A/N: So, this is AU. I know. I saw HSM 1 and am trying to forget about HSM 2. I did not see HSM 3. I'm not really a fan, but my brother was Ryan in his school's production and I personally thought Martha and Ripper would be cute together (since the two actors playing them were dating at the time). I thought of this during the last show, and I was like, "Let's write it and see what happens!" I plan on (hopefully) writing freshman through junior year, but I get busy and have undiagnosed short-term memory loss. It runs in my family - at least, I think it does.

Disclaimer: If I owned High School Musical, Martha/Ripper would have happened. No lie. I own nothing except my iPod Classic and DSi. Really.
I don't own anything mentioned, either. Martha Cox does not, to the best of my knowledge, read my stories.

Chapter 1: Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin'

One night, she slept. It was difficult at times, but that night was a night she slept during.

One night, she dreamed.

What a dream it was - she saw his face in her mind, his eyes sparkling in grayscale as he laughed. She dreamed in black-and-white - she always had. Color escaped her imagination. She knew she was dreaming, which was likely the reason he seemed so happy to be with her. She had read that lucid dreamers like herself could influence their own dreams while asleep. She smiled, and he returned it. She had never felt so happy, never like this. He looked into her eyes and spoke, but she was too entranced by his voice to comprehend what he was saying. Music began to play, soft at first, but it grew. She wrapped her arms around him, and he felt so soft…

One morning, she awoke to her alarm blaring Beethoven and her arms strangling a teddy bear. Dreams died too quickly.

`CMC`CMC`CMC`

She pulled herself out of bed, finding the "off" button after a few bleary-eyed attempts. If not for the fact that it was Wednesday, she would have equated it to waking up on a Monday. Six o'clock and already she was exasperated with life.

She grabbed underwear, a polo and some dark corduroys, almost dropping her bra as she stumbled to the shower. She put her clothes near the sink in the bathroom, making sure not to cover her glasses. She despised the opthamologist for making her wear them and the strabismus for making her go to the opthamologist in the first place. Not that she had anything against opthamologists - just the one who gave her the prescription and no other option.

She pulled off her nightgown with some difficulty and stepped into the shower. Why had she decided to take it in the morning? She could have slept so much later if she had taken it Tuesday night, but no, she had to be conceited and not mess up her hair. She ran her fingers through the now-wet bushy mess that flowed from her folllicles. She decided that she would just pull it up in a ponytail - trying to blowdry and style it would take far too much time that she did not have.

As she shampooed and conditioned, she thought about the day ahead. Would the seniors push her around? Would she make any friends? She knew that Taylor was going to East High, but did they have any classes together? She hadn't thought of calling her - her summer reading list was rigorous. It was, for Martha, the "summer of classics." She alternated every summer - she'd do a list of Dickens, Melville, Orwell, etc. one summer; the next would be books that had recently been released. This summer, she had decided to read Margaret Mitchell's Gone With The Wind, which was 1037 pages of tiny print - eventually leading to an even stronger prescription and even thicker glasses. As of yet, the book took the most time for Martha to read out of any other book. It was a good book, but a long book, and it took her the entire summer to finish it.

Plus, Taylor had announced plans to revamp East High's scholastic decathalon team - they had not won a championship since before the Wildcats and the Knights split. West High had taken all the brilliance after the gradating class of 1985, and Taylor intended to bring the glory back to East High before she graduated - apparently, before she even stepped through the doors.

Martha rinsed the shampoo and conditioner out of her hair - an action that took a while - and turned off the water, wrapping one towel around her body and the other around her hair. She squeezed the mess of chestnut hair over the sink, chuckling cynically as the clogged drain tried to drink down the liquid that emerged. This was certainly going to be an interesting day.

She slipped on her underwear and clothing, struggling a little to get the pants on. Darn corduroy pants, she thought. As she finally zipped and buttoned them, she silently thanked the stars that she didn't need a belt like Peter did. Then again, recently he had been simply sagging his pants as to avoid it - or at least, that was what he said.

