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Part Eight

Oliver's little blue-striped straw was no match for the Double D50 Annihilator SSG. Even with help from Jackson and his three-barreled straw-wrapper launcher, it appeared that Rico would win the championship for the sixth year in a row.

"What's the score?" I asked as I sat down on a beach towel next to Lilly to watch.

"Well, hello to you, too." She looked at me crossly. "You haven't answered my phone calls all morning. You better have a good excuse. Like, you know, you were dying."

"I was busy."

"Doing what? Putting pink eye shadow over one eye and brown over the other?"

"Oh, did I?" I rubbed at my eyes. "I was distracted."

"I'll say. You don't look like you slept at all."

"I didn't. Oliver and I had a huge fight last night."

"Oh." Lilly thought for a minute. "So that's why he showed up with Jackson instead of you. He said you weren't feeling well."

I hugged my knees miserably.

"He got mad that you didn't break up with him yesterday, didn't he?"

"Yes." I buried my face in my hands. "Lilly, I really messed up. All this time he thought I was using him to get what I wanted. He had no idea I was doing it because I liked him."

"Geez, I wonder why."

"I know, you were right." I sighed. "And now he hates me."

"He doesn't hate you."

"I tried to call him this morning and he wouldn't answer his phone."

"Maybe his mom made him turn it off again," Lilly suggested. "It's true, I definitely think there are less honey bees than there were last year."

"Or maybe he's renounced me as his friend." I nodded toward the straw-spitting hullabaloo. "See how easily I've been replaced? And by my own brother, too. Traitor."

Jackson and Rosalita stepped up to the line and readied their weapons. The referee blew his whistle, and the two of them propelled straw-wrapper balls at the target, which was a kitten confined to a ten-foot radius. The kitten frolicked around and pawed at the balls as they came flying over her head.

Round four: moving targets.

I felt a little bit sorry for the kitten.

"Lilly, why is Jackson still wearing your elbow pads?"

She did her little nervous laugh thing. "What? Those aren't mine."

"Oh, come on, they have the yellow zig zag on the side. You added that so that if they ever ran away, you could put up a 'lost' sign with their picture, and everyone would know they were yours."

Lilly looked down sheepishly. "Okay, they're mine. And I might have lent them to Jackson because he might have thought they were comfortable."

"Mmm-hmm, I see." I studied her face. "You're blushing!"

"Oh, grow up! They're just elbow pads. It's not like I let him borrow my skateboard, too." She stuffed her chin in her hands and ignored me.

Jackson lost the round by five points to Rosalita. He might have actually won if his straw-wrapper launcher hadn't gotten stuck on the Velcro of his elbow pads.

But I didn't point that out to Lilly.

Oliver replaced Jackson for the fifth and final round. Rico insulted him mercilessly, and Oliver bore it without a word. When the whistle blew, they shot straw balls into bowls of various colored pudding with a ferocity that could have rivaled me and Luann the time we faced off in a cow-milking contest.

I had never seen Oliver so focused on anything. He was so serious, so quiet. He wasn't having fun.

Oliver wasn't having fun for the first time in his life…because of me. But I didn't have the courage to get up on my feet and do anything about it. So I sat stupidly and watched.

Oliver lost the round – and subsequently the entire game – to Rico. The little devil grabbed his trophy and flaunted it around the beach, much to everyone's disgust. Oliver sat down, defeated.

Jackson came to the rescue. "Rico, what's the fun in beating someone when you have an unfair advantage? Wouldn't you rather tote that trophy around knowing you'd won it fair and square?"

Rico yawned. "What's that? Is the whiny little loser daring to challenge the king?"

Jackson grabbed Rico's shirt collar and lifted him off the ground. "Ten o'clock tonight. Rematch. Nothing but straws, straw-wrappers, and our own spit. Be there or I'll wire your trophy to an explosive and blow it up."

"Touch my trophy and you're fired."

"Fire me and I'll chew some bubble gum and stick it on the underside of your counter."

"Mess with my counter and I'll scare off your date tonight."

"You already did that. A-thank you very much."

"Then I'll rub shoe polish all over your car. Pink shoe polish."

Jackson pressed his forehead to Rico's. "Rematch tonight. Or I'll give you a wedgie that'll make your beady little eyes pop out."

Rico suddenly backed down. "Okay, okay," he said nervously.

Jackson let him go, satisfied. He wiped his hands together. "How's that, Oliver? We got ourselves a do-do-do over."

Oliver stood up. "No thanks, but good luck, pal." He clapped Jackson on the back and left.

Wow. It was worse than I'd thought. He was really taking it hard.

I wanted to run down there and tell him exactly how I felt. I wanted to make him understand. But I didn't think it would be enough. I didn't think anything would be enough.

Lilly nudged me. "Go down and talk to him, Miley."

"I can't. He won't even look at me. I really hurt him this time."

"Uh-huh, and what are you gonna do about it?"

"The only thing I can do."

"Which is…?"

"I'm going to break up with him at the concert tonight. Better yet, I'm going to tell everyone that it was all a lie. That Mike doesn't have girlfriends and that I made it all up to discourage a crazy fan."

Lilly frowned. "And you think that's going to fix everything?"

"Not everything, but at least then maybe Oliver will talk to me."

"He might talk to you now if you try."

"No, he won't."

Lilly snorted at my stubbornness. "If you tell everyone it was a lie, you could get some seriously bad press. It'll be worse than the time they put Lola in the 'what not to wear' column. I mean, come on, orange horizontal stripes and pink sequences totally go together."

"I don't care about the press, Lilly. It's the right thing to do."

"Fine, have it your way." She tilted her chin up. "You want to know what I would do?"

"Not unless you would stop talking."

