I have returned and with an update. To those who spend time on reading this story though there are plenty of others in this website which are more interesting and well written, I thank you all. I am glad some enjoy my work. May the glory of the heaven's blessings descend upon you.
Read and review please.
Chapter 10: Rehearsals
So it begins. The memorizing of lines, designing of costumes, backgrounds and other details needed to be addressed. Each one is busy doing their respective obligations that needs to be done. A part from the pressure of being in competition with the other sections and higher years, there is the competition among themselves whether they possess the talent to uphold the role of their characters and muster enough confidence when time comes to show it to the entire campus.
"Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all," Rouge carrying her role as Snow White's evil step mother. "So how was it?" she then asks.
"You were great Rouge! You're so good in acting!" praised Cream who was watching.
Rouge raised her head high and stood straight to signify pride and placed both her hands on her waist. "I always knew I had it in me." She smiled at her peach coloured friend. "How about you Cream, let's hear one."
Cream performed a little of her own as Rouge watched. She portrayed the cheeky and friendly member of the seven dwarfs. Rouge was impressed of her performance. "I'll say Cream, you have quite the talent," she praised. Cream flushed.
"Thanks," she replied timidly.
"Yup, I can already tell you're the best of all the seven dwarves." Rouge added.
"I wouldn't say that. I'm sure there are others better than me."
"Nonsense Cream, with your cuteness and certified talent, I'm sure everyone will be thrown away! Just they wait!" Cream's muzzle is tomato-coloured right now. She looked down at her feet and swayed back and forth in a shy manner. Rouge giggled seeing her at her state.
"Where's Amy?" Cream brought up all of a sudden.
"Over there!" She gestured at the right corner at the back of the classroom where Amy's back is turned from them, "memorizing her lines. She said she'd concentrate better from there."
Cream nodded. They went to their pink hedgehog friend and true enough she was in full concentration memorizing her script. They can hear her mutter some of her lines when they got close to her.
"How's it going Amy?" Rouge asked from behind her.
Amy turned around and faced her best friends. "Good. I've memorized some of my lines and still working on the rest."
"Can we hear one Amy?" Cream requested enthusiastically.
"Hmm, maybe later, I still have many more to memorize so I need all the time. Sorry Cream." Amy said.
"It's okay Amy; I know you'll be good."
"Thanks Cream."
"I wonder how Sonic is doing with his?" wondered Rouge.
"I'm sure his doing fine. We all know how competent Sonic is with everything and I'm sure he'll be great." Amy uttered deviously and then chuckles. Her two friends are getting even more worried about her.
"Alright guys, let's start!" Christian, a white hedgehog (with a little resemblance to Silver) who was the director, announced. He flips a few pages from the script, skipping the narrated part of the story and stops at the scene of the wicked queen and the mirror.
"After the narration," he began explaining while gazing at the script, "appear the wicked queen who will consult her magic mirror." He gestures to Rouge. "You have to say your lines when the light turns on Rouge."
"Got it," Rouge answered.
"You prepare yours too Maya," he said to a lemur who will play the role of the queen's magic mirror. The lemur nods.
"Okay take the floor," with his signal the two first to perform went in front of the entire class.
They both glance at their scripts to review their lines. Rouge was first to say hers. She walks closer to her 'magic mirror' and speaks: "Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all."
The 'mirror' replied: "you my queen. You are the fairest of all!"
"Good!" says the director. "Nice work you two. Rouge tilt your head a little bit to make you look more intimidating to the audience and Maya; don't say your line immediately after the queen asked. Wait for maybe a second before answering Rouge's question okay, other than that, great job."
"Okay."
For Amy, who was in squatting position just feet away from their director with Cream by her side, thought that he was right to be chosen to be his position. He looks so confident and acts as if he was a professional—knowing what to say and how to do it right.
"Let's move on to Snow White cleaning the staircase of the castle and his first encounter with the prince. So—where's Sonic?"
Everyone exchanges looks knowing the fact that the most important character in the play was not around for their first rehearsals. Then they all glanced at the pink hedgehog.
"What?" Amy said standing up.
"Where's Snow White?" one of her classmates asked.
"How should I know?" she said. "Knowing Sonic he should be hiding by now. I thought you already expected something like this to happen."
Yes, he would. The dreadful feeling of having to act a female when you're the opposite is very humiliating especially if you're going to be dressed like one and be displayed to the entire student body. Sonic could be anywhere under the sun, he could've even left when he had the chance.
"He could be anywhere," Christian, the director said considering the possibility. "He can't go neglecting this he has the most important role of all. He should be responsible enough to cooperate."
Just then the door opened revealing an exhausted blue hedgehog, panting heavily as if he's taking his last breath and sweating. He wipes the sweat from his forehead. "Sorry I'm late."
"You weren't trying to run away are you?" Amy smirked placing her hands on her hips.
Sonic glared at her. "'Course not! If I did then I wouldn't have come here."
"Of course Snow White." Sonic snarled lowly at her remark. He knew she would be using this against him. By the look on her face she's enjoying torturing him.
"Well now that Sonic is here, we can resume. Sonic, Amy it's your turn."
Both hedgehogs went in front holding their own scripts, prepared to display their hidden talents. Amy could see that Sonic was tensing. If only he was a little nicer to her sometimes she would have felt pity for him but for her, this is the way she can get back at him for humiliating her.
