Friday, July 8

LOCATION: The sun*
*At least that’s how hot it feels in Savannah, Georgia, right now!

When Briggs came onto the bus coughing and gasping, we all panicked.

“Dad!” Jilly jumped up from the heated game of Heads Up! we were playing with the guys.

Mom came running, like moms usually do at the sound of screaming, and had her arms around Briggs’s waist before we all could even figure out what was going on. She was attempting to do the Heimlich when Briggs quit coughing and started yelling at us.

“I’m fine! BLECH! Fine! BLECH!” Briggs said between gagging fits. He ran to the fridge and popped open the first drink he found, which was an orange Roaring Dragon. His face relaxed as he drank it. Then he turned and looked at us. His face was filled with fury. “Who. Put. Horseradish. In. The. Vanilla. Cream. Doughnuts?”

“Oops,” Heath muttered. “Briggsy, those doughnuts weren’t meant for you. Thunder and Lightning was supposed to eat them. Vanilla cream is Jeremy’s favorite.”

“How do you know that?” Zander asked.

Heath shrugged. “I’ve been doing my research. Jeremy must be doing his, too, or he wouldn’t have thought to put toothpaste in my Oreos.”

“This has got to stop!” Mom reprimanded the boys. “Look what’s happening. You’re not just hurting each other; now you’re… burning your manager’s mouth.”

Jilly started to giggle, which set off the rest of us. Neither Mom nor Briggs was amused. They sounded like total parents. Just then we heard banging on the door. Mom opened it, and Mikey G. walked in with a huge box of WHEY OUT! bars. “I heard yelling. All okay? What did I miss?”

“We tried to prank Thunder and Lightning, but got Briggsy instead,” Heath said.

Mikey G. held his heart while trying to balance the box of WHEY OUT! bars on one hand. “But you’re all okay? Thank God. I had to go to the front desk of the hotel to get this package. Glad you guys were here, actually. It’s impossible to open the door to the bus when you’re holding a box this heavy.”

“We’re fine,” Briggs said, “but we won’t be if one of these pranks injures someone. The press will have a field day!”

“They already do. Bad Kitty blames everything bad on us,” Zander said. “Or she tells her viewers something embarrassing about us, like how I use a facial steamer at night to soothe my vocal cords.”

Heath cracked up. “That is embarrassing.”

Zander glared at him. “Maybe you’re the one who told her, then.” Heath’s eyebrows shot up. “The people in this room are the only ones who know that I use one. So which one of you is the traitor?”

“Chill, bro,” Heath said. “We’ve been down this road once already. We’re your bandmates. No one is a traitor.”

“Someone has to be,” Kyle said. “Things on this tour are right dodgy. You guys are the only ones who know how hard I am trying to come up with a decent song. I can’t find the inspiration with everything going on. How does Bad Kitty know that?”

“Guys, remember, The Raven offered you three songs as a replacement for ‘The Story of a Girl,’” Briggs said.

“None of those are right, and you know it.” Zander dropped onto the couch with a thud. “Nothing’s as good as Kyle’s original.”

“Thanks, mate,” Kyle said. “Too bad we lost it somehow. I just wish the world didn’t know we were desperate to find a new tune.” For a moment, Kyle’s eyes flickered to me, and I knew why. He had come to me last week complaining about how slow his songwriting was going. Did he think I blabbed?

“Maybe we should pack up and call off the rest of this tour,” Heath said. “Thunder and Lightning is seriously getting inside our heads. We can’t write, we’re always looking over our shoulders, the press is writing garbage about us. Yesterday Bad Kitty wrote about my stuffed-animal collection! How’d she know I have one?”

“Didn’t Zander out you in Vegas last spring?” Jilly asked.

“That was only about my Tigger.” Heath’s face flamed. “No one knew I have a few other animals I sleep with, too.” He coughed and looked away.

“Let’s stop with the killing the tour talk.” Briggs took another swig of his Roaring Dragon, probably to wash the horseradish taste out of his mouth. “I’m already stressed enough thinking about your Perfect Storm/Thunder and Lightning photo shoot for Popstar! today.”

Popstar! was here? That was Scarlet’s, Iris’s, and my favorite magazine! They always had the latest gossip on celebs and included all these foldout posters of stars to hang on our walls. How cool would it be to have a poster of PS on my wall that was taken at a photo shoot I actually went to?

