Chapter 5: “What You Want Is What You Get, At McDonald’s Today”



“Taylor, come here,” I motioned for him to come away from a chatting Kat and Zac. He glanced at them and then approached me. We were in their house to get Taylor’s and Zac’s real shoes.

“What?” he asked quietly.

“I think we should have Kat and Zac go to McDonalds alone. Maybe they’ll come back a little more than just friends....catch my drift?” I said quietly.

“Yeah, good idea. I need to take a shower, anyway. I’ll tell them that we just decided to stay here,” Taylor smiled.

“Good thing you are taking a shower,” I joked, holding my nose. He playfully swatted my hand away, but then turned to Zac again.

“Hey, Zacman. Me and Joey decided to stay here, but we want you two to go on to McDonalds, okay?” Taylor suggested. I silently prayed they would accept.

“Okay. See you later, then,” Zac smiled, then turned to Kat. “Are you ready to leave now that we don’t have to wait on them?”

“Yep. I’m ready,” Kat smiled. They both then turned and headed out the room to the front door.

“See you later!” Taylor called as they opened the front door.

“Bye!” Zac and Kat called back. The front door slammed, and it left me and Taylor alone in the house.

“By the way, where is everyone?” I asked.

Taylor thought a moment and then spoke. “Um... Mom took all the little kids shopping for summer clothes, Dad is at our corporate office, and Isaac is....well, I don’t know where he is.”

“Wait. You’ve got a corporate office?” I asked, bewildered.

Taylor nodded, “Yeah, we have to have a place for all the business. Our agent is up there, and we have a secretary that takes all our calls for bookings and puts them through to our agent. Then we have another office so whenever my dad needs time alone, like for doing taxes or budget, he goes up there. It’s convenient.”

“Seems like it,” I agreed.

“Hey, you want to come up to my room?” he asked me then.

“Sure,” he motioned for me to follow him, and I did - up the stairs and to the first door on the left. When I walked in, I got the effect that a tornado had ravaged their room.

“Sorry it’s so messy. I kind of have to take a shower, so you can play on the computer over there, we have an N64 over there, and there’s a radio/cd player over there,” Taylor pointed out the highlights of his room.

“Okay, thanks,” I smiled as he grabbed clean clothes out of his dresser. “You think your mom would approve of you being alone in the house with a girl?”

“What she doesn’t know, can’t hurt her,” Taylor smiled deviously. “I shouldn’t be too long.”

With that, he left me alone in the ransacked room. I poked cautiously around, picking up clothes and tossing them in the general direction of the hamper, attempting to clear a space to walk in.



"So, what do you want?" I asked, eyeing the wallet I had just taken out of my pocket.

"Uhhhhhhh......how 'bout a cheeseburger happy meal." Kat replied smiling.

"You still get Happy Meals©?" I asked. I was a little suprised to know someone so much older than me got Happy Meals©.

"Yeah, us old fogies like Happy Meals© too, Zac." she looked back up at the menu that was hanging above the counters. It was like she read my mind. "And a Dr. Pepper to drink, too, please."

"All right." I walked up to the counter and ordered our food. It took about five minutes and then we sat down in one of the two-seater booths by a window.

"So tell me, why do you think Taylor and Joey left us to get the food for ourselves?" Kat sipped her Dr. Pepper as I stuck the straw in my drink.

"I don't know."

"I think they are trying to set us up."

"Really? Why would they do that? If we wanna' be together, we'll get together on our own, right?" I asked wearily.

"Yep." she said. I swear she winked at me.



"Hey Joey, would you like to take a walk to, well, uh, say, McDonalds?" Taylor asked me. I slid out of the computer chair I had been sitting in.

"Taylor! You should be ashamed of yourself. That's spying on your brother!" I blurted.

"Well, might I remind you your friend is with him." he reminded me.

"But we were the ones that suggested they go alone."

"True, but we can see how much progress they've made." he smirked.

"Let's go." I nodded. So we grabbed our jackets and left. After only about ten minutes of walking, the infamous McDonald's was in view. As we made our way closer and closer, I could see Kat in Zac in a two-seater booth by the window.

