Chapter One First Day and Already Over It

Transcription

Disney High
Humor/Romance
13 Chapters
Originally Published on Fanfiction.net: 05/03/12
Tiana’s trying to organize a school ball, Belle is being blackmailed, Rapunzel’s a
home-schooled girl in way over her head, and Mulan can’t seem to make the
athletics team…and that’s not even half of the students’ problems. High school: It’s
no fairy tale.
(Names are each hyperlinked to their own websites on either Fanfiction.net or
DeviantArt)
Author: Constance Faye Dyer
Edited and Formatted by: OrandeArt
Cover Image: Disney high: Sophomore Class by Nina-D-Lux
Table of Contents
Hyperlinks to each chapter are listed below.
Author’s Note.............................................................................................................................. 4
Chapter One First Day and Already Over It .................................................................... 9
Chapter Two School Libraries Are Not Pleasant Places ............................................ 31
Chapter Three After School Drama.................................................................................. 48
Chapter Four That Damn School Notice Board ........................................................... 70
Chapter Five Chance Encounters ...................................................................................... 96
Chapter Six Call Me, Beep Me, If You Want to Reach Me .................................... 116
Chapter Seven Winnie the Pooh Band-Aids .............................................................. 137
Chapter Eight Admiral Douche Reporting For Duty ............................................... 159
Chapter Nine 1001 Positions? ........................................................................................ 183
Chapter Ten Curse You, Taylor Swift! ........................................................................... 202
Chapter Eleven This Muffin is Stale .............................................................................. 231
Chapter Twelve Chips, Dip, and Rock and Roll ......................................................... 254
Chapter Thirteen All Good in the Hood ...................................................................... 285
Author’s Note
Hey guys, another fic I’m starting! Which is properly poor form since I already
have three other stories I should really get around to writing more and my schedule
is as hectic as ever. But this idea of Disney characters in high school has taken over
my brain recently and I just need to write it.
I’m basically taking a lot of the themes from the movie, and loosely adapting
some of the story lines for individual characters and twisting them to fit a modern
high school setting. As well as seeing how the different characters from different
movies would interact together (haha). Now I have no idea if there are a ton of other
Disney high school fics out there, which I bet there probably is, if I actually went
looking for them, but I started the ideas for this fic from when I wanted to actually
draw the princesses in normal high school wear for my DeviantArt page. I made the
stories up in my head as I went along and developed it from there, so if any of my
ideas are actually total clichés or happen to be the same as any other Disney AU fic,
then sorry but that was completely unintentional.
I’m not really planning on have a main character for this story, instead sharing
time almost equally between characters. Even though Jasmine is the opening for the
whole story, she won’t be focused on more than any of the other girls.
Also, I just wanted to add a quick guide to what years I’ll be putting the
characters in, since they won’t all be in the same grade.
Sophomores: Second
years
Juniors: Third years
Seniors: Fourth years
Cinderella
Flynn
Jasmine
Aurora
Phoebus
Ariel
Snow White
Aladdin
Mulan
Phillip
Tiana
Rapunzel
Charming
Naveen
Belle
Eric
Esmeralda
Adam/beast
Shang
Pocahontas
Quasimodo
Author’s Note
So those are the basic kind of groups. They’ll mostly stay quite separate, just
since having every character have some sort of relationship with everyone else would
just get so messy and way too over the top in establishing connections and such, and
it’s just unnecessary. So sorry if you wanted to see Pocahontas go shopping with
snow white, that’s not going to happen.
This is also where I should mention that all canon pairing are happening, no
fear! So don’t worry about your favorite pairing being split into different grades, I
have plans. So for instance, you won’t have Ariel be in any class scenes with Eric, but
that doesn’t mean they won’t get scenes together, it’ll just happen in some other
way.
I have a feeling some people might not like that I made Snow White quite
snarky. Please don’t jump the gun and think I’m making her some mean girl! She
really is a great friend and a nice person. I just feel like the movie personality… isn’t
much of a personality. I mean she’s just this… singing little wholesome ball of
niceness. I’d say it’s a product of its time. You know, back in the day where perfect,
little sweet innocent women who cooked and sang and were ever so sweet and
perfect were the ideal. So I want her to be a nice, wholesome girl to most of the
world and quite the sarcastic little minx to those who really know her. Some might
not like it, but I think she balances out the sweet and naïve Aurora and the shy,
somewhat awkward Cinderella. I want some sass in the mix with those three, and
Snow White is the vessel for that sass.
Also, as a little guide I’m going to list all the faculty members at Disney high,
so you can keep up with teachers as well. Because being a teacher doesn’t leave you
out of the lime light (haha).
Author’s Note
Teachers
Jafar: Upper school Physics; also
takes a sophomore home room class
Hades: Ancient History
Frollo (Hunchback of Notre Dame):
History and English
Mrs. Potts: Home Ec
Cruella Deville: fashion and textiles;
also takes a juniors home room
classmates
Gepetto (Pinocchio): Wood shop
Anita Radcliffe (101 Dalmatians):
English
Hercules: Upper school Sports; also
takes a senior home room class
Shan Yu (Mulan): Math
Kida: Upper school sports
Jim Hawkins (Treasure Planet): Lower
School Science
Helga Sinclair (Blonde lady from
Atlantis): Lower School Sports
Milo Thatch: Foreign Languages
Doctor Sweets (Atlantis): in charge of
the School sick bay
Jane Porter: Art
Clopin (Hunchback of Notre Dame):
Drama
Tarzan: Janitor/groundskeeper
Megara: Library assistant
Rodger Radcliffe (101 Dalmatians):
Music
And yes, I have actually created working timetables for all the characters with
set classes and teachers so I can keep track of who’s in whose class with each other
and such.
I mean it’s not like bothering to do that is pedantic and little obsessive and an
indicator that I literally have nothing better to do with my life, right?
Right?
I’m going to enjoy writing about Meg and Jane. They will be the main teachers
who get their own stories told, with Kida tagging along too. These three, plus Milo,
Hercules, Jim and Tarzan are all roughly in their twenties, so quite young teachers
(and library assistant in Meg’s case). They have a little teacher’s lounge clique. And
anyone who claims I am making teachers sound a little immature; guys, I assure you.
Twenty-something year olds are literally still this immature. When I was fourteen I
used to think people had their shit together and magically became a mature, wise
adult when they hit twenty. Jesus Christ that is so untrue I laugh.
Oh, and if your favorite Disney character isn’t listed above, then sorry but they
won’t be having any major plot lines revolve around them. I might name drop them
Author’s Note
in, like I did with Megara up there earlier, but they won’t be central characters. Also
expect a lot of villains to pop up as teachers and what not (haha). Another thing to
be said about Villains is they won’t actually be, well, evil. They might be bad teachers
and whatnot but the most evil thing they’ll do is give out detentions. I’m not going
to have Frollo tie Esmeralda to a bon fire because she didn’t hand in her homework
on time.
Also, a rather important note, not everyone’s parents are dead. Aladdin will
have parents, they won’t be mentioned much, but he’s not an orphan. Same with
Flynn and Quasimodo. If the character has one parent, then I’ll mostly just refer to
them and avoid the fact that I don’t really bring up the other one. Since hey, it would
be a bit fuss to have most of your students at a high school are missing one parent
or both. That would start raising eyebrows. Plus in this story, I’m making Gothel
Rapunzel’s biological mother, it’s just easier and she’s more developed as a character
than her actual movie parents, and I don’t want to start any plot lines about missing
parents since I want to keep this fic light and fun. I know most of you really won’t
care about all this parent business very much, but I’m just clearing it up now in case
you were wondering at all.
If you have any other questions, feedback, constructive criticism, or you just
want to say a quick compliment, please feel free to leave it in a review; I appreciate
every single one I get!
And now I’m going to talk about Disney High stories in general for a moment.
There are a lot of them; this is just one of many. They’re all so varied and we all have
different ideas but still, I guess it’s hard to stand out. I haven’t read any other story
the whole way through, but I’ve read chapters here and there and there’s some really
great stuff happening. I guess I just worry mines not good enough, that I’m not
including enough characters or I’m not being as imaginative or I’m not writing the
personalities well. I am a worrier by nature and I also have a desire to have everyone
approval 100% of the time from everyone ever. I know all I can do is my best and
have faith in my own ideas but mostly I just want to write a story that people like
reading. I want to entertain you guys and I want to make it the best it can be! So
really, constructive criticism is what I want I guess. I want to know what my writing
style is like; do I explain the scene well enough? Do the character’s actions and
dialogue seem natural? Do my lame attempts at humor actually make anyone laugh?
I’m so sorry to everyone who has waited patiently, I don’t want to make lame
excuses: but here are my lame excuses.
Author’s Note
Life has been hectic lately. The last few months have seen me struggling with
my graphic design course, homework, assignments, really struggling with tafe classes
then really struggling with homework and assignments. Which all led to me actually
dropping out due to the fact that I found out my courses illustration unit has been
cut by half just this year, something I did not know as I blindly followed on to get my
diploma, then finding out it doesn’t even lead to an illustration course next year
either, so I questioned why I was even there if I was struggling, wasn’t enjoying it and
it wasn’t taking me anywhere I wanted to be. So yes, I am a de-enrolled student (it
sounds classier than dropout) but at least I still get to keep my certificate so I have a
qualification.
Cue me looking for proper jobs on top of my casual job, trying to start a blog
for my illustrations in order to get freelance work, starting to exercise, organizing my
mess of a life in general and yeah. BUT YEAH EXCUSES.
Chapter One
First Day and Already Over It
Summer vacation. Two blissful words that hold so much promise. Endless
weeks of nothing but sun, surf, and hanging out with your
friends. The best movies are out at the cinema, the malls
are packed, and the beaches are heaven. Even if you
don’t go out, you get to sleep in late every day, watch
as much TV as you want and spend as much time as
you want on facebook without feeling guilty about
neglecting any homework. Yes, summer vacation is bliss to
any teenager.
But all good things have to end, and another
school year has to start.
Now most kids awoke this morning with tear
stained pillows at the thought of going back to Disney
High, but personally, Jasmine was eager to step back
into the place. Not that she’d ever admit that, I
mean no self respecting teenager would ever
admit to missing school, but she couldn’t help
but smile as her chauffeur driven car finally
pulled up outside the school’s front entrance.
And yes, you did read that right; she did have a
chauffeur driven car. Jasmine had to beg and plead to
her father to have her sent to a ‘normal’ high school,
instead of some stuffy, private, wear-a-collared-blazerwith-a-hideously-colored-tie kind of school. You know, the
kind of school the most obscenely wealthy parents send
their kids. Not to say her father hadn’t tried, Jasmine was
sent to a very prestigious elementary school, and to say she
hated it was an understatement. The uniforms were stifling,
the teachers mean and the kids were so well behaved they
were practically brain washed robots. It was so confining.
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Not that she had much more freedom at home. If her father had his way, she’d
be locked up in the vast family mansion without even stepping out in the front
garden. He’d even had a home cinema, indoor pool, and a bowling alley installed in
their house just to encourage her to not go out. He seriously took the “overprotective parent” role to the extremes, even if he did do it out of love. It was still
annoying to no end.
This brings us to the reason why Jasmine loves her basic, normal high school
so much: the freedom. She can hang out with normal kids, wear whatever clothes she
wants, and muck around in class. Yes, there was enough gum stuck under chairs to
stock an entire super market supply for a week. And sure, every desk had someone’s
initials carved into it. She’s also pretty sure she saw a rat once in the school
cafeteria… But when it came down to it, school was her favorite place to be.
“Whoa, coming through!”
Jasmine gasped and quickly jumped back as a boy with jet-black hair whizzed
by her on his skateboard, missing her by mere inches.
“Ugh, watch it jerk!” she glared after him but he’d already turned the corner.
He probably hadn’t heard her anyway since he had a pair of those obnoxiously retro
looking headphones jammed over his ears.
Jasmine managed to make it into the building and to her locker without any
more close-call collisions, but just as she was checking the small mirror she had
hanging on her locker door she felt herself being tackled from behind.
“Jasmine!”
“Ariel!” Jasmine turned around to hug her friend, only slightly winded from the
enthusiastic greeting. “Oh my god, I’ve missed you! I haven’t seen you all summer.
How was your vacation?”
Ariel immediately begun to gush, “It was AH-mazing, Daddy rented out this
entire suite of the hotel for just me and my sisters and we were literally right next to
the beach! I went every single day; I don’t think there was a moment where I was out
of my bikini! Well except for when I was, like, sleeping and whatever because that’d
be gross to sleep in your swimwear. And oh yeah, I got you a present!” She reached
around in her backpack and pulled out a crinkled looking plastic bag. “They’re shells!
There were so many lying around the beaches, I collected a ton,” she said, handing
over the bag to her friend.
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Jasmine took it, trying to muster up a convincing smile, “Ooh…thanks Ariel.
They’re so, um, cool.” She had a quick look in the bag and an overpowering smell of
stale salty water hit her. There was sand pooled in the bottom of the band along with
little bits of seaweed still in there.
”You didn’t clean this since you picked them up,
did you?”
“Uh, no . . . should I have?”
“Never mind, thanks so much. I love them,”
Jasmine smiled as her friends face lit up. A little white
lie was worth that. The two girls had been friends
since their very first week here when they’d both
realized they had so much in common in one
science class. Both came from rich over
protective families, harbored a love for travel,
and they both had a secret addiction to sappy
romance novels.
“So what’s new with you?” Ariel asked as
both girls started heading to their home-room
class.
“Well I was almost run over by a rogue
skateboarder this morning,” Jasmine scoffed, “I
hope he knows he can’t even be riding that thing
around the school grounds.”
“Yeah, no kidding,” Ariel managed to look
sympathetic before her eyes darted over to
another set of lockers across the hall. “Hey…this
rogue skateboarder, he didn’t happen to be that
guy did he?” she pointed over to the dark haired,
head-phone wearing ‘rogue’ as he stood twisting
in his locker combination with his back to them.
“Uh, yeah that’s him, why?” But when
Jasmine saw the sneaky smile that had spread
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across her friends face, she made an informed guess, “Oh. It’s that Eric guy isn’t it?”
“Yes!” Ariel practically squealed.
Jasmine fought the urge to roll her eyes. It started last year, Ariel had started
telling her all about this ‘insanely cool’ guy in the year above them, and she’d had to
sit through countless facebook conversations about just how insanely cool he was.
She hadn’t even met him at school, apparently they’d both been at the same public
pool one Saturday and this Eric guy obviously wasn’t a strong swimmer as he’d
started to go under, but Ariel had jumped in and swam him to the edge of the pool.
Barely a life or death situation but Ariel made it sound like an episode of Baywatch,
where their eyes met and he thanked her for saving his life. When Ariel found out
they went to the same school she’d made it her mission to make this guy her
boyfriend, but as far as Jasmine knew the guy hadn’t even said a passing hello to her
since that day at the pool complex.
“Isn’t he so cool,” Ariel sighed, gazing at him.
Eric grabbed what looked like a half empty bottle of Powerade from his locker
that must’ve been sitting there since last semester and took a swig, pulled a face,
before chucking the bottle back in the locker and slamming the door shut and riding
away on his skateboard. Ariel’s eyes were still glued to him until he turned the corner
out of sight.
Jasmine could not see the appeal.
“I really don’t see the appeal.”
Ariel just shrugged as the two continued walking, “Well, that’s to be
expected.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t see the appeal in any guy. You think they’re all dirty, badly dressed
slackers with only one thing on their mind.”
“Hey, that’s not true!” Jasmine said defensively. “I didn’t say that about all
guys…just the ones that go to this school”
And there it was, the one factor that made Jasmine’s high school escape less
than awesome (besides from homework that is), boys. Not that Jasmine was a vain
girl, but she knew she was pretty, although she still did not understand how that
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could turn so many guys into drooling idiots while in her presence. She hated the
looks they gave her as she walked down the halls, all the cheesy pick up lines they
tried to use on her, the old bent out of shape cars they drove past her in, honking
their horns. Did they really think any of this would impress her? Trust me, no girl is
impressed when you slide up next to her in the cafeteria and offer to take her out for
a pizza when she already knows it’s because its half price pizza Tuesday. No, Jasmine
had already made up her mind; she would only date a guy if he met up to a very
simple list of requirements that she’d neatly written down in her diary. Some of the
more important requirements on the list included:
1. From a good family
2. Exceptional manners
3. Good teeth
5. Owns a car
7. Nicely styled hair
12. Captain of some sort of sports team and/or school club
18. Perfect grades
27. Must be a generous tipper
34. Doesn’t dance like a dork
47. Not into heavy metal music
50. Her cat raja had to like him
And he totally has to respect her status as an independent woman and value
her for her mind and soul, not just her body. That was important too.
Oh, and he shouldn’t expect to get anywhere past first base for at least six
months of steady dating.
It wasn’t Jasmines fault for having high standards; it was the male student
population of Disney High’s fault that they couldn’t measure up to them. She also
made a mental note to add, ‘no drinking of two month old energy drinks,’ to the list
as well.
Ariel couldn’t help but laugh, “Whatever, if you want to be single your entire
high school life that’s just fine, can’t stop me though!”
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Chapter One
The girls just made it to homeroom on time when the bell rang, but no
student was sitting down. Their home room teacher for the year obviously hadn’t
shown up yet since everyone was still running over to friends they hadn’t seen in
months, swapping stories of the summer, commenting on peoples new haircuts,
clothes, etc, etc.
“Hey guys, over here!”
Jasmine and Ariel looked over to see their other best friend, Mulan, waving to
them.
“Oh my god Ariel, I haven’t seen you since you went away,” the small Asian girl
said as she grabbed her friend for a hug.
“Ha, that’s just what Jasmine said. Did I mention I missed you both so much?
Because I so did!” All three girls gave each other soppy looks before going in for a
group hug. “Oh, and before I forget I got you a present Mulan-” but before Ariel had
a chance to reach into her bag and pull out more shells the classroom door burst
open.
Every student’s head whipped around to the teacher that just walked in, and if
you listened closely, you could collectively hear every persons heart drop into their
stomachs in fear.
“I’ll give them to you at break,” Ariel whispered behind her hand to Mulan as
the girls and the rest of the class scattered back to their seats in silence.
“Good morning students” said the cold, uninterested voice that came from the
imposing figure of the man in the doorway.
The students sunk lower into their chairs. “Good morning Mr. Jafar,” they all
chorused together flatly.
“Okay, let’s get this over with,” he said as he walked in and dumped a heap of
papers and files onto the desk at the front of the class. “I know you don’t want to be
here, and you should know that I especially don’t want to be here either. But, it looks
like I’m stuck here for another year since my application for a proper job didn’t go
through so I have the luck of still being a teacher. Joy, oh joy,” Jafar spat out bitterly.
The students all exchanged glances. Mr. Jafar was well known throughout the
school as one of the most unforgiving, sarcastic, child-hating, bad-grade-giving
teachers on the faculty. It was lucky he was only a physics teacher though, so he only
Chapter One
took senior classes, which left younger students free of the worry of getting him on
their timetable. But by some kind of cruel twist of fate the three girls were now stuck
with him for homeroom every morning for a year. Joy, oh joy indeed.
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Aladdin hated school offices. They were all the same. Shiny linoleum floors
that made that horrible squeaky noise as you walked across it in your sneakers. A
front desk with some dumpy school secretary sitting behind it with some outdated
hairstyle and glasses that had that stupid looking chain hanging off them. Aladdin
was sitting on the old saggy couch right across from this desk, with the principal’s
door just down a short hallway, as well as some other, less important, offices down
there as well.
How many times had he been in this position? New school, new surroundings,
new students but somehow it was always the same. The first bell had already rung
but he still had to sit here and wait to be called into the principal’s office, get his
timetable, map of the school, and the cafeteria menu. As well as a rousing speech
from the principal about welcoming him to the school and how they hope he’ll find
his time here enjoyable, not that he hasn’t heard that a thousand times before. He
looked up at the clock on the wall. Apparently there was another new transfer
student getting the same introduction right now, so he was forced to wait his turn.
He’d tried starting a game of temple run on his phone but as soon as he’d taken the
thing out of his pocket the secretary behind the desk hissed at him to put it away or
else it would be confiscated. Lame.
Just as Aladdin thought he was about to die from boredom, the door to the
office burst open and a student from the hall came staggering in. He clutched at his
stomach, groaning in pain, taking slow staggering steps towards the secretary’s desk
before practically collapsing in front of it
“Oh god-” the boy gasped out between gritted teeth “…the pain…the pain!”
Aladdin stared wide-eyed in silence at the guy but the secretary looked
unimpressed. She stared down over the rim of her glasses with a blank face.
“Impressive Mr. Ryder, only ten minutes into a new school year and you’ve
already been stricken with another mystery illness. What is it this time, a virus?
Chapter One
Football to the stomach? Some type of deadly strain of bacteria you picked up at a
cheap sushi place?”
“Worse, my appendix… I… I think its bursting and-AAUURRRGGGH!” He let out
a theatrical sounding scream as he doubled over on the floor clutching at his
stomach. “Quick, get a medic! There’s not much time!”
The secretary sighed with impatience “Flynn, cut the crap, you already used
the burst appendix last year when you wanted to get out of your midyear biology
test.”
Flynn paused briefly. “Oh…umm…I think my other appendix is bursting!” he
said, moving his hands to clutch at the other side of his stomach. “Urrggghhhh” he
let out another, less than convincing groan of agony.
“You do realize you only have one appendix right? Maybe if you’d actually
taken that biology test you’d know that.”
Flynn knew when he was beaten. He stood up without another word and
dusted off his jeans before pulling a twenty from his pocket and slamming it down
onto the table. “Look Muriel, you’re a smart lady, I’ll give you that, and as a smart
lady maybe you’ll notice a good deal when it comes your way”, he gestured down to
the twenty. “What do you care if I don’t receive a well rounded education, it’s my last
year to even try and get a decent one since I’ve failed so far, so when you think
about it I’m a lost cause. So this ‘lost cause’ would really appreciate it if you could
just fill out a sick form so I can go back home and play Call of Duty, eat the leftover
pizza rolls in my fridge, and watch old re-runs of Law and Order.”
The two stared each other down as Aladdin watched on. The secretary’s eyes
flicked down towards the twenty on the table, then back up to Flynn. She paused
another second before snatching it up into her well-manicured fingers and stuffing it
into her pocket.
“… I’ll go get the form,” she said coldly, breezing out from behind her desk
and shuffling off down the hallway.
Flynn smiled to himself, “Nice.”
It was then that he turned around and finally seemed to notice Aladdin sitting
there.
Chapter One
”Oh, hey,” he said casually, as if he hadn’t just faked a serious illness and then
bribed a teacher. Little did Aladdin know this was practically a usual day for Flynn
Ryder.
“Hey,” Aladdin nodded back. “That was… impressive, if
anything.”
“Ha, yeah, good old Muriel. We go all the way back to
freshman year. You know she actually used to fall for my old
tricks? Guess I made her jaded over the years… oh well. I’m Flynn
by the way.”
“Aladdin.”
“So you’re new? I don’t recognize you,” Flynn asked.
“Yeah,” Aladdin smiled bleakly.
“Hey, don’t worry about it, this school’s fine. Just as
hellish as your average high school, no worse.”
“Thanks for the words of encouragement,” he
managed to laugh.
Flynn took a seat on top of the secretary’s desk, picking
up a small ornamental snow globe and throwing it in the air
like a ball and catching it again. “So did you move towns or…?”
“No I, uh, got expelled from my last school…” Aladdin
trailed off.
“Woah,” Flynn said, sounding a little impressed, “What
for?”
“Well, technically for stealing school supplies-”
Flynn let out a low whistle.
“-but that’s not as bad as it sounds. I was only
scamming the lunch ladies into giving me free lunches… but
the school got all bent out of shape when they realized I’d
been doing that for two straight years.”
Chapter One
Flynn couldn’t help himself and let out a bark of laughter, “Out of all the shit
you could steal in a school, you go for the crappy cafeteria food? Oh man, that’s
funny.”
“Hey! I don’t know about this place but those old lunch ladies used to make a
mean lasagna!” But this only made Flynn laugh harder.
“What? You got expelled over lasagna! Are you being serious?” and eventually
Aladdin started laughing too. He’d never thought of it like that.
The two boys were laughing so hard they didn’t even hear the principal’s
office click open.
Flynn eventually settled down but still had a smile on his face. “Man, all this
talk about food makes me hungry. If I hadn’t used my last twenty bucks to bribe
myself out of here, I would totally go get a lasagna right now”
“Ahem.”
Both boys jumped as the Principal of Disney High appeared from right behind
them.
“I’m sorry, what was that Mr. Ryder? Something about bribing yourself out of
here, if I heard right?”
“I… um… crap”
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“Look, sir, I can totally explain. You see-”
“Please, save it, Flynn.”
Flynn shut himself up.
The Principal of Disney High, Mr. Walt, was a good principal. He was a nice,
fair man and students actually liked him. Like just now he’d had Flynn step out with
him into the hall, so he wouldn’t have to be lectured to in front of that new kid,
Aladdin, you know, something only a decent teacher would do to save a student
some humiliation. Even Flynn, who it would seem just naturally had a bad report with
Chapter One
anybody with a teaching degree thought so too. Of course Flynn didn’t know how
fair Mr. Walt would be now…
Mr. Walt sighed, “I give you chance after chance Flynn-”
“Every one of them appreciated, of course.”
“When you were absent from thirty two classes your second semester of
freshman year, who still allowed you to go to the end of year dance?”
“…You did sir”
“And that time you broke that window in the library; did I make you pay for its
replacement?”
“In my defense, I was aiming that encyclopedia at a freshman, not the
window.”
“And when you ‘accidentally’ let off those firecrackers in the boys rest rooms,
did I tell the school board about it?”
“I was only trying to celebrate Chinese New Year.”
“And that time you set your chemistry teachers lab coat on fire with a Bunsen
burner as a ‘joke’?”
“Someone should have warned me those things were so flammable, how was I
supposed to know?”
Mr. Walt sighed again and suddenly looked very tired. “I’m beginning to think
I’ve given you too many chances Flynn.”
Flynn suddenly seemed worried. Yes, he hated school, the place sucked. But
he couldn’t get expelled! His parents would kill him. Plus, he needed to get to college
at least, living away from home, wild parties… loose college women! He needed to
get there, and even if he just passed high school by the bare minimum, he needed to
graduate and get to college.
“Please, please, pleeease Mr. Walt, you know under this tough, rugged exterior
beats the heart of a troubled boy eager to learn!” Flynn put on his most earnestly
tragic face and clapped his hands together, begging. “Please don’t give up on me Mr.
Walt, I’m a good kid, really. Just give me one more chance. Just believe in me, have
some faith, root for the little guy, love and let love-”
Chapter One
Mr. Walt let out a light chuckle while shaking his head. “That’s what I think I
like about you Flynn, you always manage to make me laugh.”
Flynn allowed a small smile to creep onto his face but Mr. Walt quickly turned
serious again and looked him in the eye. “Look, I know you’re a good kid deep, deep
down. I just need you to show that. I really want you to try this year, do some good
for the school.” It was then that Mr. Walt seemed to have a little twinkle in his eye.
“Actually… I have an idea for what you could do.”
“Anything, you name it. Want me to clean dishes in the cafeteria? Because I’ll
totally do that, even if the lunch ladies are way creepy and constantly smell like
potato salad even when they’re not serving potato salad.”
“No Flynn, much different from that. There’s a new student here at Disney
High and they’re going to need a… hmm, what’s a good word for it, a mentor? Kind
of like a guide, to teach them about life at our school here, help them to settle in.”
“Oh, yeah?” Flynn said, a little surprised, “I mean I’ve already met Aladdin just
then and he seems cool, so I’m cool with that-”
“What?” Mr. Walt interrupted him, “Oh, no, no. Not Aladdin, another new
student, younger actually.”
Flynn groaned, “Aw man, come on Mr. Walt, a freshmen? They’re all new
anyway and they do just fine.”
“Let me finish. They’re not a freshman either but I guess, well, there are certain
circumstances around this student that makes their case a little… special,” Mr. Walt
sounded like he was choosing his words carefully. Flynn looked worried.
“What makes them…special? He doesn’t have a disease or something weird,
does he?”
“No don’t be silly, no diseases or deformities thank you very much. And
actually, it’s a she.”
Flynn suddenly changed tune completely.
“A she, huh? Is she hot?”
Mr. Walt looked unimpressed, “We’ll have none of that. She’s a sweet young
girl so don’t get any ideas.”
Chapter One
“…So, she’s not hot.”
Mr. Walt pretended he didn’t hear. “See, she needs some kind of guide for the
school basically because she’s never actually been to a school before. She’s been
home schooled by her mother her whole life. It’ll only be for a few weeks anyway,
until she’s settled in.”
“Urgh, home schooled kids are weird,” Flynn sneered.
“Flynn.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it! No complaints, looking forward to it, thank you for this
opportunity, etcetera, etcetera…” Flynn mumbled unenthusiastically while Mr. Walt
smiled.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Flynn was led back through the office and into the Mr. Walt’s private
principal’s office, his arms folded. This was going to be so lame, looking after some
dorky little, home schooled, un-hot“Flynn, I’d like you to meet Rapunzel. Rapunzel, meet your new guide to
Disney High,” Mr. Walt beamed enthusiastically.
“Um, hi there. Nice to meet you,” Rapunzel said, smiling shyly. She got up
from one of the principals chairs she’d been sitting in and brushed a stray piece of
her short brown hair from out of her face.
“Yeah, nice to meet you too,” Flynn started mumbling, looking absentmindedly down at his scuffed sneakers. But when he looked up, he blinked.
She was hot.
“Ahem, very nice to meet you, actually.” He flashed his teeth in his most
winning smile, immediately sidling up to the small girl and grabbing her hand in his.
“Don’t worry, I’ll ensure your time at Disney high is the best experience you’ll ever
have,” and he completed his greeting with his (practically) world famous ‘smoulder’
which no girl could resist.
Rapunzel paused, looking slightly taken a back. “Umm…thank you?” she
laughed nervously.
Chapter One
Mr. Walt stood of to the side as she watched the two. He hoped he didn’t live
to regret this.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
History class was never an exciting class. Well, at least not at this school, not
with the head of the history department, Mr. Frollo, around. The man was old, cranky,
and had been working at this school far longer than any other faculty member. There
were rumors he was actually an un-dead vampire who had been a firsthand witness
to the historical events he taught about. It was also said that occasionally he would
snatch a student from the halls and devour them in the teachers’ lounge if they
couldn’t recite all forty-four American presidents in order of election. This was mostly
told to freshman students though just for fun. Sometimes he was a zombie too. His
droning voice actually gave a little credit to that particular rumor, and at only ten
minutes into the incredibly dull class, two girls sat at the back of the class whispering
under their breath.
“I can’t do this.”
“You’re fine, stop complaining.”
“Another year in this place…”
“It’s your last year though, got to make the most of it.”
“So much homework… I’m sick of the teachers… sick of studying-”
“You barely study anyway.”
“I want to go home.”
“Esmeralda, if you’re going to be like this the whole day, go sit in another seat
that’s not next to mine, okay?” Pocahontas looked down at her best friend, who had
her head face down on the desk. She mumbled something incoherently which may
or may not have been a string of curse words.
Esmeralda wasn’t a morning person. She wasn’t much of an A grade student
either. Didn’t study, didn’t listen to the teacher. Hell, it was a good day if she even
bothered to bring a pen to class. No, Esmeralda was a girl who lived for the weekend,
a party girl if you will. She was invited to every one of the coolest party’s since her
Chapter One
sophomore year, ever since she got up on the pool table at Megara’s party and did a
bit of dancing aided by the cue stick, even throwing some of the more memorable
ones. If anything school was considered more of a recuperation period between each
wild weekend. If it weren’t for her other best friend, Quasimodo, sitting on her other
side letting her borrow his textbook at this current
moment, it was doubtful she would have ever made it
this far in school. While not the brightest of students,
at least he put in the work, and was always there to
lend notes to Esmeralda when she would undoubtedly
come begging for help the night before a big test
which she of course hadn’t even opened
the textbook for.
“-And if you skip to page 45 in your
book, we will begin this year’s history course by
studying King Henry the Eighth. Quasimodo, if
you could volunteer to start reading the first
paragraph out loud-”
But just as Quasimodo stood up
with his book about to open his mouth,
another student shot up his hand.
“Um, sir, my textbook isn’t right.”
“…What exactly do you mean?” Mr. Frollo asked
the boy, his voice never changing from it dull pitch and his
face still set in a mix of boredom and contempt: the face of a
man who had to deal with too many stupid teenagers over the
years.
Phoebus held up his textbook and pointed to the title
on the page, “Mine doesn’t say Henry the Eighth, just some
Henry with a V and three I’s next to it, what’s with that?”
There was a small ripple of laughter through the class
but Frollo looked at the blonde haired boy without saying
anything for a while with that same look on his face. He studied
the boy for a second and Phoebus tried to look as
earnestly clueless as he could, but he couldn’t help but
Chapter One
crack the tiniest of smiles. That was when Frollo raised an eyebrow, “Ah, a ‘class
clown,’ I see. One in every class. This is your first year in my class? I don’t recognize
you from the juniors?”
Phoebus deflated a little. It was only fun if the teachers actually took the bait.
“I was in Professor Hades History class last year,” he explained.
“And why are you not in his class this year?”
“…I was asked to leave his class,” Phoebus seemed to be holding in laughter as
he smiled. “Apparently making biggus dickus jokes wasn’t appropriate when learning
about ancient Roman history,” he shrugged and smiled as the rest of the class let out
a burst of laughter.
Frollo didn’t even crack a smile “Quiet,” he snapped in an icy tone. Frollo had a
solid reputation for being as fierce as he could be boring and every student quickly
shut themselves up, all turning to watch as Frollo walked calmly over to Phoebus’s
desk to stand directly in front of him. The man sneered down his nose at the boy,
“Now you listen here. I don’t tolerate ‘jokesters’. School isn’t meant to be fun, you are
here to learn and I highly doubt you can do that if your too busy trying to ‘impress’
your classmates with what, for lack of better word, we’ll call wit.”
Phoebus, as an experienced heckler of teachers, wasn’t sinking down in his
chair in complete fear like perhaps a few less-hardened freshman would, but he
didn’t exactly come back at Frollo with a snappy response either. He wasn’t stupid.
He just sat silent and Frollo seemed satisfied that the message had sunk in, if only
temporarily. “Now, if I can continue, please begin reading aloud-”
After that the class sat in silence, listening to Quasimodo recite the first
paragraph from the textbook, and then other students continue on. After twenty
minutes of bored students reading from the boring book in bored voices, Frollo
paused the class to go to the photocopier to get them their worksheets.
“I will be back in ten minutes and in that time I want you to read over pages
48 and 49,” he said sternly, knowing full well that they’ll all just immediately start
talking and/or pull out their phones and start texting, but he at least had to make it
seem like he was trying. Predictably, as soon as the classroom door shut behind him,
Phoebus whipped out his phone from his jeans pocket and saw he had one new text
message from Flynn, the exact guy who should be sitting next to him right now in
this very class. Typical, ditching first period on the first day. He really had grown used
to his best friend’s casual relationship with the institution of education. This was
Chapter One
going to be him bragging about the lame story he told the front office or about his
daring escape to the student parking lot and riding off in his beat up old scooter
without detection from any of the staff.
‘Hey man im not coming to school today cbf think ill
use the appendix bursting excuse’
Sent two hours ago. Phoebus typed a reply:
‘so howd that go?’
He got a response almost immediately.
‘oh man wild change of plans. Operation appendix
backfired and im still here fml but I totally got a chick
out of it’
Phoebus paused. Why did all of Flynn’s stories seem to end with him claiming
he got a chick out of it?
Phoebus just texted back a question mark.
’ill explain at lunch’
Just as Phoebus was re-pocketing his phone, Esmeralda
threw an eraser at the back of his head.
“You didn’t tell us you were moving to this class,” she
smirked as he turned around to face her. She was too busy
with her head down trying to drown out the classroom to
even notice him come in.
“I knew,” Quasimodo turned to join in the conversation.
“Me too,” Pocahontas nodded.
“I wanted it to be a surprise, you know how I like to
make your day,” Phoebus smirked and Esmeralda just scoffed
but couldn’t help a smile. The two had a strange friendship that
had formed out of constant taunts, sarcastic replies to everything
and the need to constantly irritate the other. It was almost routine
now.
Chapter One
Pocahontas, who had actually been briefly reading over pages 48 and 49,
smiled too. “Wow, I think it’s just dawning on me that you, Flynn, and Esmeralda will
be in the same class. I wonder how many F’s you’ll have gotten combined by the end
of the year?”
Quasimodo laughed too, “And how many detentions?”
“Hey we’re not that bad together.”
“Phoebus, remember when we were all cooking partners in Home Ec freshman
year?” Esmeralda asked. Phoebus scrunched up his face in concentration as he
obviously tried to remember, but Esmeralda continued anyway. “The cookie dough
incident?”
“Oh, that. I don’t know how that cockroach slipped into the batter when I was
mixing it, I really don’t. Good thing the teacher ate it before we did.”
“She threw up all over her desk after she saw the thing bitten in half in the
middle of her cookie”
“I know!” Phoebus laughed.
“Or when you and Flynn released those test mice you stole from the science
department in the middle of class?”
“And that girl Giselle fully freaked out and fainted? Oh my god, that was so
classic.”
“Didn’t she hit her head and have to go to hospital?” Quasimodo asked.
Phoebus shrugged, “It was still funny.”
Before any more nostalgic freshman cooking class shenanigans could be
relived, the sound of a chair being scraped back on the linoleum floor grabbed the
attention of the class as a girl stood up and walked to the front of the room.
“Um… Hi everyone, if I could just grab all of your attention for a sec?”
Phoebus fought the urge to roll his eyes and other students exchanged
glances. It was Tiana. The class president, top student, and all around perfect high
school role model. A perfectly nice girl, just a little highly strung and could possibly
benefit from taking the occasional chill pill when it came to her school work, which
Chapter One
she took very seriously (and inevitably ended showing up every other student in her
year).
”So,” she continued, having captured the class’s attention, “I was thinking,
since this is senior year and I know we all want to do our best-”
“Speak for yourself,” Esmeralda muttered under her
breath.
“-That we could form a kind of study group for
this class. I could make a facebook page which I’d all add
you on and that creates a great place for us to communicate,
like if we need help on essay topics or just want to discuss the
last class and what time things are due. I’d also get you to
write down all our numbers on a sheet of paper so we
could call each other as well-”
Phoebus leant over and whispered to
Quasimodo, “Totally just a ploy to get my number,
honestly, the lengths some girls go too.”
“-And we can meet up as a group after school
and at lunch to revise,” Tiana finished with a smile.
The whole class just looked at her, not
saying a word. Give up valuable lunchtime? Stay after
school? Not. Freaking. Likely.
“So…is anybody keen on the idea? I brought a signup
sheet?” She held up a little clipboard and green gel pen with
a frog on the end of it.
This is the exact kind of moment when you needed a
cricket chirping for comic effect.
“Aw, c’mon guys, it could be fun,” Tiana tried to urge
someone. Anyone.
“Yeah. No,” Phoebus said flatly. “The idea of a study
group that’s actually fun only happens on TV. They never
actually turn out like they do on Community.”
Chapter One
“Oh man I love that show!” Quasi drifted into the conversation. “Yeah, I
downloaded all the seasons, it’s so good.”
“Really? Can I get them off you; they’re only up to starting the second season
on tv.”
“Yeah sure I’ll bring in my hard drive tomorrow.”
“Hey, can I get them too? I’ve heard everyone say it’s good and I’ve finished
Jersey Shore so I need something new to watch,” Esmeralda joined in.
“You like that show?” Phoebus pulled a face.
“Hey, it’s entertaining, don’t judge me.”
“Too late, I’m already judging you.”
“You guys!” Tiana tried to snap back some of the focus she’d lost. “Just… come
on, it’s for your benefit”
Phoebus and Esmeralda continued to just blatantly ignore her while chattering
on about TV shows while Pocahontas tried to ignore her in a more polite way by
keeping her head down and eyes glued to her textbook like it was the most
interesting thing she’d ever encountered.
Quasimodo made the mistake of accidentally making eye contact with her.
“Quaassiii,” Tiana gushed, using the boys more commonly used nickname.
“You’ll sign up right?”
“Uuuhh,” he gaped, trying to think of some sort of excuse, but Quasimodo
had never been a very good liar. He was also hopelessly nice, so as Tiana stared him
down with her earnest smile and hopeful eyes he felt himself weakening.
“Um…I guess I coul-”
“He’s busy!” Esmeralda swooped in at the last second, interrupting them both.
She met gazes with Tiana and tried to smile sweetly. “He has a really hectic schedule
so he couldn’t possibly fit in extra study sessions, sorry.”
Quasimodo sent a silent thank you Esmeralda’s way and she raised her
eyebrows in a silent ‘you’re welcome’.
Chapter One
But Tiana wasn’t convinced. She crossed her arms over her chest “Busy, huh?”
“Yes,” Esmeralda answered sharply.
“With what?”
“…extra-curricular activities”
“Such as?”
“He… is in the…” Esmeralda tried to think quickly but Phoebus leapt in to help
too.
“School band.”
“Yeah, that’s the one. Band,” Esmeralda nodded.
”Playing what?”
Ugh, this girl couldn’t take a hint. “The… bells.”
“…The bells?”
“Yup. The bells.”
Tiana started to frown. “Hm, that’s funny
since I’ve attended every one of the school
bands concerts and I’ve never seen him
play the bells.”
Crap. Esmeralda, Phoebus, and
Quasi all looked at each other for more
ideas but they all seemed to come up
blank. Just as Quasi looked as if he was
going to throw in the towel and sign himself up,
Pocahontas finally lifted her head from her textbook.
“It’s re-recorded,” she said casually. “Quasi
actually suffers from terrible stage fright, so the band
teacher allows him to pre-record his bell playing on
audio which can then be played on a CD player along
with the band during live performances.”
Chapter One
“…Yeah. What she said.”
Tiana knew bullshit when she heard it but she also knew she wasn’t getting
anywhere with any of them. Plus, she did actually have a little respect for Pocahontas,
so she didn’t feel like arguing with her. “Ugh, fine,” she submitted.
“Nice save” Esmeralda mouthed over at her friend. Quasi just gave her thumbs
up of appreciation.
As Tiana was walking away, she passed Flynn’s empty seat. She turned back to
the group and pointed down to his seat “Hey, do you think Flynn would be
interested in-”
They all just gave her a look before she could even finish that sentence.
“…Yeah, that was a pretty dumb question wasn’t it?”
Chapter Two School
Libraries Are Not Pleasant Places
‘Faster, faster, faster, speed walk as fast as you can… Okay, nobody’s looking,
run a little bit up until the next hallway! Why is running with a backpack always so
awkward? Ooh, teacher, slow down. Act casual, don’t look them in the eye, they’ll
know you’re late. They can always tell.’
This was Cinderella’s train of thought as she hurried through the deserted
halls of Disney high. She glanced at her phone quickly to check the time. Damn,
practically the end of first period anyway, maybe she should just wait for the break
between classes rather than show up for the last five minutes of class which would
probably just be spent getting yelled at for showing up for the last five minutes of
class. Just as she was about to slip her phone back in her pocket she got a text.
‘where are you? I thought u said u were close’
It was from Aurora. She’d sent a quick text to her earlier this morning, when
she knew she’d be late, asking if she could pick up her timetable from homeroom.
The first day of a new school year wasn’t a convenient day to be late on. Luckily she’d
texted back almost immediately (It was rare Aurora didn’t have her pink, bejeweled
iPhone within at least a five meter radius of her) and the two had most of their
classes together, just like the previous two years. At least that was something to be
happy about.
‘it took longer to walk here than expected. I’m going
to wait till next class starts. See you then xoxo’
Cinderella tapped back on her phone as she hurried to the end of the corridor
to hide in the girl’s toilets until the bell rang. She didn’t have long to wait though,
after doing a quick hair and makeup check in the school mirrors (Why was there
always one stray hair that wouldn’t go where it was told?), reading some of the new
graffiti that had been scribbled on the stall doors (‘Ursula was here’), and then rifling
around in her bag looking for some tick tacks she swore she brought with her (After
dumping the entire contents of her bag out on the floor and then re-packing it all
back in again, turns out she hadn’t), the bell finally rang. She could already hear the
halls filling up again so she managed to slip out into the crowd. Cinderella quickly
Chapter Two
spotted her blonde friend, as well as Snow White, walking together out of their
classroom.
”Hey guys!” she called out.
“There she is.” Snow smiled. “Finally decided to show
up?”
“Ugh don’t even get me started, it is not my fault I
was late.”
“Did your alarm clock break or something?”
Aurora asked as the three girls navigated their way
through the busy halls.
“No, it was Drizzella and Anastasia!” Cinderella
spat as if just saying the names of her stepsisters
antagonized her. Aurora and Snow exchanged
knowing looks; they’d heard a lot of these types of
stories over the past two years of high school. “They
offered to drive me to school, well, more like my
step Mom told them to take me since Drizzella
just got a new car for her birthday over the
summer, even though she said she couldn’t
possibly afford to buy me any new clothes
for the start of school but clearly twenty
thousand dollars just pops up in time for
Drizzella’s birthday- but whatever that’s a
whole different thing. Point is: I was just stepping out
the door when they both drove off without me!”
“They didn’t!” Snow gasped.
“What the hell? That’s so rude, even for them,”
Aurora muttered.
Cinderella just shrugged “You know what? I’m
actually starting to get used to this kind of shit. I think if I
woke up tomorrow and either of them did something
actually nice for me, I’d die of shock. Can you imagine
Anastasia offering me French toast and freshly squeezed
Chapter Two
orange juice when I came down to breakfast? Yeah, neither can I.”
Snow scoffed, “Can either of those girls even make French toast?”
“Puh-lease. I think even instant noodles are beyond them. If it involves more
than pressing buttons on a microwave I doubt they could handle it.” This was hardly
an exaggeration. Cinderella’s dad had married his new wife four years ago, and since
then she hadn’t seen either of her new sisters do more than raid the fridge in the
kitchen, let alone do actual cooking. Cinderella did most of the cooking actually,
since her stepmother wasn’t exactly the cooking type. She had been a rich city
socialite back in the day when she was married to her old husband, but after her
divorce all of her riches and status was swept out from under her feet thanks to a
good old-fashioned pre-nuptial agreement. She ended up getting re-married a few
years later to Cinderella’s father, a businessman with an above average income but
who was by no means ‘rich’. So the woman still had to give up her furs and diamonds
but seemed determined to cling onto her fondness for not having to work. At all.
And since her father was on frequent business trips every other week, Cinderella had
just gotten used to cooking and cleaning around the place. God knows no one else
was going to do it.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
To say Rapunzel had lived a sheltered life was an understatement. The girl had
practically spent her life under house arrest thanks to her more than protective
mother. She’d been home schooled her whole life in order to keep her away from
bad teen influences: The drugs, the sex, and the school shootings. According to her
mother, most institutes of education spent 5% of their time teaching students and
the other 95% encouraging debauchery. She had limited access to TV, only being
allowed to watch the shows that mother deemed ‘appropriate,’ which mostly
consisted of Oprah and cooking shows, but not the ones with Nigella Lawson, she
was too ‘whorish’ with all those low cut tops and gratuitous scenes of licking her
fingers and saying ‘delicious’ in a far too provocative manner. Anything with a rating
of PG-13 was pushing it as well. Plus, absolutely no internet. It was full of pedophiles
and strangers and the ‘you-choob’. Rapunzel wasn’t even allowed a mobile phone.
Not that she had any friends to call anyway. Where would she have met any? She
couldn’t even go out without mother coming with her. They went on walks together
and she came along for the weekly Saturday morning food shop, and as boring as
those activities might seem they were practically exhilarating to someone who stayed
Chapter Two
cooped up all week. Yes, apparently the world was full of liars, cheaters, narcissists,
and reality TV stars. Modern society, why would you want to go and be a part of that
anyway? Or at least that’s what Mother said.
Her Mother had always run her business from
home, selling those catalogue beauty products, so
she could stay with Rapunzel and home school her,
but her business had just gotten bigger and bigger
in the last few years. She’d started developing her
own line of anti-aging creams and skin care
products, this only meant a few days out tops
which didn’t make much of a difference,
Rapunzel could still do her work without her and no
one had to know she was doing it on her own. But
she didn’t plan on them becoming as popular as
they did though. It got to the point where she
couldn’t keep up with the orders, had no spare
space in their apartment to stock it all, had to
rent a shop to sell them. She’d tried to hire other
staff to do the work while she orchestrated it all
from home but that was too hard. She started
working more and more and now she was flying
out to beauty conventions to showcase her
products, which meant about three days away at a time.
Eventually, the women had to give in. She couldn’t have
her new career and keep her daughter home schooled. So
it was decided that Rapunzel would be sent to Disney high.
Rapunzel was beyond excited. She tried not to show it,
but that was a major effort. Shopping for school supplies had
been exhilarating. She’d clutched her bright purple binder,
matching notebook set and glitter gel pens with a fierce
pride as she took them to the supermarket checkout
counter, grinning ear to ear at the bag boy and
exclaiming loudly that these were, “School supplies…for
school…a school that I will totally be going to. These
gel pens are going to get used so hard dude!”
Chapter Two
Oh yeah, she was totally catching up on ‘school’ slang-lingo too. Like in Saved
by the Bell. This whole experience was totally gonna be just like Saved by the Bell,
that or Glee. Though she couldn’t sing. Was a glee club even a real thing they had at
schools? Rapunzel didn’t know. The one thing she did know was that this was going
to be totally, completely, utterly awesome.
But this is all talking in retrospect of course. Cut to the current second of
Rapunzel’s life, her standing in a real life high school empty hallway with a real life
high school boy actually in the real life high school… this was so much better than
awesome! The reality had finally hit, she was here! It was so surreal and fantastic she
couldn’t help it when she let out this little manic giggle.
The boy, what was his name, Flynn? Looked at her funny.
“Uhh, you alright there?”
Rapunzel clapped a hand over her mouth “Sorry,” she said still giggling. “I’m
just a little…this is totally like…I mean it’s all…oh my god! You know?”
“…Okay.”
“What should we do first?! On the tour I mean. Do you guys have a cafeteria?
And a gym! Do you have those ropes people have to climb? Is that hard to do? Ooh,
can I see the library, no wait, the drama theatre first… or the art rooms! Yeah that’s
what I really want to do first; I want to see the art rooms!” Rapunzel was practically
bouncing on the spot as she tugged at Flynn’s arm. It was like the girl had a breakfast
of about five red bulls and just spoon-fed herself from the sugar bowl.
“Okay, okay, just… calm down a little alright?” He pried her hand off his jacket.
Hey, it was an expensive jacket. It took him a lot of effort to steal that thing from
general pants co- I mean… buy it from general pants co…
“I’ll take you on your tour, just no manic-giggling and no man handling my
jacket. This is school, stop acting so happy. It doesn’t feel natural.”
Rapunzel let go obediently and stared up at him, still grinning uncontrollably,
but at least she had the giggling under control.
“Okay. Good. Um, I guess we’ll head to the art department then…”
So the girl seemed a little… odd and overly energetic. Far more energetic than
he felt on a Monday morning, but hey, Flynn hadn’t expected the home schooled
Chapter Two
type to be normal anyway. He could still handle this. He was Flynn Ryder. He could
put up with any type of girl if she was this pretty and besides, he was sure she’d run
out of energy some time sooner or later. He’d use this girl to prove he was worth
keeping in school to Mr. Walt and he was getting out of class on top of that. He
could hardly see the downside.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“Oh my gosh! Look at all the paint! Look it!”
“Yeah… I see it,” Flynn gave a strained smile as Rapunzel ran over to the art
room shelves which were, naturally, stocked with a whole array of bottles of paints
and brushes and old jars.
The school art rooms were supposed to be locked when not holding a class,
but that wasn’t much of an issue with Flynn. He had bribed the school’s old janitor
into giving him almost a quarter of all the schools keys, which he made copies of.
The old guy wasn’t stupid enough to give him the key to rooms like the principal’s
office or the girl’s locker rooms, but Flynn had successfully gotten the keys to the
gym, most of the science labs, half of the general classrooms (only half since the top
floor of the school had to have their locks replaced due to Flynn and Phoebus having
successfully filled them all with superglue last year), the sport equipment shed, and
of course, the art rooms. Well worth the money. I’d like to tell you it was only for the
innocent means of pulling light hearted pranks, but the stash of ‘Disney High’
branded soccer balls stashed under Flynn’s bed say otherwise.
“All I have at home is an old set of watercolors mom bought me for my
birthday. I don’t even have, like, half these colors!” She picked up one of the brushes
that was sitting in a jar. “And I don’t have all these different types of brushes either,
these ones are way bigger.” She mimed painting with it in midair. As she span around
she caught site of some of the student art works on display and gasped before
rushing over. “Oh wow, these are so good. Everyone at your school must be really
talented.” She picked up a half finished portrait of a girl with flaming red hair.
“Hey, you can’t touch ‘em!” Flynn scolded at her. Rapunzel flinched at his tone
of voice before quickly putting the painting down on the desk.
Chapter Two
“I… sorry, I didn’t know.” Her face had immediately fallen and it was if all her
energy had been sucked out all at once. Now she just looked like a puppy that had
been hit on the nose with a newspaper.
Flynn rolled his eyes. “Just… like it’s not a rule or anything, just common
courtesy. You don’t want to mess someone’s work up.”
“Okay…” Rapunzel mumbled, her voice small and her shoulders drooped.
Flynn resisted the urge to groan out loud. One minute the girl is up in the air
and bouncing off the walls and now she looks terminally depressed. Women.
“Hey, hey, lighten up. I wasn’t angry with you. Just don’t touch things that
don’t belong to you. Just a simple lesson you needed to learn.”
Flynn tried explaining, actually trying to sound as nice as he could but it came
out a little strained. Rapunzel just looked up at him with those big eyes of hers.
Geez could that girl pull off the puppy eyes.
She could pull them off damn well.
“…You know what. Touching things is fine. I was just joking. That’s what
people do in high school, they joke. HA! Gotcha!” He let out a very forced laugh and
punched Rapunzel lightly in the shoulder.
It took a second but Rapunzel finally blinked before a smile started to creep its
way back onto her face. “Oh… I get it!” she started to laugh too and she swung a
punch right back at Flynn’s arm.
Ow, Flynn rubbed his shoulder where her little fist had hit him. Hmm, he’d
have to teach her that a friendly punch should not be that hard.
“So can I touch other people’s pictures? I’ll be careful of course.”
“Yeah, go for it.” Flynn shrugged, because in the long run what did he care if
she touched some paintings. “Touch ‘em all you want.” And he demonstrated by
placing his hand straight down onto the redheaded girl’s portrait. He then paused. It
felt wet.
Crap.
Chapter Two
He lifted his hand and sure enough it was covered in bright red paint, and half
the girls hair was completely smeared, some of it onto her delicately painted face.
Oops.
“Well… my bad.”
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The lunch bell had just sounded and students were rushing out of every
classroom and filling up the halls, some rushing to the cafeteria in an effort to be
front of the line (Hey, it was Nacho Monday. Nobody wanted to miss Nacho
Monday), but not the seniors. See, at Disney high, there is a magical spot.
Not literally magical, obviously. What do you think this is? Some kind of kid’s
cartoon fairy tale?
No, it is simply the best spot on the entire school grounds. The quad, as it was
officially called. You walk down a small set of steps into a pristine grassed area with a
great old tree in its corner and sets of wooden benches down its side. It’s behind the
library and just before the drama theatre, and the hallways surrounding it are lined
with only the seniors’ lockers. And so it’s an unwritten rule of the school that only
seniors have the privilege to hang out in the quad. Every year on the first day of
school, a new group of seniors gets to walk onto that green lawn and claim it as their
own.
“Our table! We call dibbs on this table!” Esmeralda declared as she threw her
bag down onto one of the empty benches beneath the shade of the biggest tree.
“Ha, I knew sprinting here would pay off,” she smiled triumphantly as she began to
catch her breath. “I’ve had my eye on this spot since day one of this school and now
it’s totally ours.”
“Don’t go marking your territory or anything, I need to eat here,” Phoebus
smirked as he slung his bag down on the ground. Pocahontas and Quasi followed
behind them and took a seat as well.
“It is a nice spot though. Feels good to hang out in the fresh air instead of that
stuffy cafeteria,” Pocahontas looked around as she took a bite out of her apple.
“No more freshman running around,” Quasi added.
Chapter Two
“Don’t have to worry about people starting those stupid food fights,”
Esmeralda tutted, vividly remembering that time Gaston ditched a half-eaten lasagna
at the back of her head. It took three washes to get that all of that processed cheese
out of her hair.
“I dunno, I kind of got used to the constant noise and old mayonnaise smell.
Feels kind of odd with all the peaceful silence and fresh air,” Phoebus said as he
started layering his potato chips into his cheese sandwich.
“Oh my god, what are you twelve?” Esmeralda watched as he took a bite, chip
crumbs falling everywhere.
“Well now, I’m definitely not sharing.”
“Puh-lease, like I even want any of your calorie filled sandwich. I’m happy with
my salad.”
All three of her friends raised their eyebrows at her.
“…What? It’s my new diet.”
Phoebus scoffed, “Yeah, that’ll last about a week.”
“Like they all do,” Pocahontas smiled.
“Urgh, you guys have no faith. I swear I’ll stick to this one the entire year.”
“Until someone offers you a Snickers maybe.”
Esmeralda immediately whipped her head up, “You have a Snickers?” as if the
mere mention of chocolate had her on high alert.
“No, but see how easy it was too tempt you?” Phoebus smirked, finishing the
last bit of his lunch.
Esmeralda flicked a lettuce leaf from her salad at him. “Where’s Flynn
anyway?” she said, changing the subject.
“No idea.” Phoebus peeled the offending bit of lettuce of his face and threw it
on the grass “Texted him earlier and all he said was that he tried to ditch, failed, and
now he’s still here but he got a chick out of it.”
“How did he fail? Did he get caught?”
Chapter Two
“…so is he in detention?”
“How the hell did he get a chick out of…? What chick?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know” Phoebus repeated to
Pocahontas, Quasi and Esmeralda respectively “He said he’d catch up with us at
lunch, but obviously that plan didn’t happen.”
“Well one thing you can always count on with Flynn is that his plans usually
don’t happen,” Pocahontas pointed out.
“At least the way he plans,” Quasi added.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“-And this is the library,” Flynn stated very unenthusiastically as he and
Rapunzel stood outside the doors to the rather large building. “Right, yep, seen it.
Moving on to the cafeteria-” Flynn clapped his hands and started walking off briskly
but Rapunzel stopped him.
“Aren’t we going to go inside?” she called after him.
“Aw, c’mon,” he whined. “You’ve been to a library before haven’t you? You’ve
seen one; you’ve seen ‘em all. Books, shelves, librarians, posters of owls encouraging
you to read-”
“Yes, but I want to see this one too,” Rapunzel smiled her sweet smile but had
her feet planted firmly in front of the libraries glass doors. It was a sweet yet
determined smile. “I like libraries.”
Flynn screwed up his face. “Really? You’re one of those ‘book’ girls?”
“What do you mean?” Rapunzel asked completely clueless.
“Never mind. Fine, go. I’ll wait out here,” he said as he crossed his arms and
slumped against the wall. “You’ve got ten minutes and then I want you back out here
to resume the tour.”
“You’re not coming in with me?” Rapunzel asked, a little disappointed, “But
you’re my guide.”
Chapter Two
“You can guide yourself for at least a little while can’t you?”
Oh come on, not the puppy eyes again. Was she going to be pulling that all
the time? Flynn thought to himself. He managed to drag his gaze away from her and
stared determinedly away.
“Nope. Not going in. Not gonna happen.”
“But why!” she half whined and crossed her own arms. She didn’t look at all
menacing, but it was as if she was trying.
“Because!”
“Because why?”
“Just because, that’s why.”
“That is not a reason.”
“You’re not a reason.”
“…What?”
“Exactly!”
Rapunzel just looked thoroughly confused now, and she and Flynn just
continued to stare each other down, un-budging. That is until Rapunzel finally
cracked a small smile.
“Oh… I get it.”
“…Get what?” Flynn asked flatly.
“This is another one of your jokes, isn’t it?!”
“Um, no-” But Flynn was cut off by Rapunzel grabbing onto his arm and
tugging him through the library doors before he could protest.
“I really was confused there for a second but I think I’m getting used to your
sense of humor now,” Rapunzel laughed as she dragged Flynn into the library.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Chapter Two
Belle browsed the rows of book filled shelves idly, occasionally stopping to
pick one out and flip it open, scanning over a couple of pages. It didn’t take long for
her to decide if she’d read one or not, she wasn’t particularly fussy either. Romance
novels, detective stories, sci-fi: Belle had read books from basically
every genre there was. She had her favorites though, fantasy,
fairy tales, and the old classics. Belle already had a stack of
books picked out and tucked under her arm. Technically the
teacher had taken Belle and the rest of the class to the library to
start researching ancient Roman culture for a project they had
coming up, but how could Mr. Hades expect her to focus on that
while in her favorite place. Besides, she’d already grabbed an old
history book on the Romans before she wandered over to the
fiction section so that was good enough. It’s not like anyone
noticed she’d slipped away from her class, she didn’t really have
friends to notice her absence anyway. Belle peeked through the
gap of the shelves to look back at the rest of her class on the
other side of the library. They were all busy crowding the study
desks and gossiping over what they did on their summer
break. Even if she did sit with them it’s not like they’d ask her
what she did anyway. Besides, they’d just think she’s weird
if she told them that the highlight of her vacation was
rereading all of her Artemis Fowl books.
Belle didn’t really mind though, at least that’s
what she told herself. So what if they think she’s
weird. Books were something more worth
spending her time on anyway. She ran her hand
along a row of books. She had a lot of catching up
to do; it looked like they’d gotten a lot of new
books in over the summer.
‘I wonder if they have The Hunger Games books in.’
Belle hadn’t read the series yet, despite it being so popular.
