Lights, Camera, DISASTER!

by Gordon Korman

  “Cu— I mean, stop — hold it,” called Bruno.

  “Bruno —” whispered Jordie warningly.

  Dinkman was turning purple. “What is it now?”

  “Well, it’s just that I have to know why we’re confused and he’s not, otherwise I can’t get into my character.”

  “You don’t have to get into your character!” roared the director. “The scene lasts seven seconds!”

  “Look,” said Jordie, “here’s how it goes. This is a ruptured sewer pipe, and we’re watching these guys fix it.”

  Bruno was insulted. “And my character is too stupid to know that a ruptured sewer pipe is funny?”

  “No, no, no,” said Jordie. “Listen, Academy Blues is about a guy who goes to boarding school and really hates it. That’s me. I’ve been stuffing things down the toilet for three weeks now, trying to bust up the plumbing.”

  Bruno snapped his fingers. “The grapefruit thing.”

  “The point is,” Jordie went on, “I’ve finally succeeded, which is why I’m smiling. But you guys don’t know about it, so you’re confused.”

  “Are you motivated now?” rasped Dinkman.

  “Well, no,” said Bruno. “I mean, you left out the part where this pipe breaks. How could it already be dug up if it hasn’t busted yet?”

  “It is busted,” explained Jordie patiently. “We just haven’t shot that scene yet. But in the finished movie, it’ll all be in order.”

  “Why don’t you just shoot it the way it’s supposed to be?” asked Bruno.

  “Because we’re shooting it with a stuntman, and he isn’t here yet, the lucky sonofagun!” shrieked Dinkman. “You’ve got ten seconds to get ready for the scene! If you’re not ready, you’re gone!”

  “Bruno,” hissed Jordie urgently, “on a movie set the director is king. You can’t argue with him. Even I can’t argue with him. Paul Newman wouldn’t be able to argue with him. If Zeus came down from Mount Olympus and ended up here, he’d have to keep quiet and listen to Seth. That’s the way it is.”

  Bruno snorted. “Then Dinkman is a great name for him. He’s a dink, man!”

  “Okay — action!” The cameras rolled. “Cut! Cut!” Dinkman bounded onto the scene, close to hysterics. “You!” he screamed into Bruno’s face. “You’re smiling! You’re supposed to look confused!”

  “Well,” Bruno explained, “if I’m with Cutesy, he and I are probably friends. So I wouldn’t be confused. He would have told me.”

  “Get off my set!”

  * * *

  In the hockey rink, Coach Flynn was winding down another practice of the Macdonald Hall Macs. The season was almost over, except for the annual game between the Macs and their archrivals, the York Academy Cougars.

  Finally the coach blew his whistle and called the players to centre ice. “Team,” he said, “I know we didn’t do very well this year. But we can still save our self-respect by giving it our best shot against York next week. Yeah, they’ve got a better record than we do, but it’s our home ice, and we’ve got a great shot at it.”

  The boys all banged their sticks enthusiastically on the ice.

  “Will the girls be coming over to cheer us on?” asked Pete Anderson, the goalie.

  Mr. Flynn looked embarrassed. “I don’t think you’d better count on them. Relations are a bit — uh — strained between our two schools.”

  Larry nudged Bruno and Boots. “Miss Scrimmage is suing The Fish for the price of the shotgun, plus fifty thousand bucks mental cruelty,” he whispered.

  “That’s enough, Wilson,” said the coach sternly. “Now, I just want you boys to keep your emotions high for one more big game. Do us proud. Okay, a few more laps and hit the showers.”

  As Captain Boots O’Neal led the team, first clockwise and then counterclockwise around the ice surface, Bruno spied Jordie, leaning on the boards, watching. Working up the biggest head of steam he could muster, he streaked toward the sidelines and stopped on a dime, digging his blades into the ice. A shower of snow covered the actor.

  Jordie brushed himself off, laughing. “It’s a good thing Goose didn’t see that. Pneumonia is one of his favourite fears.”

  “So,” said Bruno, “how’s my buddy Seth cooling off?”

  “Pretty good,” said Jordie. “He took all the footage with you in it and had it burned. They’re all over there roasting marshmallows right now.”

  “I still say I was right,” Bruno insisted.

