Ch. 33 It's Almost Time
To my surprise, Willis was outside knocking on my bedroom door. He didn't have a shirt on.
He quickly turned and saw me. "Kari!"
"Hey Willis, did Tai lock you out?" I questioned.
"Yeah, he wouldn't even let me take my shirt!" he cover himself with his arms.
"He can be pretty mean sometimes. It's just because you're a guy friend of mine, and he likes to pick on people that are younger than him," I explained.
He just stared at me.
"I can get the door open; let's just hope that he isn't changing!" I laughed as I picked the lock.
I slowly opened the door and peeked in.
"All clear," I smiled.
"What would I do without you?" Willis asked.
"Be shirtless," I laughed.
"Very funny," he said as we opened the door all the way.
"I didn't lock him out!" Tai yelled.
"You're talking to your sister," I reminded him.
"I thought it would be funny."
"Real funny, let's do it again some time, but next time, let's lock Willis out of the apartment without his shirt!" Willis said.
"You can't be mean to me, I'm injured," Tai held up his arms to show the wraps.
"I almost forgot," I looked away.
"You know I'll be fine Kari," he said.
"He's right," Willis agreed.
"Anyways, did you call Izzy?" Tai questioned.
"I decided not too. Has Matt called?" I asked.
"No, I don't feel like waiting anymore!" Tai complained.
"I'll call him," I smiled.
"Ok."
"Just, don't lock Willis out, well, at least give him his shirt!" I laughed.
"Oh, go call Matt," Willis frowned.
I walked out of the room.
I grabbed the phone off of the couch and dialed Matt's number.
"Hello?" Matt answered his phone.
"Hey Matt, Tai started to get worried because you haven't called," I said.
"Oh! It must have slipped my mind. I'm glad you remembered," he laughed.
"At least call the others," I told him.
"I will, I will!"
"And something happened to Tai."
"Yeah, Sora called me and told me."
"That's good. Um, we'll meet you there."
"Ok Kari. Talk to you later," Matt said as he hung up his phone.
"Ok, that's all settled," I told myself.
I walked back into my bedroom.
"So, why didn't he call?" Tai asked me.
"He forgot," I smiled.
"Just like Matt to forget about something like this!" he laughed.
"Come on, we better get going," Willis decided.
"Willis is right, we better get going," I agreed.
"You're only saying that because you want to see Davis," Tai thought.
"Kari has Davis on her brain!" Willis laughed.
"Are we going or not!" I demanded.
"We're going," he smiled.
We quickly walked to the concert place. Then, we walked inside and went to the stage room.
"Hello?" I called out as we walked down the rows of chairs.
"Hey guys!" Matt jumped off the stage and walked towards us.
"Hi Matt," Tai said back.
"Is anyone else here?" Willis questioned.
"We're waiting for Mimi and Sora, but they called and told me that they'll be here in a couple of minutes" he told us.
"That's cool. I can't wait to go on! It will be awesome! Just us having a good old time!" Tai laughed as he hit Matt lightly on the shoulder. Tai pulled his arm back and started to hold his wrist. "Oww!"
"You ok? You better keep it easy Tai," I was worried.
"Oh, yeah, I'll be fine. I better fill you in Matt," Tai decided.
"Sora called me yesterday and told me. Nothing like getting hit by a car. Next time, if you see lights, that means run for your life," Matt smiled.
"Sora's awesome, what would I do without her?" Tai questioned.
"Nothing, nothing at all," I replied.
"Well, come on, the others are just talking. We go on in an hour or two, and we need to get warmed up," Matt told us.
"Sounds like a plan," Willis agreed.
We walked to the backstage where we met up with the others.
"Kari, it's about time you got here!" Davis jumped up.
"Hey guys, you ready for tonight?" I questioned.
"I can't wait for it!" Izzy smiled.
"Of course you can't," I told him.
"This is going to be one of the best days," T.K. thought.
"Maybe it will be even magical," I said.
