"Chicken, Teriyaki sauce, stir-fried rice.....," Nicole began, and soon went through the whole list. Zac's eyes widened.

"You need all that to make chicken?" he asked, appalled.

"I guess so," Nicole said. She began to collect the items that were on the list and drop them into the cart, along side Zac.

Soon they were finished, and Taylor headed the cart to the check-out line. As they were standing there, Isaac came up behind him with a goofy grin on his face, holding something behind his back.

"Look at this," Isaac said, holding up an issue of Seventeen magazine.

"What would intrest me in a teenage girl's magazine?" Taylor asked curiously.

"You picture genius," Isaac said, bluntly pointing to his brother's angelic face, right next to Zac's and his. Taylor's mouth dropped open and he grabbed the magazine from Ike.

"Ohmygosh!" Nicole said, looking over Taylor's shoulder. "That's you guys! You're in Seventeen!"

"All right!" Zac said, standing up in the cart. Nicole found the article about the brothers and read it aloud.

"What they're about:," she read. Hanson is three young brothers from Tulsa who write their own music - a mixture of twangy country, groovy soul, and hip-hop styled scratching. They got their start five years back singing a capella. 'We wanted to do a Boyz II Men type thing,' says Isaac. And they were ambitious enough to make it happen: Before getting signed to Mercury Records, the brothers put out two discs on their own homemade label."

"You guys look so cute!" she said. "This is amazing." They paid for the groceries then, and Nicole added the magazine to her groceries. "Things are really picking up for you guys, huh?" she said. "I mean, your song is on the radio all the time, your video is number one on Mtv, and you have tons of shrieking fans."

"Oh yeah," Zac said, rolling his eyes jokingly. "Gotta love those shrieking fans!"

"We're going to Europe and Asia sometime soon," Taylor said, silencing everyone. "For a month." Nicole's jaw dropped, and she turned to stare at Isaac.

"You're what?" she asked quietly.

"We're, um.....um.....we're going to be in Europe all through July," Isaac said, looking down. "I swear I was going to tell you Nic," he said, grabbing her hand. "I was just waiting for the right time."

"Oh wow," Nicole said as they reached the van. She opened her door and slid inside as Isaac and Taylor loaded the groceries. Zac climbed in the back, behind her, and patted her shoulder.

"It won't be that bad," he told her innocently. "Hey.....maybe you can come with us! Mom can tutor you, and your parents won't have to pay Sasha to do it anymore."

"Zac, I would love to do that," Nicole said. "But my parents would never agree to that."

"Have you asked them?" Zac asked.

"No........," Nicole said, sighing.

"Well then don't give up," Zac said. Then he leaned back in his seat as Isaac climbed into the driver's seat and Taylor sat in the back with Zac. Isaac looked helplessly at Nicole before turning the key in the ignition.

"I can't believe this Ike," she whispered. "I'm going to miss you so much."

"I heard Zac," Isaac said, "and I think it might work. If we can convince our parents to let you go, your parents will probably agree! I mean, you practically grew up with us, and it's not like you're missing quality time with them, since they're never home!"

"Ike," Nicole said, her mouth dropping in awe, "my parents will never go for this. There's no way."

"Nic, don't you want to go with us?" Isaac asked quietly. He turned away from her and maneuvered the van out of the parking lot.

"Of course I do!" she told him. "There's nothing more that I want than to be with you guys, but I just don't see it happening. There's not a chance."

"There's always a chance Nicole," Isaac said, sadly looking out the window. "We have almost two weeks until we leave. We have to work something out."

The four of them were silent for the rest of the ride home, listening to the radio with Zac happily humming along. When they got to Nicole's house, Isaac helped her carry the groceries inside.

"I'm going to drop them off at home and then I'll be back to help you with dinner, okay?" he said.

"Great," Nicole said, smiling weakly. She still couldn't believe that she was going to have to live without him for a month. As he bent down and tenderly kissed her forehead and walked out the door, she wondered how she would survive a month alone. She began to absently unpack the groceries and set them on the counter. Before long, Isaac came back. The two didn't talk very much while concentrating on fixing dinner. When Nicole's parents returned home, the four of them happily sat down to a wonderful dinner, and neither Isaac or Nicole mentioned Europe when her parents asked how the boys' success was coming along. When Isaac went home that night, Nicole went to her room and went over the problem in her head. Little did she know that Isaac, Taylor, and Zac were having a little planning session of their own at home.

"Let's have a surprize party!" Zac cried, turning the television off and facing his brothers with a goofy grin. "With all her friends and us and......and......what else?"

"Thats good Zac," Isaac said, grabbing a notebook. "We could have it at LaserQuest and rent the party room. No chaperones, so it can be fun."

"Won't her parents want to go?" Zac asked.

"Not if we don't tell them," Taylor said, winking mischeviously. Zac considered this, the aspect of having no adults around, and agreed to it.

"The party will probably be better that way," he said.

Isaac got on the phone and called LaserQuest, got an estimate on how much it would cost to have an all-night sleepover for about thirty guys and girls, and bargained with the manager until they reached an agreeable rate.

"Okay," he said, hanging up the phone, "they're going to let us have the party, all-night, thirty people, with five games of Lasertag each and twenty arcade tokens each, for two hundred dollars. Can we get that much by next Friday?"

"I have eighty dollars left from my birthday," Taylor said.

"I've got ninety-five dollars that I was going to buy a new skateboard with," Zac said, "but I'll give it for Nic's party instead."

"Thanks guys," Isaac said. "I've got about a hundred, so I'll give the last twenty-five dollars, and I'll buy her presents from all of us with what's left."

"Now....," Taylor said, "the guest list."