Tori Vega walked into Hollywood Arts balancing textbooks in her right hand and a coffee in her left. She felt relieved as she spotted Beck talking to Jade by his locker. She stumbled over to them.
"A little help, please?" she requested.
Jade instantly grabbed the books from her. She sighed.
"Thanks, Ja-wait."
Jade never helped her, much less anyone in the world. Taking a better look at the girl, she saw it wasn't Jade at all. The girl had black hair with colored blue streaks, which was how Tori had mistaken her for Jade, but this girl's hair was shoulder length. Her skin was a light tan and she looked like a very beautiful female Beck.
"You're not Jade."
The girl smiled and followed Tori over to her locker. Beck followed.
"Nope. Tori, this is my cousin Lacey Oliver. Lace, this is Tori Vega."
Tori opened her locker and put her books inside with Lacey's help. Tori smiled at her.
"Well, it's nice to meet you. Are you visiting Beck for awhile?"
Lacey tugged on her blue hair with a grin.
"Oh, no. I'm new here. And before you ask, I'm pretty much interested in everything at this school so I'm taking most of the same classes as you guys."
"Except dance," Beck added," She's already a great dancer."
Tori laughed as Lacey gave Beck an affectionate punch on the arm.
"That's great. I hope we can be good friends."
Lacey beamed and looked up at Beck.
"See, why can't you date a girl like Tori? She's both pretty and nice. Unlike that nightmare."
"That "nightmare" heard you."
Tori closed her locker and looked over to her left to her right to see Jade with an unamused expression on her face. Lacey gave Jade a huge fake smile.
"I know."
Jade walked up to the girl so that they were both glaring at each other. Tori looked up at Beck.
"Uhm…what…?"
"You remember my aunt who canceled me and Jade's trip to Cancun when she heard Jade was coming? Yeah, this is her daughter…"
She nodded in understanding as the two girls stood arguing. Looking at the two of them, they looked as if they could be sisters with the way they bickered.
"If you weren't Beck's cousin…"
"You'd what?"
"I'd…I'd do lots of bad things."
"I'm sure you already do. For instance, I'm already suffering from your presence."
"Ohhh, why you…"
Beck stepped between the two.
"Ladies, ladies…now, now. No fighting or I'll have to put you both in time out."
The two pouted, but stopped arguing. Tori tapped her foot awkwardly before looking at Lacey.
"So, Lacey, where are you staying?"
Lacey ran a hand through her hair like Beck did, which freaked Tori out just by the resemblance.
"I'm living with Beck. He was nice enough to let me share his trailer."
"Yay," Jade mumbled, sarcastically.
Jade grabbed Beck's hand and dragged him away. He turned to his cousin and waved before disappearing around the corner. Lacey rolled her eyes.
"You can see Jade loves me. Beck says Jade and I are fundamentally similar, but I don't see it. She likes strange things."
Tori understood what Beck meant just after witnessing the two together. They were both stubborn, not afraid to fight, and maybe even judgmental. She just smiled at her new friend.
"So, have you met anyone else other than me and your best friend, Jade?"
Lacey adjusted her bag as the bell rang.
"Uhm, yeah. I met this odd girl named Cat who was kind of cute in her own way and a really nice guy named Andre. The guy was playing a keyboard when I met him. So cool! Hey, do you have Sikowitz right now?"
"Yeah, follow me!"
The two girls walked to class chatting all the way. Tori could tell she was really going to like this girl. She was a lot like Beck, except with more of an edge. Or maybe she was just a friendly Jade. It was hard to describe her accurately. Walking into Sikowitz's class, Lacey stepped back as the teacher jumped off the stage and over to her. He grabbed her hand and started shaking it vigorously.
"You must be the new student. I'm your acting teacher. Now sit down."
Lacey glanced over at Tori who laughed and pulled the girl over to a seat. Tori sat next to Andre who greeted her as she took a seat. He even waved to Lacey, which made her smile. As she sat, Tori leaned over to her.
"Sikowitz is great, but he's very odd."
It was funny she said that word as a boy with a puppet sat down beside her. The puppet seemed to look at her, which slightly freaked her out.
"Well, aren't you quite the sexy thang."
She raised her eyebrows at it.
"Call me that again and you'll be a dismembered thang."
The puppet gaped at her and Tori laughed.
"That's Rex and our friend Robbie."
The boy Robbie, who was pretty much a white boy with an afro and nerd glasses, smiled at her and extended his hand.
"Yeah, I'm Robbie Shapiro. What's your name?"
She took it with a smile.
"Lacey Oliver, Beck's cousin."
Robbie's eyes shot up.
"Awesome."
The puppet named Rex interrupted.
"Yeah, yeah. Now introduce me properly, you idiot."
Robbie looked down at him.
"Oh, yeah. This is Rex."
Lacey frowned at him.
"Its…a puppet."
Robbie put his hands over Rex's ears.
"Shh, he doesn't like being called a puppet because he isn't one."
She slowly turned to look at Tori with a half skeptical, half frightened look. Her new friend put a hand on her shoulder.
"You get used to it."
"Riiiight."
Sikowitz got up in front of the class and rubbed his hands together.
"Okay, class! I'm going to be giving you all new assignment that will be due next week. I'm going to put you all in groups of four so that you can learn a script and present it in here on Monday."
He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and waved it in front of all of them.
"Your groups are all listed on this piece of paper. I'll be putting it up on the board in case you all forget whose group you're in so, Apples, Cheetos, and Fi- oh, wait…this is my grocery list."
He tossed the paper down and rummaged around in his pocket again.
"Ah, here it is!" he said, pulling another paper out and began reeling off names.
It turned out that Lacey was in a group with Tori, Robbie, and Jade. After Sikowitz had finished with the list he gave out the scripts. Jade slowly turned in her chair to face the three sitting behind her. She looked at Lacey in particular.
"Oh, this should be greaaaat."
Tori looked between the two girls nervously. There wouldn't be Beck to keep them apart while they were working. This…could be very bad. She jumped up and got her groups attention.
"We should practice at my house every evening."
Jade looked up at her.
"And why do we always have to go to your house? Why are you so special?"
"What, do you want to do it at yours?" Tori asked.
Jade was quiet for a moment.
"Fine. Tori's house it is."
Robbie raised his hand.
"We-We could do it at mine!"
All three girls looked at him.
"Tori's house it is," Jade repeated, looking away from him.
Robbie seemed to deflate slightly. Lacey opened up the script and sighed. It was a romance scene where the male had three girls who were in love with him and were fighting each other about it. In the end, one girl kissed the guy. She looked up at her group members.
"Does…your teacher actually make you do kiss scenes?"
Jade smirked at her evilly.
"Why? Too afraid to kiss someone?"
Lacey made a face at her before batting her eyelashes.
"Would you like me to prove I'm not by kissing you, darling?"
Robbie and Tori seemed to back away from the two slightly as a fire seemed to light between their eyes. Fire of hatred. Jade narrowed her eyes at the girl.
"I don't think Beck would like that."
"Excuses, excuses."
Sikowitz suddenly appeared out of nowhere making the group jump.
"Girls! Please do not squabble in my classroom. If you would like to, save it for later when you two can rip each other's hair out."
He moved away from them and Lacey looked up at Tori who just made a face and shrugged. The two girls stopped arguing long enough for them to figure out parts and get a little practicing in before the bell rang.