I Need You Tonight
Part I

"Hey Dani! Are you okay?" Nick Carter, my on and off boyfriend asked me. It’s 1993 and I had just gotten back from an audition for some band called Sugar. They turned me down and told me to try out for something that was more my league, something like The Mickey Mouse Club. I was so disappointed.

"Yeah, I’m just kind of embarrassed that they said I was too young to be in that band. When I finally got them to let me sing for them it was awful! I was so determined to prove them wrong that I screwed up the whole thing! I missed my cue, nearly choked on my spit, and worst of all, I was off-key!" I could see Nick trying his hardest not to laugh. "Come on, Nick. I know you’ve been in that situation before so don’t you dare laugh! I swear I’ll smack you!"

"Okay, okay! So I have been in that situation once." I crossed my arms, cocked my head and gave him a look. "Okay maybe more than once, but that’s not the point! The point is we both want to sing badly and no one will give us a chance because they all think that we’re too young. But you know what? There’s probably a whole lot of other kids who are in the same mess and maybe if we get together with a few of them, we could start our own group." He finished the sandwich he was eating and got up from the lunch table where only the two of us sat.

I hated lunch. So did Nick. I hated class too. So did Nick. Neither of us was too popular with any of the kids in the eighth grade because of how often we got to get out of school to go to auditions and sometimes even callbacks. School’s rough on both of us so we stick together as often as possible. We’ve been going out on and off for about a year and a half now. We get frustrated so much by the other kids in the school that sometimes we end up taking it out on each other. We always make up though.

I watched Nick as he turned away from the trash can and ran into the most popular guy in the school, Ryan Burris, who was also his biggest teaser. Ryan shoved Nick’s shoulders hard, making him ram into the Dr. Pepper machine.

"Watch it, Carter! Or I might just have to rip those singing cords straight out of your throat with my bare hands if you ever touch me again!" Ryan cornered Nick. I was fixing to get up and help Nick out, then remembered that the last time I did that, he was teased for weeks on end. I left it up to Nick to save his own butt. And a nice butt at that.

"Oh you don’t have to worry about causing yourself enough trouble to rip out my, what do you call them?, vocal cords cause I wouldn’t want to touch you ever again. Once I figured out that you had scabies, I’ve tried my hardest to steer clear of you." The whole cafeteria went into an uproar as Nick pushed Ryan’s shoulder. No one ever stands up to Ryan Burris! No one! Pretty gutsy, I thought. As Ryan fumed and turned beet red with anger, Nick strolled nonchalantly back over to where I was sitting.

"Let’s go Danielle." That’s what I loved so much about Nick; he can maintain his cool while in the spotlight, but as soon as he’s out of it, he turns back into himself again. I got up and threw the rest of my trash and his away, making sure I didn’t run into anyone. Then together me and Nick walked out of the cafeteria. "I can’t stand Ryan Burris! All that I wanted to do when he pushed me was beat the s..."

"Nick!"

"Danny, I wasn’t gonna say that! I was gonna say, ‘beat the snot out of him’ I wasn’t gonna say anything bad!" He looked at me and when I looked at him like I thought he was lying he grabbed me around my waist and shoulders. "Danny, you’re so...so..."

"I’m so what?" I squirmed away from him, got in front of him and started to walk backwards so I could still look at him and tease him and still have a head start if he were to chase me. "I’m so what?" I said again.

"You’re so you! Hey watch out, Danielle!" He grabbed my forearms and pulled me out of the way before I ran into the principal. "Hello, Mr. Stakes." I turned around and repeated Nick’s greeting.

"Hello, Mr. Carter, Miss Evans. Why are you two not eating lunch in the cafeteria like you are supposed to?" Mr. Stakes crossed his arms over his chest and raised his eyebrows.

"We’re uh... we were going to um..." I shifted my weight from foot to foot nervously and racked my brain for a good excuse.

"Are you getting hassled again?" Mr. Stakes is probably the nicest principal, but if he needs to get down to business, he will. Both me and Nick nodded sheepishly. "That’s okay. I guess you two could go in the library for the rest of the lunch period. But you’ll have to be very quiet. The teachers are having a meeting in the lounge across the hall from the library. Would you like me to talk to the kids who are giving you trouble?"

