Sea Foam

Chapter Six

Mr. Kaplan stood on the stage in front of the auditorium seats and clapped his hands together. "Welcome, everybody, for being able to come to the first of our practices! It looks like everyone is here, which is good."

"Like anybody would want to skip this," Arielle muttered under her breath as she clapped along with the rest of the students in the auditorium. She couldn't believe she was actually sitting in the plush seats, which were way more comfortable than they already looked.

"Now," Mr. Kaplan continued, "the scripts will be handed out. Please take only one and pass it behind you."

Arielle sighed and leaned forward to accept the script from the person in front of her. However, the guy made sure to give her the stink eye and a disgusted look as he whispered, "You don't belong here," as he handed the scripts over to her.

Unfazed, Arielle merely muttered, "Tell me about it," before leaning back and passing the rest of the scripts back. She flipped through the pages of the thick notebook, skimming over the pages. God, when would she memorize everything?

"Isn't this great?"

Arielle groaned. Because she and Eric didn't see each other during the school day (thank goodness), he made sure to stick right next to her as soon as she entered the auditorium.

"I mean, we're finally doing this," Eric continued, waving his script on the air. "Aren't you excited at all?"

"Not in the slightest," Arielle deadpanned.

Eric seemed put off for a moment, but he quickly recovered, digging into his bad and pulling out two highlighters. "Here, take one."

Arielle glanced down at the highlighters in his hand, raising an eyebrow. What were they for? Doodling?

"You use them to highlight your lines," Eric said slowly, surveying Arielle's face. "Didn't you know? Have you really never done something like this?"

Arielle glanced around the auditorium. Sure enough, those with scripts were all hunched over, a pen or highlighter in their hands. "Of course I knew," she said simply, plucking a highlighter out of Eric's grip. "I was just surprised you had more than one highlighter."

Eric laughed. "Right."

Ignoring him, Arielle flipped all the way to the beginning of the packet, where Rosaline, her character, would probably have the most lines.

Sure enough, after the first few pages and one or two songs, her name was rarely mentioned again.

"Hey," she said to Eric. If he was going to stick next to her, she might as well make use of him. "Since I don't have a lot of scenes, does this mean I don't have to come to practice all the time?"

Eric frowned and looked up from his heavily-highlighted pages. "I don't know," he said. "It's my first time here, too."

Oh, right. Arielle leaned back in her seat and blew her red bangs away from her eyes. Eric really was useless, then.

"But I think you would still have to attend all the practices," he continued when he probably noticed her dejected state. "They did it like that at my own school. And besides, you're the understudy for Juliet, the female main protagonist." He nudged Arielle's side. "I think you'll have to attend even more practices and stay behind longer because of that."

Arielle whipped her head around to face Eric completely. "What?" she half-yelled. "Why do I have to do that?"

"Is there a problem over there?" Mr. Kaplan asked from the front. "What's the question?"

Arielle could feel her face turning red as she leaned back in her seat and pretended the observe the script really closely two inches away from her eyes.