~INTRODUCTION~
	“I love you, Karen!” Briana cooed for the millionth time as 
the plane hit the runway. 
	“Give it up,” Karen muttered, turning around in her seat and 
looing out the window.
Paris loomed in the distance. Ever since she had won that stupid 
dancing contest on that stupid
boat ride for her school, Briana had been her biggest fan. The prize had been $200, and had
immediately been put in the bank for Karen’s Hanson Concert Fund. 
	Just then, a stewardess walked over to the girl’s seats. “Excuse-moi, vous besoin de--”
	“Karen, Karen, what’s she saying?!?” Briana shrieked. “Oh, no, they don’t speak
French here, do they?”
	“Duh, that’s why they call it France,” Karen replied, rolling her eyes. “I thought you’ve
been taking French in school for the past four years!”
	“But. . . you didn’t think I actually paid attention, do you?”
	“You dimwit, do you think I’d pay two hundred dollars to take you to Paris if I didn’t
think you spoke French? Oh no, what have I done? We’ll never be able to find a hotel if we
don’t speak French!”
	“Oh, noooooo!” Briana wailed. At that moment, the stewardess switched to English.
“Excuse me, you need to buckle up. The plane is landing,” she said in a heavy accent.
	“Sure,” Karen said. “Briana, buckle up like she told you to!”
	“But Taybear needs to be safe, too!” she said stubornly, glaring at the stewardess.
	“Who is this Taybear you speak of?” the stewardess asked. 
	Karen closed her eyes and dropped her head into her hands and Briana tried to explain.
“SEE, we’re going to the HANSON CONCERT here, and I brought a PRESENT for MY
TAY-TAY! It’s a BEAR!” Briana dug around in her backpack, found the yellow bear, and stuffed
it into the stewardess’s face. “SEE? THIS is TAYBEAR!”

~PART ONE: Attendez-vous pour l’autobus Hanson!~

	“Briana, this is awful. We have to find a decent hotel, but we can’t understand a thing
the people are saying, and we can’t read any of the signs, and we don’t even have a map! And
even if we did have one, it wouldn’t be any help at all, because it would all be in French!” Karen
wailed as they pushed through the airport doors. As she continued to grumble incoherently,
Karen drug Briana through the parkinglot, not paying much attention to their fellow
pedestrians.
	“Attendez-vous!” someone from the curb called out.
	Briana jerked her head around. “What?” she cried, just as she spotted the very large,
blue bus coming at them from across the parkinglot. “OhmiGOSH! Karen, we’re going to get
HIT!”
	“Briana, just watch where you’re going!” Karen shouted, pulling her out of the way.
Briana tumbled over the curb, narrowly missing the bus’s large tire. She sat up, a bit
cross-eyed, and watched the bus carry on.
	“OhmyGOSH, Karen!” Briana squealed. “That was...that was...that was THE HANSON
BUS! Arughuagh! We have to follow it! We can get a hotel later! Come on!”

~PART TWO: Le voyage tres horribal~

	Briana was half way down the sidewalk before Karen caught up with her. The were
catching up with the bus, which had stopped to pay the fee for the valet parking. “Guess they
don’t know much French, either,” Karen mused as she listened to the driver and the parking
attendant talk. 
	“No time for talk,” Briana said hurredly, scanning the back of the bus from top to
bottom. A narrow, metal ladder, positioned about three feet up from the bumper, caught her
eye. “Karen, can you hoist me up there?”
	Karen looked, incredulous, to where the ladder lead: the very top of the bus. “Uh...let
me try.” She set her duffel bag down on the pavement, and with a heave lifted Briana to the
first rung.
	“Hand me my bag,” her sister demanded. “Watch out- Taybear’s in there, somewhere.
Now, follow me.” Karen watched as Briana nimbly climbed up the ladder and situated herself on
the top of the bus, which began to roll forward. “KAREN!”
	“Stop screeching!” Karen hissed, grabbing her bag and reaching for the ladder. She was
barely able to toss her bag up to Briana before the bus sped up, leaving her in a cloud of dust.

	Without stopping to think about much, Karen threw herself inside the nearest taxi and
pointed franticlly at the bus, which could be seen driving down the highway just outside of the
gates. “The bus! The bus! Follow the bus!” The driver stared at her, perplexed, and said
something too fast for Karen to comprehend. Luckily, she noticed a large French dictionary that
one of the former passengers must have left. Quickly leafing through it, she said aloud every
word that might be able to help her: “Ma so-er ist danz luh auto-bus!”
	“Quoi?” 
	“Ma so-er...” she pointed to each word as she said it. 
	“Ah! Ton soeur est dans l’autobus! Allors, c’est dix francs!”
	“Francs? But I don’t have any francs! Wait. . .” she dug around in her pocket, pulled
out a crumpled American dollar bill, then stuck her hand in the seat cushion and looked around
on the floor. Finally, she was able to find approximately six dollar’s worth of various foreign
coins. “Here! Hurry, or I’ll never see Briana again!”
	