Sometimes if a series seemed too popular she often avoided it.
Like Twilight for example, books for people who don’t read. And
don’t get her started on those fifty shades of grey books. Terrible.
Sometimes the masses have the worst taste.
Chapter Two
She found the section they were in fast enough, but there
was one problem, the set of books were on the top shelf. Belle
stretched out her arm and stood right on her tippy toes but she
just couldn’t reach it. She quickly left and walked over to grab a
nearby miniature stepladder that she knew was kept near the
front desk. She was maybe gone for two minutes tops, but as she
arrived back at the shelf a boy stood just where she had. He was
tall and scruffy looking, ripped jeans, black t-shirt, and a pair of old
converse that looked like they were just barely managing to stay
together. His hair was long too, half of it was held back in a messy ponytail
and the rest hung around his face so you could barely even see any of his
features.
Belle would have liked to avoid him completely but he was standing right in
her way.
“Um… excuse me,” she said lightly, trying to grab his attention.
The boy just grunted, not even looking up from the book he was holding.
Belle blinked at this rudeness. Did he just…? Her smile tightened.
“Ah, sorry to bother you but I just need to grab a book,” Belle managed to say
as politely as she could. The boy still didn’t bother to even glance at her as he just
shuffled slightly to the side.
“Thanks,” she said curtly, plunking down the stepladder and stepping up onto
it. Some people, she thought to herself as she reached up for her book.
….Only the book wasn’t there anymore.
She groaned.
The boy had it. Right in his hands.
Now how was that fair?
Belle debated leaving it and simply not bothering but then again this boy had
already ticked her off. Why should rude people get to read good books?
“Excuse me,” she said again.
Chapter Two
This time the boy did look up. Well, it was more like he simply lifted his head.
He didn’t exactly have to crane his neck since Belle only managed to be an inch taller
than him even when standing on the stepladder. He was… pretty tall. And now that
she actually looked at him… kind of buff. That was quite a nice fitting t-shirt.
Wait, what? No Belle, focus! This is a library, a place of learning and books, not
a place for staring up rude, well-toned boys.
“That’s… that’s my book,” she managed to get out, wincing at how weak it
sounded. She’d wanted to sound firm and authoritative but so much for that.
He did nothing but give Belle and quick look up and down, not looking
impressed. It made Belle feel even smaller than before.
“Technically, it’s the libraries book,” he drawled.
Belle reddened “I… yeah, that’s not what I meant,” she flustered. “I was going
to get that book out.”
“Did you reserve it?”
“Well no, but I was here a second ago-”
“I didn’t see you.”
“-Before you arrived.”
“Then why didn’t you get it then?”
Belle pointed down to the stepladder. “Guess.”
“It’s not my problem you’re short,” He snapped the copy of the Hunger Games
shut, “So I’m going to go check this out now.”
As he turned to walk away, Belle quickly hopped down the stepladder and ran
ahead of him, blocking him in the aisle of books. “Hey, hey, that isn’t fair,” she
scolded him, “I was here first.” Belle knew how childish she sounded but right now
she didn’t care.
The boy sneered, finally starting to look ticked off and Belle had to admit,
even his small glare made her second guess herself a little. “Look, last time I checked
you can’t call shotgun on literature, so maybe handle yourself like a big girl and get
over it.” And with that he simply shoved past Belle and headed for the front counter.
Chapter Two
For a few seconds Belle did nothing but stare after him with her mouth agape.
How could anyone be so rude?!
She quickly went after him, bundling her books under her arm.
“You know manners go a long way, if you’d been nice and said ‘please I
probably wouldn’t even have minded that you took the book,’” Belle huffed, glaring
at his back.
He waved the book over his shoulder at her. “Doesn’t matter now since I’ve
already got it anyway.”
“Well you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to put reserves on all of the
other books in the series so I get them first,” Belle said triumphantly as they both
reached the librarians counter and the boy held out his library card. He didn’t say
anything back so Belle smiled, “Ha, exactly. Looks like Karma strikes”
“-and uh, can you please put a reserve on the other two books that come after
this one? Thanks.”
The boy turned to smirk at Belle as the library lady tapped away on her
computer. Belle just stood there, looking like she just sucked on a lemon.
“And that’s all sorted, here’s your book young man. It’s due back in two weeks
time. Have a nice day.”
He took the book, clapped a hand on Belles shoulder without saying another
word and swaggered out of the library doors.
“You… you’re…” Belle stuttered in complete rage, determined to at least throw
one insult at him before he got out of earshot, determined to be as dramatic as she
could. “You… you Beast!
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“Hey, do they have any picture books in a high school library? I mean I know
they’re a little kiddy but I still like them, especially the ones with good pictures. They
should make adult books have pictures. Like all the Harry potter books fully
illustrated. Though that would probably take a lot of pictures…”
Chapter Two
“Ah, yeah, Harry Potter’s over on that shelf… somewhere… yeah,” Flynn waved
off in some vague direction, his eyes darting all around, scanning the library.
“No I was talking about picture books but…um, is something wrong Flynn?”
Rapunzel looked warily at her guide. Flynn had his arms folded and was chewing on
his fingernail, looking on high alert.
“What, no. Nothing wrong. Why would you say that? I’m fine,” he said in a
hurry. Before Rapunzel could ask again she felt herself being tackled down to the
floor behind some reading chairs.
“What are you-!” she cried before Flynn slapped a hand over her mouth,
keeping her down on the floor.
“SSHHHHH,” he hissed, eyes wide. “She’s heeere,” he said ominously as
Rapunzel looked positively frightened. Flynn peeked his head around one of the
armchairs to check if the coast was clear before quickly ducking again. He tentatively
took a hand off of Rapunzel’s mouth but still gestured at her to be quiet.
“Wha…what?! What happened!” she whispered frantically.
“Hey don’t get antsy with me, I said I didn’t want to come here and you were
the one who dragged me in, this is your fault! Now we’re trapped.”
Rapunzel just looked at him like he was insane.
“I’m… I’m not exactly welcome in the library. For reasons.”
“Not welcome?”
“Okay, banned if that’s the word you want to use!”
“Banned! How did you get banned?!”
“We don’t have time for explaining, does it even matter? We need to move
now, I think she saw me.”
“She? Who’s she? Flynn you’re acting really weird-”
But just as Rapunzel tried to get answers, both teens saw the shadow that cast
itself over them as they knelt there crouched on the library floor. Flynn looked up,
jaw clenched and what Rapunzel would swear was real fear in his eyes.
Chapter Two
“Hello, Ryder,” A women’s voice spat out, the name laced with venom as she
said it.
“…Crap.”
Chapter Three
After School Drama
Rapunzel looked between the two silently, eyes darting from Flynn to the
young woman in front of him. Neither of them did anything but glare at each other
(Well, Flynn looked more like he wanted to run away, but he still managed to look
the woman in the eyes). Rapunzel took in her appearance. Quite tall, slim, with thick,
brownish red hair. She looked quite mature, sounded it too. Rapunzel doubted she
was another student but she didn’t look old enough to be a teacher either.
“I thought I said you were banned Ryder? Or did that message not sink in
enough last year!” The woman snapped, hands on her hips. She had a pretty mean
glare. “I’ll give you five seconds to give me one good reason”
Flynn finally got up off the floor and stood up, immediately coming to his own
defense. “Actually I have a very reason to be here-” he gestured to Rapunzel who was
still sitting on the floor at their feet “-She’s a new student and I am her official school
tour guide. I needed to show her around. Library included!”
The woman scoffed, “Who in the hell would make you show the new kids
around? I don’t buy that for a second. Honestly, out of all the bullshit you’ve spouted
over the years, I’m surprised you couldn’t come up with something a little better than
that.”
“For your information Mr. Walt himself gave me the gig, go ahead, call him
right now if you want. Check the facts!” Flynn said arrogantly, though he winced
slightly at the glare he was getting right now.
Even Rapunzel shuddered a little at the woman’s mean eyes as they squinted
dangerously at Flynn. That was one powerful death stare. This standoff continued for
another minute until the woman huffed and rolled her eyes.
“Urgh, whatever. I have better things to do than bother with this. You have five
minutes to show the little newbie ‘round and then I want you out again.” She turned
to walk away but not before pointing a threatening finger at Flynn as she went, “And
trust me Ryder, this is the only exception. Every other time you step foot in this
library I will personally chase you out!”
Chapter Three
After School Drama
Flynn let out a sigh, or maybe that was a breath he’s unknowingly been
holding in, and turned to Rapunzel who looked up at him with wide eyes, not quite
knowing what to say to all that.
“So… gymnasium next?”
Rapunzel finally scrambled up off the floor and the questions tumbled out one
after the other, “Who was that? Was she a teacher? Why was she so scary? Why did
you get banned in the first place?”
“Being nosy doesn’t win you friends you know.”
Rapunzel gave him a hard look.
“Okay, okay. I maaay have broken a library window… or two.”
“Is that all?” Rapunzel asked in surprise, that didn’t sound too bad.
“I also kind of ‘accidentally’ knocked over a library shelf to see if it would make
one of those domino effects like the in the movies and end up knocking all of the
shelves over… turns out it does. Oh don’t look so shocked. I made sure no one was
standing under them!”
“Well now I can start to understand why you were banne-” Rapunzel started
talking but Flynn wasn’t finished.
“And there was that time I started that water balloon fight in the fiction
section.”
“…Now I can really understand why-”
“Plus I accidentally burnt down the reading week celebratory display. But that
was a legitimate accident.”
“I… don’t think I want to know, do I?”
Flynn shook his head sadly with a sigh, “It was the freshman art class’s fault for
building that giant owl sculpture out of such flammable paper mache… but anyway,
let’s resume the tour.”
As the two headed towards to the exit, Rapunzel swears she stepped over
what looked like old scorch marks on the carpet as they were walking; there were still
questions to be answered.
Chapter Three
After School Drama
“Sooo, that lady? The scary one.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s Megara. One of the assistant librarians,” Flynn grimaced as he
said her name.
“I knew she looked too young to be a teacher!”
“Oh don’t be fooled,” Flynn laughed without a touch of humor to his voice.
“She’s young but she’s as harsh as they get on the faculty. She’s more like an
assistant to the devil than anything. That’s why her hair’s so big, to hide her horns.
“I’ll make sure to stay on her good side then.”
They exited the library, not bothering with the tour. It was hard to feel
anything but unease as they could feel Megara’s eyes were glued to their backs every
second they were still here. “Why is she like that? It didn’t look like all the other
library ladies hated you.”
Flynn nodded. “Yeah, they’re all sitting at a nice easy level of disdain and
haven’t quite reached the same level of burning hatred that Megara has, give it time
maybe, but really I think Megs just that kind of person.”
“The strict kind?”
“…Not the word I was going to use but yeah, strict works too. Even when she
went here as a student she was pretty ‘strict’”
“She used to be a student here?” Rapunzel asked in surprise.
“Yeah, she was a senior when it was my first year. She used to hold the biggest
parties because her parents were always out of town,” Flynn laughed, “I remember
one time me and my friends managed to get into one of them and we filled her
Jacuzzi with dish washing detergent and it went everywhere. She was so pissed.”
“Ah,” Rapunzel nodded as if she finally understood something. “That’s
probably when she started hating you and why she’s so harsh to you now,” she
smiled.
Flynn paused mid-laugh as a look of realization dawned on his face, “I… never
actually thought of that.”
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Chapter Three
After School Drama
BRRRRIIIIIIIINNNGGGG!
“YES!” Ariel cried as the last class of the day ended and the school siren rang.
Home time! She hurriedly shoved her pencil case and textbooks into her backpack
without a second thought and scraped back her chair. Mr. Thatch’s foreign language
class was so dull and she couldn’t wait to get out of there, this term they’d be
learning French. Do you know how many pro-nouns there are in the French
language? Ariel didn’t, and frankly she didn’t care either. She slung her backpack
over her shoulders, letting past the mob of her fellow classmates as they all
scrambled towards the door, and headed to the back of the class where Jasmine was
still neatly packing away her pens into her little tin pencil case.
“Honestly Jaz, you’re so slow. I could have been halfway down the hall by now
if I wasn’t such a good person who’s willing to wait for you,” Ariel smiled at her
friend.
“I know. I should consider myself so lucky to have someone like you willing to
put up with me,” Jasmine put her hand over her heart like she was touched by Ariel’s
kindness.
The two girls headed out to the halls were students were busy chatting and
slamming lockers, rushing to get out. The usual home time scramble.
“Do you need a lift home?” Jasmine asked.
“Nah it’s cool, Adella’s picking me and Arista up since her college classes finish
around now anyway,” Ariel said, referring to two of her older sisters. She’d usually
catch the bus but she lived kind of far away so a ride was always appreciated.
“Are you waiting out the front near the main car park?”
“Yeah, I said I’d meet Arista there, why?”
“Well the limo usually picks me up on the other side of the school. You know
how I don’t like it showing up right at the school gate in front of everyone.” Jasmine
really didn’t like all the mixed looks it got. Some students just gawked which was
embarrassing enough but it was the ones who scoffed and rolled their eyes at
Jasmine as she would quickly try to slip into the back seat that really made her face
burn.
Chapter Three
After School Drama
“Oh, the limo,” Ariel laughed. “I remembered the first day you showed up in
that thing, everyone thought a princess had shown up or something, that or some
kind of Paris Hilton type girl!”
“Urgh, definitely not the vibe I want to be giving out,” She sighed. “I wish Dad
would stop insisting on sending it to pick me up.”
“Yeah, but what’s the alternative? He’ll send the Ferrari? The Chrysler? The
private jet?” Ariel teased, knowing the full extent of her friend’s wealth. Ever since
that first day, Jasmine had tried pretty hard to be low key about just how wealthy her
family was but she couldn’t keep it from her close friends when she invited them over
to her house. “House” is a loose term for it really. Multi-million dollar mansion was a
much better word to use. It’s hard to pretend that your dad makes an average salary
when your floors are solid marble and you have an original Picasso hanging on your
living room wall.
“So I’ll see you tomorrow, can I take a rain check on that limo ride home? I
don’t think Adella will strain herself to pick me up two days in a row,” Ariel laughed
and called out after Jasmine as she headed off down the hall out to the front of the
school.
“Sure thing, later!” Jasmine called back over her shoulder as she waved until
Ariel was out of sight.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Ariel headed out the main doors of the school as she whipped out her phone.
A text from Mulan:
‘we survived the first day back hooray! \(^o^)/ how
did ur classes go?’
Complete with little happy emoticon at the end of it. Ariel and Jasmine
actually doubted Mulan could send a text without attaching some sort of emote to
the end of it, occasionally there could be up to five in one message depending on
just how broad a spectrum of feelings the girl had at the time.
Ariel tapped back a message as she walked down the stone steps of the
entranceway.
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After School Drama
‘barely lol. Art class was the only good class even if
self portraits are hard haha I think I made my nose as
big as Mr Jafars : P ‘
Just as she hit send, Ariel caught a sudden movement out of the corner of her
eye and whipped her head around. Eric had jetted down the hall on his skateboard
and had gone to slide down the stair rail, as wanton skateboarding bad boys are
prone to do, but within seconds his trick had gone from less of a ‘dude-watch-thisits-going-to-be-so-sick’ kind of stunt, and was now more of a ‘we’re-going-to-sendthis-into-Americas-funniest-home-videos’ kind of stunt.
By which I mean he lost his footing while three feet above the hard concrete
steps. Ariels eyes widened as she watched him soar briefly through the air.
“Watch it!” he tried to call out but it was too little too late as gravity,
inevitably, did its work. All Ariel could do was yelp as he crash landed right into her,
sending them both sprawling down the steps with Ariel’s backpack flying open,
scattering all her books and pens all over the place, along with her phone being
knocked out of her hand and dropping hard onto the pavement. As Ariel lay
momentarily dazed on the floor she felt her phone buzz next to her head with an
incoming text message. At least that meant it wasn’t broken. Speaking for herself,
she didn’t feel too broken either. Her elbow hurt, no doubt scraped from where she
landed on it, as well as her hands but nothing too bad. She reached out and grabbed
her phone, opening the simple one worded reply from Mulan.
‘lol’
Lol indeed. Every student in the general vicinity had just witnessed her not so
graceful face plant to the ground and there was a mixture of laughter and gasps and
what she suspected was the sound of a few iPhone cameras going off. Ugh, she did
not need this being uploaded to facebook.
“Nice going Eric!” She heard a boy’s voice call out jokingly. As she scrambled
up from the ground, she avoided all eye contact with Eric as he pulled himself up
easily and went to collect his board from where it had rolled away.
“Hey, shut up man,” Ariel heard Eric laugh back, not even a hint of
embarrassment in his voice as his friends ripped into him. Ariel herself could literally
feel the heat of her face as she blushed. But I suppose that’s how it worked with the
confident everyone-wants-to-be-their-friend types, everyone laughed with them.
With girls like herself however, it’s more along the lines of everyone laughs at you.
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After School Drama
She felt herself redden even more; it was bad enough crashing into anyone let
alone the love of your life.
Okay, maybe love is a bit of a strong word. It was just a very strong crush.
So yes, it was bad enough crashing into anyone let alone the crush of your life.
Ariel was busy cramming all her books back into her bag and reaching out for
all the pens and pencils that had rolled away all over the place when she noticed a
shadow cast itself over her. Eric. All sorts of scenarios raced through her brain at this
point before she looked up. Maybe this was finally fate’s way of bringing them
together, for him to notice her after all these months. What was that horoscope she
read in the weekend paper awhile ago? Your cosmic forces will align with Venus to
bring new opportunities in your love life. A little vague but this could totally be what
it was talking about. All of the cosmic forces worked together to make Eric not stick
that landing and crash into her. This wasn’t bad luck, this was Venus.
Ariel smiled what she hoped was her prettiest smile as she lifted her head to
face the crush of her life.
Only… it wasn’t the crush of her life. Her face fell immediately when she saw it
was only her sister, Arista.
“Has anyone ever told you how much of a spazz you are?” Arista laughed as
she looked down at Ariel with a raised eyebrow. “Are you ‘gonna get up off the
ground? People are still staring…and I think your elbows bleeding.”
Ariel looked over her shoulder behind her, where she saw Eric already walking
away with his group of friends, skateboard tucked under his arm. She gazed long
enough to see him briefly turn around and he caught her eye.
“Sorry!” he called out back to her across the lawn, giving her an awkward smile
before turning away again. All of his friends laughed.
Have you ever felt so beyond lame that there is literally no adjective in the
English vocabulary that can properly sum up just how lame you feel?
Not ridiculously lame.
Not monumentally lame.
Not even extremely, catastrophically, undoubtedly lame.
Chapter Three
After School Drama
Even lamer than that. The kind of lame that Ariel was feeling right now was
lamer than all of those kind of lames put together.
She was just ignored by the crush of her life, again, even though this time he
had literally ran straight, smack-bang into her like she was a brick wall. She wasn’t
even worth checking if she was all right or to stop and help her up. If there was
anything that could make a girl feel so totally invisible in this world, this was it.
“I bet he’ll have that board taken away from him in, like, a week or less,” Arista
muttered as she and Ariel walked across the lawn to the car park together, trying to
catch sight of their elder sister’s car. “Last year, when we were working on our end of
term play in English class because we were studying Shakespeare or whatever, he
was riding it around in the amphitheatre and pulled of this awesome kick flip but Mr.
Frollo, like, chucked a fit and confiscated it.”
Ariel just nodded as Arista prattled on about Eric, since she was in the same
year as him. Really she was beyond the feeling of a bad mood. All she wanted to do
right now was crawl into her bed and die.
Okay, that’s a little melodramatic.
Maybe she’d just watch Teen Wolf on her laptop… while still sulking in bed.
Possibly while eating chocolate, if there was any in the fridge.
“Hey, don’t look so bummed. I mean yeah tones of people saw you but it’s
not, like, that big of a deal. I stacked it outside the cafeteria that one time I tried
wearing those really high wedges to school, remember I told you about that?”
“And you were so embarrassed and mad you blamed the shoes and chucked
them both in the nearest bin which meant you had to catch the bus home barefoot?”
Ariel cracked a smile.
“Yeah, which really is way more embarrassing! So don’t even worry about it,”
Arista waved her hand flippantly but Ariel sighed.
“It’s not just the fact that I stacked it in front of everybody, I mean how often
do I do that anyway-”
“True,” Arista interrupted, nodding, “Two left feet.”
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After School Drama
“-Anywaay… It’s more to do with who I ran into…” Ariel said quietly but it
made Arista stop in her tracks and gasp like she’d just cracked the Da Vinci code.
“Oh my god, you like Eric!” Arista clutched at her arm and Ariel immediately
tried to bat her away.
“SsshhSShhh keep your voice down!” she hissed, looking around worriedly to
see if anyone had overheard them.
“How long has this been going on?” Aristta beamed excitedly in a hushed
whisper, “You’re, like, never into guys! Or at least if you are you don’t tell me, which
you so should since were sisters and sisters should be able to talk about these things,
especially me since as you know I am an expert on boys!”
“Just because so many of them like you doesn’t mean you’re an expert,” Ariel
rolled her eyes light heartedly. It was true, a lot of guys at school (and outside school
for that matter) took notice of her pretty, blonde, sister, but getting drooled over
twenty-four seven didn’t really entitle you to call yourself an expert on anything. Even
so, might as well see what she had to say. “So what would be your expert advice?”
Arista gave her sister a ‘no-duh’ look, “Um, just put on your prettiest dress and
go ask him out.”
She said it like it was that simple. Ariel almost laughed until she realized her
sister was being completely straight with her answer.
“Are you kidding?! Did you just see what happened? Everyone in a fifty meter
radius saw what happened! I was run over and left on the pavement by this guy; I’m
like road kill to him! Road kill can’t just go dressing itself up all pretty and then go
ask one of the coolest guys out. I’m no expert but I think being blatantly ignored isn’t
a positive sign that someone liked you back.” Ariel then returned her sisters ‘no-duh’
look.
Arista just shrugged innocently,”That’s always how I’ve done and it’s always
worked for me…” She then seemed to ignore most of what Ariel just said and asked,
“You seriously think he’s one of the coolest guys in school?”
“Um…yes?” Ariel blinked “What. Don’t you think so?”
Arista shook her hand as if to say so-so. “Weell, he’s kind of… ‘alternative’,”
she said carefully, using finger quotations as she said the word alternative. “You
know, with the skateboard covered in those ugly stickers, and the eyebrow piercing
Chapter Three
After School Drama
and all his clothes look at least five years old… plus he has a tattoo! I’ve seen it, It’s an
anchor with, like, this mermaid around it and its on the top of his arm, but this
mermaid girl is totally topless so he has to wear sleeved shirts to hide it because it’s
like, obscene or something and the school won’t let him show it around,” Aristta
prattled on as Ariel day dreamed. She had seen that tattoo. She couldn’t help but
picture him without his shirt now. It was a good tattoo.
“-but I guess he’s still kind of cool. He doesn’t sit with, like, the big social
crowd-” by which Arista meant the ‘popular’ crowd, and by that she meant her and
her friends. “But he’s nice enough and decent looking. I guess as an older sister I
approve.”
Ariel honestly had thought he would be the most popular boy in his year, but
to say she was biased was an understatement. In a way that was a good thing right?
Less competition? Oh who was she kidding, even if the competition was tiny she’d
still be in last place. Great, now she’d made herself feel bad again.
Arista didn’t seem to notice. “You know you’re actually so right about the
dress thing, guys like Eric do not go for that look. You’d have a better chance if you,
like, dressed all in ripped up jeans and band shirts or something,” she laughed at her
own joke, but Ariel’s mind suddenly clicked into gear and she turned to listen more
closely.
“-and you’d get a nose ring and cut off all your hair and start listening to
Nerveena or something.”
“Nirvana.”
“Yeah that’s what I said.”
Arista continued on like this until Adella pulled up in her car and beeped the
horn. Arista quickly called shot gun as she ran for the front seat but Ariel didn’t even
argue; she had too many ideas running through her mind.
Arista had been joking, yeah, but something about the idea seemed to
actually make sense.
Maybe a transformation was in order.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Chapter Three
After School Drama
”Mooom, Dad, Grandma, I’m back!” Mulan called out as she entered the front
door, kicking off her shoes and dumping her bag on the floor, making an immediate
bee line for the kitchen.
Her mother was sitting at their breakfast table nursing
a cup of tea while her grandmother was down in the living
room watching the price is right on the family TV.
“Hey,” she said casually to the both of them as she
yanked open the fridge. She scanned the shelves. Nothing
but old leftovers and condiments.
“Hello there. How was the first day of school?” her
mother asked right away.
Mulan shrugged, “Eh, it was alright.” She
shut the fridge and tried the pantry. Hm, boxes of tea,
cans of dog food, a bag of onions, some more boxes of tea,
cereal boxes, more cans, more tea…
“If you’re looking for something to eat I bought
some Banana bread at the store this morning,” her
Grandma called from down on the sofa. “I got a good
deal, real cheap. Couldn’t go past it.”
“Ooh, thanks Granny,” Mulan headed over and
grabbed a slice from the tray that was laid out on the
coffee table. She took a bite, “Granny this is stale?”
“That’s why I got it so cheap,” the old woman said as
she took another bite of her own piece.
Mulan threw herself down on arm chair and
pulled her feet up, turning to the TV and taking
another, less enthusiastic, bite of her stale Banana
bread. “Where’s dad,” she asked mid-chew.
“Out walking Little Brother,” her mother
said, referring to the family dog, “He said his
leg was feeling quite good today and he wanted to
go out and enjoy the nice weather.”
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After School Drama
Mulan nodded as this was answer enough and went back to watching some
woman spin a giant wheel to try and win an outdoor furniture suite.
Her mother finished her tea and watched her daughter stare listlessly at the
TV screen before getting up to wash it in the sink. “So, you didn’t get any
homework?”
“No, It’s the first day,” Mulan said shortly, not taking her eyes of the TV.
“Did you get your new textbooks at least?”
“Yeah, for math and science anyway. We can use our geography ones from
last year though.”
“Ah,” Her mother nodded as she put her teacup away in the cupboard. She
turned to her daughter again, “So maybe, since you have no homework, you could
start reading your textbooks now. Get ahead and read a few chapters too-”
Mulan let out a load groan and slumped further down into the sofa, “Oh,
come on, Mom it’s the first day!”
“And it can’t hurt you to start studying as soon as you can! You were a slack
last year and I let you get away with it, but this is your second year of high school
and you need to start taking it a little more seriously” her mother said in a more
serious tone.
“I do take it seriously!” Mulan snapped in her defense, “I did study, my grades
are fine!”
“Oh, they’re fine are they? You only brought home one A last year, the rest
were B’s and C’s! Your father and I were very disappointed!”
“Yeah, I know! You only mentioned that about a million times before, I get it!”
“Hey! There is no need to use that kind of tone!” Her mother frowned as
Mulan rolled her eyes. “I was at work today and Mrs. Cheng came in and told me all
about her son, who is the same age as you, and he’s gotten all straight A’s and is
being chosen for all the academic extension programs, plus her oldest daughter just
got into medical school last month!”
Mulan laughed, “Oh, so that’s it, you want me to become a doctor now? I
thought it was a lawyer last year.”
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After School Drama
“It’s not a joke Mulan, you could if you tried! You’re just not applying yourself.
I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want such a good job and to be successful!”
“Oh, look who’s talking,” Mulan scoffed, “The woman who works at a beauty
salon doing nails.”
Mulan’s grandmother sucked in through her teeth. ‘Not the right thing to say,’
she thought silently to herself.
“I try and push you so you won’t have to get a job like that!” Mulans mother
yelled, this whole argument suddenly escalating, “But no, you just lie around and
watch TV and sit around on facebook, happy enough to do the bare minimum at
school-”
“You’re so unfair!” Mulan exploded back “I do try at school but I’m sorry if I’m
not as smart as Mrs. Cheng’s miracle children! Maybe I don’t even want to become a
doctor, not that you actually care how I feel about it anyway!” she got up off the sofa
and started towards the stairs.
“I’m telling your father about this when he gets back!” her mother called after
her as Mulan bounded up the stairs two at a time.
“Fine!” she called back loudly, “Try to break it to him gently about what a
terrible, stupid daughter he has!” Mulan slammed the door to her room as loudly as
she could. She wiped away at the angry tears in her eyes with the sleeve of her
jumper.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Belle used the sleeve of her cardigan to mop around her eyes, squeezing them
shut and looking up to the ceiling to stop any tears. It took a second before she went
back to the chopping board to continue to cut her onions. Looking up at the clock
on the wall she saw it was already past six and her father was only due back from
work around seven. Perhaps it was a little early to start dinner but what else was she
supposed to do. She’d planned to sit and read a little when she got back from
school, but of course that hadn’t gone the way she’d hoped. TV this time of night
was boring, either the news, some home video show or a rubbish sit-com, none of
which was appealing at all. Belle hardly watched much TV to begin with anyway,
maybe when a good movie was on but that was about it. She knew all her classmates
Chapter Three
After School Drama
were obsessed with those reality shows but she only lasted about ten minutes into an
episode of Jersey Shore before she admitted defeat and had to turn it off. Yet
another thing she didn’t have in common with the rest of the student population.
She had a laptop that she’d gotten for Christmas last year but that was mostly
for homework. She could spent a while on the net, maybe browsing online shopping
sites for fun even though she knew she couldn’t afford to spend the money on
anything she saw, or just reading around on news sites to see what was going on in
the world, but honestly she couldn’t imagine how some people could spend hours
on it. Belle hadn’t even bothered to make herself a facebook page.
She threw the chopped onions into the fry-pan and set it to a low heat,
grabbing a wooden spoon and gently stirring the little pieces around in the oil. It was
going to be Spaghetti Bolognese. Nice and simple. She wasn’t a great cook but she
knew enough from Home Ec to keep herself and her dad happy enough.
Speaking of her dad, she heard the front door open.
“Dad? Is that you? You’re back early,” she called out chirpily as he walked
down the hall, briefcase still in his hand. He didn’t answer right away.
“Hrm, hi honey. Yeah, just… finished a little early is all.”
Belle turned from her cooking, still hearing her dad clatter around. Odd.
Usually her dad was in the highest spirits well… all the time. He would burst through
the door practically cheering hello and then remark on how dinner smelt so good or
start telling her about his day, or asking Belle about hers. This was a disconcerting
type of silence.
“Dad?” she asked again, heading off to go and find him. He wasn’t in the
hallway and looked like he’d headed off towards his room. She opened the door
gingerly and called out again, “Dad?”
He was sitting on his bed, head in his hands and his briefcase discarded on the
floor. As soon as he heard Belle, his head shot up, startled. His eyes looked red and
puffy.
“Oh, Dad!” Belle cried, “What’s the matter?” She rushed over to him on the
bed and put her arms around his shoulders. I think anyone can agree that one of the
most distressing things is seeing your parents cry, especially for Belle.
The last time she’d seen her father cry was when her mother had died.
Chapter Three
After School Drama
“Has something happened?” she asked hurriedly, growing worried and
wanting answers.
He waved his hand and rubbed at his eyes “No, no. Well, yes… but nothing
terrible… kind of… not really, but…”
Belle got up off the bed to her father’s night stand where a box of tissues
were, grabbing a couple and handing them to her father.
“Thank you darling,” he mumbled, managing a small smile to his daughter as
he blew his nose. “Let me pull myself together, it’s not fair of me to worry you like
this. It’s honestly nothing… well its nothing we can’t get through anyway.”
Belle put a comforting hand on her father’s shoulder. “What is it?” she asked
gently.
“I…” Maurice took a deep breath and let it out again slowly, whatever he had
to say wasn’t coming out easily, “I’m going to lose my job.” Even as he said it his
voice cracked a little at the end.
“What!” Belle gasped. “Why? You work so hard for them, and you said you
were almost at a break through with your project!”
“I knooow!” he wailed and blew into his tissue again.
Belle’s father was an inventor, electronic engineer if you want to be technical.
He’s worked for years at the American branch of a global consumer electronics
company called G.E.D. He helped develop all sorts of their products: to radios and
toasters to those little TV’s you can install in cars. Really he was just one of the
technical designers among hundreds that the company employed but lately he’d
been working on his own project design to pitch to the board of directors. And when
I say lately I mean he’d been working on this for about three years now.
“I thought that the ‘Eazy-Cheezy’ would finally make my name in this business,
lead to promotions… a bit of a pay-raise so I could finally afford to keep us
comfortable rather than scraping for every penny,” he said despondently.
The ‘Eazy-Cheezy’, as it was named, was essentially a toaster that you could
also rotate the slots onto their side and makes a grilled cheese. A simple concept
that was harder to engineer than first thought. Maurice still hadn’t figured out a way
to stop the ‘Eazy-Cheezy’ prototypes from spitting the finished toastie out across the
room when it was done, among other little kinks.
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After School Drama
“I was so close… but they won’t hear of it. They’re planning on laying off about
a dozen of us, all us older workers. They want to hire all of these new ‘just out of
university’ engineers who can develop all these fancy new ‘mp3’s’ and touch screen
everything. I tried explaining to my boss about the ‘Eazy-Cheezy’, how it was almost
done and if they kept me on for another few months it’d be ready to show the
directors and they’d see all the potential in it… but he wouldn’t listen. Just kept
saying sorry over and over again, telling me it’s out of his hands and it’s just the way
it is,” he let out a great sigh. “This is the best paying job I could find and were still
struggling. I won’t be able to work on the ‘Eazy-Cheezy’ after this with no money.
How many other companies want to hire a fifty two year old anyway? I don’t know
what I’ll do when they let me go.”
Belle didn’t really know what to say, she just let her father vent. She felt angry
at the company for not even giving her father the chance to prove himself to them
and she felt sad for her father, who came so close to his big break only to have it
pulled out from under his feet. In that moment she felt so useless, she wished she
could do something. Talk to someone at G.E.D , change their minds, but realistically
she knew there wasn’t much she could do anyway, if anything.
All she did for now was wrap her arms around her dad in a hug.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“And uh, can I get a large fries and a Coke with that, thanks,” Flynn smiled at
the girl behind the cash register. It was around nine o’clock at night and both Flynn
and Phoebus were out at a nearly deserted McDonalds ordering what I guess could
count as their dinner.
“What size drink was that?” The girl asked as she tapped in the order.
“Let’s make that a… large,” Flynn smiled at her and the girl gave an annoying
little giggle.
Phoebus stood behind his friend and rolled his eyes. That wasn’t even a joke.
“Okay, that’ll be $7.50.”
Flynn grabbed his wallet from his back pocket and flipped it open. It was
empty.
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After School Drama
“What the…?” Flynn looks surprised. He looked hurriedly in the zipped
compartment for change. No coins either. “Shit,” he cursed under his breath, giving
the girl at the counter and an apologetic look, “Sorry about this.”
“That’s okay” she simpered, still smiling at him.
Flynn pulled out all his pockets, jeans and jacket, looking increasingly worried
every time.
“Shiiit” he said, hissing through his teeth. “I swear I had twenty bucks on me!
Must’ve fallen out of my pocket or something, I dunno…” he shrugged awkwardly.
“Sorry, guess I’ll have to leave that order hanging-” he said as he turned to leave but
the girl stopped him.
“Actually, you know what, I shouldn’t really do this, but you can just have this
one. It’s fine,” she smiled and grabbed his order bag, making sure to brush her hand
with his as she handed it to him.
Flynn look genuinely surprised and thankful, “Oh my god, thankyou, you-” He
pointed at her with a bright smile, “-are an angel. Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou!”
“Stop it!” The girl laughed, blushing. “Just bring your money next time”
“Oh, don’t worry, I will. You can count on a next time too,” He gave her a wink
as he walked away to take one of the booths around the corner.
Phoebus had to drag the girl’s attention away from watching Flynn’s departing
figure so he could place his own order. He actually managed to pay at least.
Phoebus slid into the opposite side of the booth as Flynn was already half way
through his Double Bacon Deluxe.
“I hope that girl doesn’t get in trouble for giving you a free meal,” he said as
he opened up his own brown paper bag.
“Didn’t you read her tag,” Flynn tried talking with his mouth full of burger,
“That was the manager.”
“You crafty bastard.”
“It’s not my fault women have no resolve when it comes to my charm,” Flynn
smirked and a piece of lettuce and mayo dripped down his chin.
Chapter Three
After School Drama
“Yeah, I’d use the term ‘charm’ loosely.”
“You know I always offer to try to get you a free meal too,” Flynn said as he
paused to munch on his fries.
Phoebus laughed and shook his head “Yeah I know, but I think I can afford a
McDonalds value meal by myself.”
“Yeah, with your Mommy and Daddy’s pocket money they give you,” Flynn
teased.
Flynn mentioning his parents made Phoebus suddenly remember to check his
phone. He put down his burger and wiped his hands on his jeans before grabbing
out his iPhone. Yep, four missed messages.
Flynn however did a double take. “Woooah,” he said, looking at the pristine
looking apple product. “When the shit did you get that?”
“It’s the new one, only got it like a week ago,” Phoebus mumbled, not looking
his best friend in the eye.
“Man you must get more pocket money from your folks than I thought. Why
didn’t you mention you got one?”
Phoebus shrugged, “Just didn’t seem that important.”
Truth was Phoebus kind of felt awkward about it. Even he had to admit he was
a little spoilt by his parents. He was an only child and they both made quite a bit of
money, and while they weren’t rich they were pretty well off all things considered.
They lived in a nice house, had a pool, Phoebus even had his own brand new car
which was a birthday gift.
Flynn didn’t have any of those things. Far from it.
The last thing Phoebus wanted to do was start boasting about yet another
nice thing he had in front of his best friend. I mean every time Flynn even came
around to his house he saw the look on his friend’s face, that real subtle one, just
that hint of jealousy that would flit over his features. He’d never say it of course, he
was too proud for that, and too much of a good friend to let it show. He never
intentionally made Phoebus feel guilty about how lucky he was to have what he did,
like an always full fridge, electricity that never got turned off because they could
always afford to pay the bills, a room bigger than a shoebox, an actual dad…
Chapter Three
After School Drama
Phoebus opened the first text which was from his Mom. Actually, all of them
were from his Mom. All asking just how long he planned to stay out. He typed back
quickly.
‘I told you I was gonna hang out with Flynn after
school. Were just at McDonalds now’
The reply came back only seconds later.
‘be back in an hour. No later!’
“Was that Mommy wondering why you’re out so late?” Flynn smirked.
“Yup. Got about an hour though so she couldn’t have been too pissed.” he
picked up his burger again, “What about your Mom?”
Flynn shrugged as he sipped his coke, “Off on some road trip with her
boyfriend.”
“The one that ruffled your hair and called you champ all the time?”
“Nah, she dumped that guy. Thank god. If he called me champ one more time
I was gonna break his nose. This is a new one.”
“Ah, what’s this one’s name?”
“No idea,” Flynn shrugged again.
“So where were they going?”
“Again, no idea.” He pulled the lid off his cup and drained the last of his drink,
chewing on some of the ice. “I ask about as many questions about my mother’s life
as she does about mine,” he smiled a very tight lipped smile, “So in other words I
don’t know jack shit.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Mulan was lying on her bed on top of the covers, still fully dressed, hugging
her favorite plush panda she’d gotten on the family’s trip back to China a couple
years ago. She didn’t know how long she’d just been lying there like this but it had
gotten dark out and she hadn’t bothered to get up and switch her light on. There
wasn’t much to do up here on her own. She’d left her laptop charging downstairs so
Chapter Three
After School Drama
she couldn’t face book chat with her friends or watch a movie. Her phone was still in
her bag where she’d thrown it down in the hallway, so no texting either. It would
totally defeat her dramatic storm out and self induced isolation if she had to slunk
past her parents and back again to grab them. At least she still had her iPod, and
that’s all she’d been doing for the past few hours. Just lying alone in the dark
listening to Lana Del Ray, Adele, and Coldplay.
And just F.Y.I., if you’re ever feeling depressed, never listen to Lana Del Ray,
Adele, or Coldplay! It will only make you feel more depressed than you were in the
first place.
She hadn’t bothered to go down to dinner and it didn’t look like her parents
bothered to fetch her either. Her stomach rumbled. Maybe if she snuck down real
quietly she could try and grab some of that stale banana bread. Mulan rolled over on
her bed to catch a glimpse of her old hello kitty alarm clock. It was already 11:05 at
night. Her parents were probably in bed by now. Time really flies when you’re
wallowing in self pity.
It was just then she heard a light knock on her door and she lifted her head off
the pillow. She didn’t say anything but it was her Grandmothers face that peered
around the door, and not her mother or fathers, so Mulan actually sat up and took
out her ear-phones.
“Hey kiddo,” her Gran smiled at her. She was holding a tray with a peanut
butter sandwich on it and a juice box, plus a packet of salt and vinegar chips. “Your
prison rations,” she joked. “It’s about all these old hands can manage to make these
days.”
Mulans heart warmed. “Thanks Granny,” she said, meaning it, as she took the
tray from the old lady’s hands and put it down on her night stand. She grabbed on
half of the sandwich and took a bite as her Grandma took a seat next to her on the
bed.
“Now I’ve not come in here to lecture, honest I haven’t, because I see your
side of it.”
“Buuuuuut-” Mulan sighed.
“-but,” the old woman continued, “Your parents do have a point too.”
Chapter Three
After School Drama
“Urgh, Granny!” Mulan groaned through a mouth full of peanut butter as her
grandmother held up a hand to her.
“No! No groaning. They do and you know they do. Can you honestly say you
give 100% on your schoolwork?” she said gently looking at her granddaughter.
“Yes!” Mulan said indignantly.
Her Grandmother just gave her a look.
“…I still try”
“Yes, I know you do, but you give about 70% of your time and effort on school
work and then about 20% on spending time with your friends and 10% on just lazing
around.”
Mulan just shifted around where she sat, not denying it. There was something
about when Granny said it that made it much harder to argue with. Plus, I guess
when she looked at it, it was kind of the truth.
“Of course, in my opinion I think it is unfair of them to expect you to spend
100% of your time and effort solely on your studies, no matter what that stuck up
Mrs. Chang says about her bratty kids. You’re a teenage girl, you should have fun!”
Mulan smiled at her grandmother, “Aw, Granny!” she went in for a hug that
her grandmother gladly returned.
“That being said, I think I’ve come up with a compromise that I really want you
to consider.”
Mulan drew back slightly from the hug “What?” she asked doubtfully.
“If you could go to your school and maybe look for some extra-curricular
classes you could join. Like a study group or tutoring class. Get help with the work
you’re struggling with; show that you do care about your education and are prepared
to do an extra little something.”
“But Granny!” Mulan started but she was cut off.
“I’m not forcing you to do anything Mulan, I’m simply suggesting my idea. I
think It’s a pretty fair deal myself and I already brought it up with your parents who
seem more than happy to accept it as a compromise,” the old lady started to stand
Chapter Three
After School Drama
up. “Plus, I have a feeling the alternative is having your father hover over you through
three hours of homework every night.”
Mulan flopped down onto her bed again. “Not much of a choice,” she
mumbled into her pillow and her grandmother laughed as she reached the door.
“Good night Mulan.”
“G’night”
When she heard her door click shut again Mulan reached for her juice box. It
felt good to know her Grandma had argued on her behalf to her parents, but it felt
worse to see that maybe she had a point.
Chapter Four
That Damn School Notice Board
Tiana gave the ancient library photocopier a whack as it continued to make a
series of pathetic whining noises but failed to actually print out any paper.
“Come on, work! Pleeease!” she begged out loud. She’d managed to get to
school early just for this, plus she’d just fed five dollars into the damn machine and
that would be all to waste if it didn’t start working. That was her usual morning coffee
money too. She gave its side another hard whack with her hand.
“Work, work, work!”
“Hey, you break it, you bought it,” Meg side eyed Tiana from the librarians
desk, busy stamping new returns.
Tiana just huffed. When will this school invest in some quality educational
equipment? These days it seemed like all the spare cash went straight to the football
team, the Disney High Lions, or the cheer leading team. I mean honestly, how many
more pompoms do they really need?
Tiana needed this printer to start working in order to get a bundle of flyers
advertising her new study group. She’d post them up around the school, in the quad,
the cafeteria, and most importantly, the school notice board in the main corridor.
This might seem like overkill but to Tiana it was just efficient and good marketing.
Lord knows the group needed it; so far she only had one member. Herself. As if that
would deter her though, I mean it was only the first week.
“There you are!”
Tiana turned as she heard an all too familiar, high pitched, southern, no-idea
of-what-an-inside-tone-is voice.
“Hey Lottie,” Tiana smiled at her blonde friend as she teetered over in a pair of
no doubt expensive shoes, a large iced mocha in hand with her over sized Louis
Vuitton bag swinging precariously on her arm, very nearly taking out a poor
freshman boy as he sat at one of the school computers.
Chapter Four
“I’ve been looking all over for you!” Lottie gasped dramatically, as if she really
had scaled mountains and crossed oceans to find her best friend. “You weren’t at the
Coffee house this morning?”
“Yeah, I needed the money to print off these flyers,” she gestured down to the
still whirring machine, which actually started to sound like it was in pain. “It’s not
working out too well though. Should of just got the coffee.”
“Sip?” Lottie held out her Iced Mocha, offering it to Tiana who took it
thankfully.
“Thanks,” she said, quickly checking the time on the wall clock. Ten minutes
until class started. She really needed to get this sorted out.
“And oh, em, gee, I need to tell you what you missed at the coffee house,”
Lottie started up as she took her drink back and sat down on a nearby desk. “You
know that really cute new guy I told you about? The foreign exchange student?”
“Aladdin?” Tiana asked, thinking of the new Middle Eastern boy in her Home
Ec class.
“No, no, the one with the sexy accent.”
“Ah, yeeeah?” she replied vaguely, briefly remembering her friend ramble one
lunchtime about some guy. But then again, Lottie was usually rambling about some
guy at lunchtime, after awhile they all started to mix together and sound the same.
“Yeah, well anyway,” Lottie continued, “He was at the coffee house this
morning! I know, I could of died. His face was the perfect thing to start my day with.
It’s a good thing I chose today to break in my new Prada kitten heels since they make
my legs look killer.”
“Yah huh,” Tiana nodded, trying to make sense of why the photocopier screen
now had a red blinking light on it.
“So, just as I’m about to go up and talk to him and introduce myself, finally, I
notice him totally checking out Esmeralda! I didn’t even notice she’d come in but it’s
like he looked right past me and straight to her. He wasn’t even subtle about it; he
was blatantly looking her up and down while she was browsing the pastry counter!”
Lottie huffed, sounding annoyed.
Chapter Four
Tiana just shrugged. “That’s just how most guys are with Esmeralda, she’s just
got that…’look’,” Tiana said delicately, not wanting to say anything mean since she
was sort of friends with the girl, in a not too close way.
Lottie sounded pouty, “I’ve got a look…”
“Yeah, but It’s more kind of a cute, preppy, whoa that’s a lot of pink kind of
look. Esmeralda’s got that ‘I just stepped out of an MTV rap video with Usher’ kind of
look.”
“True,” Lottie nodded as if Tiana had just said something very wise. “What
class do we have next?” she asked.
“Physics with Mr. Jafar,” Tiana checked the clock again. Damn only five
minutes left ‘till the bell.
Lottie laughed, “Yeah, that is not a class I want to be late too.”
“Seconded, but I need these flyers!” Tiana was starting to sound more and
more annoyed. “Why can’t it just work! What is wrong with this thing?”
“Have you tried reloading the paper tray?”
Both girls turned around as Meg had walked up behind them, looking slightly
amused.
Tiana looked at the blinking red light again. “Oh, so that’s what that meant.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“Phys Ed first period is the worst,” Snow White yawned as she headed into the
girls locker rooms next to the gym along with a throng of other girls. A junior class
was headed out to play basketball and a sophomore group was going to be doing
Lacrosse. “It makes you sweaty for the rest of the day”
“I dunno, it kind of makes me feel refreshed a little. Wakes me up, gets me
going,” Aurora said as she slung her bag down on one of the benches and rifled
around for her gym uniform.
Chapter Four
”Yeah, well it seems a lot more like torture to me. We’re not all as fit as you
miss head cheerleader,” Cinderella smiled at her friend as all three girls began to
change.
Aurora grinned ear to ear and squealed, “Oh my god, I
can’t get over you saying that!”
“Head cheerleader, head cheerleader, head
cheerleader!” Cinderella and Snow White chanted together as
they poked their friend and laughed, causing Aurora to
squeal with even more excitement.
“You guys I’m serious! This is so surreal, like
something I’d only ever get once upon a dream! I
mean, you know they usually choose a senior girl to
be head cheerleader, but no, I got it!”
“Yeah, but everyone could tell it was gonna
be a tossup between you, Lottie, or Giselle,”
Snow smiled.
“Yeah,” Aurora nodded. “Lottie actually
came up to me though after I got chosen and said she
was actually relieved it wasn’t her, said she didn’t think she
could handle the stress or something. She was really sweet
too and congratulated me and everything.” Her smile fell a
little bit, “But I know Giselle definitely wanted it…”
“Yeah but she doesn’t seem the type to be bitchy about it
or anything, right?” Cinderella asked as she pulled her t-shirt over
her head.
“Yeah, I doubt it,” Aurora waved it off.
“Hey, be right back, bathroom,” Snow cut in as she headed
off to the other side of the change room. “Wait for me though!”
And her two friends nodded.
As soon as Snow opened the door to the girls’ toilets
however, she saw that every single cubicle was occupied with
another couple of girls waiting in line, holding their bags.
Chapter Four
Ugh, why did some girls need to change into their gear in the cubicles? There
was another designated place to change, no need to be shy, they were all girls here!
Snow didn’t say anything though and just took her place in the queue, crossing her
legs.
About five meters away actually in one of these cubicles, was Rapunzel. As
soon as she’d walked into the change rooms with all these other girls she became
instantly self conscious. She didn’t really know what to have expected, but seeing all
these other girls strip off to their underwear right out in the open, like it was nothing,
was not it. Rapunzel didn’t even like changing in front of her mother! She’d stood in
the door awkwardly until some other girls tutted loudly behind her and she had to
quickly side step out of the way, mumbling an apology. Somehow she felt like all
eyes were on her and she blushed.
“Are you just ‘gonna stand there missy or do you want to dawdle some
more?” A stern voice came from behind her and Rapunzel jumped, a little edgy.
It was the female gym teacher, Miss Sinclair, a woman who could be
considered pretty with her blonde hair and beauty mark on her upper lip, but
somehow the permanent frown she wore was a little off putting. There were rumors
that she used to be a drill sergeant for the army. Even without sufficient proof of any
kind it was still easy to believe. She stared down at Rapunzel, hands on her hips and
a shiny silver whistle hanging around her neck.
Rapunzel was like a deer caught in headlights and she only managed to
stutter out a few lines of: “I… um, do we have to change here or-”
“Yes you have to change here, like all the other girls. No one gets special
treatment,” Miss Sinclair snapped. “Now hurry up.”
Rapunzel blushed even harder as a few of the other girls had heard her being
told off and she could hear them laughing quietly. She looked around, slightly
panicked, before she spotted the bathroom door. She had high tailed it in there and
grabbed one of the stalls, changing into her uniform as fast as she could.
As she walked out she noticed a pale, dark haired girl give her a once over,
before going into the cubicle after her.
When Snow White was done and headed out of the bathroom, she saw
Cinderella waiting for her where she left them, but her other blonde friend was out of
sight.
Chapter Four
“Where’s Aurora?” Snow asked.
Cinderella laughed and shook her head, “She’s decided to go and check out
the new sophomores.” Snow followed her friends gaze as they both glanced over to
where Aurora was blatantly staring at all the sophomore girls, who had grouped
together at the back of the change rooms, while still half dressed herself.
Snow blinked. She could see from here that Aurora was getting some very
strange looks from the girls, some who hadn’t finished changing. They looked
distinctly uncomfortable but Aurora seemed totally unfazed, casually looking over
each girl.
“…and… why?” was all she managed to say.
“Something about scouting out new cheerleaders early. Apparently that
should be one of her new duties.”
“She looks like she’s perving on them,” Snow laughed and Cinderella had to
stifle her own laugh.
“Obviously, she doesn’t see it that way.”
“Hey, guys!” Aurora turned from staring at the girls to yell over to her friends,
“Look at this one, good strong legs! She’d be great for high kicks!” She smiled
excitedly, pointing completely unsubtly to a scared looking sophomore girl.
“…It’ll definitely be interesting to see our friend in a leadership role,”
Cinderella said under her breath has Aurora gave them both a thumbs up.
“Ooh, look at the little blonde one, she’s so tiny! We could throw her up in the
air easily!”
“Those poor, poor girls,” Snow smiled as she saw most of the sophomores
slowly edge away from the new head cheerleader.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Tiana and Lottie only just managed to make it into Mr. Jafar’s classroom
before the bell rang, quickly taking their seats across from each other as Jafar wrote
notes on the board. Lottie did a quick swivel in her seat to glance around at the
people in her class. Quasi was up the back, as well as Giselle, a fellow cheerleader
Chapter Four
who she gave a little wave too. As for the handsome exchange student she’d set her
heart on in the last few days, he didn’t look like he was in this class.
“Charlotte, could you please turn around and focus your attention on the
board,” Jafar droned, using the blonde’s full name.
“Yeah, sorry,” she said, giving an apologetic smile that, of course, he didn’t
return.
“Now all get out your books and write down all the dates I’ve written up on
the board, these are key assessment weeks as well as dates of any important essays
or tests I will be issuing out to you. Consider yourself lucky I’m even giving you these
dates, most teachers aren’t as nice as me,” he gave a stiff, sarcastic smile.
Tiana immediately began copying down everything in her journal as well as
her school diary. This is great, it would make planning a study schedule around this
class so much easier now she knew what to expect. She had a whole stack of
successfully printed flyers for the study group in her bag right now and she planned
to pin them up during lunch break.
Ten minutes passed as everyone scribbled away in silence but this was
interrupted as the classroom door swung open.
“Sorry we’re laaaate,” Esmeralda whispered in a sing-songy voice as she
delicately stepped into the class, very aware of the glare Jafar was giving her. A boy
walked in after her, letting the door swing shut behind them.
Lottie’s eyes widened as she immediately struck out her hand and whacked
Tiana repeatedly on the arm trying to get her attention.
“Ow, Lottie!” Tiana hissed until she caught sight of what her friend was
freaking out over.
“Hi there,” he said smoothly to Jafar as he strutted up to his desk. “I’m a new
student, Naveen. I’m the one from the exchange program,” he stuck out his hand for
the teacher to shake, a cocky grin on his face.
Everyone stared.
Tiana unconsciously shook her head.
Chapter Four
Jafar just looked down his nose at Naveen’s out stretched hand and didn’t say
a word.
Naveen laughed, arm still outstretched, eyes flitting up to meet Esmeralda’s
briefly. She gave a warning look. Naveen quickly took his hand back and let it reach
into his pocket, pulling out a folded piece of paper.
“I have a note,” he explained. Jafar gave him another hard look. A look that so
clearly said, ‘you have been in my classroom all but two minutes and I already dislike
you’ kind of look.
Tiana watched the two carefully with the rest of the class. Just like Jafar, Tiana
seemed to be making up her mind about this new boy pretty quickly herself. From
his designer jeans, to the popped collar of his on-trend polo shirt, he just gave off
the strongest little spoilt rich boy vibe. It’s like arrogance seemed to just come off
him in waves. You could tell he thought he was all that.
“Sit down. Both of you,” Jafar snapped to both Naveen and Esmeralda, “I don’t
even care why you’re late, just get out your things quickly and get organized.”
Lottie however, did care why they were late.
“Oh my god, they must have left the coffee shop together,” she whispered to
Tiana, not taking her eyes off the two. “I bet she’s already given him her phone
number! Maybe they’ve organized to meet up tomorrow at the coffee shop as well.
Damn that girl works fast. I swear, if they’re sitting together at lunch I will-”
“Shhhh. Don’t be so dramatic,” Tiana whispered back. Lottie was never as quiet
as she thought she was while trying to be discrete.
Esmeralda headed straight up to the back row of seats were Quasi was, with
Naveen following her. However he quickly realized there was only one free seat there
left. Esmeralda took it with no hesitation.
“Sorry,” she smiled apologetically to Naveen. “There are some free seats down
the front though?”
Naveen smiled charmingly while placing his hands over his heart dramatically,
“Yeah, but they’re not next to you.”
Tiana could hear them from her seat and she mentally gagged. ‘How cheesy
can you get,’ she thought, ‘I hope no guy ever tries a line like that on me.’
Chapter Four
Lottie was leaning over the back of her chair to listen in on them too, ‘How
charming can you get, I hope he tries using lines like that on me… you know, instead
of wasting them on Esmeralda.’
Esmeralda just laughed though. A giggle that many guys at Disney high loved
to hear. Naveen made his way up to one of the only free desks, one directly next to
Tiana.
She kept her head down and focused on writing her notes, trying her best not
to catch his eye.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Mulan, Ariel, and Jasmine stood around close to each other at one end of the
grass field. Technically Jasmine was the only one meant to be there, her team’s
goalie, but the ball was down the other end with the rest of the class of girls
scrabbling around after it with their sticks. The three girls took this as a chance to
stand around chatting.
“Did anyone else notice that weird blonde girl staring at us in the locker
rooms before?” Mulan asked.
“Oh my god, yes, what was with that? Freaked me out” Ariel slung her
Lacrosse stick over both shoulders.
Jasmine laughed, “Yeah, I don’t know what that was all about. I know she’s
one of the juniors though, pretty sure she was the one who got head cheer leader.”
“Wouldn’t surprise me, she’s really pretty,” Mulan sighed. “Sometimes I wish I
could go blonde,” she twirled a strand of her jet black hair around her finger. Damn
Asian genetics.
“You could if you really wanted to. You’d have to bleach the hell out of it
though,” Ariel explained “Plus whenever an Asian girl goes blonde, it just makes me
think of them turning super Saiyan”
“Super Saiyan?” Mulan laughed.
“Yeah, like off Dragon Ball Z! Asians that turn blonde,” she smiled cheekily as
Mulan took a swipe at her with the lacrosse stick.
Chapter Four
“You are so not as funny as you think you are!” she said, still laughing despite
herself. “And even if I did go blonde it’s not like I’d magically get the pretty face that
came along with it too.”
“Oh, shut up!” Jasmine rolled her eyes. “You are so pretty Mulan, I don’t know
how many times I have to say it.”
“It doesn’t matter how many times you say it, doesn’t make it true. I have
evidence in the fact that I have never, ever had a boyfriend let alone even have a boy
look at me in the halls.”
“You don’t know that,” Ariel pitched in. “Maybe they just check out your ass
when your back is turned,” she said it trying to be encouraging but Mulan pulled a
face.
“Since when do you care if guys think you’re pretty anyway? Plus me and Ariel
have never had boyfriends either,” Jasmine reasoned.
“Yeah, but that’s because you don’t even want one and Ariel seems to be
saving herself for the exclusive position of Eric’s girlfriend,” Mulan reasoned back.
“Actually, I did have a boyfriend once,” Ariel mentioned over the two.
“Yeah, I remember you told me,” Jasmine said flatly. “But I don’t think the boy
who proposed to you with a plasticine ring in kindergarten really counts Ariel.”
“Hey! For all you know that could have been a very significant relationship in
my life.”
“Can you remember his name?”
“Uuuuh…”
“Exactly.”
The girls paused to watch a bit of the match as it almost seemed like someone
was about to get the ball up to their end of the field. A girl made it all the way up to
the centre mark before having her stick knocked, sending the ball straight back into
the other team’s hands.
“Would you be a cheer leader if you could?” Mulan asked the two other girls,
changing the subject.
Chapter Four
“No way, both my older sisters are on the team, they’d just boss me around,”
Ariel referred to Arista, who’d made the team last year and Aquatta, a senior who’s
been on the team since her sophomore year too. “Or people would think it unfair,
like I made them get me on the team or something.”
“I can’t even kick my leg up past my stomach,” Jasmine said as her answer,
“and jumping up and down in a short skirt in front of a crowd full of guys is pretty
low down on my list of stuff to do.”
“Why ask, would you want to?” Ariel asked Mulan.
Mulan shrugged, “Well, I wouldn’t want to do it without you guys. It’s just that
I need to pick some extracurricular activity to do outside of school and stuff. My
parents are being annoying about it.”
“And you think cheer leading was what they had in mind?” Jasmine said
doubtfully.
“Ha, yeah, no. Pretty sure they were thinking more about a math tutoring class
or something with English. Or chess club.” All three girls shuddered at the thought of
joining the chess club. “I guess I’ll just go down and check the school notice board
later, see what else is on offer.”
“Girls!”
All three of the friends were snapped out of their conversation as Miss Kida,
the lower-year girls sport teacher, called out to them gesturing wildly at the goals.
“Come on, get in the game! Jasmine’s the only one who’s supposed to be
there, Ariel get out to the centre, Mulan try and go after the ball!” she said clapping
her hands at them as she ran up the field.
Mulan and Ariel quickly jogged out to join the mass of girls as the ball
travelled their way. Someone launched the ball high up in the air and it soared closer
and closer. Mulan ran to keep up with it, her head craned up to the sky, not letting it
out of her sight.
“I got it, I got it!” she called, jogging backwards now. Just as she stretched her
arm and stick backwards and swung it to the right, she felt it collide with something
behind her and heard a small shriek.
Chapter Four
The fact that she’d hit someone didn’t register quick enough with Mulan as
she jogged back an extra couple of paces, not looking where she was going, until she
felt her foot trip on something and now she shrieked as she toppled backwards onto
the grass.
Rapunzel clutched at her head as she sat up on the ground. She’d been
running along, trying to join in this crazy game she’d never even heard of before, and
then wham. Something hit her straight in the face! And the girl who’d done it to her
was now crumpled over her in a heap.
Both girls were vaguely aware of Miss Kida blowing her whistle a couple of
times and calling a time out.
“Oh my god, I am so, so, sooo sorry!” Mulan said anxiously, looking over at
Rapunzel. “I wasn’t looking where I was going!”
“It’s alright,” Rapunzel tried smiling reassuringly, but she winced as she moved
her cheek. “I’m not bleeding am I?”
