Ryan's Musical Revue

by kelbebop-phoebenpiper

Sharpay decides it's time to introduce Chad to Ryan's past lives...all the roles he's played. This is our next story in the "Extra Innings" series -- it follows "Second Date".

Ryan's Musical Revue -- by phoebenpiper

Author's Notes: This story continues in our Extra Innings series after Second Date: Bowled Over. As I was working on my Musical Auditions story, I kept thinking about what shows Ryan and Sharpay could've been in as kids, and thus this story was born. Some of it is based on real-life experiences of me and my friends (and that really was my "little sister's" solo in "Food, Glorious Food"!)

---

Chad hurried down the corridor towards Mrs. Evans's office. He thought it was a little weird that Ryan had texted to meet him there -- usually they met in the yoga studio, the dance rehearsal room, or, lately, the laundry room after Chad got off work. But whatever -- Chad didn't really care WHERE they met up. And since Ryan often assisted his mom with her Board duties, Chad figured today was probably just one of those days.

But as Chad barged into the office, he found the OTHER Evans twin inside -- the one who NEVER assisted ANYONE.

"Oh...hey, Sharpay."

"Hello, Chad." Sharpay was more cheerful than usual, a fact which would've made Chad wary if he'd been less distracted.

"I, uh, was supposed to meet Ryan here after work," Chad explained, looking around the small office as if Ryan might be hiding behind a potted plant or something.

But no such luck. Sharpay was the only Evans in the room.

And, as usual, she was disagreeing with him.

"No you weren't," Sharpay stated matter-of-factly.

"Yes I was," Chad answered back, somewhat annoyed that she thought she knew everything. "He texted me to..."

"No, I texted you," Sharpay said. "When Ryan was in yoga class. He can be so careless about his phone sometimes."

Chad was having problems catching up. "YOU texted me?"

"Yes," Sharpay sighed, clearly frustrated with him. "I texted you...from Ryan's phone," she said in a condescending voice as if Chad were a child. But then she smiled sweetly as she explained, "I didn't think you'd show if you knew it was me you were meeting."

She certainly was right about that. Except for asking her advice about the Stomp tickets, Chad had tried hard to avoid Sharpay ever since she'd threatened to hurt him if he broke Ryan's heart.

Or had she threatened to KILL him? Chad couldn't quite remember the exact threat, but it still made him nervous to be around her.

And why would she want to meet with him NOW? He hadn't done anything to Ryan.

Well, nothing to his HEART anyway.

Though it was true that their last date hadn't gone exactly as planned...

"Look, Sharpay," Chad quickly began to explain, "I know the bowling date didn't work out the way it was s'posed to, but that wasn't my fault! And Ryan seemed to have a good time anyway. So I don't think you should--"

Sharpay shook her head. "What are going on about? I'm not upset about your failed bowling date -- I'M not the one who had to wear rented shoes...though I did have to hear about it for several days...but whatever. That's not why I wanted to meet with you."

"So why DID you?" Chad asked, worried about what her answer might be.

But Sharpay smiled. "Well, now that you're becoming better friends with Ryan, I think it's important for you to know about Ryan's past. After all, you can't truly know who Ryan IS without knowing who he's BEEN."

"Huh?"

Did the Evanses believe in reincarnation or something? Like maybe Sharpay and Ryan had been royalty in some past life? That would certainly explain Sharpay's personality. But Chad couldn't remember Ryan ever talking about his "past lives".

Of course, Chad couldn't remember Ryan talking about ANY of his religious beliefs. So maybe he WAS a Buddhist...or whatever that religion was that believed in reincarnation.

However, Sharpay gestured to several scrapbooks stacked up on the desk. "I know you're not really INTO theatre, but theatre is Ryan's life! And if YOU'RE going to be a part of his life, you're going to have to understand the role theatre plays...and the roles HE'S played."

Oh, THAT'S what she meant by "who he's been" -- the parts he'd played. That shouldn't be TOO painful -- hell, it might even be fun to see Ryan in all his crazy costumes.

