I've decided that this is probably a god point as any to pause this story.

I have several ideas where the story could go (and some bits have been written), so maybe the story will continue, maybe not. The problem as always is to include some braces....

In the meantime, I'm going to let my brain re-charge, and try and come up with a new story idea or two...

For my part, I would be interested in you continuing

I had been thinking about writing a chapter about Carol on Tom's radio show, following immediately after the gig, but decided against it, would have probably been a bit too repetitive.

I also thought about describing their experiences in the studios, recording "Braces Buddies", and it subsequent release... I have no doubt that it will have shot straight to number one in the charts!

But, because I already wrote it, here's a "standalone chapter" that happens sometime after their gig with Darkest Knights: we already know that CJDL have met with Northern Girls, and want to do a joint tour.... so, there has been a certain amount of planning going on, and it's time to tell the world. Now, in the REAL world, I suspect the Tour Promoter would be running the Press Conference, but we're talking about CJDL here, and we should know by now that they like to be in charge, and do things a bit differently!

==============================

Chapter 85 - The Press Conference


It's several weeks later, and a lot of work has been going on in the background to organise the joint European tour for CJDL and Northern Girls. An agreement has been agreed with the same tour promoter that did their last tour, and whilst the specifics hadn't yet been worked out, they decided that, mainly to stop rumours, they would have a press conference to announce the tour: they could have another one later on to give more specific details.

The press conference was scheduled for 11am on a Tuesday, and as well as inviting the press, they put an invitation out to their fans: with most of them either at work or at school / college, only a dozen or so got in touch, to get invitations.

There were, unsurprisingly, many familiar faces in the press crowd, but they were a little confused about the other group of people there.

"Good morning everyone!" said Paige: she was getting good at being the welcoming face for the group. "I'd especially like to welcome the group over to the left: they are a group of CJDL fans: we thought it would be interesting to get some fans involved for a change! We'll be ready for you in a couple of minutes."

Paige then went over to the group of fans. "Hi guys, nice to see you, I recognise a few of you, we've met before. So, for those of you who have never been to a press conference: it's mainly about getting our message over to THOSE guys, especially the TV guys and the guys from the big papers. However, I know you guys are going to feed this all back into social media, which is why we asked you along too. A few hints: don't interrupt while we do the main 'presentation, then let those guys get their main questions out the way. After that, you guys are VERY welcome to ask questions too... in fact, the girls have suggested that we can do a bit of a special session for you guys after they are done. Everyone ok?"

There were nods and 'yes'es of agreement.

At the front of the room was a long table, longer than might normally be expected for such an event... it had 10 chairs.

Paige stood in front of the table: "Ok, if we're all ready, let's start. By the way, the media will be available to you online, in the normal place." A video started to play on the back 'wall' behind the seats, the first scene showed CJDL performing on TV with Jelly Fish in Korea. Next it showed CJDL on stage: it was taken from the footage Paige had taken at Birmingham and Leicester. Then it had a close up of Jenny, saying 'You know, I really love performing to an audience, I can't wait till our next tour!". The video went to a slide that said 'CJDL', and listed not just the 4 girls, but the other 4 members of the team. Then it zoomed into the name 'Brian Stevens - Manager', who walked onto the stage.

"Good morning everyone, thank you for coming, I hope you find today's announcement to be a bit more interesting than you expected. And as you might have guessed from Jenny's comment there on the video, we're announcing our next tour.... but first, I'd like to start by inviting out the members of CJDL, so Carol, Jenny, Dianne and Linda." The girls came out on stage, and sat down next to Brian, leaving another 5 empty chairs.

"Hi everyone!" said Carol. "Many weeks ago now, we got a call from a band based in Canada: they had just completed a tour of South America and Australia, and whilst they felt it went 'ok', they commented that they felt very 'alone', and a bit out of their depth. They wanted to do a tour of Europe, but they didn't want to repeat their mistake.... so reached out to us, to see how we could help...".

Carol stopped talking, and another video ran, this time showing Northern Girls playing on stage. The name 'Northern Girls' came up on the screen, and listed the four members of the band, plus their 'core team members'.

"Please welcome Northern Girls, and their manager, Andre Peters.." said Brian. The five of them filed in, and sat down.

"I think we should all introduce ourselves.... so, I'm Brian, CJDL's manager..."

"I'm Carol, guitarist and songwriter with CJDL". They went along the row, giving their names, and a few words explaining what they did.

"So, that phone call..." continued Carol. "These guys explained that whilst they wanted to investigate a joint tour with us, they had no idea how it might work. So, a few days later they 'popped over from Canada' to meet us - like you do! - and we played together, and discovered that not only did we like each others music, we all got on well..."

Another bit of video played, taken the day before, of the eight of them playing together in their rehearsal room.

"Since then, Brian, Andre, and a few others have been talking with a tour promoter," continued Carol, "and we are VERY happy to announce that CJDL and Northern Girls will be doing a joint tour of Europe next summer! Taylor, I know you'd like to say something..."

"Good morning everyone!" she said in her gentle Canadian accent. "At first we were a bit daunted at the idea of touring Europe, but we knew that CJDL had already done it, which is why we reached out to them. As Carol said, we had absolutely no idea how it would work, which is why we decided to just visit them. We quickly realised that these four ladies were amazingly easy to get on with, and we tried out a few ideas, and decided we had the basis of a joint tour. The tour will start and end in London, and will cover a total of more than 12 countries, and will take us most of 3 months. Being Canadian, we are of course looking forward to being in France: if nothing else, we'll be able to speak the language!". That comment raised a bit of a laugh from the press.

Brian and Andre took over, and gave more details of the tour, listing the countries they planned to visit, although explaining that the majority of dates were still being finalised.

Paige came back out, standing in front of the table. "I'm sure you have questions you'd like to ask.... yes, yes, lady in red...."

"I'm sure the question everyone wants to know is: is this tour CJDL supported by Northern Girls, or Northern Girls supported by CJDL? Or what?"

"Yes, we were expecting that one," said Jenny. "and you're right, it was one of our early issues. Let me try and explain what we're thinking of doing - although it might change. The shows will be joint shows, we'll be playing our own music individually, we'll probably play a bit of each other's music too. Plus we plan to play together, all eight of us. Actually, let's show you a clip of a brand new song all eight of us were rehearsing yesterday...."

Whilst the sound quality wasn't great, it was certainly good enough to hear the effect of both bands playing together.

Jenny looked over at the small group of fans, who were all smiling. "I can see a few faces over there who approve! So yeah, no main act, no support act, just eight of us playing for - well, however long it ends up being. We have a LOT more work to do between now and then, a lot more music to write, and then rehearse."

"Next question... yes, guy to my right...."

"You mentioned starting and ending in London, can you expand on that?"

Paige looked at the team. "Carol?"

"Well, London is where we live, and we have a lot of fans that live here, don't we? The current plan is to start off at the O2 - we've never actually played there - then come back three months later and end the tour at Wembley Arena, somewhere we know very well! Although I hasten to add that I have no plans to propose marriage to my boyfriend on stage! And I can promise - especially for my sister Rosie - that we'll be playing in Leicester this time!"

"Will you be playing at any of the festivals around Europe during the tour?" was the next question.

"I really hope so," said Linda. "My understanding is that several of the festival dates have been 'ring-fenced', and part of the work that the tour team is working on is getting us to play at them. Personally, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Glastonbury: whilst Carol, Jenny and Dianne played there a couple of years ago as CJD, I've not played there yet!"

"Any more questions... yes, Sarah?"

"Yeah, a bit of an 'off-the-wall' one: I can't help but notice that six of the eight girls from the two groups have braces? Is there something going on here?" At that, all eight girls started to laugh.

"Well, I got braces ages ago!" explained Jenny, "and Carol had them as a kid, but recently needed a bit of 'fine tuning'. However, I think I'll leave it to the four girls over to my left to explain about their braces..."

"Well..." started Taylor. "Um, yeah.... let's just say it's all about girl's unity!". All four of the Northern Girls were giggling. "otherwise... something for another day. Although, I'm just thinking, imagine what it would look like if we could get Linda and Dianne into braces too?"

There were a few more questions, and the main part of the press conference was done, so they turned their attention to their fans.

"Have you guys got any questions you'd like to ask us?"

"Yeah, although I'm not sure if you can do anything: trying to get tickets can be difficult, they sell out so quickly, and the touts always seem to get a lot. Can't you do something for your dedicated fans?"

"You know, it's something we've been discussing," explained Paige, "and you're not the first to comment. What we're thinking we might be able to do, is to do something through our fan club. Over the next few months, we're going to be pushing our official fan club a lot more - there's a few 'backroom' things we need to get sorted first - and we're thinking about reserving a load of tickets for fan club members, or giving fan club members advanced access to the tickets, or something like that. Would that work for you?"

