by Nancy Krulik
“School? Homework?” Ace asked her. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“This song is about a guy on the road, missing his girlfriend,” Spike added. “He’s a little old for teachers and homework. Who in the audience is gonna relate to that?”
Katie bit her lip and tried to fight back the tears. She couldn’t believe they were being so hard on her.
Suddenly, Ace announced, “I’m not going on stage and making a fool out of myself.”
“What are you saying, man?” Spike asked him.
“I’m saying I’m not going to do a show with you guys,” Ace snapped. “No one’s taking this seriously.”
“I am,” Spike insisted.
“So am I,” Fizzy agreed.
“Fizzy, all you care about is ordering room service, and all the stuff the record label will pay for,” Ace argued. “You don’t care about the music anymore. Even T-Jon can hear that.”
Fizzy looked shocked. “T-Jon can’t even rap anymore! Why are you listening to him?”
“Because he’s right,” Spike interrupted. “You didn’t sound so great before.”
“Exactly,” Ace agreed.
“And neither did you,” Spike continued, looking at Ace. “T-Jon wasn’t kidding. You did sound boring. And your harmonies were totally off.”
“Oh, yeah?” Ace shouted. “Well, the fans think I’m great. Who do you think they come to see, anyway? Me. That’s who.”
“Hey, that’s not true,” Spike disagreed.
“I’ll prove it,” Ace said. “I’m going to record my own CD. I’ll bet my solo album sells more copies than the Bayside Boys CD ever did.”
“I can’t listen to this anymore,” Fizzy said. He picked up his jacket. “I’m out of here.” He stormed out of the room.
“Me too,” Spike agreed. “I need a break from you guys.”
“Funny, that’s just what I was thinking,” Ace said, angrily grabbing his jacket and leaving the room just behind his ex-bandmates.
Katie sat there in the hotel suite, thinking. She was kind of sad. The Bayside Boys were nothing like the magazines said they were. For one thing, they didn’t sound very good. At least not when they sang separately. And they weren’t very nice to one another, either.
Suddenly, Katie felt a familiar breeze on the back of her neck. Within seconds, the breeze began to blow harder . . . and harder . . . and harder, until it was a wild tornado, blowing just around Katie.
The magic wind was back!
Katie shut her eyes tight and pulled her knees to her chest. She held on tight, trying not to get blown away.
And then it stopped. Just like that.
Slowly, Katie opened her eyes and looked around. There was the couch and the TV and the bathroom door. Okay, so she was still in the Bayside Boys’ hotel suite.
But she wasn’t alone anymore. The real T-Jon was right there on the sofa next to her. He seemed really confused.
“Hey, you’re not supposed to be here!” T-Jon shouted at Katie. He leaped up from the couch. “No fans are allowed. How did you get past that big guard at the door?”
“I . . . um . . .” Katie didn’t know what to say. How could she explain the magic wind to T-Jon?
Knock. Knock. Before Katie could answer, someone came to the door.
“Who’s there?” T-Jon asked.
“It’s room service.” The security guard opened the door and poked his head inside. “Okay to let him in?”
“Awesome!” T-Jon exclaimed. “I’m starving.”
As the guard opened the door, Katie ducked behind the couch. She didn’t want the guard to catch her there. How could she explain what she was doing in the room?
Katie secretly watched as a waiter entered the room, pushing an elegant cart with a long flowing tablecloth and lots of silver-covered dishes.
T-Jon reached into his pockets. “Oh, sorry, dude,” he said to the waiter. “I’m out of cash. But I’ll put a nice tip on the bill, okay?”
“Thank you, sir,” the waiter said.
“Don’t thank me. Thank the record company.”
As soon as the security guard and the waiter left, Katie popped up from her hiding place.
T-Jon walked over to the cart and took the silver lid off one of the plates. “Yum. Burger and fries.” He turned to Katie. “Did you order this for me?”
Katie shook her head. “I think Fizzy did.”
T-Jon shrugged. “Oh. Where is Fizzy, anyway?”
