[1X25]
I do not own any characters/plot from this show apart from my own!
{The A-Troupe dancers finally get to relax and just be themselves when Kate and Chris reward their hard work for Regionals with a pizza party.}
❝I actually would like to watch Mamma Mia... What? The movie is a classic!❞
The familiar sound of upbeat music rang through studio A as the eleven dancers performed their perfectly crafted routine in preparation for regionals. For weeks now the troupe had been practising relentlessly to get the steps just right, and Kate and Chris had seemed to notice.
"I think the new routine is amazing," Eldon told the camera with a smile, "I think it's the best thing we've done."
Emily continued as she went on to describe, "So many intricate moves and different styles. It feels like it's kind of a projection of everybody in The Next Step."
"It just shows how much we've progressed since the start of the dance season," Maxie added.
Soon enough, the music came to an end and the dancers all let out comments about how great their run-through had just gone.
"That was great, you guys," Emily announced, "I love the energy! You know what? Let's go home early tonight, okay?"
At that, the teens applauded, obviously over the moon about getting home and relaxing for the rest of the day.
Chloe grinned, "I can't believe Emily's letting us go early. This is not like her at all."
"This is utter madness," Maxie claimed, "I have never seen Emily this laid-back with her dance captaincy before, I feel like I'm dreaming."
"We've worked really hard and we've come so far as a team," Emily explained.
As the dancers whooped and cheered, walking to grab their bags, Chris and Kate emerged from the office, "Hey, hey, hey! Where do you guys think you're going, huh?" the woman called out expectantly, a knowing smirk on her face.
"Home?" someone told her unsurely.
"Well, yeah, they did really amazing and the energy was great," Emily confirmed, stepping forward, "So we decided to maybe..."
Kate cut her off, mimicking the blonde's lighthearted voice, "Oh, they did amazing and the energy was great."
"Energy was great" Chris echoed.
Maxie cringed, "I hope they're not trying to be sarcastic right now because it's a bit sad. I mean, at their age? Leave it to the youth."
Emily held the same expression as she spoke, "I'm a little shocked, I mean, they've never intervened in what Michelle and I say before, so why now?"
Continuing, Kate held her hand to her chin as she said, "Yeah, no, we're not done here."
"What?" almost every dancer groaned, looks of shock and confusion on their faces.
The studio heads shared a look between them before Chris whipped his head around and exclaimed, "Joking! We just kind of want to have a fun night."
"Yeah," Kate iterated excitedly, "We're going to hang out as friends, not just team-mates."
As the others cheered yet again, Maxie furrowed her brows, "Really? I was under the impression James had no friends," she joked, making everyone burst into laughter, bar James, who stood with a sour expression on his face, before he, too, broke into chuckles.
"I think it'll be a good thing, y'know," Maxie told the camera, "Yay go team bonding!" she cheered jokingly punching her fist in the air.
It was evening, and Maxie was sat on her bed trying to decide what to wear.
"Are you ready yet, Max, I'm about to start the car!" her mother yelled, the sound of keys unlocking the front door following afterwards.
Snapping her head in the direction of the door, she yelled back, "Uh, yeah, be right there!"
She snatched the oversized Liverpool FC t-shirt from her wardrobe and threw it on along with a pair of baggy joggers, not really caring about her appearance now that she was on a time-restricted schedule.
Not even double-checking as to what they were, she hurriedly pulled a pair of trainers on before dashing out the door, not forgetting to lock it behind her.
They got to the studio in record time as Maxie met Eldon and James just as she was walking in.
"Hey, everybody!" West called out, strutting into the studio in his pyjamas, "Let's have some fun."
Max and James shared an amused look upon seeing their friend, whilst the other dancers just looked at the boy in shock.
"West?" Emily deadpanned, "Are these your pyjamas?"
Putting on a cocky persona, he smirked, "Well, if you may know, yes, they are my pyjamas, and Kate told us to get comfortable, so..." he concluded, gesturing to Kate who had just walked over.
"Only you would turn a get-together into a pyjama party, West," Maxie chuckled with the shake of her head.
West met her eyes as he shot back, "Oh, you know you love me, Max."
