Disclaimer: I do not own Camp Rock, Hannah Montana, or any of the characters in them. Nor do I own Taylor Swift. And all that jazz.
Just then the door to Cabin M swung open.
A blonde girl, about an inch or so taller than I was, backed in dragging two bags that were probably bigger than me through the door with her. Her light, curly hair fell to the middle of her back and I could hear her struggling with her luggage. I let out a light laugh, she sounded like I did with my Hannah bags. Mitchie and I quickly jumped from our beds and ran to help her.
"Hey, let me help you with that," I said laughing. She flashed a winning smile at me, and I noticed that she was really pretty. One of those girls everyone was jealous of, tall, skinny, blonde, and completely stunning. I grabbed one of the bags and Mitchie grabbed the other, and between the three of us we got the bags in in no time at all, but not before we were all laughing in a heap on the floor. When we finally all caught our breath after our fit of laughing I gasped out, "I'm Miley."
Mitchie sat up from where she had been rolling on the floor. "Mitchie," she said brightly. She really was a happy and friendly person. I had already begun to love that about her.
The blonde smiled brightly at us. "I'm Taylor," she said. "I'm your new cabin buddy, in case you hadn't noticed." She said laughing again. The three of us got up from the floor of the cabin and quickly walked to sit cross legged on our beds, all facing each other.
"So Taylor, what do you do?" Mitchie asked, earning a weird look from the other two of us before we all bust up laughing for another minute or so. "I mean with music," Mitchie finally got out between helpless giggles. "Like, why are you here at camp?"
Taylor's face brightened and she instantly stopped laughing, and in a very confident tone she said, "I'm a singer. It's my first year here at camp, and if my plan goes accordingly, it will be my last as I will get an audition after my resume lists that I went to Camp Rock." She smiled. Clearly, she had everything planned out. This was a girl who didn't let anything stand in the way of her dreams and her plan, I could tell that already. But I liked her. She was happy and funny, and the three of us girls stayed up all night whispering and laughing. I told her about Mitchie being totally in love with Shane Grey, and her eyes widened at the name. Mitchie threw her pillow at me, hitting me square in the face, which led to another fit of giggles.
"Do you really know Connect 3?" Taylor asked in an excited voice.
"Yeah," Mitchie answered. "I met Shane here at camp last year. We had a bit of a rocky start, but sort of worked things out at final jam." A smile spread over her face as she talked about him. She was totally smitten, and I knew it. "After that we stayed up all night talking out on a canoe ride. That's kind of our thing, canoe rides. Then we swapped phone numbers and he and his brothers flew down to visit me a couple times over the school year, and now we are back at camp. I am so glad they all came back. Shane is like, my best friend, and Nate and Jason are like brothers to me."
I shot in right then, "But of course, Shane isn't like a brother to you, because you looooove him." I taunted her dragging out the word love and drawing a little heart shape in the air.
She threw another pillow at me. "Do not."
Taylor just laughed. "I see you blushing Mitchie. You so do."
"Okay, well maybe just a little," she admitted in a mumble with a wide smile and a blush redder than cherries. Taylor and I Oooo-ed a bit at her before she went on, "But don't say anything about it, please guys. I know he doesn't like me that way, and I don't want to ruin our friendship."
I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing. In between my hysterical giggles I managed to make out, "Really – Mitchie – you –don't –notice – the way – he –looks at – you?"
She just turned cherry red again and stared at her toes before shaking her head. We stayed up until about one in the morning talking about boys and other random girl things and by the time we all finally crashed in our beds we had become instant best friends, but I could still feel my heart missing Lily, of course.
Morning came and we quickly made our way down to the mess hall for breakfast. It was much too early for me, and Mitchie had had to practically drag me out of bed. I had only thrown on some sweats and a t-shirt before throwing my hair up in a messy bun. I probably looked terrible, but at 7 in the morning, it was too early to matter. Mitchie had only thrown on some jeans and a tank top, but her hair lay in a perfect wave around her face leaving her beautiful even right out of bed. Taylor however, had apparently risen even before the early bird Mitchie, and already had her hair done to perfection and the most perfect white dress matched with cowboy boots the world would probably ever see. She looked like something straight out of a fairy tale. Apparently she always had every second of her day planned out, which involved waking up at six. She then went for a half hour jog, came back, took a shower, then would get ready. Breakfast at seven, which was what we were doing now, then at seven thirty she planned to get in at least two hours of vocal practice before the first lessons started at ten. My sleepy brain was in a whirl.
Inside the large room I had just managed to grab a piece of toast when we were greeted by a familiar voice. "Hey Mitchie," said a smiling Shane. He looked pretty sleepy too, and his hair was still sticking up everywhere.
Mitchie let out a giggle. "Morning sleepyhead. I've never seen you out of the bat cave this early."
"Yeah, well someone," He glared at Nate as he spoke, "decided to wake me up early."
But Nate wasn't paying attention. He was just looking at me with that same curious expression in his eyes. I really needed to keep Mr. Way Too Smart from noticing anything more, so I quickly grabbed Taylor by the wrist and dragged her away from where she was picking out the perfect banana to go with her obnoxiously healthy breakfast, and said, "Hey guys, this is our new roommate, Taylor."