Katie gulped. “He . . . um . . . he went for a walk or something.”
“Oh, yeah,” T-Jon said, taking a big bite of a hamburger. “I think I remember that. Sort of. I’m not sure what I remember. It’s all kind of blurry.”
Katie watched as T-Jon ate a huge handful of french fries. He might have been confused, but it hadn’t hurt his appetite.
“I don’t even remember meeting you,” T-Jon continued, sounding even more curious about what was happening. But he quickly came to his senses. “Whoever you are, you gotta get out of here. And don’t tell anyone where we’re staying. All we need is a bunch of fans like you storming the place.”
Katie frowned. If kids knew the way the Bayside Boys had just sounded, they wouldn’t even have any fans.
For a minute, Katie thought about asking T-Jon for an autograph before she left. But she changed her mind. She didn’t want to wait around for him to ask her any more questions.
“Bye,” she shouted, racing out the door.
“Hey, how’d you get in there?” the guard demanded in a loud, booming voice as she passed by him.
Katie just kept running.
Chapter 8
The next morning, Katie and Suzanne walked to school together. Suzanne was in a really bad mood.
“I waited in that hotel lobby for half an hour,” she complained to Katie. “And not one Bayside Boy showed up!”
“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Katie said slowly.
“How can you say that?!” Suzanne demanded.
“Well, it’s just that they’re probably nothing like we think they are,” Katie said. “What if you met them and you didn’t like them?”
“That would never happen,” Suzanne assured Katie.
Just then, Emma W. came running onto the playground behind the school. Tears were streaming down her face. “I’ve just heard the worst news!” she cried to Katie and Suzanne.
“What?” Suzanne asked.
“It’s the Bayside Boys,” Emma sobbed. “They broke up.”
Katie gasped. “Are you sure?”
Emma nodded. “I just heard it on the car radio. The concert is cancelled.”
“Did they say why they broke up?” Katie asked.
“No,” Emma said. “They just made the announcement.”
Becky Stern walked over just as Emma finished speaking. She’d obviously overheard the whole conversation. “I know why they broke up,” she boasted. “My dad’s friend said the guys all want to record their own CDs. They’re leaving town on separate airplanes tonight!”
Suzanne started crying, too. “I don’t believe it,” she said.
But Katie believed it. She knew something about the boys’ big fight that even Becky’s dad’s friend didn’t know. The Bayside Boys’ breakup was all Katie’s fault.
This was soooo not good!
Katie spent the whole day thinking about the Bayside Boys. She couldn’t let them break up. Somebody had to do something . . .
And that somebody was Katie!
But Katie was too shy to talk to the boys all by herself. She needed someone to go with her. Someone who wasn’t afraid of anyone. Not even the big security guard who stood at the Bayside Boys’ door. She needed someone like . . . Suzanne!
Right after school, Katie raced over to talk to her best friend. “We have to go to the Cherrydale Inn right away!” she told her. “We have to find the Bayside Boys!”
Suzanne shook her head. “I can’t go back there today. I have my modeling class in half an hour.”
“So what?” Katie demanded. “I have my cooking class. But I’ll miss it if it means getting the Bayside Boys back together. What’s more important?”
Suzanne thought about that for a minute. “You have a point,” she said.
“Okay, so let’s go now,” Katie said. “We have to get to their suite and convince them to stay together.”
“But we don’t even know what suite they’re staying in,” Suzanne reminded her.
“It’s on the eighth floor,” Katie told Suzanne.
“How do you know?” Suzanne asked.
“Never mind,” Katie told her. “I just know. Now come on!”
Katie might have known which suite the Bayside Boys were staying in, but that didn’t mean she and Suzanne would be able to get inside to talk to them. The big, burly guard was standing outside their room. He wasn’t letting anyone in.
“But we just want to ask them to stay together,” Katie pleaded with the tall, strong guard.
“You and every other kid in town,” the guard replied. “Look, I don’t know how you found out where the Bayside Boys were . . .”
