𝐎𝐍 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐄 - 𝐡𝐬𝐦𝐭𝐦𝐭𝐬 (𝐢𝐢) | ✔

nineteen

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nineteen: the furry box
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     North High's costume room was out of this world, something worthy of a Broadway super-production. Juliette and Kourtney could not help but open their mouths at how outstanding their costumes for the play were. They looked as if Walt Disney himself had devised them specifically for their performance and, honestly, left theirs as the work of amateurs.

     "You guys, our songs have been viewed like, 35,000 times now," Nini announced, standing in the middle of the room. She had been refreshing the page for their Instagram song all day, astounded at how the numbers kept growing and growing and the comments praising them kept arriving. 

     "No way!" the redhead replied, approaching her to take a look at the numbers on her phone, "this is crazy!"

     "Wow!" 

     "You know that I keep getting these DMs saying that I should post more videos singing?" Juliette told her boyfriend with a huge smile on her face. At Ricky's question about whether she truly wanted to do that or not, Juliette stopped to think for a bit before replying "I don't know. I could try, I guess."

     Ricky's smiled faltered, but the girl was too occupied looking at Nini's phone again, which by now displayed an even bigger number. Soon, however, they were interrupted by a squeal, which they identified as Kourtney. The girl had just started dating Howie and she was as happy as could be about her recent change of relationship status. It all seemed to be going great for the East High girls and Juliette was sure that nothing could spoil that excitement.

     "The box you're sitting on has fur stuck on the lid," Nini pointed out, making Kourtney get up from the box with a big jump.

     A discussion began as to who would open the furry box. Nobody knew why but they were all too afraid to do so, as if they expected to find a corpse or other kind of macabre element. Honestly, coming from North High, anything was possible in order to win the competition. Nini was ultimately the one to approach the box and open it, careful with maintaining a prudent distance in case anything jumped at her. Nevertheless, they did not find any beast mask. Only extremely expensive wigs that looked like they cost more than all of their phones together. 

     "So, where's the beast mask?" Ricky asked, just before someone opened the door abruptly, making them all gasp. Turning around, Juliette came face to face with Lily's taller and slimmer body, making her take a few steps back, stepping on E.J.'s foot on the process. Nobody dared to move as the rest of the North High students gathered in front of them.

     "Hello, Wildcats," Lily greeted them with a sinister look on her face. "What are you all doing here? Scoping out the competition?"

     "We came for our Beast mask. We know you took it," Carlos stated blatantly.

     "Pardon me, but our costumes are most excellent. Why would we steal your mask when it is so, uh..." the French student doubted for a second, trying to find the most appropriate word, "We do not have a word for this in France but in America, I believe you say 'fugly'?"

     "I'm going to leave your face looking fugly," Juliette took a step towards the boy, but Ricky grabbed her and pulled her backwards before she could do anything else.

     "What did you call my work?" Kourtney yelled.

     "Look, I'm sure your mask is supes cute, but we're just in different leagues. I mean," Lily explained while everyone looked at her with an annoyed look on their faces, "we're literally a quasi-pre-professional theater company and you guys put on shows based on made-for-TV movies. Now maybe you should listen to your precious High School Musical and... stick to the stuff you know."