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Disclaimer; We don't own the wonderful movie High School Musical. Disney does that.
Popular!
Chapter 4.
--
And though you protest
Your disinterest
I know clandestinely
You're gonna grin and bear it
Your new found popularity
--
"Gabriella!" Sharpay exclaimed, as she stopped by Gabriella's locker, where Gabriella was getting her books for their second period. She'd kinda been avoiding her all day, and Sharpay wanted to know why. She hated when people gave her the silent treatment instead of just telling her what was wrong!
"Oh…" Gabriella said, looking slightly frightened, "Hi Sharpay."
"What's going on?" Sharpay asked, crossing her arms across her chest while she annoyingly tapped her gold designer heels against the hard floor, making a tap-tap noise.
"What do you mean?" Gabriella questioned, trying to play if off smooth. Unfortunately, she wasn't such a great actress as Sharpay was. Well, she had already proved that by screwing up the Winter Musical, hadn't she?
Sharpay rolled her eyes, an angry look on her face, "Don't pull that shit with me, Gabriella!" she exclaimed, clutching her purse tight, "You've been avoiding me all day and I want to know why since I'm actually trying to help you!"
"Sharpay…" Gabriella said, closing her locker with a smack, "I don't think we should do this anymore."
"And why not?" Sharpay asked, getting a ´duh´-look on her face, which told her that she thought Gabriella was out of her mind, for blowing this off. Who wouldn't want to become popular? Duh, it was the name of the fic they were both in, so Gabriella was gonna do this, whether she liked it or not! Otherwise the plot wouldn't stick!
"It doesn't feel right." Gabriella complained, looking the blonde devil in the eyes, "I'm changing myself too much. If Ryan doesn't like me the way I am, then he's not a really good boyfriend. I shouldn't waste my time on him."
"Gabriella, sweet, adorable, cute Gabriella," Sharpay mumbled, placing a comforting hand on the brunette's shoulder, "Ryan probably likes you the way you are. And you're not changing yourself. You're just making a few improvements to yourself. Think of it that way, and so it wont hurt you like this."
Gabriella wrinkled her nose in an extremely cute way, and turned to look at Sharpay, a little insecure, "Really? Are you sure?"
"Yes." Sharpay said, "And I know it may hurt right now. The road to beauty and popularity. But you're gonna love it in the end. I know it."
"Okay," Gabriella nodded, biting her lip, "Let's continue then."
"Goodie!" Sharpay exclaimed, excitingly jumping into the air, while she was clapping her hands. Then she got serious, and took Gabriella's hand, dragging her towards the cafeteria, where probably the entire school was seated, eating something or talking, "Next things is; flirting."
"Didn't I flirt yesterday?"
"No," Sharpay shook her head, "You were getting his attention. But that didn't go very well. We'll work on flirting now. It's really easy. Wanna try?"
"No," Gabriella said, taking a seat by a table, where they had a good view of the table were Ryan was sitting along with Troy, Kelsi, Chad and Taylor, "Why don't you show me first?" she suggested, "It worked so well yesterday."
"Was that sarcastic!?" Sharpay said, her voice serious, but by the scared look Gabriella got on her face, she quickly continued, "I'm kidding! I'm kidding!" She giggled slightly, "But I'll show you. Just watch, okay?"
"Okay." Gabriella confirmed, as Sharpay stood up from her seat.
--
Popular!
You're gonna be popular!
I'll teach you the proper ploys
When you talk to boys
Little ways to flirt and flounce
I'll show you what shoes to wear
How to fix your hair
Everything that really counts
--
"First, make sure your hair is nice, and you don't have any mascara goofs in the corner of your eyes." Gabriella said, taking out her compact mirror, "That can so turn off a guy!"
"Fine," Gabriella said.
"Goodie then." Sharpay said, throwing her mirror at the table, before making her way towards the table where they were all sitting. Troy was once again her target. After all, he'd let her do makeup on him, so she figured he knew what this was all about. She slandered towards him, her hips shipping from side to side, just the way she'd taught Gabriella to catch a guy's attention.
When she reached their table, she ran her finger down Troy's arm and took a seat beside him, whilst shooting him a cute smile, "Hi Troy!" she giggled, flipping her hair back into her back.
"Hey…" Troy said, immediately getting a smile on his face too, by the sight of the delicious blonde. He gave her a quick look over, noticing that she was looking extremely good today. Well, didn't she always? She was wearing a white dress, which matched her tan really good. And practically all her accessories were gold, including her three inch heels. "What's up?"
"Oh…" Sharpay giggled, flickering her eyelashes, "I was just… I missed you." she pouted her lips at him.
"Really?" Troy said, "I missed you too."
"Oh, you're so sweet!" Sharpay said, placing a hand on his bare arm, sending a chill through his body, "Wow, you have very good abs. Have you been working out?"
"Of course," Troy said, and he didn't even realize that they were sounding like something out of a really terrible movie, while their friends were watching, their mouths hanging open. None of them knew it was for Gabriella's lessons or whatever, so they thought they were both seriously flirting with each other. Well, maybe they were… "You like?"
"So much!" Sharpay said, once again giggling like mad, "But what do you think about my dress? It's not too revealing, is it?"
"No!" Troy quickly exclaimed, "No," he cleared his throat by the look Ryan gave him, "Not from where I'm standing."
