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Tori, Sikowitz and Cat were in their Stage Acting classroom. Tori was reading lines with Sikowitz to prepare for an audition for Law & Order: SVU.

"Okay, you wanna know what I really think?" Tori said, gripping a prop fork in her hand.

Sikowitz held out his hand and read from the script, "Anna, put the fork down, just put the fork down."

"You wanna know what makes me sick? Yeah, my dad may be a deadbeat, but you can't make me blame him for what I am coz you're the one that did this to me! You're garbage!" Tori howled and wailed dramatically.

Sikowitz and Cat burst out laughing.

Tori stopped short. "What? What's so funny?"

Cat squeezed the giant purple giraffe she was holding as she giggled. "You, that scene you were doing."

Sikowitz continued to guffaw obnoxiously. "Wasn't it ridiculous?"

"Oh sure, go ahead, laugh at my acting," Tori said, both sarcastic and offended.

"Oh, Tori, we're not laughing at your acting," Sikowitz tried to say placatingly, "we're laughing because of your acting." He burst into a fit of giggles again.

"What scene is this again?" Cat asked.

"It's for a TV show, I'm an extra whose mom sent her to a home for troubled girls," Tori explained.

"Ohh," Cat mused, "my brother went to a home for troubled girls once."

Tori's eyebrows met in the middle of her forehead. "Why?"

"To meet troubled girls," Cat said matter-of-factly.

"You know, bus stations are good for that, too," Sikowitz told Cat.

Cat and Tori shared an uncomfortable look.

Tori shook her head. "Hey, hey, back to the task at hand. My audition is next Tuesday!"

"So?" Sikowitz baited her.

"So… tell me what was so bad about my acting, so I can fix it," Tori whined.

"Look, you're a decent actor, but you're still playing this scene… too safe," Sikowitz said. "You're playing the part. Your voice is a touch too forced. You're not in the role. You're staging it."

Cat nodded her agreement with her stuffed toy.

"You're supposed to be a troubled teen girl on the edge," Sikowitz said, pacing a few steps as he spoke. "You have to make us believe that you're dangerous, there is a real risk that you'll snap, and there's no predicting what happens next. You have to sell it like you aren't sure what happens next either."

Tori nodded, soaking in the advice, trying to bring herself into the headspace Sikowitz was describing for her. "Okay, okay," she murmured, blowing a raspberry and shaking out her limbs. "Let's do it." She mimed a clapper. "Action."

Sikowitz took a stance with his feet – bare feet – apart on the carpeted floor. "Anna, just tell me why you tried to push your uncle off that cliff."

"I'm done talking to you!" Tori growled.

"Answer me," Sikowitz said gruffly.

"You ask me one more question, and I'll rip that pencil right out of your hand and stick it right in your neck!" Tori shouted.

Cat snorted.

Tori gave her a warning look.

Sikowitz cleared his throat. "That was a little better than earlier, but I think you need to work on understanding what risky behavior looks and feels like."

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Tori rounded up her friends for some Texas Hold 'Em and sodas at her house later that afternoon.

"Why are you all frowny?" Jade asked sarcastically.

Tori sighed deeply. "Sikowitz says my audition stinks, because I don't take risks. Can you believe that?"

There were a few mumbled agreements from Beck and André.

"Yeah, you're kinda boring," Jade deadpanned.

"Hey!" Tori said. "I take risks!" She proceeded to regale them with a tale of going to the bathroom for boys at school.

Beck rubbed his face to avoid showing the grossed out reaction he had on.

"Maybe the whole risky acting just isn't for you," André suggested.

Jade slapped André's right arm.

"Ow!" he complained.

"That's more my thing to say," Jade told him.

"Yeah, that's more her thing to say," Tori said, slapping André's left arm.

André raised both hands in surrender.

"Well, so what if you don't take acting risks? There's plenty of other ways to skin a deer," Robbie said.

"But I'm trying out on Tuesday!" Tori said miserably.

"Well, if you wanna take risks so bad, why don't we let you have a go at the Gorilla Club?" Jade asked.

"Noooo," André said immediately. "Tori Vega is not going to the Gorilla Club."

"What? Why not?" Tori asked.

"It's full of stuff that'll jank you up," André said.

