Okay, I know I haven't updated this in forever, and I'm sorry! Toxic-Beetle, my darling, thank you for giving me the boot up the ass to get this up. God bless you for threatening me, I'll do anything to avoid being poked! Thanks for being patient guys, and here's the next chapter!
Angel
Xxx

Mr Sykes stopped the rehursal by bursting out laughing. Everyone on stage stopped where they were, and just stared at him, wondering whether his skin was about to turn purple and maybe he would sprout another head. Michael looked at Holly, who looked back at him, and they both shrugged at each other. This rehursal was taking place during lesson time; in particular, during the time of Alex's lesson. He sat slumped in one of the seats, in between Jason and Robbie, who were slumped down even further. Alex, however, was keeping a keen eye out for any sign of Steve.

"Uh, Sir?" Patrick asked, from his place on the side of the stage. He stood in his full costume, as did the others. It was the first dress rehursal for the show.

But, even at Patrick's call, Sykes didn't stop laughing.

"What's so funny?" One of the girls asked him.

"What's so funny?" Sykes repeated, stopping his insane laughter for a while. "What's so funny? What's so hilariously funny, Ms Macormik," he said, directing his answer at her alone, "Is that this show goes up in a week! Look at you all!" The cast looked between each other with confused looks. The only thing they could see was how strange they looked in the half-finished costumes. "Chelsea, you're meant to be standing up-stage-right, not down-stage-right. Sarah, you're meant to be standing in between Michelle and Madeline. Christopher, you're not even supposed to be on stage for crying out loud!" Sykes laughed again, but this time it was nervous laughter. "You're not an emsemble cast - you're a zoo!" He exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air.

It was now October 5th, with exactly one week to go until the opening and closing night of the play. The nerves were starting to get to them all, even Holly. Up until this point, there had been no showing, no mention, and no viewing of Steve around them. Alex, as he mentioned, had set up a meeting with the Self-Preservation Society. In all, they had managed to round up twenty-eight of the original group, who Alex had explained the situation to briefly. They didn't know about the gold, only that this man had a vendetta against Charlie and that they needed to get him out of the school.

There were plans waiting to happen all around the school, planned down to a T. Every other day, they met at lunchtime to discuss anything, come up with new plans, and tweak the old ones - yet there was no need. It was like Steve had evaporated into thin air. The only scrap of evidence that suggested he was still lurking somewhere was the fact that his agent still attended every rehursal.

Alex caught sight of the man sitting beside Sykes, and glared daggers into the back of his head. He wondered whether he would turn around if he did it long enough. He thought that might pass some time that he would have otherwise spent playing noughts and crosses in on the front of Robbie's math book, or flicking pencils into the backstage area and trying to get them caught in the lace that made up the dancer's costumes.

Sykes barked out more orders at the students, who rushed around to show they were paying attention, swapping over their positions and working on different ideas. So far, things had been going well, other than that day, of course. It seemed that the pressure of only having 5 weeks in total to rehurse the whole play was getting to everyone. The dances had only been choreographed two weeks ago, and the dancers were still learning them, and the fight scenes were done to death so that the actors struggled to find the energy to enact them properly.

Whilst the encounters with Steve had slowed down, so had everything else. The time that was building up until Christmas was going slower, mainly because Charlie and Stella had recently announced that they were going to visit Stella's mother for a while. Alex had immediately begged to stay at home rather than spending a week or so with "that old witch". He hadn't said 'witch'. He had said a stronger word which had gotten him grounded for three days. Mind you, in his head, he had a perfectly good reason to say that - it was Stella's mother who had scalded him after all. They hadn't let him stay at home, so instead, he was forced to endure the same punishment as the rest of them. Weren't holiday's meant to be fun?

Another thing that had slowed to almost a complete hault was his advances with the lovely Amy. She had gotten a crush on the new boy, Freddie Boran, Alex's new arch-enemy, and had completely forgotten about Alex. She was sitting next to him as well, surrounded by all her girlfriends as they all hung on to his every word. Why didn't any girls hang on to his every word? Even his sister, who he was sticking his neck out to protect, didn't listen to half of what he told her.

Alex reached down into his bag, and pulled out a sandwich that had been made that morning.

"What are you doing?" Jason asked, knowing full well that he would probably be suspended if Sykes caught him eating in his precious auditorium.

Alex simply shrugged. "It's nearly lunchtime. I'm hungry." He decided, digging in to the sandwich.

It tasted awful, of course, because he had made it. He had made his own lunch that morning because Stella had been suffering from morning sickness. Oh, the joys of a pregnant mother. He didn't remember what had happened when she was expecting Holly, because he was so young, but that was probably for the best. The other night, Lyle had sat him down and explained about the moodswings that, as the eldest child and a male, he would be the victim of. If he was going to get it that bad, he really sympathised with his father.

Holly, on the other hand, loved the idea of having a little sister. Yes, she was convinced she was having a sister. Whenever Alex tried to suggest that it could be a boy, she insisted that it was a girl. So eventually, he had given up. So now Holly and Stella spent a lot of time discussing things like baby clothes, and the baby's room, and the baby's name...Holly never had a chance to be excited about this before because she was the youngest of them. Alex, on the other hand, had been around when all of the others were babies, and didn't see what all the fuss was about. They screamed, they cried, they spat up, and they pulled his hair. When Charlie had pointed out that he might get a raise in his allowance for babysitting, he had changed his tune a little - only a little, mind, because he could make do with his allowance exactly how it was.

