Castaways

A High School Musical Fanfiction

Chapter 3

Get Me to the Airport Anyway You Can

After about thirty minutes of pulling, cursing, prying and more cursing, the three of them finally managed to separate the cars. Most of the pulling and prying were from Troy and Chad and most of the cursing was from Sharpay. Who knew she had such a potty mouth?

Troy and Chad were high-fiving, mid-fiving and low-fiving each other and both were feeling particularly mantastic at having accomplished this macho feat. Then, they stepped back to look at the damage. The front left bumper of the 'punch buggy' was missing. Well, it wasn't missing exactly as it was currently sticking out of the rear of the BMW. The result was reminiscent of a modern art project at the museum.

"Oh no! Get that old rusty thing off of my mom's car", Sharpay demanded.

"Oh come on, Sharpay. It took us this long just to get them separated. It'll take another hour it get my bumper off that supped up toy", Chad shot back.

"Oh fine, then I'll just have to drive it like it is", Sharpay said as she hopped back into her car.

"That's appreciation for you. She hits us; we do all the work to separate the cars and then she doesn't even have the decency to say 'thank you'."

"Forget about it man. Let's just get me to the airport before the flight leaves", said Troy as he hopped back into Chad's car.

Sharpay managed to get the BMW to start after the third try and after running over the curb to get around the Beetle, she struck out onto the road.

"Look at that", Chad said indicating to Sharpay by pointing at her with his middle finger, "she didn't even wait to see if Bessie here would crank. What a 'B'!"

Bessie did crank on the first attempt and Chad slowly pulled out onto the road. She may have cranked just fine, but she was hardly driving 'just fine'. The front left suspension was shot and with every rotation of that wheel, there was an audible clunk which reverberated through the entire car and maked Troy's and Chad's bones rattle. Plus, they weren't able to go faster than 35 MPH. It was going to be a long trip.

About 20 minutes and 847 clunks later (Troy was counting), Troy's cell phone rang.

"Hellloooo?", Troy said between clunks.

"Troy, where are you? They're about to start boarding the plane and we can't get them to hold it for you. We already tried." It was an anxious sounding Gabriella.

"The -clunk- plane's boarding -clunk- already. Aw, man! We're -clunk- onour way.", clunked Troy.

"Tell her -clunk- not to worry", stated Chad calmly. "I have a -clunk- plan."

"Don't worry, -clunk- Gabi, Chad -clunk- has a -clunk- plan", Troy said with a confidence he wasn't feeling.

"Tell her -clunk- you'll meet -clunk- her in Sydney. I -clunk- got it under -clunk- control."

"Listen -clunk- Gabi, I'll -clunk- meet you in -clunk- Sydney. Chad -clunk- has a plan. Don't worry; -clunk- I'll find you in -clunk- Sydney.", with that and the beginnings of a killer headache, Troy hung up.

"Okay man, -clunk- what's this plan of -clunk- yours?", groaned Troy while trying to massage his temples without poking himself in the eyes.

"My brother's -clunk- roommate works for FedEx -clunk- and they have a huge -clunk- hub in Albuquerque. My -clunk- brother and I hopped a -clunk- flight to LA last summer, so -clunk- I'm sure this guy will help us out today. No -clunk- sweat", Chad said with genuine confidence.

He whipped out his cell phone and made the arrangements with Jose, Chad's brother's roommate.

Rounding or thunking around a curve, Chad saw Sharpay standing beside her car (correction, her mom's car) shouting into her cell phone. She had managed to pull the car off of the road and it was obvious that both rear tires were flat. In fact, it looked like she had even driven for awhile on the rims as they were badly scraped up.

"Well, -clunk- well, -clunk- well. What to -clunk- my wandering -clunk- eyes do portray, but a miniature car and a tiny, hot -clunk- Sharpay? Hey Troy, do -clunk- you see what I see, man?", asked Chad.

Troy, whose eyes had been closed trying to sooth his headache, looked up. "Oh, no. We -clunk- need to stop and -clunk- help her."

"Are you -clunk- crazy, dude? Remember, mountain lion?"

Troy had to think fast. He couldn't just leave her, but how to convince Chad without sounding like he was whipped.

"Yeah, but we -clunk- can't just leave her. After all, it's her -clunk- family that's footing the bill for this whole trip."

"Is that your only -clunk- motivation?", Chad asked and then added, "I suppose we can -clunk- help, but if she insults Bessie, here, she's -clunk- hoofing it", he said as he pulled the car over.

As they clunk to a stop, they overheard Sharpay's conversation.

"...but Mommy, you can't leave without me!", Sharpay whined in a shrill voice.

"Sharpay, we've already been over this. Mrs. Darbus was rushed to the hospital last night and had to have an emergency appendectomy. I have to go; Your father and I are the only chaperones", Darby Evans said in a patronizing tone. This was the third time she had repeated this same information to Sharpay.

"But, but, ... what am I going to do?"

Chad and Troy walk up. Troy observed the situation and came to a quick decision.

"Give me the phone, Sharpay", demanded Troy from the obviously panicked Sharpay.

Sharpay, uncharacteristically, handed the phone over without protest.

"Hello, Mrs. Evans? This is Troy Bolton. ... Yes, ma'am, I'm here with Sharpay. Hey, there's no need to worry about anything. My friend, Chad, and I have everything under control. He has a connection with FedEx and we'll meet you all in Sydney. ... Yes, ma'am, I'm sure ... I'll take good care of her, ... yes ma'am, I promise. You can count on me. Bye."

He closed the phone and said to Sharpay, "She had to hang up. The plane was starting to taxi to the runway."

She was still standing there numbly.

"They left without me", she whispered in a small voice. Then without warning, she repeated this in a voice more characteristically Sharpay, that is, she screamed, "THEY LEFT WITHOUT ME!"

"Calm down, Sharpay. There's no need to panic", soothed Troy.

"You idiot, my entire family and the entire Drama Club just left on the vacation of a lifetime without me. THIS IS THE PERFECT TIME TO PANIC!"

"Yeah, you're right. I just meant we shouldn't waste our time panicking when it doesn't help anything."

"Hey, don't worry, Sharpay. I really do have a plan. You'll see", Chad told her in an uncharacteristically nice voice. He was really starting to worry about her mental state with the extreme way she had been acting in the last two minutes.

Troy grabbed Sharpay's Prada shoulder bag from her car and gently steered the fragile girl into the Beetle.

Chad pulled Bessie back out into traffic and they took the next exit for the airport. The irony of the whole situation was that they were only five minutes from the airport when they found Sharpay.

HSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSMHSM

Meanwhile, back on the plane...

Mrs. Evans turned to her son, Ryan. "We're not to worry. Troy says he will handle everything and they will meet us in Sydney. He's a responsible young man; I trust him." And then, thinking, she asked, "Ryan, do you know a young man named Chad?"

"Yeah, Mom, you know him too. You know ...", Ryan replied as he held both hands up above his head indicating Chad's ginormous 'fro.

Recognition dawned on the elegant woman's face and she groaned, "Oh my poor baby girl."

TBC

Seems like a good place to stop. I promise I will eventually get them in the air.

A/N 1: Definition of mantastic: Feeling fantastic after the successful completion of a particularly macho feat. I found this in a slang dictionary and thought it was too cute to pass up.

A/N 2: Managed to get my PERFECT TIME TO PANIC in another one. Go, me!

And of course, this whole writing thing is just a silent cry for help and a need to be noticed, so please notice me and review. Thanks.