Freaky Friday - part V
by phoebenpiper and kelbebop
Ryan was confused when the bell rang and the teacher remained in his seat, seemingly doing the crossword puzzle from today's paper. Ryan looked around. This seemed more like a noisy study hall than an English class.
Finally, he leaned over to whisper to his neighbor. "Excuse me, this IS Senior English with Mr. Packard, right?"
The cute red-headed boy put down his book and answered, not even bothering to keep his voice low. "Yep, you're in the right place, 'Sharpay.'"
Reminding himself that he had a boyfriend, Ryan tried not to get lost in the boy's deep green eyes. "So what's going on? What are we supposed to be doing now?"
The boy, whose Freaky Friday nametag read 'Jose', snorted. "I guess you've never had a class with Mr. Packard."
When Ryan shook his head, 'Jose' continued, "He only gives two assignments for the entire school year: one term paper in the fall and one in the spring. Then he sits on his ass up there and does crossword puzzles every day while everyone else uses the class period as a glorified study hall." He rolled his eyes and laughed. "Of course, that is, until the week before the papers are due. Then everyone crams and we actually look like a REAL English class."
Ryan wished that he had taken English with Mr. Packard instead of Ms. Black, who assigned essays every week. A 'glorified study hall' sounded like a day at the spa compared to all his writing assignments, which he struggled with.
'Jose' resumed reading his book, effectively bringing the conversation to a halt. Ryan sighed and drummed his fingertips on the desktop, bored. He hadn't brought anything to do and wondered how he was going to spend the next 50 minutes.
Ryan was just considering asking Mr. Packard if he could go to his locker to get something to work on when a typed paper covered in pink glitter pen was placed on the desk in front of him.
"Hey...since you're Sharpay for the day and you're twins and all anyway, I was hoping you could tell me what this says." The girl standing in front of his desk smiled hopefully.
Ryan stared down at the paper, then back at the girl. "What is this?" He could barely see the typewritten words beneath the handwritten pink scribbles and markings.
The girl ducked her head submissively as she confessed, "It's my chemistry lab report."
Ryan frowned in confusion. "Then why has Sharpay written all over it?" He knew that his sister was taking physics, not chemistry, this year.
"Because I suck at writing, and like, Sharpay is the resident Grammar Queen."
Ryan shook his head and chuckled. Leave it to his sister to claim yet another royal title for herself. The difference was that this time the title came with a sense of noblesse oblige.
"So she actually helps you?" Ryan asked, still not sure if he believed it.
"Not just me. Everybody in class. Sharpay should be getting the teacher's paycheck instead of Packard. At least we actually learn something from her."
"And she just does this out of the goodness of her heart?"
"Oh, hardly. Believe me, she makes us pay."
Ryan knew there had to be a catch.
"Not literally pay, of course. She just makes us feel like we're about this big." She held her thumb and forefinger close together. "But it's worth it for how much my grades have improved. I never thought I'd say this, but I'm going to miss Sharpay next year."
Ryan was flabbergasted. Sharpay had always helped him with his schoolwork, especially his writing, but he knew her motives for helping him weren't entirely pure. After all, they were twins, so if he looked bad, so did she. But she had nothing to gain from helping her classmates.
"I mean, how messed up is that?" the girl continued. "It's like a puppy missing the owner who kicks him, right?"
Nothing to gain except the chance to lord it over them, Ryan amended.
"So can you read this? Can you decipher her handwriting here? I can't figure out what she's trying to say."
Ryan squinted and stared at his sister's loopy handwriting in the margins of the paper. His eyes slowly widened as he realized his sister had written a particularly long-winded and scathing critique of her classmate's report.
"So you can read it?" She grinned expectantly. "What's it say?"
Ryan sucked in a breath, not wanting to read the diatribe aloud. Instead he gave a rough translation. "Um, Sharpay...I mean...'I' think you need to be more detailed and give a step-by-step explanation of what you did in lab."
At least, that's what Ryan assumed his sister meant by 'This is chemistry class, not magic potions, Hermione. There's a reason for the color change other than 'poof, magic!' but you'd never know it by reading this.'
The girl smiled thankfully. "Oh yeah! She's...I mean, 'you've' complained before about how I don't explain things well enough. I'll go fix this. Thanks!"
As soon as the girl had scurried back to her seat, another student appeared in front of Ryan's desk. "So...uh...'Sharpay'," the skater dude began, "Uh...did you bring me something today?"
Ryan stared at the boy's unkempt hair and sloppy clothes. He doubted his sister would give this boy the time of day, let alone anything else. "Who are you?" he asked.
The boy laughed. "Oh, dude, right. I'm Skylar."
"Oh. Skylar." Ryan grinned in recognition. Sharpay had shoved a paper into his hands during homeroom with instructions to give it to 'Skeezy Skylar in sixth period.' Ryan reached into his messenger bag and pulled out the paper in question.
"So...what is it?" Ryan asked as he handed the paper to the boy.
"It's my civics report."
"So why does Sharpay...I mean, why do 'I' have it?"
Skylar shrugged and laughed genially. "She says it's easier for her to just re-write it herself than to explain everything to me."
Ryan opened his mouth to comment but was struck dumb by the idea that Sharpay would go to all this trouble for someone she clearly thought so little of.
"Thanks, dude," Skylar called over his shoulder as he made his way back to his seat.
Ryan stared after him, his mouth agape. As her twin, Ryan had assumed he knew Sharpay better than anyone. But he now realized he didn't know her as well as he'd thought.
***
As he walked into the school library, Chad wondered why they were here. Mr. Medlin had left a sign on the classroom door instructing his world history class to meet in the library today, but he hadn't explained why.
