Just like every weekday before school, Erika walked down the hall with the usual suspects: Mary and Kat. Buck had been busy with his case again, so she didn't really get to talk to him (but she did get her daily orange).
Mary was unyielding in her sage advice. "Just take deep breaths, Erika. Deep breaths. And land's sakes, stop shaking like a wet cat." Erika stopped for a moment and promptly ran to perform the Technicolor yawn in a nearby trash can.
Kat patted her panicky friend with a nice pat on the back. "Relax! It's not like Fiona and Jade will be cast!" That statement caused Erika to hurl once more.
"Kat," Mary whispered, "she's not nervous about the cast list. She's panicking about how her sisters will react." She looked at the redhead and gave her arm a soft squeeze. "We're going to be late, so stop staring at your breakfast and let's see just how badly your stepsisters did."
"I can't believe it, Meredith." Kelly was in shock, while Meredith merely was amused.
"I know. How on earth did you pull this off?" As Erika and her entourage approached, Meredith tapped Kelly on the shoulder and pointed in their direction. Erika blushed as the 'King' looked at her and smiled. The next thing she knew, she was being held an inch off the ground by a colossal hug from Kelly Kingsley.
"I can't believe it," Kelly said. "We both got in!" Erika blushed slightly while she asked what Kelly meant. "The show, silly! We both got in the show!"
She finally put the Andress stepchild down and let her look at the cast list. From what Erika could see, neither of her sisters made the cast in any respect- even some people who hadn't been called back had gotten in. As for the leading roles of Oscar and Felix- No. That couldn't be, not in a million, gazillion years.
It read that the role of Felix, the persnickety neat freak, would go to herself. And the person who'd be playing Oscar the slob would be Kelly.
Kelly and Erika were the two leading ladies.
Erika's new partner grinned. "I guess this means that we'll be seeing a lot more of each other, eh?" Erika nodded without realizing that she had. "Well, me and Meredith have gotta get going. See ya' after school!"
As the two left, Kat grinned at Erika. "Oooooh, someone's finally getting some!"
Mary shook her head, trying to hide a smile. "I don't think I've ever seen Kelly Kingsley hug anyone in the hall before."
"Knock it off," Erika moaned. "It's not like I'd ever have a chance."
Mary seemed to disagree, though. "What's that old saying? 'Never say never', right?"
Kat could agree to that. "You gotta admit it Erika. You managed to get on Kingsley's good side a lot faster than most people."
Erika pinched herself; she thought she was dreaming. After a brief instant of pain, she found herself looking at a poster for Homecoming. Oddly enough, this year's event happened to be on her birthday. After double-checking the poster, she could confirm that it was. It was on a Friday, and the whole school had the day off!
There was a loud clamor in front of Erika's face as Kat snapped her fingers in front of it. "There you are! We're going to be late!"
But not even being late to class was going to ruin the natural high she was on at the moment.
Lunch at the school was usually the typical affair for Kelly- but not today. Oh, hell no- with the cast list for 'The Odd Couple' in the open, everyone who was anyone knew that Kelly Kingsley was in one of the two lead roles. Combined with her popularity, that meant that she was now front-runner for Homecoming Queen. And that meant-
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"Kelly, you can come out of the tree now." Meredith's friend popped her head out of the tall plant and shook her head.
