The entire following day was spent cooking and cleaning as soon as we’d finished the breakfast and the birthday awakening of my brother, Lars. We would get guests coming over in the afternoon for some cake that I spent the morning making. I wanted to help my mum as much as possible, I wanted her to know that I was home to be with her and the others and not to only worry about and deal with the huge amount of attention that the girls I was getting. There were still girls waiting out in our driveway, but not that many anymore, which was nice, since I didn’t want this kind of “fame” to be a burden to my poor family.
Mum had gotten a bit angry with me, when I’d told her last night that I would be away on the 23rd and the 25th to do interviews and perform with The Rookies, but not for very long, I think she somehow was aware that this was insanely important to us, not to mention insanely necessary. She seemed to understand the importance of this and the excitement that I was feeling just at the thought of getting to do such things for a living.
But I still wanted to make an effort in helping as much as possible around the house, it actually felt quite relaxing to be doing something as normal as this and from last night’s events I was feeling really happy and excited, so I think that anybody could practically ask me to do anything for them, and I would gladly do it.


True to her words Aida had immediately made a packed schedule for us the two days that we’d managed to set off, she’d already texted me to tell me what interviews we would be doing and that we could use her parents’ car, since we would have a couple of ones to do in Copenhagen. The biggest one was a morning interview at the TV show called Good Morning Denmark tomorrow on Christmas morning. We would have to leave at five o’clock in the morning to get to the studio on time. But again, none of us wasn’t complaining one bit, this was huge, really.

To be interviewed and to perform at that morning TV show was only for the kind of big artists and Christmas morning they would always pick someone really special to perform – I couldn’t believe that they wanted us to do it. Us three girls. Completely and hopelessly normal girls. That were just playing together for fun.
What on Earth were we doing on a show like that? I don’t think that any of us had any idea how famous we were already getting around here, at home in Denmark.


The guests arrived around two o’clock, and since my family was so big there always ended up being more than 30 people walking around our house each single time we would have events like these.
The entire birthday cake that I’d made was eaten right up, along with a shit load of those Christmas cookies that we’d been making yesterday. It was so great to see my younger brothers’ face light up every time he would open one of the many presents that he received. The massively annoying sound of an apparently extremely cool and funny remote car toy afterwards was on the other hand not something that I became a fan of.

“Look at this, Maja!” he shouted at me from the other end of the living room. I was sitting in one of the two couches answering a few of my grandmother’s endless questions about my new life in London and he was running around the room after his new toy making it rather difficult for the poor elder lady in front of me to hear a word of what I was saying.

“Yeah, that’s really cool,” I quickly responded to his outbreak, hoping that he didn’t need more than those few words to find my reaction satisfying. When he continued out in to the kitchen, I assumed that he was and the relief of the sudden peace to my worn-out ears rushed over me.

When also my grandmother left the room to go to the toilet I stayed in that room alone for a few minutes, enjoying a few minutes on my own. It felt weird to be suddenly surrounded by so many people again, I’d gotten all used to living with Aida and Em and we all enjoyed having our own space. If we didn’t give that to each other, one of us would go mad, that was for sure, and as I sat here in a house full of people constantly talking or laughing loudly, I instantly began missing the apartment in London. It had become my space. My space for everything. Peace, songwriting, rehearsing, partying and love were just a few of the things that I would always find in that place.

Despite the rather short amount of time I’d been living there I still found that both Aida, Em and I had really quickly gotten integrated in our new life in England, it hadn’t been as hard as I’d thought at first, if you didn’t think about all the crazy things that had happened to us in every other place than that apartment.


Suddenly I felt a smaller body than mine snuggled up on my lap. Lars’ big blue eyes reflected mine perfectly as he looked up at me innocently with a small smile.

“What’s up, where’s your new car?” I asked him, trying to sound excited for him and not as annoyed as I was feeling at the thought of it.

“Today was daddy’s birthday as well…” was all he mumbled. The smile that I’d forced on my lips the second before, immediately fainted.

“Yes,” I said. The tone in my voice was more confident than I’d expected it to be. “Yes, it was.”

