As the young woman drove along the busy highway, Troy did his best to stay as close to her as possible. Of course with traffic and pedestrians crossing the street at crosswalks, it was hard, but he managed to follow the supposed thief all the way to a small town house. There, he carefully observed the young woman as she got out of her car, walked rather gracefully over to the front door, and unlocked it. Troy rolled down his window just in time to hear a second woman's voice say, 'Hi, Gabriella.'
So, the theif's name must be Gabriella, Troy thought excitedly to himself as he grabbed a pad of paper-along with a pen-from his glove compartment. He wasn't sure whether Gabriella spelled her name with one 'l' or two, so he scribbled it down both ways.
As Troy quickly hid the paper he had just written down the newly gained information, he debated with himself about what he should do next. Several options were rolling around in his head, but he wasn't sure which one would be the wisest to go along with. Finally, however, he chose to go to Gabriella's door and pretend he was selling something. That way, he might be able to get a glimpse of her home's interior through the doorway or, even better, get invited in. Hurriedly grabbing a catalog containing cookies and other desserts that he had brought with him along with several other props to trick people into thinking he was just an ordinary guy with, he climbed out of his car and casually walked to Gabriella's front door.
"Yes?" Gabriella said as she opened the door in response to the ringing doorbell.
"Hi, my name is Jay Rivers," Troy greeted. Jay Rivers was his chosen alias so that when he made some success worthy of being printed in the local newspaper and people saw his real name, they wouldn't get suspicious if he came around to their place or called them on the phone.
"And what would you like?"
"I was wondering if you wanted to buy something for this fundraiser I'm doing."
"It depends on what you're selling."
"Desserts," Troy replied. "You can take a look at what all is available if you want." He offered his catalog to Gabriella.
Gabriella took the item from the 'salesman' and leafed through it. "Um, all these things look delicious, but the prices are a bit high for me," she decided after a moment. "Sorry." She handed the catalog back with a friendly smile.
"Are you sure you don't want anything?"
"I'm positive."
Troy thanked Gabriella, shook her hand, then made his way back to his car. That plan hadn't exactly worked, but he could always try something else. Pulling his car to the corner of the street, he put on a baseball cap, making sure the rim was leaning more toward the side of his head than to the front, undid the top two buttons of his white, button-down shirt, pulled the bottom of the shirt out from his pants, where he had had it tucked, wrinkled it a bit, then grabbed his ipod, shoving the earphones into his ears while getting out of his car.
Troy Bolton-alias Jay Rivers-now looked like an average college-age boy.
.....
"Hey," Troy mumbled as he 'accidentally' ran into Gabriella, who was at the bottom of her driveway checking the mail. For the past hour, Troy had been walking up and down the sidewalks of the neighborhood waiting to see Gabriella a second time.
"Do I know you?" Gabriella questioned suspiciously, slowly turning her eyes to meet Troy's.
Troy shrugged. "I dunno."
"I forget your name, but whoever you are, I don't want to buy anything for your fundraiser." Gabriella crossed her arms across her chest, annoyed, as she realized the man she was looking at was Troy-well, in her mind, Jay, but whatever. Troy and Jay were the same people.
Darn it! Troy thought to himself. She saw through my new disguise! Then, aloud, he began, "My name is Jay. And I just can't help but want to see you again. You're a beautiful girl."
"Beautiful?" Gabriella repeated. "So, are you trying to....ask me out in a very roundabout way?"
"Yes," Troy answered on an impulse, coming close to not keeping his voice in sync with his character of Jay Rivers.
"You know, you're a pretty cute guy. I'll try going out with you. When did you want to have this date and where were you thinking of going?" Gabriella spoke.
"Tonight. I'll pick you up at eight, and then we can decide where we're going."
"Awesome. Do you want my number?"
"Yeah!" Troy had to stop himself from sounding overly enthusiastic. Of course he wanted Gabriella's number! He wanted to stalk her, didn't he? Having her phone number would certainly help.
Gabriella told Troy her number and waited while he typed it into his cell phone. "Alright. I'll see you at eight, then. Bye, Jay." She turned, then went back inside her house.
Troy smiled to himself as he texted to the police chief:
Jay Rivers is goin good!
.....
Thank you guys so much! On the prologue, I got 11 reviews! Sorry this chapter is short again, but it takes me 1-2 chaps to get into the plot, meaning it takes that long to get lengthy chapters. Hope you enjoyed it:)
