Ok, I apologize for the wait, but promise that this chapter is worth it!

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I would like to dedicate this chapter to frodoschick for helping me write it!

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I don't own anything except the plot!

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When the bell rang at the end of my last class, I hurried to pack up so I could get to rehearsal. I zipped up my backpack and put my borrowed copy of The Count of Monte Cristo away. It was an ok book, though sometimes it was hard to concentrate. My friend, Rachel, told me to think of the characters as people from Phantom of the Opera. I hadn’t told Erik about that idea, as he would surely try to Punjab me again. No idea why, though. Meh, at least it made the story mildly more interesting.

“Hey Rena!” Kriss greeted. Her sixth period class was right across the hall from mine, so we met up after school before drama rehearsal started. “Ready for the run-through today?”

“You know it!” I grinned. The drama department was doing After Juliet, and I actually got a good part this time. Kriss was in drama, too, but she was a techie rather than an actor.

By the time we got to the auditorium, everyone was already in the dressing rooms. This was to be the first run-through with costumes. I hurried to the girls’ dressing room while Kriss headed backstage to work the spotlights.

After changing into my costume, I began looking for Miranda. I hadn’t seen her all day, and I was wondering what was up. It didn’t take me long to find her. I was hanging around the set when I heard her distinctive singing voice coming from the black box. I opened the door leading offstage, and saw it was indeed Miranda singing. I gaped. I had seen her in her costume before, but…

“What did you do to your hair?” I shouted, startling a couple of freshman who were sitting on the other side of the room. She stopped in the middle of her rendition of “All That Jazz” from Chicago. She looked over at me with a grin as she tugged out her purple ear buds. I was still staring at her now vibrant hair; it had gone from a light reddish brown to bright green, streaked with purple, and tipped with black.

“You don’t like it?” She pushed out her bottom lip in a puppy-dog pout.

“Like it? It’s awesome!” I cried. “I was just surprised, is all.” Miranda grinned and put her iPod away in her backpack.

“Is Erik around?” she asked hopefully, scanning the auditorium as we walked onstage. I shrugged.

“Yeah, but I haven’t seen him. He must be skulking in the rafters somewhere.” That was probably true. Erik loved it here. I guess it reminded him of the Opera Populaire, only without Christine, Raoul, the managers, or a pompous Italian diva.

“Ok, who was singing in the black box?” a male voice said behind us. We turned to find Orry standing a few meters away. Orry was one of those people that everyone hated, yet always wanted to be around. Both Miranda and I had had a crush on him as freshmen, but those days were long gone. I glared at him. I was 5’6”, a pretty good size for a girl, but I still had to look up a good eleven inches to meet his eyes. It was even worse for Miranda; she was a head shorter than me.

“That would be me,” Miranda said, arms crossed. “What’s it to you?”

“You can’t sing,” he said bluntly. “So you should keep your screeching to yourself, and save everyone’s ears from bleeding.”

“Excuse me?” Miranda said incredulously.

“And what did you do to your hair? It looks like it was either attacked by mold, or a clown puked all over it.” Miranda’s fists were on her hips now, and her face was livid.

“Come on, Miranda,” I said. I grabbed her arm and pulled her away from Orry before she clawed out his with her purple-painted nails.

“I can’t believe him!” she shouted when we were in the dressing rooms a few minutes later. It was empty; everyone else had already headed to the auditorium house to wait for the director to show up. “What makes him think he can insult me and get away with it?”

“He’s Orry,” I told her. “He doesn’t think anything. He’s too stupid for that, remember? He just believes he can do anything he wants.” She rolled her eyes, then froze.

“Miranda?” A wicked grin spread across her face. “What are you staring at?” She started to laugh. I followed her gaze and saw that she was staring at a couple jars of silver glitter and stack of different sized brushes. Next to them was a pink ribbon. I smirked. “What are you thinking?”

“Hey Orry!” Miranda shouted after rehearsal. In her hands was a paper plate full of chocolate chip cookies.

“What? Who called my name?” He looked down at Miranda.

“Would you like a cookie?” Orry glared at her suspiciously.

“You’re not mad?” Miranda shook her head and smiled sweetly.

“Of course not! There’s just no use being mad when we have to work together.”

“Oh, ok.” He took a cookie, bit into it, grinned, and ate three all in less than five seconds. That same evil grin crossed Miranda’s face, and Orry started to look scared.

“What did you…” he trailed off and collapsed, asleep. I giggled.

“You put sleeping powder on the cookies, didn’t you?”

“Yup!”

“But where did you get it?” I asked.

“Aemilia,” she replied simply. Of course. Aemilia hated Orry almost as much as we did. That, and he resembled Erik a little bit, minus the deformity, and Aemilia disliked Erik!

