Danger Magellan's Invasion of Earth

Chapter 9

Chapter 9

As I lay in bed that night, I realized that the opening night of the school musical was coming up in only two weeks. The choreography was coming along, but the show wasn't quite polished yet. Some of the minor cast members hadn't even memorized their lines yet.

However, I didn't have time to reflect on High School Musical. I desperately needed sleep, so I drifted off before I could think too much.

At the next rehearsal, Mrs. Oswald announced that she had changed the rehearsal schedule. "We need to clean up this show before opening night," she said. "Therefore, we will be having a rehearsal every afternoon this week until this show is ready for performance. The rehearsal will go as long as it needs to in order to make this show worthy of the Spragueville High School stage. Tech Week, however, will go as scheduled."

"Wait, what?" Leona said. "This isn't fair!"

"It's perfectly fair," Cody muttered. "High School Musical is in terrible shape right now. We need to fix it."

"I have swim practice!" I exclaimed. "What am I supposed to do about that?!" As usual, the leads would probably have to stay late. With the new extended rehearsals, I probably wouldn't make swim practice for the next three weeks. I was planning to miss rehearsal during Tech Week and the performance days, but rehearsal normally wasn't a reason to miss swimming.

"If everyone gives this show their best effort, the rehearsals shouldn't go too late," Mrs. Oswald said. "It's all up to you."

"I don't think the ensemble kids will ever stop goofing around," Jonas snarked. "These rehearsals are probably going to end up being all-nighters."

Mrs. Oswald ignored Jonas and started rehearsal. She decided to rehearse "Bop To The Top" first, almost certainly in order to please Leona. Meanwhile, everyone except for Leona and Jonas sat there and waited for Mrs. Oswald to help Jonas harmonize with Leona's voice.

"Come on Jonas!" Cody said. "You can do this!"

Despite Cody's encouragement, Jonas continued to struggle. Singing wasn't exactly his thing, although he did an outstanding job of getting into character. If Jonas could sing as well as he could act, I might be able to go to swim practice instead of watching Mrs. Oswald try to teach him to sing in tune.

After Jonas and Leona were finally finished, she decided to rehearse "Breaking Free." Thankfully, Cody was an exceptional vocalist. He had the unbelievable ability to belt out long notes without breaking a sweat, and unlike Jonas, he could harmonize with other singers. Mrs. Oswald even applauded when Cody and I finished performing the song.

"Very nice, you two," she said. "Let's move on to the ending." I quickly glanced at the clock. It was six o'clock already. If this rehearsal went on any longer, I would miss swim practice. However, I didn't want to leave when we were still rehearsing. High School Musical had to be perfect on opening night. After all, Raquel, Dan, and Arthur had all reluctantly agreed to come see it. "I know what you're all thinking," Mrs. Oswald said. "No, nobody is allowed to leave yet, especially those of you who have solos in 'We're All In This Together.'"

I, of course, had a solo in "We're All In This Together." I was trapped in the drama room for another few hours.

Mrs. Oswald spent the rest of rehearsal yelling at the ensemble, which surprised all of us. Our drama teacher wasn't usually the type to yell at her students, no matter how badly they were behaving.

At nine o'clock, Mrs. Oswald finally let us go. I called my parents, and my dad came to pick me up. "What took so long?" he asked me when I got in the car, and I explained the new rehearsal schedule to him.

"I really hope the musical turns out okay," I said. "I don't want to embarrass myself in front of my friends."

"Don't worry," Dad said. "I'm sure the musical will be great."

I wasn't so sure. Nevertheless, I dutifully attended rehearsal each day, hoping that Mrs. Oswald would recognize my musical prowess. If I was lucky, my success in the fall musical would prompt her to cast me as the lead in the spring play as well. The show itself only got slightly better, while it continued to suck up my free time. I only saw Raquel, Arthur, and Dan during lunch for the next few weeks. After school, I spent all of my time rehearsing for the musical and practicing all of the songs.

Dan was rather distant that week as well. Despite the fact that we lived in the same house, I rarely saw him. He didn't seem to be avoiding me, but he did spend a lot of his free time either holed up in his room or at Arthur's house. During lunch, he spent most of his time flirting with Arthur. I wasn't quite sure what to do with Dan now that he seemed so focused on my best friend.

Tech Week only made the problem worse. Rehearsals went even later as Mrs. Oswald tried to get the stage crew in line. I only saw Dan a handful of times that week, but on Friday during lunch, Arthur and Dan told Raquel something that both of us already suspected.

"Arthur and I are dating," Dan said.

"Good for you," Raquel said. "I thought Arthur would never get a boyfriend."

"I didn't think that you would ever find a boyfriend either until you started dating Michael," Arthur said.

"I'm sure you and Dan will make an adorable couple," I told Arthur.

"Thanks Nora," Arthur said.

I was glad that Dan and Arthur were happy with their relationship, but I couldn't stop thinking about my own love life. I had been single since I had broken up with Madi Heinemann at the beginning of freshman year, and I was craving a new romance. However, I didn't know of anyone who was interested in me.

Dan was missing from World History as usual, yet he showed up to Algebra II to see his boyfriend before the end of the day. Meanwhile, I was still worried about the dress rehearsal scheduled for the afternoon. The rehearsal was our last chance to make High School Musical the best that it could be. Maybe my expectations were a little bit too high for a high school drama club, but I wanted our show to be perfect in every way.

I hummed all of the songs for the musical on my way to the drama classroom, where Mrs. Oswald gave us a few last minute instructions. I was practically shaking as I listened to her and then left to put on my costume. If something went wrong in the dress rehearsal, then there wouldn't be time to fix it before opening night.

Before long, I was onstage duetting with Cody. The stage lights shone over the two of us while Cody danced around wildly. I looked down for a moment, and I saw Blaze crawling across the stage. What is she doing here? I wondered. I glanced towards the audience, but Dan wasn't there. The only people in the auditorium were Mrs. Oswald and a few of the other teachers.

Blaze crawled over Cody's shoes, but he didn't notice her. I considered telling him about her, but I couldn't do that without breaking character. The hedgehog simply crawled offstage, leaving me to wonder why she had come onstage in the first place. Did Dan even know that Blaze was missing? I asked myself.

I finished the next few scenes, and during the first scene that I wasn't in, I took out my phone to text Dan. I started to type a message asking him if he was aware that Blaze was in the school auditorium, but I realized that, unlike every other teenager I knew, Dan didn't even have a cell phone. I would just have to ask him when I got home.

To my surprise, the rest of the dress rehearsal went well. All of the musical numbers came together, and all of the actors and actresses gave a quality performance. Mrs. Oswald even interrupted the rehearsal to congratulate Cody and I on our singing during "Breaking Free."

Despite the great performances, the rehearsal still went late. My dad picked me up at a rather late hour, but when we got home, Dan was still sending Arthur love letters in Morse Code. After all, if anything could get Arthur out of his basement, it was an attractive, blue-haired alleged alien.

I went to bed that night feeling quite optimistic about the next night's performance. There seemed to be nothing that could stop High School Musical from becoming one of the best shows that Spragueville High School had ever put on.

Little did I know just how much would go wrong that night.