A/N: Okay, this is my first Artemis Fowl fanfic. I know it doesn't seem to be related to Artemis Fowl at all in the first chapter, but it gets there, trust me. Anyway, read, review and most importantly, enjoy!
Franco Lucemberto had always liked drama. When he was young he had dreamed of being an actor on the stage. Of course, back then his name was Frank Lumber and he was a railway maintenance man, hired by his fathers company, Lumber Rails. By the time Franco earned enough money to leave Lumber Rails he was too old to get into the theatre industry. He didn't have the experience the other actors had. So he got a job at a local high school in country Ireland as a drama teacher. It wasn't hard to change his boring name to something Italian and mysterious, and then he just faked his CV, and viola. He had a job.
The school he worked in, Wicklow High, was a very small school. It was tiny compared with the larger schools that surrounded it, and the students often got teased by the students from other schools, namely St Bartlebys. Wicklow High couldn't offer as many subjects and sports at St Bartlebys, and its fees were much lower, which gave Wicklow High a reputation for being for cheapskates.
While they didn't have a lot of classes, Wicklow High did have a drama class and a film class. However, because of the size of these two classes, they had been combined. There was fourteen students all together, nine of them girls. Franco was given the job of teaching all of them, even though he had absolutely no film experience. Then again, he had no acting experience either.
On a relatively cool Thursday afternoon, Franco walked into his class to find the usual group of film and drama students. They were an odd mix of students really- some girls were very confident and dramatic, some were quieter but very skilled. Four of the five boys pretended they weren't interested at all, but actually enjoyed the classes, and the other boy actually did hate drama and was only there because this was supposed to cure his chronic shyness.
Franco was excited this afternoon, because the previous night he had devised an exciting project for them all. He normally had trouble combining the film and drama aspect- after all, not all drama activities could be filmed. But this project would be perfect.
"Settle down, settle down!" he said loudly, calling for the classes attention. It took a few moments for conversations to finish and silence to come.
"Thank you." Franco said. When he'd first started teaching he'd put on an Italian accent, but now he didn't bother. People would just think he's lost it living in Ireland.
"Now," he began. "I have an exciting new project for you all. This will be your project for the rest of the term, and will count for at least fifty percent of your final mark this year. You will work in groups of three or four, I don't mind. Now, this will be filmed, obviously, because you are going to be making a movie. I will get you all the equipment you need. Now, the movie theme is..."
He got out a whiteboard marker and wrote on the whiteboard in big letters.
"How to," he said, "Dot, dot, dot."
"That's it?" asked Erin, a red-headed girl who was an extremely good actress. "Just make a How to movie?"
Franco shook his head slowly.
"No, no, no." she said. "I don't want 'just a how to movie'. I want something creative. If you make a movie on how to make a paper aeroplane, you will fail. I want something original."
He steepled his fingers and watched the sudden activity in the students as they hurriedly got into groups.
Tali was new at Wicklow High- she had only moved to Ireland a couple of weeks ago. It didn't take long for her to make friends- she was naturally nice and full of energy. She had always loved movies and acting, and that's why she had joined the film and drama class. Her mum had wanted her to do Maths or Science instead, but she had no interest in either of them. She was interested in films and wanted to learn about making them, because even if she didn't become an actress she wanted to get into the film industry. She could see herself directing or filming, or even script writing. She had always liked writing stories.
Most of the girls in the class stood out from a crowd. You could pick the film and drama students in the school easily. Extravagant hair, dramatic make-up, uniform not worn quite how it should be. Tali didn't stand out as much as some of the other girls, but she didn't look like an average fifteen year old either. She had inherited her mum's blonde hair but also had her dad's dark skin. She kept her hair short and choppy- it stuck out at odd angles and her mum often told her to flatten it, saying she looked like a cartoon character. Her eyes were big and dark. These she got from her dad as well. She wasn't tall and she wasn't short, but she was skinny and had been mistaken for an athlete before.
She sat in her chair and watched everyone bustling around, knowing she'd be asked to join a group at some point. She was one of the better actresses in the class, and everyone wanted good people in their group. She got a little distracted, imagining the filming equipment Mr. Lucemberto had promised them. She loved the microphones and the cameras that made everything seem so professional...
"Tali, right?"
Tali looked up, startled, straight into the eyes of Kat Silver. Kat's dark eyes, that looked even darker in comparison to her trademark silver eyeshadow surrounding them, bored into hers. Her hair, dyed a deep purple, hung in loose curls around her shoulders. She had a small red love heart painted on her neck, just below her ear. Her features were sharp and her skin was pale. She was, without doubt, the best actress in the class. Most of the other girls hated her, or were jealous of her, but she still managed to be incredibly popular. And all the boys liked her. A lot.