"Taylor, they are sitting by the window, why don't we NOT GO IN FRONT OF IT, eh?" I yelled.

"We have to, I have to see what they're doing. They could be doing something like...kissing," he persisted.

"Oh yeah Taylor, a twelve year old and a fifteen year old are making out in public, not to mention it just happens to be the very famous Zac Hanson." I put it all into realization for him. I realized that he didn't just want to see how much progress they had made, he was being Zac's unofficial bodyguard as well.

"True, but you don't know Zac." Taylor commented.

"But I do know Kat, she wouldn't put the move on a twelve year old!" Would she?

We continued on our way anyway. As we passed the window, I saw Kat look straight at me. I knew she would now devise some plan to get even for finding us spying on her. "Taylor, Kat just saw us..."

"Oh, well. I have to watch my brother."

"But you don't understand....Kat...."

"Shhhh....." he put his finger to his lips. I rolled my eyes and crouched behind the short brick wall with Taylor. If he didn't want me to warn him about Kat's revenge, I wouldn't. I sat with my back against the wall, not taking any part as Taylor continued to peek over.

"I'm going home, when you quit being so childish, call me." I stood up and he grabbed my arm.

"Five more minutes, just five, I promise." he had this sick twinkle in his eye and I decided it would be fun to see what Kat had in mind anyway.

"Fine."



I picked up my Dr. Pepper, took a sip and looked out the window. I saw Taylor and Joey staring at us intently.

"Zac," I said casually, "Taylor and Joey are spying on us. Wanna' get them back?" I smiled devilishly.

"Sounds good to me. I am sick of Taylor spying on me. He thinks I'm still a baby and is WAY overprotective. Isn't he the one that even suggested us here coming alone?"

"Yeah, he was. Oh, I have a great plan..." I quickly explained my idea to him and he readily agreed on the idea.

We walked out to the front of McDonald's. It was across the street from where Taylor and Joey had ducked down behind a small brickwall. We were about to put are plan into operation.

"Ready?" Zac mumbled.

"Ready." I confirmed the start of the plan. Zac grabbed my hand and we began to walk down the street. I couldn't wait for the next part of the plan. We walked and walked and soon we reached the corner of the street. I looked over and Taylor and Joey were still trailing us. "They're still following, ready for part two?"

"Let's do it." Zac smiled. I leaned over and kissed Zac on the lips. I waited a few seconds and then pulled away, but Zac pulled me back and we kissed a little longer. It surprised the heck out of me. Then I realized why I had devised this plan now. It wasn't to get Taylor and Joey back, it was for Zac and I to get a little closer. "Now I know we pissed Taylor off. Let's go home." he smiled. I think he enjoyed the kiss a little more also. So we began our walk home, the falling sun against our backs, still holding hands.



"Are you happy yet? We've spied on them for the last half hour, going as far as taking this short cut through the woods so we can beat them home. Now Kat is going to be mad at me."

"Why would she, she didn't see you." Taylor said making his way through some branches.

"Yes she did. I told you she did but you didn't listen." I felt that I had told him once and once was enough.

"Did you tell me anything else? I'm sorry I was a little caught up in the spying." he apologized.

"No, I didn't." I didn't feel like warning him, I wanted to see his reaction, "It's okay, but promise me that you won't spy when I'm here next time?"

"I promise." he said and smiled at me. Boy did his blue eyes twinkle in the light of the setting sun. "Let's go, hurry." he grabbed my hand and began to pull me through the woods, moving branches, hopping over stumps and roots, and soon we reached a clearing. "Welcome to my backyard." He pushed some final branches out of the way and in the distance, I saw his house.

"Wow! It's magnificent." I said. It was an outstanding scene. There were all kinds of flowers and green plants everywhere. I felt like I was in some secret garden or something.

"I'll show more of it to you if you'd come over sometime, but right now we're kind of in a rush."