"Yes, it would, I guess I'll need to join the fan club, won't I?"

"So, the fan club isn't doing much right now, it could do with a bit of a boot up it's bum...." said one of the other fans.

"Couldn't agree more." replied Paige, "We rather let things slip there: it was originally run by a couple of volunteers, who just don't have enough time to run it. I've started helping a bit, but we're hoping to have a part-time member of staff to help out soon... at that point we can start to do a lot more for you guys...."

"So, what IS it about the braces then?" asked another of the fans...."

"Taylor?"

"Yeah, ok... so Meg was looking at getting braces, but was a little worried about getting them, what with being in a big band... took her ages to actually say anything to us about it. So we all decided we'd get braces too, although it turned out that Erin actually needed them for real! As I said, I reckon that all of CJDL need to get braced up for the tour too! Hey, I can see that one of you has braces too... what do you reckon?"

The girl smiled: it was clear that she also found them to be slightly awkward. "I can understand Meg, it's a big step to take, although Jenny, you've been really great, not being scared to show off your braces in public. And you had headgear too, that's must have been scary!"

"It was at first. Initially I'd thought about hiding it, but I realised that, if 'those guys'", (she pointed at the press guys were were leaving). "... saw me, they'd make a big deal about it, so I decided to beat them at their own game! It seemed to work pretty well!"

"Yeah, I guess it did. So... ummm... Dianne...  I've noticed your bottom teeth... well, they're not exactly perfect, are they? You don't want to get them fixed?" asked the girl with braces.

Dianne said nothing. "It's a bit of a sore point," explained Carol. "she had quite a lot of braces as a kid, and doesn't like the thought of going through it all again."

"You should, Dianne, it will make your smile so much nicer..."

"It might even make her want to smile a bit more..." added Carol, suddenly realising that maybe it wasn't the most diplomatic things to have said. 100% true, but not diplomatic.

"So, Taylor isn't it? and ... I forgot your name..."

"I'm Kate!" said Kate.

"So, Taylor and Kate, you don't feel it's a bit odd to have braces when you don't need them? And what do your fans say?"

"Well, they were, as I'm sure you know, a bit sore on the cheeks when I first got them, but because the braces weren't trying to move my teeth, there was no other pain from them. My cheeks soon got used to the brackets though. Kate, anything to add?"

"Worst bit for me was explaining to my mum and dad. I mean, piercings are not a problem. Neither is being in a rock band, or being out on tour. Or strange hair-cuts. But braces, braces that you don't actually need.... it kinda weirded them out! But other than the initial issues, heck, I forget I'm wearing them most of the time..." explained Kate.

"Until you have to brush the damn things! I just wish they were removable!" said Taylor

"Agree with you there!" said Carol, "I'm so glad these retainers come out!"

So, the "extended story" continues: this is the actual "Fans Event", it's happening at a mythical cinema that has a screen that gets used for corporate event, so has an adjacent room that can be used for food preparation etc. (maybe they DO exist, I could see a lot of sense!)

===================================

Chapter 101

"Hello everyone, and welcome to you all. I'm Tom Sharpe, I'm sure you'll remember that I'm dating one of the girls in the band. Anyway, I've been volunteered to be your MC for this evening, an evening that I hope you'll all enjoy. You'll notice that on the small tables by your chairs there's some nibbles: they are to keep you going till we give you some rather more substantial food a bit later on. You'll also see there's a small 'drinks menu' there too - there's a choice of beer, lager, cider soft drinks, or tea and coffee: feel free to have a drink, it's all free, but please don't go mad, otherwise you won't enjoy - or remember for that matter - what happens here tonight!" That last comment raised a giggle.

"Whilst there's no need for you to even leave your seats - our 'waitresses' will be coming around to get you what you want - if you need to get up, then it's not a big deal, just don't crowd out the girls when they finally join us! So on to the actual evening: lots of things planned, later on you'll get a chance to 'interact' with the girls up close, and plenty of opportunities for selfies and that sort of thing. Now, you'll see there some bits of paper and pens on your tables: later on, we'll be doing a question and answer session, so if you have a question, it would help us if you write them down. Putting your name on the question is optional, but it would be nice to know who's asking..."

Tom paused for a moment. "So, you might have been wondering why we're in a cinema. Well, we thought we'd like to start by playing you a short film, and that's where I stop talking and introduce two people I'm sure you'll know: Paige and Callum!"

Paige and Callum both came up onto the small stage, with the fans applauding. "Hi everyone!" said Paige, "Thank you all for coming along tonight! I have a feeling you guys are going to love what we've lined up for you all tonight. So, a few months ago, you'll probably remember that, with less than a week's notice, CJDL were asked if they could go over to Korea, to perform on TV with Jelly Fish. And I realised that it could be both fun and interesting to film them while they were there. So, with Callum's help, we got together some cameras: a couple of reasonably good ones, and a few cheaper Go-Pros. I'll be honest, at the time I had no idea what would happen to any video we took...."

"But we quickly realised," said Callum, "that it could easily become the basis of an hour-long documentary of their visit. So Dad - I mean Brian, the band's manager - put out some feelers, and the next thing is we had a call from Andrew Fisher from BD Media Production... so let's introduce you to Andrew!". Another guy came onto the small stage. "Andrew, Brian asked us to send you some of the early footage we had taken: what was your first impressions on seeing it?"

"Hi Callum, hi Paige. Well, yes, my first impressions... probably something like 'Oh, WOW!'" replied Andrew.

"What was it that caught your attention?"

"Everything. First of all, it had a feeling of intimacy, being VERY close to the 4 girls. And not professional... and I need to explain that better, don't I? It seemed that the main footage was recorded mainly by Paige, but you did some too. Neither of you have really had any proper professional camera training, which gave it all an amazingly 'raw' feel to it. Then there was the hand-held stuff from the Go-Pros, recorded by many of the team. Look, we've seen programmes of various pop bands in the past, but they are usually done by experienced cameramen. This was just so different."

"So... " asked Paige, "Did we take enough 'footage' for you to make an hour's program?"

"No." Andrew paused a moment. "Actually the opposite, there was just too much for an hour's program. There was so much good stuff, there was no way we could get rid of it. We had to make four hour-long programs!"

Paige turned to the fans in the audience, and looked at their excited faces. "You guys want to see this, don't you?". A massive shout went up. "Ok, it's good news and bad news time: the BAD news is that we don't have enough time to show you the whole thing... but the good news is that NotFlux are letting us give you guys a premiere showing of Part One: the whole thing will be released in a few weeks...". Another cheer.

"Can I just add in," said Andrew, "that it has been an amazing journey putting this program together. I need to not only thank Paige and Callum for all of their help, but everyone else too: Carol, Jenny, Dianne and Linda have all been very supportive of the whole thing too doing interviews and voice-overs. So, sit back, and enjoy the next 45 minutes as we show you Part One of 'CJDL do Korea'! Oh, and it goes without saying: sorry, but don't try and take any videos!"

The lights dimmed, and for the next 46 minutes the fans were treated to an amazingly intimate view of the band's trip to Korea: their arrival in Seoul, interacting with Jelly Fish, meeting their fans in the park. Practising their dance for being on TV, as well as the TV program itself (they had got the footage from the Korean TV company). Then rehearsing for the festival,  as well as going in to the recording studio. Part one ended with the girls walking onto the stage, just about to perform at the Park Festival on the Saturday.

As the film played, several 'waitresses' were going around, taking people's orders, and bring back their drinks: some were beers, some soft drinks, and even a few teas and coffees.

As the final credits rolled, the fans started to cheer and applaud. Tom went up onto the stage again. "So, what did you all think of THAT then?". There was another big cheer from the fans. "Of course, I didn't go over to Korea with them, so that was the first time I've seen that too.... and I just learnt a few things about Carol I hadn't realised! Good things, I should add. So, Callum, Paige, and Andrew, you need to come out and take a bow!"

"Ok," said Tom as the fans quietened down again, "you all ok for drinks and so on? our 'waitresses' been serving you all ok? In that case, I'd like to introduce a few more members of the CJDL team. Let's start with the most important ones first: Mike and Ben!". The other 2 boyfriends joined Tom on the stage, and Tom spent a few moments having a very quick chat to them. "There's plenty of time to talk to us all later on, so next will you welcome up here, Brian and Lisa: Callum and Jenny's parents, but more importantly, CJDL's managers!"

"Hello everyone!" said Brian. "Shortly after we got back from Korea, Carol got us all together to talk about a load of stuff, and one of the things she mentioned was that she felt that they needed to do a bit more for their fans... you guys.... and that sort of explains a bit about why you all got invited here. I'm not going to say any more, as I know that the girls will be talking to you more about that later. But thank you all for coming along, and have a GREAT evening! And now I believe that it's over to Paige again." 

