“Mom, please? Pretty, pretty, pretty please?”

“I said no.”

“Mo-om! Please! I don’t ask for that much, do I?” She gave me the look, but I persisted. “Please, Mom, this is. . . like. . . a once in a lifetime chance!”

“Hardly.”

I whined, “Please! This is all I ask! I’ll clean the entire house, mow the lawn, trim the hedges. . . uh. . . I’ll pay you back with my own money-”

“That you get from the allowance that I give you.”

“Mom-”

“Stop it, Ray. Just stop it, or you won’t only be grounded from the concert, you can say goodbye to phone privileges, the TV, the computer, the internet-”

I backed off, admitting my defeat by hanging my head. “Okay.”

“Stop pouting. You were warned. It’s your own fault.” My mom’s chocolate eyes had never been so cold, heartless.

As I retreated to my room, I murmured, “I’ll just stop liking Hanson, then.”

“Okay.”

I continued, “I’ll stop liking Hanson, dye my hair black, and listen to Marilyn Manson non-stop.”

“Just as long as you use your headphones. And don’t slam your door.”

I gave up. No threat of even the freakiest musician was going to ruffle her cold, unforgiving exterior.

Geez, I thought as I descended the stairs, I fail one stupid algebra class and my mom acts as if I committed murder in the first degree. It’s not like I have a pile of monkey heads in the basement or anything!

I made a point in slamming my door. Afterwards I hollered, “Just exercising my rights as an American citizen. . . freedom of expression!”

“I doubt it says anything in the Constitution about slamming doors!” she hollered back.

Turning my cd player up to medium (if I had it on high she’d whip down here like a tornado and rip the plug out of the wall) and put in Bush. As soon as the strands of “Greedy Fly” came to my ears I sat down at my computer to wallow in my misery.

On Yahoo Messenger, none of my friends were online. Probably all getting ready for the concert, I thought, but that wasn’t it. Only one of my friends likes Hanson at all, and he’s not going. He’s got a game tonight. . . and mom said I couldn’t go to that, either.

So, for lack of anything better to do, I headed to my site to update.

I own A Hanson FANtasy. Primarily it’s hanfic. I have other things in there, of course, but it’s pretty much all about Hanson or things music-related. I pride myself on being a pretty good hanfic writer. . . I mean, I already know I’m a good writer.

I am pretty self-confident in my abilities.

Well, I wasn’t in the mood to write anything, not even add chapters to my most popular story, “Silver Roses”, which is a romance about Taylor. I get tired of not only reading convential romance stories about Hanson but also writing them. “Just the Flu”, a story about Zac, is my pride and joy, and yet less popular. I don’t know why.

So I made graphics for awhile. But that grew tiring pretty quickly. I called a couple friends; nobody was home. So, finally, I called Penny.

Penny’s my best friend. He likes Hanson and he’s gay.

Believe me, he rocks.

He answered on the third ring, “This better be good.”

“What?”

“Oh, Ray. . . I thought it was Josh.”

“You having a lover’s quarrel?” I asked sympathetically.

Penny sighed, “I think he cheated on me.”

“With who?” I asked. I mean, how many gay guys can there be at my high school?

“You know Alex Moe?”

“Oh God, not even. He’s so. . .”

“He is.”

“But. . . he’s the quarterback. . . and he dates all the cheerleaders. . . and he’s so cute. . . and. . . and. . . you know, a guy-guy,” I protested. “There’s like a huge gay soap opera going on at school, I swear.”

“An underground sex fest,” he agreed.

I wrinkled my nose up in disgust. “Gross. Is it kind of like Melrose Place or somethin’? You just sleep with whoever’s available?”

“Well, I don’t,” Penny told me. I could tell by the way his voice rose that he was shrugging. “I don’t get much action. That’s one of the reasons I think Josh is cheating on me. Also, I found one of Alex’s jerseys in Josh’s clothes basket.”

“That worm.”

“I know.”

“You’re too good for him.”

“I know.”

Having a gay best friend has it’s advantages; I can have an intimate relationship with a guy without having to worry about breaking up. I’m always asking Penny about guys, since I sure as hell don’t understand them. And he’s always glad to answer my queries.

“It’s just that he’s so damn cute,” Penny sighed unhappily. “I mean, he’s got these big hazel eyes. And I mean like hazel hazel. With flecks of gold in them. He can just sit there and smile at me and I have to believe him.”

I’ve gotten used to this kind of thing. It didn’t bother me anymore. It was like chatting with one of my girlfriends. . . completely normal.

“I understand,” I told him.

He cleared his throat. “So, Ray, excited about the concert?”

“I can’t go!” I exclaimed sadly. So he prompted me to go into details about what happened. “Report cards came today,” I muttered sullenly, and then I told him about the fight and the door slamming and anything else that came to mind.

“Well, at least I’m not going, huh?”

“That’s my only consolation,” I admitted. “But if you could go, I’d be happy for you.”

“You’re lying.”

Damn. “You know me too well.”

“Oh, gotta beep. . . hold on,” he said, and the beep sounded. I waited, humming along to “Mouth”. About a minute later Penny came back on. “Ray. . . I’m really sorry, but that was Josh, and he’s coming over to work this out and I have to get dressed. Can I call you back a little bit later?”

“You have a game tonight.”

“Well. . . I’ll call you tomorrow, then.”

“Okay.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.”

Sighing, I tossed the phone onto the bed and tried to enjoy surfing the net. But soon enough I felt a claustrophobic attack coming on; the walls seemed to be getting closer, closing in on me. I had to get out of there.

Grabbing my black hooded sweatshirt, I hollered up at the ceiling, “I’m going for a walk!” and headed out the basement door.