`CMC`CMC`CMC`

She took a deep breath as she walked into the school. One boy rode past on a skateboard, causing her to hesitate as she walked to homeroom. She thought that she possibly could have recognized him - maybe he was one of Peter's new friends. He had mentioned that his new neighbors had skateboards, and that someone named Mongo was teaching him. He had said that he was actually really good - Martha had mentioned that perhaps he had found his niche. He had feigned not knowing what a niche was, at least Martha thought that he was feigning.

She missed having Peter next door. His parents had moved at the end of eighth grade to a bigger house a few subdivisions down - he, Martha's lone neighborhood friend! How she had wondered what was going to happen with him gone. But she had her books, and he called every once in a while. For a male, he certainly loved to talk. Both of them had bonded early on - she was the bookworm, he was the loner. He was generally a friendly person, which had surprised her, since neither of them had friends. He was charming, outgoing... never mind the fact that he liked climbing on all the playground equipment and sliding down the slides backwards. People were strange, she realized early - they found such displays of confidence appalling.

She had taught him how to read, she remembered. He had always asked her what was so cool about books, and she found it was impossible to describe the feeling without the other having experienced it. He was a little bit slow on the uptake sometimes, but he was a good student, at least with Miss Martha Cox as his teacher. They seemed to be two halves of a whole - best friends from the beginning. They hadn't anyone to be but themselves.

Then they had hit first and second grade. It was weird for a guy to be friends with a girl, and Heaven knew that all boys had cooties. Martha met Taylor in third grade (after Taylor tried to form a book club that went down the drain). Martha's mother had signed her up for ballet, but it was so stiff to her. Nothing felt natural. Nothing was right. Besides, there had been a pair of twins in her class who stole the spotlight - the sister had a perfect pas de chat, while the brother's soutenu en tournant was flawless. The sister had made Martha cry multiple times, so Martha had begged her mother to pull her out. She was done with dance, she decided. It left her empty.

Martha made her way to homeroom, smiled at the teacher, and sat in her chair, sinking down behind her desk. She looked around over her copy of Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, attempting to find anyone that she might possibly know. Some of the seats around hers were still empty. A smaller girl sat timidly in the chair next to her. Martha smiled, lowering the book.

"Hi," she said nervously.

"H-hi," said the other, her voice quiet and tremulous.

"I'm Martha. Martha Cox," she said, holding out her hand.

"Kelsi Neilsen," stated the other, shaking Martha's hand lightly. "I'm nervous."

"Me, too," Martha said. "I'm afraid that I won't have any classes with my friends." Martha felt strange saying the "s," since there were only two friends she could possibly have any classes with.

"Well, we can talk, right?" Kelsi asked, voice almost as tiny as she was.

"Of course," Martha replied, grinning on the inside. She wants to talk with me. I'll have a friend! Yes!

Martha looked around again. The room was filling in, but she recognized no one. Three boys walked in, one carrying (and dribbling) a basketball. Basketball-boy seemed to be incredibly familiar with most of the classmates, since everyone was high-fiving him with a "Hey, Troy!" or a "Bolton! You trying out for the team, dude?"

Kelsi rolled her eyes, obviously noticing Martha's unfamiliarity with the athlete. "That's Troy Bolton. Sharpay adores him."

"Sharpay?" Martha asked. The name rang a bell, even without thinking of the person's canine counterpart.

Kelsi opened her mouth to reply, but the bell rang. Not even five seconds after the bell rang, two students waltzed into the room - she bedecked in a sequined skirt and flowing blouse, he dressed in a sweatervest and beret.

Kelsi leaned over and whispered, "Her," then sat up rigid in her seat. A closer look at the pair struck a memory in Martha's mind, a memory of a sneering blonde seven-year old diva elbowing a heavier-set background ballerina in the chest.

Sharpay Evans, prima donna extraordinare, was in her homeroom.