"Oh man," I whispered, peaking out into the audience. The rows were quickly filling up with way more people than I had expected. Usually when Vice Principal Nero had his concerts, the students would fill most of the seats but then the first three rows would always stay empty, partly because of the racket that the poorly tuned violin caused, partly because Nero had a tendency to spit when he got really into the music. On all levels except physical, Vice Principal Nero was a llama.
But tonight the auditorium was full, with more and more parents and siblings and guests coming in to take the back row as well as two more rows of canteen chairs, that had been set up at the last minute behind the rest of the static seats.
Klaus stepped around me to look out from the wings before shrugging slightly, "It's not too bad."
I raised an eyebrow at him, "What do you mean? Have you seen how many people will be watching us, watching you...and Carmelita..."
"It's fine," said Klaus, nodding along as he did so, as if he was trying to convince himself as well as me, "It's fine, I've got a plan."
"And what would that plan be?"
"Don't worry about it," Klaus said dismissively.
I wasn't sure what he was up to but he didn't seem confident about it. If he was so sure that he had a way of getting out of things, wouldn't he be more relaxed? And why couldn't he tell me the plan? Maybe I could help?
But despite my thoughts, I stayed silent. There was a reason he was keeping things quiet and I wanted to respect that. The last thing I wanted to do was stress him out right before he had to go on stage. Pretending to be Carmelita's lover was stressful enough without me interfering.
We perched on a couple of wooden crates while we were waiting for the show to begin. With about three minutes to go before the curtains would open, Carmelita skipped over, marshmallow pink dress bouncing. She puckered her over-glossed lips before blowing a kiss to us both.
"Are you guys excited?" she squealed, dancing and flouncing about. Klaus and I shared a look but didn't respond, so Carmelita continued, "Well I'm extremely excited! Oh! You know what would turn that frown upside down Isabelle?"
I didn't bother correcting her, "What?"
Carmelita giggled to herself before announcing: "A new dress!"
I glanced down at my bin bag (which I'd remembered to double layer this time) and then back up to the toothache of an outfit that Carmelita was flaunting.
"No thanks," I replied. What was she up to?
She feigned innocence, "No, no, I'm serious! Go to the changing room and see for yourself."
I frowned at her but did what she said anyway. What was the worst that could happen? If she put an awful outfit in there for me, I didn't have to put it on. And if she had one of her cronies in there waiting to lock the door behind me then so be it. She would ruin her play by having a character missing and Klaus would be fine, he had his plan. If Carmelita was trying to get rid of me to avoid me interfering, she had another thing coming. Klaus would sort everything out whether I was on stage or not.
I approached the changing room, which looked suspiciously normal and suspiciously empty. Then again, everyone else was waiting in the wings, waiting to go on stage, so it made sense that it would be deserted. There would be no witnesses to whatever Carmelita had planned.
I shrugged before pushing open the door, it was now or never.
At some point when I was opening the door I had closed my eyes, nervous as to what I was about to see. But since the room was in silence and nothing had been thrown at me, no one had jumped out at me and no one had pushed me into the room and locked it, I slowly opened my eyes to see a dress. A singular black dress was hung on a rail in the middle of the room with a piece of paper stapled to the collar.
