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"Skatchoon?" Justin repeated. "Where the hell is Skatchoon?"
Lance rolled his eyes. "Canada, fuckwit. It's only the size of Texas."
"Oh," Joey said. He turned to Justin. "Sas-katch-ew-an."
"Oh," Justin said. "Saskatchewan."
Chris hit Lance over the back of the head. "Pronounce it like an American, you fool."
Lance hit Chris back. "After you pronounced it Horses Doovers on French MTV?"
Chris hit Lance back, harder. "After you got into fucking Time Magazine with the immortal faux pas--"
Lance shot out of his chair. "Shut up! Shut up! Don't say it!"
"--Ellie Wizzle!" Chris put his feet on the table and crowed loudly.
"Fuck," Lance said, and collapsed down. "Fuck."
JC looked confused. "So, we're going to Skatchoon?"
"No," Justin said, "we're going to Saskatchewan."
Chris' cellphone rang. He looked at the caller ID and turned it off.
"Hey!" JC said. "I lived with Canadians. When I say Skatchoon, it means--"
Joey leaned forward and clamped a hand over JC's mouth. "Okay, there's no way in hell we're going to record in-- in--"
"Skatchoon," JC and Lance said.
"Sas-katch-ew-an," Justin and Chris said, louder.
"In this shack in the wilderness. Because--"
Lance's cellphone rang. He looked down and turned it off.
Chris looked at JC and nodded. "Bad idea. Very bad idea."
Justin's cellphone rang. He turned it off.
JC mmmmphed until Joey took his hand away. "I'm not going to say it anymore, I promise. Can we go to the cabin?" His unspoken 'eh' lingered heavily in the air.
"Absolutely not," Justin said. "I don't want you within 200 miles of a Canadian accent."
There was a rap on the window. They turned and smiled into the camera flash.
"Um." Lance cleared his throat. "I didn't say we'd be recording there."
Four sets of eyes finally settled on him.
"I said," Lance repeated carefully, "that this guy I met in Chicago had a shack in--" he paused delicately, "Canada. And he said we could go there."
Chris narrowed his eyes. "And do what?"
Lance shrugged. "Don't know. All's I know is, it doesn't have electricity."
JC's cellphone rang. He handed it to Lance, who studied it for a minute and then found the off button.
"Does it have a phone line?" Joey asked.
Lance shook his head no.
"Internet?"
Lance shook his head again.
"Satellite cell coverage."
"Nope."
Justin's cell rang. He leaned back and shoved it under the couch cushions.
JC scratched his head. "Well, how do our publicists contact us? And our managers? And our lawyers? And our assistants? And our stylists? And our dieticians? And the press? And the fans?"
"There's a road," Lance said. "Well, kind of. A track, Fraser said. Well, not so much a track as a pass between thousand-feet-high mountains and thousand-feet-deep crevasses. You can get there with a snowmobile and a very good map, apparently." He waved a piece of paper with precise, hand-drawn lines on it, and small terse instructions like Avoid the southern slope--frequent avalanches.
"Oh," Chris said, eyes lighting up. "Skatchoon."
"It only has one bedroom," Lance added.
Justin looked around their tourbus and nodded. "No problem."
"And if it snows, the pass will close, and they'll have to do food drops."
"Well," JC said brightly, "they can always drop down a fax if it's really urgent."
Chris stroked his chin thoughtfully. "All that white paper might get lost in the snow."
"Exactly. It's really very convenient," Lance concluded.
"So!" JC clapped his hands, delighted. "We're going to Canada, eh?"
(588 words)