***chapter 2- Emily pov***

It took twenty-two hours to fly to Australia. Twenty-two hours. Twenty-two hours of me getting twitchier and twitchier and more and more paranoid that the plane was going to drop out of the sky like it was made of lead.

Clearly, it didn't.

After we got off the flight, Sophie, Anna and I headed to emigrations for a fun-filled hour of filling out forms, checking identities and a bunch of legal stuff that I don't think any of us understood. We just wanted to get to the new apartment and sleep for a couple of days.

But eventually we were allowed to leave Sydney international airport and call a taxi. It was eight o'clock in the evening but the temperature must have been about 19˚. Anna sat down on one of the cases and said "why is it so warm?"

"It's spring over here, remember?" I snapped. "Would you rather be back home walking in the rain and hail and god knows what horrors?"

We were tired. We had jet-lag. We were pretty hungry because the three of us had been pretty cautious of the aeroplane food and so hadn't eaten much on the flight. That kind of explained why we were all in such a bad mood.

Luckily the taxi pulled up before Anna and I could kill each other. The driver helped us put our cases in the boot and after hearing our accents, cheerfully asked us where we were from.

"Northern Ireland. We're emigrating!" Sophie explained before telling him our new address. Anna and I sat in the back, not talking much. I watched out the window as the city of Sydney flew past. It was kind of surreal, now we were here. I felt almost dizzy. But maybe that was the lack of food on the flight.

Eventually we pulled up to the apartment, right near the centre of Sydney. It was a twenty storey apartment building, and we were on the sixth floor.

We walked into the main lobby and got handed four door keys by a receptionist, who introduced herself as Karen.

We rode up the elevator until we got to the sixth floor, where we got out and started looking for our apartment, number sixty-four.

When I say 'looking', it wasn't difficult to find. Just walk down the corridor until you see the door with the big shiny '64' on it.

Sophie inserted the key in the lock and said "well, it's the moment of truth." I don't know what we were expecting to happen, the apartment to blow up in our faces when we opened the door? But anyway, Sophie turned the key and we walked inside.

It was nothing special, just a three bedroom one bathroom apartment, conveniently already furnished. There was a kitchen connected to a main living room and a window seat which overlooked Sydney.

We just abandoned our suitcases in the kitchen and crawled to the first bedroom we saw. We could fangirl later, but right now our jet-lag meant we just wanted to collapse.

The next morning we were all wide awake at half four. AM. Apparently our jet-lag wasn't completely worn off just yet.

We fangirled over our new apartment, since we didn't have the chance last night, and then we went out to buy food supplies from the nearest supermarket. It was just like shopping back home in Northern Ireland, arguing over what crisp flavour to get and Emily trying to buy the shop's supply of nutella, except it was sunny and everyone had cool accents.

Eventually we got home, each of us carrying about five shopping bags. I don't even know how we survived.

Then came the issue of dinner and the fact that none of us had any idea how to work the new oven.

Then there was a knock on the door. The three of us looked at each other, all thinking the same thing.

Who the fuck is that?

I mean, we had yet to talk to anyone Australian except Karen and the old lady Sophie walked into at the supermarket.

"Maybe we're being evicted already." Anna whispered sarcastically.

The three of us had a quick, furious and silent argument about who would open the door. And risk being murdered/pranked/raped first. Sophie shoved me towards the door and I looked at Anna, who gave me a 'just do it' look.

I opened the door a crack and saw a girl about our age standing there. She was the kind of girl Anna would want to look like but Sophie and I would be intimidated of. She had dark blue hair, snakebites, a nose ring, an eyebrow piercing and had tattoos completely covering both of her arms.

I opened the door a bit wider and stepped back.

"Hey," She said, giving us a wide smile.

The three of us stared at her.

"I'm Aliesha. I live down the hall, in number sixty-seven."

More silence from us.

"And anyway, I was wondering…" She cleared her throat, her cheeks reddening slightly, "My boyfriend just found out he has to work late, so I was wondering…If you guys wanted to come down to my apartment for a while. I…" She laughed self-consciously, rubbing the back of her neck, "I'm baking cookies."

The three of us looked at each other, then Sophie said "Yeah sure. Why not?"

We'd been in Australia for twenty-four hours and had made one friend. Shit was going well.

***Anna pov***

Three hours later, we were still in Aliesha's apartment. Although all three of us had been slightly frightened of her at the start, it soon turned out that she was funny, smart, and by the way, made AMAZING chocolate chip cookies.

She was twenty-four, had been living with her boyfriend John for two years, and worked part-time in a nursing home. She was just telling us about how she was sure John was going to propose at Christmas when the phone rang.

"Do you mind if I get this?" She asked us.

We all shook our heads and Aliesha walked into the tiny kitchen to answer the phone.

"She's so nice!" I whispered.

Emily nodded. "And she makes fuckin' awesome cookies as well." She said, taking another and ignoring Sophie's comment about how she was going to explode if she ate any more.

"Really?" we heard Aliesha say from the kitchen, "Thanks so much Andy! Yeah, I've got some friends I can ask. Okay, talk to you later. Bye!" she walked into the living room again. "Hey, uhm…"

We all looked at her expectantly.

"My cousin's band is playing at the Opera House in two days, and he said he could get me and some friends backstage for free. I was wondering if you wanted to go?"

Sophie didn't hesitate. "Yeah, sure. What's his band called?"

"Short Stack."

I inhaled far too quickly and started choking on cookie. Emily slapped me on the back, hard.

"Wait," I wheezed, when I had got my breath back, when I got my breath back. "When you say Andy, do you mean Andy Clemmensen?"

Aliesha's eyes went wide. "Yeah, have you heard of them? I didn't think they were that big in Narnia or wherever you come from!"

"Northern Ireland." Emily corrected her. "And they've only been our favourite band for the past seven years!" She frowned. "But no, they're not."

"You're all crimson. Which one of you has a crush on my little cousin?" she laughed as Sophie hung her head. "Well we'll see if I can arrange for you two to talk backstage." Aliesha looked at the three of us, sitting with our mouths open like startled goldfish. "You do want me meet them, don't you?"

"HELL YES!" We all screamed at the same time.