“How old would he have been then?” he asked.

“Uhm… Let’s see…” I counted the numbers in my head. “Sixty-six.”

“That’s old,” he honestly commented which made me laugh.

“Yeah, he was an old man,” I chuckled. I wanted to keep our conversations around him as light as possible, I didn’t want that little boy to think that our father was someone we couldn’t talk about, despite the many bad memories I had of him myself. But Lars wasn’t old enough to remember any of that, I wanted to keep it that way.
When he didn’t say anything but just stared out in the air for a few moments I decided to say something.

“Do you miss him?”

He nodded. “Sometimes. Right now I do.”

“I do too,” I lied.

“Did we ever get him something for his birthday?” he asked. “I don’t remember.”

“Uhm,” I stuttered. “Yeah, we did. Not anything big, but he always got a little present from us.”

“He didn’t give you any presents.”

Damn, the honesty about him always threw me off guard.

“Well, he didn’t have much money. Do you remember I told you that?”

“Yeah. But then why did I get a present for my birthday when you didn’t?”

“Because… You’re younger. The rest of us are big, we don’t need to get gifts from him, he could only afford one. And that was for you.”

“Okay. But why did you give him one then?”

Fuck. Stop talking.

“Because. We thought that that would make him happy.”

“Did it?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Is Christian my daddy now?”

God damnit. Shut the fuck up, kid.

“No, mum has talked to you about that already. Christian is not your real daddy, he’s only your step-father. Daddy is your real one.”

“But he’s dead.”

“Yes, but that’s just the way it is.”

“Why did he die so soon?”

“Why are you asking me this? You’ve already been told the answers.”

“But I can’t remember.”

I took a couple of deep breaths, hoping that that would keep me from getting annoyed with his questions. It was only understandable that he wanted to get these answers – apparently more than once.

“He was old,” I lied.

“Grandmother is older and she’s not dead. And great-grandmother is even older and not dead.”

“Yeah, but he was just… He got sick.”

“Sick how?”

“Uhm… something called cirrhosis. That’s when the liver gets… bad.”

“Were you sad when he died?”

“Yes, I was.” I didn’t know if was now lying or not.

“You didn’t cry.”

“What?” What was he talking about?

“At the funeral. You didn’t cry.”

How did he remember any of that, it was almost two years ago?

“That doesn’t mean I wasn’t sad.”

“Okay.”

Completely unaffected he walked back in to the kitchen to grab his toy up from the floor again. I couldn’t hold back a little laugh at how simple his brain worked, he never swelled in any bad feelings for longer than absolutely necessary. Kind of like Niall.

Niall.
I pulled out my phone to call him over FaceTime. How did I already miss him?

“Maja?” his familiar soft voice said through the phone as the shadows around his blonde hair was getting clearer.

“Hi Niall!” I replied still smiling widely at the small screen.

“How are you? Did you get home safe? I miss you,” he said.

“I miss you too. Yeah, everything went well, it’s nice to be home,” I told him. “You home yet?”

“Just got here a few hours ago,” he said. “I saw some pictures of you from the airport and outside your house. Were there people waiting for you or what?”

Had he really spent time on looking at those pictures? He was the cutest.

“Yes, there were actually. I felt quite fabulous,” I smirked making him laugh.

“I’m sure you did. So you and the girls are okay? It wasn’t too uncomfortable?” he asked sounding a bit more serious.

“No, not at all. It was fine,” I assured him. I tried desperately to focus on speaking and not getting caught up in the moment by his – as fucking always – incredible great looks. I loved the way his hair was when it wasn’t touched at all after he’d showered, it was falling down on his forehead in the most beautiful messy way, it made me get the familiar feeling of wanting to run my fingers through it and… Control your mind, Maja, you horny piece of shit.

“What’s that sound?” he asked.

“Oh that’s Lars’ new birthday gift, a remote car or something. Annoying as hell,” I told him, I was glad that my brother couldn’t understand enough English to know what I was saying.

“I had one of those as well! It broke though.”

