"Only after he kills me first," Ike moaned pounding his head back against the headrest. 

"What are we going to do?" Taylor asked looking to his older brother for a solution to their problem. 

"Nothing," Ike concluded slowly. "We’re going to sit here and wait for help." 

"That’s it?" Taylor demanded. 

"What do you want?" Ike barked. "We don’t know where we are, we can’t see any signs of a house or a building and we’re in the middle of an ice storm. It might be cold in here, but it’s a lot colder outside. We’re staying here." 

Taylor turned the ignition key again and tried to get the engine to start, but again it simply whined and cranked but the engine would not turn over.  

"Tay, give it up before you kill the battery." Ike gripped. 

"Well, we’ve got to do something," Taylor complained. 

"Well, stop it. We’re in enough trouble without killing the battery too," Ike said. 

"Why don’t you just say it and get it over with," Taylor exclaimed. "It’s all fault." 

"I didn’t say that," Ike started. 

"But you’re thinking it," Taylor said bordering on yelling. 

"Hey, guys!" Zac interrupted. 

"Shut up, Zac!" both Taylor and Ike said at the same time both turning in their front seats and giving their younger brother a look of exasperation. 

"What did I do?" Zac demanded. "You guys need to learn some new words and improve your vocabulary skills." 

"This from a guy who starts every sentence with ‘Hey or Whazup?’," Taylor demanded. 

"Well, I didn’t say ‘suck’ on national television," Zac exclaimed with a snotty uplift to his chin. 

Taylor ducked his head and turned slightly red at the memory. "You didn’t have to write a three thousand word essay on ‘The deterioration and misuse of the English language’ either," he complained. 

"And, conjunctions don’t count!" Zac, Taylor and Ike chimed in together and then they all laughed. 

"Hey, guys!" Zac squeaked. 

"Shut up, Zac!" Taylor and Ike chimed in again only this time they were grinning. 

Zac grabbed for the door handle on the side of the van and with a jerk he opened it. "Headlights!" he shouted. 

Taylor twisted around and then he too, grabbed for the door handle. They slipped and slid across ice trying to get to the edge of the road. Zac slipped and fell, but Taylor didn’t stop to help him up. He kept sliding more than running for the edge of the road and started waving his hands over his head to get the drivers attention. The Chevy Blazer went right past him and as he watched as it slowly came to a stop. Taylor ran up to the drivers’ side of the car and a woman rolled down the window after seeing it was just a boy. 

"Is there an accident, are you hurt?" the woman demanded. 

"No," Taylor answered. "But, we are lost and we spun out and now we can’t get the van restarted."  

"Hi!" Zac greeted the woman with a smile. "Can you rescue us?" 

The woman immediately grinned back. "How many are we?" she asked. 

"Just one more, our other brother," Zac explained and then he shouted over his shoulder. "Come on, Ike!" 

Margaret Sullivan instantly recognized the two young men standing beside her Blazer and she had no doubt about the identity of the third brother. As the mother of daughters aged thirteen and fifteen, she saw these three faces every day hanging on her daughters bedroom walls.  

"Hi," Ike said offering his left hand awkwardly to their rescuer as he held the napkins to his eye with his right hand. "We’ve kind of gotten ourselves stranded out here and if you could give us a lift to the nearest place with a phone, we would sure appreciate it." 

"Get in before you freeze," Margaret offered.  

The Hanson brothers took the woman at her word and piled into the vehicle.  

Margaret turned to the young man who chose to get in the front seat beside her. "Hi, I’m Margaret Sullivan." 

"Ike, Taylor and Zac Hanson," Ike introduced as he pointed at himself and then each of his brothers. 

"I know," Margaret said with a smile. "I have daughters and truthfully, I’m a fan myself. Did you hurt your eye or your head?" 

"I think I must have cut my eye," Ike said removing the napkins enough to show the woman his swollen, reddened eye. 

"Did you hit the windshield?" Margaret asked trying to look into Ike’s eye. "I’m a nurse." 

"No, I just got hit in the eye with edge of a map, so it’s probably just a paper cut," Ike covering his eye again. 

"Good," Margaret said. "I know it hurts like the devil, but the eye is one of the fastest healing parts of the human body. We’ll have it looked at as soon as we get to the center. Everyone buckled up?" 

