Empire - The Next Step

heartbreak for harper

Harper's eyes skimmed around Shakes and Ladders as she sat twiddling the straw around her juice. A severe feeling of jealousy was gnawing away at her insides as she watched Jacquie chatting away with Henry and Noah by the counter. She needed to confront Noah about those feelings but felt that it was too close to regionals so she would wait until after.

Out of nowhere, a bright green envelope slid under the door and Noah instantly went over to see what it was. Harper glanced over to Richelle who looked exhausted and like nothing could ever make her happy again. The break up with Elliot had really hit her hard and Harper could only hope that she'd be okay in time for the competition the following day.

"This is an escape room." Noah announced to the room as his eyes trailed over the words on the letter. Harper rolled her eyes, of course Michelle would use an escape room. Ever since John had taken her to one she talked about it non stop, this must have been her idea of getting the team to work together. "We're locked in and have to figure out a way to get out."

After Noah had read out their instructions, the whole team split off in different directions to find some sort of clue. Harper and Henry were aimlessly searching around the blenders in the hopes that one might be around the counter but they were unsuccessful. Luckily, it wasn't too long until Kingston had found a large black briefcase behind one of the sofas.

"It probably needs a six digit code to open." Henry suggested as he looked at the lock which indeed did have room for six numbers. Harper glanced over to Finn who looked as though a lightbulb went off in his head.

"Oh, try my email password. It's one two three four five six seven." The whole group were instantly let down at the idea that Finn almost made a useful suggestion, but Piper thankfully found a card with a clue for the code so they wouldn't have to resort to Finn's own password.

Noah explained briefly that they had to figure out the questions on the card and one of the dancers was the answer. Harper had a feeling that things might not end up as well as Michelle and Emily had planned, a lot of the a troupers didn't know each other all that well so some things may have come as quite a shock.

"Okay first question, this person is not just a great dancer but also a great musician. They used to be in a band called...Spaghetti Pedicure." Everyone began to point and gesture towards Noah, although he himself didn't seem too convinced. "No it's not me, all the bands I've been in have had awesome names."

"It's me, and the name is awesome." Summer protested with a look of amusement and herself and Henry began to gush to each other about making music together. Harper glanced at Richelle who was rolling her eyes, the two girls had never quite seen eye to eye and she could tell that Richelle was a little jealous of Summer.

"Okay, well Summer's number one so let's move on." Noah said to try and interrupt the couple's affectionate and sappy conversation, much to everyone's delight. They continued trying to figure out the six digit code by going through each question and found out some very interesting facts about each other. Richelle had auditioned six times for a troupe (although that resulted in a snap at Summer), Kingston's first competition would be regionals, Finn was the Fruity Moons commercial kid (which was Harper's personal favourite fact), Jacquie was a chemistry whizz and Henry was the teams resident romantic which didn't go down too well with Summer.

It was a valiant effort to bring the team closer together, but it seemed to have only pushed them further apart. Richelle was paying nobody any attention, Harper was blatantly avoiding any conversation with Noah, Henry and Summer we're having trouble in paradise and the entire team fell into a full blown argument.

"Guys guys! I got the briefcase open." Noah exclaimed over all the voices to silence the argument as he pulled out the envelope from the briefcase. It luckily worked as everybody was pretty much dying to leave. "Okay, congratulations you just unlocked the first of six pieces of choreo." Everyone let out a huge sigh. They were all tired, angry and just wanted to go home.