Damsel in Distress

Chapter 6 - A Cast List Steals my Soul

It was finally Friday, two days since I had tried out for the musical. The cast list was usually posted on the Friday after the tryouts after school, just in case someone got mad and tried to ask Mrs. Cunningham why they didn't get the part they thought they deserved.

This way, they had the whole weekend to get over the fact that they didn't get a certain part, or that they got a part with no singing time.

I was sitting in lunch, trying to ignore the pounding sense of dread that was consuming me. What if I didn't get the lead? It wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would certainly break my heart a little. It would mean that after all my hard work, I still wasn't good enough.

Then a thought came to me.

What if she just put me in the chorus and nothing else?

Usually Mrs. Cunningham was known to give most of the seniors at least a couple of lines in the shows, seeing as it was their last year at the school, but sometimes she didn't give the seniors any lines at all. What if I had done so bad that she thought I didn't get to receive any lines at all? What if-

"Arabella!" I was interrupted from my little moment of doubt by Lacey practically screaming at me. Heads turned towards us, but quickly turned back away when they noticed that nothing special was going on.

"Yes, I was totally listening to everything you just said." I say, hoping that she might believe me.

"Right," she dragged on, "Of course you were."

"I'm sorry," I said, "I've just had a lot on my mind today."

"If I was stupid, I would think you were thinking about the cast list being posted today, but I'm not stupid, so you shouldn't be thinking about that."

"But, what if-" she cut me off.

"No. You're going to be Belle and you're going to kiss the Beast, and I will make fun of you for the rest of your life because of it. It's happening and no amount of worrying about getting the roll or not is going to make the universe bend to your will. So just stop thinking about it and start telling me more about how pretty The Marvel's eye's were." She finishes her little soliloquy.

"Well - Wait. I was never telling you about that. Are you trying to get me to tell you more about your favorite super just so you can fangirl over him more?" I ask suspiciously.

"Maybe," she says quietly, "But on the bright side, the more you talk about him, the more you'll forget about the cast list!" She smiles.

"Maybe, but I've already told you everything. Just because I happened to be saved by The Marvel at the mall the other day, doesn't mean I all of a sudden have extensive knowledge on the guy. For all we know, that could have been a copycat who saved me." I say and try to bring the topic off of The Marvel.

"No, it couldn't have been. He used telekinesis, something usually associated with supers, not their copycats." Lacey says obviously.

It actually wasn't uncommon back in the day for some supers to have copycats. These stupid people would dress up like their heroes and try to save the day, but their lack of any powers kind of made that hard to do.

One time there was a guy who tried to pretend that he was Clark, a super who could make time slow down and speed up. He did end up saving an old woman from being robbed, but when Clark's arch enemy, Phantom, showed up and tried to challenge the man he thought was his enemy, it didn't turn out so pretty. The copycat got killed before Phantom was able to figure out that this guy was not his arch enemy. It took a couple minutes for the real Clark to show up, but by then it was too late. Phantom had disappeared and left two dead and five injured civilians in his wake.