“They flew into Savannah just to do a spread on the Sizzling Summer Boys Tour, and the label wants you to play nice,” Briggs told the guys, who moaned. “You go, smile, say nothing bad about Thunder and Lightning, and you’ll be out of there before you know it.” Briggs looked at Heath. “If you don’t prank each other and screw this up.”

Mom walked over to me and Jilly. “I’m counting on you two to help us make things go smoothly. Don’t get sweet-talked into discussing anything personal with the Popstar! reporters. They may want to interview you about the tour, too.”

I squealed. “I’m going to be in a magazine?” I could see my face on the cover of Popstar! now. MEET THE GIRL WHO STOLE KYLE BEYER’S HEART! “We’re just friends,” I would say while Kyle said, “Mac is the—”

“Mac?” Mom was giving me a look that had Mackenzie Sabrina Lowell all in the eyes. “If asked, all you say is that the tour is going great and that reports of the bands’ not getting along are greatly exaggerated.”

“Exaggerated, got it,” I repeated.

But the minute we got to the shoot, I knew Popstar! reporters would know the truth: Reports of the boy band battle were not exaggerated. The guys couldn’t stand each other, and the proof was right in front of their eyes.

“I think we should get started,” said one of the fashion editors. “We brought some plaid shirts, jeans, killer boots, and Stetsons, of course. When in the South…” He chuckled at his own joke. The guys didn’t laugh.

“They’d love to pick out clothes, right, guys?” Briggs said pointedly.

“Yes, Thunder and Lightning, too,” said Ronald hurriedly. He waved Jeremy and Cody over to a rack far from Heath, Kyle, and Zander’s.

“This could take a while,” Jilly told me with a yawn. “Let’s explore the place.”

The Smokehouse was a famous barbecue joint closed for the shoot, but someone must have leaked this info because girls were pressed up against the windows looking in. A Popstar! editor quickly closed the curtains. Jilly and I walked around the restaurant. It was nothing like the picnic table and checkered tablecloth place we had eaten at a few days ago on the road from North Carolina. Here everything was deep mahogany, real wood walls, elk-antler chandeliers, cow print–covered seat benches, and in the middle of the restaurant was a…

“Mechanical bull!” Jilly ran to a fence around the bull to get a closer look. The mechanical bull looked like the real animal, if you forgot the fact it had no legs and there was a handle on his back to hold on to. The bull was surrounded by a mat in case you were thrown off. “I’ve always wanted to try one.”

“Then today is your lucky day.” Cody came up behind us in a cranberry plaid shirt, a cowboy hat, and jeans.

We both froze. I wasn’t sure we could be seen talking to the enemy, but Cody had been nice to me the other day at Hurricane Harbor. Still, I was on guard. What if he was just being nice to find out information about PS? Maybe he was the mole! (Jilly had really gotten me into this spy theory.)

“The restaurant manager told me the bull has slow settings, so anyone who wants to ride can try it when the shoot is over,” Cody told us. “I’d hop on, but last time I tried one, I got thrown off, and it was sort of embarrassing.”

“Why are you being nice to us?” Jilly asked pointedly, and I cringed. “You put toothpaste in Heath’s Oreos the other day, and I almost threw up when I ate one.”

Cody rubbed his forehead, almost knocking off his cowboy hat. “I didn’t know you guys were going to taste them, too.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I told Jeremy he was going too far. Now that I know you ate one, I feel really terrible.” For a moment, I saw Jilly’s attitude flicker.

“Okay, so maybe you’re not so bad, but your brother is a major pain!” Jilly said. “And you guys stole PS’s favorite song!”

Cody frowned. “We told you—we didn’t steal it. When it was given to Jeremy at the recording studio that night we met you, we didn’t know the songwriter was Kyle. Jeremy said the song was written for us.”

Jilly moved closer. “Who told Jeremy that? Did he say who handed him the lyrics?”

Cody blinked. “Well, no, but—”

“Then how do you know your brother is actually telling you the truth?” Jilly sounded like a prosecutor on one of my grandma’s law shows! “Couldn’t it be possible he stole the song from the PS studio when they were on break? Think. Why would they give their favorite song away?”

“I…,” Cody started to say, but Jilly cut him off.

“Why would PS be so upset about losing the song if it wasn’t stolen?” Jilly pushed.

