Chapter 30: Finding a Leader

“AAAHG! Why are they all so stupid!?” Trip shouted

“What did you expect? These people were never educated properly, how could you expect them to be intelligent? If they were then there would have already been an uprising against the government.” Alex responded

Trip and Alex had just endured a full day of being an interviewer. They had the idea to let anyone apply for the position of leader and then Trip would judge that person. They thought that they would find someone quite quickly. However they had already interviewed over 100 people and all of them had been ignorant, arrogant, and generally rather stupid. Trip was only ten and he understood more about the world than all of these people combined. He didn’t need a candidate that was incredibly intelligent, but he needed someone who could follow instructions and could speak. Half of the people he had interviewed had a vocabulary that did not contain words longer than 5 letters. After having met all these people he almost didn’t feel bad for them anymore. However he knew that no matter how stupid these people were, they did not deserve to be homeless.

After a couple more people came for interviews Trip decided to call it a day. He walked out into the abandoned street. However it didn’t look very abandoned anymore. There were hundreds of people talking and laughing. The mood was really good. Everyone was talking about their previous jobs and their old lives. Everyone was sharing what little they had. This was when Trip noticed that this organisation, Homeless United, was capable of changing lives. He had connected so many people within a day, and more people would be joining every day. Trip smiled nervously at this sight. So many people’s lives could change for better or for worse in the next couple days. If he failed them he might never be able to recover and he would be hated by thousands. However, if he succeeded he would be seen as a legendary figure in the hearts of these people.

Trip was nervous, but he was incredibly excited about the entire idea of changing people’s lives. It wasn’t even as if he cared that much for them, but he felt excited by the prospect of helping everyone. Of course he also had the motivation of helping Alesha.

Alex had walked outside with Trip, and he was also touched by the scene at hand. He had been raised to believe that the poorer class were all idiots that deserved their place in society, but now he knew the truth, and he saw that they were people as well. Alex did not much have much of a role in this revolution, other than having to teach Trip politics he did not have any job to do.

However this was perfect for him, as he now had the time to play matchmaker. He scanned the crowd to look for Alesha, so he could get them to talk. After a minute or so he found Alesha, and saw that Trip had already walked over to her. Alex wiped a tear from his eye as he thought ‘He’s grown so much.’

However Trip and Alesha were not having the conversation that Alex would expect. Trip was asking Alesha about the people at the gathering. He needed to know if there was anyone that was capable of speaking well and didn’t seem too stupid. However he was disappointed by Alesha’s report. There turned out to be no one around that was actually a decent candidate. Trip closed his eyes and thought of what to do. Eventually he gave up for the day and went to find somewhere to sleep.

When he walked into a house he found the very thing he had been looking for. He saw a young man. He was fairly handsome, tall, and had a good stature, but what was the best part was that he was reading a book. And he wasn’t reading just any book; he was reading an incredibly complex book about the supposed medicinal effects of the leaves of Spearwood trees. This book was written in an old language and it nobody could read it, meaning that there was no way for anyone to use the leaves as medicine. However this man was reading it and taking notes, slowly deciphering the text. His voice was smooth and deep. It sounded trustworthy and intelligent. It sounded like a voice that people would listen to.

Trip immediately approached the man. “Hello sir. Could I speak to you for a second?” he said

The man completely ignored him. Most people would have gotten offended, but Trip realised that the man had not even noticed that he existed yet. The man was too entranced in the book to pay attention to the outside world. Trip knew this as well. He only hoped that the man would not refuse to help him.

After an hour passed the man stretched his arms and closed his book.

“Enough for today.” He said with a sigh

At this point Trip approached him. “Hello sir. Could I speak to you for a second?”

The man looked at Trip for a second before saying “Sure… What do you need?”

“I just have a few questions.” Trip said, smiling

The man reluctantly agreed and they began discussing things. It turned out that the man’s name was Jacob, and that he was a scholar in training, but he was dismissed from his duties a couple weeks ago, because he was ignoring other tasks in order to study the medicinal effects Spearwood tree leaves. With no money to fall back on he had to become homeless, and he was not accepted to any other colleges, because of him being broke, homeless, and being a failed student from another school. Trip admired that even in his most difficult days Jacob did not fail to spend time studying.

When Trip talked to Jacob about the idea of becoming the leader of Homeless United, but unfortunately he immediately rejected. Trip expected this to happen, and during the time that he was waiting for Jacob to finish reading his book he had thought of a solution. He would give Jacob test subjects and direct access to Spearwood trees for testing. Trip expected that Jacob probably rarely left the city. If Trip succeeded in convincing the government then he would have thousands upon thousands of leaves for Jacob to study. It also would not be difficult to convince a couple of homeless people to be test subjects.

After he told Jacob this they quickly reached an agreement. After this agreement was reached they went to have a meeting. This meeting would be only Trip, Jacob, Alex, and Alesha. From this they could all contribute to making a good plan to make sure that their goal would be achieved.

The meeting was slightly awkward in the beginning for Jacob. He was surrounded by a 3 young children, and he was supposed to have an intelligent conversation with them in order to change an entire city. After a while he realised that these were no ordinary children, everyone there was incredibly intelligent and understanding. Whenever Trip spoke Jacob was truly shocked. Jacob could barely believe that someone like Trip could exist. For a ten year old to be able to hold a full conversation with a scholar (in training) was truly incredible.

During the meeting they discussed the actions that they would take from here on. They decided that they had to make sure that every homeless person knew of this organisation. So they sent a bunch of people to put posters all over the large homeless areas in the city advertising the group. They also had to make sure that they weren’t discovered while they were still in their early stages, because then the government would be able to deal with them very quickly. They decided that they made it as if the posters looked like nothing to any police or guards, but were recognisable by homeless people. Alesha told them that there were several secret signs that homeless people used for certain activities so they decided that they would use these. And then they went on to discuss Jacobs unveiling as the leader of Homeless United.

They decided to wait two days until the unveiling, so as many homeless people as possible saw it happening. They also moved to a different location to avoid and guards or police from the city and in order to fit the large number of people.

They day of the unveiling was a magnificent event. Because of all the advertising over 5,000 homeless people came to the event. There would be more, but there wasn’t enough space. During these two days Trip had asked Grelin to help him teach Alesha how to use basic wind magic. From this Alesha had learned just about enough to push the sound of Jacobs voice over the whole crowd, so that everyone could hear it.

Everything was planned and prepared. Now it was time for the unveiling and then a motivational speech from Jacob.

Trip walked up to the podium and spoke loudly “EVERYONE! ARE YOU READY FOR A REVOLUTION!? ARE YOU PREPARED TO FIGHT FOR CHANGE!? I KNOW A MAN WHO IS READY TO CHANGE THIS CITY! EVERYONE MEET THE NEW LEADER OF HOMELESS UNITED, JACOB TILLER!”

Everyone started to cheer incredibly loudly. Sending a message to the people of the Cuvin.

Immediately as they started to cheer, a handsome Jacob Tiller walked onto the stage. He was made slightly dirtier than normal in order to actually look homeless, otherwise he just looked like a scholar. Everyone cheered when they saw him. This was the man they wanted. Young, smart, handsome, trustworthy, before he even spoke these were everyone’s first thoughts. Jacob smiled as he rested his intelligent and calm eyes on the crowd.

He then began to speak.