High School Musical || Huke Stemmings

Disconnected

Luke waited anxiously in the hall outside Mr. Higgins's homeroom, hanging back as his friends went on their next classes.

Finally, Harry came out and Becca as well, and he walked towards him, hardly able to breathe.

When Harry saw him, his eyes widened in disbelief.

He said, "I don't—"

"—believe it," Luke finished in a whisper.

Harry nodded. "Me—"

"—either," Luke finished again. "But how . . ."

"Is that the guy from New Year's Eve?" Becca whispered to her older brother, but Harry wasn't paying attention to her as he was talking to Luke.

"My sister and I's mum's company transferred her here in Sydney," Harry explained. He shook his head in disbelief. "I can't believe you live here. I looked for you at the lodge on New Year's Day, but—"

"We had to leave first thing," Luke said, still whispering.

Harry looked puzzled. "Why are you whispering?"

He looked a little embarrassed. "Oh well, my friends know I went snowboarding, but I didn't tell them about the . . . singing . . . thing."

"Too much for them to handle?" Harry asked knowingly.

"It was . . . cool," Luke said quickly. He didn't want him getting the idea that he hadn't liked their singing debut! "But, my friends—that's not what I do. That was like a . . . different person."

They had reached the lobby, where activity sign-up sheets were posted. Luke pointed at the sheet for the winter musical auditions.

"Now that you've met Mr. Higgins, I'll bet you can't wait to sign up for that," he said, grinning.

Harry laughed, "I won't be signing up for anything here for a while," he said. "I just want to get to know the school," he glanced at him shyly. "But if you signed up, I'd consider coming to the show."

Luke shook his head. He couldn't even imagine the reaction he'd get if he signed up for the high school musical! "That's completely impossible," he said.

From behind him, Perrie's voice said sweetly. "What's impossible, Luke? I wouldn't think 'impossible' is even in your vocabulary." As they turned to look at Perrie, she gestured toward Harry. "So nice of you to show our new classmate around."

She raised one eyebrow as she saw both Harry and Becca looking at the musical sign-up sheet. Very deliverable, Perrie stepped in front of Harry and Becca and signed her name with a flourish.

In fact, Harry noticed as did Becca, that Perrie's signature took up the entire sign-up sheet.

But Perrie looked at them, the picture of innocence, and said, "Oh . . . were you going to sign up, too? My brother and I have starred in all the school's productions,  and we really welcome newcomers." She smiled, ever so sweetly then added. "There are a lot of supporting roles in this show. I'm sure we could find something for you."

"No, no," Harry said hastily. "I was just looking over the bulletin board. Lots going on at this school. Wow." I'm blabbering, he thought. I have to stop it! Now! He pointed to Perrie's huge signature. "Come on Haz. We have to get to our next class" Becca said to him. Harry walked up to Perrie. "Nice penmanship." He added weakly, before hurrying away to his next class with his sister Becca.

Now that Perrie had been left alone with Luke, she decided to seize the opportunity. "So, Luke," she said coyly. "I missed you during vacation. What'd you do?"