"No!" Nick shouted at him, then realized who he was talking to and repeated himself a little more calmly. "No, thank you. I think that I can handle it. Plus it’ll only make the teasing worse because then they’ll say I’m a weenie for telling the principal. But I promise that if it gets to be more than I can handle, I’ll ask you for some help. Okay?"

"That’s fine. Now hurry up and get to the library. And if I hear any complaints about you two being a disruption, you’ll both be in trouble." Mr. Stakes winked and left. I knew that he would never get me or Nick in trouble.

Nick led the way as we headed toward the library. No one was inside the library, but we heard lots of laughter coming from the teacher’s lounge. I kinda liked the idea of me and Nick being alone in the library for twenty minutes. That’s beside the point though. What Nick had said earlier before our lunch was so rudely interrupted, had me thinking.

"You know, Nick, what you said earlier was a pretty good idea." I sat down at one of the tables and picked up a TEEN magazine.

"What?"

"You know. What you said about meeting a few of the other kids who want to sing, but everyone thinks they’re too young, and making our own group. I mean that could really happen. You know we could put an ad in the paper or something. Or maybe we could just ask some of the younger people that we meet at auditions." Now that I had thought about it some more, I was getting pretty excited. "Then we could make a big break and everyone would love us! We’d be on the cover of every magazine, be on everyone’s bedroom walls, and even on..."

"Whoa, Dani! Slow down! I mean we haven’t even met anybody yet! Although I do know some guys that are in the same stitch as us. I’ve met up with them at a few auditions. One guy’s name is... well I can’t remember his first name but I’m pretty sure that his last name is McLean. He’s real skinny and he has a pretty good voice. He’s older than me though. And so is the other guy, Howie I think. I know it’s something like that. Hey, I have both of their phone numbers! Do you wanna call them up tonight?" Nick seemed just as excited as I was. I think this might just work! I thought.

"I guess we could call them tonight but, don’t you think it’d be just a tad weird if you got a call from some little kid that you’ve only met once or twice at some auditions?" I was kind of skeptic of the idea of calling up two older guys that I’d never met and asking them if they’d like to join a group. But I didn’t mind the fact that we would be calling up two older guys.

"Yeah, it would be. But I mean I’ve met them more than just a few times. For one audition that all three of us went to up in New York, we bunked together in the same hotel room." Just at that second, the lunch bell rang, signaling that it was time for our next class to start.

"Oh man! I have Social Studies next! I hate that class not only cause it’s boring but cause guess who’s in it? Katie Landers! I hate that brat!" I got up reluctantly from the library table and put the magazine back on the rack. "Hey write me a note, okay?"

"Okay. I’ll have a lot of time because I’ve got Computer Lit next. That class is such a blow-off." Nick stood up and gave me a hug. Then put his hands on my shoulders and held me at an arm’s length. "Don’t let that... well just don’t let that Katie Landers bother you, okay? I mean she can’t be that bad. Plus, you know the only reason that she gives you a hard time is because she’s just jealous." I smiled and nodded, and Nick pulled me in for another hug. "Just think. In a few hours, we’ll be out of school and on the phone with McLean and Howie and arranging a group." That made us both laugh.

"Bye Nick! Hey! Meet me at my locker after school. I’m sure my mom wouldn’t mind if you came over." I waved and headed off for my most dreaded class- Social Studies.

"Now what happened next is so interesting! The Civil War was about to begin." I never did figure out how Mrs. Kelling could read about the Civil War out of the Social Studies text book and still call it "interesting".

While Mrs. Kelling droned on and on about the Civil War, I was mentally planning our group. What should we be called? Hotter and Rising? No, too stupid. But I couldn’t come up with any other names. Oh well, on to other stuff. Um, how many people should be in our group? At least four because we already have four members. Well almost. What else did we need to start a group? Oh yeah! Songs! What could we write about? Love (duh). Well, should we even write our own songs or get other people to write them for us?

I was just about to go on to what type of music we should sing when I felt an urgent tapping on my shoulder. I turned around to the kid behind me, who pointed in the direction of Katie Landers. Oh great. What does she want now? For the most part, I was pretty fed up with Katie. Not to mention her other popular friends who entertained themselves by giving me hell.

I looked over at Katie who pointed towards the door. I felt like my head was on a merry-go-round. At the door stood Katie’s best friend, Ashley Hopkins, who held up a sign saying, "Hey little Singer Girl! Where’s your Singer Boyfriend?" After reading that I just knew that something bad had happened to Nick. Maybe they made him push the penny around the toilet seat. Or he might have gotten beaten up again. I had to figure out what happened but Mrs. Kelling never let us leave the room for anything.