Too bad it was Sharpay who was going to be showing him!

"Maybe Ryan should be the one to--" Chad began, but Sharpay didn't let him finish.

"Nonsense! Ryan's too embarrassed to show you these," she said, grabbing a scrapbook off the pile and setting it on the desk in front of her.

Embarrassed? Chad couldn't imagine Ryan being embarrassed about anything related to the theatre!

"Why would he be embarrassed?" Chad asked.

Sharpay rolled her eyes as if the answer was obvious. "Because he knows you're anti-theatre, so he figures--."

"I'm NOT anti-theatre!" Chad objected vehemently.

Sharpay raised a doubtful eyebrow, and Chad realized he "doth protest too much".

And then he grinned to himself as he fondly realized that Ryan had taught him that Shakespeare quote.

"Well, it's true I haven't been a big fan of theatre in the PAST," Chad conceded, "but I'm starting to think it's not so bad."

"'Not so bad'?!"

"I mean, I think it's cool!" Chad quickly corrected himself. The last thing he wanted to do was make Sharpay angry when they were in such close quarters. "Theatre's cool," he repeated, hoping to placate her.

Sharpay smiled, clearly satisfied with his response, and Chad breathed a sigh of relief.

Patting the seat next to her, Sharpay said, "Sit down. We've got a lot of these to go through."

Chad sat down as Sharpay opened up the first scrapbook.

The first page had a simple folded program entitled "The Dazzle and Dream Dance Studio presents its Annual Spring Recital." Next to the program was a slightly blurry photo of several toddlers onstage, each wearing identical yellow raincoats and matching yellow rain hats as each held up a closed yellow umbrella.

"This was our first dance recital," Sharpay explained. "We danced to 'Singin' in the Rain' -- thus the costumes!"

Chad scanned the blurry faces, trying to identify Ryan...or even Sharpay...amongst the tiny yellow dancers.

"That's me," Sharpay said, pointing to herself. "And that's Ryan."

Chad should've known -- they were the only two kids holding hands!

Looking closer, Chad could see that Ryan's blurry face almost looked red.

"Was he crying?"

"Yes!" Sharpay rolled her eyes. "He threw a fit backstage because he didn't want to wear his rain hat."

"What?!" Chad couldn't believe it -- Ryan not wanting to wear a hat?!

Sharpay nodded. "Ry HATED hats. In fact, when we were little, he hated having ANYTHING on his head -- hats, hoods, sunglasses! And it was a real concern for our parents because Ry's skin was so fair that he was constantly getting sunburned."

"So what happened?"

"This recital happened. During Ryan's crying fit, Mother took him aside and said something to him -- I have no idea what it was, even though I've ASKED--" Clearly Sharpay was annoyed at not being let in on the secret. "But whatever she said seemed to work because he wore his hat for our dance -- and practically every day since!"

Chad smiled -- he couldn't wait to get Ryan alone so he could grill him on what Mrs. Evans had said!

Sharpay turned to the next page of the scrapbook. Again there was a folded program from the dance studio. And again there was a blurry photo of a group of kids onstage. This time, however, Chad could easily pick out Ryan in the line -- he was the only one NOT wearing a sparkly pink tutu.

He was also the ONLY one wearing a pink sequined hat!

"That's me!" Sharpay said, proudly pointing to herself in the photo. "I LOVED that tutu," she said, lost in the memory. "But I STILL can't believe that our routine was to 'The Dance of the Hours' -- how offensive is that?!"

Chad stared blankly at Sharpay. "'Offensive'? Why?"

Sharpay shook her head. "Obviously you've never seen Fantasia -- Ryan will need to remedy that ASAP."

Fantasia? Chad wasn't sure exactly what it was, and he wondered what he was getting himself into!

Sharpay turned to the next page, but this time, instead of a simple program and a blurry photo, Chad was shocked to find the entire page filled with beautiful, in-focus pictures of a colorful stage.

