While Emi could not attest to the veracity of the saying “a watched pot never boils” as she had a definite lack of experience in the kitchen, she was relatively certain that, given the application of enough heat and the presence of water, eventually a pot had to boil, whether people were staring at it or not. But as the hand of the clock ticked agonizingly onward with a glacial pace, she could easily see how the saying had come to be.

“And what makes 1868 so remarkable? Miss Seto?” Ms. Ito snapped Emi out of her clock watching by calling her name. Emi blinked and returned her attention to the front of the room.

“Ah, well, what wasn’t remarkable about 1868?” Emi mused.

“If so many remarkable things happened, why don’t you enlighten the class about them?” Ms. Ito prompted her, having heard that line of deflection many times over before. Emi ignored the snickering of her classmates and tapped her chin for dramatic effect.

“Here in Japan; 1868 was not only the Meiji restoration wherein Yoshinobu Tokugawa lost his power to Emperor Meiji and the Boshin war began which eventually ended with the final dissolution of the Samurai as a social class and a clear indication of the modernization of the country and turn away from feudalism. The capital city was also moved from Kyoto to the newly renamed Tokyo to better take advantage of Tokyo’s position on the sea, to symbolize a new era for the country and to prevent the Tokyo Dome from an awkward rename. The Kyoto Dome just doesn’t have the same impact somehow.

“Elsewhere in the world the refrigerator car was patented in America by a fish dealer in Detroit. The last convict ship, the Hougoumont, arrived in Australia ending penal transportation. Benjamin Disraeli became the British premier in February and was voted out in December, probably because no one liked his hat or facial hair, and the Cadbury company made the first box of Valentine’s chocolates, thus ensuring tasty treats in February for the masses.” The snickering stopped abruptly, and silence descended on the class. The teacher stared at her unmoving. “So, uh…quite a few interesting developments and all. Any you’d like me to elaborate on?” Emi replied easily.

“Uh…hmmm,” Ms. Ito glanced down at her papers and shuffled through them distractedly. “No, uh, that…that covers the basics, I guess. Thank you, Ms. Seto.”

“I am a witch of vast knowledge. Any time you need me I’ve got your back,” Emi winked rakishly.

“How did you even know all of that stuff, Seto-san?” Satomi asked as the two exited the room following class.

“Oh, the 1868 stuff?” Emi hiked her bag further on her shoulder, staggering slightly under its weight.

“That was crazy impressive!” Satomi shook her head in wonder.

“I have a raging addiction to reading while eating cereal and my mom is boring and didn’t have much variety in the books I was allowed to read so I always just read encyclopedias,” Emi shrugged. “My vast knowledge is wholly due to Calbee.”

“That is…still impressive!” Satomi beamed.

“Thank you!” Emi grinned.

“So, you’re on the meeting schedule for lunch. Is this about your new club?”

“Yep!” Emi nodded enthusiastically.

“Well, good luck!” Satomi waved as she moved off, vanishing in the crowd.

“Luck!” Emi muttered dismissively. “We don’t need luck. We have skill!”

“Who are you talking to?” Asami asked as she moved into step next to Emi.

“The gods themselves,” Emi declared dramatically. “I am challenging them to defy us in the creation of the Flower Appreciation Society. We have the heart! We have the will! We have the desire!”

“We have the paperwork!” Asami pulled the form from her backpack and thrust it into the air triumphantly.

“Precisely so!” Emi clenched her fist tightly for emphasis. “I dare the gods to deny us!”

“Yeah!” Asami giggled.

“What time’s the school council meeting?” Emi asked.

“12:30.”

“Then let us go forth with the others and feast upon lunch before our triumph!”

“It is difficult to be truly triumphant with an empty belly,” Asami nodded.

“Quite so, Asami chan. Quite so, indeed!”

“Momo is nervous,” Moo muttered as the four of them sat on a table near the bank of windows high on the north wall of the cafeteria.

“There’s no need to be nervous, young Moo,” Emi soothed, staring into the chunks of the void piled haphazardly in her bowl. There was something about not staring long into the abyss lest it stare back, and Emi was nervous about that possibility. She also couldn’t readily identify what had been put into her bowl and that made her more nervous.

“Garr is nervous as well,” Moo petted the top of the paper bag gently. “She was nauseous earlier.”

“There’s no need to be nervous,” Asami petted the bag as well for some odd reason. “We have this 100% in the…hmmm…well, in the bag, I guess. Just like Garr.” There was a joke to be made in correlating Garr being in the bag, but Emi didn’t think she could make the thing work as is, so she left it alone and promised to revisit it later.

“I bul-anhan,” Suyin shook her head. Asami and Moo stared at her blankly and Suyin blushed. “Sorry! Nervous! I nervous!”

“There’s no way we don’t have this,” Emi fished through the food in her bowl looking for anything she could readily identify. “We’ve done the work. We have filled out the paperwork. We’ve not angered the Student Council too badly. I hope. And we have Garr on our side. Really, a multi-armed fertility goddess statue should tip the scales in our favor. Besides, they can’t turn us down!”

“Technically all clubs must be approved by a majority of the student council and then get sent to the joint faculty council for final approval and fund disbursement before the facilities council can give them a room,” Asami said. She looked pensive for a moment before her face fell. “Oh, God, we aren’t ever going to get through that gauntlet! What do we do?”

“Those are a lot of councils…” Emi trailed off as Asami began to hyperventilate slightly, a bad feeling suddenly opening in the pit of her stomach. “The principal isn’t on the faculty council, is she?”

“She is,” Asami nodded. Emi thought about the three-sentence apology letter in her bag and sighed. Yeah, she was going to have to rewrite that one, she decided.

“That may not be ideal,” Emi nibbled nervously on her lower lip. Emi felt it was important one of them wasn’t nervous and, honestly, she was hoping it could have been Suyin, but that notion was now dead and buried as the poor girl fretted with the label on her drink. Now, with the faculty thing suddenly looming large on the horizon, Emi was even more anxious than before. Not even the fertility goddess in the bag was calm, which was most assuredly not a good thing.

“W-We have to go,” Asami glanced down at her phone before standing nervously.

“Garr threw up,” Moo said, looking like she was about to do the same.