homework right now, but instead I'm sitting here watching other people have the time of their lives."

"Well, you know that's what we signed up for. In a normal universe, this is exactly the student council's responsibility. Welcome to the real world—we have obligations."

"When Frank recruited me for this position, he promised that all the hard work would be delegated to others. The natural order of things, that's how he put it. Why did he lie to me?" Coming from any other person, this would be the height of sarcasm, but Behrooz genuinely believed Alan felt betrayed.

"If you think this is hard work, sitting here and eating food, you don't know how good you have it. It's just a black eye, Alan. Get up. Act like an Alpha."

Frank had not wanted to tell Juliet that he got into Wharton because he considered it a fluke. A matter of circumstance, really, that was entirely out of his control; he had done all the right things: he had written a passionate essay about the power of satire as social commentary; aced all his classes and tests; and gotten the coveted, almost impossible to acquire golden ticket of a recommendation letter from Mr. T. Mr. T had connections everywhere and a near 100% success rate, the hard part was getting him to like you enough to write you a letter. A few days after he received the triumphant news, he got an email from a fellow future Wharton student, asking him if he'd care to meet the squad downtown for a casual meet-and-greet.

Somehow Frank was not surprised to see that the few other incoming Wharton students waiting at the Starbucks were not wearing suits and ties; instead, they wore starched polo shirts and shorts, even though it was a bit chilly out. They eyed him warily: while a few assumed he was merely weird, someone made the connection:

"Wait, do you go to Heller?"

"In fact, I do. Franklin Barnes at your service, but please, call me Frank." He offered his hand hesitantly, and Jack, who through his height and Patek Philippe was clearly the alpha, yanked it toward him in a far too aggressive response.

"I saw the rally video, the one where they dragged the kids through the gym. Hold on, wait—you must be the president then! I knew you looked familiar!"

"I suppose I am, but I'm off the clock now, there's really nothing to it." It was then that Frank knew that whether he liked it or not, his identity would be inextricably linked to his club. It did not exist without him, but he did not exist without it either.

"The things you can do at a public school, am I right? The name's Jack." After the initial pleasantries, conversation quickly turned to the miraculously egalitarian society in which they lived where someone from a public school like Frank could rub shoulders with the beneficiaries of trust funds.

"Your suit is nice, you must be rolling in that dough too. Why are you at Heller then? You don't deserve them."

"I always gagged on that silver spoon. I went to a small private school for middle school—Pemberley, if you heard of it. I found the atmosphere stifling. I wanted more. At Pemberley, with so few people, everyone was stuck in the limelight whether they wanted it or not. All your foibles were projected for everyone else to see; by the end of it, we all grew sick of each other. Is it really that preposterous I wanted to go somewhere where I could live my life exactly as I wanted with nobody leaning over my shoulder to tell me I'm not being a team player?"

"So you wanted to be a big fish in a small pond. I can respect that. Exploiting the lower classes—what did you call them again, Epsilons?—that's something I can respect. You're a good kid, you're one of us."

"I live comfortably, but without privilege. Sure, I have more money than I know what to do with, but that's shared with everyone. I consider myself the leader of a team and not a rogue agent. The difference between you and me, Jack, is that you consider yourself above others. I consider others above myself, and it's my ongoing duty to turn the tables."

"You may have started humbly, if we're to believe how you're telling your story, but that's not at all how you present yourself today. I'm not a student at Heller, I can't verify everything, but I sometimes watch your club meetings. The content is the same as always, but while before you just told everyone they were elite members of society, now it's all the more clear that they really are. If your goal was to truly even out society, to give to each as they deserved, you've failed. But that's fine, don't sweat it." Frank was an enigma to Jack: he was rich, but he didn't act like it, and was magnanimous without being narcissistic. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Jack chose to interpret Frank's attitude as a sign of weakness: Frank had merely gotten lucky in the short-term, but by the time they got to Philadelphia, so much for that.

"I'm still not sure why you're so fixated on what I've done—what have you been up to for the last four years then? As soon as we get on campus, I'm just your good old-fashioned Frank, an ordinary man. I'm not going to be some superhero whose voice can project into every classroom. You know how at the end of The Wizard of Oz, behind all the smoke and mirrors there's just a normal person in a world of fantastical, extraordinary people? That's me. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. Just let me take my classes, maybe get an internship through no personal merit, and maybe if I see the opportunity I'll become Frank the Ineffable again. Is that a deal?"

