Alexis catches the sheet of paper that hovers over her head and furiously balls it up in her hands, throwing it at Jolene.
"Ow!"
Why did she get so mad? And plus, why was she glaring at me? Lilliana hands me the sheet of paper in her hands to me, and I nervously scan over what it says.
It makes sense now. Alexis and I got double casted.
-- ------ --
If I'm being totally honest, when I arrived at rehearsal today I was excited. Greeted by the dusty floorboards and the smell of rain as I entered the old rehearsal studio, seeing kids ecstatic to get inside.
Emily and I had been walking to rehearsal today, talking about our homework while rain fell off leaves slowly and dinked onto our heads - sliding off while it slid off onto the concrete ground.
"I'm excited for the musical," Emily started, "I didn't get a main role. But I still like singing."
"That's cool," I say as fog forms when I exhale. "I'm kinda nervous."
"Don't be, you're really talented."
"I just don't want to share it with Alexis. God knows what she'll do." I sadly say as we pass through the school gates.
"So anyways." Emily says, changing the subject, "in two years we'll be able to drive our own cars."
"That's... I'm probably gonna crash the car if I'm being totally honest."
Emily stops talking as she glares at the window of the building. I follow her gaze, and I can see Alexis smirking at us, holding up an L finger sign at us while Iris did the same.
"They're so dumb." Emily finally says, "I hate them."
When we finally get inside the musty building, Mrs G runs out onto the small stage with a huge grin on her face.
Today she's dressed up as the Beldam from Coraline. Huge spider legs stick out of her skirt while she wobbles across the stage. "Today, we are going to rehearse... Not rehearse, I mean get to know each other better."
"I'm here!" Luke tiredly says, pushing open the doors as he runs down to the stage. "Sorry Mrs G."
"That's okay," Mrs G says in a friendly way. "As I was saying, today we are getting to know each other better instead of rehearsing. We need to get along well as a cast."
"Just don't partner with Jasmine, I don't like her." Alexis disgustingly says, looking over at me before mouthing 'ugly'.
Ouch.
"It's okay, I'll go with ja-" Luke starts.
"No," the teacher cuts off. "Go with someone you don't know."
Luke unwillingly ponders off into the crowd of students while a boy with dark curly hair comes up to me, a nervous grin on his face. He holds a dark blue bottle in his hand, and he is wearing a plain simple black tee.
"Hey," he says.
"Hi," I say back.
"I'm Shawn."
"I'm Jasmine."
He accidentally drops his water bottle with a thud on the floor, and it spills all over the floorboards, water leaking through the cracks. Over the loud chatter of students getting to awkwardly know each other, no one realises what he had done until Luke speeds out of the room and slips on the puddle, plummeting straight into Jolene.
"Oh I'm so sorry!" Luke hastily apologises, getting back onto his feet as he runs out the doors.
Everyone pauses to see what had been going on, Jolene has fallen onto the ground - and I rush over to help her back up again.
"At least he wasn't hurt," Alexis snorted. "I mean, that's the only upside to being fat. Being a human cushion to everyone and all."
"That's hard," Elena giggles. "But it's also true."
Jolene blushes furiously in embarrassment. Her eyes start to go red, and I can make out tears forming in her eyes.
"That's not very nice," I venomously say. A pit of fire that I never knew existed lights in my chest, and I feel like I want to scream at her.
"Alexis, don't shame others because of their weight," Shawn adds, backing me up as he walks over to me.
"That was very good!" Mrs G chimes in from the front.
It seems everyone forgot about her for a second.
"How is that good? Jolene just got openly bullied by-"
"No, I meant that the fact that you stood up for Jolene was good. It really shows you are a real life Belle in real life." Mrs G corrects, "of course, we shouldn't make people feel bad because of the way they look. Alexis, if you pull a stunt like that again I will take the role away from you."
"Whatever." Alexis spits.
"And you just lost opening night," Mrs G snaps back. Everyone stares in shock when Mrs G says this, usually because she's so nice to everyone and has never in the history of teachers punished a student for their wrongdoings.
Soon, everyone goes back to talking with their partners. Shawn and I immediately go off, talking about ourselves as if we had known each other our whole lives.
We don't realise that soon it's the end of 'rehearsal' and we have to leave.
"Hey," I say. "Do you have a discord or anything?"
"I have discord," he says.
I pull out my phone from my teddy-bear backpack, and he gives me his username and his number.
"I've friended you," I say. "You'll just have to accept it and we can talk a bit more about you failing your year two english class."
"Or you can tell me a bit more about the time you shit your pants in school," he smiles back.
We wave goodbye, and I meet up with Emily as we leave. Us two walking all the way home while one certain girl stays behind.
Alexis POV
"It looks like she's becoming really good friends with Shawn," Lilliana monotonously says as we look at her leaving the building and off before they disappear around the corner, blocked by the hanging tree.
"I can't believe she took opening night from me," I bite, "she's not even that talented. What did she do to deserve it? She sucked in primary school at singing, and she still sucks now. "
"True."
An evil idea slides its way from the back of my brain into my thoughts.
"I know how to get revenge."
"How?"
"By dating Shawn obviously. She likes him, she's too easy to read."