"No. No. No... No.", Ethan said with intensity. "I will NOT go on stage. Nope."

"Come on! It won't be that bad!", I said, pleading. "We need to join the contest. It says we need four, so come on!" Ethan had a bit of stage fright, so he never wanted to do anything in front of people. 

"Yeah, it'll be fun!", said Ryan, wanting to join the contest too.

"Plus, there's money involved!", added Bradley, who also wanted to join.

"And you're funny!", I said. "Together we'll make a great comedy group. The earlier we start on our routine, the better. Let's get started!"

He finally relented. "Okay, but only if I get to say 'Shoot It!' a lot.", he bargained.

"Fine!", the 3 others including me said in unison. This had taken a great deal of time, 3 days, to convince him. And now we could finally join the Future Comedian Group contest. The contest is only for people from ages 5 to 16, and we had all wanted to wait until we, you know, didn't have stage fright. All of us except Ryan, who's an actor. And Ethan, who still has stage fright.

"Okay, let's start!", I said. "So, any ideas of what we could all do for the qualifiers? They're in a month. We're all funny in our own ways, but I know we can bring it together. Ideas?"

"Well, for starters can we lose the puns?", asked Bradley.

"What?!", I asked, genuinely surprised. "But puns fuel the whole thing! They're our backbone, our signature, our life!"

"Maybe for you...", said Ryan. "But I think we should just make a bunch of jokes with hidden meanings. It's more fun that way. Are you picking up what I'm putting down?" Yep, that's Ryan, always with the 'Are you picking up what I'm putting down?!'

"No, people won't understand that!", said Bradley, "We should make some references. People love references." That's Bradley's type of humor and frankly, he's good at it.

"No, we should just ask a bunch of questions and then say 'Shoot it!' as the answer to every one of them.", says Ethan. He loves shooting things, if you couldn't tell.

"Guys, guys! You all have great ideas!", I looked at Ethan. "All of you. That means that we need to combine it and people will love us. One comedy group to rule them all..."

"See?!", shouts Bradley. "That's funny! That reference! Lord of the Rings? Nobody? Okay..."

"Anyway...", I look at my watch. "You all get some sleep. It's ten-thirty at night. If we wanna win a month from now and maybe even be on TV, we better get some sleep. G'night."

As we walked away from our spot in the park, Ethan said, "I still wanna shoot it!"

"Oh my gosh, we get it!", we all yelled in unison again. A few birds flew away. We walked to our houses.