“What’s up with your voice?” “… I don’t know, what’s up with it?” Fletch looked at me through the glass and was laughing with Melanie. “You know the demo we did…?” he asked. I nodded, getting insecure by the laughing they were still doing. “That beautiful soft, fragile voice… what’s happened to it?” I could feel my face slowly turning red as I saw Jason enter my studio. “Who taught you to sing with so much volume?!” Melanie blurted out. “What happened?” A sigh of relief came from my body, which made the two laugh louder. “I thought you were gonna say bad things!” I laughed. “No it’s going great!” Fletch raised his thumbs at me and left the room. I knew he was heading back to McFly. Jason stayed and sat down next to Melanie. “Alright… Let me hear you what you’ve got!” Jason said, changing buttons before I even started. Melanie started the tape and I started singing again. The way things worked with me isn’t quite how you might think it works. I get a bunch load of tapes with just rhythm. A whole lot of acoustic sets, beats, piano playing and full songs. The only thing that’s missing is the voice, and that’s going to be me. I need to fix my own lyrics and voice over the tape that’s already there. I’ve done a few songs already which I have performed with, but they’re not more than silly demo’s. ’s helped me loads with that because I was so nervous at first and he knew exactly how to calm me down. That was also when Melanie was in training to become my manager. All she basically does now is tag along with me and Fletch. Fletch still is pretty much her boss, only she doesn’t always have to listen to him… yea, their relationship is quite confusing.
We were sitting on the sofa, all thinking about a proper lyric that would make the song and not break it. Jason had been around the entire time and he said that I didn’t even need him around if Melanie would learn how to work the whole panel. When we decided that what I had been singing over the past half hour wasn’t quite right, we all sat down and thought about what it might need to be. That’s when stuck his head around the corner. “Hey chicks,” I laughed, looking at Jason who didn’t even notice that called him a chick. “How’s it going?” I could see from the corner of my eye that Melanie had a problem facing … which I found strange, because… he’s not , so why have a problem with him? “Alright I guess,” I put my stuff down and stretched. “You guess?” now walked in and closed the door behind him. “First day in the studio is always a bit rough,” Jason said as he looked up at who was reading what he’d written down. I looked at Jason and shook my head. “No, I’m just not used to working with you!” obviously I was joking, but the look on Jason’s face was priceless! Also, it made Melanie laugh which I thought she needed. “Alright, well…” took a step back. “We’re all going for lunch… if you’re up for a break…” looked at Melanie and didn’t finish his sentence. We all knew what he meant, but he was scared to actually say it aloud. “Yea I’m hungry,” Jason said already getting up. I looked at Melanie, and we shared a look. “You know what? We’ll just… we’ll stay in. You know, attack the vending machines,” I said, making Jason laugh. “Alright I’ll let know that he can breathe again,” smiled and walked away. “If you come up with anything, doesn’t matter if you think it’s stupid, please, write it down?” Jason knew me a little too well sometimes. Whenever I have something in my head which at first think could be something really good, can be total crap in about 10 seconds. We said our goodbyes and they left us behind, shutting the door softly. Melanie sighed and looked at me. “Thanks for not dragging me along,” “Anything to keep you here,” I said and rose from my seat. “…” Melanie looked at me. “What?” “I’ve already talked things through with Fletch… I’m leaving tonight,” I was shocked that he only just told me now. When exactly did she talk to Fletch then? When I was in my crappy little booth, singing something that wasn’t any use? “But-” I tried to think of something that would change her mind, but she butted in. “No… I’m sorry. But right now, I’m not even planning on saying goodbye to him.” I sighed, disappointed that it didn’t work. The keeping Melanie in this country, I mean. “… please don’t be mad?” “How can I not be?” I snapped at her and played with a twisty button on the panel. There was a silence and I guess we both didn’t know what to say. “Will some gummy bears and… I don’t know, liquor make you happy?” my head shot to Melanie, who was smiling. “Gummy bears and alcohol…” I grinned. “What a wonderfully perfect combination!” we both laughed. “… would they notice if we… you know. Took off?” I looked around the room. “We could always put pillows under our cover in the shape of our bodies?” Melanie referred to the bunk bed in the other room. I don’t know what happened, but in some way