"What happened?" Chad couldn't help but ask at the drastic change.

Sharpay ducked her head, something Chad had come to recognize in Ryan as a sign of embarrassment --perhaps the trait ran in the Evans family.

"Daddy is a WONDERFUL person," Sharpay admitted sheepishly, "but a TERRIBLE photographer -- those first photos were all by him. Mother actually takes great photos, but she insisted to my father that she wanted to WATCH her darlings and not be stuck behind a camera for every performance. So Daddy finally decided to hire a professional photographer to shoot all our performances. You might've seen Ira before -- he was at the poetry competition last spring."

Chad shook his head -- only the Evanses would pay someone to photograph a class assignment.

Though he had to admit that Ira's photography was amazing. The photos on the page in front of him looked like something out a magazine.

"So what was this?" he asked, noticing all the adults and the elaborate sets. "Surely not another recital."

"Oh no, this was our first production of The Nutcracker," Sharpay explained.

"The Nutcracker?" Chad repeated. "Isn't that a Christmas thing?"

"It's THE Christmas ballet -- the New Mexico Ballet Company puts it on every year."

"Ballet?!" Chad was surprised -- he knew Ryan was a dancer, but he'd somehow never pictured him as a ballerina!

Chad wasn't the only one surprised. "You've never SEEN The Nutcracker?!" Sharpay asked, clearly appalled. "Then you're definitely going with us this year -- it's a Christmas tradition! And Ryan and I always watch the little kids to see if they'll mess up -- it's such a blast!"

Chad nodded. Fantasia, The Nutcracker -- he was going to become cultured whether he liked it or not.

He scanned the photos in front of him. The ballet DID look interesting. And hardly anyone was wearing tutus -- the dancers were mainly dressed in colorful exotic costumes.

"So where are you and Ryan?" Chad asked.

Sharpay turned the page. Along with the folded program, the page was filled with more colorful photos -- but this time, every one featured the Evans twins: close-ups of each; mid-range shots of the two with other tiny dancers; and shots of the entire stage, showing the giant decorated Christmas tree they were dancing under.

"We were presents," Sharpay explained as if Chad couldn't see the foil-wrapped boxes they were wearing. "The boys weren't required to wear the bows on their heads, but Ryan INSISTED."

Chad laughed as he continued to stare at the photos. With both twins wearing identical Christmas present costumes and identical bows on top of their identical blond bowl cuts, it was almost impossible to tell them apart. If it wasn't for Ryan's pale blue eyes, Chad wouldn't have been able to distinguish him from his dark-eyed twin.

And Chad couldn't wait to tease Ryan about that!

Sharpay turned the page -- this one was filled with backstage photos of the production: little Sharpay and Ryan in the dressing room getting into their box costumes; little Sharpay and Ryan sitting on the floor playing a game; little Sharpay on her Daddy's shoulders while little Ryan clung to...

"Holy crap!" Chad exclaimed, staring at the photo of what looked like an exact copy of present-day Sharpay. "Is that your mother?!"

Sharpay rolled her eyes. "I know, I know -- everyone says we kinda look alike."

"'Kinda'?! She could practically be your older twin!"

"Twins are the same age, idiot," Sharpay said, clearly annoyed by the comparison. "And I already HAVE a twin, thank you very much!"

Chad shook his head, not wanting to say more for fear of further angering Sharpay. But he simply couldn't believe the resemblance between Sharpay now and Mrs. Evans in the photo. The young mother was practically glowing with pride for her two young children, especially the adorable towhead lovingly clinging to her side.

"She's beautiful," Chad mumbled without thinking.

Sharpay instantly beamed. "Thanks!"

It took Chad a moment to realize that he'd inadvertently just complimented Sharpay. But now that he thought about it, Sharpay WAS beautiful -- it was just her personality that tended to get in the way.

"Anyway," Sharpay said, quickly flipping forward past several pages of the scrapbook, "we should move on."