"I will." I said, still glancing around as the flowers went whizzing past. We flew through the back door, up the stairs and into Taylor's room with in a matter of seconds. For a minute, we just sat and caught our breath, then, Taylor suggested that we go into the game room. He lead me to a room that had just about every game system invented. Nintendo, Nintendo 64, Super Nintendo, Sega, Super Sega, six Gameboy's, virtual reality things......EVERYTHING! They even had a computer and a big screen t.v./v.c.r. (which hooked up to the game systems) with surround sound. It was like a living arcade.

"Holy cow!" I said amazed at all the stuff.

"It's every kid that plays video games' dream." he said. I noticed his eyes light up too. Right when we started to play Mario Cart©, the front door opened, then slammed shut and a clearly heard, "TAYLOR!," was shouted.

"Uh, I'll have Isaac drive you and Kat home." Taylor said quickly. He called Isaac and Isaac soon appeared in the doorway.

"Hey Ike, could you take her and Kat home while Zac chews me out?"

"Sure, come on Joey, I'll get the keys." Isaac said. We picked up Kat down the hallway and then got into the car and began to go home.



"Thanks for the car ride Isaac. We really appreciated it." Joey waved. I waved good-bye to Isaac as well, but as soon as he was out of view, I began to talk about the McDonald's thing.

"So, what did you and Taylor do while Zac and I ate at McDonald's?" I asked casually.

"First Taylor took a shower and left me to play on the computer in his filthy room, then, he got out and he convinced me to spy on my best friend and her companion whom which we had asked to go together so maybe they could hook themselves up. But it seems Mr. Taylor had his instincts as an overprotective big brother burst onto the scene and he got very demanding to see what was going on with his brother and a girl. I tried to make him understand you wouldn't do anything to Zac, well, unless you had good reasoning behind it, and he didn't hear a word I said. Suddenly, you were his targeted enemy and the moment you did something, his alarm would go off and he would A. beat you up, B. watch and put you on his hit list or C. wait until Zac got home and then had a long talk with him. At least he had enough sense to pick C. Lucky for you. Anyway, I sat their and took no part of it, exept for the actually part of being there, which I tried to get out of, but the pathetic look on Taylor's face made me stay. And then we took some awful 'short-cut' through the woods and I ended up seeing Taylor's beautiful backyard that is filled with flowers and pretty green plants, and five minutes after we had been home, you and Zac walked in. That, my dear, was the whole story." she finished. I didn't realize it, but we had walked right to my house and were now sitting on the steps in front of my house.

"Okay, but you knew I would make up a plan didn't you?" I asked.

"Yes, I tried to warn Taylor that you would reak revenge, but he didn't listen, and I knew you would come up with something to piss him off."

"That's what Zac said. I'm glad Zac agreed to the plan. I think he enjoyed the second part of the plan like I did."

"What part would that be?" Joey asked intently.

"The kiss of course. In fact, he surprised me by pulling me back into the kiss after I began to pull away." I smiled happily.

"Really? Tell me more." Joey was very curious now.

"Well, while you guys were taking the 'short-cut,' we kissed once more and I hugged him."

"Wow! You guys are moving fast."

"Well, I guess we just know how far we can go." I shrugged. From there, I asked if she could spend the night and both our parents said okay so she did. We talked about what each of us had felt, experienced and done for the remaining part of the night.


Chapter 6: Making Amends and Plans



"Zac I can't believe you kissed her!" Taylor yelled.

"Well I can't believe you spied on us. That is pretty much the only reason we did it. We saw you. We were pretty ticked off that you didn't trust us, especially after YOU suggested we go together! So, we made a plan, the holding hands, the kiss, the walking down the street together. It was all a plan to piss my brother, the creep, off!" I informed him.

"I'm sorry okay? I don't know what came over me. Suddenly Kat was this sex-craving slut who was seducing my little, twelve year old brother." Taylor had began shouting, but calmed as the sentence came out. "I was just trying to look out for you."

"It's okay, but Tay, I'm big enough to make my own decisions now. I know when someone is going to far or doing something I don't like. Please don't do this ever again. I let you have your life, let me have mine. Didn't you learn by making mistakes? That is what I'm doing now. I have to experiment with life. I have plenty of time and I know when to slow down." I explained.

