I'm back! Again! I just love writing this story a lot more than I thought I would. This chapter is considerably longer than what I usually write, so I'd suggest getting comfortable before you start. (Seriously, it's like 3,000 words) What can I say? I was on a roll, and I didn't want to cut it in half and make it two chapters. Having said that, I give you chapter three!
Chapter Three: Practical Joke
Chad and Sonny met up the next day outside of Mackenzie Falls' producer's office. Sonny had caved and let Chad talk her into going with him to pitch the idea and hopefully save his show.
Chad was there first, waiting outside, pacing, and occasionally running a hand through his hair.
Sonny showed up barely five minutes after he had. "Hey."
"Hey. Took you long enough."
She rolled her eyes at him. "Watch it, Cooper. I can still leave if I want to."
"Sorry." He rolled his shoulders back and opened the door for Sonny.
They stepped into a small receptionist's office and walked up to the cluttered desk on the other end of the room next to a door marked "Producer." The golden nameplate on her desk read: Linnea Adams.
"Excuse me; we're here to see Isaiah Barnhart, the producer of Mackenzie Falls. We have an appointment," Chad said like he had been going to things like this his whole life.
Oh yeah. Sonny remembered. He has.
Linnea looked up from her typing for two seconds before returning to her work. "Yes, yes, he'll be with you in five minutes. He's in another meeting." She pointed one finger at a row of tan, stuffed chairs. "You can wait over there."
Sonny and Chad took a seat next to each other.
"You remember what we're going to say, right?" Chad asked, keeping his eyes on the closed office door.
"Of course I do. I spent like half the night memorizing and practicing." Sonny fidgeted with her skirt.
"You didn't have to." Chad glanced at her.
"I know, but I get nervous if I don't know exactly what I'm going to say and how I'm going to say it for a presentation."
"We'll be fine," Chad said for both of their benefits. "We're prepared, we look professional."
Chad was wearing an outfit not too much different from what he usually wore except that his suit was less casual looking. Sonny was wearing a black blazer and matching kind of flow-y black knee-length skirt.
Sonny's Point of View
I looked at his outfit for the first time. "Yeah… you look…" Too handsome to be going to a business meeting? Like someone sucked all of the good-looking genes out of half the population and gave them all to him? Instead of feeding his ego more I went with: "nice."
"Thanks."
Chad's Point of View
"You look…" Pretty? No, not descriptive enough. Uh, beautiful, stunning, gorgeous? Any of those could certainly apply. Argh! I had to keep this professional. With this in mind, I decided on: "very businesslike." Probably best to leave out the rest of my opinion.
"Uh, thanks," she said it like it was a question again. Why did she always do that when I complimented her? What did she want me to say? If I told her the truth, I'd freak her out.
Normal Point of View
Isaiah listened to their proposal of just changing it up a little with the script and considering keeping Mackenzie Falls on the air.
After two minutes of nerve-racking silence, Isaiah finally spoke. "Alright. You have me convinced."
Sonny and Chad both grinned and sighed with relief.
"Thank you, sir. You won't regret it," Chad assured him.
Isaiah raised his eyebrows. "Now, let's not get ahead of ourselves yet. There's still the matter of pitching this to the rest of the executives and taking a look at some sample material."
Chad and Sonny's smiles faded instantly.
"Sample material?" Sonny asked.
Mr. Barnhart nodded twice. "Of course. Writers cost money. Money that we are losing, currently. We'll need to see fifteen episode ideas and two complete scripts so we can get the gist of the new angle."
Chad gaped for the first time since Sonny had met him. "Fifteen ideas and two complete scripts?"
With little hesitation, Sonny spoke up. "Okay, we can manage that. How much time do we have?" she asked in a calm voice, ignoring Chad's eyes boring into her.
Isaiah looked at the little calendar sitting on his desk. "Hmm… you have until Friday," he stated.
It was Sonny's turn to gape. "This Friday? But that only gives us two days."
"Yes, well, I'm going on vacation, and I'm leaving Friday evening and I won't be returning for several weeks. And after that, the time period to go over scripts, draw up new contracts, and sign everyone back on will have passed. But if it's too inconvenient…" he trailed off.
Once again, Sonny was the one to speak up. "Oh don't worry about us. We'll have everything ready for you Friday," Sonny stated with such determination, she almost believed herself.
