Chapter 2: The Tragedy

Chapter 2: The Tragedy

It had been two weeks since their parents had left for Spain. The gang was living at Sharpay and Ryan's house, and they were generally having a great time. Prom had been fun; they'd gone with a huge group. As they all got ready for school and piled into two cars since they couldn't all fit into one, they headed out for what they thought would be just another monotonous day of lectures.

During their free period they were all sitting in the senior courtyard doing homework when they heard voices, as if on cue all five heads shot up at the same time. Approaching them was Dean Hodges, Dean Philips and two police officers and all their faces held somber looks.

"Are these all of them," asked the younger officer. Dean Philips simply nodded. The five teens stood up confused. None of them drank or did drugs, none of the held parties, hell; they didn't even go to parties. They did nothing wrong, so what could the police want with them.

After introductions were made the elder officer, Lt. Thibault began to speak, "I'm afraid I may have some terrible news."

"May?" Kelsi questioned with a slight tremor in her voice.

Officer Ryan, the younger of the two officers, held up a stack of photographs, each showing pictures of their parents. "Are these your parents?" He asked in a very distant tone. When the teens nodded Officer Ryan continued, "Your parents were on a plane from Madrid to Paris." This was a statement, not a question, yet it was met with confused looks from all five teens.

"You didn't know that they were traveling from Spain to France?" Lt. Thibault asked.

"Typical" Sharpay spat bitterly.

"Pay, not now, this is important." Gabriella lightly scolded.

"Lo siento (I'm sorry) Boo."

"Esta bien (It's okay) Pay. Please continue Lt. Thibault." Gabriella politely said whilst nodding to the officers.

"Well, your parents plane crashed, and I'm afraid there were no survivors." Officer Ryan said sympathetically.

After a moment of shocked silence Sharpay, Taylor, and Kelsi burst into hysterical tears. As Kelsi and Taylor comforted each other, Ryan unsuccessfully attempted to comfort a screaming Sharpay, thus leaving Gabby to get the details of the crash and what needed to be done. When everyone had gone the teens checked themselves out of school with the dean's permission and went back to the Evans.

For the rest of that day and the following day the five friends sat in the living room. They only moved to shower, go to the bathroom, and get food. They all slept huddled together on blankets on the living room floor. They refused to answer the door or the phone. Finally, on the second day Gabriella and Ryan, the two most collected of the group realized that they needed to plan the funerals. Since they had no idea how to go about this they got into a car and drove to school to seek out their favorite teacher, their English teacher for the past two years, Mr. Crandall.

Gabriella's POV

Ry and I entered the school dressed in jeans, t-shirts, and flip-flops. Needless to say we weren't in our school's strict dress code, and we had no intention of remaining at school for the rest of the day. We were met with sympathetic stares as we made our way up to Mr. Crandall's classroom. I swear, the school put him way up by the gym because he is so freaking loud! We walked in during the first period of the day. Unfortunately, that was our class. Ry, Pay, and I were all in Mr. C's first period class. As soon as we walked in the class got dead quiet. My friend Alex came running over to me and threw her arms around my neck. I, of course, hugged her back. She looked me in the eyes, and her eyes were so full of warmth and friendship that I started to tear up.

"I'm here for you Gabster." She said, "Whatever you need just call me and I'll come running." She quietly whispered in my ear.

"Thanks, I might just have to take you up on that." I said while wiping my tears. During this little interaction Ryan had gone up to Mr. Crandall and asked him if we could speak to him privately for a moment. He promptly instructed the class to quietly busy themselves and ushered us into his adjoining office.

"What's up?" He asked in his fatherly tone.

Ryan and I looked at each other, unsure of who should talk first. Neither of us wanted to ask for help, we're both headstrong, actually all five of us are. We only like to ask each other for help. We're so close, we have been forever and we always will be. When one of us has a problem one of the others will have a solution, but this time we were all at a loss, which was a new and awful situation.

I finally decided to speak, so with a wavering voice I quietly said, "None of us know how to go about planning a funeral." I took a deep breath and Ryan squeezed my hand, "We need help" I continued, "and we were wondering if you would maybe help us out a little bit. You know, steer us in the right direction." Mr. Crandall smiled and looked at Ryan and me.

"Of course I will. All six of us need to meet at once he said." Ryan nodded and wrote down his address where we were all staying. After that we left with our heads held a little higher than before. We quickly ran to Ry's car, got in and sped off wanting to get far away from the campus. As Ryan pulled onto the Hart Bridge I said,

"Let's pick up Starbucks. That'll help pick up our spirits a little. Well, maybe."

"Yeah, let's." Ryan quickly pulled into the nearest Starbucks parking lot and we went in. The five of us were predictable, we always got the same thing and we knew each other's orders by heart. We paid for the drinks, got back into the car and drove back to the Evan's house.

Everything was quiet when we got there. We walked in, distributed the drinks and sat back down in the living room with everyone. Finally, for the first time in three days Sharpay spoke, "Where are we all going to live?" Her question was met with silence for about two minutes.

"I spoke to the D.A." Ryan quietly spoke up, "We're all 18, we're no longer minors and don't need guardians, not that we have any, so technically we can live on our own." We all sat quietly, soaking up what Ryan had just said.

"We should live together." Kelsi said, "I'd be willing to put our house on the market and move."

"Same" The rest of us chorused. After debating for a few minutes we all piled into the cars again and drove just down the street to Atkinson & Knight, a real estate firm that our parents used. After a quick talk with Mrs. Atkinson herself, Taylor, Kelsi, and I settled to put our houses on the market. We didn't want to deal with it so we let her have power of attorney over it all.

The next day we began packing up our houses in our spare time to move into the Evan's house. We all lived in the same neighborhood, so we didn't have far to go. Three days later was the first funeral. Each of the funerals was joint, for both our parents. They were four consecutive days in a row at the same church. We just wanted to get them over with, so we took all the pain at once with hopes of it passing. That week went by in a flash and before we knew it, we were as ready as we could possibly be to go back to school to finish out our senior year, parentless.

We all knew that it was going to be tough, we still had about 20 or so days left of school and getting up each morning was hard, but each day the pain subsided a little more. Living together was nice, we all considered each other more of a family than our actual families, but still, it was tough. Our other friends and teachers were supportive and flexible, but we tried to keep as busy as possible. Finally it was a week before graduation. The girls and I did major shopping for dresses for all the occasions and parties that were going to be planned, while Ryan tagged along to occupy himself. We were all dreading graduation because our parents didn't have the opportunity to be there, but we were ready to put on the façade that we were fine, so here it goes, ready or not we're moving on!

AN: Okay, I hope that the story is making sense. Sorry for no Troy in this chapter, but he will be in the ones to come, this was just necessary to set the scene! Please comment and review!!