“What about, Willie?” the girls asked in unison, then burst into giggles, forgetting they were supposed to be mad at each other.
“Now, do either one of you remember the problem we had that was gonna be solved by the movie com-in’ here? Other than the farm being saved, that is,” Willie asked a bit sarcastically.
“Of course we remember, Willie!” Mary said indignantly. “We have to pay the two thousand dollar breeding fee to the nasty man who thinks he owns half of Star, or he’s going to take him away from us! How could we forget that?”
“Now, how many times do I have to tell ya, he’s not a nasty man. He just has to keep track of all the foals that his champion stallion sires, and he has a legal right to Star. We’re lucky he’s takin’ the money, and not the colt.” Willie answered.
Mary and Jody stood breathless for a moment, afraid to ask the next question. It was finally Jody who found her voice.
“Willie, what do you mean? Is he going to accept the money? Do we have the money to give him?” she whispered, grasping Mary’s hand.
“Well, that’s what I come to tell you. The producers agreed to give me an advance on my wrangler salary, and I’m gettin’ it by the end of the week. So when I get it, I can turn it over to the man, and it’ll be done and over with.”
The girls looked at each other wordlessly, tears springing to their eyes. Then, as one, they rushed to Willie and threw their arms around him in a bear hug.
“Thank you ever so, Willie,” Mary mumbled, tears flowing down her cheeks. Jody couldn’t speak but instead squeezed Willie as hard as she could.
“Now, now, quit yer foolishness, yer chokin’ me to death,”Willie said, trying to sound grumpy as he disentangled himself from the two grateful girls. “It’ll be supper time before you know it, and I got to go chop some silage for the cows.”
“But, Willie, before you go, when can we talk to the movie people?” Mary blurted, forgetting she was supposed to be patient. The instant the sentence flew out, she clapped her hand over her mouth and flushed beet red.
Willie smiled in spite of himself and shook his head. “If you go ahead and get these ponies turned out and get on home for a decent night’s sleep, I’ll introduce you to some of them tomorrow. I’m goin’ to be seein’ at least one old friend, I’m told. And they’re goin’ to start buildin’ the ring tomorrow, too.”
“Already? They’re going to build the ring right now?” Jody asked incredulously.
Willie scratched his head and hobbled over to sit on a bale of hay in front of Star’s stall. “Sit there on the tack trunk, and let me explain some things to you two before you go off half crazy.”
Mary and Jody obediently sat on Mary’s tack trunk and waited breathlessly for Willie’s explanation.
“First of all, things get done real quick on a movie set, as far as buildin’ and constructin’ sets and things. You gotta understand, they only have two to three months to film the movie, so that’s one reason they have so many people—to get things done in a hurry. Now, since you two might be asked to be in a couple of the ridin’ scenes, there’s some things you have to know.”
“Sit there on the tack trunk, and let me explain some things to you two before you go off half crazy.”
Mary and Jody grinned and clapped their hands joyously at the thought of actually being in a real movie.
“Now, before you get all excited, it’s not as glamorous as everybody thinks it is,” Willie went on sternly. “It’s work. A lot of hard work. And it’s monotonous. Sometimes it takes a whole day to film one little part that will end up bein’ about a minute in the movie. Or that part could get cut out altogether. Sometimes you have to do your scene over and over until the director thinks it’s just right. So you can’t get impatient, or tired and grumpy, or mouthy with the people in charge.” In spite of himself, Willie addressed this last part to Mary, who quickly took offense.
“Willie,” she said solemnly, “I know you think I can’t keep quiet sometimes, but I can. I promise I won’t get tired and grumpy and mouthy. And I will listen to whatever the director tells me.”
Willie just nodded and then turned to Jody. “But you also don’t want to be too shy. If you have some-thin’ to say, or some kind of problem on the set, or if you see somethin’ dangerous goin’ on, don’t be afraid to tell somebody.”
Then it was Jody’s turn to nod silently, taking in everything Willie was saying.