Mulan peered at her face, “No, no your good, and I really am sorry!”
Rapunzel laughed in good nature, “It was an accident, don’t worry about it.”
A few of the other girls in the class were laughing at the two as they pulled
themselves up from the ground but most rushed over to see if they were okay,
including Miss Kida.
“You girls okay? No major injuries? I don’t want to send anyone up to the
nurse’s office if I can’t help it,” The teacher fretted nervously, looking both girls over.
“That was literally one of the best things I’ve ever seen!” Ariel laughed as she
jogged over. “I wish I could have gotten it on tape just to show you. You practically
flipped in the air!” she said to Mulan and the girls all laughed.
Rapunzel tried to laugh it off as well, feeling pretty embarrassed. I suppose it
would be less embarrassing if you only stacked it in front of your friends. As
everyone dispersed again and went to take their positions on the field to resume
play, Miss Kida came over to Rapunzel and put a hand on her shoulder.
“Do you wanna sit out for the rest of the lesson? You took that Lacrosse stick
pretty hard to the face from where I was standing.”
Chapter Four
Now it even sounded like the teacher was laughing a little at her. Rapunzel
just smiled and nodded.
“Yeah… if that’s alright.” And she wandered over to sit under the shade of the
trees on the bank as Miss Kida blew her whistle again to start the new game.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“I’m just saying if the cow didn’t want to be eaten, it wouldn’t be made of
meat,” Phoebus shrugged, unwrapping the paper from his burger and taking a bite.
Pocahontas sighed again, “You’re not listening. It’s about how the animals are
treated before they’re made into food that annoys me, not just the fact that people
eat them.”
The two seniors were sitting in the middle of the quad on the grass eating
their lunch. Or I guess you could say they were debating their lunch.
“So if the cows were given five star accommodations, with one thousand
thread count Egyptian cotton sheets to sleep on every night, while being serenaded
by Elton John himself before they were killed, then I could eat them guilt free?”
“I… What? No. You’re missing the point.” she gave Flynn a funny look, “And
Elton John?”
“First name that came to my head.”
She took a bite of one of her carrot sticks. “I just don’t trust all this massproduced meat they sell in super markets.” She gestured to his burger, “Or any of
that stuff from the cafeteria.”
Phoebus peered down at his half eaten burger, “Yeah, it is a little suspect. But
over the years I feel like I built up a tolerance for it. It’s probably strengthened my
stomach against like, five types of E. coli.”
“Urgh, that’s disgusting to even think about. Makes me feel queasy just
watching you eat that thing.”
“Om, nahm, nahm, nahm!” Phoebus nashed his teeth together as he chewed
loudly making stupid sound effects.
Chapter Four
“Oh come on, Phoebus, really?! Close your mouth when you chew!”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Esmeralda and Quasi were at the vending machines in the back of the
cafeteria, with Esmeralda peering over the drinks, taking her sweet time deciding.
“I waaaant… Fanta,” she said, seemingly making up her mind and reaching out
her hand to push the button, before she shook her head and put her hand back up
to her lips, “Actually, no. I don’t want Fanta… Maybe just a lemonade?”
“Is soda really going to sync up with your new diet?” Quasi laughed.
“You’re right,” she agreed, “I’d better get a diet coke.” She slipped in her coins
and pushed the button, waiting for her drink to fall down the chute. Except it didn’t.
“What the hell?” she said, annoyed, bending down to peer into the little slot,
“Stupid machine.” She gave it a hard slap with her palm but it didn’t do anything. She
tried another couple of times but it did nothing but hurt her own hand.
“Quasi?” she looked up at her friend.
“Yeah, sure,” he sighed as she shuffled out of the way and he stepped up to
the machine. Quasi only had to grab onto both sides of the machine and shake it
from side to side, practically lifting it off the ground, and instead of just one can, five
came tumbling out onto the floor.
“Score!” Esmeralda cheered as she scooped up the cans and Quasi put the
machine back down. Both of them quickly high tailed it out of the cafeteria, just in
case any teachers had spotted them and headed down the halls to the quad.
“So, that Naveen guy,” Quasi tried to get a conversation going, “He seems
nice.”
Actually, in truth, Quasi didn’t think Naveen seemed nice at all. In fact Quasi
had taken an almost instant dislike to him.
But then again, he tended to do that with most guys that flirted with
Esmeralda.
Chapter Four
Esmeralda shrugged. “He does seem pretty cool,” she said casually, not giving
her answer much thought.
Quasi pressed a little further, “And you two, ah, came into class late together.”
“Oh, yeah, that. I actually ran into him at the coffee house on the way to
school and I found out he was a new student, and I was like ‘oh my god, no way, I
totally go to Disney too’ and then he offered to give me a lift,” she explained.
“And you just got in his car, just like that?” Quasi asked, sounding worried.
What if he had been some lying sleaze who didn’t even go to school at all and, I
don’t know, wanted to kidnap her or something!
“Oh, calm down. It’s not like he was going to kidnap me or anything,”
Esmeralda laughed, almost reading her friends mind, “Plus he had a super nice car.
White with all leather interior, so high end.”
Quasi couldn’t help himself as his mind showed him horrible mental images of
Naveen and Esmeralda fooling around on the back seat leather interior. Urgh, why
does his brain torture him sometimes?
“So why were you actually late?”
“Only because it took about forever to park! All the student bays were filled,
as well as the entrance car park. He ended up parked on the curb just down the road
outside the oval. This school needs to get more parking space pronto,” she huffed.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Aladdin scanned his eyes across the school notice board, skipping over the
ads from old students selling textbooks, a signup sheet for the school athletics team,
book club notices and a self made poster from the head of the sports department
asking whoever had taken half the school’s soccer balls to return them immediately.
Aladdin was actually looking for a map, or at least a sign, that would show him to the
cafeteria. You’d think it would be easy to find but after circling around the science
and math blocks for ten minutes, wasting valuable eating time, Aladdin had to admit
he needed help.
“S’cuse me” came a polite girls voice from behind him as he blocked the
board.
Chapter Four
“Sorry” he shuffled awkwardly out of the way until he recognized the girls face
“Oh, hey! Hi, it’s… you!” he said awkwardly as he couldn’t for the life of him
remember her name, even though he knew she told him. She’d been in his math
class though and had lent him a ruler.
“It’s Tiana,” she laughed.
“Yeah! Right, Tiana. It was on the tip of my tongue,” he smiled apologetically.
Tiana moved past him and grabbed one of the loose tacks from the board and
pinned up a bright green flyer. Aladdin peered at it over his shoulder.
“Study group initiative,” he read the title out loud. She’d used a swirly font and
stuck little clip art images of books and pencils around the corners, as well as writing
all the info down and providing little tabs with her email address on them for people
to take if they were interested.
“Yeah,” she smiled. “Would you wan-”
“No,” Aladdin said a little too quickly. “I mean, I’d love too, but… um, I just
kind of have… other… things going on.”
Tiana gave him a little less of a friendly look but nodded, “Right, of course you
do.”
He let out an awkward laugh, “Ha, yeah… so I was actually just looking for the
cafeteria right now.” He asked, pointing left to right, “Could you point me in the
general direction?”
Tiana pointed him down the hall without a word.
“Right. Thanks,” he clapped his hands together once as he backed away,
leaving Tiana to put up more flyers.
Aladdin did eventually find the cafeteria, after accidentally wandering into the
gym, two class rooms and a broom closet, and once he did, he immediately made a
bee line for the end of the queue. It was half way through the lunch break already so
it was a pretty short line, the downside being most of the good food was already
taken. As Aladdin stood around, counting the change from his pocket, he noticed
someone swiftly jump the rail into the queue, cutting in front of a couple of juniors.
“Hey, no cuts, ass hole!”
Chapter Four
“I’m a senior, I get special privileges,” the guy said quickly.
“What? No you-”
The guy, Flynn, turned around and gave the boys a very clear look. The boys
didn’t say anything after that (Well, Aladdin clearly heard one of them mutter the
words ‘asshole’ and ‘jerkoff’ under his breath). As Flynn grabbed a tray from the pile,
he spotted Aladdin.
“Hey, I know you! From the office,” he grinned and reached across to grab
Aladdin by his arm and pull him up to where he stood.
“Hey, what the hell-!”
“He gets special privileges too. So, Ali baba, what’s up?” he asked as they both
shuffled up in the queue, Aladdin grabbing his own tray.
“Actually it’s Aladdin-”
“Yeah, whatever. How’s this dump been treating ya?”
“Uh, can’t complai-” but he was cut off again.
“Aw, what! They’re already out of burgers! What kind of establishment is this
hack school running?!” Flynn cried out indignantly, making the nearest lunch lady
glare at him across the sneeze guard.
Flynn just shuffled a small mountain of chips onto his plate, glaring. “Can’t
believe they’re already out of burgers. They’re not even that good!” he said loud
enough so the lunch ladies could hear, prompting more glares. Aladdin just shuffled
next to him awkwardly, grabbing his own chips.
Just as the two were about to reach the cash register, Flynn glanced quickly
around behind him and across the counter before quickly swiping out his hands and
grabbing about five jelly cups that sat on top of the counter and dumping them in
his bag. He did it with such practiced precision and ease that Aladdin could easily see
it was not his first time pulling that stunt. Aladdin glanced fearfully across at the
lunch ladies, but luckily, they didn’t seem to have noticed. Flynn looked as casual as
ever.
“That’ll be $3.50 for the chips,” a surly looking woman in a hairnet glared at
them.
Chapter Four
Flynn dumped the change onto the counter with a glare of his own. “This
place really needs to step up its game-” he squinted at the woman’s name tag, “Glady’s. Good day to you,” he said before stalking off.
Aladdin could hear Glady’s mutter a few choice words as he paid for his own
chips at the register. He decided to catch up with Flynn, hurrying across the cafeteria
floor.
“Hey,” he said hurriedly, walking along next to him “So, uh, can I sit with you?
You know, if that’s cool?” In truth Aladdin had been sitting alone this entire week so
far. Every time he tried to find some seniors to sit with it’s as if none of them were
around within a three mile radius. If there was one thing Aladdin hated about moving
schools more than anything else, it was the eating arrangements. Finding a group to
sit with was a bitch.
“Sure you can Al,” Flynn said through a mouthful of his chips, “I’m actually
surprised I haven’t seen you around in the quad already.”
“The quad?”
“Oh shit, no one’s shown you the quad yet?”
Aladdin shook his head.
“Aw man, it is a magical place. A place where us infinitely superior seniors can
eat in peace away from all these little juvenile losers,” Flynn made a grand sweeping
gesture around the cafeteria at all the packed tables. A few ‘juvenille losers’ turned to
glare at him, but of course they didn’t say anything.
“Cool,” Aladdin nodded. Well that solved the mystery of where all the seniors
disappeared to at lunch. “So, where is it?” he asked, noticing they’d already started
heading down the hall and outside.
“Just follow me.”
As the two walked outside, they passed a small bench across from the
sophomore’s lockers, where a girl was sitting eating a homemade sandwich from a
little purple lunch box. The girl saw them and threw up her hand to wave
energetically. “Hi Flynn!” she called out, smiling.
“Heey Rapunzel,” Flynn gave the briefest of nods her way before walking on
past her.
Chapter Four
“Who was that?” Aladdin looked back over his shoulder and asked once they
were a few yards away.
“Some sophomore I babysit, not important.”
“But she was sitting alone…?”
Flynn just looked at him questioningly, eyebrow raised, obviously not seeing
his point.
“I… Never mind.”
When the two reached the quad, Aladdin’s eyes widened appreciatively. It was
a nice quad. The grass was actually green here, unlike the rest of the water-deprived
looking stuff growing all over the rest of the campus. The biggest tree in the middle
of the open area created the perfect amount of shade; the benches weren’t old and
decrepit with their paint peeling off. Groups of students were dotted all over eating
in peace, a few people even had their iPods and phones out since no teachers ever
came past this way, they didn’t have to hide them for fear of having them
confiscated.
He followed Flynn as the boy headed straight for a group that sat directly
under the big tree.
“‘Sup losers,” Flynn smiled as he spread himself across the grass next to
Phoebus and Pocahontas.
“This is Al. He’s sitting with us by the way.”
Aladdin stood awkwardly until a girl with wild black hair shuffled over to make
a space for him next to her. “You can sit here, Al,” she smiled at him and Aladdin
hoped to god he wasn’t blushing. She was really pretty.
“Thanks,” he said as he sat down. “And you can call me Aladdin. Not Al,” he
laughed.
Esmeralda nodded “Okay, Aladdin, you can call me Esmeralda. Not Esme, or
Ez. I hate nicknames too.”
“I’m Quasimodo,” the boy across from her said as he smiled at Aladdin, “but
most people call me Quasi.”
“I’m Pocahontas,” The other dark haired girl raised her hand.
Chapter Four
“Phoebus,” the blonde boy said quickly after.
“Right,” Aladdin smiled back at all of them, trying to look as friendly as he
could. He’d half feared Flynn had been part of a jerk-jock type of crowd, but these
people seemed alright.
“So, Aladdin, where’s that name from?” Quasi asked.
“Arab. I was born there. Came here when I was, like, five though.”
“Ooh, exotic. My name means Emerald in Spanish, but I’m actually descended
from French gypsies,” Esmeralda said proudly and Aladdin
looked impressed.
Phoebus scoffed, “You were born in California, and so
were your parents.”
“I said descended!” Esmeralda huffed. “And what kind
of name is Phoebus anyway?”
“Hey! It means sun god!”
“Ha, sure it does” Flynn laughed.
“Watch it, Eugene.”
“Okay, okay,” Pocahontas, ever the voice of reason,
cut in, “Let’s settle. We all have weird names, we’re all
used to it, welcome to the group,” she smiled in an
almost apologetic way at Aladdin.
Just then, Flynn looked around. “Hey, do you
guys all have diet coke?” he asked, peering suspiciously
at the cans everyone had.
“Yeah, me and Esmeralda got them free from
the dodgy machine,” Quasi answered, taking a sip.
“We got five for the price of one,”
Esmeralda smiled, digging around in her purse
to pull the extra one out and then handing it
over to Aladdin. “A welcome present,” she
Chapter Four
laughed as he took it.
“Thanks,” he said as Flynn looked indignantly at her.
“And where’s mine?” he frowned.
“I said we only got five,” she shrugged, “Sorry.”
Aladdin tried to look sorry, but those over salted chips had made him thirsty.
Flynn frowned and just held up his hands, “Well, whatever, I mean I was going
to share all these jelly cups with you guys-” he tipped the contents of his bag out
onto the grass, “- but now you bitches can just forget it.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
The school day went quickly enough and before anyone knew it, the end of
school bell had already rung.
Aurora quickly skidded down the packed halls, smiling excitedly, a bright pink
piece of paper in her hand. As newly appointed head cheerleader, she decided to
take signing up new recruits as a top priority, and this meant advertising. She’d
managed to snag a massive piece of construction paper from the art rooms to make
her poster with, and she’d spent the entirety of her free period drawing a cheer
leading pyramid, with their little uniforms all carefully colored in with wind-up
crayons, and a big title in bubble writing saying: ‘CHEER LEADING TRY-OUTS FRIDAY
LUNCHTIME ON THE SPORTS OVAL. SOFOMORS AND OVER MAY APPLY’. She’d also
gotten some glitter pens and outlined it in blue and purple with little love hearts and
swirly bits everywhere in the background. It was perfect.
She stuck it up on the notice board with a proud grin on her face as she
stepped back to admire her work. It was pretty large it kind of took over most of the
board, but that didn’t really matter. It only covered up some small poster for a study
group or something anyway. Who cared about that? Cheerleading was way more of a
top priority.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Chapter Four
Mulan scanned over the notice board with a grim look on her face, Ariel
waiting impatiently behind her.
“Come on, we’ll miss our bus if you don’t hurry up!” the red headed girl sighed
as Mulan shushed her.
“Don’t rush me! This is important. I need to choose something…” she said,
turning back to the board. There was something about an advanced math club, the
mathletes, but it also said that they went and competed against other schools in
actual math competitions that were broadcasted on TV. What kind of sad person
wanted to watch high school math competitions on TV? Mulan did not want to know.
Okay, mathletes was not an option.
Debate team? Hrm, Mulan didn’t like the idea of actually arguing with people
on purpose. At least that’s what she thought debating would be like. Next.
There were all kind of personal ads for tutors in Math, English, and Science,
but you had to pay for those. She wasn’t going to spend her allowance money on her
own torture, thank you very much. Her eyes briefly flashed over the huge cheer
leading poster. ‘Ha, yeah right,’ she thought. The last thing her eyes fell on was a
small poster for the chess club. Yeah. No way in hell.
“Seriously, can’t you just pick something? If we miss this bus we are walking
home.” Ariel checked the time on her phone again, “We have like five minutes to get
there.”
“But there’s nothing here that looks even half decent! My parents are getting
mad enough that I haven’t picked something all week, if I come back with nothing
again it’s going to be another yelling match!” Mulan stressed as she looked
dejectedly up at all the pieces of paper tacked to the board.
Ariel came up and scanned it herself. “What aboooout…this!” she jabbed her
finger onto the Athletics team signup sheet. The piece of paper was so small and
overshadowed by everything else Mulan had barely seen it there.
“The athletics team? I dunno…” she trailed off, looking at it. It had a fair few
signatures already, but she highly doubted this was what her parents had in mind.
“It’s that or that chess club. Make your choice… fast!” Ariel stood with her
hands on her hips and Mulan snapped.
Chapter Four
“Fine! Whatever” she said, grabbing the pen that was blue tacked to the wall
and scribbling her name across the bottom of the signup sheet “Done. Let’s go. If we
run we can totally make it to the bus on time.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Phoebus, Esmeralda, Pocahontas, and Flynn were all walking together out of
their last class and headed down the crowded hall.
“So is everyone getting a lift home?” Phoebus asked, “Because I really think I
should start charging gas money. I’m practically your taxi service at this point.”
“I’ll pay you in hugs.”
“Flynn, I’m pretty much the only person you can’t seduce free shit out of,
okay.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“Can I pay in hugs?” Esmeralda asked, smiling up at Phoebus.
“Oh, no fair,” Flynn called out, “She totally has the advantage with her hugs.”
He pointed at her up and down. “If I had a pair of those I bet I could get free rides
too.”
“No one is paying in hugs! That is not a form of currency,” Phoebus snapped
at the both of them. He looked over at Pocahontas but she answered his question
before he even needed to ask.
“Don’t worry, I rode my bike here, I’m just walking with you guys since you’re
headed past the notice board. I’m gonna sign up for the athletics team,” Pochontas
said. She rode her bike because she was one of those ‘conscious about their carbon
foot print’ kind of people. She’d tried to convince the others to do the same, but
obviously that didn’t pan out.
“I like that new guy,” Esmeralda changed the topic of conversation as they
walked. “He seems cool.”
Flynn was quick to cut her off while Phoebus just shook his head, “No, no,
don’t say that!” He waved a warning finger at her, “You stay away from him!”
Chapter Four
“What!” she asked, slapping his finger away from her face, frowning. “I just
said I thought he was cool, I didn’t mean it like I thought he was ‘cool.’”
“Well, you keep it that way. I don’t want you getting your claws-”
“My claws?”
“-Yes, claws, into him. We think he’s cool too,” he gestured between him and
Phoebus, “-and you can’t ruin him with your feminine wiles.”
Esmeralda started to laugh and roll her eyes but Flynn looked deadly serious
and even Phoebus was giving her a warning look.
“It’s not funny! We always bring a new guy in, you make your little eyes at
him-”
“Even if it’s not on purpose,” Phoebus added in quickly when Esmeralda
looked like she wanted to argue the point.
“-and then they get all love sick over you, and don’t hang out with us, then
you reject them anyway, or they hear you hooked up with someone else at a party,
and they get all sad and mopey or angry and stop hanging out with you, and by
extension, us!” Flynn finished his rant with a rather serious warning look, daring her
to deny that this hasn’t happened around five times in the last couple years alone.
“It’s true,” Pocahontas nodded “You do have a tendency to do that.”
Esmeralda squinted her eyes at her best friend, “I thought you’d be at least a
little on my side.”
“Well let me rephrase that, all these guys have a tendency to do that… with a
little encouragement from you,” she smiled, thinking the whole conversation pretty
funny.
“Well, fine! I didn’t mean to do anything, but I’ll barely talk to the guy if that’s
what’ll make you happy!” she exclaimed, her words dripping with sarcasm, but Flynn
seemed happy with that answer.
Chapter Four
”Good,” he said in all seriousness as they reached the notice board.
Pocahontas grabbed the pen off the wall and quickly wrote her name down on the
athletics signup sheet. She’d been on the team since her sophomore year; she was
one of the best on track, so there wasn’t any doubt in her mind that she’d
make the cut at tryouts.
“What’s with this poster?” Flynn laughed, “It looks like it
was drawn by a five year old.”
“They spelt ‘sophomore’ wrong,” Phoebus laughed with
him “God, cheerleaders. You gotta love ‘em.”
Flynn also caught sight of the small poster asking
whoever took half the schools soccer balls to give them back
immediately. He quietly snatched it off the wall, crumpled it
up, and slid it into a close by trash can. That didn’t need to
be there.
Pocahontas shook her head as she put the pen back
on the wall, sticking it to the blue tack firmly, when another
innocuous piece of paper caught her eye. It was tacked right at
the top of the board and was printed in tiny writing, no
pictures or color on it at all. It looked like some kind of
photocopy of an official document or something. She reached
up and pulled it down to read. Her eyes scanned across it and
her eyes widened.
“Oh my god, you guys,” she turned around and
grabbed her friends’ attention.
“What?” Esmeralda asked, the three of them pausing
from laughing at the cheerleading poster when they caught
sight of their friend’s face.
“What is that?” Phoebus asked, looking at the piece
of paper in her hand.
Pocahontas still had her eyes fixated on the paper
with her mouth open. “It’s… a letter from the principal
about new student parking…” she trailed off.
Chapter Four
“Oh, are they building a new car park! I was just talking to Quasi about how
they needed one this morning.” Esmeralda went to peer over her friends shoulder at
the piece of paper to read it herself and her own eyes widened. “They can’t do that!”
she said immediately, looking just as worried as Pocahontas did now. “They just…
they can’t do that!”
“What, what is it! Tell us woman,” Flynn said impatiently, not liking the girls’
dramatics. Pocahontas lifted her head to break the news to them.
“They’re building a new car park… over our quad.”
Who’s going to be interested in joining the cheerleading team?
Will Mulan be telling her parents she’s joined the athletic team?
Will Mulan even be good on the athletics team?
What are the seniors going to do about their beloved quad being destroyed?
Will anyone ever sign up for Tiana’s study group?!
Chapter Five
Chance Encounters
Belle sat at her desk in class, trying her hardest to focus, but her mind was
elsewhere. She couldn’t stop thinking about her father, the trouble he was in, the
money problems, and not to mention just how depressed he’d seemed lately. Who
could blame him though? He was expected to show up to work every day even
though he’d been told being fired was just a matter of time? To work for the same
people after they’d pretty much labeled him worthless to them anyway. Belle had
always been close to her father, when he hurt, she felt it too.
She turned her head down to the math worksheet she had in front of her, the
first problem barely touched, only a few equations scribbled down on the page
before she’d given up to stare out the window, and Belle hated this word but it fit the
circumstances: angst. She wasn’t that good at math to begin with anyway. Her
strengths lay in English and Literature classes, art, occasionally history since her
essays were always well written and she had a knack for remembering the facts (It
was easy when she just saw her textbooks as just more stories to take in, only they
just happened to be true), but math. Math was different. Numbers and letters
jumbled up around shapes with silly symbols everywhere. She knew everyone said it,
but still, she couldn’t help but wonder when she’d ever need to use Pythagoras’s
theorem in the real world? What possible use could sine, cosine, and tangent have in
her daily life? Belle had never met a teacher who could properly answer this question
for her.
Mr. Yu, the imposing math teacher who looked more likely suited for a boxing
ring than a classroom, stalked past the rows of desks and Belle quickly grabbed her
calculator from her pencil case to make it look like she was doing her work. She
jabbed at a few random buttons until he skulked past her and she relaxed again.
Mulan, who was sitting across from her, was not so lucky.
“Miss Fa,” Shan Yu said lowly. “Hand over your phone, I can clearly see it in
your hands under your desk,” he said more menacingly than any faculty member
should be able to manage. Where did this school find its staff?
Mulan stiffened and looked like a scared rabbit in a trap. “I… uh… sorry Mr.
Yu,” she barely had time to yelp as Shan Yu snatched the mobile from her hands. The
Chapter Five
Chance Encounters
tiny little pink flip phone, complete with a little pompom charm dangling off it,
looked almost comical in his hand.
“I’ll be confiscating this. You can collect it at the end of the week,” he walked
to his desk and opened a small locked drawer, throwing the phone inside it roughly,
making Mulan wince. She hoped he didn’t break it, but she didn’t feel brave enough
to actually say that out loud. Though she did turn around to face Ariel and Jasmine
behind her and the three had a silent exchange of looks and mouthed words that
went something along the lines of ‘oh my god’ and ‘that sucks’ as well as ‘soooo
unfair’, plus a lot of eye rolling. Casual fare.
Belle just went back to stabbing at her calculator randomly. Of course her
thoughts continued to drift towards her father and that damn G.E.D. Company.
Stupid economic power houses and their damn corporate greed and… and… stupid
sounding names. That’s when Belle realized, her calculator was a G.E.D. Calculator!
Dad would have gotten it free from work and given it to her, she barely took notice
of it but when she actually looked there was that stupid G.E.D logo on the top corner.
A rose. Who chooses a rose as a symbol for an electronics company? Hmph, stupid
name, stupid logo, stupid company! Belle hardly realized it but she was stabbing the
calculator quite violently now, jabbing her finger down harder and harder each time,
still at complete random, lost in her (quite angry) thoughts.
Mulan looked over from her desk nervously as Belle basically assaulted the
little device, in her own little world.
“Uum, Belle?” Mulan hissed under her breath. “Are… are you alright?” she said
hesitantly. The two girls didn’t talk very much. Not out of dislike, nothing like that,
Belle didn’t really talk to anyone. If anything she was a bit… intimidating. Very pretty,
smart, independent, mature. A lot of things Mulan was very sure she wasn’t, and she
always seemed so aloof. So above everything, in her own little world. So as long as
Belle didn’t talk to anyone, not a lot of people were willing to talk to her first. But still,
the girl was glaring so intensely at that calculator you couldn’t help but tell things
were a little off. I mean hating math was one thing but come on.
“Hm?” was all Belle said, eyes wide, suddenly snapped out of… whatever it was
she was in just then. She looked back down at her calculator, one of the little squishy
buttons now permanently stuck down she had jabbed it so hard and back to Mulan
who had a worried/freaked out look on her face.
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Chance Encounters
Well done Belle, way to play it cool. She thought to herself, embarrassed.
“Yeah, I’m fine, it’s nothing. Really,” she tried to sound convincing but Mulan looked
thoroughly unconvinced, but didn’t say anything else. Both girls turned back to their
papers and Belle spent the rest of the lesson trying to avoid eye contact as she kept
sensing Mulan sending her worried looks every ten minutes.
Great, now she thinks I’m an unstable nutcase with a thing against
calculators…and I still can’t figure out this math puzzle!
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
After the excruciating math class was over, Mulan hurried out the door along
with Jasmine and Ariel as they started to head off to their next classes, but just as
they started to chatter about the horrendous injustice that was Mulan’s phone being
confiscated, Mulan caught sight of Belle slink out of the classroom and head the
opposite way down the hall, head hung.
“Um, you guys go ahead, I’m just gonna’ talk to Belle about something. See
you in art Ariel?” Mulan said quickly before hurrying after the brunette.
“Uh, yeah. Sure,” Ariel said, looking to jasmine with a shrug. “Since when does
she talk to Belle?” Jasmine could only shrug as well.
“No clue.”
Mulan was surprised at how fast Belle walked, she was already around the
corner before Mulan caught up to her, and that was mostly due to the fact that Belle
had stopped at the drink fountain for some water.
“Hey Belle!” Mulan chirped from right behind the girl, making her jump a little
in surprise and choke a little on her water as she coughed.
“Oh, sorry!” Mulan winced. Urgh, why am I such a spazz! “I didn’t mean to
sneak up on you!”
Belle thumped at her chest as she coughed a last couple of times “I… no, it’s
alright. What is it?”
Mulan stood there a little awkwardly, not quite knowing what to say now that
she was standing in front of her. She really wished she was better with her words.
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“I, well, you know in class before… you just seemed kind of… like… upset. Or
something. I dunno. Is something up, like, are you okay? It’s Okay if you don’t want
to say anything but you just… yeah,” she rambled on.
Belle was a little taken aback by Mulan saying all of that. ‘Why would she
care?’ was the first thing that popped into her head, as well as being a little touched
that she actually asked. Then a great wave of embarrassment as, yes, it must’ve been
obvious that she was angry and upset over something. She also felt like coughing a
little bit more, that water really went down the wrong way, but didn’t want to do it
right in Mulan’s face.
Belle’s first instinct of course was to just say a quick, ‘I’m fine’ with a
reassuring, yet fake, smile. That’s just what people do isn’t it? But something about
the look on Mulan’s face and the way she spoke to her… it was quite caring. So many
people seemed to ask how you are over necessity, like it was just the thing you were
supposed to say to someone in a conversation, they don’t actually care really. Or
there’s the worse one, where people ask out of curiosity or for the sake of gossip.
Belle usually assumed the first two from just about anyone, but maybe it was the
timing, or the situation, or just the sincere look on Mulan’s face, but Belle didn’t want
to say she was ‘just fine’.
“It… It’s my dad,” Belle started to speak, surprising herself as she said it. “He’s
losing his job. His dream job. I know that doesn’t sound like much but we’re pretty
bad off money wise as it is, and now everything’s going to get worse, and he’s so
upset and I hate seeing him like that and I want to help and I can’t-” Belle let the
words tumble from her mouth in one big rush, letting it all out. She’d always
considered herself a private kind of person but now here she was spilling her guts
out to someone she barely even knew at the slightest encouragement. She gave all
the details, about G.E.D and the Eazy-Cheezy and all the company layoffs. Mulan had
a comforting hand on her shoulder, just listening. When Belle had finally finished, she
could feel pin pricks of tears behind her eyes but kept them back, taking a deep
breath. Mulan looked truly sympathetic.
“That… that really, really sucks! I know that hardly sums it up, but I’m not good
at being wordy so… it just really sucks! I’m so sorry about your dad, that company is
so not fair!” Mulan said fiercely.
“I just wish I could do something about it. Talk to someone at the company or
something,” Belle trailed off, feeling quite calm after having vented a little.
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Chance Encounters
Something she hadn’t done much at all since her mother had been gone from her
life.
“What, to yell at them?” Mulan asked.
Belle let out the smallest of laughs “Well, I guess I’d try talking some sense
into them, making them see reason. Maybe act like decent people at least… but if
they still say no, then yeah, I bet I could yell a little.”
“Stupid G.E.D.,” Mulan muttered out loud, not really knowing what else to say
but it seemed appropriate. Then something clicked inside her head “Wait… G.E.D…
that rings a bell… about… something,” she muttered, her brain struggling to
remember something she knew was relevant.
“It probably rings a bell because most people this side of the country has a
toaster or a fridge or a TV made by one of those guys,” Belle said flatly.
“No. No, that’s not it. I remember it was on facebook… I saw something on
facebook about G.E.D.,” Mulan looked like she was trying very hard to concentrate.
Just then, the bell signaling the next class’s start rang out loudly through the halls.
“Oops, gotta go, but thank you for talking and all tha-” Belle started but
Mulan was too busy clicking her fingers in frustration.
“No, no, two more seconds, I have it…Its…iiiiit’s…”
“I kind of need to get to class, and so do yo-”
“ADAM!” Mulan cried out, clapping her hands together in her eureka moment.
Before Belle could even ask Mulan hurriedly started explaining.
“Yeah, I was on facebook and this status comes up on my newsfeed from
Adam about how he’s stuck at home now since his dads off on some Tokyo business
trip and I think he was just a little miffed that he didn’t get invited to go too because
of school or whatever-”
“Who’s Adam?” Belle said clueless.
Mulan gave her a look “Um, guy in our year? Tall, kind of long hair… he’s in
like two of my classes, he was actually supposed to be in the math class we just had
but he always bunks off anyway.”
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Chance Encounters
Belle tried to remember coming across an Adam, but she barely paid much
attention to her surrounding classmates anyway, so there was no chance she’d notice
someone who skipped class on a regular basis. “Well, anyway, what has this got to do
with anything?” she said, a little antsy. She was later and later for next period every
second.
“His dad is the director of G.E.D!” Mulan exclaimed excitedly.
Now this got Belle’s attention.
“He goes here? To Walt D. High? Wouldn’t he be filthy rich, wouldn’t he go to
a private school or something?”
Mulan just shrugged “Well don’t ask me, I don’t know why he’s here; I just
know that he is! You should talk to him, ask him to talk to his dad, get him to help
out your dad!” Mulan sounded so optimistic. “This is a direct link to the big guy at
the top! You could get a straight up meeting with him instead of fussing around
middle level managers who can’t help anyway.”
Belle just blinked. “I… it wouldn’t hurt to try would it?” she said gently, trying
not to get her hopes up but the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a
genuinely good idea.
“Anyway, we’d better run to class, but I’ll ask around and see where Adam sits
at lunch! We can track this guy down!” she smiled and waved as she hurried off down
the hall she’d come from earlier and Belle waved back.
Hm, Adam. Belle thought to herself.
I wonder what he’s like?
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Rapunzel walked into her art class with a smile on her face. Finally, a class she
was really looking forward too. So far school hadn’t been exactly what she’d
expected. Turns out she wasn’t much good at sports, not to mention the ordeal of
public change rooms. All the things like Math, English and Science seemed so much
harder now than when she learnt them by herself at home. With Math, she just had
textbooks which she’d copy down and write out until she remembered formulas and
check the back of the book for answers she didn’t know. She could take her own time
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Chance Encounters
until she understood something, and her mother was always there to help too. In a
classroom they just seemed to rush through it, Rapunzel barely had time to get her
head around one theory before they were onto the next one. It didn’t help that
everyone else seemed to keep up just fine. English hadn’t been much better either.
Even though Rapunzel liked reading, she read tons at home, and writing, it was like
that wasn’t enough anymore. Apparently her essays on the book they were reading,
Of Mice and Men, wasn’t paragraphed correctly, that there wasn’t a solid conclusion
and her arguments hadn’t been delivered very clearly. Rapunzel would nod, feeling
stupid enough as it is, but she didn’t get what they meant. Her essays at home had
just been why she liked the book, explaining about the characters and the plot, and
apparently that wasn’t what she should do at all. Rapunzel had always thought of
herself as quite smart, but now she was surrounded by all these other kids who knew
much, much more than her, and it just felt like she didn’t know much of anything at
all. Plus her guide, Flynn, had barely spoken to her since he first showed her around
the school. She had hoped they would be friends. Well,
at this point she’d thought she’d have at least one
friend actually.
Stepping into that art class
though felt comforting, because art
was something she just loved and
she knew it wasn’t something as
precise as math, where you either
didn’t know something or you did. Art
was so free and fun, how can anyone
go wrong at art?
“Good morning everyone!” Miss
Porter called out cheerily to everyone
as they drifted into class to take their
seats at the work benches.
“Morning Miss,” a lot of the
students smiled back. Everyone liked
Miss Porter, she was just one of those
teachers you can so easily like. She
was young and pretty, nice to
everyone, plus she’d even been
around the world! She’d tell the class
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Chance Encounters
stories about trekking through tropical rainforests with her father, sketching wild
animals like gorillas and wonderful exotic parrots.
“Now everyone’s portraits we started at the beginning of the week have been
stacked up on the side bench over there and you can go and collect them and just
carry on, all the paints are on the far shelves, help yourselves, but don’t go
overboard! I don’t want to see anyone’s palette with a metric ton of red paint loaded
on it,” she gave a knowing look over at Ariel as the girl went to fetch her painting.
“It was an accident! I was pouring it and the lid came off,” Ariel said in her
defense as she searched through the pile and grabbed her canvas. “Hey!” she cried
out as she took a look at it, “Someone’s ruined my painting!”
Miss Porter came over and winced when she saw Ariels portrait. It looked like
someone had slapped their hand right down on it when it was still wet, the red paint
of Ariel’s hair splattered all over her face and the eye had gone all wonky. Ariel
looked shattered “It took me forever to draw that eye!”
Miss Porter managed to avert any crisis by promising Ariel that she would
have a go at fixing it up and saving it herself this lesson with her own skills. This
seemed to make Ariel happy enough, though still peeved, as she went back to her
desk.
As everyone was settling down to start working on their portraits, Rapunzel
stepped up to Miss Porter’s desk shyly.
“U’m, excuse me, Miss? I wasn’t here for the first lesson. I was being shown
around the school on a tour and… yeah,” she smiled and Miss Porter scanned over
her class roll, her finger running down the page.
“Ahh, are you Rapunzel? Yes I got a note that you wouldn’t be in, but no
worries, I have your art supplies kit right here,” she smiled as she stepped over to a
large supply cupboard behind her and grabbed a giant brown paper bag. “This has a
large sketchpad in it, as well as a basic set of paints and some pencils, an eraser,
paintbrushes, paint palette… just some bare essentials you’ll be needing for the year.
Take good care of everything though, you only get one of these and if anything goes
missing you have to buy yourself a new one.” Rapunzel took the bag with wide,
excited eyes. All these pristine new art things for herself? It was practically a birthday
present!
Chapter Five
Chance Encounters
“Thank you!” she smiled from ear to ear at Miss Porter, the teacher she had
instantly decided was her favorite. “I’ll take good care of all of it, promise!”
Over near the back of the art room, sitting alone and bored at one of the
scratched and stained old art desks, was Ariel. Her almost-pretty-much-kind-of
ruined painting lay next to her as she was slumped down in her chair. Not much to
do this lesson then if she had to wait for the teacher to help salvage her work. Oh
well. She scribbled a few five pointed stars and swirls onto the desk top with her
pencil.
Mulan pushed open the art room door a crack before peering in, luckily
everyone always chatted out loud in art so she wasn’t heard, and saw that Miss
Porter was busy talking to a student. She took her chance and ducked quickly into
the room and swiftly maneuvered her way to the back of the class.
“Hey!” she said brightly, right behind Ariel, making the red headed girl jump in
alarm.
“Oh my God, Mulan! You scared me!” she laughed. “Where did you come
from? I swear, you’re like a ninja sometimes.”
Mulan pulled out her chair to sit down and put her fingers to her lips, “Sshh,
it’s a secret, don’t tell anyone.”
“Why are you late? What did you to speak to Belle about?” Ariel asked.
Mulan explained all about Belle’s acting strange in class and the situation with
her dad, and then began to talk about Adam but Ariel cut her off with a question.
“Who’s Adam?”
Mulan let out an exasperated sigh, “Urgh, Belle said the exact same thing! I
know he doesn’t show up a lot but I thought at least you’d know about him. Don’t
you have him on Facebook?”
Ariel shook her head, “We’re not all secret Ninja Facebook stalkers like you
are. Plus, Dad goes through my Facebook and demands to know about every boy I
have on there and whether or not they have ‘good intentions’ so I only bother
adding guys I actually know anyway.”
“Don’t you stalk through Eric’s profile like every day though?” Mulan
questioned with a smirk.
Chapter Five
Chance Encounters
“…Aristta lets me use her account to do that.”
“Um, excuse me?”
Both girls were wrenched out of their conversation as someone approached
their desk.
“Can I sit here, if that’s okay?” Rapunzel clutched onto her brown paper bag
nervously as she watched the two girls look her up and down before smiling at her.
“Yeah, sure.”
“Go for it,” Mulan moved her bag off the desk and onto the floor to make
room for Rapunzel, who sat down across from them excitedly.
“Thanks!” she chirped as she pulled in her chair.
Just then, Mulan finally noticed the state of Ariel’s painting “Whoa, what
happened!?” She peered down at the smudged face of her friend, “What did you do
to it…?”
“I didn’t do it! It was just like this when I came in this morning,” Ariel huffed.
Rapunzel blinked as the painting, knowing exactly where that hand print had
come from…
“So, how are you liking it here?”
“Wha-huh?” Rapunzel looked up stupidly.
“I mean, are you liking the school?” Mulan tried again.
“Oh! Yeah, tons. It’s been great so far,” she answered, not entirely truthfully.
“You mean except for that time Mulan bulldozed into you on the lacrosse
field?” Ariel smirked and Mulan managed to look embarrassed.
“Hey, accident!”
Time passed as the girls got on with their work, Mulan grabbing her own
portrait and paints to get started on filling in the color of her eyes. She worked
delicately and slowly, scared she would slip up every other brush stroke. Rapunzel
was given a mirror from Miss Porter so she could stare at her reflection and try to
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Chance Encounters
sketch a likeness of herself onto her small canvas. Since Ariel didn’t have something
to work on of her own, she took to scribbling on the desk again.
While chatting more, of course.
“Okay, so while Jasmine’s not around right now, I’m going to take this
opportunity to run this idea past you,” she said excitedly, catching Mulan’s interest,
“And you can’t say anything until I’m finished!”
Mulan gave her a look. “And Jasmine shouldn’t hear this becaaause…?”
“It’s not that she shouldn’t hear it, she just shouldn’t hear it first. I’m going to
tell it to you, so then later when I talk to her you can back me up!” Ariel explained
simply but Mulan still had that look on her face.
“What idea? This isn’t going to be something stupid, like when you wanted us
to sneak into an over eighteen concert of some band we’ve never even heard of?”
“Hey, we never actually ended up doing that, so if the idea didn’t come
through, you can’t hold it against me. Plus, I knew for a fact that Eric actually did end
up sneaking into that concert himself-”
“Facebook stalker…” Mulan muttered under her breath.
“-so if we had gone, we so could have gotten in too. But we digress; let me
get back to my current great idea-”
“And I don’t want to do the cinnamon challenge either, I don’t care how many
hits it gets you on YouTube.”
Now Ariel gave her own warning look and Mulan threw up her hands “Okay,
Okay. Tell it to me,” she sighed.
“Okay!” Ariel started, immediately bright again, “You know how I dress? Just
shorts and a t-shirt every day? Plain. Boring. Forever 21, standard? Well, I have
decided I need a makeover.”
Mulan blinked, “A makeover? That sounds… cool actually. A little out of the
blue but cool.” She then thought about it. Jasmine of all people would be the one
most behind a makeover if anything, why not tell her about it fir“A punk, skater, rock makeover!”
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Chance Encounters
Oh Okay, that explains it.
Ariel sat there gazing intently at her best friend, trying to gauge her reaction.
“Sooo, whatta ya think? I mean I already have the crazy hair color and like that kind
of music anyway. I would just totally need to revamp my look. Get some ripped jeans,
cut a few of my shirts up, maybe buy a beanie. Voila! New and improved Ariel 2.0,”
she grinned, exciting herself more as she said it.
Rapunzel looked back and forth between the two girls, trying to imagine what
Ariel might look like in head to toe black with big chunky boots on and a safety pin
through her nose. That’s the image she got from what her mother had told her punks
looked like anyway. What’s skater style though? Knee pads and a helmet…? She
would need to Google that later.
Instead of being ecstatic for her friend’s new makeover, Mulan looked like she
had her doubts. “Your dad doesn’t even like it when you wore hoop earrings to our
freshman formal. He thinks they’re too showy. What’s he going to say if you come
home looking like Avril Lavigne?”
“I’ve figured all that out, please, don’t underestimate me,” Ariel said breezily, “I
pass by my local shopping centre on the way to school, I leave the house as normal
boring old me and then I can duck in and use the public restrooms to change before
I show up at school.”
“And change back on your way home?”
“Exactly.”
Mulan nodded, “I guess that could work. What about your Arista and Aquata?
They might tell him after they see you around the school.”
“Already been bribed with iTunes gift cards.”
Mulan bit her lip as she mulled it over “Well, I guess if that’s what you wanna
do… you’re not going to get any strange piercings though are you?”
“No, I asked if I could get just another stud in my ear for my birthday and dad
flipped out,” Ariel huffed. “I mean everyone has them now anyway, I don’t know why
he has to be so weird about these things. It’s not like I’m getting my you-know-what
pierced.”
Chapter Five
Chance Encounters
Rapunzel, who had still been listening in silently, furrowed her brow. Before
she knew it she was thinking out loud. “Your you-know-what pierced…?” she
questioned and both girls looked at her.
She instantly felt like this was something she should know, by the way both
Ariel and Mulan seemed to be silently hiding their laughter. Rapunzel wracked her
brain.
“Um, you’re not talking about belly piercings and eyebrow rings are you?
Because I’ve seen those before…” she trailed off as Ariel let out a badly concealed
splutter of laughter while Mulan shushed her.
“Yeah, um… I guess It’s a piercing only a certain type of girl would get,” Mulan
tried to explain, a little awkwardly.
Rapunzel just blinked, clueless.
“Sexy girls… dancers… the type of girls who may be inclined to pose in the
likes of gentleman’s magazines,” Mulan laughed at herself as she said it.
“Oh, Okay… but what are they actually getting pierced?” Rapunzel still
questioned. Before Ariel’s sniggering could grow any louder, Mulan quickly leant
over the table and cupped a hand to the girl’s ear to whisper to her.
Rapunzel was a little red before from feeling a little stupid, but as Mulan
explained exactly what they were talking about, she turned bright scarlet.
“People can do that!?” she gasped out loud, which only made Mulan and Ariel
fall apart laughing and even Rapunzel had to clap a hand over her mouth as she felt
herself laughing too.
She doubted she would have learnt about that in home school.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
After the Bell for lunch had rung, students had fled the art room at break neck
speed, all gunning for first in the lunch line no doubt. They left their half washed
paint palettes and wet brushes discarded around the sinks, their portraits all left out
haphazardly on side desks to dry.
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Chance Encounters
Jane was used to it though, only tutted a little bit as she collected everything
up and organized it around and washed a few spare things. She’d only been a
teacher for a couple of years at Disney high, but she was proud of her job and
actually intended to stay, so to her it was worth keeping the classroom to a standard.
She went across the deserted classroom to her desk and stared fondly down at the
shiny brass plaque that sat on it ‘Miss Porter’. Quickly gathering up her bag, cardigan
and hat, as well as her own sketchbook and Ariel’s painting, which she intended to
try and salvage on her own lunch break, Jane headed off out the door and down the
hall.
She tried to maneuver the five things she was carrying around in her arms,
tucking the sketchbook under her arm while holding the hat and cardigan in place
under the other arm pit, as she rifled around in the side pocket of her bag looking for
her Blackberry. It had her class schedule on their and she needed to check whether
she actually had a class next period or the one after, she couldn’t remember. She was
so muddled around and focused on not dropping anything as she walked, she didn’t
see the janitors cart sitting right in front of her path. Before she even knew what was
happening, Jane had collided right into it with a shriek as bottles of cleaning fluids
went flying, along with the bag, hat, cardigan, portrait, and all of Jane’s sketches. Jane
sat blinking on the floor as she watched bits of paper fly off down the hall and some
flutter down to land in bright pink puddles of tile cleaner.
“Oh shi- … cago,” she muttered under her breath, managing not to swear , but
fully wanting too, “Holy flipping chicago…” she got up and dusted herself off as she
brushed the scraps of paper off her dress and yanked her things off the ground.
“Hey, whoa, you okay there Miss?” A man with long brown dreadlocks,
dressed in what was obviously a janitors uniform, asked worriedly as he stepped out
from around the corner, hurrying over to help.
“Oh, yes. Yes, I’m fine, really!” Jane tried to laugh it off as if it was nothing,
hoping it would hide a bit of her embarrassment. “I’m so sorry about your little cart,
thingy… I just wasn’t watching where I was going. Whoops, clumsy me!” she laughed
a little louder than was necessary as she bent over to pick up one of her sodden
drawings.
“Here, let me help you with that,” the man offered as he went down the hall to
fetch a few of the slips of paper that had gotten away.
“Huh? Oh, you don’t have to do that!”
Chapter Five
Chance Encounters
“No trouble at all, Miss,” he called back over his shoulder.
Jane smiled to herself, looking back at his cart. She bent down and picked up
a few of the knocked over bottles, making sure they had their caps put back on
properly and started putting the rubbish back in the bin.
“I, uh, thanks,” The janitor smiled in surprise as he came back to find her fixing
up his cart.
“Well, It’s the least I could do,” she shrugged, blushing. “Again, sorry.”
”Like I said, no trouble,” he handed her the bundle of half salvaged sketches
“Did you do these?” he asked. “They’re really good. The one with the monkeys is
fantastic.”
Jane tucked a stray piece of hair behind her hair,
feeling a bit awkward. “Yes, yes I did, and thank you but
they’re just sketches. Rough old things I did quickly, and
now they’re all dirty. I think I’ll just bin them now
anyway,” she said as she went to drop them in with the
rest of the trash on the cart but the man practically
flinched as she did so.
“Are you kidding? They’re amazing,” he said as he
immediately reached in to pull them delicately back
out, making sure not to crease them anymore.
“How could you even think of throwing these away?” he
laughed, admiring them again.
Jane just laughed. “No but really, they’re just
sketches. I’ve got a million at home. Too Many. I should
throw more out anyway,” she said flippantly.
“Could I keep them?”
“Um, I guess. Sure, if you wanted too,” she smiled, a
little taken a back, but she shrugged and nodded. It was
then Jane actually looked at him properly. He wasn’t bad
looking really. Chiseled jaw, nice eyes… a far cry from
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Chance Encounters
what you’d usually think a school janitor would look like. Jane realized she was
staring and quickly snapped her eyes away.
“I mean if these are just your sketches, I’d love to see your proper drawings. I
know you must be an art teacher now, I’ve seen you around but I always just
assumed English teacher,” he smiled at her and Jane found herself smiling back. She
kind of felt bad for not having taken notice of him around before, but I guess the
janitor doesn’t stop by the faculty room much.
“Really? Why an English teacher in particular?” she asked.
“Because they all wear cardigans,” he smirked, putting the drawings away
safely on top of his cart. With that, he gave her a nod of his head as he turned the
cart around and began pushing it away down the hall.
Jane smiled and called out to him, “I’m Jane by the way.”
“Tarzan,” he called out without looking over his shoulder and Jane was left
standing there until he turned the corner.
Maybe I should start running into janitors carts more often, Jane thought,
smiling to herself.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“A punk, skater, rock chick makeover?” Jasmine repeated again, the doubtful
look on her face saying it all.
“Urgh, I told you she’d be like this,” Ariel sighed and turned to Rapunzel. “This
is your first time meeting her, I know, but you should just get used to her being a
total killjoy about everything.”
“I’m not a killjoy over everything, just stupid things,” Jasmine shrugged as she
stuck her fork into her home made salad. All four girls sat around a table in the busy
cafeteria. Rapunzel was thrilled to actually be invited to sit with people for lunch after
a whole week of sitting alone outside on a bench, but she played it cool and nibbled
on the crusts of her sandwich as if this was not making her inner-Rapunzel dance
around in a spectacular song and a dance routine of happiness.
Chapter Five
Chance Encounters
“It’s not a stupid thing!” Ariel defended herself, “I just want a makeover, a new
look. It won’t change who I am. I didn’t think you were the type of person to judge
someone by their choice of clothes.”
“I know, and I’m not,” Jasmine said, not taking any of the bait.
“Then why are you giving me that look and saying it in that voice?”
“Because I know you’re doing it for a guy. Eric,” Jasmine raised her eyebrows
and looked at Ariel expectantly.
Ariel squirmed in her seat, pausing a long time before she answered.
“Uuhh, not particularly…” she trailed off looking sheepish and Jasmine raised
her eyebrows, knowing she was right.
Mulan now turned a sharp look at her friends’ way. “You didn’t mention earlier
that this was about Eric,” she said in an accusatory tone.
“Well, it isn’t entirely about Eric,” Ariel half lied. “I mean, I have always liked the
look anyway, I’m just choosing to be pro-active about it now.”
“Who’s Eric?” Rapunzel asked.
“Just some guy she’s willing to completely change herself for on the off
chance he might just glance her way,” Jasmine answered before Ariel could.
“Hey, why’d you have to be so harsh…” Ariel sulked, looking thoroughly put
out.
Jasmine softened a little. “I know you like him, but I haven’t even seen him
give you a scrap of attention. I don’t know him, true, but he seems like a bit of a…
a…” she said her words carefully, trying to choose the right way to phrase it.
“Douche?” Mulan offered, bluntly.
“He is not a douche!” Ariel said immediately. “I’ve been on his facebook page
and he’s always super nice to everybody, even in all of his comments, plus he always
posts stuff about saving the whales and stuff. He’s a total humanitarian! Douches
don’t save marine life, good people do!”
“Yeah, but has he ever left one of those nice comments to you?” Jasmine
pointed out and Ariel sunk down in her chair again.
Chapter Five
Chance Encounters
“You know I don’t have him on facebook… and before you say it, yeah, I know
he doesn’t even talk to me in general.” She looked at her friends with pleading eyes.
“But I can’t just walk right up to him and just ask if he can start pay attention to me, I
need to get his attention myself! I can’t do that as ‘me’, as plain old Ariel. That Ariel’s
already invisible to him! I need to be new, confident, awesome Ariel!”
Jasmine bit at her lip. “And you think if you get this ‘makeover’ you’re going to
be this fantastic new version of yourself he’s going to fall in love with instantly?”
Ariel blushed “Okay, saying it like that makes it sound stupid, but I guess I
want to try and see what happens… at least.”
Jasmine let out a sigh. Inside she knew she could press this further and she
wouldn’t go through with it. Ariel valued her best friend’s opinions highly and
Jasmine knew it. She also knew she shouldn’t take advantage of that.
“Well, it’s your choice and I guess-” but before Jasmine could finish, Ariel had
leapt across the table and wrapped her arms around her friend with a whoop of joy.
“So your gonna’ let me do it!?” she asked excitedly.
“I don’t see why on earth you think you need my permission,” Jasmine
laughed. “But yeah, sure. Be the best skater, rock, punk… whatever.”
Ariel squealed “YES! Aw yeah, uh huh, get a makeover, oh yeah, mmhmm,” she
started doing a dance of victory right there in the middle of the cafeteria which made
Rapunzel laugh and Mulan and Jasmine smile and shake their heads. They knew she
was going to do that.
“Mulan Fa?” A clear cut voice crossed over the cafeteria, making Ariel stop
mid-dance and all four girls whipped their heads around to see who had called out.
Mulan blinked wide eyed as a tall boy with jet black hair pulled back into a
small ponytail headed past tables, still calling out her name.
“Mulan Fa? Does anyone know where Mulan Fa sits?” A few students were
sniggering at him as he walked by, but the boy didn’t seem to care in the slightest if
he was drawing attention to himself. He was on a mission and Mulan looked
worriedly at the very stern look his face seemed to have.
Chapter Five
Chance Encounters
“Do you know that guy?” Jasmine nudged at her friend and Mulan shook her
head. “Actually, I think he might be in the year above us,” Jasmine peered at him as
he came closer, “Don’t know his name though.”
“Mulan Fa?”
“Here she is!” Ariel yelled out, standing above her friend and waving her arms
in signal, grabbing the boy’s attention. Mulan gaped and shrunk down in her chair as
the boy’s eyes locked onto them and he started to stride over.
“Why did you do that?!” she hissed at Ariel, glaring, but Ariel looked oblivious.
“Because he’s obviously looking for you.”
“Oh, really? I couldn’t tell!” Mulan said sarcastically, silently praying this wasn’t
her getting into trouble or being called to the front office or… or… to be honest she
couldn’t think of a single logical thing this boy might want so her mind just
immediately jumped to the worse scenario’s possible. Was this about a couple of
overdue library books she had last year? Was this like some kind of library hired thug
sent to collect her fines, mafia style? Was he going to break her kneecaps if she
couldn’t get the money ($3.99) to him by the end of the week?
Okay, she really needed to stop watching the Sopranos before she went to
bed. Damn you, Netflix.
“Mulan Fa?” The boy stopped right in front of where she sat and looked down
at her in question.
“MmmHHmm, yes, that’s me… Hello,” she laughed nervously, giving a dumb
little half wave. God, why did her voice have to come out all wavery and high-pitched
like that? She wanted to sink into the ground as it seemed half of the entire cafeteria
was looking at them right now.
“You put your name down for the team, right?” The boy asked.
“Huh?” Mulan frowned, having to crane her neck to look up at him.
The boy whipped out a clipboard from his bag and shoved it under her nose.
It was the Athletics team signup sheet. He tapped at the line where her messy
signature had been scribbled.
“Oooh, that team. Yeah,” Mulan nodded.
Chapter Five
Chance Encounters
He tapped again at another scribbled in space across from her signature,
where her mobile number was jotted down. “I tried calling you all morning but you
weren’t picking up. I just came to inform you that tryouts are tomorrow after school
on the track field. Be there on time and make sure you have suitable exercise clothes
and a water bottle with you.”
Ariel, Rapunzel, and Jasmine all exchanged glances as Mulan got what I guess
you could call the ‘official de-briefing’. The guy sounded like a drill sergeant mixed
with one of those informative air plane safety videos. He didn’t even crack a smile
once.
“I expect to see you there.” He nodded a goodbye before striding off. He had
only taken a couple of paces before he stopped awkwardly and turned on the spot.
“I’m the athletics captain by the way, Shang,” he said stiffly before making his way off
again.
“I, uh…” Mulan seemed slightly dazed “… Wait, I have to tryout? I didn’t know
we actually had to tryout!” she called after him as he left. “I thought we just got in!”
He didn’t turn around.
“And I got my phone confiscated by the way!” She yelled after him as he
exited through the cafeteria doors.
“…Well, see you there then…”
Chapter Six
Call Me, Beep Me, If You Want to Reach Me
Mulan dug around the bottom of her wardrobe frantically. She’d only just
woken up around twenty minutes ago, but that was just enough time for her to
shower in lightning speed, pull her clothes on and whip her hair up into a quick (yet
slightly messy looking) ponytail. As well as dash downstairs and stuff a few handfuls
of fruit loops in her mouth in, what I guess could count as, breakfast. Then she’d run
back upstairs to pack her bag when she remembered about the athletics tryouts after
school today and that she needed something to wear for it. She could’ve slapped
herself for forgetting.
“MOOOOM! Where’s my P.E. Uniform?!” Mulan yelled down the stairs to her
mother in the kitchen.
“I put them into the wash; I thought you already had your sport lesson for this
week? Isn’t it on Wednesday?” Mulan couldn’t see her mom’s face but she could tell
by the tone she thought something was up. She thought fast.
“Uh, yeah but I just need it because… Ariel wants to borrow it.”
“Ariel? But she’s in the same P.E. Group as you isn’t she? “
Ugh, mothers and their finely tune B.S. Detectors.
“Well it’s not for school… its… she’s doing a charity fun run thing this
weekend,” Mulan pulled off the top of her head and she heard her mother go quiet
for a second, as if she was mentally deciding to believe this or not.
“Alright,” she said doubtfully, “but you’ll have to get it to her tomorrow. Like I
said, it’s already in the wash.”
Mulan gritted her teeth. “Fine,” she called back down, trying to sound as least
annoyed as possible. Now what? Where else would she get some decent workout
clothes? Her own wardrobe was stuffed with skirts, dresses, jeans, and flowy tops.
Stuff her mom and grandma had bought her. Ultra girly clothes. t-shirts covered in
lace butterflies and ribbons were not suitable to run around a track field in.
Chapter Six
Then Mulan had an idea, even as it popped in her head she doubted it, but
still, it was better than nothing. She tiptoed past her grandmother’s bedroom, whom
was still asleep at this time in the morning, and into her parents’ bedroom. She
slipped in quickly, shutting the door behind her before going straight to her parents’
small walk-in wardrobe. All of her mother’s clothes hung on the left, while all of her
father’s took up the right side. Mulan glanced at her mother’s side but she knew
there wasn’t much hope for her there. It was just as girly and un-suitable for
exercising in as Mulan’s clothes, if not more so. No, Mulan had come in here with her
dad’s clothes in mind anyway. That might sound crazy, because what kind of teenage
girl would even think of wearing their middle aged dad’s clothes for any kind of
occasion, but in Mulan’s defense, she was desperate. Shang did not seem the
forgiving type, and if she showed up to tryouts in denim shorts and a beaded cami
top, he’d probably just send her straight home and then on to join the chess club.
Plus, her dad was quite a small man anyway. She dug through a pile of his t-shirts
and pulled out a tatty looking dark green one. She hadn’t seen him wear this ever, so
she doubted he’d even notice if she took it. She neatly arranged the shirts just how
they were before as well, just in case. He also had a whole bottom drawer full of
sweatpants, practically a staple of his wardrobe. After all, he was a guy off work
because of a disability; you can’t fault him for wanting to lounge around his house in
comfort. Mulan grabbed a black pair before shutting the drawer again and hurrying
out of her parents’ room to stash them in her bag.
She’d only just made it down the stairs and grabbed another handful of fruit
loops from the pantry before a car honked from outside their house.
Her dad was sitting on the front room sofa and he pulled back the curtain to
peer out the window. A big silver S.U.V. had pulled up alongside their lawn. “Looks
like Ariel’s here,” he called out towards the kitchen and Mulan quickly stuffed the box
back before running out.
Ariel had called last night to tell her that Aquata, her older sister who was now
a senior this year, had passed her driving test, and she was keen to offer a lift to both
her younger sisters and Ariel asked if she could come along too. It was way better
than the bus.
“OKAY, see you later,” she said, her mouth full as she bounded out the front
door. She saw her dad wave through the window and she gave a small wave back
before pulling open the back seat passenger door and jumping in.
“Hey,” she smiled at Ariel, who was across from her in the backseat.
Chapter Six
“Hey! Oh, don’t mind the mess,” Ariel had to drag both of her elder sisters
sports bags that had all of their cheerleading stuff in it to one side so Mulan had
room to sit comfortably. There was also a few pair of shoes scattered around the
floor, including pair of scuffed looking heels, some flip flops, one ancient looking
sneaker… plus a pair of goggles and a swimming cap, as well as someone’s bikini top.