"I can take a little janking!" Tori argued. "Besides, you're not the boss of me."

"Tori, trust us, the Gorilla Club is a dangerous place," Beck said, speaking around a mouthful of Skittles.

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Despite the boys' protests, the girls and Robbie still made plans to go to the Gorilla Club after school.

Talia met them there.

"Are you sure your dad's cool with you being here?" Jade asked.

"Or that Andrew guy," Robbie piped up.

Talia looked at Robbie, confused.

"Some guy named Andrew came up to him at your church night," Beck supplied. "He basically threatened Robbie with unholy bodily harm."

"Yeah, who's Andrew?" Jade asked. She was usually the one making violent threats. The fact that someone would threaten one of her friends on behalf of another one of her friends didn't exactly sit well with her.

"Oh, he's a friend," Talia said plainly.

"Friend..?" Tori probed, trying to get more out of Talia.

Talia grimaced. "Yeah, he's just a friend, even if he has asked me out a few times."

"He seemed pretty protective for a friend," Beck commented.

Talia frowned and laid a hand on Robbie's arm. "Sorry about that," she said. "I'll talk to him, tell him to apologize."

Robbie's lip quirked in a half-smile. "Don't worry about it. If we weren't dating and I met someone you were dating for the first time, I'd probably breathe a few threats, too."

"He's got the left hook to back it up, too," André said, trying to lighten the mood.

Robbie and Talia both fell silent a little awkwardly. The rest of the gang wasn't aware that they had come to a disagreement over Robbie's decision to punch Enrique.

"Aaaanyway," Tori said, trying to clear the air. "What's there to do here?" she asked, as an attendant came over with waiver forms.

"A lot of things that could send you home in a body bag," Jade said.

"I want to go ride the Bunny From Heck!" Cat cheered excitedly. She grabbed Jade's hand and dragged her over to a mechanical bull that had been mocked up to look like a giant deranged bunny with blasts of fire coming out of its rear end.

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Tori gave the Balls of Pain two tries. It was basically a plank with four giant, heavy metals balls swinging laterally across the way. She needed to cross the plank, grab a ring and bring it back to the home base, and she was permitted only one ring per trip to traverse the plank at a time.

The first time: she didn't make it across the plank to grab any of the rings. A giant metal ball had knocked her right into the hay below.

The second time: she dove flat when a ball came at her, and she got stuck on her belly until the time ran out.

The shocker was not that Tori was determined enough to want to go a third time. The shocker was that Talia wanted her to take a break, so she could take a turn.

And what a turn it was.

Talia made the runs flawlessly, and she beat the best time of the day.

"How did you do that?" André asked, taking the slap to the arm from his girlfriend.

Talia grinned. "It's just math and timing," she said.

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At the end of the night, they found their way back to Magnolia's for dinner and dessert.

"I still don't get how this is supposed to make me a better actor," Tori said, holding an icepack to her shoulder. She had landed on it when she tried the Balls of Pain a third time and failed.

"Let's see your audition," Beck suggested.

Tori groaned. "I'm going to suck if I do it now. I feel like a sack of potatoes."

Cat laughed freely.

"Tomorrow then," Beck said.

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The next day during free period, the HA6++ gang met in Sikowitz's empty classroom for Tori to try her audition scene again.

Tori had had a pretty good night's rest, and as she prepared to run the scene, she thought back to the moments of desperation she felt as she tried to conquer the balls of pain. She thought of how the only thing she could think to do was hit the deck in the moment, and she tried to use that to channel the feeling of not knowing exactly what to do in the next moment.

"You wanna know what makes me sick? Yeah, my dad may be a deadbeat, but you can't make me blame him for what I am coz you're the one that did this to me! You're garbage!" Instead of crying hysterically, she said it with bubbling anger and abandon.

Cat squeaked in fear. "Wow, that was so much better!" she said moments later. "I heard you say that line last time, but not like that!'

Tori beamed. "You mean it? It was better?"

"Way better," Sikowitz agreed. "That was impressive, Tori. It's one thing to go off and do something that will broaden your horizon, but to quickly take it and apply it to your craft takes a steep learning curve."

Tori smiled wider and thanked her friends for coming with her just to make her a better actor.

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