Pete Milano's Guide to Being a Movie Star

by Tommy Greenwald

  She was right.

  25

  LEAVING A MARK

  THE NEXT DAY WE PLAYED dodgeball in gym.

  I know some schools don’t allow dodgeball. They think it makes kids more violent or something. But luckily our gym teacher, Mr. Radonski, disagrees. He says the opposite is true: If you let kids burn off their aggressive energy playing sports, then they’ll be less aggressive in life. That could be true. But I think the main reason Mr. Radonski lets us play is because he loves seeing kids peg balls at each other as hard as they can. Mr. Radonski is a little crazy.

  “Okay, split up into two teams!” he barked. “Manning and Collins, you’re captains.”

  Phil Manning was an obvious choice for captain, considering he was the strongest kid in the grade and wore a football jersey to school every day. Eliza Collins was a little less obvious, since the closest she came to playing sports was driving by soccer practice on the way to the hair salon. (Sure, I know some people consider cheerleading a sport, but as far as I’m concerned, if it doesn’t involve a ball, it doesn’t count.)

  “Yay!” Eliza squealed. “I love being captain! Ladies pick first, right? I pick Pete.”

  “Me?” I said. I would have fallen off my chair, if I’d been sitting on one. In the old days, she was ready to have me arrested for stealing her pom-poms. But this wasn’t the old days. This was the new days.

  Charlie Joe chuckled. “Seriously? No offense, Eliza, but Pete’s worse than me at dodgeball. And I’m pretty bad.”

  “He may even be worse than me,” Jake added. “And dodgeball is like my forty-third best sport.”

  “What does that even mean?” Timmy said, scratching his head.

  “It means I stink at dodgeball,” Jake said.

  I took my place behind Eliza and tried to ignore the chatter.

  “I pick Jeff,” Phil announced. Jeff Santore was known for having the best arm in the grade. When he nailed you, it left a mark.

  Eliza and Phil kept picking until the teams were set. Then Mr. Radonski blew his whistle, and the fun began.

  “Gotcha!”

  “Ow!”

  “You’re out!”

  “That missed!”

  “You’re dead meat!”

  “My sister throws harder than that!”

  And so on.

  Finally, we were down to four people. By some miracle, I was one of them. My teammate Eric Cunkler was still in, too. On the other side, Charlie Joe and Jeff Santore were left.

  “Five minutes to the bell!” Mr. Radonski hollered. “Let’s get this thing done!”

  Eric and I were hugging the back wall, basically hiding, while Jeff and Charlie Joe were busy making a plan.

  Mr. Radonski saw us and blew his whistle. “Hey! Milano and Cunkler, no cowering! Get out there and play the game like men!”

  Oh, sure, that was easy for Mr. Radonski to say. He was on the sidelines, far away from Jeff Santore’s deadly right arm.

  Eric was clearly thinking the same thing. “Too bad we can’t peg Mr. Radonski,” he said.

  Which gave me an idea.

  It was a pretty crazy idea, but I was known for my crazy ideas. At least, I used to be. At first, I told myself to forget it. But then I thought about Mareli saying I’d changed … That I matured …

  Well, I’ve got news for you.

  No one says I’ve matured until I say I’ve matured.

  “Mr. Radonski!” I whispered. “Come quick. I think there’s blood on the floor!”

  That scared Mr. R. The last thing he needed was for a kid to get hurt on his watch. As he hurried out to the floor to take a look, I threw the ball as hard as I could toward Jeff, who was still huddled up with Charlie Joe, but I missed—on purpose. The ball whacked against the back wall. Then, as Jeff whirled around and got ready to fire back, I ducked behind Mr. Radonski. Not only would Jeff miss me, he’d nail Mr. R. Now that’s what I call a win-win.

  I was already congratulating myself. It had seemed like a great plan thirty seconds earlier, when I’d thought of it.

  The only problem was, even though Mr. Radonski didn’t see any blood on the floor (because there wasn’t any), he did spot what appeared to be a three-year-old piece of chewed gum.

