Beatles in a Beetle

The Glitter Games

Paul was awoken by a clicking noise.  He didn’t particularly want to be awoken, though, so he stayed curled up in his warm bed with his eyes closed.  He figured that Brian had probably come to wake them up for an “early start,” as he too often did.  Still, Paul wished the manager had waited until after the wake-up call, at least.

Yep, there he is, thought Paul grimly as he heard a floorboard creak.

“’M coming, ‘m coming,” he mumbled sleepily, pulling his covers over his head.

He heard nothing.  He started to fall asleep again.

Hang on, that’s odd, Paul suddenly thought.  Shouldn’t he have said something by now?

The bassist pulled back down the sheet slightly and cracked one of his eyes open tentatively, preparing to be blinded by the morning sun.  However, the hotel room was still pitch black, the only light coming from the illuminated face of the alarm clock, which marked the time as 2:18.

Paul opened his other eye and turned his head, scanning the room.

There.  The door connecting his and Ringo’s room with John and George’s was open a crack.  And next to it stood a shadowy figure, holding something long and thin in its hand.

Paul swore mentally.

“What’re you doing in here?” he squeaked in a feeble attempt to be authoritative.

“Shh!” whispered the figure, putting a finger to its lips.

“I will not shush!” said Paul loudly, recovering his voice.

“Shut up!  You’ll wake him up!” replied the figure in a familiar Scouse accent.

“John?” whispered Paul, pushing himself into a sitting position.

“Yeah, of course, you idiot!  Who else’d be sneaking into your room at 2:30 in the morning?” hissed John as he approached Ringo’s bed.

“What’ve you got in your hand?” asked Paul, swinging his legs out of bed.

John snickered.  “He had it coming,” he said, gesturing to sleeping Ringo.

Paul got out of bed.  “What’re you going to do to him?” he asked, now wide awake.

John pulled something out of his pajama’s pocket and tossed it to Paul.  Paul caught another long, thin thing like the item John was holding.

“It’s a marker,” muttered Paul slowly, uncapping the pen.  Ringo continued to snore, blissfully unaware of the conversation taking place at his bedside.

“Does he wake up if you turn on the light?” asked John.  “It’s hard to tell the colours apart in the dark.”