by Disney Books
“Wait,” Big Red said. “You’ve had this for ten years?”
“Actually,” Carlos said, “I never played it.”
“We’ll totally play it,” Ashlyn told him.
Carlos explained there were two teams: the East High Wildcats and the West High Knights. The cast split up into teams. Ashlyn watched Big Red move to the Knights and joined him on that team.
E.J. arrived holding a large dish of lobster dip. He was eager to tell Ashlyn about his confessional Instagram posts. He had committed to being a better person and was starting by publicly stating all his bad deeds and schemes on his social media sites. He was FaceTiming with Emily Pratt from drama camp when he arrived. “Hold on one sec,” he said to Emily. “I’ve just gotta find Nini.”
As if on cue, Nini moved through the crowd and saw Emily on E.J.’s screen.
“Oh my God, Emily,” Nini said.
E.J. grinned. “It’s okay,” he said. “She knows all about the deviled egg! I’m making amends these days, Nini, and she was fine with everything. She laughed!”
“Wow,” Nini said.
“Hey, I gotta go join the party,” E.J. told her. “And admit some terrible things.” He handed the phone to Nini. “You ladies catch up!”
Nini felt so awkward. “I am…so sorry about what happened this summer,” she said.
“That’s all so far in the rearview I can’t even tell you,” Emily said. “Water under the bridge. I started at this new boarding school for the arts and it’s everything. Seriously makes all that stuff last summer feel like kindergarten.”
“Oh, wow,” Nini replied.
“There’s nothing like a fresh start to completely stretch your talent,” Emily said.
Emily cut the conversation short, and Nini took a minute to digest what had just happened. Just then, Ricky came in the front door.
“Hey, look who’s here,” Nini said.
“I didn’t know if you’d make it,” Ricky said.
“I’d figured I’d check in with all my…buddies,” she joked, not really knowing what to call him.
“Nice,” Ricky said. “We heard a rumor that Carlos went off the deep end and we didn’t want to miss it.”
“We?” Nini asked.
And then Gina came in the door behind Ricky. She was holding the gluten-free turkey cupcakes she had made from a recipe on YouTube.
“Again with you and YouTube,” Ricky said, and he shared a giggle with Gina.
Nini eyed them. Now they had inside jokes! They were a “we” now?
Luckily, Carlos called the game to order. He explained how his game had trivia and singing and dance challenges that all related to High School Musical. The cast was up for the challenge.
First the Knights had to sing the lyrics of “What I’ve Been Looking For” to the rhythm of “Get’cha Head in the Game.” This sent everyone into a fit of giggles. The next challenge went to E.J. and Ricky. They had to stare at each other doing the Sharpay and Ryan warm-up for sixty seconds straight without laughing.
Nini ducked out of the room for a root beer refill at the same time as Gina. In the kitchen, Gina confided that always being the new girl had been hard for her, but she had high hopes for junior year at East High. When Gina tried to apologize for all the drama she had caused as the wonderstudy, Nini stopped her. “It’s all good,” Nini said. Then she changed the subject. “You’re staying over tonight, right?”
Gina had never been invited to a sleepover before. With all the times she and her mom had moved, making friends was really hard. But here, she felt a part of something. And she liked that feeling.
Back out in the living room, the board game was still going on and the score was tied. It was time for a rapid trivia play-off. Gina got the winning answer, and Carlos gave her a homemade scholastic decathlon ribbon. Feeling really happy, Gina called her mom on speakerphone. When her mom asked to be taken off speaker, everyone knew something was up. Gina’s mom told her that they would be moving again…in ten days. Gina had been having such a great time, but now her night was ruined. She grabbed her cupcake pan from the kitchen and was about to bolt when Ricky stopped her.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
“Not even a little,” Gina said. “Honestly, you heard what happened. I don’t think there’s any point in calling me anymore, do you?” She turned and left Ashlyn’s house.
Ricky followed her to the door, but Gina was gone.
“Hey, are you all right?” Nini asked, moving closer to him. “That was pretty intense.”
“Yeah, I was there,” Ricky spat.