"Friday at ten o'clock sharp," Isaiah reminded them. "Be here to present everything for me and the other execs and we'll see if we're keeping Mackenzie Falls or not. Oh, and one more thing."
Sonny was tempted to yell "what?!" She decided against it.
"We'd also like to see you act out a couple of the scenes from your new scripts."
"Sure, why not?" Sonny was starting to wonder if he was just making this all up as he went along.
Once they were out of earshot of Isaiah's office and his receptionist, Chad spun around to face Sonny.
"Exactly when were you planning on telling me you had fifteen ideas and two full scripts hidden away for this?" he asked sarcastically.
"Oh, be quiet. Do you want to save Mackenzie Falls or not?" Sonny crossed her arms over her blazer.
"Yes, obviously, but how am I supposed to come up with all of that in two days?"
"Hey, we're still in this together, remember?" Sonny reminded him elbowing him playfully in the ribs.
"Then how are we going to pull this off in two days? I know that a lot of people think I can do everything perfectly-," Chad began, ignoring Sonny's snort and eye roll. "-but I'm actually not that great with… creative stuff."
Sonny thought for a minute. There had to be a solution.
"Well?" Chad pressed.
Eventually, Sonny sighed and let her arms hang limply at her sides. "I don't know yet." She started walking down the hall and Chad followed. Suddenly, Sonny looked up and stopped dead in her tracks.
"Did you think of something?" Chad asked hopefully. Even one idea would have been helpful.
"No, but what time is it?" Sonny asked reaching for Chad's wrist in search of a watch, practically ripping his arm out of its socket.
Chad twisted away from her grip. "I don't wear a watch. And what does it matter anyway?"
"I think I'm late for a rehearsal." Horror washed over Sonny's face. "The check-it-out girls! Oh no! Tawni's going to kill me!" Sonny slipped out of her low black heels, picked them up and sprinted down the hall.
"Wait! What about Mackenzie Falls?" Chad called after her.
She looked over her shoulder as she ran. "I'll meet you in your dressing room at 4:30! Oh, and get me off the banned wall, okay? It'll make things a whole lot easier!"
Sonny ran onto the set and found everyone waiting around for her.
"Where were you?" Tawni demanded impatiently.
"And what are you wearing?" Zora asked curiously eyeing Sonny's outfit.
"Seriously, you look like you stepped right out of a Mackenzie Falls scene," Grady said, only joking.
Sonny's eyes widened slightly. "What?"
Ignoring her shock at how close Grady had actually come, Nico started talking. "Hey, you know what would be funny? If we did a sketch about how ridiculously dramatic Mackenzie Falls is."
Sonny forced a laugh with the rest of them. And then, a light bulb came on over her head. She smiled to herself before stepping casually closer to her cast mates. "That's actually a really good idea. But you know what would be even funnier? If we came up with as many ideas as we could that sort of follow along their story line, only we make them ridiculously funny." Sonny discreetly crossed her fingers. Please go along with it. Please go along with it.
"What would the point of doing that be?" Tawni asked, sounding suspicious to a paranoid Sonny.
"Well, then we… then we…" Sonny desperately searched her brain for an idea. "We write them out and then we give them to Mackenzie Falls as a joke. You know like a practical joke. They'll probably be offended like the snobs they all are, because they hate comedy and think it's above them. It would be funny." Sonny was deeply grateful for two things. One was that she could think somewhat quickly on her feet and two was that Chad had not been there to hear that.
Nico and Grady exchanged a look. Nico tapped his chin, thinking it over. "Hmm… that would be funny…"
"Hey, I'm in for any practical joke," Grady offered smiling.
Sonny looked at Zora hopefully. "Zora?"
She shrugged. "Eh, why not?"
Everyone stared at Tawni expectantly. Tawni fluffed her hair up for a second while she thought it over. "I guess so."
Sonny couldn't help beaming. "Let's get started right after rehearsal. But first, let me go change."
Sonny walked as casually as she could off the set before she full on ran to her and Tawni's dressing room. Once she was safely inside with the door locked, she texted Chad quickly. She wrote: "I have a solution. I'll be late for our 4:30, though, so don't expect me until 7:00. See you there."
