Hello! I was so excited to start writing this chapter, and putting it up now, is even more exciting . . . I hope you're excited as I am right now!

This chapter . . . is slightly different to usual, and you'll see why when you've finished reading.

So read, enjoy, and review!

Recap

She loved the performing arts, and she loved acting. But more than those, she loved playing the piano, but now that love had gone and been replaced by a love for writing.

Because of that, she'd managed to ruin everything, but it was the broken piano that had started it all.

Wiping a lone tear from her eye, she made a mental note. An urgent mental note.

She had to talk to Sharpay.

Zeke and Jason raced to the cafeteria. Chad was there. He had to be there.

He was talking to Kelsi, and had a grim expression on his face, and so did Kelsi herself. They couldn't help but notice that Kelsi was holding a particularly ugly red and white cap, and exchanged amused glances.

"Chad, dude!" called Zeke, desperate. They ran up to the two, panting.

"Please come back Chad!" pleaded Jason. "Without you, everyone's really serious, nobody smiles anymore. Basketball has stopped being a game, and turned into some sort of chore. When we kept missing the ball, Troy yelled at us, then skulked off by himself."

"Dude, it's so weird, it's scary. With the Coach off sick, and Troy wandering off, the game kinda subsided, so we came here." Zeke and Jason looked at Chad, who's face was blank. Kelsi looked worriedly between them all.

"Chad, can we talk to you?" Zeke said, and then glancing at Kelsi, added "Like, now? Privately? No offence Kelly."

"I'm gonna go to where the Drama Club is then," Kelsi pursed her lips, taking the hint. "And it's Kelsi." They watched her walk away, as delicate as always.

"What is it with you and her?" asked Zeke, still watching the girl who used to be so simple. "Like, what happened in the classroom and stuff? We thought she told you that you were gonna die or something! You looked horrified and ran out . . ."

"Nothing's going on," said Chad, "We just realised we had something in common . . . it's not a good thing. It's just . . . she's strange . . . she knows a lot of things she shouldn't, and she's changed a lot. Did you hear about what happened in the auditorium?"

"Duh, everyone heard!" nodded Jason, "But we were in practice at the time. Were you there?"

"Yup. Ms Darbus got all stressed, and was about to fire Kelsi when Kelsi said she quit." Chad gave a shrewd little smile. "Yeah, nobody saw it coming. We thought she loved the performing arts, but I guess she just didn't care anymore . . ."

"Woah . . . that's deep!" breathed Zeke dramatically, and Jason nodded before saying,

"But Chad . . . you shouldn't have said those things to Troy."

"I just told him I didn't like her!" yelped Chad.

"You did more than that," said Jason grimly. "You said she was a witch and a backstabber. What's going on? Is there something you're not telling us?" Chad shuffled his feet. "You can tell us . . ." he added softly.

"It's a long story . . ." he sighed. They stood there for a while silent, feeling drawn apart by Chad's reluctance to tell them. They had always been close friends. What had changed?

They heard several people talking loud at the drama table. Then Jason spoke. "Anyway, we should go find the guys, they might be waiting for Troy, or they could just be practising ball techniques."

By the time Jason had finished speaking, Kelsi had reappeared, looking quite angry. Zeke and Jason were glad that they were leaving. They called as they left,

"Bye Chad!"

"See you, man!"

"Bye guys!" Chad called back. "What happened?" He asked Kelsi, glancing back at the Drama Table, who seemed to be in some sort of debate.

"Long story," she muttered, but told it anyway.

HSM HSM HSM HSM HSM

When Kelsi left, she went to talk to the Drama club.

It was Sharpay and Gabriella whispering, Ally and Candi arguing, Ryan looking worried because he wasn't wearing a hat (Kelsi still hasn't given him the ugly cap yet), and some other people Kelsi didn't really know that names of yet.

As soon as they saw her, they began talking rapidly.

"Kelsi!" whimpered Sharpay, "Ms Darbus is in a major fit! Now we have no pianist, we'll have to re-write at least a third of the play!"

"What? Oh . . . well . . ." panicked Kelsi, feeling bad for causing such a problem, "I'm sorry, but I'm not hanging around doing nothing, to be shouted at for doing nothing. It's not my problem anymore."