  “That’s disgusting!” he thundered. “Who did this to my gym?”

  Then he kneeled down to try and scrape it off … which left me standing there.

  Just in time for Jeff to fire.

  As that bright red rubber ball screamed through the air, I did what anyone who sees something coming right for them would do.

  I screamed.

  THWACK!

  I think the whole school heard the sound of that ball hitting the right side of my face.

  “OOOOOWWWWW.”

  I crumpled to the floor. A few girls screamed. Everybody ran over.

  “Stand back!” Mr. Radonski bellowed. “Give him some room!” He bent down. “You okay, kid? You took quite a shot there.” Then he set his sights on Jeff Santore. “You nailed him right in the face! What’s the matter with you?”

  “I’m really sorry,” Jeff said, petrified. “He fired and I just fired back. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Go tell Mrs. Sleep you didn’t mean it,” Mr. Radonski ordered.

  Poor Jeff.

  But also, poor me. I sat there, rubbing the side of my face. I was just glad it was still there.

  “Are you okay?” Eliza said, bending down.

  “I said give him room!” yelled Mr. Radonski.

  “I’m his captain!” Eliza fired back. That one stumped Mr. Radonski, so he let her stay.

  “Can I ask you something?” Eliza said to me.

  I continued rubbing. “Sure.”

  “Are you shooting your movie today?”

  That seemed like a weird, irrelevant question. “Uh, yeah. Why?”

  She took out a little mirror and handed it to me. (Why she had a mirror in her gym shorts, I’ll never know.)

  I looked into it and saw that my cheek and eye had swollen up to approximately the size of Colorado.

  “I think you’re gonna need a little extra makeup,” Eliza said.

  26

  SHELDEN FELDON DOESN’T SMOKE A CIGAR

  BY THE TIME I got to the studio that day, the swelling had gone down a lot. But still Ashley took one look at me and started texting like a madwoman.

  Five minutes later, Sheldon Felden walked in.

  “Jeez, that was fast,” I said.

  “Hey, kid,” Mr. Felden said. “How do you like being a movie star so far?”

  “The movie’s not even out yet, sir.”

  “I’m hearing good things.”

  He walked over to me and examined the bruise on my face. Then he took out a cigar and started rolling it around his fingers. “I know it’s a lot of pressure, trying to be in school and be in a movie and keep a level head. You managing okay?”

  “I’m doing good,” I told Mr. Felden.

  “‘Well,’” he corrected. “Doing well.”

  “Right. Doing well, sir.”

  “Terrific.” He sat down with a big, old-man sigh. “But here’s the thing, kid. You got responsibilities now. Big ones. And you can’t be out there acting like a dumb kid. You hear what I’m saying?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “So what happened? You get in a fight with your girlfriend?”

  “No, sir. Dodgeball accident.”

  Mr. Felden laughed and coughed at the same time. “Dodgeball! Good stuff. Well, after makeup takes care of it, we should be okay. Just don’t let it happen again.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Stop calling me sir, like I’m a drill sergeant, for crying out loud!” he barked, kind of like a drill sergeant. He pushed himself out of his chair and headed to the door. “Have a good day. Give me a holler if there’s anything I can do to help you out. And don’t let Nano scare you. He’s a nitwit.” He winked. “Just don’t tell anyone I said that, or I’ll get fired.”

  That was pretty funny,
since we both knew that the only person who could fire anyone around there was Sheldon Felden himself.

  27

  SHANA

  I WALKED TO THE SET, a fake chemistry classroom, where we were going to shoot the scene where Sammy messes up his science project and Clarissa helps him fix it. Shana was already there, waiting for the lighting to be tweaked. (Tweak is pretty much the most popular word on a movie set, BTW. “Need to tweak the script.” “Need to tweak the costume.” “I like your tweaks.” “We just need to give it one more tweak.”)

  She was on the phone, as usual.

  “Dex?” I whispered.

  She nodded, without looking at me. Shana’s relationship with Dex seemed pretty complicated: One day they were texting and talking and flirting and giggling, the next they wouldn’t even look at each other, unless they were shooting a scene together.