Sykes, still rampaging, turned around to check that his class were still reading the books he had set them. Alex quickly ducked below the chair infront, throwing his sandwich into the bottom of his bag before he was caught.

"Alexander, what do you think you're doing?" He asked angrily. On stage, Holly giggled alongside Michael. Alex just cringed at the use of his full name.

Alex, naturally, didn't answer. He might be a rebel boy, but he wasn't raised to talk with his mouth full of food - especialyl in a place where he wasn't supposed to be eating.

"Alexander!" He yelled again.

"Yeah?" He called back, having swallowed his mouthful, successfully hidden his food, and now reclining back in his chair.

"'Yeah'?" Sykes inpersonated, clearly offended.

"Yes, sir." Alex corrected himself sarcastically.

"What are you doing?" He asked.

Alex gestured around him. "Well, sir, when one bends his legs and lowers his body onto a nearby object, we call it 'sitting down'." Sykes began to turn a furious shade of magenta. "When one does it just as casually as this, it can also be called 'relaxing', 'taking it easy'..."

"Slacking off!" Sykes exploded.

Alex looked at him in mock amazement. "Wow, sir, that's brilliant, I didn't think of that one."

"Slacking off!" He repeated. Was that purple on his face now? "I set you some work through the most important part of my year and you're slacking off!"

Alex nodded slowly. "Yeah, pretty much, sir."

He heard a groan of disgust from a few rows along, and shot at glare at the culprit, who turned out to be none other than Evil Freddie Boran.

Sykes continued on his outrage. "Slacking off! I ask you to read one book! One book, Mr Croker! And you can't even manage that!"

"Actually, sir, I can manage it rather well." He said innocently. "That's what's so boring about it. There's no challenge to it. Besides," He added cheekily. "This is drama, not a literacy lesson."

Needless to say that Alex wasn't available to spend time with the others at lunch in ten minutes time because he was too busy serving a detention, which consisted of sitting obediently at Mr Sykes side whilst he went through even more rehursals. It wasn't that bad though, as at least he got to sit and talk to Holly, who wasn't meant to be on stage. They ended up playing rock-paper-scissors for the whole time, and just like their Rummy games, there was never a clear winner. It was always a draw.

When Handsome Rob dropped them home after school, the two of them walked into the living room to see Stella standing there with raised eyebrows, Charlie standing beside her. This only happened when he was in big trouble.

"Hi Mom." Alex said innocently. "Nice day?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Great! Love to stay and chat, but I've got a truckload of homework to do..." He started to walk towards the stairs to make his escape.

"Alex." Charlie said sternly. Alex cringed at his tone, and turned back to them.

"Yeah?" He asked, still pretending to know nothing about what they were talking about.

"I think we need to have a talk." Charlie said.

Alex knew how this was going to be like. Having a 'talk' with his parents in this setting meant that they were going to talk, and then he was going to listen, nod, smile, assure them it wouldn't happen again, and then he would probably get in trouble for the same thing next week, and this would happen all over again. It was how it always worked. It hadn't actually happened for a while, because he had more focused on keeping his sister out of trouble rather than keeping himself occupied.

Still, he nodded, dropping his bag by the door and heading towards them. Holly passed him, slicing her finger across her throat teasingly. How nice it must be for her to never get in trouble, he thought to himself.

Sitting down on the couch before his parents, he let out a sigh. "What am I in trouble for this time?" He asked, surrendering immediately because there was no point beating around the bush. He was in trouble for something.

"Your teacher called." Stella said.

"Which one?" He asked, even though he knew who it would have been.

"Mr Sykes." Charlie confirmed.

"Ah." Alex said simply. "What am I in trouble for?" He asked again.

"Not doing any of your work in class, being cheeky to teachers and eating in the auditorium." Stella recited, having had to listen to the old man rattle on for a long time on the phone that afternoon.

"Okay, I can explain." He said. "Technically, the work was useless because it wasn't even to do with drama, we were being forced to sit in the auditorium while he did stuff with the play - we weren't even in class! Second, I wasn't being cheeky." Both of them gave him a look that told him they didn't believe him for a second. "Okay, maybe I was." He corrected. "But I definately wasn't eating in the auditorium!"

"Alex, he found your half-eaten lunch on the floor where you were sitting." Stella said tiredly.

"Who says it was mine?" He asked, begging for the justice.

"It was found next to your Math book." Stella said.

Damn that hole in the bottom of his bag.

For the next half an hour, Alex sat and listened to his parents telling him about the importance of his last year, and that if he wasn't careful, he would get held back a year. It wasn't that he wanted to get held back or chucked out, it was just that Sykes had a vendetta against him. Neither of his parents accepted that his drama teacher had a vendetta against him - strangely, he thought that they might have understood that considering they were victims of a vendetta, but they didn't and told him not to be so ridiculous.

As Alex went up to his bedroom afterwards, every member of the Croker family was thinking about the same thing.

It was seven days until opening night...and seven days until Steve would make his move.