“Thank God. Exactly how long did it take for it to break?”

He began laughing again at my joke, but deep down in my mind I don’t think I was joking at all.


“Are you talking to Niall?” Lars shouted from the kitchen in Danish.

“Yes, I am,” I shouted back and before I knew it he’d climbed back on to my lap saying:

“Hello. My name is Lars,” in the poorest school English ever, it really was one of the only things he’d learned to say yet and it was hilarious to listen to, both Niall and I cracked up.

“Hello Lars. My name is Niall,” he answered him, trying to emphasize every sound to make it easier to understand his thick Irish accent.

“How are you?” Another thing that Lars had learned to say.

“I’m fine, thank you. How are you?”

“I’m fine, thank you,” Lars repeated the exact same way that the boy behind the screen had just done it and my eyes were on the verge of watering heavily from having to keep in my laughs, I didn’t want my brother to think that we were making fun of him.

“Does he know any more English?” Niall asked me.

“No, I don’t think so,” I shrugged before asking the boy on my lap in Danish the question. He immediately burst in to singing the lyrics to Midnight Memories, which was the latest song that he’d learned.

That was it. I couldn’t hold my screams of laughter inside me anymore. And Niall either. That kid was just too fucking funny. He reminded me a lot of Niels, they really were so alike.
While laughing my boyfriend tried to sing along as encouraging as possible, even though it was quite hard for him to breathe and I cracked up even more.


My stomach was still aching from the intense muscle workout when I went to bed that night.



My alarm rang me up at six o’clock, I would need to shower and get ready, before Aida would pick me up at seven. I dried my hair and messed it up with a bit of hairspray to make it a bit bigger and more voluminous and then put it in a low bun in my neck. I put on a blue and brown plaid straight skirt and tugged a plain black oversized sweatshirt in to it. I put on a pair of black stockings and my black leather boots.
After having done a simple makeup consisting of just mascara and some eyeliner I was ready, just in time before I heard the honk from the car waiting for me outside.

“Good morning,” I said cheerfully as I jumped in on the passenger seat.

“Good morning,” she smiled sounding just as excited as me.

“Wow, you look great,” I gushed before I even got to think of what she was actually wearing.

She had put on a grey short sweat shirt along with a pair of tight black leather jeans that were low waisted, so that a tiny bit of her stomach was visible from underneath the sweatshirt. She had added a pair of dark grey sneakers and a red bandana around her short hair, matching the color on her nails and the very deep red lipstick on her lips. Along with her golden skin tone it actually looked completely casual, she just managed to look nothing but fabulous at the same time, as always.

We were picking Em up on the way to the local radio station, where we would be interviewed first right after the morning news.

She was already waiting outside her house when we pulled in the driveway. She was wearing a big black and white shirt with animal print all over it, some black stockings and a pair of black boots with a thick black heal. Her big blonde hair was controlled in a tall bun on her head and she had marked her eyebrows slightly making her face appear more edgy and less soft. I don’t know how she did it, but her body somehow pulled off wearing that big shirt without looking like an elephant. Her slim legs revealed the beautiful figure that was underneath along with her marked cheekbones and collarbones. She could wear a garbage bag and still look elegant.


It didn’t take more than twenty minutes to get to the radio station, it was in the bigger town right next to ours. The ride flew by in the blink of an eye whenever spending it with these girls who were constantly chatting excitedly about what was going to happen these days and the stream of fucked up jokes was endless as always, I had to pick which ones of them that I found funny enough to laugh of, or else I would completely destroy the makeup that I’d just put on.

We pulled up in the parking lot next to a tall building – or as tall as it could get in a small city like this. We headed up the stairs and through the door on the third floor where we supposedly doing the interview in the small studio that we entered after being showed the way in there by a woman sitting behind a desk in the room before.
A man and a woman was sitting in the studio with each their pair of headphones hanging on a microphone in front of them. They were chatting, I guessed they were off air at that point. When the woman introduced us the two of them introduced themselves to us as Sandy and Allan.


