Chapter Text
"It's yo-gurt."
"Bullshit, it's yog-hurt!"
"Where the fuck does the extra g come in?" Chorn almost shouted as she got all into Smelly Ball's face. The two often argued over the smallest thing, and today's topic was how to pronounce "Yoghurt" of all things.
Zazilil leant her head back and groaned. "If someone doesn't go over there and strangle them both, I'll do it myself."
"Blame Emberly for bringing up her lunch plans." Tiblyn shrugged from where she lay on the floor between their school bags, tying her braids into small knots. "I mean, who the fuck has time to meal prep yoghurt oatmeal for the entire week. Wouldn't it go off by Friday?"
Emberly rolled her eyes and pushed her glasses up her nose but didn't look up from her phone. "Tiblyn, yoghurt doesn't go off until at least a month, did you even take year 11 biology?"
"Nah, took Chem and physics."
"Figures." Emberly glanced over as Zazzalil slid from the chair and lay face down on the floor, her frizzy hair spread out in a halo around her head.
"My God, someone text Jemilla and tell her to get her butt over here before I commit murder," Zazzalil grumbled against the floor as Chorn and Smelly ball's argument grew louder, with Chorn standing on a chair just so she had leverage over him. It wasn't even interesting stuff, just them shouting their preferred way of pronouncing yoghurt.
"She's coming." Shwoopsie seemingly appeared in the doorway and the three of them jolted in surprise. "She's running late 'cause of a student council meeting. Ducker is gonna be here soon too. He was feeding the pigeons or something." Swhoopsie had her hair up in Spice Girls style ponytails which Zazzalil would have found hilarious if she weren't so pissed off by the constant noise from the argument.
"I dunno how she keeps up with directing our student led production and doing the drums for Jazz Band and being in the student council," Keeri remarked from where she leant against the classroom cupboards, eating trail mix out of a zip lock bag. "I mean, shit, most of my activities involve other people making it up for me and I'm already exhausted." She swatted Shwoopie's hand away from the bag, which earned a barely audible complaint from the other girl.
"Honestly, it's just who she is. She can take on that sorta stuff and still have time left over to, I dunno, colour code her homework or something. It's admirable." Tiblyn spoke, which distracted Keeri enough for Shwoopsie to lean in and swipe a piece of dried fruit from her bag.
Zazzalil made a small grunt of agreement and sat up so she had a full view of Chorn and Smelly Balls, who were still going at it. Jemilla really was the most organised person Zazzalil had met, and she'd lived through more than enough social studies team projects with her to prove it. Hell, she was probably the only person she knew who wore the senior uniform correctly, without pyjama pants under the long winter skirt which everyone else wore and hid from the deans that passed in the halls. She was frustratingly cute too, with shoulder length curly brown hair and eyes that practically lit up when she was happy. This all annoyed Zazzalil to no end, whose life motto was along the lines of "Just wait and let the shit sort out itself."
Zazzalil was jolted out her thoughts as Jemilla rushed into the room, threw her bag on the heap behind the group and stormed up to where Chorn and Smelly Balls were arguing.
"Enough!" She half-yelled, causing the two to snap their heads towards her. She placed her hands on both of their shoulders and sighed.
"Swhoops texted me and filled me in, have neither of you realised that the way you say it just depends on where you're from and neither of them are correct?"
There was a beat of silence as Chorn and Smelly Balls only stared at Jemilla, who was breathing heavily from supposedly running all the way to the drama block.
"I, uh, actually never thought of that." Smelly Balls started, as Chorn nodded slowly, brushing her red dyed hair out her eyes.
"Well, is it sorted out now?" Jemilla smiled patiently as Chorn kept nodding and moved in to hug Smelly Balls.
"Jemilla, the peacemaker." Shwoopsie teasingly did a wobbly bow and moved to snake her arm around Jemilla's shoulder. "I'm telling you, you'll go down in history for this."
"Yeah, yeah," Jemilla rolled her eyes, though kept smiling. "But seriously, did none of you guys think of telling them that either?" She turned to the others and asked, which lead to a chorus of "Nope"s, "Nah"s, "Not really"s and a confused "what" from the group.