Paige came back on stage. "So, as I said, we have quite a few bits of fun lined up for you later on. The girls are going to play you some of the new music they're working on. There's a silly quiz later on, and you'll all get a chance to ask them questions, have pictures taken and so on. But first, there's something we need to do!".

At his point, a door at the side opened, and a 'waitress' wheeled in a birthday cake on a trolley. As well as candles on the top, there were also some sparklers on it.

"So, over THERE..." said Paige, pointing at a seat on the second row, "should be a lady called Amy Butcher, and we have been told that it's your birthday today! So, come down and join me....". The girl on the second row looked slightly embarrassed, but came down and joined Paige.

"So, am I right, is it your birthday today?"

"Yes, it is!"

"Oh, good, I'm glad we got that right, I'd have looked a bit stupid otherwise! Ok, so a question for you: I believe that you're a big CJDL fan... what would be a good present to get today?"

"Well, to be honest, just being here is a pretty good present. Although it would be nice to actually meet the girls..."

"Ok. So, I believe that, when you got your invitation for tonight, you were a bit worried it was a bit of a con.... tell me what happened..."

"Well, I sent an email back to the fan club, to check it really was for real, and about 20 minutes later I got a phone call from Carol! She was really nice, and I'd really like to meet her, and the others too."

"Yeah, I'll be honest, I HAVE been wondering where they've got to. But, yeah, when they eventually turn up, I think we can manage that. Of course, we need to sing Happy Birthday to you, don't we? And if they were here, I'm sure the girls would love to sing it to you.". Paige went over to the 'waitress' who had brought the cake in, and was still standing by the trolley. "Um, I don't suppose you could sing 'happy birthday', could you?"

"I could give it a go," said the 'waitress' in a rather rough voice. "Do I get to use the microphone?"

"I suppose so..." said Paige, and passed the microphone to her. The 'waitress' took a breath, and then in an amazingly pure and powerful voice started to sing "Happy birthday to you!".

For the second line, a second voice, one of the other 'waitresses' who had been passing out some drinks, joined in. "Happy birthday to you!". Then a third voice joined the other two voices: "Happy birthday Amy Baker!". Finally, a fourth voice, another waitress, joined in for the last line: "Happy birthday to you!".

It was about halfway though the last line that everyone in the room realised that the four voices were of the voices of the four CJDL members, and the room went wild!

The four 'waitresses' went down to the front, and each gave Amy a hug.

"Oh, my goodness!" said Carol. "Priceless! Absolutely priceless! The last hour has been SUCH fun for us. Yes, we've been here pretty much all the time, we've been bringing your drinks around, and I think only two or maybe three of you worked out who we were - and thank you to them for not letting on! Amy, Happy Birthday!! It's nice to meet you in person at last!". Once more the group of fans went wild.

"Ok, calm down everyone! Look, we're all going to change from being waitresses to being more like pop-stars. We are going to be here for quite a while, you'll have plenty of time to talk to us through the evening, and take selfies and so on. In the meantime, back to Paige, who is going to tell you about the food we have for you. Needless to say, it's Birthday Cake for desert!!!"

While the four girls went out to change, Paige explained about the food, and this time some REAL waitresses brought the food in.

The four girls returned about 10 minutes later, to cheers. They were about to go onto the small stage, when Brian motioned for them to wait, while he and Lisa went on.

"Hi again everyone, I hope you're enjoying things tonight. So, as I said earlier, I'm Brian, this is my wife Lisa: not only are we the band's managers, we're Callum and Jenny's parents. And whilst being a parent has many responsibilities, it also has a few privileges, and one of those is to embarrass your children when they are in their 20s, and become pop stars!! Maybe I should add that the girls have absolutely no idea about what's about to happen.... so, on behalf of Carol's, Linda's and Dianne's parents too, please have a look at this....". The screen lit up, and showed 2 young children playing in a lounge. 'Jenny, aged 6' said the words that popped up. There was cheering and clapping. The video continued, with clips of all the girls, at a variety of ages. The last clips showed three girls, performing on stage, at a 6th form concert, and one of Linda also at a concert, the year later. As the short video ended, everyone clapped.

"I believe it's over to Carol and Jenny now!" said Lisa.

Carol and Jenny went onto the small stage, both hugging Brian and Lisa on the way. "Yup, we had no idea about that, did we, Carol?"

"No, but you DID look cute when you were younger!" said Carol.

"Hey, you saying I'm no longer cute?" said Jenny, to a few laughs. "So, Carol, at that band meeting shortly after we got back from Korea," said Jenny, "you said we needed to do a bit more for our fans? This good enough for you?"

"It's a good start. You know, our fans have been really good to us over the years, even when we were starting out."

"Yeah, you're right! They have been." Jenny smiled. "I can still remember some of the fan letters some of these guys sent us....".

Callum came up onto the stage, holding a certain tattered old shoe box. "I'm guessing about now is a good time to give you these?". While Callum held the box, Jenny opened the lid, and smiled. She took out a letter from the box, and started to read it.

"'Dear Carol, Jenny and Dianne... you are my heroes! I love your music!' Hey, have a look at the signature...." she added, passing it over to Carol.

Carol smiled as, once again, she looked at this letter from so many years ago. "No way... it looks like it's signed by... Amy Baker?". A big cheer went up. "Ok, so maybe we need to come clean with you guys, and to do that, I'd like to introduce Eleanor Rigby, she's the current secretary of the CJDL fan club... Hi Eleanor!"

"Hi, Carol! Hi Jenny!" said Eleanor, when she's got to the stage.

"So, Eleanor, what IS so special about these guys here today?"

"Well, you asked Paige and me to look back at the membership records, and dig out any long-term members, members who were still active. Then we looked to see where they all lived, and apart from a load in London, it turned out there were quite a lot of fans from in and around Birmingham..."

"So, all of you guys have been our fans for quite some time now! And we thought that you guys deserved a very big 'thank you', and that's what tonight is all about: thanking you for supporting us, from way back, in most cases from back before we had our first hit. So, thank you all so very much!" Much cheering.

"Now, Eleanor, we asked you if you could find out who our longest-serving official fan was. How did you get on?"

"Yes, I did manage to find out who she was...."

Carol looked over at Jenny. "I wonder if SHE ever sent us a letter?"

"She MUST have done, a big fan like her!". Of course, the two of them KNEW she had written them a letter, but they wanted to have a bit of fun. Carol picked up a letter from the box, and started to read it: "Dear CJD... nah, the date is FAR too late..."

"Ok, how about THIS one....." asked Jenny. "Nah, still not early enough. Oh, hang on, what's this one... date is pretty early...."

"Oh, come on Jenny, she's not still gonna be a fan!"

"You have NO faith in our fans, do you, Carol? Let me read it out: 'Dear Jenny...' There you go, a fan with good taste!". The fans laughed. "'Dear Jenny, Dianne and Carol. I saw you on that TV program today, I think you guys are great, and I love your singing too!'. And it's signed by....  Fiona Jones."

"Nah, no way is SHE here today!" said Carol. Paige walked up onto the stage, and did a stage whisper in Carol's ear. "No way!!!!". Paige pointed towards the back of the room. "Fiona Jones, is that REALLY you?" asked Carol. At the back of the room was a girl waving her arms, and screaming out loudly.

The reality was that they KNEW she would be there today: it had taken a lot of work to make sure that Fiona was there this evening, and in fact, was a big part of the reason that they had come to Birmingham, rather than somewhere else.

"Fiona, would you please like to come down and join us?" asked Carol. "Now, while Fiona comes down I guess we need to tell you the REAL truth. After we three spent several tearful hours looking through this box of amazing memories, all from people like you guys, we passed the box of fan-mail over to Eleanor and Paige, to see if any of the names actually matched up to people on her membership list: we were quite surprised how many DID match up. But there is something special about Fiona: from what we can work out, not only did she send us that amazing letter, it turns out that's she's our longest-standing, and still active, member of our fan club."

Paige lead Fiona - who quickly calmed down again - onto the stage: she was a girl about the same age as Carol, Jenny and Paige, maybe a year or two younger. "So, Fiona, do you remember writing us this letter?" asked Jenny, showing it to her. A huge smile came to Fiona's face.

"I do, actually, and I'm so amazed that you kept it! Wow!" replied a rather surprised Fiona.

"You might be surprised quite how important this box of old fan-mail is to us. It reminds us why we do what we do. How important people like you are to us... and maybe how important we are to you!" explained Jenny.

"And we couldn't let this go without giving you a very special present, to remind you how important you are to us...." said Carol. Paige came over to the stage, carrying a large bag, which she gave to Jenny.