“So the interview is going to be done over an hour, where the theme is upcoming music, which is the reason we invited you to come here today. We will play some music by other different artists and hands in between the interview. The question will just be about your music and your inspirations and stuff,” the woman, Sandy, quickly briefed us. “Does that sound okay?”

“Sounds great,” Aida smiled.

“And then we will play you two demos, one in the beginning and one at the very end of the hour,” Allan added. Even though Aida had already informed us that they would do that, my heart still skipped a beat at the sound of him saying those words out loud.

We had made two demos of “For You” and “Copenhagen” last summer, all by ourselves, so that we would have something ready to bring to London. The thought of hearing your own voice on the radio was so fucking intimidating, I almost shit myself.

“We will be on air after this song,” Sandy told us, just as she’d put on another song a few minutes later. “Come sit here and put these on.” She gestured for us to head towards the three chairs on the opposite side of the table where she and Allan were sitting.

We all stumbled over there in complete silence and put on the big black headphones as we were told.

“Just try to relax, we’re not too fancy around here on this radio,” she smiled kindly as she probably noticed our non-existing breathing.

“But it’s still a freaking radio,” Em spoke honestly which made both of them laugh. I hoped that their seemingly nice and cool personas would affect all of us within this hour, I seriously couldn’t bear the thought of sounding like an awkward idiot over the radio. That would be so horribly embarrassing, even though this was just a local radio and that there would probably only be around ten people listening to us making fools out of ourselves.


The sound of Allan’s voice suddenly speaking in to the microphone in front of him, snapped me out of my worried thoughts and forced me to deal with the situation, no matter how unprepared I felt. Some place, deep down, I was well aware that we were all going to enjoy this, like the attention whores that we truly were.

“That was Haim you just heard, with their new single The Wire. And now we’ve gotten a rather formal visit from three other girls, who play music together as well, only these are actually from our own dear nation, Denmark. They’ve been playing packed concerts all over London for the past couple of months and now they’ve found time to talk to us in their short Christmas break. Welcome to Em, Maja and Aida, also known as The Rookies. Hello girls!”

“Hello,” we all said in to our microphones at the exact same time. Great. Well done, girls.

“Welcome to Radio Sydhavsøerne. So how are you feeling?” he asked.

“Absolutely amazing, you?” Em answered, I noticed how both Aida and I kept our mouths shut in order not to repeat our awkward stunt before.

“Very good, we’re so glad to have you here,” he said.

“We’re so glad to be here,” Em responded charmingly.

“Are you enjoying Christmas so far?” Sandy asked looking at me making it easier for us to decide who to answer when.

“Yeah, it’s really good to be home and relax for a couple of days,” I said.

“Yes, I heard that you’ve been quite busy playing gig after gig over in London, ever since you moved there about three months ago, how’s that been for you?” Allan asked.

“It’s been really stressful, since we’ve also had fulltime jobs next to our music, which has been hard, but now we’ve all quit our jobs to focus on the music, even though that will be a bit dangerous,” Aida said.

“Well you’ve been playing at completely packed venues all the time, I’m guessing you will make money enough for the rent,” Allan smiled reassuringly.

“Okay, so first of all we will have to remind you that those packed places were bars and restaurants and small venues, not exactly the O2 Arena,” I cut in making the studio chuckle.

“We know, but I’ve actually made a bit of math here, have a listen,” he objected and we looked at him curiously. “You have enough Twitter followers to fill the O2 Arena 2,2546 times. How does that feel?”

“Oh please don’t say that,” Aida said.

“Don’t you even get us started!” I added.

“Why not?”

“Cause we’re going to throw ourselves out of the building, that’s why,” Em finished and we all laughed. The loosening muscles in my body felt more and more relaxed, it was really nice.

“I hope that would be from the excitement?” Sandy asked.

“More like horror,” I smiled and the laughs continued.