"Wait!" Chad said, putting his hand out to stop her when he saw feathers. "What's this?"

Sharpay pointed to her and Ryan's elaborate feathered costumes. "This was our second production of The Nutcracker -- we were birds."

"Obviously!"

Staring at the photos, Chad couldn't help but laugh -- the tufts of yellow feathers sticking up from Ryan's blond hair made him look somewhat like Big Bird.

A very SHORT Big Bird.

Sharpay paged forward in the scrapbook till she reached their NEXT production of The Nutcracker.

"How many times were you in it?!" Chad asked, smiling at their elaborate angel costumes.

"Only three," Sharpay explained, flipping forward in the scrapbook. "The next spring we were introduced to the world of musical theatre...and we never looked back."

Sharpay turned to a page with a program labeled: "The Adobe Theatre presents South Pacific."

Next to the program were assorted photos of men in sailor suits, women in nurses uniforms, and several darker-skinned characters in grass skirts. There were also a few photos of two small dark-skinned children hugging an older white man. But nowhere on the page could Chad see Ryan and Sharpay.

"Where are you?" Chad asked, trying to turn to the next page, but Sharpay wouldn't let him.

"We're right there," she said, pointing to the two Pacific Islander children.

"Nuh-uh!" Chad insisted, leaning his head down to closely inspect the photo. The children looked almost Polynesian...except for the whisp of blonde hair hanging down in front of the girl's face and the pale blue eyes of the boy.

"Whoa!"

Chad couldn't believe it! They looked nothing like themselves -- but clearly the two children in the photos were the Evans twins.

Chad looked up at Sharpay's proud face.

"Pretty cool, huh?" she beamed.

Chad nodded, amazed. "But how?"

Sharpay's smile instantly faded, replaced with an annoyed grimace. "Make-up?!"

"Well...duh!"

No wonder Sharpay was staring at him like that -- she'd completely misunderstood the question. "I MEANT how did you two get the parts? Who looks at a couple of blond kids and says, 'I know -- let's make them Pacific Islanders'?"

"Casting directors are true visionaries," Sharpay explained grandly. "They have to possess the ability to see BEYOND a person's superficial exterior and see the latent potential beneath. Take Orlando Bloom for example -- someone looked at this scrawny dark-eyed kid with olive skin and curly hair and said, 'He would make a beautiful blond-haired, blue-eyed elf.' That kind of vision is a true GIFT."

Chad had to agree.

Chad also had to wonder what the deal was with the Evans twins and Orlando Bloom, since Ryan randomly mentioned him a lot, too.

Sharpay continued. "Although in this case, it wasn't the casting director who had the vision -- it was the choreographer." She turned to another page in the scrapbook, showing the two "Polynesian" Evans twins hugging a beaming man backstage. "Our dance teacher was choreographing the show and knew they need two kids to play siblings, so he recommended us, even though the parts didn't require any dancing. But we did get to sing a song in French. Parlez vous francais?"

"Uh...Frere Jacques?" Chad answered back absently in the only French he knew as he concentrated on the photo. "He looks familiar," Chad said, pointing to the guy the Evanses were hugging. "Do I know him?"

Sharpay shook her head. "Certainly not -- you and Tommy don't exactly run in the same circles."

But Chad recognized the name. "Tommy -- your dance teacher, right? I HAVE met him."

"No you haven't."

Chad sighed frustratedly -- must Sharpay always contradict him. "Yes I HAVE -- Ryan and I saw him at the fondue restaurant."

Sharpay's eyes widened as realization dawned. "Oh, that's RIGHT -- on your first date! Ryan told me ALL ABOUT that humiliating encounter!"

"'Humiliating'?" To be honest, Chad didn't remember much about the man or the "encounter" -- he'd been too busy eating his dessert to really pay attention!

"Tommy's a dear," Sharpay said, shaking her head, "but he can be way too blunt for his own good sometimes. I mean, I can't BELIEVE he brought up the topic of condoms."