“Willie, what is the movie about, anyway?” Mary asked suddenly. “We don’t even know anything about the story.”
“Well, as far as I can tell, it’s about a city boy who meets a country girl in college and starts to come out to help her daddy on the farm, mostly to impress her. He ends up fallin’ for her and learnin’ some lessons from the farm, but he’s got some competition from another country boy. Through some kind of misunderstandin’, the city boy and the country girl break up, even though he still loves her, and he gets a job workin’ for a big-time land developer.”
“Uh-oh,” Mary said.
“Uh-oh is right, because then he finds out that the developer is going to encourage his buddies at the bank to foreclose on the farm because it’s so far in debt. That way, the developer can buy the land and build houses on it. So the city boy has to decide if he wants to help save the farm and try to get the girl back, or keep his big-time job with the developer. Of course, his parents want him to keep the job, and so on.”
“So where do the horses come in?” Jody asked.
“Well, one of the things the country girl does is teach a few riding lessons on the farm to try to help out with the debt. And she also rides her own horse and helps to herd the heifers and round up the cows.”
“Wow. Sounds like a good story,” Mary said.
“We’ll see,” Willie said cautiously. “Now, like I said, get these ponies turned out to pasture and get Star taken care of, and get on home. Mary, don’t forget to tell your mama, and Jody, tell your daddy the good news about Star, so they can quit frettin’ about it. And be here bright and early tomorrow on your best behavior, so I won’t be embarrassed to show you to the movie people.”
3
Annie Appears
THE NEXT MORNING, by pre-arrangement, Mary and Jody were up at the crack of dawn, ready to hop on their bikes and ride to Lucky Foot Stable from their homes at opposite ends of the road. Mary tried to be very quiet and not wake her mother, who worked as an accountant and didn’t have to be at work until later in the morning. But before she had the chance to sneak out the door, Mrs. Morrow appeared in the kitchen and handed her a paper bag.
“Mary, give this to Willie,” she said, yawning. “I packed him a nice lunch and put some of my chocolate cake in there, which I know he likes. And you girls be sure and tell him how much it means to you that he is giving up some of his pay to save Star-baby.”
Mary’s mother always added “baby” to the end of Star’s name, even though he was practically grown up now. And even though Star really belonged to Jody, because he was Lady’s colt, Mrs. Morrow knew how much he meant to Mary as well.
“Mom, we already told him. He knows how grateful we are, and he gets kind of embarrassed when we make a fuss over him. But I’ll give him the lunch and the cake!”
Mrs. Morrow stood at the kitchen door and watched as Mary climbed onto her bike and placed the paper bag gently in the wire basket on the front. “Be careful!” she called, waving as Mary pedaled down the driveway.
Mary and Jody arrived at the farm lane on their bikes at the exact same instant, and from there it was a race to the “finish line,” which was really the back doors of Lucky Foot Stable.
“Last one there is a rotten egg!” Mary yelled, pedaling furiously just a hair in front of Jody. But by the time they reached their destination, Mary was winded, and Jody braked to a halt just outside the doors, beating Mary by about a foot.
“Guess that means I’m a rotten egg,” Mary giggled.
“You do smell kind of funny,” Jody teas
ed, flinging open the back doors and striding down the aisle of Lucky Foot with Mary close behind. They reached the Dutch doors at the front of the stable and leaned over to greet Star, who nickered to them from the other side of the paddock and then stretched his legs like a dog before ambling over for his morning treat.
“I wonder if the movie people are even here yet,” Jody wondered as Star munched contentedly on the carrot she offered him.
“They probably are. Willie said they get here really early, because it takes a long time to set everything up before they start filming.”
“Let’s go look,” Jody said. “It can’t hurt just to look, can it? Then, when Willie gets done milking, he can introduce us to everybody.”
Mary didn’t say a word as she followed Jody out of the stable. She wasn’t about to remind her that Willie had said to wait for him before they went up to see the movie set.
