With much protest form his mother, Troy Bolton flopped onto his living room couch and switched on the television. Chad was going to come in ten minutes to walk to the bus stop, so he had time to browse the channels for a few minutes. He figured out that shows in the morning were usually just news, talk shows, and little kid shows. He saw Chad's large mop of curly brown hair walking up his driveway, and was about to switch off the TV when a commercial caught his eye.
"Do you want to know what's going to happen before it happens?" The announcer said, "Then text your astrological sign to 55555 to get your horoscope sent straight to your cell phone everyday!"
Normally, Troy would just ignore these commercials, but today it was particularly appealing. Why not see what his horoscope says? He pulled out his phone and text messaged "Libra" to the number, and was awaiting his reply when Chad came to the door.
"You're making me miss the bus so you can catch the end of Arthur?" he asked, talking to him through the screen door.
Troy looked up at the screen and saw the cartoon aardvark with his rabbit friend and laughed.
"Sorry, I'm coming," Troy answered, gathering his backpack and meeting Chad outside.
"If we miss the bus I'm telling everyone at school you watch Arthur," Chad declared, speed walking to the street corner.
"I wasn't watching it," Troy exclaimed, quickening his pace to catch up.
"You can't use the younger sibling excuse . . . you don't have one," Chad pointed out, "it's okay man, sometimes I watch Teletubbies when I'm bored."
Troy explained, "I was watching a commercial to get my horoscope sent to my cell phone."
Chad's face turned bright red, ". . . uh . . . you're not going to tell . . ."
"No, of course not," Troy laughed, it was funny because Chad didn't have younger siblings either.
"You don't believe those horoscopes things do you?" Chad asked to change the subject.
"I don't know," Troy replied, "it's just for fun I guess."
The bus pulled up just as they reached the corner. As Troy sat down, his phone beeped and he had a new message:
Someone unexpected will surprise you today.
What could that mean? Troy wondered. It could be anyone, because everyone at school knows who he is.
Oh well, so much for that idea, he thought.
The bus reached Gabriella's stop, so he slid over to make room for her. He decided not to mention the horoscope thing to her. She wouldn't believe in those things, and might think he was weird.
But then . . . maybe Gabriella would be the one to surprise him.
"Look at this," he said, showing her the text message.
"You believe horoscopes?" she asked, "You know people get paid to sit there and make this stuff up, right?"
"Of course I know that," he laughed nervously, "I just thought it was kind of funny. You know some people swear by these things."
"Our society is messed up then," she laughed, "if this comes true it's just a coincidence Troy."
"Yeah, I know," Troy tried to change the subject, "Did you see the article on us in the newspaper?"
"My mom was only freaking out over it, and calling everyone we know," she exclaimed, "I'm kind of glad the musical is over though."
"It was a lot of work," he agreed, "and a lot of pressure on me to be good at it."
"Definitely . . . but you lived, and were awesome."
"Not as good as you."
"True . . ." she joked, knowing she would never get him to agree otherwise.
Troy smiled. He was lucky to have a great girlfriend like Gabriella. She was so pretty and smart . . . everything he wasn't. And he didn't need a horoscope to tell him that.
At East High, everyone was still in frenzy about last week's sold out musical, so it took his mind off things. Sharpay was already obsessing over the spring musical, which Troy and Gabriella had both mutually decided not to try-out for. Why press their luck with the ice princess? Instead they planned on joining paint and props crew together.
By the end of the day, Troy's head was so full of compliments about the musical, that the horoscope was the last thing on his mind. He didn't think about it once for the rest of the day.
After finishing this homework that afternoon, he decided to walk to Chad's house and see if he wanted to play basketball. On way there a car suddenly pulled up beside him. The window rolled down, and someone yelled out, "Troy Bolton?"
He looked at the person in the window.
"Mike Gram? I haven't seen you in forever!" he exclaimed.
Mike's mom pulled over, and let him get out and talk to Troy. Mike was Troy's friend from when they were younger. They played on the same basketball team in grade school. He had moved away to be closer to his family in Canada.
"How have you been Troy? Still shooting hoops?"
"You bet man, I was team caption of the state champion basketball team this year," Troy explained, "What brings you to Albuquerque?"
"My mom came to visit a friend, so I thought I'd come too," he told Troy, "I saw the newspaper article on you."
"Really?"
"I would have never thought!" he laughed, "a musical?"
"Well . . . my friend Gabriella-"
"The girlfriend?"
"Yeah," Troy answered, returning Mike's high-five.
"It was cool seeing you again, but I've got to get going, it's a long drive back," Mike explained, "Tell Chad I said hi."
They exchanged e-mails and phone numbers, and soon Mike was gone. It was only when he went to enter Mike's number into his cell phone, he remembered the horoscope:
Someone unexpected will surprise you today.
Troy's heart almost skipped a beat. Mike came unexpected . . . and he surprised Troy. His horoscope had come true! But then he remembered what Gabriella had said about coincidences. This couldn't have been a coincidence.
When he told Chad the story, he just laughed, "Horoscopes aren't real Troy. Someone probably gets paid to sit there and make them up."
And when he told Gabriella, he got a similar response, "It's just a coincidence Troy, I told you that this morning."
So . . . maybe his friends were right. But what if they weren't? What if these horoscopes really told you what was going to happen everyday?
He came to a simple conclusion. He would just test it out again tomorrow. If it didn't come true, he would look stupid, but would know for sure they weren't real. But surely if two in a row came true . . . they couldn't just be coincidences right?