"Yeah." Tali said. Kat's general appearance was slightly intimidating, but she kept her shoulders squared and didn't look away from her eyes.
"Do you have a group?" Kat asked. She didn't smile, she just appraised Tali cooly.
"No." Tali replied, equally cooly.
"Good. You're in ours then." Kat said, still unsmiling. Then she leaned over Tali- even though they were about the same height, Tali was sitting and Kat was in platform shoes that made her a lot taller.
"Okay, Tali. Now before I let you into my group, you have to answer a couple of questions."
"Fine by me." Tali said, leaning back casually.
"Firstly," Kat said, still leaning over Tali intimidatingly. "Do you like Red Skittles?"
Tali raised her eyebrows.
"Yeah. I like them."
"And would you be prepared to go to any length to provide your group with red skittles should the need arise?"
Kat narrowed her eyes, waiting for Tali's answer.
"Yeah, of course." she said seriously.
Suddenly, Kat's face broke into a massive grin and she laughed. Tali did too. They did this a lot. When Tali had first come to Wicklow High, Kat had walked straight up to her and demanded her lunch money. Tali had laughed and bought her an ice-cream. They had been friends since then.
They went into a corner of the room. They sat down and Kat looked around, as if she expected something to be there.
Then she stood up and yelled.
"Oi, Viv!"
A tall, African girl on the other side of the room turned around. Tali recognized her as being Vivecca Filoca, aka Viva Star. Vivecca used to only use the name Viva Star for plays and musicals, but somehow the name had stuck. After Kat, Viva was the best actress in the class. She was beautiful and had a great voice, which meant she was in a lot of musicals. She was one of the few people that seemed to genuinely like Kat- most people just hung around with her to steal some of her popularity.
Viva gracefully navigated her way through the throng of students to the corner where Kat and Tali sat.
"And I suppose you just expect me to be in your group do you?" she asked, flicking her long black hair over her shoulder.
"Too right I do. You'd be failing drama without me and you know it. I only put up with you so I can use your hair straightener." Kat replied.
Viva laughed, and Kat and Tali joined in. Anyone that knew Kat- really knew her, that was- knew that she was almost permanently acting some role, in a play only she knew was going on. Both Viva and Tali had a similar sense of humour to Kat, which was probably why they all got on.
"This is Tali." Kat told Viva.
"Nice to meet you." Viva said, leaning forward and kissing each of Tali's cheeks.
"You too." Tali said. Every time her and Viva saw each other they acted like they were meeting for the first time. Today they were being fairly civil, although sometimes they were pretty hostile towards each other. But then they'd mutually agreed that slapping each other ruined their makeup.
Tali loved working with Kat and Viva. She knew it would be fun. It always was.
"Now, down to business." Kat said, sitting cross legged on the floor and pulling a pair of large square glasses out of a pocket half way down the leg of her mauve jeans. She put the glasses on, which magnified her eyes, making them look even larger and darker than usual. Neither Tali or Viva made no comment on the glasses, even though they both knew they were just glass and weren't for any real sight impairment.
"Brainstorming." Kat said. "Viv, take notes."
"Ay, Ay, Captain Biatch." Viva said. She mimed pulling out a pen and a writing on a clipboard.
Kat put her hands together, resting her chin on them.
"Okay, so this is a How to movie." she said.
She took a deep breath, as if she were preparing for a long speech, then turned on Tali.
"Any ideas?"
Tali pouted, as she often did when she thought, and put her chin in her hand.
"Well, Mr. Lucemberto said something original," she began. "So we need to think, you know, out side the box."
Kat leant forwards, urging her to continue.
"So," Tali continued. "We need to do something no one else will do. Something that's never been done before. But that doesn't mean we can't be inspired by other things."
"Inspired?" Viva asked.
Tali shrugged, thinking about it. Nothing jumped out at her as being the perfect topic.
"When I need ideas, I go for a walk," she said. "We could try that, see if anything inspires us."
Kat was nodding.
"I like where you're going with this, Tali." she said. She stood up, and whipped off the square glasses.
"Mr. Lucemberto," she called out. "Tali, Viva and I will be back soon. We need inspiration."
Franco loved Kat- she was his best student- and so he agreed. After all, Kat, Viva and Tali might be a little out-there, but they were all good kids really. It wasn't like they'd do anything wrong...
A/N: Hope you liked that! Tell me what you think of Kat, Viva and Tali, because if you don't like them I want to know. And if you do like them, I want to know that too!