3

There was a bit of excitement in school the next morning, and Miley, Lily and Oliver were all quite smug about it. Even the school's self-proclaimed fashion police, Amber and Ashley, briefly admired Miley, and they didn't like anyone who wasn't themselves. Miley had a new picture of Hannah Montana in her locker, but this one was her and Hannah together at the same time hugging each other with their arms over each others shoulders. It was a one of a kind. It was pretty easy to get. Robby Ray just took a camera out and had let Miley allow Lily access to the Hannah closet, an adjacent closed off bedroom converted into storing Miley's extensive Hannah wardrobe. With Lily dressed up as Hannah for a change, replete with sunglasses, Miley and Lily posed together as good friends and created a moment in time that would sour any future notion Jesse Samms might ever postulate that Miley and Hannah were ever the same person. Jackson then rushed the film to a one-hour developer and brought back the results, and the rest was going to be history.

"What do you think, Jesse?" Miley beamed at her father's plot to stick the notion into the head of Jesse or anyone else that Hannah or Miley could be one and the same. He had been looking at the picture for more than just a few seconds and suddenly had a new respect for Miley. He lightly dropped his jaw in awe and jealousy and took the picture to scrutinize it further for photo-shopping evidence, then decided in his expert opinion it was real. The shadowing was correct, their scale was perfect and he noticed nothing that resembled pixels left behind from images merged from separate images. It was Miley arm-and-arm with Hannah Montana, and they were both grinning together as if they were best friends.

"You didn't photo-shop this?"

"No!!!" Miley snatched the picture away to stick in her locker.

"It was incredible…" Oliver started speaking up frankly. "There we were in the mall, and coming out of the Popcorn Hut was Hannah Montana. Hannah Montana and Miley Stewart together, yup. Miley and Hannah in the same mall… together. Yup, there we were…."

Lily pulled Oliver's ear to get him to stop act stupid.

"I think… he gets it!!" She screeched into his ear.

"You know, Miley…" Jesse took the photo down out of Miley's locker door again. "We could make a lot of money off this."

"Jesse say what?" Miley could not believe he was still scheming.

"You know…" Jesse flapped the picture as he talked to her. "With my computer and your photo, we could photo-shop a lot of girls in your place. You shouldn't be the only with a picture of themselves with Hannah. Some girls might spend as high as fifty bucks for a picture of themselves with Hannah. You'd get forty percent of the revenue, of course."

"Oh, I'd buy one!!" Lily liked the idea!!!

"Could I get one?!" Oliver spoke up too.

"Sweet niblets!!!" Miley snatched her picture back and hung it in her locker again.

"Sorry, Miley…" Lily apologized. "But he made it sound so good."

"I'm sorry…." Jesse apologized as well. "Look, as an act of trust, I'll close your locker so no one will steal your photo. Peace?"

"That's better…" Miley watched as Jesse moved aside her contents to the side to close her locker. He then turned away to moon over Lily, forcing her to grin ear-to-ear. Miley instead turned toward Oliver with a sneaky grin of her own.

"You tricked him." Oliver whispered to him.

"Yup," Miley agreed with him. "That's one disaster averted." She pretended to wipe away fake sweat then reached to her cell phone in her purse. Happy and beaming, she watched as Jesse headed for one class and Oliver headed for another. In a few minutes, both Miley and Lily had to head off to Mr. Corelli's English class, but first she wanted to share the good news with her father.

"Hi dad…" She called him at home. "You got a minute?"

"I'm just a little busy, bud." Robby reminisced with admiration over his daughter. "I still got to put away the eleven barrel rings Jackson found."

"It worked, dad…" Miley was happy again. "Jesse saw the picture and was so totally blown away!" She squealed happily.

"I'm happy for you, bud…" Robby wondered where Jackson found the barrel rings stacked on the kitchen table.

"You are the best dad ever!" Miley signed off and switched off her cell phone. She looked to Lily happy to be her friend and they joined arm and arm for their class with Mr. Corelli. Lily was feeling a bit self-conscious for deceiving Jesse, but she'd still do anything to help Miley. Walking together arm and arm for class, they turned the corner for class little expecting what was going on behind them. In the dispersing hallway, Jesse Samms emerged from the alcove under the stairs and converged for Miley's locker for her Hannah picture. Girls all over school would pay up to twenty to fifty bucks a piece for someone who could photo-shop their bodies over Miley to stand next to Hannah. If they went to other schools, no one would know the difference and if they did, it would be after he had their money. He pulled open Miley's locker door and removed the spirit gum he had used to keep it from locking shut to him. All he had to do was copy it and get it back.

"This way I don't have to pay Miley royalties." Jesse convinced himself chuckling at his own resourcefulness. He held the photo to the light and scrutinized it again, but this time he noticed something he hadn't seen before in the light. In the photo, Hannah was wearing the same kind of necklace he had given Lily a few weeks ago. It was a simple one stone ring with an imitation diamond, but it was also the letters "J" and "L" intertwined to represent his love for Lily. He whipped out his magnifying glass to get a better look at it… and then the realization hit him.

"Holy Jupiter…" Jesse revealed a buried sci-fi fixation. "It's Lily!!" Another possible truth hit him. "Lily's Hannah Montana!!! That must have been how she got the picture!!! Wait… I've been dating Hannah Montana???!!!!" The thought overtook his brain and overwhelmed his senses. A hysterical grin possessed his face and switched off everything else going on in his brain. His legs went out and he crashed to the floor dreaming of living in her giant mansion by the swimming pool while being served sushi and shrimp by snooty servants. In the real world, Amber and Ashley walked by his body lying in the hallway and turned his condition toward their own egos.

"I told you boys still dropped to your feet!"