Sometime close to 7:00…
Sonny quietly grabbed all of the yellow legal pads that Sonny, Nico, Grady, Tawni, and Zora had used to brainstorm ideas for their "practical joke," and shoved them into her giant tote bag. She opened the door of the dressing room she shared with Tawni to leave, but Tawni was standing in the doorway.
Tawni looked curiously at Sonny and put her hands on her hips. "Where are you going?"
Sonny fidgeted with the strap on her bag. "Umm… just going for a walk around the studio. What are you doing?"
Tawni leaned in closer to Sonny with a wide grin on her face. "I just heard the juiciest gossip about Mackenzie Falls."
Sonny tried to keep her eyes from bugging out of her head. "Really…? What is it?" She had a slightly guilty edge to her voice.
"I heard they're cancelling the show because they're losing ratings to us," Tawni said excitedly.
Sonny shook it off. "Oh, maybe, but you know, you shouldn't believe everything you hear… And uh, I gotta go!" Sonny speed walked out of sight and all the way to Chad's dressing room.
Sonny's Point of View
I stopped in front of his door and smoothed down my hair to make sure I didn't look like a mad scientist when I walked in.
"Fixing yourself up for me? How sweet," a voice said from behind me.
I spun around, dropping my bag in the process and came face to face with a smug Chad. Oh, perfect. Yet another reason for him to tease me.
I rolled my eyes at him in response while he bent down to get my bag.
"I just wanted to…" Huh… I couldn't think of a single reason that wouldn't fuel his arrogant fire.
Sensing my lack of an answer, he grinned and handed over my bag. "It's okay. I'm used to it. Let's just get started."
I followed him into his dressing room for the second time that day, feeling the heat rush to my cheeks. Ugh! How was it possible for one person to be so infuriating?
We both sat down on his couch again, only this time we weren't on the complete opposite ends.
"So you said you had a solution," Chad prompted, taking off his jacket and hanging it over the arm of the couch.
"Yes. It didn't fix all of our problems, but it certainly did help," I reached into my bag and pulled out the papers as I spoke. "I kind of tricked the rest of So Random into writing out a bunch of ideas that we can tweak to make them work."
I handed him one of the pads of paper, not really looking at it as I gave it to him. He studied it for a second before frowning.
I looked up. "What's wrong?"
"'Chad's a jerk,'" he quoted off of the paper.
Oops. I snatched it from him and gave him the only one that was sure to not have that written anywhere on it. And yes, I mean mine.
"Sorry," I mumbled. "Dang it!" I muttered under my breath once I realized they'd all written something either offensive to Mackenzie Falls or something personal in the margins. I turned my body away from him slightly.
"Nice friends," Chad commented reading over my shoulder.
"Just ignore all of that. I sort of told them that we were coming up with all of this as a practical joke on you guys." I turned my body back to face him and- dang! When'd he get so close to me? The closest we'd ever been to each other when we weren't fighting was three feet apart. Now he couldn't have been even a foot away from me on the couch. This'll take some getting used to…
"Well, whatever it takes I guess…" He sifted through the papers. "You really think we can get fifteen ideas out of this that follow the plot?"
"I already told you, we can if we just tweak everything a little bit to make all of the usable ideas work."
After four hours we finally had come up with a full summary for twenty episode ideas and started on a script for an episode.
"So… about the whole acting out the script thing," Chad began, watching me write out a part of the script. He had finally just let me write out the draft after grudgingly admitting that I had the better handwriting. "I asked around the set and none of the girls are willing to do it."
I stopped writing. "What? Why not?" How were we supposed to do this if we didn't have everyone's cooperation?
"I guess they're a little more reluctant to work with someone from So Random."
"Okay, then I'll fill in for one of them," I stated, getting back to writing a scene for Chad and his love interest.
After hearing no response from him for a full minute I glanced up at him and he was grinning. Yeesh. You talk about your split personality.
"What are you smiling for?"
"I want to choose the scenes we do," he said, suddenly turning serious.
"Fine. Just so long as you don't have me saying anything ridiculous," I said turning my back to him.
"It's like you don't know me at all." I could hear the mocking grin in his voice.
But he wasn't too far off. Every time I thought I was starting to figure him out, he turned around and did something different. How was I supposed to figure out someone like that?
Okay, not sure when I'll update again but I'd say sometime in the very near future. Hope you liked it.
