Kailey walked up to the McDonalds, hot and sweaty. It was about 90 degrees outside and it was definately noticeable. She pulled open the tall glass door and stepped inside the well air conditioned fast food joint. She looked around her, 'Yep, people definatly think alike.' The place was packed, the lines weren't necessarily long, but the resturant did house an abundance of people. She studied the fellow McDonalds eaters more closely, and soon realized that wherever she looked, be it the booths, on top of the tables and in the play place, she saw Hanson! Well, not really Hanson, but rather Hanson shirts, Hanson hats, Hanson this...Hanson that...

      She sighed a bit heavily, she couldn't understand how she had been suckered into it. Hanson was defiantely NOT her thing. It was however her sister's...and if it weren't for her sister, Meg, she wouldn't be in Tulsa. She wouldn't be in this McDonalds spending her hard earned cash on two Chicken McNugget meals and a Big Mac, and she wouldn't be immersed in Hanson to the point of puking.

      She walked ahead slowly, getting into line, money ready, and mind definately elsewhere. She stared straight ahead, it was of course the only place she could look in order not to see what made her so incredibly sick. As she gazed at the big plastic sign that read 'Triple Thick Milkshakes...They're thrice thick!" She began to hear it. It wasn't at all the ordianry thing that you usually hear in a Mcdonalds resturant. She concentrated on the sign harder, trying to block out the nerve-wracking noises. She studied the large yellow letters and the red afro of Ronald Mcdonald. 'Damn!' she thought to herself.

      She had to look and see what was happeaning. It wasn't every day that you heard waves of whispers in a McDonalds. Who knew, she thought, maybe they were towards her. Before gazing up from the sign she glanced at her white shirt. 'No, nothing there,' she thought. Nonchalantly she whiped her mouth and nose. 'Nothing,' she told herself. 'What are they whispering about?' She quickly drew her head up from her shirt and stared at the two girls in front of her. Sure enough there they were staring directly at her....or were they?? She gazed at them a bit more critically, and realized that they weren't staring at her, but rather at something behind her.

      Well, Kailey really didn't want to make a scene by turning around abruptly to see what the commontion was about. She of course knew, contrary to what many people in the resturant thought, that staring was very rude. 'Hmmm...' she thought to herself. I guess if maybe I pretend to look over their heads, they won't actually think I'm trying to look at them...Well hopefully.' Carefully she turned her head trying desperatly to look like any regular McDonald's person who simply had to see where the ketchup container was.

      "Hmmmppphhh' She sighed. 'There's no one there, at least not anyone important. Why are they all whispering?' She looked again around the resturant, at all the people who were decked out in Hanson. Not one of them took their eyes off the people who stood behind her.

      'God! it feels like I'm in a horror movie or something.' Except for the ever present whispering the entire place was silent. She looked back at the people behind her, this time not bothering to be polite. Two guys stood there. 'That's it?' She thought. 'That's who everyone is staring at?' Geez they're not even that cute.' The line began to move closer to the counter. She took a single step and that's when it happeaned... The wave hit...the wave of people that is. All it took was a single word...one that made Kailey sick evey time she heard it. The one word that her sister seemed to say in every single sentance. And it was the one word that comprised what she was about to be forced to see tonight, with Meg, in 90 degree weather, surrounded by thousands of screaming people. That single word uttered ever so silently was...Hanson.

      She didn't exactly know what had happeaned, but she did know that those two guys that stood behind her, definately weren't behind her any longer. In fact, she wasn't even standing, but was laying sprawled out on the cold tiles of the floor, five feet from where she had stood. She grabbed at the Triple Thick Milkshake sign that had previously held her attention. It now saved her from the incredible mass of people who clawed, scratched and scraped her arms and face. Slowly she pulled herself up, using the metal counter for support. 'What the hell is happeaning?' she thought fiercely. She looked at the mound of people who laid where the two guys had once stood. Not only were tons of girls collapsed on the floor but just as many were encircling them! She couldn't believe it, it was all too much for words!