~PART THREE: Dans l’autobus~

	Briana held the bear close to her and rocked back and forth, crying pitifully.
“Oh-ooohh...Taybear...Karen’s gone...she’s gone...we’re trapped...oh, woe...woe...” The wind
whipped her hair all around her, making it look like there was a large, hairy monster sitting on
top of the bus.
	Inside, everything was...normal. Zac was firing grapes out the windows, trying to hit
the pedestrians on the sidewalks. They shot him dirty looks and continued on their ways. Taylor
was rummaging around in the back of the bus, trying to find something besides horse meat to
eat. Isaac and Jarrod Gollihare were leafing through a French phrase book, trying to carry on a
conversation in French.
	“Uh...Kwest-see, kwoo sest kwee lah boo-ee lah bacey!” Jarrod cried triumphantly. 
	“Uh... I think it’s some kind of fish soup,” Isaac said, looking over the ‘commonly used
phrases’ list. 
	“Wee! Wee!” Jarrod laughed, grabbing the book. “Here’s another...Ahvess voo doo
foo?”
	Isaac paused and looked thoughtful for a moment. “Do you hear something?”
	“No, actually that was ‘Do you have a light?’”
	“I hear something,” Zac said, throwing himself into a seat. “Sounds like someone’s on
the roof singing a dirge. Where’s Taylor?”
	“Uh-oh...” Isaac glanced towards the back of the bus. “I knew there was something in
that horse meat...” He got up and went to the back of  the bus, where he saw Taylor peering
out of the window. Mackie was pulling on his shirt.
	“Let Mackie see! Let Mackie see!” 
	“Let Ike see! Let Ike see!” Isaac said, looking as well. The bus had stopped at an
intersection. “What’s so interesting?”
	Taylor pointed at the road sign next to the bus. “Look- Madeleine Street. Think we
could stop. You know, photo-op or something?”
	“Good idea,” Isaac confirmed. “Oh, by the way...” he was quiet for a moment, trying
to see if he could hear the noise any more. “Nevermind. Get your camera ready.”

~PART FOUR: Dans la taxi ~

	“Look! Look! They’re stopping!” Karen squealed. “Let me out, I need to find Briana!”
	“Mon Dieu!” the taxi driver exclaimed. “C’est. . . c’est. . . c’est Hanson!” 
	“You’re darn right it’s Hanson. . . and that’s my little sister on top of the bus! Come
on, lemme out, I need to get her off!”
	“Que’est-ce-c’est? Un petit fille dans la bus? Oh, la la!” They both ran out of the car,
the driver rushing towards the Hansons, who were coming out of the bus one by one, and
Karen running to the ladder. 
	“Briana! Briana! Are you alright?”
	“Tay-Tay! Tay-Tay! There you are!” Briana paid no mind to her sister, but grabbed
Taybear and scrambled down the ladder and dropped onto the street. She threw herself at the
Hansons, who had gathered under the street sign. “Tayeeee-Tayeeeeeee! I’ve got a present for
yooooooooou!”
	“What?” he asked, confused, as Briana landed at his feet. She threw the bear at his
face. 
	“It’s for yooooooooou!” she giggled deviously, grabbing his knee and pulling herself
up. “Don’t you loooooooooove it! His name is-”
	“BRIANA!” Karen screamed at the top of her lungs. Everyone on the ground below
stopped dead in their tracks and looked up at the girl standing on top of the bus. For a
moment, all was silent. 
	“Hi, Karen,” Briana said at last. Then she resumed her lusting.
	Meanwhile, the cab driver was giddy with excitement. “Allo! Hanson! Vous est... vous
est... Hanson! Bonjour, je ma’apelle Henri, ja’i un tres grand Hanson-head!” Henri shook
everyone’s hands several times, muttering praises in French and grinning like a loon.
	“Uh. . . “ Jarrod racked his memory for something to say. The only thing he could
remember was “Ahvess voo doo foo?”
	Henri dug around in his jacket pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
Diana gave Jarrod a questioning glance, and he sighed and turned down the offer. 
	Isaac, wanting a chance to show off his not-so-broad French vocabulary, said the only
thing he could remember: “Rafraichchissez moi papier hygenique, sil-vou-plait!”
	“Er.... quoi?” Puzzled, Henri took out his pocket knife. “Alors, donne-moi papier
hygenique,” he said.
	“What? Uh. . . nevermind. . . um. . . “ 
	Diana tapped her son’s shoulder lightly. “What did you just say to the man, dear?”
	“Uhm,” Isaac shrugged. “I think I asked him to trim my toilet paper, but it may have
been something along the lines of-”
	She smiled sweetly at him. “I think this little photo-op has gone way too far. Why don’t
we just get this show on the road and take the picture?” The family re-congregated under the
sign and handed the camera to Henri.
	“Dit ‘fromage’!” He laughed crazily, and snapped the picture. Briana, who was still
leeched onto Taylor’s leg, blinked. As everyone filed back into the bus, Taylor found it quite
hard to move with the small girl stuck on him like that.
	“Um, help?” he called out. “Help?” 
	Karen scrambled down the ladder and rushed over to the tangled mess of
Taylor-and-Briana. “I’ll get her off...don’t worry...Briana...let go...now...” She grabbed Briana’s
fingers and pried them off of Taylor’s pants, then pulled her arms behind her back.
	“Thanks,” Taylor smiled. Briana screeched. 
	“WHERE’S TAYBEAR?”

~PART FIVE: Fini~

	Briana looked about frantically, wrenching herself out of Karen’s death-grip. She spied
Henri over at the taxi. He had taken his pocketnife out and was holding it over Taybear’s fluffy
little back menacingly. “NOOOOOO!” Braina rushed to the taxi, but she was too late; she
turned away at the sight of the knife digging into Taybear’s polyester stuffing. His fluffy guts
spilled onto the hood of the car and onto the sidewalk. Henri just stood there with the knife.
“Mais... ou est la weed?” He picked up a handful of stuffing, pulled it apart, and walked away
in dissapointment. 
	Seeing no point in staying in the wretched place any longer, Briana trudged back to
where Karen had managed to strike up a highly interesting conversation with Taylor about the
high level of drug trafficking in Paris. “Time to go,” Briana sighed, grabbing Karen’s hand and
pulling her away. 
	“But wait!” Karen whined. “Bye-eee...Taylor...bye-eee...” She waved, slightly
intoxicated-looking.
	“Bye-eee...” he waved.
	Briana shook her head in disgust as she led Karen down Madeleine Street.