"All we need is Mimi and Sora to get here, then we'll be ready to go," Yolei smiled.
"A little practicing might help," Cody said.
"Or a sound check," Ken agreed.
"Yeah, let's go out there with the microphones not plug in," Matt joked.
"All we have to do is sing real loud," Tai said as he put his hand on my shoulder.
"Tai, what happened to your wrists?" Izzy asked as he looked at Tai's arm.
"Oh, this, let's just say I had an accident with a car and a soccer ball," he smiled.
"You got hit by a car!" Yolei gasped.
"Yeah," Tai replied.
"Can you still go on tonight?" T.K. wondered.
"Does it hurt? Do you need some medicine?" Joe questioned.
"I'm fine, really. I was only in the hospital for a couple of hours, and nothing's broken. It could have been worse, I could have let Davis get the ball," Tai told us.
"What do you mean it could have been worse if I got the ball?" Davis demanded.
"The doctors said that you wouldn't survive. My arms were right at your height, if you got hit, it would have been in your head. Your brain would have been too damaged, you would have never woken up from unconsciousness…You would have died," Tai explained.
Davis's eyes lit up.
"But, that isn't what happened," Tai reminded him.
"I-I could have died yesterday," Davis mumbled.
"Oh, Davis, don't be thinking like that!" I snapped him out of it.
"Yeah, we have other things we need to worry about," Yolei agreed.
"Cody, you need to call K.C., and Ken needs to call Jordan. Izzy, you need to call Jennifer, if she doesn't come, this whole thing is pointless," I said.
"Cody, Sidney is in her dressing room, knock on her door, she'll let you use her cell phone," Matt instructed Cody.
"Ok, thanks Matt," Cody said as he followed Izzy and Ken out of the room.
As they left, Mimi and Sora walked in.
"Tai, I've been really worried," Sora said right when she saw sight of Tai.
Tai walked over to Sora and gave her a hug. "I'm fine."
"Sorry that we are late, we, um, got up late," I could tell that Mimi was lying.
"That's ok, we have time," Matt smiled.
"We thought Matt was going to call on time, so we didn't set the alarm," Sora told us.
"It slipped my mind, sorry," Matt said.
"No problem, Mimi's snoring woke me up," she laughed.
"It was Sora's snoring that woke me up," Mimi said.
"I don't believe any of that," Tai jumped in.
"Which part, Sora snoring, or Mimi snoring?" I asked.
"Both, I was up when they were sleeping, neither of them snore," he was proud.
"We better get practicing," Matt decided.
"What about the others?" Yolei asked.
"They'll walk in here and hear us, they'll easily find us," he explained.
"Ok," she smiled.
We walked onto the stage.
"Will you be able to play?" Davis asked Tai.
"Play what?" Tai questioned.
"The guitar," he said.
"I…I don't know," Tai smiled.
"You better figure out Tai," I said as I walked over to him with one.
"Right," he agreed as he took the guitar from me.
"Hold on Tai, let me finish hooking this stuff up before you start messing with the equipment. If I do that, we can do a sound check and everything," Matt said.
"Ok, I'll wait," Tai put down the guitar.
"Girls, get to a microphone. We need to make sure those are on," Matt instructed.
"Ok, now what?" Yolei questioned.
"T.K., get to the drums…Davis, take the other guitar," he said.
"We're here, what else?" Davis asked.
"Play some notes for the girls, they need to check the microphones," Matt said as he walked onto the stage.
"Ok, one, two…One, two, three, four!" T.K. yelled as they started to play.
"Cause you know it every time, and not just in your mind. You can feel the butterflies sending chills down your spine," I sang and Mimi sang.
"What is love? But a kiss on a rainy day, a smile that won't go away, a safe place to run. What is love? But a complicated simple truth, a bond between me and you, the number one," all the girls sang.
"Oh that's love," Mimi finished singing.
Izzy walked onto the stage as Mimi sang. I saw his eyes light up.
