"No, why?" Isaac said, standing on tiptoe, looking for something. I don't know why he bothers to stand on his tiptoes. He's so tall it's not like he can't already see over most people's heads anyway.
"I noticed. At first I was going to yell at you for taking off your stuff, but then I realized that you were standing right next to me! It was really weird," Zac said sincerely.
"What was weird?" my dad said, leading Avery by the hand as he battled through the crowd toward us.
"Man, there was this guy who looked exactly like Taylor standing behind us while we were in line for the Ferris Wheel. I swear, except for the fact that he was an inch or two shorter, I never would've known it wasn't Taylor," Zac said. I thought he might be exaggerating a bit, but I didn't have time to say so because I noticed my father's expresion change suddenly from one of a questioning smile to a frightened frown which he quickly tried to cover up with a thoughtful look.
"Oh?" he said, his voice seeming to falter slightly. "Probably just a coincidence."
"Wouldn't it be weird if Taylor had a long-lost twin brother that we didn't know about? It'd be like the Man in the Iron Mask. Except no one is locked in a dungeon," Zac said, his little overactive imagination beginning to move. I silently reprimanded myself for agreeing to go see that movie with him in the first place.
"Zac, don't you think your mother and I would know if your brother had a twin?" my father said. Then, without waiting for an answer, he turned to Isaac. "Remember to meet us at the pavillions, okay?"
We nodded and then he left, his face a little paler than it was before.
I sighed and looked around for a candidate to be the next ride to go on. It's just not worth it, staying at a theme park for more than a couple hours. We'd been there since before the park even opened up fully, trying to lug all of our instruments to the stage before anybody showed up(although we did get stuck signing a few autographs). After that, we had been set free to roam(they had let us go by ourselves but we all knew that there was probably some bodyguards that we weren't supposed to know about following us). We had already been on practically every ride that didn't cost money, includuing a bunch of the kiddie rides.
"Man, there he is again," Zac whispered, pointing subtly at a little stand with the sign "Dippin' Dots" over it where the boy that looked like me was standing in line with the group he had been walking around with all day.
"Oh....wow," Isaac said, noticing the boy for the first time.
The guy must've felt us staring at him because as he was taking his little styrofoam bowl from the vendor, his head turned to where we were standing.
"Let's get out of here," I said, pushing Isaac along and pulling Zac with me.
"Where did you want to go?" Isaac asked.
"The Yo-Yo," I said immediately without giving it much thought. All I knew was that it was one the other side of the park.
"Tay, that's on the other side of the park," Zac pointed out.
"I know, now come on," I said, pulling on the part of his sleeve that I had a grasp on a little bit harder.
The Yo-Yo is one of those rides where they put you in a chair and the chairs go around this bit post they're attatched to. Why they call it the Yo-Yo is beyond me, but it's a pretty cool ride as long as you don't fall asleep from complete boredom(it lasts a long time and doesn't do very much).
While we were on the ride, I contented myself with watching the Skycoaster as it continuously pulled people up a hundred and sixty-some feet and then dropped them far enough so that they were nearly skidding the body of water that it was set over.
"We ought to try that later," I called back to Isaac, who was sitting a few chairs behind me.
"Taylor, it's like sixty dollars each," he said.
"So?"
I thought back to the time when all three of us had done something like that in a different park. I remembered the feeling as we were dropped down all that way as nauseating, but the feeling I had had as we soared backward and forward through the air reminded me of all those dreams I had had where I could fly. And none of those dreams could compare with the real feeling. It was...awesome.
Pretty soon, we were high enough to see over the fence that surrounded the ride and each of us seemed to spot our mother at the same time. She smiled and waved with her free hand(the other was holding Mackenzie's hand) and then reached for the camera. She had it positioned to take a picture the next time we came around and I saw her press the button. Great, I couldn't wait to see what we looked like in these stupid outfits. I knew that it would be cause for some serious blackmail in the future.
The ride eventually lowered itself down and we got off, barely able to walk in a straight line. We walked over to where my mom, who apparently was waiting for us to get off, was standing.
"Are you guys hungry?" she asked, nodding her head toward the picnic area.
My stomach growled as if on cue. Everyone giggled.
"Well, Taylor is," Zac said. "But I don't think I can eat a thing until I get some Tylenol or something. That stupid Mind Eraser gave me the worst headache."
"Me too," Isaac said.
I smiled with satisfaction and almost said, "I told you so."
"I didn't bring any with me, but they sell it at the gift shop. We'll stop at one on the way," she said.
We went into the first gift shop we found, and, seeing that they did in fact have Tylenol, got on line to buy some. After about ten minutes of listening to the people in front of us argue with the poor girl at the counter about whether or not she had charged them a penny more than they were supposed to pay, I got frustrated and decided to wander around the store before I said something I would regret.
I strolled through the aisles, picking up random objects for examination. Most of what was in the store had to do with clowns. There were puppets, porcelain clown dolls, clown books, clown keychains and necklaces, snow globes with clowns inside, and plush clown dolls.
