The next morning they were up bright and early – extra dates had just been added to the tour, meaning that at 9.00 am they had all been sat up on their beds ringing for the extra tickets, as usual they had managed to get perfect seats for every night.
“Only two nights in Birmingham, that was a short visit!” Karen commented as she wound the wire round her hairdryer and tucked it neatly into her case.
“Wish it could be a longer tour really,” Steph agreed, “seems rather harsh that they only managed to sell out two nights at the NEC.”
“Ahhh, but it is a longer tour now they’ve added the Wembley dates after Cardiff.” Mel said, her smile beaming across her face. Ever since her meeting with Christian in the cinema the night before she had been on top of the world.
“Yeah and then its on to Butlins of course,” Karen sniggered, they had all found it mildly amusing that a1 were now playing the holiday camp as the final part of the tour
“So where we off to next?” Steph asked, giggling slightly, “can’t believe I don’t even know where we are going!”
Karen got out her large map book and started flicking her fingers through the pages looking for the little yellow post it notes she always used for directions.
“Next stop is Sheffield,” she said, “its quite a simple route,” she showed Steph the way to go, tracing her fingers slowly over the various roads. The worst thing about having Steph and Mel together in the car was that they were both hopeless at map reading and had no sense of direction whatsoever.
A sharp knock sounded at the door.
“Who’s that?” Steph asked, turning round to face the noise.
“How am I supposed to know that?” Karen asked, moving across the room and putting her eye to the little peephole in the door. “Shit, looks like someone from reception.”
“Why shit?” Mel asked.
“Because there are only supposed to be two of us in here, if they find out there’s more we’ll be charged a small fortune – quick go and hide somewhere!”
Steph gave Mel a quick push into the bathroom and shut the door.
Sighing to herself Mel felt her way in the dark and sat down on the toilet lid, waiting for the visitor to leave. For some reason it always seemed to end up being her that sat on the toilet.
She peered into the darkness, her eyes moulding the silhouettes into funny shapes, although somehow she always ended up with the shape of Christian appearing before her, it was funny how everything always came back to him - may be once she had put her plan into action it would clear her head a bit – she was certain that as soon as she had Christian her life would be back on track again.
The door suddenly burst open, showering Mel in a sudden burst of light and making her squint up.
“You can come out now,” Steph commented
“We got the all clear?”
“Yep, and we’re all ready to go.”
Picking up her bags Mel followed the other girls out of the room and down to the car.
“The boys left?” Mel asked, her eyes scanning the car park for a1’s prev.
“Think so,” Steph said, “they probably had things to do in Sheffield.”
“Erm… Mel?” Karen suddenly announced, noticing for the first time that Mel had a foreign object in her hands, “why are you walking around holding a very large piece of cardboard?”
Steph turned to look, her eyes opened wide at the sight of the huge piece of yellow card that was going to be joining them in the back seat.
“What on earth?”
Mel ignored their remarks and carefully slid the piece of cardboard into the back, climbing in after it. Muttering to herself Steph joined her, scrambling to find an area of the seat that wasn’t taken up by Mel or her extra large piece of cardboard.
Karen slid into the front seat, turning the engine on and looking into her mirror.
“Mel, hun, it’s a bit hard to see with that taking up the entire backseat, you are kind of blocking my view of the road behind.”
“Sorry!” Mel said, “it will be on my lap most of the time anyway.”
She slid it down on to her knees, bending it ever so slightly to accommodate it into a flat position.
“Better?”
“Much.”
The little car left the car park and started on its journey to Sheffield.
It was a matter of a few minutes before the subject of the mysterious cardboard came up again.
“So where did you get such a huge piece of cardboard from?” Steph asked in curiosity.
“I brought it on tour with me,” Mel replied simply and still offering no further explanation.
“Right, and you are using it for what? Keeping your knees warm?” Steph pressed further.
“No,” Mel replied, looking down at the bright piece of cardboard that was still sitting on her lap.
“Well what is it for?” Karen asked, quickly glancing in the mirror to look at Mel.
“B..n…r” Mel replied.
“Pardon?” Steph retorted, not being able to understand Mel’s mutterings.
