McGirly

Chapter Nine

Paul's POV

It would be a major understatement and a downright lie to say that I didn't panic. I was running around, tugging at my ridiculously long hair and screaming blue murder. It's a wonder my neighbours didn't call noise control on me. After a few minutes, I stopped making a racket, but I was still panicking. 

"Oh my God, what am I going to do?" I said, more to myself than anyone else.

My eyes slid towards the wardrobe standing in the corner. I had found suitable clothes in their yesterday, so maybe I'd get lucky a second time. I threw the doors open and started clawing at my coat hangers until I seized the largest shirt I owned. It was a struggle to get it on as my hands were trembling so much, but I managed it in the end.

"Ah-HA!" I cried triumphantly. "My shirts still fit!"

Then the buttons suddenly strained. There was an awful sound of fabric tearing and before I knew what the dickens was going on, my top two buttons were on the other side of the room. There had been so much strain on them that they popped off and flew through the sky like tiny bullets!

"Ohhh... BALLS," I snapped angrily, then ambled over to pick them up. "Lordy, what AM I going to do now? I'm going to have to think of something... and soon."

After the torn shirt and its missing buttons had been discarded, I dove into my dresser drawers and the boxes in the wardrobe, desperate to find something that could contain my... well, you know. I had been searching for a while, then I came across another box of my mum's things. The clothes I had found before were old, but these ones were even older.

There was a big blue-and-white flowery thing spread out like a parachute at the bottom on the box. I held it up in front of me.

"Oh God, it's my mum's old maternity dress!" I said. "Oh well, it's better than nothing, I guess."

I put on the dress and winced at my reflection in the wardrobe mirror. It was tight around my chest, but the skirt was long and billowing - not at all ideal to wear on a windy day. The print of the dress was atrocious, too. I looked like a hideously patterned circus tent.

"Beats walking around town naked," I murmured, heading for the door.

Only I wasn't so sure on how accurate my statement was.

George's POV

"Do you think Paul will show up today?" I asked, mildly distracted by the pencil I was playing with.

"I don't know," said John. "He was pretty stroppy yesterday."

John, Ringo, and I were slumped around the studio, feeling as miserable as ever. We hadn't heard anything from Paul since the previous afternoon and were beginning to worry. However, it was still early in the morning - Brian and our producer, George Martin, hadn't even arrived yet - so maybe there was still hope. We had to make do with keeping ourselves busy until something happened. I, like I said before, was fiddling with a pencil. John was standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. Ringo was sitting at a table, chin in his hand. None of us really said anything.

Suddenly, a small voice piped up. "Hi, lads..."

We all turned to face it. Paul was standing in the doorway, dressed in what appeared to be the ugliest parachute in the world. He looked just as gloomy as we felt. He also seemed a bit different, but I couldn't figure out what it was.

"Paul!" John cried, his eyes bulging in shock. "What happened?!"

"Yeah," said Ringo. "And what are you wearing?"

Paul sighed heavily and said in a bored, monotone voice, "I grew bigger, my hair is longer, and this is one of my mum's old maternity dresses, okay?"