Chapter Eight

"WHAT!?!" The shriek of Sharpay echoed through the hall. She ran to the list, checking to make sure that her eyes weren't deceiving her.

Oberon: Chad Dansforth

Titania: Taylor McKessie

Puck: Dutch Whitlock

Bottom: Zeke Baylor

Theseus: Jason Cross

Hippolyta: Kelsi Nielsen

Lysander: Ryan Evans

Hermia: Gabriella Montez

Demetrius: Troy Bolton

Helena: Sharpay Evans

(A/N – Dutch - the skater cello dude)

Sharpay eyes widened as she saw her name posted on the call back sheet. She turned abruptly to see Ms. Darbus smiling ear to ear at her.

"Ms. Darbus!" She shouted, walking quickly up to her. "I think there's been some sort of a mistake! I didn't audition!"

Ms. Darbus' grin grew, if possible, "Why, I do believe you did Miss Evans." Sharpay gave her a disbelieving look, one that was a mix of 'are you crazy?' and 'are you senile?'. "You were up on stage during the set audition time correct?" Sharpay nodded, unable to speak, "And you did participate in a monologue did you not?" Sharpay nodded again, "You did speak during that time correct, lines from a script?" Sharpay nodded a third time. "Then, as the rules suggest, you did audition." Sharpay's expression fell, "And I must say, I am happy you did, I could not have picked a better Helena if the actual person was here with us now. I shall see you at the meeting today." And with that, she turned and walked away.

Sharpay stood there in shock, glancing at the students staring at her. She couldn't cry like she wanted to, so she went with the next best thing…anger.

"ERGGG!" she groaned, before turning on the students, "What are you all looking at?!" She screamed, "Vamoose!"

As soon as the words left her mouth the students went scrambling away from her. She glared at everyone she could as she stalked towards the chorus room where she knew she could use the testing room to vent…it was sound proof. As soon as she made it inside the chorus room the door flew open once again as Troy made his way after her. He had been just coming in from down the hall where Chad congratulated him on getting Demetrius, when he saw Sharpay rush into the room, so he followed her knowing that if he didn't, no one else would.

He managed to catch the door to the sound proof room just before it shut. He stepped inside, shutting the door behind him as he did so. The room was small, but not very cramped, giving them each enough space to breathe.

Sharpay slumped down on the bench next to an old keyboard as Troy turned to face her. "Sharpay what's wrong?"

She looked up at him shaking her head, "I was on the call back sheet."

"But how?" Troy asked, "You didn't audition."

Sharpay laughed bitterly, "Darbus counted me saying 'What Doug?' as an audition. According to her I was on stage, during an audition, and I said a line. Now I have the part of Helena!"

"Hey, hey," Troy said, kneeling before her, "It'll be okay, I mean you've done the plays before right? It shouldn't be that hard. And if you're worried about the lines I could always help yo…"

"It's not the lines," she said cutting him off, "I know all Helena's lines."

"What?" Troy asked, he definitely didn't know that.

"I was in a summer production of A Midsummer Night's Dream about a year ago. Ms. Darbus saw it."

Troy nodded, realizing something, "So that's how you knew we'd be doing that play."

Sharpay nodded, "I recognized the scenery."

"Well…" Troy started, "If it isn't the lines you're worried about, is it school? Do you need help with homework, cause I'll…"

Sharpay stood angrily, "It isn't school Troy!" she shouted, pacing slightly, "I don't have a problem doing the play…I just don't want to!"

"Why?" he asked, realizing he never quite got an actual answer from her.

"Because I want to do other things!" She shouted, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "I wanted to join the sports teams here but I couldn't because all their practices fall on days and times when there'd be play and next year is the last chance I get to try out and get a scholarship!"

Troy watched her pace, knowing that there was more to what she was saying. He was right, because suddenly she turned on him.

"You were following me on Saturday right?" she asked, he nodded, "Then you know about Jason?"

"The boy with…"

"Cancer," she answered as he nodded again. "It hit me hard, what was happening to him. And I started thinking while I drove back…Jason wasn't responding to medicine. What's to stop one of the other children from not reacting? What's to stop something worse happening to them? What if something does happen to them and I could only be there for an hour or two to read a chapter and not a story? I started thinking that if I wasn't in play, I'd have more time to be there with the kids and to read to them and have fun with them and…there's just so much more I could do for them if I wasn't always stuck at play!"

Troy was speechless; he had no idea that what was happening with that Jason kid had struck such a nerve in her. She really loved those kids; she really wanted to help them, to help anyone.

He felt like shit. Here he was, the B-Ball king. The only thing he did with his time was play basketball and do some homework when he could be out there everyday like Sharpay and make a difference. She was balancing school, with lessons, sports lessons, play, and volunteering. And next year, she'd probably be adding actual sports to the list.

"What could you have done now Pay?" He asked, liking the new nickname better than Shar. Ryan called her Shar, and he felt like that was their thing, Pay was now his special name for her. "School's almost over, sports are over. Even if you didn't do the EYP you couldn't have done any sports."

"I could have volunteered longer," she muttered.

"You can always do that on the weekend," he added. "And even with sports, you could make it work and not have to give up anything. I did it with Basketball."

"But you're the captain Troy," she said, "You're good enough to miss a few practices."

