Disclaimer: I don't own High School Musical or Saved.


An Unheard Tale Part 1

Bbbbbbbrrrrrrriiiiiiiinnnnnnnggggggg!!!!!

Gabriella jumped in surprise at the sound of a shrill jaguar cry signaling a successful kill.

Wait.

Nope, that was just the bell. Watching everybody saunter out of the classroom in small clusters of friends discussing their weekends, Gabriella willed her heart to slow its heavy, anxious beating. Taking a deep, calming breath she gathered her things and cautiously stepped into the hallway swarming with predators – er – students.

Reaching the safety of her locker, Gabriella vigilantly pulled out her textbooks as she repeatedly reassured herself that 'I am no longer in the jungle. I am no longer in the jungle. I am no longer –'

"Guess who?" a primitive native crooned evilly as he viciously grabbed her head, ready to slit her throat with a jagged tree branch. Giggling nervously, Gabriella stood and slowly turned, expecting to see a man covered in Lion's blood and Ostrich feathers before she remembered that 'I am no longer in the jungle'.

"So, we haven't talked in ages!" Troy exclaimed enthusiastically. Gabriella wished he would lower his voice so he wouldn't awaken the lethal night owls, but she wasn't one to impose. "Tell me what happened on this illustrious church retreat."

'Oh, thank God! I need to tell somebody about this!' Gabriella thought with relief. This was just too big to hold in any longer. With another giggle, she animatedly responded "My, this is a long story. But you will never believe what I discovered while lost in the wilderness!"

"Weren't you just in the Country Club's five acre park?"

Gabriella wasn't sure why but that question really ground on her nerves. "Whatever," she dismissed the statement with gritted teeth. "You are absolutely going to flip when I tell you this."

Gabriella stared at Troy's expressionless face willing him to take the bate.

"Ok, tell me everything. And start from the beginning."

"Well, since you asked," She began, feigning reluctance in an attempt to lessen her eager demeanor. "It started on the bus..."


Stepping up onto the rented school bus, Gabriella paused to take a look around at the rest of the Youth Group. There was a group of girls sitting in the back, gossiping excitedly and comparing their stylish new hiking boots. To the right was a small group of girls all smiling and waving her over. And to the left was Cassandra, decked out in all black with a vacant expression on her face as she petulantly blew out a puff of smoke in Gabriella's direction.

Ignoring her friends beckoning calls, Gabriella plopped herself down in the seat next to Cassandra.

"You know, second hand smoke kills," Gabriella said nodding her head in the direction of the cigarette clutched in Cassandra's hand.

With a glare, Cassandra slowly turned her head to face Gabriella. "I'm counting on it," she drawled before putting her I-pod headphone into her ear.

"I don't understand why you keep resisting." Gabriella continued, not having noticed the I-pod head phone in Cassandra's ear. "Is living in sin really that strong of a temptation? You need to believe me, Cassandra, you're life will be so much better, so much more fulfilled, once you devote yourself to Jesus." Gabriella carefully watched Cassandra's reaction. She was furtively nodding her head as she tapped her fingers on the seat in front of her at a fast paced tempo.

Smiling, Gabriella sat back in her seat. She finally felt as though she was getting through to Cassandra. She was even nodding along to her persuasions! Cassandra glanced over in time to see Gabriella's smug nod. Irritated, she pulled out her head phone and asked "I'm sorry, were you talking?" Gabriella scowled but couldn't respond because Becky, their youth leader, was standing at the front of the bus calling the group to attention.

"Well, hello there y'all!" She sang with a thrilled smile lighting up her soft features. "The fun begins now!" She giggled as the bus full of girls, minus Cassandra, erupted in cheers and applause. "This entire weekend we are going to be competing towards a surprise reward. Now," she revealed from behind the bench seat a red balloon, "what do you – "

"Devil color!" Gabriella shrieked pointing towards the balloon.

"Well, that's not actually where I was going with – "

"You think red's a Devil color?" A girl from the back of the bus interrupted curiously. "I always thought it would be green."

"Green?" One of Gabriella's friends laughed snootily. "Why in the world would you think that?"

"Because," the first girl responded with disdain dripping from her voice. "It represents greed, which, as I'm sure you remember, is one of the seven deadly sins."

"Girls, I would really prefer if we could –"

"What about black then? It's representative of nothingness; of being lost. And if you're lost, then you are obviously not with God, which clearly leaves you with the Devil. I mean, just look at Cassandra." The girl said indicating Cassandra's black clothing. Lucky for her, Cassandra was listening to her I-pod again. Devil music, no doubt.

"Great," Becky muttered sarcastically, her previous enthusiasm already drained from her being, "I'll call the priest. He'll be dieing to learn our verdict on that pressing matter." Unable to regain control of the conversation, Becky sank into her seat in a defeated manner and allowed the girls to finish debating the evil's of color.

