The room was crowded, very crowded. Filled with teenaged boys and girls, all around the same age, and their parents; all preparing in their own ways.
"Let's sit over here." her mother said, leading her to two empty seats on the other side of the room.
As soon as they sat down, Laura began to observe all the other actors in the room. All the girls up for the same roll as her seemed to be quite a bit taller, and their faces perfectly fit the "Disney channel princess" ideals; she suddenly felt insecure in her own looks and talents.
She turned her attention to observe the boys in the room. The majority of them looked like your classic Disney heartthrob, swooshy dark hair and chiseled faces.
This was her first callback where she would be reading with other actors. So far she had just had solo auditions, which she thought had gone well until she saw the dozens of other girls who had also gotten this far and were also up for the same part as her.
"Laura!" she heard her name being called, looking around she spotted her friend waving at her.
"Hi!" Laura said, sitting down next to her friend, her mother sitting down next to her friends mother. "How's it been so far?"
"I wouldn't know. I've just been waiting. But I think they'll call my name soon." Raini said. "It is different having a bunch of guys here though. Like potentially the entire cast of this new show could be sitting in this room right now!"
"I didn't even think of that!" Laura said, growing nervous and looking around to see if any cliques had formed.
There were quite a few groups of teens mingling; the stereotypical Disney channel looking boys tirelessly flirting with the perfect Disney channel girls.
There were however a few who stuck out; a few who weren't mingling, just minding their own business.
"That guy seems really in the zone." Laura said, pointing to a blond boy sitting fairly close to them in the corner of the room, quietly strumming on a guitar. "He seems to have the music aspect down."
"He sure does." Raini said. "Hey, at least we know he isn't out for any of our roles."
"C'mom, I know you're gonna get it." Laura said.
"I hope I do." Raini said. "And I hope you get it too! Just imagine how much fun it would be being on a show together!"
"Us and two random guys we don't even know yet." Laura added. "They could cast complete pricks for all we know."
"Well if they do we'll just ignore them." Raini said. "We don't have to become best friends with them."
"You're right." Laura said. "I don't know what it is about this project, I just want to be a part of it so bad. I know that's dumb, knowing how these things go, but I can't help but want this so bad. I just have this feeling."
"I know what you mean." Raini said. "I feel something special about this show too. Like it's not just another project. It's more than that."
"Now calling for the roles of Trish De La Rosa." a woman spoke up from the front of the room. "Kaitlin Barry and Raini Rodriguez."
"Break a leg!" Laura told her, giving her two thumbs up.
"I'll be waiting in the car when you're finished." Raini's mother told her. "The meters about to run out."
Raini nodded before walking off into the audition room.
After sitting silently for almost ten minutes, nothing to do but be consumed by her nervous thoughts, Laura couldn't take it anymore.
"I'm gonna go to the bathroom." Laura told her mother, before standing up and leaving to find the restroom.
She found that the bathroom was empty, which she was very glad about. She didn't even have to use the restroom, she just wanted to give herself a short peptalk in the mirror, something she did when she was particularly nervous about something.
After convincing herself that she could in fact do this audition, she made her way back into the room where everyone was waiting to be called.
When she got back, she found that her mother had changed seats and was talking to a man who appeared to be the father of the blond boy playing the guitar, who was sitting beside him.
Thinking nothing of this (her mom started conversations with strangers all the time), Laura sat down in the empty seat next to her mother's new seat and looked over the sides she had been given.
"My other daughter just had a pilot that she did picked up on ABC family." Ellen told the man.
"Oh, very cool." the man responded. "My oldest son just started on 'glee' a few months ago; his first episode aired just a few weeks ago."
"Who is he on 'glee'?" Laura spoke up, she was a big fan of the show.
"He's one of The Warblers." the man told her.
"With Darren Criss?!" Laura said excitedly.
The man nodded, smiling at her excitement.
"No way!" Laura said, her voice slowly growing louder. "That's so cool! I've been obsessed with Darren Criss for years, ever since he did the Harry Potter musical!"