"I dug this out, it's a present from us to you." explained Jenny. "It's something for you to keep and treasure - now I don't want to EVER see this for sale on eBay! In fact, if things ever get THAT bad, just get in touch, and we'll help you out..... As I said, this is something special for you, to have, to keep, and hopefully to treasure!".

As Jenny held the bag open for her, Fiona looked inside, and smiled.

"Go on, take it out, show everyone.... do you recognise it?". Fiona removed a white stage dress, one of many that CJDL had used on their last tour.

"It looks like one of the dresses that you guys wore on the last tour..." she said.

"Yes, it is, but it's actually rather more special than that," explained Jenny. "It's the dress that I wore for our last performance, the one at Wembley Arena." Suddenly Fiona's face dropped, as she realised the REAL importance of this dress. "It's the dress I was wearing when I proposed to Ben! And I would like you to have it, and look after it for me!"


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Chapter 103


"Ok, so next on our list is a quiz: four of you against the four girls. So, how to select which four of you it will be? We're going to do a simple 'knockout quiz': we'll ask you all questions, and you write your answers on your pads. If you get it wrong, then you're out, and we'll continue till there's just 4 of you left. That make sense? Ok, I'll give you a moment to sort yourselves out."

"Oooh, this is gonna be fun," said Dianne. "Ok, so the first question is: which is my favourite flavour of ice-cream? Is it vanilla, pistachio, chocolate chip or coffee?". She repeated the question. "Ok, let's see your answers! Oooh, quite a selection... well, my favourite flavour of ice-cream is.... pistachio!".

"So, if you didn't say pistachio, then I'm afraid you're out!" said Tom... there were quite a few people with the right answer left. "Ok, Linda, do you have a question?"

"Yes, I do: So, I have 3 phones, one is my 'private band phone', the second is my 'public band phone', and the third one is my 'family and close friends only' phone. My question is simple: what make is my 'family and close friends' phone. Is it an iPhone? A Samsung? An Oppo? or maybe a Xiaomi?" asked Linda.

"Ooh, nice question there, Linda.... lets see how they do!". Tom repeated the question, then gave them time to write their answers. "Ok, Linda, what phone do you use?"

"Well, it USED to be an iPhone 10, but now it's....". She pulled three phones from her pockets, then held up one of them: "it's an iPhone 13 mini! I can see that quite a few of you guessed right!"

Tom counted up the right answers. "Seven of you left.... Carol's turn, I think..."

"Ok, a simple question for you: I have a sister, but how old is she? Is she 4 years older than me? 3 years older? or 2 years older? I'll give you a useless hint: she's my elder sister!". There were two wrong answers, leaving 5 fans, for four places.

"It's getting close. Jenny, you got a question for us?"

"Yes, I do. So, you all know that Callum is my little brother, but I actually have a second, big, brother: what's his name?". Whilst Jenny had often posted stuff about Callum, she tended to be quiet about Mike: he wasn't involved with the band, so deserved to have his privacy. And if Jenny DID post about him, she often just said something like 'big brother visiting today'....

"Oh, nice one Jenny. You know, I know I've met him - once - but I can't remember his name!". The remaining five fans held up their answers: Mike, Mike, Michael, Peter, and Mike.

"Well!" said Jenny, "looks like we have our four... yes, his name is Mike! Sorry there, Julie.."

"Well done the four of you. Ok, a short break, if anyone needs a 'comfort break, or needs a drink or anything, then now's the time. And can you three ladies and one gent come on down, when you're ready!"

----

Next up, they had the fans vs CJDL quiz. The questions mainly related to the band, but the ones Tom asked the girls were actually quite hard ones, about each other, that maybe they didn't know about. There was a certain amount of cheating going on - on both sides - with the other fans calling out answers, and everyone asking each other things too, but that didn't matter, it was about having fun, and the girls sharing a few of their 'secrets'.

After the quiz was another short break, and the girls went on stage to perform.


"We're only going to play ONE song that you will recognise, and that's this one." explained Carol, "In fact, we're going to be singing this one to a backing track, and dancing something that we learnt over in Korea!". Yes, it was 'Roller Skates'.

"So, the next couple are some new ones, both are 'work in progress', we actually played them when we were support for Darkest Knights at the NEC, but we're interested to see what you think" said Linda. They played a couple of their new songs that had been working on, and they went down well.

"Ok, so while Jenny pops off to get changed, we three are going to try to play you something that we're in the middle of working on" explained Carol. "We write songs in different ways: historically, Jenny came up with most of our actual music, and Dianne and I worked on the lyrics. But since Linda joined us, things have changed a bit, as we've been encouraging her to try and write some songs, and this is one that she came up with...."


-----

Paige went onto the small stage. "So, you've all met Mike, Dianne's boyfriend, and you may know that he plays in a small band called 'Three Play'. Let me show you a short clip of them playing...". Callum played a short clip, with audio, of Three Play. "If only they were all here tonight...": at that point, Mike came onto the stage, and 2 others, Dave and Johnny, came and joined him.

"Guys, nice to meet you again! You already know Mike, this is Dave and Johnny. So, are you going to play something for us tonight?" asked Paige.

"Yes, we'd love that!" said Mike. He went and sat at the drums, the other two picked up some guitars. "Callum, I believe you have another clip of us playing that you're going to show?" said Mike. Callum played the first part of the now infamous clip. As the clip ended, Jenny walked onto the stage, wearing that same costume from when she had performed with Three Play: a pink fluffy skirt/top, pink tights, pink choker around her neck, pink shoes with chunky 3-inch heels and bows, her hair held up with a pink bow, pink painted fingernails, plus her old headgear with a pink neckstrap. The fans cheered as they saw her.

"Hi everyone, my name ith Jenny." She said in a very girlie voice with a bit of a put-on lisp. She paused a second, for effect. "Hey, what'th wrong, I'm a girl, and girlth alwayth wear pink, don't they?" she added to a big cheer. "Tho, a while ago, I met a thexy guy called Ben..." She looked over at Ben, smiling. "... who inspired me to listen to some different music, and before I started writing our 'new style' of music, I wrote this. The guys in Three Play helped me sort out the words. It's called 'Personal Heavy Metal'".

Jenny started to play air-guitar. "Erm, I theme to be mithing thomething... hey, Dave, I don't thupose I can borrow that nithe guitar of yourth can I?" she asked in that artificially sweet voice with the lisp. Dave smiled as he passed it over.

"Mind you don't break it" said Dave, "It is my favourite".

Jenny put the guitar on, and started to stroke it. "Oooh, ith th nithe and shiny.... shame itth not pink!". Having passed Jenny his own guitar, Dave picked up Jenny's guitar, which, of course, WAS pink! Jenny strummed the guitar. "Hmm, it will do! Ok, guys... 1, 2, 3, 4..." and they launched into the song, which was noticeably 'rockier' than any of the older CJDL songs, and not that different from some of their new stuff.

As the song ended, everyone clapped. Then Carol, Dianne and Linda came onto the stage, which was by now getting quite crowded. Jenny passed the guitar back to Dave, and went to the piano, Dianne stood next to Mike at the drums, drumsticks in her hands. Linda and Carol picked up their guitars, and all seven of them played a very rocky song.

After the clapping stopped, Carol put down her guitar, and went to the front of the crowded stage. "Let's give Mike, Johhny and Dave, the members of Three Play, another round of applause....". "Now, here's a question for you all: how would you feel if CJDL started playing some music like that? Not looking for answers right now, but it would be fun to hear what you think! Ok, we're going to take a couple of minute break, so a good chance to get some more drinks, or go to the loo. Which leaves just one question: where's my beer?"

After a short break, the four girls went back onto the stage, and played another of their new songs.

"Ok, Linda, want to set the scene for this last one?" suggested Jenny.

"Yes, why not. So, in the last episode of our Korean trip on Notflux, you'll see us in departures at the airport, on the way home. Jenny was getting bored, so went and found a really nice grand piano - and I mean REALLY nice - sat at it, and started to play a few bits. I'm sure we can play you some video....". The video showed Jenny going to the piano, and playing the Beethoven. "Then, after that, she played something rather different, and we're all like 'wow, amazing!'. I actually recognised it straight away, but these two had never heard it before. Anyone here like classical music?" asked Linda. One hand went up. "Ok, how good's your knowledge of classical music?"

"I played piano when I was younger, stuff like Chopin, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky..." replied the girl.

"Ah, in that case you'll probably recognise it then. Jenny, over to you, I think...."

Jenny started to play 'The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy', just like she had several weeks ago at the NEC. "Ever head of 'Bee Bumble and the Stingers'? Or maybe 'ELP'?" asked Jenny. The girl smiled: she knew what they were about to play.

