Right Place, Right Time

No Control

I think my jaw must have dropped open, and I just stood there, looking at him.

"Harry?"

"Can I come in?" he asked. "I've just been mobbed."

Dazed, I opened the door and he walked past me in to the staff area. Everyone else was busy out at the front counter, in the party rooms or in the playground itself, so it was just us there, and after I shut the door I turned and stared. Harry Styles was about a foot away from me. Famous, gorgeous, somewhat stressed looking Harry Styles.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"Not really," he said. "I'm used to big crowds of screaming girls, and having to fight my way through mobs, but that was just terrifying. Those girls out there are hysterical. I thought I was going to get ripped to pieces or crushed to death. Somebody even pulled out a chunk of my hair. It was insane."

He held out his hands, which were trembling. "Look, I'm still shaking. Bloody hell."

"But what are you doing in the shopping centre?" I asked. It was hard to get the words out - I was so stunned that I was talking to Harry Styles.

"Niall and I wanted to get some joke party stuff for one of our crew, who is turning 40 today. So we stupidly decided to just call in and buy stuff at the Pound Shop. We thought we'd be in and out so quickly there'd be no fuss but once we were spotted, people just went over the top. It got out of control so quickly. We tried to leave but I got separated from Niall and our bodyguards, and I was almost trampled."

He was pacing up and down as he talked, running his fingers through his hair. He explained that he'd managed to get into the corridor outside without being seen, and opened a door he hoped would be an exit.

"But it turned out to be a utility cupboard, so I've been standing there in among the mops and buckets hoping the panic had died down and wondering what the hell to do. I eventually thought I'd venture out and that's when I saw you come in here."

I couldn't believe it; for once in my life I had been in the right place at the right time. And now here we were, me and Harry Styles standing in the staff area of the Enchanted Forest. Harry as beautiful as ever, albeit slightly frazzled, and me dressed like a demented elf and most probably looking completely gobsmacked.

"To top everything off, I've lost my phone," continued Harry. "It got knocked out of my hand and it has probably been trampled into hundreds of tiny pieces."

He rubbed his hand across his chin as he spoke. "Preston, my bodyguard, will be out there somewhere going nuts because I'm missing, and I can't even ring him."

"Here, I said, reaching in the pocket of my shorts for my phone. "You can use mine."

OK, I told myself. If you're going to be of any help here, you have to stop thinking of him as the famous popstar you've spent the last four years drooling over and just regard as him as a normal guy who's in a bit of a dilemma.

"Thanks but I have no idea what his number is off the top of my head," he said, looking crestfallen.

"You are in a predicament then," I said.

"That's one way of putting it," he said, rubbing his chin.

"OK, there has to be a solution," I said, trying to think things through. "Is there anyone whose number you do know off by heart who would have Preston's number? What about the other 1D guys? What about Niall?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't know anyone's numbers, they're all in my phone."

"Are you sure? You don't know your sister's number? Or your mum's? Would they have Preston's number?"