Nick and Tesla's Special Effects Spectacular

by Bob Pflugfelder

  2. Add color to your makeup, if desired. Next, mix about a teaspoon of dish soap with a cup of vinegar and pour the mix into a spray bottle.

  3. To activate the foaming, spray the makeup with the vinegar/soap solution and then watch the alien skin ooze and sizzle!

  About a half hour later, four kid-sized zomboids shambled through the Metalman set, their faces and arms covered with the sickly green coating that was a hallmark of the alien-zombie virus.

  “I can’t believe that jerk Damon Wilder was trying to get my aunt fired,” said the smallest of the zomboids.

  “And Cash Ashkinos, too,” said the biggest. “Like it’s their fault that Wilder is a psycho. He’s the one who has been causing all the problems!”

  Two passing crew members turned their heads to stare. But the homemade goopy makeup that Nick and Tesla had whipped up seemed to convince them that the kids belonged on the set and knew where they were going.

  “Not so loud with the psycho talk,” the Nick-sized zomboid said under his breath. “We can’t just look like extras. We’ve got to act like them, too.”

  “And we can’t blame everything on Damon Wilder, Silas,” said zomboid Tesla. “Remember the itching powder? And the leaked video? Somebody’s clearly trying to get him to quit, and that’s the real problem.”

  Nick looked over at his sister.

  “Do you think that’s what it’s all about, Tez? The reason for the video leak and the itching powder, I mean. That it’s not someone just being mean to the star? It’s about forcing him out of the movie?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” Tesla said. “Let’s hypothesize. Why would someone want to get Damon Wilder kicked out?”

  “Because he’s a terrible actor?” Nick suggested.

  “And difficult to work with?” added Tesla.

  “And a complete and utter kook?” Silas threw in. “What? I want to hippopotamus, too.”

  “Okay. All true,” DeMarco said. “But who is responsible?”

  They all looked at one another.

  Each one was stumped.

  “Hey, check it out,” DeMarco said.

  He had noticed a sign taped to the side of a motor home parked to his left. The sign—really just a sheet of paper fluttering in the breeze that was blowing in off the ocean a mile away—displayed a single word printed in large, blocky letters.

  MAKEUP

  The door to the motor home was open. Through the doorway, the kids could see a purple-haired woman sitting in one of several large chairs lined up in front of a row of mirrors. It was Barbara, the makeup artist who’d stepped up to put face powder on Damon Wilder just before his itch-attack in the Metalman suit. She was leafing through a magazine called the Hollywood Reporter while sipping from a bottle of Snapple through a pink crazy straw.

  The kids ambled casually past the door and then doubled back, keeping out of sight behind a few garbage cans.

  “What now?” Silas said.

  “Now we wait for an opportunity,” said Tesla. “Then we go in and look for itching powder, like we did in the special effects trailer.”

  “Yeah. Because that worked out so well,” said DeMarco sarcastically.

  “We don’t even know why this makeup lady would be mad at Damon Wilder,” Silas pointed out. “What’s her motive?”

  “You said yourself: Wilder’s a kook,” Tesla shot back. “Who knows what kind of crazy thing he might have blown up at her about?”

  Silas shook his head, looking skeptical.

  “Seems pretty thin. You could say that about everybody on this movie set.”

  Tesla tried not to show how much his comment stung. Having your logic criticized by Silas … and, even worse, he’s right? Ouch. Nick seemed to sense how his sister felt. “Don’t feel bad, Tez,” he said. “Silas makes a good point, which obviously means you’re having a positive effect on him. He’s becoming a critical thinker!”

  “It’s true,” Silas answered. “Before I met you guys, I hardly ever had to figure out who committed a crime. Now I’m doing it, like, every other week.”

  “Aaaaanyway,” Nick said, “we didn’t find itching powder in Matt Gore’s trailer, and getting trapped in Damon Wilder’s trailer didn’t get us any useful info—” He noticed his sister was wearing her “I’m concentrating” frown. “Did it?” he asked her.