Sitting down at the tables, the students curiously discussed what today's assignment might be. Finally, Mr. Medlin stood in front of the class and cleared his throat loudly. All eyes turned to the teacher.
"Today, as an introduction to our next unit, I wanted to familiarize you with the countries we are going to study. I am going to divide you into groups, assigning each group a different country. Your task for the day is to gather information to present to your classmates at the end of the period. You may use any of the resources our library has to offer, but remember, you only have 30 minutes, so please use your time wisely. We'll begin the group presentations at 2:10."
Mr. Medlin stepped up to Chad's table and stated, "This table will research India. You are free to choose any aspects of the history and culture that you wish. I'm not looking for a detailed account, just a general overview. Give me the CliffsNotes version."
As Mr. Medlin walked off, Chad turned to Troy, wondering where they should even begin.
'Jason' seemed to be thinking the same thing. "So, 'Troy', what do we do?"
When Troy didn't respond, Chad turned towards Kim, who was looking expectantly at him, not Troy. Slowly realizing that everyone was looking at him, Chad remembered that he was Troy for the day.
Chad felt uncomfortable under the gazes of his classmates. They expected him to guide them, yet he was as clueless as they were. He was so used to looking to Troy for the answers, he'd never considered that Troy might not have them. Now Chad wondered if his best friend ever felt pressured to lead even though he had no idea where to go.
"How about we..." Troy began, but was quickly cut off by Chris from the basketball team.
"Hold up, 'Danforth', we don't have time for any of your wisecracks. Let's hear what 'Bolton' has to say."
Chad gave Troy a grateful smile, appreciative of his friend's attempt to bail him out, even though it had failed. He realized that he was going to have to step up and take the lead himself.
"So...uh..." Chad began, stalling for time as his mind raced. "We don't have much time, so I think we should split up. That way we can cover more ground."
Now that he was talking, pretending to know what he was doing, the ideas were starting to flow. "Kim...I mean, 'Jason', how about you check out sports in India? Don't they play cricket or something there?" Chad remembered Jason saying what an ESPN addict Kim was, so this assignment seemed right up her alley.
Kim flashed him a smile and a thumbs-up. "I'll get right on it, cap'n." She hopped up from her chair, quickly making her way to the 700's, where the books about sports were.
Chad made a mental list of the areas they needed to cover and looked around the table at his remaining group-mates, trying to match each person with something they'd actually enjoy researching.
"Chris, how about you look up, um...military history? Like maybe the whole thing with Pakistan? Rebecca, didn't India used to be a British colony? Why don't you look that up? Paula...uh...see what you can find on religion in India? And Troy...I mean, 'Chad', find out what you can about the arts. Ryan's always talking about their movie industry."
Satisfied that his group would be covering all the basics, Chad smiled. He'd decided to leave Gandhi for himself.
Chad looked around at his table. "Okay? Everyone know what they're doing? 1, 2, 3, break!"
As everyone stood up from the table, Troy flashed Chad a smile. "Not bad, 'Bolton'. Way to take the ball and run with it."
Chad grinned in return. He was pretty pleased with himself.
***
Troy was engrossed in watching yet another Bollywood musical number on YouTube when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
"C'mon dude, it's 2:05," Chad said. "We need to re-group at the table."
Troy frowned. "I thought Medlin said we had until 2:10?"
Chad nodded, already halfway back to the table. "But we have to discuss what we're going to present."
Troy nodded and reluctantly closed the browser window on his computer. He had to admit he hadn't really thought Chad was up to the task of being the group leader, but his friend had really taken to it. Troy was impressed at how thoughtful Chad's assignments had been and he realized it hadn't even occurred to him that they would need to organize their presentation before giving it to the class.
It felt nice to be one of the worker bees for once, instead of the playmaker, always calling the shots. There was less pressure this way. Also, it had given Troy a chance to immerse himself in his own research instead of worrying about everyone else's.
And he was glad Chad had assigned him the arts. Those Bollywood movies looked like a blast! Troy wondered if Ryan had any DVDs he could borrow. He knew Gabi would love the colorful musical numbers.
When Troy got back to the table, Chad was already organizing their presentation, making a quick outline. "I thought I would do a quick introduction, and then Rebecca, you can talk about India as a British colony. After that, Chris, you can talk about the military. I think that probably would tie into my section on Gandhi, which would lead into Paula's stuff on religion. Then we can finish out with the fun stuff: sports and the arts. What do you guys think?"
Troy spoke up. "Hey, what if we did the fun stuff first? That way we could get everyone's attention straight away instead of boring them to death at the beginning."
"Hey!" Rebecca objected. "My stuff isn't boring!"
"Yeah, 'Danforth'," Chris said with a smirk. "We know you just wanna go first and get it outta the way so you can slack off again. Just like always."
Both Troy and Chad protested with a loud "Hey!"
Kim laughed. "C'mon, 'Chad'. You know it's true."
As the others agreed, Troy realized that on any other day he would've been the first to concur with Chris's assessment of Chad. Troy rarely took Chad seriously, often dismissing his friend's remarks during class as mere jokes. Yet Chad had proved today that he was smarter and more capable than anyone, including Troy, had ever given him credit for. Troy made a mental note to take Chad's contributions more seriously from now on.
Just as today's 'Troy' was doing. "I think 'Chad' is right," the real Chad said. "How about we start with the arts and end with sports? That way we'll grab 'em at the beginning and leave something fun for the end. What do you guys think?"
Troy smiled and gave an approving nod to his friend as the others agreed to the change. It was obvious that the Wildcats would follow Troy Bolton's lead no matter what...even if the part of 'Troy Bolton' was being played by Chad Danforth for the day.
***