"Do you know how selfish you're being?!" cried Gabriella, wringing her hands. "By shrugging off a problem of yours, you've made ours ten times worse!" Kelsi turned her face to her, and said coldly,

"I said I'm sorry. What much more do you want from me? I can't do anything else for the show without a piano, it's fact." With that, Kelsi pointed looked at Sharpay, who went a bright red, but nobody noticed.

"I don't think you are sorry." Fumed Gabriella, clenching her fists. "You don't even care about the rest of us, who have to work twice as hard because you don't want to work at all!"

"How could you say that?!" Kelsi shouted at her. She had never disliked somebody so much in her life. "You have no idea how much it meant to me! If it's so much of a problem for you, why don't you quit?"

"Hey, lay off the girl!" said Candi before Gabriella could say anything else. She frowned at Gabriella a little. "Of course she feels bad, but what's done is done."

"But what's been done is something selfish," sulked Sharpay, "If it meant so much to her, she wouldn't have always gone off somewhere in our rehearsal time. Now me and Gabriella won't get to do our duet!"

Suddenly Kelsi got a flashback . . .

"I . . . just wanted to know if . . . uh . . ."

A pause, and then Gabriella blurted it all out.

"If you could practice that audition song with me. I sorry to ask and I know you're busy but we haven't had any time and it's better with a piano, I can't even imagine how much Sharpay is practising and I have to sing with her, and maybe you could help us practise together . . ."

So the audition song was actually in the show? thought Kelsi, before she drifted back to the conversation, and heard that Ryan was speaking.

"Ms Darbus was hard on her, you have to admit. Anyone would be pressured into quitting!"

"Not me, I'm not a quitter, thanks very much!" said Sharpay huffily, now folding her arms. "Who asked your opinion anyway?"

"Who asked yours?" snapped Ryan, and Sharpay looked at him, taken aback at his fierceness. He didn't usually stand up to her.

"This isn't going anywhere!" said Ally loudly. "All we're doing is arguing with each other!"

"I'm so glad your pea-sized brain could realise that," smirked Candi, and the two exchanged hard glares.

"Everyone is losing sight of what this conversation was MEANT to be about!" shouted Suzy. (A.N. Do you remember her? If not, she's in the mini-story in Zeke's Cupid Catastrophe) Everyone stopped talking and listened to what Suzy had to say, as she didn't speak often. She turned to Kelsi with a hard gaze.

"You've left us in a big mess. You don't wanna come back? Fine. But you have to help us make this show as good as possible, because I am not looking like a fool in front of an audience of over 100 people. Okay?"

"I . . ." Kelsi didn't really want to, but she felt she owed it to them. At that moment, there was a loud yelp from Chad, he said something like 'I just told him I didn't like her'. Was he talking about when he told Troy he didn't like Gabriella?.

"No, that's not okay," said Candi, sticking up for her. "I'm sorry, but no. Why should she have to? She quit, so she's got nothing to do with this anymore. I say we all do the same and end this god-forsaken crap."(A.N. Or is god-forsaken one word?)

"No!" shrilled Sharpay, Gabriella and Ally in unison. Suzy didn't say anything, but looked down at her hands on the table.

"Yes." said Ryan in a bored voice, looking weary, and everyone looked at him, truly shocked. "I'm sick and tired of doing this again and again. Let's do this right or end it." Candi nodded approvingly.

"Here's what I propose." Ryan sat up straight and looked everyone in the eye, one by one. "We can only 'do it right' with a piano. That's how the show was supposed to be done. So either we find a way to raise money for a new piano, or we bring the rehearsals to a close."

"That might . . . be the only way to go," said Ally slowly, after she thought about it.

"No! We don't need a piano!" said Gabriella.

"Then you're contradicting yourself." Candi sniffed. "You were the one complaining about writing a third of the show! Well, you and Sharpay."

"Why doesn't mouse-girl just get another piano and play for us?" muttered Sharpay.

"Threaten me and you'll regret it," said Kelsi fiercely. "I've had enough of this. I'm going." And throwing the striped cap to Ryan, who delightedly put it on, she went to rejoin Chad, leaving the others in their heated debate.