"Whatever helps you sleep at night," she grinned back, pulling on the collar of his nightgown, "Especially since you're sleeping in this," making the others chuckle at the interaction.
"I always keep an extra pair of pyjamas in my duffle bag," he told the camera with a wink, "You never know when a surprise pyjama party's going to break out. No matter how much Max will deny it, it's an ingenious idea."
James tutted, looking at Maxie's choice of t-shirt, "Don't even get me started on what you're wearing. What even is that? Liverpool effs cee."
"Liverpool FC," Maxie stopped him, offended at his horrid pronunciation attempt, giving a little twirl to show off the shirt, "Is the best football team around."
"You mean soccer," Stephanie tried to correct, however, was met with Max's disapproving face.
Shaking her head in shock, the British girl responded, "No, Stephanie, not soccer. Soccer is a child's game. Football, proper British football, is for adults."
"I fear my mum may have moved us to the wrong country," Max muttered, scratching the back of her neck, "What even is soccer? And don't get me started on American 'football'," she said using her fingers to quote the word, "It's literally a dumbed-down version of rugby. Seriously, get your best American football squad and even they'd be scared of the New Zealand rugby team."
"Yeah, whatever you say, Queen Elizabeth," James chuckled along with the others as Kate clapped her hands together.
"Hey, are you guys ready to have some fun?" the woman began, a big grin plastered on her face, to which the others cheered, "Okay, let's play Machine."
James began, "Machine is basically just, like, an improv game."
Tiffany continued, "You get to make sounds and you get to move and be parts in the machine."
"I have never played this game before," Maxie stated confusedly, "Sounds like a game people in the back of Sainsbury's would play."
After she had explained to Maxie just what the game rules were, Kate turned to the group, "We're making a koala pyjama pant making machine."
"You what?" Max asked, clearly confused on why they would be making pants until she realised - they meant trousers, as in pyjama trousers, not knickers.
Michelle was the first to step up as she rushed forward, lifting her right leg and left arm up continuously as she made a 'machine' noise. After her, Emily then stepped up, making circles with her arms as she made some sort of train noise. Soon enough, each dancer got involved, even Maxie who acted as some conveyor belt sort of thing next to Giselle.
Soon enough, they all finished whilst Kate gave them a round of applause, "Amazing! That is a serious machine!"
The dancers all gathered back into a huddle around the woman, glad that they had all loosened up and were finally enjoying themselves.
"Okay," Kate drew their attention back in once again, "Now that we're all warmed up and we're good to go, eat up, have some fun. Enjoy your night!" she grinned, gesturing to the snacks table before heading back into the office.
Poor Maxie had hardly even taken a handful of popcorn before Tiffany spoke up, "Alright, guys, come on, I think we should play truth or dare."
"Shmoo shme eely mafe toh," Maxie uttered, everyone turning to her confusedly, only to see her mouth full of salted popcorn, making them all burst into laughter.
Realising what she had done, the girl held her index finger up to tell them to wait as she spent a good minute eating all the pieces in her mouth, wanting to savour every last one without choking at the same time.
Swallowing, at last, she repeated, "Do we really have to? I mean, as much as I like the game, I like food more."
"Maybe you're just scared," West announced with a smirk, making the others ooh.
"I am not scared of a truth or dare game," she shot back, narrowing her eyes competitively.
Maxie scowled, "I don't know who West thinks he is, but just because he's wearing pyjamas doesn't mean he's in charge here," she deadpanned, before breaking into laughter, obviously unable to take it seriously.
"Prove it," he shrugged, "Truth or dare."
The rest of the dancers looked on in excitement that the game had started as she answered, "Dare."
"I've got one!" Riley announced pulling the attention to her, "Propose to someone in the room in the most romantic way possible."
Max's eyes widened, looking around the room to try and see who she could propose to before finally picking out her unlucky victim. Grabbing an onion ring from the snack bowl, she stepped over to Giselle; the two girls looking at each other dead in the eyes before bursting into laughter about the situation.
"When Max grabbed the onion ring with such a determined face, I just couldn't take it seriously anymore," James admitted, still wiping away the tears of laughter.
