Chapter 71: Vol. 2 Chapter 70 Maura has excellent yuri goggles

The school bell rang announcing lunch break. While we were waiting for the other girls to arrive, Maura tried reading a yuri manga from our library but Pussyni had other plans. She had planted herself on Maura's lap, with an air that was clearly saying “If you have time for a book, you have time to pet me.” She immediately fell in love with the cat and was massaging it while Pussyini fell into a purring daze. It was a very cute sight to behold.

First, the other girls arrived one by one. I wanted to present Maura when everyone was here.

When Fien arrived, she immediately spotted Pussyni and wanted to pet her too, so she went up to Maura. So far so good. Pussyni could have been the icebreaker so to speak, but Pussyini would not have it. When anyone came near Maura she started hissing and clawing showing that Maura was hers. Fien was clearly shocked by the hostility of the cat, and so was Maura. I saw Anna getting up to intervene, it was her cat after all that was causing the ruckus, but suddenly Maura disciplined the cat with an intense firmness that I would never have expected from the shy little girl we met earlier. Pussyni immediately backed down. Then Maura looked back up again, sheepishly shy to Fien, and patted the place next to her to invite Fien to try and pet the cat again. Fien happily walked up and sat down next to Maura.

Fien was being way too intense, like usual, but when Pussyini tried to go away, I saw Maura getting firm again toward the cat, showing the cat that she would protect her. Pussyni gave a high "Nya" as a complaint, but then let Fien pet her and after a moment when Fien started to relax, so did Pussyni. It was hard to tell who of the three was enjoying this situation the most.

All this happened in a few moments, and Fien and Maura had not yet spoken a word to each other. The contrast between the Maura that was dealing with the cat, and the shy Maura that tried talking with Fien was uncanny. I suspected the cute shy girl might not be so innocent and shy as she looked. To be certain of her intentions, I decided to use my yuri detecting keychain on both of them. Instantly the little light became green. I hope that meant I was worrying for nothing.

Now that everyone was here, I decided to introduce Maura as a new FBY member. Fien reacted immediately to that “But you said you never heard about yuri. I thought you didn't want to have anything to do with it because you even stopped talking to me.”

“No you stopped talking to me because I did not know anything about it, so I bought some novels and started reading them,” Maura answered.

They both looked at each other a bit stupefied. Fien facepalmed. “So we both did the same thing...”

“Well, great minds think alike, they say.” Anna intervened. “Fien, could you help by explaining how everything works around here to Maura? Claire and I have some work to do for the school festival.

I noticed that Anna gave a wink to Maura, and when she walked back toward me. She had a big smile on her face and gave me a thumbs up. The two girls got up and Fien started out by herding Maura toward the yuri library, while talking really fast about a manga about a girl that quit table tennis because she could not beat a certain rival. The rival is the new transfer student, and I suppose you can guess the rest. I had read that one. It was really cute.

The rest of the lunch break I spent mostly listening to the other girls' ideas about the school festival. Elsa, Eve and Therese tried to get me enthusiastic about the idol formation. But I was having a hard time pretending to be enthused. I never had been into idols. Singing and dancing really weren't my strong sides, and I really did not like crowds. I hoped in some way I would find a way out of this idol predicament, but the mention of the word idol made Anna's eyes shoot cute stars, so I could not really get it over my heart to tell her that I did not want to do it. In the end, I decided to just give it a chance by performing at the school festival. That way I could at least say I tried.

After the lunch break, Anna and I got back to work. Time passed by fast but we managed to do a lot of work. I was certain that Ms. Lourdes would be happy with all we managed to do for the school festival. Anna certainly managed to get the prices down on quite a few quotes in comparison to former years. If it were me, I would have just gone through the quotes, but she haggled and put pressure on each and every one of them until she got the price she wanted.

When the final hour ended, it was time for another rehearsal. This time Thea would not be here so I hoped this time Ms. Stick would do her job as a director, and help us to get a decent performance next week.

When we arrived in the gym hall, Ms. Stick and most of the cast were already there, and Ms. Stick was practicing breathing exercises and tongue twisters with them. She seemed to be in a really good mood because when she saw me, she was all friendly to the point that the personality switch felt a bit creepy.

“She seems to be really looking forward to her date,” Anna whispered to me.

“Well, if that is the case, then let us do our best to keep her this way,” I whispered back.

After the tongue twisters that had put most of the girls in a good mood because of all the funny failures, Ms. Stick decided to work with Mia and Valerie as their roles would make or break the play. She asked me to take care of the rest. I sighed. I would do my best, but as I already told you, I knew absolutely nothing about theater.