I couldn’t wait for the bell to ring so I could get out of that class and find Nick.

"Nick!" I saw Nick coming out of the boys’ bathroom and I ran toward him. "Nick! Oh my goodness!" Just the sight of Nick made me want to hurl and made me feel bad at the same time. "Oh my gosh, Nick, what happened?" I reached out to touch his shoulder, than pulled my hand back after I saw what was sitting there. "Oh sick!"

"I was on my way to Computer Lit and Ryan Burris and his buddies grabbed me and pulled me into the bathroom. He got his friend, Chuck, you know the real fat one?, to take a dump in one of the toilets and then they stuck me in it. They gave me a whirlie and then got a bucket and dumped the remaining poop all over me. I hate it here! I wanna go to a different school!" Nick started to flick the turds off of his shoulders and off his shirt.

"Oh, Nick! I’m so sorry! I feel so bad!" I tried to help him get the poop out of his hair without really putting my hands all over it.

"Danielle, it’s not your fault and you don’t have to feel bad. It just makes me so mad that they take advantage of me! They know that I don’t fight back because I’ve been brought up against it! But I swear to you, Danielle, that the next time they try to do something like this, I’ll fight back, and I’ll whoop ‘em up good!" Nick picked the last turd out of his hair and threw it at the wall. It was still wet so it splattered all over the wall and some droplets flew onto Katie who screamed.

"Eww! Whoever did this is really going to pay!" She turned around and saw me and Nick standing there with pieces of poop surrounding our feet.

"Oh great. More teasing from the cheerleader from hell! She’s lucky she’s a girl because I can’t hit her!" He muttered under his breath still steaming mad.

"You! You did this, didn’t you, Singer Boy? You just purposely threw this turd at me, didn’t you? And you, Singer Girl! Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time you tried to stand up for yourself? We shoved that butt-ugly face of yours into a trashcan and made you eat from it, didn’t we? Don’t you two ever try something like this again, do you hear me?" Katie threw the turd at me. It bounced off of my chest and I caught the rebound.

"No, Katie. We don’t hear you. We’re deaf. Of course we hear you! Loud and clear! But you know what? I couldn’t care less what you and your little cheerleader friends could do to me! So go ahead, girlie. Take your best shot at me." I threw the turd back at her and spread my arms. "Come on you ditz! Hit me!" When she didn’t move, I yelled it again. "Hit me, dang it! Now that I’m asking for you to hit me, you don’t want to because then you’d be giving me what I wanted! Well just remember, Katie, I’m always up for a good smacking around, so whenever you’re ready, hit me." I turned to Nick and said, "Come on, Nick. Let’s get away from this cheerleader freak."

As we were walking away, I was surprised to hear people clapping.

"Hey, Nick," I whispered. "Are they clapping for us or did Katie do something behind our back?"

"I don’t know."

But our question was answered when someone yelled out, "Go Danielle! You sure told off that brat!"

I smiled to myself. Out of the whole situation, something good came out of it. Me and Nick had earned some respect from some of the kids in our school. Nick looked down at me and smiled.

"You know, that was pretty cool when you stood up to her." He leaned down and gave me a short, sweet, soft kiss on the lips. "Now we only have one more period to go and it’s a good thing that I have P.E. next. I’ll be able to get out of these clothes and into something that doesn’t smell nearly as bad." We had reached the Boys’ Gym and Nick grabbed my hand and gave it a squeeze. "Remember what we’re going to do tonight?" I nodded. "Good. Now smile and go to your last period."

As I was walking to my last class, I heard someone yelling out my name.

"Dani! Hey, Dani, wait up!" I turned to look and was so happy to see one of my friends running toward me (actually one of my two friends, not counting Nick. As I said before, I’m nowhere near being popular). "Hey, Dani! I saw what you said to Katie Landers in the hall just a couple of minutes ago! That was awesome! Everyone else who saw that thought the same thing!"

"Really?" I was at awe.

"Yeah! Katie was so frustrated when everyone was cheering and clapping that she ran into the bathroom. One girl who came out there, not knowing what had happened before asked why she was crying. That made everyone cheer harder!" Sarah Gates is in my fourth period class, the last class of the day. She was one of my really good friends but we only had two classes together. My other friend’s name was Lacy Leggard. She’s really nice too. We have three classes out of eight together, one of which was with Sarah.

