My Words Are a Matter of Pride

"JINGLE BELLS HOLLY SMELLS, TADEM LAID AN EGG!" Harlee sung in the elavator on the way down to the lobby of their hotel. They were leaving; going to the airport to fly to their next destination. Holly and Tadem giggled behind her and the hotel worker who had their belongings gave her weird looks. The doors opened and the worker, whose name tag read 'Thomas', looked relieved as he wheeled the suitcases out of the elevator. The girls followed him just as Avara came out of the stairwell, puffing like crazy.

"Damn it," she said.

Holly poked her tongue out at her and said "I told you so." Avara handed her a five dollar note. They had a bet. Holly took the elevator and Avara took the stairs and whoever took longer to get to the lobby had to give the winner five dollars.

Bradie saw them from where he was standing by the reception desk and walked over. "So are we in the clear?" he asked, "We won't have any American bands follow us to Melbourne?" Tadem shook her head.

"They don't leave until tomorrow, and I'm not sure where they're going." Bradie sighed in releif. He was all for defending Holly and would fight for her, but he didn't want it to come to that. He wasn't that kind of person.

"What happened to you?" Shaun asked Avara as he walked over to the group.

"Ran. Stairs. Bet. Holly." Avara said every word breathlessy and Shaun handed her the bottle of water he was holding. She shook her head. "Cooties."

"I do NOT have cooties!" Shaun whined, as if they had been over this several times that day. Which they had.

"You do," Avara argued, "Holly told me."

"Well Holly is lying!"

"Are you calling me a liar?" Holly yelled.

"No, I am calling you a teller of untruths," Shaun disagreed, "You liar."

"Someone's in a crabby mood," Tadem observed.

"I didn't get a lot of sleep last night," Shaun yawned.

"You need a bedtime, Mr D," Harlee told him.

"Rockstars don't have bedtimes," he disagreed.

"Well, when do they sleep?" Avara asked.

"When they're done rocking."

"We finished rocking at like seven o'clock," Bradie pointed out.

"You may have," Shaun said matter-of-factly, "But I rocked out all night."

"To what audience?" Avara asked.

"Mr D, I think your cooties are severely clouding your sense of reality," Holly shook her head.

"SHAUN! BRADIE! AVARA! HOLLY! HARLEE! TADEM! IF YOU LOT DON'T GET THE FUCK OVER HERE AND GET IN THIS FUCKING TAXI I WILL GO TO MELBOURNE BY MYSELF. WITHOUT YOU GUYS!" Andy yelled from just outside of the hotel's opened doors.

"Does he realise he can't put on a show without the rest of his band?" Holly asked with raised eyebrows. She looked around at everyone and grinned. "I always knew you picked a dud as your bassist Mr D," she giggled, before she walked off after Andy shrieking; "Oh Andrew!"

A few hours later, the two bands were sitting around a large table at a fancy resteraunt deciding what they wanted from the menu's.

"I still don't understand why we had to come to a fancy place and get all dressed up," Andy whined, "I mean, you wouldn't even let us wear jeans for fuck sake!"

"Now, now Andrew, mind your manners," Harlee giggled.

"Actually dick-nose, we wanted to get dressed up and wear our heel-highs," Holly told him, not looking away from her menu. "You could have stayed at the hotel, I DID offer to pour some doggy food into a doggy dish and leave it on the floor in the bathroom for you but noooo, mister snappy-pants wants to eat with the rest of us like people do." Avara burst out laughing, and almost choked on her water.

"Shut up dickhead," Andy snapped, "your lip-ring doesn't even look good!"

"Says you, who only did it because I had one!"

"Why the fuck would I copy you?"

"Because secretly you want in my pants like Tadem wants in them."

"Yeah," Tadem said, not really paying attention to the conversation.

"Fuck off, I'd rather do Shaun up the bum than you." Shaun looked apalled and shoved Andy off his chair.

"Fuck off dickhead."

"Hey Bradie, what do you call a blind dinosaur?"

"I don't know Harlee, what do you call a blind dinosaur?"