"WHAT?!' Surely Chad had misheard her.

"I know Tommy meant well, and I'm sure he was only trying to look out for Ryan, but he had to have known that mentioning condoms on your first date was--"

"CONDOMS?!" So Chad HADN'T misheard her!

Ryan's dance teacher had been talking about CONDOMS?! In the middle of the restaurant?! In the middle of their first date?! And now he was having to hear about it from SHARPAY, of all people!

Chad was mortified!

But Sharpay didn't look very comfortable herself.

"You knew...right?" she asked hopefully.

"Knew that Ryan's dance teacher is a sex fiend?! No -- I somehow missed that part!"

"But...you were THERE!" Sharpay insisted, her breathing starting to sound shallow. "You HAD to have known -- you were sitting at the table for the entire conversation! You couldn't have MISSED it!"

"There was melted chocolate in front of me," Chad said in his own defense. "I was busy EATING, not LISTENING!"

Sharpay's face had paled, and now she grabbed Chad's arms frantically as she practically began to hyperventilate. "You CAN'T tell Ryan that I told you!" she said, sounding panicked. "If he knew that you'd managed to miss the entire conversation and I told you about it, he'd KILL me."

Chad saw the fear in Sharpay's eyes and actually felt sorry for her. Clearly she hadn't met to let the cat out of the bag and now felt terrible about having done so.

"Don't worry -- I won't say anything."

"PROMISE!" In her hysteria, Sharpay squeezed Chad's arms even tighter.

"I promise, I promise!" Chad said, wresting his arms free from her grip.

After all, it wasn't like he was liable to bring up such an embarrassing topic with Ryan anyway.

Sharpay took a few deep breaths, trying to calm herself down. Then she closed the scrapbook and grabbed another off the pile, announcing, "Let's...let's just...move on to the good stuff." She clearly wanted to put the entire Tommy conversation behind them.

Although it was going to be hard to forget it!

As Sharpay started to flip through the second scrapbook, she explained, "After South Pacific, we started doing a lot of productions with the Adobe Theatre, but there weren't really that many BIG parts for us at first. In our next show, we were simply random Siamese children in The King and I."

"Siamese children?" Chad repeated, amused.

Sharpay rolled her eyes. "Don't even start with the Siamese twins jokes -- trust me, we've heard them all." She continued turning pages past several different productions. "Then we were music students in The Music Man and Annie's siblings in Annie Get Your Gun. You know, there's an old theatre saying that 'there are no small parts, only small actors', but that's SO not true."

Chad was confused. "There are no small actors?"

"No! But there ARE small parts, and believe me, Ryan and I played them. I know some people think we were stars from the beginning, but we paid our dues. Our big break didn't come until we were eight. That year, Ryan got cast as Tiny Tim in Scrooge: The Musical -- you DO know A Christmas Carol, right?!"

"Of course," Chad said defensively, but then he realized that it was the first thing he HAD known since she'd started showing him the photos, so it was no wonder she'd asked.

Sharpay turned to a page showing a young Ryan riding on the shoulders of a man, crutch in hand, and Chad couldn't help but smile -- Ryan looked so adorable!

"I was cast as Tiny Tim's sister," Sharpay said, pointing to a photo of the Cratchit family, "and we got to sing SEVERAL songs together. But no one seemed to notice ME because everyone was FAWNING all over Ryan."

It was clear that Sharpay was still bitter about the entire experience.

And by looking at some of the backstage photos, it was clear that she'd been even MORE bitter back then.

"Luckily, the whole thing really opened the door for us," Sharpay said, flipping forward in the scrapbook. "And our next production was Les Mis."

"Lame Is?"

"Les. Mis. It's short for Les Miserables. It's French!"

Sharpay turned to a page displaying both the program and a small poster for the production.

"Dude, is that YOU?" Chad asked, staring at the artwork on both. It consisted of a pencil drawing of a poor girl in tattered rags -- but it looked just like Sharpay.

