"Can you guys help us out with a play we're putting on?" Tori asked her friends over lunch.
"You and..?" Beck asked.
"André's writing it, and I'm directing," Tori said.
"Is that a good idea?" Robbie asked.
"Why not?" Tori asked.
"Well, André's more of a…" Robbie trailed off.
"Music guy?" Beck supplied.
"Well, I'll let him know you're being so supportive," Tori said, disappointed.
"Hold it, hold it," Beck said. "We're just asking."
"But we'll help," Robbie said hastily.
"What are we helping with?" came a chirp from a certain other student who had clearly been eavesdropping in the hallway.
"It's rude to eavesdrop, Meredith," Robbie told her.
"I couldn't help but hear!" Meredith squealed. "And I couldn't help but hear that someone needs help!" she said, inching closer to Beck.
"Well, Tori is the one who needs the help, so please do," Beck said, gently but firmly pushing Meredith towards Tori. He turned and left as fast as he could.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
"Where's the fire, Beck?" Jade asked, as Beck rounded the corner near her locker.
"Hey, babe," Beck greeted, planting a kiss on her cheek.
Jade simpered. "Are you running away from someone?" she asked teasingly.
"Meredith," Beck muttered.
Jade snorted.
Beck looked up, incredulous. He had thought telling her would upset her.
Jade ran her black-painted fingers through his hair. "Why the look of surprise?"
"I just expected you to go postal," Beck said with a smirk.
"Do you want me to?" she asked, scratching at his scalp with her nails.
"If it would get her to stop, I wouldn't mind," he said, leaning closer.
"I might, eventually," Jade said, "but for now…" she trailed off, applying pressure with the hand that was still tangled in Beck's hair until he complied and kissed her.
It was a few long moments before someone cleared their throat.
Beck pulled away from Jade and looked up to find Principal Dubois glaring at them, her arms crossed against her chest.
"S-sorry, Principal Dubois," Beck said.
"I'm sure you are," Helen waved them off. "I don't need to see you two necking in the halls. Keep that to yourselves."
Jade clamped her teeth over her lips to hide a smile and nodded.
Helen stalked off towards her office.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
That afternoon, the gang met up at the Black Box to talk about André's play.
Unlike Beck and Robbie, Jade and Cat had been easier to convince to help out. It turned out that this was an extra credit project André was doing.
"So it's about a guy who lives on a farm, and he's having to deal with a bunch of bullies bullying his little sister," André explained.
"Because she's an alien," Tori added.
André looked up as if pleading with the rafters to take him. "Because she's an alien," he grumbled.
Jade was barely listening to the chatter, because she was busy reading the script with Cat.
Cat was already making notes about costume design. She made a few scribbles in the margins of her own notes for Robbie, should he decide to get to work on set design.
When Jade finished reading the script, she looked up and asked André, "Who did you have in mind for your cast?"
"I hadn't really figured that one out yet," André said.
"How about Trina?" Robbie asked.
"As the alien?" Tori asked, clearly not on board.
"Yeah?" Robbie responded.
"She's going to have my head!" Tori exclaimed. "She would have no dialogue!"
"There's plenty of dialogue!" Cat said excitedly.
Meredith, once again interrupting, barged into the theater and asked, "Who has dialogue?"
"You can always use Meredith," Jade deadpanned.
Beck facepalmed.
"It's a part in a play I'm doing for extra credit," André said.
"Oh, that's so nice of you to think of me, Jade," Meredith gushed.
Jade arched a perfectly accented eyebrow. She looked at André and said, "I guess you've got your little sister role."
Meredith squealed. "Thank you!"
"Rehearsals will start on Friday," André said. "I'll email you a copy of the script later today."
xxxxxxxxxxxx
"What on earth was that?" Tori asked Jade, once Meredith had skipped off to wherever she went when she wasn't eavesdropping and interrupting conversations.
"She'd be perfect for the role," Jade said.
"But you hate her!" Tori said.
Jade looked at her nails. "I don't hate her, I kind of feel sorry for her."
"Jadey, I told you what she said about Beck, right?" Cat asked, caution in her tone.
"Yeah, and I was also there when I threatened to cut her after Clowns Don't Bounce," Jade said nonchalantly.
"Why are you encouraging this then?" Cat asked.
Jade shrugged. "Did you have a better idea of who to play the alien sister? And don't say Trina. She would hate that role."
"So this is just to get back at her?" Tori asked, disliking the idea more by the second.
"What? No, I wouldn't jeopardize André's play for something so petty," Jade said. "Besides, since André asked for pointers on casting, I'd say you found someone who's going to love the role and try her hardest to get it right." She patted Beck's shoulder. "As long as certain someone plays her big protective brother."
Beck looked a little uncomfortable, but he knew Jade was right. "I feel so used right now," he said jokingly.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
On Friday, rehearsals started as soon as classes ended. Robbie and Cat had done most of the base work on the set and costumes already.
Meredith came in, squawking her alien dialogue lines.
"Hi, Meredith," Tori greeted awkwardly.
Alien gibberish came out of Meredith's mouth in response. The girl lifted a large flat white box up to Tori and opened the lid, revealing an assortment of pastel-colored frosted cupcakes.
"Oh, gee, thanks," Tori said, taking a pink-frosted one.
