Hollywood 101

by James Patterson

  “I called to apologize,” said Shelley. “I should have said something when Mordantsson kicked you off the movie. I’m sorry.”

  Oh, okay. I immediately had to reorganize all my sarcastic responses.

  “Well, a lot of people could have said something,” I said. “And Knut was your boss. You’d have been fired.”

  “Maybe. Or maybe I might have just stood up to him for once. It’s not something I’m proud of, Rafe. But the movie business is a bit like that.”

  I nodded. Which was kind of dumb because I was on the phone. “Sure,” I said.

  “Listen,” said Shelley. “How’d you like to come and do some work at the studio? Our place, I mean: MesaMovieArts.”

  “Like an intern?”

  “Exactly,” said Shelley. “Next vacation period we’ll fix it up. I’ll talk to your mom. You can stay with me and my family. Flights on me, okay?”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  “This is where you say, ‘Thank you, Shelley,’” said Shelley.

  “Thank you, Shelley,” I said.

  “Okay, kid, that’s great! Looking forward to it! Oh, and listen, you don’t need to beat yourself up about Indie. Turned out the whole thing was a fake.”

  “A fake?”

  “Yep. Vic had told Indie about the glooping. Vic, Trey, and Indie all thought it’d look great on YouTube. Thought it’d really help boost the movie, and they were right. So, you see, Indie knew all about it. So long, Rafe. Speak soon. Ciao.”

  Say what?

  I looked at the phone like I was expecting it to give me more information. It didn’t. Obvs.

  Indie was in on the glooping all along?

  This was going to take some serious thinking about.

  HOLLYWOOD 101, LESSON No9:

  THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS BAD PUBLICITY.

  SHELLEY’S CALL WASN’T the only excitement I got that week. Two days later, I was finishing up my morning at Swifty’s when I saw a familiar face in one of the booths.

  Indie.

  Except this wasn’t Indie. It was Kristen: dark wig, glasses, bangs.

  But Indie or Kristen, I wasn’t ready to talk to either of them just yet.

  I have to admit, when I saw Indie—I’m gonna stick with “Indie” even if she was dressed like “Kristen”—my stomach flipped. I mean, I didn’t puke or faint or anything, but it was a weird feeling all the same. My legs felt like jello, but I took a deep breath. I was going to be the Iceman if it killed me.

  “What are you going to do?” asked Leo.

  “I’m not going to do anything,” I said, “except ignore her.”

  “Just sail right past her like she’s not there?” Leo nodded approvingly. “The old breezeroo. Nothing like it.”

  “She’s going to get ignored like she’s never been ignored before,” I said. “The Iceman is gonna show Indie Starr exactly what ‘cool’ means.” I lifted my chin high, set my face to “Arctic,” and headed for the door, my eyes fixed dead ahead. No looking right, no looking left. Hollywood star or no Hollywood star, I wasn’t going to—

  BOOOOMFF! I walked right into a bucket Swifty had been using to mop up a spill from a table.

  It was spectacular. My right foot went straight into the bucket, sending me sliding across the floor and into a table piled high with breakfast specials. I planted my face smack into a stack of pancakes, and knocked about eighteen gallons of coffee all over three members of the Hills Village Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Their screams could be heard on Pluto.

  As Swifty hauled me out of old Murchison’s lap, managing somehow to call me every name under the sun and apologize to the Elks individually while mopping up the worst of the damage, I risked a glimpse at Indie’s booth.

  She’d gone.

  THE ONLY GOOD thing about my whole foot-in-bucket disaster was that Indie hadn’t seen it. I guessed she must have gone to the bathroom during the action and missed the whole thing. Or maybe she’d been teleported up to an alien spaceship, or hadn’t been in Swifty’s at all. Maybe I was seeing things. Whatever it was, I was glad my shame hadn’t been witnessed.

  “You been practicing that?” said a voice as I trudged out of Swifty’s. “Because I have to say, you got it just perfect, Spartacus.”

  I looked up.

  Indie Starr was leaning against the wall by the steps into Swifty’s.

  “Very funny,” I said and started walking.

  “Wait,” said Indie.

  I ignored her. I still owed her some ignoring. I’d much rather she’d got the ignoring back in Swifty’s but I was too mad to care now.

  Indie put her hand on my shoulder.

  “Please, Spartacus,” she said.

  I stopped.

  “I’m sorry,” said Indie. She leaned forward and plucked a piece of scrambled egg off my ear. “Really, I am. Even though it was all your idea, I should have told you I knew about the glooping.”

  “It wasn’t my idea to gloop you! I tried to tell you!”

  “I know,” said Indie. “So I’ve come with a peace offering.” She pointed toward a black limo tucked around at the side of Swifty’s. Hector was in the driving seat and he gave me a small salute.

  “Come to the Average Joe premiere with me,” she said. “It’s in a couple of days’ time. Vic’s squared everything with your mom. She gave us a suitcase with your clothes and stuff and we’ll fix up everything else. There’s a private jet waiting to fly us to LA. All you got to do is say ‘yes’ and get in the car.”