"Hey, Sarah? Um, do you think that Katie and her friends will try to do something mean to me again? Like what she said, something like when they shoved me in a trash can?" I was starting to get a little worried about what might happen.

"Nah. Well, probably. Yeah, they probably will." We both looked at each other with panicked looks. "Don’t stress about it though. I mean you’ve already told her off once, you could easily tell her off again." I looked down at the ground and Sarah put a protective arm around me.

"Telling her off is one thing, but keeping her off of me is another. I know that I could stand up for myself anytime using words, but making it physical? I wouldn’t want to hurt anyone on purpose." I thought about it for a few seconds and then said, "But you know, getting physical with Katie Landers is okay. She deserves it."

Sarah nodded, then looked at her watch. "We better hurry! We only have, like, thirty seconds until the bell rings!" We ran to our last class of the day.

Hey! Nick never gave me that note! But in all of the commotion that happened within the ten minutes between classes, I realized that he didn’t have enough time to get it to me. Oh well. I’ll get it from him later.

Nick had given me the note when he met me at my locker after school. I had already gone to the front office and called up my mom to tell her that Nick would be coming over.

I read the note on our walk home and we mostly talked about the group. We still hadn’t come up with any names yet. Once we reached my house, we ate a quick snack and then went upstairs to my room. I sat on my bed and Nick sat in my desk chair. I slipped the note that he had given me into the jewelry box where I kept all of his notes.

"So do you want to call up A.J. and Howie now?" I was kind of nervous about calling them because I didn’t know what they would be like. But most of all, I was nervous about what they might say. Would they say yes and come and meet us so we could get together and form a group? Or would they laugh at us and say "hey little kids get lost" and hang up?

"Sure. I have their numbers somewhere here in my little black book." Nick got his black phone book out of his backpack and fumbled through it until he got to the marked area for the "M"s. "McLean... McLean...Here! I found it!"

I picked up the phone and waited for him to call out the numbers to me. I dialed them all in and listened. When it started to ring, I shoved the phone at Nick. "Here, you talk! I don’t even know him!"

Nick took the phone from me and waited for someone to answer. In what seemed like forever, he finally said, "Is A.J. there?" Then he tuned to me and whispered, "It was his mom, Denise. She went to go get him. Go and pick up the other extension so you can listen in and talk to him if you want to."

I jumped off the bed and ran downstairs into the kitchen. I grabbed the cordless phone and ran back upstairs to my bedroom where Nick was casually saying, "Hey, A.J. This is Nick Carter. Do you remember me? We met a few times at auditions and we bunked together in New York."

I quickly turned on the phone so I could hear A.J.’s response.

"Hey, Nick! Sure I remember you! So what’s up? I haven’t talked to you in a long time!" I let out a sigh of relief. He remembered Nick! Then, held my breath as Nick told him why we called.

"Well, me and my girlfriend, Danielle.."

"Hey! I didn’t know you were hooked up with someone! That’s great! Oh sorry. Now tell me what you were going to say." I laughed. A.J. seemed pretty cool.

"Well, she’s on the phone. Say hi Dani."

"Hello."

"Hey, Dani!" A.J. replied.

"Well, we were thinking about starting our own group. Everyone that we have auditioned for thinks that we’re too young and I know that sometimes it happens to you too."

"Yup."

"Well, anyway, we were talking about it at lunch today and I brought up your name. And do you remember Howie Dorough? I was thinking about getting him involved too."

"Hey that’s great! I’m sure Howie would think so too. Me and Howie are like best friends so I’m sure I could get him in it too. But are you gonna be in it, Dani?"

"Well, maybe. I’m not sure yet. I like singing though and I’m always turned down because they all think that I’m too young. But what me and Nick really wanted to do was meet you and Howie and see if we could work things out. It’s Friday so maybe, if my mom says it’s okay, you and Howie could come over tonight so we could talk." I really hoped that my mom would say that it was alright.

"Hey, that’d be cool. But I mean, I don’t really know you and you don’t know me. Okay, then. I’m a year older than you guys, I’m fifteen. I have dark hair, I’m skinny,(don’t laugh), I like to sing and dance and act, and practically anything that could get me up on a stage. Now as for Howie, he’s pretty much the same. He’s four years older than me, he’s twenty. He’s short, like me, he likes to sing and dance, he has dark hair. Now it’s your turn Dani. Describe yourself."

