“Why’s he walking like that?” I whispered.
“Attitude,” said Indie. “Trey’s got attitude.”
“Inds!” yelled Trey Kernigan. “Ind-ie, Indi-a, Indi-pendent, Indi-vid-u-al!”
He hugged Indie like she was his long-lost sister. I didn’t get a glance.
“You put some weight on, dude?” he said, looking at Indie. “Suits you.”
Indie looked at me for a fraction of a second. Her smile seemed to freeze just a little.
“Hi, Trey,” said Indie. “Still doing those toothpaste ads?”
Trey smiled, cocked his finger, and made that click-click sound. “Still slumming it on that small-timey Hawaii cop show?”
Before Indie could reply, the floor manager shouted, “Places, everyone, please. Going for a take.”
“Good to be working with you, Inds,” said Trey. “Always glad to help out a pal, give ’em a leg-up in Tinseltown.” Turning away, he almost bumped into me and snapped his fingers like he’d just remembered something.
“Hey! You! Small-town hick-type dude,” he said. “Go get me a soda. Lo-cal. And a bowl of fresh strawberries. You got strawberries out here in Hell Village, right? Make sure you wash ’em before bringing them back. I don’t want any of your small-town germs. And make it snappy: some of us got work to do.”
I felt my shirt rip as I instantly transformed into a gorilla. Like one of those oversize Kingy Kongy gorillas with sharp teeth and arms the size of dump trucks.
I threw my head back and pounded my gigantic chest with my equally gigantic gorilla fists. That butt-wipe Kernigan was about to experience The Wrath of Khatchadorian Kong. I was gonna tell him exactly what he could do with his lo-cal soda and strawberries. I was gonna rip him a new—
I froze as I caught Indie’s eye.
And Vic DeMartelli’s eye.
And Knut Mordantsson’s eye.
And Phroom’s eye, and the eyes of the cameramen and lighting crew and runners and gaffers and chippies and everyone else on set.
Basically, I caught a lot of eyes and they all seemed to be saying the same thing: Uh-uh. Which, if you don’t know, is shorthand for “Do exactly what the Very Important Movie Star asks because all our jobs are on the line here, you idiot.”
“What flavor soda?” I asked. The gorilla had gone, leaving a big fat chicken in his place. Cluck cluck cluck.
HOLLYWOOD 101, LESSON No3:
THE STAR IS ALWAYS RIGHT. EVEN WHEN HE’S WRONG.
OKAY, HERE’S THE thing.
By the end of that first week I’d found out a few things about the movies. Not just that the star is always right, but that movies are…kind of boring.
Whaddya mean, boring, Khatchadorian? You get to hang with stars and see the magic being made. How can that be boring?
I get it, I do. Stars, glamor, Hollywood. The whole shebang is great, but movies are hard work. Like real hard work. For most of the people on set. The actors do a lot of sitting around and waiting, but everyone else is on the go. All the time. Shots take FOREVER to set up and then they take it down and set up again somewhere else. Makeup has to be applied and costumes put on and continuity checked and lighting fussed around with, and then the director wants eighty-three takes of a guy saying “cheese” over and over again until he gets the exact right way of saying “cheese.” Tracks laid for the cameras are always going wrong, the electricians get in the way of the carpenters, who get in the way of the teamsters, who move the heavy stuff. It’s a miracle that anything ever comes out of all that chaos.
HOLLYWOOD 101, LESSON No4:
MOVIES. TAKE. FOR. EVER.
A lot of that “magic,” that Hollywood fairy dust, doesn’t really happen until they get back to Los Angeles and start doing things in post.
“In post” is what we groovy movie types call everything that happens to the movie once filming has stopped: It means “post-production”…after production. That’s when all the special effects get applied (and Average Joe has a ton of special effects).
