DANNY Chapter 32 by Roberta J. Cabot This is a story about Daniel, a guy with a unique talent and an even more unique problem: A great singing voice and the looks of his gorgeous sister. And how he and his family deal with his having breasts. And how he ends up as the female lead singer for a high-school cover band as well as a radio DJ. The night he and Nikki spent together was everything they hoped for, but when they checked out, they noticed that two of the pictures that the girls from the hotel took of them during dinner were now mounted on the wall above the reception counter, together with pictures of other celebrities. Oh-oh... Never a dull moment with Batch Fourteen, and Dan & his gang.

 
Chapter Thirty-Two:  Pulling The Trigger

***** (Danny) *****

So, when we were almost at school, we just realized - I was still dressed like a girl. We were doing this too often, we didn't even thing of it… oh, no. Good thing we caught it in time, but one of these days we just might make a mistake and blow my cover. Dammit!

We were about to be late, so now what do we do?

"Wait, Danny," Nikki said. "Don't panic. Let's find a quiet place so you can change."

The best I could do was to park under a tree in a secluded area. Nikki and I tried to step out to go get my overnighter from the boot but lots of cars started passing by. Kids we knew were all rushing to school. It was a steady stream. Some of the kids that knew us beeped when they saw us parked.

"Dammit, we can't step out of the car," I said. "People will see us with your bag and my outfit, and people will start talking…"

"Wait!" Nikki said. "I have an idea." She turned and reached back to her bags in the back.

"What're you doing?"

"Hold on!" she grunted, and after a minute of struggling, she finally said, "Got em!"

She sat back down and held out my dirty sneakers. They were under the bags.

"I don't think that'll go with my top and skirt Nick," I said sarcastically. "I think people would notice…"

"Ha ha ha… Very funny." She looked around then slid off her heels, lifted her butt off the seat, unbuttoned her jeans and started scootching them down.

"What're you doing!"

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm taking off my pants."

"Why?"

"We're exchanging clothes! Now, get those heels and skirt off!"

So I took them off.

"Won't somebody notice we're sitting here without pants?" I asked nervously.

"No, unless they actually stop and actually peek in. Look, no one has even noticed you're wearing a sleeveless top!"

"Nikki? Would I even fit in your pants?"

"I wear pants larger than Danielle's, actually… something I really hate about her." She giggled. "But that means, these'll fit you fine."

"But they're girl pants, Nikki!"

"Don't worry - you'll be able to pull it off. Now give me your skirt and put on my pants!" I chuckled, thinking of what the phrase "getting into a girl's pants" meant, and I was thinking that I have gotten into into my girl's pants figuratively, and and I was about to do it literally, too.

But there really was no other option I could think of, so I pulled them up. Thank god they were tight and long enough that the lace edging of my bobby socks were hidden.

Meanwhile, Nikki adjusted the pouf skirt around her hips and waist. She then lifted her leg one at a time, folded them across her lap and put her stilettos back on.

"Put your sneakers on," she ordered, so I slipped on my dirty sneakers and tied them. So that I didn't have to bend over, I just followed her example and folded my legs one at a time to tie my shoes.

Nikki was looking at me.

"What?"

"Ummm… you're pretty flexible, Danny."

"For a guy, you mean," I laughed.

"Sure. For a guy," she said.

I laughed again. "You're surprised? Even after last night?"

We both giggled.

"Okay," she said, and took her school varsity jacket off. "Now put this on and don't take it off until after classes."

I shrugged it on, and it was a pretty good fit.

"Okay. Let me see."

I turned to her.

"Hmmm…" she said. "How about this?" She zipped the jacket halfway up. "There! That should provide enough camouflage, and they'll keep your boobies hidden, too," she giggled. "Actually, you look like a pretty sexy boy like that." She artfully combed my hair into a semblance of my usual Danny style. She didn't do it as well as Danielle could have, but it would do.

"Well." I said, "speaking of sex, how about… you know… later tonight?"

Nikki grinned. "Sorry, my love. But I need a little time to recover. I'm a little too sore, yet."

"Oh! I'm sorry…" I felt like a stupid, selfish…

She must have seen the look on my face. "Oh, honey, it's okay. I want to, too. But I need some rest. Soon - I promise."

