The Arts

17 - Don't Be So Dramatic

KIARA

          The drama club met on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Which Kiara only knew because she may or may not have looked it up in an effort to guarantee herself some time with Marty. And she only knew that he was the secretary of the drama club because she may or may not have looked him up on Facebook. And Instagram. And Twitter. And YouTube.

          Yeah, she was kind of obsessed.

          Kiara thought of her quest for Marty Knowledge as simple research. That's all it was, right? She couldn't wait around forever to just casually bump into him at a random party, after all. And after seeing him with Meg at the homecoming pep rally, she knew it was time to take matters into her own hands.

          As the last couple of students filed into the black box theatre, Marty began taking attendance. Not that it was official or anything. Probably just a random task he had to do as the secretary. Kiara managed to catch his attention and offer a smile and a wave.

          "Oh, hey Kiara!" Marty smiled and waved back, and Kiara beamed. She looked around the room and noticed a stunning lack of Meg.

          Perfect.

          Everyone was scattered across the room. Suddenly, Marty stood up from behind the table, along with two other people. One had a surprisingly impressive beard for a high schooler, and piercing green eyes. The second was at least a foot taller than everyone else and sported a cropped haircut that had been dyed red and purple. As the three teens at the table had stood up, everyone else followed. Kiara, not understanding the situation and suddenly feeling very out of her element, tentatively stood up with them.

          What is going on?!

          The bearded lumberjack lookalike was the first to say anything. He spoke with a deep, bellowing voice. "The queen is the storage closet."

          Everyone except for Kiara answered perfectly in unison, "and don't ask me how, but the red shoes have gone missing."

          Seriously, what the hell is going on? Did I just walk into a cult?!

          Just as quickly and uniform as they had stood up, everyone sat down again, and Kiara followed suit. Though there was a part of her that considered just walking out. Not even a minute into the meeting and she already had the heebie-jeebies.

          "Okay. Welcome, welcome! The drama club meeting is now in session. And it looks like we have a newcomer today," Marty stood up, apparently taking charge of the announcements. He gestured to Kiara, who tentatively stood back up and waved to the group. "Everyone, this is Kiara. Kiara, this is the drama club. How about you tell us a little about yourself?"

Kiara was no stranger to introducing herself; she talked to new people all the time. But it was an entire different feeling when it came to the drama club. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but something about them was just...off, and she couldn't believe that Marty would subject himself to that kind of company.

Well, if that's what it took to win his heart, she'd have to get used to this.

"Uh...hi! I'm Kiara. And...I've never done theater before, actually. So this is all kind of new to me. I figured I'd try something different while I still had time to branch out. I plan on doing an art concentration."