Disclaimer: I don't own High School Musical or its characters.

Author's Note: Another kind of short one... please use the word heaven in your review if you've read this author's note. Thanks!

High School Drama
Based on 'High School Musical'
By Fiyero Oberon
Chapter Seven
My Strongest Suit

"The only problem with that was that Ryan, you had your back to the audience the whole time."

Once again, Sharpay found herself slouching in the back row of the auditorium. Gabriella stood on the stage in costume, minus a pair of glittering red shoes – the ruby slippers weren't complete yet. Ryan was wearing his silver sweatshirt and matching pants and had some gunky silver makeup wiped all over his face. Troy had arrived at rehearsal late and had not had time to change into costume yet.

When Sharpay saw the costume that Jessica, the costume designer, had expected her to wear, she insisted that she make her own. She immediately did away with the green makeup to avoid having both Evanses colored a random color, and had completely done the Wicked Witch of the West's stereotypical wardrobe – she was now a very fashionable Witch. She dyed her "Bop to the Top" dress dark red, resulting in a purple color. She took Jessica's black witch hat and designed it with silver stars and bangles and found a pair of silver earrings, one a sun and one a moon. Black-and-white-stripes lined her stockings to match the false legs of the Witch of the East and she adorned her own feet with a pair of shimmering shoes in violet, similar to the red shoes of the Dorothy.

Sharpay was so devoted to her role now that she even came up with a back story for the Witches of Oz:

Shortly before the rise of the Wizard in Oz, four women came together and crafted five pairs of magical shoes – ruby, sapphire, emerald, amethyst, and rose quartz. The emerald pair was destroyed because it was the most powerful and, therefore, the most dangerous – because of the magic power in the emeralds, the Wizard eventually crafted an entire City from it. But for now, each sister took a pair. The ruby slippers were the second most powerful, after those of emerald, and the Sister of the East claimed them right away. The next most powerful, the violet amethyst shoes, went to the Sister of the South, then blue sapphire went to the Sister of the West, and the pink rose quartz went to the Sister of the North, Glinda. The Sister of the East soon began to abuse her shoes' power and became known as the Wicked Witch of the East – the Sister of the West was angry at getting one of the pairs of shoes with lesser magical properties and, after killing off her Sister in the South, took the amethyst shoes instead. Glinda took the sapphire and rose quartz shoes and transformed them into a long wand, which she created magic with instead of the shoes. And now with the Sister of the East dead, the Witch of the West was determined to get the most powerful remaining shoes.

Well, Sharpay thought it was clever.

But when she tried to explain it to Ryan, he got horribly confused. She shrugged it off. "It's just character development," she explained. "No one's going to know about it."

"But Wicked says –"

"If I followed Wicked's standards, I would be horribly pale in comparison, now wouldn't I? So I made my own story."

"Oh. Okay. Do I need to make a story for the Tin Man?"

"No!"

"Oh. Okay."

Sharpay had decided against trying to explain her back story to Darbus, because she knew that honestly Darbus couldn't care less.

But anyway. Sharpay's dress was hot. And she knew it.

"Ms. Darbus?"

Jessica came hurrying into the auditorium, her crimped blonde hair pulled back with a pencil sticking in it, a pen stuck behind her ear, and a clipboard clutched in her hands. "Ms. Darbus? Are you busy?"

Darbus sighed. "This is theatre! We don't interrupt theatre, Jessie! Do you mind if I call you 'Jessie'?"

"Well, it's a little perky…"

"What do you want?"

"The red glitter is gone," Jessica announced. "I was spraying the ruby slippers with it and I turned to wash my hands and it was gone. I've only got half of a shoe glittered."

"Well, buy a new bottle!"

"Ms. Darbus, that's not exactly in my budget."

"Oh, we can afford to buy thirty new basketballs for the basketball posse –"

"Team," Troy corrected.

"– but we can't afford an extra bottle of red glitter for the musical?" Darbus lamented. "Jessie, buy another bottle. I don't care if we break the budget!"

"But, Ms. Darbus –"

"Jessie!"

"Yes, ma'am." Jessica turned and hurried back out of the auditorium.

So the lights were "sabotaged."

And the glitter was "stolen."

Was someone trying to wreck the show?

Or was Darbus just being her usual self and over exaggerating every little thing that happened?

Please review!