Nini tried to say something comforting, but Ricky bristled. “It’s not just Gina,” he said. “My mom moved out two weeks ago and she’s already got a new boyfriend. Sound familiar?”
Nini backed up. “Whoa,” she said. “You can be mad at me all you want, but you should talk to your mom.”
“Thanks, but I really don’t need more advice from my buddy right now,” he said, and walked out the door.
Everyone started to clear out of Ashlyn’s house. After Gina’s crushing news, none of the girls were in the mood for a sleepover. Big Red was the only one who stayed to help Ashlyn clean up. He saw Ashlyn’s piano and asked her if this was where she had written that Sara Bareilles song about regrets for Ms. Darbus.
“Did someone tell you to say that? Because that’s all I’ve wanted to hear my entire life,” Ashlyn said, completely touched by Big Red comparing her song to one of her favorite singer’s.
“I should go,” Big Red said.
Ashlyn thanked him and then gave him the leftover lobster dip.
Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara were surprised to find each other in the faculty lounge at East High on Thanksgiving. They both came clean about their nonexistent family Thanksgiving dinners and their school projects. Mr. Mazzara was working on a robot, and Miss Jenn was working on how to get Troy to levitate onstage. She was trying to figure out the maneuver using a Troy doll wrapped in string.
Miss Jenn eyed Mr. Mazzara’s work for the Roboticon. “You want some help?” she asked.
Mr. Mazzara puffed out his chest. “I am an engineer by trade, Miss Jenn,” he said. “I think I’ve got it.” But he clearly didn’t. His robot kept falling over.
“Okay,” Miss Jenn told him. “The center of gravity is off, and if that was a dancer, she’d be in traction.” She turned and walked away.
“Wait.” He sighed. “How would you fix it?”
Taking her time, Miss Jenn manipulated the robot and, in a few moves, solved the balance issue. Mr. Mazzara was impressed.
“Honey, it’s called a plié,” she said.
In return, Mr. Mazarra did some quick calculations and was able to figure out a pulley system for the Troy levitation. He demonstrated the pulley with the doll for Miss Jenn.
“It’s beautiful,” she gushed, beaming at him.
“Math often is,” he said.
“Benjamin, I’m going to cry,” Miss Jenn said, getting teary-eyed.
“Please don’t,” he told her. “I can’t stress to you enough how uncomfortable that would make me feel.”
“You did something nice for me,” Miss Jenn gushed. “You know what we should do? When I was young, my family used to do a movie night on Thanksgiving. You wanna?”
At first, Mr. Mazzara declined, but Miss Jenn offered up Big Hero 6, which she knew would grab his attention and his robot-loving mind.
They heated up some leftovers and made some tea, then sat down on the couch to watch. Before the movie ended, Miss Jenn and Mr. Mazzara were asleep. While they slept, in the corner of the room, the plug from the teapot began to spark in the socket. Fast asleep, they didn’t notice—or smell—the start of a fire.
When Nini arrived at school after Thanksgiving break, she couldn’t believe her eyes. The cast was standing in front of yellow caution tape strung across the East High theater.
“Oh my gosh, what happened?” Nini asked.
Miss Jenn came out
from backstage. “It’s okay,” she told them. “Nobody was hurt. There was a small fire in the theater over the holiday, and the sprinklers did their job.”
A firefighter followed Miss Jenn. “We’re almost done in here,” she said. “We have to finish up in the faculty lounge next. Some circuits blew in there over break.”
Miss Jenn gulped. She and Mr. Mazzara had fallen asleep in the lounge on Thanksgiving. They had smelled smoke. Benjamin Mazzara had said to run, so she ran. She would donate her salary if she had to, but the show must go on!
“Unfortunately, the show can’t go on,” the firefighter said.
“What?” Miss Jenn said, turning around.
The firefighter shook her head. “The fire ripped through all the costumes, and the sprinklers ruined all your sets.” She shrugged. “I’m sorry. We’re gonna have to red-tag the entire backstage area for at least a month.”
“Did she just say costumes?” Kourtney gasped. Her costumes were gone?
