Child Soap Opera

CHAPTER XIV- la notte de spettacolo un Nixon (The Night of the Nixon Show II)

Rex was really proud of herself. Like, really proud. Andi had off-handedly mentioned that she was in some show. Something about Nixon. She didn't really invite Rex, but Rex heard Andi say that and thought to herself- Hey. That's my daughter. I am going to her show. So she went to the school, bought herself two front row seats (one for her and one for Towie, who came from LA to see the show with her) and sat there, proud of herself for being such a good parent. Sure, she was aware her daughter had disappeared a couple days earlier and wouldn't be at the show, but she figured it was the thought that counted.

  And then chaos broke loose.

  After the announcement, everybody in the audience got up to try and leave. They ran to the doors of the school and shook them, only find they were locked from the outside. They tried to escape through the ceiling, but it was shrink-wrapped from the outside. There was no escape for the audience.

  "What's going on?" asked Towie fearfully as he tried to cut through the shrink wrapped ceiling with his chair.

  "I don't know," said Rex as she noticed a cloaked figure running to the backstage area. "But I'm about to find out."

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Backstage, it was madness. After the announcement and the realization that they were trapped in the school, the apocalypse occurred. There was fire everywhere. Somebody started it but nobody bothered to put it out. Kids were crying and there was somebody huddled in a ball in every corner. Jona was trying to help as he ran around, dragging kids from the fire and pulling them out of corners. After all, he felt that, in some small way, this was his fault. After he received that note, he could've warned people that perhaps they should try to leave. That maybe they weren't safe. Instead, he got smooched by CJ and probably caused a rift between he and Walter. Jona was looking for Walter while helping kids, but he couldn't find him anywhere.

  Jona peered through the stage door into the hallways of the school to see if Walter was out there, only find it was surprisingly empty. Why was nobody in the hallway? He was about to leave when he noticed somebody wearing a large cloak rattling the doors. He gasped. Somebody had locked everybody in the auditorium! After some quick 14-minute deduction he figured this was probably the same person who made the announcement and locked everybody in the school! He pushed open the door and charged at the cloaked person with fury only to receive a swift punch to the gut.

  "Ouchie," was all Jona could mutter before he crumpled to the floor. The cloaked figure peered over him. Suddenly, they gasped. Before Jona could do anything else he was grabbed by his ankle and dragged into the custodian's closet. A light switch was flicked on, finally giving Jona a good look at who was in the cloak.

  "Pupil?" he mumbled, fading in and out of consciousness. No matter how much he would deny this fact, Jona was a weak little boy, and the one fist to the tummy nearly killed him.

  Pupil covered Jona's mouth. "Shut up, Jona! You almost blew my cover!"

  "What cover?" he grumbled. "And why do you look like a crab?" That punch really messed him up.

  "Jona, nobody can know I'm out here. I just escaped from the basement of the school and I am not about ready to get got by the Cloaked Man and taken back."

  "Cloaked Man?" Jona was only hearing every other-other word said by Pupil, and Cloaked-Man stuck out.

"Trust me, I've had a crazy couple days. Now come on, I've got to get those people out of the auditorium before something bad happens."

  Pupil opened up the door to see Rex holding a chair, about to strike.

  "Rex, what are you doing here?" cried out Pupil. Rex, seeing it was Pupil she was about to murder, put down the chair. "What are you doing here?" asked Rex.