"But as captain, I'm not supposed to," he said smiling a little, getting a smile out of her. "And besides, if you just join a team, they don't care if you miss a practice or two, if you're good they only want you there for the game."

"I guess…" she trailed thinking it over. She was the Ice Queen so it wasn't like her teammates would care much if she wasn't there.

"Besides…" Troy started, "I kinda want to be you to be my Helena."

Sharpay looked up at him. 'That's right,' she thought to herself, 'He got the part of Demetrius…and he and Helena end up together…' She shook her head free of thoughts that that could have happened in real life. He was Troy, the Basketball King, going with Gabriella, the whiz kid golden child, why would he want Sharpay the acting Ice Queen. 'Though…every Queen needs her King…' she thought before mentally smacking herself. She really needed to stop thinking like that.

"Come on Pay, please?" he begged.

She sighed, he was right, there weren't any sports this time of the year, and school was ending in about three weeks…

"Alright…" she agreed, through begrudgingly.

But it wasn't so bad, especially not after Troy enveloped her in a hug just as the warning bell went off and they had to head to homeroom.

After that little incident involving the cast list, Sharpay's day had gone a lot smoother. It turned out that she had in fact gotten the extra credit in Chemistry. Though she had done the problem entirely wrong, she was the only one to catch the teachers trick, which helped bring her grade up from an 87 to a 90, and A-, which she was perfectly happy with. She wasn't the one to grub for grades like certain other girls in the class…who shall remain nameless.

AP English was a riot, the teacher was absent and they had an awesome sub who 'lost' the work for the day and settled them with watching a video of The Grapes of Wrath, which they were currently reading. But it was so worth going to that class, the sub put the video on mute and let the kids make up their own lines to the movie.

Free period had Troy and Sharpay playing one on one in the gym. Coach Bolton had been there in the beginning, he was locking the doors for them when they arrived before leaving them to their own. Troy beat Sharpay in all three games, but the second one had been a close one. She still maintained that the only reason he won that round was because he had tried to block her and hit her tickle spot…which Troy remembered for later use. Coach Bolton came out a few minutes before the bell to invite Sharpay to dinner the next day, on Friday. Sharpay said she'd have to call 'work' to see if she could leave a little earlier for the five o' clock dinner. There was no play meeting the next day, because it had been rescheduled for Thursday, since Ms. Darbus couldn't make it Friday. So, Sharpay would be going to the Nursing home right after school, and he was sure she'd be allowed to leave by five.

And the EYP meeting ended much earlier than even Sharpay had expected. Ms. Darbus handed out the scripts and schedules, along with a list of props that would be helpful if anyone had to give up, as well as the days that she wanted certain scenes memorized by. And that was pretty much it.

Sharpay and Troy were free to go by four, but Troy was cornered by his friends who wanted to hang out with him on Friday. They said that they had barely seen him for the last week; they wanted to make sure that his dad wasn't killing him with B-Ball. Troy used all his will to keep his laugh on the inside. They thought he'd been practicing with his dad for the last week.

But Troy still had to thank the powers that be that none of them had gone to his house after play to liberate him. He could almost picture their reactions if they learned he hadn't even been home till at least nine every night.

He glanced over at Sharpay who was at her locker, sneaking her AP History and Latin books into her back pack. She gave him a slight nod, telling him later that it was fine with her if he wanted to hang with his friends; she understood that spending so much time with her must be tedious.

But that was the thing…he did want to spend time with her, much more with her than his friends. He could almost guess what he'd be stuck doing the next day, sitting at someone's house doing nothing till he had to leave for dinner.

The animal shelter was great! By the end of their time there, Troy considered himself a master at bathing cats without getting scratched too badly. The pointers that Sharpay had given him just before she went to help Kim, the manager, bathed the dogs came in very helpful. He survived with only a few minor scratches on his arms and one small one on the back of his hand.

But he didn't let that get in the way of her Basketball practice. Her couch said he definitely saw a big improvement from the last time he'd seen her play. He was especially thrilled with her fake right, break left, technique, which she credited to Troy.

Then it came time to the activity that Troy had been looking forward to all week…Gymnastics. He wasn't allowed to go into the actual gym, it was a class, but the door that led to the gym from the waiting room was always left open, so he was able to watch her most of the time. He did look away only a few times when he thought Sharpay was about to fall…or when she got into really, really interesting positions…

Troy had to swallow his blush when Sharpay walked out of the gym in her gymnastics suit to go get changed. She was wearing what looked like a dark blue one piece bathing suit with long black sleeves. He was able to look at her fully when she came back out dressed in red sweatpants with East High running down the pant leg, and a white t-shirt that said 'Girly Girl' in red letters printed across it.

Troy took her duffle bag in one hand and held the door open for her, taking her hand with his other once they were outside. He glanced down at Sharpay as they headed to the parking lot, unable to tell if she was actually blushing like he thought she was in the dim lights.

A/N – So…real reason why Sharpay quit play…also kinda explains why Ryan's words hurt her more…kinda. Next chapter might be a little short; it'll basically be Troy hanging out with the guys and Dinner at the Bolton's with Sharpay. Also at dinner, Troy's parents surprise him with a gift…wonder what it could be? Hmmm…