Zac and Taylor exchanged grins in the back seat and both responded affirmative. Margaret Sullivans words echoed the same exact words that they heard from their own mother every single time they had ever gotten into a vehicle in their entire lives.  

"What are you kids doing out way out here anyway?" Margaret asked as she carefully drove across the ice. 

"We don’t even know where ‘here’ is," Zac giggled from the back only to receive a glare from an one-eyed Ike. 

Margaret didn’t even take her eyes off the road. "Here, is Millsville, its about thirty-five miles from the Tulsa City line." 

"Which direction?" Ike asked. 

"East," 

"Jeez, that means we’re probably fifty miles home," Ike grumbled. 

Margaret drove for fifteen minutes before she pulled into a driveway and drove up in front of large single level building. She stopped the car and turned to her passengers. 

"Listen boys, I need to tell you something, before we go in," Margaret said turning in her seat to partially face the backseat area and Ike. 

Zac and Ike leaned forward expectantly. 

"This is the Pastell Center. As, I told you before, I am a nurse and this is where I work. I need to warn you. This is a privately owned Hospice for cancer patients. Have you even known anyone who has had cancer?" 

"Our Grandmother died of cancer," Taylor answered casting a watchful eye over at Zac to see how he was taking the news. Zac was staring downward at the carpet, biting his lower lip. 

"Okay, then you know its not pretty, it’s not easy," Margaret said softly. Pastell Center is basically run for children with cancer. Our oldest patient is seventeen. I’m not going to sugar coat this. By the time the children get here, it’s pretty much a waiting game. They’ve already had all the treatments, everything that can be done, has been done." 

"Do you mean the kids are dying?" Zac whispered. 

Taylor put an arm around his brother and Ike reached back and gripped him on the knee. 

Margaret watched the display of brotherly support and she nodded her head. 

"I wish I didn’t have to say this, but yes, most of these children will die," she said gently. "If you want I can take you in there and put you in a room until someone can pick you up and we don’t even have to tell them you’re here. Or, you can surprise a lot of kids and give them wonderful memory of meeting a celebrity. It’s up to you and either way it will be fine with me, honestly." 

"I’ll meet them," Ike volunteered and Taylor nodded his head. 

"Me, too," Zac said softly. 

"You don’t have too," Taylor said looking down at his brother’s bowed head. 

Zac looked up. "I want to, really." 

"You’ll make a lot of kids happy," Margaret exclaimed with a smile. "I don’t know what you’ve seen before but you have to be prepared for what you’ll see in there. There will be kids with no hair, from chemotherapy, kids that look emaciated from the side effects of radiation, kids that look sick and kids that look perfectly healthy. If you go in there, you have to be prepared to treat them like they’re normal kids. Because that’s what they are, just normal kids that happen to be very sick. Do you think you can handle it?" 

Three heads nodded together. 

Margaret escorted the brothers inside and put them in an office and offered them the use of the telephone. Then with a promise that she would be back, she ran off to awaken and assemble the young patients.  

Ike picked up the phone and Taylor and Zac both looked at him with trepidation. He shrugged and pushed down his own nerves. "We have to do it," he said simply and dialed their home number. 

Walker picked up the phone on the first ring. "Hello?" 

"Dad," Ike exclaimed. 

"Thank God," Walker exclaimed. "Are your brothers with you? Are you all right?" 

"We’re together and we’re fine," Ike replied. "But..." 

"But, what?" Walker demanded. 

Ike took a deep breath. "Dad, we got caught out in the ice storm. Is it sleeting at home? Never mind. Anyway, we got caught out in the storm and the van slid off the road. No. No. We’re okay, and the van didn’t even hit anything, but it won’t start. No Dad, we’re fine." Ike kept having to interrupt his fathers interrogating questions. "So anyway, Dad, we got a lift to the Pascall Center. It’s a Hospice about six miles west of Millsville on Rt. 34. " 

Ike listened to his father for a few minutes and then he handed the phone over to Taylor. "Tell him you’re okay," he ordered. 

"Hi, Dad, I’m okay," Taylor parroted into the phone. He listened for a minute and he in turn handed the phone over to Zac who had almost the same identical dialog with their father. Finally, Zac handed the phone back to Ike and Ike listened for a while and then he finally said good-bye and hung up. 

"Wow," Ike said worriedly. "If that’s a sample of what I’m going to hear when I get home, I might opt to stay here." 

