♘

"HEY, RILES, wait up!"

Hearing her name, Riley stopped walking through the school of Hollywood Arts halls and turned around, seeing Beck Oliver jogging to catch up to walk with her. Beck was Jade's boyfriend and one of Riley's closest friends in her group of friends. Of her friends, Riley could agree that Beck was chilled and laid-back. She thought of him as an older brother, and he thought of her as a younger sister.

"Oh, hey, Beck." Riley greeted the Canadian, and they both walked towards Sikowitz's.

"Hey. You did great in the big showcase the other day," Beck tells the girl, sipping the coffee he held.

"Thanks. You and Jade were there?"

"Yeah. We--"

As he spoke, Beck was cut off by his sentence when Tori accidentally bumped into him, causing him to drop and spill his coffee all over his shirt.

"Oh, hey!"

Tori looked afraid and shocked. "Oh my gosh."

"Uh, it's cool," Beck said with a smile.

"No. I spilled coffee on your-- uh, here," Tori stuttered and began to wipe Beck's stain with her arm. "I think it's coming out."

"Seriously, it's okay," Beck laughed a little. "You're sweet, but. . ."

Tori ignored him and continued scrubbing his shirt. "Try not to move. It's almost gone."

"You might be making it worse."

Riley watched with furrowed brows ass Tori slowed her scrubbing, looking into Beck's eyes. Suddenly, she turned around once she heard the door opening and saw Jade coming in, immediately seeing Beck and Tori's moment.

"Dude," Jade glared, causing both of them to turn to her, "why are you rubbing my boyfriend?"

"I just. . . I spilled coffee on him--"

"Get away from him."

Beck walked to her. "Relax," he warned and kissed Jade on the cheek.

Deciding to ignore what happened, Riley walked away and greeted her red-haired friend with a smile. "Hey, Kitty Cat.

The redhead turned and smiled as she watched Riley approach her. "Hey, Smiley Riley."

Besides André and Jade, Cat is another best friend of Riley's. She and Cat are the youngest of the group, and although Cat is older than Riley by a couple of months, she's like a younger sister to Riley.

While Cat and Riley were talking, their crazy teacher, Sikowitz, came rushing in.

"Oh my god! There's a huge fire!" the hippie teacher shouted. Everyone started screaming and began to run out of the room, but Sikowitz stopped his students. "Kidding, kidding! I just wanted to get your blood pumping, which I did. Ha!"

"Oh, do you want a cookie?" Riley asked with sarcasm as Cat patted her shoulder.

"All right. . . Now, let's get started. Rumps in chairs," Sikowitz said, and Riley sat between André and Cat.

"He's our teacher?" Riley hears Tori ask André and sees him nodding his head.

"Okay, first, I would like to introduce our new student, Tori," Sikowitz introduced Tori and then took out $2. "And I'd like to thank Tori for her generous $2, which she handed me outside this morning. Not necessary but much appreciated."

Riley leaned over André a little to look at Tori. "Why did you give him $2?"

"I thought he was homeless." Tori defended herself.

In response, Riley nodded in agreement. Tori was right. He does look homeless with his bare feet and hippie outfit.

"Now, today, we will continue our study in group improv. Tori, I assume you're familiar with improv?" Sikowitz asked Tori.

"Uh. . . Well, yes and no." She answered.

"What does that mean?" he asks, not understanding her answer.

Tori shakes her head. "No."

"Okay, crash course. Improv-- acting without a script means the actors must make up their actions and dialogue as they perform the scene. Understood?" Sikowitz explained to her. She was about to say something, but Sikowitz interrupted, "Excellent. Jade, you will captain the first group of the day. Choose your actors."

Jade stood up on the stage. "Cat, Riley, Beck, and Tori." She says as the three, besides Tori, joined her.

The brown-haired girl looks up at André, who gestures to her to join us before the latter stands next to Riley.

"Okay, let's give them a place," Sikowitz suggested.

Robbie raises his hand. "Home!"

"Home!" Sikowitz repeated and wrote it on the board.

"Oh, real creative," Robbie made his puppet, Rex, say.

"You be quiet!" Robbie hisses. He then made Rex slap himself. "Ow!"

Riley shakes her head at them, smiling slightly.

"And now we need a situation," Sikowitz says.

"Big news," André suggested.

"André, nobody wants to see big nudes," Sikowitz says.

