Ariel was the first one in the choir room after school. Mrs. Rabbit was stacking black folders on top the piano in the front of the room. She looked up when Ariel walked in and greeted her with a big smile.
"Welcome back, Ariel!" Mrs. Rabbit said.
Ariel went over to the piano. "Hi, Mrs. Rabbit."
"Ariel, would you mind helping me pass out these folders? Just set one on every chair." Mrs. Rabbit picked up half the folders and started passing them out on one side of the room.
Ariel picked up the other half and started on the other side. Snow White walked in then and looked disappointed when she saw she wasn't the first one in the room.
"Good afternoon, Mrs. Rabbit," Snow White greeted cheerily. "Ariel."
"Hello," Ariel muttered. Mrs. Rabbit didn't say anything.
"Do you need any help?" Snow White asked.
"No thank you, Snow White," Mrs. Rabbit said. "Ariel is really helping me out a lot."
Snow White took a seat in the front row of the soprano section. When Ariel was done, she had a couple extra folders and brought them back over to the piano.
"How was your break, Ariel?" Mrs. Rabbit asked, taking the extra folders.
"Oh, it was a lot of fun. We had the whole family over for Christmas, and two of my sisters- Attina and Adella- sang in the Christmas concert at the church they attend," Ariel replied, excitedly.
Mrs. Rabbit smiled at her. As the rest of the students started coming in, Ariel took a seat. Mrs. Rabbit walked to the front of the piano and greeted everyone.
"Welcome back, everyone. My name is Jessica Rabbit but, of course, Mrs. Rabbit to all of you," She said. "Everyone has a folder with the new songs in it. The first concert of the semester will be the middle of March. If you look through your music you will see all of the songs are from the Broadway musical Wicked. That's because at the end of March we will be taking a field trip downtown to see the show."
Everyone cheered and Mrs. Rabbit smiled at them.
She continued, "Everyone will be singing 'Defying Gravity', 'As Long As You're Mine' and 'One Short Day'. The girls will be going back and forth in 'What is This Feeling', with the guys coming in in the middle. Girls only will sing 'I'm Not That Girl', and boys only will sing 'Dancing Through Life'. That just leaves the duet and solo. Auditions for both will be next week."
Ariel looked at the sheet music for the solo: 'Popular'. She shook her head, then pulled out the duet. 'For Good'. As Ariel flipped through the song she noticed that it could be a duet between two girls or a boy and girl. That meant Ariel wasn't guaranteed to get the duet like she always had been. Of course, Snow White would get both. Ariel looked up and noticed Mrs. Rabbit was watching her. Ariel gave her a small smile and Mrs. Rabbit winked at her. Ariel bit her lip and looked down. She was really gonna have to step up if she didn't want to just be another voice in the choir this semester.
XXX
After school, Belle went straight to the library. She only had person signed up for that day and he needed help in English. As she was pulling all her English stuff out of her backpack, he walked up to the table and sat down. Belle looked up at him and smiled.
"You must be Adam," she said.
Adam frowned at her. "Must be? We've had at least one class together every semester since freshman year. We have PE together this semester."
Belle wouldn't have noticed Adam in PE this semester since she also had it with Aurora, but she did feel bad about not noticing him in any of the other classes. She apologized and he shrugged it off.
"Anyways," he said. "I failed English last semester and if I don't pass it with an A this semester, I'll be a credit short for graduating."
Belle nodded. "What are you having the most trouble with?"
"The assigned reading stuff."
"Luckily, that's my strength." Belle smiled at him. She opened her folder and pulled out Mrs. Radcliffe's syllabus. "It looks like for the first half of the semester we're gonna be working on Edgar Allan Poe. First his biography, then poems, and then his short stories."
Adam just stared at her.
"Do you know who Edgar Allan Poe is?" Belle asked slowly.
Adam shook his head.
"All right, no problem. How often can you meet with me?"
Adam shrugged. "I'm free everyday after school."
Belle looked at her schedule. "Okay. Let's meet every Monday and Wednesday to start. If you need more help, we'll meet on Fridays as well. How does that sound?"
"That works."
"Great! Then we'll meet here right after school on Wednesday, and until then I'll see you in PE." Belle smiled at him.
Adam nodded, and hurried out of the library. Belle couldn't help thinking how attractive he'd be if only he'd smile.
XXX
Esmeralda lied in Naveen's bed and watched him get dressed.
"Are you hungry?" Naveen asked.
Esmeralda nodded. "Yeah I am."
Naveen smiled at her. "I'll go start making some dinner. When you're ready, come meet me in the kitchen."
Naveen left, closing the door behind him. Esmeralda lied in bed for a couple more minutes. Naveen was a gentle lover. He was romantic, and took his time. A lot of the guys Esmeralda had been with were always in a hurry and it never lasted long. Then they were gone. But, with Naveen, the foreplay lasted the longest and he'd feed her afterwards. The first time they hooked it had been in the backseat of his car, but afterwards he took her to Olive Garden to get dinner. Now, he was downstairs making her dinner. Esmeralda smiled to herself and decided she needed to try to become better friends with Naveen. She got out of bed and quickly got dressed.
When Esmeralda walked into the kitchen Naveen had a pot of boiling water going on the stove and was working on making the sauce. He then let the sauce simmer and added noodles to the water.
"Smells amazing," Esmeralda commented.
Naveen turned around and smiled at her. "Thank you. I'm just making spaghetti noodles with an onion and garlic cheese sauce."
When dinner was ready Naveen served it and they both sat down together. Esmeralda slowly took a bite. It was even better than it smelled.
"Unbelievable, Naveen," she said. "Is cooking a hobby of yours?"
Naveen shook his head. "Nah. No one in my family likes to cook, so we usually went out to dinner or got takeout. I grew tired of that, so I started cooking for my family every night."
Esmeralda nodded. "So, what are your hobbies?"
"I play guitar."
"Are you in a band?"
"No. Guys my age have a hard time really committing to it. They all want to be rock stars, but none of them are any good and won't bother trying to get better," Naveen explained.
"I bet you're really good at it."
Naveen laughed. "I'm not bad. What about you?"
"I don't play guitar."
"I meant, what's your hobby?"
"I like to dance. "
Naveen nodded. "Yes. I've seen you dance at the games. You're very good."
"Thank you. I took a lot of dance classes when I was little. It's really the only thing I've actually worked hard at."
"It definitely shows."
Esmeralda blushed a little bit. "Thank you."
After dinner, Naveen walked Esmeralda out to her car.
"I had a good time with you, Esmeralda," Naveen said. "It was nice talking to you."
"I enjoyed it, too," Esmeralda replied, opening her door.
"Can we get together soon and do this again?"
Esmeralda smiled at him. "I'd like that."