"Bad?" Taylor asked. 

Ike shrugged. "It would have been worst if we had actually wrecked the van," he responded. 

There was a knock on the door and Margaret Sullivan, now dressed in a nurse uniform opened the door.  

"Have you finished your phone call? Good. Ike, I want to get your eye looked after and then I’ll take you in to visit our kids. We have some very excited fans, who think that I’m delusional, waiting for you to make an appearance." 

"We’ll be out in a second," Ike said indicating for Margaret to leave them alone for a little bit longer. The woman nodded and pulled the door shut. Ike turned to his younger brothers seriously.  

"Are you two sure you’re up to this?" he asked looking very serious, his invisible ‘big brother’ hat firmly in place. 

Taylor nodded in response and Ike looked to Zac. Taylor’s eyes followed his brothers and then he too was looking at their younger brother. 

Zac looked up and nodded. "Hey, I’m okay. We’ve been to hospitals before. I’m not a baby, I can handle it." 

Ike watched Zac with a serious studying glaze and then finally he nodded. "Okay then, let’s go." 

A quick examination resulted in Ike’s eye being bandaged. There was no serious damage just a small, painful paper cut.  

Then Nurse Margaret Sullivan led the three Hanson brothers into a large recreation room they were greeted with a few squeals and a lot of broad smiles. Most of the young patients were ambulatory, or in wheel chairs, a few were still in their hospital beds, hooked up to IV’s and various pieces of equipment.  

Ike, Taylor and Zac greeted the children one after the other, shaking their hands, signing notebooks and pieces of paper and trying to remember the assortment of names that were rapidly being thrown at them. At first, the children grouped around them giggling and partially afraid to ask questions, but soon they were talking and freely interacting with the brothers.  

Margaret and other nurses and attendants and the doctor on duty watched with excitement as the children in their care began to show a liveliness and animation that has long been missing from their daily lives.  

Ike, Taylor and Zac were really enjoying themselves. The kids were fun, and once they got past the shock of seeing the hollow dark eyes and the bald heads and the medical apparatuses they able to relax and treat them very much like they did their own brothers and sisters. As they suspected would happen, it didn’t take long before someone requested that they sing. Ike apologized ahead of time because they hadn’t practiced singing Capella for a while. After a few strained notes though the brothers were right back on scale and in perfect key. They sang six songs when Ike called a halt and asked if they could take a break to get something to drink and to rest their voice and he promised the children that they would sing again for them before they left. 

Even though it was hours past when the children were normally asleep, the nurses brought in some juice and cookies for refreshment to add to the festiveness of the evening. Ike, Taylor and Zac began to wander around the room talking more individually to the young patients. Zac found three young boys, a little older than Mackie and he began to wrestle with them in a very gentle manner. He tickled them and laughed at their giggling antics. Ike struck up a conversation with a boy who was just a little younger than himself, Brad Thomas. In talking to him, Ike found out that they had something in common, a love of guitar. Brad took Ike back to his room and although the center had tried to make the rooms look less sterile and institutional, it still looked very much like a hospital room. Ike admired Brad’s personal collection of guitar magazines and they brought his guitar out to the recreational room. There, Ike proceeded to give Brad some tips on playing and a small group of interested children gathered around him as if he were the Pied Piper.  

Taylor talked to some of the children and then he gravitated toward the children that were held captive in their hospital beds. One by one he took the time to talk to the children that had been brought to the recreation room in their hospital beds. The last bed was occupied by a girl of about fourteen. When he walked over to her bed she looked up at him in angrily. 

"Where is your camera crew?" she snarled. 

"What camera crew?’ Taylor asked somewhat confused. 

"The one that will broadcast it all over the news tomorrow that Hanson went to visit the poor cancer patients at Pascall," she snarled. 

"No camera crew," Taylor promised. "Believe me we’re here strictly by accident." 

"That figures," the girl snarled. 

"Look, if you don’t want to talk to me that’s okay," Taylor said uncomfortable with the girls attitude. "I can go talk to someone else." 

"I don’t mind talking to you," the girl said quickly. "My name is Arleen, I just don’t like it when celebrities make their ‘charity’ visits and then it’s blasted all over the news. They just use us for publicity." 

"We never let camera crews go with us when we visit hospitals," Taylor said. "Sometimes the hospital media people report it after we leave but we can’t control that. Besides, like I said, being here is strictly by accident." 

