A Good Year to Win a Contest

Chapter Two

“What about school?” I asked my mom on the car ride home.

She sighed. I guessed she knew this would be coming. “Mr. Cowell called and explained everything, they’re going to hold your scholarships for you until the spring semester of next year,” she explained lightly.

“And work?” I was running out of excuses. They would never like me; I can’t actually go with One-freaking-Direction for an entire year!

“I talked to Martha, the manager. She said she could find a replacement until you got back. You’d still have a job, Sweetie.”

“What about my friends? You know I can’t leave Morg here. I’ll die without her!” Morg, short for Morgan, was my best friend. She was also my niece, only two years younger than me. We’d grown up together, and been inseparable since she was six and I was eight years old. I know she’d probably tell me to go, but I don’t think I can actually leave her.

“Maka,” my mom said sternly, using the silly nickname Morg had given me. “You have an extremely valuable opportunity right in front of you! How often do you talk about those boys?”

I pretended she was asking a rhetorical question.

She sighed again. “Okay then, I’ll answer. All the time. You have posters of them covering more of your wall than you do paint. You blare every single one of their songs as loud as you possibly can whenever you get the chance. You saw that documentary of theirs four times in theaters. And I know that you got that job this summer because you wanted tickets to the tour. But now you don’t need to buy them! One Direction is taking you there personally! You should be thrilled!”

When she said it all like that, it was exciting. “But what if they don’t like me?” I asked quietly. I wasn’t sure she even heard me until she reached out and placed a hand on my knee.

“Baby, they’re going to love you. Just be yourself, you’ll have nothing to worry about.” I took a deep breath to steady myself.

“You really think I can do this?”

“Oh, baby, I know you can. You’re the only one standing in your way now.”

“I guess it would be pretty amazing,” I admitted. I thought about all the experiences I’d get to have that I wouldn’t normally even be introduced to. Like visiting another country. I’d travelled within America, mostly to my dad’s in Alabama, but I haven’t ever left the states. The one place I’d ever really wanted to go to was Canada. Unexplainable, but always Canada.

“That’s my girl,” my mom said, steering us into our driveway. My house was small; it only had three bedrooms. One for my mom, one for me, and a spare that doubled as a guest bedroom and an in-home office for my mom. We rarely had guests. Luckily, it had two bathrooms, so I had a lot of privacy. We had everything we needed, just the two of us. It was very peaceful.

An hour later, half of my homework undone still, I turned my phone back on to take a break. As soon as it was loaded up, it began vibrating out of control. “What the hell?” I said to myself. I picked it up, still going off, and tried to sift through the incoming notifications.

I was being followed on twitter by more than 2,000 people. I stared at the number, waiting for it to go back down to my usual count of twenty-two. When it didn’t, I was perplexed. I was in several new mentions too, but I didn’t bother reading them. I checked my Facebook: 906 new friend requests. What is going on? I thought.

That’s when I realized I was getting missed call notifications and more than 30 text messages. Morg must have found out.

Oh God.