"Taylor! TAYLOR!"

Zac stood at the bottom of the steps yelling up at his older brother. A very sleepy face emerged, a scowl on his face.

"Zac, your loud, do you really need to yell?"

"Of course I do, how could I not, you sleep like the dead, I had to do it to wake..."

"Zac, your babbling again."

The family was off tour. Zac, Taylor, and Isaac had spent 6 months touring europe and the US. They had had the time of their life.

"I never babble. Me, ha ha ha ha! Tay, you crack me up sometimes!"

Ah, whatever. Tay had momentarily thought about running after his little brohter, chasing him down and then tickiling him to death, but he figured his mom woudln't go for that. Zac walked away from the bottom of the steps.

"Uh, excuse me kid."

Zac's smiling face reappeared at the foot of the steps.

"You woke me up, now what do you want?"

"Oh nothing. I was just making sure you were'nt eaten by something under the bed, or consumed by some fan who broke into the house late at night, have a nice sleep."

"Oh that's it."

Screaming in joyous fear, Zac ran through the house, out the front door and onto the front lawn, as Taylor ran after him. Catching him on the front lawn, and pinning him underneath, Taylor procceeded to give Zac an extremely large noogie, and a humongous wedgie.

"Hee hee hee hee, git 'em tay."

Isaac stood in the front door of the house, watching his brothers at their mock fight. Taylor stood, placing his hands on his hips, his hair frizzy from the night on the pillow, and trying to catch his breath, with a big grin on his face.

"Tay, even though your really ugly, and you look like a cross between Medusa and Cruela Divile, you still look like a girl."

Giggling, Zac jumped up and raced around the back of the house, his brother in hot persuit.

They had only been home for a couple days, not long, and it wasn't usual for them to be out in the front lawn, messing around. There was usually some fan screaming their name, or sitting in the street, waiting for them to appear. Today was different though. They had made it well known on television, in magazines, everywhere, that, even though they loved the fans, and that the fans were their job, they didn't want disturbances. They had a long tour, and tiring, they just wanted a little peace and quiet. Most people obeyed their request, not all, but most. A surprising percentage listned, and they were glad.

Isaac walked back into the house, picking up Jessica, his little sister on the way and carrying her into the kitchen where he began to tickle her. She was thumping on his arm to let him go, giggling and laughing all the while. Taylor and Zac came racing in the back door and through the kitchen, then up the stairs, and into their room.

"BOYS!! ENOUGH!!"

Their mother was making pancakes in the kitchen, Zoe, their youngest sibling and sister, was sitting in a highchair type craddle seat, that was at the table, she cooed softly, and Mackenzie ran into the kitchen, with a star wars sword and making noises to represent them swinging back and forth.

"Smells good mom."

Isaac had waited for pancakes forever. He hadn't had homeade ones in a long time, and the thought made him excited.

"Call your brothers please, pancakes are almost done."

Isaac moved to the bottom of the stairs where he paused, and could hear the sounds of giggling and human growling. Their dog wickit came and sat by Isaac, cocking his head to and fro, listening to the peculiar sounds comming from the upstairs.

"ZAC! TAY! BREAKFAST!"

Isaac figured they had heard him, hoped anyway. He walked back into the kitchen.

"You guys know what your doing to day?"

Isaac sat in silence.

"I think we were going to go see some of our friends, you know, hang out, blade maybe, pizza, ice cream, the stuff we haven't done in what seems like a million years."

Sure, it was kind of vague, nothing really important, nothing worth explaining in detail. But in reality, he he he, in reality, they had anticipated weeks worth of this stuff while on the road. They had to do this stuff before they died of boredome.

"Are you guys taking a lunch?"

"Naw, we'll just take some money and a car."

"Security?"

"Pshaw! Mom! how could we forget security? We're just planning on taking a tour of OUR city, it's completely our's in a strange sense, yeah, ok whatever."

Zac ran down the stairs, Taylor not far behind, as they rushed the kitchen, their mother decided enough was enough.

"Boys."

Socks weren't a good mix with tile floor, matter of fact, they were like homeade ice skates. Zac tried to stop, unfortunatly being unable to and slamming into the counter, Taylor trying to move out of the way but knocking into Zac. The two sat on the floor moaning.

"Breakfast is served."

They stood up, pulling their hair out of hot faces, and sat at the table.

"Ike says you guys are just hanging around town today."

Zac gave Isaac a perplexed look.