So the shoot (I know all the snappy names for everything now) rolled on and on and I went home at night and came back in the morning. Indie and the rest of the Big Cheeses were all staying at different big houses the movie company had rented, but she snuck round some nights just like she used to when she was Kristen. She put on the dark wig and glasses and shook off Hector and Vic and Phroom (who was clinging to Indie like a drowning sailor to a life raft). Phroom tried every trick in the book to get between me and Indie, but Indie still managed to shake her off enough to get some time at Khatchadorian Mansions.
And it was cool when Indie came round, even if Mom did act like the Queen of England was visiting, cleaning our house until it was pretty much gleaming, like Indie hadn’t been there before when the place was just a regular house. I tried telling Mom that Indie liked being in a regular house but it didn’t make any difference: She just carried right on cleaning and polishing.
She also took to dropping BIG CLUNKY HINTS about me and Indie “dating.” Mom made it sound like something from the olden days, and Grandma Dotty was no better.
“We’re friends,” I said. “Just friends. We just hang out.”
“That’s what they say in my magazines,” said Grandma Dotty. She held up a glossy mag called Hollywood Spice or something. “When a star starts dating someone. They always say they’re ‘just friends.’”
“But we are just friends!”
“She’s got very pretty eyes,” said Mom.
“Like Icelandic glaciers,” I muttered and then went red.
“Busted!” said Georgia, my annoying little sister. Thanks, sis.
Of course, Indie never heard any of this stuff. As soon as she came round I made sure she interacted as little as humanly possible with my family. Total exclusion, that was the only answer. If I could’ve put the three of them in quarantine, I would’ve.
DON’T TELL ME you bought any of that “movies are boring” stuff, did you?
Ha! Just goes to show, you can tell people anything.
I was having a ball.
For a start, I was more popular than I’d ever been in my life. And even though it was the summer vacation, I was getting the best education I’d ever had. Shelley, the Average Joe art director, had taken a shine to me after she saw some of my drawings. I told you there was a lot of waiting around on set. Indie didn’t need me to do things all the time, so I drew stuff when I got the chance. One day Shelley asked if she could see the drawings.
“These are good, kid,” said Shelley. “You ever think of doing it professionally?”
I told Shelley about my ambitions.
It felt weird thinking of it like that: “my ambitions,” like I’m a grown-up already. But I did have ambitions. I liked art and I was pretty good at it.
“Come and see me next time you have some spare time,” Shelley said. “See if we can put you to use.”
The art department in a movie takes care of everything visual, or mostly everything. How a movie looks is down to the art department: what’s called the “design” of the movie. The art director has a team of storyboard artists, set designers, set decorators, painters, props guys…anything that makes the movie look how it should look. On Average Joe, the art department had taken over the school woodwork shop as its base.
I went over there one afternoon while Knut was setting up a complicated stunt shot—which sounds more interesting than it was. Indie was in her trailer with Phroom, going through some kinda yoga-ey meditation thing, and I was definitely not invited. Not that I thought I’d be any good at yoga, or meditation. Plus Phroom had given me the Evil Eye.
Shelley looked busy but she made time for me. I was grateful. I knew from being on set just how pressured everyone was the whole time.
Shelley picked up a script. “You read this, right?”
Read it? I’d gone through it with Indie so many times I knew it off by heart. “Uh-huh,” I said.
“You know that gym scene? The one where Trey gets
to do a slam dunk?”
I nodded. It was my least favorite scene. Mainly because Trey comes out of it looking all heroic and stuff. I didn’t mention that to Shelley.
“See if you can storyboard it for me. We had Mike do it but, I dunno, it felt a bit ‘off’ to me somehow. We’ll use it if we don’t come up with something better, but maybe you can have a go. How d’you feel about that? Okay?”
Okay? I practically danced out of the gym.
I THREW MYSELF into the storyboard for Shelley. Every spare second I was on set when I wasn’t running errands for Indie, or going over her scenes, I’d be working on the slam-dunk storyboard. I put aside my hatred for Trey “The Teeth” Kernigan and tried to come up with a scene that would make him look about as heroic as it was possible to be. It was difficult, but I was getting there. My sketchbook started filling with drawings and ideas and notes.
