Elsa's pen ran precisely through the paper she was writing on. Having come back to the Academy just the day before, the Student Council was already deeply immersed in their work. At least two-thirds of the team was... Andy was nowhere to be found.
"Did you hear that?"
Elsa looked up from her work and watched a frowning Astrid staring at nothing. "What?"
Astrid's frown intensified for a moment, then she shrugged and shook her head dismissively. "Nah, probably nothing."
"Okay, then…"
"Come to think, where the hell did Andy disappear to?" Astrid wondered out loud.
"Goofing around with his friends, I bet…" Elsa suggested in a vague way, not bothering to give much thought to it.
Astrid emitted a snort of contempt. "Yeah, definitely."
They got back to work, but their peaceful quietude was shortened as, inevitably, they both heard it. Some kind of rhythmic pumping and muffled yelling echoed from afar.
"What the hell is going on?" Astrid stared at the closed doors, the general direction of the noise.
"I feel like this isn't a fire drill..."
"Pretty sure there could be an actual fire out there, and it wouldn't as much of a headache as whatever is going on right now."
Elsa sighed, getting on her feet. "God forbid we ever have a single day free of trouble..."
Following the noise out their office and down the hallways, the girls figured its source out quite early in the investigation. The closer they got to the main hall, the more distinct the beat sounded. And what at first sounded like extremely amplified wall-hammering was starting to sound more and more like actual music—if that chords-scratching and keys-hitting could be considered music. Apparently, someone had decided that throwing a rock 'n' roll concert in the main hall would be a good idea.
Gripping the doorknobs, the girls nodded at each other, silently preparing for whatever awaited them behind those doors. But all their psyching up was for naught, as neither of them expected to find Pandemonium inside. The heavy wooden doors efficiently isolated a great part of the music, meaning that the cacophony that already unsettled Astrid and Elsa outside the room was unbelievably louder inside. Such was the case that communicating with spoken words became impossible once inside.
Not only it was loud, but the room was also warm and humid like a sauna. The air was heavy, stuffy, and the windows seemed to be fogging up with all the perspiration happening. Boys and girls, varying ages from six to seventeen, jumped; yelled; and sang at the rhythm of the song in a psychotic rush of adrenaline. Their breaths were ragged, they were dehydrated, and mostly on the verge of heatstroke, but none seemed to notice their state of deterioration. Almost as if they were in a trance...
The ground floor was full to max capacity from the doors all the way to the double stairs, at the top of which an improvised stage was settled. On the stage, three very specific persons performed.
"Of course," Astrid mumbled, just to be heard by no one but herself. She patted Elsa on the shoulder and pointed at the stage, and Elsa nodded in response.
They tried to cut through the sea of students, but the crowd was too dense, and they advanced little down that route. In the middle of their unsuccessful attempts, Elsa's eyes landed for a moment on the stage, and she could swear she saw him winking at her. But again, there was no way he had spotted her in the middle of the crowd specifically.
Whereas Astrid, not being one to give up so easily, continued to push through, just to be pushed back with as much force. Elsa could see that her friend was losing her patience and that it wouldn't take much longer for Astrid to literally start punching her way through. So before Astrid could adopt that new strategy, Elsa held the former's arm and pointed at the doors on the first floor. The whole building was connected, and they had just found direct backstage access.
Taking the route around the hall to the upper floor took longer than the girls had first expected, and it was with great annoyance that they finally reached the closest entrance. As they got near enough, they saw an Asian-American guy standing in front of the door with an upright stance and a trying-to-be intimidating look on his face.
"Let us through, Hiro," Astrid snarled as they stopped in front of the boy.
"Names?" Hiro asked, crossing his arms and staring at the girls with contempt.
"Get Out Of The Way," Astrid said, pointing with her thumb at herself, and pointing at Elsa, she added, "Or I'll Kick You In The Balls."
"Nice names." Hiro made a show of looking through the pages of paper on his clipboard. "But sorry, you're not on the list, and only VIPs can get in."
"Hiro, open the door." Elsa stepped up calmly. "I'm the Student Council's president."
"Do you have anything that testifies to that?"
Astrid's eyes narrowed ever so slowly. "What?"
"Hiro," Elsa sighed. "We've known each other since kindergarten. We have Bio together."
Hiro shrugged. "Sorry, no special treatment. Now, if you two could leave, I have important work to do here—"
Elsa held a finger up, and the boy closed his mouth immediately. "Okay, let me say this in a different way: You let us in right now, or I'll make sure you're held responsible for all this mess as well. And trust me, two hours of detention can easily turn into twenty, and it can be easily extended from a week to, say, a whole term..."
"You can't do that—"
Astrid laughed, rolling her head back. "Oh, I wouldn't try her, pal."
A good minute went by as Hiro scrutinized the girls with his eyes and seemed to consider the threat. Finally, he sighed, fishing a walkie-talkie from his pocket and pressing a button on it.