      Exasperated she hoisted herself onto the counter, scanning the room for an escape route. That's when the doors burst open, four husky men, dressed purely in black rushed in, pursued by at least 10 police men. Screaming erupted from megaphones, firearms stood ready, and the four husky men ran towards the group of insane girls, throwing them off the mound two at a time.

      "ORDER, WE NEED ORDER!!!" the megaphones blared. Kailey covered her ears. 'What's happeaning?' she thought. All she wanted was some chicken nuggets and a hamburger.

      The shots were what interuptted her thoughts abruptly. Her eyes flew to the police, who began firing their weapons at the ceiling, the tables, the walls...at everything. She jumped behind the counter and rolled under it, looking over slightly enough so she could see the scences that lay before her. She gazed at mothers covering their crying children's ears, police holding back screaming teenage girls, and the two guys that had stood behind her in the McDonalds line, not even ten minutes before. The husky men threw the last girl off the mound. She stared at them, they looked absolutely awful. Their shirts were torn, their faces bled, their eyes were half closed with black and blue swelling. Tears filled Kailey's eyes, even at the sight of the boys it still continued, the frantic girls again tried to rush towards them. Police held them back, as two of the built men carried the guys outside. And through it all, the gunfire ceased to stop.

      Through watery eyes Kailey crawled over to the drive-thru window, cautiously, so as to not be caught by a flying bullet, she pulled herself out the small window falling to the black pavement that was her freedom. She hurridly got up, running as fast as she could towards her little Dodge Neon. Reaching the slate blue car; she flung open the door, changed gears of the already running vehicle, and sped off, tears pouring down her face.

      Kailey stretched quietly and carefully threw the fluffly white comforter onto the floor. Still asleep, she slid her cold feet into her bright pink slippers and headed down the staircase of her home to the dining room. She rubbed her eyes nonchalantly and plopped down onto the tall backed chair. Pulling the newpaper towards her, she opened up to the front page. Blankly she stared at it, adjusting her vision to it's black and white letters. That's when she noticed it, it wasn't very hard not to, considering it was on the very first page. She stood up quickly in disbelief, knocking the chair off it's legs.

      "No!" she said to herself. "Th...this can't be right!" She gazed at the colored picture.

      Studying the features she had studied in the resturant three days before. "Oh my God!" She half-screamed, with tears of pain coming to her eyes. Throwing the paper to the floor she ran up the stairs, screaming at the top of her lungs for her sister, with disbelief and exasperation.

      The newspaper now discarded on the ground displayed the pictures of the two guys that stood behind her in the McDonalds...it displayed Hanson. Smiling, they stood, without a care in the world, not seeing any foreshadowing at all....any sign of their fate.

      The pages of the newspaper flipped, as if a great wind blew from the window and delicatly turned the pages itself. This of course was quite impossible, being that their wasn't a single window opened, or in the dining room for that matter. And then it stopped directly on the page that announced the dread of every teen in the nation. It read...

      DEAD. Much to the dismay and despair of many teenage girls around the world, we egret to inform that on March 3, 2000, teen heartthrobs Zachary Walker Hanson and Jordan Taylor Hanson died. Not much information was realeased of the cause but there is reason to suspect that some foul play occured at a local McDonalds near where the boys lived. Ironically enough the group of Hanson was brought down by what created them, they were destroyed by the one thing that made them who they were....and that is their fans. Thus proving the statment made by the boys, saying that, if it "wasn't for [their] fans [we] wouldn't be here...it can all be taken away as quickly as it has come." Information of exact time and again cause, is yet to be released. Funeral services will be held on March 12 (two days before Taylor's brithday) at 1:30 p.m. for both boys. Services will be for family and close friends only. Your condolences are permitted.

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Contact Monroe at 123-4567
or e-mail JustAStory@wgf.com
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Song lyrics by Brian Mcknight