Then she pulled me towards her and kissed the shit out of me. "Besides," she said, "we can do other stuff in the meantime..."

"Ooooh!" someone said. We looked and saw Joanne and Mel leaning out of Joanne's van. They had stopped beside us. "Someone's in looove!"

"Oh shut up, Joanne!" Nikki giggled, and we drove the few remaining blocks to school, with the girls trailing us in Joanne's van.

- - - - -

***** (Danny) *****

Nikki's little wardrobe adjustment really did help, and when Danielle helped with my "do" and made it more like my usual, long and messy dude cut and low dude ponytail, no one seemed the wiser about what I was really wearing.

The mock turtleneck was a little unusual, though - I never saw any guy in school wear a turtleneck sweater or anything similar - and I got some grief for it, especially from some of the jocks, but the girls seemed to like the look, and told me that they thought it made me look classy. In fact, some of the guys in my class overheard and asked me where I got it. And, thanks to the jacket, the fact it was a sleeveless and backless girl's top didn't become obvious.

I guess that was the problem - I was getting more attention than normal. Girls kept on watching me, which irritated the guys - that a geek like me was getting all the attention.

"Hey, Danny!" someone from the cheer squad, I think her name was Cheryl or Sherry or something like that, waved from across the hall. "Looking good, kid!"

"Thanks," I nodded a little sheepishly

Nikki gave me a catty, sour look, and I shrugged.

"What can I do!" I protested.

It was like that most of the day, and I just couldn't help but strut a little bit.

Getting attention wasn't too unusual for me nowadays, but what was different this time, I guess, was that I was getting attention for being just plain, old Danny. People were always noticing Dannie the singer, or Robin the Nighthawk. But this time they were noticing me - Danny.

Morgan and Jerry made a comment that there was something new about me, that for some reason, I reminded them of Coach Kleats.

Coach Kleats was the high school's boys' PE teacher, and was considered the most masculine among all the male teachers yet was also considered the most fair and most respected among them. I suppose it came from his very masculine demeanor, and the fact he had muscles up the wazoo helped. Yet, he rarely lorded it over the other teachers and never played favorites among his students. He was respected and well liked. And though he looked like a rock, he was considered one of the most attractive of the teachers by the female student body.

I couldn't help but be flattered by the comparison, but I sincerely hoped they didn't mean my looks.

I guess there really was something new. I can feel it. After last night, I felt much more confident. I don't know - like I was more of a man, like I was more of a take-charge kind of person. That all my outward cool-guy strut and ambivalence was actually just my accepting that I was indeed a man now.

The women's clothes didn't bother me much anymore. And I guess, fundamentally, I know what I am now. Whatever others may say or do to me, whatever I wore, I know who and what I am, and that I like who I am.

I will forever remember last night - in many ways, it helped define me, and I will forever be grateful to, and forever be in love with, Nikki. Nikki's my soul and my reason. Now more than ever.

- - - - -

***** (Danny) *****

After classes, we went to the Arclight Coliseum, and like two days before, we had our own table just in front of the orchestra pit, and no one started real work until around six, which was when Dale, June, Morgan and Fallon arrived. This allowed us to finish most of our school stuff.

During that time, Mrs. Piper sat with us and chatted. She made a real effort to get to know everyone, and Danielle and I appreciated it.

When the others arrived and everyone was all together, Mrs. Piper started work on the show.

She had a bunch of the final posters brought to her. We looked them over and they looked real good.

It featured a "cartoonized" early morning silhouette picture of our town as the sun was rising, with the station's round logo in place of the rising sun, just peaking out over the horizon. The clouds in the sky were in various psychedelic solid colors reminiscent of Beatles-era art. A four-inch bubble was included in the blah-blas below. It had pictures of each of us in the band, like a collage. I looked at the pics and they were in a grainy black-and-white style, like they were blown-up pictures from the newspaper. Very stylish. And they had the added advantage of making the pictures blurry enough that our features became a bit indistinct. That was one of Tracey's excellent suggestions to keep my identity safe. Also, they only had our first names (Janet was still there, as suggested by Tracey, but now Fallon was included, too).

