A Shot in the Shadows

Article Number One

One of the first things Paige notices when she passes by the cafeteria between classes is that there are little kids in her high school.

During her tech theater class, someone tells her that choir is collaborating with the nearby middle school to provide more in-depth lessons for the kids.

Paige is very upset that she didn't have the same thing when she was in middle school.

"It's not fair," she whispers, trying to keep her hold on the boxes of lightbulbs she'd been tasked to bring to the lighting crew.

"Deal," her friend hisses back.

They get yelled at.

Paige scurries off to deliver the goods, and then finds a quiet corner in one of the empty dressing rooms to read her new script. She's sure that no one will miss her: her class is all caught up and actually ahead on their lesson plan, and so they're spending the time fixing things up around the theater.

Paige reads... and reads... and reads... She's had the script for ages and by now, she'd have highlighted all her lines and gone through the sheet music at least once. But with this script... Paige isn't even three quarters done yet. And that's because its really good.

It takes Paige about two minutes to read one page, and that's only because she feels compelled to reread every line several times to get all of it in her head. It's a captivating story, so far, and Paige is marveling at it. She hasn't focused so much on Nikki's lines yet (she'll leave that for Annie to sort out first), but even just a glimpse of her ensemble lines... the best way to express how Paige feels is I can't even like what?

There's some sort of mastery in there, because even all the small minor roles that don't seem to be needed at first glance actually serve a purpose, and they're all amusing too. It helps that Paige isn't even done yet and the dead body count is already up to two.

That's all Paige has time to consider before her teacher finds her curled up under the dressing room table and sends her to organize all the accumulated objects in the costume shop by shade and color.

Paige manages to work her way through most of the script in advisory, and that's when she's drawn back into the real world by the teacher calling her name.

"Yes?" Paige says, looking up briefly to see her teacher standing by the phone.

"Your counsellor wants to see you," says the educator. "Grade-level office."

"Okay," Paige replies, sighing inwardly as she closes her script. "Should I take my stuff?"

"Yeah, sure," the teacher says. "Oh, Cameron, you're needed down there too."

Paige looks over at Cameron: honestly, there are too many people from her theater in her school that are only vaguely familiar to her, and that's a problem Paige feels she should fix but at the same time, she doesn't really want to.

She doesn't wait for him, but Cameron's two steps behind her anyway as they make their way to the office.

It's immediately clear where they need to be: clustered around one of the receptionist's tables are Annie, Riley, that girl who always wears the big sweaters but whose name Paige can't remember, Lucy, Zachary and Flynn.

Paige doesn't need to use any brainpower to guess what this is about.

Annie tugs at Paige's shirt. "Have you been reading Nikki's lines?" she asks.

"A bit," Paige whispers back.

"It's interesting," Annie says. "She reminds me a bit of Natalie Goodman, but more... more..."