After a few nights of tagging, Pierre still couldn’t get Cathy to reveal more about herself, other than that she was a gal about his age and whose initials – ‘CK’ rhymed with his ‘PK’. She explained that the tagboard was not the ideal platform to divulge too much personal info and promised to reveal her true self in due time. Instead of feeling frustrated, Pierre became curious and was determined to get to know the mysterious gal.

It was time for their centralised rehearsal again. Cathy, who had been looking forward to it, could not stop herself from wanting to look in his direction. Rather than watching the conductor standing in front of her for cues, her eyes were tilting towards where Pierre was standing. Doris who noticed her weird eye movement, had to pinch her arm a number of times to get her to stay focus. During the break, Cathy dragged Doris along to get as close as possible to Pierre’s side of the stage. They pretended to be looking for a friend as they inched towards him. A contented smile emerged as soon as she heard his voice. He was chatting with his choir mates and was poking fun at some of them. It must have been tough for him to hide his miseries behind all those laughter. Then the break was over and both the gals elbowed their way back to their side of the stage.

That evening, Cathy scrutinised his entry about his rehearsal, hoping to find out if he had noticed anything unusual. Much to her dismay, nothing out of the ordinary caught his attention. Perhaps he was too busy conversing with his friends that he didn’t realise that he was being watched. Anyway, she wasn’t ready to be discovered yet and hoped to remain unnoticeable for as long as it was needed.

As NDP neared, the centralised rehearsals intensified and Cathy wasn’t complaining. During each of the rehearsal, Cathy would persuade the gradually impatient Doris to accompany her in her ‘Pierre watching’. Many a time, Doris would urge her to open up to him but Cathy kept saying that the time wasn’t ripe. Once, Doris almost blew Cathy’s cover when she called out to him. Unfortunately or perhaps fortunately, her voice was drowned by the surrounding noise and she was pulled away by Cathy before she could make another attempt.

Finally, it was the day for the real thing – the actual NDP. As the parade got going, an excited Cathy was so stirred up by the patriotic sentiment that she temporarily lost sight of Pierre and sang her heart out. By the end of the night, she had sung herself hoarse but she was still in such high spirits that she continued to hum along. Just as she immersed herself in the finale, she suddenly remembered her Pierre. Looking in his direction, she noticed that he was enjoying himself just as much. As the spectators were making their way out of the stadium, an invitation was extended to all those present to go down to the ‘gigantic dance floor’ to dance the night away. Cathy, with Doris and the others, made her way down and started dancing to the music. Not far from them, a group of guys was rapping away and Pierre was among them. Cathy’s heart was racing away not so much from her dancing but more from seeing him at such close range. Suddenly, she received such a hard shove from behind that she lunged into Pierre who instinctively held up his hands to catch her. As she came into contact with his hand, a bolt of electric charge shot up from her hand to her thumping heart, giving her a near heart attack. As they looked into each other eyes, Cathy told herself that it was now or never.

Stunned by her sudden revelation, Pierre was flabbergasted. As he regained his composure and realised who she was, he blurted out.

The celebration not only marked the birth of a nation, it also signalled the beginning of a beautiful relation.