Getting down on one knee and holding the onion ring up proudly, Maxie began her romantic speech, "Giselle, whatever your surname is," she said, making the troupe, including Giselle herself, double over in laughter, "Ever since I have known you, you've blown me away with your Princess Merida-style hair and your weird spider-ish dance moves. You are probably the only person on this troupe I could tolerate enough to marry, so would you do me the honour of accepting my edible proposal?"
Trying to hold in a laugh of her own, Giselle nodded, "It would be my pleasure," she told the girl before putting the onion ring on her finger. At that point, she couldn't contain it anymore as she burst into her signature boat-horn sounding laughter, which made the others crack up even more.
Giselle proudly showed the camera her 'engagement ring' as she said, "First ever proposal and I have to say, it's very delicious," the girl stated before taking a bite into her ring.
Getting back onto her feet and moving back to her original position, Maxie turned to West smugly, "How's that for scared?"
"Fair enough," he admitted defeat, throwing his hands in the air in mock surrender with a chuckle.
"Okay, then, West, truth or dare?" Max continued, anticipation evident in her tone.
"Truth," he announced after a moment of deliberating it.
The group stood in thought of what to ask him before Riley spoke up with another idea, "Ooh, I got a good one. What's your biggest secret?"
"My biggest secret?"
"Yup."
He took a moment before stating, "Well, I witnessed a bank robbery before," as if it was nothing.
As the group looked at him confusedly, Maxie held up her hand, "Hey, same," which he then high fived her.
James scoffed, "Okay, first of all, what? Second of all, Max, I probably don't wanna know-"
"You don't."
"And third of all, West, what?"
The boy went on to elaborate, "Yeah, I actually followed him, and I know where he hid the money," West stated, yet again, as if it was nothing, "But it was a couple years ago, so I don't know if it'll still be there."
Whilst everyone else, bar Maxie, were all still in shock, West clapped his hands together, "Okay. So, my turn! Mm, Stephanie, truth or dare?"
Folding her arms over her chest, the girl responded, "Dare."
"I think it's always safer to pick dare," Stephanie told the camera.
Without missing a beat, West responded, "I double-dog dare you to go into the juice bar and use Tiffany as your hands and order some drinks for everybody."
"As your hands?" Tiffany asked, a little confused, "What do you mean?"
"I say we all go," Michelle announced.
"Let's all go!" somebody else cheered as they all followed West down to the juice bar, Maxie and James grabbing another handful of snacks as they did so.
As the troupe all arrived down at the juice bae, West looked back to Tiffany and Stephanie, "Do what I told you guys to do," he began, ushering them to get into position, "Go, put your arms back, yes. All right, now let's go."
With Tiffany's arms securely looped through Stephanie's the two girls made their way over to the counter, followed by the rest of A-Troupe who were trying to cover their laughter as to not make a scene.
The woman working at the juice bar almost immediately knew what was going, having had to deal with A-Troupe's antics for quite some time now, just as Tiffany thought it was a good idea to put some lipstick on.
Opening Stephanie's blue purse, the girl pulled out the makeup item and went on to smear it all over the lower half of her face whilst the rest of their friends egged them on.
"Yeah! Over there in the corner!"
"A bit to the right."
"Right there. Yeah, that's perfect."
"Yeah! Get it all over there!"
"This is the funniest thing I have ever seen," West told the camera with a smile.
Maxie struggled to hold in her laugh as she explained, "I would hate to be Stephanie right now, I mean, there is lipstick all over her face."
Soon enough, the drinks had been ordered and the troupe were all walking back into the studio to see Miss Kate stood in front of a large TV screen.
"Guess what? Movie time!" she grinned, making the dancers smile in excitement, "Okay, this is what I've got - I have action-adventure, I've got horror, I've got rom-com..."
At that, Emily, Giselle and Chloe all cheered for the rom-com genre.
"I personally want to watch a romantic comedy," Emily smiled, talking to the camera.
Tiffany disagreed as she spoke, "I want to watch a horror movie."
James shrugged, "I'd like an action or maybe even a comedy."
"I actually would like to watch Mamma Mia," Maxie spoke, "What? The movie is a classic."
To stop the group from breaking into an argument, Kate told them, "This is what we're going to do, we're going to have a competition. So whoever can show me the best dance move gets to choose the movie."
