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CHAPTER ONE

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Ryan Evans woke to the sound of his alarm going off. He lazily reached one arm up and hit the snooze button. He deliberately set his alarm for earlier, knowing that he would do that. He lay there, not sleeping, just resting, his mind going over what he had to do today. Today was their first day of school; they were in their junior year: grade 10. (A/N: the year after HSM took place, I'm Canadian, so I have no idea how American High Schools have their grades, or classes or anything. Most stuff that I use will be based on the Canadian (BC specifically) High School.) The alarm went off again, and Ryan reached over and turned it off.

He got up, still in his boxers, and headed over to Sharpay's room. It was a routine of theirs, that Ryan would be the one to wake Sharpay up. "Sharpay, Sharpay!" He whispered, shaking her a little.

"Mmhmmm, five more minutes."

"No, now." He replied, knowing that she would.

Sharpay rolled over onto her back, eyes still closed, and got out of bed. With her eyes still closed, she headed over to the bathroom that connected bother their rooms. Ryan stood there until Sharpay came out again. She opened one eye and peeked at her brother, then ran towards the bed, hoping to get there before Ryan could stop her. Ryan rolled his eyes. She always tried to do this. He grabbed her, and started tickling her.

"Ry-Ryan! St-stop! I'm awake, I'm awake!" Sharpay said, trying to keep quiet. If they woke their dad up it would not be pretty. Their dad needed to sleep in mornings.

Ryan stopped, knowing that she was awake. He looked at the clock. "Come on, we only have an hour before we have to leave for school."

"An hour!" Sharpay glared at her brother and started running around getting ready. "How can you expect me to be ready in an hour, it'll take me half an hour to shower, 10 minutes to get dressed, 15 minutes to apply make-up and do my hair, that'll leave me five minutes to eat breakfast!" She looked at the clock. Stopped running and glared at her brother again. He was just standing there, arms folded (still just in his boxers) with a smile on his face. "Ryan," she said calmly. "One of these days, I'm going to STRANGLE YOU!" She looked back at the clock. It read 6:00. They had two hours before they had to leave for school.

Ryan smiled. "Well, you're awake now." With that, he walked back to his own room. He knew that Sharpay would be taking her time in the shower. He started to put together his stuff for school. He loved the first day of school, because everything was new. New binders, new notebooks, new pencils and pens, and most of all, they would be learning new stuff. Ryan packed his backpack, leaving out his schedule. That he'd be putting in his pocket, to tape inside his locker. He looked at the door of the bathroom. Sharpay was singing as usual. It was one of their favourite songs, Singing in the Rain. Sharpay loved the music and words. Ryan loved the dance.

He glanced over his schedule.

Homeroom: Ms Darbus, theatre

First period: AP Chemistry, Ms. Scireche. (A/N: Scire: Latin to know Che: chemistry)

Second period: AP Calculus, Ms. Stena. (A/N: Stena: Old Slavic wall)

Third period: Drama, Ms Darbus

Fourth period: Physical Education, Mr. Iernan (A/N: Old English run)

Fifth period: AP Biology, Mr. Bodig (A/N: Old English body)

Sixth period: AP Physics, Mr. Centrummess (A/N: Centrum: Latin centre Mess: Messa, Vulgar Latin mass)

Seventh period: English, Ms. Verbum (A/N: Latin word)

Eighth period: AP History, Mr. Werre (A/N: Old High German strife)

Ninth period: AP French, Mme. DuLange (A/N: Lange: Anglo-French tongue)

Tenth period: AP Computer Science, Mr. Idein (A/N: Greek to see)

(A/N: Ok, let me explain how this works, for those of you who don't know. The schedule is split into 2 days. Day A is first period-fourth period. Day B is fifth period-eighth period. Lunch is after the first two classes of the day. On the first day of school, each class is 15 minutes, allowing the teacher time to explain what they'd be learning, handing out sheets and stuff. Normally classes are 75 minutes long. They go to all of their classes on the first day. The day after, is Day A's schedule. Then comes Day B's schedule and they keep switching.)

Ryan had two extra classes; these would be taken after school. Ryan's day doesn't end when the final bell goes. His ninth period is on Day A, his tenth period on Day B. The school arranged these particular classes to be those ones, because no one else was in those classes. Ryan smiled to himself. No one was interested in taking AP French, or AP Computer Science. He was glad of that. If someone else was in one of those extra classes, the whole school would know that he wasn't what he pretended to be. His mind flashed back to a certain event that had happened 2 years earlier.

-------------------------------FLASHBACK-------------------------------

Ryan and Sharpay were sitting on their deck, talking.

"I can't believe we're going to be in HIGH SCHOOL!" Sharpay shrieked. She was so excited.

"That means we'll be learning way cooler stuff, not this baby stuff that we learnt before. I knew everything we were taught last year before they taught it!"

"Grade seven was fun," said Sharpay, "but they treated us like babies. Now we'll be in High School and the fun can begin!"

(A/N: in Canada, High School goes from Grade 8-Grade 12)

"And we'll have fun, fun fun," Ryan sang, laughing as his sister joined him.

"Till Daddy takes the T-bird away!" They both laughed, thinking of the grade seven musical that they had starred in. Their best friend, Kelsi had written it. She'd taken a bunch of the Beach Boy's songs and written a musical based on them. It had been so much fun.

Ryan looked at Sharpay. "Seeing as we're just sitting here, why don't we phone Kelsi and ask her to join us?"

Sharpay agreed, and picked up her cell phone. "Hey Kelsi, me and Ryan-"

"Ryan and I." Ryan corrected her. She rolled her eyes.