"I hope that you know what you're doing. But if you ever need anything, advice, anything, come see me okay?" he asked. He had softened up, I could tell by the color of his eyes, which were light blue - if they were dark blue, you would be stupid to go near him - and the soft tone of voice he was now using. "Thanks Tay, you're a great big brother." I hugged him. I was amazed at how fast this went from a yelling match to a sap fest. I blamed it on the way we were brought up.

"You're a great little brother Zac." We were still hugging when Ike came in.

"GROUP HUG!" he shouted, joining in on the fun. It became a fun wrestling match when Ike accidentally knocked us all over. We smooshed Tay. Then he rolled us around and we all came out of the room with messed up hair, twisted clothes and untied shoes. As we were on our way upstairs, mom stopped us.

"What have you boys been doing? Are those girls still here?" She asked looking around.

"We were wrestling and no, they left before they could meet our ferocious mother." Ike said, sliding upstairs.

"ISAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAC!!!!!!!!" mom screamed at the top of her lungs.

"SORRY!" he yelled, smart enough not to come down and face our mother. Tay and I just laughed and ran upstairs.



"Kat.....Kat....KAT!" I tried to wake Kat up but she wouldn't budge. “Fine, I'm going to Taylor's house alone." I said, just to wake her up. "Huh, what? Zac, did you say Zac? What about Zac?" she asked. She shot out of bed like a bullet out of a gun.

"I didn't say Zac, I said Taylor, and it was to wake you up. It's already one o'clock!" I exclaimed.

"So? Unless we are going to see Zac-I mean, them, I am going back to sleep." she layed back down on her bed.

"You are a sad cover up when you wake up." I noted.

"That's 'cause all my common sense is still in my dream, kissing Zac." she slipped up again.

"Hmmm.....I'd like to hear more of this dream." I sat intentively beside her tired self on the bed.

"Okay, me and you had our skates on and were skating through the park. Then we saw Zac and Taylor practicing roller hockey on the basketball court...." the ringing phone made her stop. "Hello?" she picked it up. "Oh, hi Zac." she motioned for me to pick up the other phone. I came in in the middle of a sentence.

".....would like you to come over for the boring family picnic thing that we will be bored to death at. mom said each of us could bring one person to keep us company, and I picked you and Tay picked Joey. I know Joey is over there 'cause Tay called her earlier and her mom said she was with you. So, do you want to come?" he asked. I could hear Zac fiddling with the phone.

"Hold on." Kat ran downstairs. I waited and listened.

"Tay likes Joey, Tay likes Joey...." Zac said. It was muffled because he was probably covering the mouth piece, but it was just enough for me to hear it. Kat came barging in the room.

"My mom said I could, and I'm sure Joey will be able to come too." she said excitedly.

"GREAT! It is May 23, it's a saturday. We'll come pick you up, but you will need sun screen, bathing suits, towels, and clothes.."

"Well there's a given." Kat smiled.

"...and that's about it. Oh, well pick you up about 8 am, okay?" Zac wrapped it up.

"All right, it sounds fun. We'll be there!"

"And there will be lots of food."

"Cool." I accidentally slipped.

"Hey Joey." Zac greeted me.

"Hi Zac." I said. Busted. I thought.

"Well, now that it's a party line, Tay can speak up." Zac uncovered Tay's place on the phone.

"Hey everyone." Taylor said sheepishly.

"I've been on here the whole conversation, how about you Taylor?" I asked.

"Same here."

"Hey, do you guys want to come over here today?" Kat asked. I mouthed I love you Kat to her and she smiled.

"Hold on, let us ask." Zac said. I heard one set of footsteps leave.

"Kat likes Zac, Kat likes Zac..." I didn't even make the effort to cover the mouthpiece.

"So? Joey likes Taylor, Joey likes Taylor..." she mimicked me. "Big whoop. No one cares, not even if SOMEONE is still on the phone...." she had noticed the one set of footsteps too.

"I'm back and mom said we could. We'll be over in a little bit. Okay?" Taylor asked.

"That's fine. Bye."

"Bye." We said at the same time and hung up.


Chapters 7-8
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