"West first, here we go."
As each dancer stepped up to perform their move, Miss Kate seemed increasingly impressed with each one and, by the end, she seemed like she was having a hard time choosing.
In the end, Kate ended up choosing James for his impressive spin-on-one-hand trick.
"Okay, James, what do you wanna watch?" she asked the, very pleased with himself, boy.
"Um," he began, looking around the room, "Definitely not a romantic comedy," which made the girls scoff, "But I don't really care, so you can choose, Riley."
The whole group 'awwed' at the romantic moment as James mocked grinning like a small child as Riley contemplated her choice, "Ooh, Touchdowns and Tutus."
Everyone seemed to agree with her as they exclaimed how much they enjoyed the movie.
Riley explained, "Touchdowns and Tutus is an exquisite movie about a bunch of football players finding the inner beauty of football through ballet."
"I mean, it's not musical excellence, but it'll do for tonight," Maxie shrugged, her face spreading into a grin as she joked.
West continued, "My favourite part of Touchdowns and Tutus is when two football players have to drag a boat up the Amazon River."
Michelle elaborated, "One of the players runs so fast that he goes through a time warp."
"Magically gets turned into a dog and all of the football players have to come together and go rescue the football player from the dog pound," Stephanie said.
"But, then they end up digging this really big tunnel," Riley added, "and they find this box of old football plays from, like, the 1800s, and it's so cute cos it's where they share their first kiss and they fall in love."
Maxie furrowed her brows, "It definitely went off the plot, like a lot. I mean, Inception made more sense than this movie."
As the movie came to a close, James smiled, "That's just great," as the others burst into applause.
Out of nowhere, Tiffany spoke up again, "All right, guys, I think we should play Truth or Dare again. Cos only me, Steph, Max and West got to go last time."
"All right," the others agreed.
"Okay, I dare James to kiss Riley," Tiffany began, smirking over at the pair.
Emily frowned, "No. No. I don't want to see that."
Without a second thought, James shrugged, "That's easy," before pulling Riley in for a short, but sweet, kiss on the lips which simultaneously made Emily gag.
"Emily, truth or dare?" James then asked after the group had become silent.
"Dare," she shot back confidently.
"I've played Truth or Dare a lot before," the blonde told the camera, "and I know it's always safest to pick dare."
James smirked, a mischievous look in his eye as he announced, "I dare Emily to do the Saltine Cracker Challenge."
"The Saltine Cracker Challenge is when you have to eat six crackers in less than one minute," James told the camera, "I only know one person who's ever managed it."
Maxie smiled proudly as she said, "My mum. My mum managed to eat all six in forty-five seconds."
"I'm not doing that," Emily backed up, regretting her decision.
Stephanie shrugged, "You have to do what you're dared."
"No. No, that is ridiculous."
After a few moments of arguments, most of the troupe began chanting for her to do it.
"Fine! Fine! I'll do it," she surrendered just as everyone began getting louder in their chants.
Soon enough, West was placing crackers into Eldon's hand to give to Emily in preparation.
"All right, you've got one minute," James reminded her before turning to Maxie, "Time."
Maxie rolled her sleeve up, completely forgetting she had left her watch at home until Stephanie commented, "You don't have a watch on, Max."
Grabbing Maxie's wrist, West deadpanned, "You don't see her invisible watch right there?"
"Yeah, Stephanie, advanced technology and that."
"All right," James sighed, chuckling at the pair's antics as he told Emily to go.
Max then began counting the seconds in her head as Emily struggled to down the crackers; spewing crumbs here, there and everywhere as she did so.
Once she was done, Riley spoke up, "It's your turn, Em."
"Michelle, you haven't gone yet," she addressed her co-captain, "Truth or dare?"
"Truth, after that," she joked, making the others laugh, not sure if they wanted to see someone fail hilariously at the challenge again.
Emily grinned, laughing along with the others as she responded, "Fine. Out of all of the guys in A-Troupe, who would you want to date most?"
Everyone turned to the blonde intrigued, as she herself looked torn, obviously not wanting to outright say who she liked.
"Michelle has never actually told me how she feels about me," Eldon told the camera, "If she says he likes me, then that tears the team apart. And if she says she likes someone else, then that'll tear me apart. Either way, this is not going to end well."