“I don’t know,” Cody said. “The guys blew us off that night. They were so rude, and Jeremy said—”

“They weren’t rude; they were tired,” I explained. “Haven’t you ever been tired?” Cody looked at me. “Kyle really cares about his songwriting, and that song was very important to him. Now he’ll never get to record it, let alone sing it. Instead, he has to listen to you guys play it over and over on every tour stop. How do you think that makes him feel?”

Cody looked over at Kyle, who was trying on a cowboy hat. “Lousy. I write songs, too, you know. I had no idea—”

“Mac?” Kyle walked toward me wearing a yellow-and-navy shirt and worn dark jeans. I loved his cowboy hat. He side-eyed Cody. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” Jilly said, and I nodded. “We just had some business to discuss.”

“Kyle?” Cody sounded unsure. “Do you think we could talk for a sec?”

“Sorry, mate.” The way Kyle said “mate” made me think he was no mate at all. “Kind of busy. Let’s go, guys.” He steered us both away from Cody, who looked pretty uncomfortable. Well, good! He needed to know all the problems he caused. “How many times do I have to tell you not to talk to him, Mac?” Kyle whispered. “You can’t trust those guys.”

“Kyle, I—” I’d never heard him so annoyed. “We were trying to help you.”

“Let us handle this,” Kyle said as an editor started to wave the guys over. He tilted the front of his hat and walked away.

“Geez, talk about overreacting,” Jilly said. The groups were in opposite corners, whispering and looking over at each other like they were gossiping in my middle school cafeteria. “He’ll get over it.”

I wasn’t so sure. We watched the photographer set up the first shot from a distance. All five guys posed and smiled like they were best friends as they hung over the restaurant’s second-story railing. Then they broke to set up a new shot, and the guys hurried back to opposite corners. It was uncomfortable, and it went on this way for hours.

Then a Popstar! editor walked over to the two of us as we sat at a table eating cheese fries. (What can I say? We were hungry, and the restaurant offered food, so…) “You’re Mackenzie and Jillian, right?”

“MWH-HUM,” I replied, my mouth full of hot cheese.

“I’m Mara,” she said, sitting down across from us.

“Fry?” Jilly offered, dipping one in ketchup and holding it out to her.

“No, thanks,” she said. “I can’t do fried food.”

I swallowed my fry. “You’re missing out.”

Mara smiled. “I had a few questions about being on the road with the two hottest bands of the summer.”

“Well, one hottest band,” Jilly said, and I elbowed her.

“She just means that our loyalty is to Perfect Storm since we’re part of their road crew,” I said, but Mara was already jotting something down in her notebook. She pulled out a piece of paper and read from it.

“So would you say you’re pretty close with the band, Mac, since your mom took over as the boys’ tour manager this spring?” Mara pushed her phone across the table, recording our conversation.

“Yes,” I said, imagining I was hooked to a polygraph machine.

“You’ve gotten pretty close to Kyle Beyer, right?” Mara asked. Jilly stared at me, and I could almost hear the warning bells. Stick to the script, Mac!

“I’m close to the whole band,” I said nervously. “Both bands, really. So is Jilly. Anything you’ve heard about their not getting along is untrue. The guys are friends.”

“DUDE! That’s the shirt I’m wearing in this shot!” we heard Jeremy complain. We looked over and saw that Zander had on the same dark denim button-down Jeremy was wearing.

“I had it on first!” Zander said. “Briggs, tell Jeremy I had it on first!” They sounded like two kids on the playground fighting over a shovel. “You have to change your shirt.”

“No, you change shirts!” Jeremy shot back.

Mara laughed. “Sounds like they get along great.” Gulp. “So are you and Kyle dating? Or is something going on with you and Cody Callum?”

“WHAT?” I screeched at the same time as Jilly.

“Mac does not like Cody,” Jilly said defensively.

Mara slid a picture across the table of Cody and me talking at the Shark Bait attraction at Hurricane Harbor. Double gulp.

“That was nothing!” I swore, looking at Jilly, who was frowning. “We were just talking while we waited for the others.”

“Navy goes better with my eyes!” I heard Zander yell at Jeremy. Briggs and Mom were waving Zander off. Ronald tried in vain to pull Jeremy away.

“Well, this shirt works with my hair, which Popstar! online readers just called the coolest boy band cut of the summer,” Jeremy told him.

