It was the New Year’s Eve of all New Year’s Eves and I was off to celebrate in London. Ashley was going with me. We’d been wanting to get away from Pennsylvania forever and somehow we conned our parents into letting us go by ourselves. We boarded the plane for London. I knew this was going to be a vacation to remember, but never in my life did I think we would run into the people that we did.

I figured it’d be a long flight, so I bought an issue of Top of the Pops before we left. I sat there and started leafing through it.
"Laura, won’t you ever grow up and stop listening to that bubblegum music?" Ashley asked.
"I doubt it," I said. I started reading an article about Westlife, my absolute favorite band. They’d just made their debut here in the States. I’d been a fan of theirs for about five months now.
I couldn’t help but notice Ashley looking over my shoulder at the picture of them.
"He’s a total Daniel," she said pointing at Shane. Any guy that’s hot she refers to as a Daniel in case you’re wondering. It’s only because she thinks that Daniel on Freaks and Geeks is hot.
"That’s Shane," I replied. "He’s ok I guess. I like Kian and Nicky."
"Who’s that? He’s some kind of Nick Carter poser."
"That’s Bryan and he is not a Nick Carter poser. He’s got a really good voice. I actually like him better than Nick."
I was interrupted by a voice saying, "C’mon lads, get on the plane. Let’s go."
No. It couldn’t be, I thought. Intuition don’t fail me now, but damn that sounded like Ronan Keating.
I froze.
"What’s wrong with you? Hey, space cadet. Hello. Earth to Laura."
I put my hand up to silence her. My eyes were fixed forward. It seemed like it was forever until they came into my view. And then like that they appeared. Nicky and Shane. Then Mark and Bryan. Ronan was behind them and obviously the other guy was Louis Walsh. Kian came last.
"Did you just see what I saw?" I asked.
"Oh hell yeah! I did!" Ashley replied.
"Thank you God for getting us on this flight!" I whispered.
And things could only get better. The guys still hadn’t sat down. I looked up again and saw them coming further back toward us. I looked to my right and saw three empty seats across from us and three in front of those. And of course the seat next to us was open. Ashley just had to have the window seat. I was in the middle.

I put the magazine away so we didn’t look like total dorks. Each of them took their seats and Kian was last so he had the seat next to me. I said a prayer for myself so I wouldn’t look like too big an idiot. Please let me be able to speak to him without stammering.
I looked at the way the others were sitting. Mark took the window seat on the other side. Next to him was Nicky and Shane was on the end. Bryan sat with Ro and Louis and they seemed to be deep in conversation about something already.
"Well looks like I’ll be sittin’ next to yous for the rest of the flight to London. I’m Kian," he said and he stuck his hand out for me to shake it.
"Pleased to meet you, Kian," I said. "I’m Laura."
"And I’m Ashley," Ashley replied. I knew what she was gonna say next. "So do you know Humphrey the Pimpin’ Snowman?"
The question struck him as weird. "Um, no. I can’t say that I do."
I could have smacked her for saying that. Sure it was funny. I didn’t want them to be put off by us.
"Oh. Can I ask your friend over there if he knows
him?"
"Sure I don’t see why not."
"Switch me seats."
"OK."
They got up and switched seats. Kian came to the window seat and gave me a strange look.
"Don’t worry. It’s some imaginary character she made up. She’s just messing with you. She asks people that all the time."

We both watched as she asked Shane the same question.
"No. I don’t think I do."
"In that case, can I tell you what your sign is? When’s your birthday?"
"5th of July," he said and still gave her a look asking her why she was doing this.
"That’d make you a cancer. Can I read into your future? Or maybe tell you something about yourself that no one else would know?"
"Sure. Go for it."
"I see a blond girl in your future. She’s American. She might even be on this plane."
He had a smirk on his face at that one. He was getting the hint. Kian and I quit eavesdropping and started talking. I decided not to even mention the fact that I knew who he was.
"So what are you going to London for?" I asked.
"We’re gonna celebrate the millennium there. We were supposed to be wit’ our families, but Ro said we have to do this show. All I wanted to do was just go home and kick back."
"Oh why can’t you spend too much time with your family? What show is this?" I asked. I really didn’t want to play games, but I didn’t want to sound like some obsessed fan.
"You mean you don’t recognize me?" he asked shocked.
Enough playing games.
"Yes I do. You’re Kian Egan from Westlife," I whispered.
"Yep. How’d ya know?"
"I have your CD and have been a fan for months."
"Well then why didn’t you say so before?"
"I dunno," was all I could say. "I didn’t want to seem like some pathetic teenybopper fan."
"Not all our fans our teenyboppers. Don’t sell yourself short. It’s not like there’s some type of rule that I can’t talk to a fan. Who knows maybe-"
Maybe what? I wondered. That was quite interesting. What was he going to say?