Disclaimer: As always, I do not own High School Musical. In fact, I haven't even owned my DVD for the past week, as I was watching it too much that mom found it necessary to take it away. BAH.

A/N: So basically my high school's musical has been taking over my life. Seriously, doing the lights for FAME is not fun. I don't recommend that anyone else does it, especially if the person they're stuck in the light booth with is as annoying as the girl I have to work with. 'Nuff said, let's get to the chapter.

"Excuse me," I'd said to a girl only moments after she had stepped on my foot rather fiercely, which was terrible as she was wearing these awful stilettos. I only knew what they were called because I liked to stay educated in everything, even if it was impractical footwear.

"You watch it, McKessie," came my reply, and it was then that I realized I hadn't been looking at who had impaled my foot; my eyes had been focused on what they'd stabbed me with. Flicking her blonde hair over her shoulder, Sharpay sneered at me. "You need to watch where you're going. Next time I might accidentally break my shoe, and that would be a complete disaster because I wouldn't just break my shoe, but I'd have to break your face, too."

Since it was already well into the first semester- in fact, we'd gotten our first quarter report cards a week ago to the day- I was fully aware of Sharpay and her wickedness. When she made a comment like that, she seriously meant that she would follow through with it. Miss Evans was the kind of girl who would beat someone up over a shoe, even if it wasn't a Louis Vuitton designer pump or a Prada sling-back.

"Oh, bite me."

And, with that, I turned on my heel- which wasn't balanced atop a thin piece of whatever shoes are made out of, and was, in fact, clad in a pair of my most comfortable Nikes- and beelined directly for the school's office. I still had to pick up my absent slip from yesterday, and I wasn't going to let the worser Evans twin stand in my way of that.

"Heya, Maudie!" I said brightly, strolling up to the counter and leaning lightly against it. "Can I get an absent slip, please?"

Grinning, the elderly woman handed me a small slip of paper. "Taylor!" she exclaimed, "You haven't missed a day yet this year. I would've thought with your dedication to your schoolwork you'd make sure not to miss a day!"

"Yeah, at least I didn't miss finals or anything important like that."

"You should have seen that boy! Danbury's his name, I believe?" She gestured around her head, mimicking hair larger than her already-prominent style, before continuing. "He came in here to ask if your mom had called in to say why you weren't at school. Went going on and on about how he thought the only thing that'd keep you away from coming to school would be your deathbed, and he insisted that you'd never missed a day during middle school. He talked for a good five minutes straight before he let me get the word in that you were simply feeling bad, probably a strain of the flu or something, and that you'd be here tomorrow." Her smile stretched across her face as she continued, "Told him he should go and e-mail you if he was so worried, and last I saw, he was heading for the computer lab!"

"Danbury? You mean Danforth? Chad?" I tilted my head. His e-mailing me had been rather odd, but when I learned the reasoning behind the message, I was even more confused. He was actually worried about me? That was crazy. He was Chad the basketball jock, the popular kid. The only thing we'd ever had in common was our mutual love for the Power Rangers back when it was cool to like them. We would always play Power Rangers at lunch recess. I was the pink one and he was the blue one. Sometimes we'd get other kids to join in, but some days we'd have to go on missions by ourselves.

One day, we decided that we needed to rescue a fellow Power Ranger (which was a rock we'd colored red with a marker) from the clutches of an evil scientist who wanted to perform tests on him to figure out a way to turn herself into a power ranger. Said evil scientist was the tallest tree in the playground, the one that no one had ever tried to climb.

We started on one side of the huge jungle gym and made our way across, using the most complicated route we could. Naturally, that was so we could show off our amazing Power Ranger skills. I could still remember how we'd ended the route. With a huge leap, he and I flew off the top of the monkey bars, fingers laced together so we could evoke more of the powers within us.

That day we didn't end up rescuing the rock. We spent too long laughing and tickling each other, and by the time the bell had rung signaling the end of recess, we'd completely lost track of time.

Oh God, I can't believe I still remember that.

Actually, it's not that I can't believe I remembered that, but I really can't believe that I hadn't blocked it out of my memory.

Snapping out of my brief reverie, I nodded to Maudie. "Well I guess I better go get my assignments before homeroom starts. See ya around!"

As I left the office, a slight smile was on my face, not because of what Maudie had said, but because she always seemed to have that effect on me. Usually I'd leave her office with a miniature butterfinger or a few hershey's kisses in my hand. She always kept chocolate around because she knew just how much the kids adored it, and I was one of the most guilty chocolate addicts around.

Slowly, in an almost dream-like state, I made my way around to the class rooms. I guess I was still a little drowsy from all that cough medicine mom had pumped into me over the past day. She'd even sent a bottle of it along with me, but I wasn't about to bother with taking any of it. More than likely, I'd end up pouring some of it down the drain in the drinking fountain so it looked like I'd taken it. That was likely to satisfy her.

When I'd finally gotten to homeroom, Sharpay still appeared to be in a foul state. She glared at me purposely as I walked by her on my way back to my desk. I did notice, however, that Troy looked far more cheerful than he had in a long time. He no longer sat behind Sharpay, but instead sat on the opposite side of the room. Next to Chad.

I didn't realize that I spend the entirety of homeroom staring at the wood grains on the top of my desk, doing anything I could to keep my eyes from straying over to Chad, like I knew they probably would, since they'd done it on their own accord when I first entered the room.

I didn't realize until the end of the day, after simply making it through my AP classes until I perked up in English, my first class with Chad, that I was maybe sort of possibly, but hopefully not developing a crush on Chad Danforth.

Suddenly, the slightly less than three-quarters of the year that had yet to pass seemed like an awfully long time when faced with the possibility of having feelings for him.

A/N: Not much else to say besides review! Oh, and definitely check out the preview (if that's what you'd call it) for the story I'm going to start after this one.