It barely registered when I heared a female voice say: "Oh come on, Parker, it's cute."
It did however, catch my attention when my own voice answered back. "No, it's not," it said. But I hadn't opened my mouth. I wasn't talking. "Now come on, those things freak me out."
"It's either this or something from the concert," the girl tried to prompt him.
"I don't care. I am not sitting in the same van with you on an hour drive home with that thing," my voice said disgustedly.
I walked over to the little alcove next to the aisle they were standing in and pretended to be incredibly interested in this little snow globe with a sad clown on the inside.
"All right, all right, all right," she said. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her replace the doll and throw her hands up in the air in exasperation. "I could use a new Hanson t-shirt anyway," she added.
He snorted. "Perhaps we should've made the rule that whatever the loser had to buy the winner had to be under twenty dollars," he said.
"Why? How much do you have?"
"Thirty," he replied. "But after lunch, it should be closer to twenty-five or twenty."
"Oh," she said. "Eh. I guess I could settle for a program. Then again, this is under twenty dollars. She picked up the clown doll again.
"No way. Now how. Not in this lifetime," he said. Jeez. You could really tell he was dead set on not buying the stupid clown doll for her. Being the cheap person I am, I probably would've just bought her the doll and gotten it over with.
"Okay, Parker. Jeez, you got your point across," she said.
They began to walk away toward the exit of the small store. Seeing as how I'm pretty much deaf at this point in my life, they were out of my earshot pretty quickly and I didn't hear anymore of their conversation.
So his name was Parker. Or was that some sort of weird nickname? It certainly didn't seem like a very common name. At least, the only person I'd met who'd name their son Parker was Rosie O'Donnell. Hmm....
"Ready to go?" my mother said, coming up from behind me.
I started and gasped, nearly dropping the fragile snow globe. Apparently I had been too wrapped up in spying on Parker and the girl he was with to be aware she was standing there. After catching my breath and replacing the globe back on its shelf, I nodded and we walked out of the gift shop, Isaac and Zac swallowing their pills drinkless. A talent I did not possess.
We made our way over to the picnic area of the park, where our father, Avery, and Jessica were already seated, surrounded by juice boxes, cans of pop, chips, and sandwiches. Isaac, Zac, and I looked around the pavillion cautiously and, seeing that no one was in sight besides family, took our hats and sunglasses of.
As we ate, Isaac and Zac yapped about our little adventures during the day. Instead of listening, I watched the Predator--a roller coaster that was in plain sight of the pavillions--climbing up the hill slowly only to whip down it, all the people it contained screaming with delight. It was almost hypnotic. Until I realized that someone was talking to me.
"Would Mr. Jordan Taylor Hanson please enter the building?" Zac said, right into my ear, his hands cupped around his mouth like a type of megaphone.
I jumped and promptly slapped him upside the head.
"Could you say that any louder?" I asked, glancing fearfully around the still empty picnic area.
"Probably. But I've done my calisthenics for the day, thank you very much," he said, referring to a small incident where a couple girls had figured out who we were and chased us halfway across the park until we finally gave in and signed autographs. "Anyway, I was just telling you that Dad, Mackie, and I are going to the bathroom before we have to head over to the concert area. Did you have to go?"
He asked it slowly as if I was under the age of five or didn't speak English very well.
"I suppose," I said, getting up.
"Taylor, you haven't eaten. Are you feeling okay?" my mother immediately noticed.
"You know you have to eat something. We skipped breakfast. We don't want you passing out on stage again like you did at that one local concert one year," my father put in.
"Yeah, people already think you're anorexic, Tay, you'd better prove them wrong before the tabloids catch on and start eating that story alive," Isaac added.
"Oh Taylor, don't tell me you're like that," said my mother for the fifteen hundredth time this life. I swear, it doesn't matter how much I eat in front of this woman, she will forever think that anorexia will be the death of me.
"Mom, I'm not. Besides, I thought the issue was my filling bladder. Can we please just go to the bathroom?" I said rather bluntly.
Everyone hesitated. Then they sighed in unison. What could they do? Force feed me like I was a four year old who wouldn't eat his vegetables?
"All right, let's go. Ike, are you sure you don't have to come?" my father tried to prod my older brother, who could hold it for a week(and did once on a dare) if he had to.
"Yes, I'm sure," he assured my father for what must have been the umpteenth time that day.
So, my father, me, and my two little brothers headed over to the bathrooms. The small, small bathrooms. The small, small, very dirty even on the outside bathrooms. Oh goody.
I don't think you guys want to know about my bathroom habits(I sure don't want to know about yours), so let's just skp that part, shall we?
I finished washing my hands and dried them, throwing the paper towel into the waste basket near the door. I stepped out into the dying sunlight that hurt my face due to the sunburn I had obtained that day(damn that stupid sun lotion). I looked around for my family. And I looked. And I looked. And I looked.
They were nowhere in sight.