Still, the fear of connection was there now more than ever. Fallon and Betsy could be traced to our school and were known to be our friends, and that Dannie the singer was already identified as "Dannie Fairchild" during the contest itself even though everywhere else, she wasn't identified as a Fairchild. Still, it was just a matter of time.

So it was time to put the plan we thought of in motion. I guess I'll bring it up with the gang during dinner later.

I went back to the other details of the posters.

As per a discussion we had earlier, we found it weird that we hadn't really thought of our group's "logo." I guess you could say that, after all this time, it's funny that we hadn't settled on that yet.

Again, Tracey had a suggestion - our band name was written in a font called "felt marker" and was in a bright red. If this goes over well, then I guess our band name will always be printed this way.

I read the other blah-blahs, and they seemed fine. The title of the concert, of course, still remained controversial to the group, with everyone having their own points of view. The best the group could come up with that Mrs. Piper sort of approved was "A New Sun Rising!" which was what was used in the poster. Below that was the tagline "Be there or be square!" (No one really liked that very tired and trite tagline, but Mrs. Piper insisted… Oh, well.)

The big detail that scared our production team was the situation with the tickets. As the poster said, "listen to the following KRPQ programs and win free tickets!" Beside it in boldface was the label, "tickets not for sale." That was the thing.

The worry was that not enough people might be listening to the programs and therefore it would be difficult to give away enough tickets. So Mrs. Piper decided to plan small. The Arclight Coliseum was a smallish concert-style venue of about 15,000 square feet for seating, with capacity of between 2,000 to 10,000, so the objective was to give away about 1,500 tickets (there were 500 more tickets but they were reserved for VIPs and guests). It was decided not to max out the venue because no one was confident of being able to fill up all the seats.

Anyway, that meant that a hundred tickets a day was the target. That still seemed like a tough sell so we'd need each and every day we could get to be able to reach the target (the stations had the option to give more tickets to the winners if they should ask for more than what they won - that way, the quota would be met more quickly).

So it was essential to get the posters out asap, and the KRPX and KRPQ announcers had to start plugging the concert asap, and the newspaper and social media ads had to be out asap.

That was the bulk of the next discussion.

In the end, the plan was to arrange to have posters put up in the public bulletin boards, parking areas, gyms and cafeterias of the four schools in our little town. I said we needed to include the "private school on top of the hill" - that was how the one private school in town was referred to by everyone. That, or just plainly, "the private school," or the "school on the hill." Most kids felt that those that went to that school were a little snooty, and were they weren't welcomed by the other kids in most places in town. So these kids from "the private school" usually keep the fact that they studied there a secret. I for one didn't really take it against these kids, even though a lot of them really had superiority complexes that made them difficult to deal with. Even so, I suggested that they not be excluded.

Tracey looked a little embarrassed since that was the school she went to, but I gave her a hug and just let the discussion run on. Nikki and I stayed close to Tracey, to let her know we're on her side.

Mrs. Piper had the connections so it was decided she would take care of getting permission to put them up at the schools and the other places. As for the people that would take care of making sure they were posted properly, the gang, plus Tracey, were conscripted for that, and the PiperCorp people were tasked to hang the rest of the posters all over our one mall, and in all of the favorite kids' hangouts in town, which we pointed out on a map for the PiperCorp guy. These included most of the fastfood places and restaurants, the few clubs and the two parks in town, specific places in the mall like the skating rink and the public courts, and the area surrounding the community swimming pool. This excluded those places that were more adult-focused, like Mrs. Piper's favorite Italian restaurant, but it did include Mario's place. (We made sure Mario got half a dozen spare posters, which we signed.)

Fallon then talked about her and Danielle's meeting with Mrs. Sparks, the glee club's adviser, and she had promised to help fill out the form and make sure to get her kids to get their parents to sign. By tomorrow, the forms should start trickling in and Fallon thought most of the club members will join.

Mrs. Piper said, however, that the school won't allow her to really pay them anything since it was through the school that they were recruited, but she could at least guarantee a generous allowance or stipend.

After those details, the discussion shifted to the actual nuts and bolts of the show, and we spent the rest of the evening working on actual concert stuff.

- - - - -

***** (Betsy) *****

I've never worked so hard in my life! But I enjoyed it.

