The floors were shiny as the janitors had just done their run-through last night only for it to be ruined again by the students who were making a mess on the floor. Then again, it wasn't intentional as the students of the academy had started on their floats for the academy and were broken up into groups to rotate times in the gymnasium.
The time for Alice's homeroom was quite ideal as it was in the early afternoon which didn't call for some late-night energy fuel as it was right after classes for the day. The fans above that were creating quite a large atmosphere didn't help scope out the heat that was due for the spring to summertime.
Alice straightened out her legs in front of her in exhaustion, happy that she brought grey sweats to go under her skirt that was on the shorter side so that she could be comfortable moving around and getting on top of the trailer without any worries which was along the same lines of doing child labor for Madeline who had a meticulous vision.
The theme was as she expected as the class as a whole did decide on doing a dating and relationship theme, so there were a lot of hearts and whatnot. The bubble letters that she was working on spelled out random love quotes that she and Sophie found on the internet that was bound to raise eyebrows with how corny they were.
Alice grabbed her scissors and switched to another project which honestly was precisely the same since all it involved was consistently cutting red and pink paper in a lovely heart shape and placing silver glitter and other sparkly sequins on the edges to spice them up and give them a bit of flare.
Her back was hurting from her position on the floor, and she straightened up again to pout over to Claudia who was also busy with her own work but had caught her look and mimed sending a flying heart over to her. Tristan had grabbed them from her with her permission after getting goaded by Jordan for her slow pace.
Claudia had her golden locks bound by a preppy ruby-colored headband and was juggling carrying all the materials she needed in her arms to go and sit next to Alice. Alice dropped her head on Claudia's shoulder and turned her chin up to face her. "This is tiring. Should we go take a break to get some melon milk?"
Claudia smiled and continued her work of gluing the paper flower train that was supposed to weave around the float. The flowers chosen were cherry blossom flowers that were in season and threatened to leave soon by the quick sway of the rain that would blow all the beauty of the flower petals away.
The string for the flowers was getting tangled, so Alice tried her best to untangle them only to catch the attention of Madeline, who was on a rampage over at them. Alice gave Madeline a half smile, praying for mercy.
Madeline sat down next to Alice and ran her fingers through her hair, her short bob that was still neat and tidy after all the activity. "The concept of a couple game is harder than I thought."
Alice nodded. "Well, the execution must be done well to get good responses."
"To think that we are playing matchmaker... what is the best way to go about that?" Madeline asked.
Alice couldn't tell if Madeline wanted that to be a hypothetical question or not, but she answered nonetheless. "It would be easier if there was a questionnaire beforehand, don't you think? Where people can fill in bubbles of trial safe questions that we prepare while still catering to their wishes as to what they would like."
Madeline leaned back on her arms. "That's a good idea. It'll make it kid friendly too."
"But the real question is are we actually matchmaking people?" Alice asked. "Or have set and chosen people to pop up?"
"Matchmaking for the teens & prospecting students while older and set people for younger folks or older folks for the fun of it, I guess. We can feel it out," Madeline pondered.
Claudia laughed and brought her hand up to cover it. "Sorry. I just imagined what it would look like for Tristan to pop for an excited ten-year-old since he hates kids."
Madeline grinned. "That would be a sight to see. But I think that we would need to recruit extra hands to have matchmaking around the same age to make it appropriate."
"How are we going to find those extra people?" Claudia asked as she glued another blossom to the string.
"We could ask for siblings or anyone they know really," Madeline answered.
"That would work," Alice said. "Hopefully we'll be able to convince people easily."
"That time will come," Madeline replied. "For now, we need to work on the float first."
Claudia groaned and finally stood up to hand the finished flower ribbon over to Sophie, who was doing the outside décor. Madeline crossed her arms and finally laid back straight on the gym floor and stared up at the ceiling while Alice continued to cut paper hearts, listening to the bicker of what main color they should all use whether that be baby blue or red.
Baby Blue won as the winning argument was that the blue was cute and not too harsh like the red, and Claudia returned with some soft drinks in hand. Alice extended her hand out, and Claudia dropped the tea into her hand, cool to the touch and making her hand wet from the ice bucket the drinks were sitting in.
Madeline got back up with her shoulders hunched over. "Man, I'm exhausted."
"Maybe you would feel better not going all tyrannical every time," Alice suggested lightly with a small laugh and placed her tea down to the side and out of the way where anyone could topple it over.
Madeline grinned. "My apologies but that was nothing."
"I'm not ready for the full-watt energy of boss lady," Claudia cringed as she took a sip of her soda.
Madeline lifted up her hand with a grin. "Don't worry. Unlike some, I am self-aware. But we need to get this float done asap considering the number of requests that people needed to get off since they said that they were busy."
Claudia lifted up a shoulder. "Guilty."
Alice smacked Claudia's arm before nodding to Madeline's reply. "Okay. Gratefully that we know the context, but you should say that to the whole class so that they don't side-eye you tomorrow morning."
"Yeah, I should probably get to that," Madeline said with a laugh.