"We've been having some fun with this, we played it over at the NEC and in Leicester when we were supporting Darkest Knights. But we were also working on a rather more fun version, which we played to a small group of fans in Leicester, and you may have seen some videos of what we did. But we've been practising a bit since then..." explained Jenny. "The questi9on is whetherto include it in our next tour..." She leaned over and picked up a whistle on a string, and put it around her neck. Carol put down her guitar, and went over to the drums, where Dianne passed her the drumsticks, then Dianne went and took the bass guitar from Linda. Linda then picked up the lead guitar.

"We ready?" asked Jenny. She started to play 'Nut Rocker' on the piano. After the first verse, she shouted out "Carol, to you...", and Carol took over the rhythm on the drums, then Jenny took over again on the piano. "Linda!" she shouted, and Linda started to play the tune on the guitar, then it was back to Jenny. "Dianne!" was next, and Dianne played it on the bass. "Carol and Linda!" was the next call. Then it was back to Jenny on the piano. Suddenly she stopped playing, put the whistle in her mouth, and blew it loudly. "All change!!!" she shouted, and continued playing the piano. Dianne went back on the drums, where she did a quite stunning drum solo, giving Jenny a chance to let Carol take over the keyboards. Linda then did a great solo on her bass, followed by Jenny on the lead guitar, then Carol on the piano.

Once more, Jenny blew the whistle, and people moved around again, with Jenny back on the piano, along the way people playing solos.

"Everyone!!" was the last shout, with everyone playing together. Finally, Jenny ended the song on her piano. All four girls had huge smiles on their faces. As they took a bow, everyone - including family, boyfriends, and the tech team - were applauding them.

Tom went up onto the stage. "I first heard them play that to their fans in Leicester, but they've been working hard on it since.... so that was... well, even 'WOW' isn't good enough. Nice one ladies, and to answer your ealier question: you DEFINITELY need to put that into your stage show! And I want to play it on the radio too!". The fans agreed, cheering again.

"Thank you, everyone!" said Carol, looking at her three other band members. "I think we all enjoyed doing that, didn't we? It was fun! And Dianne, great drum solo there, best yet!"

"Yeah, I enjoyed that. So thank you Mr Tchaikovsky, and a few others since! But I think we need a quick break now...."

"Yes, another break, then things are going to get a lot more informal" continued Tom. "We'll start doing pictures and selfies, and then I suspect the girls will be willing to chat to you in small groups. And in fact, you're also welcome to come and chat with the rest of us too...."


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Another alternative chapter for you.... we start to see Carl and Kevin interacting more... like the previous posting, the story is a bit "rough" in places, it would have had more work done on it had I gone with this storyline.... It also seems that Kevin's teeth left a bit to be desired!

----------------------------

On the Saturday, Carol went to the shopping centre before lunch, and purely by chance saw Kevin: he was busking for charity. Kevin hadn't spotted her, so Carol kept her distance, and listened to him playing for a while: like at the open mic night, he was both confident, and good, and Carol enjoyed listening to his singing voice. Finally, she got up, and went over to him.

"Well, hello Kevin!"

"Hey, Carol! Fancy seeing you again!"

"So, playing for charity - something special to you?"

"Yes, they helped a friend of mine, and I know they need money right now."

"Looks like you're doing pretty well so far... hey, why don't I join you for a while, see if we can earn them a bit more money!"

"That sounds good to me! I have an idea - why don't we do some CJDL songs?"

"I'm ok with that - might be simpler if I play though..."

"Good plan!". Kevin handed his guitar to Carol, who put it on, and strummed it. Guitars are often a personal thing, but Kevin knew she could trust Carol with his guitar. From Carol's perspective, it did feel a little different from hers, but she didn't let that phase her.

"Ok, I'm sure you know the words for 'Love Roundabout'" suggested Carol as she started to play the song. Just like when they had sung together at the pub, their voices worked nicely together, and by the time they had done another 3 CJDL songs, they had quite a crowd around them.

"Ok, everyone, this isn't about us, it's about raising some money for charity, so put your hands into those deep pockets, and pull out those unwanted ten and twenty pound notes, while Kevin tells you a bit about the charity, and why he's collecting for them!". Carol's enouragement had the desired effect: as Kevin explained about the charity, people were very generous (ok, maybe not the tens and twenties...), putting a load more money into the collecting tin.

"Hey, let's doing 'Blowing in the Wind' like you did last week? Everyone can join in with that one....". Once again, Carol started strumming, and Kevin and Carol led the singing, with the crowd joining in on the chorus.

"Tell you what..." said Carol, "a couple more, then I need a coffee! Anyone got a request that we might know?"

"Do you guys know 'Poker Face'?" asked someone in the crowd.

Carol looked at Kevin, saying "I know the tune, but not all the words, can you get them up on your phone?", then turning back to the crowd "ok, give us a moment to find the words....", and she started strumming. Kevin found the words, and they started to sing....

"Ok, time for a coffee!" said Carol as they finished their last song, which was a Madonna song. "Thank you all so much for donating... don't feel you must stop though!!". As Carol gave Kevin back his guitar, a couple of teenagers stood nearby, looking at Carol. She guessed they were CJDL fans, and while Jenny was SOOO much better at this than she was, she went over to them. "I'm guessing you recognise me?". The girls nodded. "Well, let me introduce you to Kevin, he's nothing to do with CJDL, he's someone I met at a music night at the pub last week, but he's good." Carol took a breath. "Something tells me you'd love to do a selfie with me..."

"Yes, please, would you mind?"

"Not at all, but one condition: when you post it online, also post a picture of this." Carol picked up the card with the charity they were collecting for. The girls first took a picture of the card, then they did selfies with Carol. "And I really think you should do one with Kevin in too... come on, Kevin!"

----

"Hey, I'm sorry if I sort of took over there..." said Carol about a quarter of an hour later. They were sat in a small (non-chain) cafe having coffees and some sandwiches.

"Nah, that was fine - I'd already been playing there for an hour and a half, and I must admit, I'm glad you came along, coz I was thinking about stopping. I usually just play by myself, but I actually enjoyed us singing together!"

"And it raised you a load more money..."

"That too! And it was good fun. You know, Carol, you're nothing like I presumed pop stars like you would be."

"As I said down the pub, normality is good for me. Tell you what, I had more fun singing with you there than I might, had I gone out for the evening. And a lot less hassle."

"You handled those two girls nicely."

"Without our fans, we'd be nobodies. Jenny is really great with her fans, the rest of us are quite reclusive by comparison. Hey, I wonder if they've posted anything yet?" They both spent a minute or two scanning various social media sites.

"Here you go: she posted the one with both of us in, and mentioned your charity.... that should give them a bit more exposure! Anyway, I got some questions for you."

"Go on..."

"Well, the other night you said you work at a supermarket, but would like to be a musician: you serious about wanting to be a musician?"

"Yes and no. The idea is great, but I just worry about what my life would be like. I mean, we all hear about the glamourous side, but I'm guessing there's also a downside to it all?"

"Yeah. I think we're very lucky: Jenny's mum and dad are our managers - and always have been - and they have been very good at making sure we don't get messed around or ripped off. In return, we try not to be stupid, so for example any riders we make when we're working are pretty sensible, that sort of stuff. We also try hard to respect the people who work with us - we know that without them we'd be nothing... I'm thinking about road crew, and all the tech guys in the studios and that sort of stuff. And the fans too, I guess, they are all 'part of the job'. Yeah, there's always the crap.... like hanging around, waiting to go on stage or on on TV , or just all the travelling. And staying in faceless hotels. But we all just come alive when we perform, just like I've seen you do, and that makes it all worthwhile."

"I can understand that. What about things like record deals?"

"That's where having a good manager comes in, someone who has your best interests at heart, and isn't trying to rip you off. We get on well with our record company, but they love us, we keep them in business. I suspect that smaller artists don't get it so easy, maybe they signed up without a manager, and they got ripped off. I'm guessing you don't have a manager?"

"No, and I have no idea how I would go about finding one...".

"Maybe I can help you on that one.... as long as you're serious about making music your life? And it IS your life, you can't just walk away from it when your shift ends... You just saw that with those girls. Ok, here's another question: do you want to be a singer-songwriter, just doing your own stuff, or would you feel ok playing stuff written by other people? I guess I'm asking if you just want to be a performer, or a music creator too."

"Whoa, heavy questions. I really love performing, knowing that the audience are enjoying what I'm playing. I enjoy writing my own stuff, but it's hard. I'm reasonably ok with the music, but I have problems with the lyrics. So I guess I enjoy both bits really".

Carol chuckled. "You sound like you're a bit like Jenny: she's amazing at coming up with the music, but she's just terrible at working out the words to go with it... but she understands that, and let's me and Dianne work on the lyrics. By comparison, I'm not quite so good with the music. Of course, we all love singing, whether it's to a crowd, or in church."

