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Kittara was waiting outside the auditorium when Kris came down the hall from his hour with the counselor. "Oh thank goodness you're here! I was starting to think we needed to get together a rescue party! Was she horrible? Did she ask you all kinds of personal questions? Did her office smell strange? Was it still pink with all those pictures?" She hardly took a breath as she ran toward him up the hall. When she reached him, she made him turn around to be sure that he was all in one piece. "At least you still have your tail and your hair!"

When she finally stepped back, Kris affected a depressed look and moaned pitiably. "Oh, it was horrible! She _smelled_like an old lady, and her office was all this... this _bright pink!_She had candles everywhere, all burning all at once, to add to the horrible smell in her office. All she had to sit on were these old, hard-backed chairs, and I thought she was going to tie me into one when I asked if I could move to one that was a little further away from her!" He widened his eyes dramatically, and he put a hand to his chest as if he was afraid for his life. "It was horrible! I just escaped as the bell rang!"

What neither of the kits knew is that they had an audience. As Kris finished his dramatic monologue they heard clapping and two voices yelling "Bravo! Bravo! Encore!" The kits spun around to see both the English teacher and the Art teacher smiling widely as they applauded.

Kris blushed furiously, but Kittara just looked confused and asked, "What? Why are you clapping?"

Mr. Mitsuda pointed one of his long slender ears at Kris. "His performance was flawless. Ad-lib at it's finest, wouldn't you say, Dennis?" To which the other rabbit nodded his own approval.

"Oh, hell yes! The shaking and the paw on the chest totally sold it." The brown and white rabbit grinned wide and cocked his head slightly.

Kris' blush got deeper as Kittara looked from the teachers to him and back to the teachers again. "I don't get it."

Dennis started laughing as Kasador regarded Kris levelly. "Would you care to explain to your friend why we are amused with your little description of the counselor, Mr. Blackwood?"

Kris heaved a sigh and rolled his eyes, but he turned to Kitt and said. "It wasn't Mrs. Darling. They must have hired a new counselor this year. His name is Tristan Black Wolf, and he's really rather nice. The office is all beige and has plants and comfortable chairs and stuff now." He winced as she hit him in the shoulder. "Hey! Well, you were all panicked about my having to spend time there I couldn't resist pulling your tail!"

"Kris, you're a beast!" The vixen turned on her heel and headed into the auditorium without a backward glance at the raccoon.

The teachers let out another burst of laughter as Kris looked after the retreating girl in consternation. "Don't worry so much about it, Kris," Kasador said, slipping an arm around the raccoon's shoulder. "She'll get over it. After all, I'm sure she told you all kinds of horror stories before you went; that made you more nervous than you needed to be." He dropped his arm and motioned for both Kris and the brown and white rabbit to precede him into the auditorium.

Since this was the art portion of the day, Dennis headed for the stage while Kasador steered Kris toward the back of the gathering of students. "How did the counseling session go? Are you feeling any more focused?"

Kris fell into one of the large seats and kicked his feet up onto the back of the row in front of them. "Yeah, I guess. I mean, we just talked about when I was a kid." This made Kasador have to hold back a smile, since the boy was all of fourteen. "He was pretty cool; he didn't jump all over me and want to know my deepest darkest secrets. He just listened and asked a few questions about things."

That made the rabbit frown slightly. "Well... I'm glad you're feeling more like yourself. Since you missed the first day of auditions, you'll be up tomorrow. Have you considered who you'd like to play?" Kasador made a mental note to corner the counselor later and see if he couldn't find out what was going on in this young man's head.

"I don't know. I mean, I don't want to be someone who's going to have a lot of lines. I suppose I could be the Indian chief..." He blushed a little trying not to let the reason he wanted to be the chief show.

Kasador, whose eyes were on the other rabbit at the time, nodded. "Not a bad choice. Puts you in the scene with Peter and the lost boys, the scene where the Pirate's kidnap Tigerlilly, and then in the scene when the Indians team up with Peter to fight the Pirates to save Wendy. Good luck with the audition. You better join the rest of the kits now, so you don't miss what Dennis is talking about."

Up at the stage, Dennis was wielding some very colorful markers on the brown paper that had been taped to the backdrop. "Okay... we have the nursery, the pirate ship, the mermaid lagoon... what other major scenes are there in this show?"

He pointed to a rabbit doe with her hand up, who hesitantly asked, "The cave where Tigerlily is tied up?"

"Good! The cave." He added it to the list of things on the paper with a small drawing of a water filled cavern. "What else?"

Kittara's hand shot into the air as Kris came up beside her and fell into an adjoining seat.

"Yes, Kittara?"

"How about the Indian camp?"

"Good! Another major scene that we'll need a backdrop for." That was added to the list as well.

More hands went up each vying for the art teacher's attention. "Holly?"

A shy mouse girl whispered something, that two students near her repeated louder, "The treehouse where Peter and the boys live."

"Yes! I love treehouses! What else? Paul?"

"What about the night sky, when they are flying?" This from a tall awkward-looking giraffe student, one of the few exotic furs in the school.