"As in a car accident?" Arleen asked. 

"Yeah," Taylor admitted. "We spun out on the ice. Two full revolutions, cool as heck, but scary and then we couldn’t get the van started again." 

"The automatic fuel shutoff valve probably triggered," Arleen suggested. 

Taylor did a double-take, "Huh. You know about that kind of stuff?"  

Arleen nodded and laughed for the first time. "Yeah, my father is a mechanic. I used to work around the garage a lot when I was at home. It’s an easy hundred to hundred and fifty bucks. Fifty- to a hundred for towing and then another fifty to reset the switch. Takes all of about three minutes." 

"Wow, I’ll have to remember that," Taylor exclaimed impressed. "I’m in enough trouble as it is." 

"You were driving?" Arleen asked. 

Taylor nodded. "And, I’m probably dead meat when I get home." 

"That’s funny," Arleen laughed. 

"My getting murdered is funny?" Taylor exclaimed. "Don’t tell me, you’re an Anti-Hanson, right?" 

Arleen shook her head. "No, I didn’t mean it that way. It’s just funny to think that you would be in trouble. I mean you’re a rock star." 

"Somehow that little detail has escaped the attention of my parents." Taylor said laughing. "Believe me, I’m in deep crap!" 

"So, you’re going to get grounded?" Arleen guessed. 

"Maybe," Taylor guessed. "With my folks it’s hard to tell." 

"So, what’s it like to be rock star?" Arleen asked. 

"Not much different from what it was like before," Taylor said. "We travel more. Stay in better hotels." 

"That’s it?" Arleen exclaimed. 

"Pretty much," Taylor admitted. "We’ve been doing this since I was seven; on a smaller scale but we were still performing." 

"What about the famous people that you get to meet?" Arleen pressed. 

"Some of them are cool," Taylor admitted. "What is this? Twenty questions?" 

"Why not? You got anything better to do?" Arleen laughed but her laughter had a bitter edge to it. 

Taylor shook his head. "Fire away." 

The girl looked at him for moment and she twisted her IV tube between her fingers in nervousness.  

"Do you have a girlfriend?" Arleen asked. 

"Unoriginal question," Taylor taunted. "Standard answer: No." 

"I want a truthful answer," Arleen taunted back. "Are you dating?" 

Taylor hesitated and then he smiled. "No girlfriend," he answered. "Actually, I’m not even allowed to date by myself until I’m sixteen. I can double-date with Ike and I have a few times but so far there’s been nobody special." 

"That, I haven’t read in the magazines," Arleen exclaimed gleefully. 

"And, you’d better not tell them either," Taylor retorted with a menacing look. "I think everyone in LA and New York must start dating at 10, but my folks are a little more old fashioned about it. Next?"  

Arleen thought for a second. "What’s the best part of being a celebrity?" 

Taylor thought about his answer carefully. "Sometimes it’s great. Everyone knows who you are. Everyone treats you special. You get to do a lot of things that you normally wouldn’t have a chance to do. You get to travel all over the world." 

"Standard answer. What’s the worst part?" Arleen pressed. 

Taylor didn’t even hesitate. "Everyone knows who you are, or who they think you are. Everyone treats you like you’re special when you’re just a normal person. We get to travel but we have to visit museums in the middle of the night to avoid crowds and we have to take the kids to the zoo at six in the morning." 

Arleen’s smile faded at his words. "That doesn’t sound very cool." 

"That part of isn’t," Taylor admitted. "But you have take the bad with the good. It’s hard on our parents and our little brother and sisters." 

"And you?" Arleen asked. 

"Hey, we created the situation. We either have to put up with it or get out of the business. We like what we do." 

"We, we, we," Arleen said quoting him back. "Taylor you’re not a ‘we’. You are a you. How do you feel about it?" 

Taylor smiled and chuckled. "I know who I am. We all know who we are individually. I guess we... I have just gotten used to generalizing for the group Hanson." 

"So what does, Taylor want?" Arleen asked seriously. 

"Ah, but I can’t tell you that because even I don’t know yet," Taylor joked. "I mean, I’m only fifteen. I have plenty time to..."  

Taylor stopped in mid-sentence and suddenly he was tongue-tied realizing what he’d just said to a terminally ill fourteen-year-old. A girl that didn’t have ‘plenty’ of time. 

