Disclaimer: High School Musical does not belong to me. A certain adorable blonde boy also doesn't belong to me. Again, anything you recognize doesn't belong to me. Okay, that's pretty much it. I think…

Chapter 2: Meeting

Okay, so Ryan had chickened out and asked Martha to call Kelsi for him. It wasn't his fault if he couldn't stand to talk to the girl he'd had a crush on since he'd first seen her at his first audition at East High. Well, hopefully, when the gang met up later on, he'd be able to talk to her.

Suddenly, his phone rang and he picked it up. "Hey, what's up?" he asked.

"Ryan, I called everyone to let them know and the word is out," Chad's voice responded, "We'll all meet up later. So, how did it go with Kelsi?"

Ryan took in a deep breath before sighing in frustration. "I… didn't call her," he admitted, "I asked Martha to do it for me."

"Well, she must have been thrilled," Chad explained, "Talking to you, of all people, that must have been exciting for her."

"What are you talking about?" Ryan asked him in confusion.

"You don't know?" Chad questioned in slight surprise.

"Know what?" Ryan urged him to explain what he was getting at.

"Oh, sorry, gotta go," Chad rushed to end the conversation, "I just remembered I have this… thing… I need to do before we meet. I'll talk to you later." With that, Chad hung up the phone.

"Well, that was odd," Ryan thought out loud as he closed his phone, "It was almost like he didn't want to tell me what was going on."

"Well, is that what you were talking about to your little friends?" Sharpay's voice called from the doorway.

Ryan spun around quickly to look at his sister from where he sat on his bed. "How long have you been there?" he asked, suddenly feeling self-conscious.

"Oh, puh-lease, Ryan. I just got here," Sharpay answered as she rolled her eyes, "Listening to you talk to yourself is quite… amusing actually."

"Aren't you still mad at me?" Ryan asked her, with a sigh of relief, "And by the way, I'm really sorry about upsetting you before downstairs. I didn't mean for it to come out and sound that harshly. It was an accident."

"Save it, Ryan," Sharpay stated, "I didn't come in here for apologies. I wanted to ask if you knew anything about this summer camp thing."

"No, actually, it was a surprise to me, too." Ryan answered, "And I'm still not sure what's going on either."

"Why don't you have to go?" Sharpay asked him, taking a seat at his desk, "I mean, we're twins and mom and dad always say that we'll do everything at the same time. Well, within reason, but camp is definitely one of those things. Why do I have to go and you don't? I don't deserve this!"

Ryan sighed. "Listen, sis. I know you feel that mom and dad are punishing you by making you go, but I think you'll have fun," he tried to cheer her up, but she just rolled her eyes at him, "You know, I hate it when you do that to me."

"Do what?" his twin asked him.

"Roll your eyes at me," Ryan stated, "I've reminded you a million times that I hate it when you do that to me. It's bad enough that you do that to mom and dad when you think we're not looking, but that still doesn't mean I like it or I don't notice."

"As if I care what you think," Sharpay grunted, "In fact, I could care less."

"You know, I have feelings, too," Ryan growled in frustration, "You should learn to be more understanding and caring. Otherwise, it will come back to bite you at the most unexpected time."

"Yeah, yeah," Sharpay sighed, rolling her eyes again, "You always say that and has it happened? No." With that, she got up and walked over to the doorway.

"You never know, Shar," Ryan warned her.

Feeling the need to get the last word in, Sharpay turned around and glared at him. "Oh, and Ryan?" she stated.

Ryan looked up at her expectantly and saw her roll her eyes before leaving the room. "You know, that's not nice!" he called after her.

"Yeah, yeah," she stated from her room.

Ryan sighed in defeat. What could he do? His sister was going to camp for a week. His parents were going away for who knows how long. And yet, he was left home all alone. It was as if no one wanted to spend time with him. Why was that?

Maybe because of his attitude lately – he'd been so bored and everything he said came out wrong. Maybe they were avoiding him. Then again, maybe Sharpay was pretending she didn't know about the camp thing just to annoy him. After all, she was his twin sister and she did like to annoy him.