"Yes!" Sharpay said, beaming. "Isn't that awesome?! One of the actors in the cast liked to draw, so he took a photo of me dressed as Cosette and drew this. The posters were up all over Albuquerque -- it was so cool!"

Sharpay turned the page, which showed photos of Sharpay in front of the posters at various locations around the city. There were also three photos of the poster in the theatre lobby -- one was of the sign itself; one was of Sharpay in her costume, proudly gesturing to the it; and one was of BOTH Evans twins, although Ryan wasn't smiling -- in fact, he had his arms crossed in front of him and a pouty glare on his face.

"Ryan was...a little jealous," Sharpay said almost diplomatically. "But he had a big solo, too -- he got to sing a song called 'Little People' before being shot and killed."

"His character was killed?!" And his sister was on the poster -- no wonder Ryan looked so unhappy in the photo!

Sharpay turned the page to show photos of the actual production, and sure enough, there was Ryan, lying dead on what looked like a giant pile of junk. And there was Sharpay, with dirt on her face and unkempt hair. This certainly didn't look like the kind of cheery, colorful musical productions they'd been in previously!

But before Chad could comment on it, Sharpay started flipping forward through the scrapbook again.

"The Adobe Theatre then realized what a crowd-favorite children -- and especially me and Ryan -- were, so they started doing a LOT of kid-centric shows. First I got to be Annie," she explained as Chad smiled at photos of the young Sharpay wearing a curly orange wig, "and then Ryan got to be Oliver"

Turning some more pages, Chad found himself staring at a photo of Ryan dressed in ragged clothes, holding a plate up towards a fat, angry man with large pleading eyes -- Chad recognized the expression as the one Ryan gave every week to Gabriella when her mom made brownies!

"At least I got to be IN Oliver!" Sharpay said, pointing to herself in the back of a group of kids. "I even got a solo in 'Food, Glorious Food.'"

Chad recognized the name of the song -- Ryan was always singing snippets of it when he was hungry.

"What was your solo?" Chad asked, trying to be polite.

Sharpay ducked her head, sheepishly admitting, "It was actually only a single word at the end -- 'Fabulous'."

Chad smiled, thinking of Sharpay's custom license plate.

"But Ryan wasn't even IN Annie," Sharpay quickly added, trying to one-up her brother.

Chad shook his head. He'd never realized how much competition there'd been between the Evans siblings through the years. At school, the twins had always been practically inseparable, always starring TOGETHER in each production. But obviously out in the REAL theatre world there was a constant rivalry between the two. Chad was honestly surprised they'd stayed so close through the years after their bitter struggles to each be in the spotlight.

"Next we did our first production of The Sound of Music," Sharpay continued, turning another page.

"'First'?"

Sharpay nodded. "The Sound of Music is done ALL the time. For our first one,I was Brigitta and Ryan was Kurt." Sharpay pointed to a photo of seven children standing in a row in matching green-upholstered clothing, with the Evans twins standing side by side. "Ryan spent the entire production rubbing it in my face that he was 'older' than me, even though everyone knows that in real life I'M older!"

'Twenty minutes older,' Chad thought with amusement, but he didn't dare say it aloud.

"During that show, Ryan caught the eye of the director of Musical Theatre Southwest, so he was asked to audition for Amahl."

"'A MALL'?!"

"No, AMAHL...and the Night Visitors. It's a Christmas opera."

"OPERA?!" First ballet, and now OPERA?! Chad couldn't believe it.

"Well, technically it's an operetta, but whatever. If you've never seen it, we'll have to make you watch it this Christmas. Ryan was actually amazing in it...and I was a shepherdess and got a dance solo," Sharpay quickly added so as not to be TOO upstaged by her brother. She turned to a page full of photos from the opera, with both Evans twins again dressed in rags and Ryan again holding a crutch.

"What's with all the poor people?" Chad asked. "I thought musicals were all about sparkly costumes and colorful sets."

