𝐈𝐕𝐘 | ɢɪɴᴀ ᴘᴏʀᴛᴇʀ x ᴏᴄ

ᴀᴄᴛ ᴏɴᴇ: ꜱᴄᴇɴᴇ ꜱɪxᴛᴇᴇɴ

ᴀᴄᴛ ᴏɴᴇ: ꜱᴄᴇɴᴇ ꜱɪxᴛᴇᴇɴ

I stared, wide-eyed as we took a good look at what had happened.

"Oh my gosh- what happened?" Nini asked beside me.

"All my art...." I say quietly.

"It's okay," Miss Jenn says, walking towards us. "Nobody was hurt." But we continued to stare as water dripped from the ceiling. "There was a small fire in the theatre over the holiday and the sprinklers did their job."

"Small?" I ask, still looking around.

"We're almost done in here." A firewoman suddenly walked over to Miss Jenn, holding one of our basketballs. "Just have to finish up in the faculty room next. Some circuits blew in there over the break. Unfortunately, the show cannot go on." She tells us, causing a lot of us to start talking, worrying. "The fire ripped through half of your costumes, and the sprinklers ruined a bunch of your sets."

"My art..." I murmured again, now looking at the floor.

"My costumes..." Kourtney murmured behind me, feeling my pain.

"I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to red tag the entire backstage area for a month at least." She handed the basketball back to Miss Jenn before walking away.

"Did she just say costumes?" Kourtney says, repeating herself as she went through the same trauma as I was.

I stared down at the floor as Miss Jenn turned around to us. "Okay, okay, listen up. Hug your neighbor, take a moment," I saw Ricky beside me take his phone out, typing away. "and let's reconvene in the cafeteria to talk about options." I only took a quick glance, but it was all I needed.

Gina

Ricky
Hey please let me know if you're ok. I'm worried about you.

"Nini and Ricky, spread the word." Miss Jenn tells them.

"Got it. Yeah, of course." My sister says, the other side of me.

"Ricky?" Miss turned to the boy. He stood there still typing away on his phone. "Ricky?!" Miss then called his name again, catching the boy's attention.

"Huh? Sorry. After school in the cafeteria." Ricky repeats. "Got it."

⊱⊰

"Okay, guys!" Miss called all attention to her in the cafeteria. The day had been long, with double math class and an English test I didn't ask for. "Wait, where's Gina?" Miss asks all of us, making me stare back down at the floor as I leaned against the wall.

"I think she's going through a family thing right now." Ashlyn said quickly as they all sat around the tables.

"Okay, prayers to our Gina." Miss says. I see Nini give me a look, telling me to come and sit with her at the front. Causing me to inwardly groan as I walked over to sit in front of her, on the floor. "I'm really not sure what to say. You've all worked so hard. I've seen all of you grow so much. But, if we don't have a theatre, we don't have a show."

The beginning of overlapping chatter and discussions grew between us all, with a few seeming close to panic attacks

"Come on, Miss Jenn, we've gotta do something." Carlos speaks up to the teacher.

"I think we..." She had no idea, of course. "I don't know, I guess we could consider other venues?"

This began more chatter, with people trying to think of theatres close by. "What about the Kingston? That one downtown?" I offer.

"It's condemned." She says.

"Oh..." I murmur.

"The Lucky Ducky Puppet Pavilion?" EJ says.

"It's a massive Starbucks, now." She says, causing me to groan.

"How about the El Rey?" Carlos asks, with everyone agreeing with it.

"Any other ideas?" Miss Jenn asks, not so keen to the idea, obviously.

I pull a face. "Miss Jenn, I feel like you just had a really weird reaction to what I just said..."

"Sorry, what did you say?" I looked over behind me at Nini with a confused look.

"Carlos is asking if we can try and use the El Rey Theatre." Nini says to her.

"My Uncle Ruben is the listing agent," Carlos says, standing up, getting his phone out. "and the last thing they had in there was a fashion show, like, four years ago." He was already walking away, making a call to who we could only guess was this Uncle Ruben.

"This place has five hundred seats!" Seb says, showing all of us on his phone suddenly.

"Four ninety-eight." I hear Miss Jenn murmur. "But who's counting?" It seemed no one else heard, and instead were looking at the website on Seb's phone. "I can't imagine we'd be able to get in on such short notice." Miss Jenn said to us.

Suddenly, Carlos was on the phone, speaking Spanish to someone over loudspeaker. There was a moment of silence before we could hear a man agreeing in Spanish.

"Sounded like a yes to me!" Ash says from behind me, causing all to celebrate. Miss Jenn seemed a little hesitant before turning to us.

"The El Rey Theatre it is!" She announced finally, causing more celebrations from them all as I got up.

"Well, thank goodness for that." I tell Carlos as I put my beanie over my head.

"Miss Jenn, aren't you excited?" He asked the teacher beside us.

She, obviously, wasn't exactly- excited. "Yes, I am that feeling." She tells us. I gave the boy a cautious look at her reaction as she turned to what was left of us. "Wildcats, let's grab all the props and costumes that didn't get damaged and let's load out."

⊱⊰

I walked with Kourtney and Big Red with the plastic boxes of props and more down the hallway.

"ON YOUR RIGHT, HEADS UP!" We heard from behind us, Seb shouted, causing the three of us to look.

"Sorry!" Kourtney said, just as loud back as Ashlyn and Seb ran pass with a keyboard.

"Don't apologise, this is like, a weird adventure!" Ash shouted to us as she passed us by.

"Looks like the cast are in good spirits." Kourtney says as we continued to walk.

"Yeah, actors, man." Big Red says. "Fire or no fire, they still have their charm-"

"And their perfect skin." I add.

"I know it's a little silly," Kourtney begins, turning to me. "but I feel like I lost a little piece of myself when all those costumes went up in flames."

"That I can hear you on." I say to her.

"Me too." Big Red says. "That paper mache basketball took me three weeks to make."

"Three weeks?" Kourtney asked, while I raised an eyebrow at the boy.

"I kept gluing my fingers together."