Before the girls had gone even halfway up the lane, they could see that things on the farm had definitely changed since the day before. To the left of the chicken house where Mrs. McMurray collected the eggs each day from her Rhode Island Red hens stood a huge white tent, its peaks pointing to the sky. More long white trailers had arrived, each with four or five doors on one side and metal steps with railings leading up to the doors.
Mary and Jody could see that on each door hung a small white sign, but from their position in the lane, they couldn’t make out what was written on the signs. What they could see was that painted on the side of one of the trailers were the words Honey Wagon next to a drawing of a smiling honeybee.
“Honey wagon? I wonder what that means,” Mary asked herself. Then she sniffed the air as they got closer to the farmhouse.
“Something smells really good,” she exclaimed, linking arms with Jody. “Do you think Mrs. McMurray is cooking breakfast for everybody?”
“No,Mare, I don’t thinkMrs.McMurray is cooking,” Jody replied, pointing to the left of the farmhouse.
There, just steps from where Mrs. McMurray’s clothesline hung in the yard, stood the black trailer they had seen the day before, the one with the grinning cat painted on its side. A long, hinged door on the side of the trailer had been dropped open to reveal an entire kitchen inside. Three men were bustling around inside the trailer with spatulas in their hands, and fragrant smoke and steam rose from the cooktops. On the sidewalk outside the trailer stood four long tables covered with white linen tablecloths. Atop the tables sat lidded metal pans with flames underneath, piles of plates and napkins, baskets of silverware, coffee pots, several trays of doughnuts and bagels, cups and bowls, and best of all, a glass container full of all sorts of candy. But the most amazing part of the spectacle was the number of people, men and women, some milling around the tables, some standing in line in front of the black trailer shouting their breakfast orders, and some speaking on walkie-talkies.
“Gosh, Mare,” Jody breathed in awe, “do you think all these people are here just to make a movie?”
“Remember what Willie said yesterday, Jody. It takes a lot of people to get everything set up. Maybe they’re all just here to get the set ready, and then they’ll go away.”
Just then, the deafening roar of a revving engine made the girls jump. When they swung around to look behind them for the source of the noise, yet another astonishing sight met their eyes. Creeping across the lane, its giant tracks propelling it slowly forward toward Mr. McMurray’s wheat field, was the yellow bulldozer they had seen arriving the day before. Plumes of black smoke puffed from its stack as it chugged along.
“They must be getting ready to build the ring already, just like Willie said,” Mary exclaimed. “Let’s go see where they’re going to put it!”
Mary and Jody followed the bulldozer around to the rear of the farmhouse and all the way to the edge of the wheat field, where now only stubbles remained after the previous week’s wheat harvest. Already unloaded and stacked to the side of the field were the posts and boards the girls had seen strapped to the flatbed trailer the day before.
“Wow, people must have been working all last night to get all of this done already,” Jody observed.
“They were,” said an unexpected voice from behind the two girls. Mary and Jody turned to find Annie Mooney standing directly behind them.
Annie was Mr. Mooney’s red-haired, bespectacled daughter. She spent most of her time in the house trailer on the farm, looking after two-year-old Heath while Jimmy and her father worked on the farm. But she occasionally came out to visit Mary and Jody and the ponies, and she almost always seemed to appear out of nowhere.
Mary and Jody turned to find Annie Mooney
standing directly behind them.
“Annie! We didn’t see you there!” Mary said. “What do you mean? Were you out here last night?”
“For a while,” Annie replied.
Mary and Jody waited expectantly for Annie to continue, but one thing they knew about her was that getting her to speak was like “pulling hen’s teeth,” as Willie would say. So Jody took over the questioning, knowing that Annie’s natural tendency to keep things to herself would drive Mary crazy.
“So, Annie, what were they doing out here last night?” Jody asked sweetly.
“Well, they unloaded the fence, and they set up the tent,” she said. “Oh, and the food trailer.”
“Uh-huh,” Jody said, “so they must have been working pretty late, huh?”
“Yep,” Annie nodded.
