Chương 773: THE OTHER THING THAT EXPLODED
29 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, AFTERNOON
Mr Devon did come to class about 20 minutes later.
"I must apologize, class." He said as he rushed in and put his laptop on the teacher's desk, "I was on staff meetings and important phone calls all morning!"
And then he continued even though nobody asked anything, "If you must know, the press has been calling all day!"
Oh, that might be my bad, with the rogue's bomb attack just outside the school earlier today.
"Ever since news got out about Madam Silvia's involvement in our little production, the guest list just keeps expanding."
Wait, what? Why?
"We will be hosting very important visitors, real VIPs during our special assembly this Wednesday." Mr Devon told the class, "Even though it might be a bit of a crush, I must say its jolly exciting."
It's what now?
Anyway, the whole point was that our little theater exercise was mentioned by Madam Silvia in one of her interviews about her good works with public schools - which Winderhill was probably the ONLY one she had as an example, where she noted how even from the depths of common high school students, were also hidden diamonds in the rough - which was probably Jasmine, because she pretty much wrote the entire script.
So now, there would be a camera crew from LNC following her to Winderhill's Special Assembly on Wednesday morning to watch the student production blessed by Madam Silvia's magical touch. Some talent scouts saw this on TV and because Madam Silvia's list of students ran like a who's who book in the theater circles, they thought they'd come scout... for talent, specifically, they were looking for potential cast for the new musical opening at King's Theater next Fall. Not a headliner role, of course, we were just newcomers to the scene, so maybe if we're lucky, one or two of us might get invited to audition for a very minor role.
But it was our lucky break, Mr Devon was convinced of it. In fact, this was his lucky break too! He had every intention of putting Winderhill High on the map of theatrical talent.
The more I listened, the worse I felt about it all. It was one thing to act Bulliet to entertain my school mates, it was quite another to do so on LNC. Like seriously.
Henry groaned audibly from next to me, like more than once. I felt quite sure our desks were closer than usual, but that wasn't the point. What was the point was that our "little production" for a school's special assembly was now a very big production with a reporting news crew and real VIPs. Even Madam Principal would be giving a welcome speech at the beginning of the assembly.
Anyway, because Mr Devon was such a busy producer now, all of us should sit quietly and read a book or something. He had work to do on his laptop. He fished out the wireless mouse that was bulging out of this front shirt pocket and sat down to work.
Henry raised his hand, "Mr D, can Sam and I and some of the others go out to rehearse our lines?"
Did Henry mean the lines I had not yet memorized? No!
"Ah, yes, of course, young alpha- I mean Henry. Please do." Mr Devon answered absently, he was distracted at trying to get his laptop to start up.
"Come on, Sam. Let's go." Henry got up.
Wait, like were we really going to rehearse our lines, or were we "going to rehearse our lines"?
I saw the script rolled up in Marcus' hand and quickly pulled out my own script.
Everyone who was in the play already got out of their seats. Even Fluffy and EJ had snuck into our group to escape the classroom. I wanted to call them out, but then I remembered that they were supposed to follow me everywhere while I was in school. I sighed and dragged my feet to go.
"Oh, and Henry." Mr Devon looked up when we were at the door. We all froze there, I was half expecting Mr Devon to ask why we needed Fluffy and EJ along, but Mr Devon only winked, "Break a leg"
No, don't break a leg! Because it would probably be my leg when Henry found out that I hadn't even started memorizing my lines. T.T
Maybe I could excuse myself to the washroom and memorize the first two pages before joining my friends.
"Bad news guys." Marcus groaned at his phone, "My Alpha and Luna has been invited by Principal Laura to visit the school on Wednesday morning."
Henry paused, as if to mindlink, and then he sighed, "Looks like my Dad and Mum are returning from their trip early to attend too."
Now they looked at me.
What?
Fluffy smiled, "Let me check."
He went on mindlink and then reported, "Beta says Alpha Kingsley and his Luna had received an invitation to visit the school this Wednesday morning too."
Was Madam Principal spamming invitations to everyone's parents?
"My mum didn't get an invite." Jasmine sounded sad. Liam shrugged, "I guess she only invited Alphas."
Which was probably true because after texting, Marcus could confirm that Matt and Jule's alphas had also received invitations to a visit to Winderhill followed by a private tea reception hosted by Madam Principal and her son, Alpha Stephan.
"She's trying to make the most of it I guess." Henry shrugged, "We'd be leaving at term break. Incidentally showing off the alpha connections of the school while the news crew is on site with a prestigious visitor would seriously chalk up public goodwill."
"Why does she even bother?" Marcus sighed, "She's stepping down soon too, isn't she?"
