The whole story began when Alannah came to America. She came from Germany and to be honest, her English wasn’t really good. But she had a dream. She wanted to become a singer. And therefore she moved to L.A. The apartment where she lived wasn’t something special. It was a small three room big flat, where she lived with two other girls called Savannah and Janette. She met them over the internet and when she told both girls about her dreams they were enthusiastic. These three girls founded a girl group called ‘Animal Athletes’. The idea for that name came from Janette. All three girls loved animals and when Savannah jumped around showing her dance moves Janette said laughing “You look like an athlete monkey”. Out of that the band name was created. The problem was that none of these girls had money what meant for them they couldn’t record demo tapes and so they couldn’t contact any record companies. So they made the plan to sing on the street. They drew a placard where stood “1 song = 1 Dollar; 1 song + dance = 2 Dollars”. With that placard they sat in front of a fountain. After Alannah threw a nickel into it, just as a good omen, they made the double of money they usually earned and so it became a custom. That’s why they called this fountain their personal Wishing Well.
They got a little bit famous. The same people started to visit them every day and supported them with some extra dollars. A reporter came to interview the girls and the people started to talk about them. No one of them knew their real names, but no one wanted to interrupt these girls, so they started to give those nicknames.
Janette proved to them that she could sing really high songs as good as lower ones. So they started to call her little Miss Timberlake.
Savannah could reach those high tones, Justin couldn’t even dream of, so she became the nickname little Miss Kirkpatrick.
And Alannah could sing strong and reached real low tones but also could sing pretty well the higher voices, so they started to call her little Miss Chasez.
Someday also the girls started to call themselves these nicknames. But they were pretty long. The cut them. They went from little Miss Timberlake to Timb, because JT and Timbo were taken. From little Miss Chasez they went to JJ (Joshua Junior) and from little Miss Kirkpatrick they went to Kirky.

One day they sat again in front of it and sang for money. There came a small, corpulent man and threw a dollar in their fedora they used as money collector. Friendly all three girls looked at him and Savannah asked, which song they should sing for him. “This I promise you” was the answer. An *NSYNC song. That wondered all three girls. After the VMAs 2013 everybody wanted to hear *NSYNC songs, but mostly the people wanted to hear Bye Bye Bye or Pop. They nodded and Janette started to sing. She had a pretty high voice, so her one fit the best to Justin’s.
When the visions around you,
Bring tears to your eyes
And all that surround you,
Are secrets and lies.
The man watched Janette singing, while Alannah and Savannah made the background vocals.
I’ll be your strength,
I’ll give you hope,
Keeping your faith when it’s gone.
They watched the man, how he examines critically their vocal performance.
The one you should call,
Was standing here all along…
He dug out a recording device and recorded the girl’s voices.
And I will take
You in my arms
And hold you right were you belong
‘Till the day my life is through
This I promise you,
This I promise you.
The man clapped in his hands. Confused the girls looked at him. They have never been interrupted when they sang a song. And they didn’t understand why. This man paid for this song. Why shouldn’t he want to hear it all?
“Hello let me introduce myself. My name is Timbaland.”
Could this be true? Was this man really Timbaland? The one and only Timbaland? Then the girls recognized his face and realized that a music god had listened to them. Alannah started to squeak, while Janette started to cry tears of joy and Savannah jumped around. They couldn’t believe that this was really happening right now.
“I read in the LA daily news that three really talented girls were singing in front of this fountain every day and I wanted to convince myself, if these girls are really so talented. You convinced me. I don’t want to talk much so I make it short. I want you girls to record a demo tape with me. I will pull some strings and if we are lucky and I can convince the right people, we can make you popular. What do you think?”
Both girls nodded. They couldn’t speak. They were much too excited.
“Ok, here is the address of my studio. Tomorrow 3pm. Don’t let me wait.”
With these words Timbaland left the young girls.