There were towels flung over the backseats plus a whole lot of other crap in the boot
section, plus it looked like everything had a light dusting of sand over it. This was the
family car, and the whole thing just smelt like the beach. Obviously the three sisters
were so used to it they didn’t seem fazed. Arista was sitting up front texting on her
cherry red phone and she gave a brief nod of acknowledgement.
Before she even had time to clip her seatbelt on, Aquata had already revved
up the engine, got the car off the curb, and belted it down the suburban street, tires
squealing. Mulan’s eyes widened and on instinct she grabbed onto her seatbelt a
little tighter. Aquata drove crazier than her grandma.
And that was saying something.
“So um, congratulations on passing your test,” she said, trying to sound less
worried than she felt as the car veered dangerously around a corner and through a
stop sign.
“Thanks!” Aquata smiled brightly, smacking on some gum. “It took me ages to
get too. Can you believe they made me re-take the test, like, six times?” as she said
this, she turned around in her seat to face the two girls, causing the car to drift
casually into the next lane, almost side swiping another car. Aquata whipped back
around as the other car honked furiously at her.
“Urgh, what is their problem? Road rage much?” She scoffed as Mulan gripped
even tighter to the seatbelt. She threw a glance at Ariel and Arista, who were both
looking completely calm. Did everyone in their family drive like this? A few more
furious honks from other drivers made her jump.
“Was that light red? I wasn’t watching,” Aquata asked and Arista shrugged.
Mulan considered writing up her last will and testament in her bag right now.
Chapter Six
Dear parents, friends and family,
All my clothing, shoes and accessories are to be
divided among my best friends.
Jasmine has special dibs on my Gossip girl DVD
box set.
Ariel gains sole custody of my stuffed panda.
None of you are allowed to go through my…
Don’t touch it.
I want that really sad song from the Donnie
Darko movie to play at my funeral.
Tell Zac Efron that I will always love him.
Love from Mulan, who was so cruelly taken from
this world by a sand filled S.U.V. and the crazy
woman driving it.
P.S. Please don’t ask questions about why I have
my dad’s clothing in my school bag. Just roll with
it.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“Dude, I’m not saying it was a bad movie, I’m just saying it had a crappy
ending.” Flynn shrugged, his feet slung up on the dashboard of Phoebus’s car as he
leant back in his seat.
“What do you mean ‘crappy ending’?” Phoebus said, talking as a he drove the
two of his friends to school (Carefully: I may add).
“Well, was he in a dream or not? It doesn’t even explain it, we were just
watching that stupid little spinny thingy on the table and then it just cuts off. I’m on
the edge of my seat, wanting to know what the hell happens, and then bam, closing
credits. Shitty ending.”
Chapter Six
“Yeah, but that’s practically the whole point of the movie, you’re not supposed
to find out whether it’s a dream or not, that’s what trips you out about it. Is your life
a dream, does it even matter, what’s reality, blah, blah.”
“Are you talking about that Leonardo Dicaprio movie?” Esmeralda piped up
from the backseat, only just tuning in since she’d been busy flipping through her
iPod. She’d been working on a good songs-to-listen-to-while-avoiding-work-instudy-period playlist. A good thing about having such a wild mass of hair: it was
perfect for concealing a tiny pair of headphones.
“Yeah,” Flynn nodded to her question.
“Urgh, I didn’t like it. I didn’t get the ending,” she said flippantly, going back to
her iPod.
Flynn gave Phoebus a ‘Well, there ya’ go’ look.
“Fine then, next time I lend you a movie I’ll get you Scooby-Doo: Zombie
Island. You know, something more on your level.”
“Bring it on, sounds badass.”
“I will then.”
“Do it.”
“I’ll even help you understand it. They go to an island. There’s zombies. The
zombies try to kill them but they don’t. Can you keep up? I mean I know it’s a pretty
confusing plot; I wouldn’t want you to get confused-” Phoebus grinned.
“You’re an ass.”
Another ten minutes of talking about Scooby-Doo and Leonardo Dicaprio
movies and their car rolled up to the front of the school. Phoebus cruised slowly
through the busy car park as students swarmed around and other cars competed for
the last few remaining spots. There were no free spaces in sight and there were
already three other cars in front of them.
“This is so hectic, there’s like no spots left,” Esmeralda gathered her purse up
on her shoulder. “We should’ve gotten here earlier.”
“Hey, we waited for you while you took forever to fix your hair. I told you I’d
be ‘round at 8:30; it’d be great if you were actually ready by then. Like I said, not a
Chapter Six
taxi service,” Phoebus half lectured her as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel
at a standstill in the queue of cars.
“And I can’t say enough how grateful I am,” Esmeralda gushed before pushing
the backdoor open and slipping out in a flash. Phoebus whipped around in his seat
in time to see her slam the door shut.
“-Wha-hey, wait!”
“Thaaaanks!” she laughed as she ran around the front of the car, giving a little
cheeky wave at both the boys, before flouncing off into the crowds of students on
the front lawn, effectively ditching them.
Phoebus just shook his head. “Can you believe her? After I give her a ride out
of the kindness of my heart, she just ditches us to sit here, stranded and-” but as
Phoebus turned around to express his disbelief to Flynn, he saw that his friend wasn’t
there, and again, looked just in time to see the side passenger door being slammed
in his face.
As Flynn and Esmeralda both dashed it across the front lawn, Phoebus threw
his hands in the air.
“It’s official: my friends suck.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Pocahontas stood around the side of the quad, where all the other seniors
were laughing and joking around before the first bell rang. She checked her watch,
only ten minutes before class started, but she wanted to wait until mostly everyone
had shown up. She shuffled through the stack of papers she had in her hands. They
were her own hand made flyers she’d made up last night in support of saving the
quad. She’d mulled it over in her head and she just knew she couldn’t let the school
take away what every senior year at Disney High had a right to for God even knows
how long. Not to mention the fact that they’d be paving over a beautiful spot of
nature and ripping up some really old trees to do it. What was that old song her dad
loved? The one with the lyrics ‘they paved paradise and put up a parking lot’? Well,
she couldn’t remember who even sung it, but it was totally relevant right now!
The flyers had all the details to a special protest she had all planned out for
after school today. She’d give a riveting speech to everyone this morning and shed
light on this horrible misdeed the school was planning on executing under their
Chapter Six
noses. Then, she’ll get all the seniors to march up to the quad and demand that they
leave it alone and find another spot to build more parking on. She envisioned
everyone climbing the biggest tree and staking it out, chanting and demanding
justice, waving signs around, and telling the principal where to shove it! She hadn’t
exactly come up with any good chants yet… not much seemed to rhyme with quad
very well. So far all she had was: ‘Let us keep our quad, oh my God!’ But that didn’t
even make any sense and didn’t get much of a point across so really, it was still a
work in progress. She did have a sign though; she’d made it last night using a big old
piece of construction paper she had left over from an environmental diorama she’d
made for social studies last year. She’d drawn a picture of the quad in felt tip pens; I
mean it was meant to look like the quad. A big tree, a few lunch tables scattered
around, the grass area… and then she’d drawn a big red cross over the top of it. A
warning telling the student board that their quad was off limits to them and they
couldn’t touch it. It made sense in her head, but now that she looked it, it kind of
made it seem like she wanted the quad gone… Plus, she didn’t know how long
everyone would be willing to stay up in a tree. Most people have curfew. Also maybe
they shouldn’t tell Mr. Walt where to shove it, since he actually was a kind of nice guy
after all. Pocahontas checked her watch again. Well, now or never.
She grabbed her poster out of her bag and leant it gently against one of the
benches before she stepped up onto the seat and on to the top of the table, so she
had a clear view of the whole area. A few other students who noticed her stared,
wondering what the hell she was doing, so she cleared her throat, trying to sound
confident.
“Um, fellow students!” She started, but it didn’t come out as loud as she’d
hoped and only a few more people turned around, a few laughed. She tried again,
“Hello? If I could, um, have your attention… please?”
Flynn and Esmeralda made it up the quad just in time to see Pocahontas try to
deliver her speech and both friends exchanged equally surprised look before Flynn
pulled a face. “What is she doing?”
“You think I know?”
“My first guess would be table top dancing, but that’s really more of your
thing than Pocaho-OH! Ow!” Flynn gasped as he was elbowed hard in the ribs.
Chapter Six
Esmeralda ignored him as he muttered a few choice words, and she stared at
her friend for a second before grabbing onto Flynn’s arm. “Come on,” she pulled him
with her as she went to go find out what this was about.
“You know, I’m all for just standing back here and pretending we don’t know
her, but okay,” he winced as he was pulled along roughly through the crowd. Most
everyone in the quad had caught sight of Pocahontas standing on top of the table by
now. But that didn’t mean they were listening, and the girl stood there under their
scrutiny feeling a little foolish.
“Pocahontas? Sweetie?”
Pocahontas looked down to see Esmeralda walk up the table, a hesitant
looking Flynn just behind her, and she bent down to her in relief. “Oh my God, Es, I
need your help!” she said urgently.
“What are you doing?” The girls spoke rapidly in hushed whispers. “Everyone
is staring at you,” Esmeralda pointed out the obvious as people began muttering.
“Yeah, I wanted them to. I need to make a speech! Tell them about the quad;
tell them what’s going on.” She held up the stack of flyers, “Give them these!”
“Really? That’s what you’re doing? Because right now it looks like you’re just
kind of standing there.”
“I just need to get their attention, but they’re all too busy talking, none of
them are listening and-”
“Okay, okay,” Esmeralda smiled and held up a hand to silence her, “Say no
more. Attention, I can get.”
Without another word, Esmeralda thrust her bag into Flynn’s arms and
stepped up to join Pocahontas on the table.
“HEY, YO!” she yelled out with hesitating, making everyone jolt and look up in
surprise but effectively shut up at the same time. “Pocahontas here has something
she would like to say to you all, so listen up, and listen up good! GOT IT?”
Nobody said anything but a few people exchanged glanced. Flynn tried
keeping his head down, playing it cool (which is hard to do while you’re carrying a
ladies purse).
Chapter Six
Pocahontas shot her friend a thankful look before turning back to the now
alert crowd.
“Um, okay. So this is about the quad. Our quad. The one we love so much,”
she started to explain, feeling more confident. “Well, I found out the other day that
the school is planning to take it away from us, to tear it down completely!”
A murmur erupted through the crowd, people frowning in disbelief.
“Where’d you hear that?” A voice up front called out. Gaston, the head of the
football team stood with his arms crossed, the three blonde groupies that hung
around him looking equally as shocked at the news.
“There was a notice up in the foyer yesterday; it had all the details. They want
to keep it quiet and under our noses so we don’t have a chance to change anything,”
Pocahontas explained with more and more people looking worried.
“But why would they get rid of the quad? It’s been here since forever,” Giselle
spoke up.
“It’s for a new car park,” Pocahontas explained, pulling out the original flyer
she’d pulled down yesterday from her bag and handing it down into the crowd. A
few people swarmed around to read it and passed it along the crowd so everyone
could take a look. “Apparently, it’s been an issue with the school for years now and
finally their taking action… by destroying our area!”
Pocahontas wanted everyone to be filled with outrage and passionate
objection as she said this but there were still only murmurs.
“That’s true, the parking has always been terrible here,” Lottie nodded to
Giselle and a few others around her agreed.
“Well, there’s more students now. Ever since they started the art and drama
program, like, five years ago, attendance rates went up super high and it hasn’t
stopped. Have you seen the size of the new freshmen group this year? Imagine when
they’re all seniors with cars, it would be crazy!” One of Gaston’s girls spoke up,
surprisingly making a pretty good point.
“Plus, they got more teachers in for all the new classes, which made the west
side car parking for staff only. That’s another reason our main car park gets so busy
now,” Tiana reasoned out loud.
Chapter Six
“Yeah, only about half of us manage to get a space these days, it’s always so
full,” another guy added and before you knew it, everyone was putting in their two
cents.
“I have to get up an hour early just to make sure I get a spot.”
“It would be way better if they could make a new car park.”
“Why’s it even take them so long? They should’ve done this ages ago or over
the summer break.”
Esmeralda found herself nodding too, but a look from Pocahontas made her
stop quickly enough. She turned back to the crowd and shushed them again.
“Look, that’s not the point I was making! Yeah, parking is an issue, but they’re
going to destroy the quad to get it!” she gestured around at all the trees and
benches to make her point clearer.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty big space, I bet all our cars could fit into here,” Gaston
peered around over the grass area and he got a few nods of agreement.
“What? No! You guys aren’t listening!” Pocahontas huffed in frustration. They
weren’t supposed to like the idea of a new car park. “What about the nature? This
tree! It’s gotta be like… tens of years old!” she winced, knowing that didn’t sound
very impressive, as well as having no idea how old the tree actually was. “Look, I have
flyers; I want to protest after school. Show the principal we don’t want this new car
park-”
“But we kind of do-” someone interrupted but Pocahontas ignored him and
shoved a flyer in his face.
“Isn’t the quad important? Our special area, away from all the annoying
younger years?”
Giselle shrugged “Yeah, the quad’s great and all, but I wouldn’t mind going to
eat in the cafeteria again if it means I won’t have to walk to school every day when I
could be driving,” she shrugged, looking a little apologetic, still taking one of the
flyers as Pocahontas handed them out.
“Yeah it kinda sucks that we won’t have the quad anymore, but I guess we just
have to get over it,” Aquata shrugged, “I mean what can you do, right? It’s up to the
school.”
Chapter Six
“But I’m planning to protest this afternoon! If we all go, we can show a united
front and make them change their minds!”
“Maybe we could get a new area? Like that lawn outside the drama theatre?”
Lottie suggested, nobody seemingly listening to Pocahontas anymore.
Just then, the first bell rang out signaling the start of classes. Everyone
immediately started grabbing their bags and heading off in different directions, the
crowd disappearing down the halls and leaving Pocahontas standing there, still
handing out flyers to people as they passed.
“Come on guys, save the quad… We don’t just have to get over it… We can
fight… Conserve nature… Meet me here after school for the protest… Don’t let them
pave paradise and put up a parking lot…” she said weakly as people breezed past
her, their minds already on other things.
“What was that last part?” Esmeralda laughed.
“Ugh, never mind,” Pocahontas said, slumping down and sitting on the bench
next to her sign.
“Aw, come on, don’t get that face,” Esmeralda said, trying to sound cheery as
she sat down next to her friend and put an arm over her shoulder.
“I just thought people would be as outraged as I am, you know?” she stared
down at the ton of flyers she still had left over. “I thought they’d care more at least.”
“I think they care,” Flynn shuffled back over, handing Esmeralda her bag back,
“But they just care about their cars more. And like Aquata said, what can you do?”
“But I am doing something about it!” Pocahontas argued, “I even made a sign
and everything.”
Flynn took a look at the giant piece of construction paper and frowned “Uuh,
you might want to work on your marketing strategy. That makes it look like you want
the quad gone, what with the big red cross and all… is that green scribble meant to
be a tree?”
Pocahontas closed her eyes for a few seconds and took a few deep, calming
breaths “Okay, let’s just go to class. I will rethink some things and work on a new
plan… and make a new sign… but I’m telling you now, this is not over!”
Chapter Six
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Mulan managed to survive the car trip from hell, but now, as the lunch bell
rang, she was pretty sure Ariel actually wanted to see her die today.
“Are you kidding?!” she said in disbelief as her red headed friend stood in
front of her with pleading eyes.
“Oh come on, you all agreed it was an okay idea yesterday, you can’t
backtrack now!”
“Yeah, we can, because we agreed the idea was fine, not how you were
actually going to go about it!” Jasmine said with arms crossed. Rapunzel stood by her
side too, not entirely sure how the conversation had turned to this. One minute they
were packing up from their afternoon math class and she was being invited for
another lunch with her new friends, and then Ariel had just been chatting about this
new makeover thing again. It was all going fine until she’d mentioned a particular
name, Ursula, and that was enough to make Mulan and Jasmine immediately stop in
their tracks and turn on their friend like over protective mother hens.
“You can’t go to Ursula to help you with this,” Jasmine stated fiercely.
“And why not?! She’s got the look down. The whole goth thing is her image, I
just wanted to go to her for pointers, maybe get the name of a few good stores…”
Ariel shrugged, not seeing the big deal.
“And you’re just going to ignore that fact that she’s a total witch with a capitol
B? Don’t you remember freshman year where she poured an entire carton of
chocolate milk over those girls who made an emo joke in the cafeteria?” Mulan
pointed out.
“I heard she stabbed Peter Pan last year with a pencil because he called her-”
Jasmine stopped midsentence to look over her shoulder, as if Ursula could be behind
them lurking right now, and then leant in closer to whisper, “-fat.” She said the word
like it was tainted. As if simply mentioning it would make Ursula appear out of
nowhere, ready to take a 2B to your eye.
Mulan nodded. “Yeah, I heard that too!” she said in a conspirational tone.
“And I also heard that she made one of the teachers cry. Nobody knows what she
said, and if they do, they don’t even want to repeat it, it’s that bad.”
Chapter Six
Rapunzel stared wide eyed. “Are you for real? Whooa, this girl sounds crazy.
She’s not in our year is she?”
“No, she’s a year above us. Thank god. Sharing a classroom with her?
Terrifying,” Jasmine said in all seriousness as Ariel rolled her eyes. “I mean I totally
avoid the basement floor bathrooms because of her, it’s like her hangout. I went in
there my first week here, accidentally walked in on her and her friends smoking. Long
story short, my new Prada tote ended up in the toilet, and I’m just glad it wasn’t my
head in their instead!”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard the Prada tote story,” Ariel said impatiently which
made Jasmine give her a hard look.
“Hey, as far as I know, you’ve never been down there either.”
“Yeah, but not because I was scared,” Ariel said, laughing in a kind of
nonchalant way, even if she was totally lying. She’d always been a little scared of the
basement bathrooms, but she figured this whole new hardcore outlook on life she
was trying to have didn’t really fit with being scared of the school bully anymore.
“You guys just need to stop being such freshman about it. Besides, you’re not the
one asking anything from her. I’ll go by myself if I have to.”
“Yeah, well, good luck with that then,” Jasmine said huffily, “I thought you
were just going to go to the mall like a normal person, but if you want to do it your
way, fine.”
“Fine,” Ariel said, just as huffily.
“Then you go do that.”
“I will.”
“Okay then.”
“Yeah!” Ariel said, managing to get the pointless last word in as she sauntered
away from her friends and headed towards the end of the halls staircase that would
take her to the basement floor and on a fast track to the avoided bathrooms. “See
you next period!” she called over her shoulder as if she didn’t have a care in the
world.
As she turned the corner, she left Jasmine, Mulan, and Rapunzel in an
uncomfortable silence. The three girls stood there exchanging glances. Jasmine
Chapter Six
tapped her foot on the tiles, Mulan nibbled on the end of a hang nail and Rapunzel
just stared between the both of them. It was only another few seconds before
Jasmine threw up her hands.
“We have to go with her, don’t we?”
“Yeah, we can’t let her go there alone. She needs us. Even if that means
helping her dry her backpack on the hand dryer after it gets drenched in toilet
water,” Mulan grimaced.
The three girls turned round on the spot and hurried after Ariel.
“Wow, you guys are good friends,” Rapunzel smiled.
“Mmm, I know,” Jasmine said unenthusiastically, as if sometimes she wished
she could just let Ariel get up to this kind of stuff on her own…
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
It wasn’t hard to catch up with her and before they knew it, all four of them
were down in the basement level of the school. It was creepy down there. It was
really only for the few computer classrooms and photography labs as well as storage
for old desks and junk. There were about two abandoned classrooms full of old
drama production props and outdated orchestra stuff that the music program had
replaced ages ago. The janitor’s office was down here as well. The walls were
limestone and any sound you made echoed through the long windowless halls. There
was no natural light, just a few halogen lamps giving off an eerie dull glow; a few
flickered on and off randomly while some were broken entirely. It also kind of
smelled funny. Probably because of the lack of windows. It was pretty much
dilapidated down here, but there wasn’t much the school was going to do about it
except use it as infrequently as they did. It’s not like you can just demolish it, it’s
pretty much the foundation for the whole building.
You could see straight down the hall at the bottom of the steps that led to the
door of the girls’ bathroom. All four girls paused in silence for a second before Mulan
gave Ariel a little push forward.
“You go first.”
Chapter Six
Ariel briefly considered running straight back up the stairs, but she quickly
steeled herself and stood her ground.
“Come on,” she muttered, sounding braver than she felt, as she led the pack.
Jasmine, Mulan, and Rapunzel all stayed a few feet behind her as they walked,
peering into each darkened classroom as they passed it. Jasmine looked worried as if
there was a chance an axe murder could be hiding in each one, ready to jump out
and hack them all up and stuff them in boxes along with all the old Christmas
pageant decorations. They wouldn’t be found until Christmas, when students would
accidentally stumble upon their rotted remains while looking for festive tinsel.
It’s worth noting that Jasmine didn’t like scary movies at all, and she’d never
been able to cope well with seeing the Texas Chainsaw Massacre at her cousin’s
house that one time.
Ariel looked back and saw her friend’s face and smirked to herself. In one swift
movement she stopped and jumped around, screaming right in Jasmine’s face which
made the girl fall back and shriek in terror and surprise. As well as Mulan and
Rapunzel for that matter, and all three had to stop and get a grip on themselves as
they saw Ariel double over with laughter.
“Oh my god, that was so not funny!” Jasmine gasped, laughing with a mix of
relief and embarrassment. Mulan and Rapunzel had practically crashed into each
other in fright, but now Mulan was hiding her face in embarrassment while Rapunzel
hid behind her.
“You. Suck!” Mulan laughed, punching Ariel in the arm.
“I got you all so good! You should’ve seen your faces!” Ariel said as she pulled
Jasmine up from the floor, still laughing.
“Ow, I think I broke my butt. I hate you so much right now,” Jasmine said even
as she smiled. In a way, all four girls were glad for something that broke the tension,
and at least it took anyone’s mind off of serial killers.
But just then, the girls’ bathroom door at the end of the hallway burst open
with a bang, making all four girls whip around and scream for real as a huge girl’s
figure emerged, hand on hips, glaring down at them.
“What the hell are you little freshmen doing down here?”
Chapter Six
Ursula sneered down at them as the four girls seemed to huddle together
under her glare. Her mean eyes taking them in, not looking impressed. She really was
a big girl. A short sleeve black dress cascaded over her huge stomach, the bottom of
it all ripped and torn so it hung in shreds around her knees where she wore purple
fish net stocking that were covered in rips and tears so you could see her pale skin
underneath. She had a multitude of black and silver bracelets and chains around her
wrists, as well as a studded choker that sat under one of her chins. Her hair was
shocking white, short and gelled up so it sat in a kind of mohawk style, and her
makeup was thick and gaudy, with black and purple eye shadow outlining her mean
eyes.
All three girls looked at Ariel, making it clear they weren’t going to say
anything, so Ariel turned back and stepped closer to the older girl. “I, um, we’re not
freshmen, we’re sophomores.”
“Could’ve fooled me, you’re all so scrawny. Like little twiglets,” she sneered at
her own joke.
‘Anyone would be a twiglet compared to you,’ Ariel thought to herself, but
wisely, did not say out loud.
After another few seconds of silence, Ursula started to look impatient. “What
do you want, and who the hell are you?” she asked harshly.
“Uh, actually I wanted you too… kind of… well…” Now that she was here Ariel
struggled to find the right words, it all sounded so stupid now. “…help me? And I’m
Ariel by the way… and that’s Jasmine, Mulan, and Rapunzel,” she spoke for her
friends, who seemed pretty intent on staying tight lipped.
“Hrm. So Ariel, you say you want help?” The corner of Ursula’s lip tugged up,
as if she was going to laugh. “And how exactly do you want me to help you?”
“… Fashion advice?”
Ursula really did laugh out loud at that. “Oh my god, did you guys hear that?”
she called over her shoulder to two girls, twins, with matching greasy dark hair which
was dyed a disgusting shade of green. Flotsam and Jetsam, her two cronies. Those
weren’t their real names of course, just their chosen scene names or whatever. But
anyone who does call them by their real names gets their locker filled with
yesterday’s rotten cafeteria dessert… so just go with Flotsam and Jetsam. The girls
could hear the twins laughing.
Chapter Six
Ursula ushered all four girls into the old bathroom and the door shut
ominously behind them. The walls were covered in graffiti, almost every inch, as well
as the doors to the stalls. Well, one of the stalls didn’t even have a door, but even if it
did, it would probably have ‘Ursula was here’ scratched into it too. The long mirror
on the wall was cracked in places and seriously dirty, and one of the three sinks was
blocked. Jasmine also spotted a very out in the open ash tray sitting on the bench.
She’s betting the janitor doesn’t really come in here…
“So, um, like I was saying. I want to know where you get your clothes,” Ariel
started. “Well, not your exact clothes, I’m not trying to copy you or anything, just that
kind of style… like your bracelets and tights and stuff…” she trailed off hopefully.
Ursula and the twins took in the clothes she had on now. Plain shorts, blue
cardigan, slip on flats.”…You don’t look like the type who’d suit purple fish nets, no
offence,” she hissed, in fact meaning a lot of offence.
Ariel looked sheepish. “Yeah, well… it’s a new thing I just want to tryout-”
“It’s for a guy!” Mulan blurted out, completely untactful. The girl didn’t do well
under pressure, and having three girls glare at you like they wanted to put your head
in a toilet was a bit of a pressure situation.
Ariel shot her friend a look, a ‘will-you-just-let-me-do-the-talking’ look, and
Mulan shrugged apologetically.
Ursula seemed more interested now. “A guy, eh? Well, why didn’t you say so?
I’m an expert on guys.”
None of the girls said anything to that.
“So, know it seems pretty guy’s not exactly part of your preppy crowd is he?”
she continued, saying the word ‘preppy’ like it was some vile swear she didn’t even
like hearing from her own lips, “and you want to change your look so you can be part
of his crowd?”
Ariel nodded mutely.
“Right. Easy, I can help you no problem.”
“Really?” Ariel said, daring to smile, actually surprised that she was willing to
help. “So you’ll give me a list of places to go that sell-”
Chapter Six
”Oh, please, I can do one better than that! I’ll give you a makeover right now!”
Ursula smiled and Ariel faltered.
“I, uh… What do you mean now? Like as in… now
now?” she said stupidly.
Ursula turned to the twins. “Get the box,” she said
simply.
Either Flotsam or Jetsam, the girls couldn’t tell
them apart, walked over to one of the closed stall doors
and pulled it open, dragged out a giant
cardboard box across the tiles and shoved it in
front of Ursula and Ariel. All four girls peered
into it.
“Clothes?” Ariel asked, reaching down
into the box and pulling out what looked like
a faded band t-shirt and then a pair of ripped
up black jeans that looked like they hadn’t been
washed in some time…
“Yup,” Ursula nodded. “Most of what we
wear, although exceedingly cool, doesn’t fit
with the school dress code. I’ve lost count
how many times I’ve been sent to the front
office to change because my style isn’t
deemed ‘appropriate attire for a school
environment’. Once, when I wore my Marilyn
Manson t-shirt to the school assembly they forced me
to wear something from lost property and the only top
left was from… the GAP.” Ariel swore she saw Ursula and
the twins visibly shudder at the mention. “So I started my
own box of stuff to change into. They tell me to take off
my ‘offensive’ band t-shirt and I just come right down
here and change into another one.”
Ariel took a glance at Ursula and doubted any of her
old clothes would remotely fit her, but luckily she didn’t have
to say anything as Ursula was already two steps ahead.
Chapter Six
“Of course some of Flotsam and Jetsam’s clothes are in their too and they’re
roughly around your size. So because we’re such nice people, we’re gonna let you go
ahead and take what you want from our box.”
“Really, I can just take them?” Ariel asked, now holding a couple of ripped up
shirts, a beanie, a tattered pair of converse, among other things.
“Weeell,” Ursula smiled. “I suppose that is being very generous isn’t it? Maybe
we do deserve some kind of payment.”
“Oh, I don’t have any money I can give you. Well, I have a whole jar of quarters
under my bed that I’ve been saving for a few years, I can give you that if you wa-”
but Ursula cut Ariel off mid sentence.
“Ah, no. That’s fine. I’ll think of something else, even if cash would’ve been
good…” she trailed off, sounding disappointed and suddenly a whole less interested.
“Let’s just say you owe me. A favor or something, for the future”
“What kind of favor?” Ariel asked but Ursula shrugged.
“Well, I don’t know yet, let’s just call it an I.O.U. kind of thing. If I think of
anything, I’ll come get you. Fair deal?”
Ariel paused, catching eyes with Jasmine. She could practically see the
disapproval in her eyes as she silently screamed at her not to do it. It figured Jasmine
being a business man’s daughter after all, she’d been raised not to make any deal
unless you knew you could actually profit from it and to avoid shaking hands with
anyone who looked dodgy. And really, was taking ripped clothes from the school’s
biggest bitch in the middle of a dilapidated bathroom anything but dodgy?
Ariel looked back to Ursula, and even with all the doubts running through her
head, she nodded her head. “That should be fine. Deal.”
“Sign for it,” Ursula said, tapping to an empty space on the graffitied wall with
black painted fingernails.
“Sign…?”
Flotsam stepped forward and handed her a black sharpie, which Ariel took.
“Just sign the wall, full name and date, and we have a deal.”
Chapter Six
Ariel paused and Ursula raised an eyebrow, “You want to get your guy don’t
you?”
And that was effectively Ariel’s first moment as her new ‘badass
punk/skater/rock chick’ self. Vandalizing school property as soon as she leant over to
that wall and scribbled her name down in the thick black pen, effectively selling her
soul to Ursula the goth bitch who lurked in the school basement toilets.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Generally, if you’re not four slightly out of their depth, sophomore girls with a
penchant for going where they probably shouldn’t and meeting up with people they
should most likely avoid. School on a Friday is a slow day. A boring day. Everyone’s
so dead from the previous four days of work that by Friday they’re slumped over
their desks doing nothing but begging for the weekend to come faster. Classes went
by uneventfully, the usual stuff, nothing that grand to mention. No, today all the
action would be happening as soon as classes were finished, and as soon as the final
bell rang, there was a distinct wave of students heading in the generally direction of
the sports field, like a mass migration.
“Yo, Flynn! Phoebus!” Aladdin called out as he spotted the two guys down the
crowded hall and caught up to them.
“Hey man,” Flynn nodded a typical boy ‘wassup’ nod to his new friend,
Phoebus doing the same. “What’d you just have?”
“Math.”
“Hm, sounds fun,” Phoebus grimaced.
“Yeah, it was riveting. You guys doing anything after school?”
Phoebus shrugged. “Eh, we could swing by the mall, hang in the food court.
They opened up a new Krispy Kreme.”
“Donuts it is,” Flynn instantly decided before he felt his phone buzz in his
pants pocket. “Call me, beep me, if you wanna reach me,” he said as he answered.
“I keep telling you that is not an acceptable way to answer a phone,”
Esmeralda dead panned on the other end of the line.
Chapter Six
“When you wanna page me it’s okay, I just can’t wait until I hear my cell phone
ri-i-ing-”
“You’re a dork. Anyway, I saved us seats on the bleachers up the back, Quasi’s
already here.”
“Why are you at the bleachers? I don’t remember asking for any reserved
seats.”
Flynn could practically feel Esmeralda roll her eyes through the phone. “Urgh,
tryouts are today. You know, for athletics and the football team and stuff.”
“Well, that great and all but the trouble is, I don’t really care, so-”
“It’s for Pocahontas, douche, remember? She’s trying out for track again and
you’re coming to support her. And I know Phoebus is totally with you and you tell
him he has to come too.”
“But we were gonna get donuts!” Flynn whined but Esmeralda didn’t budge.
“Be here in ten minutes or I’m hacking your facebook again. You don’t even
know the stuff I will say this time around,” she threatened calmly.
“Ha, well I’d like to see you try. Obviously I changed the password since last
time and you’ll never-”
“Your new password is ‘seymourbutts69’. Mature, by the way.”
“…how in the hell did you-”
“Ten minutes,” Esmeralda repeated herself before hanging up the phone.
Flynn slipped his phone back into his jeans pocket, looking back to his friends.
“So, change of plan, looks like we’re going to watch tryouts down at the field.”
“What about donuts?” Aladdin asked.
“We just gotta go watch Pocahontas do a few laps, cheer her on, and then we
can bail. The mall’s open late on Fridays anyway,” Flynn said as the three of them
turned on their heels to go back to the field, but even as Flynn walked he couldn’t
help but think he was forgetting something…
Chapter Seven
Winnie the Pooh Band-Aids
Aurora had made sure to get down to the field early in order to set up and to
make sure she and her girls had the best spot to practice on. Close enough to the
front of the bleachers but still out of the way of all the athletics kids that would be
showing up in no time. She checked her watch for about the third time as she paced
around the same patch of grass.
”Are you expecting many people?” Cinderella asked as she sat cross legged on
the bleachers, Snow White next to her. Both girls had come along as moral support.
They watched Aurora as she continued to pace, looking more than
a little tense.
Aurora shrugged as she laid out a line of pompoms on the
grass, ready for the potential new team mates. “I dunno, I only put
up the poster yesterday, but hopefully enough people saw it.”
“But you need someone to replace Tink, don’t you?”
Snow asked.
“Yeah, too bad she had to graduate,” Aurora
laughed in a more than strained way, picking up her hot pink
clipboard which already had all of the old teammates names
printed out neatly.
Tinkerbell had been the senior captain last year, and the
best member of the team. She was a small girl but athletic, which
made her perfect for stunts and the team’s main ‘flyer’. If you’re
not familiar with your cheerleading terms, a flyer is generally the girl
that gets tossed up in the air a lot, if you want to be simple about it.
Tink could perform a flawless liberty, where she could be lifted into
the air being held by only one foot, not to mention an arabesque,
which is basically the same stunt but with the added bonus of her
flipping her leg up behind her and holding it there at a 90 degree
angle. Basket tosses, full twist cradles, 360 elevators… Tink could do it
Chapter Seven
all. Aurora may have taken her place as leader of the team, but she still needed a
replacement flyer.
Cinderella held one of the spare pompoms in her hands and she played with it
absentmindedly, picking out little strange of tinsel. “Sometimes I think I should tryout
for the team,” she said, thinking out loud, “But then I remember I
get out of breathe walking up two flights of stairs.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you’d be a great addition to the
team,” Snow laughed, yanking the partially destroyed
pompom from her friend’s hands, “and give me that,
before you ruin it.”
“Maybe I could be team assistant. You know, fetch
them water bottles on their breaks and stuff. Like how
basketball teams have a towel guy.”
“You want to be a towel guy?” Snow gave her a look.
“Technically, I’d be a towel girl.”
“And that makes the position so much more
esteemed?”
“Okay. Well, I’m just throwing ideas out there,”
Cinderella waved her off.
“Hey, Aurora,” Snow called out suddenly towards
the field. “Do you guys need a towel girl?”
“…What?” Aurora turned around to stare at
her friends but Snow had already turned back to
Cinderella. Aurora just shook her head, putting it
down to weird friends being weird.
“Yeah, no offence, but I don’t think there’s a
huge market for towel girls,” she joked, earning a
light slap on the arm.
“Whatever, forget I said anything, I’ll just sit
on the bleachers forever and let my cheerleading
Chapter Seven
dreams pass me by forever,” Cinderella said, mock sighing.
“The dreams you had for, like, the last ten minutes maybe?”
“Yeah, I invested a lot in those last ten minutes. Now I need to re-evaluate my
entire life goals, thanks.” Cinderella yanked back the pompom and continued playing
with it, giving her friend a look that dared her to take it away again.
There was a brief pause as the two girls watched as more people drifted onto
the bleachers to save their seats. It wasn’t as if a big crowd would appear, but it was
something to do after school and a few parents always showed up as well.
“You know, you could always tryout to be the school mascot. I hear they clean
out that giant Lion costume twice a year now, so that’s something,” Snow shrugged,
a small smile playing on her lips.
“No, they’d never kick Quasi out of his gig. He’s been in that costume every
game since he was a sophomore,” Cinderella answered in all seriousness, back to
pulling out the little tinsel strands from the pompom.
“Oh my god, you actually sound serious,” Snow said, now sounding concerned
“You wouldn’t actually consider being the mascot would you?”
Cinderella shrugged at her response and Snow went a little bug eyed, looking
around to see if anyone else was hearing this come from her friend’s lips.
“Wow. I didn’t think you’d be that desperate to get on the team. I mean there
are other ways to get close to Charming; I didn’t think you would stoop so low. I
mean I was joking about them cleaning that suit twice a year, I don’t think it’s ever
been cleaned-”
But Cinderella had already gone bright red as soon as the name ‘Charming’
had come up.
“What!” She shrieked a little too indignantly, making a few people around
them turn and stare. Snow had a rather smug look on her face. “I do not want to be
on the team because of… Charming…” She let out a high strung laugh, trying to
sound casual, “You’re crazy… you and you’re ideas… seriously. You are way off base…
really grasping at straws with that one…”
But it only took one raised eyebrow from Snow to make Cinderella pause and
cave.
Chapter Seven
“Okay! Fine. Maybe I like Charming… a little… just a bit. Possibly.”
Charming, which actually happened to be his real name, was one of the only
two male members of the cheerleading team. He was handsome, pleasant, talented,
and a generally very well liked guy. At other schools male cheerleaders might get a
little flak from other students, but nobody could really say anything about Charming
because he was just… so nice. There’s not really another way you can say it. The guy
was just so easy to get along with. Even when you made a joke about his name, he
laughed along with you and told you had a great sense of humor. He’d probably
make a joke about it too. Then, bam! He added you on Facebook that night. It was so
damn hard not to get along with this guy. Apparently, it also made a certain girl
develop a little bit of a crush on him.
“Ugh, how do you even find this stuff out,” Cinderella gave in, figuring she
might as well get it over with. She knew her friend would gloat.
“A little birdy told me.”
“Okay, Snow, the whole ‘I can talk to little animals’ joke was funny when were
in primary school but now you’ve started to make it creepy. We still don’t believe the
story of how a squirrel came into your house and helped you clean your room.”
“It came in the window, picked up a sock in its mouth and carried it right into
the drawer. How did it know it was that exact drawer that I kept all my socks in? It
was magic, okay? I’m practically Dr. Dolittle.”
“Okay, whatever. We’re not having this discussion again,” Cinderella said
quickly.
“But in all seriousness, it wasn’t that hard to suss out that you liked Charming.
Showing up to all last year’s practices to ‘support Aurora,’ as you called it. Personally
I liked to call it ‘Checking out Charming in his tight work out singlet’, which was a
much more fitting title. Plus all the day dreamy looks in class, fixing your hair in the
closest reflective surface whenever he walks past in the hall, not to mention how you
creep around the mall outside the shop he works in”
“I go in to look at the shoes!” Cinderella blushed, defending herself.
“Sure you do, Stalkerella McCreeperson.”
“You’re mean,” Cinderella huffed. “Everyone always thinks you’re so sweet, but
you’re mean.”
Chapter Seven
“Aw, only to you,” she joked, wrapping her arm around her friend in a hug
which Cinderella didn’t shrug off. “You should be honored to see the real me.”
“Meanie.”
“You love it.”
“You guys,” Aurora strutted over to the two, looking worried. “Have you seen
my last pompom? I swear I brought twenty four of them down, but I only have
twenty three.”
Cinderella quickly pushed the now tattered pompom off the bench and onto
the floor in one swift motion. “No. Haven’t seen it.”
“Great,” Aurora muttered darkly, running a hand through her hair and going
back to the field.
Aurora hadn’t been nervous about the tryouts until late last night as she
tossed around in her bed, unable to get to sleep. It was a weird feeling, she was
never nervous! Not even at her own tryouts in previous years, she always knew her
spot was a sure thing, she knew she was good at cheering. Finding a new flyer
though? She didn’t know if one would come along, out of the blue. It was something
Aurora had no control over and when that fact finally hit her, that’s when she started
feeling nervous. Did she bring enough pompoms? Did she put the right time on that
poster? Will all the other team members fill in their old positions? She hadn’t even
considered that, she just assumed. She pulled a little on a hangnail with her teeth,
lost in her thoughts until a pair of tan arms wrapped themselves around her waist.
“Hey babe.”
Aurora was only startled for a second before she recognized the all too
familiar voice. She quickly twisted around in his arms to face her most wonderful,
handsome, perfect boyfriend.
“Phillip!” Aurora let herself be hugged, not needing how much she needed his
support right now. “How do you always know when to come to my rescue?”
Phillip let out a light laugh, “You’re rescue? What do you need rescuing from?
I only brought my uniform, not my dragon fighting kit.”
Aurora smiled at his cheesy joke as he pointed to the duffel bag he’d dropped
to the ground. “So you are staying on the team? Taking your old position?”
Chapter Seven
“What? Of course, you don’t even need to ask me that,” he smiled reassuring
her, “Especially now that my girlfriend is captain.” He gave her a small kiss which
Aurora gladly returned.
“Get a room!” Cinderella called out jokingly from the bleachers, but the two
still pulled apart, Aurora sticking her tongue out at her best friend before turning
back to Phillip.
“So what was that about a rescue?”
“Oh, nothing big, don’t worry about it,” Aurora tucked a stray piece of hair
behind her ear. “I’m just freaking out a little over, well, if we find someone good
enough to replace Tink, are all the old team members coming back? Will they even
listen to me? What if they don’t like that I’m the new captain. I’m a year younger than
half the girls, they probably think I don’t even deserve it and Giselle or Lottie should
have gotten it, not if too many people show up… or… or no one shows up! Or-”
She was cut off by Phillip, “Babe, seriously, just chill out a little okay? You’re
going a mile a minute; did you have a red bull or something?”
“I’ve had three today, since I didn’t sleep so well last night, but that’s not the
issue right now-”
“The issue right now-” Phillip said, trying to give his best re-assuring smile, “-is
that you’re freaking out over nothing.”
“It’s not nothing Phillip! This is a big deal for me; you know that! I’m captain
this year and it’s my responsibility to keep this team as good as it was, and what if I
can’t… what if I’m not…”
“Oh, hey, hey no. Don’t cry! C’mon.” He wrapped his arms tighter around
Aurora as she tilted her head back and blinked furiously to stop a few stray tears.
“You’re gonna be a great captain and you know it, that’s why Tink left you in charge
in the first place. Nothing’s gone wrong yet. Nothing will go wrong anyway, I bet
you.”
Aurora laughed, knowing that maybe she was being a little silly with all the
dramatics as she wiped delicately at her eyes, making sure not to smudge any of her
mascara. “You bet me what?”
“Well, if everything goes off perfectly, I will buy you dinner after every single
practice this year,” Phillip smiled confidently.
Chapter Seven
“Doesn’t the person making the bet usually make it so the other person has to
pay up?” Aurora laughed.
He shrugged. “The person who makes the bet also gets to make the rules,
soo…”
“And what if it doesn’t go perfectly-”
“Except that it will-” He cut across her.
“-And if it doesn’t?”
“Well, I will force you to accompany me to dinner every night after practice
this year then. Sorry, but that’s the rules, tough as they are. I don’t make my bets
lightly and I expect you to follow through on the consequences no matter what
happens. Do we have a deal?” he said with a mock seriousness as he held out his
hand for Aurora to shake.
“…Have I ever told you you’re the best boyfriend?”
“Yes, but I guess you can say it again if you really want to.”
Snow and Cinderella watched as the couple went back to their little PDA right
in the middle of the field, both girls exchanging glances.
“Did I not just tell them to get a room? I swear I did,” Cinderella said to Snow.
“Aren’t you used to it now? They’ve been going out for two years and the
public make out sessions haven’t seemed to slow down yet.”
“Ever since that day in freshmen Home Ec class,” she reminisced.
“And Aurora pricked her finger the first time she ever tried using the electric
sewing machine?”
“Then she fainted at the sight of her own blood and Phillip was convinced she
needed CPR to wake up,” Cinderella nodded.
“…He was never the brightest crayon in the box, was he?”
“Well she’s no Einstein either.”
“Yeah, she agreed to go out with him that afternoon since she was sure he’d
saved her life. It’s kind of romantic… in a dumb way.”
Chapter Seven
“You’re just jealous it’s them out there locking lips surrounded by pompoms
and not you and Charming,” Snow said, smirking.
“…Mean.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Phoebus, Aladdin and Flynn all walked back down the corridors they’d just
come from, on their way to meet with the others down at the field.
“Still don’t see why we couldn’t go get donuts,” Aladdin shrugged.
“Yeah, I’m all for supporting a friend but tryouts are just sooooo painfully
boring. Watching stick-skinny freshmen run around a big circle at a snail’s pace
actually causes me physical pain,” Phoebus said, dragging his feet.
“Yeah, well, it’s not your Facebook account that’s being held hostage is it?”
Flynn muttered.
“What’s the worst she could do? Do the whole ‘ I luv hot men 3’ status, like a
few dodgy pages, change your ‘occupation’ to Professional Drag Queen… the usual
stuff,” Aladdin said, naively, to which Flynn stopped and held up his hand.
“Aha, yeah, no. Listen, Esmeralda is on a whole other level of fraping. She’s like
a professional fraper. She could potentially have a career in the field of frape, okay?
Don’t be fooled by the short skirts, glitter nail polish, and consistently low math
scores, the girl is smart. I don’t know how she does it, Phoebus doesn’t know how
she does it, but she can hack into any Facebook, MySpace, Webpage and Inbox you
have, guaranteed. We have our theories, my bets on her being a witch; Phoebus
reckons she sold her soul to Satan, whatever. It’s not important. Point is: I don’t want
her getting anywhere near my account, she could do some irreparable damage.
Chernobyl level shit. So were going to the tryouts.”
A little stunned by Flynn’s rant, Aladdin just followed along silently but caught
eyes with Phoebus, who leant over to whisper closer to him.
“It was an end of term party last year at Gaston’s, Flynn got drunk, like, reeeal
drunk. David Hasselhoff drunk. Clothes may have been removed, super glue may
have been involved, a card board cut out of Robert Patterson may have been in the
mix… trust me, it wasn’t pretty.”
Chapter Seven
“And you’re telling me this because…?”
“She has photos.”
“Ah.”
As they all turned the corner they spotted a girl near the lockers. She had a
large, brown paper bag held in one arm and it looked like she was struggling to open
a locker with her free hand. She kept on retwisting the lock and pulling on the door
unsuccessfully as it stayed firmly closed.
Flynn turned his head back and kept his voice low. “I, ah, think we should head
a different way. It’ll be quicker if we go around by the science rooms anyway,” he said
quickly, looking eager to walk anywhere but past that girl. Phoebus however didn’t
pick up on any kind of hint and pulled a face at his friend.
“What? No it wouldn’t, that way takes heaps longer,” he said, confused as to
why they couldn’t keep going this way, but Aladdin squinted down the hall at the girl
that still hadn’t spotted them. He quickly recognized her short brown hair and purple
backpack.
“Hey, that’s that girl from before,” he said, thinking back to when he’d walked
down this same corridor earlier in the week when he’d first met Flynn. He kept
clicking his fingers as he tried to remember her name “Ahhh, it was a weird name…
Roberta? Raquelle? Definitely started with R.”
“You know some of the sophomores already?” Phoebus asked, sounding halfimpressed, but Aladdin shook his head, jutting his thumb over to Flynn, who had
begun to subtly slink his way backwards around the corner.
“No, but he does,” to which Phoebus raised both eyebrows.
“Oh, I get it,” he said simply which made Flynn pause.
“Get what?” he said impatiently.
“It,” Phoebus repeated. “I just would have thought you’d tell me about her.”
“Tell you what about her?”
“Was it… Riley?” Aladdin still thought out loud to himself.
Chapter Seven
“Well, you usually tell me about the girls you hook up with, in every gross
detail you can think of, but if you wanted to keep this one a secret, fine by me. I
won’t ask. No need to be ashamed.”
Flynn pulled an indignant face and looked like he wanted to yell in protest,
but he checked himself and kept his voice hushed, so he wasn’t overheard. “I did not
hook up with her, just… mind your own business and let’s go,” he said, getting more
and more annoyed.
“Hold it, hold it,” Phoebus grabbed onto Flynn’s jacket as he tried to walk
away one more time. “If she’s not some awkward onetime hookup, why are you so
desperate to avoid her then?”
“She’s just some sophomore newbie I’m supposed to be… I dunno…
mentoring, around the school,” he waved off, looking uncomfortable.
“And?”
“Well, I haven’t exactly been… attentive.”
“He ignored her in the hallway the other day,” Aladdin butted in, being
helpful, which earned him a glare.
“Wait, is this about how you told me you ‘got a chick out of it’ on the first day
back but never got around to explaining what ‘it’ was?”
“Yeah, pretty much, but I take that back. I no longer want this chick out of it,
out of this little arrangement Mr. Walt set up.”
“Roxanne… Roisin… Reeandra?”
“Her name is Rapunzel!” Flynn snapped to make Aladdin shut up with the
name guessing. “And Reeandra? That’s not even a real name.”
“And Rapunzel is?”
“Why? What’s wrong with her, she looks nice enough,” Phoebus cut the both
of them off and glanced down the hall at Rapunzel, who still hadn’t noticed them
due to her continued struggle with the locker door.
“Look, she’s just… weird, okay? She’s only ever been home schooled and it
made her weird. She’s never seen an episode of the Simpsons, not even the good
ones. She’s never been allowed to eat fast food in her life and she doesn’t have a
Chapter Seven
mobile phone or a computer. When I was showing her around the IT lab she asked
why Mac books were kept here instead of the library because she thought they were
actual books. And whenever she waves at me in the corridors, it’s not like a normal
‘Hey what’s up’ kind of head nod or anything, it’s a full blown, spastic hand flail. Like
this,” he demonstrated by waving his hand back and forth really fast right up near his
head. “Remember how we had to watch that movie about the creepy Amish people
in social studies last year? She’s like that!”
“Soo, she’s a little different,” Phoebus said rationally, swatting Flynn’s still
waving hand down. “I wouldn’t say you’re completely balanced either. You don’t
have to be so hard on her; new schools suck for everyone and she probably really
needs your help, man.”
Aladdin nodded, “Yeah, I mean it’s hard enough for me. I can’t imagine having
to figure this place out if I’d never been to any school ever.”
“Okay, fine, fine, don’t get all Gandhi on me. Since when have you guys ever
been this nice?”
Phoebus shrugged, “Someone needs to balance it out when you’re being this
much of an asshole.”
“…Thanks.”
“So you’re going to start being a good mentor for her then?” Aladdin asked
and Flynn did a kind of half grimace, half smile.
“Sure, if I’m gonna be guilted about it,” he said accusingly.
Phoebus paused and it looked like something just crossed his mind. “Wait,
why were you of all people chosen to be a mentor for this girl anyway?”
“Because Mr. Walt said I could be expelled if I don’t,” He said casually.
Phoebus actually had to stop midsentence to give his friend the most
incredulous look he could manage, and for a second it looked like words escaped
him. He gaped before finally managing to form words, “… And how was that not
reason enough for you to actually be nice to this girl?!”
“Duuude,” Aladdin let out in a long solemn tone. “That’s… kind of serious.”
Chapter Seven
“You’re an idiot Ryder. Really,” Phoebus shook his head. “You’d risk getting
expelled because you think this girl’s weird over not knowing what the hell KFC tastes
like? Do you honestly try and sabotage your life on purpose? Because you do a
pretty good job of it.”
Aladdin stood there shaking his head.
“Oh, come on! What is this? Gang up on Flynn day? I’m gonna be nice to her
from now on.”
“No, no, you’re going to be way more than nice! You’re gonna make this girl’s
time at Disney High the best damn time of her life, and I’m gonna make sure that
you do. Why? Because we have plans: our exams, graduate, get into the same
college, share a dorm room, all that crap because we’re best friends, and all of the
plan goes to shit if you get expelled and have to repeat the year. I’m not letting you
ruin this for yourself,” he jabbed his best friend in the chest repeatedly with his finger
and Flynn tried swatting him away, “To. This. Girl!”
“Whoa, okay, chill! I’ll escort her to the drinking fountains, help her carry her
books, tie her shoelaces in the morning, whatever. Just get off my back.”
Phoebus looked happy with this answer and backed off, keeping the warning
look on his face. “Cool. Pinky swear on it.”
“Oh my god, what are we? Five?”
“Do it.”
Flyn sighed as he held out his pinky and shook on it.
Aladdin watched the two and let out a low whistle to break the tension. “Sooo,
anyway. It’s not all bad; I mean she’s pretty cute. You might end up hitting it off with
her, you never know,” he shrugged.
Flynn scoffed “Ha, yeah, Flynn Ryder doesn’t go for cute. Flynn Ryder goes for
hot. Like, ten out of ten hot. Long legs, long hair, tanned… you know, the works.”
“And I suppose personality doesn’t count for anything then?”
Flynn just gave Aladdin a look.
“Thought so.”
Chapter Seven
“Look, nothing against the girl. She’s just not my type.”
“Yeah. His type is fake, easy, and just dumb enough to not realize how much
of a dick he kinda is.”
“Okay Phoebus, this is your warning, stop being so harsh to me. You’re
reaching your quota for the day.”
“…Do you want a hug then?”
“Shut up.”
“Flynn? Is that you?”
All three boys turned around as they saw that Rapunzel had stepped away
from her still unopened locker to peer down at them. It took her awhile, but she
eventually realized that she knew one of the guys bickering all the way down the
corridor.
“Go, go on. Now’s your chance to show what a nice guy you are,” Phoebus
gave Flynn a not so subtle push in Rapunzel’s direction. Flynn did start walking over
to her, but not without pulling a sneering face back at them to which Aladdin just
gave him a big two thumbs up.
‘Jerks,’ Flynn thought to himself, ‘Bet I could totally still gradate, even without
sucking up to some sophomore girl and-oh god she’s doing the wave.’
“Heeeeey Rapunzel,” Flynn said, in what he hoped was a convincingly sweet
voice, as he leaned against the locker next to hers. “What is up?”
Rapunzel rejuggled the giant paper bag around in her arms to get a better
hold of it as she smiled shyly. “Hi, um, nothing much really, just… stuff,” she laughed,
not really knowing what to say.
There was an awkward silence before Flynn pointed to what she was holding.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Oh, just all my art stuff. I just came from class. I’m going shopping with my
mom to see if I can get a proper case to carry it all around in. Maybe from like an art
store or something.”
“…Why don’t you just leave it all in your locker so you don’t have to carry it
everywhere in the first place?” Flynn suggested slowly, like he was talking to a child.
Chapter Seven
Rapunzel looked embarrassed. “Um, yeah that would be nice, except I can’t
seem to actually get it open…” She gestured to the locker.
“Oh. Yeah. I forgot I saw you doing that for the last few minutes,” Flynn said,
feeling a little stupid but quickly moving past that. “See, ah, these old things are just
stiff after years of never being replaced. Sometimes you gotta hit them in just the
right spot to make them pop open. It’s okay, how were you meant to know. No big
deal, just let me handle this,” he said cockily, gesturing for her to stand back as he
prepped himself in front of the stubborn locker door.
Rapunzel quickly side stepped it out of his way as he raised his fist and gave
the locker a swift punch, a loud clang ringing down the halls. Almost immediately
Flynn drew back his hand and clutched onto it, his mouth open in a silent scream as
he bent over in pain. The locker door was still firmly shut, but now had a lovely dent
right in the middle of it.
Down the hall you could faintly hear Phoebus and Aladdin trying to stifle their
laughter.
“Oh my gosh!” Rapunzel said worriedly, hands over her mouth, “Are you
Okay?!”
“I… aaaaaaahh… yeeeaah,” was all Flynn managed to gasp as he gripped his
slightly grazed knuckles.
“You’re bleeding!” Rapunzel said as she bent down to help him, grabbing his
hand in hers to look at it. Before Flynn could feel awkward about having his hand
held, he felt a soft tickling sensation on his skin. He looked at Rapunzel
apprehensively as he realized she was softly blowing on his scraped knuckles.
“I, uh… What are you doing?” He managed to ask, watching her lips pout as
she blew gently.
She looked up at him, looking completely unphased, like this was the most
normal thing in the world. “Didn’t your mom ever blow on your cuts when you hurt
yourself?”
Flynn just blinked, not knowing what he should even say. “Umm-” but he was
cut off by Rapunzel as she made a little noise of realization.
“Oh! I have Band-Aids too,” She said excitedly as she reached into her bag’s
front pocket. “Mom insisted I pack them on my first day. I think she was convinced I
Chapter Seven
might be attacked or blisters from my new school shoes. She likes me to be
prepared,” she laughed as she pulled out a couple of Band-Aids.
Flynn glanced down the hallway to where Phoebus and Aladdin had managed
to compose themselves, while still looking severely pleased about how this whole
thing was going down while Rapunzel busied herself by opening the Band-Aid
wrappers and delicately applying two of them across the light scrapes. Flynn gave his
friends warning looks, daring them to say anything.
“Okay, all done!”
Flynn flexed his hand to make the Band-Aids sit better, before he looked
down and saw them, and he froze.
“…These have Winnie the Pooh on them.”
Rapunzel nodded “Yup. And Eeyore and Tigger and Piglet as well,” she said,
pointing out more of the little cartoon characters printed on what were obviously
kid’s Band-Aids. Flynn looked up at her with a grimace, and then melting a little from
her honest smile. He quickly plastering on what he hoped looked like a big grin of
appreciation.
“Thanks. Feels better all ready Nurse Rapunzel,” he said jokingly, but it made
Rapunzel blush all the same as she looked down at her shoes.
“Well, thank you for trying to open my locker anyway, it was nice of you.”
This time Flynn actually had the slightest of smiles, a real one. “Yeah, no
problem. I know I haven’t been around much after I gave you that tour,” he said
awkwardly, not really knowing where to go with this. “Been busy and all that,” he lied.
“But I’ll be around a little more… just to help.”
Rapunzel smiled back at him, and for a second he had to catch himself. She
really did have a nice smile. “Thanks,” she said simply. There was a pause between
them before Flynn heard Phoebus and Aladdin walk up from down the hall, and he
remembered he actually needed to be somewhere.
“Come on man, tryouts are gonna start any second and Esmeralda’s not
getting any less impatient,” Phoebus urged, giving Rapunzel a polite smile.
Chapter Seven
“Yeah , uh, I guess I’ll see you around then,” Flynn said, and Rapunzel was
about to reply before all four of them heard a girl’s voice come from around the
corner.
“Rapunzel, there you are. I was worried you’d gotten lost,” Jasmine exclaimed
with relief as she dashed up to her newest friend. “I thought you only needed a
second to put your stuff away, we’ve been waiting for you down in the change rooms
and Mulan needs to go out for her trials any second.”
“I’m so sorry, I got sidetracked, I couldn’t get my locker open and then Flynn
came by to help and he still… Well, it didn’t work,” she said hurriedly, wincing, but
Jasmine didn’t look mad. She just stared a little sheepishly at the three seniors that
surrounded Rapunzel, two of which she recognized as being a little infamous around
School, and not for the best of reasons.
“Uh, that’s okay,” she said distractedly. “Maybe you’ll just have to get your
combination number checked tomorrow; they might have given you the wrong one.”
“Combination number?” Rapunzel asked cluelessly.
“Yeah, you know, the one they gave you with your timetable and info pack
when you started,” Jasmine explained.
“You mean this one?” Rapunzel said as she pulled out a slip of paper from her
backpack, which Jasmine took and inspected. After scanning the page and finding
the number, she gently took the locker dial and twisted it around a few times.
It gently clicked open.
“Oohh so that’s what those numbers mean. I was just twisting it randomly…”
Rapunzel trailed off, feeling a little stupid.
Jasmine gave her a rather withering smile. “It’s Okay. There’s always a learning
curve,” she gave the locker a good look too. “I would have thought they could get
you a better one though, this one has a dent in it and everything.”
Flynn bit his lip to keep himself from saying anything. He also took a deep
breath and counted backwards from ten. Phoebus and Aladdin had to focus all of
their will power on not laughing.
“Now come on, Mulan’s super nervous right now and I want to wish her luck
one more time before she has to face off with the hurdles and long jump pit,”
Chapter Seven
Jasmine said as Rapunzel quickly packed her art supplies away, looking very
sheepish.
”See you guys, nice meeting you,” she said, waving a goodbye to
Phoebus and Aladdin as well as Flynn. Jasmine just gave a brief wave
before both girls were around the corner and off on their way.
“Nice to meet you too!” Phoebus called out after them, a huge
smile on his face. “Well, that was fun,” he said, clapping his hands
together. “Wasn’t that fun, Flynn?”
“All I wanted was some damn donuts…”
“Hey, who was that other girl? She was mad cute,”
Aladdin asked, his head still craning for a view after Rapunzel
and Jasmine had left.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“What took you guys so long? Did you crawl here?” Esmeralda immediately
started on the three as they made their way up the steps to the very back of the
bleachers, where she and Quasi already sat. They’d been here long enough to settle
in and Quasi had even brought snacks from the vending machines. “What happened
to your hand Flynn? Oh my god, did you guys get into a fight?”
“Don’t ask,” Flynn said, bitterly, as he took a seat in the row in front of them.
“Are they Winnie the Pooh Band-Aids?”
“I said don’t ask.”
Esmeralda held up her hands “Alright, no need to get sassy with me.”
“Want some chips?” Quasi asked, offering him the open packet to take a
handful but Flynn swatted them away.
“No. I hate chicken flavor. Doesn’t even taste like chicken,” he said like a bratty
little kid, well into a bad mood. Quasi didn’t say anything and just offered the chips
to Aladdin who happily came over to sit with him and snag some free chicken chips.
Chapter Seven
As Phoebus took a seat next to Esmeralda, she leant over to whisper to him,
“Okay, what is his problem?”
Phoebus let out a small laugh, “I’ll tell you about it on Facebook tonight. It’s
pretty classic.”
“I can hear you guys,” Flynn muttered angrily.
“Just stare at the cheerleaders as they do their warm up stretches; that’ll cheer
you up,” Esmeralda smiled as she ruffled his hair to annoy him. He swatted her away
like he did with the bag of chips.