  “I’m not sure yet.”

  “So, it seems worth a try to investigate the makeup lady, unless somebody has a better idea.”

  “I wasn’t thinking past sneaking back onto the set,” DeMarco admitted. “After that, I just figured … I don’t know. Stuff would happen.”

  “Well, here we are,” said Nick. “So, let’s see about the stuff, okay?”

  Silas and DeMarco nodded mutely.

  Tesla suddenly snapped her fingers. “You know what else bothers me about what Damon Wilder and Jack Whatever-His-Name-Is were talking about? Besides all the angst, I mean. Wilder said that the second act was slow or sluggish or something like that. Like it was a play, not the Metalman screenplay.”

  Nick looked intrigued for a moment, but by the time Tesla was done talking he was shaking his head.

  “Screenplays are broken into acts, too,” he said. “They just don’t make it obvious, like they do with plays, where there’s intermissions and stuff.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, he’s totally right,” Silas said. “All movies have three acts. In the first, you show who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. In the second, the good guys and the bad guys fight, and the good guys lose. In the third, everything starts exploding, and the good guys win.”

  “And that’s every movie?” Tesla said skeptically.

  “Well, sometimes stuff explodes in the first and second acts, too,” Silas conceded. “But, yeah—that’s pretty much every movie.”

  “Not The Wizard of Oz, ” said Nick.

  “Not E.T.,” said Tesla.

  “Not The Avengers, ” said DeMarco. “Oh, wait. That is totally The Avengers. ”

  Silas nodded smugly. “And The Wizard of Oz and E.T., too. You just have to look for the—”

  “ZOMBOIDS!”

  All four kids jumped. The bellowing voice belonged to a muscular woman wearing a white tank top and jeans, her head topped by a baseball cap featuring the logo of a mountain surrounded by stars. In one hand, she held a clipboard. In the other hand was a walkie-talkie.

  She was glaring at the four kids with the sort of expression a person usually reserves for a bug found in your food. “You guys are unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head. “Come with me.”

  “Well, stuff is happening,” said DeMarco, sighing unhappily as the woman led them away. “So, I guess the plan kind of worked …”

  The production assistant marched Nick, Tesla, DeMarco, and Silas past the trailers and trucks and lighting rigs and food tables that the kids had come to know so well that day. Every dozen paces or so, she checked over her shoulder to make sure her prisoners were still in tow.

  They were. It was no use making a break for it. Each of them, in his or her own way, was thinking the same thing.

  “Well, it’s all over,” Tesla was thinking.

  “We’ve been caught, and the culprit hasn’t, ” Nick was thinking.

  “My aunt’s going to be fired, and my mom’s going to kill me,” DeMarco was thinking.

  “I wonder if Stardust the Super-Wizard and Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle, are married,” Silas was thinking. “Also, now we’ll never get a chance to save Cash Ashkinos and Aunt Zoe from certain doom!”

  The only question was whether the P.A. was about to hand them over to the local police (a 15 percent probability, in Nick’s estimation), simply kick them off the set (25 percent), or let Aunt Zoe yell at them for a while and then kick them off the set (59 percent). Being a good, conservative statistician, Nick factored in a 1 percent margin of error.

  When the P.A. did none of those things—instead leading them to the old theater the movie crew had
taken over—Nick was dumbfounded. She shooed them into the lobby, where two dozen other “zomboids,” all wearing makeup similar to that on the four friends, were waiting around. “This is our last shot for today, and you almost missed it. Next time, don’t just stand around waiting when Makeup’s through with you. Get to your marks,” the woman said. Then she spun on her heel and walked briskly away.

  “She just … ,” Nick said, too stunned to put their good luck into words.

  Tesla finished his sentence for him.

  “—assumed we were zomboid extras in the wrong place! I should have realized what was happening. After all, we made this makeup so that we’d look like the other zomboids.”

  “Stuff is happening!” Silas said.

  He turned to DeMarco and gave him a high-five.

  “We caught a break, all right. But now we’re stuck here,” said Tesla.

