We were all in rehearsal right before we went on Thanksgiving break. I was playing the piano as Nini and Ricky were singing the start of something new, as dancers were around them with disco balls and signs.

    "Yes! Yes! Whoo!" E.J shouts as soon as the last bell rang. "Sorry. I really love Thanksgiving." He apologizes, as everyone laughs.

    "Okay, hold on. I know everyone is excited for the holiday break. But I'm me, and I have notes. Ricky and Nini, that was good. But it could be better. she said in the spirt of holiday cheer." Miss Jenn says, "Good save." Carlos says about her last correction.

    "Your homework over this break, all of you, is to please go on vocal rest. And go over your line, too, which is hard to do on vocal rest. But make it work. And remember, may nothing ever block your doorway to happiness." Miss Jenn announced as everybody picked up their stuff and was ready to head out for the week.

    "Excuse me!" Mr. Mazzara exclaims as he enters the room. "Okay, starting now." Miss Jenn says adding onto her inspirational quote.

    "Oh, don't mind me. I just came to return a missing item. Ashlyn. Cannot have our robotics team co-captain going home without her binder over the break." He says handing the girl her binder.

    I was just talking with Carlos and Ashlyn about thanksgiving, "Oh. Cobbler sounds so nice. My family usually has three protein courses and then everybody's asleep by 6:00." Carlos says as Big Red joins the conversation. "My folks start eating at dawn and then they barely make it past the Macy's parade." He says.

    "Yeah, a store bought rotisserie chicken, and instant mashed potato's just about does it for me." I add laughing a bit at the end.

    "Well, at least your folks are sticking around. E.J's parents are treating my parents to a spa in Park City after dinner tomorrow. They told us to try and have a meaning full night at the movies." Ashlyn says as we all look at each other and have an idea.

    "Wait.." "I was gonna say" Ashlyn and Carlos say as we all think the same thing. "Do you guys wanna come over after dinner tomorrow? Like late night party." Ashlyn asks as Big Red and I nods our heads in agreement.

    "I never don't want that." Carlos says really wanting to have this party, "Should we keep it to a small group or.." Big Red starts but is cut off by Carlos announcing to everybody, "Party at Ashlyn's after Thanksgiving tomorrow! Everyone's invited!" He announces as everybody cheers, excited for the party.

———— [...] ————-

"Hey G. What are you making?" I say as I walk into the kitchen after dinner, "Gluten-free cupcakes I'm making for the party." She says mixing the batter.

"Okay then. What's this?" I say picking up a knitted hat that was sitting on the counter. "Oh. I made that." I only turn to look at her a quirked my eyebrow. "What? Do you not believe me?" Gina questions me. "Are you sure you made this?" I ask making her just give me a look that says really.

"Okay, okay. I believe you." I pause before continuing, "It looks great G." I pause before continuing, "So, are we gonna head over to Ashlyns soon?" I ask her. "Umm, you can go without me, I gotta finish these, and then I think I'm gonna go over to Ricky's...to walk him over to Ashlyn's." Gina says as I look at her interested about Ricky.

"Okay, what is going on between you and Ricky?" I question her, "Nothing, we're just friends." she answers as I could t help but smirk at her. "What?" Gina questions me, "Nothing" I say as I walk over to her as she's about to pour the batter into the cupcake tin. While she looking away I stick my finger into the batter and taste it before running back upstairs. "Marie! You can't just eat out of the bowl!" Gina calls, "Yes, I can!" I call back from my room.

———— [...] ————-

Most of the cast was at Ashlyn's, and Nini was in the kitchen setting up some of the snacks.

"Hey. Oh, I love your sweater!" Nini compliments as I walk into the room. "Aww, thanks. I'm glad you came. You know, I know things have been a little weird between us after I went homecoming with E.J." I respond grabbing a chip from a bowl.

    "Oh, are you kidding? I know Gina told you go with him. Plus you took me to get ice cream. But I've totally moved on." Nini assured me. "I don't know, I still feel bad about it." I admit looking over at Nini.

     "Well, you did get an amazing song out of it, so..." Nini starts saying as I shake my head looking down. "Oh, come on! Prom Queen is literally the best ballad in the show, and I'm lowkey jealous Gabriella doesn't get to sing it." Nini compliments. "Stop." I say giving her a look. She just replies with, "I wish I could write like that."