As Morgan promised, someone got us the sheet music for the pieces we were going to play in the proper key, and, when Morgan played the songs on his phone, we easily got the nuances and the timing. "Roughing it out" was how they called what we were doing, and after a few runs, we weren't so rough anymore. LOL

Some of the guys had doubts about Fallon, but she clearly was very talented, and sang very well, better than Janet ever did IMHO. She was almost as good as Danny, but without Danny's almost magical sense for musing, her almost-magical sexy tones, her ability to sing something by ear, and a talent for changing her voice, of course, so Fallon couldn't sing on command or sing a song like Danny could.

I also thought it would be difficult for the new girl to be accepted so quickly, but since she was Danny's friend, everyone was more than willing to give her a chance.

And Fallon did turn out to be a good band mate and more than kept up with all of us. Good thing, too, since we didn't have time to break in a newbie. (Heehee. Listen to me. And a few months ago, no one but my folks ever heard me play.)

Playing straight for an hour was real hard work, and pretty soon, we were all sweating (should have thought of wearing the proper outfit), so we were all mopping our faces and necks with towels some stage person handed us. Danny was the most affected, so she doffed her jacket somewhere in the middle of our first set.

There was a moment of silence as everyone noted Danny's outfit. Without the letterman jacket, we finally noticed she was wearing a stretchy, form-fitting sleeveless and backless white mock-turtleneck top, which showed off her figure spectacularly, which went well with what looked like a form-fitting pair of slim-fit jeans, which all the girls knew were a pair of girl's jeggings.

As Danny handed her jacket to the same stage person who handed us the towels, she finally noticed the silence.

"Oh, wow…" the stage guy said.

"What!" Danny said, and everybody suddenly got busy and tried to avoid meeting her eyes.

The next run-through started out a little tentatively, but as soon as we got over Danny's sexy outfit, we got back into the rhythm of things.

Like I said, by the second run-through, we were playing pretty good - good enough that the director said we could start blocking and doing the necessary spiels and moves that the choreographer wanted us to do. So the third run included practicing some of the stage movements. Nothing much to practice, really - we just needed to know what our spiels were and where to stand. To help, Morgan stood in for the announcers and did his vocal imitation of Harry, Sally and the other announcers to help us with our cues. Not like the way Danny could, of course - but Morgan did his best to match the announcers' intonation, sentence structure and idiosyncrasies.

According to the script, we had about fifteen songs in total, which made us wonder why there were more than that in our list. The director clarified that not all of the songs were going to be part of the show - the extra songs were there only to allow the band some leeway to pick and choose in case some substitutions would be needed somewhere down the road.

So Danny suggested that, since Mrs. Piper had booked some extra time, we should also practice the extra songs, too.

"But, Danny," I said, "we're only scheduled to use the Arclight until ten…"

"Yeah, Bets, but Mrs. P's booked the Arclight 'til midnight. We can get in two more hours of practice if we wanted."

"How about tomorrow? I'm pretty beat." The rest made the same kind of noises.

Danny gave me a little, affectionate kiss on the cheek. "No prob, Bets. We can do it tomorrow." (What a relief!)

When we were through with practice, we then went on to dinner, where Danny broached a topic.

- - - - -

***** (Betsy) *****

Danny and Nikki spent the night at a hotel, and Danny said something happened…

Most of us reacted to that - not that something happened, but that they spent the night. It's not as if we didn't know their intentions going in - it was practically an open secret, after all. But when they openly admitted it, there was still a long and tense moment of silence.

And during that silence, I experienced a long, intense moment of resentment and jealousy. I resented Danny's not picking me, and jealousy that Nikki got to be the one Danny was with. I, in fact, wanted to physically hurt Nikki in some way, and I think some of the others felt that as well.

But after that very short moment, I guess my thinking brain started up again because I realized how… twisted it was for me to think of hurting Nikki for spending the night with Danny. I felt unbelievably guilty. And Nikki was her girlfriend - it was Nikki's right. Why did I even think I should have been the one?

I tried to change the topic, or rather the train of thought I had been following.

"So, what happened, Danny?" I asked.

And everyone started to giggle and snigger. "That's not what I meant!" I protested. Seems that intense moment of whatever-it-was had passed, and everyone was sane again.