One strange thing about spending so much time on set and with Indie was that “real life” started seeming “unreal.” Going home every night seemed like visiting a parallel universe. The thing was, it wasn’t home that had changed. It was me.
One night I argued with Mom about some spaghetti being too hot or too cold or too spaghetti-like—I forget what, exactly—and I found myself storming out of the kitchen shouting, “I’ll be in my trailer!”
When I was watching TV—with or without Indie—all I was doing was making comments about the shots the director had chosen.
I began getting fussy about my food. “What in the name of Charlie Christmas is silver needle and calendula tea?” said Mom. I didn’t know. I’d only asked for it so I could be like Indie. Phroom made that kind of stuff for her: vanilla mushroom protein shakes, stoneground almond butter, reishi, ho shou wu, quinton shots, mint chip hemp milk, probiotic nori rolls with cultured sea vegetables…I even heard them talking about eating something called Brain Dust one day! Brain Dust! I had to look it up. Turns out it’s an adaptogenic (nope, no clue) tonic made of Astragalus (no, me neither), lion’s mane (I’m guessing that’s not, like, from an actual lion), shilajit, maca, rhodiola, and stevia.
The days passed. My drawings got better, but in some ways I was definitely getting dumber.
HOLLYWOOD 101, LESSON No5:
BEING AROUND ACTORS TOO MUCH CAN RESULT IN STUPIDITY.
IF I’M HONEST, this next chapter is kind of embarrassing.
But in the interest of truth I’m gonna tell it anyway. It’ll help explain what happened later.
Okay, so Indie was playing the best friend of Average Joe—which, unfortunately for Indie, meant she had to play alongside Trey in scene after scene. It had been amazing to see how smoothly Trey Kernigan could switch from full-on nastiness to all-round nice guy when the cameras started rolling. I’d seen him screaming and shouting at some assistant about nothing and then—BOOM!—ten seconds later there he was being all likable in a scene. I suppose that was why he earned a trillion dollars a movie. I hate to say it, but the uncomfortable fact was: Trey was a good actor.
And he knew it.
Trey never missed an opportunity to give Indie some little dig about her acting. He was like a woodpecker just tap-tap-tapping away at her confidence. I was spending hours between takes building her up only for Toothy Trey to knock her right back down again.
One time Knut had being going nuts trying to get the scene and had already reduced Indie almost to tears.
“Ve are making Average Joe,” said Mordantsson, “not Below Average Joe. Now, prepare pleass, Miss Starr, prepare! Another take in five.”
While Indie was getting herself together, out of the corner of my eye I noticed Trey shuffling the script Indie was using to check her lines. Before Indie could get herself in more trouble with Knut, I swapped the script Trey had messed with for my own copy. When Indie went straight to the right page, I could see Trey was puzzled.
There was also the time when he sent Indie off on some wild goose chase, telling her that Knut wanted to see her off the set (which, of course, he didn’t). Indie was late back and Knut went knutty again.
But worst of all was the time Trey managed to stop me and Indie (cough, cough)…kissing.
HOLLYWOOD 101, LESSON No6:
BEING A BULLY IS AN ADVANTAGE IN TINSELTOWN.
THAT’S RIGHT, YOU heard me.
I almost kissed a movie star.
The key word in that sentence being almost.
Indie had been having another bad time of it with Trey and Knut. I can’t even remember what he’d done this time (Trey, I mean) but, trust me, it was plenty lousy. It had taken me ages to talk Indie round.
“I’m thinking of quitting,” she said. “This is really not working out, Spartacus.”
She looked nothing like the Indie Starr her fans knew. Kind of slumped in the corner, her head resting on her hands.
“You’re doing great,” I said. But I didn’t know what to say next. Don’t blame me. I wasn’t trained for this kind of thing. I didn’t have a Movie Star Boosting certificate. I’d been winging it.