"You guys sing in church? That must be a bit different!"

"Yes, it is, but just as exciting. But we all realised that we've been blessed with an amazing skill, so we use it to earn our living by entertain others, but also use it to thank God for giving us those skills in the first place."

They continued chatting about various things related to music.

"Ok, Kevin, a couple of questions... first of all, what you got planned for the rest of this afternoon?"

"Not a lot... why?"

"Would you like to meet up with our manager, Jenny's dad, if I can arrange it. You can sit and ask him any questions you have..."

"Yes, that would be good."

"Final question: do you have a tune in your head you need some words for? If so, how would you like to have a go working with me to see what we can come up with?".

The final question made Kevin smile (letting Carol once again see his terrible teeth!). "Yes, I'd like that...."

"Ok, let me make a couple of calls....". Carol got her phone out, and made the first call. "Hey, Callum, you at home?.... oh, great... is your dad at home too?..... oh, excellent, I'll call him. In the meantime, any chance you could set up the music room for two of us, vocals and acoustic guitars?.... I'll explain when we see you.... thanks Callum!". Then the next call: "Ah, hi Brian, I don't suppose you're free for a bit this afternoon, are you?...... Oh, good. look, I've met a musician called Kevin, and I think you could give him a lot of good advice, so I was hoping....... yeah, thanks Brian! We're in Croydan at the moment, so we'll be over in what... 45 minutes???...... ok, see you then!"

"I'm guessing Brian is your manager?" asked Kevin.

"Yup, he's Jenny's dad, Callum is Jenny's brother, he's going to get the music room ready for us."
 

They finished their coffees, and Carol followed Kevin back to his home, so he could leave his car there, then Carol drove them both over to Jenny's parent's place. On the way they chatted. There was one thing that Carol wanted to talk to Kevin about. 'The elephant in the room'. (or was it in the car?). Yes, Kevin's teeth.

"Kevin, I'm not sure how to start this conversation, and I'm hoping what I say doesn't offend you, but...."

"What?"

"Your teeth!"

"My teeth?"

"Yes, your teeth. Let me just say it: they are a mess!". Kevin said nothing: he wasn't quite sure what the right response was. "Look, when you're performing, looks are pretty important. Yeah, there's plenty of performers out there whose teeth aren't exactly perfect, but yours are... shit, how do I put it?"

"Pretty terrible?" suggested Kevin.

"Yeah, that will do. How come you never got anything done as a kid?"

"It's a bit of a long story..."

"Ok, you can tell me another day. And I'm guessing that getting them fixed as an adult is pretty low on your budget?"

"Yeah, things like food seem to come first, I'm not exactly highly paid..."

"If you COULD afford it, would you get them fixed?"

"Hell, yeah! But how will I ever afford it? Even if I start to get somewhere with my music, I don't imagine I'll earn a lot to start with."

"No, probably not. Tell you what though, leave it with me... I'm sure I can work something out!"

Whilst Kevin hadn't worried too much about his teeth as a kid (well, for a start, they weren't anywhere near as bad back then), as an adult he had become rather more self-conscious of them. He always tried his best to hide his teeth with his lips, but that wasn't always possible. And he was pretty sure that his bad teeth had lost him at least a couple of potential girlfriends.

As for 'working something out', Carol needed to have a word with Brian about it: she was thinking that, if they took Kevin 'under their wings' so to speak, it might be that the band could sponsor him (maybe even tax deductable!), and if not that, maybe she could afford it herself: Brian would know the state of her and their finanaces.

They stopped talking, so Kevin suggested turning on the radio, which Carol was quite happy with. The DJ was just chatting, then played the next record, an older one which Carol ahd heard before, and quite like: Joan Osborne's 'One of us'. As she listened to it, she had a feeling that it was a song that maybe CJDL should maybe take a look at.


Finally, Carol pulled into the driveway. Jenny's parents lived in a pretty large house: they had bought it a couple of years ago, after the band had their first hit, and the girls had actually put some of their money into the place too, and it became a place where they could all go to, and practice / work on their music together. Plus there were enough bedrooms for them all to stay there when they did so. Very conveniently, out the back there was an 'outhouse' which had been previously modernised, and the girls used it as their 'music room', with the advantage that it was detached from the house, as well as sufficiently far from the neighbours, that the noise from their music didn't annoy anyone.

"Nice place!" said Kevin as Carol turned off the engine. Carol had explained on the way about why it was actually so big.

"So, welcome to CJDL mansions!" said Carol, joking. She rang the bell, but then walked straight in. Moments later, an older lady walked into the hall.

"Hi Carol, always nice to see you, come on in...."

"Hi Lisa, this is Kevin... Kevin, this is Jenny's mum, Lisa...".

"Brian said to expect you, he's in the lounge. I'll assume you'd both like a cuppa?"

"Why not?". Carol led Kevin into the lounge, and introduced Kevin to Brian, then explained how she had met Kevin, and how he was maybe interested in going professional, but needed some advice.

"Tell you what, I have a recording of when we sang together last week...". She got her tablet out, and searched the band's cloud account, where all the recordings on their portable recorders were automatically backed up. "Here we go....". As the song played, Lisa returned with five cups of tea, along with Callum, both of whom listened quietly until the song ended.

"Pretty good!" said Callum, "So, you gonna introduce us?"

"Kevin, this is Callum, Jenny's bother...".

"Hi Kevin, nice to meet you." said Callum shaking his hand. "Music room is set up for you," he addded, turning to Carol. "You need me there?"

"Thanks Callum. Probably not initially, I was thinking we would try working on something new to start with. I can call you if I need you, if that's ok?"

"Sure, I'll probably be playing PUBG up in my room!". Callum was a very typical technical person. When they were on tour, he was their 'go-to' person in the tech crew, and in his spare time, he went and met other bands, and played online games. Oh, and drank beer, but that really goes without saying. Carol quite liked Callum, and to be honest, if they didn't have such an important professional relationship, she might have fancied him.

Carol explained to everyone that she felt that Kevin probably had enough potential to go professional, but really needed to understand what was involved. "I'm thinking that next on the list after being a good enough musician, Kevin needs a manager, to help him on his journey.. so Brian, I was hoping you could share your experience with him.... and maybe.... would you be willing to be his manager?"

Over the next hour or so, all five of them chatted, helping Kevin to understand the realities of being a professional musician. Along the way, Brian offered his services as Kevin's manager.

"Thank you guys so much for that... it's a lot to think about"

"Yes, it is, but at least you now know what you're getting in to, it was a bit of a shock for us at times. So, want to go and 'make some music together'?" asked Carol, smiling at the double entendre.


Carol took Kevin out to the 'Music Room'.

"Oh, cool!" said Kevin as he walked in. Whilst not huge, there was plenty of space for the 4 members of CJDL to work in, and then some. There were several small guitar amplifiers, several electric and acoustic guitars, an electric drum kit, some keyboards, and loads of mics and stands. Over at one side was a desk, which had a multi-channel mixer, a couple of tablets, and a couple of laptops on it, and a printer to the side. There was a big TV on the wall too, with a set of 3 settees in front of it. Over near the desk, Callum had set up 4 mics and a couple of chairs, and had left some headphones over the backs of the chairs.

"We use this place for all sorts of things. Developing our songs. Practising before a tour. Recording demos. We did look at the costs of building a full recording studio, but decided there were better things we could do with the money, but this lets us do pretty much everything else. It's nice and quiet and tidy now, but it gets a bit of a mess when we're rehearsing." She grabbed one of the tablets, along with the small portable recorder, then led Kevin over to the settees.

Whilst Kevin had his guitar with him, Carol went over and grabbed one of the spare ones. Usually when the girls did any serious work here, they brought their own guitars etc with them, but these were some older bits that they left there, specifically for times like this.

"So, what's with the recorder? I saw you had one at the pub the other night too..."

"We leart some time ago to always record ourselves when we're working on something, for several reasons. The main one is that sometimes you're just messing around, and come up with an idea... then later - maybe days later - you try and remember exactly what you did. Sometimes you do something, then later want to play it to someone else - which is of course what I did earlier on. And then there's copyright..."

"Copyright?"

"Yeah, anything we record get thrown up automatically to the cloud, all time and date stamped. That's got us out of at least TWO possibly expensive copyright clashes.... we could prove when we first had our ideas."

"Oh, right, yeah, makes a lot of sense"

"So, I thought we could relax here, strum away, then if we come up with anything, we can go and record it over there... You said you had a couple of songs you were working on.... " said Carol, leaning over to start the recorder.

"Yes, I did....". Kevin started to play a very simple melody, humming as he played.

