Sweetest Devotion ||Troy Bolton||

Chapter Seven

Walking through the front doors of East High gave Troy and Sophie a sense of comfort. That comfort was soon disturbed by Sharpay Evans parting Troy's posse like the Red Sea. It was because of that kind of behavior Sophie called Sharpay 'Sharkpay' in private, only telling Troy the nickname.

"The ice princess has returned from the North Pole," jokes Zeke.

"She spent the holidays the way she always does," Chad starts, waiting for someone to ask what Sharpay Evans does on vacation.

"How's that?"

"Shopping for mirrors!" Chad laughs after a short pause.

Sophie rolls her eyes at the embarrassingly loud 'ohh' that followed Chad's joke. Sophie slaps Troy's arm, jokingly scolding him even though she didn't care. He grins down at Sophie, causing her to let out an amused scoff at the smirk on his face. Troy throws his arm over his girlfriend's shoulder as they entered Ms. Darbus' classroom.

Troy takes a seat on his desk and Sophie sits on her chair in the row next to him, messing with the background on her phone to pass time. In the corner of her eye Sophie sees Sharpay up to her usual antics-flirting with Troy. Sophie lets out a snort when her boyfriend mumbles a dismissive 'hi' back.

Soon the bell rings and Ms. Darbus comes into the room and tells everyone to sit down. Sophie stares up at Troy in confusion when he doesn't sit down immediately. It's not until Ms. Darbus calls Troy out by name that he sits down.

"You okay?" Chad mumbles, exchanging a look with Sophie over Troy's odd behavior.

"Yeah."

Ms. Darbus stops her rant on the spring musical as she says, "Mr. Danforth, this is a place of learning, not a hockey arena."

"Hockey," Troy mouths to Sophie, making her grin. She soon had to cover her mouth to hold back her laughter once she saw the look of deep discomfort on Chad's face.

Troy then leans across the aisle to get Sophie's phone as she tried to put it away, confusing her enough not to reach for it. He is usually scared enough of Ms. Darbus to keep his phone in his pocket even before the bell rings.

The sounds of a phone ringing filled the air and Sophie quickly leaned towards Troy to get her phone back before their teacher could give them detention.

"Ah, the cell phone menace has returned to our crucible of learning." preaches Ms. Darbus, taking Sharpay and Ryan's phones when they checked to see if their phones were ringing. "I will see you in detention."

'Ah! We have a zero phone tolerance for cell phones in class, so we will get to know each other in detention.Cell phone," Ms. Darbus barked as she made her way through the room. "And welcome to East High, Miss Montez."

Upon hearing the last name Sophie turns to the back of the room, gasping as she saw her new friend from winter break. Troy grinned as well, happy that he wasn't seeing things.

"Don't think I don't see you two up at the front. I see you were both involved in this," Ms. Darbus went on, "Mr. Bolton, Miss Torres, I will see you in detention as well."

Sophie turned to Troy with a crossed look on her face before dropping her phone in the bucket Ms. Darbus shoved in her face. Troy smiled apologetically, knowing everyone's detentions were caused by sending Gabriella a text.

"That's not a possibility, Ms. Darbus, your Honor, see, 'cause we have basketball practice and Troy," Chad starts-hopeful grin on his face and hands gesturing mildly.

"Ah, that will be 15 minutes for you too, Mr. Danforth. Count 'em," an unsympathetic Ms. Darbus barks.

'Well at least that wasn't Troy's fault,' Sophie thought, still slightly upset.

"Could be tough for Chad, he can't count that high," a girl named Taylor smirks.

"Taylor McKessie, 15 minutes."

'Serves her right,' thought Sophie, slightly angry by the comment made about one of her friends and happy at the appalled look on the girl's face.

"Shall the carnage continue? Holidays are over people, way over! Now, any more comments, questions? Jason?"

"How were your holidays Ms. Darbus?"