Miss Jenn told the kids they would reconvene in the cafeteria after school to talk about their options. She looked to Nini and Ricky to take on the responsibility of spreading the word, since they were the show leads. Nini rose to the task, but Ricky seemed preoccupied with his phone. He had been texting Gina all morning. He hadn’t spoken to her since her big news about moving.
At the cafeteria meeting, Miss Jenn asked where Gina was. “She’s going through a family thing right now,” Ashlyn explained.
“If we don’t have a theater, we don’t have a show,” Miss Jenn told the group. “I guess we could consider other venues.” She didn’t quite know what that meant, but she needed to find a new theater for the show.
“How about the El Rey?” Carlos asked. The old theater was for sale and had once been a major attraction downtown. His uncle was the listing agent. Carlos thought the idea was perfect, yet Miss Jenn seemed to be having a very weird reaction to his suggestion.
“I can’t imagine we’d be able to get in on such short notice,” Miss Jenn told Carlos.
Carlos was two steps ahead and already had his uncle on the phone. He agreed to have the show at the El Rey. Everyone cheered except Miss Jenn. “Aren’t you excited?” Carlos asked her.
Miss Jenn put on her theater face and nodded, though inside she was crumbling. The El Rey was the theater where the original High School Musical had premiered. And that was not a night she wanted to revisit.
The cast started to load up props, boxes, and lights from backstage to take over to the El Rey.
Kourtney stood in the hallway and watched Ashlyn and Seb laughing as they awkwardly carried a long light board out of the auditorium. “Looks like the cast is in pretty good spirits,” she said to Big Red.
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Actors, man. Fire or no fire, they’ve still got their charm and perfect skin.”
Kourtney chuckled. “I know it’s silly, but I feel like I lost a little piece of myself when all those costumes went up in flames.”
Big Red agreed. After all, he had spent weeks on the papier-mâché basketball that had been ruined in the fire.
As Carlos walked by, Kourtney asked him if there was any emergency money to replace some of the costumes.
“Let’s just stick a pin in that, Kourt,” he said. “Right now the priority is making sure we can put up a show.” He continued to walk down the hall and saw E.J. with Miss Jenn’s red file box. “Oh, hey,” he called. “Maybe I should carry that. It’s just a little bit sensitive. It’s Miss Jenn’s show file, with her script breakdown, set sketches, and audition notes.”
“You mean this says why which people got which parts?” E.J. asked.
“No further comment,” Carlos said, grabbing the box and running down the hall.
Nini and Kourtney walked into the El Rey holding flashlights. The dark old theater was a little creepy.
“How are you holding up?” Kourtney asked Nini.
Shrugging, Nini confessed, “I actually feel weirdly guilty. Almost like I caused this. Like it’s a sign.”
Kourtney smiled at her. “How could you have caused this?”
“I had kind of a strange weekend,” she said. “I started thinking about applying to this performing arts school.”
As Nini explained to Kourtney about Youth Actors Conservatory, she felt more certain about needing to “find new shores,” as her grandmother had when she came to America.
“You were going to spend senior year without me,” Kourtney said, sounding really hurt.
Then Nini looked around at the cast trying to get the stage ready. “But that’s over now,” she said. “We have a show to save.”
“Yeah,” Kourtney said. “For sure.” And she watched Nini rush onstage to join the others.
E.J. found Miss Jenn’s red file box and took it into the stairwell. His confessional posts hadn’t really helped him or his reputation. His followers were dropping off, and no one seemed very interested in his honesty plan. He decided that he just had to be himself. And he wanted to read his audition file to find out why Miss Jenn had cast Ricky instead of him. As he flipped through the notes, he smiled at Miss Jenn’s comment: “Classic Troy on paper.” His grin disappeared when he scrolled down the page. “Lacks an emotional connection to the material.” E.J. was stumped. Now he was committed to proving her wrong.
Onstage, Miss Jenn was trying to get the tech rehearsal going. Though the theater barely even had lights, she urged everyone to take their places and called for Natalie Bagley, the stage manager, to start.