She beamed at the boys, and I had to admit, I was shocked by how cool she was around them. Clearly she was so set on being famous one day that meeting famous people was really nothing to her. "Hi," she said offering a hand to them.
The boys just looked at her hand, and then back at each other, and then Jason said happily, "Group hug!" And all three of them quickly hugged her. Clearly, they were not handshake kind of people.
We all made our way to a table with our food. Shane and I were still groggy, but Mitchie was across the table teasing him and giggling softly, which was enough to keep him from falling asleep on his food like I was about to. Taylor was just eating her meal while looking down at her Blackberry, which I had already learned contained her planner and was where her every second was planned out, at least five months in advance. I looked over to Nate and Jason. Jason was whispering quickly to Nate with a goofy grin on his face and kept looking over at Taylor. Nate, however, didn't really seem to be paying much attention, and would only nod absent mindedly because he was too busy looking over at me. When he caught me looking he blushed and stared down at his eggs on the plate in front of him.
Brown came in then, and announced that the lesson schedules were being passed out, and everyone began talking excitedly among themselves. I was much too sleepy to care however, and simply waited until I had mine, and didn't even look at it before setting in on the table, where Mitchie quickly snatched it up. "Lame Miles, you have the whole morning off for private practice. Lucky dancers anyways. I have stage performance at ten though, then after that is lunch, so I guess you will be the one saving us all a table," she said comparing our lesson plans. I could only offer a smile. Little did she know I would be in the same class, in fact, I would be teaching the class, but that was not something to mention. "Then you have dance class, Shane teaches that, we are together for, and then we are separate for the rest of the day. Lame." I grimaced. I should have known saying I was a dancer would separate me from my friends. Though of course, I was a dancer, and a singer, and an actress, I was Hannah Montana for crying out loud. There is a song about me being able to do anything, even be president. Turns out her and Taylor had the exact same schedule, lucky singers. So I would only see my two new friends twice a day, and they would only know about it once a day. This was not a good morning. I let out a groan and got up from the table, mumbling some excuse.
Then, I quickly cut through the woods to the Hannah cabin where I jumped in the shower and quickly prepared to be Hannah Montana. The whole thing took me until 9:30, which could be because I fell asleep a couple times while trying to get ready. I ended up in white skinny jeans, a light blue shirt, and a scarf for a bit more of an effect. It was probably the simplest Hannah outfit yet, but I was dead tired. I made my way over to the cabin where I was to give my lesson and found a chair in the corner. I must have fallen asleep in it, because the next thing I knew, I hear voices whispering, "Do you think we should wake her up?"
"Well we can hardly let her sleep through the whole lesson, can we?"
Then a voice I recognized stepped in, "We most certainly cannot. It's not like I really have time in my day to just be wasting around. I didn't come to camp to watch a superstar sleep." And with that Taylor walked over and shook me gently until my eyes fluttered open.
When I saw the whole class just standing there staring at me, mouths agape, I quickly jumped out of the chair. "Uhhh.. alright guys. Well as you know, I'm Hannah, and this is, uhhh, stage performance lessons. Well on stage, you have to put on a show. That's what the audience wants. As I say in a song of mine, people drive a long way and pay good money to see a show. It's not just all about the singing. It would be great if it was, but it's just not. In fact, that's pretty much exactly what my song Let's Do This is about. It's about putting on a show, and giving people that little something extra that turns talent into a sensation. You may be thinking that I am crazy, but think about it. It doesn't all have to be like I do it, with lights and special effects and back up dancers. Even rock stars know how to put on a show. Look at bands like Paramore, or even go back and look at Elvis, or, shoot, Connect 3. They all have two things in common, they are all famous, and they all have stage presence. So this class is all about finding yours, so that when you get up there at final jam, you really wow the crowd."
I spent the rest of the lesson going around to all the different people and asking them what special talents they could bring to the stage for a little something extra, and had the joy of telling Tess, that simply saying she was a born star, was not a talent. Then, as I let everyone go, I quickly dashed through the woods to the Hannah cabin and tore off the wig and wig cap throwing them on the bed, I ditched the clothes faster than ever before and was running out the door still putting my Miley shoes on. I was hopping as a reached the Mess Hall, but Mitchie and Taylor were getting there at the same time.
"Wow Miley, were you sleeping all morning?" Taylor asked when she saw me.
I was out of breath, but I managed to stutter out nervously, "Pshhh. No. Why?"
"Well, for one your hair is messed up," She stated. Well of course Taylor, that is what happens when you have to wear a wig and keep a second identity. "And secondly your clothes were thrown on very quickly, and you were still putting your shoes on, like you had to rush out of your pajamas so we didn't notice." No, no, no Taylor. You have it all wrong. I wasn't changing out of my pajamas, I was changing out of my always much to noticeable Hannah clothes.
"No, I was uhh…, in my sweats and stuff, for working on my dance, and I had my hair tied back. I just lost track of time. That happens a lot when I get really into dancing. I sort of just get lost in it." I rambled out.
She seemed to accept this, because she nodded and then her and Mitchie and the same time said, "I get that way with my music." The fit of giggles that followed was enough to distract them from the subject.
