Sometimes, nothing super-special happens during the day. You goof off with your friends, aren't very productive at work, and you pretty much coast through the day. On the flipside, however, some days have just a little more drama, a little more mystery, than you'd like. I try to avoid said days.

"Jude Harrison!" a voice boomed two weeks later. The voice belonged to a man of nearly six feet in stature, with messy black hair and gray eyes. He stormed into the recording booth, his expression playfully stern, flanked by a girl with hair of a shocking blue. "I demand we re-work the hook! And your lyrics are far too boring!" he bellowed in a good impression of Jude's producer, Sir Gareth Lorden.

"And why is that, Sir Gary?" the girl inquired, imitating Jude. "Didn't you say, just yesterday, that this was perfect?"

"Rob, Haley, guess what?" interrupted a third voice belonging to a freckled boy of fifteen. Rob and Haley groaned.

"You just had to ruin it, didn't you, Ben?" Haley said.

"Sorry, but guess what? I just beat Through the Fire and Flames on expert!"

Rob rolled his eyes. "Took you long enough. You've been playing Guitar Hero III for a couple years." Ben simply scowled at him, then turned to Jude.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"I think you did good, Ben. But I also think Rob is right." The guitarist scowled at her. "Oh Ben, you know I didn't mean it!" she said, pulling him into a hug. They all held their poses for a moment before they collapsed in laughter.

"Oh, I know!" Haley said excitedly. "Let's have some tunes before Sir I-eat-too-many-meat-pies the producer comes back." She turned on the radio, and a familiar voice came through.

"Boo!" Rob and Ben chorused. "Turn on some Clash!"

As Haley turned to do so, Jude yelled "Wait!" Her band turned to her, curious. She shushed them and listened harder.

"…Don't ever think you're poison
You bring me so much joy to me,
You can't be deadly."

"That, mates, was Tommy Quincy with his single Poison," the DJ said as the music faded. "Poison is the number one single in Canada, right above Vincent Speiderman's Remind Yourself, and is hastily climbing the British charts. It was released a week ago by the same out-of-the-blue label that released Remind Yourself, Nana's Basement Records. An album released date for Quincy and Speiderman's albums has not been announced, but NBR's manager and A&R rep, Jamie Andrews, has confirmed that there will be albums for the two artists…" At this point Haley changed the channel, bored with the DJ's monologue.

"I'll always be poison," Jude whispered. No one heard.

--

"Tommy, package," Jamie said, thrusting a small paper parcel onto the table.

"Your Nana makes excellent sandwiches," Tommy said between bites.

"Yeah, well, tell Nana that. She loves to cook," Jamie said, running up back up the stairs.

Tommy opened the package. In it was a book called Poison. Stuck to the inner cover was a post-it which read:

I'm still me.

Perplexed, Tommy looked at the package and found no return address.

"Hey Quincy, you need seconds?" Jamie yelled.

"No, I'm good!" Tommy called back.

--

"What?!" Jude shouted, indignant. "You can't be serious!"

"Jude, you haven't written a decent song since your last album, so you'll sing this one," Sir Gareth said, smugly. He'd been looking for a way to get back at Jude ever since she'd selected Lacy Prat as her backup band. He'd disapproved because Haley, Rob, and Ben "didn't fit her image," and the label agreed, which made him look like an idiot. Sir Gareth kept quiet though, pretending the decision had been a joint one to the rest of the label, while quietly trying to convince Jude to get rid of them in private. Jude, however, held firm.

"But it's in French, and I didn't write it… and it's in French! What does tres facille even mean?"

"Very easy," he supplied evenly.

"I am not singing 'I'm very easy, very easy.' That's pure crap!"

"You'll sing it, or rid yourself of the three mongrels," he said, gesturing towards Lacy Prat, who were watching intently.

Jude gritted her teeth.

--

"Speid, I'm going shopping!" Karma called over her shoulder.

"Wait!" Speid yelled. "Before you do that, you might want to look at how much the lawyer costs."

Karma turned, and snatched the papers from Speid's hands, sighing impatiently. Her eyes widened, and she sank into the couch.

"My album profits won't cover that unless it goes double platinum, at least. We need to save up. No more shopping trips for a while, okay?" Karma nodded. "Also, since we're officially evicted in two days, how do you feel about the Rehearsal Space?"

--

Sadie shook the man sitting next to her awake. "Darius, we're here," she whispered.

Their plane had just arrived in Cairo, Egypt, for the third leg of World Instant Star. Sadie's head was still spinning with schedules and ticket info, all of which had been figured out only three days prior.

She was startled out of her thoughts by Darius yelling to the G-Major team, "Alright people! We've got a packed schedule. When we get to the hotel you get one hour to rest, and then we'll meet in Sadie's room to prepare for auditions and go over the schedule for auditions for the next couple days. Move out!"

Sadie sighed. There'd be no hour of rest for her. So far World Instant Star had been a whirlwind of bookings, auditions and plan discussions, interrupted only by the occasional dinner with one of Darius' foreign cohorts. Sadie was left feeling like Darius' personal monkey again. She hadn't realized until two weeks ago, when Darius had thrust stacks of paper at her in his office, how impromptu and rushed the whole program had been. It seemed that Darius had been so eager to "get ahead of the game" that he'd forgotten the planning phase. Sadie was seriously considering leaving when her contract ended. She had originally joined G-Major to make up for the money she'd wasted, and, thought she'd never admit it, to spend some more time around Jude. Both those times had long passed, and Sadie was ready to leave.