"I thought you said you didn't have a good voice," he smiled at her.
"I lied, I just didn't want to sing in front of a bunch of people," Mimi told him.
"Hey, Izzy, could you turn on the keyboard, see if it's hooked up to the sound system," Matt said.
"Sure," Izzy walked over to it and turned the keyboard on.
"Ok, give us some music," Matt requested.
"Right, let me see, this button should…Tai, give me a tune," Izzy said.
"Twinkle, twinkle little star," Tai sang.
"He meant on the guitar!" I laughed.
"Oh, I knew that! I was just joking around," Tai started to play.
"Let's see what that thing can do!" Matt yelled.
"This is awesome! Davis, get to a microphone. In the song 'Floorfiller', you sing the word floor filler, and it sounds weird. You can't make your own voice do that, if I'm right, this can," Izzy explained.
"Davis, that means sing!" Yolei smiled.
"I'll give you the starting music," Izzy pressed a button and music started to play.
"Floorfiller," Davis sang.
"Let's get this show going!" Sora smiled.
"Hey Mr. D.J. incase you forgot, I came to get down so you better make it hot!" Davis sang.
"We're rocking now!" Mimi laughed.
"Save it for the show," Sidney said as Cody and her walked onto the stage.
"Ken will be here in a second," Cody told us.
"Yeah, he had to use the little boys' room!" Sidney laughed.
"Ok…That was something I could have lived without knowing," I joked.
"We finished the sound check, we're all ready," Matt informed us.
"That's good, we only have a half an hour," Joe told us.
"Less, we only have 15 minutes," Ken said.
"Good thing we don't have anything else to do," Matt smiled.
"I haven't called Lilly! I-I need to call her!" Joe went crazy.
"Calm down Joe. Take my cell phone and call her," Izzy said.
"Thanks Izzy, I'll be back in a minute," Joe ran out of the room.
"We better reserve the front seats. How many people total in our group?" Matt asked.
"Izzy, Tai, T.K., Matt, Joe, Ken, Willis, Cody, Davis, Yolei, Sora, Mimi, Sidney, and myself. Then we have K.C., Lilly, Jennifer, and Jordan…And Terry if Cody invited her," I said.
"I did invite Terry," Cody told us.
"Can we get a number?" Sidney asked.
"19...I think," I replied.
"We'll keep the front seats open for us then," Matt decided.
"We'll put the reserved tape on it," Sidney decided.
"Where is it? Davis and I can go get it for you," I offered.
"It's in my dressing room, here's the keys," she threw a set of keys to me.
"Ok, we'll be back," Davis told them.
"Don't take too long!" Tai warned us.
"Don't worry, Kari is safe with me," Davis smiled.
"You're the reason I'm saying be back fast!" he yelled.
"Tai, we'll be back in ten minutes, depending how long it takes us to find the tape," I decided.
"Don't you know where it is?" he looked at Sidney.
"Yeah…Somewhere in my dressing room," she laughed.
"Have fun," Tai frowned.
"We will!" Davis called out as we left.
We walked down the hall and entered Sidney's dressing room.
"I can tell that Tai is ok," Davis smiled.
"He can be so stubborn and overprotecting," I complained.
"That's what makes it so much fun!" he told me.
"Oh, you're bad," I laughed.
"I wish my sister was like that towards me, then we could be bad together," he had an evil smile.
"I think if Tai was more like your sister, it would be easier to, um…Do our own thing," I said.
"Huh? What do you mean by that?" Davis wondered.
"I just mean, I wouldn't have to be worrying about Tai. If he wasn't so protecting, I wouldn't be afraid," I explained.
"Afraid to do what?" he asked.
"Afraid to do this," I said and then kissed him on the lips.
After a second, I moved back.
"I understand now," Davis told me as he started to blush.
"Here's the reserved tape. We better get going," I decided.
"I'm only agreeing to this because we only have a couple of minutes until we go on," he said.
"Come on," I giggled.
We walked back to the backstage.