"Wow, Man, Ike, are you now are physicall and activity scheduler dude?"

Isaac rolled his eyes.

"No Zac, I was just thinking we could and might get out of the house so we can see things, have a good time before we start recording."

"Meow, phsst."

Zac tried his best to imitate a pissed cat, it sounded good enough to be distuinguishable.

Hurry guys, I, if no one else, want to leave.

They had gone through the day, laughing about bad experiences, funny memories, and what not, that was memorable over the past couple months. Zac was reminded of how weird he acted, only to deny that it wasn't weird, and how would they like being called Normal. Taylor's response was just that, 'he would feel fine, cause that's what everyone else was' Zac had giggled and told Taylor that he wasn't a sheep, and didn't care what people thought.

The day had been spent with friends, there was a large group that hadn't been caught up in the weekend activities of school games, practices, and all else that went with the social school life the hanson's didn't lead. There was still enough to have a good time. They went out probably around 10 in the morning, they had taken their car, throwing roller blades, back packs and water in the back seat. As their friends had loaded into their vehicle, they had to shove everything under the seats, becomming more conjested and tight. They had then bladed around a small part of town, the general area in which they lived. The small developments around them, included row malls, grocery stores, occasional family run businesses. Some even had large malls, although, they would not go into those, too many people that would recognize them.

On days like this, pizza or some other favorite place was in order, now, a small resteraunt close to the hanson's house, yet a place they frequented quite often.

"Actually, we hated it."

Zac was staring at Isaac's best friend, trying his hardest to keep in the giggles inside.

"Excuse me Zac, it was a logicall question. I mean, you guys could actually not like it all."

"Uh, duh. Ok, see this is how it all works. The only thing you don't like is those people that sit there in the front row screaming, 'I LOVE YOU LOVE YOU LOVE YOU!!!!' I think I'm deaf already, I'm not even 13."

Taylor laughed.

"Zac don't even start!"

Zac just shrugged.

"Fine then," Zac began, his face stuck up in a sarcastic manner. "I won't give input anymore!"

The table broke out in hee's and haw's. Ok, so Zac had that ability. He used it all the time, but it usually didn't get tiring.

"Are we ready to go yet?"

One of Taylor's female friends was impatient. She couldn't sit still for any time longer than a half hour, school must suck for her.

"Yeah, I'm ready."

The table stood up, all of them wearing rollerblades, they looked a little funny standing there like that.

"Well, lets go!"

Paying the hostess on the way out, the group of something like 10 kids bladed out the door, across to the sidewalk, and down the street passing a gas station.

"Oh crap, guys, it's 6 already! I need to call my mom! I told her I'd call her at 5!"

Isaac pulled over to where the pay phone sat on the wall of the gas station. Picking up the reciever, he started pumping in coins.

The phone rang, once, twice.

"Hello?"

"Hey mom, sorry we didn't call earlier, lost track."

"Oh that's ok boys. Hey, just be home by 9 alright!"

"Sure mom, see ya then."

Isaac put down the reciever, and picking up his helmet. He began strapping up, and noticed the wall of advertisements. Must just be a place where people put up lost dog stuff. He began reading some of them. One, specifically stuck out. He read it aloud.

"Hey guys, listen to this."

Everyone turned around, watching Isaac intently.

"Who's What, a band of 4 members, ages 12 to 17, 3 boys and a girl. Playing Saturday, January 24th, 1999, at Benks, a club north of downtown Tulsa."

A small black and white photo of the group was on the blue flyer, hard to tell who was who and all, no facial features.

"Hey Ike, that sounds cool and all."

Isaac spun around.

"Lets go see them."

Taylor started laughing.

"Ike, man, no way, that's stupid, I mean, why?"

"Tay, it's a week from now, it's on a Saturday, we can get a bunch of friends and take off, just for fun. How bout it?"

Taylor kind of looked at the sky, then his brother.

"Sure, but we gotta ask mom. Right?"

"Duh. Of course."

This was going to be good. They weren't there to make themselves known. Matter of fact, they would probably all split up with a group of friends to take away from their image.

Strange thing was, Isaac knew darn good and well about the show in Denver. He knew of course, that Mercury would be there, knew that there was a good chance these guys would be there. Maybe. He would have to see how good they were. What they were fist off, and if they were anything like he and his brothers, they were in for a long and hard journey to the top of the billboards.

Chapter 9 ~*BACK*~