Paige's Angel

Chapter Nine: Change of Heart

disclaimer: don't own Phantom etc. etc.

That night they snuck into the fop’s room. Raoul had decided to sleep in the opera house in case the Phantom tried to take his precious Christine. Erik and Paige crept through the doorway, in their hands they held a bottle (that matched Raoul’s hair products exactly) and a cage covered with a blanket. “Okay, you switch the bottles and I’ll do the rest.” Paige whispered. Erik tiptoed into the fop’s private bathroom and exchanged the bottles sitting on the sink with the ones in his hands. Then Erik reached into his bag and pulled out black paint and painted the Vicomte’s mirror black and then wrote in silver paint: O.G. watches then he replaced all the fop’s clothes with ball gowns.

Paige snuck up next to the sleeping Vicomte and carefully uncapped the glue paste and brushed some on him, careful not to wake him. Erik snuck up next to Paige and said “Ready?” Paige nodded and they unlatched the cages and dumped four chickens on the sleeping Vicomte and then ran for their lives back to the secret door in the wall. To both Erik and Paige's surprise, nothing happened. Erik peered out the peep-hole and covered his mouth to keep from laughing at the sight of Raoul curled up with four chickens sleeping on him. Erik motioned for Paige to look at the outrageous sight. “We’ll have to stay here for the night, so we don’t miss him in the morning.” Erik whispered. Paige nodded again and Erik took off his cape and wrapped it around Paige. As hard as they both tried to stay awake, neither of them could stop their eyelids from drooping and slowly sliding shut…

The phantom and the girl woke to the sound of shrieking from the other side of the wall. Paige was up first, peering outside and watching Raoul jumping around, trying to get chicken feathers off of him. The chickens themselves had scattered, sitting atop various pieces of furniture and staring at Raoul. He stumbled into the bathroom, muttering to himself and Paige grabbed Erik’s hand and pulled him to box five, so they could watch the rest of it unfold.

“When I get my hands on that maddening ghost, I swear I’ll wring his neck!” they heard Raoul long before they could see him. The cast of the opera house stared at the fop with wide eyes, trying (and failing) at trying not to laugh at him. Raoul stood at the center of the opera house, hands on his hips, trying to look dignified. He was wearing a puffy, lacy, pink silk dress, which ironically matched his hair that was also bright pink.

“Stay here.” Erik whispered in Paige’s ear as he left her side.

“Um… the dress is quite… er… flattering…” one of the managers stuttered. “but why…?”

“The Phantom switched my normal clothes with dresses!” the patron whined.

“Why didn’t you just wear your night clothes?” one of the ballerinas asked, snickering.

Raoul blushed and said “Look what he has done to my room!” the whole company followed him and Paige raced back too. She met Erik in the passage, sitting with a chicken on his head.

“Erik…?” she said giggling as she looked at him.

“Not a word.” He growled. “Chickens are difficult to round up.”

Paige chuckled to herself as she peered into Raoul’s chamber, gasping as she saw everything was back to its original state. Raoul opened the door and gaped at the now clean room. “But… but…” he stuttered. The rest of the crew looked around for anything out of place, but found nothing. Even the mirror was clean!