I got into that girly giggly mood. Like when we would build tents in the living room by flipping the sofa over and covering it with blankets. We always made a note that we put in front of our entrance saying ‘entrance only with password. Ps BOYS ARE NOT ALLOWED’. We’d call one of the lads (on the actual phone) and tell them to bring us crisps and leave them outside our tent so that we could take them when they left the room. Yea… good times. “Alright… this is what we do,” it looked like Melanie’s mood swung to it aswell and we looked like two exited 12 year olds. “We leave a note here… saying that we went to get a powernap,” Melanie already grabbed the paper. “Should we put what time we’ll be back?” “No… that way they’ll check on us whenever it’s time and we’re not back yet… I’ll just put that we set our alarms so they don’t have to come and wake us,” Melanie wrote it down and put it on the table. “Okay… take anything you can get to stuff our beds with!” I rushed to all the other recording rooms, getting tablecloths, rugs, sofa pillows- anything soft. I doubted about taking ’s backpack which he left behind but figured that he’d find out. No, not a good idea, even though Melanie might have loved it, it’s still not a good idea. We both burst into the buck bed room and threw all the stuff we had under the covers, shaped it like our bodies and left one of our phones on the bedside table, as if that was the one that had the alarm on it. We turned the lights of, left the room and put the sign on ‘Do Not Disturb’ that was on the outside. We looked around, hoping that nobody around would’ve seen us and went to our recording room to get our things. I left everything that I didn’t need in there, made it look extra messy which made Melanie laugh. “What? Now it looks like we got frustrated, made a mess and went for a nap!” “People don’t take naps when they’re frustrated!” “Yea they do!” “Ok, give me one name who-” “Jason!” we both started laughing. It didn’t matter how Jason felt, he was always up for a good power nap. “Ok. I’ll run of to get the gummy bears, you find a way to get to any pub… or café… any place where you can drink, without being seen by anybody who can tell them that we left,” I said and ran of to the vending machines. I got two bags of gummy bears and noticed how slow vending machines are. God, they should make special speed vending machines for people in a hurry! I rushed back when I had my bears and found Melanie, talking to Frank- somebody who worked at the studios but we still didn’t quite know what he did there. “Hey Frank,” I said, making the two of them look at me. “Hey,” he said. “So…?” Melanie looked at Frank, who turned back to look at her. “Oh, yea of course! No problem at all…” he smiled as Melanie thanked him. “Come on!” she yanked me away and we rushed outside. “What did you ask Frank?” “To go along with our plan,” “You told him?!” I squealed. “Yea, I made him promise not to tell though, he actually thought it was kind of funny… so we’re safe!” “Not exactly…” I saw stepping out of subways, turning his head slightly to make sure the person behind him heard what he was saying. Melanie saw it too. “Quick, this way!” she said and we both ran the other way, hoping that they didn’t see us. After we turned a corner, we stopped running and started laughing. “Whoo… now. Where to go for booze,” we jumped into the first place we could see and spent the afternoon, getting wasted and laughing at random stupid things.
“Where are they?” popped his head around the door. “Having a nap,” Fletch said as he walked out of the hallway. “They’re still sleeping?” said confused and also kind of surprised. “Guess so,” Fletch shrugged and kept on walking. “Shouldn’t somebody go and wake them up? We can’t really leave them behind, can we?” commented and laughed at the thought of it. “Go and get them then,” Fletch took another bite of his apple. looked uncomfortably at … noticed. “I’ll go and get them, make sure to wait for us yea?” said and walked away from his friends. “Show must go on… show must go-” stopped his soft singing as he knocked on the door. “Ladies?” he softly opened the door and turned on the lights. “… Melanie. Time to wake up,” smiled as he saw the two girls, totally covered up by their covers. “Gosh, you’ve been sleeping all afternoon!” nudged what he thought was one of the girls, but he found something a little odd. “Wake up gorgeous,” he said in a loving way, but when he nudged her again, he knew that it was right what he felt the first time. He gasped as he pulled the covers away. “Oh my…” and the other bed, the same story. He looked around, to see if anybody was there, but there wasn’t a sign of the girls. Ah, ’s phone! A sign? took the phone from the nightstand and looked at it. There was no alarm on… he looked at the beds again and knew that they must have left. He left the room and rushed outside.