"A lot are. But a lot of musicals tend to be about orphaned children -- Annie, Oliver!, even Mary Lennox," Sharpay explained, turning to another page showing a program for The Secret Garden. "Ry and I LOVED this production because we got to play cousins." Immediately Sharpay started singing, "'Cousins, identical cousins..."

Chad just stared blankly, causing Sharpay to trail off, mumbling, "Never mind!"

Ryan was always doing that -- starting to sing a song and then trailing off. Chad was starting to realize that a lot of the traits he found endearing in Ryan were actually FAMILY traits that he shared with his twin.

And the realization made Chad involuntarily shudder.

Looking at these photos, Chad noticed that Ryan looked paler than usual as he lay in a bed, dark circles under his eyes.

"Was he okay?" Chad asked, worried.

Sharpay smiled. "Yeah, isn't his make-up amazing? I actually thought he was sick sometimes, he looked so convincing. But poor Ryan -- PHYSICALLY he was fine, but MENTALLY he was sad that his character was bedridden for most of the play. That spring he INSISTED Tommy give him a solo in our dance recital since he'd spent so much time playing sick and crippled characters."

Chad nodded -- he knew that Ryan loved singing and acting, but his TRUE love was dancing. It must've been hard for him to be in musicals and have to limp or lie around sick.

"So what show was next?" Chad asked, thoroughly enjoying learning so much about Ryan.

"None." Sharpay sighed. "That next summer we had to take a break from theatre."

"What?" Chad couldn't believe it. "Why?"

"Grandma Burbank got sick that spring, so Mother, Ryan, and I had to move out to Rhode Island for the summer to take care of her."

Chad remembered Ryan mentioning Rhode Island before but he couldn't place when.

"We didn't move out there till after school had ended, which meant that we'd missed all the auditions for summer productions." Sharpay didn't sound bitter, only sad and wistful. "So Mother quickly signed me up for horseback riding lessons and Ryan up for Little League so we'd have SOMETHING to do."

Little League -- THAT'S where Chad had heard about Rhode Island before!

Sharpay smiled. "Actually, it was kind of fun to do something different for a change. And I totally picked up the horseback riding quickly and even competed in some equestrian competitions that August."

Chad nodded. "And Ryan's team went to the Little League World Series," he said proudly. "I kinda wondered why he was on a Rhode Island team."

"Yeah, Newport was really good to us."

Sharpay brushed a stray tear from her cheek, and Chad realized that he didn't need to ask what had happened to their grandmother.

Shaking her head as if to clear away the sadness, Sharpay said, "Anyway, when we got back, MTS was doing The Sound of Music so we got to be in it again." Sharpay grinned evilly as she turned to a page of photos. "But by then, I had hit my growth spurt and Ryan hadn't, so he had to play Kurt again while I got to play Louisa."

Sharpay eagerly pointed to another line-up of seven children, this time all in matching sailor suits and this time with a shorter Ryan standing next to his beaming sister.

Amongst the backstage photos, Chad also noticed one of Ryan and a non-costumed boy -- the two had with their arms around each other's shoulders, grinning happily for the camera.

"Who's that?" Chad asked.

Sharpay's smile disappeared. "That's Brian," she said, her voice dripping with contempt.

"'Brian'?" Chad didn't remember a Brian from school.

"He was Ryan's best friend in Rhode Island. They were on Little League together and were practically inseparable all summer. So Brian flew out to see Ryan perform."

"That was...nice," Chad said hesitantly since clearly Sharpay thought otherwise.

"Yes, it WOULD'VE been, if Brian hadn't been such a JERK!"

Chad waited for her to go on, but Sharpay was too busy glaring at the photo.

"So...uh...what'd he do?" Chad finally asked.

"He broke Ryan's heart, that's what he did!"

"Oh." Chad was sorry he'd asked.

