~*Jenn*~
Alexandra and I sulked through the mall, our minds concentrating on anything but shopping...which was pretty strange for us. We were getting close the the center of the mall, and I heard frantic screams.
I looked at Alex and said, "Do you think someone got mugged of something?"
"I don't think so...this isn't inner city Chicago, we live in the suburbs for goodness sake. Here a mugging is like a murder!" She laughed.
Actually, she was right, our neighborhood was too safe....I wished that something exciting would happen every once in a while. That's why I drive to Chicago a lot.....it's not that far and it's definitely more chaotic than where Alex and I lived.
But as we began to come closer to the middle of the mall, the screams became louder, then soon ear-piercing. I covered my ears at the same time as Alex. I wrinkled my nose. What was happening?
Suddenly we came to a human barricade of teenage girls. "What do you think is happening?" I shouted over the noise.
Alex shook her head. "I can't hear you!" She yelled back. I laughed and pulled her hands off her ears.
"Now can you hear me?" I screamed at the top of my lungs, even though she was standing right next to me.
"Yeah..." Alex answered just as loudly.
I looked around. There was at least a 500 girls, all screaming frantically, and jumping up and down. Then I noticed something. They were all wearing Hanson shirts........
I glanced at the girl next to me. She had on brand-new Tommy Hilfiger jeans, but to my disgust, she had ruined them by painting a lot of IKE, TAY, and ZAC all over them. She was also wearing a Hanson necklace, Hanson shirt, Hanson bracelets, holding a Hanson sign, 4 copies of Middle of Nowhere, and a Hanson back-pack was slung over one shoulder. Her hair was a mass of tiny braids, like Zac's.
It was all very sad because most of the girls surrounding me were exact replicas of her.
What was worse was when she turned to the girl next to her, whose face was painted with the members of Hanson's names, gasped.
"Oh my gosh!" she said, "my face isn't painted! You HAVE to do mine like that.....if it's not painted, then what will Taylor think of me?" She pulled out markers and the girl decorated her face with IKEs TAYs and ZACs.
Alex and I looked at eachother in horror. This was disgusting. The crowd was growing bigger, and it seemed to be swelling. I still didn't know what was happening, maybe it was a Hanson convention. I was dying to find out. I grabbed Alex's arm so we wouldn't be seperated and we elbowed our way to the front.
I found myself beside a security guard, so I decided to ask. He didn't look very nice, but I was going to take my chances. "Excuse me," I began politely, "but what is happening here, why is this place full of Hanson fans?"
"You mean you don't know?" The guard seemed astonished. "Hanson is having an autograph session. I'm actually only here to get an autograph and maybe a picture for my daughter." He smiled.
"HANSON IS HERE?!!!" Alex yelled. My eyes widened.
"Well how can they sign autographs if they're not here?" He asked me reasonably.
"I...I don't know...." I shook my head in disbelief. Alex looked like she was going to pass out. Then it dawned on us. It clicked. We jumped joyously. "Hanson is here Hanson is here Hanson is here!!!" We must have looked really stupid, but under the circumstances, it was nothing.
Alex and I stopped abrupty when a familiar voice rang through the mall. We whirled around. We were only about 15 feet away from an autograph table where Hanson sat. They each were equipped with 5 colors of markers, stacks of glossy photos, microphones, and cheesy smiles.
I dashed closer, with Alexandra at my heels, as well as a couple hundred teenyboppers. I made it as close as I could, so there were about 50 girls in front of us.
For nearly an hour we waited, until finally we were next in line. "Who should I sign it to?" Taylor asked the chubby blonde in front of us.
"Write 'I love you more than anything, With all my love, Taylor Hanson," the girl preached.
"Um okay, what's your name?" He asked.
"Oh....my name is...my name is...." the girl couldn't seem to remember her name. Her friend next to her poked her side and whispered her name.
"Oh yeah!" the fan said, "my name is Clauddie," she said proudly.
I rolled my eyes. When Taylor handed her the photo he had signed, I noticed that he had only written very sloppily, "Clauddie, thanks for buying MON. Join MOE. -Taylor"
I laughed. This band was obssessed with getting people to join MOE. I stepped forward when the girl burst into tears and her friend dragged her away. She struggled to get back. "Taylor I love you!" She sobbed.
I looked at Taylor. His eyes were wide. I could tell he was afraid that the girl would get loose and try to kiss him. Finally he ignored her and turned to Alex and I. He put on a genuine smile....at least, I hope it was.
"Hi..." he said, picking up a photo, "Who should I make it out to?"
"One for me, my name is Jenn----"
"And one for me.......I'm Alexandra," Alex finished.
"Okay," he picked up two photos of himself and his brothers, and signed them. Ike, who was sitting next to him, signed them too, and then he passed them to Zac. When Zac was done he gave them back to Tay, and as he handed Alex her picture, his black permanent marker made a huge streak across her long-sleeved white shirt.
"Oh no....I'm so sorry!" Taylor apologized. I could tell Alex was mad about her shirt but she wasn't going to show it when the person who did it was Taylor Hanson. If it had been anyone else she'd have been screaming.
She bit her lip. "Um...it's okay, I have another one just like it," she said. I knew she didn't have another shirt like that but I didn't say anything.
A teenybopper bumped into me really hard and I dropped my wallet. As I bent down to pick it up, my reasonably low-cut tanktop revealed a little too much cleavage. I felt myself hanging down, and when I looked up, I flushed embarrassingly. The tips of Ike's ears were bright pink.
Ike's eyes were still on my breasts as he reached for a photo, but instead knocked over his glass of grape Snapple. It spilled all over my shirt and on the photos. Horrified that my white tanktop was now see-through, I tried covering myself up.
Zac was looking at me with his mouth hanging open.
"Listen," Taylor began, "we're really sorry, why don't you go back there and our manager will have someone clean you up....."
"And maybe concert tickets or something as an apology...we don't want you to press charges," Ike smiled.
"Really, it's not necessary," Alex said, and I nodded in agreement, even though I knew that we were both dying for concert tickets, but we didn't want to appear too over-eager.
"No, we insist," Taylor said. We pretended to contemplate their offer, and then meekly gave in. We then walked over to a gate where Zac told the security guard that it was okay to let us through. Then they went back to sign autographs.
Alex and I entered a back room. The blonde woman that I had seen at the toy store with the little girl was in there. "Ugh...what have my clumsy sons done now?" She handed me a shirt to put on over my wet, now purple, tanktop.
"Your.....sons?" I asked. Alex looked at me, her mouth open.
"Yes of course, they are very clumsy sometimes, I apologize," she sighed.
When she left the room Alex and I sat on two folding chairs. I looked down at my juice-stained shirt and at the black mark on Alexandra's....those stains would never come out. Good.
"We are so lucky!" I squealed.
"I know!" She screeched back.
I never thought I'd appreciate low-cut tanktops and grape juice as much as I did that day.
All The Way To Albertane
You Are My Hope
Next
Back to chapter 4