Seb stepped forward. “Um, Natalie Bagley’s getting her wisdom teeth out,” he said.
Miss Jenn sighed. “Okay, so I’m down a stage manager and my Taylor is M.I.A.”
Ricky jumped in. “Gina’s okay. She’s a fighter, and she’ll be back for opening night.”
“She texted you?” Nini asked.
“No,” Ricky said. “You?”
Nini shook her head.
A large sandbag fell from the rafters. Miss Jenn shuddered. Maybe this place was haunted, and not only by her memories of the premiere. She took a deep breath and called the cast for “Stick to the Status Quo” onstage. She then sent Nini and Ricky to find somewhere quiet to rehearse their rooftop scene. They’d hardly spoken since Ashlyn’s party, so it was a little awkward, but they followed Miss Jenn’s directions.
Before Ashlyn took her place onstage, she saw Big Red in the wings holding a light. “Hey, you okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Big Red said. “I just don’t know how to make things light up.”
“You walk into a room,” Ashlyn said.
Big Red blushed. “Oh, you,” he said.
Ashlyn smiled. “Seriously, I’ve been through a few tech rehearsals in my day. Just holler if you need me.”
“Thanks, Ash,” Big Red said.
Before walking onstage, she turned to him. “You got this.”
Big Red grinned.
Nini and Ricky found a creepy storage room for some privacy to read through their scene. Before they got started, Ricky wanted to talk about what had happened at Ashlyn’s party.
“It was totally fine,” Nini said. “I get it.”
“Do you?” Ricky asked.
“I meant I said something nice,” Nini told him. “You acted like a punk. What is there to discuss?”
Ricky couldn’t let that go without talking it out. “For the record,” he said, “you’re the one who called me your buddy, and I’ve been iced out for weeks, so maybe it was building up.” He flipped through his script to find the scene.
“Okay. Glad you got that out of your system?” Nini said sarcastically. “Page fifty-three?”
“Yeah, actually, I am,” Ricky replied. “Page fifty-three. I’m all about the work.”
As they went through the scene, Ricky read the line about kindergarten, and it reminded him of when he and Nini were five. He was the one who’d come up with her nickname because he couldn’t say Nina. “I still can’t think of you as a Nina,” he said.
/> “You could just call me buddy,” she said, smiling.
“For the record,” he said, “I was Richard Bowen until first grade, when you started calling me Ricky.”
Nini knew he was right. But no one under fifty should be called Richard!
More memories were flooding in, and they laughed about microwaving a Barbie, a moldy-bread science experiment, and that song about how Nini loved him…though that last one was a little too soon. Or not.
“Maybe we should warm up our voices in case we have to sing later,” she said, changing the subject.
Meanwhile, back onstage, Miss Jenn was trying to get the lighting right for the rooftop scene. She asked for volunteers to help.
“I can do Troy,” E.J. said. Then, under his breath, he muttered, “Or at least some people think so.”
“Fine,” Miss Jenn called. “Carlos, you stand in for Gabriella.”
A flood of green lights hit the stage. Carlos explained there had been a fashion show there previously, but the green was more like a nuclear reactor and the backdrop was some kind of bizarre ancient ruins. Miss Jenn exhaled deeply.
“Big Red!” Miss Jenn yelled. “Do we have anything more flattering?’
“I’m working on it!” he replied.
E.J. continued reading Troy’s lines, laying on the emotion thick. Even though he was reading through the lines with Carlos, he read the lines as if he were really falling for Gabriella.
“That’s excellent,” Miss Jenn said. “And a little weird.” She called to Big Red. “Any progress?”
“I think I found it!” Big Red replied.
The stage went dark, and then black lights lit up the stage with an eerie glow.
Miss Jenn called for E.J. and Carlos to go on with the scene. E.J. continued to ramp up the emotion and even had tears in his eyes.
“E.J., are you sick?” Miss Jenn asked.
Carlos knew exactly what happened. He knew E.J. had read the audition notes. When he approached him, E.J. was defensive. Laying the emotion on too thick wasn’t good either, Carlos explained to him.