"Do you think he saw us?" Bradie pretended to laugh for Harlee's sake.

"That's funny Harlee." She beamed.

"I got it off the kiddie menu," she said.

"Why are you looking at the kiddie menu Harls?" Tadem asked.

"I want some nuggets."

"You can't," Andy told her as he got comfortable in his chair again, "Your too old."

"Your such a party pooper," Harlee frowned.

After dinner, the two bands piled into two taxes which took them back to their hotel. Avara hopped out of the taxi she was sharing with Andy, Bradie and Harlee and skipped into the hotel lobby, before stopping abruptly. Holly, who had some how appeared behind her, rammed into the back of her.

"Dude!" She shouted.

"Watch where you're going!" Avara shouted back. All the yelling had got the attention of what had stopped Avara in the first place. Caleb Turman, who was standing at the reception desk, rolled his eyes, while Jonathan Cook, also at the reception desk, screamed.

"We can't stay here," he said, "I'm allergic to this hotel."

"Don't be stupid," said Kent, also at the desk. "We can't stay anywhere else. The other hotels' are fully booked." Harlee, not as affected by Forever The Sickest Kids' appearance as Avara or Holly, walked over to them.

"I thought you guys weren't leaving until later," she said.

"Or Melbourne show got sold out," Kent told her as he paid for their hotel rooms, "So we added in another one." She nodded and went back to her friends, who were huddling in a corner, to give them this information.

"Why can't they just go and fall into a volcano?" Avara mumbled.



That night, close to midnight, Holly, Avara, Harlee and Tadem were bored. Shaun suggested that they play spies, until Harlee pointed out that there was no one to spy on. They were all at their show.

"Where are Andy and Bradie?" Tadem asked.

"In our hotel room," Shaun said, "I think." Tadem got up, pulling Holly with her.

"Then lets go and spy on them," she grinned. Avara jumped up in excitement and Harlee got up because she had notihng better to do. Shaun got up because he didn't want to be alone. Together, the five of them crept out of Kill Barbie's hotel room and took various creepy positions by Short Stack's hotel room door. After about ten minutes, nothing interesting happened. Avara was bored again.

"Andy," she whispered through the crack under the door.

"Did you hear that?" They heard him ask Bradie.

"Yeah," whispered Bradie, "It's some kind of creepy voice.

"Bradie," Avara whispered.

"Where is it coming from?" Andy asked from behind the door.

"Outside?" Bradie asked. They five spys heard footsteps approaching and ran in different directions, starting a hotel-wide game of hide and seek.

Holly ran around a corner and hid in a broom closet. She was puffing from running so fast, and didn't realise that there was someone else in the closet with her, puffing just as hard.

"Oh my gosh," she muttered when she heard it. Holly stood up and pushed the light button to 'on', and slowly turned around. It was Andy. "How the hell did you get here so fast?" She exclaimed.

"I don't know," he said sarcastically," I ran maybe?" Holly ignored his sarcasm, and nodded her head slowly.

"Great minds think a lot," she told him.

"Alike," he corrected her.

"Alike," she reapeated. "I think Im gonna chance running back to my room..." She trailed off, and opened the door. After looking both ways to see if anyone was coming, she ran off towards the hotel room she shared with the other Kill Barbie members.

Once inside the room, the bands phone started ringing, so she went over and answered it.

"Hello? Holly speaking."

"Holly it's Jake, I was-"

"Jake!" Holly screamed, "Jake how I've missed you and your american accent!" She heard him chuckle, and then she went silent, so he could tell her what he wanted.

"I was wondering if you guys had found a manager yet? If you haven't, I'd like to take the job." Holly grinned. She missed Jake, and so had the other girls.

"We want you back soooo bad Jakey," she told him, "we've missed you like a fat kid would miss his cake while on fat-camp." Jake laughed.

"Nice analogy Holly."

"I know right."

"Well, I gotta go. Somebody's coming over. But I'll be in touch." They said their goodbyes and Holly rushed around the hotel trying to find her band to tell them the good news.