Get-Rich-Quick Scheme

Saturday, September 7

Another weekend at Beans Cafe. Kate stared at the clock on the cash register screen while she waited for the customer to finish paying for his order. While she watched the seconds pass, people joined the queue one-by-one.

Once the beep from the card machine resounded, she turned her attention away from the clock and ripped the receipt from the slot. “Have a nice day. Your coffee's on the left,” she said as she handed the slip to him.

After receiving a warm thank you, her co-worker, Aiden, arrived at the register beside her and greeted the next customer “Break time, Kate,” he said after.

“Just what I like to hear.” In a hurry, she went to the back room to hang her apron, then rushed for the tables outside the cafe. They would usually be filled to the brim with customers at this time, which usually left Kate to travel further in the mall to take a breather.

To her surprise, at one of the tables, she found Ellie eating a sandwich wrapped in aluminum foil. She stared at her laptop with heavy concentration in her face, and typed in what looked to be a form.

Kate walked up from behind Ellie and rubbed her hair, “Homework in the mall? That’s bold.”

Ellie smacked her hand away, “Not homework. Wanna see?”

“Will it take less than thirty minutes?” Kate took the seat across from her.

“It’s the idea you gave me yesterday.” Ellie turned the laptop and showed what she was typing.

On the screen was a club application form titled “Business Club.” From what she could make out from the haphazardly typed paragraph, Ellie’s reason for starting this club was to make money, and to do that, the club will perform services around the school. Given how desperate she has been lately, Kate wondered how long it would take until Ellie stood at a corner of the school and begged for change. “So, you think this’ll work out? What about your whole ‘find a job’ thing?”

“A work in progress. I’m still working on my resume, and I applied to a few listings yesterday. But if this pulls through, I’ll be making, like, double the money. Just think of the profits from the club and my paycheque.” Ellie rubbed her hands together, “I can feel myself drowning in cash in no time!”

Kate sighed, “Whatever you say. I’m glad you’re putting in the effort, but don’t get in over your head about it.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. I spent literally all night researching how to go about it.” She counted on her fingers, “We can sell things, help around the school, all kinds of possibilities. I’m confident it’s gonna work out.”

“Whatever you say, boss. I’m no expert in running a club, but I’ve seen how hard it is. Just ask Jessica. The team’s doing fine as is, but when she’s under pressure, it’s not pretty.”

Ellie stared up at the form and reflected on Kate’s words. There was no doubt that it would not be easy to pull off, especially with her idea. In fact, the challenge she currently faced was getting it started. To be identified as a club, it required at least four members, including herself, and approval of someone from faculty, like a teacher.

She immediately had Mrs. McCarthy in mind. She may be ruthless in math exams and homework, but she could not think of a more helpful teacher than her.

When it came to finding members, she racked her brain into thinking about who would join, but came up blank every time. Kate was out of the question, as much as she wanted to ask her. With how busy she was at balancing school, the tennis team, and work, adding the Business Club in the mix would not hold well for her.

Maybe Tanner? They were partners for one History project about World War I back in ninth grade. He handled much of the research and proofreading while Ellie focused on writing. She remembered how smoothly it went and how easy he was to work with, so asking him did not seem like a bad idea. Although, she figured his work and volunteering at the library would probably discourage him from joining.

For the other two members, that was a whole different challenge in itself. She would have to market it somehow; post a bunch of signs around the school or stand on the side of the hallway and hand out flyers. Maybe with Club’s Day approaching, she could set up a booth? She looked away from her laptop and rubbed her hair at all the set-up to be made just to get it going.

When she faced forward, she noticed Nora walk through the entrance at the end of the hallway, and headed for their direction. Ellie waved during the brief moment of eye contact they shared, but Nora responded with a short nod and passed her without a word.

Ellie waited until she was far enough and rounded a corner. “Is it me, or does she always look so…”

“Pissed off?” said Kate, “Maybe. Rumor has it the student council is in a bit of a bind, and she’s taking the grunt of it.”