"Well, you're the peacemaker here." Tiblyn grinned as she stood up and stretched. "Can't leave that job to us, it'll lead to disaster."
Jemilla dodged Tiblyn's playful punch sent her way and turned to address where Zazzalil and the rest were seated. Ducker only just snuck in, carrying the duck soft toy that his character holds throughout a majority of the play, which of course led him to become subsequently weirdly attached to it. He's just a weird guy in general. "Now that everyone's here, we can get to work learning our lines, right gang?" Jemilla beamed. This sent grumbles through the group and Zazzalil dragged her hand down her face. "Oh come on," Jemilla started again, ignoring the other's disinterest. "There's a lot of scenes I wanna work through, a lot of discoveries to be made about the play-"
Zazzalil couldn't take it anymore and leapt up. "Um, Jemilla?."
"Yeah?" Jemilla started a bit as Zazzalil wrapped an arm around her.
"We just learnt lines yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that. Maybe we can just take a day off. Do some singing and dancing? Keeris super pumped to choreograph the dancing." Zazzalil gestured to where Keeri was enthusiastically nodding, oblivious to how Shwoopsie had made her way back and was now grabbing handfuls at a time of the trail mix.
Zazzalil shot Jemilla her best pleading look but only earned a sigh in response.
"Look, Zazzy," Jemilla put both arms on Zazzalil's shoulders so that she was fully facing her. "I know we all want to have some fun but there's only so much time before the concert band comes and kicks us out so they can practice. We've got work to do." She gestured to the group to stand up and they did, a few groaning. "There's just no time for singing and dancing right now. We've got-"
"I don't wanna." Zazzalil cut Jemilla off and turned her back around so she was looking directly at her.
"What, what is this?" Jemilla looked bewildered as a grin spread over Zazzalil's face. Some vaguely familiar 90s pop music started to play from where Keeri connected her phone to the portable speakers, clearly having made up her mind Zazzalil started to sway in time, bringing Jemilla with her like some private school prom with the arm length rule strictly enforced. All the others were now dancing around them, most of them doing semi choreographed moves that Zazzalil suspected was from a dance group they were in a few years ago. She snapped her attention back to Jemilla who was still standing gobsmacked and almost managed to clumsily twirl her around before Jemilla stepped back and cleared her throat reverting to her job of leader.
"Alright now listen Girls, let me reiterate. I know it's hard to work with no play, but I hope you all understand the importance of what we're doing and how this play is full of obstacles we gotta work through." She was barely audible over the music, with only a couple people managing to understand her.
"Com'on J-Mills," Zazzalil pleaded as she tried to drag her back into the centre of the room to dance again. "Look at how much fun the others are having! Don't take this away from us." She gestured to everyone else, who were still dancing. Smelly-Balls and Shwoopsie were executing an incredibly slow and offbeat Macarena whilst Keeri was attempting some kind of dirty dancing style lift with Tiblyn and a very scared looking Ducker.
"Okay, I'm not taking this away from you, I'm just," Jemilla sighed as she stalled, looking for a better wording. Zazzalil raised an eyebrow in doubt. "I'm just telling you not to do it."
"Same difference."
Jemilla scoffed. "It is not."
"Aw, come on Jemilla, you know she's just messing with ya." Emberly popped up behind the two, breaking them out of whatever stare down they were having. "She is right though, a little dancing isn't gonna kill you."
Jemilla huffed out air and drew her head back up, defeated. "Fine." Emberly whooped and tragically missed a hi five from Zazzalil which sent her into a fit of giggles.
"Only for a few minutes though. We've got heaps of stuff to work through." Jemilla added as was dragged to where the others were dancing. Before she could reach them, everyone's attention was stolen by a sharp knock at the door.
Zazzalil turned to where a small blonde year nine stuck her head out the door. “Uh, we can hear you guys from Music block and we’re trying to rehearse so could you turn it off please?” She barely finished her sentence before the music cut off with a screech of static as Shwoopsie disconnected it. The girl at the door cleared her throat and awkwardly nodded in thanks, then closed the door with a click. Shwoopsie broke the silence by snorting incredibly loudly then dissolving into a fit of coughing as everyone else cracked up.