Though of course, all four of the guys’ heads did indeed turn to the
cheerleaders. Along with most of the other males sitting in the bleachers.
“Speaking of cute girls-” Aladdin started, even though none of them had
actually been speaking, “That hot dark haired girl from earlier, Rapunzel’s friend-”
“I already told you, we don’t know her,” Flynn said flatly.
“But she’d be a sophomore too right? If she’s friends with her?”
“You should be a detective.”
“You don’t know her last name then? Because they’re has to be a million
different Jasmines on Facebook,” Aladdin pulled out his phone. “You know what, I’m
gonna look it up right now.”
“Did you fall in love at first sight or something?” Phoebus laughed “Dude, you
saw her for maybe twenty seconds. Didn’t even say a word to each other. Calm
down.”
“Awww, has someone taken your fancy Aladdin?” Esmeralda cooed, thinking it
was sweet.
“Oh, she took it alright. She yanked it away from me, grabbed it tight and ran
with it,” Aladdin laughed as he scrolled through the facebook app. “If I narrow it
down to Disney High students it should be easier.”
“Jasmine… that name does ring a bell.” Esmeralda screwed up her face. “Is she
that girl who broke down in the cafeteria last year because she said eating
mushrooms would either make her bigger or smaller, or something?”
Chapter Seven
“No, that was that Alice girl that ended up transferring to a new school. Or an
institute, I don’t remember,” Quasi shrugged, still eating his chips.
“Oh, never mind then.”
“Hey, here we go!” Aladdin said triumphantly, sitting up in his seat as a girl’s
profile came up on his phones screen and he zoomed in on the picture. “Definitely
her. Those eyes, that hair” he sighed.
“Slow down lover boy, I wanna see,” Esmeralda declared as she took the
phone, but her eyes widened as she recognized Jasmine. “Ooooooh, I do know her!”
she said dramatically.
Aladdin’s face fell as he saw Esmeralda’s expression. “Don’t tell me. She’s
super mean, she has some kind of creepy hobby, her hair is a wig. It’s something bad
isn’t it?”
Esmeralda made a little half and half gesture with her hand as she handed the
phone over to Phoebus and Quasi to look at. “Eh, it’s nothing like that. I don’t know if
you’d still want to hear it though.”
Aladdin gave her a look that made it clear that ‘yes, he wanted to hear
anything and everything she had on this girl. So spill it.’ Esmeralda continued.
“She’s perfect,” she stated simply, shrugging.
“…And that’s bad becaaause?”
“Apparently she’s so perfect that just about half the male population of
freshmen asked her out last year, as well as some sophomores and even juniors and
she turned every single one of them down. Even the super good looking ones. Well,
good looking by freshman standards, but whatever. So yeah, she’s rich, gorgeous,
dresses cute, and gets top grades. She’s also untouchable. Sorry.”
“Mm, she is very pretty,” Quasi agreed, looking at her profile picture which
seemed to be her posing at some party in a bright red satin dress.
“Way to pick ‘em, man,” Phoebus smiled, handing Aladdin his phone back.
“Maybe don’t add her just yet, you’ll probably just get blocked straight away.”
Aladdin looked a little put out, but he shrugged, “Well, it was worth looking
her up I guess,” and he slipped his phone back into his shorts pocket. “So where’s
Chapter Seven
Pocahontas?” he said, changing the subject, scanning the busy field looking for her. It
was pretty busy now, the cheerleaders down the bottom of the bleachers, all the
footballers had taken the middle of the grounds and had already begun messing
around, tackling each other and throwing the ball around, while all the athletics team
hopes milled around near the start of the race track, chatting and waiting for the
athletics captain to show up.
“Yeah, we haven’t spotted her yet,” Esmeralda shrugged, taking another look
around for her best friend. “I thought she might just be taking her time changing, but
it looks like they’re pretty much ready to start.”
“Have you texted her?” Phoebus asked and Esmeralda shook her head.
“I forgot to charge my phone last night, it’s dead. Maybe I should go check
the change rooms for her,” she wondered out loud.
“Maybe she got performance nerves?” Aladdin suggested, still munching on
chips.
“Nah, not Pocahontas. Not much fazes her, let alone a tryout for a team they
desperately want her on,” Phoebus said matter-of-factly.
“She’s a crazy good runner, she topped the school record for the 100m dash
and long distance run,” Quasi explained when Aladdin looked questioningly at
Phoebus.
“Ah, cool.”
Just then, the group heard a whistle blow from down on the field.
“Looks like that’s for the athletics kids,” Phoebus said, watching all the
mingling students form a group around Shang and what looked like one of the Phys
Ed teachers. “And still no sign of Pocahontas with them.”
“So I go through all this trouble to support her running around a track and she
doesn’t even show up? This is such a load of sh-OW!”
Esmeralda quickly slapped Flynn upside the head before she started zipping
up her back and stood up in her seat “Okay, I’m going to go look for her. Something
might have happened,” she said worriedly, but taking charge.
“Like what? She’s probably just in the bathroom,” Flynn waved it off.
Chapter Seven
“Doing what?”
“I dunno, maybe she had a big lunch, ‘lady’ business, pick your reason.”
“You are such a pig.” Esmeralda shook her head as she slung her bag over her
shoulder. “What if something serious happened to her? She might’ve been attacked,
abducted! You know how it is with all these white vans prowling around schools
looking for victims. She could have been shot and left for dead by now!”
Phoebus reached up to put a hand on Esmeralda’s shoulder. “Okay, we maaay
be overreacting a little,” he said, trying to calm her down as she was obviously
winding herself up.
“Well, please excuse me while I overreact irrationally then!”
It was just then that Flynn gazed off into the distance as it looked like he was
trying to remember something. Something important.
“Hey, guys shut up a second,” he held a hand up to Esmeralda and Phoebus.
“Oh, what are you gonna say now little ray of sunshine? You know I could still
go to town on your Facebook page, if you really want to keep pushing it,” she said,
agitated, but Flynn ignored her, having seemingly found the little piece of
information he was scanning his brain for.
“Wasn’t she holding that ‘save the quad’ thing after school today…?” he said
slowly.
They all paused. Esmeralda’s eyes widened.
“Oh, crap!”
And without a second word she was darting down the stairs of the bleachers
and onto the field, pushing her way through the group of cheerleaders and gunning
it towards the school.
The four guys watched her in silence, as well as half the bleachers, before
Aladdin turned to them. “And you’re saying Pocahontas is faster than that, huh?”
Do you think it will all go Okay for Aurora with the team?
Does Snow White really have a gift with animals?
Chapter Seven
How many PDAs will Aurora and Phillip have before tryouts are over?
Will Cinderella have the nerve to talk to the intimidatingly perfect Charming?
On a scale of one to Hulk, how mad will Pocahontas be about everyone
skipping out on her ‘save the quad’ protest?
On a scale of one to kittens, how adorbs is Rapunzel and her Winnie the Pooh
Band-Aids?
Chapter Eight
Admiral Douche Reporting For Duty
Esmeralda huffed and panted as she ran through the now deserted halls of the
school; her bag tucked under her arms and her hair fanning behind her. She made a
mental note to stop cutting so many gym classes. She thought her dance lessons
would keep her fit enough, but as she felt the painful stitch in her side, it was clear
that wasn’t the case.
She finally made it out to the quad and she stopped to catch her breath. She
took a look around, expecting at least a few people milling about to protest, but the
patch of grass and benches was just as empty as the rest of the school. Not to
mention Pocahontas wasn’t even there either.
“Wha-?” Esmeralda muttered out loud, slumping her shoulders. She mentally
kicked herself, instantly assuming that nobody had shown up and Pocahontas had
probably gone home. She could just picture her friend waiting alone trying to text
her and getting no reply. “Crap, crap, crap…” she muttered again, feeling like the
worst friend in the world.
“Well, you left it a little late.”
Esmeralda jumped, startled, and whipped her head around to look for the
sound of her friend’s voice.
“Pocahontas?” she said, feeling stupid as she turned in circles, not seeing
anyone.
“Up here,” Pocahontas sighed, sounding miserable.
Esmeralda looked up to see her best friend lying back on a thick branch of the
quad’s biggest tree; her bag slung over a hanging branch and her cell-phone in her
hand. “You obviously didn’t get the twenty missed calls I left you or texts.”
“My phone died,” Esmeralda winced, putting on her best ‘I feel super guilty’
voice on. She had her neck craned back to look all the way up to the tree. “So uh,
why are you sitting in a tree exactly?”
Chapter Eight
Pocahontas peered down at her, making it clear that now was not the time to
make a smart ass comment about the tree sitting, so Esmeralda refrained herself and
held her hands up in defense. “Just asking.”
Esmeralda dropped her purse on the grass at the base of the tree and
grabbed onto one of the lower branches, getting her foot into a small nook on the
trunk and then managing to pull herself up to begin climbing. Pocahontas was
probably only four meters off the ground where she sat, so not very high up, and it
only took a few seconds for Esmeralda to reach another thick branch opposite to her
and haul herself over it, so now both girls sat across from each other in the thankfully
very sturdy tree.
Esmeralda readjusted her skirt and got herself comfortable, looking pleased
with herself. “Still got it. I remember when we used to climb trees every recess in
elementary school, even though we got in trouble every other week for it. Good to
know I haven’t lost the knack.” She tried to sound cheery but she changed her tone
when she saw Pocahontas’s face.
“Did anyone show up?” She asked softly and Pocahontas shook her head.
“Well, a couple people hung around for about ten minutes and I thought they
were here to help, but when I asked if they wanted to sign my petition they just said
they were waiting around until the car park got less crowded… then they got really
excited when they heard a new car park was gonna be built… then they left,” she
shrugged and tapped at her cell. “I’ve just been playing angry birds on my phone for
the last half-hour.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Esmeralda said sympathetically. “I’d reach over to hug you, but
well… we’re in a tree.” She paused for another second before she just had to ask, “But
no really, I seriously wanna know what’s up with you being in the tree.”
Pocahontas threw up her hands. “I don’t know. I thought it would be dramatic.
Make a statement. When nobody else showed up to help I decided to get up here
and if any of the teachers came out and told me to leave I would tell them I wouldn’t
come down until they changed their minds about destroying the quad.” She then
looked a little sheepish. “But no teachers have even walked past here. Except for the
janitor, but he just smiled and waved.”
“What if that still doesn’t make anyone change their minds?”
Chapter Eight
“I guess I’d just have to stay up here until they do. I’d sleep here overnight.
They’ll probably give in after a couple of days at the most,” Pocahontas said
nonchalantly.
Esmeralda looked at her is disbelief. “You would stay up here for a couple of
days…?”
“I have crackers,” she said defensively, taking a tupperware container out of
her bag and shaking it.
Esmeralda didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
“…Okay, fine, so it wasn’t the most well thought-out plan; more of a spur of
the moment thing anyway,” she said, throwing the crackers back in her bag roughly
and folding her arms “It’s just… this isn’t just about the quad and losing our area; it’s
the nature here too. Like this tree has to be at least thirty years old, don’t you think?
They’re going to rip it up like it’s nothing and all for some concrete and asphalt to
accommodate some environment destroying cars. The whole thing is just disgusting.
Yes, we can get a new area to have lunch in, but we can’t get a new planet once we
ruin it.”
Esmeralda nodded in understanding, “I get what you mean, and I think it’s
great that you’re all about saving the planet, and you’re good at it! Remember when
you gave that speech at assembly last year about littering and how it affected local
wildlife? That really spoke to me.”
“Last week I saw you and Phoebus throwing empty soda cans from a second
storey classroom window.”
“And we were aiming for the trash can below that window. See? You really
reached us.”
“Where are you going with this Esmeralda?”
“My point is, you see the problem, and you do something about it. So maybe
this problem wasn’t fixed with a speech, minor setback. You went out and tried a new
approach, sitting in a tree. That also didn’t work. Neither did an attempted rally or
flyers or a petition.”
“I really want you to be going somewhere with this right now, because
otherwise I just feel more like a loser than I already did.”
Chapter Eight
“Don’t give up! I know that you’ll think of something. Maybe just try and
google ‘How to save a quad.’ You never know, it might help.”
Pocahontas let out a small laugh as she realized her friend wasn’t kidding. Still,
she knew her heart was in the right place. “Yeah… maybe. I might even go see Mr.
Walt next Monday, see if I can just speak to him about it directly.”
Esmeralda smiled and clapped her hands. “See? Already brainstorming new
ideas.” She reached up for a high-five which Pocahontas gladly gave her. “So, uh, can
we get down from the tree now?”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“Are you sure you’re gonna be able to run and do high jump and stuff in
those clothes? They’re so baggy and those pants look like they’re gonna slip down
on you any second,” Jasmine said worriedly pulling at Mulan’s Dad’s t-shirt.
“It was all I could find and it’s not like I can go change now, so leave it,” Mulan
said, making sure to retie the draw string on the old sweatpants tighter, just to be
safe.
“Okay, okay,” Jasmine backed off. “Don’t get huffy with us just because you’re
nervous.”
“I’m not getting huffy… and I’m not nervous. Not much.”
“Dude, you peed like three times in the change room’s bathroom. We know
you’re nervous,” Ariel laughed, standing alongside her friends. All of them had been
bugged by Mulan to wait with her around all the other athletics team hopefuls
before the teachers arrive. The four girls hung around at the edge of the crowd on
the open grass but apparently they were still in ear shot.
“Did you need to say that out loud?” Mulan hushed at her friend, having heard
a couple of guys nearby laugh under their breaths from overhearing as they
stretched out their legs. Ariel shrugged apologetically and Jasmine shot the boys a
look over her shoulder.
“Maybe you should start stretching too,” Rapunzel suggested. “I think it must
be starting soon.”
Chapter Eight
“Yeah, good idea,” Mulan nodded, hands on her hips. She paused for a second
as they others looked at her expectantly. “How do I do that?”
All four girls just looked at each other.
“Umm,” Ariel started, “I dunno, just kinda copy everyone else.” She gestured to
one of the nearby boys who was stretching out his hamstrings by kicking his leg up
and back and holding it there. “That looks easy, do that one.”
Mulan tried it, flipping her leg back and holding it up to her bum. She
wobbled on one leg for a few seconds before crashing with a thud to the grass. She
was quickly helped up by Jasmine.
“Okay, a new one… how about touching your toes?” she suggested.
“Oh, I can do that!” Ariel said immediately, proving it straight away. “See,
easy.”
“Hey, I can too,” Rapunzel said as she gave it a go, surprising herself by her
own flexibility. “I haven’t tried since I was little.”
Jasmine didn’t even attempt too, knowing she couldn’t ever since that one
time she tried renting out a home workout video. That workout session lasted less
than ten minutes.
Mulan bent over and tried her best.
“Hey, no bending your legs,” Ariel said as she looked up.
“But I can’t do it otherwise!” Mulan huffed as she tried in vain to stretch her
fingers as far as they could go. After bobbing up and down trying to will her body to
bend just a little more each time, Mulan gave up. “Urgh, I suck,” she groaned,
rubbing a hand over her face and regretting even coming to these tryouts. Maybe
she should just accept her place in the chess club.
“Hey, don’t say that,” Rapunzel stood up. “It’s just something you need to
practice… I know! You can do jumping jacks. That’ll get you warmed up and everyone
can do jumping jacks,” she encouraged as Mulan looked on with slumped shoulders.
“Yeah,” Ariel nodded, “Jumping Jacks. Everyone can do that,” and Ariel began
fanning out her arms and jumping on the spot and Rapunzel joined in too, both of
them giving encouraging looks to Mulan to get her to join in. Mulan slid her eyes
Chapter Eight
over to Jasmine who looked dead embarrassed by her friends flapping around like
spastics, but then she saw Mulan and how down on herself she looked. She put on a
convincing grin and slowly joined them.
“Yeah, easy, see?”
Mulan looked at her friends and uncrossed her arms, deciding to give it a
shot, silently star jumping as well until all four of them were doing the over the top
exercise, all out of sync, arms and legs flailing.
Over a couple of meters away, Yao, Ling and Chien Po stared.
“Hey, get a load of the spastics,” Ling laughed, making sure to keep his voice
low.
“Pfft, sophomore girls,” Yao said, shaking his head. “Look, three of ‘em ain’t
even wearing proper sports gear. Does that tan one think she’s gonna get far on a
track in high heels.”
“Technically I think they’re called wedges, and there’re only little wedges. She
might be able to run for a little bit, just slowly,” Chien po said spicily, ignoring the
look Yao was giving him that clearly showed he did not care about the specifics of
Jasmines shoes.
“Well I’d suggest they can all get off our field and go back to buying more
wedges and heels – or whatever you call them – at the mall. I don’t need a bunch of
stupid little girls taking up my position at the starting track, thank you very much,”
Yao scoffed, taking a sip from his water bottle.
“What was that about ‘stupid little girls’ getting of your track, Yao?”
Yao almost choked on his water as he heard Audrey’s voice come from behind
him. He turned to face her as she stood, hand on her hips, daring him to explain
himself. Apart from Pocahontas she was the only other girl on the team and it had
been that way for two straight years. Audrey had more than proven herself though;
she was tough as nails and could throw a shot putt like you wouldn’t believe. The
athletics team was a boys’ club through and through and Audrey had managed to fit
in as one of them with no trouble at all.
“Aah, not you, Audrey. Not you at all,” Yao smiled, trying to laugh it off. “I
meant like, girl girls, not a girl as in you.”
Chapter Eight
“You sayin’ I’m not a girl?” she teased dangerously, trying to bait him while
Yao fumbled over his words.
“I mean like, you’re not one of the stupid ones. The ones that post duck face
photos on facebook and say ‘oh em gee’ about everything and dance around in
miniskirts to Justin Bieber,” he jerked a thumb over to Mulan and the girls who were
now trying to encourage her to try doing pushups, except Mulan seemed to have
trouble even lifting herself a few inches off the ground. It didn’t help that Ariel had
dumped her backpack on top off her as some added weight that would help her
build up faster. Jasmine had decided to film it all on her phone. “Like them,” Yao
added for emphasis.
Audrey craned her neck to look at the four’s less than impressive warm-up
routine and all she did was shrug. “Looks like only one of ‘em’s even trying out, and I
wouldn’t worry about it. I bet she’ll only last ten minutes tops.”
“You bet?” Ling slide up to her, arm on shoulder. “You bet what, huh? Come
on, make this interesting. We’ll all make a call on how long we think the little prep
will last out here with us and the one who guessed closest wins.”
“I got five dollars; I say ten minutes,” Audrey smirked. “The captain’s speech
will probably scare her off before she even runs a meter.”
“Pack of orange tic tacs; I say fifteen,” Yao pulled out the pack from his bags
pocket and gave it to Ling.
“My own bets on a half hour,” Ling said, collecting the goods, “And I’m
throwing in a pack of Dorito’s.” He looked over to Chien Po, “What about you big
guy?”
“I’ll put in twenty bucks” he said, the others eyes widening as the betting pool
actually became decent instead of stuff people found in the bottom of their bags.
“And I say she makes it on the team,” Chien Po smiled over at Mulan as his friends
looked a little disbelieving.
“Ahh, well, okay then. Good luck with that buddy,” Ling looked over to the
girls just as Mulan stacked it to the ground again as she tried to leap over Ariel who
was bent over acting as a mock hurdle for her to practice on. He exchanged glances
with Yao, neither of them saying anything. If the guy wanted to give up twenty
dollars, that was on him.
Chapter Eight
Back over with the girls who were unaware about any covert bets being made,
Mulan was picking herself up off the ground and dusting herself off.
“Oh, great, now I’ve got grass stains all over Dad’s pants. I’m gonna make you
wash them.” She wagged a finger at Ariel who didn’t seem fazed.
“They’re your Dad’s pants?” Ariel said as she got up off all fours.
Just then, a man walked up to the group of kids and blew a whistle in three
short bursts, raising his hand in the air to further get their attention on him. He had a
sturdy build and bright orange hair, and was dressed in a Disney High sport teacher’s
uniform with a clipboard in hand.
A few people turned to him and stopped their conversations, but only for a
brief few seconds, with most people continuing to chatter and mess around with
their friends.
“Ah, excuse me,” The man called out, sounding unsure of himself. “Can I have
your attention please… ahem, guys? Come on, gather round, closer. Uh, huddle in.”
A few students looked him up and down, exchanging glances with friends.
New teachers. They were so easy to spot.
“Um, my name is Hercules. Hello,” he gave an awkward wave with his
clipboard to the unimpressed teenagers. “I’m new to the physical education faculty
and, um, I would appreciate if you could all listen in now… please… pay attention…
that’d be good. Any time now.”
Audrey lent over to Ling, “This is the guy has to guide our team? I don’t
reckon we’ve needed a teacher looking after our practices for the past two years, let
alone this newbie chump. I mean, geez, the guy’s practically shaking in his Nike
running shoes.”
“Maybe we should make another bet and see how long he’d last.” They
laughed.
Even Mulan, Jasmine, Ariel, and Rapunzel were intimidated enough to stop
talking, all giving their last pieces of advice to Mulan.
“Make sure your shoe laces are tied so you don’t trip, and good luck.”
“As long as you don’t come last you’ll probably be fine… maybe.”
Chapter Eight
“If you actually make the team do you think they’ll make you eat those protein
bars that make you bulk up? Because girls with crazy muscles freak me out. Like
those lady body builders you see in those pageants.”
“Ariel, shut up.”
“What? It’s relevant!”
As Hercules attempts at controlling everyone failed yet again, someone else
stepped up to the front of the crowd. He held out his hand for Hercules to hand him
the whistle, which he did without question, and he blew on it one short but sharp
time which made everyone jump and look his way.
“Alright!” he yelled out, all business. “Everyone quiet.”
In that second everyone instantaneously stopped talking. Some had wide
eyes, some looked at him in silent judgment, looking him up and down like, ‘who did
he think he was’. Still, they were all paying attention at least.
“You are all here because you want to be a part of our school’s Athletics team.
Because you have a passion for sports, a passion to be a part of a team and a passion
for winning. It’s good to see a lot of familiar faces and a lot of new ones-”
In that second his eyes glanced over Mulan and she blinked sheepishly,
hoping she looked more than a little competent.
“And just a note for all new hopeful members: this is not a team you’re going
to join because you’re bored, because you want something to do after school, or
because you need to get some extra credit, or because you think joining us will
excuse you from extra homework. I don’t want anyone to be here when they don’t
really want to be here. I want you here because there’s no where you’d rather be
than on a podium at the end of the year holding up a gold Athletics medal.”
A few people in the crowd nodded silently, a lot looking eager to prove
themselves. Others looked up with a little bit of newfound respect. He had a way of
capturing a crowd. Rapunzel looked a little intimidated while Jasmine looked on with
raised eyebrows. Ariel looked like she almost wanted to laugh. She nudged Mulan.
“God, this running around a field is pretty serious business,” she laughed,
Mulan didn’t reply though. She did not feel like getting told off by this guy, which
seemed like something he would totally do. He felt like a teacher more than most of
the real faculty. Even Hercules looked a little in awe.
Chapter Eight
“And forgive me, I haven’t introduced myself. As most of you are probably
aware, I’m Shang, and I was chosen at the end of last year to be the new team
Captain.”
“Your dad’s head of the sports department, of course you were chosen,” Yao
muttered under his breath bitterly, and Audrey and Ling had to hide their smirks.
“I’m sorry, was there something you have to say to me, Yao?” Shang said
without skipping a beat.
“I didn’t say anything,” he said quickly, having the nerve to look offended.
Shang frowned but didn’t make anything more of it as he began to take his
shirt off.
Ariel let out a low whistle but Mulan quickly gave her a jab in the ribs to shut
her up, not quickly enough though.
“Ladies,” Shang turned to the girls, looking unamused. “If you have no
intention of trying out, could you please get off my field and find something better
to do and stop wasting everyone’s time,” he said as he slipped on his athletics
captain’s t-shirt. It was just one of the normal athletics t-shirts, except it said, ‘Athletic
captain,’ over the back. This made it 100% more important than anyone else’s shirt,
and you could tell it made Shang feel important as he stared all four of the girls
down with his arms over his chest. Every other person in the crowd had turned to
look at them as well. Mulan felt a tight knot in her stomach.
Jasmine gave him an unimpressed look once over. “Well excuse you, we were
just leaving.” She turned to Mulan, “Good luck, we’ll see you later. Come on girls, let’s
go wait on the bleachers.” She gave Shang one more disdainful look as she breezed
past him, Ariel and Rapunzel following suit.
“Yeah, see you later admiral douche,” Ariel threw over her shoulder, this being
the best burn she could come up with on short notice, giving a little mock salute.
Rapunzel just shuffled past him with a strange facial expression that was a mix of ‘I’m
sorry for causing a scene,’ ‘well, this is awkward,’ and ‘oh god what do I do, just walk
Rapunzel, walk.’
Shang raised his eyebrows at ‘admiral douche’. That was a new one. He looked
over to Mulan, who stood there like a deer in the headlights.
She laughed nervously and fidgeted as she felt everyone’s heavy gaze on her.
Chapter Eight
“So, uh, I’m looking forward to being on the team.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Now Mulan would have liked to imagine the next hour of her life as some sort
of Rocky Balboa style montage, complete with inspirational music, of her beating all
odds and successfully running around the track in record time, clearing all the
hurdles in the 100m dash, managing to be a valued teammate in the relays,
launching a shot put an impressive distance, making the discus soar majestically
through the air, and blitz the long jump like it was her job.
Of course Mulan also liked to imagine Zac Efron taking her on a romantic
candlelit dinner where they happen to run into Selena Gomez who tells her her hair
looks nice in a curled up-do, despite whatever Jasmine and Ariel said, and that wasn’t
happening any time soon either.
What ended up happening was more like her gasping and panting over the
track finishing line ten minutes after everyone else, managing to knock down five of
the nine hurdles (herself along with them), accidentally stabbing some poor guy in
the ribs when trying to pass him the relay baton, launched the shot put an impressive
one meter distance, made the discus have some sort of mid-life crisis where it
decided midair that it wanted to be a boomerang, where it promptly flew itself right
back and collided with her head, and then she topped it all off by face planting it in
the sand pit after she flailed herself into the air at long-jump.
It was less of a Rocky Balboa montage as it was an America’s funniest home
videos montage.
Just as Mulan stood up and spat the sand from her mouth, wiping her tongue
on the sleeve of her Dad’s shirt, Hercules clapped his hands to get everyone’s
attention.
“All right, awesome job everybody, that’s enough for today. I think we’re
gonna pack it in and head over to where we started and we’ll call out the people who
made the team.”
Everyone patted each other on the back and grabbed their water bottles as
they walked across the field and back to bleachers so they could sit down. Ling
sauntered over to Audrey and Yao looking pleased with himself.
Chapter Eight
“Well, time to honor our bet and I guessed the longest time on the little
newbie, so looks like I’ll be keeping the winnings,” he smiled and was about to pop
one of the orange tic tacs in his mouth but Chien Po pinched the pack from his hand.
“Hold on, you haven’t won yet. They haven’t announced who got on the team,
so I might still win if she makes it.”
Ping let out a laugh, “Oh, yeah right, because that totally still has a chance of
happening.”
“Yeah, come on Po, she screwed up every single event. There’s no way she
made a top twenty place,” Audrey said.
“Yes, but there are only twenty-one people left anyway. Fifteen people gave
up half way through, and she didn’t,” Chien Po pointed out.
The other three looked at each other “Sooo, she still might get in if only one
person managed to suck more than her?” Audrey asked and Po nodded.
Yao looked briefly worried before he brushed it off “Nah, no way did anyone
suck more than her. I still say she won’t make it.”
“Urgh, fifteen people dropped out? I mean I saw people dropping like flies but
I didn’t count ‘em. I guess Shang’s new ‘go hard or go home’ routine scared ‘em off,”
Audrey sighed as they made it to the bleachers and took a seat with the rest of the
crowd.
“Yeah, the guy’s a total hard ass. So much for goofing off at practice like last
year,” Ping said, still eyeing the tic tacs in his hand.
As Mulan wandered up, the last to take a seat, bruised, tired, and sweatier
than she thought was humanly possible, she tried to ignore that people were
laughing behind their hands and giving her sad looks. As she took a seat behind
everyone, she craned her head back to scan the top of the bleachers. She saw
Jasmine, Ariel, and Rapunzel waving at her in support and she gave a little wave back.
Right now all she wanted to was bolt to them and high tail it off the field and
pretend this never happened. She saw comfort food, a gossip girl marathon and the
sad acceptance of a place in the chess club in her future.
Everyone settled down as Hercules and Shang stood in front of them with the
clipboard with the top twenty names scrawled on it.
Chapter Eight
“Okay guys, first off I just want to say what a terrific job you all did and that
I’m proud of each and every one of you-” Hercules started but was cut off.
“If your name isn’t called, you didn’t make it and you need to leave,” Shang
said bluntly, “Immediately.”
Hercules smiled nervously. “But, ah, that’s not say you are a ‘loser’ or anything,
the important thing is that you tried your best-”
“If you didn’t make it maybe you should sit back and assess everything you
did wrong so you won’t suck as much next year.”
“…Right, because self improvement is always a positive and-”
“And even if you did make it, that doesn’t mean you don’t suck a little right
now too. Frankly a lot of you could do better. Halfway through the relay I asked
myself if I’d been sent a bunch of little girls for my team, not athletes.”
“I, ah, that is not to say girls are less valued on the team, um, I think that was
just phrased a little badly,” Hercules said, looking apologetically at Audrey as she
looked ready to show Shang just what kind of damage a girl could do.
Thankfully, that wonderfully inspiring speech ended and names began to be
called out.
Everyone who was called would stand up and head over to stand behind
Shang and Hercules, each being handed their team shirt and a cloth badge they
could sew onto their backpacks. Most of the top players from last year’s team were
called up immediately, having almost default places. Pocahontas’s name was among
them, even if she wasn’t here and didn’t tryout. Some would say that was unfair
treatment, but everyone who knew how that girl could run totally let it slide. Ping
was called up tenth, something he seemed to like pointing out to Yao, who was then
called out immediately after, taking away from a little of Ping’s glory at coming just a
fraction ahead of him. When Audrey was called she made a very unsubtle point of
giving Shang the stink eye as she walked past him.
Eventually it whittled down to just Mulan and Po sitting on the bleachers.
Mulan sat there with her hands on her lap, her stomach knotted. She hadn’t given
herself a chance, but when she looked at Po, she wondered that maybe the last place
would go to her after all. Not to be cruel, but the other boy did seem to have a
weight problem and maybe that made him ineligible. She’d seen him handle the shot
Chapter Eight
put and discus amazingly, the guy had an amazing throwing arm, but maybe that
wasn’t enough to save him. Shang didn’t seem the type to be forgiving over
someone’s weight either. She might just have made it by the skin of her teeth.
She glanced over to Po again and was surprised to see he was looking right
back at her, smiling. She was a little taken aback but she instinctively smiled back.
“I hope you get it, I saw you tried really hard out there. Good luck,” he said
simply, before turning back to face Shang.
Mulan blinked. Had she heard that right?
Right now they were competing for the last place on the team. Wouldn’t he
want her to fail? But before she could think it over a second longer, Shang cleared his
throat to call out the last name, red athletics shirt clutched in his hand ready to hand
over.
“And the final place goes to-”
Mulan closed her eyes and wished a million times over it would be her name,
the seconds stretching to seem like forever.
‘Please be me, please be me, please call my name, please let it be me-’ she
chanted in her head.
“Chien Po.”
A whoop of cheer came from Yao and Ping as Chien Po lumbered down the
bleachers steps, throwing an apologetic look over his shoulder at Mulan, as he took
his shirt and badge from Shang.
Mulan sat there alone, the only one left, as she watched the team get
congratulated. It was awkward. She tried to smile to make it seem like she could care
less, but it came out all stiff and she could feel her chin doing that stupid wobbly
thing it did when you were trying your best not to cry and be emotional, because
seriously, she’s a sophomore not a baby. Who would cry over being the only person
not picked for an athletics team? God, talk about lame…
Suck it up Mulan, come on, … You only wanted to be on this team to get out
of some stupid math tutoring and the chess club, you don’t care,’ Mulan tried
chanting in her head again as she forced down tears and picked up her sports bag,
Chapter Eight
ready to leave, but that’s when Jasmine, Ariel, and Rapunzel came down the steps
and dashed to her.
“Are you okay?” Jasmine asked, and you know when you’re upset and trying to
bottle it up, and just when you think you have it totally under control a friend or a
parent just asks you that one simple little question and it just kind of floods out of
you like a dam bursting?
Yeah, that happened to Mulan.
She tried to wipe at her eyes as fast as she could but Jasmine had already
flung her arms around her friend in a hug.
“Oh, it’s Okay! Don’t cry,” Ariel said, rubbing her friends arm. “You did your
best… and that guy’s a jerk anyway. Who’d want to be on his team,” she added.
Mulan pulled away and sniffed. She didn’t think she’d get this upset over not
getting on the team. Probably because she’d tried her best and still failed. She never
really tried at anything, not much anyway, so if she just passed a math test she only
barely studied for it, didn’t matter. But this was like if you spent a whole week trying
to memorize formulas and still getting a D- when everyone else in the class got an A.
If she couldn’t even manage to run around a field and jump in a sand pit, what did
that say about her? She just felt so pathetic.
“So can I eat my Tic Tacs now?” Ping asked Chien Po, and the larger boy just
gave a small nod.
“I guess.”
Audrey patted his arm “Look, it’s sweet that you went and rooted for the
underdog, but Honey, that dog was so under, no one could save it,” she nodded her
head to Mulan. “And look, she’s got her little pep squad to cheer her up. She’ll be
fine.”
“Yeah, yeah, were all very proud of Po for caring, now hand over the twenty
bucks you just lost for it.” Ping smiled as he plucked the crumpled notes from Chien
Po’s hand.
Just as everyone started to disperse and heading off to the parking lot, Shang
briefly raised his head and spotted Pocahontas crossing the grounds. He smiled ever
so briefly just at the sight of her before he quickly put on his serious captain’s face.
Chapter Eight
“Nice of you to finally show up,” he said, trying to sound cold as Pocahontas
gave a few waves and hellos to former team mates as they spotted her.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” she shrugged.
“Well as long as it doesn’t become a regular thing, I want you on time for
every practice from now on,” Shang reached down to where he’d stashed her shirt
and badge near the bottom of the bleachers and tried to hand them to her, but
Pocahontas didn’t take them.
“Um, yeah, about the whole ‘being on the team’ thing…” she started
awkwardly trailing off, but Shang seemed to get the message, his eyes narrowing.
“Are you saying you’re not going to be on the team this year?”
“Pretty much, yup.”
Shang let out a kind of manic laugh. “You’re joking right? This is a joke. You’re
our best track star; you’re one of the best in the state. We even saved a place for you.
You didn’t even have to tryout!”
Pocahontas tried to look apologetic as she just shrugged again. “I’m sorry
Shang but I’ve just got a lot of other things going on. It’s senior year, I have exams
and stuff. I need to study more and work up my grades.”
“I’ve known you for two years and you’ve never gotten anything below a B-,
don’t tell me this is about working up your grades,” Shang folded his arms.
“Hey, come on. Don’t get all weird on me. I have other reasons not to do it.”
“Like?”
“Well, if you must know I plan on dedicating a lot of my free time to… an
environmental cause.” She stopped herself from saying ‘saving the quad’ because
right this second, she didn’t exactly have any plans on how to do that, and she
couldn’t exactly explain how this imaginary plan would be taking up her time. She
just knew that it probably would. “Plus I’ve kind of achieved all I wanted to achieve. I
won first place two years in a row for track and relay, and that was great but it’s
enough. Let someone else win.”
“But you’re forgetting that you practically carry this team. You winning all
those medals bumped us all up to come first overall when we verse other schools;
Chapter Eight
without you we might not even make top five! You might be done winning gold, but
now it looks like the rest of us might not get anything either.”
Pocahontas sighed, “Shang, it’s not always about winning, okay? Stop being
so competitive.”
“It’s an athletics competition; I’m supposed to be competitive! I’m captain now
and I want to prove I can lead a winning team, and I need you to do that.”
“Think of it this way: if you really want to prove yourself a great captain, you
should be able to lead the team to victory with the members you have and not just
rely on me,” Pocahontas said smiling while Shang fumed.
“Look, you don’t… I need this, okay?” his voice lowered so the people around
them couldn’t overhear, “I only got captain because of my dad-” Pocahontas looked
like she was about to argue this but Shang cut her off, “No, you know it’s true, I know
it’s true, everyone does. I know the whole team looks at me like I don’t deserve it and
I need to prove that I can be a good captain and get us gold.”
Pocahontas softened but she still didn’t say what he wanted to hear. “I’m
sorry, Shang. I am, it’s just-”
He just nodded “Yeah, okay. Fine. Whatever.”
“So… you have a replacement right?”
Shang looked up at Pocahontas and felt like telling her that she was a girl that
couldn’t be replaced, but that was something he hadn’t been able to say for the last
couple of years and he wasn’t quite ready to say it now either. He coughed and
looked down at his clipboard.
“I, uh, yeah. There’s one reserve,” he winced. “You actually don’t even know
how hard it’ll be to get this group to win.”
Pocahontas managed a small laugh and put a hand on his shoulder. “If anyone
could do it, you could,” before she smiled and waved, “I’ll see you ‘round. Maybe I’ll
even drop by a practice or two, show them how it’s done.”
Shang smirked and waved back, “Yeah, see ya.”
As soon as she was out of sight he banged the clipboard up to his head and
mentally counted to ten to destress.
Chapter Eight
He didn’t think he could do this.
As Mulan, Jasmine, Ariel, and Rapunzel crossed the field and head towards the
girls’ change rooms they heard a shout from behind them. Ariel was the first to turn
and she frowned.
“Admiral Douche?” she asked out loud as they saw him jogging towards the
girls whom looked to Mulan who shrugged.
“The Admiral Douche thing wasn’t funny the first time you said it, it isn’t funny
now,” Shang stated, not the slightest out of breath as he stopped in from of them.
Ariel scoffed under her breath, “Was too funny.”
“Anyway, you’re on the team,” he said, addressing Mulan.
She blinked.
“…Yeah buh-wha?”
Jasmine gave her a hard nudge so she’d wipe the dumb look off her face. “I
mean, um… why? I thought you only had twenty places and I… well, I suck…”
“Yeah, I know,” he said bluntly. “But someone dropped out of their place, and
you’re the only replacement. Congratulations,” he said it with so little enthusiasm it
wasn’t much of a congratulations at all, but a huge grin still broke out on Mulan’s
face.
“Seriously!?” she squealed, “Oh my god, yes!”
“Whoo, go Mulan!” Ariel cheered as she jumped on her friend in a crushing
hug and raised a triumphant fist in the air with Jasmine and Rapunzel cheering on
too.
Shang tried not to roll his eyes, but it was a struggle.
He wordlessly handed her what was meant to be Pocahontas’s shirt and
badge, before turning to leave, but Mulan called out after him.
“Thank you! I mean it! I’ll do my best and get better! I promise you Captain!”
He looked back to see her give him an Ariel-inspired mock salute, and he
almost found it funny.
Chapter Eight
Almost.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Aurora was an expert at being bright and peppy in almost any situation. It
helped that she was a naturally positive person, but she could see the bright side of
mostly everything. When she went out and bought a $100 pair of shoes that were
then reduced down to half price the next day, she told herself it only meant more
money for all those Chinese kids in sweat shops. When she was at her fifth grade
party and her hair caught fire when she bent over to blow out the candles, she ended
up saying that short hair was totally cute anyway. When she publicly humiliated
herself by passing out in the middle of Home-ec class when she pricked her finger on
that sewing machine, she gained a boyfriend. So yes, Aurora could see the silver
lining to 99% of the things that happened in her life. And even when something
didn’t have much of a silver lining, she managed to at least look positive and peppy
on the outside. That was practically half of what you learned in as the ambulance
pulled up to the side of the parking lot. It was hard to try and keep that bright and
peppy smile on her face. The entire cheerleading team parted ways so the medical
men and women could wheel the little trolley bed through. They all looked to Aurora.
Maybe an explanation as to why an ambulance is needed.
Only three girls had shown up for the tryouts. All of them freshmen. None of
them had even taken a gymnastics class before. One of them couldn’t even do a
cartwheel. It had taken about fifteen minutes of the trying-out stage to conclude that
none of these girls were fit to be on the team, let alone be Tink’s replacement. Still,
Aurora had them recite a few chants which they repeated unenthusiastically, tried to
teach them the steps to a simple dance routine that they couldn’t even get after ten
attempts, and then one of them started to cry when Aurora mentioned that she was
too heavy to be the main flyer. She hadn’t meant to be rude! It was just a fact, you
had to be really small to be able to toss in the air, if you want to blame anyone blame
physics!
But that wasn’t the worst part of the trials, as you can probably guess from the
aforementioned ambulance.
“My leg is broken! Oh my god, it huuurts. Somebody call my Mom!”
Chapter Eight
Well, actually maybe it was the worst part, since the girl had insisted she
wasn’t too big to be thrown, and practically forced Charming and Phillip to toss her
into the air, and what goes up must come down… onto very solid ground.
Damn you Physics!
“Ooookay,” Aurora said in a sing-song voice as the girl was loaded, crying,
into the back of the ambulance, everyone looking to her for instructions on just what
the hell they would do now. The perks of being a leader.
“So, um, I think tryouts are over for today…”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“Oh. My. God,” Aurora repeated for about the tenth time as she sat on the
bonnet of Phillips car, her hands covering her face.
“This was a disaster.”
It was dusk, the sun just setting, and this was an emergency, unofficial
meeting of the original cheer group in the almost deserted car park. Phillip and
Cinderella were on either side of the distraught Aurora, giving her soothing pats on
the back. Charming was there, as well as Aquata and Arista, Giselle, and Lottie. The
only people missing were Claudia, Laura, and Paula, the three triplets who had taken
the opportunity to slip away and hang around the footballers’ tryouts across the field
when the ambulance came.
“Well, at least we won’t be stuck with her on the team now that she’ll be in a
cast for most of the semester,” Lottie smiled, trying to lighten the mood. Aurora just
let out a groan. Snow White shot her a look that told her that was clearly not helping
and Lottie shrugged an apology.
“Look, babe, it’s totally not that bad. We’ve still got all of us, the old team, one
of you girls can be the new flyer,” Phillip said comfortingly.
“Yeah, Arista could do it, she’s a twig so we can toss her easily! She’ll learn all
the moves… soon enough. Maybe. If she can get more flexible with her legs and
learns how to actually land a back-hand spring neatly,” Aquata said.
“Thanks, sis,” Arista deadpanned.
Chapter Eight
“Maybe we should have another tryout in a couple of weeks. We could start
looking for people and then invite them, so we definitely know more than three
people will show up and that they won’t be pathetic. No offence but I don’t think one
poster was going to draw many people in anyway,” Giselle said in a sweet voice, but
Aurora felt the jab.
“Hey, it’s not all Aurora’s fault that practically nobody showed up, maybe not
many girls wanted to be a cheer leader this year,” Charming came to his friends
defense but Giselle laughed.
“Are you kidding? I can’t think of a girl who wouldn’t want to be a cheer
leader, especially on this team. We came third in regionals and we kill it at every
game. They’re out there; we just need to find them. I think if Tink saw us sitting
around like this feeling sorry for ourselves instead of being proactive about it, she
would be like, ashamed.”
Giselle saying this just made Aurora feel a million times worse.
“So all on board with the recruitment plan, say aye?” Giselle raised her own
arm and looked at the others expectantly.
Everyone murmured their agreement with this plan and put their hands up
and Aurora nodded mutely, looking down at the asphalt of the car park.
Just then a bunch of loud mouth footballers could be heard coming up to the
car park. You could tell they were footballers without even looking, just by how loud
and obnoxious they were. There was about seven of them as they sauntered up to
where the cheer team was; all led by the biggest, loudest most obnoxious one of
them all: Gaston, their star quarter back.
The term ‘star’ was used pretty loosely when it came to Gaston, because
overall he wasn’t even a very good quarter back, but then again the entire Disney
high football team wasn’t very good.
Like, at all.
They lost every single game except one last season. Seriously. They were
terrible. People came and filmed their games for the sole intent of posting the videos
to YouTube on a channel dedicated to making fun of how bad they were.
These people may or may not have been Flynn and Phoebus.
Chapter Eight
Somewhat miraculously this didn’t stop every single player from being big
headed and full of themselves, and since Gaston was the least bad player in the team
that made him even fuller of himself. They basically all just existed in their own little
world of shake-weights, protein bars, and Jersey Shore reruns and Gaston was their
king.
Aurora could see where Claudia, Laura, and Paula had gotten too, all three
girls now fawning around Gaston, all giggling under his arms at whatever benign
thing he said. They were nice enough girls, if not a little dim, so Aurora never bought
into the nickname that most of the school had given them, the Bimbettes, but to be
honest she could see how they had earned the name as she caught Claudia hiking up
her skirt an extra inch and Paula sticking out her chest so severely she thought it
must be hurting her back to hold that pose.
“Hello, ladies,” Gaston said, making an exaggerated point to look directly at
Phillip and Charming as he said this. Phillip and charming just exchanged glances,
not phased. Like he hadn’t made that joke a thousand times before. “We were all
heading over to the mall since it’s open late tonight, thought we’d hang in the food
court if you wanted to come with.”
“Were going,” Laura said excitedly. “Gaston said he knows a guy who can get
us free pizza in the food court!”
“And we can get like, any toppings we wanted!” Paula added.
She said it like he’d promised her diamonds.
Arista looked to her sister and Aquata shook her head “Not tonight, we’ve got
to get back home for dinner.”
“I could go for some pizza” Giselle shrugged and Lottie looked keen too, but
Aurora shook her head.
“Sorry guys, but I think I just want to go home.”
Phillip looked relieved to hear his girlfriend say that. “Yeah, I gotta drive her
home too, so yeah, I’m out,” he smiled, relieved. He hated hanging out with those
jocks. You’d think having a total babe of a girlfriend would stop the gay cheerleader
jokes, but nope, apparently they still found them funny.
“Ah, lame. Suit yourself princess,” Gaston laughed as he left. “You guys have a
good night,” he called out.
Chapter Eight
“Haha, yeah, you too,” Phillip forced a smile before he was out of earshot.
“Asshole.”
He opened up the car door and got in the driver’s seat while Aurora got in the
passenger side. Lottie and Giselle waved goodbye as they went with the group of
guys and the Bimbettes across to where they’d parked their cars.
“Any of you guys need a ride?” Phillip said, sticking his head out the window
as he started the car.
“Nah, I’ll get a ride with Snow if that’s cool,” Cinderella said, knowing that it
was without even looking at her friend who had already started fishing in her purse
for her own set of keys.
“I’ll take that offer,” Charming said, slipping in the backseat.
“Seeya girls.” He smiled out at Cinderella and Snow.
“Bye,” Cinderella said in a little dreamy voice, waving back as Phillip reversed
out of the parking space and drove away.
A second later Snow turned to Cinderella with a smirk. “Get that look off your
face.”
“What look?”
“You know the look. The smitten puppy dog look with just a dash of ‘I just hit
my head kind of hard’ look. Seriously, you didn’t even talk to him properly for the
entire tryouts but one little ‘seeya’ makes you melt. God help you if he says more
than a sentence next time.”
“Oh, give it a rest,” Cinderella sniffed as they headed to Snow’s little red car.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
How many of you were worried for a second that Mulan really wouldn’t make
the team? Probably none of you, haha.
Was anything up between Shang and Pocahontas? A little bit of a one sided
crush maybe? Or is he really just a stoic captain who wants his best member to stay
on the team. Do you think he should try and convince her to rejoin the team later?
Chapter Eight
Speaking of Pocahontas, if you were in her position how would you try and
save the quad? I know for a fact that next chapter a certain someone is going to give
her a very good idea… how do I know that? Because I control everything in this
Disney High universe! Muahahaha.
Who thinks Hercules is going to totally fail at being a teacher? He’s a sweetie
but come on, realistically?
Chapter Nine
1001 Positions?
Belle didn’t really like the mall. Too crowded, too noisy, horrible pop music
blasting inside every store, overly perky shop assistants trying to direct you over to
their sale was too much. She only went when she had to for occasional new clothes
or gift shopping and such. Practical trips, an ‘in and out’ kind of deal. It wasn’t
somewhere she’d really hang out just because she had nothing better to do.
But here she was, standing in the middle of Barnes and Noble, flipping
through book after book on a Friday night. She checked her phone. It was only 6:30.
Belle huffed, annoyed. She could have sworn she’d wasted at least another half hour
since she last checked, but it’d only been ten minutes.
“Do you need any help miss-”
“No, thank you,” Belle cut off the shop assistant girl curtly before she could
finish her sentence. She slunk away quietly, looking a little peeved, but Belle ignored
the look. That was the fifth one to ask her that. You’d think they’d get the hint. She
shelved the Oriental cook book she’d been flipping through and wandered over to
the travel section, picking up a guide to the city of Berlin and opening it onto a
random page. She’d already spent the last hour looking at all the books in all the
interesting sections and now she was really reaching for anything to waste her time
on.
The reason she didn’t want to go home just yet was because of her father.
Even just admitting that to herself made Belle feel guilty for even thinking that way
but she couldn’t help it. He was so miserable over how imminent it was that he’d lose
his job. For the past week Belle had been as supportive as she could, comforting him
and crying with him, trying to cheer him up. It was emotionally draining to deal with
that every night in a row, and as much as she loved her Dad, it was hard. It brought
her back to the months after her Mom died and she hated that time. She really didn’t
want her home to be a sad place again like it had been, even in the slightest. Belle
just wished she could at least try and help her Dad, even just a little bit, but
ultimately she knew she was in a pretty useless position, which only made it more
frustrating.
Chapter Nine
1001 Positions?
So for this one evening she just wanted to be on her own and she’d gotten on
a bus straight after school to come here. It was just a break; she promised herself
she’d be 100% dedicated before the weekend came. She would spend the next two
days being there for him.
As a man motioned to shuffle past her in the aisle, Belle dropped her gaze
from her book to politely move out of his way and in that second her eyes flicked
past him she did a double take as she noticed a very familiar boy walk in the
entrance of the shop.
The boy from the library!
Belle didn’t entirely know why but her mind went on high alert but she just
knew she didn’t want to be spotted by him. She quickly threw the travel guide back
on to the shelf and ducked down low in the aisle out of his sight. Maybe it was
because she worried she looked pathetic hanging around on a Friday by herself, or
because she only had on an old faded cardigan and denim skirt she’d gotten from
target for $10, but she usually didn’t care about what people thought of her. Maybe
it was because she had this image in her head of the next time they’d meet after their
brief exchange in the library. She would be sitting serenely in the park in her best
dress, reading her brand new copy of the Hunger Games at her leisure, when he
would walk past her and for some reason, maybe an uprooted branch or something,
he would trip and fall into a huge mud puddle, his own undeserved copy of the book
being damaged beyond repair. He would come up to her, muddy and embarrassed
and beg to borrow her copy so he could learn the ending, but she would refuse with
a casual wave of her hand. Maybe he would also beg at her feet and apologize for
being so rude. She would still say no though. Also he would totally get a huge fine
from the library for ruining the book.
That was the revenge she fantasized about anyway.
As she shimmied commando-style across the floor to the safety of the classic
fiction section, thinking it the safest way to avoid him and get to the doors, she ran
into a pair of ugly brown loafers. Belle stopped and peered up at the shop assistant.
“Miss, what are you doing on the floor?” she tutted in a voice that was far
louder than it had to be. A few people turned to look.
Belle had half a mind to just keep crawling past her to safety but she was
blocking her way in the aisle.
Chapter Nine
1001 Positions?
“Um… I… was looking for a book… on the bottom shelf.”
“I thought you said you didn’t need any assistance,” the lady said in a smug
tone, arms folded.
“I don’t.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yes,” Belle hissed, wishing the women would just go away. In the silent book
store she was attracting a lot of attention; she needed to get out fast.
“Look, miss, I’m going to have to ask you to get up off the floor-”
“Okay, Okay, I’m getting up-” Belle froze mid crouch as she looked past the
assistant and saw the boy walk right past the end of the aisle they were in.
“Uh, miss?”
Without another word Belle abandoned the shop assistant as she hightailed it
down the length of the aisle and turned around to go down the next one, deciding
she would zigzag down the rows of book cases, doing a loop around the boy to get
to the doors without him spotting her. She made it down safely and peered around
the end, checking if the coast was clear. She turned to go down the next one but
froze. He was there, right in the middle of the aisle flipping through a book.
She should’ve made the split second decision to turn around on the spot right
there and run back the way she came but she didn’t, she panicked. His head turned
towards her and Belle hurriedly grabbed a random book, any book, off the shelve
closest to her and shoved her nose in it, trying to look casual.
She didn’t even focus on the page she had in front of her, she just held the
book at an angle that she hoped was doing its best to hide her face.
‘Please don’t let him have seen me, please don’t let him have seen me, please
don’t let him have seen me.’
Belle chanted in her head as she winced, hearing footsteps close in towards
her.
He had seen her.
“Belle. I thought it was you.”
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The first thing that flashed across Belle’s mind was ‘How the hell does this guy
know my name’, and the second was to put on a big fake smile and try to act normal
like she totally hadn’t been trying to run out of the store to avoid him.
“Heeeeeey you, oh my god, small world, fancy seeing you here!”
It came out so high pitch and strained she instantly regretted even opening
her mouth. The boy just nodded, tight lipped.
There was an awkward pause until he started speaking again.
“So, um, doing some light reading?”
Belle was confused as he smirked at her and nodded down to the book she
forgot she was holding, until she flipped over to its cover and actually read the title.
‘1001 sex positions for experimental couples’
Belle stood rooted to the spot, her smile frozen, her eyes widening.
If lightening could somehow appear from the sky, blast its way through the
roof of the mall and somehow find its way to her to strike her dead, she wished it
would.
“I, uh… yeah” Belle tried to remain calm as she felt her face burning. “It’s for…
a… um… school assignment. Sex education. Yeah,” she said, that being the best she
could come up with.
“Sure it is,” he said, smiling, obviously not believing her.
“Oh, it is!”
“Mmhmm.”
“Yeah!”
“Especially since no one in our year has sex ed classes until next semester.”
“…It’s… an online course that I take for extra credit.”
“An online sex ed course? That sounds like some kind of metaphor for porn if
you ask me.”
Belle pulled a face “Ugh, no! Of course it isn’t, don’t be crude.”
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“Says the girl who was reading up on the ‘lotus’ position in the middle of a
bookstore,” he said, peering over her shoulder at the page she had open until Belle
snapped it shut, now blushing beyond belief.
“You just… shut up” Belle snapped, giving him a very clear look of dislike as
she turned and stalked away to the exit.
Bad move.
As soon as she tried to move through the doors the automatic alarms
sounded off, making her jump. She forgot she still had the book in her hands.
Everyone in the store was looking at Belle as she turned to face the shop
assistant who had made her way over to her.
“You need to pay for that,” she said coldly, her eyebrow rising as she caught a
look at the title.
“…I know that,” Belle tried to sound as dignified as she could as she walked
stiffly over to the counter, avoiding any and all eye contact. She silently handed over
her bank card to pay for the book she didn’t even want, her eyes widening as she
realized it was thirty five dollars, but still she said nothing. The lady at the cash
register even slipped the book into a brown paper bag, which made Belle feel like
she really was buying a porn book.
“Thanks,” she said briskly, tucking the book under her arm, head held high as
she made her way out of the shop as fast as she could.
As Belle power walked through the mall she let out a deep breath. She could
honestly say that had been the single most embarrassing moment of her life. It
hadn’t quite sunk in yet. This was one of those moments that you would look back
on time and time again and it will make you cringe. Maybe she could move to a
different school, a different town even. Hell, maybe even a different state. She had
relatives in France, maybe they would let her stay there… forever.
Screw hanging around the mall any longer, she needed to get home. She
needed to scream into a pillow for a few hours and then try and sleep without this
scene playing over and over in her head.
As she just about to walk out of the big glass sliding doors of the mall, she
forgot to look where she was going and as she walked past a large group of people
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making their way in, someone’s stray elbow knocked it’s way right into her shoulder
which sent her sprawling to the ground, the book falling from her arms.
”Oh, shit sorry!” A guy’s voice called out, doubling back to check if she was
alright.
“Jeez man, look where you’re going,” another guy’s
voice added.
Belle blinked as she was helped up by the boy. He was
wearing a Disney High Varsity jacket. The ones the football
team wore. So was his friend.
“Are you Okay?” A girl’s voice asked worriedly. She was
wearing a Disney High cheerleading uniform.
“Uh, yeah I’m fine,” Belle brushed herself off, wondering
how many times in a day she could be embarrassed and just
what kind of bad karma she’d racked up to deserve this,
when she heard his voice.
“Belle!”
Oh god no.
“Heeeeey Gaston,” Belle used the same voice she’d
used on the boy in the bookshop.
“You know her?” One of the three identical blonde girls
asked, and Gaston nodded, not taking his eyes off of Belle.
“Yeah, she’s a sophomore at school,” he said,
sidling up to her and Belle stiffened as he slung an arm
over her shoulders. “One of the prettiest.”
Belle smiled awkwardly, not knowing what she
should say. She saw all the three of the triplets’ eyes
narrow.
“We were just going to grab some pizza over
at the food court, you should come with,” Gaston
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asked, oblivious to the blonde girls as he looked to Belle.
“Oh, no. I couldn’t, I was just going home now anyway and-” But Gaston didn’t
let her finish.
“Come oooon, it’s free, it’s with us, what’s not to like?”
Belle tried to slip out of his grasp but he only tightened the arm he had
around her, keeping her by his side.
“It’s nice of you to offer, but I planned to have dinner at home with dad so I
really can’t.”
At this point Gaston put on some kind of face that was a mix of a pout and
Ben Stiller’s ‘Blue Steel’.
“Pleeeaase?”
Belle got the idea that this was meant to be endearing.
It wasn’t.
“Sorry,” she said, gently taking his arm off her shoulder and sliding away from
him, “but I really do need to go.” Belle smiled apologetically as she once again made
her way to the exit. “Bye.”
She finally thought she’d made it out as she waved but then she heard Gaston
call out to her.
“Hey wait, you dropped that thing you were carrying.”
Oh
God
No
Belle could feel the alarm Belle’s in her head ringing and her insides freeze as
she saw Gaston bend down and pick up the paper bag containing the book.
“I, uh, yeah that’s mine,” she forced herself to laugh casually as she quickly
walked back to grab it off him, but he swiped it out of her reach at the last second, a
playful smile on his face.
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“You want it?” he teased, holding it just out of reach.
“Gaston, seriously, just give it back,” Belle said, trying to keep cool while
making another lunge for it but again Gaston was too quick.
“Oop, too slow,” he laughed, holding it above his head.
“Haha, yeah, very funny” Belle laughed along with the others. Gaston dipped it
down again and Belle swiped it again, unlucky for a third time, making them laugh
harder.
The smile slipped from Belle’s face.
“Okay, Okay, I’m sorry. I’m just playing around, here, you can have it back,”
Gaston said seriously, holding it out to her.
“Thank you,” Belle said, reaching for it but at the last second Gaston pulled it
back and laughed.
“Okay, seriously! Cut it out,” a slight edge crept its way into Belle’s voice that
made Gaston raise his eyebrows.
“Ooh, serious face.”
“Give it back now.”
“Why so urgent, jeez, I’m just messing with you. Calm down. There’s
something in here you don’t want us seeing?” He joked but he saw the flash that
crossed Belle’s face. “Ooh I think there is.”
“Okay, come on guys,” Lottie stepped in “You’re not in grade school anymore,
just give it back to the girl.”
“Yeah, come on, it’s not even funny anymore,” Giselle agreed, feeling bad for
Belle who she could see was turning pale.
“No, I wanna see what’s in the mystery bag, don’t you guys?” Gaston stared
round at his football friends who nodded in agreement.
“Yeah open it!” One of the Bimbettes called out gleefully, her sisters nodding.
“No, please, don’t! Really, this isn’t funny” Belle practically begged to Gaston
as she desperately tried to reach the book but Gaston easily held her back with one
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of his huge arms. It was no use though; in one swift movement he tore off the paper
to see the book. In the second it took for his eyes to scan over the cover Belle really
wished that lightning bolt would come and strike her down for real this time, or that
the ground could open up and swallow her, anything that could stop her from being
here right now.
“God,” Gaston said slowly, looking at the book, a huge grin on his face. “You
are joking!” he cracked as he began to laugh.
As the others peered over to see Gaston hold up the book, all of their jaws
dropped too and they let out splutters of disbelieving laughter too.
“No way!” One of the Bimbettes shrieked.
“Oh, wow…” Giselle peered at the book and then at Belle.
The boys were all falling over each other laughing, making disgusting noises
and cat calls.
Gaston was the first to stop laughing but in a way that was worse. The self
satisfied look he was giving Belle made her want to throw up in her mouth a little. He
smirked and shook his head, staring down at the book again.
“It’s always the quiet ones, huh? I really would never have guessed.”
“It’s not what you think…” Belle said quietly, her face bright red as she stared
down at her shoes.
“So what’s your favorite? Position I mean. Apparently there’s 1001 to choose
from” he laughed at his own joke.
While he was distracted, Lottie quickly grabbed the book from his hands, he
didn’t seem to mind much though, and she walked over to hand it back to Belle.
“Here’s your book,” Lottie said, not exactly looking Belle in the eye as she took
it, “and uh… sorry about them.”
Belle mumbled a thanks, feeling so ashamed right now she could barely stand
it. It took all of her effort not to just run full speed out of that door but she tried to
handle it calmly and just walk right past them, but Gaston grabbed her by her wrist
and bent down low to her ear, a horrible smile on his face.
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“You know learning from books is great and all, but if you ever want to learn
some moves first hand, you can always come to me you know.”
Belle pulled a disgusted face as she tried to pull away “You pig!”
Gastons grip tightened and he scoffed “Whoa, no need to be rude. I was just
offering my assistance-”
“Well I don’t need your assistance!” Belle scowled up at him and he frowned.