"Whether you like it or not, Frank, this is going to haunt you. That's a trade-off I'd take in a heartbeat, but if you think once you graduate, everything will be reset, don't think you'll get off so easily. This may not be a national award or an internship at Goldman Sachs, but the sheer audacity of the transformation you've effected at Heller puts you near the top. We already are calling you 'Supreme Leader,' and that's a compliment. I know you're used to public schools where everyone's a sycophant vying to get into lame schools like Berkeley or UCLA; you'll have more people like you here, people who are willing to be just as despicable as you without bothering to justify it under 'being a good person.' Anyway, this is such depressing talk. Any of you watch the Giants game last night?"

Frank left their meeting consumed with guilt. Frank believed what he had told them—he really was just an ordinary guy who made the most of unusual circumstances. He was no more mature than they, and in fact, maybe he was just immature; a mature person would have ignored the entire club thing, perhaps founded a stricter tutoring club, still made the same friends, and ended up in exactly the same place! If everyone at Wharton was like Jack, standoffish and aggressive, Frank didn't want to go. He'd much rather stay at Heller, or find the next best thing: kids just as smart, but pleasantly diluted. That was the issue with Pemberley, too, and part of why Frank had learned the value of Machiavellian manipulation. All societies relied on having an appropriate mix of leaders and followers: too many leaders and society fractured under the burden of their petty whims, too many followers and they would crumble under inaction and die a slow death. Everyone wanted Frank to be their "Supreme Leader" forever, but hadn't he earned a break?

Pranav, like Ted, had heard of the vast changes his beloved high school had undergone in his absence. Ordinarily, he would have better things to do—unlike Frank, he had chosen Berkeley over a private school, and a few weeks of euphoria had turned abruptly into an overwhelming deluge of work—but one day all his lectures were canceled, and so he took the train all the way back to San Francisco and took an Uber to Heller. Pranav had expected Mao-style murals of all the student council, and was relieved to see nothing but students dressed like clothing store mannequins walking in lockstep wearing colored armbands. "Home sweet home," Pranav muttered to himself. He found Frank standing on the bridge overlooking the swimming pool, not nearly as jovial as he expected.

"There's something about this place that brings people back," Frank said partially to himself and partially to Pranav. "What unfinished business do you have?"

"Why so grim? You've succeeded. I've kept myself apprised of recent developments—Jason gave me admin access to TigerTalk a few weeks ago. What reason do you have to be unhappy, a touch of guilt? Come on, that's not the Frank I know."

"Well, I got into Wharton. That was a downer, believe it or not. They're so entitled, paranoid, and narcissistic, just like unironic good people. And the sad thing is, I fit right in. The entire time, as I tried to defend myself, what we've done, I could feel my moral high ground slipping away as I spoke. There's nothing that makes me better than them besides that I thought I was doing the right thing. I still think I've done the right thing—even I can't deny my own results. I just didn't think there would be such a big price to it."

"Don't let some stuck-up Wharton brats tell you you're one of them now. When you set out here to make the club, you did so believing you'd be able to make some change, right? Leave the school better than you found it. Who says you can't do the same there? You're coming in with a good reputation and a natural knack for convincing others of stupid things. Take this from me, a college student: they aren't any less gullible than high schoolers. They may be wiser, but when has that stopped anyone?"

"Let's put aside those kids for a moment. Look at the people here, the ones walking across from us or already headed home. You know some of these people. Jason, your good friend, he's been embarking on a one-person campaign of vengeance against anyone and everyone. Those security cameras you see everywhere, he sees everything. I don't know how he does it. Watch me as I move my finger on my phone—do you see it moving? And you can look on my phone and see us standing. You could do this from your dorm room if you wanted. But beyond the entire surveillance thing, he's grown kind of scary. I merely thought him a bit too interested in history for his own good, I didn't realize he was a dictator reincarnate."

"Are you blaming him, Frank, for TigerTalk? That's the sort of thing that would get him court-martialed anywhere but Heller."

"I blame him, sure, but I blame myself too. It was an idea born of good intentions: the app we used before was awful, and we technically saved the school money by doing this in-house. But I should have thought of the little guys I thought we would protect, the people in the locker rooms that feel violated because Jason's seen their breasts."

"That's a bold claim."