“Annie, did you talk to any of them?” Mary asked, suddenly fearful that Annie had gotten the upper hand.
“Nope.”
“OK, then,” Mary said, after waiting for Annie to continue, to no avail. “Well, Annie, we have to go find Willie now.”
“OK, see ya,” Annie replied. Then she turned and was gone.
Mary and Jody watched for another minute as the bulldozer dug its teeth into the stubble of the wheat field, exposing the dark, rich soil underneath. Then they turned to go back to the farmhouse to find Willie and meet the “movie people.”
4
The Farm Transformed
MARY AND JODY saw Finnegan before they saw Willie. The friendly dog was in his glory, mingling with the movie people, wagging his tail, offering his paw, and licking one face after another as they leaned down to pet him and give him treats from the food table.
“Look at Finney,” Mary laughed. “He’s trying out for a part in the movie.”
“Hey, there’s Willie, too,” Mary said, pointing at a group of men talking on the stoop of the farmhouse. “Do you think it’s OK to go over there now, Mare?”
“Of course it is, Jody. Willie said he would introduce us, and it’s about time, too,” Mary said confidently. “After all, we are going to be in the movie and everything.”
Jody sighed, hoping Mary wasn’t already getting “too big for her britches,” as Willie would say. Before she could reply, Mary was striding across the grass toward the group of men, and Jody had no choice but to follow.
“Hi, Willie!” Mary called, waving as she approached the group. “We’re here!”
The men in the group looked up as one and grinned at the sight of the two girls, while Willie began pulling on his earlobe and scratching the side of his head. Then Mary spotted another familiar face in the crowd.
“Mr. Crowley!” she shouted. “It’s me, Mary! Remember when we met on the day you came out to look at the farm?”
“Well, of course I remember you, Mary,” Mr. Crowley said, shaking Mary’s hand. “It’s good to see you again. And I believe this is your friend…”
“Jody. That’s Jody. We keep our ponies—Star, Lady, and Gypsy—here on the farm. They’re really good ponies, and they’re all ready to be in the movie. If you need them, that is. And I remember you said you might need some girls to ride in the movie, too, and we would really like to help you out with that, too, and…”
“Mary, Mary,” Willie interrupted. “Slow down. Mr. Crowley was in the middle of a conversation here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, sir,” Mary said, clapping her hand over her mouth.
“That’s quite all right, Mary. We were just going over some of the details of the film. And, yes, I believe we do need some girls to ride in a couple of scenes, and we might need your ponies, too. So thank you for offering your assistance.”
Mary grinned, and Jody could see it was all she could do to refrain fromclapping and jumping up and down.
Willie shook his head and glanced apologetically at the other men in the group, who were still smiling at Mary and Jody.
“Well, I told these girls I would introduce them, since they’ll be buggin’ me to death otherwise,” Willie said. “So, Mary and Jody, this is Mr. Gordon. He’s the director of the picture.”
“Pleased to meet you,” said Mr. Gordon, nodding cordially.
“And this is Mr. Manzella, the main cameraman.”
Mr. Manzella winked and gave the girls a “thumbs
up.”
“And this is Twister. He’s goin’ to be helpin’me with the wrangler work. We worked together years ago.”
“Howdy, girls, glad to know ya,” Twister said in a deep gravelly voice. He tipped his cowboy hat to the girls, and when he smiled, Mary and Jody were astonished to see that his two front teeth were missing completely. He was tall and thin, with straggly shoulder-length gray hair and a handlebar mustache.
“Hi, Twister,” Mary said with a smile. “Did you bring a horse with you?”
“Well, no, ma’am, I didn’t. Will here is going to take me out to the horse auction first thing Monday, and we’re goin’ to see what we can find. We’ll be needin’ about six or so horses for the picture, and…”
“But, Twister, you know that you can use Lady and Gypsy and Star, right?” Mary interrupted. “We’ve already told them they’re going to be in the movie!”
Mary and Jody in the Movies Page 2
