(The breathing gets harder; even I know that)

It was very quiet around the beach house that mid-January afternoon. Since it was winter, it was far too cold to hang out on the beach. Nothing good was happening in town during this time of the day unless one wanted to spend time talking to the beautiful blonde in charge of the Laundromat. And today wasn't the guys' normal laundry day and they were all out of excuses to hang around the dryers. They also didn't need any groceries for the week so there was no point in going down to see the breathtaking brunette who worked at the check out at the grocery store. And the other buxom blonde working at the pharmacy had caught on a long time ago that they weren't really getting medication for Peter, and Peter was far too shy to let her know that he ha a big crush on her. As well the nearby bakery was closed for remodeling so they couldn't go check out the ravishing red-head who worked there. It also seemed as though all their friends were busy that entire day, so spending any time with them was also out. And since nothing good was on television there was nothing at all for them to do inside except wallow in a sea of boredom.

Peter had left the house after a while to go on a walk, saying that he didn't mind the cold weather. (In fact, he loved it.) He walked around for a while; stopping here and there to talk to certain people he had run into. One time when he had stopped to talk to someone, a flyer on a nearby telephone pole caught his attention. As soon as his friend walked away, Peter snatched up the flyer and read it to himself. Then with the flyer in his hand he ran excitedly all the way back to the house. He burst in through the front door, stopping only to catch his breath. Needless to say, because of this the other three guys had put their attention onto him right away. Before he had fully caught his breath, Peter waved the flyer around in the air for the three of them to see.

"Guys look what I found!"

"Hey, wow, Pete! A piece of paper! Must be your lucky day!" Micky teased

Mike rolled his eyes before walking over to Peter "What's got you so excited? Let me see that."

Peter handed him the flyer and then Mike read it to himself. Mike looked at Peter and then at the other two guys with the biggest smile they had ever seen on his face. (Which in Mike's case, still wasn't that big of a smile.)

"Hey listen to this! It's a flyer advertising a band contest that's coming up in a few weeks! First prize is 400 dollars! Must have all original material… yadda yadda… Sign up by such-n-such date by this time… Guys we haven't worked in a while; this could be a great break for us especially if we win."

By this point, Micky and Davy had come over to the two of them. Micky patted Peter on the back and smiled broadly.

"Hey way to go on finding this flyer, Big Peter!"

Peter grinned. "Best piece of paper I've found in a while, right Micky?"

"I was kidding before but I guess this really is your lucky day, Pete!"

"No." Davy shook his head "It's all of our lucky day."

"That's right. We better get to work on some new tunes for this contest. The ones we've got are great and all, but everyone 'round here has already heard them all."

"Hey good idea, Michael." Peter said while finally taking off his coat. "Let's get a good practice in right now."

"The sooner and more often we practice, the better we'll be by the time this contest rolls around." Mike finished before walking over to the bandstand.

Early the next morning Mike went down to the club where the contest was to be held at and he signed up The Monkees. While he was there he talked a little bit with the man who was in charge of the contest. He had told him all about The Monkees, the music that they did, and that they'd have all new songs for the band contest. The last bit just fell out of his mouth before he had a chance to think about it. That was a move that he regretted right away. Because that now meant that they had to write new songs.

On his way home he thought about all kinds of possible songs he could write for the band. But out of the ideas he got he wasn't sure which ones that he wanted to write, if any of them. As soon as he got home he sat down in a chair on the bandstand, and thought some more about those song ideas. When he picked up his acoustic guitar he began to finger pick at the strings. But as he sat there picking at the guitar strings, none of the song ideas in his head had come out into song form. Or any kind of form for that matter.

After a little bit he just sat there holding onto his guitar and staring off into space. He didn't even notice when the other three guys had entered the room. Seeing that he was zoned out, Micky went up to where Mike was. He stood right by Mike's side, bent down and got as close as he could to his face.

"What'chu thinking about, Mike?!"

Mike jumped so high that he nearly crashed through the roof. He looked at Micky with a frown before shoving him away.

"Get outta here with that mouth, man!"

Micky started laughing "What's the matter, Mike? Jumpy much?"

Mike rolled his eyes "Whatever, Mick." He strummed his guitar a couple times

"So what's bugging you, Michael?" Peter asked, going up to stand by Mike's other side

"Nothing's bugging me." He strummed again

"Are ye sure?" Davy asked "Cause you certainly look like something's bugging you."

"Nothing's bugging me, Davy. Really." One more strum. "I'm just tryin' to think of songs." A couple more strums

Micky went behind his drums and picked up his drumsticks as he sat down. "What songs would those be?"

"Exactly." Mike sighed and then scratched his head "When I went down to sign us up for the band contest, I opened my fool mouth and told the guy that we were going to have all new songs for the contest. So now, ever since I left the place, I have been trying to come up with new songs. But I've got nothing."