  A hand reached out and tapped her on the shoulder.

  It was a green hand, with a large veiny patch of dangling skin.

  Tesla turned and found herself staring into the bright yellow eyes of a fortyish man with an olive-tinted face and grotesquely wrinkled skin. He was dressed as a movie theater employee, in a white shirt and a black vest and a little bow tie and a name tag that said FRANK.

  “Hi, I’m Paul!” the zomboid said cheerfully. “You guys are new, huh?”

  “Uh, yeah,” said Tesla.

  “Well, you probably better stay in the back when they roll again.” They’ve already got lots of footage of the first zomboids running out of the theater. And if you four are suddenly out in front in the next shot—”

  “I get it,” said DeMarco. “It won’t match the other shots.”

  “Continuity error!” said Silas.

  The zomboid nodded.

  “Exactly.”

  He looked the kids up and down, his gaze lingering a little longer than Nick liked on a sweaty-shiny spot on Silas’s forehead, where the makeup didn’t quite reach his scalp.

  “You’re not professionals, are you?” Paul said.

  Silas smirked. “He’s the line producer’s nephew,” he said, pointing at DeMarco.

  “Well,” Paul said, “if you need any help from a professional, just let me know. I’ve been a background artist in twenty-six feature films and seventy-nine episodics.”

  “Background artist?” said Silas.

  “Episodics?” said DeMarco.

  Paul focused his mustard-yellow eyes on DeMarco.

  “Episodic television series,” he said. “I’ve been a dead body on Crime Lab: San Francisco eight times alone. The casting directors say I’m the best stiff in the Bay Area.”

  “Background artist?” Silas said again.

  Paul’s jaw clenched as he shifted his head to look at Silas.

  “A film and television performer who specializes in peripheral nonspeaking roles,” he explained.

  “Oh,” said Silas. “You mean an extra.”

  Several of the other zomboids nearby turned to frown at Silas. One of them even growled, though she may have been practicing her undead speech patterns.

  “No,” Paul said icily. “A background artist. And contrary to what some people believe, it’s not something any untrained fourth-grader can do at the drop of a hat. It requires skill, commitment, and creativity. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back into character.”

  Paul turned and shuffled away, moaning.

  “Stop calling attention to yourself,” Nick said to Silas.

  “And annoying people,” DeMarco added.

  “But those just happen to be two of my best-developed skills,” Silas replied with great dignity.

  “We should probably move away from the doors, like that Paul guy suggested,” Nick said. “There’ll be less chance that Aunt Zoe or Matt Gore or somebody walking by will recognize us.”

  “But what’s the point of staying at all?” DeMarco said. “It’s not like we’re going to solve the mystery by hanging around here. Right, Tez?”

  Tesla said nothing.

  “Tez?” Nick said, leaning close to look into his sister’s eyes.

  They were glassy, vacant.

  “She must be getting into character, too,” Silas said. “I think I’ll try it.”

  He began to drool.

  “I’m not getting into character,” Tesla finally said. “I’m listening. ”

  “Listening?” Silas said. “To what?”

  Nick and DeMarco shushed him. Then all three boys started listening, too.

  There was only one thing to hear. Not far away, two background artists were trading gossip.

  “… friend worked with Damon on The Witches of Greenwich Village, ” said one, a woman with an English accent. “And she said the same thing as you: he was very professional, very skilled. Not a nut job, like he is now.”

  “So what went wrong?” snorted a man with a deep, gravelly voice.

  “The money’s gone to his head, I expect. I heard one of the P.A.s say he got $3 million for this movie.”

  “I heard the assistant director say $5 million, pay or play.”

  “Ooooh,” the woman cooed. “Pay or play for his first lead role in a feature? He must have a good agent.”

  “Silas,” Tesla said quietly. “Go over to those zomboids and ask what ‘pay or play’ means.”

  “Why me?” Silas said.

  “Because a minute ago you said that you don’t mind calling attention to yourself and annoying people.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Right. Okay.”

