Chapter 2
The second day back at school Taylor and Gabriella met up outside the entrance to the school.
"Hey," Gabriella smiled.
"Hey, how was your night?" Taylor asked.
Gabriella groaned, "quite boring. I spent the night unpacking my bedroom. I had no idea that I had so much stuff."
Taylor laughed, "did you think that it would all shrink in transport?"
Gabriella smiled in response, "no I just didn't realise that my new room would be smaller than the old one. Luckily it's only Mum and I so I could put some of my things in the spare room, Mum ended up having to do the same thing."
"Fair enough," Taylor smiled, "ready for your second day?"
"More ready than I was yesterday," Gabriella admitted with a smile.
The two girls walked to their lockers and met back at homeroom.
The team all walked in just before the bell rang, everyone took their seats and Ms Darbus took control of the room.
"Well. I expect we all learned our homeroom manners yesterday people correct? If not we have some dressing rooms that need painting," Ms Darbus spoke, "now a few announcements. This morning during free period will be your chance for the musical auditions both single and pairs. I will be in the theatre until noon for those of you bold enough to extend the wingspan of your creative spirit."
Taylor sighed, of all the homeroom teachers that they could have gotten why did it always have to be Ms Darbus the drama teacher. She would much rather have a teacher that understood the importance of education than the importance of drama. Her life had just the right amount of drama and Taylor really didn't want more.
Free period arrived after first period and Taylor spent the first ten minutes trying to get Gabriella to reconsider and join the Decathlon team.
"Tay I'd love to chat really but I need to go find my chemistry teacher," Gabriella said.
"Okay but don't forget to find me at lunch," Taylor said.
"I'll remember Tay," Gabriella smiled and walked away.
Taylor smiled slightly as she made her way to the library. She had kinda been hoping that Gabriella would have an excuse to get her to leave her alone about the Decathlon. Taylor loved spending free period, when she didn't have homework, reading romance and fantasy novels.
Chad spent free period working with the team, minus Troy, on their game. They needed to prepare for the championship game with or without Troy.
The rest of the day was uneventful. Taylor even found her favourite classes to be a drag, her mind was focussed entirely on the Decathlon and trying to work out how they could win. Chad had taken to sketching randomly on his notebook during classes, his mind also preoccupied except with the basketball championship.
That night Taylor spent talking with Hailey about Hailey's latest college crush.
Chad spent the night practicing his free throws.
The following day Taylor was ambushed at her locker by her Decathlon team who insisted that she look at the musical call-backs sheet that was pinned up in the lobby.
Reluctantly Taylor followed her friends and found the call-backs sheet. Taylor couldn't believe her eyes when she saw Gabriella and Troy's names listed as being called back for the pairs auditions.
Taylor spent the morning trying to figure out how and why such a thing would happen. Was this why Gabriella wanted to know about Troy? In all her time knowing Troy, Taylor had never known him to sing. None of this made sense to Taylor.
Chad spent the morning questioning Troy's motives and wondering if it was Gabriella's fault that he'd go and do something that was completely not him.
By the time lunch came around the entire school knew about Troy's audition and everyone had their own theories as to why Troy would do something out of character. No one really knew Gabriella being that it was only the third day back at school so no one questioned why she had auditioned, no one except for Taylor.
Taylor waited in the lunch line and watched as all around her people started admitting to things, things that weren't typically theirs. They were dancing and singing telling their secrets. Taylor didn't know what to think about it all and wondered where Gabriella was. This whole situation was only occurring because Gabriella and Troy had auditioned for that musical.
Taylor could see the anger reflecting in Sharpay's eyes and knew instantly that she needed to find Gabriella and keep her away from this mess.
Taylor spotted Gabriella and immediately went to her side.
"Why is everybody staring at you?" Gabriella asked Taylor.
Taylor looked around awkwardly, "not me, you."
"Because of the call-backs?" Gabriella asked in shock, Taylor gave her a look that said 'what else?', "I can't have people staring at me I really can't."
Gabriella gave Taylor a desperate look and Taylor sighed.
Gabriella began walking through the crowd, something that Taylor couldn't understand. If she didn't like people staring at her why did Gabriella insist on walking through the crowd, not to mention why would she audition for a musical if she didn't like people staring at her. Taylor quickly realised that there was clearly a lot that she didn't know about Gabriella.
As they walked around Taylor spotted a puddle of milk where Gabriella was about to put her foot not giving Taylor any time to rescue her friend from slipping.
Gabriella slipped and her lunch flew from the tray and towards Sharpay.
Taylor's eyes widened in horror, this was not going to end well.
The nachos fell onto Sharpay's top and Gabriella immediately tried to clean it off only to be screamed at by Sharpay again. Taylor quickly grabbed Gabriella's hands and dragged her away from unintentionally causing more harm.
Taylor and Gabriella found a table out of the way of the chaos that was the cafeteria and talked about what had just happened.
"Is Sharpay really, really mad at me?" Gabriella asked nervously, "I said that I was sorry."
"Look, no one has beaten Sharpay out for a musical since kindergarten," Taylor informed her.
"I wasn't trying to beat anyone out," Gabriella defended, "we didn't even audition we were just singing."
"You won't convince Sharpay of that. I'm telling you, if that girl could figure out a way to play both Romeo and Juliet her own brother would be out aced out of the job," Taylor told her.
"I told you it just happened, but I liked it. A lot," Gabriella admitted, "did you ever feel like there was this whole other person inside of you just looking for a way to come out?"
Taylor thought about it for a moment, "not really. No."
The bell to signal the end of lunch rang.
"Let's go," Taylor smiled.
Taylor and Gabriella headed their separate ways to different classes. Taylor had a Decathlon team meeting and Gabriella had a free period.