"I would just tell him you like him. Sometimes you have to take a chance and go after what you want. I mean, if I had been brave enough to get back up on that balance beam after I fell off and twisted my pinky toe, I'd be a world-class gymnast today."

"When did you ever take gymnastics?"

"When I was three."

"And this is relevant because…?"

"Because if I had gone after what I wanted, I'd be a famous gymnast. Now I'm just a skater girl."

I didn't even try to make sense out of that.

"That's right, Miley. You'd be riding in my limo. Now stop dillydallying and go get that boy!"

"Lilly, I can't! You don't understand!" I stood up angrily.

"What's there to understand? You're making this more complicated than rocket science. Or…whatever it is they do at space camp." She looked up dreamily. "When I was a kid I always wanted to go to space camp…until my mom told me that it wasn't really in space."

"Lilly, goodbye."

"Wait – I haven't told you the story about the bug in my mom's chicken casserole last night! Where are you going?"

"To order up two really big platters of salmon rolls. I'll see you at the concert."

When I called the sushi place to put in my order, the guy on the other end gave me some trouble.

"That's right, Mr. Nagano," I explained for the fifth time. "I want the first platter to spell 'sorry' and the second one to spell 'Oliver.' No…O-l-i-v-e-r. One 'l'. And make the 'O' capital. What? How can that be extra charge? All you have to do is arrange the salmon rolls so that they spell letters. Hey, and do you have any egg rolls? Throw a few of those in, would you? What about marshmallows, got any of those…? How can you not have marshmallows? Every sushi place I've ever been to has marshmallows… I should complain to your manager. Put him on the phone now... Well, then I'm gonna need a comment card. You know what, let me just take back my whole order… What's that? Oh, thank you Mr. Nagano, that's so sweet of you to go find some for me. Let me give you the address to deliver it to. What, you don't deliver, either? What kind of restaurant is this…? Aww, thank you. Pleasure doing business." I gave him the address and hung up.

Guilt ate away at me all afternoon, and by the time I got to the concert I was more miserable than I'd been the night before, if that was possible. The more time that stretched without talking to Oliver, the more convinced I became that he never had liked me and never would. I was sure if I told him the truth he would only laugh in my face.

So the only thing that really mattered now was that he forgave me and I got my friend back. That was my goal, that was the whole reason I was here tonight – to pave the way for forgiveness.

Someone pounded on my dressing room door as Lilly and I were getting ready. I was so startled I jumped. Lilly shrieked.

"A delivery for Miss Montana," an attendant announced.

"Geez, do they have to be so loud?" Lilly hissed.

"Come in," I said.

The door opened – and a tall blond-haired guy holding a rose stepped inside.

Sammy.

I would have fainted dead away if Lilly hadn't caught me round the waist and held me up.

"What are you doing here!?" I breathed. I hadn't seen him in two weeks. I had hoped he'd given up by now. Apparently he hadn't.

"Oooh, punch bowl guy returns." Lilly gave him a once over. "Spooky."

Sammy held the rose toward me. I noticed that the petals had withered and dried. "You dropped this on the beach," he said. "'That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.'"

Where was security? How had he gotten backstage? "You're not supposed to be here," I warned, holding onto Lilly and inching away from him.

He followed us. "You came without your boyfriend tonight, Hannah. Where is he?"

"He's uh…he's coming later."

"Yeah, take that, Romeo," Lilly threatened.

"You're lying." Sammy stared me down with his gleaming eyes. "You broke up with him. I knew you wouldn't last."

I felt clammy. Sammy was making me nervous. How did he know that? And where the heck was that button I could push for security?

"I'll be waiting for you tonight." Sammy placed the rose on an end table. "'This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.'" He smiled eerily and disappeared through the doorway.

I blinked. Had that really happened?

"Yeah, you better run!" Lilly started after him, arms flexed. "I've got a belt, a hairpin, a pencil, and heels – and I'm not afraid to use them!" She stopped at the door, shut it, and turned around. "Woah, you were right about the Shakespeare quoting thing. Very creepy."

Suddenly I was afraid to do what I had come to do tonight. When I got up on stage and announced to the whole world that Mike and Hannah had broken up, Sammy would be sitting there rejoicing. And when it was all over, he'd be after me like he'd been the first day I met him at the Save-The-Whales charity event.

But this wasn't about Sammy. This was about Oliver, and he meant more to me than my fear. Sammy could quote Shakespeare all he wanted and chase after me until my dying day, but I would never again give Oliver reason to think I was using him for my own selfish purposes.

The curtains rolled back and Hannah Montana took center stage. I sang through the program by rote, hardly conscious of a thing I did or said. All I could think about was the last look Oliver had given me before he walked away. It gave me courage.

"Thank you all!" I shouted to my cheering fans after the last song had been sung. "Before you go tonight, I have something I want to say, something I should have said a long time ago."

The audience could tell by my tone that it was serious. A low vibrating hush settled over the concert hall. I steeled myself to continue. "Most of you know that Mike Standley and I have been dating for a few weeks now. And if you don't know that, you need to get out more." I chuckled nervously.

Laughter rose up from the crowd. Some fans started chanting "Hannah and Mike, Hannah and Mike." It made me nauseous.

I held up my hand to quiet them. "I have to tell you the truth tonight, guys. 'Cause for the past two weeks, you've been believing a lie. I wish I could take it back, because I hurt someone who's really important to me. And take it from Hannah Montana, nothing feels good about hurting someone you care about. So I'm here tonight to come clean. The truth is that Mike and I haven't been dating for the past month. I only started that lie because –"

My microphone went dead, and no one heard the rest of my sentence. I frowned and tapped the speaker, but it wouldn't come back on. Annoyed, I turned around to look for someone else's mike –

And saw Oliver walking toward me on stage.