HSM HSM HSM HSM HSM

Chad and Kelsi went to the upstairs laboratories, while there was still a bit of Lunch break left.

"Why are we coming here?" asked Chad.

"We're going to have a little chat with Taylor." Replied Kelsi ad Chad stopped in his tracks, looking a bit startled.

"I can't talk to her," he said, and when Kelsi said not to worry, he shook his head.

"No, I really can't talk to her. When you told me to go and find her . . . last Friday . . . I did, and we talked a bit. I think she believed me but maybe we should just stay away from each other for a while . . ."

Kelsi gazed at Chad blankly, before saying, "If you don't get your butt in that room right now, I'll kick you in!"

Chad raised his hand in surrender, muttering grumpily, but went in.

Of course, it looked like how a lab was supposed to look, with the chemicals and diagrams and lab tables . . . with the exception of it being full of scientists.

The only 'scientist around was Taylor in a corner, goggles on, white lab coat on, hair tied back, and watching a liquid that was giving off a strange coloured gas. She looked up at Kelsi, thenher gaze slid to the person standing next to her.

"Hi." She whispered, her eyes on Chad.

"Hey." He whispered back, not moving. Kelsi gave a little smile at their reactions, and said,

"Taylor, I brought Chad here because there's something we need to sort out. Something to do with the both of you – and Gabriella."

Suddenly, both of their attentions snapped off each other.

"I don't want to talk about her," said Taylor in disgust.

"Me neither. She's lied to me from the beginning. That's why I don't like her." Said Chad, folding his arms.

"Huh? What do you mean?" said Kelsi. Chad lingered around the lab, looking at the different things in it. He took his time, and the girls felt that a story was coming on.

"We've been talking to each other, mainly because she likes to hang around with Troy. She used to come an awful lot, but now she doesn't come so much, thank God. People thought it was because she'd gone off Troy. She hadn't really . . . she'd just found something better to do.

"Anyway, one day we got talking, and she asked me if I liked you." He motioned at Taylor. "Obviously, I said yes. And she said . . . you didn't like me back."

Taylor gasped Kelsi clapped a hand to her mouth.

"What?" said Kelsi in shock.

"Why would she say that?" cried Taylor, taking her goggles off.

"I don't know, but either way I knew it wasn't true because I'd spoken to you that same morning." Taking a breath, he went on.

"So on Friday, I left my basketball in the back of the class before Ms Darbus' lesson, and anyone in their right mind wouldn't not bother to go back and get an basketball, c'mon, it's like a trophy."

The girls giggled, and Chad smiled.

"So I went back and Gabriella followed me, I didn't realise at the time. Then we got talking and she started telling me all the crap about you, so I grabbed her shoulders and was about to yell at her when you came in."

"Bad timing." Kelsi shook her head. "Bad luck." Taylor bowed her head, cursing herself.

"I know." Chad breathed heavily. "Anyway, after that, she said quietly that it was 'over now', so 'don't bother go after you', and went off. She's such a . . . annoying . . . brown-haired . . . Barbie doll look alike . . . smelly . . ."

"Chad, if you can't find a suitable insult for her, don't bother trying!" laughed Kelsi.

"Yeah, let me find one for you." stormed Taylor. "She's a two-faced back-stabber!"

"Hey, that's what I said!" said Chad

"No you didn't," frowned Taylor, "You said she was a Barbie doll."

"No before! You heard me Kelsi, didn't you! In the boy's changing rooms!"

Taylor raised an eyebrow at Kelsi. "I'm not even gonna ask!" Kelsi looked pointedly at the ground, unable to stop herself laughing along with Chad.

"Anyway, Gabriella's just been saying to me how you didn't like me, and that was before you talked to me. She said crap about 'studies being more important that boys' and how they 'only broke your heart'. She fed me a whole load of rubbish and I believed her. What a load of shit!"

"Ummmma! Taylor swore!" Chad gasped overdramatically like Zeke did earlier, then he saw Taylor's face and apologised.

"It tore me apart when I saw the two of you. I thought she was just saying that stuff to keep me away from you, so she could have you to herself or something.