"He's a great guy." the man, Mark, said. "Very humble, genuinely nice, and extremely talented."
"I would love to meet him some day!" Laura gushed.
"I might be able to hook that up." Mark smiled at her.
"That would be AMAZING!" Laura said excitedly, causing Mark to chuckle at her.
"I'm gonna use the restroom real quick." Ellen told Laura. "Which way is it?"
"Just out there and down the hall to the right." Laura said, pointing to the door she went out to find the bathroom.
Just as Ellen got up from her seat to find the restroom, Mark's phone rang.
"Oh, it's my wife." Mark said, standing up. "I gotta take this."
Mark walked out into the hall to take his phone call.
Mark's son had not looked up from his guitar the whole time they had been sitting there. He just sat there strumming the instrument.
Laura decided to make the most of the situation and strike up a conversation with the quiet blond boy.
"Hey! What's up?" she said, a little louder than she anticipated; but the loudness in her voice did startle his attention away from his guitar, causing him to look up at her. "I'm Laura. What's your name?"
"Ross." he replied shyly, a small smile on his face as he looked at her.
"Well it's nice to meet you, Ross." Laura replied. "Nice guitar! You're really good at it!"
"Thanks." Ross said, amused by her forwardness, but admiring her sweetness. "Do you play?"
"No, but I do play piano and sing." Laura told him. "I also write songs."
"How appropriate." he said, smirking as he referenced the plot of the show they were waiting to audition for.
"What about you?" Laura asked. "What other instruments do you play?"
"Well, besides guitar, I play piano, bass, and drums." Ross told her. "And I sing too. But I'm not very good at writing songs; I'm in a band with my siblings, so my older brothers and my sister do most of the songwriting."
"Hmm... Can play a bunch of instruments yet can't write songs..." Laura smirked, again referencing the plot of the show they were waiting in the call room for.
This made Ross laugh.
"So how old are you?" he asked; Ross was usually never this talkative with strangers, especially in these kind of situations. He wasn't sure why, but he felt a strong urge to keep the conversation going with this girl.
"I just turned 15." she told him proudly.
"No way!" Ross said. "I turn 15 in just a few weeks! When's your birthday?"
"November 29th." Laura told him.
"Mine's December 29th!" Ross said.
"That's crazy!" Laura said.
Ross and Laura didn't even notice their parents return, they were too caught up in getting to know each other.
She learned he was from Colorado, he had three older siblings and one younger sibling, he had moved out to LA quite recently, and he dreamed of becoming a pilot just like his dad one day.
He learned that she was born and raised in California, she had one older sister, her mom owned a theater and her dad was a professor, and that she had been acting since she was only five years old.
They also found that they had a lot in common.
They both had a passion for music; a passion neither of them had ever found in another person. They had all the same favorite bands and artists, 'The Beatles' being both their number one. They also learned that they were both huge Harry Potter fans, and we're both Gryffindors. And they also learned that if they could be any animal, they would both choose to be a bald eagle.
There was just this instant connection that you can't fake with someone.
It was an instant connection and bond neither of them had ever felt or experienced with anyone else, ever.
It was something special. Very special.
"Can I have your attention please?" a women standing at the front of the room said. "We are going to start calling pairs up for the roles of Austin Moon and Ally Dawson."
Laura fidgeted in her seat nervously; Ross glanced at her, feeling butterflies in his own stomach.
"The first pair is Ross Lynch and Laura Marano." the woman said, looking around the room.
The duo looked at each other, exchanging anxious glances with their parents before walking off to the auction room.
They entered the room and saw four people sitting at a table, each of them had a script in front of them.
"Hello!" the only woman at the table said. "It's nice to see you both again. Once again, I'm Carol Goldwasser, I'm the casting director for 'Austin & Ally'. And I assume you have both met Kevin Kopelow and Heath Seifert, the creators of the show. And this is Gary Marsh, President and Chief Creative Officer of Disney Channels Worldwide."
