part one

The makers of "The Truman Show" reckoned Truman Burbank was the first child to be legally adopted by a corporation. They were wrong. Alice Fastway was. In November 1983 the Fastway Bus Company adopted Alice, then a chubby six month old. They figured having an appealing child on board their buses would help to boost business. And so Alice was hugged, played with and fed with copious amounts of candy by the hundreds of pensioners and school children who were the Fastway Company’s main customers. That was, until MMMBop came along. What? You say that was predictable? This is a fan fic, after all.
Back to the story. By May of 1997, Alice had grown into a not unattractive almost-fourteen. She wore her hair in two long light brown braids wound around her head, like Heidi. By the end of the day, the pins holding her hair in place would be long gone, her braids tumbling down her back, her blue eyes sparkling. The bus company thought it was charming. So did the old ladies. So did the school boys. That was when Fastway realised they had a problem. They were getting regular complaints from irate mothers whose sons were too infatuated with young Alice Fastway to bother eating, sleeping or going to school. They just rode around on Fastway’s buses all day, chatting with Alice. That was fine with her: Alice didn’t go to school, and her days had been long and boring until she turned thirteen and had started to... well, mature.
The government didn’t know Alice didn’t go to school. They didn’t know that her parents were a corporation, either. Fastway didn’t want the government to know these minor details about Alice’s life. This meant that when some of the mothers of the love-struck youths threatened to write to the state government, complaining, Fastway realised they had to take action if they didn’t want the government to take Alice. They most certainly didn’t want that! Alice was good for business, after all.
After several frantic board-meetings, the Fastway corporation decided that the best way to keep Alice was to get her completely away from any young boys. But how was that to be accomplished? Employee #L439 was the answer. Also answering to the name of Paul, this particular mountain of flesh, dressed constantly in blue shorts exposing rather too much, had recently acquired a commission as driver of the tour bus of a band.
"A band!" reasoned the Fastway company. "They’ll be well over thirty-five, and too into drugs to pay attention to Alice. That should be nice and safe for a teenage girl. They’ll look after her, in between alcoholic binges and drug-induced hazes, and Paul can do the rest." Being a company with serious embezzlement charges, and not much time to deal with them, Fastway didn’t bother doing any more specific investigations into the matter. They faxed Alice, notifying her of the new changes in her lifestyle, and telling her to have her bags packed by tomorrow morning.
Our first glimpse of Alice’s personality will reveal much about her character. Basically, she was furious. She jumped onto a bus (Fastway of course, free of charge), and paid a visit to the company headquarters. Unfortunately for our heroine, her "parents" weren’t interested.
"Sorry, little girl," they told her. "Time is money. You have to go." Alice was patted comfortingly on the top of her head and led politely and disinterestedly to the bus. Four hours later she and employee #L439 reached their destination.
"Where are we, Paul?" asked Alice.
"Tulsa," he grunted, chewing on his cigarette and ignoring his own "No Smoking" signs.
"Oh, yes," thought Alice. "Okalahoma. Square N24 on the map of America in the glove box." Don’t think Alice was ignorant just because she had never been to school. She had lots of ways of learning. She’d taught herself to read from bus timetables, had learnt mathematics by adding up how behind schedule the bus was, could speak fluent Italian thanks to the old Italian man who used to buy her candy every time he saw her, and she had a knowledge of American geography that would put most teachers to shame. Oh, yes. And a photographic memory. Unfortunately, this wasn’t enough for her new employers. They informed Alice that their mother would be happy to tutor her, just as she taught all six of her own children.
Hanson was quite taken with Alice’s personality. They also liked her body. To put it bluntly.
"She’s, like, perfect," Taylor Hanson told his brothers. Isaac and Zac nodded frantically in agreement.
Alice had a pleasant surprise when she first met Hanson. "Oh, good," she thought. "They’re young." Alice was a little too practical for love at first sight, although she did think the middle one looked like he had a fuel-efficient motor and a fresh coat of paint. "Five star travelling," she mused "Might even have air-conditioning." Remember, she’s been brought up by a bus company. What sort of values did you think she was going to have?

[ part two ]