The Long Road

I was woken the next morning by someone shaking me ferociously. My brain seemed to bounce around in my thin, brittle skull as I slowly opened my eyes. I looked up to see Harry, who's eyes were shining brightly.

'What the hell is it Harry? What time is it anyway?' I mumbled, slowly sitting up and looking around for any sign of a watch or clock.

'It's six, and I know you are really tired, but we are all gonna go swimming. If your interested come outside.' And with that Harry slipped past me, wearing a daggy shirt and his board shorts.

I could hear muffled giggling from upstairs and feet slowing walking across floorboards. Suddenly tempted by the idea of a swim to fully wake me up, I climbed out of the warm mattress and pulled out my two piece swimsuit and board shorts from the bottom of my suitcase. I quickly changed into them and padded up the stairs into the hallway. I quickly ran down the hall, out into the lounge room.

I started feeling a little lost, but I eventually found the door that led onto the patio, and I overlooked the backyard. It was very big and beautiful, just like every part of the house, with a nice big pool and a fantastic view of the city of Oakland down below. Everyone had taken off the cover of the pool, and started jumping in, not attempting to keep the noise down. Noticing that it had grown very warm, I ran down the small stairs, down the plant lined walkway and towards the pool. The band roared with pleasure as they saw me coming.

'Guys, you should keep it down! Billie and Adrienne are probably still asleep!' I moaned, cringing at the thought of a grumpy Billie yelling at us and demanding we go straight back to bed. But the band was giggling like mad. I folded my arms and sighed.

'Sometimes, I feel a billion times smarter than you, you know that?' I said, but I had hardly gotten the words out of my mouth when I felt a pair hands push my back and I found myself falling face first into the pool. Everyone was cacking themselves as I emerged from the surface.

'Fuck it's cold!' I screamed, goose bumps popping up onto every available space on my arms and legs. I looked up to see the culprit, and I was surprised to see it was Billie, who was also dressed in board shorts, and was laughing at me from above.

' Oh ha-ha Billie, that was hilarious.' I said in a sarcastic voice. I splashed water at him, but he bombed into the pool and pushed me underwater. We all got into a huge splash fight, laughing our arses off. During the fight I noticed Joey and Adrienne came and joined in. I felt as though someone punched me in the stomach when I saw that Joey was shirtless, but I remembered the promise to myself and tried not to pay too much attention to him.

We had been in the pool for two hours before we all got out, handing around towels and grinning like idiots. We all waited till we were completely dry before going inside.

'Great way to start off the day, having a swim.' Adrienne sighed, resting her head on Billie's shoulder was we walked into the living room. Billie kissed her forehead while I looked away politely. I saw Joey blush at his parent's behaviour, and I felt slightly sorry for him. He probably had to go through with stuff like this all the time. Too bad my mum was annoying enough without a partner!

'By the way, Mike and Tre are gonna come over today for practice.' Billie said casually, sitting down in an armchair and crossing his legs.

'Really?' I suddenly said, my cheeks growing hot with excitement. 'Can we meet up with them?' If meeting Billie Joe was exciting for me, I knew that I just had to meet Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool.

'Yeah of course. They'll want to hear you guys play as well.' Billie replied. 'They'll be coming around in half an hour, so you guys should get dressed.'

The band and I left the room and went back down to the basement to get dressed. Hamish came up behind me and grabbed my shoulders.

'Oh can we please meet them Billie? Can we? Can we?' Hamish said in a high pitched voice, obviously trying to mimic my voice.

I turned around and hit Hamish hard on the arm.

'Oh shut up will you?' I said, my cheeks beginning to burn again.

'Relax! It was just funny the way you said it, that's all.' Hamish said, holding up his hands in defence.

I walked past him and got dressed into some casual clothes. An ancient pair of jeans, green Converses and a v-neck t-shirt was all I needed. I made sure to check my hair in the mirror at least twice before climbing up the stairs. I followed everyone upstairs and waited around in the lounge-room, looking at some books.
I picked up a battered copy of Fun House by the Stooges, curled up on one of the comfy couches read about a quarter of it before I heard a loud knocking on the front door. No one seemed to be around to answer the door, so I dog eared the page I was on and rushed to the front door and opened it.

Standing outside were two men. One was tall, had died blonde hair and had a bass guitar case slung over his shoulder. The other was slightly shorter with heavily gelled hair and hands stuck in the pockets of his leather jacket. I tried not to smile too hard when I realised that it was Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool themselves standing at the door.