“Hey, just because you’re pretty doesn’t mean you can act like a bitch to me.”
Belle still struggled against his grip. “I am not being a bitch, you’re being an
asshole!” she said, her voice growing louder. “Now let me go!”
He twisted her wrist just enough to cause her real pain and she winced,
“Maybe you should be a little nicer considering I could tell the whole school about
your slutty book.”
“Gaston, calm down-” Giselle stepped in, putting a hand on his shoulder but
he shrugged her off, still glaring down at Belle.
“Yeah, come on man, she ain’t worth it,” one of his friends added from in the
background.
Gaston still ignored them as he glared down at Belle “I always thought you
were such a nice girl too, all those times you turned me down I thought it was
because you were shy, but nah, turns out you’re not so shy after all,” he nodded
cruelly down at the book and Belle gasped. With her free hand she slapped him hard
across the face.
Everyone looked shocked at what she’d done, even Belle, and for a second
Gaston gave her a look like he was going to slap her right back but just then a voice
called out from behind them all.
“Let her go.”
Belle turned as she heard the recognizable voice. It was the boy.
He stood there defiantly a few meters away, his expression hard as he looked
at Gaston.
Gaston scoffed “Who are you man? You got a problem?”
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“Yeah, I got a problem. Let the girl go and then it’s solved. Simple.”
“Why the hell should I? You don’t even know what’s going on; you don’t know
what a rude little bitch she’s being. Why the hell should I do anything you tell me
too?” Gaston sneered. Both boys stepped up closer to each other. In Gaston’s case he
dragged Belle with him.
“Yeah, this is none of your business man, back off,” one of the other
footballers joined in. Within seconds all of his friends had rallied behind Gaston for
support, the girls in the background looking worriedly on.
“So you all think its okay for him to push around a woman?” he said defiantly,
even though he was outnumbered.
“Whoa! Who said anything about pushing her around,” Gaston had the nerve
to be offended. “She hit me man, I’m holding her to keep her off me!”
“Yeah man, we saw, she’s crazy.”
“She went at him.”
“Look at his cheek you can see the mark.”
“Where do you get off making accusations?”
The team of course was going to back up Gaston, and Belle looked at the boy,
silently begging him to just step away now. What was he even thinking? He was a big
guy, sure, but so was Gaston and even if those two were evenly matched, Gaston had
a whole team backing him up. Boys and fights! God, it made them stupid.
“Okay, enough! Everyone settle down!”
Lottie seemed to agree as she stepped up to the group of testosterone
riddled males and held up her arms to keep them apart, her shrill southern voice
making everyone wince.
“We’re in a mall for god’s sake! If you start something here we’ll all get busted
big time by those little mall cops on their segways, and personally, I would rather just
get my pizza!” She scolded the football players by giving them disapproving looks,
and you wouldn’t think that this would be too effective but they seemed to settle
down a bit, even if they were still glaring.
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“Yeah, come on. Let’s just go, okay?” Giselle took a couple of boys by the arms
and gently pulled them with her to get them to walk away, and Lottie did the same.
Gaston shot one more dirty look on the boy’s direction before letting go of
Belle. He didn’t say another word as he followed his group towards the food court,
but as one of the triplets passed by Belle, she saw her mutter the word ‘whore’ her
way before sidling up to Gaston.
As Belle stood there with her book and watched them leave she let out a
haggard sigh. She felt so shaken up by all that. The embarrassment, the shock, the
anger. She’d never even fought with anyone like that before, never had someone act
that way to her face.
“You okay?”
“What? Yeah… yeah, I’ll be fine.”
Belle didn’t even know what to say to the guy. He’d stood up for her. They
barely even knew each other. She didn’t even know his name.
“Thanks,” she said simply, not feeling like that was enough, but it was all she
could think of at the moment.
“Don’t worry about it,” he shrugged, seemingly not even phased. “You wanna
go get a coffee or something?”
So that was how Belle found herself sitting at one of the upstairs coffee shops
at a little secluded table with a boy she had just an hour ago been commando
crawling across a floor to avoid. Funny how things turn out, definitely not what she
expected.
Then again she didn’t expect to own a sex therapy book today either.
“You’re gonna keep that?”
“I paid thirty four dollars for it,” Belle shrugged “Would be a waste of money
to just throw it away. I’ll hide it under my mattress or something, I dunno.”
She tore open another sugar packet and poured it into her hazelnut latte.
Belle heard him sniff as he noticed. He’d done the same thing at the register when
they ordered, said it was a girly, pretentious drink. Figured, he was the straight black
coffee type.
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“So why’d you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Help me,” Belle stated. “You didn’t need too, I don’t think he really would
have hurt me,” she said, not completely sure that was true.
He shrugged. “Mainly because I don’t like those guys. I would have liked a
good reason to punch Gaston in the face.”
“Oh.”
For a second Belle had thought it was some kind of act of chivalry on her
behalf, but okay then. Maybe that was a little arrogant to assume. She felt silly for
even imagining it now.
“And also because of this.” Belle looked up as he slid a hand into his jeans
pocket and pulled out a bank card. Belle’s bank card. “You left it at the counter in the
bookshop. The shop assistants were in no hurry to run after you so I said I’d take it.
Lucky it made me come after you really.”
Belle took it. “Um, thanks, I didn’t realize.”
“My names Adam by the way.”
“Hm? Oh, yeah. Sorry, it totally slipped my mind to even ask. My mind’s just a
little everywhere right now.” Belle looked sheepish, feeling rude. “I’m Belle.”
“I know.”
“You do? Wait, you called me Belle in the book store didn’t you,” Belle said,
more to herself than him. “Um, no offence but how-?”
Adam let out a kind of humorless laugh. “Because were in the same year
maybe? I’m in your Science and English class, I sit a few rows behind you in math?”
Belle blinked at him, studying his face to see if he was joking.
“Really? Nothing?”
“But you look way older! When I saw you in the library I thought you were a
senior, or at least a year older than me. We can’t be the same age; I’m about up to
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your armpit!” Belle said, feeling too shocked to start feeling stupid over not noticing
this guy in half her classes.
“Everyone’s shorter than me, even most of the seniors are,” Adam said, sipping
his coffee.
“Were you in any of my classes last year? Come on, I can’t have been that
blind,” Belle laughed but Adam stayed serious.
“I was in your Home EC class, but I did use to ditch that a lot, so I guess it’s
understandable.”
Belle looked like she was racking her brain to try and mentally place him
anywhere in that classroom but she still came up with nothing.
“I could tell you were a bit of a space case but this is a whole other level.”
“Space case?”
“In your own little world all the time. Don’t notice anything around you. Self
involved.” He shrugged and Belle looked a little offended.
“I am not self involved. I notice plenty of things.”
“Like me for example?”
Belle stayed silent.
“Exactly.”
The silence between them crept on as they sat and drank their coffees. Adam
with his unreadable poker face staring off into space, Belle looking at him intently
over her mug as she sipped. It really did annoy her that she couldn’t recognize him at
all.
Then her mind seemed to suddenly snap back to that conversation she had
with Mulan in the hall the other day, bits of what she said coming back to her all at
once like a wave.
‘Adam!’
‘-guy in our year? Tall, kind of long hair-’
‘-His dad is the director of G.E.D!-’
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“You! You’re the guy who’s dad owns G.E.D!” Belle blurted out.
Adam looked a little taken aback by the question but nodded slowly.
“Yeeeah,” he trailed on, looking at her to continue.
“I… I do know you. I mean I’ve heard of you. Once, from a friend. I just didn’t
know it was you… if that makes sense. I thought you were just some rude guy in a
library and then you ended up being a guy who kind of sort of saved me but then it
turns out you’re the guy I’ve wanted to talk too all week and now I’m having coffee
with you, not even knowing it was you!”
Adam gave her a tired look.
“Okay, stay with me right now, I don’t really know where to start with this
exactly so let’s just ignore that fact that I’m freaking out about how much of a
coincidence this is and I’ll just start talking, okay? Okay.”
Adam watched Belle in silence, his expression unreadable, as she rambled on
at rapid pace about her dad and his job and the Eazy-Cheezy. She mentioned her
mother and her family’s money troubles, how his dad’s company planned to lay her
father off and how he was desperate for an interview with the board of directors to
pitch his product. She practically tried to pitch the product to him right there,
describing ten different ways of making a grilled cheese that he had never heard of
before. He didn’t pause her once and just let her go on and on nervously until she
ran out of things to say.
“-and uh, yeah. That’s about it really,” she stopped and gave him an anxious
look, waiting for a reply. Adam was quiet for what felt for a long time.
“Soo?” she prodded gently “Could you help me? Help my father I mean.”
Adam nodded slowly as if he was trying to understand what she wanted him
to do. “Just so were clear, you want me to go and talk to my dad, your dad’s boss, to
get him to take a look at this Eazy-Cheezy thing?”
“Yes.”
“In the hopes that he’ll love it and it will make you both rich and your dad can
keep his job?”
“Well, ah, yes but not just to make us rich per say, just-”
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“So basically you want to use me? Go through me to get to the big guy, an
easy way to the top.”
“What? No, it’s not like that… exactly,” Belle flustered.
“That sounds exactly what it’s like.”
Belle frowned at him. “You’re twisting my words.”
“You think you’re the first person to come to me to get to my dad? Not even
just for jobs but for money in general. It’s pathetic.”
Belle gaped “Hey, there’s no need to get defensive, geez. I just wanted to help
my dad. I didn’t know what else to do and I’m desperate!”
“Desperate enough to come and beg for a favor from someone you didn’t
even notice for a whole year?” Adam said as if he found it funny, but there was no
trace of a smile on his lips.
Belle shook her head “Whatever, if you don’t want to help that’s fine. No need
to be like that about it,” she went to grab her book and stand up but Adam suddenly
spoke up.
“Didn’t say I wouldn’t help.” He gave her a look that made her pause.
“I don’t get what you mean,” she said suspiciously, taking her seat again.
“I mean I’d be willing to go to my dad about saving your dad’s job.”
Belle blinked “Wait, what, really? But you seemed annoyed that I even-”
“Just not as a favor. It wouldn’t be fair of you to ask this giant favor of me and
then I don’t get anything in return, right?” he asked, making direct eye contact with
her, making Belle shift in her seat.
“I guess?” she said nervously. “So this means you want something from me?”
Adam finally gave her a smile, or as close to a smile as he had gotten. One of
the corners of his mouth twitching upwards, as if to congratulating her on finally
getting it.
Belle took a deep breath “What is it? I don’t have much money.”
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“I thought it would be obvious, since I’m the son of one of the world’s richest
CEO’s, but I don’t need money.”
“Then what?”
Adam shrugged casually “Not much, I’d just want you to do a few small things
for me. Like my homework, write essays for me, fetch my lunch from the cafeteria,
carry my textbooks for me, get me coffee-” he started listing off all these mundane
tasks and Belle’s eyes narrowed.
“Wait, wait, wait are you really asking me to be like your little slave?” She let
out a laugh, hoping he was kidding but he looked completely serious.
“I prefer the term unwilling personal assistant.”
“Oh my god what is this, a bad 80’s sitcom episode? I’m not going to be your
school slave for a day!”
“Who said it would be a day? I was thinking the whole term.”
Belle looked at him in disbelief “You’re kidding.”
“And it wouldn’t just be at school either, say if I wanted you to come to my
house and clean my room or alphabetize all my DVDs for example.”
“Oh my god you’re not kidding.”
There was a silence as they looked at each other across the table, Adam
looking smug.
“There’s no way I’m doing this” Belle said sharply.
“It’s a pretty good deal considering you also owe me for what happened with
Gaston.”
“You can’t use that! It was an act of chivalry.”
“It really wasn’t,” Adam deadpanned, draining the last of his coffee.
“I didn’t even ask for you to do that anyway,” Belle sniffed as she grabbed her
book, really intending to leave right now. She rifled around in her purse for a bit of
spare change and she threw It down on the table “That’s for the coffee. I don’t need
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to accept any charity and I don’t need you to demean me either by making me some
sort of slave-”
“Personal assistant-”
“Call it what you want I’m not doing it,” she said fiercely, turning on the spot
to storm out of the coffee shop.
“Not even to help your dad? I thought you said you were desperate?”
Belle almost turned around as he called out to her, but she didn’t, she just
clutched the book to her chest in order to hide its cover from passersby and kept
walking.
Even when she heard his footsteps follow her out into the halls of the mall she
didn’t slow down. Unfortunately, even with her quick steps, she couldn’t out walk his
freakishly long legs and he caught up with ease to stroll besides her. She made a
point to not even look at him.
“Wouldn’t be too bad. Being a personal assistant is a real job you know. You
could probably even put it on a resume once you’re done.”
Belle still didn’t acknowledge his presence.
“What else do you have in mind to help your dad then? Any back up plans
now that this one doesn’t seem to be panning out how you’d hoped?”
“I’ll find something,” she said curtly.
“Yeah, like what?”
Belle went back to being silent.
“Thought so.”
She suddenly came to halt all together and turned to face him, malice in her
voice, “Is there a reason you’re following me? I didn’t forget my bank card again last
time I checked.”
Adam silently swiped out a card from his wallet and held it out to her. She
took it off him and glanced over it. It was a business card. She decided not to scoff
over that fact the he had his own business cards.
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“My numbers on it. Just go home and think about the offer.” And with that he
didn’t say a word of goodbye and he walked back the way he’d came. Belle didn’t
watch him leave as she turned the card over in her hands.
She couldn’t help but think that she’d been saved from one jerk today only to
end up in the hands of another.
Chapter Ten
Curse You, Taylor Swift!
Pocahontas lay in bed half awake on her stomach as sunlight streamed in
through the gap of her curtains. There was that brief split second feeling of ‘oh crap,
gotta get up for school’ before she realized it was a Saturday. She could hear the
radio in her kitchen, the sound drifting in even though her door was closed. She
couldn’t understand why her dad liked talk-back radio. It was just a bunch of old
people calling up and complaining about the government and those damn kids these
days, with their Wi-Fi’s and hello house was all one storey and tiny, and her room was
right next to the living area. She could even hear her Dad whistling as he made
breakfast. Thank you paper thin walls.
Pocahontas valiantly tried to will herself back to sleep but it was no use. Might
as well get up. She kicked back the covers with a grunt and in one swift move swung
her legs over the side of the bed and stood up. It was like ripping off a Band-Aid, just
get it over with. Wondering what time it was, she shuffled over to the side of the
room and immediately went for her phone charger, only to find she hadn’t plugged it
in last night.
“Hey there,” her dad smiled as Pocahontas emerged from her room, tying up
her hair into a messy ponytail.
“Mornin’.”
“Afternoon you mean. It’s 12:30 already,” he said, pointing to the old clock on
the wall.
“Huh, but I smelt bacon. I thought you were making breakfast.”
“It’s lunch bacon.”
Pocahontas walked over to her school bag where’d she’d dumped it near the
front door and rifled around in its pockets. Her dad watched over the kitchen counter
as she ended up tipping everything out of the bag onto the floor and then double
check the pockets again.
“Lost something?” he asked as he grabbed a few slices of bread from the
bread box.
Chapter Ten
“Can’t find my phone,” she mumbled, getting frustrated, going over to check
the coffee table and kitchen counter.
Then her dad proceeded to say what most parents say when their child had
lost something.
“When did you use it last?”
Pocahontas shrugged “I dunno, I didn’t text any one last night. If I didn’t put it
onto charge it would have just been in my bag.”
“Did you check the fridge?”
“Dad I did that one time, stop bringing it up,” Pocahontas rolled her eyes as
she shuffled around a few magazines on the counter, looking under them for her
phone.
“When I heard that Rihanna song coming from the lettuce crisper I thought I
was going mad,” he laughed as he heard his daughters sigh of impatience. “I still tell
that story-”
“To everyone, yeah, I know.” She couldn’t help but smile, even when trying to
look annoyed, as she sat down on one of the high bar stools at the kitchen counter.
While his bacon was still cooking he spread a couple of the slices of bread
with peanut butter and slid it over the counter.
“And here’s your own lunch, though if you do want a little bit of bacon from
mine I wouldn’t say no-”
Pocahontas cut him off and put a fake pondering look on her face. “Oh, hm,
let me see… wait, no. Still vegetarian. Sorry,” she smiled, taking a bite. “I like my
meals carcass free.”
Powhatan gave his daughter a knowing nod and smiled. “Thought I’d try
anyway.”
“So do you think you maybe left your phone at school?” he asked while taking
the bacon off the heat and laying the strips down onto his own sandwich.
Pocahontas paused mid-chew, mentally flipping through yesterday. Checked
her messages in homeroom. Showed Quasimodo a funny picture in Lit. Used it at
Chapter Ten
lunch. Still had it by last period when she called home to say she’d be home late
because of the quad thing… and then it hit her.
“Oh crap, I think I did,” she sighed.
She’d used it up in that damn tree trying to text Esmeralda a million times.
Now that it was coming back to her she could specifically remember resting it on a
branch before she climbed down to go home. She completely forgot to pick it back
up again.
“I left it in a tree.”
“A tree?” Her father raised an eyebrow as he took a bite of his greasy bacon
sandwich.
“I’m going to take a shower and get ready, go down, and hope it’s still there,”
she said, sliding off the kitchen stool, leaving half her sandwich untouched. “And I’ll
tell you the tree story when I get back, I’m sure it’s one you can repeat to all your
friends,” she called as she made her way down the hall to the bathroom.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Phoebus sat in his living room in only his boxers and an old faded t-shirt as he
spooned cheerio’s into his mouth, his eyes fixed on the TV screen as he was slumped
down on the couch with his feet up on his mothers expensive hard-wood coffee
table.
He had been watching Saturday morning cartoons, a habit you’d think a boy
would grow out of once he passed the age of thirteen, but Phoebus still reckoned it
was better than watching a midmorning talk show that seemed to be on every other
channel and the last episode of some badly dubbed kids anime show had ended.
He’d flipped through channels until he saw Legally Blonde was on. Thank god for day
time TV movies.
It was just up to the bit where Elle Woods is teaching the entire beauty salon
the bend and snap when the home telephone rang.
“Phoebus, can you get that?” his Mom called from the kitchen where she was
busy putting away the week’s food shopping.
Chapter Ten
Wordlessly Phoebus reached over and grabbed the phone. “Hello.”
“Dude, can I come over?”
“Flynn, why are you calling my home phone?”
“You didn’t get my text messages fast enough.”
“When did you send them?”
“Like five minutes ago. I’m bored, what are you doing?”
Phoebus turned down the volume on the TV. “Watching… Top Gun. Anyway,
yeah, come over and hang. I’ll see if Aladdin wants to come over too.”
“Cool, be there in like half an hour, seeya.”
“Seeya,” Phoebus clicked the phone back on the receiver and stood up from
the couch. “Mom, I’m having friends over,” he called as he stood up with his bowl
and stretched, walking over to the Kitchen,
His mother was just unpacking one of the last plastic bags of shopping as he
came in and out his bowl in the sink. “Hm, how many? I won’t have to make a whole
bunch of snacks or anything, will I?” she asked warily.
“Nah, it’s just Flynn.”
Her expression didn’t change. “So I will have to make a whole bunch of snacks
then,” she said sniffily, taking out a few packs of toilet paper. “I swear that boy just
comes around every other day just to eat us out of our house and home.”
Phoebus didn’t say anything, used to his mother’s snide remarks about Flynn.
“And maybe this guy named Aladdin, I dunno, I haven’t called him yet.”
“Ooh, I haven’t heard his name before,” she said, her interest piqued.
“Yeah, he’s a new kid,” Phoebus said as he had the packs of toilet paper thrust
into his arms.
“Go put those in your bathroom if you’re going to take a shower now and
then one in mine and dad’s,” she instructed, “and if you’re having a new friend over, I
want you to tidy your room up. It looks like a bomb site.”
Chapter Ten
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“Do you see him?”
“I think so,” Ariel squinted into the distance. “I think he’s the one in the black
t-shirt.”
“Like, five of them are wearing black t-shirts,” Mulan pointed out as she swung
upside down by her legs. “Hey, I wonder if I can do ab crunches on this thing.”
The two girls sat atop the monkeys bars of an otherwise empty playground at
their local park, Ariel keeping an eye out for Eric as he skated, blissfully unaware that
he was being watched, at the small skatepark a couple hundred meters away. This
was a stakeout operation. Ariel had it all planned since Arista had mentioned that Eric
was seen hanging out here at the park basically every Saturday. Thank God she now
had an inside man who shared multiple classes with the target to feed her critical
information. It was too much of a pressure situation for her first approach; she
wanted it to be casual, like she hadn’t even planned on seeing him there. She didn’t
know how to skateboard but she borrowed her older sister Attina’s bike, which was
currently resting on the edge of the playground, and that was good enough. She
could see from here there were a couple of other boys doing tricks on bikes so she
didn’t have to worry about being the only one. It would still seem legit.
Of course she had Mulan come along for emotional support.
“So am I doing it?”
“Huh?” Ariel finally snapped her eyes away from trying to spot Eric as she
looked at her upside down best friend.
“Ab crunches. Am I doing them? I mean, does this look right?”
Mulan demonstrated by doing a few little feeble swings back and forth with
her hands behind her head. Ariel pulled a face.
“I don’t know what an ab crunch is, but I don’t think you’re doing them.”
Mulan sighed and let her arms flop back down to hang over her head before
swinging herself back up to the top of the bars again. “So are we going to have to sit
here and watch him for much longer or are you actually going to go over and talk to
him?”
Chapter Ten
“I’m working my way up to that. Steeling my nerves,” Ariel explained, her eyes
back to scoping out the skatepark.
“I thought you were going to be a new badass, confident Ariel in your new
outfit,” Mulan smiled.
Ariel had gone over to Mulan’s house in her normal clothes with her new
secret weapon outfit hidden in her backpack. She had on a pair of ripped threequarter length jeans with a dark purple crop top on that showed her stomach and
black converses. It wasn’t the most edgy outfit but it was definitely a step up from
what she usually wore. Ariel decided she would ease into it. There were some really
great clothes in that box Ursula had given her, like this black velvet lace up top. She’d
tried it on with a pair of her jeans and she instantly felt like she should be at some
kind of concert, or even the one on stage. Then there was this super short leather
skirt she’d just managed to fit into, and though she doubted she would ever get the
nerves to wear it out in public, she definitely had a blast strutting around her room in
it in front of her mirror. Plus, she did have some cool black bracelets on and a chain
necklace, and had done her hair in a kind of messy I-don’t-give-a-damn style. She
thought she looked pretty cool really.
She had changed at Mulan’s before they both biked to the park together,
managing to slip out the front door without Mulan’s parents seeing her either, just in
case they would call and tell her own dad what she was now all of a sudden wearing.
While going over the master plan last night, Mulan had assured her over the phone
that she did have an old bike, even though Ariel had never seen her ride it, but it was
very old. As in it was pink and still had a basket on the front and tassels on the
handlebars. It’s only saving grace was the fact that it at least didn’t have training
wheels. You couldn’t have found an uncooler bike if you’d tried.
“You seriously couldn’t have gotten any other bike? Doesn’t your dad have
one?”
“Dad’s bike’s too tall for me, I can’t reach the pedals. And what’s wrong with
my bike?” Mulan frowned.
“It still has Scooby Doo stickers stuck to the frame, do I need to say more?”
Ariel said flatly.
“Hey, it was cool in third grade.”
Chapter Ten
“So were snap bracelets and crimped hair. You don’t see them making a
comeback.”
“Hey don’t start getting an attitude to match those clothes,” Mulan joked
warningly. “Because me and Jasmine will be forced to hold an intervention. And it will
be boring. Super boring. I’ll even make a slideshow.”
Ariel smiled and looked a little sheepish. “Okay, I was just joking though, I
wasn’t serious. No need for any interventions yet,” she laughed.
”Good.” Mulan laughed too until she really did give
her friend a meaningful look. “But seriously, don’t
change. We like you how you are and changing
your wardrobe is one thing, just don’t change you.”
Ariel looked momentarily touched as she
waved the notion off, “Wow, Dr. Phil moment
much? Don’t be so dramatic, I’ll still always be me.”
She gave Mulan a reassuring smile. “I won’t change.
I promise. And even if I do it’s only to become
more awesome!” she said it stupidly so it made
both girls laugh.
“So have you ever actually been on a
skatepark before?” Mulan asked.
“No, but I’ve played Tony Hawks pro skater
like a million times on hard mode. I got this,”
Ariel said as she hopped down from the
monkey bars and heading over to her bike,
Mulan following after her. “Now come on, let’s make our move. And if anyone asks,
your real bike got stolen outside the deli down the street and you had to borrow
your little sisters, okay?”
Mulan rolled her eyes as both girls picked their bikes up off the grass and
began riding up to the skatepark.
It was pretty small as far as skateparks go. It had a few low ramps and rails to
grind on and next to that was a bowl that sunk into the ground. Mulan remembered
coming down to the park when she was really little and thinking it was an empty
swimming pool, always wondering why it never had water in it. Both girls got looks
Chapter Ten
from all the boys as they rode up, with Mulan doing her best not to feel self
conscious and Ariel truing to look natural, like she belonged there. She took note of
exactly where Eric was but decided to wait until making her move. She’d noticed he’d
glanced their way with the others but had quickly gone back to boarding. Ariel had
wished he’d spent at least a few more seconds checking them out. Why couldn’t it
ever be like in the movies where the girl catches the guy’s eye and all of a sudden
she’s in slow motion and he’s captivated by her radiant beauty, beyond awesome
outfit and confident strut?
Both girls came to a stop at the top of the bowl and peered down into it.
“Looks steeper when you’re up close,” Mulan muttered as she edged her
wheels just a tad further back.
“Ha, yeah,” Ariel laughed nervously. It couldn’t have been more than a couple
of meters high but when you stood right on the edge it might has well have been a
cliff face.
“You go first.”
Arial balked, “What? No way. You first.”
Mulan shook her head, eyes wide. “No way, I don’t even have a helmet or
knee pads or anything. Nope, until bikes are fitted with airbags I am not doing this.
Are you doing this?” she asked, giving Ariel an unbelieving look.
Ariel shifted on her bike seat and flexed her grip on her handle bars. “Yeah,
sure. No biggie… but uh, actually I was thinking of going on one of those little ramp
things over there first.” She waved vacantly in the other direction towards anything
but the bowl. “Because there’s already too many people here and stuff…” she trailed
off.
“Okay then, chickening out. That’s good with me, I can handle that,” Mulan
nodded, about to turn around until Ariel’s voice rose.
“I’m not chickening out! I’m just saying I’ll do it later. When it’s not so busy.
You’ve got to warm up to these things first.”
Mulan saw Ariel’s eyes dart over to Eric who was on one of the rails a few
meters away.
Chapter Ten
“Ariel, breaking half the bones in your body is not worth getting Eric’s
attention. Unless he has some kind of medical degree and finds an arm twisted out
of its socket at a 90 degree angle endearing, I doubt it’ll be a romantic moment,”
Mulan chastised, but as per usual, if you tell Ariel not to do something it only makes
her want it more.
Just then, a boy went whizzing up the wall of the bowl below them and did a
flip up the side on his bike and down again, flying in the air past them and making
both girls shriek with surprise.
They were wide eyes for a few seconds in shock before Mulan gaped at her
friend. “So you’re going to do that? Is that your plan? You can pull that off can you?”
Every fiber of Ariel’s inner being was screaming at her to just back away from
the bowl but it seems her mouth was not cooperating. “Yup. How hard can it be?”
she forced a casual voice.
“You’re insane.”
“I’ve heard that before.”
“This isn’t like that time you combed your hair in the middle of the cafeteria
with a fork crazy, this is for real dangerously crazy. I knew we should have never let
you watch those jackass movies,” Mulan was shaking her head with worry.
“Nothing ever too bad happens to those guys. I bet the worst I get is a
scraped knee. I can handle it,” Ariel shrugged.
“No, the worst you could get is a concussion. Try walking that off when your
brain is swelling in your head and you lapse into a coma,” Mulan hissed.
“You’re being dramatic.”
“And you’re being insane!”
“Wow this conversation went full circle really quickly.”
While this went on between the two further, a pair of eyes watched them from
across the skatepark. Audrey Ramirez was waiting for her turn on the best rail in the
park when she spotted them, and to her that mindless chatter was instantly
recognizable. That Asian girl from tryouts the other day and her redheaded friend.
Honestly, who needed hair that red? Audrey was sure it was just an attention thing.
Chapter Ten
No way in hell would she have taken them for skaters though, especially with that
bike.
A clatter of a board hitting cement snapped her out of her thinking as she
turned to see Eric roll over on his board before kicking it up and carrying it.
“Rails all yours Audrey,” he said as she dropped her own board to the ground
and rested her foot on it “What were you looking at? You were drifting off on us
there.”
“Eh, nothing. Just some sad posers from school, don’t worry about it,” she
waved it off without a second thought as she rode up to take her turn on the rail,
riding down it smoothly on her first try.
Eric admired the grind with a nod before turning back to the bowl to look at
the ‘posers’.
“That girl has super red hair. Fire engine red,” he
commented and Audrey stuck her finger to her
mouth and made a fake gagging sound.
“Ugh, I know right. I hate it
when girls get that color.”
Eric laughed at his friend but
shrugged, “I dunno, I kinda like it. It’s
unique.”
“You can get that color from a box
from any discount supermarket. It’s not
unique, it’s just trying too hard, that’s what it
is,” she scoffed, going for another turn on the rail.
“Yeah, whatever,” Eric smiled, used
to Audrey’s brand of hating on mostly
anyone and everything. He felt like it
was a wonder she even liked him
some days.
Back over to the edge of
the bowl, Ariel continued to
convince herself that this
Chapter Ten
was in fact not the stupidest idea she had had this month.
“-and it’s not like dad didn’t get us health insurance. Hell, we haven’t used it
since Attina punched the wall too hard after they killed Mike off in Desperate
Housewives. He’ll probably be glad it will come in use again, and even then that’s if
something does happen which it won’t because probability wise, if you use math,
there’s only like a twenty percent probability that-”
“He totally just looked at you.”
“What?” Ariel was caught off guard mid-rant as Mulan suddenly gave her a
look and nodded in Eric’s direction. She whipped around instantly, her eyes glued to
Eric.
“He did? Seriously? He’s not looking now.”
“Trust me, he was when your back was turned, and it was totally more than
just a glance it was a good once over. Girl Scout’s honor.”
“You were never a girl scout.”
“It’s an expression.”
Both girls were back to peering over at Eric as he did a few kicks and flips on
his skateboard.
A smile broke out on Ariel’s face. Mulan couldn’t have known it but she just
put the final nail in the bad idea coffin. This was just what Ariel needed to push her
over the edge of thinking this was a good idea. Knowing that Eric might potential
glance back at her again while she was pulling off some incredibly cool stunts was
too good to pass up.
“Okay. I’m doing it,” she said with an air of finality that made Mulan grimace
as she rolled her bike’s front tire to rest right on the edge of the bowl.
“Oh, God you’re really doing this,” Mulan put her hands to her face as she
watched, just in case she needed to cover her eyes.
“I’ll be fine,” Ariel braced herself as she leant the bike forward.
“You’ll be mangled.”
“You’ll eat your words,” she put her foot on the peddle, ready to take off.
Chapter Ten
“Why isn’t Jasmine here? She’d be able to talk you out of this…”
“Too late. Countdown time. One-”
“I’m not driving with you to the hospital.”
“Two-”
“The only speech I’ll give at your funeral will be ‘I told you so.’”
“Three!”
Mulan actually let out a muffled scream of ‘oh my god!’ as Ariel plunged down
into the bowl with a small shriek of excitement as she felt the air rush past her. Ariel
had felt her heart catch in her throat that split second she seemed to be racing face
first to the solid concrete but then there was the sweet feeling of gliding smoothly
along without even needing to peddle. She followed the natural curve of the bowl as
she turned the handle bars, going along the side of the walls. She couldn’t wipe the
smile off her face as she did a few victory laps around the edge. She grinded to a halt
in the middle and stopped to look up at Mulan who had a look of awe on her face,
while simultaneously looking terrified.
“Oh. My. God!” she cried out, clapping her hands together and almost
jumping up and down on the spot. “You did it!”
“I know!” Ariel cried back, like she couldn’t believe it either.
“That was awesome!”
“I KNOW!”
The two girls didn’t care that the rest of the entire skatepark was now
watching them as they continued to freak out and laugh hysterically. Over on the rail,
Audrey had rolled her eyes so hard they were practically lost on the back of her head.
“Could they be any more sweet valley? They’re squealing is damaging my ears.
She didn’t even do anything! She just rode down the side and that’s it, big deal, I
could do that when I was six.” She folded her arms looking more than
underwhelmed.
“Oh chill out, you can tell this is their first time. She gets props for not stacking
it at least,” Eric said rationally, looking almost amused at just how excited the girls
were. “Plus it’s kinda cute in a dorky kind of way.”
Chapter Ten
“You mean they’re kind of cute. You’re just being a creeper on little
sophomore girls,” she sneered and gave him a hard accusatory poke in the shoulder.
Eric didn’t dignify this with an answer.
“God, girls acting cutesy makes me want to-” but Audrey didn’t get to finish
her sentence as there was a strangled cry and clatter of metal and pavement over in
the bowl. The small crowd of people around the top of the bowl let out a chorus of
‘ooohs’ as they peered in. Audrey and Eric exchanged a look and before a second
had passed Audrey already knew what he would do. She let out a deep sigh as he
tucked his board under his arm and raced up to the bowl. Why did her friend have to
have some kind of hero complex? She followed, albeit a lot slower.
When she reached the top to look down and see what was going on, she saw
just what she expected. Ariel was sitting up next to her fallen bike, her right kneecap
bleeding through her light jeans as she clutched at her elbow. Mulan had
immediately slid down the side of the wall to get to her friend and was now kneeling
next to her, arm resting on her shoulder. A stranger was helping to pull Ariel’s bike
upright and another guy was standing above them apologizing profusely. Plus, now
Eric was making his way towards the whole group of them.
Audrey overheard a guy talking to his friend next to her.
“You see what happened?”
“Yeah, some guy ran into the red-haired chick on his bike when she was kinda
there in the way at the bottom, didn’t see each other I guess.”
Audrey slunk down to sit with her legs over the side of the bowl, settling in to
see how this played out.
Ariel chocked on a sob as she clutched at her bleeding knee. She wished she
wasn’t crying in front of all of these guys but she couldn’t help it. Her elbow was
throbbing and everywhere felt bruised.
“I am soooo so sorry, I didn’t see you there! I came around the corner, you
were just there; I couldn’t slow down. I just-I’m so sorry,” the guy who had run into
Ariel was tumbling over his words as he stood awkwardly above both girls, obviously
feeling guilty as hell.
“It’s okay, I’m fine,” Ariel tried to smile weakly, seeing if she laugh it off even if
she couldn’t help the tears.
Chapter Ten
“Where does it hurt worst? Do you think you broke anything? I was just
kidding about the hospital thing before!” Mulan asked worriedly, the last bit making
Ariel laugh a little for real.
“I don’t think so, it’s not that bad. Just my knee,” she winced as she looked
down at a small patch of blood that had actually stained her jeans.
Now that minutes had past a few other skaters had stopped to help and see if
she was alright, and they mingled around but Eric was the one who actually stepped
up and spoke.
“Did you say your knee hurt? Do you think you can walk on it?”
Ariel had momentarily forgotten about Eric and the fact that he was here, so
when she looked up and saw his face she was caught completely off guard.
“I, ah- Um…”
Mulan glanced between the two quickly and made a quick save “Yeah, she’s
bleeding but I don’t think its dislocated or broken or anything,” she said quickly,
filling him in, giving Ariel a small squeeze on her arm to get her focused again.
“You’ll need to get your jeans off to have a proper look at it, but for now
maybe just try standing,” he said, putting his board down on the ground and then
lending her his outstretched arms. Funny, Ariel had always imagined Eric telling her
to take her jeans off, just not quite in this way. Still, staying focused. She was in pain;
this was no time to gush. Ariel put her hands in his and tried to pull herself up with
his help. In one swift movement, he had her up and standing but she hissed in pain
as she put any weight on her right leg.
“Ow ow ow ow ow,” she said through clenched teeth, still gripping onto Eric
with Mulan right behind her in case she fell back.
“You alright? You still need me hanging on to you?” Eric asked.
Ariel half considered telling him he could hang on to her whenever he liked
but luckily she had an iota of self control “No, that’s okay. I’m good now. Thanks,”
she smiled up at him. In the movies the injured hero or heroine would always say the
pain went away just as soon as they saw the person they loved smile at them, but
Ariel quickly figured out this was a complete load. Still, it did help in other ways.
Chapter Ten
Then for a second when Eric stepped back he seemed to scan over Ariel’s face
“Wait, I know you. Do you go to Disney high?”
Ariel could have mentioned the entire story of how they’d met, how she had
actually saved him from drowning in the public pool over the holidays or how he ran
into her in front of school just last week or just the fact that they walked by each
other on a daily basis. But instead she just said, “Yeah.”
Eric looked triumphant. “I thought you looked familiar. Everyone says I’m
terrible with faces, but I get it right sometimes.” Ariel laughed along with him even
thought it wasn’t really a joke, and in the background where nobody was watching
Audrey mimed another fake gag.
“Come on Ariel, I think we’d better get you cleaned up, you’re kind of…
dripping,” Mulan pointed down to her friend’s leg as small trickles of blood leaked
their way down to stain her socks.
“Oh, ew,” Ariel winced.
“There’s a public bathroom just across the field there, you could at least wash
it off,” Eric suggested and Mulan seemed to think this was a good idea.
“Do you think you can walk that far? I’m assuming you can’t get back on the
bike either,” Mulan asked as Ariel tested walking.
“Nah, I think I’m good…” she said as Ariel did a little slow shuffle of a walk,
limping pretty badly too while she was at it.
“Yeah, you’re not getting anywhere fast,” Eric laughed, taking a few steps to
catch up with her. He put an arm around her back “You ready? One, two-”
“Wait, what are you-WOAH!” Ariel was taken by surprise as she felt herself
lifted off the ground. Eric had managed to dip her back and hook his arm under her
legs, so that he now carried her bridal style. Ariel looked up at him with her mouth
open and he seemed to find it pretty funny. She could hear Mulan laughing too.
“Hope that didn’t hurt your leg or anything. You don’t mind being carried, do
you?” he asked.
“I… am not opposed to the idea,” Ariel grinned stupidly, her answer making
him chuckle.
Chapter Ten
As the three of them set across the field, Eric called over his shoulder “Yo,
Audrey! Watch my board and their bikes, yeah?”
“Yeah. Got it,” an unenthusiastic yell came back.
After a few seconds of watching the trio’s retreating figures, Audrey looked
down at Mulan’s bike that lay next to her feet.
“Scoody-Doo stickers? Really?”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Pocahontas was hoping and praying nothing had happened to her phone as
she finally reached the empty school grounds. Thank God it hadn’t rained last night
at least, and hopefully it hadn’t been knocked from a branch to the ground or
something. That or it might be crawling with bugs. Is there any way ants might be
able to crawl inside an iPhone? Or she found it but a huge ass spider had decided to
just make it its new chill out spot. Pocahontas was all for nature but come on, spiders
were just gross. What if a bird had been attracted to the shiny plastic raccoon phone
charm Esmeralda had gotten her last Christmas and flown off with it back to its nest,
her phone along with it?
Okay, so all of these were a little unlikely, but until that phone was back in her
hands in one piece she would not stop stressing.
As she made it to the quad and pulled herself up into the tree, she let out a
sigh of relief as she spotted her phone sitting right there in plain sight on one of the
higher branches.
“Thank God,” she actually said out loud as she climbed up to get it. She took a
seat and quickly switched it on, checking if everything was working. It was seriously
low on battery and she had one missed text and a lot of facebook alerts, but it was
working fine.
As she was already up there and she didn’t have anywhere to be in hurry, she
decided to go through her messages and text her dad just to let him know she’d
found it alright. Just as she was skimming through her facebook, she stopped as she
heard the squealing of tires. It was faint but she could tell what direction it was
coming from. Curiously she stood up on the branch, pocketing her phone, and
Chapter Ten
inched her way around the base of the tree to its other side, using branches as
footholds.
She peered through the bunched together leafs and was surprised to see she
was actually high enough to look over the roof of the nearest one story classroom to
the edge of the school. She could see that a big white Mercedes had parked itself on
the lawn. It looked like an expensive car.
The driver’s side door opened first and a skinny little man stepped out in a
hurry to get around to the passenger’s side. She watched as he opened it for
someone, and out stepped an incredibly fat man in a hideous burgundy colored suit,
holding a small pug on his arm.
Pocahontas new if she’d have seen this guy she would have called him a crime
against taste.
She could only hear very faintly what they were saying or more like she could
hear the way they were saying it. The skinny man sounded nervous and rambling as
he shut the door to the car and she could hear the pug man say something very
angrily as he pulled back his sleeve to check what she assumed was a watch.
This went on for about five minutes, angry pug man working himself up and
skinny nervous man looking like he was doing his best to calm him down, while the
little dog started yapping.
Pocahontas considered leaving, but then part of herself felt very entertained
by spying on these incredibly strange people. Call it natural curiosity or downright
nosiness, but she wanted to know what was up with them. A lovers’ tiff maybe?
Maybe they’d just broken down. Then Pug man struck out his hand and gave the
other a slap upside the head and Pocahontas let out a laugh. Good thing they were
too absorbed in themselves to hear her.
Just then another car pulled up beside them, this time a very inexpensive
looking blue jeep. There was only one man in this car and he hopped over the jeep
door, not even bothering to open it, and then reached over to the backseat and
grabbed out a whole lot of rolled up papers, all while the Pug man had started to yell
very loudly.
Even from the distance she was at, Pocahontas could hear snippets of what
was being said as she strained her ears.
Chapter Ten
“You’re late- … -what kind of business do you think I’m running- … -you’re just
an intern- … -can fire you whenever I like- … -back to University if you want- … better not happen again-”
The man, who was blonde and tall, was dressed in nice but casual jeans and a
button up blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. He seemed to take all of this yelling in
stride, standing there very calm and collected as Pug man got all worked up.
Anyone with half a brain could tell he was his boss, and Pocahontas made a
mental note to never work for someone who treated her like that. Though none of
what she’d caught so far explained what they were doing at the school on a
weekend.
Then she noticed that Pug man had stopped yelling and that all three of them
had turned to face another voice that came from the school, a male one. Her vantage
point stopped her from seeing who it was, and just her luck, they began to walk
towards the new man and out of her sight too.
Oh well, I guess that was interesting enough while it lasted. She was about to
start climbing when her phone began to ring. She knew who it was instantly since
she had personal ringtones for all of her friends’ numbers, so when her pocket
started blasting, ‘damn you’s a sexy biitch,’ she picked it up immediately.
Esmeralda had insisted that be her ring tone for her.
“Hello?” she answered, still standing in the tree.
“Hey, I taped Legally Blonde on the DVR this morning, wanna come over later
and watch it?”
“Yeah sure, I’m just at the school now so I can walk over. I’ll probably be
around in twenty minutes or so.”
“Why are you at the school?” Esmeralda asked, sounding surprised.
“It’s stupid but I left my phone here in that tree yesterday,” Pocahontas
laughed.
“Oh, so did you get it okay?”
“…how would I be talking to you right now if I hadn’t?” she spoke slowly.
“Oh. Right. Dumb question.”
Chapter Ten
“Yeah, even for you that’s pretty-” As Pocahontas was talking she happened to
look through another gap in the leaves of the tree downwards to the door of the
school building that lead out to the quad. She watched as it opened and out came
Pug man, his little assistant and the intern guy, all being led by Mr. Walt.
“-And as you can see gentlemen, this is the quad, as the kids call it,” Mr. Walt
said cheerily as he swept his arm around, showcasing the area.
Pug man nodded as he surveyed it. “Decent sized space, we can definitely
work with this. A few trees will need to be uprooted and such and then we can
expand the whole space to connect to the road over there. Should be plenty of space
to fit maybe even fifty car bays if that’s the kind of number you were looking to
accommodate.”
“Oh, yes, I think that should be enough. It’s mainly for student cars and a few
teachers,” Mr. Walt nodded.
“Pocahontas? Hello? You still there…?” Esmeralda questioned.
“Yeah, I’m here,” Pocahontas said, not quietly enough though as she saw the
blonde intern’s head turn up to the tree with a frown.
Pocahontas quickly ducked down slightly on the branch so the thicker leaves
would hide her, but still in a position so she could keep an eye on the group of men.
“What are you-?” Esmeralda tried asking but was cut off.
“Shhhh,” Pocahontas hissed. “Just call me back in a minute.” She hung up the
phone, focusing all her attention on listening in. It was obvious now that these guys
were here to discuss getting rid of their quad. She stayed perfectly still as she saw the
Blonde intern step closer to the tree, his eyes scanning across the branches with a
perplexed look on his face. God she hoped he hadn’t seen her. I mean, it wasn’t
exactly like she was a KGB agent about to be spotted on a top secret mission, but it
would be an awkward moment and a half. Especially now that she could get a closer
look and see that blonde intern was actually really good looking. She doubted any
girl in the world could drop randomly from a tree in front of a rich guy, a pug, her
principal and what looked like a male model and pull it off while acting casual. What
would she even say? ‘Oh, hey guys, I just left my phone here last night. No biggie.’
“Smith? What are you doing?”
Chapter Ten
She was saved by Pug man and his booming voice as the hottie, now known
as Smith, immediately snapped his eyes away from her hiding place to turn to his
boss.
“Yes, Mr. Ratcliffe?” he said on instinct.
Ratcliffe gave him a withering look. “Will you stop daydreaming, we are with a
client,” he chastised, turning to Mr. Walt. “Sorry about him, he’s a structural
engineering student my company’s taken on as an intern. He’s only just learning,” he
said in a condescending tone that Pocahontas could see made Smith shoot him a
look.
“Ah, that’s okay. No harm done,” Mr. Walt waved it off with a smile. “Now,
shall we step into the office and discuss the payment plans some more?”
“Yes that sounds like a grand idea.” Ratcliffe’s eyes lit up at the mention of
‘payment.’ “After you.”
As Mr. Walt went to lead the men inside again and through to his office,
Ratcliffe paused and turned back to Smith, holding his hand up to stop him in his
tracks. “Oh, ah, not you boy. You’ll need to stay out here and take some photos of
the area to bring back to the office, measure the square footage, count how many
trees we’ll need to get rid of. All the details and such.” He turned to keep walking and
Wiggens, his assistant, stepped forward to pass Smith a small digital camera and a
clipboard with a smile which Smith didn’t return.
Smith watched as their figures retreated through the door of the school,
repressing every urge he had to throw the clipboard at the back of his boss’s head,
but just as soon as he’d left he came back again, taking him by surprise.
“Oh, and Smith,” Ratcliffe drawled to him.
“Yes sir?” Smith asked, hoping that maybe he would get at least one task he
would actually enjoy doing.
“Be a sport and take Percy out to do his business.” And with that he came over
and dropped the little pug into Smiths arms along with the camera and clipboard,
which he now had to juggle in each hand. “And make sure he goes number two. I’ll
be checking.” And then he was gone again.
Smith had to pause and take a deep breath. He exhaled deeply and looked
down at the ugly little dog. He gave a little angry yap at him.
Chapter Ten
“Don’t you start with me too,” Smith muttered. “I am really not in the mood.”
Pocahontas watched him as he wandered back over to the middle of the
quad, dumping the clipboard and camera on one of the nearby benches and letting
Percy down on the ground so he could run around a little. The little dog immediately
scampered across the grass on his stubby legs as Smith took a seat on the bench and
watched him as he sniffed his way around.
“Thousands and thousands of dollars and years of my life at University, and all
I have to show for it is watching you poop,” Smith stared down at the dog as it
yapped up at him again.
“What was that? That’s pretty pathetic did you say? Well thanks for the update
little guy but I was already pretty well aware of that fact,” he said with a rather
humorless smile. Percy yapped again.
“…and now I’m talking to a dog.” And with that he picked up the camera and
pushed himself off the bench. He was fiddling with the settings of the camera as he
walked across the grass, until he noticed Percy dart between his legs and make a bee
line to the base of the tree Pocahontas was in.
‘Crap,’ Pocahontas mouthed silently, phone still in her hand as she crawled
back on the branch. Percy had begun barking loudly up at her and clawing at the
bottom of the tree.
Smith turned to the dog with a frown on his face. “What’s wrong boy? Found a
squirrel? Knew I heard something before,” he said as he strode over to take another
look himself.
Pocahontas pressed herself as close to the trunk of the tree as possible before
looking for another branch above her to climb up higher. As Smith was peering up
through the branches, Pocahontas hooked her foot into a ridge of the bark and
stepped up higher. Trying to keep her balance, she reached out her hand to steady
herself but lost her grip on her phone and she cursed again as it slipped through her
fingers and fell straight down past every branch to the ground, dropping nicely at
Smith’s feet.
He blinked in surprise, looking down at the phone and then back up to the
tree with an even more confused look on his face.
Chapter Ten
“What the hell-?” But he didn’t have a spare second to wonder about what
was up their as he saw Percy make a dive for the phone with his teeth bared. He
quickly stepped in and scooped it up. “Oh, no you don’t. That’s not a chew toy.”
He turned the phone over in his hands. Pocahontas had no idea what was
going through is head as he looked over it, and at this point all she could do was
freeze and run through every swear word she knew in her head. How hard would it
have been to just put it back in her pocket? ‘Stupid, Stupid, stupid,’ she thought.
“So, um, I feel a little stupid yelling up into a tree, but is anyone up there? I am
ninety-nine percent certain someone is up there,” Smith called into the tree and if it
was any kind of comfort, he didn’t sound mad at all. More like he found it funny.
Pocahontas cautiously peeked her head over the branch. Percy began to yap
at her again but Smith gave him a light kick with his voice to get him out of the way.
“Uh, yeah. Hey,” she said stiffly. Smith spotted her through the leaves and
squinted up at her.
“Hi?” he said expectantly, like an explanation would be nice too. “So are you
planning on climbing down any time soon or is it just too comfy up there?”
Pocahontas shifted on her branch for a second, staring down at the still
barking Percy.
“Don’t mind him, he doesn’t bite.”
Thinking it over quickly, she decided there probably wasn’t much point in
staying up there any longer, so she silently began to climb down. She felt very
conscious of Smith’s eyes on her as she made her way through the branches, and she
made sure to hold her skirt down the whole time. That hadn’t been an issue when
she was on her own but now she didn’t need any more awkwardness to add to this
moment. When she got down onto the grass she turned to face him, running a
nervous hand through her hair. He stood towards her with his arms folded and a
smile that said this was the most interesting thing to happen to him all day.
“I’m Smith by the way. Well, John Smith in full, but Smith is just what most
people call me,” he held out his hand to shake and Pocahontas looked at it
hesitantly.
“Maybe I should emphasize that I don’t bite either,” he joked and Pocahontas
managed a small laugh as she put her own hand out for him to shake.
Chapter Ten
“I’m Pocahontas.”
His eyebrows gave a little quirk at her name, as most people did the first time
they heard it. “That’s a new one; I’ve never met a Pocahontas before. Then again, I’ve
never met anyone who dropped out of a tree before.” He gave her a little smile. “But
now I’m very glad I have.”
Pocahontas smiled back as he let go of her hand and she brought it back and
rubbed it anxiously. He had a strong but firm grip, and his hand had felt very big
around hers. She found she couldn’t stop smiling.
Percy the dog suddenly found his voice again as he yapped and plodded up
to Pocahontas.
“Down Percy, don’t bother her,” Smith snapped, making sure the dog couldn’t
snap at her heels by crouching down and holding him gently by the collar.
“It’s okay, he’s no bother,” Pocahontas said as she bent down besides the dog
to give him a rub behind the ears. Percy was wriggling under Smith’s grip but he
definitely seemed pleased to be getting the attention. He nuzzled up to Pocahontas’s
hand and hopped his front paws to rest on her legs, giving another small yap.
Smith looked genuinely taken a back. “You know, I have never seen this dog
so friendly. At least not with me. Then again on my breaks in the office I do try and
aim paper airplanes at him.”
“I like animals, generally they seem to like me too,” she said as she gave
Percy’s back a rub.
“So, not to seem like I’m prying or anything-”
“Why was I up in the tree?” The corners of Pocahontas’s mouth twitched
upwards.
“I’m actually dying to know.”
She shrugged. “It’s a stupid, I just… I lost my phone up there. I left it there
from school yesterday,” Pocahontas inwardly hoped she wouldn’t have to tell this
story to more than the three people who already heard it.
Smith seemed to look surprised “You’re a high school student?”
“Yes, why?” Pocahontas questioned.
Chapter Ten
Smith quickly collected himself “I, um, didn’t mean anything by it. It’s just-”
Pocahontas couldn’t help but notice his eyes scanned over her body for a fraction of
a second, but he seemed to catch himself as he locked onto her eyes again. “You
seem a lot more… mature,” he said, hoping that was the right word to use.
Pocahontas felt her color rise in thinking that she possibly just caught this very
attractive older guy checking her out. She couldn’t explain the feeling, half self
conscious-like she was with most boys, but there was something else. Proud?
Flattered? She tried to push it from her mind, thinking that maybe she’d just
imagined it, but as they both stood up she subconsciously took a step closer to him
and he didn’t move away, Percy still circling around their heels, wondering why the
attention wasn’t on him anymore.
Cue Esmeralda’s inexplicable bad timing.
‘Damn, you’s a sexy bitch, a sexy bitch. Damn, you’s a sexy bitch-”
Smith looked down in surprise at the phone that was now ringing in his hand
and Pocahontas felt herself cringe.
“Ah, that’s just my friend-” she said nervously but Smith smiled as he unlocked
her phone and brought it up to his ear.
“Hello?” he answered casually, giving Pocahontas a cheeky smile as she gaped
at him.
“OKAY, for real, hanging up on me is so rude I cannot even and second, what
the hell are you-wait who is this? Is this a guy? Do I have the wrong number?”
Esmeralda’s voice ground to a halt and you could hear the confusion in her voice.
“No, you’ve reached Pocahontas’ phone. How can I help you?” Smith spoke
like he was some kind of secretary and Pocahontas had to stifle a laugh.
“Uuuuuh, what? What is going on, who are you? Is this Flynn? Are you putting
on that stupid British accent again? Just put me on to Pocahontas,” Esmeralda
snapped sounding impatient.
“Miss, I’m sorry but Pocahontas is currently busy at the moment, but I can take
a short message if you’d like and I’ll promise she’ll be back in touch with you soon.”
He gave Pocahontas a raise of his eyebrows and she covered her face with her hands,
knowing she would get hell trying to explain this, but it was still funny. She hadn’t
Chapter Ten
known this guy for more than ten minutes and he was making her laugh. That usually
didn’t happen, even with her close friends.
“…What. The hell… I don’t even… urgh.” There was a pause and then the
familiar beeping of her hanging up and Smith ended the call with a smile.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Pocahontas shook her head.
“And I can’t believe you were just sitting up in a tree, but hey.”
The two shared a look, and it seemed like Smith was going to say something
more, but then they both snapped around as they heard the hall door open from a
distance. Wiggens’ skinny frame appeared and Smith instantly took a step back from
Pocahontas.
“Smith?” he called out. “Mr. Ratcliffe would like one of the business cards. Can
you come and bring them please?” he yelled out as politely as he could, his eyes
flitting to Pocahontas but if he thought anything of it, he didn’t speak up.
“Ah, yes. Of course, be there in a sec,” he called back, turning to Pocahontas
and handing her phone.
“Well, it was nice meeting you,” he said hurriedly. “Shame we couldn’t talk
more. I have a feeling there’s more to that tree story than you’re letting on,” he
smirked.
Pocahontas’s smile didn’t give anything away. “You’d better get back to your
work; I don’t want to hold you up.”
He gave her one last hesitating look before he headed off back up to the
school, picking up his camera and clipboard on the way, Percy trotting over to
Wiggens to be picked up and carried. Smith waved over his shoulder with a smile
before disappearing down the hall, the door shutting behind them.
That meeting was all Pocahontas could think about as she made her way out
of the school and in the direction of Esmeralda’s, a small smile on her face the whole
time.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Chapter Ten
Jasmine was sitting on the plush couch in her room, the large plasma screen
TV that hung on the wall was on mute playing some music video countdown show
while she flipped through an issue of Cosmo.
‘7 steps to get your dream guy’s attention!’
‘Great sex tips: How to really satisfy him in bed’
‘Hot single guys who want to date you! Our 2012 bachelors list’
‘Dress for success: the outfits that will have him saying wow!’
‘Still single? Take our quiz to find out where you’re going wrong’
Jasmine screwed up her nose as she read through every article’s title before
throwing it down on the carpet with an annoyed sigh. Why was it that these
magazines always seemed to insinuate that without a man you are nothing? And if
you don’t have a man, you must obviously want one. Shock and horror, has it ever
occurred to them that some girls don’t even want to dress for guys’ attention, that
maybe they dress for themselves? All of these articles were about being perfect for
men, how to get their attention, how to act how they like, how to behave in bed for
them… Maybe it was just her but Jasmine felt that a women’s magazine should focus
a lot more on women and a lot less on men and how to make them happy.
But maybe that was just her. She peered down at the page the magazine had
flopped open to on the floor. ‘Still single? Take our quiz to find out where you’re
going wrong?” She stared at the picture of a forlorn looking women in a cocktail
dress sitting alone at a bar with her head in her hands, while pairs of men and
women chatting happily in the background, avoiding her. Jasmine sighed again as
she kicked the magazine under the coffee table with her foot before flopping down
on her back, eyes up to the ceiling.
What was so wrong with being single anyway? Everyone seemed to treat it like
it was a disease. Something to be ashamed of.
‘Oh, do you have a case of the single? Oh you poor dear, you’re so brave. I
hope a man comes into your life to make you better soon. Stay strong.’
Jasmine used to try and explain to people that she didn’t care about getting a
boyfriend. She wasn’t even on the lookout for one, she enjoyed being single. She
told them if anyone came around that she liked enough, then fine, it might happen
but until then it wasn’t even an issue. People just didn’t believe her though; they
Chapter Ten
thought it was some kind of front. Like she was just pretending she didn’t care
because the idea was apparently so unheard of.
Ariel used to be like this too, but then Eric came along and she just caught up
in some little love bubble. Good for her I guess, but now she couldn’t stop gushing
about how good it felt to feel like this for someone, how whenever he walked past
she just melted and couldn’t help but smile, how he just brightened her day.
Jasmine tried to understand but she just couldn’t, he didn’t seem that great.
No boy did. Was something wrong with her for not feeling like that at least once for
somebody? Her friends, movies, TV, books, and especially magazines seemed to act
like it did.
So Jasmine had come up with the list, to act like the only reason she didn’t
date any of the boys that threw themselves at her was because she just had
impossibly high standards. She would rather look like a snob than have to go
through the much more complicated reasons.
To get her mind off her own thoughts she grabbed the remote and turned the
music up on the TV.
It was a Taylor Swift video, MTV was doing a special half hour dedicated to
her.
Jasmine watched all the way through the first video, her singing about some
guy she was in love with.
Then the next one was her singing about how some guy broke her heart.
Then it was one about how they would never ever, ever be getting back
together.
And oh, look another one about being in love again.
Jasmine angrily changed the channel. Even Taylor Swift seemed hell bent on
insisting that the world revolved around boys! That girl needed new material.
Just as Jasmine settled in to watch an episode of friends she’d flipped over
too, the one where Phoebe can’t turn her fire alarm off, her phone rang.
She flopped over to her stomach to reach over and grab it from the side table
before bringing it to her ear.
Chapter Ten
“Hello?”
“Jasmine! It’s Ariel; I’m with Mulan as well.”
Jasmine smiled as she heard her friends over excited voice, as well as a “Hey,
what’s up?”
“Amazing news!” her friend gushed. “Long story short, we were at the
skatepark and Eric was there, and even though I totally pulled off an awesome ride in
the bowl on my bike, this guy ran into me and I stacked it to the ground-”
“What? Are you hurt?” Jasmine butted in quickly, concerned.
“No. Well, a little. Right now I’m kind of sitting on the edge of a public
bathroom sink with my pants off while Mulan helps clean the blood off my leg, but
no big deal, it was so worth it!”
“Aaah okay, and what made it worth it?” Jasmine refrained from any other
comment until Ariel finished her story.
“Eric came to my rescue! Just like how I did to him in the pool… I mean he
didn’t recognize me, but he also said he was bad with faces so that’s why I bet he
never talked to me in the halls either. But you see? Now we’re even! And he also
carried me all the way to the restrooms so I didn’t hurt myself anymore; he is such an
old school gentlemen.”
In the background Jasmine could hear Mulan’s faint voice, ‘and then tell her
what happened!’
“Wha? Oh yeah! And just as he put me down he said he was gonna head back
to the park but then he asked for my number and gave me his! He gave me his
number! I practically died right the- oh, oh my god, sorry Mulan! Are you Okay?
Sorry, I just got all excited again and kicked Mulan by accident… she’s fine though,
right? Yup, she’s nodding, she’s fine.”
Jasmine had to bury her face into one of her satin pillow to stop herself
commenting on how hopeless her friend was. Adorable. But hopeless.
“And yeah. He said he’ll text me later tonight,” Ariel finished off proudly.
“That’s great,” Jasmine smiled. “I’m so happy for you.”
Chapter Ten
“Really? You’re not just saying that because it’s what you know I want to
hear?”
Jasmine felt a little guilty, she kind of was. Just a little bit. Part of her was
happy to see her friend happy, but the other part of her was feeling instantly
protective. “I’m just hoping it all goes well, and if he hurts you, bam, he’s finished. I
will end him.”
“Awwww” Ariel cooed “You’re so sweet when you’re threatening people for
me.”
Will Audrey continue to be a problem for Ariel and Mulan? Is she just friends
with Eric or is she more?
Will Pocahontas’ meeting Smith help her with her plans to save the quad or
work against her? Will she even tell him about how she wants to stop it? Do you
think he would care?
