A Stellar Performance

by AppleJTZ

A small Change of Plans

Quietly Sunny sat at the stairs in front of the school. Arms wrapped around her legs she hid her face behind them. Only her eyes, bearing a look of apathy, silent anger and suppressed frustration peeked out over her knees as she stared at the school yard. A handful of students were walking around the place, seeming grumpy for no reason as they passed each other without saying a word. Two students walked towards each other without noticing, one having her head in a book while the other stared at the screen of his smartphone. Sunny watched them bump into each other, the girl dropping her book in the process. The two put on a furious look, almost simultaneously snapping insults at each other. As the boy angrily stomped away the girl bent down to pick up her book, both throwing daggers towards the other with their eyes. Staring at the boy the girl didn’t see someone else walking in her direction, until she felt a shoe stepping on her hand. The girl screamed in pain, causing the boy to grin evilly at her while the other student just nonchalantly passed by.

Sighing Sunny lowered her gaze, staring at her knees. She then felt someone bumping against her shoulder. “You think it’s funny to just sit around in everyone’s way?” a girl angrily asked her, sharply glancing at Sunny while marching down the stairs. At first Sunny glared back, but then let out another depressed sigh. Slumping her shoulders she dropped her head, completely burrowing it behind her knees.

Sitting around like this shecould hear the door to the school opening behind her. Various pairs of feet were walking down the stairs, approaching her. To her surprise they suddenly stopped around her, and Sunny could hear four persons sitting down on the stairs. Raising her head she saw Sour Sweet, Lemon Zest, Sugarcoat and Indigo Zap warmly smiling at her, with a somewhat apologetic look in their eyes.

Frowning Sunny placed her chin on her knees. “What?” she asked, bitterness ringing in her voice. “Here to keep rubbing into my face how terrible my play is, and what an awful writer I am?”

Sour cleared her throat. “Actually, we wanted to apologize for laughing at your play” she explained softly.

A pair of angry eyes turned towards her. “Oh, so NOW you regret to have stomped on my feelings” Sunny grunted.

“Come on, don’t be like that!” Lemon said, putting a hand on her shoulder. It was quickly shaken off.

“Yeah” Indigo agreed, sounding slightly offended. “We were really worried when you suddenly dashed off!”

Sunny looked at the four girls sitting around her. “Right – you were so worried you took the time to change clothes before coming after me” she remarked, seeing they were all wearing their school uniforms again.

Lemon and Indio blushed, shyly casting their glances away. Sour on the other hand grunted. ”Please excuse us for not wanting to look like clowns while we ran through school” she said in sweet cynicism. Her cheerful attitude suddenly dropped, but didn’t change into a grumpy however. “W-wait, I-I didn'T mean to-!” she hastily began to apologize.

Sunny buried her head in her knees again. “Leave me alone” she demanded, her voice muffled by her legs. “I neither need your apologies nor your pity.”

The others exchanged some worried glances. “Look, we’re really sorry we made fun of your play” Indigo told her, rubbing the back of her own head.

“Even though it really isn’t great” Sugarcoat remarked, then winced as the others threw dark glances at her. “B-but you did put a lot of hard work into it” she quickly added, putting on a forced smile.

“Yeah” Lemon nodded, her voice quiet and low from regret. “It was really not cool of us to mock your play like this.”

Sour folded her arms over her chest. “Although you were not really nice to us, either” she mumbled, more to herself.

Sunny looked up, confused and angry. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she hissed at Sour.

“Um, hello?” Lemon frowned, stemming her fists against her hips. “You kept telling us how horrible actors we were the entire time!”

“Because you WERE horrible!” Sunny argued.

“We were giving it our best!” Indigo yelled. “But you only scoffed at our efforts! That was…” Her voice dropped, Indigo casting her eyes downwards. “…really pulling us down” she murmured. Sunny turned towards her, seeing the sad look on her face.

“None of us have ever acted before” Sugarcoat then reminded her. “Yet you insisted on us playing as if we were all professionals.”

Sour crossed her legs. “After boasting about how great and sophisticated your play was and how we were too bad to get it done right, I guess we were all just consumed by FRUSTRATION!” she suddenly shouted, clenching her fist. Her expression quickly softened however, casting a sorrowful glance to the side. “And then, we just let it all out on you.”

Sour, Lemon, Sugarcoat and Indigo all turned their heads towards Sunny. “We’re sorry” they said in unison.

Sunny’s eyes moved around the four girls, seeing the sincere, genuine remorse in their faces. She took in a deep breath, before letting out a long sigh. “I’m sorry too” she said, stretching out her legs. “I shouldn’t have put so stress on you.” Putting her hands next to her she looked up at the sky, in a somewhat melancholic manner. “And you know what?” she eventually stated, sighing once more. “You’re right. It is a bad play.”

“It’s not that bad♥” Sour tried to comfort her, placing a hand on her back.

“But still bad” Sugarcoat said.