“Anyway, so you guys have agreed to let us play your two demos on this radio and we’re just about to hear the first one. Aida, you are going to introduce this one,” Sandie turned her face towards the girl next to me and she took over:

“Yeah, the first one that you’re going to hear is a song that we wrote a while back… uhm, we’ve kind of all written this one together, on a rainy afternoon sometime in the fall. It’s called For You,” she spoke in to the microphone before Allan put the demo on.


To know that people were now hearing our music on the radio was making the three of us let out a squeal at the same time, none of us caring if we were acting like stupid, hormonal teenagers. We were just way too excited to be keeping it down.


“So that was the first time, your music has ever been played on the radio?” Sandy asked us once For You had finished.

“Yes, it was,” I answered.

“How did it feel?”

“Uhm… it was… all right,” Aida said.

“To you at home listening, I can tell you that these girls just spent the entire song giggling and screaming,” Allan said and I couldn’t help crack up. We really were just a couple of idiots.

“Thank you, Allan,” Em joked monotonically and it seemed as though I didn’t stop smiling at one second throughout the rest of the interview, where we talked about so much random and weird stuff, most of it really didn’t feel like an interview, more like any other conversation.


“Now, there’s something that both we, and also the people listening, are dying to hear. We simply can’t let you guys leave before talking to you about this,” Allan began somewhere by the end of the hour that had just flown by, and we looked at him suspiciously even though we kind of knew where this was going. It had actually felt kind of weird not having discussed anything but ourselves with them. “So you three girls all have boyfriends, right?”

“Very sleek, Allan,” I smirked back at him instead of answering and he chuckled.

“They’re all boys from the boy band, One Direction, am I right?” he asked.

“They are,” Em nodded.

“So which one is yours, Em?” Sandy asked her.

“Liam is mine,” she laughed.

“And you, Aida?”

“Harry,” she grinned along.

“And Maja?”

“Niall,” I ended.

“For how long have you known them?”

“Uhm… Since this summer,” I said.

“So you’ve basically been quite violently thrown in to all this hassle with media and fame really quickly haven’t you?”

“Uhm… I guess you could say so,” Aida nodded.

“Do you think that’s why your career as a band is going so fast?”

“Well…” Em began while looking a bit thoughtful. “We can’t lie. I mean, it obviously attracts a lot of attention dating these boys, it really does. But I think that… you know, we all hope that the reason why people keep coming to our small concerts is that they like what they hear and not what they read.”

Great answer, Em. Fucking great answer. Eat that, haters.

“Yeah. Sounds right,” Allan nodded approvingly at her. “But how are you handling all this sudden change from a quiet life in a small country like Denmark, to being chased by girls and paparazzi’s through the streets of a massive city like London?”

“Uhm…” Aida began answering. “It was a huge change. But… I don’t think that any of us regret anything, I mean, it can be hard sometimes. But it’s not something you think about that much, to be honest, it just kind of comes with. And if we hated it, we wouldn’t be able to keep on dating them, I think.”

“So are they cute?” Sandy asked with an excited voice that made me smile.

“They’re some very nice guys,” I simply and kindly answered.

“All right, so to end this absolutely lovely hour we are going to hear another demo from you guys, Maja would you like to present this?” Allan asked me.

“Yes, this is a song that we wrote around a year ago maybe. It often ends up being this way, that Aida writes the lyrics, Em finds a great melody and I do the arrangement of the song, which was exactly how this song was created. It’s a tribute to our dear capital, Copenhagen, and is, very creatively, called Copenhagen.”

“We’ve had an amazing time, thank you girls so much for coming today, hopefully we get to meet you soon again sometime,” he replied with a wide sincere smile.

“We would love that,” Aida nodded sounding equally as happy.

“And to everyone at home: You’re listening to Radio Sydhavsøerne, merry Christmas to you and here’s The Rookies with their song, Copenhagen,” Sandy ended the interview.



“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” I said sarcastically as we were heading towards the car down at the parking lot.

“Guess, I could maybe get used to this,” Em played along.

“Well, that’s good, cause we have about… 5 more interviews to do today,” Aida said looking down at the notebook in her hand where she’d been writing down the plan for today.

“Let’s go then!” I exclaimed just as the car engine started humming.

Notes