𝐏𝐄𝐑𝐅𝐄𝐂𝐓 𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐘 ― r. bowen ¹ ✓

019

Nini nodded. "Got it. Yeah, of course."

"Ricky?"

The boy was too preoccupied with his phone. Athena rolled her eyes slightly and elbowed him in the ribs. He jumped in surprise and looked down at her with an incredulous expression. She nodded her head urgently to Miss Jenn.

"Huh?" Ricky stammered. "Sorry. After school in the cafeteria. Got it."

Athena sighed. Everyone had worked so hard for this musical, and now it was just . . . gone. She could only hope that they could somehow salvage it.

--- ☆ • ♫ • ♪ • ♫ • ☆ ---

AFTER SCHOOL, ATHENA sat in the cafeteria with everyone else. Her head was resting comfortably on Ricky's shoulder and her eyes flickered around the room, watching as all of her friends conversed nervously. As the seconds went by, Athena could feel herself begin to get more anxious.

Ricky wasn't any better, since his knee kept bouncing up and down. She placed her hand on it and gave him the smallest of smiles when he looked down at her. Ricky smiled back softly and kissed her forehead quickly, making butterflies erupt in her stomach.

"Okay, guys!" Miss Jenn began, clapping her hands to gain their attention. "Wait, where's Gina?"

"I think she's going through a family thing right now," Ashlyn answered, and everyone began to sit down.

"Okay, prayers to our Gina. I'm really not sure what to say. You've all worked so hard. I've seen all of you grow so much. But if we don't have a theater, we don't have a show."

Everyone began to chatter amongst themselves about how they didn't want that to happen. Athena sighed and raised her head up from Ricky's shoulder. She felt a hand squeeze her shoulder, and Athena looked back to see it was Violetta from her place on top of the table. Athena shook her head sadly at her best friend.

"Come on, Miss Jenn, we've gotta do something," Carlos argued.

"I think we . . ." Miss Jenn trailed off. "I don't know, I guess we could consider other venues?"

"Oh, oh, what about the old Kingston downtown?" Ashlyn suggested.

"It's condemned."

"The Lucky Ducky Puppet Pavilion?" EJ asked.

"It's a massive Starbucks now."

"How about the El Rey?" Carlos finally voiced.

Athena pointed to him in agreement, along with everyone else. That could work.

Miss Jenn, however, was not really on board. "Any other ideas?"

"Miss Jenn, I feel like you just had a really weird reaction to what I just said," Carlos told her.

"Sorry, what did you say?"

"Carlos is asking if we can try and use the El Rey Theater," Nini explained.

He stood up. "My Uncle Ruben is the listing agent, and the last thing they had in there was a fashion show, like, four years ago."

Carlos then walked off, presumably to call his Uncle. Athena watched after him with a small smile growing on her face. She had a great feeling that this was the way the show would go on.

"This place has five hundred seats!" Seb exclaimed.

Immediately, all of them gathered around him as he showed his phone screen. He was right. The place was huge and had a lot of seats. Perfect for a musical like theirs.