A/N: YIKES! I got some reviews and they were real nice 3. (I tried to rhyme :P!) Haha and yes, HopelessWanderer, I update fast because I have too much time on my hands. (Sorry about school and all LOL!) I actually have about eight chapters of this thing written (I try to keep them not so obscenely long), but I like two be at least two ahead of the current one before posting xD. I'm just odd like that. I'm glad some of you don't completely hate Clara:) She's my baby. Thanks for leaving reviews when you read! It makes me feel speshial. Hahaha.

Disclaimer: I disclaim disclaim disclaim. Except for Clara. readabove

Chapter Five: Announcements

Today was Monday. Mondays usually meant a couple things at East High. First of all, there would be chicken strips in the cafeteria for lunch-- immediately setting off a long line of students who would all hungrily wait for the only particularly good dish their cafeteria had to offer. It would also mean marching band practice, which would be-- as usual-- disrupted by a pair of trouble-making troublemakers (today would involve spray paint). It would mean freshly painted nails, wide awake students, and the inward groan that every single individual shared at the idea of having four more days of school ahead of them.

The most important thing about Mondays though was that the notice board was cleaned off old notices, papers, and advertisements-- and today the board would hold a particularly important new item. The list of names who'd made the musical. Understandably, as soon as the school's doors opened the rush of last week's audition-ers immediately crowded around it. Troy had given Gabriella a ride to school today-- and you know what that meant? Soon they were crowding around the big board with the names too.

"Ugh, Troy-- can you see anything?" he heard Gabriella whimper from below-- at times, it would seem her shortness was a curse. Especially in a large crowd of people. He grinned and told her he'd go up front to look.

After carefully maneuvering his way through the crowd, a couple elbows there a few "Hey mans!" here and voila! To the front of the line he was. He'd been trying to hide his nerves from Gabriella the entire morning, feeling as though his heart might just come out from his throat at any second now-- despite the fact that he was supposed to be cool, calm, collected and that sort of thing. The trouble was, now he could definitely feel his palms get a little sweaty. He lifted a finger to the list, and ran down the names. Coming upon what he was looking for he immediately leaped up into the air, attempting to spot Gabriella.

"Gabriella!" Hop. "We made it!" Hop. "WE'RE IN!"

His last hop over the crowd and he could already see her jumping up and down excitedly, and carefully he made his way back through the crowd to her. Picking her up in a big hug he grinned himself silly. "I told you! You were great-- they loved it!"

As quick as a summer storm, Sharpay was upon them-- with Ryan in tow. The two stood across from Gabriella and Troy, wearing an identical set of frowns-- and Troy couldn't help but look at Gabs with a worrisome expression on his face. Were they angry? Was a WWF smack-down about to take place here in the middle of the hall? Surely, he thought they had gotten over the petty rivalry ages ago. Their fears were immediately dispersed when a large grin slid onto Sharpay's face.

"Well, Gabriella-- or should I say: Priscilla Peabody, up and coming famous actress. Meet your new, only slightly eccentric, best friend Lolita!" Sharpay squealed, as she explained to the two of them that not only had she landed a role as the lead's best friend (though smaller than the lead, still prominent)-- but that she and Ryan were their official understudies as well. (Ryan then explained his crucial role as the butler.)

With that, the foursome walked down the hall-- agreeing to meet up later for the musical's first official meeting after school. Troy took Gabriella's hand in his, and even though Sharpay was still walking besides her and jabbering on about what fun it was all going to be-- they had just enough privacy to give each other each an intimate sort of smile, the one thing they reserved solely for the other. Gabriella turned away, back to chattering with Sharpay, but he could still feel his stomach lurch uncomfortably. He was pretty sure it wasn't he lack of breakfast either. You see, Troy Bolton was in love. Yes-- the Big L. Was it so hard to imagine? For a while now he tried to pinpoint the exact moment that he had realized it-- and in truth, he could only come up with one answer.

Since the day he first laid eyes on her.

Alright, alright so the whole idea was a little bit of a mess-- and all his friends would get a big laugh if they ever got inside of his head, but Gabriella was the real deal. Everytime they were in the same room it was like something inside of him suddenly made more sense, and when she wasn't-- it was like... well like that piece was just missing. Not that four months together had gotten him any closer to saying it out loud-- he almost felt like they just had an understanding, or maybe that it was something too important to risk just throwing out there. Maybe they both just wanted to be sure, or maybe he was just kidding himself. So he was scared. It was a scary thing though, wasn't it?

She didn't know how the hell she'd gotten talked into this. I guess the dilemma was, she hadn't really gotten talked into it at all. There was actually very little talking that took place at all. If she recalled correctly, last week she walked in through her door-- and her mother informed her, quite breezily, that she had signed her up for the musical. Working on the set design.

Fantastic, wasn't it? Clara didn't know whether or not Darbus and her mother were both secretly planning on ruining her life even further-- but it was a combination of her mother's insistence that she had to get involved in some sort of activity to make some friends and threatening to burn her shoes that had gotten her to finally agree. So now here she sat in the auditorium, wearing her usual pair of jeans and particularly dark black t-shirt and her sneakers-- propped comfortably up on the seat in front of her. She was also trying extra hard to make sure her bangs were as much in her face as possible. She would have almost been comfortable-- almost, because if you really had to know... Larry Knight had claimed her as his seat buddy, and now found himself in the seat next to her. Giving off that smell that she still couldn't quite place.

Now, Larry seemed like he had his intentions in the right place, but really-- it took all her power not to just tell him to take a godforsaken shower. The room began to fill out and Larry continued to jabber mindlessly at her.

