Melody's POV

*~* One Week Later *~*

I woke up peacefully to the sun shining beautifully through my window. My open window. The day was warm and had a slight breeze, ruffling my white translucent curtains and--
Nope. That's not right.
I woke up to boys. With Nerf guns. Where they got them, I had no clue. Because I didn't own ANY Nerf guns, whatsoever, no matter how many times I had asked for JUST ONE for Christmas. Santa thought I was crazy.
"WAKE! UP!" screamed Louis, who was simultaneously jumping on my bed and shooting my arm with the foam bullets. I was being shot at from eight other directions. I reached out and grabbed Louis' ankle and yanked it, causing him to fall down in front of me. "Well, don't you think you're a little young for that, missy?" he said, raising his eyebrows. I opened one eye and flicked him off, then promptly put my head in my arms and tried to sleep again.
"Oooh! Somebody's angry!" Niall shouted. I felt the bed beside me and my arms came in contact with something hard and plastic. It was a Nerf gun. (I think they're made of plastic....) I cracked open an eye and worked out my plan.
Obviously, still in my wonderfully covering pajamas (not), I jumped up, throwing the covers off of me and grabbing the gun simultaneously, and shot all of them before they knew what had happened. Harry, Louis, Liam, Niall, Zayn, Katrina C., Katrina V., Heather, and Ella all fell to the ground in mock death.
"I see the light! Am I dead?!" Louis shouted. I looked over at him without expression, moved my arm toward him, and shot him once more. That shut him up.
"You know, I've never had one of these," I said, patting my gun. "But I'm keeping all of them, because Santa thought I was a weirdo.

"Mee-ow!" Louis said, mocking my bra.
"Don't you think I'm a little young for that, Boo Bear?" I said, walking over and pinching his cheek. By now, they were (hopefully) used to seeing me in my pajamas, which only consisted of a sports bra and short shorts, unless I was going outside, then it was pants and a sweatshirt for me.
"Can you make us hot cocoa again?" Zayn asked, propping himself up on his elbows. "Please?"
"Nope!" I answered, popping the 'p'. "I'm off-duty today."
"Aww! That's good stufff!" Niall complained. "Hey, you made us hot cocoa every day. Why not today?"
I just looked at him.
"Did I miss something here?" Niall asked, sitting up.
"Yes, yes, you did," I said, walking over several 'dead' bodies to reach my closet. I pulled my new black studded top off its hanger, then took a scissors and cut off the tags before reaching into my dresser drawer and taking out my ripped acid-washed skinny jeans and colorful socks. And clean undergarments, obviously.
"What is it? What did I miss?" Niall asked, standing up and shooting me once as I put the scissors back. The bullet hit my butt and I turned around, giving him a glare that said 'shoot me again and I kill you'. So he shot me again and I dropped my clothes and launched myself at him, causing him to fall. Once I had him on his back, I sat on his stomach and held my hands up in victory.
"I won!" I shouted victoriously.
"I wasn't aware we were competing," Niall grunted from under me. "My God she has a bony bum!"
"I get that a lot," I said, grinning down at him. I stood up and walked back to my closet to grab the clothes that I had dropped and picked them up.
Niall crept up behind me and tackled me, which apparently was some sort of code for everyone else to reincarnate and dog pile on top of me. The air was pushed out of me under the several tons of weight on my back and I couldn't breathe.
I managed to shout two little words, though. "CAN'T! BREATHE!"
This resulted in 8/9 of the group to get off me. The other ninth however, was stubborn Niall.
"Niall. Off," I growled.
"Never!" he shouted in my ear.
"Gee, that's nice. I'm going to die of asyphyxiation on my birthday. How pleasant!"
"Oh! It's your birthday?" Niall said, standing up.
"That's what you were missing, Niall," I said, standing up.
"Happy birthday!" Ella shouted like Guppy from iCarly. I laughed, because that's what I did on everyone else's birthday.
"Guppy!" Harry shouted. "iCarly!"
I just laughed and walked to the bathroom to shower.
ONE HOUR LATER
I walked downstairs in my new clothes, dreading the moment I was crowned 'birthday princess' by my parents for the fourteenth time. I hated this part of my birthday. It was fun, until you turn eight. Then you get made fun of.
"HAPPY BIRTHDAY!" Louis shouted when I walked into the kitchen. He launched himself at me, and I spun out of the way just in time and watched him crash to the floor. "Ow."
"Sorry. I'd just rather not break something today, and having a grown man jump on me isn't very helpful to that cause," I said, holding out a hand to help him up. He took it, but pulled me down, made a weird face, then jumped up and threw my over his shouder.
"Lou! Put! Me! Down!" I shouted, pounding on his back with my fists. Then I just let them hang above (below?) my head, anticipating that he would drop me. Which he did. I landed on my hands, then stood in a handstand and walked around my kitchen on my hands for five minutes, keeping my knees together and toes pointed the entire time. This got a round of applause from everyone, but my arms got tired, so I bent my knees and carried my weight that way, landing gracefully on my feet and pulling myself up without using anything to help me get up.
"Whoa! Cool!" Liam said.
"Nine years of gymnastics," I said, bowing to my audience and giggling. "I'm a pro."
"Can you teach me to do that?" Zayn asked.
"Umm.... I can try if you seriously want to," I said. "Bet you twenty bucks you can't."
"Deal," Zayn said, shaking my hand.
Just then, my parents came downstairs with a fancy box.
"Happy birthday, Molly moo!" my mom said.
"Ugh! Mom! Don't call me that!" I said, mortified.
"Molly moo?" Liam said, confused. "Where does that come in with 'Melody'?"
"My mom wanted to name me Molly, but Dad wouldn't let her, so Mom calls me Molly moo," I explained, then turned back to my parents. "What's in the box?"
"Your crown," Dad said, obviously pleased with himself.
"Not this year! I've asked you to stop this since I was eight!"
"Well, this one's not plastic. And we actually spent a lot of money on this one, so don't break it," Mom said, opening the velvet box, revealing an intricate tiara.
(Ignore the tiara in the upper left hand corner. Ella's wearing it.)
"Whoa! Pretty!" Ella shouted.
I smiled. "Let Ella wear it. She's much less clumsy than I am. I'd probably break it," I said, taking the crown from the box and putting it on Ella. She squealed in delight and ran out to the living room.
"Okay, so we're taking you for your test at noon, so make sure you're ready in an hour," Mom said. Leave it to Mom to be all businesslike.
"Okay. I'll be downstairs, trying to teach Zayn how to do a handstand," I giggled, running to the basement, closely followed by One Direction and the Katrinas.
I automatically went to my music room and stopped short when I saw a small, long, rectangular box on my piano.
"You didn't," I gasped, turning around and facing the boys.
"We did!" Harry said. "Open them!"
I squealed in my head and ran over. I tore into the box, which was really just six little boxes wrapped together. I opened them all without looking at what was inside of them until I had opened them all, then peeeked at them.
There were six rings, each for a different finger.
Elephant: Zayn | Bird: Harry | Snake: Liam | Cow: Louis | Penguin: Niall
"Oh my gosh! You guys!" I shouted. "You didn't have to get me anything!"
"Yes we did," Harry said, shoving his hands in his pockets.
"But wait... I'm confused. There's six rings, but only five of you."
"Uhm... that one with the writing on it is from all of us," Harry said nervously.
Hmmm.....