So Danny talked about being recognized by the hotel staff, and one thing led to another, and they got their pictures taken with some overzealous fans that wouldn't accept the idea that she wasn't the singer from the Evolution Concert, even with her and Nikki vehemently denying it. One of these pictures was now apparently hanging over the front desk of the hotel.

All of us looked at the pair with big shocked eyes.

"But, Danny…" I began, and everyone started in as well.

"Wait, wait!" Nikki said and held her hand up. "In our defense, we didn't know that those people that asked for pictures were going to put them in the hotel lobby! How could we have known!"

Morgan sighed. "And because we're going to use the kids from the glee club, and everyone knows about Betsy, and that, from the concert, UB's lead vocalist was named 'Dannie Fairchild,' the connection is going to be obvious…"

"Right." Danny said. "So I've decided to pull the trigger on 'The Plan.'"

Essentially, Danny wanted us to start up that plan we thought up before, where we'll make it seem Dannie-the-singer was actually Danielle. Tracey even commented that it was a pretty smart thing to have that contingency plan.

So we stated threshing out what Morgan said was the "logistics" of "The Plan."

There was a lot of back and forth in our little group as we thought it through. But, basically, "The Plan" didn't entail a lot because nothing would really change except for a few things. And they seemed to be easy stuff.

For example, when Danielle would be in "Danny mode," we would need to learn to call her "Dan" (not "Danny" because that sounded exactly like "Dannie" and we wanted to distance Danny-the-guy from Dannie-the-girl-singer) and we definitely couldn't use "Danielle."

Confusing, huh? Oh, and Danielle needed to dress up in Danny's outfits, while Danny dressed in Danielle's (we were worried that fashion-plate Danielle wouldn't agree to this, but, surprisingly, she didn't complain).

As for the rest of us, nothing should really change, except we all need to remember to refer to Danielle as "Dan" when she was "in costume."

Joanne did add a twist - that, if we were asked a direct question, whether Dannie-the-Singer was indeed Danielle, we were not to answer, but yet still give the impression that we were hiding the fact that Dannie was indeed Danielle.

Danielle and Danny nodded.

"And," Morgan said, "to add to that, though Danielle needs to wear Danny's outfits, and Danny, Danielle's" - he looked at them - "you need to change into fresh clothes after school, different from what you were wearing, before you get to the Arclight."

"Well, duh!" Danielle said. "Who would want to wear Danny's dirty, sweaty clothes!"

Danny waved her down. "Wait, Danielle. What's the point, Morgan?"

"It's to confuse things, Danny," Morgan said. "That way, people won't be one hundred percent sure that Danielle is Danny, and vice versa, although we'd behave that they were. If you were to show up with the oufit Danielle wore in school, then the connection is soldified. If you show up with a different outfit, it'll add another layer of plausible deniability."

"Sounds good," Danny nodded. "Here's a different question: do we have to bring anyone else into 'The Plan?'"

Danielle thought about it. "Actually, no one else. Except maybe Mrs. Piper and mom and dad. They need to know. As for others… well, some people will get plenty mad in the end, but it's not necessary to tell them anything, except to admit that Danny is actually Danielle."

Tracey cleared her throat. "Ummm… I'll tell my mom about it. I'll make sure she'll agree."

Danny went to her and gave her a hug.

"Thanks, Trace," she said.

Tracey grinned and then shrugged. "No big. What're friends for?"

"Okay," Danielle said. "and we'll take care of our folks."

- - - - -

***** (Betsy) *****

So, that's how it went for the rest of the days until the actual concert - we would go straight from school to the Arclight Coliseum, do some homework and then practice, practice, practice. Danny, Danielle and Nikki would go the Fairchild's first, though, to allow the twins to change their clothes. That was okay since the glee club kids would only arrive at around six or so anyway.

I myself had taken a two week leave from the Student Council, and my VP took charge, but, even so, I would occasionally be late since Ellis sometimes needed help with something or other.

As predicted, all of the Glee Club parents agreed and Mrs. Piper arranged for a PiperCorp-provided minibus to pick the kids up from their houses, bring them to practice, and bring them back to their houses after. Per the terms, though, the kids were only picked up at around five-thirty, and should be back by ten (with school permission, this was later changed to midnight), and if the academic performance of any of the kids went down or their health was affected, that kid was out. That wasn't an issue, though, since all the kids made sure not to do anything to hurt their being part of the concert. Also, they all knew about Danny, too. We worried about how they would react, or even if they'll believe it when "The Plan" takes effect, but we agreed to cross that bridge when we get there.