"ME and RYAN," she said deliberately "were wondering if you'd like to join us. We're just sitting here talking about how totally cool it would be if you joined us." She nodded, and hung up. "She'll be right over."

Two minutes later, Kelsi walked across the yard. She only lived a few houses away.

"Hey guys," she said, and sat down.

"Hey Kels," they said in unison.

She laughed, "It creeps me out when you do that."

"We were just talking about how totally awesome High School is going to be. We had so much fun picking what classes we were going to take. Of course, Ryan is taking all the boring classes."

"They're interesting!" He protested.

Kelsi laughed. This was in over area where Ryan and Sharpay would never see eye to eye.

They sat in silence, everybody just happy to sit there in the sun. They didn't need to talk.

"I wonder what the ultimate acting contest would be." Ryan and Sharpay said at the exact same time. Kelsi just stared at them.

"Ok guys, that was really freaky." Kelsi thought for a while. "I think the ultimate acting contest would be to act all the time. You'd have to be really really good to fool everybody, and to never slip up at all."

"Hmm," Sharpay said, and she and Ryan looked at each other.

"I bet I could do it." They both said, and then laughed.

"You know, this would be the perfect time to do it," Ryan said. "It's a new school, and people would notice the change, but they wouldn't wonder, because everything changes when you reach High School."

"It would be so much fun to see if we could do it!" Sharpay said. They looked at each other.

"Why not?" They said at the exact same time.

"But what should we act like?" Ryan wondered. They both looked at Kelsi. "Kelsi, you tell us what we should act like." Ryan told Kelsi.

"Oh, wow. Give me an easy job would ya." She sat, thinking hard. Suddenly she sat up. "I've got it! Ryan, you have to act dumb."

"What?" Ryan was surprised. "I don't know if I could do that, I mean it's kinda hard to hide an IQ of 140." Ryan was serious.

"140? I didn't know that," Kelsi's eyes widened.

"Oh yeah," Sharpay said. "We had him tested a while back, because it was kinda starting to creep us out how he was so smart. Turns out he does have an IQ of 140. Me, I'm just normal. Go figure."

Ryan looked at his feet. "Um, Kels, if you could keep that a secret, it'd be nice. I'm OK with people thinking I'm smart, but I don't want to be treated like a freak because of my high IQ."

Kelsi nodded. "Sure Ryan, I understand. But seriously, that would be YOUR perfect acting challenge, BECAUSE you're so smart." Sharpay nodded in agreement.

"Ok, Kels, what would mine be?" She asked, wondering what Kelsi would come up with.

"Oh, um ok. Be selfish." Sharpay's eyes widened. "And be mean to Ryan." Sharpay looked at Ryan.

"I can't be mean to Ryan, he's my TWIN brother! Besides, being selfish, I mean, that would be just mean!" Sharpay was the most unselfish person in their grade. She and Ryan were going to give up their roles in the last musical, because they could both see that Amy Marston really wanted it. They had planned to do it, but then Amy stopped them and told them that they could go ahead and she would settle for a different role. Sharpay was uncertain of this; she kept asking Amy if she was sure. It wasn't until they'd begun rehearsals and Sharpay could see for herself that Amy was happy, that Sharpay stopped worrying.

"Then it's your perfect acting challenge, because you're so nice." Kelsi said reasonably. Ryan and Sharpay both looked at each other.

"It would be good practice," they said in unison.

Sharpay nodded, and turned to Kelsi. "Ok, we'll do it."

"How long?" Ryan wondered.

"As long as you can take it." Kelsi smiled.

Sharpay's eyes narrowed, taking the challenge. "Well I, for one, will be able to take it for far longer than my brother."

"Ha! Could not."

"Want to make our own little side bet?"

"You're on."

"Ok, I bet that I can go longer than you. The one who loses will have to-"

"Go on a date that the other sets them up on." Ryan finished at the same time as Sharpay.

"Ok, that was freaky." Kelsi said, staring at them. "What if someone finds out? What happens then?"

Ryan and Sharpay thought, then Ryan came up with an idea. "Well, we swear them to secrecy. But if they tell, the bets off, and the person who's person told has to tell everybody in the school about both of us."

"That's a good idea, Ryan. I agree, and accept. Wait. We don't act at home. I can't be mean to you at school and at home too." Sharpay said, her eyes filling with tears at the thought of it.

"Of course, Dee." Ryan said, taking her hand. Dee was his nickname for her, short for Diva.

Sharpay smiled at him, "same goes for you, Whiz." Whiz was her special name for him.

They both looked at Kelsi. "Ok, we'll do it. School starts next week, we'll start then."

Ryan turned to Sharpay. "Ok we need to discuss some more details about this. I am still going to do well in school. I'm not sacrificing my grades for some bet. I will, however, not volunteer info in class. I will talk to my teachers, and make up some excuse. I will do all of my presentations after class, and they will never call on me in class, or hold my work up for everyone to see. My report card will be for my, your and dad's eyes only. I won't be showcasing my stupidity; I'll just make stupid comments, and say dumb stuff." He sighed. "Is that alright with you?"

Sharpay nodded. It was fine with her, if her brother didn't showcase his part in the bet. It would be hard enough hiding his IQ of 140 as it was. "Ok Ryan. But there are some things that I will not do too. I will not go out of my way to be mean to anybody except you. I will be selfish, but whenever I am, let me please do something to rectify what I do? For example, if I push someone out of something, let me please make sure, anonymously, that they're able to participate in some other way, or do something. Please, I can't just be mean to someone and leave it at that!"

Ryan nodded "Sure Dee." They shook hands, and smiled at each other.

"This is going to be fun!" They smiled at each other.