Emily shrugged, "I asked Michelle who she likes because she's new, I don't really know her that well, and I kinda wanna know."
Giving Eldon some sort of reassuring look, Michelle sighed, "Um... West."
The rest of the group 'ooh' in teasing as they watch the pair.
Maxie couldn't help but feel weird about Michelle liking West, she didn't know why. I mean, she herself didn't like him and there was no reason why Michelle couldn't. So why did it not settle right with her?
West laughs, obviously wanting to have some fun out of the conversation as he scooches Chloe over to sit next to Michelle, throwing an arm around her shoulder in mock protectiveness before they both broke into laughter once again.
A little while after the Truth or Dare game, the dancers were just mingling, not really sure what to do next as Emily asked, "So, what does everyone feel like doing next?"
"Eating," Tiffany told her, folding her arms across her chest.
"Oh, so now you want to eat-" Maxie began with a huff, before being cut off by the others speaking about how they were starving.
Emily shrugged, looking around the room as she asked, "Um, what about pizza?" to which everybody else agreed.
West, on the other hand, stepped in, "I was thinking maybe we can tell some ghost stories," pulling out a torch and holding it under his face.
"But everyone is hungry," Emily protested, making James sigh.
"Tell you what, boys versus girls, whoever gets the most scared buys the pizza," he suggested, knowing just how competitive Emily was when it came to those things.
Stepping forward, the blonde sassed, "Oh, it's on," whilst someone else called to cut out the lights.
"The idea of ghost stories is really good because there is no way the girls can beat the guys at telling scary stories," Eldon told the camera a little too smugly.
Maxie rolled her eyes, "I hope the boys are ready, 'cause there's no way I'm losing this one."
Stephanie began, holding the torch under her face as she spoke, "Okay, so one night, a couple was driving down a dirt road and they had just heard on the news that a person had escaped from the mental asylum and he had a hook for a hand."
Michelle grinned, "I definitely think the girls can win this competition because Stephanie's story is really good."
"All of the sudden, like, the boyfriend doesn't come back," she continued in a spooky voice, "So the girl gets out of the car and, just as she's about to look up..."
"The boyfriend's hanging from the tree and he's scraping across the roof," West interrupted, finishing her story as if he already knew what was coming.
The girls groaned as the boys droned on about hearing it all before.
"Everybody's heard Stephanie's ghost story before," Eldon deadpanned.
"All right, all right," Maxie shushed the groaning boys as she spoke, "I've got one."
James folded his arms in challenge, "Go on then."
"I will," she smiled back before placing the torch under her chin and beginning, "Back in the day, I had a friend named Jenny. Innocent, unsuspecting Jenny. She didn't speak much; there wasn't a lot she had to say. At most, she would mutter a mere apology if she got in the way, or did something wrong. The kids at school used to laugh and joke around about how she may as well just be mute, she may as well have just been born without the ability to speak at all. It was a passing comment they would make in the hallways or a during a lesson, a comment she would laugh along with them about, accepting that she was just the butt of their petty joke. What she didn't realise, however, was that what those kids were saying weren't just jokes."
Maxie took a dramatic pause, dropping her voice a few octaves lower before continuing, "She didn't realise when she got a call, telling her to meet them in the woods. She didn't realise when they shoved her to the ground, her back hitting the fallen Autumn leaves. She didn't realise when they held her arms and legs down, trying to still her thrashing figure. No... Innocent, unsuspecting Jenny only realised that they weren't joking at all when the needle made the first puncture above her upper lip, the thread attached sealing her mouth shut. She tried her hardest to scream for help. But innocent, unsuspecting Jenny was too late."
She bit her lip in excitement, only then looking back around the group to see their looks of pure shock and terror, they all looked like they had just seen a ghost as the blood drained from their faces and their eyes were fixed wide open.
"You guys look like you've wet yourselves," she chuckled, breaking the lingering silence.
"Flipping hell, Max," James finally spoke up, "Where did that come from?"
Shrugging nonchalantly, the girl simply stated, "I made it up, isn't it good?" as if she hadn't just terrified the wits out of her troupe.
