Chapter 10: The Deal Part 2

NEWS! So, people constantly looking for more info on Sam and Cat found a new piece of information and posted this on Wikipedia (source: Orange County Register). Apparently, Sam does go to Hollywood Arts after all, set to speak at the school about the web show.

I am ecstatic that my story is not that far off the mark at all! Other than Sam meeting Cat earlier (which was unavoidable for the sake of this story), most of my current and future chapters are still on point. I can't say any more than that because it may… ehem, will spoil future chapters. ;) But, details like this make writing the story a lot more exciting, and also fun to see how close I can get to the actual storyline. :p

PS. Did you guys notice that shout-out to S&C in the The Slap Fight? :)

Thank you guys for reading and following this story! It means a lot.

Disclaimer: Dan Schneider owns all.

January 4, 2013. Hollywood Arts Main Theater, 5:35 PM.

"Wow Sam, that's great!"

Tori turned towards Sam and beamed.

Sam, however, wasn't feeling the same way. "Great? How is this great? This is way too much right now. I just moved to LA and you just come in here and ask me to be your cash monkey?"

Megan was unfazed by this comment. "Is there something wrong with both of us making money?"

Sam was not expecting such an honest answer. While her mom did give her money, it would not last too long through the semester. She couldn't, and didn't want to, depend on her mom to send money again. Sam looked at Megan's straight expression. This girl really is a troublemaker.

Megan continued, "More importantly, I just saw you sing. No person in their right mind would think that you didn't have the raw talent to be famous one day."

Sam also didn't expect this sudden flattery. While she was still thinking of a reply however, Jade suddenly stood up and walked down the stage, towards the exit.

'Jade? Jade! Where are you going?', Beck called out.

Jade stopped for a moment. With her back still turned towards the group, she replied. 'This is a waste of time. I'm going.'

'Where?', Beck replied.

'It doesn't matter! Who cares about this Carly wannabe anyway? Who cares about Sam?'

Jade turned and looked to the group on stage. Her voice started to falter. 'Who cares about... about…'

Jade turned around again and left the theater.

Tori looked at Beck. Understanding immediately, Beck stood up. 'I'll go after her.' He quickly left the auditorium.

Uneasy, Megan said, 'Should we…?'

Beck replied, 'No, Jade gets this way sometimes. She'll be alright.'

Sam finally stood up. 'So, you seriously want to be my manager?'

'Actually,', Megan replied, 'I was hoping to not only be yours but also,', Megan started pointing towards the group. 'Tori's, Andre's and Jade's manager.'

Everyone stood up now. 'WHAT?!'

Tori exclaimed, 'You want to be my… I mean, our manager? Not just Sam?'

Megan replied, 'Yes. Like I said, I think you're all really REALLY good.' Megan gestured towards Robbie and Cat, 'Beck, Robbie, Cat, I haven't seen you guys perform yet, but some people on TheSlap were fans of you three too. I want to see what you can do, if you want to.' (see A/N #4)

Spencer replied, 'Wait, isn't managing four, maybe six people too much for a sixteen year-old teenager?'

Megan nodded and replied, 'I know. That's why I want to see if you guys fit with me first. If it turns out that I don't think I can fully manage you, I can use one of my contacts at Spin City Records and have them take a look. I'll ask Nick to see if one of his people wants to take over.'

Andre exclaimed, 'Nick? As in THE Nick Matteo, CEO of Spin City Records?' (see A/N #1)

'Don't start again Andre.', Megan replied.

'Oh my god! This is amazing!' The group started talking to themselves, all except Sam who was still sitting down, stunned by the news.

Megan noticed this and sat down next to Sam. 'Sam, are you alright?'

Sam looked up to Megan. 'Yeah. It's just… it's just a lot. I just decided to go to Hollywood Arts, and now this.'

Megan replied, 'I know. And I'm sorry if it seemed like I was rushing things back there. I'm not forcing you to answer right now. It's a lot to take in for me too. But, one thing I do know is that I personally want to manage you.'

'Why?'

'I don't really know. I liked your sound the moment I heard it. But more importantly, I think we match quite well. Not just because I… well, look like Carly, but also because we're both troublemakers.', Megan said with a smile and a wink. 'I know how we think.'

Sam smiled back, but was still visibly undecided. Sensing this, Megan stood up and took a card out of her purse. 'Again, Sam, no pressure. I just saw what I saw and went for it. Up to you if you want to do the same.' She handed the card to Sam, 'Here's my card. Let me know if you want to talk.'

Sam took the card without looking at it. Megan started handing out cards to the rest of the group.

Sam looked up and saw Freddie sitting down as well. He was staring at her with half a smile on his face.

Great. Anything else you want to throw at me, life?