Ross and Laura shook all of their hands, introducing themselves again.
"So tell us about yourselves." Kevin said. "Have the two of you ever met before today?"
Ross and Laura shook their heads.
"We actually just met like a half an hour ago." Laura said. "Our parents were talking and then somehow we started talking."
"So what did you guys talk about?" Heath asked.
It was obvious that this audition was to seek out the chemistry they could find in potential Austin and Ally's.
"Umm... Well we both love music." Ross said. "Like, we have all the same favorite bands."
"That's awesome to hear." Heath smiled at the two young teens. "Okay, enough chit chatting, start the scene whenever you two are ready."
Ross and Laura exchanged one last glance at each other before jumping into the scene.
Ross sat down at the drum kit that had been placed in the room and pretended to play the drums since he didn't actually have anything to play the drum with.
"Excuse me, did you not see the 'please do not play the drums sign?'" Laura said, walking up to Ross on the drums.
"Hey, you go to my school!" Ross said, looking up at her from his seat. "You were that girl who got her leg stuck in the toilet the other day!"
"Noooooo, that's wasn't me. I wasn't even at school last Monday!" Laura said awkwardly. "Are those corndogs?"
Ross nodded and pretended to take a bite out of the pretend corndogs.
"Ew!" Laura said, grossed out. "Do you know how dirty these drums are, and how unhealthy corndogs are, and there's no food allowed in here!"
"You know..." Ross said, leaning forward to look at her pretend name tag. "Ally... You need to lighten up."
"Why?" Laura asked. "Because I think people should obey signs and follow rules? Do I need to lighten up because I don't like global warming? Or people who chew with their mouth open? Or when people take 20 napkins, use one, then throw them all away! Or high fiving, or stepping in gum, or the noise styrofoam makes when you run it together!"
Laura then did her impression of the noise styrofoam makes when you rub it together, causing the whole room to laugh.
"Or when there are crumbs in the butter container! Or people with poor umbrella etiquette! Or when the string inside your sweatshirt goes inside the hood! Or when people try to enter an elevator when the people in the elevator haven't even gotten out yet! Or what about people who say 'libarry' instead of library! Or sandals! I mean, who wants to see anyone's dirty toenails?"
"My bad..." Ross said slowly, placing his hand on the back of his neck. "Clearly you don't need to lighten up..."
The producers laughed.
"Are you here for a reason?" Laura asked, placing her hand on her hip.
"Oh yeah! I'm gonna make the best music video ever and I need some instruments." Ross said. "Here's the thing though... I..."
"You don't have any money." Laura finished.
"Yeah..." Ross said. "I was hoping you could just lend me some instruments or I could pay you back when I'm rich and famous!"
"No." Laura said. "No way. Negative. No."
"So is that a maybe?" Ross said hopefully.
"Okay, guys, you can stop there." Kevin said. "That was great."
"We'll be in touch." Heath smiled at the young kids, before the two teens left the room.
Ross and Laura walked out of the room and down the hall silently.
"You were really good." Ross spoke up.
"Thanks." Laura said. "You were too."
"Thanks." Ross said, smiling bashfully.
"Laura!" Ellen waved at Laura, gesturing to her that they had to leave.
"Oh, I've gotta go." Laura said. "It was nice meeting you, Ross."
"You too, Laura." Ross smiled. "See ya round."
Laura smiled at him and waved before making her way over to her mother.
"Well, how'd it go?" Ellen asked anxiously.
"Good." Laura said, looking back at Ross and smiling. "Really good."
...
"That was it. Those were the kids we've been looking for! We found them!" Heath said excitedly.
"We saw that scene a million times, yet the two of them managed to make it feel like we had never seen it, let alone wrote it!" Kevin said.
"Those two have something special." Heath said. "Like, it's on another level."
Kevin smiled.
"They're two in a million."
Author's note: fun fact: the scene they did in this is actually the original scene in the pilot, like the very first draft of how Austin and Ally met.
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