"Made it up?!" Emily exclaimed, "You made it up?! That was the most terrifying thing I've heard in my life!"
Maxie smirked, seeing how terrified the boys were at her story she knew there was no way they'd win now, "Well, it's a good job the girls have won then isn't it?"
That seemed to snap James out of his daze as he retorted, "Actually, no, 'cause we haven't had our turn yet. West you got this?"
Slowly, each member of A-Troupe regained their composure, the shock of Maxie's story finally wearing off as they turned to the boy.
"Yeah, yeah, I got this," West nodded, prepping to get his story ready as James left his seat.
"James, where are you going?" Riley asked confusedly as her boyfriend began to head out.
The boy simply shrugged, "To get more snacks."
"We're getting pizza," she reminded him obviously.
James scoffed, his mouth hanging open as he shot back, "I'm a growing boy, I want some real snacks."
Soon enough, James had exited the room and was replaced by Kate, who was just as eager to hear West's story, for she had overheard Max's earlier. Maxie herself knew something was up.
"Real snacks my ass," she muttered to herself before standing up, "I'm going to the ladies room," she excused herself before dashing off in the same direction as James.
It wasn't hard to find the boy, as he left a lingering smell of shawarma and body odour wherever he went, which wasn't a nice smell for Max to follow, in her opinion. However, her search came to an end as she walked into the dressing room just on time to see James place a large pigeon head on top of an even larger costume.
"OH MY GOD!" she screamed, flashbacks of pigeon-gate coming back just as James whipped around.
"OH MY GOD!" he squealed back, probably more scared than Maxie, for he believed he was on his own in there.
Taking a few moments to calm themselves down, the pair locked eyes again and gave each other incredulous looks.
"What are you doing here?" he asked her, removing the bird head and placing it under his arm.
"What am I doing here? I could ask you the same thing, pigeon man," she retorted, her gaze flicking between James's sheepish look and his ridiculous outfit.
Holding his arms, and the pigeon head, up in mock surrender, James defended, "Alright, alright, you caught me, Sherlock Harding, it's a part of West's ghost story. I didn't know how the boys were gonna top yours so I decided to spice ours up with a little jumpscare, too."
"My God, the lengths you go to win," she scoffed to herself.
"So, uh, this is my cue," he continued, trying to manoeuvre around the girl the best he could in his large costume.
Nodding slowly, she muttered, "Right, right, have fun with that."
"Oh, I will," he smirked before jogging back in the direction of the studio.
"I think the boys' plan to scare us is pathetic, to say the least," Maxie told the camera with a shrug, "I mean, are you that bad at telling ghost stories that you have to resort to costumes, too?"
Not even a few minutes later, Maxie made her way back to find Riley hyperventilating, whilst James high-fived the boys, seemingly proud of himself.
"Max," Michelle greeted her as she walked into the studio, "You missed it. James..."
"Ran in wearing a pigeon-chicken outfit?" the girl finished for her before chuckling, "Yeah, I think I'm glad I missed it," making Michelle laugh, too.
The pair of them walked back over to the group to hear Emily say, "You know, you guys really know how to take things too far," she told the boys before running off after Riley.
Completely ignoring the fact his girlfriend had run off, James grinned smugly, "I believe you guys owe us some pizza," making the remaining girls roll their eyes, "With extra chicken!"
"I like Hawaiian, so thanks," West called out after them as they followed Kate to go and order the pizza.
"We are totally going to get them back for this," Emily told the camera.
It had been fifteen minutes since the chicken incident and the girls had just taken the pizza boxes from the delivery guy, Emily paying him before he left.
"Giselle, go distract them," she told her friend just as she was closing the door.
The girls then went on to pour as much hot sauce as possible onto the pizza on top in an attempt to get the boys back for their prank earlier.
"Right now we're getting the boys back for that little chicken prank," Emily stated, "We're gonna douse this pizza with hot sauce and hopefully watch their faces go beet red."
Maxie frowned, "I still think we should've gone with my idea of pretending to sew their mouths shut, like in the story. But the girls said they're still creeped out. So we opted for Emily's hot sauce suggestion instead."
They quickly closed the lid of the pizza box as to not raise suspicions before waling back to the centre of the room, trying to conceal their smiles, "Pizza's here!"