"Not till Summer." Henry said, "Maybe she wants to go out with a bang, or maybe she just wants to put a more positive perspective on Winderhill High after that bombing incident. Whatever it is, she's really milking it."
"My dad says she could squeeze juice out of a rock." Marcus remembered.
"So what do you guys want to do?" I asked. I was a little hopeful. Maybe they'd rebel and refuse to go on stage (and I wouldn't have to learn any of the lines.)
"The show must go on." Henry sighed, "Just bigger, and brighter, and definitely costlier now."
Wait what?
"We can't mess up. My alpha and luna is coming!" Marcus was determined.
Who cared about your alpha and luna? But of course, Marcus was a Beta. There was no way he wanted to look bad in front of his Alpha and Luna.
I was so dead.
"What about you, Sam? Are you nervous that your parents are coming too?" Jasmine asked kindly.
"I was not nervous." Henry corrected, "I was making adjustments based on historical expectations."
I never wondered what Henry's parents usually expected of their one and only heir until today.
"I wasn't nervous. I just don't want to give them another thing to tease me about." Marcus muttered to himself.
Life as a Beta was tough. Especially if you were a teenager and the older Alpha and Luna liked to tease you.
"Sam?" Jasmine asked again.
"You don't have to worry." Henry boasted, "I've just contacted, Pete. He's working with Ki on fabricating the new set designs. Our production quality would be second to none."
Wait, what?
"That's not it." I said. None of this would mean anything if I screwed up the lines right?
"I wished my family could come." Jasmine sighed.
"That's it!" I decided, "Let's go ask Madam Principal to invite Jasmine's parents... and maybe the other parents too."
"I don't know, Sam..." Marcus looked uncertain.
"How are you going to convince her?" Henry asked.
I gave him my wide smile, "I'm going to let you do the talking."
"What the hell, Sam." Henry growled, but we headed to Madam Principal's office anyway.
Henry was surprising persuasive and managed to couch the whole "let's invite jasmine's parents" thing as a "why don't we invite regular parents so that the press/alphas/public can see how Winderhill also has good relationships with the community and our students' parents" thing.
By the time we left, Madam Principal had already picked up the phone to invite a near by retirement home to bring their residents for an outing to our school to watch a play performed by the students. Can the home take videos of this outing to show on their social media channel? Of course! As a show of goodwill, Madam Principal would sponsor the chartered bus for their outing too!
The world was moving way to fast today.
Most of the time, I felt like I had tried to get on the train, missed the step, fell on the track, and then got run over multiple times.
A underground terrorist gang attack here, vampires hunters there, the little school production that had blown way out of proportion to possibly massive humiliation, was there nothing in my life that didn't sound like it might endanger my life?
We got back to class in time for Geography, and that was quiet. Thank you Mr Lark. He didn't even come to class. When Liam went to the staff room to look for him, Mr Lark sent him back saying that it was self study time. Maybe we can start reading next term's textbooks.
All the boys left the classroom for football and whatever boys did. I took out my script.
"Shhhh... I need to concentrate." I shoved Maria out of my mind. She pouted and left for her own walk about the hallways. Dionysus wasn't even in school today!
"Let's not disturb her." Jasmine told Janice and some of the nice girls, "Our play has become a really big thing and I think it has to be stressing her out."
"Oh, right." Janice whispered back too loudly, "She's playing the female lead."
"I really don't envy her." Another girl whispered, "It must be hard to stand out all the time."
"Shhh....shhh...." Jasmine cast me a fugitive glance, "We're too loud, lets go somewhere else to talk."
Janice put some homemade cookies on a tissue and left it on my desk as if she were putting out an offering on an altar, and then she curtsied, and bowed, and then ran to join the other girls. I didn't look up from my script - I mean, would you?
But the moment she was properly away from the classroom, I re-positioned the cookies closer and put one in my mouth. I wasn't stressed. I didn't think I really stood out all the time. Like right now, there were still a few other girls in the classroom, Arlene the beautiful human, and Elena, and some random girls, and they were all ignoring me. I was just a normal teenager trying not to step onto the stage without knowing a single line. We had full dress rehearsal after this too so the clock was really ticking on me.
Maybe I should just call in sick. I did have a bomb explode in my face this morning - that should've been plenty as a medical excuse. I haven't even sustained a headache from that... this last minute memory work, I looked at the script - was it always this thick? This, I might possible sustain a headache from.
Okay, calm down, Sam. One more hour to rehearsal, and someone had highlighted all my lines in my script for me. Ki magic probably. I flipped through the scrip to check out all the magical neon yellow lines. They made the black printed words stand out prominently. It's not too bad, I didn't even appear in the first few pages!
I'll just memorize all the yellow parts. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.
Nothing a bit of hard work couldn't solve!
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