“There is no way their readers would pick your hair over mine!” Zander freaked.

“Our website is even bigger than the magazine,” Mara said coolly. “We’re the number one teen gossip site on the web.” She pointed to the picture of Cody. “We’re thinking of putting this picture of you and Cody on there. Unless you have better info on you and Kyle that you want me to use instead.”

My jaw dropped. Popstar! was my favorite magazine, but they were acting just like Bad Kitty! I couldn’t believe it. “Please don’t run that picture,” I begged. Jilly was squeezing my kneecap so hard I thought it would be black and blue. “It doesn’t tell the real story.”

Mara shrugged. “You need to give me something if you don’t want me to use it.”

I searched frantically for Mom to get some help, but she was busy with Zander and Jeremy, who were now in each other’s faces. “I don’t have anything.”

“I think you do,” Mara said. The wheels on her tape recorder were still turning. “Bad Kitty seems to think you know a lot about Perfect Storm.”

Bad Kitty was after me now, too?

“You know Bad Kitty?” Jilly asked suspiciously. “Who is she? Where is she from? How do we reach her? Maybe we could work out a deal if you tell us who Bad Kitty really is.”

“I don’t know how to reach her,” Mara said. “But I do get e-mails from her.” She showed us a different piece of paper. HOW MACKENZIE LOWELL IS DESTROYING PERFECT STORM BY TELLING ALL THEIR DIRTY LITTLE SECRETS. Bad Kitty was claiming I was the one secretly leaking all these things about Perfect Storm when it was really her!

“This isn’t true!” I freaked out. “Bad Kitty is the one talking trash about PS. Not me! You can’t print this!”

“As if you could pull off a cowboy hat,” I heard Zander hiss.

“You need one to cover your massive head!” Jeremy spat. “Get the shirt off!”

“Make me!” Zander said.

“We’ll bull ride for it,” Jeremy told him. “Someone turn on the mechanical bull. The one who stays on the longest gets to wear the shirt.”

“Jeremy finally has a good idea!” Heath cheered as Jeremy headed toward the bull-riding area.

“Don’t turn on that bull,” I heard Briggs beg, but the photographer was already running with a camera.

“I go first!” Zander said, running past Jeremy and jumping the fence to the bull. He hopped on before anyone could stop him.

“Zander, those things are dangerous,” Mom said, sounding very Mom. “You could get hurt. And you didn’t sign a release to ride it.”

Zander ignored her. “I’m ready!” He was holding on so tight his knuckles were red. “Start the bull!”

The Smokehouse was so excited a celebrity was on their bull they didn’t argue.

“GO, Z!” Heath shouted as the bull began to rock back and forth. A countdown clock ticked, and everyone in the room started counting. I was still begging.

“You’re writing lies,” I said, my lip quivering. “I would never betray PS. Someone is lying to you. I’m not sure how they know the things they do, but I haven’t told them to Bad Kitty.”

“Sorry,” Mara said with a shrug. “If we get a scoop, we have to run with it.”

“I think you do know how to reach Bad Kitty,” Jilly said, still staring at the page, which Mara tried to pull away. “Give me her e-mail address and I’ll give you great gossip.” Mara’s eyes widened.

Then Zander got thrown from the bull.

“Fifteen seconds!” Heath said.

“Must have been on slow mode,” Jeremy said. “Pathetic. Speed mine up.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ronald said.

“I can handle it,” Jeremy insisted, taking a seat on the furry bull and holding on to the seat with one hand.

“What do you know?” Mara asked eagerly, moving the tape recorder Jilly’s way.

Loud gasps from around the room kept Jilly from answering. The bull was bucking at a crazy speed. Jeremy, for what it’s worth, gave it a good fight—for the six seconds he lasted before he was thrown from the bull into the fence at such speed I was sure he was knocked out. When he sat up, his nose was covered in blood.

Zander laughed. “Whose face is going on the Popstar! Hottest Boy of Summer poster now?”

“I think he broke his nose!” Ronald yelled, and Zander stopped laughing. “We need to get him to a doctor.” People began running around getting bandages and ice packs.

“This is a disaster!” Mom held her head as the Popstar! editors all took pictures of the mayhem and wrote notes.

Briggs held out his phone. “We’ve got bigger problems. Look at this.”

Bad Kitty didn’t wait around. She tweeted the scoop she gave Mara herself.