  “The director is always right,” Jordie corrected, “even when he’s wrong.” He looked longingly at the ice. “I haven’t skated in years.”

  “Yeah? You guys skate down in California? I thought you just surfed.”

  “I always wanted to play hockey,” said Jordie. He shrugged sadly. “I wanted to play anything.”

  “So why didn’t you?”

  “Are you kidding? Goose even hides my tennis racket! He once caught me playing touch football, and he got so freaked out he tried to have the other players arrested! I’m not allowed to get a black eye, a fat lip, a chipped tooth or any kind of bruise that makeup won’t cover.”

  Bruno watched as Coach Flynn skated off the ice and clumped into the dressing room. Then he scrambled over the boards into the seats, ripped off his skates and handed them to Jordie.

  “Okay, Cutesy, let’s see what you can do.”

  Delighted, Jordie laced on the skates, stepped onto the ice and tried a few experimental strides. “This is great!” he called. “It’s like riding a bike! You never forget!”

  Wump!

  “Oh, no!” whooped Bruno. “You landed butt-first! There goes the career!”

  Back on his feet, Jordie began to move around the rink, gaining speed as he boosted his confidence. The other Macs gathered around him, shouting encouragement.

  “Maybe we should put you on our team,” said Boots sadly. “We need all the help we can get against York Academy. They were third in the province this year.”

  Wilbur pulled off his helmet and shook his head. “The only player who could win us this game wears a red S on his chest and is able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”

  Pete slapped his stick into his heavy goalie pads. “And what good is home ice advantage when the girls aren’t even going to be here to bug the other team?”

  Skidding across the ice in a pair of high-tops, Bruno joined the group. “I’m more worried about the dance Friday night. I mean, if The Fish and Miss Scrimmage are at war, they may just call it off.”

  Larry shook his head. “He was thinking of cancelling, but in the end, he’s going to let us go. I overheard him say to Mrs. Davis that we need to let off steam, what with the excitement of the movie and all.”

  The far-off look was once again in Jordie Jones’s world-renowned eyes. “A dance. I’d sure love to get in on something like that.”

  Boots stared at him. “You? Are you crazy? Those girls would tear you to pieces in five seconds! You might as well just jump into a tank filled with piranhas! You should have seen them the night they got me!”

  Jordie tried a quick stop, almost losing his balance. “Yeah, I know. But still, it would be great. Would you guys believe I’ve never danced with anybody before?”

  “Wait a second,” said Wilbur. “I saw you in a movie dancing with this girl in a huge ballroom, and I remember thinking you were the luckiest kid alive.”

  Larry snapped his fingers. “I saw that, too. Man, she was beautiful!”

  “Who cares about her?” scoffed Wilbur. “In the background you could see the most amazing buffet! The dessert table alone was a monument — like the pyramids!”

  Jordie dismissed this with a wave of his hand. “That doesn’t count. I was working.”

  “Nice work if you can get it,” grinned Larry.

  “Just because it looks like I’m enjoying myself in a movie,” said the actor, “doesn’t mean I really am. I mean, when I dance with someone, or kiss someone, it isn’t fun. I approach it the way you guys might solve a mat
h problem.”

  “You mean wrong?” asked Pete, confused.

  “Like a job. I’m getting paid, the girl’s getting paid, the sixty technicians watching us are getting paid and we all work together to make the scene as real as possible. But a dance — no script, no crew, just people dancing because they want to —” His face fell. “Boots is right. It’s impossible.”

  “Remember the science-fiction movie where you danced with the three-headed alien girl to steal the nuclear code to break your parents out of a tritium cell?” Pete inquired. “Well — do three-headed aliens get more money than normal actors?”

  Bruno looked thoughtful. “You know,” he began slowly, “maybe you couldn’t go to Scrimmage’s as Jordie Jones, but what if you were somebody else?”

  “I don’t get it,” said Larry. “How could he be somebody besides himself?”

  Bruno grinned. “With the magic of Hollywood.”

  “Hey — this doesn’t involve me sleeping in a trailer, does it?” asked Boots warily.

  His roommate ignored him. “Cutesy,” he asked the star, “do you have any connections in makeup?”