    "Okay, um, did you not write that completely adorkable song about how you don't not love someone." I say. "Yeah, that was a one-time thing and it totally backfired. I highly recommend not telling someone you love them for the first time on Instagram." Nini explains.

    "Well, maybe you should write something for yourself then. I'm serious. Nothing about boys." I suggested, as I walked back into the living room.

Carlos then comes in holding what looks to be a big box. "The party may begin." He announces to everyone.

"Carlos!"

"Whoa. Okay, you know it's a potluck not like, catering, right?" Ashlyn chuckled. "This is not food." He explains.

    "Oh. gods. I thought it was pizza. Too much lactose." Big Red comments as we all laugh.

    Carlos then opens the thing he had brought in, and it looked like a board game of some sort. "What is that?" I question looking up from the board over at Carlos.

    "This is something I've been waiting many long years to share with the world. You guys, this is High School Musical, the Choosical!" Carlos explains as we all look at the board in awe.

    "The what now?" Ashlyn asks. "Okay, so when I was a child, I wanted to go into the movie. But the movie was on a screen." Carlos pauses as Seb comments, "He's not wrong."

    "So I decided to create the next best thing. An interactive, hyperactive HSM experience that can be played by children and adults, everywhere in the world. As long as they lived in my bedroom." He explains.

    "Wait, so you've had this for ten years?" Big Red asks him. "And I've never played it." Carlos answers with a big smile on his face.

    "Okay, we'll totally play it." Ashlyn exclaims looking at everybody surrounded around the game. "I'm gonna cry!" Carlos squeals before explaining the rules. "Okay, so there are two teams. The East High Wildcats and the West High Knights. So, sort yourselves."

    "Okay. We'll be on the same team." Nini said to me as we all sorted what teams we wanted to be on.

    "Okay, Okay, you guys. There are four basic categories. The Getcha Head in the Frame Trivia Challenge...the Bop Till You Drop Dance Challenge, Sync to the Status Quo Lip Sync Challenge...and Looking for Glee, which I thought would be a fun name for the singing challenge because I was obsessed with the show." Carlos explains to everybody.

    "Hey, it still holds up." E.J replies to his last comment.

    "Oh, Good. I thought you guys were gonna judge me." Carlos says laughing at the end. "Okay, so Knights you won the coin toss, so you guys get to pick the first challenge."

    "We've gotta do Looking for Glee." Ricky suggests as everybody else on their team agrees. "Excellent." Carlos says picking a card and read off what it says, "As fast as you can, please sing the lyrics to What I've been looking for to the rhythm of Getcha Head in the Game." 

    They start trying to sing the song but was doing it pretty badly. "That was terrible" I say while laughing. "I'm so happy." Seb says holding back a laugh.

    "Congratulations, you get to move four spaces closer to center stage at East High." Carlos tells the other team. "Okay, Wildcats, take a spin."

    E.J goes to spin the wheel on the board and before quickly talking about what we wanted to do E.J says, "All right, we're gonna bop."

    "Okay. Pick one member from each team." Carlos tells everybody.

    After a little bit of deliberation both Ricky and E.J stand up and everybody goes a little quiet.

    "Oh, boy" I mumble

    "Your challenge is to stare at your partner and do the Sharpay and Ryan warm up thing for 60 seconds straight without laughing. Or killing each other." Carlos adds seeing that it was Ricky and E.J.

    They both start doing the weird warm up as everybody bursts out laughing at how stupid they look right now.

———— [...] ————

We were almost done playing the game as Carlos wanted a picture of everybody together.

"Gina, Nini, you need to come back, you're missing it!" I call out to them from the couch that we were all squished on to fit in the picture. Nini then comes back in and lays on top of us on the couch posing for the picture.

"Gina, come on!" Carlos calls.

———— [...] ————

"Okay, you guys, according to the Musical Choosical Handbook of Rulesicals..." Carlos starts saying before E.J interrupts him, "Stop it."

"The only way to resolve a tie at the end of regulation play is with a lighting speed round of Getcha Head in the Frame trivia questions. Are you ready? Because people have been known to cry during this."

" I thought you never actually played this." Seb questions before Carlos cuts him off. "Honey, not today of all days. Okay, here we go. Name both jersey numbers Troy wears in the movie."

"Uh..fourteen and ten!" Big Red answers incredibly fast which leaves everybody a little shocked that he knew the answer so quickly.

