Olivia and the Movie Stars

by Lyn Gardner

  “I once called you an unfit father, Jack. I thought you were selfish, irresponsible and reckless and accused you of abandoning your own children. Like a child who had never grown up. I was wrong. Completely wrong. I now realise that you love Livy and Eel very much and that they love you. The three of you have an incredible bond. You’ve done a really good job of raising those girls on your own. Toni would be proud of you, Jack, and so I am. Very proud.” Alicia had tears in her eyes, and Jack knew that it had cost her a great deal to say what she had said.

  “That’s one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me, Alicia. Thank you,” he said quietly.

  There was a pause before the conversation moved on.

  “Pablo told me the noise from the building site next door has stopped,” said Jack. “That must be a big relief.”

  “Yes, it is,” replied Alicia, though she still looked anxious. “But I don’t suppose it will last.”

  Jack looked at her troubled face. “Alicia, is there something else worrying you?” he asked. Alicia swallowed and using all her acting skills she shook her head very firmly.

  The next day Jon had organised a huge picnic for all the Peter Pan children. After seeing how well the twins, particularly Cosi, had responded in the workshop when the minders weren’t present, Jon had persuaded Jasper to get rid of them permanently. He was pleased that he had. Jasper would have had a fit if it had been reported back to him how his children were spending their afternoon.

  The children spent a couple of hours on the riverbank at the back of the Swan, climbing trees and pretending to be pirates. It was great fun and everybody was getting on brilliantly. Jack, Pablo and a couple of the stagehands fashioned a zip-wire between a couple of the trees, which all the children loved except Cosi and Cosmo, who refused to go on it. Cosi was frightened, but Cosmo thought that his dad wouldn’t approve.

  Tom caught Cosmo looking wistfully at the others as they slid screaming down the wire. “Come on, Cosmo, why don’t you have a go? Your dad’ll never know. There’s nobody to tell him now that your minders have gone.”

  Cosmo grinned and headed for the wire. Soon he was zipping up and down and Tom showed him how to climb to the top of one of the tallest trees, too. He was good at it. His head could be seen bobbing about among the leaves alongside Tom’s red head and Aeysha’s dark one.

  “I hope Cosmo doesn’t get stuck or we’ll have to call the fire brigade to rescue him,” said Jon nervously.

  “Don’t worry,” said Jack. “He’s having the time of his life. Let him enjoy himself. Tom and Aeysha will look after him. He really does seem to be behaving like a kid, not a mini-adult. I saw him actually eating a sandwich and a cupcake instead of that green gloop he swallows all the time.”

  “Even Cosi looks happier,” said Jon.

  “Yes,” said Jack. “And she seemed to take a real interest in the flying equipment at the workshop. I hope I’ve set her mind at rest about how safe it is and she can relax a little.”

  Olivia rather wished that she was climbing trees with Tom and the others too, but she was trying to be a good friend to Cosima.

  “The trees are so beautiful,” said Cosi, biting into a cheese and watercress sandwich. “It’s amazing to think that some of them have probably been here for hundreds of years.”

  “So they’re even older than Gran,” said Eel, quite wide-eyed.

  “Much older, Eel,” said Cosi. “And lots of creatures and plants will be living on them. Even fungi.”

  “Gran definitely doesn’t have any fungi growing on her,” said Eel.

  “No,” laughed Cosi, “but because trees support other life, every single one is precious.”

  “But there are masses of them,” said Eel. “Why does it matter if one or two get chopped down?”

  “It matters because seventy per cent of the earth’s animals and plants live in forests,” said Cosi seriously. “Cut down a tree and you cut down their home. How would you like it if somebody came along and pulled your house down just because they wanted to?”

  Olivia, who had been listening quietly up till then, said fiercely, “I’d hate it. I’d fight as hard as I could to stop them.”

  “So would I,” said Cosi. “And that’s why we have to fight on behalf of the animals and plants who can’t fight for themselves. Otherwise the trees will disappear. At the rate things are going, by this time next century there will be no rainforest left at all.”

  Eel goggled at them. “I can’t think that far ahead,” she said. “And that’s enough gloomy stuff. I want another go on the zip-wire. I’m very good at it. I’m better than lots of the boys.” She ran away followed by William Todd, who had been cast as Tootles in Peter Pan.

  “Selfish little beast; she never thinks of anyone but herself,” laughed Olivia affectionately. “She’s heartless just like Peter Pan and she boasts about how great she is just like him too.”

  “Livy,” said Cosi shyly, now they were left alone. “Have you ever acted on a big stage in front of a huge audience?”

  “I’ve really not done a lot of acting,” said Olivia. “I used to think it was silly and pointless. But I don’t think that now. I like it more and more. It’s cool. But mostly I do circus stuff. But I did play Juliet in a version of Romeo and Juliet on the high-wire at the London Palladium and that was massive and I loved it.”

  “I bet you were really good at it,” said Cosima plaintively. “I’ve heard you when you’re helping Cosmo run through his lines. You’re fantastic as Wendy. Cosmo much prefers acting opposite you, I can tell. He’s much better as Peter when you’re being Wendy in those little bits you do for me. In fact, he’s really good. I wish you were playing Wendy and not me. I know all the Swan children in the cast do too. I hear them whispering.”

