Greased Lightning! (Thief!)

Chapter 1

"No! Are you kidding me? Absolutely not!" I protested standing up out of my chair. I was sitting in Mrs. Pravi's, Goode High School drama teacher, office across from her with her large colorfully painted desk. She had a colorful look and personality. Her insanely curly hair was always tied up or braided down, and was a mix of brown and white. Wearing a tie-dyed sweater cardigan thing and giant hoop earrings, she looked like she didn't look like she belonged in this century. I never really talked to her unless she caught me breaking the rules. And when that happened she could be incredibly horrifying. I never thought I would break her but it seems like today's the day. I never thought Mrs. Pravi would give a punishment this insane. Coach Hedge beside me was also in a complete outrage.

"Alison, we need our star player completely focused or-"

"Or I could just get our principal and see how she feels about what this, this troublemaker, did!" She snapped.

"Alison-"

"I'm just trying to do you a favor, really. Or we could just let him get suspended and not be able to play football this season. Your choice." She shrugged. Coach Hedge threw his hands up and exclaimed,

"You can't expect my star to do this stupid-"

"I'm sorry. What?" Mrs. Pravi tilted her head and squinted at him. I've seen this look only once when she caught me and my girlfriend, Drew, making out in the janitor's closet. Coach just woke the beast. But he wasn't going to stop there. He had guts.

"Why would he want to do your stupid play? He doesn't belong there!" Silence answered him for maybe 30 seconds. One of the longest thirty seconds of my life. She started slowly.

"First, I make it a personal goal to make sure every single student in my theatre department feels accepted and welcomed. I'm sure you wouldn't understand because your football team is full of handpicked jocks that, might I add, probably joke about how short you are behind your back. You treat children like machines! And secondly, I will not take any crap from you in my office. Is that clear?" I could hear my coach swallow from three feet away. I was kind of surprised on how much truth was in Mrs. Pravi's monologue. We did talk behind his back. He was a great coach and everything, but the team pretty much hated him. He was a short, rounder guy with a mop of brown hair under his baseball cap and a curly mustache and goatee. Even though he was like 4'5, Coach Hedge looked like a guy that could beat you to a pulp if you tried to mess with him. To see him here, scared of Mrs. Pravi, man, I should videoed it!

"What do you want him to do, anyway? That singing and dancing nonsense?"

"I want him to try out for our school's musical. We need more people. There's only eight people for the performance of Grease! There has to be more auditions." She explained. Coach sighed.

"And this won't mess with his football schedule?" He mumbled, annoyed.

"We'll work around it."

"Fine, then." Those two words finally snapped me out of listening to them and made me actually say something.

"Coach, come on, please don't make me do this! I can't sing or dance or act or whatever. Please I gotta focus on the game." I was completely bewildered. Utterly shocked. However else you can say that.

"Kid, it's either musical or suspension." I ran my hands through my hair.

"Auditions are over but you can audition for me during your lunch study. If you aren't there, I will come into the lunchroom drag you out to the parking lot. Understood?" All I could do was nod. This was going to suck.

Auditions were... Not what I was expecting. I walked into room 108, a room I've never thought I'd step foot in and was surprised to see the a mini stage in the front of the room. A bunch of chairs were facing the stage, no desks, and even a couple of beanbags scattered around. The back wall was painted all over, with murals and hand prints and encouraging posters. From the ceiling, little construction paper stars were hanging off of invisible threads with names scribbled across them. Hazel, LEO, Jason, and a bunch others uniquely decorated names glimmered off them like actual stars. There was a bookshelf, table and spinny chair on the left of the stage. On the table was a gumball machine, a giant panda pillow pet, and some cookies. This room was the most unlike-a-classroom room I've ever seen. Mrs. Pravi walked in a few seconds after I did.

"All ready to audition?" She smiled at me. Woah, a smile. What is this place?

"Um, actually, I'm, uh, not sure what to do." I stuttered. Pull yourself together, Percy. Why were my hands sweaty and my knees shaking? I was more nervous than I was before football against the Titans.

"Oh, dear, there's no need to be nervous. Take this." Some sheet music and a page of the script. "Here come up on stage."

I shuffled onto the platform and she went back to the last row of chairs.

"Take a deep breath. Now, what do you know about Grease?" I actually knew a lot about Grease. It was my mom's favorite movie and whenever we had movie nights it would always be her pick. We'd always dance around and sing at the top of our lungs. I knew the music by heart. But to answer her I just shrugged and replied nonchalantly,

"I know a few of the songs, I guess." She nodded and kept going,

"Do you know that song?" I looked down at the paper. I almost laughed. How could I not know Sandy? It was a classic. I shook my head, yes.

"You may begin the song then." She instructed. I never really sang much, only in the shower or on movie night with my mom. Singing wasn't something I ever thought about. But I must've done okay, because the next day my name was typed on the tip top of the cast list.