What on earth will she tell Esmeralda when she gets over there?
Chapter Eleven
This Muffin is Stale
Esmeralda’s house was an interesting place to visit. Just down the road from
the school, it didn’t look any different on the outside from any other house on the
street. They were all small, two storey and either beige or brown or some other
boring colour. They all went up at the same time from the same building company as
part of a housing development and they all matched. Pocahontas doubted there was
any house on these streets that matched the inside of this house though. Esmeralda’s
parents were no doubt attached to their gypsy heritage and it really showed. All the
old antique furniture they’d nabbed from garage sales and op shops stuck out like
sore thumbs against the modern light fixtures and tiles of the house and every room
was painted a different bright colour. The kitchen walls were painted bright yellow,
the living room was red with shawls and blankets draped across the old sofas and
Esmeralda’s room was bright purple. She’d even been allowed to paint her own
mural, with swirls of aqua green and gold stars. She’d only been fourteen when she
painted it, so it wasn’t especially good, but she still loved it. Her curtains were just an
old leopard print piece of fabric draped over the railing and her bed was a massive
queen sized one that took up two thirds of the room, and what little floor space
there was covered in crumpled clothes, shoes, pieces of school work, makeup, DVD’s
and other assorted crap. Esmeralda commonly referred to it as her floordrobe. Her
actual wardrobe was built into the wall but the doors had been taken off, so you
could see in full just how many clothes she’d shoved in there, as well as a mountain
of shoes. Add in a full size mirror leant up against the wall and a barrage of poster
ripped from magazines pinned up on the walls, it was easily the most chaotic and
cluttered room Pocahontas had ever been in. Still, it was home away from home.
The two girls spent so much time in each other’s houses that Pocahontas felt
completely at ease just walking straight in. She gave a small hello to her friend’s
parents as they sat and watched wheel of fortune while her mother did the ironing,
before heading straight to her friend’s battlefield of a room.
“Hey,” she said as she pushed open the door.
“You got some ‘splaining to do.” Esmeralda was sitting on her bed with her
laptop open where Pocahontas joined her. There really wasn’t anywhere else to
actually sit. The bed was an island in a sea of mess.
Chapter Eleven
“About what?” Pocahontas asked innocently.
“Oh gee, I dunno, that guy who answered your phone maybe? What was that
all about? I thought I had the wrong number.”
“Don’t sound so annoyed, he was just joking around.” Pocahontas laughed it
off but Esmeralda gave her a suspicious eyed look.
“And who is he? It’s a Saturday, who else would have been at school? Were
you on a date? Who is he, what’s his name, do I know him?”
“What? No, you’re way off base! It was-”
“So I don’t know him?”
“No it’s just-” but Pocahontas got cut off again.
“Was it that guy your dad tried to set you up with last summer? His friend’s
son from that school over in the valley? The one with the weird hair who was uber
serious all the time?”
“Kocoum?” Pocahontas filled in helpfully.
“So it is him!”
“NO!” Pocahontas rolled her eyes as she flopped down to lie across the bed.
“Calm down with the twenty questions; it was not a date and it was definitely not
Kocoum! It was just some… guy,” she shrugged, a small smile played on her lips that
did not go unnoticed. “He was just there at the school and I ran into him, we talked
for like five minutes and then my phone rang, which he happened to be holding by
the way, and yeah. It was stupid. No big deal.”
Esmeralda sat cross legged as she stared down hard at her friend. Pocahontas
blinked up at her putting on the best casual face she could. “Any more pressing
questions?”
The staring continued for a solid ten more seconds before a sly smile spread
across Esmeralda’s face “You like this guy don’t you?”
Pocahontas scoffed. “Did I not just say I don’t even know him? He was a
random; I’ll never even see him again!”
“Did you get his name?”
Chapter Eleven
“John Smith,” Pocahontas said without thinking before regretting it instantly.
She knew her friend too well. In a flash Esmeralda had dived for her laptop and her
fingers tapped at lightning speed across the keyboard.
“God woman, does every person you ever hear about have to be looked up on
facebook!” Pocahontas made her own lunge for the computer in her friend’s lap, a
hard feat when lying down, but Esmeralda quickly flipped her legs up and used
Pocahontas own momentum to topple her off the bed. Pocahontas shrieked as she
rolled off onto the floor as Esmeralda let out a triumphant laugh.
“Ow, I landed on one of your heels! … And an N’sync mix CD. Wow, you really
haven’t cleaned in years, have you?”
Esmeralda ignored her as her eyes scanned the screen. “Hm, a surprising
amount of John Smiths in the world.”
“Shocking,” Pocahontas deadpanned as she chucked the CD to the side of the
room. “And I don’t know why you’re so interested anyway.”
“Are you kidding? You never notice boys; you barely even talk about them.
The only ones you hang out with on a regular basis are Flynn, Phoebus, and Quasi.
You and this John Smith guy are a big deal.” Esmeralda grinned like a child as
Pocahontas made herself comfortable on the floor.
“Okay, repeating it again, it was just some random meeting. We hardly had a
full conversation. Never seeing him again. What are you not getting?” Pocahontas
pressed but Esmeralda wasn’t letting up.
“I saw you smile that little smile and a friend knows. I always know. Was he
handsome? Did he have a smile that made your knees weak and hair you just wanted
to run your fingers through?” she teased.
Pocahontas glared. He did, but that wasn’t the point. “Honestly, give you an
inch and you run a mile.”
“Oh just admit it, there’s no shame in meeting a guy randomly and being
interested. No harm in a little google searching when they don’t give you their
number either.”
Pocahontas sighed like she was completely over this conversation, but as soon
as she tried to give Esmeralda a warning look that told her to drop it, she flashed
back to when they were twelve and had sleepovers and stayed up and talked about
Chapter Eleven
boys they thought were cute. Pocahontas liked to think she’d outgrown being so
immature and had become a lady that didn’t gush over boys (going to high school
and actually interacting with said boys was an eye-opener that put a stop to a lot of
that) but as soon as her and Esmeralda locked eyes she was twelve again and a smile
cracked on her face.
“Okay, so he may have been really good looking” she allowed herself to gush
and Esmeralda raised a fist in the air.
“I knew it! You like him, you like him, you like him!” she chanted, laughing with
her as Pocahontas hung her head with embarrassment.
“Okay, okay, maybe a little!” she admitted as Esmeralda leant over the bed so
she could poke at her repeatedly.
“You’re in luuuurve.”
“Totally,” Pocahontas replied sarcastically, hitting away Esmeralda’s jabbing
fingers.
“You’re gonna get married to him!”
“For sure.”
“Gonna have all his little mixed race babies!”
“Yeah, millions.”
“White chocolate and caramel, mm delicious.”
Pocahontas paused from laughing to shoot her friend a look. “Wait, how did
you know he was white?”
“John smith? Girl please, if that isn’t the whitest name in existence I don’t
know what is.”
Pocahontas paused and then gave an admitting nod.
“So do you know what school he goes too? Bet I could find him in two
seconds on here if you knew that,” Esmeralda said as she went back to her laptop.
Pocahontas stalled, “Urgh, no, not exactly…”
“What does that mean?”
Chapter Eleven
“Becaaaause he doesn’t actually go to high school per se,” she said quietly,
picking up and inspecting a nail polish bottle she found on the floor. “Why does this
brand always give its colours such strange names? I mean, ‘Party in my cabana’? Why
can’t they just say hot pink?” she trailed off as Esmeralda gave her a confused look
before it dawned on her.
“Is he old? Like old, old? He is isn’t he! I should have known, John Smith isn’t
just a white guy name, it’s an old white guy name, you little minx!”
Esmeralda had a wide smile of shock and awe on her face as she narrowly
dodged the nail polish being thrown at her as it landed on the covers.
“Hey, careful! Don’t get party at my cabana on my sheets!”
“He’ not old! He’s in University!” Pocahontas pointed out sharply.
“Old people can go to University. He could be forty-five and you just don’t
know it.”
“He’s in his early twenties at the most,” Pocahontas shot her friend a withering
glare and Esmeralda put up her hands in defense.
“Whatever girl, you do you, I won’t judge…”
Pocahontas got up on the bed and grabbed the laptop, doing a quick search
of her own. Esmeralda watched in silence as she found the page she was looking for.
“Here, found him.”
Luckily John Smith had a very clear profile picture and it was easy to see it was
him. The chiseled jaw line, his perfectly shaped features, those piercing eyes… hell,
anyone who looked like him would have a clear profile picture. None of that ‘my icon
is a car’ crap.
Esmeralda let out a low whistle. “Wooow.”
“So, clearly not a forty-five-year-old?”
“Clearly,” Esmeralda submitted easily, still transfixed by his picture. “Go to his
photo gallery,” she instructed and Pocahontas clicked onto his profile. Of course his
page was set to private.
“Oh well, worth a shot-”
Chapter Eleven
“You have to add him,” Esmeralda said it like it was the simplest thing in the
world but Pocahontas slammed the laptop shut before she could get her hand near
it.
“No way!” she cried.
“And why not?” Esmeralda gave her friend a tired stare.
“Because it will look creepy! I don’t want to seem like… some kind of
desperate freak who adds any strange guy she meets for ten seconds on facebook.”
“Well, it’s either that or never talk to him again,” Esmeralda shrugged. “And
really you’re being selfish. You’re keeping me from seeing any potential shirtless
holiday pics of him as well you know. Sometimes it wouldn’t kill you to think of
others.”
Pocahontas pursed her lips and kept the laptop firmly shut.
“Fine, be that way,” Esmeralda smirked. “Wheel of fortune should be over by
now and we can go watch Legally Blonde in the living room.”
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“Goddamnit, who blue shelled me?!”
“Guilty.”
“You suck Flynn,” Phoebus muttered as he fell off of rainbow road. “Now even
Peach is beating me.”
“That’s what you get for calling dibs on Yoshi. I’m always Yoshi.”
“It’s my house; I get to play who I like.”
“I thought guests were the ones who got to pick first,” Aladdin pointed out as
he lay sprawled across the bed. The three boys were in Phoebus’s room, with
Phoebus and Flynn sitting sprawled on the floor in front of the TV on the dresser.
“Yeah, what he said-ah what!” Flynn cried as he was knocked off the side of
the road by Bowser. “No!”
Chapter Eleven
“Ha! Suck it.” Phoebus grinned as he sped forward, now coming third to
Flynn’s eighth. “You can’t come back from that, final lap. You’re done, nice bit of
losing there, really impressive stuff.”
Flynn dropped the controller altogether. “This game is rigged.”
“That or you just suck,” Phoebus smirked as he passed the finish line, the first
place trophy and triumphant music playing on the screen as he dropped his own
controller.
“I’ll tell you what you can suck my ba- and heeeey Jenny how are you?” Flynn
immediately switched his tone as all three boys saw the door push open and
Phoebus’s Mom stepped into the room.
She gave Flynn a stiff smile. “Hello Flynn.”
“I was just saying how lovely your home looks today. Did you get these
carpets steam cleaned? They are sparkling. The beige looks extra beigey.” Flynn
flashed her a grin. Her expression didn’t change.
“I just came in to get some things to put in the wash,” she said, stepping over
to grab a pair of dirty gym shorts and socks that lay in a heap on the side of the
room.
“‘Kay. Do you guys wanna play another road or something different?” Phoebus
asked Aladdin and Flynn.
“Mass Effect.”
“Do you have the second Assassins Creed game?”
“Nah, only the first.”
“I said Mass Effect.”
“We heard you Flynn.”
“Then why aren’t we playing Mass Effect?”
“Because Aladdin’s choosing.”
“Sweet, I choose the first A.C. Game then.”
“You guys are lame.”
Chapter Eleven
Just as Phoebus got up off the floor to go and get the game off his shelf, his
mother turned to them with her arms full of dirty laundry.
“You know, why don’t you all go and do something outside? Kick a ball
around, go get dinner, see what there is to do in town?” she chided. “You’ve been
here since three o’clock cooped up in this room sitting in front of that TV. That’s four
hours without fresh air or natural light.”
All three of them stared at her.
“Technically-” Flynn started quietly. “-It’s already dark out soooo… we wouldn’t
be getting any natural light anyway… jus’ sayin’.”
She shot Flynn a very unamused look. There was a tense silence where they all
turned to Phoebus to make a decision. He looked up at his mother. She crossed her
arms. A warning sign.
“Uh, I guess we could head to the town, hang out,” he shrugged.
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“Dude, your mom is scary,” Aladdin huffed as the three boys walked down the
path under the streetlights outside, having made a swift exit.
“Yeah, Jenny’s a hard ass,” Flynn said, hands buried in his faded blue jacket
pockets.
“You know I don’t think she likes it when you call her Jenny,” Phoebus said.
“Nah, she loves it.”
“Sooo what are we actually going to do now?” Aladdin asked.
“Literally just go into town. Find something to do for a couple of hours,”
Phoebus shrugged.
“Like?”
“Oh yeah, I keep forgetting you’re new here. The towns not exactly a town. It’s
more like a giant four way intersection from where the road comes down from the
city, one heads to where we live and then the other two go to the different suburbs-”
Chapter Eleven
“One heads up to the rich area, the other heads down to the shit area,” Flynn
pointed out bluntly.
“Urgh, yeah, it’s kinda like that I guess. Anyway, there’s this huge two storey
bar and restaurant on one corner, which we won’t be able to get into now since it’s
past 7, then like the video shop, the arcade, a newsagents, a pharmacy, some weird
antiques place, few clothes shops, supermarket with a butcher’s and bakery and
whatever, the old coffee shop and the new coffee shop, the pizza joint… and yeah.
Pretty basic but most of the places stay open late.”
“And Jenny doesn’t like it when little Pheeby goes out to the main city at night
without adult supervision,” Flynn taunted.
Aladdin laughed “Awww Pheeby.”
“I swear to God if you start making that catch on I will tell every single female
in the tristate area that your birth certificate says Eugene,” Phoebus muttered as a
warning.
Flynn sniffed “Hmph, you really need to get a new threat, you’re wearing that
one thin…”
“As long as it does the job.” Phoebus smiled as he took his phone from his
pocket and began to text. “I’m gonna see if Esmeralda wants to come and meet us in
town. She always complains when nothing happens on a Saturday night.”
It took approximately nine seconds for Phoebus’s phone to buzz with an
incoming reply.
“She says to meet at the coffee shop and Pocahontas is with her,” he said as
he locked his phone and pocketed it again just as they reached the long stretch of
road at the top of a slight slope that headed straight down to the town, where you
could see the cluster of lights from the bright intersection. When you looked even
further you could see the lights from the very distant city.
“Nice view,” Aladdin said. “Hey, why isn’t Quasi hanging with us right now?”
“Super strict parents. It’s like they only let him go out to school and we’re
lucky if he can even hang at ours once a month,” Phoebus explained.
“He’s more just Esmeralda’s friend anyway,” Flynn shrugged.
Chapter Eleven
Phoebus gave him a look.
“What? He is! I didn’t say it to be a dick!” Flynn said defensively.
“Yeah, that must happen naturally.” He turned to Aladdin. “Quasi’s a nice guy
but he’d kind of…quiet. He gets on with girls better I think.”
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Up from the intersection, in what Flynn would call the ‘rich’ suburbs, Ariel sat
with four of her sisters in the family room watching a currently blank TV.
Attina and Andrina were the eldest and neither of them lived at home
anymore, with Attina already renting an apartment with friends and Andrina living on
campus at her college upstate. That still left five girls sharing the house though.
“I wanna watch Bring It On,” Arista commanded from where she lay across one
half of the corner sofa, a texting Ariel and a bored-looking Aquata both sprawled
over the other side. Alana had grabbed a handful of pillows and lay flat on her
stomach over them on the floor.
“No, we’ve all seen it a million times,” Adella snapped at her sister as she
flipped through the DVDs that were piled around a shelf that was clearly too small to
house the giant collection. “How about a tarantino film? Pulp Fiction really is a classic
piece of cinema and-”
“Ooooh my God,” Aquata groaned, cutting her off. “You’ve only been at an
arts college for two weeks now and you’re already starting to get pretentious.” Arista
added to this by making a fart noise with her hand.
Adella rolled her eyes at them. “Whatever, watch your pieces of mass
produced Hollywood trash that panders to the idiocy of society then.”
Que another fart noise, this time from Arista, Ariel, and Alana.
“Speaking of Hollywood trash that panders to the idiots of society, what about
Dodgeball?” Alana said as she stepped over to the shelf and grabbed the DVD.
There was a chorus of agreement.
“Ugh, an Adam Sandler film?”
Chapter Eleven
“It’s Ben Stiller, fool.”
“Whatever, I’m so done with all of you. I’d rather watch old episodes of
Gilligan’s island with Dad in the den.” Adella stood up and shot her uncultured sisters
a disparaging look as she headed to the door. “Have fun killing your brain cells!” she
called in a sing-songy voice over her shoulder.
“Here at globo gym, we’re better than you! And we know it!” Aquta yelled
after her sister as she left while Alana popped the DVD into the machine.
As it started playing she hopped up and switched off the lights before
flopping back down on her pillows with the remote.
“Ariel switch your phone off,” Arista mumbled as the screen from the iPhone
lit the room up distractingly.
“It’s not a cinema, I can keep it on if I like,” Ariel muttered back, not taking her
eyes off the screen.
“Turn it off,” Aquata snapped.
“What are you gonna do about it?” Ariel said, not actually expecting that she
would do anything about it, but as soon as she’d finished saying it she shrieked as
Aquata had lunged across the sofa to hit her sister square in the face with a pillow.
People who don’t have sisters might assume an innocent pillow fight would be
full of fun and laughter between them.
This is often not the case.
Ariel quickly made sure to drop her phone safely onto the coffee table before
picking up her own pillow and swinging that satin weapon as hard as she could.
There were no words needed. It was on. Alana rolled out of the way as the two girls
moved to the middle of the room to allow for more brutal swinging action.
As the girls grunted and shrieked and jumped on each other, each taking and
dealing their fair share of blows, Arista watched on casually. While Alana decided to
join in by swiping her own pillow at her sister’s legs, causing Ariel to fall flat on her
butt with Aquata taking the chance to pin her down, the iPhone vibrated on the
coffee table. Arista was the only one who noticed and she quickly stole a glance up at
Ariel, seeing that was she wasn’t looking, she picked it up and scrolled through the
messages.
Chapter Eleven
“SUBMIT TO MY WILL!”
“NEVER!” Ariel screamed as she thrashed under her sister.
“Ow, someone elbowed me in the ribs!”
“Collateral damage Alana! Now try and pin down her legs!”
“Hey, you guys,” Arista tried to grab her sisters’ attention as she read from the
phone.
“OW, don’t kick me Ariel!”
“NO MERCY!” Ariel screamed as she kicked again as Alana grabbed a pillow in
self defense, squealing.
“No seriously, guys, listen!” Arista tried again.
The door to the theatre room opened with Adella sticking her head. “What the
hell are you guys screaming in here about? I can hear you all the way in the kitchen.”
“Either join in or butt out!” Aquata instructed as she was flipped on her side by
Ariel squirming out from under her grip.
“I’ll tell dad!” Ariel threatened but Alana reached over and clamped a hand
over her mouth.
“You do that, see how far it gets you!” she laughed but then shrieked, “Ew, she
licked me!”
“GUYS!”
All four of the girls stopped and froze as Arista now stood shouting on top of
the couch cushions phone raised above her head.
“SHUTTUP FOR ONE SECOND, OK?”
They did.
A smile slowly spread across Arista’s face “Because Ariel’s been texting a boy.”
The silence didn’t last a second longer.
“Oh my God, really?”
Chapter Eleven
”Who is it? Do we know them?”
“Arista! Don’t go through my messages!
That’s an invasion of my privacy!”
“Are they dirty messages?!”
“Shuttup Adella, they are so
not!”
“Let us see!”
“Yeah, give it here!”
“NOBODY TOUCH MY
PHONE!”
But Ariel was once again
overpowered as her sisters scrambled
around Arista to peer over her shoulder
and look at the messages. They formed a
tight circle and Ariel struggled to break
through them. She hated being the
smallest.
“His name is Eric and he’s in my year, and she has a total crush on him by the
way,” Arista explained for the benefit of the others.
“I told you that in confidence!” Ariel huffed.
“So sue me.” Arista stuck out her tongue, grinning.
“Hey look! Scroll down; he’s invited her to something!” Alana jabbed at the
screen and Aquata peered down further.
“Oooh, his band practice. He’s in a band. That’s sexy,” she teased, jabbing Ariel
in the shoulder as she got swatted away.
“Yeah, this Monday after school I’m going to watch one of his rehearsals. No
big deal.” Ariel rolled her eyes, trying to play it cool.
Of course it was in fact a very big deal. But she didn’t want to tell her sisters
that. They were bad enough as it is.
Chapter Eleven
“And none of you can tell dad!”
“Says the girl who threatened the exact same thing a minute ago when she
was having her ass handed to her with pillows.” Aquata laughed.
Ariel gave them all a serious look. “No, I mean it. We all know what he’s like.”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry,” Adella said, “The deal’s been the same with boys
with us for years. Big overprotective Dad stays out of it. No telling on each other.”
“Doesn’t mean we won’t be looking out for you though,” Alana wagged a
finger at her.
“Yeah, we need all the details on this guy. See if he’s good enough for our
baby sister. Arista, go get your last yearbook. I need to scope this guy out,” Aquata
commanded and Arista jumped over the scattered pillows and through the theatre
room door to her room to go and fetch the book.
Ariel threw herself down on the couch, suddenly feeling really tired, as her
sisters continued to gossip full speed.
“Dating would be easier if I was an only child…”
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“Order up! A chai tea latte for Michelle?” Tiana called out, coffee in hand as
she peered over the counter. A girl stepped up to take it and Tiana passed it over
with a smile. “Here you are, have a nice day.”
Saturday night shifts at the old coffee bar, Duke’s Café, weren’t too bad. It was
never packed but had a steady stream of customers to keep you from being bored
with nothing to do. The more modern chain coffee bar up the road got a lot busier
and it payed more, but Tiana liked the more relaxed, homey atmosphere of Duke’s.
She only worked the weekend anyway because of school commitments.
There weren’t any customers waiting to be served, just a few tables filled with
people chatting in twos or reading the paper alone, so she took the chance to grab
out her phone behind the counter.
Most people would check their messages. Tiana is not most people.
Chapter Eleven
“Are you looking at Algebra theories?”
Tiana jumped as a voice came from behind her.
“Oh my God, John, you startled me.”
John laughs as he drops the crate of milk cartons he’d been carrying and
starts putting them away in the fridge under the counter. “The amount you study
amazes me. I thought I work hard but you put me to shame.”
Tiana shrugs, pocketing her phone again as she wiped the counter top. “Well, I
just want to keep on top of things is all. I’m aiming for a scholarship when I start
applying to colleges and you have to be really good to even contend for one of
those.”
John was the only other person working the shift with her. He went to a
private school just north of Disney High and he’d worked at Duke’s the longest out
of any of the employees, and he and Tiana got on well.
The little bell above the café’s front door chimed as it was pushed open and
two girls stepped in. Two girls Tiana recognized.
“Pocahontas, Esmeralda, hey!” she called to them from over the counter and
John looked up.
“Friends of yours?”
“From school, yeah.”
Both girls came up to the counter. “I always completely forget you work here.”
Esmeralda smiled in hello. “But mostly I only ever go get my coffee from the one
down the road in the morning,” she shrugged.
“Yeah, mostly everyone goes there. Here it’s mostly an older crowd,” Tiana
shrugged.
“I like it though, it’s quieter. More chill. You guys don’t have top forty hits
playing over the radio twenty four seven either,” Pocahontas said. Tiana couldn’t help
but notice John’s eyes flick over her while she wasn’t paying attention. Hm, men.
“Anyway, do you guys know what you want?”
Chapter Eleven
“Um, I’ll have a caramel latte, thanks, and what are you getting?” Pocahontas
asked Esmeralda as she fumbled through her bag for her wallet.
“Just a Mocha. With sprinkles.”
Tiana got to work on the coffee machine. “Can you put that through the
register for me John?”
“No need, friends of Tiana drink for free. These two are on the house.” He
smiled, holding up a hand to Pocahontas as she tried handing him the cash.
“Oh, really? That’s so nice of you, thanks,” Pocahontas smiled and Tiana could
see John shrug and try to lean against the counter, looking cool. Tiana had to stifle
an amused smile, as she had a feeling that as soon as the two were out of earshot he
would be asking about Pocahontas.
“So, what have you guys been up to today?” Tiana asked conversationally.
“Not much,” they both shrugged.
“Anything new with the whole quad thing?” she asked Pocahontas who
sighed.
“Not so much, at least not any new ideas on what to do about it.”
“What’s the quad thing?” John asked.
Pocahontas quickly explained about the whole thing and surprisingly John
seemed interested.
“You know something similar happened at my school a couple years ago. They
wanted to put in an outdoor pool over the old basketball courts. It’s not quite the
same, since we all protested against it because we just like the old courts and not
because we wanted to save nature or anything, but it’s along the same lines,” he
shrugged.
“So what happened? Did you end up making them keep the old courts?”
Pocahontas asked and John nodded.
“Yeah, we did in the end. We went to the principal and found out it was a
matter of money. It was the cheapest area to have converted or something. They said
the only other space they could consider putting the pool would be on the north side
of the gym, but they’d have to pay an extra three thousand dollars to get some pipes
Chapter Eleven
under the ground replaced or something, I don’t know the technical side of it, so we
just asked if we managed to raise the extra money would they change it, and they
said yes,” he finished his story and Pocahontas was suddenly all ears.
“And how did you make three thousand dollars?”
“A bake sale, we asked people for donations, that kind of stuff. But the biggest
one was a school dance we organized. We charged ten dollars entry and before you
know it we raised even more than we needed. The principal loved it.”
“Oh my God.” Pocahontas’s eyes were wide. “We could do that! If we ask Mr.
Walt how much we need to make to get him to put the car park somewhere else, we
can make the money easy. If we invite the whole school to some dance that’s like one
thousand people, and at ten dollars each…” she didn’t even need to finish the
sentence as she looked to the other two girls, obviously getting excited. That would
be big money.
Tiana didn’t want to get ahead of themselves. “You don’t even know if money
is the issue here, there might be other factors. Plus the whole school might not even
go. You might only get half. And who’s going to organize the whole thing anyway?”
Pocahontas shrugged, “I don’t know, I’ll round up some people to help.”
“You know I will,” Esmeralda said without hesitation.
“See? Two people already. I have such a good feeling about this, finally
something that has an actual real chance of solving this,” she beamed at John. “Oh
my God, I can’t even say thank you enough for giving us the idea!”
John shrugged, trying not to look too pleased with himself as Pocahontas
stared up at him. “Ah, it’s no trouble, I’m happy to help. If you need help with any of
it just come in and ask as well, I really wouldn’t mind.”
“Wow, seriously, thank you… I’m sorry, what was your name again?”
“John. John Rolfe.”
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Chapter Eleven
We’ve been sitting here for half an hour, and that doesn’t count the time we
spent waiting for a damn table, where the hell are the girls?” Flynn shuffled in his seat
impatiently as the three boys sat at a booth at the back of the packed coffee shop.
“I dunno,” Phoebus shrugged as he tore off a piece of his blueberry muffin.
“Urgh this is stale.”
“Well text Esmeralda again,” Flynn said as he grabbed a chunk of the muffin
for himself. “Oh wow, this is stale.”
Again, within seconds, Phoebus got a text back. His face fell. “Ooookay, we’re
in the wrong coffee shop.”
“What do you mean?” Aladdin asked.
“They’re in Duke’s down the road. Come on, let’s head there,” Phoebus said as
he went to stand up.
Flynn stayed firmly seated. “Screw that, Duke’s is the old people coffee shop.
Plus I waited years for that herd of preteen girls to leave in order to get this booth.
Tell them they can come here.”
Phoebus rolled his eyes, standing up anyway. “Fine, you guys wait here. I’ll go
over and get them and come back.”
“Fine by me. Tell them to bring non-stale muffins if they can.”
Both Flynn and Aladdin’s eyes followed Phoebus until he was out the door
and then they sat in silence. Until Aladdin happened to catch a glance of someone
very familiar.
“Hey, It’s Rapunzel!” he said cheerily, proud of himself for remembering her
name this time. As if on some kind of reflex Flynn ducked down in his seat in a flash.
“Oh God, did she see me?” Flynn said, his voice rushed, not daring to look
over the back of the booth.
“Chill out man, that coffee got you on edge. She’s over by the front window
with her mom. She’s not even looking.” Aladdin stared down at Flynn as he
cautiously peered over the top of the seat.
There were shopping bags around their feet under the table, and their plates
and coffee cups were empty.
Chapter Eleven
“Probably just been shopping or something,” Aladdin shrugged. “And if
Phoebus were here right now he’d tell you to go over and say hello. You know, be
nice.”
“Well, Phoebus isn’t here right now is he?” Flynn said, making sure to keep
himself low. “And I don’t wanna go talk to her Mom, it’d be awkward.”
“Fair enough,” Aladdin said, sipping his drink.
After a few seconds Flynn spoke up again, “…So what is she doing right now?”
Aladdin frowned. “Um, nothing. They’re just sitting there.”
“And she’s not looking?”
“Of course not, she doesn’t know you’re here. Why, do you want her to look?”
“No,” Flynn scoffed. “…But just keep an eye out and tell me when she might be
looking.”
“Because you want to get her attention?”
“No… maybe. Just to wave or something. I don’t know.”
Aladdin smiled to himself. “And you told me you had a way with the ladies.”
“Hey!” Flynn snapped. “I have a way with the ladies! I have plenty of way. I
have so much way it would blow your mind! Just wait till you see my way.”
“Are you hitting on me now?”
“…Shuttup.”
“Hey guys-who-can’t-get-to-the-right-coffee-shop, what’s up?!” Esmeralda
announced her arrival loudly as she strolled up to the booth with Phoebus and
Pocahontas in tow.
“Wow, good nickname, must have taken you ages to think up, I think it’ll really
catch on,” Flynn deadpanned. Esmeralda just shoved him over so she could fit in the
booth while Phoebus slid in besides her. Pocahontas sat next to Aladdin on the much
less crowded side.
“Ooh muffin.” Esmeralda ripped a bit off a popped it in her mouth before
pulling a face. “Ew, it’s so stale.”
Chapter Eleven
”Can someone just throw that thing in the bin already?” Phoebus suggested
but everyone was obviously too lazy to get up again.
“So what’s up? Any news?” Esmeralda asked.
“Not me. Flynn’s dodging Rapunzel again
though.” Aladdin gestured to the front of the
store and everyone craned their necks at once to
get a good look.
“Ohh, is this the new girl you told me about? The
one Flynn thinks is cute but is being a jerk to?”
Esmeralda said to Phoebus as she made the most
unsubtle attempt to get a good look at her,
actually getting up on knees to see over the
booth.
“Yup, that’s her.”
“What?” Flynn snapped.
“Oh, wow she is cute,”
Pocahontas said, peering sideways
around the booth. “She’s wearing a
little pink cardigan and everything.”
“Yeah, she’s way too cute for you Flynn,”
Esmeralda nodded before being pulled back down
roughly by Flynn.
“Do you guys gossip about me behind my back
or something?” he said, annoyed.
“Yes,” Phoebus and Esmeralda replied in unison.
“Well get your facts straight because I barely think
she’s cute. I don’t even care about her, I’ll just be hanging
out with her from now on to keep from getting expelled, was
that bit explained to you as well?”
Chapter Eleven
“Yes, it was. But we decided it was inevitable that you would probably end up
trying to hit on her anyway,” Esmeralda shrugged.
Flynn actually managed to look slightly offended. “As if I would! God, I have
some class.”
Everyone gave him a look.
“Hey, I said some, not lots.”
“Anyway, we also decided that even when you do hit on her, she’d end up
rejecting you anyway, so in the end it’s not a big deal,” Phoebus said, taking another
bite of muffin. “God, why can’t I stop eating this thing? It tastes like cardboard in my
mouth.”
“Woah, woah, woah,” Flynn interrupts, “I think you have this backwards my
friend. See, she wants me, but I don’t want her,” he explained.
Phoebus and Esmeralda shared a look.
“Whatever you say.”
“Yeah man, sure.”
Their indifference made Flynn’s eyes burn.
“So you’re both saying that she in fact doesn’t want me? The hot senior she
goes all shy around and giggly every time I talk to her?”
“She seems like that kind of person in general, she’s probably like that with
everyone,” Phoebus shrugged. “I don’t think you’re a special case.”
“Oh, I am a special case, I am completely special. I’m so special she can barely
contain herself. You guys are way off, I know Rapunzel already has a crush on me, it’s
obvious to me. You guys probably can’t detect it but I have like sixth sense for these
things with women,” Flynn said, getting himself worked up.
Esmeralda didn’t look convinced. “You can’t prove that.”
“Yes! Yes I can, actually! I’ll put the moves on her and I guarantee she’ll be all
over me in a week!”
“So that’s what you’re gonna do?” she asked.
Chapter Eleven
“You bet it is.” He stared Esmeralda down challengingly.
“You’re gonna try and get Rapunzel to like you?”
“Ha, you use the word ‘try’ when I won’t really need to, because she already
likes me.”
“Does she really?”
“Yeah, she does!”
“Well, I’ll believe it when I see it.”
“Oh you’ll see it! You’ll see so much of it!”
“I guess I will.”
“Yeah!”
“Okay then.”
“Okay!”
“Fine.”
“Good!” Flynn snapped finally. There was a tense silence.
“Come on Phoebus, I wanna go order one of the little cakes. You can get a
new muffin.” Esmeralda stood up with Phoebus as they left the table to go up to the
busy counter.
Once they were in the queue and well out of earshot, they both cast each
other sly smiles.
“So, operation reverse psychology worked surprisingly well,” Phoebus grinned.
“Almost guaranteed since it was totally my plan,” Esmeralda said triumphantly.
“Hey, I helped a little.”
“You came to me and said you thought Flynn and this Rapunzel girl should
get together because you think she would be good for him. You had the initial idea
but I came up with how we’re going to do it.” She poked him in the chest.
Chapter Eleven
“Fair enough. Looks like we won’t have to meddle too much now anyway. His
own pigheadedness is going to make this pretty easy. He can’t stand the idea that a
girl might not like him.”
“And he can’t back down from any challenge, it’s almost funny.” They both
laughed as they knew their friend too well.
“And you’re sure he’s going to end up liking Rapunzel back? I don’t wanna
play this girl unless it’s going to have a happy ending,” Esmeralda asked, sounding a
little worried as she sneaked a glance over at Rapunzel as she sat completely
unaware with her mom.
“Trust me, I think this girl is going to end up having a bigger effect on Flynn
than you can imagine.” Phoebus smiled. “I wouldn’t be doing this if I wasn’t so sure
of it.”
“Good to hear, and I always trust your gut instincts anyway.”
“And I always trust your crazy schemy ways,” he smirked.
“What can I say; it’s the gypsy in me.”
“I love us.”
“I know, were pretty great.”
The two high-fived as they reached the counter.
Chapter Twelve
Chips, Dip, and Rock and Roll
Monday morning at school was a depressing time. Dragging yourself out of
bed, getting dressed in your good clothes after spending the entirety of the weekend
in your pajamas, packing your healthy lunch and then having the realization that you
have to get through another five days before you are having another blissful
weekend of freedom.
And I’m not talking about the students.
Megara was slumped down on one of the faculty teacher’s lounge tables, her
forehead resting on the overdue library book notifications she had yet to fill out.
“You alright there? Didn’t have a big weekend out hitting the town did you?”
Jane chided as she sat across from her.
“Ah, I remember being in my twenties. The wild times, the late nights…” Milo
Thatch said wistfully while Jane raised an eyebrow.
“Really Milo? Somehow you don’t strike me as the ‘partying’ type.”
“Hey, me and my roommates at college used to stay up until three in the
morning some nights! We drank a lot too,” he said pointedly.
Jane and Meg gave him knowing looks.
“…Ok, so we were up playing monopoly and it was mountain dew, but still. I
think it counts.”
Meg grunted “No, this isn’t a hangover. Just run of the mill depression, no
biggie.”
Jane smiled. “Not to be dramatic or anything”
“I need coffee,” Meg declared as she stood up and dragged herself over to the
kitchen station.
Jane actually loved teaching but she knew being a library assistant was not her
colleague’s first choice of jobs. Meg was a few years younger than her and the rest of
Chapter Twelve
the teachers, and she was snarky as hell, but somehow they’d formed an easy
friendship.
Or as Meg had said some time ago, “You’re way better to hang out with than
half the fossils in this place.”
Milo got up to get some coffee as well and Jane was left staring around the
room. Then she spotted him, the janitor. Tarzan. He was over on the other side of the
room putting fresh plastic bags into the trash cans. She quickly scrambled to fix her
hair in its loose bun. Should she leave the stray bits out? Was that sexy or messy
looking?
Leaving her hair as it was, Jane quickly took off her glasses and uncrossed
then recrossed her legs, smoothing down the material of her skirt.
She tried to keep her head forward as she took a few subtle glances in his
direction. He was too busy, he wasn’t looking. Once he was done, Tarzan took a hold
of his cart and pushed it across to the door. Jane whipped her head around quickly,
making sure to only slightly turn her head just as he was walking past. It was well
timed. She caught his eye and he smiled at her, giving a little nod. She smiled back
and waved. Then he walked on and out the door.
Jane grinned as she sat back in her chair, pleased with herself. That was well
played in her opinion.
“What the hell was that about?”
Jane was startled as Meg stood behind her, sipping her coffee from a snoopy
mug.
“What? What do you mean… and how long have you just been standing
there?”
“Long enough to see you making eyes at the Janitor,” Meg said flatly.
Jane huffed “I wasn’t making eyes… I was being friendly.”
Meg didn’t look at all convinced. “Friendly, eh?”
Jane submitted.
“Okay, maybe I was making eyes at him a little bit. But you have to admit, he is
handsome.” She smiled deviously.
Chapter Twelve
Meg looked semi-impressed as she sat
down again “Wow, I wouldn’t have thought
tall, tanned and dreadlocked was your
type.”
“And what did you think my type
was?”
“Skinny, pale and sweater vested.”
Milo turned around from the coffee
pot like he’d been called.
“Not talking about you
Milo,” Meg called over her
shoulder. “So why didn’t
you go up and talk to
him? Get his number?
Unbutton that cardigan a
little bit as he went past?”
Jane laughed “Meg!”
“Come on, go for it. There’s
not exactly an abundance of eligible
bachelors around this dump, except for Jim… mmm, that man. If you’d have told me
three years that I would find a lower grade Science teacher sexy, I would have
laughed, but I’ll be damned if Mr. Hawkins hasn’t swayed me… but no, let’s stay
focused. Ask this janitor out and get his number.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, I can’t just go up and ask for his number! He’d think I’m
ridiculous… plus I bet he must have a girlfriend already… and he’s the janitor for
God’s sake!” Jane waved her off.
“So? You can make out in his janitorial closet in between teaching kids to
finger paint. What’s not to love?”
“Keep your voice down!” Jane hushed at Meg, looking sheepishly at Frollo as
he strolled past, giving them a raised eyebrow.
“What’s this about finger painting in the janitor’s closet?” Kida, the lower
school girls’ Phys Ed teacher, said as she came over.
Chapter Twelve
“It’s nothing Kida-”
“Jane wants to get freaky with a mop jockey!” Meg called out with glee. Jane
buried her face in her hands.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Jasmine and Rapunzel were sitting around on the grass by the student car
park, waiting for Mulan and Ariel to show up in Aquata’s death race style carpool.
Jasmine was flipping through a sketchbook of Rapunzel’s.
“Wow, you’re so good,” she said and Rapunzel looked self conscious.
“They’re only really practice drawings and me mucking around, some are just
scribbles…” she trailed off.
“Don’t sell yourself short; these are, like, a million times better than I could
ever do.” Jasmine smiled encouragingly as she turned over the pages. “I can barely
do stick figures.”
There were some sketches of girls with long flowing hair coloured in
watercolours, lots of pages of flowers, some realistic but some stylized, with curling
tendrils of ivy snaking around the pages in swirls. There was a picture of an angel
wearing a beautiful gold dress with huge wings where Rapunzel had outlined every
single feather. There were mermaids, with tails that were at least five different colours
with patterns of stars and swirls. When Jasmine turned another page she blinked.
There were four cartoon girls, all drawn in a line and coloured in pencil. The first had
straight shoulder length black hair and a sports uniform on, the next had bright red
long hair and black punk clothing, the one next to her had short brown hair and a
paintbrush and the last one had long wavy black hair and a crop top on and a little
gold belly button ring.
“Is this us?” she grinned and Rapunzel turned a little red and nodded. Jasmine
saw the caption underneath, written in pink gel pen.
‘My School friends’
Jasmine looked so touched. She leant over and gave Rapunzel a quick hug
right there “Oh my god, this is the cutest thing ever! Can I get a copy? We can scan it
in the school library and print them out, one’s for Mulan and Ariel too!”
Chapter Twelve
“Really?” Rapunzel asked.
“Yeah! They’ll definitely want a copy, this is seriously awesome. Thank you so
much!”
Rapunzel beamed. “I’m glad you like it, I thought I kind of made Mulan’s legs
look a bit wonky. Plus I only know how to draw heels from the side, so your feet are
kind of sticking out funny, and I think I outlined Ariel’s eyes with too much black pen
for her makeup.”
“I don’t care, I think it’s amazing,” Jasmine shushed her. Then she noticed a
figure walking towards them on the footpath over her friend’s shoulder.
“Oh, my God, turn around slowly, but not obviously,” she said in a hushed
whisper as Rapunzel did as she was told, subtly glancing around until she saw a male
teacher, carrying a stack of folders under one tanned arm.
He was handsome.
Very handsome.
“Our science teacher?” she asked and Jasmine sighed wistfully.
“The one and only. The love of every female Disney High student’s life.”
Jim Hawkins. Lower school science teacher.
Expects A grades: Is a Grade A hunk.
“He’s the one person giving me faith in the entire male gender at this point.
Too bad he’s like, twenty-seven,” Jasmine shrugged, her gaze following him. “You
seriously didn’t fall in love with him the moment you walked into his class?”
Rapunzel shook her head. “Not really, he was nice though… and I can kind of
figure why all of you guys were sitting right up front and answering every question
now,” she laughed.
Jasmine rolled her eyes at herself. “I know, it’s pathetic. We turn into simpering
little embarrassments in his presence, my inner feminist hates me for the hour I
spend in his class… still, he is the reason I can remember so many facts about our
solar system.”
Chapter Twelve
They both laughed but tried to stifle it as Jim Hawkins actually walked past. He
gave them both a brief nod when he caught them looking.
“Morning girls,” he said with a smile.
“Morning Mr. Hawkins,” they both chanted back in unison.
Their gazes followed him all the way up to the school.
Too distracted by the sexy, they ignored the sound of a faint car horn.
They were less distracted by the sexy when there was a screech of car tires and
an even louder horn, where they both whipped their heads around just in time to
scream and jump up from the grass as a Jeep slammed into the curb, its front
bumper just driving up onto the grass where they’d been sitting a second ago,
before rolling back down and coming to a gentle stop in the parking bay.
Eyes wide and shaking slightly, both Rapunzel and Jasmine gaped as Ariel and
Mulan jumped out of the Jeep’s back seat and ran over to them.
“Oh my God, are you guys okay?!” Ariel said as she hurried over.
“If it’s any consolation, I was also scared for my life just then,” Mulan added.
Arista stumbled out of the front passenger seat looking shaken and Aquata
leant out her driver’s side window looking apologetic. “My bad!” she called out,
wincing. “Please don’t sue me with your fancy rich people lawyers, Jasmine!”
Jasmine gave a small, mute, wave to indicate she was fine, bending down to
scoop up the contents of her purse which had spilled everywhere as she had dived
out of the way.
“I say we bike to school from now on,” Ariel muttered, grabbing Jasmines
pencil case for her.
“Seconded,” Mulan said flatly.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
The Senior Drama class was a joke.
Chapter Twelve
I’m sure at many schools the students who take Drama are actually aspiring
actors and actresses who have dreams of making it onto Broadway or the big screen.
But not at Disney high. Not this group of students.
“I hope they don’t stick us with some lame Shakespeare stuff; I can’t
understand any of it. Unless we do like a modern version of it where we’re in space
or something. That could be cool,” Aladdin wondered out loud as he sat cross legged
on the school’s auditorium stage.
“Nah, Mr. Clopin never makes us do existing plays, he makes up his own
‘masterpieces’,” Phoebus explained. “By Which I mean he rips off around three
already popular plays or movies and mashes them together.”
Esmeralda nods. “Last year was kind of like if you took Desperate Housewives
and mixed it up with Scarface and the Sopranos, but it was kind of like if it was in a
1920’s noir detective movie.”
“And told entirely from a dogs point of view,” Flynn added.
“I… really can’t imagine that.”
“It was the most decent thing we’ve done. Thirty-five people showed up to the
opening night, which was better than our retelling of the events of pearl harbour as if
it was a trashy reality show,” Phoebus shrugged.
Aladdin stared.
“We were going for edgy that year.”
As the four friends sat in their little group waiting for Mr. Clopin to show up,
they were quite used to his perpetual lateness, Lottie hung back with Aquata and
Giselle.
“I swore he was taking this class too, I checked his time table,” Lottie said
irritably, her eyes on the doors.
“New kids sometimes change classes in the first couple of weeks, especially
electives. It’s normal,” Giselle shrugged but this made Lottie pout childishly.
“But I want Naveen to have this class! Can you imagine if we do a romance
story and he gets the main lead and I get to play the heroine and his love interest…
Chapter Twelve
ugh, kiss scene, sign me up!” she giggled. “He could be the Prince and I’ll be his
princess!”
Giselle laughed. “And what if you get assigned a kiss scene with, oh I don’t
know, Gaston or something?” she pointed over to where the footballer was goofing
around with his friends, also taking this class. Lottie pulled a face.
“Urgh, don’t even joke about that, I would never go there. Head quarterback
or not.”
“What about Flynn Ryder then?” Aquata kept going, jabbing her friend in the
shoulder. “Can you imagine your romantic kiss scene with him?”
Lottie swatted her away. “Uh, make that a complete and utter NO!” she
laughed.
“But he is funny though… and kind of really good looking. I wouldn’t mind a
kiss scene with Phoebus either,” Giselle shrugged but Lottie turned on her.
“Giselle, come on. Funny is one thing, him and Phoebus are like the class
clowns and everyone likes them and whatever, I get it, but no self respecting girl ever
actually dates them, you know?” she explained matter-of-factly.
“Hey, I never said I had plans to date them! I’m just saying they’re kind of cute!
In that kind of… messy way”
“Messy?” Aquata scoffed.
“You know what I mean. And who are you to talk, you hooked up with Flynn
last year at Tinkerbell’s beach party” she shot back.
“Pfft, I was totally on my fourth drink by then; that barely counts…”
“Guys, we’re losing focus!” Lottie snapped at them.
“…Focus on what?” they both asked.
“Ah, how about my master plans on making Naveen fall madly in love with
me? Let’s focus on that! First, I need to find out what he likes in a girl. The basic
statistics. What colour he likes them to wear most, please god let it be pink, what
kind of movies, food, sports, and/or books he’s interested in, and which I should then
become interested in-”
Chapter Twelve
Speaking of the devil, the theatre doors opened with a loud bang and the
students all whipped around, expecting Clopin, but Naveen smiled dashingly as all
eyes were on him.
“Morning everyone,” he said smoothly as he strut up past the seats to the
stage. You’d think he was George Clooney rocking up to his latest movie set, the
amount of confidence he oozed. It looked like Lottie had to stop herself from
squealing out loud.
A chorus of girls said good morning back to him in simpering voices and Flynn
made a fake gagging sound.
“I can’t stand guys like that, with his chinos and little collared shirt and the
holiday beach house you just know his family has up state,” Flynn muttered over to
the others while Naveen was swarmed by his other classmates.
Phoebus nodded along wisely. “So basically you’re just insanely jealous over
how much money, charm, and charisma he so obviously has?”
“…Maybe.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t kind of hate him a little bit too,” Aladdin said to
Phoebus. “The guy who has it all so easy. Money, the clothes, the girls…” he listed off
on his fingers.
“First, I have enough money, and plus I don’t think it’s very important anyway.
Secondly, I like my own clothes and I don’t care what he does or doesn’t wear, and
third, all those girls that go after guys like that? Not my type,” Phoebus shrugged
casually.
Flynn looked doubtful “So you’re not jealous in the least?”
“Nope.”
“Not one bit?”
“‘Jealousy is an ugly emotion and only for the weak,’” Phoebus quoted. “He
does his thing, I do mine; I literally could not care in the least.”
“This is what we call ‘a mature’ way of looking at things,” Esmeralda smirked at
Flynn, patting Phoebus on the shoulder.
Flynn stuck out his tongue and made a fart sound.
Chapter Twelve
His friends expected nothing less.
“So, moving on, is your Mom back from her vacation yet?” Phoebus asked and
Flynn seemed to revert back to being an eighteen-year-old instead of acting like he
was five.
“The road trip with what’s-his-name has been extended another week and a
half apparently. I just got a call last night at like 10pm. Downside, now I have to cover
this month’s electricity and water bills just so they don’t get shut off. Upside, more
time alone to myself to do what I want. Last night I put an old CD in the microwave. I
think I might have breathed in fumes I probably shouldn’t have, but yeah. I don’t
regret my decision.”
“Why would you put a perfectly good CD in the microwave?” Aladdin asked.
“Just to see what would happen. And don’t worry; it was just a Nickelback
album.”
“That’s so bad,” Esmeralda said, shaking her head.
“I know, I don’t even know why I bought it in the first place, that photograph
song is so bad it makes me violent.”
“No Flynn, I’m not talking about Nickelback.” Esmeralda rolled her eyes. “The
fact that your Mom is always away and leaves you to just fend for yourself!”
“Fend for myself?” he scoffed. “God, you make it sound like I’ve been left in
the wilderness to scavenge for berries. I have a perfectly good toasted sandwich
maker and like fifty leftover Dominos coupons. I am perfectly set up to eat for the
next week and a half.”
“Please tell me you are not solely living off grilled cheese sandwiches and
meat lover’s pizza?” Phoebus asked.
“…You say that like it’s a bad thing?”
“Well where do you get the money to pay off these bills then?” Esmeralda
pressed.
“As if I don’t know where Mom stuffs her scratch card winnings under her
mattress. Plus I totally took a fifty from her purse before she left. Just in case.”
Chapter Twelve
If there was one thing Flynn couldn’t stand, it was sympathetic looks. And
three of his best friends were giving them to him right now.
“Plus I’ve been super conservative with how much energy and water I’ve been
using anyway. I only keep one room’s lights switched on at a time and I haven’t
showered in like, three days!” he tried to smile reassuringly. Esmeralda took a step
back from him over the shower remark.
“Do you even know the name of the guy your Mom’s gone away with?”
“Uh, I think it starts with a K… he’d pretty new and I only met him once…
Kevin? Keenan? …Kyle maybe?” Flynn muttered out loud.
“Listen, Flynn…” Esmeralda started softly.
“No, wait, I got it. It was Ken. I remember now because when I met him he
introduced himself and made some joke about my mom being his Barbie and I
almost threw up in my mouth a little bit.”
“Flynn!”
Flynn winced. “What? Guys, seriously, chill. This isn’t even a deal. In fact, it’s a
good thing! Mom’s not here this weekend? Uh, house to myself? You see where I’m
going with this? Can anyone say EPIC PARTY?!” he clapped his hands together and
tried to snap his friends out of giving him those damn looks and get them hyped up.
“Chips, dip, sex, drugs, and rock and roll! …Okay so not so much the sex and
drugs part, but there will be chips and dip. Doritos even.”
Phoebus, Esmeralda and Aladdin exchanged looks before Phoebus shrugged.
They submitted.
“I guess a party would be good.”
Obviously a Dr. Phil style breaking down and opening up about his
relationship with his mother was not on Flynn’s cards right now. Might as well go
along with his obvious and totally healthy attempts to crush his feelings.
“Nice. So you guys, plus Pocahontas and Quasi if his parent’s aren’t being
super lame. Boom. There’s a party right there.”
Flynn looked pleased with himself before a certain voice made itself heard
behind them.
Chapter Twelve
“There’s a party?”
Flynn’s face immediately fell. “Nope. No. No party. Not one ounce of party
happening here, no sir.”
Naveen snaked his way over, removing himself from the
throng of girls and casually flinging an arm around
Esmeralda’s shoulder while he was at it as he smiled at the
group. “Ah, I think I did hear something about a party,” he
smiled.
Esmeralda didn’t move his arm away. A few girls
behind them glared daggers at her. “My, what good
hearing you have…” she smirked, arms folded.
Naveen let out a loud laugh. “Haha! Oh, Es,
you’re so funny!”
Aladdin frowned and leant over to Phoebus.
“Was that even meant to be a joke?”
“Anyway, so yes, party at yours is it… Aahh?” Naveen
gazed at Flynn, lost for his name.
Flynn glared. “Mike. Mike Rotch.”
There’s that maturity showing again.
“Well nice to meet you Mike,” he said, oblivious to the
joke. “So what kind of party is it? I’m new here, obviously, and I
want to get to know my new classmates. Especially the friends
of Es, who I’ve already had the pleasure of meeting, and what
better way than a genuine American house party?”
“Yeah, listen, it’s kind of just gonna be a small thing
over at my house and-”
“You having a party, Ryder?”
All of a sudden Gaston swaggered over with his little
group and Flynn’s face screwed up even more.
Chapter Twelve
“Ah, not really, n-” but the football boys were set.
“Sweet! Party at Flynn’s house!” Gaston hollered out to the rest of the class.
“Nice, I got a keg I can bring. Dad bought it but I can totally swipe it from the
garage.”
“Can I bring my girlfriend… and some of her friends? …and maybe a couple of
their boyfriends?”
“Can we come Flynn? Pleeeease? I know the rest of the cheer girls would want
to!”
“Is it ok if we crash at yours after?”
“Do you mind if people hook up in your bathroom? Because if you do, that’s
cool, I don’t mind using a closet or whatever.”
“Will there be chips and dip?”
Flynn stood there, mouth set in a thin line, as the entire Drama class barraged
him with questions. He stared over mournfully at Phoebus who shrugged at him,
telepathically telling him, ‘You brought this on yourself, dude. You were the one who
wanted the party.’
He tried the look with Esmeralda. She held up her iPhone which was open to
the facebook event page she was already in the middle of creating. Great help she
was.
Flynn looked back to the hopeful eyes of his classmates as they stared at him.
“Fine. I guess this is happening then… Ugh, whatever. Party at nine Friday
night!”
A cheer erupted.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Pocahontas paced nervously outside Mr. Waltz’s office, a bunch of papers and
research held in her hands. She kept on flipping over the pages, her chicken scratch
writing scribbled over some of the pages.
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She cleared her throat. “Mr. Walt… I very much appreciate you taking the time
to schedule in this meeting today… I am here to talk about-no wait, discuss sounds
better-I am here to discuss the issue of the new parking lot and the destruction of
the quad… does destruction sound too aggressive? Demolishment? …Is that a word?”
Muriel the receptionist stared on in silence, one eyebrow raised, as
Pocahontas continued to mutter to herself as she practiced her opening pitch.
“I suggest to you the notion that we should explore other options. Indeed,
perhaps, a school dance that we could use to make money off of… um, use to our
financial advantage… to increase replacement funding in another such… area.
Uuuurgh,” Pocahontas groaned as she thwapped the papers to her head.
The door to the office opened and Tiana walked in, flyers in hand. She caught
site of Pocahontas.
“Oh, hey girl! Whatsup,” she said brightly. She was a rare case of someone
who enjoyed their Mondays.
Pocahontas turned to face her like she was a godsend.
“Tiana! Oh my God, thank you for showing up!”
Tiana blanked “Um… you’re welcome?”
Pocahontas had rushed over and had her gripped by the shoulders, making
her eyes widen. “Um, are you okay?”
“Yeah, I am now! I’m stressing out about telling our idea!-”
“Our idea?”
“-But thank God you showed up! Did I text you about it this morning? I don’t
remember, but this whole morning has been a blur. I got into the library early to print
off a whole bunch of stuff to show him about the quad and the school layout plans
and alternative place to put the quad. I didn’t sleep much either. I also had a coffee
shot this morning. Or three. But it’s okay now, because you’re here!”
Tiana gaped. She had never seen Pocahontas as anything as cool, calm, and
composed.
This? …This was scary.
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She took the girl by the hand and patted it gently. “Uh, it’s okay. I’m here. It’s
all good. It’ll go fine. Deep breaths.”
Pocahontas took one big inhale and exhale and settled herself “Okay… okay,
I’m good. I just really want to save this quad. It’s really important to me you know?”
Tiana nodded. “Yeah, I get it, and you know I totally support you.”
Pocahontas smiled. “I know, and I really appreciate it. The fact that you’ve
come and decided to join me to make this dance happen… I can’t even say how
grateful I am! We’re gonna save this quad side by side and make it happen by
ourselves if we have too!”
Tiana froze, her hand still in Pocahontas’s.
“You… you think I’m going to? …I just meant that I was… I mean, I am-”
She’d just come down to the offices to give some teachers her study group
flyers so they could pass them out in their classes.
Pocahontas thought she was here to help save the quad with this whole
dance; she’d just been there yesterday when it was suggested. How did Pocahontas
get it in her head that she was all of a sudden part of this?
She couldn’t help organize some dance, she was way too busy! The study
group, exams, work…
But Pocahontas was looking at her with such hopeful eyes.
“I… I…”
‘Just say no, goddamnit!”
…But those eyes. Why did they have to be so big and brown? Why did Tiana
have to be such a nice person? She caved. She caved hard.
“Yeah! Lets save the quad!” Tiana said excitedly as Pocahontas let out a whoop
of excitement and hugged her.
Mentally, Tiana wanted to slap her good nature.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Chapter Twelve
Ariel let out a deep breath as she stood outside the school’s performing arts
building’s music rooms.
Students could hire them after school to practice in. This is where she and Eric
would have their first date.
Well, technically it was not a date. Not to him anyway. But she totally counted
it as one.
She had on a black pleated skirt with a baseball shirt that had the Ramones
written across it and a pair of purple Dr. Martens on her feet. Mulan had put her hair
up in a high ponytail and Jasmine had insisted on smearing lip gloss on her. Ariel
didn’t like it too much, it was way too sticky. Other than that she had some pretty
slick looking eyeliner on in that cat’s eye style. She’d googled how to apply it last
night and it took maybe seven attempts before she nailed the technique, but nail, it
she did.
Hearing a few random drum beats and guitar strumming from inside, Ariel
couldn’t help but smile in anticipation as she pushed open the door.
“Hellooo?” she sang out as her head poked around the door.
“Ariel!” Eric turned around, greeting her. He even went in for a one armed hug,
his guitar strung over the other. “How are you?”
Ariel leaned into him, a goofy smile on her face. “Ah, I’m good. You?”
“Decent, decent… just working out a few chords.” He plucked a few of the
strings on his black and white electric guitar which was already plugged into one of
the schools old amps.
“Wow, that sounds awesome!” Ariel said brightly. She heard a scoff from
behind her.
“Uh, he didn’t play anything? They were just random practice chords.”
Audrey sat behind the drumkit in the back, looking unimpressed with Ariel’s
presence.
“Um, hi, nice to meet you,” Ariel said, trying to be polite.
Audrey raised an eyebrow. “You don’t remember me?”
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Ariel blinked.
“From the skatepark? You know, where you stacked it? Hit the bricks? Failed
so spectacularly?”
Eric threw a warning look over at Audrey from where Ariel couldn’t see.
Basically telling her to play nice.
“Don’t mind her, she’s this way with everybody” Another voice said. Ariel
turned again to see a boy come out from what must have been a supply room,
carrying a couple of music stands. He was skinny with messy looking red hair and a
baby face. He grinned at Ariel though she grinned back. “Hey, I’m Peter.”
“Hey Peter, I’m Ariel.”
“Yeah, Eric mentioned you.”
“Oh,” Ariel said simply had, mentally suppressing the urge to high-five herself
over the fact that Eric had totally mentioned her to his friends. It was so cool that it
still overshadowed a glaring Audrey in the corner.
“So you like the Ramones?” Eric asked as picked up his guitar, nodding to her
shirt.
“Yeah! Well, I’m only really just getting into them-” Ariel admitted, “-but so far
I think they’re awesome! I know all the words to Blitzkreig Bop off by heart; I’ve had it
on repeat so much!”
“Nice choice. Everyone loves that one but for good reason,” Eric laughed. “I
know every chord for it.” He tapped on his guitar.
“So do you play any instruments?” Peter asked, picking up his own bass.
Ariel shrugged “I played the recorder in grade school?” she said, making them
laugh “-But other than that, nothing. Well… no, nothing.”
“No, come on tell us, you were about to mention something,” Eric smiled at
her and she blushed.
“Well… I kind of sing a little.”
“Really? Like, choir singing or in the glee club?”
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Ariel couldn’t help but screw up her face. “Ew.” which made them laugh again.
“No, no. Nothing that required staying late after school or anything. It’s just
something I’ve always liked doing I guess. I think the most esteemed venue I’ve ever
played in is my own shower.”
Eric nodded, interested. “I’m the singer in our band as well, not that I can
reach high notes or actually have much of a talent for it, but our style doesn’t really
need it.”
“That and we can’t find anyone else…” Audrey joked.
Just then Peter’s eyes lit up. “Why don’t you sing for us?” he asked Ariel.
Ariel stopped on the spot “What? You mean right now” she laughed but Peter
nodded, a childlike excitement coming over him.
“Why not?! You just said yourself you know all the words to Blitzkrieg Bop,
which we can practically play in our sleep. Come on, for some fun!”
“I dunno…” Ariel fidgeted, looking over to Eric until Audrey raised her voice.
“Yeah, come on guys, we gotta practice other songs that we don’t know
already and we don’t have time to have a sing along with Red here.”
Ariel assumed ‘Red’ was her. She didn’t know if she liked the nickname.