  As Louie the stagehand put it, “You get used to it.”

  Finally, Shana glanced up and noticed my face, which—even with makeup—still had a very visible bruise on it.

  “Whoa, what happened to you?”

  I shrugged.

  Shana took a closer look. “Dang, the lighting guys are going to have to work overtime today. Fight with your girlfriend?”

  “Nah, dodgeball,” I said.

  “Too bad,” Shana said. “Fight with your girlfriend is a better story for the press.”

  Shana was obsessed with the movie websites and magazines. She had kind of a love/hate relationship with all the reporters and photographers that followed her around. I guess all celebrities do.

  “Well,” I said, “maybe the press will be fascinated to know that Mareli had dinner at my house last night, and it didn’t go that well.”

  This got Shana’s attention. She was a big gossip just like everybody else. “How come?”

  I sighed. “I don’t really know. She thinks I’m too full of myself because I’m in a movie, and that I don’t want to hang out with her anymore. And all my friends agree with her.”

  “Well, tough,” Shana said. “They’re just going to have to get used to it.”

  I hesitated a second, then said, “And I think she’s a little jealous of you.” That made Shana giggle, so I quickly added, “Which is totally ridiculous, d’uh. As if you would ever like someone like me.”

  “Well you never know,” Shana said, giving me that flirty smile I recognized from the poster that’s on thousands of bedroom walls—including my little sister’s. “Dex doesn’t have that cute dimple on his left cheek like you do.”

  “Great,” I said. “Cute left dimple. Good to know.”

  Shana laughed. “See? Clarissa the Princess is right—you are funny!”

  “And Sammy is right, too,” I said. “You are pretty. Really pretty.”

  “What’s going on over here?” a voice behind us said. I turned around, and Dex was standing there, looking down at me like I was one of those weird granola bar things he liked to eat.

  “Uh, nothing,” I said. “Shana and I were just talking about my girlfriend.”

  “That’s right,” Shana said. Then she winked at me. Which Dex saw.

  “Your girlfriend?” He said. “Your girlfriend? Sure you weren’t talking about my girlfriend?”

  “I thought I wasn’t your girlfriend anymore,” Shana said.

  “Depends on the day,” Dex told her, giving her a kiss on the cheek. Then, looking at me, he added, “And you keep your girl troubles to yourself.”

  Shana watched him walk away with a look of half love and half hate. Then she turned to me and said, “I have an idea. I want you to come to dinner with me.”

  “Huh?”

  “My family is coming into town next week to celebrate the end of shooting, and I want them to meet you. How about Friday night?”

  I stared at Shana. Sure, we were getting along pretty well. And yeah, maybe we had a flirty moment there for a second. But she had a boyfriend! Kind of. And I had a girlfriend! Kind of.

  Not to mention the fact that she was Shana Fox.

  “You mean, like a date?”

  “Call it what you want,” Shana said, batting her eyelashes.

  I gulped. “Um, okay. Where?”

  “Doesn’t your family own a restaurant?”

  The thought of Shana eating at Milano’s Pizza and Pasta both thrilled and terrified me.

  “Well, yeah … but it’s like totally not fancy. In fact, it’s the opposite of fancy.”

  “Perfect!” Shana flashed a smile. “I love the opposite of fancy!”

  “Great.” I made a mental note to tell my parents that Milano’s had to look like a five-star restaurant next Friday night.

  As we got final touch-ups from the makeup department, she held up her phone. “Look at this selfie Dex just sent me!” she said. “So adorable!”

  If anyone ever tells you girls are easy to figure out, they’re lying.

  28

  THE RETURN OF IRIS

  I WALKED BACK to the dressing room, thinking about the fact that I had just accepted an invitation to have dinner at my parents’ restaurant with one of the most famous girls in America. I stopped to graze at the craft services table, with my eye on the mini Snickers bars. They were the crew’s favorite, but none of the other actors ate them. Apparently actors and chocolate don’t mix. Which is a total waste, since movie sets have some of the greatest chocolate treats known to man.

