... at this point, Lucy started crying. Taylor looked over in our direction concernedly, and Isaac and Zac exchanged looks. I knew I had to do something, so I stood up, took a deep breath, and said, "Well, there's only one thing I can do."
I left Jos to reluctantly comfort Lucy. ("Come on, it's not like you'll never *see* them again! At least you've been to a concert. Oh, snap out of it, they're just a music group.") and strode over to where the trio was sitting.
"OK, guys," I said, approaching them. "I'm going to tell you something. Something weird. Something strange. You're going to think I'm insane. But it's all true."
I told them the whole story. About the emails, about Dave the cat, about Dave the Austrailian, about the whole mixup involving multiple dimensions and the SOFTLUWS. They seemed to be the most amused by the SOFTLUWS, and I don't know why ...
But with each word coming out of my mouth, they seemed to be growing quieter and quieter, until the only sound that I could hear was Lucy's sniffling. "They don't believe me," I thought. "They think we're insane, and now I've ruined everything for Lucy." But I kept going.
"And that," I finished, "is how we ended up here."
There was a long tense moment of silence.
No one said a word.
"So," sniffed Lucy, "do you guys want to come with?"
The three brothers exchanged looks. "Uh," said Taylor. "We'll, uh, think about it."
The rest of the night was spent with them giving each other dazed looks. I just knew Lucy was thinking that she hoped it didn't ruin their performance tonight. "How will we know your decision?" she asked.
"We'll tell you when you come backstage after the show ..." said Zac.
"Oh, yeah."
The evening progressed smoothly after that, the three seemed to put it behind them, and fun was had by all until it was time to go to the concert. Lucy seemed to be disturbed when they had to go get dressed for the concert, but Jos and I gave her looks which apparently had the affect to convince her not to say something weird.
The concert was good, but not as good as the Newsboys'. Well, it wasn't. However, Lucy thought she had died and gone to heaven, but I don't think that heaven would allow speakers that loud, so I didn't compare it that way.
When it was over, Lucy nearly trampled people in getting backstage, and I nearly had to drag Jos to the back. However, after awhile, they both stopped being so weird, and Jos actually smiled on the way there, and Lucy actually stopped to go to the bathroom, not being so obsessively hasty anymore.
When the bodyguard let us in the room, the three were in the midst of a pretty deep discussion.
"You *know* that we just can't do it, Tay! We *had* this discussion! Our fans will miss us!"
"Isaac, I know you're the oldest, I *know* that you think you know best, but *HE* **SAID**--"
The bodyguard cleared his throat. They looked up.
"Oh, hello!" said Zac, jumping up. "We're in the middle of, well, an important family issue. Would you mind if we stepped into the other room and finished it?"
I shook my head, and Lucy looked a tad disappointed, but brightened up when she saw a bowl of mints on the table, because she likes mints and isn't so obsessed that she wouldn't allow her favorite group to leave and have an important family meeting when there are mints to be eaten.
They left, and the three of us sat there, looking at each other, gnawing on mints.
"Good concert, don't you think?" asked Jos, because she didn't hate this group, but was only a little frustrated before this overhaul of Lucy's obsession, but was now over that.
"I thought it was good. The sound could have been a little less ear-drum bleedish, but it was excellant otherwise," I answered.
"These mints are good," said Lucy, because she was not so obsessed to have to insert into every conversation the fact that she does, in fact, love everything about them.
Just then, Isaac stepped back into the room with a somber look on his face. Taylor and Zac followed, but their expressions were unreadable.
Isaac sat down in front of us.
"Ladies," he started, "when we heard your story, we were shocked. Absolutely, positively flabbergasted by it. We had no idea what to say."
Taylor took over then. "But it's not why you think. See, of all the *weird* stuff in the entire world ... It happened to us, too."
"See, now that we know you guys, and have heard your story, we think we figured out what happened," continued Zac. "Well, actually, Taylor thinks he's got it all figured out, but I just don't get it ..."
Taylor took over from there. "Lucy, aren't you the one that always sends us those cool and funny emails? About everything from your webpage to slams?"
Lucy just nodded, sucking on a mint.
"Well, somehow, with all this dimension jumping, it turns out that you infected us. We were trying to get in contact with you for the longest time, but it wasn't going anywhere. No replies, no nothing. We knew something had to be up. And then, we started getting mail from you that just didn't sound ... like you. We know you're emphatic, but we know you're not crazy. One time, you wrote a letter saying we were married, and would I please pick up some milk on the way home? It was nuts.
"Then we talked to that weird old SOFTLUW on the internet, and went to this *fountain* we had never noticed in the middle of Tulsa, and ended up ... in ... Australia, was it?"
"Man, that Dave guy was weird," said Zac. "But I like his name!"
I covered a snicker.
"So," said Isaac, "it turns out *we* have the same powers as you guys! We discussed it and decided our fans needed us in the music industry, so we weren't going to travel ..."
"... But," continued Taylor, "when you showed up, we had that little meeting you saw, and realized that we didn't need to be here. We love the music, but we'd love to travel, too. And being able to slip away from hoardes of girls, unseen ... That is the stuff dream are made of ..."
"So, that's our decision," said Zac. "We're coming with you."
We didn't make Lucy contain her happiness this time.