"Sonic, pretend you're cleaning the stairs." The white hedgehog instructed. "Then a few minutes later, Amy will appear. And you'll have to sing too."
"What!" Sonic retorted. Every part of his body didn't like this at all.
Christian raised his hands defensively out of shock and fearing that the blue hedgehog might hit him. "It's what the script said: you have to sing."
Sonic stumped his foot, clenching his fists tightly. "No way! Being a girl in this stupid play is bad enough and now you're going to pile another embarrassing thing at me? Nu uh! Not happening!"
"Hey, don't yell at him!" Amy shouted nearly as loud as his. "You have to do what he says. He's the director!"
"Sorry pinky, I don't do what anyone tells me unless it's myself."
Amy crossed her arms and glared at him. "You have no choice. Miss Brown said that you have to do your part and no complaints shall be entertained. What's wrong with singing anyway? I always hear you sing: 'I am the champion' all the time."
"There's a difference pinky,"
"No there isn't, you're just being stubborn and mean as always,"
"Oh think I'm mean? Here you are pushing me to humiliate myself so you can laugh at my face!"
Well there was some truth to that, but she's just thinking of the whole play. If Sonic won't cooperate then it will be a disaster and they won't do another one again because of his pig-headedness.
"This is about the play not you!"
"Yeah it is. About the play where I get myself the embarrassment of a lifetime!"
"WHOAH YOU TWO!" someone intervened. "You, fighting won't get us anywhere." He turned to Sonic, "I'm sorry Sonic but Amy is right. How much this will affect your pride, you've no choice but to do it."
Sonic growled. It was his entire class against only him. If only he was allowed to back out he would. This isn't going to help with his reputation in the campus if anyone would think that that it was his desire to be Snow White.
Sonic relaxed a bit. Seeing this as an opportunity to continue, the director signalled to resume the practice.
As rehearsal went on, they didn't have much done since Sonic kept protesting and is performing poorly. He didn't do well as the main character. He stammered his lines, hesitating when saying them, not portraying the right facial expression to what his mood should be on one particular scene, always asking for five minutes break when all he did was that, and he and Amy kept arguing. Certainly not the love story everyone was hoping. Amy did exceptional with her role, while Sonic is hopeless with his.
"No Sonic!" said the director, Christian correcting another one of Sonic's mistakes. "Be cheerful. Don't grit your teeth, your words aren't understood, and try not to glare at Amy all the time. You should pose a gentle and affectionate look."
"As if he's all that," Amy muttered.
"Can we have a break," Sonic groaned feeling stressed.
Christian sighed. "I guess it is time to have a break. 20 minutes, everyone!"
Break time...
"Strawberry shortcake!" Amy exclaimed, "My favourite!" Amy took small bites of her food feeling quite satisfied.
"You are great at being Prince Amy!" a snowy owl named Snowdrop said sitting across her under the shaded tree where she, Rouge, Cream and two more of her female classmates sat together to eat their lunch.
"Well, not really I just fit the role I guess," the pink hedgehog's humble reply.
"You kidding," Rouge said joining the conversation, "you were fantastic! I knew you're good at acting but I didn't expect you to be that good."
Amy flushed feeling embarrassed at the praises she's getting.
"Which is more than what could be said with Sonic," another of their companions, a vixen named Velvet, said. "He has lots of talent but, I guess acting as a girl isn't one of them."
"Certainly isn't," Amy replied.
"Poor Sonic, he's having a hard time to be Snow White. I hope he'll be okay next time," Cream said being sympathetic as always.
"Don't worry Cream, he'll get used to it," Amy said uninterested.
"But what if he doesn't? Our play then will be no good,"
"On my opinion, our play would be even better if he's not in it." Amy said. "I think Snow White's role would have fitted you better Snowdrop, since you are as white as snow and you're pretty."
"C'mon Amy, that's not true," Snowdrop answered. "I may be as white as snow but that doesn't not mean I would have been a better candidate and our play wouldn't be better without Sonic's participation."
"Of course it will!" she placed her meal on her lap. "He's the one who keeps on protesting, holding us back with his complaints and corniness."
"Maybe instead of trying to rub his failure further, you should instead try and help him address his problems. That way he'll feel much less pressured and uncomfortable," said Grace.
"I agree with her." said the bat, "since you're an expert with role-playing Amy, get Sonic to have the same enthusiasm as you do and will have everything going smoothly without him asking for breaks every ten minutes and disrupting everything."
Amy paused for a moment. It would help them a lot since they only have less than a week to practice. Having someone saying he can't do this and that can't be afforded for they waste a great deal of time. Then there was her motive to humiliate the blue hedgehog same as he had been doing to her whenever he had a chance. This was her time for pay back. Then again, there was the matter of their play being a failure if the blue blur wouldn't stop complaining. So she would do him and the rest of the class a favour.
"I'll see what I can do,"
"Good to hear."
Twenty minutes passed and it's time to return to practice. Hopes were at high peak wishing the blue hedgehog would do better this time. But unfortunately, there was no progress at all. It just seemed worse when Sonic was being forced to do he disliked. More time wasted on the blue blur for being stubborn and irritable.
How long was? Two to three months since I last updated. Weird I know. Well I have been busy; there were so much to be done and not enough time to do them. I'm deeply sorry for my long absence. I hope everyone has been well. It would be another few weeks before I can update again and I appreciate your patience. Thank you. Please review.