“That’s crazy. How’d you know?”

“When you hang out with a team captain enough, you get insider info.”

Not long after Nora came, the next to walk in, or rather jog, was Melanie, the student council president. She looked completely haggard as she sped towards Nora’s direction. Through the noise of the mall, her heavy breaths were audible when she passed the two, like she finished running a marathon.

“Speak of the devil,” said Kate.

Once Melanie was out of sight, Ellie rose from the table and packed her laptop. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

“I wanna see what’s going on. Student council in trouble, and two of its highest reps are here. It’s not like I’ll butt in or anything.”

Kate stood after her, “I don’t know, this is between-” But before she could finish, Ellie ran after Melanie and Nora. Without any choice, she shook her head and followed her.

Ellie tailed about ten feet behind Melanie, who weaved around the dense crowd with ease. Meanwhile, Ellie was on the brink of losing sight of her from the constant stopping and going to let people pass.

They reached a wide, circular intersection connecting three hallways. Two of which led to a large bookstore and the foodcourt. Melanie took the left-most path, which Ellie knew led to the arcade and movie theater.

After a short chase down the corridor, Ellie found the two go inside the Adorn Home & Decor furnishing store.

They soon stopped at an aisle filled with picture frames and mirrors. At the end of the aisle were large double doors with red warning tape that read, “EMPLOYEES ONLY.” Ellie hid in the adjacent aisle and listened to their conversation.

“Do you have a moment?” said Melanie.

“Make it quick,” said Nora. “I’m already running late.”

Melanie took a deep breath. “I’m sorry about not showing up yesterday. I got caught up on things, work called…”

There was a pause between them before Nora broke the silence. “Yeah, whatever. See you monday.”

“Wait,” said Melanie. “I know the student council’s been busy. Sorry I haven’t been around to help, but please let me know if you need it.”

Nora raised her voice. “Like the other times I needed your help? As if.”

There was another moment of silence, but one that lasted longer than the last. Ellie’s chest tightened the more it dragged out, until it was interrupted by the sound of doors swinging shut.

Feeling like she heard enough, she turned to leave the aisle. But upon encountering Kate suddenly behind her, she let out a yelp.

“Done spying yet?”

Ellie covered Kate’s mouth and whispered, “Don’t let the whole store know.”

However, it was too late. When she looked behind Kate, Melanie was already at the end of the aisle and stared at them. She pointed, “You two heard all that?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” said Ellie. “Probably wasn’t cool, though. I swear, whatever’s happening between you two, we won’t tell anyone.”

Melanie sighed, “Don’t worry about it. Long story short, it’s been mostly us running student council projects. The other members are either not available or not showing up to meetings at all. So, under all the stress, I mistakenly dumped a lot of the work on Nora.” She planted a palm on her forehead. “I’m such an idiot.”

“Explains why she always looks like she wants to murder someone,” commented Kate.

“I wanna do what I can so that doesn’t happen, but I’ve been too caught up in things.” She turned and left for the exit. “Anyways, I gotta go. Thanks for listening.”

Ellie and Kate watched Melanie walk out the store before simultaneously letting out short, relieved breaths.

“Satisfied your curiosity yet?” asked Kate.

“I guess so, but not in the way I thought.”

***

Monday, September 9

Ellie read the club application form one last time as she paced down the hallway. Today was her last chance, so she arrived earlier in the morning than usual to give herself enough time to review it.

She opened the door to the teacher’s office and found Mrs. McCarthy at her desk; exactly who she wanted to see.

Mrs. McCarthy looked away from the monitor when Ellie went up to her. “Good morning. Let me guess, you’re stuck on question 3?”

Ellie cocked her head, “What?”

Mrs. McCarthy laughed, “Sorry, everyone who came to see me had the same problem. How can I help?”

Ellie handed her the sheets, “I’m starting a club, and I thought you were the right person to ask.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that, but I’ll be happy to help. I love reading these.” She scanned the form from top to bottom of each page, and flipped back and forth between the sheets.

