Peyton Ellis
Who listens to disco?
Mood = Thoughtful 🤔

"Ready? Action," Mr. Reed said.

Sinjin brightened the lights on Tori and Robbie who were standing on the stage, since they were doing a scene for Uptown, Downtown.

"Uh, I-I don't know," Tori said to Robbie.

"Oh, come on," Robbie said rudely. "Why can't you admit that you're in with me?"

Peyton was playing a game on his phone, because that was a better use of his time than

"Why are you in love with me?" asked Tori.

"Because you're beautiful," Robbie responded. "Look at your face in the moonlight."

"I can't," Tori replied.

Robbie responded, "You can."

"No, a person can't look at their own face," Tori said. "It's impossible."

"Then marry me and I'll buy you a thousand mirrors," Robbie pleaded.

Tori exclaimed, "But that's so many!"

"My father's a billionaire. I can give you everything you've ever wanted and I'm very good-looking," Robbie said.

"Mmm...yeah," Tori replied, though it sounded more like a lie.

"Think," Robbie ordered, pointing at her.

"And lights go," Mr. Reed told Sinjin.

Sinjin shined the lights on Beck.

Tori cried out, "I don't know!"

"It's okay that you don't know," Beck told her.

"But you deserve an answer," Tori told him.

"I can wait," Beck replied. "For you, I would wait a thousand years."

Tori stated, "But that's so many."

"I know I'm poor. I know I don't have much to offer but...I do love you," Beck said.

Tori dramatically looked away as she asked, "Because I'm beautiful?"

"I don't love you because you're beautiful," Beck stated. He turned her around, "You're beautiful because I love you."

"Whoa," Tori replied.

Peyton was excited because he was getting closer to beating his high score on Tetris.

Disco music turned on and Peyton got out of his seat to look at Sinjin.

Jade screamed at Sinjin, "What up with disco?"

"I'm sorry," Sinjin said. "I hit the wrong thing."

Jade retorted, "No, fifteen years ago, your mother gave birth to the wrong thing!"

Mr. Reed texted on his phone before saying, "All right, why don't we take a break? Tori, Beck, you guys were great. Really nice stuff."

"Thanks," Tori said.

"How was I?" asked Robbie.

"I've seen worse," Mr. Reed replied.

Jade got a text and she said, "Uh, guys, guys, everyone shut up a second."

Beck asked, "Watcha got?" asked Beck.

"An e-mail from Principal Eikner," Jade told him.

Tori prompted, "That says?"

Jade gave her a glare before reading, "'To all students involved in our school's production of Uptown, Downtown, Sofia Michelle will be in Los Angeles the weekend of the 17th and will be personally attending your opening night performance.'"

"Oh my god," Mr. Reed said. He ran out of with his hand on his stomach.

"Who's Sofia Michelle?" asked Tori.

"Oh, no, no, no," said Jade, taking Beck's hand and dragging him to a chair. She sat down.

Peyton asked her, "How did you get the leading role without knowing who Sofia Michelle is?"

Tori said, "Wait. Is she the lady who does those infomercials with the vibrating hairbrush?"

"I love that hairbrush," Sinjin commented.

Peyton turned to look at him. He wasn't surprised by that really. He looked at Tori, "Sofia Michelle is the one who wrote the play that you're leading."

"Oh," Tori replied.

"Oh," Jade mimicked, texting someone.

"She's like the biggest playwright on Broadway," Robbie explained to Tori.

Mr. Reed came into class drinking a bottle of water and said, "All right, you guys, we knew we had to be great, now we have to be perfect. We are not gonna disappoint Sofia Michelle."

"And you're sure you want Robbie in this play?" asked Rex.

Robbie looked insulted, "I'm good."

"At what?" retorted Rex.

"I have to go take another nerve pill," Mr. Reed said, with his hand on his stomach again.

Peyton started to continue his game of Tetri when Mr. Reed ran out.

Sinjin started playing the disco music and Peyton turned to look at him.

Jade demanded, "Will you kill the disco?"

"No one can kill disco," Sinjin snapped back at her. He took out a vibrating hairbrush and started brushing his hair with it while he danced.

After school, Damian had some after school thing to do, so it left Peyton to go home alone. However, his dad and step-mom were still at work and Peyton didn't want to go back to the apartment alone. Especially since it seemed like they were the only four that lived in the building. He hated walking down those hallways alone. It was too loud and it made his skin crawl.

So, he sat in his dad's office, trying to do homework. Funny, he was working while his dad made origami frogs.

Then some man walked in the office, "Ethan. Did you leave those origami frogs on my desk?"

"No," Ethan said innocently, while making an origami frog. He held it out, "Here. You can have this origami frog as an apology for whoever left those frogs on your desk."

Peyton watched as the man take the frog and left the office, closing the door. Peyton looked at his dad, "You left those frogs on his desk, didn't you?"

"Me?" Ethan asked, his voice quivering with outraged innocence. "You think I would do something like that?"

"Yes," Peyton replied, because who else in the office knew how to make origami frogs?

"Yeah," Ethan said. "I'm going to add more frogs to his desk just to confuse the hell out of him."

"Good luck with that," Peyton replied.

"I sense sarcasm in you, boy," Ethan told him, waving a finger at him.

"I was," Peyton told him.

"Good," Ethan told him.