“I was wondering the same thing,” Suzanne agreed.
“But they’re packing up,” the guard continued. “They have to leave in a few minutes. They don’t have time to talk to fans. Why don’t you two go home?”
“But . . .” Katie began.
“I said, ‘Go home!’ ” the guard shouted.
“Yes, sir,” Suzanne said. She ran toward the elevator.
Katie followed right behind her. That guy was scary!
As soon as they got in the elevator, Suzanne pushed the button marked L for Lobby. “Let’s get out of here,” she shuddered.
“But we haven’t spoken to the Bayside Boys yet,” Katie argued.
“Didn’t you hear that guard? We’re not going to talk to them,” Suzanne sighed heavily. “It’s all over.”
Just then, the elevator door opened up on the third floor. As a man and a woman got on, Katie looked out the open door. A room-service cart was sitting in the hallway.
Suddenly, Katie got another one of her great ideas.
“Come on, Suzanne,” she said, pulling her friend out of the elevator. “It’s not over yet!”
Chapter 9
“Katie, this is never going to work,” Suzanne said a few minutes later. “That guard will never let us past the door. He’ll never believe we work at the hotel.”
“He won’t know it’s you,” Katie said. She pulled a white jacket out from under the cart. It looked like someone had spilled some grape juice all over it. The waiter must have gone to get a clean jacket and left his cart in the hallway. “You’ll be wearing this disguise.”
Suzanne made a face. “It looks disgusting. I would never wear something like that.”
“Just put it on,” Katie demanded. “This is an emergency, not a fashion show!”
Katie had never ordered Suzanne around before. Suzanne was in such shock, she did what she was told without an argument. Then she looked down at the name tag and shook her head. “It says Tom,” she told Katie. “Who’s going to believe my name is Tom?”
“Just tuck your ponytail under this hat,” Katie said, handing Suzanne the white waiter’s cap that had been placed under the cart with the jacket. “And keep your head down, so the guard can’t see your face.”
“And where will you be through all this?” Suzanne demanded.
Katie lifted up the tablecloth on the cart and crawled underneath. Then she pulled the cloth back down to make sure she was hidden. “I’ll be right here the whole time,” she assured her friend.
“This will never work,” Suzanne sighed as she pushed the elevator button.
The big guard was talking on his cell phone when Suzanne pushed the cart up to the Bayside Boys’ hotel suite. His back was turned away from her. Quickly, she snuck past him and knocked on the door.
“Room service,” she shouted loudly.
The guard spun around quickly. “Don’t you listen?” he shouted at Suzanne. “I told you to leave before.”
“That wasn’t me,” Suzanne murmured nervously.
“Sure it was, kid. You think I can’t tell it’s you under that hat?” the guard answered.
Before Suzanne could reply, the door swung open.
“Oh, cool,” Fizzy said. “Eats.”
“I tried to get rid of her,” the guard assured Fizzy. “But . . .”
“Why would you try to get rid of room service?” Fizzy asked. He stepped aside and let Suzanne push the cart inside.
Before the guard could do anything, Fizzy slammed the door shut. Suzanne’s mouth dropped open. The Bayside Boys were all there, in the living room of the suite. She was so shocked, she couldn’t even speak.
But Katie sure could. She popped out from beneath the cart. “Hi!” she greeted Ace, Fizzy, Spike, and T-Jon.
“You again?” T-Jon asked.
Ace looked at him strangely. “You know this kid?”
T-Jon nodded. “She was here the other day. You know, when we had the big fight.”
“No, she wasn’t,” Ace told him. “I didn’t see her.”
“I didn’t see her, either,” Spike agreed.
T-Jon looked really confused. “But, I . . . she . . . oh, I don’t know,” he sighed.
“It doesn’t matter when T-Jon met me,” Katie interrupted. “The important thing is that I’m here now. And my friend and I really need to talk to you. We don’t think you should break up. Do we, Suzanne?”
