A few days later Paige was sitting in the front pew of her church waiting for her grandpa's funeral to start. Over the past couple of days, she had locked herself up in her room and isolated herself from everyone. Sierra, Taylor, and even Zac had called a couple hundred times each to see how she was doing, but she always told her mom to tell them she was sleeping. She didn't feel like talking to anyone.
Why did this have to happen to my grandpa? He was such an awesome person, Paige thought to herself as the preacher walked up onto the stage. She didn't even listen to most of his talking. She was just thinking about all the good times she had with her grandpa.
Paige noticed the preacher stopped talking, but she didn't care. Now it was easier for her to concentrate on her and her grandpa's special moments together. All of a sudden, she heard a familiar voice, or three of them actually.
"If I'm gooone when you wake up please dooon't cry." She looked up and standing there on stage were Zachary, Taylor, and Isaac singing acapella beautifully. Paige's eyes welled up, and she cried even more. The song was so perfect!
As Tay ended with his solo, "''Cuz I'll be with you in yooour dreeeeeeeams," Paige could see a single tear fall down Taylor's cheek. She smiled at him and he smiled back as the brothers stepped off the stage and found some seats in the back.
The preacher got back to his podium and said a few words, then a prayer, and they were dismissed. Paige couldn't wait to talk to Taylor and his brothers to thank them for being so sweet.
Paige slowly walked up the steps of her Great Aunt Edith's front porch. Edith had invited everyone that had been at the funeral to come to her house afterwards for lunch, but Paige knew what this really was-a time where complete strangers would come up to her and tell her how sorry they were about her grandfather.
Oh, well, Paige thought to herself, atleast there will be food here-I'm not really hungry, but I don't think I ate anything at all yesterday, so I should atleast eat a little something.
Aunt Edith opened the door for Paige and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, "Hi, Sweetheart. Where are your parents?"
"Hello. I think they went around the back to talk," Paige replied quietly.
"Oh, alright. Go ahead and make yourself at home."
Paige dragged her feet to the table of refreshments. As she started to fix her plate, she heard someone say, "Baked beans and hamburgers and pigs in a blanket, oh my!" in a Cowardly Lion-like voice that brought a smile to Paige's face.
"What's that I see? Was that a...smiiiile?"
Paige leaned over and gave Zac a hug, "Thanks, Zac. You sure have a way of cheering people up!"
"Aw, shucks; thanks," the Cowardly Lion voice of Zac replied, and Paige giggled, but her frown returned when she remembered the reason she was at Edith's house.
"C'mon; don't just stay over here by yourself," Zac insisted nicely. He locked his arm through Paige's and she followed him to a dark corner of the "sitting room". Taylor, Isaac, and Sierra were over there in a love seat and a chair talking, but their voices were silenced when they looked up and saw Paige.
Isaac's face softened, "C'mere, Kid," he said, taking hold of Sierra's hand and squeezing it sympathetically, "We're here for you, so I don't want you to ever feel lonely or like you're in this by yourself."
"Ditto," Sierra said, and Paige gave her a hug.
"Thank you, guys," Paige began, "And also, you know, that was really sweet of you three today. And you, too, Sierra-I'm sure you were somehow in on it."
"Yup-I was the official Hanson brothers chauffer," Sierra smiled proudly.
"Well, thank you all. You guys sounded amazing. It was beautiful. When you were singing, I didn't see a single dry face in the whole place. I think those lyrics brought everyone to a certain peace...I hope you understand what I mean. I really appreciated it and I'm sure Grandpa looked down at you from Heaven and said thanks, too."
"Yeah," Sierra agreed, "I had never heard you guys sing in person...or, umm, atleast aside from Ike attempting Matchbox 20," Sierra continued, and Ike blushed, "But that was like-angelic. There's no other way to describe it."
The three brothers were rather modest, but still thanked the two girls.
Paige became quiet again, and Taylor pulled her into his arms. He began to stroke her hair as she cried softly. "Shhh...I'm here. We're here."
They sat in the corner for another hour or so, and a few people came up to praise the brothers on their singing or to say how sorry they were to Paige, until finally, it was time to go.
Isaac, Taylor, Zac, and Sierra sat in Paige's living room, watching a movie they had rented on the way home.
"Thansk, guys, for staying the night tonight just so I'd have some company. If you hadn't come I probably would have just stayed away in my room all night again," Paige thanked them all as she entered the room carrying three DP's, a Pepsi (for Taylor of course), and an apple juice.
"No, really-it's our pleasure," Zac replied, his mouth full with Twinkies inside. He eyed the DVD player, the Nintendo 64 and Sega, plus the huge collection of candy and snacks Paige had offerred to them and reassured her, "Yup-it's our pleasure."
Ike covered for Zac, "What Zac means is that we are happy to be here to help cheer ya up!"
"Yeah!" Zac agreed, chowing down on some Twizzler's, chips and dip, plus some DP.
"Here you go Taylor," Paige said as she handed him his Pepsi and sat down beside him.
"Thanks," Tay said, "Are we gonna start the movie now?"
"Yeah; Zac, can you press play?" Paige asked.
"Sure," Zac said as he got up from his spot on the floor.
Paige barely paid attention to the movie. She kept looking out of the corner of her eye to see if Tay was looking at her. She caught him once or twice. Paige finally looked at him directly and smiled. Taylor grinned back. When Paige had laid her head on his shoulder, Taylor put his arm around her.
Meanwhile, on the other couch, Ike was sound asleep with Sierra, also asleep, on his lap.
"Taylor?" Paige whispered when the movie was over. "Taylor?" She could hear him snoring softly.
"Paige?" said a voice from down on the floor.
"Yeah Zac? I think everyone else crashed."
"Wanna come down here and join me?"