"Okay. I’m fourteen, I have long dark hair and dark eyes. I’m kind of short, well I’m average for a fourteen year old girl. I like to sing and dance. Hey, I think that it’d be okay if you guys came over, but let me go ask my mother first." I clicked off the phone and ran downstairs to my mother’s room.

After lots of begging and pleading and reasoning, my mom finally said yes.

"Oh, thank you so much, Mom!" I gave her a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek and ran back upstairs. I turned back on the cordless phone and said, "You guys can come over!"

"Okay! That’s great. I’ll call Howie and tell him. What time are we supposed to be there?"

"At 6:30. But you can come later. Not too late though. Hey, how far away do you guys live. Wait! I didn’t even tell you where I lived!"

"Oh that’s okay. Nick already told me. I only live about fifteen minutes away from you guys. I’ll call Howie and we’ll be over there at 6:30 sharp. Okay?"

"Okay." Me and Nick answered at the same time. "Bye!"

"Bye!"

"Bye!" We all hung up and me and Nick both burst out laughing at the same time.

"That’s awesome!" Nick jumped out of the desk chair, ran over to me and enveloped me in a hug. "We are really going to start a group." He let go of me and started to walk around my room in a daze. "That’s awesome!"

"Yeah, it is! But, Nick, we only have half an hour until they come over. What do we need to get ready?" I grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from my desk. "We need to just make a list of things we need. Like a name." I wrote it down as neat as I could, put a number one beside it, underlined it, and left three spaces for name ideas. When we were finally finished naming the things that we needed for a group, our sheet of paper looked something like this:

1. Names

a.

b.

c.

2. Group Members

a.

b.

c.

d.

e.

3. Song Ideas/Songs

a.

b

c.

4. Other Stuff

The thirty minute wait passed by quickly. Before either of us knew it, the doorbell rang. Both me and Nick were temporarily paralized. We

looked at each other, standing as still as statues. Then we both ran for the door. When we reached the staircase, I grabbed Nick by the arm.

"Wait. We don’t wanna seem too eager. Just be casual." I let go of his arm and we both descended the stairs casually. When we reached the door, I stopped, inhaled deeply, and reached for the doorknob.

"Hi! I guess you must be Dani and you," the guy (I couldn’t tell who was talking) looked at Nick. "You’re Chaos!"

"Yes. I’m Danielle, this is Nick, and which one are you?" No matter which guy he was, he was gorgeous! But I had to remind myself that I had Nick.

"I’m A.J. and this is Howie." So A.J. was the babe’s name! A.J. stuck out his hand so I could shake it. The babe had manners too! I reached out and shook his hand as well as Howie’s.

"Do you guys want to come in?" I opened the door a little wider and allowed them to walk in. "Let’s go into the living room." I trailed and Nick led us to the living room.

"So..." Now that they were here, I didn’t know what to say. Thank goodness that Nick did!

"I haven’t seen you guys in so long! What have you guys been up

to? Have you made any big breaks?"

"Well," Howie was good-looking too, I decided, but not as good looking as A.J. "I had a small part on the Nickelodeon show Welcome Freshman, but other than that, nothing."

"Me neither. I mean I played Dopey in a school play, but that doesn’t really count as a break and it was also a while ago. I need some breaks now because I haven’t got any." AJ looked at me and Nick. "Have ya’ll had any breaks?"

"Nope."

"Me neither," I said, then continued. "That’s why we wanted to start our own group. But I don’t know where to start." I looked at AJ, then at Howie, and then Nick. They all had the same clueless look on their faces. I couldn’t help but to laugh. "Well we had some ideas!" I pulled out the pad of paper with my list on it. "OK, we need a name, people, and songs or song ideas. Can ya’ll come up with anything?"

"Well names are gonna be hard, but for people write down all of us here." Howie made a circle of his arm to show who he was talking about. I scribbled down everybody’s name. "As for songs... well I’m not there yet."

Howie seemed nice, even though I ahd just met him and he was six years older than me. He had short, dark, curly hair and dark eyes. He was short, just like Aj had said. He had a comforting smile and had a nice aura. All in all, he seemed nice.