"News."

Sikowitz smiled. "Ah, well, that's different. Big news," he says, writing it on the board.

Jade looks at Tori. "Why don't you go wait in the hall?"

"Uh, okay," Tori says and walks into the hall.

"Okay, at home, big news. . . and action!" Sikowitz points to us.

Cat and Riley sat on the floor pretending to play with toys while Jade walked up to Beck.

"Hey, babe, how was work today?" Jade asks Beck.

"Uh, I got fired," Beck replies.

"Again?" Riley whined as she and Cat both stood up.

"Our daddy is a loser," Cat added in a kid's voice.

"It's okay. I have great news that'll cheer up the family," Jade says and walks over to the door.

"What is it?"

"I went to the animal shelter and got us a dog," Jade says, bringing Tori on the stage.

"Uh, yep. I'm the new family dog," Tori smiles nervously. "Woof."

"Sikowitz, will you please tell this amateur that dogs can't talk and don't walk on two legs?" Jade asks, but Sikowitz isn't listening because he is drinking milk from the coconut he had. "

Sikowitz stopped drinking his coconut milk. "Oh, I'm sorry, I was sucking the milk out of this coconut. But it's true, Tori if you're going to play a dog, be a dog."

Jade smirked at Tori, who sighed and got down on all four. "Woof."

"And action!" Sikowitz says.

"Uh, I went to the animal shelter and got us a dog," Jade repeated from earlier.

"Wow!" Riley and Cat exclaimed, squatting down to pet Tori

"Can the dog sleep in mine and sissy's room, Mommy? Please!?" Riley asks, looking up at Jade.

"Sorry, sweetie. It can't," Jade replied. Riley pouts but keeps petting Tori as Jade runs her fingers through Tori's hair. "Uh-oh, it looks like this dog has bugs in her fur."

"Uhh, woof?" Tori questions.

"Ew! Gross!" Cat and Riley exclaimed, standing up and backing away from Tori.

Jade waved it off. "Oh, it's okay. I read on the internet that coffee works great for getting rid of fur bugs," she says, taking someone's coffee and walking back on the stage.

"Maybe you shouldn't--" Beck warns her as she removes the lid.

"Jade."

She doesn't listen to us and pours the coffee on Tori's hair. Tori stands up and glares at Jade.

"What's the prob, dog?" Jade asks innocently.

Tori rushes out of the room, and Jade smirks proudly to herself. Riley glared at her before rushing out after Tori to ensure she was okay. The girl turned a corner and saw her phone in her hand.

Riley walks up to her. "Hey, what are you doing?"

"Calling my mom to tell her I wanna go back to my old school," Tori replies and puts her phone to her ear.

"Why?"

"Cause I don't like having black coffee in my hair!"

"Then I'll have André get you some cream and sugar," Riley tried to joke with her. "Everything will be chill."

Tori didn't listen and put her phone up to her ear. "Hey, Mom--"

"Uh-uh," Riley said, taking her phone quickly and putting it in her pocket. She wouldn't let Tori give up on the first day. "Nope."

"Gimme back, my mom!" Tori whined.

"You're seriously gonna quit this school on your first day just because of one mean girl?" Riley questioned her.

"It's not just her! It's just. . . I don't fit in here with all this," Tori says, gesturing to the school.

"This place isn't that different from other schools."

Tori rolled her eyes sarcastically. "Oh yeah, like regular schools have improv classes with barefoot teachers and nerds with puppets and bipolar cats and mean girls who make you bark like a dog?" she questioned Riley.

Before Riley could reply, Robbie appeared with Rex.

"Uh, you guys--"

"Sikowitz wants you both back in class," Rex interrupted Robbie.

"He asked me to tell them!" Robbie yells at his puppet.

"See, this doesn't happen at my old school," Tori says, gesturing to Robbie and Rex.

Ignoring Tori, Riley turns to the other two. "Will you guys be cool?"

"Him? Be cool?" Rex scoffed before laughing.

"You're a demon!" Robbie shouts at him.

Cat then appears around the corner and walks up to them. "You guys, Sikowitz wants everybody back in class," she says.

"And you wanted a date to the prom last year, but you didn't get one, did ya?" Rex asked her.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Cat asks, clearly upset.

"Rex! Apologize to Cat right now!" Riley ordered the puppet and looked at Robbie. "Tell your puppet to quit being mean to Cat!"