"Nice... anything specific you're thinking about as you play it?"

"Umm, nothing specific. But feelings of.... well, warmth..."

"Warmth as in temperature, or as in some sort of relationship?"

"Relationship warmth, being with someone..."

"Ok. Any particular words?"

"No, not really..."

"Ok, play it a couple more times, let me soak it in....". Kevin played it through a few more times, as Carol leaned back, with her eyes closed.

"Any ideas?" asked Kevin when he stopped a few minutes later.

"Well, there's 'sitting with you' in there somewhere.... kinda like we are now... play it again, let me grab it on the tablet...". As Kevin played it the next time, the tablet converted the music to musical notation, which Carol then looked at for a while. In the same way that you or I could look at a printed page, and understand what it said, Carol could look at the music on the tablet, and it played in her head.

Carol picked up the guitar she had taken earlier, then strummed it and quickly tuned it. "Let me play it with you this time....". This time, Carol sang 'sitting with you' and a few other words, as they played together. "Again....". This time there were a few more words. She grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote the words down, before she forgot them.

"I'm thinking it's a conversation between two people..." explained Carol. They spent the next couple of hours sitting there, playing the melody, adding more words, changing a few notes her, adding some extra notes there. They were completely immersed in what they were doing. "Ok, one more time, then I need a break...." said Carol.

Once more, they played the tume and sang the words. As they got to the end, they heard clapping from over by the door. Carol looked up, to see Jenny and Ben standing just inside the door.

"It's sounding good...." said Jenny.

"How long have you been there then?"

"Only a few minutes, but long enough to hear that last play through... it's nice! So I'm guessing this is Kevin then?" said Jenny as she and Ben walked over.

"Yes, this is Kevin. Kevin, meet Jenny and Ben". Kevin was quite uprepared for Jenny just turning up, and he was a little awestruck.

"Hi, er.... Jenny... Ben..." said Kevin with a slight smile.

"So what brings you here then?" asked Carol.

"Pure chance, we were out and about, and I just suggested we drop by to see mum and dad. Callum said you met Kevin at an open mic night... sounds fun!"

"Tell you what, it's so nice playing to such a small and appreciative audience! You should come along sometime!". Carol went on to explain how she'd met Kevin, and how she ended up busking with him earlier on.

"Anyway, I need a break... hey, Ben, why don't you have a chat with Kevin, while Jenny and I get us some coffees... or would you prefer a beer?". Both Ben and Kevin said they'd like coffee, so Carol went off with Jenny.

"So, just professional, or is there a personal interest in him too?" asked Jenny once they were out of earshot

"Just professional... for the moment anyway. He's actually nice company, and a reasonable performer too, and I'd like to see if he's up for the challenge of the next step."

"He's fairly good looking too... well, apart from the teeth!"

"Trust YOU to notice THAT!"

"Come on, now I have braces, I notice everyone else's teeth... which reminds me, how's your braces doing?"

"Yeah, I picked it up last week, and I'm wearing it every night, plus a bit more when I'm at home. Look, about Kevin, and his teeth.. yes, his teeth are pretty bad... and if things work out, I was wondering if maybe we could all sort-of 'sponsor' him for getting braces?"

"I guess between four of us it wouldn't cost us too much, so yeah, worth discussing". By now, they were in the small kitchen next to the music room, filling up the kettle. "So, I'm guessing you're having a go at writing something together?"

"Yeah, that's the idea. Seems he's a bit like you: better at the music than the words... so I'm trying to come up with some lyrics. It amazingly hard when you try writing with someone you don't know. I know your sort of music well, and it's relatively easy. It was quite a bit harder the other week with Linda, but at least we have a certain amount of 'commonality', but I know so little about Kevin's musical roots..."

"But I'm guessing that hard means interesting too?"

"Oh, yeah, definitely"

"Well, I hope you're not planning on abandoning the the three of us?" asked Jenny with a big smile. They made the coffes, and took them back to the Music Room. Having put the coffees down, Jenny went over and grabbed another acoustic guitar, quickly tuned it, and passed it to Ben, then grabbed the one that Carol had been using.

"Come on, Ben, you have to perform to an audience at SOME point!" said Jenny. "I've been tutoring Ben a bit, and we have a song we can sing together.."

"Oh, excellent! Nice one, Ben! Let's hear it then...".

Jenny and Ben sat down on the settee, guitars in hand: it was very clear that Ben was a bit nervous. Playing to Carol wasn't so bad, but he hardly knew Kevin. He strummed the guitar a couple of times. "Ready Ben? One... two... three...." Ben and Jenny started to play together, then started to sing a simple duet: it wasn't anything that Carol recognised, so she guessed it was one that they had written together.

"Tell you what," said Carol when they finished, "you should feel proud of yourself, Ben, that was very good! You ought to come with Jenny to the Open Mic Night sometime and sing it! You're better than some of the people who perform there!"

They all chatted a while, Jenny and Carol played one of the songs Carol had been doing the words for, then Jenny and Ben left, leaving Carol and Kevin to work on their song a bit more.

On the drive back to Kevin's, Carol asked him when he was working that week. "Ok, so you're not working on Monday: would you like to come to my place, and work on that song a bit more?". Carol had decided that she could trust Kevin knowing where she lived. "Tell you what, come over for lunch, and we can spend the afternoon working on it..."

====

Now that Carol had the melody in her head, as well as a copy of the actual music, she was able to spend some time on the Sunday working on the lyrics. That was the way of writing: sometimes you needed to be with someone else, other times it worked better when you were by yourself.

On the Monday, after lunch, Carol played Kevin what she'd done. "


====
 

<Call other girls, tell them about Kevin and braces....>
 


"Ok, so before we go, I have a question for you all." said Carol. The four girls were having one of their regular online chats, catching up on any gossip, but more importantly updating each other on the various bits of music each was working on. Oh, yeah, coordinating diaries to, but that's pretty boring! "By now you all know that I'm working with a guy called Kevin, and whilst he's a nice guy, plays and sings well, and seems to be able to write tunes, his teeth rather let him down".

"Yeah, I'll vouch for that!" said Jenny. Jenny explained that she and Ben had dropped by her parents, and had met Kevin, as well as hear him sing. "You thought my teeth were bad...."

"Yes, we met him when we went to that Open Mic night, didn't we?" added Linda. "He was probably the best singer there... well, apart from us, of course! But yeah, he definitely has a problem with his teeth"

"So, if he's going to get anywhere, his teeth need to look a lot better than they are, so he's gonna need to get braces. The problem is he works at a supermarket, so he ain't going to afford to get braces himself any time soon. So, how would we all feel about sponsoring him, as a group? I had a word with Brian, and he reckons it would be tax deductible, so that would drop the cost to us quite a bit."

"I'm definitely up for it!" said Jenny.

"Fine by me! It's always nice to be able to use our money to do something good." said Linda, "what do you think, Dianne?"

"Go for it. I mean, even if it's as much as, say, 4 grand, that's only a thousand each."

"Ok, thank you all! I think Kevin will be getting a bit of a surprise, he has no idea I've been planning this."

Now, going back to the very start of the story, Linda was visiting Carol, and they went to the pub, and depending on which Storyverse you're reading, either Carol, or Carol and Linda went to the open mic evening. This is yet another storyverse beginning: on that first pub visit, they maybe spotted a poster, advertising a Karaoke evening?

=======================

After dinner, Carol and Linda walked the 5 minutes to a local pub, and had a couple of quiet drinks. While they were there, Carol spotted that the pub was running a charity karaoke evening, in aid of a local charity, in a couple of evenings time.

"Hey Linda, I have an idea....", and Carol explained her idea. "So, you up for it?"

"Why not, it could be a bit of fun, plus it could raise quite a bit of money for the charity".

Carol went over to the bar. "Excuse me, is the boss around by any chance?"

"Yeah, he is. What's it about?"

"Well, I have an idea for the Karaoke evening, I reckon we can help you guys raise a load more money"

"Ok... let me go get him...". The barmaid disappeared, and a minute later a guy, in his late 30s or 40s, came over to Carol.

"Hi, I'm the landlord, Jim. Sarah said you wanted to talk about the karaoke evening?"

"Yeah, I'm Carol. Me and my friend Linda have an idea that could raise you a load more money. Can you spare a few minutes to chat?"

"Yeah, ok. Always interested in that, it's a charity that's actually close to my heart". As Carol led him over to their table, he explained that the charity had helped his son a few years before. They sat down.

"From the way you've reacted so far, I'm guessing you have no idea who we are?"

"You'd be right on that!"

"Ok, let's try this: have you ever heard of CJDL, the girl band?"

"Yeah, who hasn't!"

