~ Jaden woke with a start when something touched his arm. He jerked upright and gasped as a pain shot up his back.
"Whoa there buddy, it's just me," said someone, in Andrew's voice. Jaden's vision cleared and he realized that it actually was Andrew.
"Joel still isn't back so we figured we might go try to find somebody, at least have a look around."
"Ok, let's go." Jaden murmured blearily as he stood and stretched, wincing again at the tenderness of his back and shoulders.
"You alright there?" Andrew asked him and not for the first time Jaden marveled at his friend's powers of observation. Andrew noticed things like little twinges in people's facial expressions. He was just good at...people stuff.
"Yeah, I'm ok. Just a little stiff. Are you sure we're supposed to leave here?" asked Jaden. Andrew shrugged his shoulders.
"Nobody told us not to."
"And if they come back while we're out?"
"Ta's leavin' a note" said Andrew, throwing a thumb back over his shoulder. Jaden looked around him, and sure enough, there was Takyle, scrawling her signature on a torn out page of her notebook. She placed it in the middle of the coffee table and stood up.
"We'll only be gone for a few minutes," she said. Jaden picked up his pack and pulled it over his arms. Andrew opened the door and looked up and down the hallway. The way was clear so he slipped out, Takyle right behind him and Jaden bringing up the rear. The team maintained their silence as they carefully made their way down the long hallway.
At the moment Jaden did not feel like they were in any danger, but out of habit he kept a watchful eye on the open hall behind them. Better safe than sorry. In Jaden's experience, being surprised was never a good thing.
They passed several racks on casters, hung with any sort of clothing you could imagine. Near one corner there was a long couch with faded upholstery next to an antique refrigerator. After a minute, Andrew held up a hand from up ahead for them to stop. Jaden and Takyle automatically fell into a crouch up against the wall. After a moment Jaden heard what Andrew had. There were people talking, up the hall and around the corner. Andrew waved them forward and as they drew closer, Jaden heard and recognised Joel's voice emphatically explaining to some poor sod why his choice of a certain stage prop was insanely stupid and how, if he ever wanted to actually get an important job, he'd have to find some taste somewhere.
Andrew turned around and led them back to the last corner they had taken, and instead of going right, they took the left hall this time. The end of it widened into a small lounge with several couches, a television, and a coffee maker with a stack of styrofoam cups beside it on a table. A couple of people were sitting around the room, talking to one another. One man looked up, his eyes running over Andrew's uniform.
"Team 6, huh? I heard you guys got in. Shouldn't you be back in your dressing room?"
"We got tired of waiting so we decided to take a bit of a stroll, see if we couldn't find somebody to talk to. You don't happen to know of someone who might be able to tell us when we're going on, and what show we're doing, do you?" The man pulled himself up out of his seat by the arms of the chair and walked over to the doorway. He pointed back the way they came.
"Go down this way and the, let's see, that'd be 5th door on your left is the stage manager's office. He might be able to tell you something. If he's not in there then you should really probably just wait in your dressing room for somebody to come get you."
"Ok, thanks a lot man." Andrew shook the fellow's hand, and they again backtracked to the door he'd indicated. Takyle knocked on it, then waited, and knocked again. After a moment she turned around.
"He doesn't seem to be here. Shall we just go back and wait?"
"I guess so," Andrew agreed, reluctantly. "I just hate wasting time like that when we're on such a tight schedule." Just then Joel came scurrying around the corner.
"Oh for goodness sakes, there you are! You better be awfully grateful I was able to find you so quick. Why did you leave the dressing room? Come on, come on now! We haven't got all day! You're about to go on!" Joel hustled them back down the hallway and past their dressing room, through two more rooms and finally into an area that could definitely be identified as "backstage". Joel checked his watch, said something to a woman striding past, then turned to Team 6.
"Alright then. The show that you'll be going on is called 'That's Sounds About Right'. Are you familiar with it?" Team 6 all nodded silently at him. "Fantastic. Then this shouldn't be a problem for you. Now once you're on stage the host will introduce each one of you individually and tell some interesting fact from your life. Is everybody clear on that? Once that has happened for both teams on the show, we'll take a look at the current positions of all the teams in the race. Any of you have stage fright?" Team 6 all shook their heads no. "Great, because there's a full studio audience." Joel smiled serenely. "Ready to go on then?" he asked. Team 6 nodded again.
"Wait right here for a moment," Joel commanded them as he spun around and ran off in search of something or someone. Andrew turned to look at Takyle and Jaden.
"I swear, whenever that man is around me, my jaw just freezes up. I couldn't get a word in if I wanted to." Jaden nodded, absently.
"Yeah, me too," he said. Takyle smiled sweetly at them.
"Some people would consider that a good thing," she said, quietly. ~
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