Arleen actually giggled at his discomfort. "It’s all right, Taylor. I know better than anyone that I’m going to die." 

"Don’t say that," Taylor whispered distressed by her words. 

"It’s okay," Arleen repeated. "I can say it. I’ve known for a long time and I don’t have a problem with it. I went through a long time when I was angry but that’s all over now. Now the only thing I regret is missed opportunities. I didn’t have the chance to do things like you, on a ‘grand’ scale but I regret not doing the things that I could have done." 

"Like what?" Taylor inquired softly. 

"Helping my Dad with the Christmas lights. Going to the movies with my sister. Doing the dishes with my Mom. Getting to go to the prom, getting a pretty dress and a wrist corsage" Arleen listed the little day to day activities with a catch in her voice.  

"I’m sorry, Arlene," Taylor said taking her hand and carefully giving it a squeeze. 

"Hey, it’s okay," Arleen protested. "Just don’t pass up your chances to do stuff. They may not come around a second time." 

"And, if they do, Zac will be the one to take advantage and do them," Taylor suggested and Arleen smiled.  

"Hey, do I at least get a autograph?" Arleen asked suddenly. 

"Sure, what do you want me to sign?" Taylor asked. 

I wish we were in my room, you could sign my poster," Arleen exclaimed. "Why don’t you send me a picture or an autographed copy of MOE or something." 

"You’re a MOE member?" Taylor asked laughing. 

"From the beginning. Want to hear the Pledge of Devotion for Hanson, recited?"  

Taylor laughed. "We don’t have such a thing, and don’t you dare suggest it. We’ve got enough crazy fans out there." 

Arleen joined his laugher.  

"Hey, Tay!" Zac shouted from the center of the room. "Get over here. Ike’s got a guitar and we’re going to sing some more!" 

"I’m being yelled for," Taylor said with a grimace 

"Good," Arleen said. "I get a private concert." 

Taylor gave her hand another squeeze and went to join Ike and Zac. They sang several more songs and with each one the children’s voices clamored for more. Finally, when the clock struck twelve, the nurses thought that the children had had enough excitement. Margaret Sullivan and the other nurses implied that the boys had to leave and one by one they took the children back to their rooms. Ike, Taylor and Zac individually gave them a hug or a handshake good-bye. The lights dimmed in the hallways and the children’s voices were quieted for sleep. The brothers returned to the office and waited for their Dad to come pick them up. The radio was reporting a lot of trees and branches down and closed roads so they assumed that their father was having a hard time driving on the ice. Sprawled across the chairs and leather couch Zac was sound asleep and Taylor and Ike were drifting off to sleep themselves when the door opened and Walker walked into the room. 

Ike and Taylor got to their feet groggily and their Dad gave them a hug. 

Walker walked over to Zac and smiled as he heard him snoring softly. He shook him slightly, "Zac, wake up. It’s time to go home." 

Zac raised up, mumbled something and leaned forward into his Dad’s shoulder and instantly drifted off again. 

Ike smiled and draped his brother’s arm over his shoulder and partially lifted him to his feet. "He’s out for the count." 

"Let’s get him to the car." Walker suggested. "Nurse Sullivan told me about your little party tonight with the kids. That was a nice thing to do." 

"It was good," Ike agreed. 

"You guys go ahead, I have to do something to do first," Taylor exclaimed. "I’ll be right back!" 

"Tay!" Walker protested. 

"Just a second, Dad." Taylor implored and he disappeared down the hall at a run. 

"Maybe he has to go," Ike said as he and his father both tried to walk a primarily asleep Zac out to the car. 

Taylor didn’t have to ‘go’. He ran down the hallway, counting down the room numbers until he spotted room #22. He pushed the door open quietly and peered into the room. Arleen was asleep in the bed, still attached to the IV and now attached to oxygen. He was startled to see that she was partially bald. A wig was sitting on a Styrofoam head on the table beside her bed. Taylor pulled a pen out his pocket and scrawled his name in his huge signature across his portion of the Hanson poster. Then with a glance over at her bed again, he leaned back into the poster and forged both Isaac’s and Zac’s signatures and wrote across the bottom of it, "I didn’t miss this chance, Tay" and then he pocketed the pen and slipped out of the room and ran down the hall to catch up with his brothers and father.