"Sure," Paige said, trying to get Taylor off of her without waking him. He started making little whimpering noises as he spread out on the couch.
"Wanna play some Nintendo 64?"
"Yeah, Zac. Are you sure you want to? You just might get beat," Paige said, smiling slyly.
After Zac had lost to Paige at least three times at Bomberman, Zac said, "Okay, how about we do something else?"
"Sure, Zac," Paige agreed, laughing, "Whatever you want."
"Okay, well...I've got a plan..." Zac said, grinning mischeviously.
Fifteen minutes later, they were all set-Zachary and Paige had gone on a scavenger hunt to find things like honey, shaving cream, a feather-even Cap'n Crunch Berries! Paige and Zac were going to get Ike, Tay, and Sierra in their sleep!
"Psst...c'mere, Paige!" Zac smiled as he motioned for Paige to join him beside an unknowing Taylor.
.::Sploosh::.
The Gilette shaving cream sprayed out of its can noisily, but it did not disturb Taylor.
Haha, Zac thought happily, Tay's gonna look stupid in front of Paige and he doesn't even know it!
Zac pulled both of Taylor's arms down to his sides and flattened his hands out, wiping gobs of shaving cream in each hand.
"And nooooow it's your turn!' Zac told Paige, handing her the feather duster. She knew what to do.
.::TiCkLe,TiCkLe-SMACK::.
Paige drug the feather across Taylor's cheekbones, and he slapped at it in his sleep, not realizing he was decorating himself with white foam at the same time. After getting Taylor's nose, ponytail, and even his butt in the same way, Zac added the final touch to Tay by smashing up a bag of Cap'n Crunch Berries and sprinkling the crumbs over the cream on Tay's body.
As Zac and Paige began to "sneak" away from Taylor, Zac's AirWalk dragged on Tay's hand, making Taylor mumble in his sleep, "Paaaige? AhUmgLumPH," and he grabbed at "Paige", which was really the air.
Zac snorted, trying to hold in his laughter, and Paige pulled him into the kitchen so he could laugh without waking everyone, ruining their plans.
Next, it was time for Operation SI (Sierra Isaac).
The two friends tiptoed quietly back into the living room and over to the couch, whispering along the way.
"Isaac snores sooo LOUD!" Paige laughed.
Zac agreed, "I know! And check this out-Sierra's drooling!" They both covered their mouths to keep from laughing.
Now it was honey time!
"Paige, you take the cotton balls. I'll do the Q-Tips."
"-K-," Paige agreed enthusiastically. She had a package of 100 cotton swabs and planned to use all of them.....first, she would put a dab of honey on each one to make it sticky, then she would stick it to the top of one of their heads.
Zac was busy with the Q-Tips: he squeezed the bear-ful of honey onto the ends of them, then smeared the honey on the two victim's eyebrows, nostril outlines, lips, ear lobes-even their belly buttons!
Thirty minutes later, they were done with Sierra and Ike; No wait, "They need something else..." Paige pondered, and then something clicked, "I know just the right thing." She tore open the corner of Sierra's pillow, pulling out handfuls of feathers and rubbing them onto the "sweet" little couple lying below them.
.::click::.
They took pics of all three of their victims. Hey-they could get good money off these pictures if they sold them to Teen Magazine-or even crazed fans on the internet!
"Ohhh, I'm getting tired," Paige yawned, causing Zac to yawn, "Yeah-me, too; Only, I don't feel like I can fall asleep yet."
"Me neither. How 'bout we put on another movie and microwave some popcorn...since my usual gossip-friend, Sierra, is asleep, do ya think maybe you could replace her? It'd only be just this once..."
"Sure!" Zac interrupted, "I loooove to TALK!"
"But-we should probably go upstairs to the rec room to have our little 'party' so we can lock everyone else out...if one of our 'friends' wakes up in the night, they'll try to get us back!"
"Good point...sounds good to me! What should we watch?"
"You pick...you're the guest!"
"How 'bout...I Know What You Did Last Summer!"
"Yeah! Freddie Prinze Jr. is sooo hot!"
"Hey," Zac said in a hurt voice, "What about me?"
"Ummm, uh, I, uh, I don't kn..."
"Just kidding!" Zac said, a little to perky for a person at four a.m, "No, I'm kinda wantin' to see Jennifer Love Hewitt...she's a Hanson fan, you know."
"Awww...shut up! If I were famous, FPJ would be my NUMBER 1 FAN!!!!"
"Yeah, yeah...just put on the movie, will ya?"
"Ooookay," Paige sighed and pushed play on the remote control.
"Sooo Zachary Walker Hanson,who's the special girl in your life?"
"I don't really have one, just crushes I guess."
"Oh really, and who is your crush now?"
"Oh, you don't know her really, but someone close to me is kinda involved with her so I'm just waiting."
"Oh, that's cool. Does she know how you feel about her?"
"No, I don't wanna mess up what she has with the person close to me. That's not my style."
"Oh, that is so sweet Zac. I didn't know you could be so mature about stuff." Paige said grinning."If the time is right though, you should tell her the feelings you have for her."
"Thanks Paige, I'll think about it."
"Welcome."
"So......you and Tay really like eachother huh?"
"Yeah, I think we have a good relationship. I just hope that it doesn't change once you guys start traveling more."
"That's good. I doubt it will. You guys will be talking every night, and he won't be able to stop thinking about you. Believe me, I know Tay."
"You really think so? That makes me feel so much better Zac. Thanks so much."
"You are so welcome."
They talked about everything from traveling to their friends. Then Paige fell asleep beside Zac on the floor. You are so beautiful, Paige Ellingston, Zac thought as he ran his fingers over her pink cheeks. I hope my brother takes good care of you, because you deserve the best. And with that Zac nodded off beside Paige with his arm draped over her.