Suzanne didn’t say anything. She was too busy staring.
“Listen, kid,” Ace began.
“Katie,” she corrected him.
“Okay, Katie. It’s time for us to break up. I want a solo career.”
“We all do,” Spike added.
Katie shook her head. “It won’t work,” she told them. “When you’re singing as the Bayside Boys, you’re awesome. But you guys don’t sound nearly as good apart as you do together.”
“How would you know that?” Fizzy asked her. “No one’s ever heard us sing apart, except us.”
“Then listen to yourselves,” Katie insisted. She looked straight at Fizzy. “Go ahead. Sing something.”
Fizzy smiled. “Prepare to be amazed,” he told the girls. He opened his mouth and sang in his high voice.
Suzanne’s eyes popped open even wider as he sang. She made a face. “You don’t sound like that!” she blurted out.
“What?” Fizzy asked her.
Spike laughed. “I think she means your voice is too high to make it as a solo singer,” he said. “Now this is the voice of a star.” He began to sing one of his low harmony parts.
Suzanne shook her head again. “That’s too low. Most people’s voices don’t go down that far. How could anyone sing along with you on the radio?”
Now it was Ace’s turn to chuckle. “That’s why I’m the only one who’s going to make it big on his own. I sing lead.”
“Yeah, but without us, it’s a boring lead,” T-Jon said. “Which is why I’m the only one who has a shot at making it big on his own. My rhymes are what have made the Bayside Boys stand out.”
“That’s not true,” Katie told him.
T-Jon stared at her angrily. “What do you mean?” he demanded.
“The Bayside Boys are great because your styles all mix together perfectly,” Katie explained. “That’s what makes you special.”
“Katie’s right,” Suzanne agreed. “I wouldn’t buy an album by any one of you. But I’d buy a new Bayside Boys CD.”
“I wonder how many other girls would agree with her,” Spike admitted.
“You’re going to listen to a kid?” Ace asked him.
“No,” Spike answered quickly. “It’s just something to think about, that’s all.”
“Well, I’m not thinking about it,” T-Jon told him.
“Me either,” Fizzy agreed. “I’m ready to break out on my own.”
“Yeah, but if these two girls fe
el like this . . .” Spike began.
“Oh, please. They’re just kids,” Ace told him. “They don’t know anything.”
“Well, if you’re not going to listen to a kid, would you listen to a writer?” Katie suggested. “A really famous one?”
“What writer?” Ace asked. “Is he a music critic?”
Katie shook her head. “Actually he wrote fables. His name was Aesop. One of his most famous lessons was, ‘United we stand, divided we fall.’ ”
“That’s right,” Suzanne agreed. “If you guys break up, none of you will ever be really big stars. But as the Bayside Boys ...”
“As the Bayside Boys we sell out concerts,” Ace said, interrupting her. “Whoa.” He looked at his bandmates. “Maybe we better think about this some more.”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Spike replied.
“That Aesop was one smart dude,” Fizzy added.
T-Jon smiled at Katie. “And you’re one smart kid. You just saved our careers.”
“If there’s anything we can do for you,” Spike said. “Just tell us.”
“Yeah,” Fizzy agreed. “We owe you.”
“Well . . .” Katie said slowly. “There is one thing you can do.”
Chapter 10
“And I dream of you when I awake!” Katie and Suzanne sang out happily. The girls were sitting in the front row of the Cherrydale Arena on Saturday night. Like everyone else in the audience, they were singing along with the Bayside Boys.
“These seats are amazing!” Suzanne squealed as the guys finished the song.
“I think this is the best night of my life!” Katie shouted back.
As the song ended, Ace waved to the audience. “This next song is dedicated to two amazing fans. They taught us that we need to work together in harmony. Let’s hope the whole world can learn that lesson. Katie and Suzanne, this is for you! It’s our brand-new song, called ‘United.’ ”
Katie couldn’t believe her ears. The Bayside Boys had dedicated a song to them, right in front of everyone. This was a dream come true.