…

January 6th, 2013. Hollywood Arts Dormitories—Sam's Room, 12:30 PM

Sam is lying down on her bed, bouncing a balloon with a tennis racket. (see A/N #2) She is barely paying attention however, with her thoughts still on what happened last Friday night.

"I just saw what I saw and went for it." What in the world did she see?

"Because people on iCarly asked for it. The Sam that they didn't get to see." Ugh, that weirdo little nerd! What did he mean by that?

Before she could go any deeper in her thoughts, she heard a knock on her door.

'Come in.' Sam saw a wave of red hair pass through the door. "Oh, hey Cat."

'Hiii!', Cat chimed.

Cat sat herself down on the study desk in the corner of the room. Sam let the balloon fall and set aside her tennis racket. 'What's up?'

Cat cheerfully said, 'Can I ask you for a favor?'

'Depends on what the favor is.'

'I need help with my audition.'

'Audition? For what?'

'My audition for Megan tomorrow, silly!'

Oh, that's right. She's holding private auditions tomorrow for Cat, Tori and them. 'I'm not sure how I can help Cat. Honestly, I'm not even sure that I trust Megan.'

'Why not?'

Sam stood up and started pacing around the room. 'I don't know. I guess it's just the way she just came in all of a sudden, you know?'

'And that she looks like Carly?'

Sam didn't expect that comment. 'What did you say?'

Cat looked straight at Sam while twirling her hair around her finger. 'And that she looks like Carly?'

'No, I get that you said that. What does Carly have to do with any of this?'

Still twirling her hair, Cat looked towards the ceiling, as if thinking about something. 'Well…, if I just had a fight with my best friend and someone that looked exactly like her just showed up, I would definitely feel weird. I mean, I would pass on all of my negative emotions onto this new person, even if he or she didn't deserve it and also wouldn't be able to stand looking at him or her.' Cat then looked at Sam. 'Right?'

Sam stood in shock for a few moments. Cat, you can definitely be smart sometimes. 'Okay, so maybe you're kinda right. But this girl is asking me, all of us, to like, change our lives and she's not even out of high school yet!'

'Who said anything about changing our lives?'

'What?'

Cat stood up and smiled. 'Sam, I don't know what she told you, but to me, she just asked us to audition.'

Sam didn't know what to say to that. Cat continued, 'To me, all this means right now is I'm going to pick a song and sing it in front of her tomorrow. And then, we'll maybe go out for smoothies. That's it.'

Just an audition? 'I didn't think of it that way.'

Cat smiled, 'Tee-hee. I'm smart. So, will help me pick a song for my audition tomorrow?'

There was still a million thoughts going around in Sam's head, but looking at Cat's innocent smile, none of it seemed to matter at that point in time. All that mattered right now is that Sam is in this moment, about to help a friend in need.

Sam sighed and finally smiled. 'Sure. What'cha got?'

…

January 6th, 2013. Hollywood Arts Computer Lab, 11:32 PM.

'Who's there?'

The night watch guard is making his regular rounds on the campus when he noticed that the door to the computer lab was unlocked.

'Is anyone in here? No one's allowed after hours!'

No response.

The watch guard headed into the room. It was near pitch black except for a faint light at the corner of the room. Heading towards the light, he noticed that it was coming from a computer screen. However, no one was sitting on the chair behind it.

'These kids… always wasting electricity.'

He walked up to the computer station. The only program window open was a web browser. It was still logged on to an email account. The screen displayed in big, bold letters: "Email successfully sent to carly ".

He pushes the power button to turn off the computer and walks away, leaving the room the same way he came in.

A/N #1: Taken from the season finale of Drake and Josh, "Really Big Shrimp".

A/N #2: This is a reference from an iCarly episode, iTwins. Sam and Carly were passing a balloon to each other using tennis rackets. This is one of the reasons why I love Dan's style—total randomness. Also, does this mean that she's thinking about Carly? Who knows…

A/N #3: I wanted to show the smart side of Cat in this chapter—that she has those moments of genius. While she may act ditzy, Dan left very concrete evidence that she is actually quite intelligent, if very eccentric. More importantly, she does show a lot of empathy in the series, possibly at the same level if not more than Tori.

A/N #4: Loose reference to 'The Slap Fight' episode. Not only was this a very funny episode, but it also proves that the main six (as Sinjin calls them) is actually very popular in school and each one of them has a considerable amount of followers. Not hard to think that these followers tweet some fan praises to them. And yes, it's funny how this episode actually used the term "tweet" without referring to Twitter. :p

And finally, I'm extremely happy that the recently released Victorious episodes, "Brain Squeezers" and "The Slap Fight", EXACTLY fits with where I thought the yet-undisclosed relationship between Robbie and Cat is right now post-Thousand Berry Balls. You guys will see more development on that soon, provided the show doesn't do it first! ;).

Please R&R!