"Where did you get that?"
He ignored her and muttered on the device, "Hallucinant Hyanodon to Vicious Viper."
"Who?" came the muffled reply.
Hiro glared at the radio. "What do you mean, who?"
Astrid turned her head to look at Elsa and whispered, "Is he serious?"
Elsa put her index finger over her mouth and shushed her, her lips pressed together to avoid smiling.
"It's Hiro!" Hiro yelled to the person on the other side of the line. Then, he closed his eyes and breathed in and out slowly. "Anyway, I have a bit of a situation here. Some girl is saying that she's the Student Council's president and is demanding entrance."
He took a moment to glare at each of the girls. "And I dare say, she has some pretty convincing arguments, Viper."
"Like what?"
"Like, I don't know, threatening to give me detention for life!"
The door Hiro was guarding clicked open, interrupting his conversation with whoever he was talking to on the walkie-talkie.
"Violet?!"
"Hello, ladies," the brunette girl greeted them casually and beckoned them with one hand. "Heard you were outside."
"Their names aren't on the list," Hiro sang as Elsa and Astrid walked past him.
Violet rolled her eyes. "Chill out dude. I got this."
"Fine. Just don't say I didn't warn you."
"Ignore him," Violet told the girls from over her shoulder.
"Vi," Astrid called as the doors closed and they found themselves in the backstage area. "Explanation. Now."
"According to scientists, the universe was a hot, hyper-condensed ball of gas that went boom and started the evolutionary process that we see today—"
"Not the big bang theory, smartass." Astrid crossed her arms. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"What does it look like I'm doing?" Violet gave Astrid a 'stop-being-silly' look. "I'm watching the show, duh."
"You're saying you knew about this?" Elsa asked.
"Of course I knew," Violet shrugged. "I helped to advertise it."
Astrid glowered at the other girl with disbelief. "You did what now?"
"Who do you think spread the news about the show?" she asked, fishing her cellphone from her blazer pocket. "Gotta love the internet."
"I can't believe you." Astrid shook her head, too incredulous to even blink.
"Now, I would love to stay and chat with you lovely ladies, but I have some business to attend to do."
Astrid and Elsa watched as Violet went to the corner of the stage and gave a hand sign to the three guys performing.
"Since when is Violet one of them?" Astrid asked.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Elsa mumbled with furrowed her eyebrows as she watched the last chords of a song she didn't know being played, and Jack Frost announcing on the mic they'd be taking a quick break and would return in ten minutes.
He placed his guitar on its holder as the audience begged for more.
"Arendelle!" Jack exclaimed as he walked in her direction with wide-open arms, his two friends following behind him. "I was wondering where you had left to."
"You wounded me, Your Majesty! How could you leave in the middle of our gig." He winked at Elsa with that charm that drove the freshmen crazy.
Elsa, apparently, was immune to his powers of captivation, as she rolled her eyes and replied with, "Oh, my sincerest apologies, Frost. Although my coming here to congratulate you in person should help lessen the pain I inflicted you and your dear companions, does it not?"
"Oh, you have no idea, beautiful."
"Okay, enough with this." Astrid held her hands out between the bickering pair. "Mind explaining where you got all this stuff, Frost?"
"Linguini," Jack answered with a shrug.
How the school gardener's name would explain anything eluded the Student Council girls, and confusion showed on both of their faces.
Coming to their rescue, Andy explained, "Linguini had a band when he was younger."
"We asked to borrow his equipment, and he took care of things during the break," Hiccup added.
Elsa pinched the bridge of her nose. "How on Earth do you manage to convince people so easily?"
"With the right amount of charm and persistence," Jack replied with an amused chuckle.
"And a lot of luck," Hiccup mumbled, earning himself a whack on the back of the head from his silver-haired friend.
"So what, you expect us to just smile and let you continue your little entertainment stunt?"
"You and Astrid are more than welcome to stay and enjoy the show!"
Astrid snorted. "Yeah... no."
"What makes you think you can turn the main hall into a live house so you and your friends can play rock band?" Elsa demanded to know as she crossed her arms over her chest.
"His friends are right here, in front of you, Els, and they'd appreciate it if you didn't refer to them in the third person," Hiccup stated, his voice taking a half-indignant, half-mocking tone.
"And his friends," Astrid copied Hiccup's intonation, "should shut the fuck up before his friends have the honor of finding out what it feels like to have their bones broken one by one."
Hiccup recoiled, shoulders sagging and eyes darting to the floor. "His friends are shutting up now..."
"For the record, I'm not included in 'his friends', am I?" Violet asked and promptly received a glare from Astrid.
Ignoring the rest of the others' argument Jack's gaze locked on Elsa's. "Well, maieutic-ing your question, Your Majesty: what makes you think I can't?"
Her eyes widened. "Well, considering that you're using school facilities, you would need permission for that, whatever you like to call it." She gestured at the improvised stage. "And to have it approved, you'd need the majority of the Student Council's onboard, meaning that even with Andy's help, you'd still need one more vote in your favor."
