“And that’s
where they’ll be?” Mel asked her friend, studying the piece of paper that was
sitting next to the phone.
“Well
according to Steph who spoke to Del last week they will be on the 1430 from
Hong Kong.”
“Fantastic”
Mel replied, she knew that they had done it this time, they were sure to be
ahead of the pack, no one else could possibly know that a1 were going to be
flying in tomorrow, they had done so well to keep the whole thing a secret.
“We are
going to get them all to ourselves” the voice on the other end responded with
glee.
“I think
you’re right Karen,” Mel agreed, “the website put the wrong information up, so
we must be the only ones that know.”
Agreeing to
meet at Heathrow the next day, Mel said her goodbyes and hung up the phone.
She
couldn’t help feeling excited about tomorrow, Mel and her two friends Steph and
Karen had been following a1 for years, it wasn’t like they hadn’t had them to
themselves before, but a1 had become so huge over the last year that it had been
harder and harder to get any time alone with them.
As far back
as Mel could remember she had been into boy bands, she knew that at the age of
19 she was getting a bit old for it, but she didn’t seem to be able to help
herself, what had started off as a mild interest had gradually turned into a
bit of an obsession as she spent more and more time in London meeting a1. It wasn’t like she was doing it in a creepy
way, she was what you would call one of the “London followers”, girls that had
been following the band for years and knew them well. She knew when they were upset and when to leave them alone and
she knew when she could go over and talk to them and they wouldn’t mind.
Her
favourite had always been Christian, she remembered the first time she had ever
met them round the back of some small theatre when they used to do small gigs
in the early days, he had been so sweet and chatty, they had clicked almost
straight away. It was easy to find time
to talk to Chris, he wasn’t always surrounded by cravens like the other boys
were.
Mel laughed
as she thought about the little craves that also attempted to follow a1
around. Most of them were too young to
go into bars like her and her friends could, they didn’t get to see the real
a1, instead they would stand for hours outside the TV shows screaming their
lungs out, crying when the boys came anywhere near and mobbing them for
autographs. Sometimes Mel liked to sit
back and just look at them, wondering what it must be like for the boys
themselves to have to put up with this adulation. They probably wished that more fans were like her, Karen and
Steph, normal and nice, what she liked to call, their friends.
“Mel” a
voice bellowed up the stairs. Rolling
her eyes, Mel opened her bedroom door and yelled a reply.
“What?”
“Can you
drive your little sister over to the cinema tomorrow night?”
“No!”
“Why not?”
Mel took a
deep breath, she knew that her reason, would, as always create tension in the
house.
“Cos I’m
going to London.”
“Grow up,”
the voice snapped back.
“Dad, they
haven’t been here for ages, you don’t understand I need to see them.”
”Too right I don’t understand,” her father replied, “why can’t you be like
normal girls your age and find a real man to settle down with rather than prancing
around after some gay boy band.”
“They are
real.” She replied, she used this same argument every time.
She knew
that she didn’t want a boyfriend from around here, they were all losers in dead
end jobs with no charm or wit. For some
reason she just found famous men more interesting, to a normal person that
would probably have seemed odd, but she just found them so much easier to talk
to, and they had far more interesting things to say. Many of her friends in the past, who used to follow with her had
all grown out of following and were now living with their boyfriends, she’d
meet up with them occasionally and they’d sit there moaning about their other
halves. Mel had decided firmly that she
was never going to fall in love with a “normal” guy, she couldn’t, even if she
wanted to.
“Fine,” her
Dad retorted, “be selfish as usual.”
Her family
had never understood why she did this, they were all completely different from
her, with normal lives. They didn’t
seem to understand the rush she got from seeing popstars, the way it had made
her feel the first time one of a1 had called her by her name, how happy she had
been when their first single went in at the top and most of all how happy their
music made her feel when she was down.
She started
to pack her bag for the day tomorrow, she didn’t really need a lot, just some
make up, money and her camera. She
didn’t always bother to take photos anymore, she had so many already, if
anything she had too many, in the early days she would take rolls and rolls of
film and so had several huge photo albums to show for it. She never bothered with autographs anymore,
if anything she felt a bit daft asking for them, she was there to see and talk
to them, not to play the whole fame game.
She looked
round her room, although not like a normal fan’s room she still couldn’t really
claim that it was a normal room for a girl her age. It wasn’t that she had posters everywhere, she had taken them
down when she was 17 and replaced them with signed promo pieces and photos of
her and Chris. In the corner stood all
of her CDs, she must’ve had well over 200 albums and singles, probably
ridiculous compared to a normal person, but she loved music too much, she had
to have CDs the first day they were out.
Then on the one wall that wasn’t occupied with a1 things she had her pin
board, full of photos of her and all her friends, most of them taken whilst
following a1, just looking at them made her smile, each one had its own special
story attached to it.
Putting the
last item in her bag, she put it on the chair and walked over to her wardrobe
to pick her outfit, this was always the hard bit, it had to be something casual
yet classy, slightly daring yet not slutty.
“Seen,
seen, seen, seen” she muttered under her breath as she threw each item of
clothing she picked out down on the bed.
Admitting defeat she selected her favourite pair of dark jeans and her
new pink low cut top.
Brushing
her long blonde hair up into a ponytail, she yawned and settled herself into
bed, she needed her sleep. Tomorrow was
going to be a long day.