  I grabbed a handful and started walking to my dressing room. Suddenly I heard a familiar voice behind me.

  “Pete! Wait up!”

  I turned to see a woman running toward me, balancing two purses, with a third bag over her shoulder. It took me a second to figure out who it was, until the two cell phones gave it away.

  “Iris!” I said happily.

  It had only been a few months since I first met Iris Galt at Just Brew It, where she asked me, totally out of nowhere, if I wanted to try out for a movie. But it may as well have been a lifetime.

  “Pete Milano! How are

  you? It’s a long way from

  the coffee shop up in Eastport, isn’t it?”

  We hugged. “Yup, I’m back,” she went on. “The woman you have to thank for all this!” She winked. “Or blame, depending on how it’s going.”

  “It’s going good,” I said. “I mean, it’s going well.”

  She smiled at me like she was my best friend and my aunt, all at the same time. “I hope so, Pete. I know the schedule is brutal, and it’s not exactly all fun and games. But in the long run, this will be an opportunity of a lifetime.”

  “I know.”

  “I’ll bet you miss your friends, huh?” Iris asked. “This life is a little crazy.”

  “Yeah, kind of.”

  “And the people are a little crazy.”

  “Yeah, definitely.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” she said. “Every kid who goes into the movie business thinks they’ll never be able to find a way to leave their old life behind. And yeah, it’s hard at first. But that’s okay. Because you know something? This new life is way more exciting! You’ll discover that soon enough, just like every kid actor who came before you.”

  “Leave my old life behind?” I asked.

  “Well, pretty much,” Iris said. “That’s what happens when you become a movie actor.”

  I thought about that.

  Hold on a second.

  Yeah, my friends could be a pain in the neck. And yeah, things with Mareli were a little hairy at the moment. But leave them behind? Forever?

  That would stink.

  “Iris, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Mr. Felden asked me this morning if there was anything he could do to make things a little easier for me. I’m sure he was just being polite, but actually, I thought of something.”

  Iris looked at me and waited.

  “I notice they use a lot of extras in this movie,” I said. “And a lot of extras who are kids.” I stopped and took a breath. �
�Maybe some of my friends could help out.”

  “Help out?” Iris asked.

  “You know,” I said. “Like be extras? In the movie?” I saw the surprised expression on her face and added, “Only if they need more people, of course.”

  Iris stopped walking. And since she had my arm linked with her arm, I stopped walking. She looked like she was thinking.

  “Well, we are moving to our location shots for the last week of the shoot,” she said. “We’re going to be up in Eastport. And I’ve been hearing about how you bring authenticity to your scenes. Adding a few of your friends might make it feel even more real.” Iris took out one of her two phones and started typing. “I’ll find you later, and you can give me some names. I’ll want to get press in on this, they might like the local angle.” Her other phone buzzed. “Oh good, it’s Sheldon,” she told me. “I’ll talk to him about it. He may actually go for this.”

  “Really?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. All I could think was, Wait until I tell the guys!

  Iris hopped in a golf cart that I didn’t even realize was next to us. “If we’re going to use your pals, it will be for the scene at Jookie’s,” she said. “I’m looking forward to visiting your town again! Especially that coffee shop. Their espresso is delish!” Then she drove away.

  “Holy moly,” I said to myself. As I walked up to my dressing room, I saw the door fly open. Ashley popped out and ran over to me.

  “Pete, where have you been?”

  “I was talking to Iris,” I told her.

  “About what?”

  “I asked her if some of my friends could be in the movie.”

  “Are you serious?”

  I grinned. “Yup. She’s checking with Sheldon to see if it’s cool.”

  But instead of grinning, too, Ashley shook her head. “I’m not sure about this,” she said. “I’m not sure about this at all.”

  “Why not?”

  Ashley sighed. “Iris is convinced that Nano only got the directing job because he’s married to Shana’s dog walker, and Nano is convinced that Iris only got her producing job because Sheldon Felden was college roommates with her uncle. So of course, they hate each other. This will probably start a huge fight.”