"Now... that one, I want to talk about. We'll need two sky backdrops. The first will to be the night sky for the scene when Peter steals the Darling children away. Can anyone tell me why we'd need a second?"

For a few moments the whole of the auditorium was silent, but then Kris cautiously asked, "Don't we need a daytime sky as well for when Wendy is shot by the Lost Boys?"

Dennis pointed at the raccoon with one of his markers. "Excellent, Kris; that's exactly what I was thinking!" He moved to another part of the brown paper and drew two rectangles -- one, he put a lot of dots into, and the other had big wispy looking blobs in it. "Here's what I was thinking about the sky. If we do one with the night sky..." he indicated the first rectangle "...and a second with the day sky, we should be able to use them with all the other backdrops. We can go into the mechanics of how to do that later, but those are the two major projects that I want to start with."

He moved to the front of the stage and sat on the edge. "I'd like you to, like, split yourselves in half. Not, you know, literally!" He paused while some of the kits giggled, a smile on his lips. "One group is going to work on the night side and one the day side." He changed his voice slightly and intoned, "Come to the dark side... we have cookies!" Then he pointed to a huge roll of thick paper that was lying just at the back of the stage. "Don't worry too much about the people you're working with, you'll have a chance to change up when we switch to another project."

He sat there looking expectantly at them until they started milling about to separate themselves into two groups that were mostly even. "Good, good, good. Now in your groups I need, lets see..." He did a quick head count. "Five project leaders. These are going to be my go to people, the ones I ask for updates and the like."

Kris looked at Kittara who was standing beside him and then at the other kits clustered around them. There were approximately fifty-some bodies in their group which made things a little chaotic, but then Mr. Mitsuda stepped up onto the stage. "May I make a small suggestion, Dennis?"

The brown and white rabbit nodded to the flame colored one and gestured for him to take center stage. "Sure, Kasador; you know how things work better than I do."

Kasador placed a hand on Dennis' shoulder and addressed the students. "Perhaps if you further break your groups down into around ten kits in each then elect one person from each smaller group to serve as your liaison... that will make things more manageable."

"Awesome idea!" Dennis agreed.

"Dennis and myself will each pick a group, and you can ask us any questions that you think need answers while you figure out who's to be in charge this time round." With that the flame colored rabbit jumped off the stage and headed for the other side of the auditorium leaving Dennis to make his way toward Kris and Kittara's group.

Somehow -- Kris was never quite sure how it happened -- Dastinon left the other group and joined him and Kittara along with seven others from their side of the large room. Two seniors: Sylvia, a dark gray wolf, and Jamal, a white rabbit. Three juniors: Dale, a red fox; Liran, a cacomistle; and Kara, a dalmatian. Another sophomore: Kittara's friend Krista. Two freshmen: Lisa, the only other raccoon he'd met at the school so far, and Paul, the gangly-looking giraffe. It gave them a total of eleven, but Dennis said that was close enough.

"I think we need to have the oldest be the one on the committee. That is the only way we're going to be taken seriously," Sylvia opined, crossing her arms under her substantial breasts and glaring at the others as if daring them to disagree with her.

"That is one way to look at it, Sylvia," Dennis said calmly. "You might want to talk it over first. The oldest isn't always the best one for the job. Think about things like personality, and the ability to speak up in groups." He smiled at the eleven of them then passed on to the next group where several students had their forepaws up.

"Mr. Carter-Hughes has a point. Just 'cause you're older, doesn't mean you like speaking in a group." Paul said, "I know my sister hates public speaking, and she's three years older than I am."

The art teacher's voice came floating back to their group before he got to the next one, "Just Dennis," he reminded them.

"Well, what do you suggest then? Drawing straws?" Sylvia sneered at the freshman for a moment then turned to the rest of the group dismissing him from consideration.

"Syl, that's kinda harsh," Jamal said, elbowing her in the side. "I know you want to make sure that it's someone who can tell us what's going on as well as I do, but I don't think you want to jeopardize our position by putting someone on the committee that no one will listen to."

Kittara made a face at Kris that Sylvia and Jamal couldn't see, which made Kris and Liran, who happened to be standing beside him, giggle. Kris sobered up as he saw Sylvia looking daggers at them and privately thought she hadn't softened any since she was on the team last year; she was still just as uptight and bossy as ever.

"I'll do it!" Liran said, still smiling as he looked around at the gathered students. "That is, unless one of you would rather do it?"

No one else volunteered, so the cacomistle chuckled and threw his hand up his super long fluffy tail bapping Sylvia on the head. "Mr. Dennis!" He climbed into the seat of the chair he'd been sitting on and waved his hand in the air. "YOOHOO! MR. DENNIS!" The whole auditorium full of kits and teachers turned to look at him. "I get to be on the committee, Mr. Dennis!" The ringtail did a little spin wrapping his super long and fluffy tail around himself and pretended to hide his face in the bushy tip as if he was embarrassed by all the attention he was getting. It made Kris and Kittara start to giggle, which caught most of the rest of the group, everyone except Sylvia she slumped into her seat and glared murderously at him.