Robbie glares down at the Sinclair girl. "Don't call him a puppet! That's an offensive term!" he shouts.

Tori patted Riley on the back. "Yeah, this school's pretty normal."

"Okay, whatever. Please return to class and tell Sikowitz we'll be there in a minute?" Riley asked them.

"You better hurry," Cat says before walking off.

"Yeah," Rex says.

Robbie glares at him. "I was gonna say 'yeah'!"

"Just keep it to yourself. I don't wanna hear it!"

"Honestly, will it kill you to give me one ounce of respect?!"

"La la la la la la!"

As they disappeared, Riley rolled her eyes before turning to Tori. "Okay. This school's not normal".

"Really?" Tori sarcastically replies.

"You're not normal either. I've seen what you can do on stage. You're special. You're fantastic. You belong at this school," Riley continued to say and started to walk back to class before turning back to Tori. "Normal is boring. Believe me."

Riley then walks back, leaving Tori to think about her decision.

♘

The next day, Riley, her friends, and the other students sat in the classroom, waiting for Sikowitz. Suddenly, the window opened, and Sikowitz fell out before standing back up.

"Good morning, young performers," the hippie teacher greeted his students, ignoring their confused looks.

"Why'd you crawl in the window?" Eli, one of Riley's classmates, asked him confusingly.

"Because being a good performer is about making interesting choices," Sikowitz replied.

"That explains his pants," Riley mutters, causing everybody to laugh a little.

The door opened, and Tori walked in. Everyone turned to the girl as she joined them, with Riley smiling at the girl and Tori smiling back. Jade, who watched the exchange, gave Tori a dirty look.

"Tori, you're back," Sikowitz says. "Have you ever thought about coming in through the window?"

Tori gives him a confused look. "No."

"Think about it. Now, sit, sit." Sikowitz says, and the girl sits next to Riley. "Okay, today, we're going to do some alphabetical improv. "What is alphabetical improv?" you ask? So I answer. It's when we give a letter to the first actor who speaks in the scene. If we used the letter "a" as an example, the actor must make his first word start with the letter "a" which may go something like..." He points over to Beck.

"Apples are falling out of my butt," Beck states, smiling proudly.

"Lovely. Now the next actor who speaks must start his line with the next letter in the alphabet, in this case, b, so that he might say..." Sikowitz continues and places his hands on André's shoulders.

"Bring those apples so that we may all enjoy the fresh fruit from Beck's butt," André says. Riley laughs a little, shaking her head.

Sikowitz patted his shoulders. "Charming, let's continue to the letter c," he points to Riley.

"Can someone please get me a real apple instead of talking about the apples falling out of Beck's butt?" Riley asks, smiling up at her teacher.

"Excellent," He patted her head and returned to the front. "Now, who wants to lead the first group?"

To Riley's surprise, Tori raised her hand. "I do."

"All right, Tori. Choose your actors."

"Okay. André, Cat, Beck, and Jade," Tori smirked when she called Jade. The goth raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Yeah, you."

They all joined Tori on the stage, with Jade kissing Beck on the way. Not only did Tori roll her eyes at them, but Riley did as well. She loved both of her friends, but she had to admit they were sometimes annoying.

"Jade, kiss your boyfriend on your own time," Sikowitz grimaced in disgust, walking off the stage.

Jade smirked. "Oh, I will."

"Okay, if you start your line with the wrong letter," Sikowitz makes an 'err' noise. "you're out. Robbie, give us a letter."

"P!" Rex shouts.

"P!"

Robbie groaned. "Awww, I was going to say p."

"Okay, the scene can be about anything you want. The first line is 'P,'" Sikowitz says, pointing to Tori. "Tori, action."

Tori turned to Jade. "Please go take a shower."

"Quit telling me what to do," Jade retorted back.

"Relax, girls," Beck warned, stepping between them. "Let's all try to get along."

"Totally!" Cat beamed, getting the letter incorrect.

Sikowitz made an 'eer' sound. "Cat, your line had to start with an s."

"Salami." Cat tried to correct herself.

"It's too late, Cat."

"Aw, my life's the worst!" Cat shouted.

Riley held up a piece of candy. "Here's a piece of candy."

"Yay, I love candy!" Cat smiled, grabbed the candy from Riley's hand, and sat beside her.