And as I said before, AJ wasn’t bad himself. In fact, he wasn’t bad at all! He was gorgeous! He had the dark hair and dark, deep, and sexy eyes. He was short; about the same height as Howie. But he was a little on the thin side. Not that I’m complaining! He was really sweet, personality wise. But I couldn’t ask for a better boyfriend than Nick.

And it’s probably about time that I described him to you! He’s absolutely gorgeous! The soft blond hair, the baby blue eyes that you could loose yourself in, the warm smile... he’s just got it all! He’s tall for his age, just about the same size as AJ and Howie. He’s no body builder though. He, like AJ, is still on the thin side. He was so perfect in every way.

"OK. So I guess we better leave." Howie slid off the couch and waited for AJ to get up. "It was really nice meeting you, Dani." He smiled and turned toward the steps. On his way down, he called over his shoulder, "We should all get together and go to Disney World or something. That be pretty cool!" I guess while I was thinking about Nick, the boys had worked out something with the group. I looked at my watch. They had been here for an hour and fifteen minutes! Time really does fly!

When we had all gone down the stairs, and I was about to open the door and let AJ and Howie out, Nick said, "That would be pretty cool! You guys can call me and we’ll arrange something for Saturday! If I’m not at home, I’ll probably be here." Arrange what? I was totally lost!

"OK! Bye! See you guys Saturday!" Howie called as he left.

"Bye!"

"See you!"

"You’re a pretty good fisher, Nick, if you know what I’m saying!" AJ winked and left too.

After Howie pulled out of the driveway, I shut the door. "What are we supposed to arrange for Saturday?"

"We’re going to go to Disney World, cause over there they always have slots open for small local bands to play on some of their stages. Plus it’d be fun."

"That would be fun!" All of the fatigue from the day had finally hit me. I leaned against the front door. "Ugh! I’m so tired! And it’s not even eight o’clock yet! That’s pretty sorry!"

Nick leaned on the door next to me. "It’s not that sorry. I’m pretty tired myself. But I guess I should leave so I can go get a really good shower. Plus, I have a lot of homework. You go to sleep or whatever. I’ll get my books and my backpack and I’ll let myself out." He put his hands behind my back and pushed me so I was standing up straight. He gave me a little nudge in the direction of the stairs. "Go. I’ll be fine. Bye. I’ll see you tomorrow."

"Bye, Nick. Be careful." I walked up the stairs and when I reached my room, plopped onto my bed. I laid awake thinking about what could happen on Saturday. I had a pretty good feeling about Saturday, but I had no earthly idea why. I just had a feeling that something very fortunate was going to accur. Something was going to happen, I just knew it.

"Um, four tickets please." Howie was at the tellers window at Walt Disney World. After a long week, Saturday was finally here, and boy was I glad! You would not believe how much Ryan and his boys put Nick through! And how much Katie and her friends put me through.

"Here you are! Right through that gate there! Next!" The teller handed Howie our tickets and he dispersed them between us.

As I stepped through the gate, I felt a sudden rush of happiness and a sudden sense of being carefree. "Oh, Nick! Isn’t this great!" I hadn’t been to Disney World since I was eight. Everything was so gorgeous! The small arrangements of flowers around the waterfalls, all of the Disney characters faces floating from every light pole and balloon, and especially, Cinderella’s Castle! I’ve only been there once, and it was absolutely enchanting!

"What do you guys wanna do first?" Howie held a map of the park in his hand. I leaned over his shoulder so I could see better.

"Let’s go to the rides! But I still kind of wanna see some of the parades." I decided.

"I do too! I love the parades! And the shows! I think they’re putting on a live production of Aladdin, so I kind of want to go to that." Nick looked at the schedule that he had gotten from the man at the gate.

"There’s a showing in an hour so we have an hour to kill."

"Rides, anyone?" AJ gestured towards the water rides.

"Ooh! Me!" AJ offered me his arm, as if he going to escort me. I looked over at Nick to make sure he wasn’t jealous. He gave me the sternest look. Then he broke out into a smile and nodded. I smiled and slipped my arm through AJ’s.

"Where are you guys going to be? Are you coming?" I asked.

"Nah," Howie scunched up his nose and shook his head. "We’re going to the other side where the Doll Ride and the Peter Pan ride and the Snow White rides are." (The Doll Ride is the one where you go through a tunnel in a canoe type thing where all of the dolls are singing the song, "It’s A Small World". It’s really cute!)