Why was his dad so weird? Peyton wondered. It was probably who Damian got it from. "Sofia Michelle is coming to see Uptown, Downtown," Peyton told him.

Ethan asked, "Who?"

"The playwright," Peyton told him. "She wrote the play that we're putting on." He was playing the rich asshole's friend, the one who goes, 'Check out the girl that's coming this way.'

"Oh," Ethan replied. "How are you feeling about knowing that?"

"Kind of nervous," Peyton said. He didn't want to embarrass himself in front of the playwright.

"You'll do fine," Ethan said. "You have five lines."

"I know," Peyton replied.

Peyton Ellis
Sofia Michelle is here to watch our performance.
Mood = Anxious 😰

Peyton, Beck, and Robbie looked out the curtain.

"Hey, hey," Beck said. "Here comes our playwright."

"Oh my god, its Sofia Michelle," Robbie said.

Sofia Michelle took a seat next to Rex. Sofia looked at it, looked forward, and then stared at Rex to make sure that she was seeing correctly. Yes, she was sitting next to a ventriloquist dummy. Again, Peyton and Damian were in therapy, while everyone acted like Rex was a real person for Robbie's sake.

They pulled back and closed the curtain.

It looked Mr. Reed was panicking while Tori stood in front of him.

"We're on in two minutes and you still look disgusting," Mr. Reed told Tori.

Jade walked over and said, "I could play the lead."

"No, we don't have anyone else to play your part," Mr. Reed told Jade.

"We're indoors, lose the scarf," Jade retorted. She walked away from them.

Later, the play was being performed, Peyton and Robbie had to sit in some fancy and uncomfortable chair, holding scotch glasses that had diet root beer in them. The worst part was that the diet root beer was room temperature.

"So, I'm on my private jet, almost halfway to Barcelona, when I say to the pilot, 'I've change my mind. Take a left. We're going to Prague,'" Robbie told Peyton.

Peyton fake laughed and hit his thigh at that before telling Robbie, "You're too much."

Robbie replied, "Aren't I?"

Beck came onto the stage and picked up the 'luggage' and jiggled them a little. He was about ready to walk off when Robbie called to him, "Hey, hey, hey, you there."

Beck stopped and said, "Yes, sir?"

"That luggage is very expensive," Robbie berated. "Don't just toss it around like a monkey."

Peyton grimaced a little, being reminded of his mother, and tried to hide it by taking a drink of his room temperature diet root beer. He almost gagged at that because did they have to pick diet?

"I'm sorry," Beck said. "It's just—"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Peyton interrupted, pointing at Tori who was making her way onto the stage. "Check out the girl coming this way."

"Oh, my god, she's...gorgeous," Robbie stated.

"She's beautiful," Beck added.

Tori walked onstage still in zombie makeup.

It was kind of funny how confused the audience was. Sofia Michelle looked at Mr. Reed, as if silently asking if the zombie make up was some kind of joke.

Mr. Reed took another nerve pill and downed a bottle of water.

After his parts were over, Peyton hung backstage to watch the rest of the performance.

"Just say you'll marry me," Robbie commanded.

"Excuse me, but most women don't wanna be screamed at when they're being proposed too," Tori argued back.

"Oh, come on!" yelled Robbie. "I'm rich, I'm handsome, I have nine boats! Stop acting like a stupid girl!"

"Wait, you got a little something right here," Tori said, touching her lower lip.

Robbie asked, "What?"

"This," Tori said, before she 'punched' Robbie. He fell on the ground and everybody laughed and cheered.

After that Tori started singing her song with Beck, before André picked up the tempo.

After the show was over, Tori zombie makeup free, they hung out backstage before Sofia Michelle came to join them.

"Well, that was an...interesting performance. When I wrote that play, I certainly never pictured Penny as a freakish zombie during most of it," Sofia said.

"Oh, man, I'm out of pills," Mr. Reed stated.

Peyton knew that it was because Mr. Reed was being nervous and all, but Peyton was worried that the teacher was going to develop an addiction to them. He was reminded of one of the teachers at his old middle school snorting cocaine off a toilet seat just to get high during lunch.

"Look, I can explain," Tori told Sofia.

"You don't need to explain. I totally got it," replied Sofia.

"You did? You do?" asked Tori. Sofia nodded and happily, Tori said, "She got it." Confused, she asked, "What'd you get?"

Sofia explained, "The whole commentary on what's really beautiful. Having these two young men feel true love for a girl with a hideous face really emphasized the whole point of the play, which is substance over beauty, the beauty within."

Everyone nodded and murmured agreements like that's what they were really going for, instead of the complete opposite.

"Well, we're really glad you liked it," Tori told the playwright, smiling.

Robbie said, "Yeah, and did you enjoy my performance, Miss Michelle?"

"Wow, I am late for my plane," Sofia replied.

"I thought that you were going to stay in L.A. for a week," Peyton said.

"Right," Sofia said. "Well, bye." She took off. Maybe she didn't like the performance as much as she claimed she did. Unless she lied about her plane to avoid insulting Robbie's acting talent.

Mr. Reed said, "All right, congratulations everyone. Now before we go, just a couple of—"

Disco music started playing and they looked at Sinjin, who was wearing 1970s era clothing.

"Don't fight it," Sinjin told them and started dancing.

Peyton shrugged and started dancing making everyone else join in.