---

*~* Two Hours Later *~*

"I passed!" I shouted, running downstairs, where Zayn was practicing his handstand and everyone else was laughing at his failed attempts.
"Now you can drive!" the Katrinas shouted, running over and hugging me. We jumped up and down, squealing like little four-year-olds would over a new Barbie movie. Harry covered his ears.
"Sorry!" the three of us said in unison, giggling.
"Lemme see it!" Katrina V. said. I handed my new ID to her. "Such a serious face."
I made a constipated face. "I felt like I looked constipated when I took that picture because I was laughing so hard beforehand and it was hard to not smile."
"Oh! That was a driver's license test?"Niall asked, munching on a donut hole. I nodded. "I thought it was a blood test or something."
I laughed. "No way! I wouldn't be anywhere NEAR as excited for that as I was for this."
"So, Mel," Zayn asked, lying on the floor from another failed attempt at a handstand. "When are you going to show us your musical abilites?"
"You really need me to prove it?"
"Yes. I don't believe Hazza when he tells me you can play all those instruments," Louis said, patting Harry on the shoulder. Harry blushed. "He talks about it all the time."
"Oh really?" I asked, suspicious. "Okay then. Let's go to the music room."

---

*~* Five Hours Later *~*

"I'll go get Harry," I said, already halfway to the basement stairs. "Don't let Niall eat all the cake!"
"You ruin my fun!" I heard Niall shout.
"Live for it!" I laughed.
I walked down the stairs and turned the necessary corners into my music room. He wasn't there. I walked over to my studio and found him in there, hanging something on the wall. It was a black-and-white picture of what looked like -- I gasped.
"What are you doing with that?!" I shouted, searching my pockets frantically for the picture of the crash.
"Putting it on the wall," he answered, stepping away from the wall. There, on the wall, in a white picture frame, was a flattened, wrinkled, black-and-white photo of the car crash Will died in. The frame stood out from the rest, seeing as it was white instead of black.
White.
Will's favorite color.
I stared at the picture frame for a long time, not moving. Will had always loved the color white, and he always made sure he was wearing something white every day, whether it was his socks or his shirt. Sometimes he would take Heather's white nail polish and put a dot on one of his fingernails if he didn't have anything else to wear that was white. He said he liked it because it was all the colors, and because it was a pure color.
Silent tears dripped off my chin. Traitors.
"Don't cry, Mel," Harry said, walking over and taking my face in his hands. He wiped tears away with his thumbs. "You're strong, Mel."
And with that, he leaned in and kissed me.

Notes

And 32 chapters later.... it FINALLY happened!!! hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe! I made you guys wait so long for this. Holy shit. 32 CHAPTERS! 32 FUCKING CHAPTERS!! LOLOLOL!!! XD
Well, now I suppose it's 33 chapters, but you know.
Oh, and in Fargo, it's not really possible for someone to get their license on a Saturday, I think it's only Fridays unless it's all weekdays, I'm not sure. But where I live, you can't get your license (or permit, come to think of it) unless it's a Thursday, and my birthday's on a Friday, so I'm going up to Fargo on my birthday to take my permit test. Happy 14th birthday to me on August 16th!
BTW: Melody is 15.