Together we managed to drag him into the girl’s dressing room. Luckily, most everyone had already gone home, so the room was empty. I propped him up in a chair, and Miranda examined his face.

“Think he’s really asleep?” I asked. Miranda responded by poking him sharply in the chest. He just snored loudly. We exchanged glances and nodded.

“Yeah,” we said in unison.

“So what’s the plan?” I inquired as Miranda went over to the costume closet. She pulled out an enormous pink dress. I gaped. It looked like someone had spilled pick cough medicine all over a Disney Princess dress! It smelled like it too. Who knew how long it had been in there!

It took us half an hour to force Orry into the dress. I was surprised be could still breath after we stuck him into a corset!

“There’s something missing,” I mused.

“Yeah.” Miranda picked up the glitter and brushes. “Makeup!” I burst out laughing.

“Don’t forget ribbon!” I tied the pink ribbon into Orry’s long, black ponytail. He was naturally blond, but he liked to dye it. Miranda giggled and opened the glitter jar. She picked up the small brush, dipped it in the jar, and applied it to his face. She frowned.

“Too small.” The brush was tossed to the side, and she picked up the medium brush. “Still too small.” The process was repeated with the largest brush.

“What’s bigger than that?” I asked. Miranda looked at the jar, grinned, and dumped its entire contents onto Orry’s now sparkling face.

“There’s still something missing.” She screwed up her face, deep in thought.

“I’ve got some pearls in my bag,” I suggested.

“Perfect. I’ll go get the final touch.” When I asked what she meant by final touch, she just said “You’ll see!” and walked out the door.

She came back five minutes later with something white under her arm.

“What’s that?” I asked as I draped the string of fake pearls around our victim’s neck. “That had better not be what I think it is.”

“It is!” She laughed happily and put Erik’s half mask on Orry’s face. He was Gerik today.

“I give you Mary Erika!” she said triumphantly.

“Ok… I get the ‘Erika’ part, but where’d you get ‘Mary?”

“It fits!” I nodded in agreement.

Just then, the door to the dressing room was thrown open, revealing a furious Erik. His face was covered with a rather hideous looking teal scarf. It was probably all he could find in the few seconds it had taken him to get here. Upon seeing Miranda, he scowled. If looks could kill…

“You!” He barged up to her. “Where. Is. My. Mask!?” Miranda said nothing, but smiled up at him sweetly. “Where is it!?” Erik repeated, taking her shoulders in his voce-like grip and shaking her violently.

“Erik, you’re trying to kill me again, aren’t you?” she managed to say between shakes. He stopped.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” he growled.

“Your hands are going through my shoulders.”

“Gah!” Erik yelled, launching himself backwards, knocking the scarf off his head in the process. I laid a hand on his shoulder.

“Your mask is there.” I pointed to Erik, or now, Mary Erika. Erik’s eyes, well, the eye that I could see, nearly bugged out of his head. He marched over to Mary Erika and made several futile attempts to grab his mask. Interestingly, the glitter stuck to his spectral hands, but nothing else.

“Hey!” objected Miranda. “You can’t take it off yet! I haven’t gotten a picture!”

“What!?” bellowed Erik, starting to curse in French in such a way that made me glad I didn’t understand a word of that language. Miranda dodged his strangulation hands and left the dressing room, obviously to grab her purple digital camera.

“Relax Erik,” I told him. “Let her have her fun, and you’ll get you mask back. Don’t worry.” I snorted as I picked up the scarf he had dropped. “Besides, teal isn’t your color, anyway.” He glared at me and slapped Mary Erika upside the head. He/she (I don’t know which!) grunted awake and looked about the room bewilderedly. He/she tried to stand, but toppled over awkwardly, resulting in a burst of laughter from me and a scowl from Erik.

Miranda entered the room again and groaned.

“Awww! You woke him up!” She hastily snapped a picture of Mary Erika. It was only by sheer coincidence that Erik ended up in the picture, too.

Glowering, Erik ripped the mask from Mary Erika’s face and stormed out of the room, his cloak swishing magnificently behind him. I motioned to Miranda that she and I should follow the Phantom, and she agreed.

“Hey! What did you do to me!?” Mary Erika cried. We started to collect our things. “Answer me!” We walked to the door.

“Have a nice night, Mary Erika!” we bid him farewell in unison. A look of utter confusion spread across his face as we turned the light off and shut the door behind us. We didn’t lock it. After all, we weren’t all that cruel!

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That was chapter two!

Just so you know, almost everyone in this story is real! Miranda, Kriss, and Orry are real people, even though I never stuffed Orry into a pink gown, however much I want to.

Please review!