Luckily Anna was really ad rem and had looked up some good theater exercises and we started an improvisation exercise where everyone had to pretend to interact like they were the character they were going to play. According to the website, this would help to not play roles statically and I could see that they were having fun acting out their parts. Fien's Tybalt grew more and more macho, and Elodie's Mercutio was a worse skirt chaser than the prince ever was. I even noticed some of the prince's fans checking her out.

I could see that Gazette was not too happy about that. Luckily the second they had a short break, Elodie's demeanor changed completely and she came running to Gazette like a loyal puppy, ignoring all the other girls, which brought a smile to Gazette's face. I saw Gazette pat Elodie while complimenting Elodie, by saying what a good job she was doing. Like always the sight of those two together was really adorable.

Gazette had taken Maura under her wing to help her with the production. Gazette was clearly enjoying having someone smaller than her next to her. I could see that Maura was really doing her best to fit in, and her initial shyness began to disappear rather quickly. The two of them were laughing together and were clearly having fun. “What are you girls laughing about?” Fien asked after rushing over. That girl never could do anything moderately, could she? 

Maura instantly froze and reverted into a shy nervous rack, and because of that Gazette explained everything to Fien. Maura looked a bit dejected at that.

“Maura was just making a case that Romeo and Juliet would be a lot better with a yuri ending. She thinks Juliette should just elope with the nurse since she is the one that cares about her the most.”

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Fien started laughing and then gave Maura a shoulder pat. “Maura, you crack me up. Even though that would be awesome, I think it is a good thing Ms. Stick did not hear that. I think we would get a lecture about the theatrical tradition for an hour.”

Maura started blushing heavily at the sudden touch and praise and because of that, they did not see the threat behind us.

“Did not hear what?” Ms. Stick asked. Fien looked a bit shocked and tried to start explaining but Ms. Stick said. “No Fien, I want the new girl to explain. She was the one that said something inappropriate, wasn't she?”

I noticed Maura shrinking. But just when Ms. Stick was about to get angry, because Maura did not comply, she took a script and started laying down her case of Juliette X Nurse as a better match-up than Romeo and Juliette.

Ms. Stick did not interrupt her, but I could see she was fuming with anger the more Maura went on. The more Maura went on, the more enthusiastic Maura became, and by the end, she was explaining it all with big gestures.

In the meantime almost everyone was listening, but when Maura noticed the attention on her and the look that Ms. Stick was giving her she became really silent. The tension in the room could be cut. Everyone was expecting Ms. Stick to explode.

But the firm lecture that I was expecting did not follow. Instead, I was the one to take the heat.

“Claire, as my personal assistant I expect you to inform me of creative ideas that live inside of our theater group. If I had not accidentally passed by we would have missed out on this brilliant plant. I expect better from you in the future!”

Then she turned toward Maura and everyone who was listening in on our conversation “Although I will not change the ending, some yuri and BL tension might work very well to give this story our own spin. We could put some more accents on the nurse X Julliette yuri tension and at the same time add some Romeo x Mercutio to the story, making Romeo's revenge on Tybalt even more passionate.”

“I refuse profoundly!” Anna answered. “I will not allow this play to turn into bait!” Anna suddenly became very passionate about the subject. “Nothing is worse than bait!”

But Ms. Stick replied dryly “This is not baiting. Have you forgotten that both Romeo and Juliet are girls in our play?” Anna did not really have an answer to that, but I could understand how she felt. Nothing is worse than yuri bait. Luckily our FBY yuri library was 100% baitless.

“Eline, Maura, both of you are responsible for changing the script.”

“I was going to visit Elodie after school,” Gazette said a bit dejected. Maura clearly wasn't looking forward to the extra work either and felt guilty that a senior had to lose her evening plans because of her.

Fien interrupted and said, “Then why don't we do it all together at aunt Sandra's place?” Did I spot some jealousy there?

Valerie then said “I want to help too.” making Mia quickly say “Yes, me too! Romeo X Mercutio sounds like a really bold idea.” 

Wait, what? 

The girls then looked enthusiastic at Anna and me. I had to come up with an excuse quickly because I could not just say I was cooking for Ms. Stick and her date. Ms. Stick noticed my dilemma and helped me out, probably because it was for her own cause. 

“I have given Claire other tasks as my PA. So she will not be able to help you girls.”

The other girls looked a bit disappointed at that, but since it was Ms. Stick who said so, nothing could be done about it.

Ms. Stick walked over to Maura and said “I expect great things from you. Not only are you creative, but the entire cast also wants to work with you. I expect your change proposals tomorrow before the break.”