  Silas turned and took a step toward the two zomboids, who were sitting together on the floor, their backs against the wall.

  “Excuse me. What’s ‘pay or play’? Is that, like, a sports thing?”

  “If you have a pay-or-play contract,” the man lectured gruffly, “it means that you get paid no matter what.”

  Silas furrowed his brow.

  “Don’t actors always get paid no matter what?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “Not if the studio puts the project in turnaround. Meaning, it decides not to make the movie,” the man explained.

  “Or can’t get the film into production before your contract expires,” the woman said. “Or they decide to dump you for a bigger star at the last minute.”

  “Wow,” Silas said. “So you could get replaced and not get paid even if you’ve been working on the movie from the beginning? That stinks. Maybe I should stick to being a director instead of a director-actor-producer-cameraman.”

  “All right, Silas,” Tesla whispered. “That’s enough.”

  “Let me ask you guys something,” Silas continued, pointedly ignoring Tesla and turning back to the others. “When you’re playing a zomboid, is it better to stick your arms out like this”—he held both arms straight out in front, as if he were Frankenstein—“or let them hang at your sides like this?” Silas dropped his arms and let them dangle limply while he shuffled around, zombie-like.

  “Silas, you can stop now,” Tesla hissed.

  But instead of stopping, Silas walked over to the zomboids and sat down beside them. “What do you think?”

  Immediately, his two new friends began debating the merits of zomboid arm placement.

  “Great,” DeMarco said with a groan. “We’re trying to save my aunt’s career, and Silas decides to sit around and swap acting tips.”

  “Let him do his thing,” Nick said. “We’ve got planning to do.”

  “We do?” said DeMarco.

  Nick nodded and then looked at his sister.

  “I think we just solved the mystery by hanging around with a bunch of background artists,” she said. “Now, it’s time to go get the proof.”

  “Looks like we’ve moved on to phase three!” DeMarco said.

  NICK AND TESLA’S

  SUPERHEROIC GRAPPLING HOOK

  AND WRIST LAUNCHER

  THE STUFF

  • 1 plastic water or soda bottle (one that’s smooth, about as wide around as your arm, and
made of thick hard-to-crush plastic)

  • 1 ballpoint pen

  • 1 marker cap (The cap must be wider than the pen. Note: You won’t be able to use the cap on the marker anymore!)

  • 1 clothespin

  • 3 paper clips

  • 1 sturdy rubber band

  • 1 spool of button thread

  • 1 pushpin

  • 1 old tube sock

  • Hot-glue gun

  • Sandpaper

  • Scissors

  • Pliers

  • Safety goggles

  • For adults only: power drill

  THE SETUP

  1. Cut out a 7-inch (18 cm) long shape from the plastic bottle, as shown. This will be the base of the launcher.

  2. Use the sandpaper to smooth out any pointy corners so that they don’t poke you.

  3. Use the pliers to remove the front end and ink cartridge from the pen. Remove the back cap as well (cut it off, if necessary).

  4. Unbend the paper clips as shown. Push the smaller ends into the pen tube, spacing the clips equally to form a grappling hook. Use hot glue to secure the paper clips in place in the tube.

  5. Use hot glue to attach the pushpin to the other end of the pen, as shown. If the pushpin is wider than the pen, rub sandpaper on the edges until the pen and the pushpin are the same width.

  6. Push or cut out the end of the marker cap, or ask a grown-up to carefully cut or drill it, so that you end up with an empty tube. (The inside of the cap must be wider than the pen.)

  7. Use hot glue to attach the marker cap to the front of the launcher base so that about a third of the cap extends over the front edge of the launcher base.

  8. Insert your grappling hook into the marker cap. Position the clothespin on the base, where it will grip the end of the pushpin while the grappling hook is pushed as far back through the marker cap as it can go. Mark that spot and glue the clothespin there.

  9. Cut the toe end off the sock, leaving a sleeve about as long as the launcher base.

  10. Use hot glue to secure the sock to the underside of the launcher base so that you can wear the launcher comfortably on your forearm.