"Yes-- this year the technical aspects of the musical will be on par with the professionals-- at least, I plan to make sure of it..."

Oh Christ. She was going to have how many more months of this? Soon enough Darbus situated herself at the front and cleared her throat loud enough (Clara was pretty sure the woman popped a lung in the process) to get everyone's attention.

"Students! Welcome all to our first meeting," she clasped her hands together, looking at them all with the brightest of eyes. "You, dears, are a group of fine young men and women about to take part in an even finer experience-- the musicale."

Well how fine-tastically fine of her fineness. Fine.

"Now, first things first." Looking down at her clipboard with a set of glasses that looked about a century old (Clara was already doing the math)-- she scanned down the names, reading off each and the tasked assigned to them. "Of course, we have Gabriella Montez and Troy Bolton as our leads..." she continued to name off the names but with the mention of one Troy Bolton she shifted in her seat and looked backwards. Ah, so there was that kid again. Truthfully, they hadn't run into each other again since the art exhibit, but since they'd spoken more than sentence to each other (but not by very much) he still qualified as one of the kids she could almost call an acquaintance.

She really hoped that by some miracle the woman would miss her name, but after proudly announcing the technical crew-- there was no choice but to move on to set design. "Ah, this year Mary Ellen Andrews will be joining us as our set manager-- props, set design, it will all be under her leadership!" The room gave a short applause, as they'd been doing and her eyes fell on a particularly blonde and blue-eyed female who had on the nicest sweater-vest she'd seen in a long time. She now had the urge to vomit. "Thomas Erving, Jessabelle Lanning, Frederick Rodriguez, and Clara Bryant will be joining her!" After a moment's pause, Darbus' eyes fell on her feet and a deep frown now replaced the smile. "Miss. Bryant, if you could please keep your feet on the floor-- yes, thank you."

She now took a moment to try to sink herself as far into her seat as possible. (And kept her feet away from all chairs.)

With the initial introduction over, the meeting split off into the various group so that they could get various things assigned and planned out. Mary Ellen seemed fairly neurotic about it, to tell you the truth and kept muttering things like the word 'perfect' and 'no mistakes' and she could've sworn she heard a 'die' somewhere in there. Whatever the case, the meeting was long and tedious and seeing as there was nothing much left for the set crew to do without materials-- they were excused before the singers were (who had apparently launched straight into rehearsals). Sighing heavily, she walked through the maze of the backstage and collected her red bag, slinging it over her shoulder just as Troy and the girl Gabriella began to practice one of the songs. She stood still, struck between leaving and wanting to stay-- if only to satisfy her curiosity.

Her mother would probably be late anyways, and so she shifted to a place where she couldn't be seen, embarrassed that she was interested at all. She just wanted to see if she was about to spend months sweating and bleeding over a set for people that might or might not suck at what they did, she rationalized. From behind the curtain, she listened intently, watching as the two began to sing and surprised by a talent she didn't expect come from either of them. The girl was in a couple of her classes-- in all honestly, looked like she had a stick lodged up her rear most of the time, didn't like to talk in class, and mostly mumbled. She didn't either, but then she had an excuse-- she was moody, all the time. It was her nature. Troy on the other hand, well, she'd learned enough in a few weeks to sort of place him on the social scale at East High. He wasn't exactly the type of guy you'd expect to be able to sing like-- well, like he was right now. The two together, it was all a little overwhelming, and as the song came to an end she turned towards the exit, happy to have gotten out of the building and into the fresh air.

Glancing at her watch, a blaring 5:30 PM stared back at her. Her dad was out of town, so she'd have to wait for her mom whether she liked it or not. She really sort of hated never getting her license. From inside her pocket, she reached for her cell and pulling it out she realized she had a new voice mail.

"Sorry hun! I'm running a little late-- everything's a bit hectic right now, if you could just wait a little bit longer I'll be there as soon as I can!" Her mother's voice came from the other line, sounding breathless and downright frazzled. As the message clicked to an end, Clara sighed heavily and sat down on the sidewalk. 'As soon as I can' with her mother usually meant hours.

When she looked at her watch again, it was nearing 6:45 PM and to tell you the truth-- her bum was starting to go numb. Her legs were crossed and stretched out in front of her and she was leaning back on her hands, staring up at the quickly darkening sky and all the brilliant colors that it presented to her as day faded into night. If this were any other time, she could appreciate this sort of view in peace. As it was, she--

"You still here?"

Ok, this guy really needed to get a new way of starting conversations with her. Nearly falling out of her skin, she looked upwards at Troy and merely shrugged in reply. "Yep, mom's running late. It's no big, she does this all the time." Who was she kidding, it really irritated her each and every time it happened.

He wasn't leaving-- was there a reason he wasn't leaving?

"If you want I could give you a ride home?" he continued, scratching his head as his backpack slung lazily over his shoulder. "It's not really the safest to sit alone, late, in the dark, behind a big building where no one can see you and... should I continue?" He grinned and held out a hand for her.

Ugh, she was now faced with either a full frontal social experience-- or waiting here. Alright, so the choice was easier than she made it look-- but hey, she had a reputation to uphold. "Oh I can take care of myself just fine Bolton," she quipped, taking his hand and pulling herself up from the sidewalk. "I used to do kick-boxing and once this guy came out of nowhere one night-- well, let's just say his nose was never the same again," she was only half-serious and smirked. Dusting herself off she gathered her things. "But a ride does sound nice, thanks."