“I’m going to make a banner,” Mel confessed, her face glowing redder as she saw the shocked looks on her friends faces.
“Why?” Karen asked.
“Cos I want to,” Mel shrugged.
“Craves make banners,” Steph informed.
“I just want him to be able to see it,” Mel said quietly, “I mean we are right at the front tonight and he’ll be able to see what I write.”
Steph and Karen both exchanged puzzled glances.
“Mel, are you sure you’re OK?” Steph asked, touching her friend’s arm gently.
Mel shook Steph’s hand off and turned on a huge smile, “Yeah, I’m fine, I just thought it’d be a laugh to make a banner.”
“OK,” Steph soothed, pulling her arm away, “it could be fun. What are you going to write?”
Mel’s face lit up and she began routing around in her bag before proudly pulling out a set of coloured marker pens.
“I thought about, Christian, take a chance and come home with me.”
“Nice and simple,” Karen said, trying desperately hard to sound like she was into this whole ridiculous banner idea.
“And this is all for the benefit of Chris is it?” Steph asked.
“No,” Mel replied, just a little too quickly, as she began to draft out the letters across the cardboard. “It’s just that we’ve never done banners before and I thought it would be something different.”
The subject of the banner wasn’t brought up again during the car journey and the sounds of Mel furiously colouring in her letters was almost drowned out by the constant chatter between Karen and Steph and the roaring cars around them.
By the time they pulled into the car park of the Plaza in Sheffield the banner was completely finished. The multicoloured letters stood out wonderfully against the bright yellow card, and was coloured in so carefully even an eagle eye wouldn’t have realised it was done in the back of a car.
“How exactly are we going to take that into the hotel without them realising we are fans?” Steph asked, eyeing the banner.
Mel rolled it up and tucked it tight under her arm, “how’s that?”
“Fine,” Karen answered, not completely understanding why they were wasting their time and effort on a stupid banner.
The girls made their way up to the hotel doors, wheeling their trolley cases behind them.
They opened the doors and their ears were immediately met by a piercing male voice, screaming at them.
“Ohhhhhhhh miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii goddddddddddddddddddd!” the voice yelled before a figure rushed towards them sweeping them up into a tight hug.
As they pulled away they saw that the scream had belonged to Mark.
“I can’t believe you just screamed at us!” Karen commented laughing at him.
“Sorry!” he said, leaping around in front of them, “it’s just this is fantastic.”
“What is?”
“The fact you are here. I didn’t realise you were doing the whole tour.”
The girls smiled at his over enthusiasm.
“Paul! Chris!” he yelled over his shoulder, “look the girls are here!”
The other guys walked calmly over to join them.
“Oh yeah so they are,” Chris said, smiling and giving each of them a hug.
“And boy was that one welcome you got there!” Paul smirked in Mark’s direction, “I should think that half of Sheffield heard that scream.”
“Oooooh group photos!” Mark announced enthusiastically, ignoring Paul’s last comment and signalling for one of the girls to get their cameras out.
Chris and Paul both walked away quickly, not wanting to get involved in anymore of Mark’s annoying photo sessions.
“We don’t need them anyway,” Mark commented, taking a camera out of Mel’s hands and putting it up to his eye.
“Ooooooh brain wave,” he suddenly announced, running over to the corner of the room.
“We should all lie back on the piano like this,” he said, dramatically leaning against the piano in a pose that looked completely daft.
“Right,” Karen said politely, beginning to shuffle away, the concert started in only a few hours time and the last thing they wanted to do was be stuck here with Mark in full hyper mode – they’d never have time to get ready.
“You girls coming to the show tonight?” he asked, finally noticing that they were trying to get away.”
“Yeah.”
“Cool, I’ll see you there” he said before turning and adding as an after thought, “make sure you hold your banner high.”
He disappeared off into the lift.
“How did he know about that?” Mel asked in puzzlement.
“That’s Mark for you,” Steph replied, heading back to reception to check in.
Mel stayed routed to the spot, staring at the lift Mark had disappeared into … Mark knew they had a banner, meaning that soon Chris would read it and then may be he’d understand what was destined to happen between them in just a few days time.