"Actually," Gabriella spoke up, regally domination the girls' attention. "Now that I think about it, pink is probably the most Devilish color. I know this girl at school – she's completely obsessed with pink – and she's, quite possibly, the vainest person I know. And vanity, as I recall, is another of the seven deadly sins. Also, she uses pink in her clothing to try to provoke lust in the boys, another deadly sin," she continued, counting off the number of sins that pink represents on her fingers. "Plus, she thrives on causing envy in every person she associates with. That's, what, three deadly sins all for one color?"

After that explanation, all the other girls on the bus expressed their agreement and took turns recounting their own incidences with the evils of that color.


"And so, we finally decided on pink – Ouch!" Gabriella had been so into her story that she forgot to watch her surroundings. Her collision was so fierce that she had dropped her backpack. Before she even had a chance to recollect herself enough to pick it up, Ryan Evans had already done so and was handing it back to her.

"Hey! Watch where you're going shorty!" Sharpay spit out, obviously annoyed with the brunette.

"I'm. Sorry. Shar. Pay." Gabriella replied, hoping she hadn't spoken too quickly for the poor amnesiac to understand. With a scowl and an eye roll, Sharpay continued on her way. 'She must not have understood me. She did call me shorty, after all, and that definitely isn't my name.' Gabriella reasoned, unfortunately still under the impression that memory loss and hearing loss had some sort of connection. 'It must be so hard trying to relearn English. Wait a minute, did she mean shorty as in – '

"Shorty?! We're the same height!" Gabriella shouted indignantly, finally having interpreted the meaning of Sharpay's statement. Gabriella quickly decided to excuse this obvious slip on the grounds of Sharpay's new disability and instead decided to continue on with her story.

"Anyway, where was I?" she asked, expecting Troy to give her a much needed prompt. What she got instead was Ryan's hesitant voice responding, "I don't know, we weren't talking."

"Ryan? I thought you were Troy!"

"I see your keen sense of observation is still in tact. How was your stint in the Country Club's five acre park, by the way?"

'Again with reminding me it was the park,' Gabriella inwardly fumed, but on the outside she just smiled sweetly and said "Oh, I was just telling Troy about that. Well, you'll really appreciate this next part of my story. Here, walk with me to Ms. Darbus' room."

After seeing a flyer for the Lysistrata auditions earlier in the day, Gabriella realized that she had missed them. But, given her lead role last winter, she was sure she could convince Ms. Darbus to squeeze her into the production somewhere. She started walking in the direction of the drama room and was pleased to see that Ryan had decided to follow, because she was desperate to tell someone about her discovery. Starting where she had last left off, she began "This particular even happened Saturday, the second day we were at the camp..."


The group of teenage girls were gathered around a campfire in the early morning mist, some roasting marshmallows, others wrinkling their noses at the amount of calories in a marshmallow. Gabriella was one of the nose wrinklers. Cassandra wasn't participating.

Approaching the group, Becky took a deep breath and forced herself to speak confidently. These girls could smell fear.

"All right, y'all. Do you want to know what you'll be competing for?"

All the girls looked up at Becky quizzically. "We're competing? What's so Christian about that?" someone spoke up.

"Uh, well, it'll just be a friendly competition with religious lessons intertwined, of course. We only raised enough money for one pair to do this particular activity and I thought it would be a great prize for all y'all to work towards." Becky stammered, speaking quickly in order to get her entire explanation out before being interrupted. The girls just stared at her. Seeing this as her opportunity to reveal the big prize, Becky finally told them. "The winner gets to choose a friend to take on a hot-air balloon ride! Won't that be fun?" Confidence restored, Becky's behavior and facial expressions were back to their usual unassailable joy.

Watching Cassandra as she took a long drag on her cigarette, Gabriella realized that this would be the perfect opportunity to convince the girl once and for all to be saved. They'd be trapped in a hot-air balloon, Cassandra unable to escape or listen to her I-pod, Gabriella fully prepared to perform the ceremony. Returning her gaze to Becky's smiling features, she said "How about we do a talent show?"

Confused, Becky met Gabriellas gaze, "I'm sorry? A talent show?"

"Yeah," Gabriella explained. "As the competition. You know, to decide which of us goes in the hot-air balloon."

Becky looked taken aback. "Well, actually, I already had games planned for this –"

Interrupting their Youth Leader, the group of girls all chorused their desire for a talent competition over any silly game Becky had planned. Seeing this unanimous agreement, Becky disappointedly retreated into her cabin to make some cancellation phone calls.

After this decision had been finalized, Gabriella stood and approached Cassandra. "Why don't you join the group, Cassandra?" She asked innocently.

Looking up, Cassandra gave her a sad smile and said "I always get this really left out feeling whenever I hang with you guys. It's like you all are judging me because I'm not saved yet."

Giving her an encouraging smile, Gabriella responded "Well, if you decided to accept Jesus into your heart you could join in on the fun!"

"You know what?" Cassandra asked, stomping on her cigarette butt. "You're right!"