Indigo glared at the blunt girl. “Not helping…”

“It’s okay” Sunny assured them. Staring up at the sky she brushed a strand of her hair behind her ear. “I know it isn’t the masterpiece I claimed it to be. It’s just…” She paused for a moment, looking thoughtful at a cloud slowly passing through the clear blue sky. “When I wrote it” she went on, speaking very slowly as she carefully picked each word. “When I came up with the characters, the plot, the scenes, when I pondered about the dialogue, when I thought about how the costumes had to look like, I was just so… proud. Proud at what I was creating, at the world that was forming inside my head. Even when I stitched together that ridiculous outfit, it felt like I gave birth to a child hatched from my own imagination. I was so consumed by it all, I… I never really took a step back and looked at what I was doing. All I thought was ‘this is great, you put so much work into it, it HAS to be great’ – and I was sure everybody would think about it like this. But just because somebody likes something they created, it doesn’t mean everyone has to love it, or that is has to be good. When I saw you perform my play on the stage and for the first time really set my eyes on it, I guess I realized it wasn’t the piece of art I had told myself it was. But instead of admitting that, I put all the blame on you.” She cast her glance downwards, looking guiltily down her legs. “That was wrong. I hope you forgive me...”

Four pair of arms suddenly pulled themselves around Sunny. Surprised she looked around her, seeing the happy faces of her friends as they tightly hugged her. The warmth of their bodies streamed into her own, warming up her crestfallen heart. A cozy feeling emerged from deep within her. The corners of her mouth ascended to a smile, the depression finally vanishing from her expression as they all relished in the group hug.

“You know, it’s really a relief we’re all good again” Sour said as the girls loosened themselves from Sunny, sitting back down around her. “Considering we will probably spend the next three weeks in detention together, along the theatre guys” she mumbled.

“So, we’re not gonna play and tell Cinch we’re out of it?” Lemon asked, sounding not very thrilled. “Dunno about you guys, but I’ve seen enough of the detention room in my life…”

“I think we’ll end up in it no matter if we play or not” Sunny told them, inhaling deeply. “You were right. Cinch was just desperate and needed some sort of replacement quickly. She probably didn’t even read my script, but only looked at my grades. If we were to actually perform, she would send us into detention for damaging the school’s reputation. By quitting, you guys at least won’t have to embarrass yourselves by playing my lousy play.”

Sugarcoat pushed up her glasses. “To be fair, you were right about us, too” she said with a smirk.

Chuckling Indigo stretched out one of her legs, and pulled the other one towards her. “Yeah” she agreed as she wrapped her arms around her knee. “We were REALLY horrible.”

“I think I was pretty good” Lemon declared, jumping up on her feet. A big grin plastered on her face she jammed on an invisible instrument, yelling: “I ROCKED the stage so hard it almost broke apart!” She then threw a glance at the others, seeing their lukewarm receptions. “…All right, scratch that” she quickly admitted, sheepishly rubbing through the green mane on top of her head. “I was awful, too.” She sat back down again, sighing. “It’s kind of a bummer though. I was actually looking forward to performing on the stage.”

“Tell me!” Indigo moaned. “I boasted in front of all my team comrades how I’m gonna blow everybody in the theatre out of their socks!”

“Which team?” Sugarcoat asked, leading to an incredulous stare from Indigo.

“Um, all of them of course.”

Giggling Sour bend closer to Sunny. ”Too bad you didn’t write a play about a bunch of girls who are as weird as us” she chirped, before stating more sourly: “Or at least one so simple and dull even we couldn’t screw it up.”

Turning her head Sunny showed her a slight smile, before staring up in melancholy at the sky again. Her sad expression then slowly lit up, a big smirk forming on her face. “Hey… that’s it!” she said.

Confused Sour watched her stand up. “Er, what?”

Lemon put her hands on her ears. “Am I wearing my headphones without knowing?” she asked. “Cause it feels like I missed something.”

Skipping down the stairs Sunny turned around. A confident look on her face she put her hands on her hips, staring at the other girls who were in return throwing rather bewildered glances at her. “Listen up –I think I have a plan” she proudly told them. “It will most likely get us into detention too, but you might be able to perform without losing your face in front of the whole school!”

Comments

[BenRG]

Oh dear. She's got a plan.

[Regreme]

.... This aught to be good.:D

[DanceCentralPony2]

Knowing how these types of scenarios end, this could go either way.

[Pathfinder]

I liked it. Can we hope for a story for each girl?

[AppleJTZ]

6682061 I don't want to promise too much, but that's the plan, yes.

[Animation Crusader]

Thatta girl, Sunny! Way to rebound!

Learning something you wrote isn't as great as you originally thought is a lesson I'm learning in a class I'm taking right now. You might think it's good, but others might not and there are some people that will just rip it to pieces, finding every little nitpick. On the flip side, you get a lot of good critical feedback that you can use to better your skills.

I can't wait to see what Sunny has in mind.

[Midknight_Stardust]

Friendship preveils

[Csquared08]

I really appreciate Sunny's takeaway here. That's a good lesson to learn.