"All right, André. Letter 'S' to you."

"Somethin' just bit my toe."

Tori pointed down to the ground. "Turtle! That turtle just bit his toe."

Jade stepped up to her. "Unbelievable that you're even here."

"Very immature of you to say that," Beck warned.

"Uhh..."

"C'mon, André, 'W,'" Sikowitz encouraged.

"What if the turtle bite broke my toe bone?" André asked his friends.

Tori began to think. "X-rays are the only way to find out."

"You should shut up," Jade says to Tori.

"Zap!" Beck exclaimed, pointing to André's toe. "I just healed your toe with my magic finger."

"Thanks," André thanked him.

Riley jumped when Sikowitz made another 'err' sound. "André, your line had to start with an 'A'! Sit down!"

"Aw, I just got my toe bone fixed," André whined, sitting on the other side of Riley.

"Candy?" The girl asked, holding another piece of candy to him.

He chuckled, taking the candy out of her hand. "Thanks, Rileys ."

She smiled back at him before returning to the others on stage.

"Tori, letter 'A' to you." Sikowitz pointed.

"Aliens are the only people who can heal toes by finger zapping," Tori says after thinking for a bit.

"By the way," Jade stepped up again and blew a raspberry to Tori.

"Correct," Beck gestured to himself, "I am an alien."

Tori gasped as Sikowitz said, "Oh, a twist."

"Don't hurt me, please," Tori begged in fake shock.

"Even though she's extremely annoying," Jade said, getting jealous.

"Fainting because I can't breathe your Earth's air." Beck dramatically falls to the ground.

Tori pointed at him, looking at Jade. "Gosh, it fainted!"

"Excellent!" Sikowitz exclaimed. "Tori and Jade, keep going! The next letter is 'H.'"

"Hey, why don't you jump off that cliff over there?" Jade suggested.

Tori gave her a fake smile. "I think you should."

"Just where did you come from?"

"Kangaroos."

"Lousy animals, Kangaroos," Jade said, walking on the other side of Tori. "They're awkward and dirty."

Tori turned to her, smirking. "Maybe they learned from you."

Riley shared a shocked but impressed look with Cat as the class went, 'Ooh.' André laughed as Sikowitz stood behind him, touching André's shoulder, also having the same impressed look.

Jade gave Tori the nastiest glare. "No one talks to me like that."

"Someone should."

"Please run in front of a bus."

"Quite obnoxious of you to say."

"Really?" Jade asked sarcastically.

Tori nodded, crossing her arms. "Sure was."

"Thanks!"

"Up your nose, I see boogers."

"Very clever."

"Wish you'd thought of it?" Tori smirked.

Jade pointed at her. "X marks the spot I'd like to punch."

"Your finger smells weird."

"Zero is what you are on a scale of 1 to 10."

"And back to the letter 'A'!" Sikowitz shouted.

"As if I care what you think," Tori says to Jade.

"Better watch yourself," Jade warned.

"Can't take it?"

"Don't push me!" Jade shouts, giving her a scared look.

"Eat your pants!" Tori shouted back with a smile.

"You eat your pants!" Jade yelled and realized her mistakes. "Wait!"

Sikowitz ignored her and made an 'err' sound again. "Sorry, Jade. The next letter was--"

"'F'! I know!" Jade shouted and glared over at a smirking Tori before taking her seat.

It was then Riley noticed Beck getting up. "Hey, the aliens are moving," she says.

"Keep the scene going," Sikowitz smiled, sitting in Beck's empty chair. "Letter 'G'."

Tori helped Beck up. "Get up, alien."

"Head... feels dizzy," Beck says tiredly.

"I know what will make you feel better," Tori smirked.

Beck looked at her confusingly. "Jumping jacks?"

" Kiss me."

" Little weird, let's do it."

Riley smiled widely when Beck and Tori both kissed. She stood up from my seat, clapping and cheering for them as the others began to clap and cheer, except Jade, who had the angriest look.

Tori smiled as she and Beck broke apart. "Man , I love this cool," she grinned.

"Whoo! Go, Tori!" Riley cheered on for her as she continued to smile.

♘

Author's note!

What has two thumbs and is back into writing her Andre Harris fanfiction? *Points to me* This girl! That's right! After a long revision of this book, I am finally bringing back Meraki, and I can't wait to continue this story because I miss Riley and Andre so much. Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing it!