Fish fry is a difficult job. It takes a lot of coordination, most of it behind the scenes, and a lot of the leadership comes from the Fish Heads. This Fryday will be the first Fry that 11th-grade Fish Heads Alex and Izzy lead. They have a lot to coordinate, from the last few tickets to sell to the clean-up groups to organize for after the Fry is over. If I were either of them, I would probably be overwhelmed.
However, Alex and Izzy both seem to be calm and collected. They can be overheard talking about the details of Fish Fry on the Junior couches all the time, as well as in the hall, by the lockers, in Calvin’s room right before Chemistry class starts… Obviously, it occupies a large part of their minds.
Setup has started in the gym, with students working during study halls and after school. It takes a lot of work: setting up tables, covering them with paper, setting up the pie room…. and we haven’t even gotten to setting the tables with utensils and plates. It’s a big operation.
Even after three hours of after-school work, trying to wrangle lots of people who barely know what they are doing, Alex and Izzy are kind and try to smile. Alex constantly has rolls of tape hanging off his backpack. After the work is over for the day, he tells anyone he sees in the halls that they “did a good job.” This probably indicates that the Fish Heads were well chosen: if they were biting people’s heads off every time they got irritated, the Fry would be much worse.
The Fish Heads are doing well under pressure, but so are other Heads: in the Pie Room, Carissa and Evan are doing well, despite not knowing exactly where all the planks of wood for pie shelves go. Carissa is very good at using encouragements as a coping skill: “You’re doing great,” she says, before going back to check the former Pie Heads’ shelf diagram one more time, worrying she’s having them placed wrongly. However, all the planks necessary were found, and the Pie Room looks ready to hold hundreds of pies.
The Fish Fry isn’t set up yet, but we’re getting there. And for the first Fry they’re leading, our Heads are doing admirably. There’s infinite capacity for disaster this Fryday, but there’s also infinite capacity for success.