Ellie fidgeted her fingers and swayed left and right. The unbearable silence, interrupted by the flipping of pages, did not help ease the tension she had.

The more time Mrs. McCarthy took to read the form, her welcoming smile slowly changed to one that was practically unreadable. Did she not like it? Were there too many errors that weren’t caught before printing? The last thing Ellie needed was for this idea to get rejected. Otherwise, she had to come up with a new way to make money from scratch. There would be more days scrounging for food from home to survive; hours she had to spend after school before she can leave.

“Can’t say I’ve seen something like it before,” said Mrs. McCarthy, giving Ellie a startle. “Just a few things.” She took a pen and underlined some sentences. Each one she marked sent a chill down her spine.

“You call this a ‘Business Club’ but the description and purpose screams ‘Get-Rich-Quick’ scheme.” Mrs. McCarthy showed her the paper where every instance of “money” and “cash” was underlined.

“Isn’t that what a business is about? If you wanna make money, you gotta earn it. That’s what the club’s for.”

“You’re right, but it’s a shallow way of thinking.” Mrs. McCarthy tore out a piece of scrap paper and wrote some notes. “Don’t walk into this expecting to turn a profit right away. Have you planned exactly how you’ll do it? What assets do you own to help you get there? There’s more to mention, but that’s a whole textbook’s worth of content to go over. Maybe even two?”

Ellie’s heart sank as she picked up the form and looked at all the underlined sentences. With the deadline fast approaching, she feared there would not be enough time to rewrite it all.

“One thing’s for sure,” Mrs. McCarthy continued. “I’ve read a lot of proposals before, but I think yours has potential.”

Dumbfounded, she looked up from the paper. “Wait, it does? What do you mean?”

Mrs. McCarthy pulled the form from her hands. “A club whose purpose is to provide help where needed in exchange for profit won’t be easy, but it can come a long way, especially for you and your members as you get older. Everyone here is busy nowadays, and I think they could use all the help they can get. If you want this to succeed, here’s my advice: don’t treat this as a school club, but rather treat it exactly as you called it. A business. And you started exactly how many owners do: find opportunities.”

Ellie was lost for words. At this point, it was hard to tell if Mrs. McCarthy was going to reject her proposal or not. “And that opportunity was?”

“Coming in to see me. But from here, it’s not my call to decide whether this club will happen or not. It’s all on you.” Mrs. McCarthy leaned forward, “So, what’ll it be?”

Despite how much of a toll it would be on Ellie, something in her wanted to persist the idea. She put this much effort into it. To turn it down now would bring it all to waste. With confidence, she said, “I’ll do it.”

As if on her command, Mrs. McCarthy signed her name on the form and stored it in a folder.

Ellie was speechless when she saw her accept the club. But rather than excitement, she felt the pressure in her rise at excruciating levels. This was what she wanted, but something did not feel right. “So, what does this mean? Is everything all good?”

“The first part’s done. Your job now is to do your research, market the club, find members, and a whole shopping list of tasks we only have so much time for to discuss.” Mrs. McCarthy handed her the scrap paper she wrote on. “Here’s some resources for if you’re in a bind. You can probably find some of those books in the library. They sure helped me when I got mine started.”

Written on the paper was a small list of books and websites; resources about managing a team, business planning, and, to Ellie’s horror, finances. “I never thought you had a business. What is it?”

“It’s a pub by Commercial Broadway station.” Mrs. McCarthy flinched and covered her mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to say that out loud to a student.”

Ellie laughed, “It’s fine, I’ll forget I heard anything.” When the bell rang, she turned and headed for the door, “Thanks for your help, Mrs. McCarthy.”

“Anytime. If you ever get stuck, let me know.”

When Ellie left the doors, there was a sudden internal screaming in her that seemed to numb all the noise in the hallway. Her club was accepted, which was exactly what she wanted. But speaking with Mrs. McCarthy made her realize how high of a mountain there to climb to make it succeed.