"Brian was Ryan's first real crush," Sharpay explained bitterly. "Of course, no one KNEW that -- everyone, including Brian, just thought they were really good friends. Ryan was THRILLED when he casually invited his crush out to see our show and Brian actually accepted. That night, Ryan was SO excited about seeing Brian again and was on such a high after our performance, that when we got home, he accidentally kissed Brian without thinking about it. Brian freaked out, of course, and started calling him terrible names, even though they were SUPPOSED to be best friends. I found Ryan sobbing in the kitchen at 1am, confessing everything to Mother. I figured if Ryan wanted to tell ME about it, he would, so I quietly snuck back to bed -- Ryan never knew that I'd overheard. So the next day at the airport," Sharpay said, an evil smile spreading across her face, "when I tripped Brian and he fell and got a black eye on the arm of a chair, everyone thought it was just an accident." She glowered at the photo of the two smiling boys again. "Everyone except Brian, that is."

After a moment, Sharpay sighed, adding, "Ryan never saw him again."

Chad could feel his OWN heart starting to break. Poor Ryan! Being rejected was never easy, but being rejected by your BEST FRIEND must've been devastating.

No wonder Ryan had been so freaked out after his and Chad's first kiss.

And no wonder Sharpay had threatened Chad from the outset -- she didn't want Ryan to have to go through that again.

"Anyway," Sharpay said, flipping forward in the scrapbook, "that next summer I BEGGED Daddy to let us do a talent show at Lava Springs -- I thought that Ryan would cheer up if he had something fun to focus on."

Chad had never seen this side of Sharpay before...and he realized that his old nickname for her -- "Ice Princess" -- definitely didn't fit. Clearly she cared about her brother...even if she had a funny way of showing it sometimes.

As Sharpay stopped on a new page of photos, Chad recognized the red rocks surrounding the Lava Springs' outdoor stage. And there were pre-teen Sharpay and Ryan in the spotlight, wearing matching gold outfits with sequins and sparkly hats! THIS was more like the musical theatre Chad expected from the Evans twins.

"That first year we did 'One' from A Chorus Line -- Ryan memorized the choreography from the movie and then tweaked it some to make it work for just the two of us. Of course, we were a total HIT and everyone LOVED us...and the rest is Lava Springs history!"

Chad laughed -- this was more like the Sharpay he expected, too.

Turning the page, Sharpay said, "For our NEXT production we--"

"CHAD?!"

Chad and Sharpay turned to see Ryan standing in the doorway, staring open-mouthed at the pair.

"Hey, Ryan," Chad said, smiling at the cute blond.

"What...are you doing?" Ryan asked warily as he entered, staring back and forth suspiciously between Chad and his sister.

"Nothing," Sharpay said innocently, closing up the scrapbook they'd been looking at.

"Sharpay was telling me all about the productions you were in as a kid," Chad explained, taking Ryan's hand as he approached. "Opera, dude? And ballets?" Chad teasingly shook his head as he looked up at his friend. "I don't know, Ry...I may have to break up with you now that--OW!"

Chad ducked away from the swatting arms of BOTH Evanses as he insisted, "I was KIDDING!"

"And Ry," Sharpay said sternly to her brother, "WHY haven't you shown him Fantasia yet?! What kind of boyfriend are you?!"

"I...uh...'boyfriend'?!" Ryan stammered, clearly embarrassed.

"Maybe I could come over to your house sometime?" Chad suggested without even thinking. "And we could all watch it together?"

Ryan stared open-mouthed, and Chad was rather surprised himself that he'd said it. But Sharpay's beaming face made Chad realize it had been the RIGHT thing to say.

"And then we can go through more of the scrapbooks," Sharpay enthused. "And we can also show you our videos -- we have EVERY recital on tape! And you HAVE to see me...I mean US...in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown! And..."

"Just look what you've gotten us into," Ryan whispered as Chad stood and the two boys tried to surreptitiously back their way out of the room.

But hearing Sharpay continue to babble on excitedly, Chad knew EXACTLY what he'd gotten himself into.

And he was almost looking forward to it.

THE END