"Well, I'm Carol, the 'C' of CJDL, and this is Linda, she's the 'L'". Jim looked at them, not quite sure whether to believe them or not. "Ok, let's try this....": Carol opened up her phone, and found some selfies and videos she had taken while on tour, specifically showing her on stage / backstage at some venue. "This was me, onstage, I don't remember if it was Birmingham or Leicester....". She showed the phone to Jim, and flicked through a few more pictures. "Ah, yeah, that's Jenny....". By this point, it seemed that Jim believed her. Rather surprised that a couple of the girls from a big girl band would be at his pub, but he believed her.

"So, Carol, nice to meet you! What's your idea?"

"We were thinking that we could come along to the Karaoke evening, and charge people to sing with us. I was thinking maybe 10 or 15 quid a time. I'm sure plenty of punters would be up for that, and we could raise you quite a bit of money". A big smile came to Jim's face.

"Yes, I do like that idea! And definitely 15 quid, if not even 20! I could see quite a few people would pay that much to sing with you! I'm guessing that there's not actually a lot we need to do to make it happen, is there?"

"Well, we may need a couple more microphones... I'm thinking that if a couple of punters want to sing with both of us... but apart from that, I guess we just need to turn up!"

"I'm sure the guy who runs the Karaoke can do the extra mics, I'll let him know. And hey, thanks for offering to do this, it's gonna raise us a load more money. Nice to meet you both...  and see you on Wednesday!"


========================

It's 2 days later, the day of the Karaoke evening. Earlier on they had driven over to Jenny's parent's - the band's managers - and collected their CJDL on-stage dresses. While they were there, they took the opportunity to have a word with Jenny's mum and dad, and Callum too. They were pleased to hear that Carol and Linda were having a go at writing some music together. From a manager's perspective, they were lucky, all four of the girls worked well together, and seemed very able to write enough songs to keep the record company happy.

In fact, the new album, with their new style of music, was selling far better than anyone had imagined, which gave the band a lot of flexibility to do what they wanted.... and at the moment, for Jenny, that meant being able to have some quality Jenny and Ben time together. And for Carol and Linda, it meant they could just hang out together and try playing together.

"Hey, Callum, why don't you come along tonight?" suggested Linda.

"It sounds like it could be fun, but unfortunately I'm meeting up with a few friends"

As the pub did food, the two girls decided to have dinner there - a good choice as it turned out. Then the landlord let them use his lounge, upstairs, to change into their stage outfits, and do their hair and makeup. When they came down again, they looked like members of a pop group, rather than just two girls.

While they had been getting ready, quite a lot more customers had arrived, ready for the charity karaoke evening. Carol and Linda want over and introduced themselves to Dave, who ran the karaoke. He had spoken with Jim, the landlord, and had come prepared with 3 radio mics and 2 wired mics.

"Can you play stuff of a USB stick?" Carol asked Dave - he said he could. "Please, no copying.... but this is a load of our backing music. We thought we might go on and start with 'Life is good', then explain what's happening."

Of course, several people had seen the girls in their costumes, and wondered what was going on. They found out a few minutes later when they went on stage and sang their song.

"Hi, I'm Carol.... Jenny is somewhere with Ben, Diane's not here either, but this is Linda, and we are half of CJDL!". The confused audience clapped. 'You are probably wondering what the hell we are doing here tonight. Well, the other night, we came here for a drink, and saw there was a Charity Karaoke happening tonight, and we decided that we could help Jim raise a bit more money for his charity.... so, this is the plan: if you'd like to come up here and sing, then it's 3 quid in the kitty. However, how would you like to sing with a member of CJDL? For 15 quid, you can sing with me or Linda, and for 20 quid, you can sing with BOTH of us! Just let Dave here know what you want to do, and if you need to pay by card, just have a word over at the bar!"

"And don't be scared if you think your singing isn't good enough.... we don't care, we just want your money!!" added Linda. "Oh, and we're up for singing anything, not just our own songs.... Hey, tell you what, is Jim the landlord around? I'll put in twenty if he joins us up here right now and sings with us!"

Jim went over and joined the two girls on the small stage. "I'd like to thank Carol and Linda for suggesting this and coming along tonight... so let's raise a load of money! So, what am I singing with you two then?"

"Oh, you'd better choose, you don't know any of our stuff, do you?" said Carol with a big smile.

This next story segment was timed to happen immediately after CJDL got back from Korea....

-------------------------------------


"Hey, Carol, you got anything happening Sunday evening?"

"No, apart from maybe Tom. Why?"

"The minister from my church just called. Several of the church band are away, so they were supposed to have a visiting band, but they can't make it now...."

"So he was wondering if we could step in? Am I right?"

"Absolutely. What do you think?"

"Oh, come on, Jenny, you know the answer is 'yes'! We've been given a great gift, and being able to use it in church is ten times more important that playing at Wembley! What we playing? I'm hoping a few of the songs you were given will be in there. Plus I guess we should rehearse."

"Not sure yet, but yeah. And I was thinking we could go and rehearse at the church in the afternoon."


----

They had rehearsed the songs in the afternoon, and it was now the Sunday evening service. They played a couple of well known worship songs as people arrived. Jenny recognised one face as she came in and sat down: Suzi. It took Suzi a moment to realise who it was that was playing, then she smiled and waved. Jenny smiled back.

So, a quick reminder: Suzi and Jenny know each other from church, although Suzi never made the connection... until when Jenny got her braces, and they met by chance, and had their sandwiches together in the park. The next day Suzi brought some friends from college to the park, where they met Jenny  (the pop star!): the first ever meeting of 'Jenny's Super Fans'!

With them all having now left college, Jenny wondered what they were all up to. Ok, so she knew what ONE of them was up to: she was working for CJDL... Paige was one of those 'Super Fans'.

The band finished their song, and stopped playing for the moment. Philip, the church's minister came to the front.

"Good evening everyone! If you remember, we were supposed to have Dave Johnson's group playing for us today, but they can't make it, so very kindly Jenny offered to step in. Jenny, maybe you'd like to introduce the band?"

"Hi everyone! I'm Jenny, I often play piano and sing here, but I've been away the last few weeks. This is Carol, that's Linda, and on the drums it's Dianne. Yes, we're all in a well known band, but that is of no importance, because today we are here simply to worship our God, who gave us our gifts!"

"Thank you, Jenny, and Amen to that!". The minister spent a couple more minutes talking, then passed things over to the girls.

"We have a mix of songs to sing today. Some are old favourites, others are songs that were given to me by God, and that we've been singing for a while now... so please all stand, and we'll start with 'Praise God'!" As the four girls played, they sang, leading the congregation... and enjoying every moment!

After six songs, they stopped, and Philip, the minister, gave his talk, then the girls played 2 more worship songs that everyone sang to.
 
"Please sit down" said Philip. "Ladies, I believe you have something special for us?"

"Yes, we do." replied Carol. "So, we recently had a trip to Korea: it was a long overnight flight, and one of us" - she pointed at Jenny - " was having trouble sleeping. We're up at about 38,000 feet, which some say makes us a little closer to God.... And Jenny was wide awake, working on her computer: she was obviously taking advantage of the 'clean line' she had! She was entering a song that she had just been given. A very different song to the ones we've been singing today. It's an acapella song she was given for us to sing - 'us' as in 'us four' - but we quickly discovered that we are completely unable to sing it without some help from the one who is far mightier than ANY of us."

The four girls went to the front of the stage, held hands and closed their eyes. "Most loving God, today we are in your house to sing this amazing song you have given us. A song we can't sing without you. So, please, come and be with us as we sing this kick-ass song to sing your praises" said Carol.

"By the way," added Linda, "do feel free to clap at the end: not for us, but for the one who gave Jenny this lovely song!"

As always, Jenny started and the other joined in. The acoutics of the church building made the song sound quite amazing. As the song ended, there was silence for a couple of seconds as the echos of their last note died down, then everyone applauded.

"Thank you Lord for giving these ladies such a beautiful song to sing, and thank you ladies for singing it so nicely!" said Philip as he returned to the front.

----

"Hey, Jenny, nice to see you guys again!"

"Hi Suzi! And absolutely great to see you too! So, what you up to, now you've left college?". Jenny and Suzi chatted for a while, then Carol joined them. "Hey, Carol, you remember Suzi?"

"Of course I do, how could I forget that evening at Wembley? So, Suzi, do you guys keep in touch?"

"Occasionally, but I think we're all so busy working!"

"Hmm, maybe we need to organise a 'Jenny's Super Fans' reunion for you all? I'm sure Paige knows how to contact you..." said Carol

"Yeah, of course, Paige is working with you guys now, isn't she? How's she getting on?"

"I get the feeling that she's enjoying every minute of it! But yeah, I think Carol's right, we need to get you guys all together again...."