𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒𝐘 - 𝐡𝐬𝐦𝐭𝐦𝐭𝐬 | ✔

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ 𝒙𝒙. 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐠𝐨 𝐨𝐧

𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐰𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐲
━━ 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒔𝒉𝒐𝒘 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒕 𝒈𝒐 𝒐𝒏

"What happened in here!?" the whole art club exclaimed entering the auditorium where all the props, costumes, background... were stored. Everything was full of ashes and firefighters were coming in and out of the room.

"It's okay. Nobody was hurt. There was a small fire in the theater over the holiday and the sprinklers did their job," Miss Jenn explained coming to meet them at the entrance. Some circuits had blown up over the holidays, "the show must go on."

"How can it go on? Everything is destroyed. Everything we had worked for...", Juliette whispered more to herself than to anyone else. However, everyone heard her. She was about to cry.

"Unfortunately, the show cannot go on," one of the firefighters told them, "Fire ripped through half of your costumes and the sprinklers ruined a bunch of your sets. I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to red tag the entire backstage area for a month at least."

This completely discouraged all of them and Juliette finally gave in and began to cry. They had worked incredibly hard for everything they had until that moment and now there was nothing. Every single person there turned to look at her at the hearing of her soft sobs, making her cry even more simply of sheer embarrassement.

Miss Jenn then turned to everyone and started giving directions. She was determined to save this show, "Okay listen up! Hug your neighbour, take a moment and let's reconvene in the cafeteria after school to talk about options. Nini and Ricky, spread the word."

"Okay, yeah, sure", Nini quickly agreed but Ricky did not seem to be listening. He was too focused on his phone to pay attention and they needed to call for him several times for the boy to actually agree. Once everyone dispersed, Juliette sat in a corner and buried her head in her knees.

"Juliette, c'mon, cheer up," E.J. and Seb sat at her two sides, "we are going to save this. Just like we saved Miss Jenn, remember?"

"How can we? We do not have enough time to re-do everything," she explained still crying.

"We do. We'll all help. We'll meet after school and spend hours drawing and glueing everything, okay? But first you need to calm," Seb told her rubbing her shoulder and looking worriedly at E.J. They did not have enough time to re-do everything, they knew it. They just did not have the heart to tell the girl.

—

The cafeteria was full of theater and art kids hugging each other and whispering sweet things to calm the others down. There were people hugging that you would have never expected to see together. Ricky, on his part, was sitting with Juliette on his lap trying to calm her down. The girl could not stop shedding silent tears. He was holding her hand and caressing it softly, sometimes lifting his to take the tears out of the girl's face.

She was just so excited for this year to go well. They had put so much effort in what they were doing that she was just disappointed. Miss Jenn had worked hard for this go perfect, the cast had practised over and over their scenes until they were perfect, the art club had made their best with the decorations and props, Kourtney had made amazing costumes... they had been integrated for the first time and she did not want this to fade away.

"Come on, Jul, you have to calm down, you're going to dehydrate."

"I just... I don't understand. How could this happen?"

"It does not matter how it happened. We have to focus on how we are going to make this work."

"But what if we can't?"

"Hey, we can. We always can. That is what we do best, okay?", he whispered kissing her temple and getting up as Miss Jenn entered. They had not realized that some eyes had been on them the entire time.

"Okay, guys! Wait, where's Gina?"

"I think she's going through a family thing right now."

"Okay, prayers to our Gina," the teacher exclaimed before continuing, looking at all her pupils, "I'm really not sure what to say. You've all worked so hard. I've seen all of you grow so much. But if we don't have a theater, we don't have a show."

The redhead looked for Ricky's hand and once she found it, he squeezed hers a bit tighter as sort of reassurance, "Wait, what?"

"Come on, Miss Jenn, we've gotta do something," Carlos raised his voice above all others.

"I think we... I don't know, I guess we could consider other venues?"

That gave them a glimpse of light and soon, the whole cafeteria was full of names from all the different venues in the city. Ultimately, Carlos gave the best option of them all: the El Rey theater. His uncle was the listing agent and, even if Miss Jenn did not seem exactly thrilled at first, they ended up settling on that option. Uncle Ruben allowed them to use it.

"Wildcats, let's grab all the props and costumes that didn't get damaged and let's load out."

—

"I'll call you after rehearsal, okay? Maybe I can go and help."

"You don't have to help but I won't object to you coming over, if you are not too tired," she smiled looking up at the boy with a smile.

Ricky gave her a quick peck on the lips before assuring her that he will go see her and then left with the rest of the cast, carrying everything that have been saved to the El Rey theatre. On their part, the art club marched towards Juliette's house to start working.