Elsa innocently put a hand over her heart. "Now, I didn't even hear about this fabulous project you were putting together. You, Astrid?"
"Not a single peep."
Jack raised his arms in defeat. "You got one thing right: I would never get approval from the Student Council. So I had to get creative and find alternate methods..." He gestured with his hands and waited, expecting her to fill in the blanks.
"...You have a faculty member vouching for you."
"You want us to believe that a teacher approved this?" Astrid asked, a brow arching in disbelief.
"Ding, ding, ding! Point for the Student Council team!" Jack clapped, congratulating the girls.
"Would you like to meet her?" Hiccup asked, and not waiting for an answer, he cupped a hand in front of his mouth and called, "Hey, Ms. T? Can you come here for a sec?"
Poking her head through the improvised stage curtains, a short woman in a colorful boho chic attire came twirling towards them.
"Oh, I am so proud of you guys! You were wonderful—" Ms. Toothiana, or Tooth, as she was most commonly called, stopped as she noticed the presence of the Student Council blondes. "Don't you think so too, girls?"
"Sure," Astrid agreed with fake enthusiasm.
"Ms. T, is it not right that you gave us permission for our musical performance today?" Jack asked sickeningly sweetly.
"I certainly did." Tooth laughed lightheaded. "Oh, I haven't felt this energized since I was your age!"
"What are you talking about, Ms. T? If I didn't know you, I would totally take you as one of the students. I mean, you don't look older than any of us." Jack's voice was seductively pleasant as he gestured to their group.
"Stop it, Jack." The teacher giggled. Yes. Giggled. They all saw it happen.
Elsa cleared her throat. "All due respect, Ms. Tooth, but I don't think we can let their little show go on."
"Well..." Tooth frowned. "I don't see what the problem is. Jack said that it would be the perfect back-to-school celebration and that everybody would have fun!"
"Of course he'd say that," Elsa muttered under her breath. "But Ms. Tooth, you have to understand, this rock show is a little too much. All the noise is a disturbance."
Jack rolled his eyes. "Come on, classes are over! We're doing no harm!"
"What about the clubs, genius? And all the extra activities, huh?" Astrid shot at him.
"Technicalities."
Appealing to the woman, Elsa pleaded, "Ms. Tooth? Please?"
Tooth met Elsa's eyes, the former's resolution quivered. "Yes." She nodded. "Yes, you're absolutely right." Her expression was saddened as she looked at the guys. "I'm sorry boys, but Elsa has a point."
"What?"
"We have an authorization signed by you saying that we can still use the main hall for..." Hiccup checked the time on his phone "half an hour!"
"I know, I know. But you heard her!" Tooth cried, pointing at Elsa.
"Ms. T! You can't just cave," Jack shouted indignantly.
"Please, Ms. T, I'm sure we can all reach a middle ground if we discuss the matter for a moment?" Andy suggested.
"Well... " Tooth fidgeted with her skirt's fabric. "Now that I think about it, there is something you could do…"
"Anything."
"Our Drama Club is facing some members shortage, and you all proved to be so talented…"
There was a second when the boys seemed to realize they'd made a mistake.
"So, if you three promise to audition for the next play, I'll take full responsibility for the show, and you can use the rest of your thirty minutes as we had previously agreed on."
"Uh..." Jack seemed to be at a loss of words, as were Andy and Hiccup. "You want us to act? In front of the whole school? In tights?"
Tooth frowned confused. "I don't see why not."
"Well, if you're willing to go that far to defend them, Ms. Tooth, I believe the Student Council has nothing else to do here, right, Astrid?" Elsa smiled with an arched eyebrow at the boys.
"Yeah," Astrid let out a contained laugh. "I mean, they did prepare all the paperwork."
"It's settled, then!" Tooth exclaimed.
"Ms. T, I don't think we're theatre material..."
Tooth waved. "Don't be modest, Andy! You're gonna be great!"
"Yeah, Andy!" Violet agreed with too much enthusiasm. "You're gonna be great!"
Jack cursed under his breath, and as he lamented his misfortune, his eyes lit up with an idea, and he grinned with mischief. "Ms. T, since we're on the subject, I would like to extend your invitation to some exceptionally talented people I'm acquainted with."
"Really? Who?"
"You're looking right at them." He gestured with his arms in the girls' direction.
"What?" Astrid, Elsa, and Violet asked in unison.
"I didn't know you three were interested in dramatic arts!"
"Neither did we," Violet mumbled through gritted teeth.
"I cannot wait to share the stage with you ladies," Jack declared, earning death glares from the three girls. "Now, if you'll excuse us, our time is limited, and our setlist is long..."
Jack quickly pushed Hiccup and Andy back to the stage, and as they left, the teacher's excited squeals surrounded them, "Guys, this is gonna be the best play our school has ever seen!"