"What? Ms. Everdeen, are you serious? We have to do a play? Like, tomorrow?"
Ms. Everdeen looked at the class guiltily. She could only awkwardly apologize at Adelia's question, "I'm sorry, everyone. I know it must be hard for you. It's my mistake, I'm sorry. My class was supposed to do this play."
"We had everything ready. The cast, costumes, script, everything. But more than half of them quit out of the blue. Someone's cousin had a wedding, three students' grandma died, and one even had coronavirus-"
"But we don't have coronavirus here! I mean, it never exists in books. How can they have corona?"
"Oh my god Miss Astor, you can't just ask people why they have coronavirus."
Ms. Everdeen adjusted her glasses and pointed to the teenager beside her. "Except Claude, the whole cast is empty." Willow swore he saw Claude smile mysteriously at the cast missing part. Suspicious.
"-And the play is tomorrow. When I was at a loss of what to do, Mr. Laurent here had a brilliant suggestion-"
"-And that 'brilliant' suggestion was making us act with no preparation whatsoever and make a fool of ourselves?" Adelia questioned sarcastically. Although Ms. Everdeen was a teacher, it was her and her class's fault. Why should they be the one to bear the losses?
"Miss Astor, I'm very sorry about this. But something has to be done since tomorrow is the annual fiesta. And I've heard that you're very good at acting? Paired with your good looks, I'm sure you must look very good on stage?"
Anyone could tell it was blatant flattery to pacify Adelia, but being the compliment hungry narcissist she was, she immediately relaxed. Adelia smiled before saying, "What can I do since you're insisting so much? Besides, it IS the annual fiesta. It's the responsibility of every student to ensure this goes perfectly."
'Hah, weren't you the one acting out and saying they won't be acting, and the play can go to hell before?' Willow sighed. He could already see a disaster coming.
Adelia was basically the leader of the class being the most popular one here. Well, technically that spot belonged to Charlie, but since he didn't take the initiative, everybody listened to Adelia. Her agreeing was half the work done.
Ms. Everdeen released a breath in relief. Since this morning, she'd been very worried about the play. She was also very grateful for Claude, who took the initiative even though he's new. Clapping her hands, she explained, "Well, we know that asking you to rehearse and memorize the script in one night is basically wanting the impossible. So, we came up with the idea of a flash play."
"What's that?" Willow asked.
"Mr. Astor, this is an idea Claude came up with. Mr. Laurent, please explain."
Ms. Everdeen stopped, stepping back. Claude stepped forwards with a confident smile. "Ah yes."
Addressing the whole class, he stated, "We decided to make the best out of this misfortune. As you all know, plays are generally very boring with the same old script and monotonous expressions. We're going to do something different. In tomorrow's play, there's going to be no script. We changed the original story and chose a fairly common one, Hansel and Gretel."
Everyone stared blankly, not understanding. How were they going to do a play without a script?
"Everybody is advised to at least read the story once before. The roles will be decided right now, through lots. Of course, an introduction of what the flash play is will be given to the audience beforehand, so they know the specialty of tomorrow's play."
"But isn't that basically asking for disaster?" Willow asked skeptically, "I mean, it's not like these tales have one definite version. The one each person knows or looks up might be different."
Claude smiled warmly at Willow, "Will, that's exactly what we're going for. Diversity. Every version merges into one to make a spectacular play, just like children in a class. They might be different, but together, they make an amazing group."
Weren't this guy's views too utopian? The best-case scenario was that by the end of the play, they'll still have the story somewhat intact. The worst? Don't even ask.