  I thought about it.

  Indie and Phroom and Trey and Vic and Knut had all been double-lousy to me in one way or another. I’d been lied to, threatened, used, and then tossed away like a half-eaten flugella and caspardiem sandwich. I was the laughing stock of Hills Village Middle School and my confidence was shattered. Was I just going to let some movie star buy me off by waving a shiny ticket to a Hollywood premiere in front of me?

  “Yeah!” I said. “I’m in!”

  Indie smiled and kissed me.

  “But give me an hour,” I said. “I have to make a couple of calls.”

  IT WAS THE world premiere of Average Joe.

  Our limo slid to a halt outside Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles. Through the window I could see the full Hollywood thing going on: red carpet, paparazzi, flashing cameras, screaming fans, the works.

  The door opened and I stepped out. I was wearing a suit and tie that Indie had got me from a fancy clothes shop. Even though the collar felt too tight, I looked good.

  “For once,” said Leo.

  “Look who’s talking, parka boy,” I whispered. “Now scram.” The last thing I needed tonight was some paparazzi getting a shot of me talking to my imaginary brother.

  Behind me, Indie stepped out of the limo with Trey Kernigan.

  Yeah, I didn’t mention that. Bit of a downer, but Indie had explained it was all part of the game.

  “It’s in the contract,” she’d said. “We arrive at the premiere together. Buddy up for the cameras. Smile, act like we’re all one big, happy family.”

  And that’s what was happening. Trey was beaming his big zillion-watt smile and lapping up all the screaming like it was exactly what he deserved.

  Indie looked great, by the way. I should mention that too. She was wearing a long, shiny black dress that probably cost as much as a small country. She was also giving everyone the full Indie Starr smile. Next to her and Trey, I looked like some dude who’d wandered in off the street.

  Which wasn’t far off how I felt. Everywhere I looked famous people were talking and laughing with other famous people. I saw…well, let’s just say I saw everyone.

  “Pretty wild, huh, kid?” said Vic DeMartelli. “Just keep grinning and you’ll keep winning!”

  Vic moved past me and shook hands with eight people at once. I don’t know how he did that. Vic was working the red carpet. That’s what they call it: working. It means waving and smiling and talking to the press people as you inch tow
ard the doors. Since no one was remotely interested in me, this part of it was pretty easy.

  Phroom was there too, natch, standing off to one side like a well-dressed spider.

  As soon as I came in range she fired off an Extra-Evil Phroom Death Stare but, thanks to my newly installed Complete Hollywood Insanity Force-Field, it bounced off harmlessly. “Namaste, Phroom,” I said, bowing, and getting a full-strength scowl in return.

  I was getting the hang of Hollywood.

  “Mr. Khatchadorian.” Looking like he was at a funeral, Knut Mordantsson loomed up into view and shook my hand. “Vot a circus,” he said, waving a hand at the photographers and screaming fans. “It dissgusstss me.”

  Knut moved on toward the big arch that stretched over the entrance to the theater. There was a kind of mini-stage set up there for the official photographer to get photos of all the celebs. The cast of Average Joe, plus Knut and Phroom (who elbowed her way in as close as she could get to Indie), were herded together like shiny sheep.

  About twenty yards back I stopped to tie my shoelace. Glancing up to the top of the arch, I glimpsed someone moving. It was Tommy, one of Shelley’s crew, standing next to a huge vat. He caught my eye and raised a hand in question.

  “Do it,” said Leo. I stood and gave Tommy a thumbs-up.

  WOW!

  TRIPLE WOW!

  Tommy flipped a switch, and more green gloop than had ever been put in one place tipped straight onto the Average Joe cast.

  It. Was. SPECTACULAR!

  Indie got glooped. Trey Kernigan got glooped. Knut Mordantsson got glooped. Phroom got glooped and washed all the way back to Hollywood Boulevard on a tidal wave of gloop. The red carpet got glooped, the spectators got glooped, the press got glooped, the limos got glooped, and even I got glooped. Average Joe had been well and truly glooped.

  And none of them suspected a thing.

  HOLLYWOOD 101, LESSON No10:

  TRUST NO ONE: ESPECIALLY YOUR FRIENDS….

  “WORKED LIKE A dream,” I said, looking at the news coverage of the Average Joe Great Green Gloop premiere disaster. The clip of the impact was played over and over again.

  The glooping story was the lead on every channel and was the highest-trending thing on the planet. The video had already been watched about eighty-six million times.

  “You said it,” said Vic DeMartelli, leaning back in his office chair, his hands behind his head and smiling the smile of a Hollywood agent with a humongous hit on his hands. “Great idea! Indie and Trey never suspected a thing!” Vic looked at me proudly, the way a father looks at his newborn son, and a single tear trickled down his cheek. “So sneaky! So, so, so sneaky!” he said, brushing the tear from his face, his voice choked with emotion. “You’ve got a great future in this town, kid!”