Gabriella inwardly jumped for joy. 'Finally! I get to save Cassandra!' "Well! I don't have all my equipment ready. Ok, nevermind. First, you have to confess all of your sins out loud," Gabriella said excitedly.

"Well," Cassandra began very seriously, "there's all the swearing. I mean, I have a Goddamned dirty mouth!" Unable to hold the seriousness any longer, Cassandra face broke into a smirk as she continued, "And the sex! I mean, we're talking oral -"

Gabriella angrily slapped a hand over Cassandra's mouth to keep her from finishing that sentence. "Never mind," she whispered and returned to the camp fire.

The rest of the day was spent with the girls each working on their talents. The show was decided to begin at five. By lunch, they were all exhausted. Looking around, Gabriella wondered where Cassandra had gone to.

"Wow, Gabriella, you are being so wonderful." One of her friends murmured in admiration.

"Oh, no I'm not," Gabriella pretended to dismiss the statement, but she couldn't release the curiosity. "Why do you say that?" She finally asked.

"Well, you sacrifice so much of your time and enjoyment to try to Save Cassandra. It's just so noble! It show's how dedicated you are to the cause!"

"Well," Gabriella giggled, "Anything for the cause, right?"

Just then, Cassandra came stumbling into the mess hall, obviously drunk and shouting towards the hallway she had just come from"No more muffins for you! The muffin shop is closed!" while she grabbed her crotch and knocked her knees closed. Gabriella was horrified, and more determined than ever to win that talent show. Throwing the rest of her lunch away, she secluded herself in an empty room to practice for the rest of the afternoon.

Finally, the talent show came around. Most of the girls had stopped practicing after lunch since they weren't particularly desperate to go on a hot-air balloon ride to begin with. Other's had half-heartedly practiced simply because Gabriella had been the one to suggest this competition and they wanted her to think them talented.

Becky chose a seat near the performance area, which was simply a small clearing near the campfire, and pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. As teenager after teenager took the stage she fell further and further into her own thoughts, not paying the slightest bit of attention to her judging duties. 'Where did I go wrong in life?' she wondered. 'This was not supposed to be it!'

The talent show was soon over, and the girls who thought they had a chance at winning were all standing in the performing area looking at Becky expectantly.

Realizing she was supposed to announce a winner, Becky quickly scanned the list of contestants. Seeing Gabriella's name, she smiled conspiratorially to herself and loudly called out "Gabriella Montez!"

With an exaggerated scream, Gabriella fanned her face as she excitedly jumped up and down. This, of course, was all for show. She knew she was going to win. How could she not have, next to these half-rate losers?

"Who are you going to take with you?" One of the bitter runner-ups asked her.

With an evil gleam, she searched out Cassandra in the audience. Steadily holding her gaze, she evenly stated "I'm taking Cassandra."


"Ah, we're finally here!" Ryan exclaimed, jolting Gabriella out of her memories and, again, putting her senses on high alert.

'We're where?' she thought, looking around her. She saw Coach Bolton a couple yards down the hallway. He smiled at her, but his smile quickly turned sour as he seemed to be listening to something that Gabriella couldn't make out. All of a sudden, he motioned for Gabriella to stay silent as to his whereabouts and he ducked into the nearest classroom, completely disappearing from view.

'Huh, I wonder what that was about.'

"Sorry Gabs, I don't think she's here. Well, I should probably, um –"

Just then, an angry Sharpay with tears in her eyes, stormed passed Gabriella and Ryan in the direction of the girls' bathroom. Gabriella was not used to seeing an emotion other than irritability coming from Sharpay. She was shocked.

"I should probably go find out what's up. Promise me you'll finish telling this fascinating story some other time." Ryan said while inching away in Sharpay's direction.

'Oh! Ms. Darbus isn't here! Because we're in front of Ms. Darbus' classroom!' Gabriella reminded herself. Finally aware of what was going on, she turned to Ryan. "Of course, don't worry about it!" She reassured him. "Sharpay obviously needs you right now. Besides, there's Kelsi. HI KELSI! I can go talk to her. See you later Ry!" She said as she skipped down the hall in Kelsi's direction.


What is it with me and writing so much? This is already just as long as my last two chapters and we're only half way there. I clearly don't have a good sense of how long it takes me to explain what I want. But, I figured this was a good place to stop. We've heard two parts of Gabriella's story. We've got two more to go. And then, I promise, the world will make sense again ;)

I've been reading up on Stalin, cause I'm a nerd and I wanted to, but I've been learning a lot about taking over a country and successfully rallying people to revolutionize their lives. Anyway, their big mantra was "Anything for the cause" because they would do, quite literally, anything to ensure that the Tzars were taken down and they were subsequently put into power. So, in my own nerdy sense of humor, I gave Gabriella that line when talking about Saving Cassandra. "Anything for the cause".

I've worked really hard on this chapter...well on the whole story, but especially on this chapter...so please justify my efforts with a Review. Thanks!