CATS 20th Anniversary Tour

Chapter 3: Settling In

Written by Silvana and Tailkinker

"I can't believe it," Fiona dumped her suitcase on her bed in the hotel room she shared with Danielle, who had gotten the role of Jemima/Sillabub, Rebecca, who would play Etcetera, and Angela Nelson, the woman who played Electra. "I'm actually going to be in CATS."

"If it's any comfort, I can't believe I'm here, either," Danielle agreed, her French accent coming out in full force because she was so excited, as she set her own suitcase on her bed.

"We're gonna be in CATS!" Angela shouted enthusiastically as she tossed her suitcase on her bed. Rebecca let out an Etcetera scream, causing the other three to wince in pain and cover their ears. "Could you please not do that?"

"Do what?" Rebecca asked innocently.

"Scream like Etcetera," Fiona clarified as she began unpacking.

"Oh. Sorry."

"Did you see all the good-looking chics?" Quintin, now Rum Tum Tugger, asked the other three men.

"Yes, I did," Adam, the narrator Munkustrap, answered as he began unpacking. "What about you, Frank?"

"Yep, there were a lot of 'em out there," Frank, Plato/Rumpus Cat/Macavity, agreed. "Hey, Dak, what about you?"

"What?" Dakota, Alonzo, looked up from his suitcase. "Did you ask me a question?"

"Yeah," Frank grinned. "Did you notice any of the good-lookin' girls?"

Dakota's copper cheeks flushed. "No."

"Liar," Frank taunted.

"Leave him be, Frank," Adam told the tall, lanky man.

"Okay," Frank turned to his unpacking.

"I wonder if Quin'll ask me out," Emma, the resident Bombalurina, confided in Sharon, the new Demeter.

"Why would you say that?" Sharon asked, watching her friend in the mirror.

"Well, it's tradition for the girl/queen who plays Bom to go out with the guy/tom who plays Tugger," Emma replied, scowling at the strawberry blonde dancer.

"I noticed he was watching Danielle closer than he was watching you," Sharon pointed out, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.

"Jemmi? Nah, she's too small and skinny," Emma said, not willing to admit the uncertainty in her gut.

"Come on, Em, I know you better than you think I do and I know you're worried that Danielle will steal Quintin away from you," Sharon told her friend as she walked over to Emma's bed and sat down next to her and, after pick up Emma's brush from the nightstand, started brushing Emma's bleached blonde hair.

"Do you think they'll make John and me dye our hair back to black?" Jane, the newly appointed Rumpelteazer, asked her roomates upon entering the room with Brenda, the mysterious Tantomille, at her heels.

"I doubt it," Brenda answered, plopping down on her bed.

"How did they fit four beds in here?" Jane asked, sitting down on her own bed.

"Easy, they took the queen-sized beds out and moved single beds in," Emma answered, rolling her eyes.

"Look," Jane said, stalking over to the taller woman, "just because you've done this before doesn't mean you know everything."

"Really?" Emma said, standing up to her full height of five-foot-six and glared down at the five-two woman.

"Yes, really," Jane glared right back, not even phased by the taller woman.

"You've got spunk, kid," Emma said, sitting back down her bed and picking up her book from the nightstand.

"You bet I have spunk, and don't call me *kid*," Jane said, still glaring at Emma and spitting *kid* out like it left a bad after-taste in her mouth. Satisfied that she had gotten the tall blonde mad, Jane walked over to her bed and put her Walkman's headphones on and turned on a hard rock station on full blast while the other two women watched anxiously as Emma got up, walked over to Jane and turned the volume down on the Walkman, causing Jane to take a swipe at her and practically fall off the small bed. But Jane, instead of standing and trying to take another swipe, righted herself and started reading, much to Emma, Sharon, and Brenda's surprise.

"Hey, Vic," Ross Perit, the resident Pouncival, nudged the other teen, who had his nose stuck in a *Green Lantern* comic book, as Angela and Rebecca walked by in dance clothes talking animatedly and laughing. "There's Becca."

"Yeah, so?" Victor Todd, who'd been dubbed Tumblebrutus, answered, refusing to rise to the bait, despite the fact that he secretly considered Rebecca the cutest of all the female cast members.

"Aren'tcha gonna ask 'er out?" Ross asked of the older dancer.

"Later." Victor said, not looking up from the apparently very interesting comic book, crying out when Ross suddenly grabbed the comic book and dashed for the theater and hid in the not-fully-built drain pipe. After chasing Ross out of the pipe and around the stage for several minutes, Victor finally apprehended the younger theif and sat down on the tire and continued reading, unaware of the pair of blue-green eyes watching him from the oven.

"Okay, people, let's get cracking," Laura announced after everyone had wandered onto the partially-built set. John, Mungojerrie to his sister's Rumpelteazer, cracked his knuckles with a grin, causing everyone else to laugh. "That's *not* what I meant, John."

"I know," John grinned.

"Then don't do it," Laura told the young man, fighting a grin of her own.

"Okay," John agreed with mock meekness.

"Anyway," Laura turned back to the group at large. "All thirty-eight of you know your roles, right?" they nodded. "Good. Today, we're going to work on singing," she told them. "Get you used to the parts and singing as a group."

"What about us?" Tony Pravacheck asked, indicating himself and the eight other standbys. "All we know is that we're standbys, nothing else."

"Charles has those assignments," Laura told them. "Go talk to him."

"Okay," Tony led the others over to where the manager was lounging in the house.

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