"Correct. How does Gabriella describe herself when she complaining to her mom?"

"Oh! As the schools freaky genius girl." I answer.

"And do people usually talk like that?"

"They do not."

"Correct!"

"Wildcats. "Whose red tie does Ms. Darbus compliment at auditions?" Carlos questions looking toward our team.

We all try to think of who it is for a little bit until E.J answers with "Allen?" We we're all suprised that he knew that. "I looked it up on my phone, you guys. I can't stop cheating and I'm sorry!" E.J confesses. "E.J, come on." I say as other people say that he should be disqualified.

"We'll, the West High Knights have a chance to steal. "What is the name of the girl who pops and locks?" Carlos says toward the other team.

Gina immediately stands up and starts singing and doing the dance. "I love to pop and lock and jam and break." Martha Cox!" She answers as we all laugh.

"The West High Knights win!" Carlos announces as he throws some confetti up, as everybody cheers and the other team celebrates their victory.

"You, my dear, get this homemade Scholastic Decathlon ribbon. Careful, it's just a straight pin and was never sanitized." Carlos says holding a ribbon and walking over to Gina.

"Wait, okay, everybody, get in." Gina says pulling out her phone to take a selfie. "Okay. Ooh, I won." She says as we take the photo.

"Okay, hold on, I need to share this with my loved ones." Gina starts before I comment, "Did you just forget that I was here."

"My other loved ones." Gina says turning to look down at me. "You gotta stop moving. This is the price you pay for beauty." Carlos says still trying to pin the ribbon to her. Gina laughs as she calls our mom, "Mom, mom, mom, okay two things. One I was just crowned the queen of crazy town, and two can Marie and I spend the night at Ashlyn's house?" Gina talks to mom as we kind of laugh.

"Um, it's actually the queen of East High..." Carlos corrects her but is shushed by Gina. "Uh, Mom sorry, I can't hear you, okay. Okay, you're on speaker. Say happy Thanksgiving to my mom, everyone." Gina says hold the phone out. "Happy Thanksgiving!" Everybody says to mom.

"Oh. Same to all of you. Gina, honey, can you take me off speaker?"

"Uh...yeah. Sorry guys." Gina says taking mom off speaker and walking away from everybody, as I follow soon after.

"Mom?" Gina asks, "What is it?"

"What is she saying?" I ask not being able to hear my mom over the phone. Gina ignores my question and scoffs before saying "No"

"Mom." Gina continues before I go to grab the phone from her so I could talk to mom.

"Mom? Mom? What's going on?" I ask her walking away from Gina.

"Oh. Marie is that you?"

"Yeah. Mom whats happening?"

"Listen to me honey. I got a call from the coroners office. We have to go, it's another emergency."

"They can't do this to us again, we just moved here!" I reply probably a little too loud.

"And I told them that, baby."

"I just don't understand how they can just..." I stop as I sit down on a bench in the doorway.

"Baby, please."

"Okay. Okay." I say tearing up a little, I pull the phone away from my ear and look at Gina and back towards everybody else.

"How long do we have?"

"Ten days. Listen to me..."

"No, we got it."

"I love you."

"Yeah." I say before hanging up the phone and handing it back to Gina. We both then walk into the kitchen to see Ricky there sitting on the counter.

"Hey, you guys okay?" He asks, "I'll be outside." I say as I just grab my stuff and walk toward the door.

As I exit the house I hear Ashlyn calling out for me not to leave but I just ignore her and leave anyway.

Once Gina gets outside we just walk home in silence and both go straight to our rooms.

As I walk in I see a couple bins and boxes still in my room, so I decide to start to pack up some of the photos I put on my wall. I started to take down photos of mostly Gina and I, but I had just put up one of the whole cast that we took a couple days ago. I had one of Nini, Kourtney, and I when we got ice cream after saving Miss Jenn. There was one of Ashlyn and I when we went biking around town a couple weeks ago, there was even one of E.J and I at homecoming making funny faces towards the camera.

I smiled looking at all of the photos I had of my friends and family, all of my emotions that had been bottled up all night finally were let out as I just started crying as I crumbled into the safety of my bed.

A few minutes later Mom came in and tried to soothe me, and comfort me.

——-
hey i'm back this is a longer chapter hope you like it as usual have a good day/night
bye bye