"Wonderful!" Dennis said clapping slowly as he watched the overly dramatic cacomistle. "It's great that you're embracing your inner actor. Now... get off the furniture!" He mimed throwing something at Liran, who obligingly clutched at his chest and slid down the back of the chair until he lay motionless cradled in the upholstery he'd been standing on a moment before. "That's one down; lets see if we can't get the rest sorted."

"Actually, we have three already chosen over here." Kasador commented.

"You hear that? Are you going to let them beat you?" Dennis turned to look at his remaining four groups.

Kasador seemed to take up the challenge and called out to his remaining two groups. "Think we can beat them?"

It became a challenge at that point with the groups who had already chosen their leaders lounging about and making it look as if they were on vacation or a coffee break or something similar. It only took another few minutes before the rest of the committee was chosen.

"Good! Now we need to find out who can draw the best stars and clouds," Dennis said. "Everyone grab a sketch pad and pencils, then find a place that's comfortable for you and start working out what you think the sky should look like. You can do either night, day, or both, if you have time." Both of the teachers moved toward the stage to hand out the required tools from the boxes that were hidden on the side stairs until now. "You can work alone or in groups if you want," the art teacher continued, "but please stay with your original groups if you're working with someone."

The kits scattered to all corners of the large room, some lying or sitting on the stage itself, some curled up in the chairs, and some even sitting on the stairs or with their backs against the walls. There were hushed conversations going on all over, as well as pockets of silence where the budding solo artists worked. Dennis and Kasador moved among the students watching and occasionally commented on what one or more of them were working on. Without seeming rushed or intrusive, they managed to spend a few moments with each student, offering suggestions and polite criticism that was more geared toward helping the students get better then tearing them down.

At one point, Kasador motioned Dennis to join him beside one of the solo students. They crouched down and had a soft voiced conversation with the young skunk, who looked as if he wanted the floor to swallow him whole. It seemed a little odd to Kris, who happened to be stretching at that moment and noticed the movement out of the corner of his eye.

Finally, Dennis went back to the stage and held his hands up. "Time! Here's what we're going to do now. I want you to go back into your small groups and look at each others work. Then you're to pick the best picture that your group produced and bring it to the committee. They will present the best pictures your groups have to offer. We'll all have a look at them and decide together which students we're putting in charge of the artistic reality of our sky."

While the kits were sorting that part out, Kasador wandered over to where the young skunk was sitting and waited until his group had chosen their best picture before speaking quietly to the young man. He left with the boy's sketch pad to join Dennis on the stage. Ten kits (one of them, the incorrigible Liran) were standing on the stage at this time, each holding a sketch pad. As each of them revealed the picture they held, students filed past to have a look at them all. Then Dennis called for a show of hands, which Kasador counted. In the end, the shy rabbit girl, Lyris, was chosen to draw the night sky and their own giraffe member, Paul, to draw the day sky.

"Congratulations to the lucky artists!" There followed a round of applause as everyone moved to settle into their various comfy chairs again. Dennis put on a strangely familiar British accent as he intoned, "And now for something completely different!" then went on in his more normal voice. "One student stood out when we were making our rounds. He's come up with a wonderful idea for how to make the sky interact with all of our various sets. Simon, will you come up on stage please?"

Kasador held up the skunk's sketch pad while the boy shyly made his way toward the stage. "By putting the night sky above the day sky on the same sheet of paper, and adding a section that looks like either twilight or dawn in the middle, Simon has designed a system that will roll the sky either up as day rises, or down as night falls. It will take a little work on our part to make sure this dream of his become a reality, but I think with all the creativity in this room we can make it happen, don't you?" The picture that he showed had notations about the hand cranks and directional arrows as well as the beginning of a design schematic for the crank system on it.

Simon the skunk seemed to be trying to hide behind his tail by this time, but both Dennis and Kasador put hands on his shoulders and whispered to him until he dropped his tail and smiled up at the two of them.

Just then the bell rang.

"Lyris and Paul, if you would stay behind, we'd like to discuss how to get your visions onto the larger paper in the easiest way possible. The rest of you are dismissed. Have a good evening, and we'll see you here tomorrow after lunch!"

Just like that the class was over. Kris and Kittara stayed for a few moments with the rest of their group to congratulate Paul. Liran proposed a victory dinner at Stallion Pizza, which everyone agreed to, however Kris said he'd have to bow out since he had an appointment to keep.

"That's all right, Kris -- we'll eat your share for you, won't we guys?" Liran bubbled, throwing an arm around the taller raccoon's waist and grinning up at him. "Or you can always try to catch up once you finish with this mysterious appointment." The cacomistle made it sound like he was James Bond or something.

Laughing, Kris agreed. "Fine; I'll text Kitt when I get done, and if you're still there, I'll come join you." Then he headed off toward his appointment while the others headed off toward the front doors. Even Sylvia looked happy, or at least as happy as she ever looked.