“Aw, Audrey, we have plenty of time to practice other stuff, we can have one
song and then I promise we will get down to the serious business that is covering
Blondie’s greatest hits,” Eric decided. Audrey slumped down in her drum seat and
muttered something in Spanish.
Eric chucked a microphone to Ariel who just caught it, winding the cord away
from her feet so she wouldn’t trip.
“Ready when you are?”
Ariel turned red. “I don’t remember agreeing to this.” She laughed but Eric just
flashed her a gorgeous smile as they got into position.
“But I wanna’ see what you’ve got, Red.”
Ariel beamed. Maybe Red wasn’t such a bad nickname… you know, when Eric
said it.
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All of a sudden Eric let out a massive echoing chord on his guitar.
“Good evening Disney High music classroom!” he called out to an invisible
audience “Are you ready to rock!?”
Ariel laughed as Audrey rolled her eyes and Peter let out a loud wolf howl,
devil horns up.
“I said, ARE YOU READY TO ROCK!?”
This time Ariel let out her own yell along with Peter and even Audrey let out a
sarcastic little ‘whoo’, though smiling.
“They do this every lesson,” she muttered to Ariel before tapping her
drumsticks together. “One, two. One, two, three, four!”
And then they were into it, the previously silent music room filled with sound.
Audrey beating on her drums, Peter on his bass and Eric’s fingers running fast paced
over his guitar strings.
Ariel’s mouth felt dry but she counted the beats with a tap of her foot until
she found her cue.
“Hey, ho. Let’s go!
Hey, ho. Let’s go!”
She started, her voice soft, unsure of herself.
“Hey, ho. Let’s go!
Hey, ho. Let’s go!”
The next time she repeated the chorus, Eric and Peter joined in.
Her mouth felt dry and she felt their eyes on her, but Eric smiled at her
encouragingly. Ariel felt her confidence rise an iota. She couldn’t be doing that badly.
She got through the first verse and now she felt into it, her voice rising, a huge
smile on her face. She couldn’t even help herself moving around to the beat, trailing
the microphone cord as she jumped along.
She looked over to the guys again and she could see they were into it too,
nodding their own heads along to the beats. Even Audrey was smiling now. Ariel
Chapter Twelve
suddenly felt something amazing wash over her; they were just four people loving
music right now. She didn’t feel stupid or shy singing for them like she thought she
would, this felt so natural and just… fun!
Half way through the repeat of the verses Ariel messed around by going right
up to Eric, her punk attitude taking over, singing up to his face with fake bravado. He
joined in to the point where he was hamming it up along with her, jumping around
with his guitar, both of them trying not to laugh.
Ariel was back and dancing in her own private mosh pit as she sang, doing
kicks and twirls and flipping her wild red ponytail around with gusto for the final
repeat of the lyrics.
With the sudden end to the song with the last chord, Ariel finally stopped,
breathless, flushed and grinning so wide her cheeks actually hurt.
Peter let out a loud whistle and Eric actually clapped. Even Audrey looked at
Ariel with more respect.
Ariel did a theatrically little bow in front of them, looking sheepish as silence
filled the room again.
“You were awesome!” Eric gave her a two handed high-five.
“I can never play that song enough, classic,” Peter smiled.
“You were better than I thought you were gonna be,” Audrey shrugged.
Coming from her this was probably a huge compliment.
Ariel felt breathless and deliriously happy. Here she was, singing with this
amazing guy and his friends and loving every minute of it. She’d sing at home with
her sisters to the radio in their bedrooms, with hairbrushes for microphones, but this
felt different.
“We should totally get you to cover more songs with us,” Peter suggested.
“Seriously, it makes all these old rock songs sound new and different with a girl on
vocals, no offence man,” he said quickly to Eric.
“None taken, you’re right, that was awesome. I’d totally be up if you sang for
us another time.” While Ariel gaped at them at a loss for words with excitement, he
Chapter Twelve
seemed to mull it over a bit more. “Actually… Ariel, do you have much else going on
in your life right now?”
“Uuuum…”
“Wait, let me phrase that better. Are you free every Monday after school,
Friday nights, and Sunday?” he smiled.
Peter cottoned on quicker than Ariel. “Oh,yes! I know what you’re doing man
and I am totally on board! Yes!” He couldn’t stand still as he went and flung an arm
around Ariel’s shoulder.
Ariel felt like her heart was going to explode as Eric turned to Audrey “What
do you think about it?”
Audrey tried to look as indifferent as she could. “She’s got a better voice than
you’ll ever have.”
“So that’s a yes, yes, yes on the voting ballot! Election closed! Red’s in!” Peter
called out.
“You are free those nights then aren’t you?” Eric asked to Ariel, who was now
barely able to contain herself. “Because those are our band’s official practice nights
so-” but before he could even finish, Ariel had flung her arms around his shoulders in
a bone crushing hug.
“Am I the new singer in your band!?” she practically screamed as Eric started
spinning her around the room.
“What do you think?” he laughed and Ariel shrieked again from the pure joy.
Peter somehow managed to slam into them, dragging Audrey with him, arms
wrapping their way around them all.
“BAND HUG!”
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If Belle had been in a better mood for it she would be humming the mission
impossible theme song along in her head right now.
Chapter Twelve
Mostly because she’d been slinking slowly from building to building since her
last class had ended. Right now was at the corner of the hallway that would lead to
the seniors quad. She poked her head around quickly, her sunglasses on and her
little beige winter hat on. Her inconspicuous disguise. She ducked back as she caught
a glimpse of one of the senior football guys approaching his locker. Waiting until he
was busy, grabbing a spray can and applying a way too generous amount of Axe
body spray, Belle shuffled down the hall at top speed past him, making her footfalls
silent and keeping her head turned and face down at all times.
It had been like this all day. Making sure she avoided every single one of the
guys who had witnessed her humiliation at the mall the other day.
Oh wait, let me rephrase that, been the cause of her humiliation at the mall
the other day.
They’d all seen the book, they had all jeered, and God knows what they must
think of her right now. God knows what they’d say to her face as soon as they caught
sight of her! Just this morning when she’d arrived at the steps to the school, she’d
heard a guy making lewd sounds behind her, only to turn around and find out he
was looking right at her. Belle would have asked him what on earth he thought he
was doing but then he started acting out some utterly disgusting gestures and it was
clear he was attempting to be on attempting. She didn’t even know this guy! He
definitely hadn’t been at the mall, but being a smart girl Belle could guess, by the Ed
Hardy shirt and beefed up upper body, that he was one of Gaston’s friends. He
must’ve told everybody about that damn thought it was all some big joke. Belle kept
her dignity and shut her mouth, leaving the comedic genius laughing behind her.
Now she could go home, after a long day of skulking between classes and
hiding in the girls’ toilets at lunch. The only problem left was that fact that her bus
left right from the stop across from the quad. she walked across it after school
everyday before this no hassle, but then again it wasn’t littered with seniors that
knew she purchased a sex book (unwillingly) every day. They were just normal seniors
then, now they were the enemy. She’d considered just waiting an extra half an hour
until they’d definitely all gone home but then she would have missed her bus.
Cue mission impossible theme song again.
Belle was just down the hall and through the double doors to the quad, so
close to the stop, all she had to do was bolt across the grassed area for a good fifty
Chapter Twelve
metres and she was clear. Distracted by the sense of glorious freedom, she forgot to
do a proper clearance check.
“Hey!” a guy’s voice called out gruffly from behind her and Belle froze, turning
around wide eyed, only to come face to face with Adam.
“Oh, my God, you!” she exclaimed, hand over her chest, relieved that it wasn’t
one of Gaston’s cronies.
Adam sneered as he walked up to her. “A cheery hello to you too.”
“What do you want?” Belle asked, not even angry, just sounding tired. She just
wanted this day to end and she didn’t know if she could deal with this guy right now.
“What’s with the hat and glasses?”
“Can you just answer the question?”
“Can’t you just answer mine?”
The two stared each other down.
“I’m going to miss my bus if I stay and chat.”
“I’ll drive you home.”
“You have your license already?”
“My driver has his license already.”
“You have a driver?”
“Rich, remember?”
“Oh yeah… wait, if you’re rich and can hire real chauffeurs and maids or
whatever, why are you trying to convince me to be your personal slave?”
“If I said, ‘for the fun of it,’ doe’s that count as a valid answer?”
“…”
“I’m going to take that glare as a no.”
Chapter Twelve
Belle tried walking away. “I’m sorry but I don’t have time for this, I really need
to go. Not just to catch my bus but to avoid all the ‘classy’ people that count as
Gaston’s friends.”
Adam only walked alongside her across the grass. “They’ve been giving you
shit about the book?” he guessed correctly. Belle’s thin lipped silence spoke volumes.
“You know they won’t give you shit if you hang around me” he said casually.
Belle scoffed “Why, because they’re afraid of you?”
“Yeah,” he stated. Just to clarify, he stated it, not said it.
Stated it like a fact.
“Please, the other day Gaston was in your face about to punch you for even
standing up against him.”
“Ok, maybe Gaston’s not as afraid of me as the others, but his team and his
friends are. As soon as he’s not around they won’t even look me in the eye in the
hall.”
“So you’d be my big bad protector? Glaring down anyone who mimes
something gross at me on the school steps?” Belle said sarcastically.
“Pretty much. Except replace the word ‘glaring’ with ‘punching.’”
Belle doubted Adam did sarcasm.
Belle stopped in her tracks and turned to face him, taking off her sunglasses
and looking him straight in the eye. “This is just another way to convince me to hang
around you being your slave isn’t it?”
Adam smiled. “Not at all.”
Okay, maybe he did do sarcasm.
Belle sighed, actually letting out a sad little laugh at the state of her life as it
was right now “Look, okay, I really do appreciate you standing up for me the other
day in the mall and offering to beat people up for me is… well, primitive and so
utterly testosterone driven-but also kind of sweet when viewed from a certain angle…
so thank you. For that. All of this ‘slave’ stuff though? I just-”
Chapter Twelve
“Personal assistant, not slave.”
“-I just don’t want to degrade myself.”
“You wouldn’t be degrading yourself though. You think I’m going to have you
scrubbing my floors and dressing in a monkey outfit to amuse me?”
“I’m worried that that’s even the first thing that came to your head.”
“You’re doing this for your Dad, remember, and I’m giving you my word that I
will talk to my Dad and I can guarantee he’ll keep your Dad hired. No matter what, I
can make that happen. I’m a spoilt only child, I basically get whatever I ask for. I also
have divorce guilt working in my favour. I think it’s actually kind of… you know…
respectful that you’d try and help your Dad however you can.”
Belle gave a small smile but didn’t look convinced.
“Okay, how ‘bout this. You get me coffee every morning, maybe get me
snacks from the vending machine when I want them, but also you have to sit with me
at lunch everyday… and come over on Saturdays… maybe every second Sunday too.
I’ll work out the details,” Adam shrugged and looked down at Belle like this was
perfectly reasonable.
Belle found this so utterly insane she couldn’t help but smile. “Adam… you’re
really really pushing this aren’t you? Are you… are you doing this just to force me to
hang out with you?”
“…Maybe.”
Now she laughed “Oh my God, you are.”
“I also do kind of want you to do my homework for me, so don’t read into
anything here-”
But Belle cut him off, “I will help you with your homework.”
“And alphabetize my DVD collection?”
“Only by name, not by genre.”
“So you’re agreeing to this then? You’ll be my personal assistant?”
“Only if you can promise my dad a job.” She put out her hand to shake.
Chapter Twelve
He took it, his large hand practically covering her own tiny one, and shook
hard.
“Meet me out the front of the school tomorrow then, on the grass. I like my
coffee large and without cream or sugar,” he said, businesslike and Belle smirked.
“Got it.”
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“Paaaartaaaay at Flynn’s house, Paaaaartaaay at Flynn’s house~” Esmeralda
sang along endlessly as she danced ahead of everyone to Phoebus’s car.
“Oh hey, party at Flynn’s house this Friday, spread the word,” she mentioned
with a smile to strangers passing by in the car park. “And you with the pigtails, party
at this guy’s house, spread the word!”
Flynn hung back with his hands dragging across his face, “Somebody tell her
she’s not funny…”
“The event page already has 98 people attending,” Quasi noted with a smile as
he checked his phone.
“Urgh, my house barely fits two people comfortably. Our bathroom doubles as
a laundry room. You have to stand in the tub to use the ironing board!”
“Don’t worry, it’s like the unwritten equation of house parties that you need to
invite double the amount of people you actually want to show up, because at least
half will bail,” Pocahontas said.
“Yeah but it’s only been five hours since that page was created. Give it a week,
who knows how many people would have seen that page,” Aladdin smiled, actually
excited. “Man, I haven’t been to a party in months, not since I moved.”
As he said this, something lying on the grass caught his eye and he bent down
to scoop it up. A couple of pieces of scrunched up paper stapled together. This
wasn’t unnoticed by the others.
“I can’t afford to feed this many people. Can I just buy a bag of Cheetos and
leave it at that?”
Chapter Twelve
“I thought you promised the people chips and dip?” Phoebus asked as he got
his keys out and his car opened with the little beeping sounds.
“And Obama promised to cut their taxes. Welcome to the real world,” Flynn
huffed as he opened the front door. “Shotgun.”
Quasi piled into the back first, with Aladdin getting in on his right and
Pocahontas on the left, Esmeralda squeezing in to sit on Pocahontas’s lap. Illegal and
unsafe, yes, but they had to learn to adjust for the addition of Aladdin to the carpool.
“Shift over a little, girl, your belt’s spikes are sticking into my stomach”
Pocahontas prodded at her friends back.
“You’ve got to suffer for fashion.”
“The person who invented that saying wasn’t in this position, now move your
butt.”
“Only because I love you,” Esmeralda smiled, clipping the seat belt over the
both of them. “Oh and how did that thing with the principle go today?”
“Amazing!” Pocahontas lit up as everyone shut the car doors and Phoebus
pulled out of the parking spot “He thought the whole thing would be a great idea, he
gave us the total green light. It was mostly due to Tiana though, she basically talked
for the whole thing since I was so nervous and out of my head.”
“That’s why you were acting that way this morning?” Quasi asked.
Phoebus laughed. “Yeah, we haven’t seen you act so out of character since
that party sophomore year, when you tried that cone and said you could paint with
all the colours of the wind.”
Pocahontas groaned, “Don’t even bring that up.”
“Didn’t you also claim that the willow tree in the backyard was talking to you?”
“I said don’t.”
“Just want to mention that was one of the greatest nights of my life, just
throwing that out there,” Flynn added helpfully from the front seat.
Chapter Twelve
“Anyway,” Pocahontas continued. “Now all me and Tiana have to worry about
is actually planning the dance by ourselves and making sure enough people come to
make up the right amount of money.”
“Yeah, charging people $10 a ticket, it’s going to have to be pretty awesome.”
Quasi nodded.
“Give it a theme, like a dress up or a masquerade party. Ooh, or 80’s!”
Esmeralda said excitedly.
Flynn grimaced, “Urgh, no. Neon spandex and a Madonna playlist won’t make
you any money.”
“Karaoke machine? Chocolate fountain? Inflatable bouncy house?”
“Quasi, it’s a school dance, not a nine year olds birthday party,” Pocahontas
laughed. “Thought the chocolate fountain could work… can you rent those?”
“Beer fountain?’
“No, Flynn.”
“How about you get a band?” Phoebus suggested.
“That’s a good one. I should write these down,” Pocahontas said, squirming
around Esmeralda for a pen and paper from her bag.
“Strippers?”
“No, Flynn.”
“You could advertise it on facebook and make sure everyone sees it,”
Esmeralda said as Pocahontas scribbled down onto the paper.
“And make posters to put up around school,” Quasi added.
“Ship in some colombian cocaine?”
“Flynn, if you can’t suggest any real ideas, I will make it eighties theme just to
spite you.”
“Harsh.”
Chapter Twelve
“What about you Aladdin? You’ve been pretty quiet over there, any ideas?”
Esmeralda asked, making Aladdin snap out of his little bubble. He’d been reading
those scrunched up papers he found with fascination.
“Hm? What are we talking about?”
The others stopped and saw the paper.
“What is that?” Quasi asked, seeing all the scribbles and highlighted lines on
the papers, with a million different pen colours on it, like it had been added to over
time.
“It’s… well i’m not entirely sure, I found it in the parking lot, but I think it’s a
list… a list made by that Jasmine girl I told you about,” he said, eyes still running over
the pages.
“A list of what?”
“I dunno, qualities I think. Stuff she likes in guys. For example, ‘Number 22:
Can’t have any strange piercings’ and ‘Number 74: Can recite the pledge of
allegiance off by heart,’” he read out loud, “‘…the original 1892 version.’”
“That’s… oddly specific,” Phoebus said.
“I don’t think I can even spell ‘pledge of allegiance,’” Flynn muttered.
“How do you know she wrote it?” Quasi asked and Aladdin pointed to her
neatly printed full name at the top of the page. “Oh.”
“Lemme see,” Esmeralda instructed as she grabbed it off of him, her and
Pocahontas peering at it. “Wow, this thing is long.”
“There are 289 things on this list!” Pocahontas’s eyes bugged, semi-impressed.
“Number 99: Cannot find the TV show ‘Two and a Half Men’ funny,” Esmeralda
read.
“Number 83: Can never wear odd socks. Even at home,” Pocahontas laughed.
“I don’t even know what to make of it,” Aladdin said. “It’s insane but I don’t
know… kind of helpful in a way?”
Chapter Twelve
“Don’t tell me you’re still attracted to this girl after reading this? This makes
her sound crazy. Britney spears circa 2005 crazy,” Phoebus said in all seriousness.
“Are you kidding? This is helpful, a God send for you,” Flynn cut over her,
turning in his seat to face Aladdin. “My friend, a literal guide on how to land this
chick had fallen into your clutches by some miraculous twist of fate. This is a sign
from Jesus or something. Or Allah, I don’t know, whatever floats your boat, but the
point is you need to use this.”
“What, like, as a checklist?” Aladdin laughed but Flynn wasn’t joking.
“Ah, duh. Do you know how useful it would be if every girl had one of these?
All you need to do is study it and take notes, see what she likes, see what she
doesn’t, and use that to your advantage!”
“I see what you’re getting at, but you make it sound creepy,” Aladdin said,
looking unsurely at the list.
“Flynn makes a lot of things sound creepy. I think this could be a good thing
though,” Esmeralda spoke up.
Phoebus frowned. “Really?”
“Yeah, really. All you have to do is drop a few things into casual conversation
with her, like bring up the fact that you are piercing free and think Two and a Half
Men sucked even before they replaced Charlie Sheen with Ashton Kutcher.”
“What a pick up line,” Pocahontas said flatly.
She gave the list back to Aladdin and he stared at it for a half a minute before
a small smile played on his lips. “Well, if you think it’s a good idea…”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Still can’t stress enough that Jasmine has written this list to be ridiculous and
scare off boys. It’s meant to make her sound crazy. Crazy is what she is aiming for.
And of course, since it’s completely fake, that’s what will make Aladdin’s life…
interesting.
Who thinks Aquata will run someone down with her death trap Jeep before
the semester is over?
Chapter Twelve
Is Adam just a socially awkward boy who has no idea how to get girls to not
be terrified of him and be his friend, or is he just a jerk who really wants his DVD’s
alphabetized? OR both?
Will Gaston and his little rat pack find a way to make Belle’s life hell, even with
Adam around now?
So Tiana and Pocahontas are going to have their dance, any of your own
suggestions for making it a success? Themes? Dress code? Should they get the
strippers and Columbian cocaine Flynn suggested?
WHOO! Go Ariel making it onto the band. Her voice is a huge part of her
story; did you think I wouldn’t include it? Of course, choir was way too boring. Having
her sing classic punk songs is way better.
Also, if you have never heard Blitzkrieg Bop, youtube it. Youtube it now.
What’s going to happen with the seniors’ drama production by the way? What
kind of play should they perform? Something traditional or something… edgy! *cue
jazz hands*
And lastly, what the hell kind of stuff do you think would go down at a party
held by the one and only Flynn Ryder? Strippers and cocaine?
I don’t see why not.
Chapter Thirteen
All Good in the Hood
Belle stood there, out the front of the school, large coffee In her hands.
Double espresso shot, no sugar or cream. She kept an eye out for any of Gaston’s
friends.
She’d been waiting out here for ten minutes now and so far they’d already
been two incidents. One had been a typical football jock walking past and hollering
out, “Hey girl! What’s your favourite position!”
Belle had ignored him. Hey girl? Ugh, I suppose it was a good thing they
couldn’t even remember her name.
The second had been worse. It was a group of girls, one of the blonde triplets
and a couple of her friends. Belle had spotted them slinking past, whispering to each
other. As soon as they made eye contact they’d looked her up and down with blatant
and deliberate disgust.
It was harder to ignore that as they walked off. They didn’t even know her, and
Belle knew their opinions didn’t matter anyway, but it was still hard to ignore the
sense of burning shame they left her with as she stood there alone. It wasn’t even
fair, she hadn’t even kissed a guy and now everyone thought she was some kind of
one thousand and one types of slut.
“Hm, you actually showed up.”
She turned around as she heard Adam come towards her.
“Good morning,” she forced herself to sound cheery as he took the coffee
from her and took a sip.
He frowned. “This is cold.”
“Well, considering I had to go all the way into town to the coffee shop, then
catch the bus from there and then wait around here until you arrived… yeah, I can
imagine it would be a little cold,” she smiled to herself. He dropped the still full
coffee into the bin as they walked into the school building.
Chapter Thirteen
Belle stared back after it, mournfully, as she struggled to keep up with Adam’s
fast pace down the halls “I did actually pay money for that you know.”
Adam wordlessly pulled out a fifty dollar note from his jeans pocket and thrust
it towards Belle, who took it uncertainly. “Ah…um, thank you, but it wasn’t this much”
“It’s for expenses. So you don’t have to buy my drinks out of your own pocket.
Also for the lunch you’ll be getting me later today. I hate the cafeteria, I don’t like
going there. You’ll be doing that for me.”
Belle raised her eyebrows but pocketed the money nonetheless. As they were
walking together she did happen to notice the same guy who hollered at her earlier
stare in surprise. If he was going to say anything, Adam quickly caught his eye and
the guy looked down at the floor like it was suddenly the most interesting thing in
the world.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Tiana sat at her desk before the school bell had even rung, neatly writing out
math notes into her workbook, staring determinedly down at her page. She
pretended she couldn’t even see Flynn, Aladdin and Esmeralda out of the corner of
her eye, creeping towards her.
Her gaze flicked up for a split second, catching a sight of their pleading faces.
“No,” she said sternly.
“Pleeeeeease, Tianaaaa,” Esmeralda wheedled, hands clasped together.
“No.”
“We’ll love you forever,” Aladdin said with his sweetest smile.
She sighed heavily, “No.”
“Cooome on, we’re begging here. Please? Pretty please?”
“I said no, Flynn.”
Chapter Thirteen
“What if you could ignore the boys and just give me the answers, you know,
girls looking out for other girls in this male dominated patriarchal society, help a
sister out?”
“Nice try Esmeralda.”
“Traitor,” Flynn muttered.
“Worth a shot.”
“I’ll give you money,” Aladdin said.
“Yeah, he’ll give you money,” Flynn nodded.
Tiana tried edging her chair around in her desk but they followed her. She
couldn’t escape. They just stood their with their pleading puppy dog eyes. Flynn tried
subtly peering down at her notes and she quickly covered them with a swipe of her
arm.
“Hey, here’s an idea, why don’t you three just do your own homework for
once?” she said impatiently.
The three looked at her with faces like they’d just sucked on a lemon.
“…Okay, yeah, I shouldn’t have expected that much.”
It took them all of three seconds before they started begging in unison,
“Please please please please please please please please plea-”
“Oh, go away!”
She shooed them away with her ring binder, swiping at them as they
scattered, frowning lightly.
“Jeez, so antsy,” Esmeralda huffed.
“Yeah, could’ve just said no in the first place.”
“We can take a hint,” Aladdin said as the three walked off.
Tiana pursed her lips and refrained from throwing the binder after them. She
needed to invest in a stress ball. Ever since that meeting at the start of the week
she’d already felt more stressed out than usual. Mr. Walt had given the green light
for the dance and somehow, Tiana felt like it had happened in some kind of haze,
Chapter Thirteen
she’d found herself in charge of organising the entire thing. I suppose she did have a
reputation for being fabulously well organised and an overachiever. Well, that’s not
how half her classmates put it, but it’s what she translated it as.
What did she even know about dances? She barely even liked dances. She
only went to them because Lottie dragged her along.
Before she could fully immerse herself into a spiral of despair, she heard the
opening of the classroom door and the scraping of chairs as Esmeralda jumped up.
“Phoebus! Thank God you’re here!” she cried dramatically, practically running
to him at the door, Aladdin and Flynn in tow.
Phoebus blinked in only minor surprise as his friends clung to him as if he was
their saviour.
“You guys didn’t do your homework last night, did you?” he asked flatly. There
was muted whimpering.
Tiana rolled her eyes as he opened his backpack on the desk and brought out
his papers covered in fully solved maths equations. Esmeralda, Flynn, and Aladdin all
scrambled for their own sheets and pens as they crowded around it and copied.
While they were busy Phoebus took his seat next to Tiana and she couldn’t
help herself. She was already in a snappy mood.
“You really shouldn’t indulge them like that, especially not in senior year.
They’ll never learn this way.”
Phoebus shrugged, “Doesn’t seem that important. No offence to Pythagoras,
but I don’t think we’ll be using his theorem much in our day to day lives.”
“But it’s not fair on people who actually bother to do the work! Do you think I
want to spend the few hours of free time I have looking up triangle measurements in
a text book? I don’t! And then theres these guys just slacking off at home watching
late night Maury Povich on the TV and playing Xbox or whatever, and then they just
think they can rock up in the morning and take advantage of someone who actually
bothered to do the work instead of being a lazy assho-”
Tiana stopped herself. That didn’t sound like her, since when did she call
people assholes? And it came out way angrier than she had meant it too. Phoebus
seemed to silently agree. He was looking at Tiana with wide eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
“Um, you okay there?”
Tiana composed herself. “Yes. I’m fine… sorry. It’s just… I have a lot on my
plate at the moment.”
“That school dance thing?”
Tiana nodded “I haven’t even started doing anything for it and I’m stressed
out. Just thinking about the workload on top of everything else I’m doing… I have my
life just organised enough to allow for work and school and study and exam prep…
how am I going to fit this in? It messes with the whole system!”
Phoebus nodded, sympathetic. “Sounds like a pretty brutal schedule. Anything
you can cut?”
“Can’t cut work, I need the money.”
“Get rid of some study time then?”
Tiana looked at him in silent horror, like he’d just suggested they light a cat on
fire.
“Ooookay, just a suggestion.”
Tiana looked beaten, letting out a low mumble as she slunk down in her chair.
This was one of the rare and fleeting moments she ever allowed herself to feel self
pity.
“I think I just need to accept this. I can’t back out and let Pocahontas down.
Where do I start? Organise a venue? Hire some decorations… food… music… tickets…
posters… yeah, I can manage that,” she said meekly.
“Come on, they can’t expect you to do this all on your own,” Phoebus
reasoned. “Where’s Pocahontas in all of this? What’s she doing to help?”
Tiana blanked. “Um… I don’t know.”
“You haven’t talked to her about it? Delegated each other’s different jobs?
Divided the workload?”
Tiana shrugged, “No. I just assumed I would be doing it all.”
Chapter Thirteen
Phoebus raised an eyebrow. “So you just took on this huge project and all its
responsibilities by yourself?”
Tiana could sense she was being sassed. “Yeah, well, someone has to do it-”
she started defensively but Phoebus cut her off, almost laughing.
“Yeah, but not by themselves. Nobody expects you to handle this alone. You
just assumed you would. Honestly I think you just hold yourself to some personal
standard where you have to do everything by yourself, like it will prove something to
everyone.”
Tiana looked mildly offended. “I don’t try and prove myself to anyone.”
“To yourself then maybe?”
She paused.
Maybe he had a point.
A small one.
“There’s no shame in asking for help when you need it. I bet Pocahontas
would love to organise this thing too, it was her idea wasn’t it?”
Tiana nodded. “More or less.”
“And why don’t you go one step further and get a whole committee? Don’t
most dances have them? I don’t know, I’m not in the dance organising business, but I
do remember that one episode of Saved by the Bell.”
Tiana mulled it over in her head. “A committee… who would be on it?”
Phoebus thought for a second before turning around his chair and calling out,
“Yo, Esmeralda!”
She looked up from copying his homework. “Yeah?”
“You wanna be on a committee?”
“What kind of committee?”
“A dance one.”
She shrugged, “Okay.”
Chapter Thirteen
Phoebus turned back to Tiana, looking positive. “There, easy. Now you just
need to do that with another four or five people and you’re set.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“Why is my life a disaster?!” Aurora let out a melodramatic cry as she sat in
between Snow and Cinderella at their Home Ec bench, sewing equipment and test
patterns scattered around them. They were meant to be choosing what kind of
garment they’d be making as their projects for this term. Everyone was mostly just
messing around and talking though.
Cinderella rubbed her friends back as she flopped down onto the bench top,
face down. “Aw, come on… it’s not so bad. So you still haven’t found someone to be
on the cheer team, you can always just have another try-out-”
“No, I can’t! We already had the first one, which I blew, and now the one we
just had an hour ago, that Giselle actually pulled together, not me, so we’ve already
had two chances and we still haven’t had one decent candidate! Seriously, I’m going
to be the first cheer captain in Disney High history who failed to put together an
entire team! How pathetic… and what about when it’s time for regionals later in the
year? We won’t even get past the sign up if we don’t have a flyer.” Aurora sounded
close to tears so Snow intervened.
“Okay, okay, lets not even start thinking about your big fancy cheerleading
grand final… whatever you call it, that’s off in the future. Think of what you need right
now. So the flyer is the important person you need, the girl who you toss up in the
air for tricks and stuff, right?” Snow asked, matter of factly.
“Yah-huh…” Auroras head shuffled on the desk in some kind of nod.
“Okay. Do you have any one good enough to fill in that spot until you do find
someone decent?”
“…Hm… Well… Our back up plan is to have Arista to do it,” Aurora mumbled.
“Good, good. So what you have to do is put Arista in that position, and then
you just need to find some other person to fill her place, which will be easier because
her spot is a lot less demanding,” Snow finished.
Chapter Thirteen
“Yeah, at the moment all Arista does is shake the pompoms, do the
handsprings and support the pyramid. She’d be easy to replace with someone
generic once she’s made flyer,” Cinderella agreed.
Snow and Cindy both looked down at Aurora, who had now gone quiet. They
glanced at each other worriedly before jumping as Auroras head suddenly shot up,
her eyes wide and a piece of pattern paper stuck to her face.
“Oh my God, you’re right! That could work!”
Snow smiled smugly “You’re welcome.”
“I’d been thinking I needed someone new and fantastic this whole time to
replace Tink, but now that Arista could do it… I just need any old random girl!” The
greatness of this realisation seemed to be hitting Aurora as a smile broke out on her
face.
“Problem solved,” Snow smiled.
“She doesn’t need to be great, she just needs to be a filler…” Aurora repeated
to herself out loud, her brain ticking.
“Yeah, like the lettuce in a salad. Bland,doesn’t add much, but it bulks the
whole thing out to look like real food,” Cinderella nodded.
“I could just use anyone.”
“Absolutely.”
“Even if they didn’t have any cheer experience.”
“I can’t see that being a problem.”
“I’m sure the rest of the team won’t mind.”
“They’ll love the idea!”
“So you’ll do it?”
“Yes! …Wait, what?”
Cinderella paused as she stopped giving out her autonomous answers to stare
at Aurora, who was smiling widely at her, eyes full of hope.
Chapter Thirteen
“Oh, no,” Cinderella laughed. “You’re not serious?”
Aurora threw up her hands “Why not you! You’re a random generic girl who
can be used as a filler!”
“If that isn’t a compliment, I don’t know what is,” Snow deadpanned in the
background.
Cinderella looked at her friend like she’d just gone off the deep end. “I can’t
be a cheerleader! I’ve never even been to a gymnastics class!”
“You just said yourself that I didn’t need to find anyone with experience?”
Aurora pointed out.
“Yeah, that’s right, you did say that,” Snow added.
“Not helping,” Cinderella shot her a look.
Snow turned to Aurora. “She also admitted that she has thought about trying
out for the team before.” This made Aurora gasp in excitement but Cinderella quickly
cut them off.
“Um, yeah, thought about it! Realistically I knew I never would… and why don’t
you do it Snow! You have more than one best friend Aurora, ask her if she’ll do it.”
Snow just raised an eyebrow, and shook her head as soon as Aurora turned to
her.
There went that idea.
“You’ll only do the easy jobs! High kicks and formations and stuff. We barely
do hard tricks until competitions, you’ll only be with us at the football games,”
Aurora pleaded. “Please, please, pleeeaaase?”
“Yeah, shake your pom poms, jump around a little, cheer at the crowd…
honestly, the crowd is easily entertained. Nobody expects you to bust out a triple
backflip and land on someone’s shoulders.” Snow also gestured to Aurora’s wide
puppy dog eyes and clasped together hands. “And can you really say no to this
face?”
It took all of Cinderella’s willpower to ignore the face.
“I… will think about it.”
Chapter Thirteen
This was enough to make Aurora squeal and clap her hands together but
Cinderella still looked stern.
“And to be clear, that was not a yes!”
Aurora tried to contain herself but she couldn’t help her huge smile “Thank
you so much Cindy.”
Just then, one of the Home Ec sewing teachers came over, Mrs. G, came over
with a smile.
“And how are you girls doing over here? Working away while chatting I hope.
Found any good patterns in the old boxes? Keeping in mind if you don’t find one,
you can always go and buy your own from a sewing shop. I know the ones the school
has are all a bit dated,” she laughed.
All of the girls loved Mrs. G. She was a short, plumpish old women with a kind
smile. She was a stark contrast to the other Home Ec sewing teacher, Miss Deville. A
thin, bony looking women who always wore an outdated Chanel dress (they knew it
was Chanel because she constantly reminded everyone of it) and a huge fur coat in
the winter. She’d once been a junior fashion editor for Vogue many, many years ago,
but, for whatever reason, that career had been cut short and she was now stuck
teaching fashion to high school students. She was a bitter old woman who barely got
through any of her classes without snapping at someone, only looking forward to her
numerous smoke breaks. Mrs. G however, felt like some kind of godmother to her
classes, always willing to stay back after her classes to help girls restitch an entire line
of their sewing they’d messed up or repeat for the thousandth time how to rethread
a sewing machine.
“Yeah, I was thinking about making this dress, but I don’t know what colour I
want to make it… Either blue or hot pink,” Aurora said, holding up the plans to Mrs.G.
“Good to see you’re on track Aurora, but you do still have time to make up
your mind and plan it out. What about you two girls? Made up your minds yet?”
Snow shrugged. “Um… maybe a dress too I guess. Or a skirt.”
She turned to Cinderella. “I dunno… there’s lots to choose from.”
“Well, just the other day I heard in the staff room that there’s news of a school
dance coming up.” Mrs. G smiled as all three girls suddenly became interested.
Chapter Thirteen
“Really? For what?” Aurora asked.
“I think Mr. Walt said something about some senior girls organising it for
some fundraising thing. Either way, its for all the year groups and is going to be held
near the end of the term. Plenty of time for you girls to design and make some lovely
dresses to go in, hm?” she hinted with a smile. “And there’s more patterns up the
front on mine and Miss Deville’s desk if you want to have a look through them,” she
said before going off to talk to the girls at the next day.
Cinderella got up from her stool. “I might go have a look at them actually.
Chances of me getting a brand new dress for the dance are slim to none, might as
well make my own,” she said to Snow and Aurora as she left to head to the front of
the class.
As soon as she was out of earshot, Snow turned to Aurora. “Worried she’s
going to say no?”
“Absolutely. I know she’ll be good enough to be on the team, even if she
doesn’t believe it.”
“Mm, I think its a confidence thing,” Snow said as she flipped through
patterns.
“What do you think would make her say yes? What if I offer to buy her lunch
every day… or maybe I should cry in front of her…”
Snow glanced up at Aurora with a frown.
“Okay, those were terrible ideas, but I’m desperate! Can you think of
anything?”
Snow seemed to mull it over for a second. “Well… I have a vague idea that
could work. One that doesn’t include bribery or emotional blackmail.”
“I like it already. What is it?”
Snow grinned “Do you have Charming’s number in your phone?”
“Of course, I have all the team members info in case I need to contact them,”
Aurora said, confused.
“Good, then hand me your phone. I need to send him a text.”
Chapter Thirteen
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“And then Eric told me their band name used to be ‘The Lost Boys’, but then
they replaced their drummer with Audrey, so that didn’t work anymore, so now their
name is ‘Second Star to the Right’, how cool is that? Apparently Peter’s girlfriend
Wendy suggested it,” Ariel talked excitedly to Rapunzel and Jasmine as they sat in a
circle on the grass of the sports field, eating their lunch.
“Seems like a kind of long name for a band,” Jasmine said.
“Yeah, they told me sometimes they just shorten it to ‘The Second Stars’,
which is also cool.”
“Yeah, I like that,” Rapunzel agreed. “So are you going to go play concerts and
stuff with them?” she asked a little naively.
Ariel laughed, “No way, they’re nowhere near that! Well, I would say they’re
good enough in terms of talent, but actually organising shows and getting gigs and
stuff is way hard. They just practise for now and I guess that stuff’s off in the future.”
“But if you did get the chance, would you? You wouldn’t be nervous in front of
a crowd?”
“Hmmmm, maybe. But I guess we’d start out small, which wouldn’t be too
bad. I’ll have to work my way up to being a super mega star who plays to a crowd of
thousands,” she joked. “But yeah, if I got the chance I would.”
Just then the girls heard the heavy breathing and footfalls of someone
running over to them.
Mulan stumbled over on jelly legs to the grass on the side of the track field
where her friends were sitting.
“I… can’t… feel… my legs. Sides… aching…” she said dramatically as she panted
out of breath between each word.
She didn’t even know she would have running practise at lunch today.
Officially, the Athletics team had one practise a week. Unofficially, Shang made them
practise three lunchtimes a week as well.
“Is it possible to have a heart attack at age fifteen?” She struggled to catch her
breath as she flopped down next to Jasmine. “Because I think I’m testing the theory.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Aw, here. Have some water.” Jasmine offered her bottle to Mulan who took it
thankfully.
“Man, you look awful. There’s like a sweat patch all down your back. You need
some deodorant? You’re gonna smell real bad in about half an hour.”
“…Thanks, Ariel.”
“Jus’ sayin’,” she said with a crunch on her apple.
“If it’s any consolation, you looked pretty good out there! You only came last
against those guys by a few metres this time,” Rapunzel smiled.
“Oop, quick, duck down. Admiral Douche, coming this way,” Ariel mumbled as
the three tried to hide Mulan behind them as she hid her face.
Shang came over looking stern.
“Mulan, I can see you. This is practise time, not ‘sit and chat with your friends’
time. Now get back on the track and finish running your laps” He barked out as an
order, clapping his hands together to get her moving. If it was a motivational tool it
wasn’t very effective.
“I will captain, I will… I just need a second to catch my breath,” Mulan smiled
up hopefully at him, looking for any kind of mercy.
There was none.
“There is an entire team out there who can manage to run five times around
the track without stopping, so I don’t see why you shouldn’t be able to as well. I put
this down to laziness and I want to see you put in a lot more effort.”
“Hey, she’s not lazy!” Jasmine said in her friends defence.
“Yeah, she’s just really bad at running!” Ariel said, also attempting to come to
her friends defence.
“Well, if she’s bad at it, all the more reason to practise harder!” Shang shot
back coldly.
Mulan didn’t want an argument. “I get that, I do, but I’m just really out of
breath and my legs are burning right now, so if I could just sit out for another ten
Chapter Thirteen
minutes I think it would help and I can get back to it later, I promise.” She looked up
at Shang hopefully, a sorry smile on her face.
Shang breathed in deeply before looking back out to the rest of the runners,
thinking. He turned back to Mulan, a small, stiff smile on his face.
“Okay, you can sit out for ten minutes.”
Mulan beamed at him in relief. “Oh my gosh, thank you!”
Maybe he did have a soft heart after all.
Shang nodded and turned back to the team, cupping his
hand to his mouth and hollering out so every single one of
them could hear. “OKAY team, listen up! Mulan has decided
she needs to sit out for the next ten minutes, but in the
meantime, you will continue running for every second
she stays sitting down!”
Mulan face fell. There were cries and moans
from the group.
“What the hell do you mean? We have to run laps for another solid ten
minutes straight? We just finished!” Ping complained loudly.
Shang’s face didn’t change. “You heard me. Keep running until Mulan feels
better. Now go!”
Ping, Yao, Audrey and the rest of the team glared at Mulan as they resentfully
started running back around the track.
Mulan looked panicked as she tried to stand up. “Uh, Shang, this isn’t what I
meant, I didn’t mean to-” But Shang gently pressed her down by the shoulder.
“What are you doing Mulan? Stay, sit. I thought you needed ten minutes to
recover?” He said innocently, knowing full well what he was doing.
“Yeah, but it’s not fair that everyone else should have to-”
“What isn’t fair? The fact that they have to run while you don’t? Hm, I suppose
you’re right. That doesn’t sound fair,” he gave Mulan a hard look and she got his
point, sitting back down again looking more than sheepish.
Chapter Thirteen
“I can get back out there now…” she said guiltily, feeling bad for her
teammates.
“No. I insist. Ten minutes. And you three.” He turned to Ariel, Rapunzel and
Jasmine, who visibly flinched as he eyed them up and down. “You can leave.”
For a second it seemed like Ariel and Jasmine were going to say something
even more rude right back to Shang, but Mulan gave them a look and nod, silently
telling them it was probably better if they did leave, and that she’d be alright. They
didn’t look happy, but left all the same, giving Shang dirty looks as they slunk past
back up to the school building.
Those ten minutes felt like an eternity for Mulan as she now sat there alone.
Every single runner shot her dirty looks as they went past.
So much for Shang’s soft heart.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Rapunzel was turning the combination on her locker, now proud of herself for
knowing her combination every time it opened. She looked down at the dent with a
small smile, wondering if Flynn’s hand was better now.
“Urgh, that guy is so rude!” Ariel huffed as she leant against the locker doors,
arms crossed. Rapunzel put her lunch box away and shut her locker again, snapping
out of her thoughts.
“I know. Mulan would’ve probably been better off in the chess club,” Jasmine
said, not as angry as Ariel but her voice was low.
“She should just quit now. Why put up with that?” Ariel frowned but Jasmine
shook her head.
“No, she shouldn’t. If she drops out, they won’t even have a team to compete
with, and that’s not fair.”
“Who cares about fair! They’re not being fair to her!”
Jasmine sighed “I know, but you saw how passionate that Shang guy-”
“Admiral Douche.”
Chapter Thirteen
“-Yes, Admiral Douche, is about that team. If you ruined his chances of
winning would you want to face him afterwards?” Jasmine pointed out rationally.
Ariel bit on her lip. “I guess not…”
“Plus, I’m sure things could get better, this was only her first track practise
after all.” Rapunzel smiled, trying to see the positives. Jasmine and Ariel nodded. It
was easier for them to get angrier over seeing Mulan be treated like that, since
they’d been friends with her longer. Rapunzel was there to stop them overreacting
on their friends behalf.
“Right, right… I still reckon if it came down to it, I could land a fast one right to
the guy’s face if he gives her attitude again!” Ariel threatened as she took a stance
and punched the air in front of her.
Jasmine laughed. “Yeah, right. With your sick kung fu moves?”
“With my sick kung fu moves,” Ariel nodded, smiling. “And it’s not about size
and power, it’s the art of concentration and focus… and the duck and weave.” She
bobbed up and down, punching and kicking the air in front of her, almost slipping
over on the tiled floors. She went for Rapunzel, karate chopping her arms in front of
her making her laugh and stumble back, trying to swat her away.
“Nice moves, Red!” The girls heard a voice call down from behind them.
Eric had been walking past the corridor with a gang of his friends, Peter
included.
Ariel blushed and laughed at herself out of embarrassment as she’d been
caught, but he was smiling at her and gestured her over with his arm.
“Come eat with us.”
Ariel turned to Jasmine and Rapunzel, her eyes bright. She didn’t even have to
ask out loud. Jasmine rolled her eyes with a smile. “Of course, I don’t mind. Go.”
The two girls watched as Ariel quickly bounded down the hall, her backpack
practically falling off her shoulders as she went up to Eric and aimed a light punch at
his shoulder and he put up a boxing stance, the two play fought until they were
around the corner out of sight.
Chapter Thirteen
“They’re cute together,” Rapunzel thought out loud and Jasmine nodded,
slowly.
“Yeah… they kind of are. Anyway, you want to head to the cafeteria? There’s
still like twenty minutes of lunch left.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
Aladdin stood in line at the cafeteria to pay for his food, sliding his tray across
the metal railing. He’d found a five dollar note in the halls today. Finders keepers.
Time to treat himself to a pudding cup.
As he moved up in the line he caught a flash of gold in the corner of his eye.
He looked back and saw that it was a gold bracelet, and letting his eyes travel up the
arm of its wearer he found himself staring at Jasmine. He immediately turned away.
There she was, right now, right next to him. He should say something. Something
funny or witty and charming. He glanced over to her as casually as he could.
She looked lovely today. Her hair was loose and he realised how long it was,
all the way down to the top of her jeans. She had on a light aqua coloured peplum
top and a pair of gold ballet flats. He must’ve been starring, as Jasmine’s eyes
suddenly flicked up to meet his. She smiled just enough to be polite, and he did the
same, both turning away again.
Okay, this was ridiculous. Aladdin didn’t consider himself a shy person. He
could do this, talking to girls shouldn’t be this hard. As he was just about to open to
his mouth and say a casual ‘Hey’, Jasmine beat him too it.
“Um, excuse me, how much are those?” Aladdin paused as he saw her point
down to the pudding cup on his tray.
“Oh, ah, two bucks,” he said quickly and she smiled.
“Thank you. I never usually buy my lunch, so I have no clue.”
“Nah, that’s alright… though they do have the menu taped up their on the
wall,” he pointed it out to her.
“Oh, yeah. They have those up everywhere, I feel stupid now,” she laughed,
embarrassed. Aladdin thought she looked even lovelier when she laughed.
Chapter Thirteen
He watched her as she reached into her wallet looking for some change, and
her face fell. “Urgh, I don’t have any coins on me… you can’t pay with card here can
you?”
Aladdin laughed as she held up a gold american express card which gave her
an answer. “Don’t worry about it, I have enough to pay for yours,” he said, holding up
his five dollar note.
“Oh, no, you don’t have to do that-” Jasmine started by Aladdin waved her off.
“Please, it’s two dollars. It’s nothing.”
Jasmine smiled at him “Well… thank you. It’s still nice.”
As they moved up one in the queue there was a sudden jolt on the metal
railing behind them as Flynn suddenly appeared behind them and leant over to
Aladdin.
“Hey man, what’re you getting? And more importantly you’re paying for it?”
Flynn asking, surprised.
Aladdin cursed his friend’s timing. “Just a pudding cup, since I found some
money today.”
“Sweet, get me one?” He flashed a smile but Aladdin shrugged.
“Sorry man, don’t have enough.”
Flynn frowned. “Five dollars, two dollar pudding cups… I know my math’s not
the best but-”
“Well, I’m getting one for Jasmine,” Aladdin said, a smile slipping onto his face
as he said her name.
Jasmine’s eyebrows raised. “Uh, I’m sorry but how do you know my name? I
didn’t mention it.”
Aladdin paused. Okay, probably best not to admit it was because you stalked
her on facebook. “Ummmm… I saw your student card when you opened your wallet.”
“Oh, okay.”
Chapter Thirteen
Even Flynn looked impressed with how fast he came up with that. Aladdin was
actually rather impressed with himself. Flynn clapped him on the shoulder. “Whatever
man, you buy Jasmine her pudding cup, I’ll try scab some free food off someone
else,” he said before hopping off the rail and walking off.
“Wait,” Jasmine said. “I think I do know you. You were at Rapunzel’s locker the
other day, when she couldn’t get it open?”
“Yeah, wow, I’m surprised you remembered me.” Aladdin tried not to smile as
big as he felt like smiling. Jasmine had remembered him. They got up to the cash
register and Aladdin handed over the money for the two pudding cups, dropping the
tray back on the pile.
“Yeah, I don’t know. Something about your face I guess,” Jasmine shrugged as
they walked across the cafeteria.
Aladdin decided to take that as a compliment.
“Anyway, my friends just over there saving me a seat, but thanks again for the
pudding.” She smiled. Aladdin knew this was the end of their conversation but he
also knew that a chance like this to talk to her might not happen again anytime soon.
He had to act. Be bold.
“Hey, uh, Jasmine-” he started, not knowing whether this was going to come
off as incredibly suave or incredibly stupid, but she had stopped and was looking
right at him, so why stop now? “- Theres actually this thing I’m going to Friday night,
well, a party and I was wondering if, you know, maybe you’d wanna come with-”
Jasmine winced and cut him off. “Oh, look, Aladdin… you’re nice but-”
Aladdin’s smile slipped.
“…But… I just don’t really… yeah. Sorry, but no,” she fumbled out her words
awkwardly, trying to smile but she could see his disappointment.
Aladdin quickly tried to shrug it off. “Yeah, no, that’s cool. I get that, its all
good. It’s all good in the hood.”
‘Oh god I did not just say that. Abort the mission, abort the mission!’
“So yeah, I’d better go… do… a thing, that I need to do… soooo.” Aladdins
words hung in the air as he took a step back and gave a little wave. “Seeya.”
Chapter Thirteen
“Yeah, seeya,” Jasmine waved back as Aladdin spun around on his heel and
charged out of there at top speed, leaving Jasmine to walk back to the table
Rapunzel had saved.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“Oh my God a committee! Yes! Yes, I need to be on it! I insist Tiana, oh girl I
will be the best, I promise to help with everything! Ugh, I’ll be so great with the
decorations, I see glitter! I want glitter table clothes, fairy lights, a disco ball and,
ohmygosh, do you think we can book a light up dance floor?” Lottie all but screamed
in the hall as she clutched onto Tiana’s arm for dear life as Pocahontas, Esmeralda
and Quasi looked on.
“Uh, I guess we’d have to look into it,” Tiana said hesitantly, trying to gently
pry her friends hands away.
“I’m so glad you want to help us Lottie, thank you,” Pocahontas said earnestly
but Lottie shushed her.
“Oh please, this is the kind of thing I live for. Plus, if Mr. Walt sees me do well
at this, I might get chosen for head of prom committee at the end of the year!” She
smiled.
“So now we have five people, is that enough?” Quasi asked. He’d volunteered
after Esmeralda had asked, even offering to take tickets at the door. Not to mention
he’d be a crazy amount of help when it came to actually setting up things on the
night.
“I should think so, if we stay organised and on task,” Tiana said.
“Why did she look at me when she said that?” Esmeralda asked.
“Whoo! Dance committee team is a go! Come on, everybody put your hands
in!” Lottie beamed as she stuck out her hand in the middle of the circle.
Esmeralda raised an eyebrow, but Pocahontas put her hand in with a smile.
“Dance committee team!”
Quasi and Tiana followed suit. “Dance committee team!” they both said, less
enthusiastically.
Chapter Thirteen
They all looked to Esmeralda, who sighed, and limply placed her hand on top.
“Dance committee team…”
“Aaaaand break!” Lottie said excitedly as they all threw their hands up with a
cheer (Even if Esmeralda’s was a little sarcastic).
Tiana was feeling pretty good about rounding up enough people in the
course of one day. This was progress, and even if it was small it gave her a little bit
more hope about being able to pull this whole thing off. Then a voice came from
behind them.
“Hello girls,” Naveen announced himself with a winning smile as he walked up
to them.
Quasi gave him a look.
“…and guy,” Naveen added.
“Hey Naveen” Lottie stretched out his name with a laugh.
“Mm, hey,” Tiana briefly smiled. Pocahontas just gave a brief nod of
acknowledgment and Esmeralda didn’t really say anything. She was also the one he
slung his arm around.
“And what are you all up to? I saw some kind of strange hand-circle-cheering
thing going on? Is that an American thing?” he laughed.
“I guess,” Esmeralda shrugged, raising an eyebrow at the arm he had over her
shoulders. Quasi and Lottie were also looking at that arm. Naveen was oblivious.
“It’s actually us celebrating our newly formed dance committee,” Pocahontas
butted in, before any kind of awkward silence could kick in. “To save the Quad,” she
added.
“A dance committee? There’s going to be a school dance? I love dances!”
Naveen said enthusiastically.
“We used to have dances all the time at my school, huge ones. All the girls
wore beautiful floor length dresses and the orchestra played such brilliant music to
dance too.”
You could tell that in that moment Lottie was fantasising over being one of
those girls in a floor length ball dress dancing with Naveen.
Chapter Thirteen
“-and my parents held them too in our own ball room, we would invite
hundreds of family and friends to join us. I even helped choose the food and the
music we would play, and of course I would always pick jazz.” And that’s when they
all saw him pause and his eyes light up. “Girls, I have had the best idea!”
“Have you really…” Tiana said, flatly, not liking where this was going.
“I could be on your dance committee!”
Lottie actually squealed out loud at the idea.
“I am good with these type of things, I have experience, and I would love to be
apart of my first real American dance with my new American friends!”
Quasi made sure not to smile so Naveen didn’t get the impression that he was
one of his new American friends.
Tiana was about to burst his bubble right there and then. She didn’t need this
guy coming in and stepping on all their toes (most of all, her toes). This wasn’t a
fancy rich kids party or a chance for him to show off and derail the whole thing. She
knew Pocahontas was dependable, same with Quasi. Esmeralda would commit
herself for Pocahontas’s sake and Lottie was like the energiser bunny with a flair for
decorating. She already had a team that could handle this and a team she knew well,
Naveen was a wild card who she barely even knew. Tiana did not want him working
with them.
But she waited just a split second too long to speak.
“I can’t see why not, welcome to the team then Naveen,” Pocahontas
shrugged with a smile and Lottie let out a cheer.
“Oh my gosh, this is so great! We need to do the thing again, everyone put
their hands in,” she said, as her and Pocahontas and Esmeralda all put their hands in
the middle of the circle for a second time.
“Yes, I want to do this cheer thing! “ Naveen grinned as he placed his hand on
top of Esmeralda’s. Naveen winced for a split second as Quasi’s hand came down
hard on top of his.
Tiana was left on the edge of the circle, her mouth a thin line. They all looked
at her expectantly.
Chapter Thirteen
“Yeah, go dance committee,” she said half heartedly as she put her hand in
and they all let out another cheer.
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
After school, Flynn, Aladdin, Esmeralda and Quasi were out sitting on the
patch of lawn in front of the car park. Or in Flynn’s case, lying down using his
backpack as a pillow and covering his face with his sweater. They were all patiently
waiting for Phoebus, who had apparently hung back in his last class to talk to the
teacher about his last report or something. Sometimes it was easy to forget that
Phoebus actually cared about and did well in school, even if his best friend was Flynn.
“Are you going to fall asleep right here, right now?” Aladdin asked, tapping
Flynn’s side with his foot.
Flynn swiped at him. “That’s the plan.”
“Why so tired?” Quasi asked.
“Planning a party is stressful, man,” Flynn said beneath the sweater. “Most of
our year is attending. People I don’t even know. People I don’t want to know and
have actively tried not to know these past four years.”
“What have you organised so far?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“I know, you can see why I’m stressed,” he said lazily, looking the exact
opposite of stressed as he folded his arms behind his head.
“Urgh, hurry up, Phoebus. I wanna go home… and where’s Pocahontas? Are
we waiting for her too?” Aladdin asked impatiently.
“No, she’s going over to Tiana’s place to talk more about the dance,”
Esmeralda explained.
“And how’d you get out of that?”
Chapter Thirteen
“Hey, I committed myself to the extent that I would choose some decent
music and help pick out some decorations, those two are the project’s master minds.
I’ll leave them to it.”
“Seconded,” Quasi added.
Esmeralda’s eye flicked up to the school doors as they opened and more
students poured out, among them being Rapunzel. She smirked and yanked the
sweater off of Flynn’s face.
“Uh, what?” he snapped, irritably.
“So have you invited Rapunzel to your party yet? I couldn’t find her profile on
facebook to invite her, so you’ll have to ask her yourself.”
“And why would I do that?”
“So you can ‘put your moves on her’ as you say?”
“Oh. Right. That,” he said, sitting up and blinking against the sunlight. “I just
planned on doing that at school though. I don’t want to invite her to my party.”
“And why not? Sounds like the perfect chance.”
“Esmeralda, she is a juvenile. It’s a basic fact that for every sophomore you
invite to a senior party, the parties coolness goes down by 5% minimum.”
Esmeralda just gave him a look. “Uh huh, and it’s got nothing to do with the
fact that other guys might be there and try to hit on her too? Not as much
confidence in your ‘moves’ when you know there’ll be competition?”
“…Maybe you shouldn’t come to the party, how bout that?” he said.
“Maybe you shouldn’t come to the party,” Esmeralda mocked him in a pouty
voice before slapping his legs till he stood up with a sigh.
“Fine!” he turned to where Rapunzel was waiting and called her over, “Hey
Rapunzel! Come here for a second!”
“Such a gentleman,” Esmeralda muttered under her breath.
Chapter Thirteen
They watched as Rapunzel started across the grass towards them with a smile
on her face, until she paused, turned back, and noticed Jasmine was hurrying after
her, waving.
“Oh my God, no,” Aladdin groaned as he put his hand up to his face and
turned the other way. “Hide me, hide me…”
But it was too late, Rapunzel had arrived over to them with Jasmine now in
tow. If she spotted Aladdin, she didn’t say anything and he kept his head down.
“Hey Flynn, what’s up,” she smiled eagerly.
“Party at mine. Friday. 7pm. Be there,” he said bluntly, his hands in his pockets.
Rapunzel’s smile faltered a little. “Oh, uh, a party? At your place?”
“That’s what I said babe.” Jasmine’s eyebrows shot up and she looked
unimpressed.
“Here’s the address,” he said as he scrawled onto a piece of paper he pulled
out from his bag and handed it to her. Rapunzel took it, looking doubtful.
“I’ve never been to a house party before, well, excluding like family christmas
parties and stuff… I don’t even know if my Mom will let me…”
Flynn shrugged. “Don’t tell her then, sneak out. You can stay over at mine. It
can be a sleepover,” he said suggestively.
Rapunzel’s eyes lit up while Jasmine actively frowned at him. “Oh, wow, a
sleepover, that sounds fun.”
Quasi and Esmeralda exchanged glances.
“Should I bring my pyjamas? And a toothbrush?” Rapunzel asked. “I have a
sleeping bag too, or do you have enough beds?”
“Oh, I have a bed you can use alright-”
“Um, excuse me,” Jasmine butted into the conversation, stepping in front of
Rapunzel a little protectively. “If you’re going to be inviting Rapunzel over, could I
possibly come too?” she asked sweetly, her voice coming across a little sharp.
Flynn paused. “Uuum…”
Chapter Thirteen
“Yeah! Is that okay? Please?” Rapunzel looked up at him.
Flynn looked like he was racking his brain for an excuse not to let her come.
Jasmine thought fast, and when her eyes landed on Aladdin, she put two and two
together. “After all, Aladdin invited me earlier.”
Aladdin’s head popped up at the sound of his name and looked at them in
surprise. Flynn was glaring at him, Rapunzel was smiling eagerly, and Jasmine was
giving him a determined look.
“Aladdin, is it too late to take you up on your offer? I’d really like to come to
this party.”
Aladdin looked to Esmeralda for guidance but she just shrugged. Flynn was
giving him a warning look. Then he looked at Jasmine again. How could he say no?
“Yeah, sure. Awesome.”
~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~.~
“Okay, first you refuse to buy me pudding in favour of her, and now you have
her invited to my party so she can act as some kind of barrier between me and
Rapunzel. There go my chances! Poof, up in smoke. Gone. I may as well just give in to
Phoebus and Esmeralda right now because I’ve practically lost this bet already!” Flynn
huffed as he sat back in his seat.
The girls had left, Phoebus had shown up and now they were all in the car and
heading home.
“Hey, in all fairness I did ask her before,” Aladdin reasoned, sitting in the
backseat between Quasi and Esmeralda.
“To which she said no! She can’t just take it back.”
“Well, too late, she’s coming,” Aladdin smiled. He was too pleased with himself
to let Flynn’s mood rub off on him.
“Yeah, she’s going to come and she’s going to be circling Rapunzel like a
hawk. She’s got that territorial best friend vibe all over her. Now even inviting
Rapunzel is a waste because I won’t even be able to put my moves on her-”
Chapter Thirteen
“Ok, stop right there, I need to clarify something,” Esmeralda spoke up. “What
exactly are these ‘moves’ you have, Flynn? Were you using them before?”
“Uh, yeah?” Flynn said like it was obvious.
“Really? Is that what that was? Because to me it seemed like you were just
acting like a dick,” she said, sounding annoyed.
“Yeah man, ‘That’s what I said babe’? That sounded awful,” Quasi frowned,
quoting Flynn from before.
“It’s called ‘being mean to keep them keen’ and it’s a classic, thank you very
much,” Flynn explained like they were simple. “Phoebus, tell ‘em!”
“Its true,” Phoebus nodded. “His unique brand of acting like a dick to girls has
worked for him in the past. One party we were at he told a girl her top looked like
something Bill Cosby would wear circa 1983, and later I found her making out with
him in the patio garden.”
Flynn turned around in his seat and gave them an ‘I told you so’ look.
Esmeralda wasn’t done. “He also said he ‘had a bed she could use’.”
Phoebus paused for a second. “…Ryder, you are disgusting.”
Flynn looked betrayed.
“Well, whatever. I know what works, and I know by the end of the party I will
have her in my patio garden, if you know what I mean.”
“So, so disgusting,” Phoebus shook his head.

Chapter One First Day and Already Over It

Transcription

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