Almost immediately, James bent down to sniff the pizza, "That has hot sauce on it," he deadpanned.
"No, it doesn't," Emily tried to defend, however, was cut off by West who took a clean bite off the pizza.
"Not only did you guys try to pull a prank on us, and fail, but you also made this pizza better," he told them.
"A lot better," James nodded.
Maxie furrowed her brows, wanting to try a bit as she reached down and took a bit of the slice, "You know, that is actually pretty nice. A good balance of cheese and sauce, I mean-"
She stopped talking upon receiving a glare from Emily, one that told her more than words could.
The boys continued to dig into the pizza, much to the girls' dismay, just as none other than a cop kitted out in full uniform walked in.
"Hey! What's going on here?" he boomed, approaching the group of dancers, "What are you guys doing here? No one should be here at this time."
Whilst Eldon walked to the back of the group out of fear, James responded with a shrug, "No, no, it's okay, sir. We're here with our teacher."
"Kate?" Emily called out, only for nobody to respond.
"Where'd she go?" someone else asked.
The police officer turned back to the group with a stern look, "I don't see any teacher."
"Maybe her mouth has been sewn up," Maxie announced out of nowhere, earning her equally confused look from her friends and the police officer.
"Madam, I highly doubt that," he addressed her, before continuing, "Moving on, what are you guys doing here?"
James tried yet again to play down the situation, "There's really nothing to worry about-"
"Don't tell me what to worry about," the man cut him off with a grunt, "And wipe that smirk off your face," he told him, taking intimidating steps towards the boy.
"We were just enjoying some pizza," he spoke again, however, ended up immediately regretting it.
"Why do you keep talking back to me like that?" the man snapped, "Trying to impress your friends? How impressive do you think it will be when you have to call your mummy and daddy to come pick you up downtown?" he asked, pulling out a pair of handcuffs from his belt.
West stepped forward then, "Okay, I don't think that's necessary."
"Hey! Was I talking to you?" the cop stopped him with a yell.
"No," the boy muttered, backup up.
The man looked back to James and ordered, "Turn around."
"What?" James asked, obviously confused.
"Turn around," he repeated, "Hands behind your back."
As he placed his hands behind his back, the cop went on to place the handcuffs just behind James's hands, shocking the boys as the girls just looked on emotionless. However, he never cuffed the boy, as he lightly whacked him over the head, making the girls burst into laughter and pushing the boys further into confusion.
"We got you good!" Chloe laughed at the way James stood there clueless.
Maxie smirked, elbowing her friend as she told him, "How's that for going to extra lengths?"
"Wh- what?" James simply muttered, sending the group into more chuckles.
"Uncle Mel!" Giselle exclaimed, going to high-five her uncle, "We got them."
Maxie chuckled, leaning back in her seat as she explained, "It was all a ruse, you see. Giselle came up with the idea of bringing in her uncle, who is actually a cop, and scaring the boys into thinking they were going to be arrested. I knew that the boys were expecting us to prank them back, so Emily suggested we do a fak hot sauce prank to throw them off. A prank in a prank. Mwahaha."
As the laughter calmed down, James looked to the studio head with wide eyes, "Wait, hold up. Ms Kate, were you in on this?"
The woman held her arms in the air in surrender, making the group laugh more.
"All right, you guys," Kate interrupted them with a grin, "What do you say to a dance party?"
At that, the dancers seemed to agree as they cheered and spread out onto the dance floor, just having fun and enjoying being in the presence of each other.
Giselle spoke, "I can't believe how much fun we had. I mean, I feel like I'm actually back in A-Troupe now."
"We got to spend the night just hanging with friends and stop worrying about Regionals," Riley explained.
Emily grinned, "This night has just shown us all that we really are friends, that there's something that connects us more than dance."
"It was a chance for us to let our hair down, metaphorically speaking, and just be teenagers for once," Maxie shrugged, a small smile playing on her lips.
A/N
hi. long time no see but here it is! we're coming o the end of season one and I'm super excited to continue this story.
hope you guys enjoyed this chapter.
also, please ignore how bad the scary story is I'm not a very creative person lmao. I based it off of something I read on Reddit.
stay safe <3