Meredith closed the lid and chattered some more in her made-up alien syllables.
Tori raised her cupcake as if she were toasting a glass and took a bite. "Wow, this is a really good cupcake," she said honestly.
Meredith smiled gleefully before moving on to the next person with her tray of cupcakes.
"I take back every mean thing I ever said about her," Tori muttered to André as he came up behind her.
"Let me try that cupcake," André said, curious. He took a bite without even taking it off Tori's hands. "Mmm, that is some good cupcake," he said. "I'm not sure you've said enough mean things about her to take back, though."
Tori swatted him on the arm and continued munching on her cupcake.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Friday's rehearsal was running lines with scripts on hand, just getting everyone into the right headspace for their roles.
By Monday, they went off script, and by Tuesday, they planned to at least dry run the scene where Meredith's character was fully revealed as an alien. This required a rather elaborate harness for Meredith, and they had to make sure that it would hold, and that Meredith could pull off the stunt.
xxxxxxxxxxxx
Meredith was wearing the harness from the top of the scene. Her position was behind a table with a draped table cloth, and she was facing the audience.
Between Beck's monologue and Meredith's full reveal, Cat lowered the line smoothly. Robbie slid the trap door of the stage open and clipped the line into Meredith's harness as it came down. He was done just in time for Meredith to get up and deliver a monologue in alien-speak, followed by floating up from her seat.
She practiced waving her arms as gracefully as possible, considering she had never done any ballet or stunt practice.
Unfortunately, one of her arms snagged the cable, disrupting her momentum. Her foot then crashed into part of the set on the far right of her swinging action, bringing the right wall down and nearly missing Beck with it.
Meredith, finally breaking alien character, let out a scream. "Get me down!" She swung towards the left side of the stage helplessly.
Beck intercepted her as she swung back across the stage. Upon impact, the harness's clip broke loose, and Meredith was released, landing right on top of Beck while Beck landed on his back on the cushion they had set up. He wheezed under Meredith's weight.
"Aw man," André whined. "Robbie, go get the nurse, would you?"
Robbie, white as a sheet from what happened, nodded numbly and sprinted out the theater doors to get a nurse.
Meredith was a little winded but rolled off of Beck. "Ow," she winced, rubbing her sternum, which ached from slapping headlong into Beck's nose.
Beck pinched the bridge of his nose, checking if it was broken. Jade is gonna love this, he thought sarcastically. No, she was not in fact going to love any of it when she found out.
Meredith looked over at Beck. "My hero," she gushed, caressing his chest.
Robbie returned with the nurse momentarily, and she checked on Meredith and Beck, with Beck trying to maintain as much space as possible between him and Meredith, because she kept trying to touch him.
"Thankfully, nothing is broken," the nurse said. "Although, Mister Oliver could do with an Xray, if he's feeling up for it."
"Nooo, thank you," Beck said, covering his nose with his hand.
The nurse smiled sympathetically. She really didn't think there had been much damage to Beck's nose, and if the boy preferred not to get more tests done, she wasn't going to force him. "Come back to see me or your primary care doctor if the pain doesn't subside in a few days."
"Yes, Ma'am," Beck promised.
Sikowitz, Trina, Jade and Mrs. Winklevoss came through the doors in a hurry.
"We came as soon as we heard," Mrs. Winklevoss said.
"Well, they did," Sikowitz said, "I heard earlier, I just…waited."
Jade gave Sikowitz a sideward glare.
"Oh, thank goodness it wasn't you, Mom and Dad would kill me," Trina said, looking Tori over.
"They're fine, they padded the stage for their rehearsal," the nurse said.
Mrs. Winklevoss sighed with relief. "Mister Harris, I think it might be prudent to remove the stunt from your script."
"But Mrs. Winklevoss, we'll fix it. It's just a technical hiccup," Tori said, sounding very much like she was whining.
André interrupted his girlfriend's argument. "Actually, Mrs. Winklevoss, that's not a problem at all. I do have a draft of this where there's no alien background for the sister."
"Then I don't have the part anymore?" Meredith asked.
"You can have the part… without the alien dialogue, if you want," André offered.
Meredith shook her head. "No, that's okay, I think I've had enough excitement from this project. Maybe another role, another time?"
"Sure, I'll let you know if we ever have anything," André said noncommittally.
"I'll be going then. Later, hero," Meredith said, winking at Beck before making her way out of the Black Box.
Jade's eyes narrowed, and she very nearly pounced, except Cat and Tori grabbed a wrist each and pulled as hard as they could.
Meredith made it safely out before Jade rounded on Cat and Tori.
"Sorry, Jadey, we just didn't want you to get in trouble," Cat said, releasing Jade's wrist and covering her mouth.
Jade growled and stalked over to Beck.
"Sorry about that," he mumbled, as Jade prodded at his nose, either inspecting it herself or subtly punishing him with the pressure on his injured nose. He couldn't tell from the stoic face she was wearing.
"So… back to casting?" André asked, as Mrs. Winklevoss and Sikowitz left as well.
"Can I try out for the role?" Trina asked.
André thought about it for a while before turning to Jade, who had stopped poking her boyfriend's nose. "What do you think, Jade?"
Jade tilted her head for a moment. "I think she would fit in."
xxxxxxxxxxxx