"That made me mad, because she was always running off with Sharpay, and Candi was there once too, and told me to tell Troy that he'd missed her already. Troy tried so hard for her, and it's not fair on him. It's going to break his heart, but I'm going to tell him about Gabriella."

"Good luck then," snorted Chad. "Me and Kelsi have already tried. He can't see it, because he doesn't want to. You used to be her best friend, so if you can't make him see reason, I don't know who can."

"Well, we have to try." sighed Taylor, looking back at the liquid. It was giving off gas anymore, just foul smell. Kelsi and Chad held their noses, and Chad choked,

"What the hell is that? It stinks!"

"Eww, let's get out of here." She said, wrinkling her nose. So they did just that.

HSM HSM HSM HSM HSM

Everyone who said that Chad and Kelsi were getting together ended up biting their tongue by the end of the day, because Chad and Taylor were so inseparable, it was obvious they were an item.

They kept giving Kelsi sneakily little glances in classes, and it made her giggle, because they all had a special secret.

Kelsi remembered earlier that day when she thought that it was nice to have someone who understood what she felt on her side. Now she had two people, and soon enough, she was sure that others would understand too. She just needed to open their eyes.

At the end of school, she was walking down the hallway and ended up passing her locker. She went to it and opened her bag to see if there was anything she needed to put in, and then she caught sight of it.

The Navy A5 Notepad.

Her anger welled up inside her so much, she almost screamed and ripped the book into pieces. She loved writing, but it was causing such a problem. She didn't want to feel so addicted to writing. She wanted to stop before things got worse.

Looking at the book with disgust, she chucked it forcefully into her locker, and slammed it shut. She didn't even want to look at it; she'd felt so cheerful a moment ago, but now she felt just like she did in the auditorium. Angry and upset.

She kept walking down the hallway, and near the end she caught sight of a bunch of basketball players, and some of them were looking at her. One of those lookers was Troy, and he was looking and her, his expression set and hard, almost like he wasn't sure how to act.

'You're just like Kelsi.' Even now those word echoed back in her head. Simple words, but the way Troy said her name . . . like she was stupid or dirty or . . . or like he didn't believe a word she said.

Kelsi looked away. She didn't want to look at him either.

HSM HSM HSM HSM HSM

"Hey, Kel!" came a voice from her bedroom door. She looked up. Mr Nielsen.

"Hi Dad."

"I know you're not feeling too hot today, but I've got good news!"

Kelsi sat up, more interested. "Really? What!"

Mr Nielsen jumped into the room, leaving the door wide open, and waved a piece of paper about.

"I got you . . . piano lessons!" he said excitedly. "Well, not really proper lessons, but you'll be able to go and use the piano!"

Kelsi looked at him blackly. Was that it? She didn't care about that anymore . . .

"What's wrong? Don't you want to go?" Mr Nielsen asked, a little disappointed and her lack of excitement.

"Of course I do, Dad, thank you!" she said hurriedly and gave him a hug.

What's wrong with me? She thought. My Dad probably went through a lot of trouble to get this for me, I should be grateful.

"Where is it?" She asked.

"Umm . . . I have the address here . . ." Mr Nielsen searched the paper. ". . . somewhere . . ." He kept searching.

"Well, anyway, it's the house of a woman with two children. One's about eight, he shouldn't get in your way, and the other is about your age, I think, a girl that goes to your school."

"Maybe I know her. What's the woman's name?" asked Kelsi.

"I think her name is Cassandra, but she calls herself Cassie Wade."

Kelsi's mouth opened in surprised.

Wade. Cassie Wade . . . Candi Wade . . .

Cassie Wade was Candi's mother.

Wooooo! Chapter 9! How was it? I hope you didn't mind not having a mini-story, but Kelsi wouldn't have written one in her current situation, she's too angry with herself.

Now you can see the difference between this chapter and the others . . . this one has no mini-story, like C1.

Sorry to disappoint the Chelsi fans out there . . . but I think I might pair her with someone else! Keep guessing.

Don't worry I'll try to make the next mini-story a fun one, but I might not have it out for a while, depending on how much free time I have.

Mzdarkstar x x x