"Oh drag." Peter had picked up his bass and began tuning it. "Well we could all help write new material. How many songs do you think we'll need by the contest?"

"At least a full set."

"Why can't we jus' use some of the songs we've already got?" Davy asked, joining them on the bandstand.

"Because, Davy, this guy told me he already knows all of the songs we've played before. And I told him we'd have all new songs. He said he was lookin' forward to it." Mike let out a heavy sigh before setting his guitar down. "We're sunk."

"Don't worry so much." Micky tapped out a small riff on his snare, finishing on a cymbal. "So we write new songs for the contest. We've got a couple weeks to work on them then the third week can be spent on fine-tuning. If they don't turn out the way they should before the contest, no one will know. We could work on them some more afterwards and re-introduce them to the public later on. We've done that sort of thing before with other songs."

Mike sat up straighter "My motor-mouth friend, you are right!" He stood up and grabbed his other guitar, plugging it in. "Let's work on some new pretty tunes!"

That was all the encouragement it took for the other three guys to join Mike in playing a song. As the four of them played, Mike's mind began to wander off onto some of the song ideas he had been thinking about before. What he didn't know was he wasn't the only one who was trying to come up with song ideas while they were playing. After playing a few more songs together they stepped away from the bandstand and then gathered around the couch. It was there where they decided to put their four heads together to bounce ideas off of one another.

A bunch of their ideas didn't seem all that great compared to how they had seemed in their heads. Some ideas were just too atrocious to even write down in order to throw them into a burn pile. Then there were a select few that seemed good enough to turn into actual songs. They must have sat there for two, maybe three hours discussing song ideas but eventually they had come to a point where they could actually start working on a few of them.

Once they had begun to put these few songs down on paper, they were pretty happy with what they had so far. But part way through writing them they all realized at the same time that they were missing something within the new batch of songs. The new songs themselves were just fine but the guys thought that perhaps they were one song short. Mike sat back and stared up at the ceiling for a moment as he tried to think some more. He held his breath for a few seconds before letting it all out slowly. Then after scratching his head, he sat up with an idea.

"I know what we need." He said "What we need is one really great song. Something really upbeat and danceable. Something really catchy, easy to remember. A real show stopper."

"A show stopper?"

"Yeah… You know, usually the audience will remember one or two songs from the entire set the band plays. The show stopper will be the one really great song that everyone will take home with them at the end of the night."

"Hey I know what Mike's saying!" Micky said, smiling "We need a song that will get stuck in people's heads; one that they'll wake up humming the next morning."

"That's exactly what I'm talking about, Mick!"

"Ok sounds great. But 'ow are we going t' write a song like tha'?"

Peter shrugged a little "Couldn't be too hard, Davy. The Beatles do it all the time."

"But Petah we're not the bloody Beatles."

"No." Micky grinned slyly "We're The Monkees. And with this show stopper song we're going to write, we'll be right up there with The Beatles."

Mike grinned a little, nearly laughing over Micky's remark. "I don't know about that. But what we write will be good; I know that much."

"What I want to know now is, what type of song should it be and which one of us is going to actually write it?" Peter asked

They looked at Peter momentarily before growing silent. The silence, however, was very short-lived.

"Well Micky's songs are kind of weird." Davy said before Micky shot him a look.

"And Pete's songs always turn out too folkey-sounding." Micky looked at Peter with a touch of apology "Not that there's anything wrong with folk music."

"Davy only knows how to sing songs that are written for him. So his writing skills won't be much use to us." Said Peter before receiving a glare from Davy.

"Well then I suppose that leaves me to write the song. Only fitting since it was my idea." Mike spoke up, looking at the other three. "Now I just need something to write about. Any suggestions?"

"Why don't you write a love song? Y'know something like Eight Days a Week or I Feel Fine or whatever. But, you know, more your style."

Mike shook his head. "I don't know, Mick. A love song? We've already got a buncha love songs. Why do we need another one?"

"You know, Michael. He doesn't have a bad idea there. After all, what's a better subject to write a song about than love?" Peter encouraged.

Davy shrugged his shoulders. "What else would ye write about? Picking up the daily mail? Some guy mowing the lawn on a Sunday aftahnoon?"

"I dunno… I'm not really feeling another love song right now."

Micky lightly nudged Mike in the side. "C'mon Mike. What could we lose with a love song? It could be just the thing that puts us over the top at the contest."

Mike looked at the three of them in a few silent seconds. Despite everything they were saying to sell him on the idea, he just didn't want to write another love song. He had no idea what other type of song that he'd write. And there wasn't anything inside of him right then that screamed to him that this was the type of song he should write. Not only that, but he really didn't want to write one just because they were all three saying to him that he should. He would write a song all right, but not a love song.