  Chapter 6

  The Royal Sneeze

  On Friday night, the lights shone in the makeup trailer long after Seth Dinkman had stopped the day’s filming. A single cosmetics expert laboured over a young client.

  Finally the door opened, and the boy stepped out onto the dark campus, waving his thanks inside. But instead of heading to the heart of the village of trailers on the east lawn, he ventured off to the Macdonald Hall dormitories. He entered the third building and walked through the crowded hallway, receiving only a few curious glances. Approaching room 306, he reached out and knocked smartly.

  “Yeah?” came Bruno’s voice from within.

  “Sir,” replied the boy formally, with just a trace of an accent, “is this the address at which one must present oneself for participation in tonight’s social activities?”

  Bruno threw the door open and stared in shock. “Holy cow! Cutesy? No way!”

  Boots appeared over his shoulder. Awed, he merely whispered, “Jordie?”

  The figure in front of them looked almost nothing like Jordie Jones, the famous actor. His fair complexion had been darkened with makeup, and his blond hair was completely covered by an authentic silk turban. Although he wore his regular clothes, the look was completely different, because shadow had been applied to soften the chiselled features of his face. He looked plumper, rounder. But the pièce de résistance was the eyes — Jordie’s famous baby blues were now a dark, dark brown.

  He bowed formally. “At your service.”

  “But your face!” Boots stammered. “Your eyes!”

  “Contact lenses,” the actor replied in his normal voice. “And the turban is left over from Redhead in Arabia. I figure we can tell the girls I’m the son of some sheik or prince or something.”

  “With that accent, they’ll never know it’s you,” promised Bruno in awe. “Come on, it’s time to go.”

  Most of the three-hundred-odd Macdonald Hall senior students were swarming on the front lawn, just beginning to trickle across the highway to Miss Scrimmage’s. Not wanting to be among the first to arrive, Bruno, Boots and Jordie hung back by the flagpole. There they met Wilbur, Larry, Sidney, Pete and Mark. Elmer never went to school dances, as his throat always closed up in the presence of girls. Tonight he was focusing his telescope on a small pulsar in the constellation Cygnus and ignoring the whole thing.

  Taking his place in the group was slight, skinny Calvin Fihzgart. This was Calvin’s first school dance, and he had proclaimed himself the world’s greatest ladies’ man for the occasion.

  “Those chicks had better watch out!” he declared, spraying his body liberally with cologne. He already smelled like the wreckage of an exploded perfume factory. “There are going to be a lot of hearts broken tonight!”

  Boots pointed at Calvin. “What’s he doing here?”

  Larry shrugged. “He just showed up and started babbling. I think he’s nervous about his first dance.”

  “Nervous? Are you nuts?” roared Calvin. “I just hope I don’t get any jealous boyfriends coming after me!”

  Bruno clamped his hand over the lens of Mark’s video camera. “Aw, come on! How does this fit into your dumb documentary?”

  “It’s very important,” said Mark righteously. “This illustrates what movie stars go through not to be recognized.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” countered Boots. “It illustrates who snuck Jordie Jones into the dance, just like it illustrates who played poker with Jordie Jones and who snuck out after lights-out with five boxes of explosives to booby-trap Jordie Jones. And if The Fish sees it, you can expand your masterpiece to include us carrying our luggage to the train station, because we’ll all be expelled!”

  Wilbur shook his head. “If we get expelled, the only thing he’ll film is the inside of his nose, because that’s where that stupid camera will be!”

  “Don’t worry,” Mark assured them. “I’ll cut out anything that could get you guys in trouble.”

  “Okay,” said Bruno. “We should be fashionably late by now. Let’s go.”

  As they crossed the highway, Calvin pulled out his cologne and gave himself another dousing. This had the boys coughing and covering their eyes. Jordie dissolved into a sneezing fit.

  “Hey, Calvin!” choked Bruno. “Give everybody a break, eh!”

  Calvin was outraged. “Chicks dig guys who wear aftershave.”

  Jordie blew his nose. “Not if they can’t get within twenty metres of them without passing out,” he sniffled.

  “Besides,” gagged Boots, “you don’t even shave.”

  “No problem!” Calvin enthused. “I rubbed my face with sandpaper so it’d sting a little!”