"I don't know for sure—I don't know anything. But it's a slippery slope from where we stood at the beginning of the year to blackmail, and we've been sliding down too many others to not consider it a possibility. I can keep going, if you want. I have a lot to vent about."

Pranav did not know if he was supposed to console Frank or chastise him. All his critiques of the people and system around him seemed justified. Jason indeed was prone to outbursts, and it almost made sense that he was specifically targeting those who wronged him previously. He can't say that he knew John that well, but "saturnine" seemed an accurate description, even if not the word he'd ordinarily use; as much as it was crass to tell people in an authoritarian regime to cheer up, it was also a bad sign when Beth out of all people was jovial. And at the center of this tangled web, with strands reaching out toward names that by now were unfamiliar to Pranav, was Frank. And by extension, himself too; if Pranav had never been involved, Frank would certainly have managed to cobble together a similar end result, but it would have had a different flavor and less popular support. He really was responsible for this, wasn't he?

He chuckled at the brutality of the entire scheme, Tom and Regina being made laughingstocks in front of the entire school being a highlight, but it certainly was not funny to them. And to most of the apathetic audience, attitudes must have been mixed. It wasn't as if dissent was encouraged before, certainly, but it was never punished—novel suggestions tended to rest in teacher's mailboxes and get lost in filing cabinets, and that benign neglect was just what made high school high school. He knew a few of his old classmates were secretly counting their blessings after the school metamorphosed into tyranny, as things like the dress code tested the limits of how much apathy was sufficient to numb the high school experience. When Pranav ran into Mr. Ivanov earlier during a passing period, he let out a resigned huff and said "It's an absolute s—show. But I can't say that anymore, so I'll say it's a pile of steaming hot cellulose. Yeah...". Pranav thought that was an inappropriate time to admit his own complicity in the scheme. Not everything seemed bad, even according to Mr. Ivanov, who admitted that test scores were up, the school was cleaner, and more of his colleagues seemed to be enjoying themselves at work. But was this the school he'd have wanted to attend? If it weren't partially his idea, Pranav didn't think so, and perhaps Frank agreed. He asked to confirm: "So, if you were an incoming freshman this year, is this the high school experience you wish you had?"

Frank crossed his arms and stood still for a moment, then resignedly admitted, "As a leader, I could be sold on this. As a follower, I'd pass. But I really can't say. I would say that all through these three-and-a-half years, things have worked out for me one after another. No particular hardships that weren't of my own design. So I don't really want to dwell on some misfortune that could have happened. Don't forget what happened to the man who got everything he ever wanted: he lived happily ever after."

"Somehow, I have to agree: there's something oddly poetic about this ending. It's satisfying. But I thought you felt guilty about this entire thing? If you're going to be dogmatic, you should at least be consistent."

"When I say everything out loud, the more I'm convinced that this guilt is what everyone feels after making any sort of controversial decision. It's too easy to focus on the negatives when that's what everyone lingers on. But just a few days ago, we had homecoming; everyone survived that. Nobody rioted. That's the hard part of being a leader I think we were fortunate to have ignored while you were here: what's right or wrong isn't solely dependent on popular opinion. Besides, and I remember we discussed this when you interviewed me, I really have no choice by now. I can't stop now. I can't announce that everything was a joke, confess to everything, and politely let myself be led away in handcuffs. They'd kill me, for one. And too many people benefit from this scheme to let the power transfer peacefully back to the rightful owners."

"Are other schools going to adopt this scheme too? I know there have been a few gatherings at other schools, but I always assumed they were just weird kids."

"We're all crazy. But yes, the superintendent was quite amused to hear about everything going on here. Ask me that question again in a year or two. That's another reason—would you rather have students manning the security cameras, who can be held accountable enough through peer pressure and good old-fashioned violence, or adults simply following orders for a paycheck? I may not be able to claim the moral high ground compared to Jack from Wharton, but I think I can claim it compared to Mr. Kurtz. And that's what lets me sleep at night."

Pranav checked his watch. "Show me around a little. Do you have some secret lair under the swimming pool?"

"Mr. T should still be around. He's always up for a chat."

Discussion Questions:

Does Frank deserve to get into Wharton? Based on his interaction with Jack, does Frank fit the school?

Last chapter, we saw Ted pay a quick visit to his beloved high school; this chapter, we see Pranav do the same. How would you describe the tone of these reunions?

Who in your mind is the worst character, morally speaking? Would this answer have been different at the beginning of senior year?