It was hard to believe that Michael, Jake and Rich actually managed to hook up a full Broadway-like light circuit around the 'stage' in their gym.

In fact, it wasn't just hard to believe it, Christine just didn't believe it. She stared at the people in front of her, an unimpressed look on her face. It only took a second of this for the proud looks to fall off their faces. It was replaced by looks of guilt and nervousness.

"You... actually made up all that?" Christine asked them. "In two days?"

"Uh... sure?" Michael said. "Well, I guess we lied about the spotlight."

"And the floodlights," Jake admitted. "And the multi coloured lights."

"We lied about pretty much anything, we only have the gym lights that we can turn off and on," Rich told her. Michael and Jake sighed, giving Rich an unimpressed look. Rich shrugged. "Not to mention that we're the only ones here. Connor and Chloe are not here. Neither is Brooke, though, now that I think about it."

"They WHAT?! But it's the-they can't-WHY?!" Christine groaned. "Whatever. We can work with that." Christine handed them the script. "Here. Just look out for blackout, alright? Ignore all those other stage cues. I may have gone a bit overboard."

Christine watched, a little smug, as the boys' eyes seemed to grow wider and wider as they looked through the papers.

"You got this, right?" Christine asked.

"Uh... yeah, probably," Michael stuttered, still staring down at the script. Christine waited, but the others didn't give her any confirmation. Christine supposed that one out of three wasn't so bad.

"Great!" Christine spoke up. "Don't worry, we can stop anytime you need. Good luck!"

Michael, Jake and Rich didn't say anything as Christine walked away. She assumed they understood.

Christine hurried over to the group of actors, but just before she entered the group, she faltered.

Was it just her, or was everyone on edge?

Christine didn't understand. She would have understood nervousness, but this was something almost completely different. Instead of standing beside a group of nervous actors, Christine was standing beside a volcano, just waiting to explode.

Christine hesitated. This couldn't mean anything good. She wondered if perhaps she should say something, to lower the tension everyone seemed to be feeling a little bit. But Christine wasn't even quite sure why they were angry, let alone how to quell the anger.

"Christine!"

Christine nearly jumped out of her skin before turning around and realizing it was Ms Wormwood who called to her. Christine took a deep breath. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe all the tension WAS just her.

Christine returned Ms Wormwood's smile with one of her own.

"Ah... yeah, Ms Wormwood?" Christine asked politely.

"I was just wondering if you were ready to start," Ms Wormwood told her. "I've situated Michael and Rich by the light to make they keep an eye on each other. Are we ready to start?"

Christine looked back at the volcano behind her. Did the lava just rise? Or was Christine wrong yet again?

Christine turned back to Ms Wormwood, fixing the most convincing smile she could on her face.

"Yeah," she replied. "Of course!"

-

Christine probably should have said no. The first part, with the narrator, and the conversation between the two main characters went relatively smoothly, despite Evan stuttering so much it sounded like someone was shaking him around.

But then they got to the problem part. Christine looked around expectantly, but Deadly Virus didn't make her appearance. Christine sighed. She'd have to stop the practice run through, of course, as much as she hated it.

"Where's Veronica?" Christine grumbled, but she felt that she already knew the answer.

Evan rubbed his hands together. Poor guy, he looked like he was sweating up a storm. Christine absolutely did not want to sit next to him in the performance.

"I... uh... d-don't think she's here," Evan told Christine. Once again, Christine sighed.

"You HAVE to be kidding me," she said, apparently louder than she wanted to, because Evan jumped. Christine tried to calm her voice. "I... It's fine. We'll just... I don't know, can the tech crew spare anyone?"

"I think they'd hate us if we asked," Evan replied. Christine groaned.

"Why haven't they caught this dumb ghost?!" she complained. "FINE! We'll... skip that part for now or whatever. MCNAMARA! IT'S YOUR CUE NOW!"

McNamara jumped, startled. Christine winced; perhaps she could have said that a little more kindly, and it didn't even do what it was supposed to. McNamara just stared at Christine dumbly until Ms Wormwood kindly nudged her towards the stage.

After McNamara stumbled on, she quickly hurried into her routine, but it was all off balance now, because she started off on the wrong spot. Evan had to duck out of the way as she nearly punched him in the head. Christine sighed.

Eventually, Christine had to stop watching her. It seemed like it was making her nervous.

-

"Are you ready to go on?" Elphaba asked Duke. Elphaba frowned. She put more concern into her question than she would have liked.

Duke glared at her from where she was sitting on the floor. She certainly didn't look ready to go on. In fact, it looked like the only place Duke should go would be the bathroom.

But Duke stood up, getting in her ready position. Elphaba watched her carefully (and suspiciously), but Duke, despite the look on her face, and the tremble in her hand, didn't falter, not even a little bit.

Elphaba shook her head. What was up with her?

"Everything alright, Elphaba?" Ms Wormwood asked kindly. Elphaba jumped. She hadn't heard Ms Wormwood arrive.

"Oh, yeah, it's fine," Elphaba told her. "Nothing that really concerns me at least."

Ms Wormwood nodded. "Alright," she said. "Get the props for the rebels and the army please, it's good to have them ready."

With only a couple seconds of hesitation, Elphaba nodded, and did as her teacher asked.

