A/N: Yesss! An update within three days! Woot for me! The reason I had so much trouble with the last chapter was because I was saving up all the drama for the next handful of chappies! I hope you enjoy it, please leave a review if you deem it worthy of your time. We're always looking for constructive critique!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Phantom of the Opera, nor do I own the Jekyll and Hyde lyrics that I randomly put in here... It sort of fit the situation.

She Who Sees and Hears

"He wrote her a song. And a poem! He got on his knee. He'd paid the cafe to remain closed for the morning. And he paid the bill!"

"Sweet guy." Estelle agreed. "But how do you feel about all of this? Your mother's getting remarried. You're going to have a stepfather."

I stretched my legs out on top of the bed. My arm was beginning to ache from pressing the phone to my ear. "To be honest, I'm more comfortable with Charles as Mum's boyfriend, but I feel fine. It's not going to be a repeat of Cinderella or Snow White, I know. It's just going to be a bit different." I told her.

"When's the wedding?" Estelle asked curiously.

"No idea. They plan on adjusting slowly, for me, I'm guessing. Charles practically lives here on the weekends anyway."

"Won't it be weird?"

"Obviously, yes."

"And awkward?"

"Yup."

"Have fun, Dana." And then she hung up.

I pressed the button to hang up with my thumb and threw the cordless phone onto my desk. Pessimistic little girl, I thought absent-mindedly.

It was about six in the evening, Mum had come home with the news, Charles had left, and twenty minutes of conversation with Estelle earlier in the day had yielded little about our teacher's doings. In Estelle's own words, all she had seen was, "He walked in, sat down, and when it was all over he walked out. Simple as that. Couldn't even manage to follow him."

Not much of a cat to let out of the bag, is it? She could have tried to explain it all in more detail, but her mother had called her to help with laundry before she could. Perhaps Mr Gerik just liked a good movie. Maybe he enjoys Indiana Jones and had been waiting for the fourth film just like everyone else. Or maybe he was just bored on a Saturday. Neither I nor Estelle knows.

Life has its way of hiding in a hole for a while and then jumping out to scream in your face without warning.

Life is mean.

Our two assignments had been handed in to the teacher on their dates. And now, we were at the mercy –or lack thereof- of Crawford High School students.

Well, that's what one of my team members said. I disagree.

The years of students above us and below were packed into buses and driven to either Crawford High School or various public sporting grounds. Lucky year seven was left at school. Estelle was on the other side of the school on the netball courts. Somewhere below my feet was a gigantic swimming pool, and the swimming team being drilled by Mr Gerik. Estelle has the strangest sort of intuition, and it happens to be correct most of the time.

My volleyball team was being refereed for the whole day by a teacher from Crawford High. Miss Sorelli was gone, somewhere with the eight year old children. We looked the Crawford team over, calculating our chances.

"Dana! Hey!"

I frowned slightly. There was a girl on the Crawford team, suddenly waving and jumping. Her plaited hair sprang about her head, and she was calling my name. I started as I recognised her.

"Alice! What are you doing here?" I called, doing my best to get a smile onto my face. It was being extremely reluctant.

The girl ducked under the volleyball net and ran straight towards me. The rest of my team looked at her strangely, then directed their gazes to me.

"What does it look like I'm doing, Dana?" Alice giggled.

My frown reappeared. "Like you are jumping up and down on an invisible trampoline. You've obviously had sugar."

She laughed lightly and swung an arm across my shoulders. "Silly Dana. You're not introducing me?"

Almighty Leroux, help me, I silently groaned. Kill me. Kill HER. Either way's good! Aloud I said, "People, person clinging to my neck and breaking my back. Person, meet the people not causing me extreme pain."

"Hello!" Alice shrieked gaily. "I'll see you later, right?" With a wave, she jogged back to her team, where they were starting to spread across their side of the court.

Edwin turned to me with a confused look on his face. "Who was that and who created her?" I guessed that was his polite way of saying, "What kind of mutant is she?!"

"Disturbed?" I asked him unnecessarily. "Alice does that. She's a classmate from Chaney Public School. I advise you to caution yourselves." I had suddenly found a new reason to make sure that ball caused as much grief to the opposition as possible.

"We're doomed." one of the girls from the team said. She had been rambling about how we would die on the court for the last twenty minutes. I decided it was time to boost the morale.

I picked up our volleyball and tossed it around with my hands. "I don't think that's going to happen. We haven't even started one game, and you're already planning your funeral. That girl isn't a close friend of mine."

Edwin allowed a grin to come to his features. "Then let us begin the massacre."

"You two are so violent! I hate to think what would have happened if those fencing swords had been sharper."

I smiled at the memory. "Where was I?" I said. "Oh yeah... Let's kill them!"

"May Gaston Leroux protect them." Edwin added.

"Or not!" We all laughed and got into our positions.

We were the first to score a point. I should get a job as a motivational speaker.

Everyone had been playing for an hour. We were being given fifteen minutes for recess before we had to get back to our teams and start another game with a different team.

I snatched up my water bottle and started sprinting towards the St Gerik's netball courts, although my skin was burning and my lungs pleaded for a rest. But Alice Leonard can make people do the most extreme things to get away from her. Aside from thoughts of escape, I wanted to see Estelle.

My weariness got the better of me eventually and I had to stop under the shade of a tree in the seniors' quadrangle, which was now empty. Every pupil over the age of eight had participated in the sport tournament between St Gerik's and Crawford High. I didn't even notice the woman until she was right behind me.

"I'm sorry, but I'm a little lost." a soft voice began.

I whipped my head up to look at her. I immediately absorbed into my brain the way she looked. She was wearing a tan overcoat, large sunglasses with a black frame and a long scarf wrapped several times around her neck and over her head. The lady had short blonde hair that looked like shredded metal and was holding a black handbag tightly to her thin body.