"Okay. We’ll meet up here in forty five minutes and then head over for the Aladdin show. Alright?" Nick asked.

"Alright." I answered.

And we all set off. I felt kind of weird going somewhere alone with a boy other than Nick. Plus, AJ was older than me. But I didn’t feel too weird. The boy was hot!

"Which ride? The ‘Won’t-Get-You-Too-Wet’ Ride, or the ‘You’re-Gonna-Get-Soaked’ Ride?" AJ turned to me with this devilish grin.

"The ‘You’re-Gonna-Get-Soaked’ ride!" We both laughed and ran for the line. I was going to have a pretty good time with AJ.

"Let’s head over to the Aladdin show!" Howie and Nick (who seemed

to have had a great time) were at the gate before me and AJ had made it over there and as soon as they saw us, we headed for the Aladdin show.

As soon as we reached the theater where it was showing, we went straight for the front row. Incredibly, we found four seats in a row. The entire theater was already filling up with all of the little kids and their parents. We only had to wait about five minutes before the lights went out and a hush fell over the crowd. A man walked out to center stage. On his shoulder perched a real monkey, Abu.

"Did we loose ‘em?" The actor said, doing a pretty good job of acting scared and looking on all sides of him to make sure there were no villans. "We lost ‘em." He sat down on a ragged looking lump, probably his bed. "The princess is the most beautiful girl that I have ever seen! But, Abu, we both know that I could never have her for my wife, for I am only a poor peasant." Then the actor set the monkey down on his bed, stood up, and broke into song.

"Hey, he’s pretty good!" Howie whispered. Now, listening more carefully, I heard his voice. Smooth, nice, and just what we needed for our group!

"Howie! He could be in our group!" I whispered excitedly. "He has the exact note range that we need to sound complete! Let’s talk to him after the show!" Howie nodded.

"I’ll tell the other guys." He leaned to his right and whispered our plan to meet Aladdin after the show to AJ. I leaned over to my left and relayed the plan to Nick.

"That’s true!" He whispered, his eyes lighting up. "He does have just the notes that we need. Plus, he’s pretty good." We both stopped whispering and listened to the ending of the song. "No. Scratch that. He’s really good!"

After watching a remake of the Disney movie Aladdin, we all waited until nearly everyone had left, to approach Aladdin. We caught him right before he left to go pick up something to eat before the next show.

"Um, excuse me!" Howie called out. When "Aladdin" turned around, Howie started walking toward him and kept talking. "I just wanted to say that you did an excellent job of playing the role of Aladdin! You have a really great voice. It caught the attention of my friend, Dani, here." He pulled me forward and I smiled and waved shyly. "We just started our own singing group not too long ago, and Dani suggested that you be our fifth member. I know it’s kind of weird to have a group of total strangers come up to you like this, but would you please consider it?" Howie felt his pockets for a pen, then turned to me and whispered, "Do you have a pen and paper in your purse?" I gave him some and he quickly scribbled something on it. "Here’s my home phone number where you can reach me. Oh! I’m Howie Dorough, this is AJ McLean, Nick Carter, and Dani Evans."

Up until then, Aladdin had been silent. "I’m Kevin Richardson. That’s a really nice offer, but I hardly know you. No, I don’t know anything about any of you except your names and Howie’s phone number. Maybe sometime we could get together somewhere and talk. Then you can explain to me in detail about your ‘group’. But right now, I have to go get something to eat because I only have ten minutes until the next show and I’m starving." He turned to leave, then stopped. "It was very nice to meet al of ya’ll. And I promise I’ll give you a call. It sounds kind of interesting." He waved and left by one of the side exits.

"Well," Howie shrugged. No one knew what to say. There really was nothing to say.

"Well," I repeated. "What do you guys think? Do you think he’s really gonna call, or do you think that he’s just too weirded out by a bunch of teenagers approaching him and asking him to be in a ‘group’?" I looked around. Everyone looked kind of hopeful and yet so let down. No one knew what to expect.

"We’ll just have to wait." Nick said, reached for my hand and gave it a squeeze.

"But while we’re waiting, let’s eat something!" AJ made everyone laugh and released some tension. Well, we might as well hope for the best and enjoy the rest of the day! After all, we were at Disney World!

Part II
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