As predicted, some of the kids in school sort of started to get suspicious, and a few brave souls did ask the gang the question we didn't want them to ask, but "The Plan" seemed to be working, that though our non-answer answers didn't directly confirm their suspicions, our manner more than confirmed it. Danny and Danielle themselves, in all their dealings with everyone, didn't admit it one way or the other, but they let their manner confirm the kids' suspicions. In any case, though no one was really 100% sure if it was Danny or Danielle who was part of Unlimited Bandwidth, a consensus was starting to grow that Danielle was really Dannie-the-Singer despite Danielle's very bad reputation for singing. So even though they weren't 100% sure that Dannie was Danielle, at least they were 99.99999% sure. Lol.

To be fair, though, the only reason they even thought that Danny was Dannie-the-singer was because Danielle was notorious for having the worst singing voice in school. Plus, of course, the fact that Danny had the same name as the singer.

Another question came up a lot, which was, what happened to Janet? Everyone in the gang fell back to the line that we agreed on - that there was nothing wrong but, because of personal reasons, Janet decided to take some time off from the band. Of course, some people persisted, and we agreed to the fallback answer, which was to tell them to ask Janet herself. As to where she was now, we'd just shrug and say we didn't know.

- - - - -

***** (Betsy) *****

With the posters that were all over town, and the commercials on local TV and radio, and the ads in the local newspapers (at the time, there were still a handful of local papers still surviving in town), almost everyone in town knew about the concert. Joanne, Mel, Mike, Jerry and Tracey had made sure that posters were put up in all the schools, and everything else was taken care of by Mrs. Piper's people, so all the kids knew about the concert.

It was actually the kids that started the groundswell, and, soon, it felt like everyone in town wanted tickets. Tracey told her mom about the hubbub in her school and ours (though we were sure that it was the same in the other schools, too), so Mrs. Piper made some changes, such as arranging for more tickets to be given away, and to arrange that the entire coliseum's seating to be used. In fact, the tickets were going so fast that Mrs. Piper had to be strict that the tickets should only be released to the winners one pair at a time. They were therefore able to make the contest last until the day before the actual concert, with KRPQ giving out tickets to callers avery 15 minutes.

A ticket claiming booth was actually set up at the ground floor lobby of KPRQ's building. Mrs. Piper even cut the VIP seats down to two hundred just so that there would be an extra three hundred tickets to give away. In the end, more than the ten thousand target was given away.

- - - - -

***** (Betsy) *****

By that time, it was a foregone conclusion that Fallon and I were indeed the kids that they knew from school, and that we were in the band. And because of that, the identity of the other band members were quickly traced. And the rest of the gang was linked to the band as well. That included Danielle, too, although some still persisted that it was actually Danny who was in the band.

Most of the kids were also able to trace us back to our gigs in Mario's, which made Mario happy, of course, but not that happy because we had to cancel our gigs for a while, at least until after the concert. But then Mario had the bright idea to rent a big projection screen again, and asked us to sign posters that he had printed up (with Mrs. Piper's permission, of course) inviting everyone to a live "virtual concert" on his big screen at the restaurant on the day of the show (all he intended to do was to put the TV broadcast on his ginormous TV), with reservations and a cover charge, just like a real concert. And since it was still days before the show, he ran a video every day, with clips from our interview, our gigs, the Evolution Concert and our shows in Mario's. In fact, super-groupie Mel, with the assistance of Jerry, made a nice chunk of change from Mario for putting together six two-hour-long videos that Mario showed alternatingly. Mario, of course, made sure that he had official permission from the band and Mrs. Piper.

Mario was pissed off, however, that the posters were stolen as soon as he put them up. So he just had us sign a few more, and he put those behind plexiglass displays firmly screwed down in the front bulletin board-marquee of his restaurant.

Our "virtual concerts" at Mario's were a big hit, we heard, and Mario kept his place open up to the wee hours until he ran out of food and drinks. (Being the consummate restaurateur that he was, Mario was, however, quick to restock, and was able to open for business at the usual 4PM opening time.) Mario even had Mel and Jerry make some more videos using more clips, and he ended up having enough videos that he could run them all one after the other without actually repeating any clip more than a few times.