  HOLLYWOOD 101, LESSON No11:

  AFTER A NUCLEAR WAR, ONLY THREE CREATURES WILL SURVIVE–COCKROACHES, BACTERIA, AND HOLLYWOOD AGENTS.

  IF IT WEREN’T FOR ROTTEN LUCK,

  RAFE KHATCHADORIAN WOULDN’T

  HAVE ANY LUCK AT ALL!

  READ ON FOR A SNEAK PEEK

  EVER SINCE I’VE known you—how long has it been now?—I’ve been getting my butt kicked in about a hundred different ways. Well, the butt-kicking officially stops here.

  On this page.

  Before the next period

  •

  That’s why this could be my best story yet. I’ve got a ton of stuff to tell you about. More than ever, in fact. For a while, I thought maybe I’d call this book The Butt-Kick Stops Here. Or maybe Look at Me, I’m Special. Or First Kiss. Or Rafe Khatchadorian: Secret Agent Artist.

  But I didn’t call it any of those things. In case you haven’t already noticed, I called this one Just My Rotten Luck.

  And even though that doesn’t sound like the happy-go-luckiest title you’ve ever heard of (with plenty of good reason), there’s a lot that happens in this book that’s pretty awesome.

  Like me being a football hero.

  Yeah, yeah. I know football and Rafe Khatchadorian don’t exactly go together like ham and eggs. But that really was me, hitting the field for the Hills Village Middle School Falcons. It really did happen.

  Really, really.

  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying this story is going to be all about touchdowns and cheerleaders screaming my name. (Obviously. I mean, have you seen what I look like?)

  I’m just saying…well, you know what? Maybe I should start at the beginning. And for that to happen, we have to go back in time a little bit. And that means I’m going to need a good old-fashioned flashback. Then a flash-forward, and then who knows what else after that.

  So buckle up, people. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

  All set? Good.

  Here comes the flashback!

  WELCOME TO THE PAST! Don’t worry, we didn’t go that far. Just three weeks earlier, to be exact.

  I was at the tail end of a pretty lousy summer, which is supposed to be the best time of the year for most kids. Me, not so much. Camp Wannamorra had been a disaster, and my time at The Program in the Rocky Mountains just about killed me in six different ways. (Well, okay, just one way, but still…)

  None of that was the worst part, though. That happened on the Friday before school started, when Mom took me to Hills Village Middle School. We had a meeting scheduled with Mrs. Stricker and Mrs. Stonecase so I could get re-enrolled there.

  You remember Mrs. Stricker, right? And Mrs. Stonecase too? They’re the principal and vice principal of HVMS. They’re also sisters—for real. That’s like getting twice the trouble for half the price. Not to mention, if there was a Worldwide Khatchadorian Haters Club, they’d be the president and vice president.

  So anyway, as soon as I was stuck inside that lion’s den (I mean, sitting down in Mrs. Stricker’s office), I got a two-ton piece of bad news dropped on my head.

  “If Rafe wishes to come back to Hills Village Middle School this fall,” Mrs. Stricker said to my mom, “he’ll have to be enrolled as a special needs student.”

  And I was like, “Say WHAT?”

  But Stricker wasn’t done. She kept going, like a tidal wave of meanness that just couldn’t be stopped. “Whether he’ll finish middle school on time or have to put in an extra semester or two—or more—well, we just can’t say at this point,” she told us.

  And then I was like, “Say WHAAAAAAT???”

  I don’t know what they call it at your school. IEP. SPED. Special Education. Barnum & Bailey’s Three-Ring Circus. At HVMS, the kids have plenty of names for it—just not ones they say when any teachers are around.

  And now I was in it.

  I tried to talk Stricker, Stonecase, and even Mom out of making this horrible mistake, but they wouldn’t budge. Mom wasn’t being mean about it or anything. I know she wants what’s best for me. She just said I should give it a try.

  “We’ll see how things go once the school year starts,” she said. “Who knows, maybe you’ll even like it.”

  Which is such a MOM thing to say.

  In the meantime, if you’re thinking this story is all about bad news, don’t worry. Some cool stuff happens too, like that first kiss, and some other things I haven’t even told you about yet.

  But so far? My school year was off to the worst start ever.

  And it hadn’t even started yet.

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781473538757

  Version 1.0

  Published by Young Arrow 2016

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © James
Patterson, 2016

  Illustrations and cover art by Martin Chatterton

  Excerpt from Middle School: Just My Rotten Luck

  copyright © James Patterson 2015

  Illustrations in excerpt from Middle School: Just My Rotten Luck by Laura Park

  James Patterson has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Young Arrow

  Young Arrow

  The Penguin Random House Group Limited

  20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA

  www.penguin.co.uk

  Young Arrow is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 9781784756819

  Chapter 2

  fn1 For anyone who doesn’t know, Leo was my brother but he died when I was small. Sometimes he pops up and gives me advice, whether I need it or not.