Well, he had a while to go before he was expected to meet everyone, so there was plenty of time for him to prepare what he was going to say to… Kelsi. Or maybe he'd just get ready to go to the pretzel stand in the mall. Yeah, he'd do that.

~~~~~~ Just after noon, at the mall…

Everyone had met up at the mall and was seated at a table in front of the pretzel stand… waiting for Ryan to show up. He'd been the one to come up with the plan in the first place and he still hadn't shown. Maybe he'd forgotten or maybe his parents had kept him back for a few minutes longer.

"Hey, guys!" Ryan called from the other end of the food court, "I'll be there in a second!" Well, at least he wasn't too late. That was his sister's job. He rushed across the food court to the table with all of his friends.

"Hey, Ryan. What's up?" Martha asked him, "What are we meeting to talk about?"

Ryan sat down at the table. "Well, Chad and I were talking about how our parents are going away for the summer and about how our siblings are being sent to camp," he explained, "So, basically we're left alone at home for a week until our sibling's camp is done."

"Wow, that's really weird," Martha stated, not taking her eyes off of Ryan's face.

"Yeah, isn't it?" Chad smiled. "We were wondering if something similar is happening with all of you."

"Actually, yeah," Martha answered, "My mom is going to Tokyo and my dad is going on a golf retreat in Florida. After that, he's going to see the Pro games in Hawaii. Is that what's happening with everyone else?" Everyone else stared at her in shock and nodded. "Wow," she muttered to herself, "This is freaky."

"I'll say," Taylor agreed, clinging onto Chad's arm, "I mean, my parents are leaving me at home alone and they never once mentioned anything about everyone else."

"I bet they all knew and were planning to leave us alone on purpose," Gabriella suggested, gripping Troy's hand for support, "Right, Troy?"

"Absolutely," Troy assured her, "Maybe they're trying to teach us to manage on our own before we go off to college next year."

"It might just be a group trip after all instead of a coincidence," Zeke suggested, "But if they were planning to leave us alone to teach us to manage, why would they send Sharpay? I mean, she's also going to college next year. It doesn't make sense."

"But listen to this," Ryan stated eagerly, "I found an ad for a fashion camp in my mom's purse."

"What were you doing in her purse?" Chad questioned curiously.

"That doesn't matter… but that must be the camp they're sending Sharpay to," Ryan continued, "They probably thought that Sharpay would like to go to a fashion camp. So, they're making her go as a surprise. And I guess, because I haven't been myself lately, my parents are trying to teach me the lesson."

"So, I guess that solves our problem, then," Troy stated with a sigh, "Now, we know what's going on."

"But what will we do while we're alone for the summer?" Gabriella asked curiously, "I mean, there's nothing to do alone at home all day."

"Why don't we get together and have a party to celebrate?" Ryan suggested, "We could get together at someone's house and just have fun."

"That's a great idea, Ryan!" Kelsi praised him from where she sat… next to Jason, "That would be really fun."

"But where will we have the party?" Jason asked, realizing something, "We'd need a large place to have the party. You know, somewhere we'll have enough room to hang out and just have fun."

"Why don't we have it at Ryan's mansion?" Kelsi suggested, suddenly excited.

Ryan looked up at her in shock.

"That's a great idea, Kels," Martha told her.

"Yeah," everyone else agreed.

Well, everyone but Ryan. "No, that's not a great idea," he argued, "I mean, I'd like to, but my parents and Sharpay and…"

"Oh, please, Ryan," Kelsi begged, "Please, please, consider it."

"Yeah, please, Ryan," Martha chimed in, "It would be so much fun."

"Oh, come on, it's perfect," Gabriella pleaded.

"For us?" Taylor asked, putting on a sad face.

The guys laughed as Ryan looked back and forth between all the girls, who were staring at him with puppy dog eyes.

"Oh… fine," Ryan caved and the others cheered, "But it has to be when Sharpay's at camp."

"Deal," Zeke stated, "Though, wouldn't it be a bit more fun if Sharpay were to show up?"

"No," Troy said immediately before Gabriella stared up at him with a slight pout.

"No, Troy's right," Ryan defended his opinion, "Besides, she'd probably just get mad and tell all of our parents."

"Right," Jason agreed, "And I'm guessing they wouldn't want us to go to an unsupervised party at your mansion."

"Not to mention what my parents would say," Ryan added.

"Well, don't worry, dude," Chad reassured him, "We'll help clean up afterwards. Right, gang?"

"Of course," everyone else agreed.

"Thanks, guys," Ryan stated. The last thing he needed to worry about was having his sister come home to discover the remains of a party she hadn't been invited to… in her own home. Because that wouldn't go over too well.

"What would you expect from us?" Troy asked.

"We're all Wildcats!" Chad said rather loudly, "What team?"

"Wildcats!" the others cheered.

"Thanks again," Ryan repeated, "So, who wants lunch?"

(A/N) Well, that's another chapter finished. (Sigh) At least, I got a new idea. And this is the result. I owe it all to socialitegirl for her idea about what should happen in the story later on. So, yeah, thanx for that. Luv ya! And I hope to hear from you again soon. I mean, I was going through writer's block before, but now that I'm over it, I will need some more ideas. What do you want to see in the next chapter? Please review and let me know what all of you want to have happen! R&R!

EDIT:

So, I've made a few minor corrections on this chapter, too. The basic stuff – fixed the formatting and corrected grammar and spelling errors. *shrug* Nothing major.

Original Post: ?

Revised: 10/27/11

Reposted: 10/30/11