Chapter Seven

Sharpay glanced up from her paper, looking at the different pair of people working ferociously trying to finish up before the other teams. She sighed quietly, she was by herself…that's what she was used to being in an odd numbered class and hated by the students. But she was perfectly content to work on the Chem questions by herself. That way no one would know if she was doing it well or not. Her attention was drawn away from question five, the last question on the paper by Gabriella and Taylor sprinting to the front of the class, practically throwing their paper down on the teacher's desk. They were grinning from ear to ear as they headed back to their seats; Sharpay rolled her eyes at them before returning her attention to her own paper.

She ended up handing it in around the time everyone else did. Now all that was left to do was to wait for Mrs. Manson (A/N - I don't know her actual name in the movie.) to grade them in order, and they would find out who won the extra credit for the test tomorrow. She was sitting at her desk, one hand resting on her swollen stomach, the other holding a red marker as she went through the various papers. Her eyebrows scrunched in confusion as she began to flip through the papers, making the students very nervous. She stopped, carefully reading one, looking at her answer sheet, before smiling gently and laying it aside. She picked up her red maker once more and drew a small X on every other paper but the one she set aside.

The faces of just about everyone in the class fell as Mrs. Manson put down her marker and stood, picking up a piece of chalk to write something on the board. It was the fourth problem they had done. She turned back to the class, "I was very shocked to see that only one of you caught my trick," she said with a slight laugh, "This," she pointed to one part of the equation, "Is wrong…it should be this…" she made the correction and Gabriella and Taylor's faces fell even more, they had thought that they were the ones who got it right. "The equation can be balanced but it would lead to an unstable reaction, I'm quite shocked," she mentioned turning around to face the class, "that no one really caught that." She glanced around, not about to say who had gotten it correct. The bell rang and the students filed out quickly, each ready to study twice as hard to not make that mistake on the test.

Sharpay gathered her books, looking up at Mrs. Manson as she left. The woman smiled softly at her. Sharpay shook her head of foolish thoughts that she might have gotten a question right that Gabriella and Taylor had not…but she wasn't that good in Chemistry…

The rest of the day went by relatively fast for Sharpay, she met Troy at his secret hideout to help him run his lines for his audition that afternoon. He'd asked her if she would be there, everyone else had something to do. Taylor and Gabby couldn't make it, they decided to hold an emergency study session for the Chemistry test and Chad and the guys, including Ryan, were heading over to Jason's place to watch a recording of the championship game that he'd edited to look awesome!

And that was how Sharpay ended up in the auditorium…not that she wouldn't have been there anyway. She watched as all the students went, she was really proud, there were a lot more people trying out for Drama…she'd have to thank Troy for that one later. She smiled as Troy's name was called, looking around she noticed that everyone else had left, with only her, Ms. Darbus, and Troy remaining in the auditorium.

Troy frowned as he made his way on stage, he was a little nervous, truth be told, to audition on his own. Obviously, Ms. Darbus and Sharpay could tell since he kept stuttering over his lines and breaking character. One he completely lost his place he groaned and walked off stage, asking Ms. Darbus for a minute.

Sharpay let out a breath before getting up to go get Troy to relax. She pushed back the back stage curtains, only to see Troy pacing back and forth. "What was that?" she asked, laughing to herself as he spun to face her, almost loosing his balance.

"I…I'm just…" he trailed unable to tell her that he was…

"Nervous?" she asked, he nodded, "Don't be. You were great in the musical and you know all your lines by heart. Just take a breath and get out there."

He sighed, "I'm just…I haven't done this by myself before…" he looked past her to the stage, "It'd be great if…" His eyes widened as a smile made its way to his face. "If you go on stage too!"

"What?" she asked, "You want me to audition? Troy I already said I wasn…"

"No, not audition," he said, "Just sit on the stage, next to me. That's all. All you have to do is just say 'What Doug?' when I say, 'You know something Amy?'. That's it, that's all you have to do, just sit there." He looked at her, seeing indecision on her face, "Please?" he begged, giving her his best puppy dog eyes.

She groaned, "Damn you and your puppy dog look," she said before leading the way on stage.

He smiled, following after her. He quickly explained to Ms. Darbus that Sharpay was going to help him focus his attention before he stated.

"You know something Amy?" Troy said, pretending to be thinking of something.

