Soulmates

Chapter Four

Piper McLean hated her voice. Not because it sounded terrible, but because it sounded too good. Everyone wanted her in the spotlight because of it, everyone but Piper.

    She'd never felt the push into the limelight as much as she did until New York. Everyone here seemed really caught up on her father's work and the life of a sixteen-year-old.

    But this new school was a fresh start for her. Yes, people knew who she was, but they didn't know how rowdy she could be.

    And boy, oh boy was Piper McLean a rowdy member of the school's tech crew.

    She'd gotten the schedule change a day after they started reprinting, meaning she wasn't the first new girl in the auditorium.

    Isn't it weird that the people who get no representation get one of the most giant classrooms? Not only do we have the auditorium, but we also have a small warehouse.

    She didn't know what to bring to the class, so she just got a notebook. The only thing she knew about this class was that they were all required to help with the shows somehow, and the first musical would be Hadestown. Piper had heard of the musical. Eva Noblezada was Piper's vocal idol, along with Renee Rapp, Christy Altomare, and Shoshana Bean.

    But Piper would never sing in front of people with as much ease as they do. Unless, of course, she could do it without drawing any attention to herself.

    Piper sat close to the stage, the front row. She always loved the blank scene, like a canvas. If Piper was stage manager, he could get her ideas across to the director and watch the canvas go from empty to the rainbow that is actors and set pieces. She knew how to do it; in her last school, she was SM, and Piper had a first-hand look at directing.

    A blond girl plopped down on the stage. Piper recognized her immediately; this was the girl who had glared at her for passing papers back. She supposed the girl could be mad at the documents, not her, but Piper couldn't help but wonder what she did to hurt the girl.

    The girl turned to Piper as if she could feel Piper's eyes on her. "What?" she snapped.

    "What? Oh! Hi," Piper replied awkwardly.

    "Are you okay?"

    "Mmhmm."

    The blond raised a brow. "You sure? You seem kerfluffled."

    "No, I was just trying to think of..." Piper thought back to seeing the girl when she passed the papers back. "What class we had together... Yeah."

    "English," said the girl as she looked Piper up and down.

    Piper was about to respond when a boy plopped down beside the girl. He had pale skin and dark hair in a man bun. The boy placed a guitar case by his side and took out sheet music. He started reviewing it when the first bell rang.

    The girl didn't seem to care about the boy's presence and vise versa. They clearly knew each other, but it seemed to be an acquaintance type of thing.

    People came flooding in; Piper hadn't noticed the number of people in tech: not much. She assumed the crowd would get bigger as more people got their schedules sorted out and when the actors were cast.

    "Alright, people," said their teacher, Mr. Apollo, as he climbed atop the stage. "We need to choose production and stage. Any volunteers?"

    The blond girl and Piper raised their hands.

    "Annabeth, what do you want?"

    "Production."

    "And... I'm sorry, I don't know who you are. Are you one of the schedule changes?"

    "Yes," Piper said. "I'm Piper."

    "Okay, Piper. Do you have any stage management experience?"

    "In my last few school's I was stage manager. And I've helped my dad with some of his movies..."

    "Who's your dad?" Mr. Apollo asked.

    "Tristan McLean," Piper muttered. She didn't want anyone to know who her father was, and as soon as she mentioned movies, she knew she started digging. Now, Piper had to finish the hole.

    "Ah. Are you okay with SM?"

    "Yep."

    "Great! You and Annabeth will be working together a lot. The first job for you two is to get audition time slots sorted and printed, after that, I need your help choosing a callback date."

    Piper and Annabeth went to the warehouse. Piper knew the warehouse wasn't the best way to describe the room. It wasn't part of the wings or backstage. It was, in fact, similar to a warehouse. Woods and drills and drill bits were scattered around the room. Still, there was a printer and a few costume racks. In the corner was an ancient computer.

    "We need to use that?" Piper asked.

    "Yeah," Annabeth said. "If I'd known we were doing this today I would've brought my iPad." She thought for a moment. "I was literally using it this morning for a design, I should've brought it."
   
    Piper sat atop a metal barstool. "We can use the student log-ins, right?"

    "Yeah."

    Piper typed in her password and opened a new document.

    "If the auditions start at four and last until six and we have two days..." Annabeth went into deep thought.

    "Five-minute intervals should work, maybe even put a minute between each audition."

    "I don't think we can do the minute, but five minutes should be great," Annabeth said. "Can you format it?"

    "Yeah," Piper said.

    "I think the callbacks should be two days afterward. The list should be emailed the night before with audition materials. He can post it too."

    "'Kay. Can you turn on the printer?"

    "Sure." Annabeth waltzed over to the printer from Mesopotamia and turned it on. The machine made a loud, ear-rape-worthy sound before it connected to the computer. Annabeth had winced at it. "You'd think after all the shows I'd be used to it."

    "I don't think anyone can get used to that," Piper said. "Is it print--" The printer made another noise. "Nevermind."

    Annabeth picked up the pages and walked to the door. She stopped to wait for Piper. "You colored them orange?"

    "It catches the eye," Piper said in response.

    Annabeth laughed. "It looks so bad." Annabeth showed Piper the weird dull-yet-vibrant paper, and Piper couldn't help but laugh with Annabeth.

    "It's really fucking eye-catching, I did my job."

WE GOT THE ORANGE OUT!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOO

NOW WE JUST NEED TO DEAL WITH FOUR YEARS OF ANOTHER ASSHOLE AND THEN WE WILL HOPEFULLY HAVE A DECENT PERSON RUNNING.

Also I will not be writing Blitstone this time, but there will be hints of it. They're going to be Magnus' adoptive parents.

And I already decorated for Christmas. We started on Nov 1.

That's all.

Love ya!