The Other Bowen || Nini Salazar-Roberts

the el rey

Nini's pov

We all walked into the auditorium after break to see everything either burned or wet. I slightly dropped my jaw as I looked around.

"Oh, my god, what happened?" I asked.

"It's okay. Nobody was hurt." Miss Jenn said as she walked up to us. "There was a small fire in the theater over the holiday and the sprinklers did their job."

"We're almost done in here, just have to finish up in the faculty room next. Some circuits blew in there over the break. Unfortunately, the show cannot go on." The firefighter told Miss Jenn.

"What?" Miss Jenn asked.

"Fire ripped through half of your costumes and the sprinklers ruined a bunch of your sets. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to red tag the entire backstage area for a month at least." The firefighter handed Miss Jenn a burnt basketball.

"Did she just say costumes?" Kourtney asked.

"Okay." Miss Jenn turned to us. "Okay, listen up. Hug your neighbor, take a moment and let's reconvene in the cafeteria after school to talk about options. Nini and Lily, spread the word."

"Got it." I nodded.

"Lily?" Miss Jenn said

I looked over at Lily to see her extremely focused on her phone, texting and not paying attention. Seriously? Our show could possibly be over and she's texting?

"Lily!" Miss Jenn called out louder.

"Huh?" Lily sent one last text as she quickly looked up from her phone. "Sorry. After school in the cafeteria. Got it."

Once school was over, we all met up in the cafeteria. I was standing and talking with Carlos and Seb while we waited for Miss Jenn. After a bit she finally arrived.

"Okay, guys." Miss Jenn clapped her hands. "Wait, where's Gina?"

"I think she's going through a family thing right now." Ashlyn said.

"Okay, prayers to our Gina." Miss Jenn said as we all sat down at a lunch table. "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 theater, we don't have a show."

"Come on, Miss Jenn, we've gotta do something." Carlos begged.

"I think we... I don't know, I guess we could consider other venues?" Miss Jenn suggested.

"Oh, oh, what about the old Kingston downtown?" Ashlyn asked.

"It's condemned." Miss Jenn told her.

"The Lucky Ducky Puppet Pavilion?" EJ suggested.

"It's a massive Starbucks now." Miss Jenn said.

"How about the El Rey?" Carlos asked causing Miss Jenn to widen her eyes as we all agreed with Carlos.

"Any other ideas?" Miss Jenn wondered.

"Miss Jenn, I feel like you just had a really weird reaction to what I just said." Carlos pointed out.

"Sorry, what did you say?" Miss Jenn asked.

"Carlos is asking if we can try and use the El Rey Theater." I told her.

"My Uncle Ruben is the listing agent and the last thing they had in there was a fashion show, like, four years ago." Carlos told us before running off to make a phone call.

Seb took out his phone and googled the El Rey Theater. "Woah, this place has 500 seats."

"498, but who's counting." Miss Jenn said. "I can't imagine we'd be able to get in on such short notice."