"Hello." I managed to rasp out of my mouth.

A smile flickered against her lips before she spoke again. "Would you please give me directions to the administration office of the school? I found the school fine, but now I'm completely clueless." She looked so helpless standing there, and there was something in her tone of voice that wouldn't let me refuse even if I had thought about it. It was only good manners, after all.

"Oh, um... It's behind the school library, which is the big blue chunk of building that's on the end of the hallway next to the junior quadrangle." I realised how confusing my description sounded. "I'll just show you. That would be easier..."

The woman hastily brought up her hands. "No, no. I'll be just fine now. Thank you very much, young miss. I can't thank you enough for your help. I'll be going now."

I watched her walk away, noticing how jerky her movements were. She struck me as someone who was anxious...harassed...looking for help...

Or looking for someone, I thought.

Estelle could wait. She would even scold me for not bringing her information! I made my decision to tail the skinny woman as she tried to find the school office. Waiting until she had disappeared from sight, I stepped out from underneath the tree. Should I cut her off with a shortcut or remain behind her?

I looked at the door that led into the network of school corridors. It was open. I only hoped that there was no one inside to hear me as I sprinted along the vinyl floors.

"The frightened princess... Doesn't know what to do!" I hummed a song softly as I found my way to the school library. But I didn't walk into it, instead turning left and going out into the quad. I looked quickly around the vast, concrete area. There was no one present except me.

Tiptoeing out from the shadows of the buildings, I headed in the direction of the office. I had no idea what the woman was searching for in there, but I intended to find the answer.

"Will the ghosts go away?" I continued. I abruptly cursed my foolishness. If I needed to hum and sing to relieve nervousness, I had better do it in my head.

My quarry was at the door of the office. She had taken off her sunglasses, and I could see her eyes were red and surrounded by dark rings. She hadn't been sleeping for a while. I watched her heave in a breath, then twist the doorknob. The woman disappeared inside the building, and I could do no more without the possibility of getting caught.

There was silence for a minute as I pressed myself against the wall nearest to the entrance back into the corridor. Then came some muffled sentences, obviously the lady. I threw myself back, terribly startled, as a thunderous noise erupted from the office building. In doing so, I thumped the back of my head into the brick wall at point blank.

Above my own swearing and hissing, I heard a shout. A shouted name...

"CHRISTINE!"

I recognised the name, as well as the voice. What was a Christine doing in there?! And what on Earth was the assistant principal and my class teacher doing in the staff room? He should have been with the aquatics team. Or maybe my information was incorrect... You can never be certain about high school gossips, least of all when there are teenage Ingénues involved. I returned my concentration to the happenings inside the building.

Another noise came from the office, softer in volume this time and more sustained. It struck me all of a sudden. The school office had a small pipe organ in the staffroom. The ear-splitting sounds were chords from the instrument! But they weren't musical in the slightest; I could tell that much and I've got no musical knowledge whatsoever. They sounded as if they were accidental, like someone pressing their outspread hand onto the keys. The way a child does onto a piano or keyboard. Like a young child piano-bashing...

I sucked in a hurried breath. No one pipe organ-bashes. It simply doesn't happen! The organ was rarely touched by the school staff anyway. They all knew how to properly treat a musical instrument. There was no one who would bash the keys... No one at all.

I could hear crying and footsteps. There was every chance that the woman was coming back out, so I retreated into the corridor. With a glance at my watch, I knew I didn't have much longer until I had to return to the volleyball tournament. There were only five minutes left of the break.

"Will she will them to stay?" I sang brokenly.

Once again running, I completed the last leg of my journey to the netball courts. I must have broken the land speed record for that!

"Either way there's no way to win..."

"Whad 'ap-pinned choo you, Dana?"

I raised my eyebrows. "What happened to you, Estelle?!" My friend was sitting on a bench, holding a white and red tissue to her face. They don't make white tissues with red splotches on them.

"Ne'ball choo der face." she explained.

I winced. "Yowch. Must have been a hard throw for that."

Estelle shrugged in reply. "Won der game, doh."

I remembered what I had meant to tell her. "There's a woman in the school. She asked me for directions, and I followed her, and then all of a sudden Mr Gerik is totally mistreating the school organ!"

"Dana." Estelle said through her tissue. "Yer making no sense."

I breathed deeply and retold the story in more detail. Estelle scowled through the whole recount.

She took the tissue away from her nose when I had finished. Her nosebleed seemed to have stopped. "But none of the Christines are blonde and thin!" she cried. "There's skinny and brunette, blonde and curvy... Maybe brown-haired and shapely too, but that doesn't help us!"

I shook my head breathlessly. "I don't know what's going on, but it's definitely something if it can shock our teacher enough to fall onto the pipe organ."

"Maybe it wasn't him. I've seen him take the swimming team down to the pool; he was probably training them. He should be down there right now."

"He could have gotten another teacher to do it for him." I countered.

"You're sure it was a Christine?" Estelle pressed.

"I know what I heard. Something happened in there." In truth, I was beginning to wonder if I had imagined it all. It seemed almost impossible... A real, living Christine!

The siren sounded for the end of recess, but to me it felt like it had been an hour since it began.

"You're going to have to run pretty fast to get back." Estelle stated to me.

I nodded grimly. This new mystery would have to wait for another time.

I know there hasn't been many appearances of the Phantom in the latest chapters, but I promise to you all that the one of the first things that come up in Chapter Eleven is a segment written in third person that will either explain the happenings of this chapter or confuse you even further.

I bid you good day now, and should probably get off the computer since I've been on here all morning. Between brekkie to 2:40 pm!

DarkFlame

Please R&R!