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"Right this way, follow me," Miss Jenn instructed as she led the drama department into the El Rey Theater. "Smell that smell, the theater."
"I smell dust," Gracie muttered, looking around the cold and dark theater. "And mold."
"Mold," Miss Jenn tried to smile through her pain. "It's a sign of life. Everyone, watch your step. And let me know if you haven't had tetanus shot recently, okay?"
"Oh, god," Gracie sighed.
"Hey," Kourtney walked up to the girl as they reached the stage that was still fully set up from the last show that was ever put on there.
"Hey," Gracie greeted, noticing that Kourtney looked a lot happier than she did that morning. "How was looking through all the props and costumes?"
"Amazing," Kourtney smiled, linking her arm with the girl's. "Thanks to your little in with Blake, we are almost all set with costumes for our show. I just have to get the cast to try them on so we can make last minute adjustments."
"That's great! I can't wait to see them, Kourt."
"You are amazing!" Kourtney gave a little happy dance as the girls broke apart, getting both of them to laugh as they went their seprate ways.
Gracie looked around, her eyes landing on the one person she needed to celebrate with.
"Hey," Gracie grinned as she caught Ricky's attention.
Ricky gave her a tight lipped smile in return. "Hey."
"So my plan worked out amazingly," she spoke proudly, not noticing Ricky shifting on his feet uncomfortablely. "Our costumes are almost all set and I'm going to talk to Big Red to see if he found any good props. Long story short: we so close to being able to put on this show how it's supposed to be."
"That's great," Ricky gave a forced laugh, refusing to look at the girl in front of him. "Thank you, Blake."
"Are you okay?" Gracie asked finally noticing how weird the boy was acting.
Ricky scoffed and tried to look happy for her. "Yeah! I thinks it's great. Blake's great. The show's going to be great. Everything is great!"
"Ricky-"
"I should go," Ricky pointed behind him. "See if they need help moving stuff, or finding a light switch maybe."
"Oh, okay," Gracie watched Ricky walked away with confusion flooding her mind.
***
"Okay! Let's have some real talk," Miss Jenn walked up to the front of the stage to address everyone in the room. "Welcome to tech rehearsal. I don't know if you noticed, but most of the tech in this particular theater appears to be hand-cranked. Natlie Bagley, my dear, my stage manager, this is your chance to be the hero."