With the influx of more young people, even during regular days, he was making money hand over fist. But, also because of the kids, he did start to get more attention from the authorities. To allay fears, he had given his wait staff strict instructions, and had signs put up that said "Alcohol will strictly not be served to anyone below twenty-one: be prepared to be carded when asked. Any minor caught drinking alcoholic beverages will be asked to leave - Mario's reserves the right to refuse service to those who do not cooperate." Also, undercover cops posing as customers confirmed that Mario wasn't selling anything he wasn't supposed to be selling, so he was totally fine.

- - - - -

***** (Betsy) *****

Some kids were truly obsessed and still wanted to know if Dannie-the-singer really was Danielle, but their persistence was all to no avail since none of us confirmed it one way or another. And no one, not even the people who were part of the upcoming show, or from the Evolution Contest or from the school, could help since all they knew was "Dannie Fairchild" was the one who was part of the band, and whether that was Danny or Danielle, no one was sure. Besides, only a few even casually entertained the thought that Danny could be Dannie-the-Singer. For various reasons, though - no doubt the people asking were thinking about LGBTQ and discrimination issues - none of them wanted to ask her directly. Or was it him? No one wanted to be smeared and blocked in social media. I had to laugh. Who ever thought that such a thing would be something to worry about in our little town.

Amazingly, however, no one discovered Danny's official affiliation with KRPQ, but it was just a matter of time. This had to be managed. It was actually more touchy since it could be assumed Danny's radio program was somehow deliberately influencing the popularity of "his sister's" band - a case of conflict of interest. However, since Danny had officially terminated his internship in KRPQ months ago, the official connection was over and the likelihood of it coming out was small. However, there was still a chance, so Danny had to be in disguise as Robin when doing the show, and that the gang would need to come up with a plan to bury Danny's internship at KRPQ permanently.

But when we were discussing this, Mike and Jerry looked at each other. Jerry nodded, and Mike said, "We'll take care of that. And, before you ask, Bets, don't - it's best not to know. Plausible deniability, you know."

We all looked at each other, and then at Mike and Jerry. I shrugged. "Whatever you say, Mike." Morgan started humming the theme from Mission Impossible and we all laughed.

- - - - -

***** (Betsy) *****

By that time, lots of kids had started to hang around our houses (especially at the Fairchilds') or at our cafeteria table during lunch, or outside our classrooms. And we suddenly became the most popular kids in school, with everyone trying to be our friend.

We tried not to let all this affect us and give us swelled heads. Thanks to Morgan and Joanne, we were kept our egos grounded and didn't put on airs: we've had our fill of their lectures and Joanne's scary presence over my shoulder everytime I started getting too full of myself.

A bigger complication for the twins was Tom Hennessy, who had never really believed in our subterfuge. Given his experience with Danny during Halloween, and that thing in the mall and at Nikki's with the rose, he knew Danny was Dannie-the-singer - nothing would change his mind about that - and that he was still hung up on Danny (even though he would never admit that to anyone, nor to even act on it).

But Tom wasn't making waves, and was actually helping us - along with his JD buddies, he was helping run interference for us with the more persistent kids, including the kids from the other schools who started visiting our school after classes. No one knew this, of course, but I anonymously paid Tom and his guys a kind of allowance - nothing major: I just paid for gas or fast food takeout or things like that, just to show them that we appreciated what they were doing for us.

Anyway, there were always some kids hanging around at the Fairchilds', and Tom and his buds acted as the twins' unofficial bodyguards, allowing them to get to school without being accosted.

Truly, this could really have gone to our heads, but not with Joanne and Morgan knocking some sense into us, especially into Mike lol. And the glee club kids, too, though it was Fallon that kept those kids in line.

Working on the show wasn't too bad, really, because we only had to endure this for two weeks. What was hard, though, was the repetition, and the walking around while playing and singing, and in high heels and in outfits (although THAT was only during the dress rehearsal). And did you ever try playing a violin while moving AND dancing AND singing AND doing all that in high heels?

But what was really tough was when Janet showed up two days before the concert.

to be continued...

 

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