"Hanson! Hanson! Hanson!" The crowd chanted. I looked around me, at the hordes of screaming girls and wondered for the eighth time in as many minutes why exactly I was here. But I knew why. For Taylor.

(flashback) "and that trio of teenage boys, from our very own Tulsa, will be holding a charity concert on Friday the 26th…so remember to be there, everybody! Admission is free if you bring a canned food for the Salvation Army!" The radio announcer’s irritating voice cut through my thoughts, and I started to listen to what he was saying. A concert? An idea started to form in the back of my mind….. (end flashback)

"ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR" the girl who was standing next to me screeched into my ear. I jumped away from her, clutching the crude cardboard sign in my hand harder. I ducked under a sign and came out nearer to the front of the theatre. I had thirty minutes to get to the front of the crowd before the guys were due to come out. I shuffled past another group of screaming girls and carried on through the mass of hormone-raging teens.

* * * * *

Taylor tapped on the bench in front of him as he watched Zac getting fitted with his magic mic. Ike was in the bathroom, and his brothers and sisters were in the next room, waiting for the concert to begin. He started fiddling with his t-shirt again, just as Ike reappeared.
"Only about five more minutes," he said as he took a seat next to Tay. Taylor nodded and continued his tapping. As he did, he couldn’t help wondering if Rhian was going to be there. She liked the band, he knew, but then again, he might have put her off.
He knew she thought he was such a jerk, with his ‘I’m not allowed to have a girlfriend’ explanation. He sighed, and stood up to head out to the area beside the stage where they were supposed to wait. Ike followed him, and they made their way through the narrow hallways.

* * * * *

"Hey! Watch it!" a girl yelled as I pushed past her. I mumbled an apology and moved quickly away. This is mad, I thought as I pushed past more scantily - clad bodies. He probably won’t even be able to see me. But the hope that he would, by chance, see me, was overpowering the doubts in my mind. I stepped over a broken sign on the ground and took a look around again. I was definitely closer to the front. I could see the stage, and where the microphones were set up from my position. I muttered an ‘excuse me’ to a girl and pushed past her, just as an announcer came out onto the stage. There was a roar of noise from around me, and I covered my ears to prevent temporary loss of hearing. If this was what they were like when it wasn’t even Hanson, I didn’t want to be there when the guys came out. As the man told the crowd that Hanson were in the building, and would be out in about fifteen minutes, I passed another group of people and came to a stop in front of what resembled a human barricade. Not of bodyguards, as I had assumed would be near the front, but screaming girls. I wondered how many guys were actually in the building as I wandered along the ‘barricade’ looking for a way through. I found it, next to a sound box, one of those table things that have the sound system set up on them. I squeezed through a gap in between it and another girl, just as the man yelled from the stage, "Hanson, everybody!" I looked up and saw Isaac running onto the stage, followed by Zac and, finally Taylor. I stopped for a moment, and for a second or two, didn’t even hear the huge volume of noise erupting around me. I watched Taylor as he made his way to the keyboards, and surveyed the crowd with a grin on his face. He checked his mic, and then said into it, "You guys are wild!" The blast that followed just about knocked me over, and I wondered how it was possible for young voice boxes to make that much noise. I took advantage of the moment, and pushed through a group to reach the front of the stage. Unfortunately, I had come out in front of Ike, and on the opposite side of the stage to Tay. I groaned as I thought of the effort it would take to get past the people surrounding the stage. I looked up at Ike, and wondered whether he would see me or not. To my surprise, he was looking right at me, and squinting. I was worried for a moment that he would be angry for me coming, but then his face broke out into a smile, and with the tiniest gesture, indicated for me to make my way over to Tay. I nodded at him, and gave him a huge grin, as I pushed past another girl.

* * * * *

Isaac looked over at his brother as Rhian made her way past a screeching girl. Taylor’s eyes were fixed on his keyboards as he made sure he had them on the right setting. He glanced up from them and saw Ike watching him. He nodded and started to talk into the mic again, telling the crowd that their first song would be ‘Madeline’. Isaac strummed the opening notes and Tay started singing. He no longer had to think about this song, it just came naturally to him. He had sung it so many times, that playing it was part of him now.
"I’m dying inside/I know the way it should be" As he sang the familiar words, he couldn’t help thinking how ironic it was that he was feeling exactly that way right then.
"Cause you know I belong with you" Just the way he felt about Rhian was depicted in these lyrics. He looked up from the keyboards and saw a familiar red head pushing through the mobs. He almost stopped right in the middle of the song, and was grateful when Ike’s solo part came up. He concentrated on where he had seen Rhian’s head. He would never forget the distinctive colour of her hair. As he searched, his eyes rested on a bent over figure, in front of him by the stage. She stood up, and he saw immediately that it was Rhian. She was holding a cardboard sign in her hands, and he struggled to read what it said. ‘Taylor, I love you’. The words floated before his eyes and he thought he was dreaming. As he watched her, he saw her mouth those very same words. He was captivated by the look in her eyes as she said them, and he felt his own lips moving in reply. "Rhian, I love you," he mouthed, and watched as a brilliant smile lit up her face. He had never said those words to anyone in his entire life, yet at that moment, nothing had ever felt more right. Rhian meant more to him than letting a bunch of girls out there live in some fantasy world. He knew he had to stand up to the PR manager, because Rhian was just too important to let go. Her eyes bore into his, and he stared until Isaac’s voice signalled the beginning of the chorus, and the beginning of a new stage of his life.

THE END.