Precarious

Chapter 11

"How exactly do you know so much about the Mafia, Layla?"

"Oh, well I just watch YouTube videos and read articles about it. Some of my ancestors were in Chicago during the time Al Capone lived. My great-grandfather wrote in his journal that he obtained alcohol from Al Capone's illegal booze trade. And the best part is that he never got caught by the authorities!"

"Wait, the mafia traded alcohol?"

"Yeah. I don't know the full story, but there was something about banning alcohol in the entire country."

"Prohibition, that's what it was called."

"Oh yeah, I remember learning about that back in middle school. I feel bad for the people who were no longer allowed to go to the bar to drown their sorrows. Whoever decided that banning alcohol was a good idea must've been sick in the head! I'm pretty sure that the people who made that law drank alcohol at least once in their life!"

Out of everything that I learned about the Mafia today, learning that they traded alcohol surprised me the most. I knew that during the 1920s, there was something called prohibition which made alcohol illegal. The government believed that alcohol was the main cause of peoples' problems so they created the 18th amendment which prohibited alcohol from being made and distributed. A decade and three years later, the 21st amendment was created and it repealed the 18th amendment, so consuming and producing alcohol became legal again.

I knew that the Mafia was centered around doing things that were illegal, but it never crossed my mind that they would trade alcohol. But it probably was expected ‐ after all, everyone says that forbidden fruit tastes sweeter. I guess that concept also applied to alcohol and the Mafia took advantage of it. While I was researching Al Capone, I remembered coming across something about him paying the authorities to let him handle his illegal alcohol trading.

"As much as I like working on this topic, do you think that we should research something else in case this backfires? Like, should we record another presentation and send it to the teacher as a backup? It's going to require extra work, but at least we'll have something to present in case our original topic fails."

"Sure, I guess. What do you want to research as a backup?"

"How about we talk about Italian heritage and genetics? That's not something common and it's pretty safe to research. I think that the class would be really interested in learning about it. I'm pretty sure that some kids in our class are Italian so they'll probably want to pay more attention."

"That's a good idea. Especially with the fact that there's Italian students. I think that some of them would be interested in learning about their heritage. I also heard that Italian is the language of love! I even have a book dedicated to talking about Italian genes. It comes in handy sometimes."

"You have a book about Italian genetics? Where did you get it from? Third, what does Italian being the language of love have to do with our project?"

"To answer your first question, obviously I have a book about Italian genetics. Second, Skylar gave it to me after she finished her project about studying different genetics. After all, she wants to become a scientist. Third, it's a bonus fact to impress our teacher. You know, I'm convinced that she has a crush on Mr. Cosa, the other Italian teacher. If we could get them together, then she would probably be less grouchy."

"Are you sure about trying to get her together with Mr. Cosa? What if he's married? Or what if he isn't attracted to her? Not only would that look embarrassing on our part, the teacher would probably murder us. This isn't Clueless where getting two teachers together is easy to accomplish. And even if our plan did succeed, I'm sure that the two of the them would have no issue in working together to give us more work."