“Ehh… you didn’t do too much of a good job if you went to get them,”
“They weren’t there…”
looked at as if he was crazy. “They weren’t there?” he repeated. nodded. “They actually shaped their bodies under the covers with pillows, rugs… a plant-” “What?!” shot up in his seat. and had already taken place in the car while the rest was stood outside, waiting for the others. “They left ’s phone…” showed it and gave it to Fletch, who sighed. “They’re probably out, enjoying the rest of their day…” Julian looked weirdly at him. “Enjoying the rest of their day?” “I guess,” Fletch said calmly and sat down behind the wheel. “How come you’re not… angry? They just took of on a workday!” said, obviously finding it unfair that he always is yelled at when he is bumming around. “Yea I know… but today Melanie asked me something,” Fletch turned in his seat to look at . “She ehh… she wants some time away from… well, from all of us,” everybody knew he meant . “She wants to go back home for a bit,” “What? You can’t be serious?” said, scared to believe that Fletch’ saying. “She asked to get her the first flight back, and we got her a flight at the end of the day…” Nobody quite knew what to say, but understood why Fletch let and Melanie go. “Oh… so they’re spending their last day together,” said, making glare at him. Obviously, she should’ve been spending her last day with him… but he was the reason why she wanted to leave and he knew it. He knew she was the run-away-type of girl. Whenever things got into her face, she’d run away from it. He tried her to change things around and get her to deal with her problems, but it only made her burst out in anger more, so he let it go. “I’m sorry mate,” said to , who shrugged it off. “Nah… it’s alright,” he said, but everybody knew he was lying. The ride home was silent… everybody was scared to say something to set Harry off, while he spent the whole ride, staring out his window.
We were already back when they even left the studio’s and went to the basement. We tried to play table tennis, but it’s damn difficult to follow that ball when you’ve had as much to drink as I have. Same goes for Melanie. We even got to the beers and Jason bought the other day and put the music on full blast. “I wanna get physical, physical,” I sang along into my beer bottle while standing on the bar. It felt awfully comfortable standing on this bar… there were no sick pervs checking you out! Just Melanie and me. She was stood on the table tennis table, doing a weird dance, making the table wobble on its legs. We got Fletch’ digital camera and made funny pictures of each other and joined in together to make close up shots in funny faces. I was about to open another beer when I suddenly heard a loud male voice, scream over the music. I dropped the beer in my hands which splashed around the whole bar, making me and Melanie scream. Then we noticed Jason was stood at the bottom of the stairs and we both started laughing. “It’s only Jason,” I said to Melanie, but he already went to put the music off. “Gosh!” he started. “We couldn’t even hear ourselves think upstairs!” he said, making us laugh again. Jason took a good look at us and realised that we had been drinking. “When Fletch said that you two wanted to spend your last day here together… I should’ve known that it would involve binge drinking,” he shook his head, put the full beers back into the fridge and sent us upstairs. “Let’s get physical,” I sang, making Melanie sing along and by the time we were in the living, we were doing the full song, including our drunken dance moves. “Glad you’re here,” Fletch said, looking at us before turning back to the TV. “Melanie, don’t forget to pack your bags alright?” he followed, not turning away from the screen. “Ehh…” I think they might need help with that though,” Jason said as we carried on singing and dancing. “What’s that smell-” walked into the living and noticed us dancing. “Oh… never mind. I found the source!” he yelled, facing towards the outside terrace. I knew must have been outside too… not wanting to share a look with Melanie. However, at the time, I was too busy dancing and singing and laughing, and trying to get to join in… which almost worked, until Fletch said that Jade would arrive in Sydney around 11am the next morning. “Why haven’t you told me before?!” shouted out. “I thought Jade would tell you…” he seemed so calm today. Maybe Fletch’ on drugs? Or maybe he’s an alcoholic… but when you drink, you don’t become calm, do you? You turn into a dancing, singing, laughing, picture taking maniac who has this urge to step onto any platform to give a show! That’s what you turn into!