-

The first act seemed to drag on for forever, and even Christine was starting to get bored, with an added side of extreme anxiety. Every mishap made her worry more, thinking about how the audience might take, and what she could do to fix it. But the list grew so long that Christine couldn't even keep track of half of them anymore. It made her more than a little worried.

But, finally, the first act ended, and the 'curtain' dropped (actually, it kind of just was... pushed in front of them. Yes, their curtain was a smart board. Getting it into the gym while being careful was not fun). But they even flopped that up when Brooke was several seconds too late and had to be called upon to move the curtain.

"Brooke!" Christine heard as she walked 'backstage' (it was the gym storage room). "You were too late on that, you need to pay attention!"

"I am already!" Brook snapped. "Look, it's out there!"

Elphaba groaned. "Yeah, but it was late! You can't be on your phone in the performance!"

Brooke let out a squawk of disbelief, like she could believe what Elphaba was saying. "I can't just leave my phone somewhere. What if it's stolen? What if something happens?"

"What if we need to call the police?" McNamara chimed in. Christine watched as Elphaba groaned.

"It's really not the time, Heather," Elphaba sighed. This would probably be a good time to step in.

"Hey, guys, let's not fight," Christine spoke up. She hoped none of her fatigue showed up in her voice. "We all need to be on the same page, and willing to listen to each other."

Brooke shook her phone in Christine's direction the way a mother might when she's scolding a child. "I will as soon as she's making sense."

Christine didn't want to argue with her right now. Maybe Ms Wormwood could gently talk some sense into her with her seemingly endless patience-

"Christine, I have to leave for a second, can you do this on your own."

Christine tensed. Was this really happening?

"Christine?"

Christine turned around, giving Ms Wormwood the biggest smile she could, even though she was sure she looked a little manically at this point.

"Yeah!" her voice sounded higher than usual. Christine coughed. "Yeah, it's cool! Don't worry! We got this!"

Christine sounded like she was quoting motivation posters at this point, but Ms Wormwood smiled.

"Good," Ms Wormwood told her, turning away. "I'll be back as soon as I can alright?"

Christine really didn't trust herself to speak, only watching as Ms Wormwood hurried out of the gym, Javert following behind her.

The door clicked shut, and Christine took a deep breath.

"Alright," she said. She made sure her voice didn't shake. "We've got a lot to work on for act one, but we can worry about that later. Let's do our best for act two everyone!"

She did not get the cheers she was looking for.

-

If anything, the second act was even WORSE than the first. Even Elphaba, who knew nothing about theatre, could see it. Even if Elphaba did her part well (which she did, she figured she and Alana and Glinda did well), the others didn't seem to want to try. It made Elphaba annoyed, and she couldn't even imagine what Christine was feeling.

Actually, she didn't have to imagine.

They were right before the start of the war part when Christine finally snapped. Elphaba couldn't blame her, though, because while Chandler was enthusiastically shouting pure abuse at Duke, Duke wasn't even trying, mumbling through her lines and looking down at the ground.

"UGH!" Christine finally cried, standing up. Everyone looked up in surprise, watching as Christine glared around at them. "You aren't supposed to be mumbling, you have to look up at the audience, and you actually have to try!"

Christine was breathing heavily now, with a red face, looking on the verge of bursting into tears. Nobody seemed to know what to do, so they just watched.

"And, yeah, I know this is your first time doing this for most of you, but at the very least, you have to do something!" Christine threw her hands up. "Why are you all acting like this is the worst thing in the world?! It's fun, if you just give it a chance! And you're going to be performing! Don't you have a little pride, is this what you want to show to people?! I just... why?!"

The silence was deafening. Nobody seemed to know how to respond, nobody even seemed to want to respond. After a couple seconds of just staring Christine finally shook her head, once again throwing up her hands.

"Right," she grumbled. "If you're done with this, then I'm done with this."

With that, the class watched as Christine stomped towards the door, throwing it opening and slamming it behind her. The gym was left in silence.

Elphaba, after a couple seconds of shock, finally stood up. What... what did they do now? Elphaba looked around the gym, and saw others doing the same. They were all completely confused. What does anyone even do after that?

A little nervously, Elphaba cleared her throat. She was well aware that she needed to say something, she needed to do something, they couldn't just stand around in the dark for the rest of class...

Nothing came out of Elphaba's mouth.

"What now?" McNamara asked into the silence. "Do we leave?"

The bell suddenly ringing made Elphaba jump, and it answered McNamara's question. Without speaking, the class started going toward the walls, where all their stuff was stored.

Wait, they couldn't leave like this! Elphaba should say something, she needed to say something... but nothing came out of Elphaba's mouth as she watched her classmates file out of the gym, still in silence.

And, then, of course, Elphaba remembered.

She turned around, and watched Javert finish writing something on his clipboard. Of course he had returned, just in time. And, of course, Ms Wormwood was nowhere in sight.

Elphaba scowled. "We're... not usually like this."

Javert wrote something else.

"Oh, come on..." Elphaba growled. "This isn't fair! Yeah, some of us are kind of jerks, but so are most teenagers, you can't really judge us based on something like that! We're doing our best!"

Javert finally looked up, and his face was uninterested. Elphaba took a deep breath in. "I don't care," he said. "This is what I see, and that's what I'm writing down."

"That isn't fair..." Elphaba said again. "We just-!"

"I'm not interested," Javert told her, and Elphaba glared at him as he walked out of the classroom, leaving her all alone.