  As they melted into the swarm of boys at the entrance to Miss Scrimmage’s gym, Larry had nothing but praise for Jordie Jones.

  “I can’t believe it!” he crowed. “You don’t just look different. You’ve changed into somebody else! Even the way you walk!”

  Jordie smiled. “It’s a trick I picked up in acting class — each character you portray has his own posture and way of moving. The son of royalty would be stiff and formal.”

  Bruno was impressed. “Wow. I didn’t know you could act. I thought you were just a movie star.” He glanced through the sea of bodies into the gym, where the music was starting up. “Remember, blow your cover and you’re hamburger.”

  Jordie nodded intently, and they marched through the door. There sat Miss Scrimmage, resplendent in a frilly ball gown of pink and silver, the school colours. She took one look at Boots and recoiled in horror, rocking back and forth on the hind legs of her chair and almost toppling over. Only Wilbur’s strong arm kept her upright.

  “How dare you?” shrilled the Headmistress at Boots. “You thug! You break into my school, prowl about at night, terrorizing my poor defenceless girls and now you expect to come here to socialize? My eyes may be old, young man, but my nose can still smell a rat!”

  Boots studied the floor.

  “But Miss Scrimmage,” protested Bruno, “Mr. Sturgeon said he could come.”

  “Mr. Sturgeon?” she blurted without thinking. “What does that old coot know about discipline?”

  “A good deal more than one might expect,” came a dry voice behind her.

  From the refreshment table appeared Mr. Sturgeon, in his hand a cup of punch, on his face his coldest fishy expression. This he turned on his hostess. “I daresay I am exercising a fair amount of self-discipline right at this moment.”

  Miss Scrimmage pointed at Boots. “Why has this hooligan not been properly punished?” she demanded.

  “I conducted an investigation,” said the Headmaster darkly, “and concluded that the blame lay elsewhere. O’Neal is a registered student of Macdonald Hall. You will accept all my students, or you will accept none of them.”

  Miss Scrimmage flushed bright red with anger. Mr. Sturgeon
had her cornered. She had to back down, or she would be spoiling the dance for her own students.

  She beamed. “Who is this absolutely charming young man?”

  She was looking straight at Jordie Jones. Quickly the actor stepped behind Wilbur.

  “Yes, you,” the Headmistress persisted. “The handsome boy in the turban. Are you new to Macdonald Hall?”

  Stepping out from cover, Jordie nodded uneasily and managed to look shy. Mr. Sturgeon regarded him quizzically.

  “How lovely,” said Miss Scrimmage. “Where are you from?”

  Boots’s heart sank. The Headmaster knew every one of his students by face and by name. There was a big difference between bluffing Jordie Jones through one little dance and making up crazy stories right in front of Mr. Sturgeon. The Fish was no dummy, and if he caught them in an outright lie, it would take a lot more than the magic of Hollywood to save them.

  “He’s foreign!” Boots exclaimed suddenly. It was the truth. Jordie Jones was an American citizen, and in Canada, that made him foreign. If they could somehow get through this without actually lying, The Headmaster might go easy.

  “Yes, but from where, specifically?” Miss Scrimmage inquired. “Where — is — your — home?” This she said slowly and with a lot of volume, as though Jordie would not understand English very well. Boots concentrated on the actor. Come on, Jordie, don’t lie, don’t make up some weird country with a bizarre name, don’t blow it …

  “Altadena,” replied Jordie.

  No! Boots wanted to scream. That’s it! That’s the lie! It’s all over! But then he remembered his California geography. The towns around Los Angeles had all different types of names, from Spanish to Arabic. Maybe Altadena was the suburb Jordie was from. Cautiously, Boots risked a glance at Mr. Sturgeon. The Headmaster was still intent on Jordie.

  “Altadena,” the Headmistress mused. “I don’t believe I’m familiar with …”

  “On the one side is the desert,” said Jordie, beginning to warm to his role. “On the other, the sea.”

  Boots smiled to himself. California, all right.

  “How wonderful,” declared Miss Scrimmage. She rose, holding up her hands for quiet. The music died. “Girls,” she announced, “we have a very special visitor, all the way from the distant land of Altadena. Please welcome —” She looked at Jordie. “I’m so sorry. I’m afraid I neglected to ask your name.”