"What Doug?" she asked, pretending that she was doing something important.

"It seems like every person I know is trying to be perfect." Troy said, getting up from his sitting position to pace the stage. "They're all working out to get that perfect body, shopping to find those perfect clothes, saving money to buy that perfect car, all this while trying to maintain straight "A's" so they can get into the perfect college. Then we get to college...and how many years do we have there?...Yeah, another four years to make tops in our class, while balancing sports, activities, and part time jobs to try to have that perfect resume for our applications. I guess you're wondering why we need a perfect resume? Well, let me tell you. So you can get that perfect job, make lots of money, and be successful. Oh and then there's dating...we can't leave that out. Going out with the right person gets you into all the right parties, not to mention improving your chances for being nominated for Prom royalty or something like that. It can make or break your high school experience. I mean even some of the girls at this school are perfect enough to be Runway Models, you know the ones, they suck in their cheeks and prance down the runway with their "I disdain you little people" look on their faces. The other night, while I was up at 11 p.m. finishing my homework, 'because I'd just gotten home from work after basketball practice,' I got so frustrated that I looked up the word 'perfect' in the dictionary. You know something, it's ironic, that we're all striving for an idea that comes somewhere between 'penguin' and 'pinball'. Doesn't that strike you as being just a little stupid? I mean, life is just too precious to waist. I'm ready to have some fun!" he turned to face Sharpay who was just staring at him like he'd lost his mind, "Well? You just gonna sit there? Give me your opinion on the matter…and be perfectly honest." He then turned to Ms. Darbus, "And scene."

Ms. Darbus stood up to clap, praising him on a job well done and was still standing as Troy and Sharpay made their way out of the auditorium. She then fell back into her seat, a grin like a Cheshire cat plastered on her face as she started to make out the cast list. She had had to cancel tryouts for the next day, rescheduling them for that morning during free period. So she would be able to get the cast list up a day early, which means that they could start rehearsing a day earlier. She shivered to herself as she looked at the amazing cast she had picked out before picking up the list and leaving the room…

Troy had an interesting afternoon with Sharpay. She took him to an orphaninch and had him help her teach the kids how to make bird feeders out of pinecones, peanut butter, and bird seed. It was…interesting to say the least…two of the kids got into a fight which led to a massive peanut butter fight with the occasional bird seed bomb flying into the mix.

The afternoon was made all the better when Troy watched Sharpay try to play tennis while fending off the birds that were trying to get to some of the bird seed still stuck in her hair. Troy refused to let her live that down, taking a picture of it with his camera phone for later day blackmailing purposes…not that he thought he'd ever have to black mail her, but it was good to have nonetheless.

Her dance class that evening was something Troy didn't really expect. Usually when dancing was involved, it was the classics, Ballet, Tap, and Jazz…but Sharpay had mixed it up a little, opting for a hip hop class instead. Troy wasn't allowed to watch that actual class either, but he had a great time listening to the different music that Sharpay was dancing to. He loved hip hop as well, and Sharpay even offered to teach him some moves once summer started and she had more time.

He learned that Sharpay hadn't always volunteered as much as she did now. In the beginning of high school she had only volunteered at one of her places one time a week, but now that Ryan was never home, she volunteered at each of the places once a week. She said it helped her keep her mind off being the Ice Queen, off being alone, basically off anything that was bothering her. She'd laughed and said that this way; she didn't have time to think of anything else.

Sharpay still hadn't gotten all the birdseed out of her hair when she walked into school the next day. She thought that might have been why everyone was staring at her…much like they did when they discovered she had not taken part in the tryouts for play. She ran a quick hand through her hair, the bird seed wasn't visible, so she really didn't know why everyone was staring at her. She went to her locker, putting her usually stuff in there when a group of people standing by the call back list caught her attention. Ms. Darbus was there as well, which was weird, the call back list wasn't supposed to be up until tomorrow.

Sharpay slammed her locker before walking quickly over to the crowd; they parted like they always did, even though she wasn't going to look at the list…until a familiar name caught her attention.

"WHAT!?!"

A/N – I know this chappy was a little short, but I didn't want to give away too much in one chapter. So…what name did Sharpay see on the call back list? Though, I bet you can guess. Lol. I might actually manage another chapter today, half way done with my last essay!