We were near the back of the gym, in a quiet corner where Vic or Phroom couldn’t find us. They’d been trying as hard as they could to get between me and Indie, but this time we’d given them the slip. To be honest, it was more me giving them the slip. Indie still thought Phroom was nice. I suppose she wasn’t seeing or hearing all the hissed warnings Phroom handed out in my direction. All Indie saw was the peace and love and yoga. And Vic was her agent, after all. I guess if I was in Hollywood I’d want the Sharknado in my corner.
Anyway, we were in a Vic-and-Phroom-free zone and, like I say, there was nothing I could think of to say that would make things any better, when up popped Leo.
“Kiss her, you dope,” he said.
“What?”
“Kiss her. If you’re not going to say anything, kiss her and see if that helps.”
I should point out right here that if you’re stuck for something to say in a conversation, the kissing option is usually NOT the one you should reach for. For a start, the person might not WANT to be kissed. You have to sort of know they want to be kissed…and, right now, that was what it felt like to me.
I decided to lean in a bit closer. If Indie leaned her face toward me that probably meant she wanted us to kiss, right? My mind calculated the exact angle of lean and distance between lips as carefully as any supercomputer.
I leaned in.
And Indie leaned in.
I thought about just asking her if she thought us kissing was a good idea, but that just sounded so GIGANTICALLY lame-o that I couldn’t do it. I didn’t need to. Indie looked at me and I looked at Indie and our lips got closer and closer and then…I got hit smack in the side of the face by a flour bomb.
You know what a flour bomb is? Basically it’s a paper bag filled with a little flour. Someone—I wonder who that could possibly be—had seen what was going on and decided it’d be funny to interrupt with a flour bomb.
Okay, I admit, it could have been quite funny if you’d been the one doing the throwing.
But I hadn’t been the one doing the throwing.
I’d been the one doing the kissing, or almost doing the kissing. And kissing a movie star!
The flour had hit me mostly.
This is what I looked like:
Indie took one look at me and burst out laughing.
I kind of lost my temper a bit and stormed off.
I went and sat in another corner with my sketchbook and drew a big scene that involved Trey getting the sliming of his life when a GIANT vat of stinky green gloop balanced in the shadows above the basketball backboard gets triggered by Trey shooting a hoop.
It was only a revenge fantasy.
How was I to know that Knut Mordantsson would pick up my sketchbook when I went home?
I SORT OF left Indie alone for a while after the whole kiss/flour thing.
I still had my laminated access pass and Indie hadn’t got me thrown off the set or anything, so I hung out with Shelley as much as I could. She
lley set me up with a desk in one corner. I don’t know if she’d heard about the almost-kiss, but I think she most likely had. One of the things I was learning about life on a movie set was that everyone knows—or wants to know—everyone else’s business.
Anyway, whatever the reason, Shelley was being nice to me. She reminded me of Ms. Donatello, my art teacher. Enthusiastic.
And there was possibly another reason.
Knut was going to shoot my basketball scene.
Remember I mentioned Knut had been looking at my sketchbook? The one with my revenge slime fantasy?
Okay, well, Shelley told me that Knut had liked it.
“More than liked,” said Shelley when she told me. “He went crazy for it, hon!”
I had a quick flash of Knut Mordantsson going crazy.
“The gloop idea?” I said. I brightened. My idea of Trey getting super-slimed was going to happen. This was fantastic!
Shelley nodded. “We’ll be working on it overnight and he’s shooting it tomorrow morning. He’s going to do it in top secret so he can get a real ‘artistic’ reaction from the actor.” Shelley paused, like there was a “but” coming. I can always tell when there’s a “but” coming.
“But?” I said.
“But,” said Shelley, “Knut wants Indie to be the one getting slimed. And you can’t tell her.”
I DIDN’T GET much sleep that night. I couldn’t stop thinking about what I was going to do about Indie and the slime scene.
I knew I should tell her.
Indie Starr might have been a movie star, but she was also my friend. And friends don’t let friends get slimed without warning them. Was I the kind of person who’d just let that happen?
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