"Oh good!" she said, standing up from her seat, "I'll talk to you later, Troy! Toodles!" she gave him a little funny wave, and slandered towards Gabriella again, sure that Troy's eyes were on her back. She took a deep breath and sat down beside her friend, "He watched me leave, didn't he?"
"Totally." Gabriella said, sounding amazed, "How do you do this?"
"It's practise." Sharpay said, "And you're gonna have to try too. Your turn now, on Ryan."
"I'm not sure I'm ready for that." Gabriella said.
"Gabriella Anne Montez!" Sharpay exclaimed, slamming her fist into the table, "Get your cute little butt over there! I wont listen to your whining for one more second!"
"Okay, okay, okay!" Gabriella said, quickly standing up from her seat, "I'll go now, take a chill pill, Sharpay!"
Sharpay shot her a look, "Ok, Gabby, I know you're really worked up right now, but don't ever, ever… use that phrase again, 'kay?"
Gabriella rolled her eyes and made her way towards the other table, trying to walk like yesterday. This time it went better, because there were no bags to fall in. She made it there safely, and sat down by Ryan, "accidentally" touching his arm. "Hi Ry…" she said, trying to make her voice all flirty the way Sharpay had. She discovered however, that that didn't exactly work on her the way it did on Sharpay. Sharpay ended up sounding cute, with a sexy purr in her voice, while Gabriella herself ended up sounding like a stalker who just found its prey.
"Hey Gabriella." Ryan said, shooting her a quick, weird look. And then he turned back to his bagel and juice, not giving her further acknowledgement.
Gabriella looked at him for awhile, wondering what her next move should be. She glanced at Sharpay, who was waving her arms like crazy, urging her to go on. She took a deep breath and turned to Ryan again, "…what're you doing?"
"Eating." He just replied, taking another bite of his bagel.
"Does it taste good?" Gabriella asked, not even realizing how stupid she was sounding.
"Uhm," Ryan said, turning to her, with crumbles around his mouth. But he looked so cute, "…I guess so."
"Okay," Gabriella said, already halfway off her chair, "Good for you, bye!" she quickly turned around and left the table, forgetting to sway her hips seductively on the way. She just wanted to get the hell away from there! She shot into the seat next to Sharpay, burying her head in her hands on the table, "Oh God, oh God, oh God…" she whispered, "That went so bad!"
"Nooo…" Sharpay said, not really believing it could be that horrible.
"I asked him if his food tasted good!" Gabriella said, looking up at her, "I'm so pathetic it's lame! Please Sharpay, I really need your help…"
"Okay, I can see that's bad." Sharpay said, "Well Gabby, all I can say is just… practise!"
--
"So," Troy said, shooting himself into a comfortable chair in Gabriella's living room, "How's your Popular-project coming along? Anything new! What have Sharpay been forcing you to do lately?"
Gabriella shot him a weird look, wondering how he could ask that. He'd just helped Sharpay show her how to flirt today. He'd been really good, she had almost believed it was flirting for real. She froze, as she was about to reply… maybe it wasn't just for fun, maybe he meant it, "We were… flirting today." Gabriella said, unsure of if she should tell him Sharpay was only using him.
"Oh," Troy said, "So what you did on Ryan was to practise how to flirt?"
"Yes."
"Okay, you need more practise." Troy confirmed, nodding his head slightly.
Gabriella giggled and slapped his arm, "That's what Sharpay told me too!"
"It's true!"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Gabriella said, "But she did a good job teaching me, though. She's an amazing tutor."
"What did she do?" Troy asked, arching his eyebrows together.
"I …" Gabriella looked at him, and she knew how much he actually liked Sharpay. She couldn't burst his happy bubble like that, could she? "I can't tell…"
"Okay," Troy said, "I doesn't matter anyway, nothing matters because Sharpay came up to me during lunch today! You know I have this enormous crush on her, right? Well I'm thinking that maybe she likes me too. It sounded like it the way she spoke to me."
"Oh Troy…" Gabriella said, lowering her head slightly, "I… I'm sorry to tell you this, but.. you need to know."
"What?"
"Sharpay was just… using you to show me how to flirt." Gabriella admitted, her eyes meeting his blue ones, who immediately got a sad look in them, "She had to do it with someone, and I guess she thought you knew because you helped the other day…"
"Oh…" Troy said, and Gabriella felt bad in a second. It looked like that really hurt him, "Well… I guess I'll just.. go home then?"
"Troy!" Gabriella said, standing up to stop him from leaving, "Maybe Sharpay does like you. You never know with her, she's a mystery. You'll just.. have to talk to her! Tell her how you feel or something instead of all this secrecy!"
"I don't know…" Troy said, "Sharpay is different, you can't just tell her you like her." he shook his head and went for the door, turning to look at her one last time, "I was really happy today. That may sound gay, but whatever, I wore makeup too." He sighed, "I really thought she liked me." and with those words he went out the door, closing it behind him.
Gabriella just looked after him, feeling his pain. After all, he wasn't the only one who had a huge crush on someone who apparently wasn't crushing back.
Great, so yeah. Luckily enough this chapter got longer than the last. We hope you liked this chapter too. So, now I (Stessa) need you guys to do a huge favour for me, kay? You all need to tell Noukka in a review that she should start writing on our stories. I feel bad for doing it all, but if I have to wait for her, then it takes ages! So please tell her to move her lazy butt and help me. After all, we do have three joint fics, right? Anyway,
Toodles, Noukka and Stessa.
Peace out!