  “You worry too much, Cosi. Nobody thinks that, nobody whispers about you and you’re going to be fine. Gran’s been saying how well you’re coming along. And you’re already so experienced. You’ve had your own TV show and you’ve made movies. When you walk out on stage for the first preview with the audience out front you’ll forget all your worries and you’ll just be Wendy and you’ll be brilliant.”

  Cosi grimaced. “Or I’ll make a complete fool of myself. TV and movies are different. You can retake the scene. It once took me sixty-two takes to get one line right. You can’t do that in the theatre, and the audience is out there in the dark, just waiting for you to make a mistake. Just like the crocodile with its jaws open waiting for Captain Hook. I can’t do it. I keep hoping the end of the world will arrive before the first preview.”

  “Oh, Cosi, it will be all right on the night, I’m sure it will. Once you’ve done it the first time it will be a breeze,” said Olivia. “What does your dad think about all this?”

  Cosi laughed bitterly. “What do you think? He just doesn’t listen and he wouldn’t care if he did.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Eel, Tom and Cosmo were laughing so hard that they didn’t notice Jack come back into the Green Room. Under the watchful eye of one of the stagehands, they were playing with one of the three identical motorised crocodiles from Peter Pan. Three were required so the production could always have one on stage at any time, one in reserve and one in the workshop being mended. Tom and Cosmo were running across the Green Room and Eel was operating the remote control and making the crocodile chase them, its jaws snapping furiously. It was terrifyingly realistic and the tick-tock noise it made when it moved was rather ominous.

  “Can you stop the noise just for a moment, kids?” asked Jack. “I need to think.”

  Eel dropped the remote control and snuggled up next to Jack on the sofa. Cosmo began showing Tom a new computer game. He could still be really arrogant and rude, but Tom had begun to realise that a great deal of Cosmo’s bluster was simply to disguise his lack of confidence. When he dropped the front, he could be rather nice, and it was showing in his performance as Peter. Alicia’s hard work with him was beginning to pay off as he displayed the right m
ixture of cockiness and vulnerability on stage.

  “Is everything all right, Dad? You look really worried,” said Eel.

  “I am,” replied Jack. “One of the wires for the flying has come loose again. It keeps happening, and I don’t understand it. I check it and it’s fine, and then when I go back half an hour later, it’s loose again. It’s as if it’s taken on a life of its own.” It was not the first incident with the flying apparatus. Only a few days before, when Cosi had been lowered from the air, the stagehand had discovered that her safety harness had been unclipped. If she had fallen, it could have been disastrous and when Jasper had found out about it, he had shouted at Jack and even waved his hook at him.

  “She could have been killed,” he roared, and Cosi looked really frightened, as if she had only just realised how serious it all was.

  Jack had held an investigation, but the stagehand concerned, Gary, had sworn blind that he had done up the clip and Jack was certain the man was telling the truth. He had written it in the incident book and instigated a new system of extra checks whenever any of the children were flying. He’d been shaken by what had happened and was being doubly vigilant. And now this latest episode with the wire was beginning to make him doubt himself.

  At that moment Olivia and Cosi walked into the Green Room. Jack, Eel and Tom stared at them, amazed. They had come straight from wardrobe and they were wearing identical Edwardian-style white nighties and each had a blue bow in her hair. Olivia’s straight hair had been ringletted so it looked just the same as Cosi’s.

  “Wow,” said Tom. “That is seriously spooky.”

  “You do look amazingly alike,” said Jack.

  “I can hardly tell the difference,” said Cosmo.

  “Oh, you know,” said Cosi breezily. “She’s the one who can fly and act, and I’m the one who can’t.”

  “Don’t be silly, Cosi,” said Olivia. “You’re really improving fast.” She saw that Jack was looking tired. She knew it meant that he was worrying about something. “Are you all right, Dad?”

  He smiled at her and the years fell away from his handsome face. “Fine. It’s just another hiccup with the flying apparatus. I’m beginning to think it’s jinxed. One of the wires keeps loosening when it shouldn’t. I can’t work out why it keeps happening.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Not by itself. There are plenty of other inbuilt safety precautions. Although one of you children could get a nasty bump if it wasn’t totally tight.”

  “But nobody would get killed or really badly hurt, would they?” asked Cosi anxiously. “They might just get a bit shaken up and bruised? Like that actress who played Peter Pan who the stagehands used like a wrecking ball?”

  Jack laughed. “So you’ve heard that story, have you? There’s nothing for you to worry about, Cosi. Remember I showed you how it all works and which wires do what. You won’t be dropped, I promise, and you won’t come to any harm, not on my watch. You’re safe as houses.”

  At that moment, Jon walked into the room. He did a double take when he saw Olivia and Cosi.

  “That’s amazing! Wardrobe and make-up have done a fantastic job. I’d have to look hard to tell you two apart. The audience is never going to guess that it’s not you doing all the flying, Cosi.” He looked at Jack. “Shall we practise the swap now? Is everything ready?”

  “Yes, I’ve just checked all the equipment, it’s all in order and we’re ready to go.”

  “OK. Around ten minutes until everyone on stage. I’ll put a two-minute call out for you.”

  “I’ll be flying first out the Darling nursery window and then Livy will take over from me, won’t she?” asked Cosi, sounding anxious.

  “Yes,” said Jon. He peered into Cosi’s pale face. “There’s absolutely nothing to be worried about, you know. It’s all under control. I promise.”

  Cosi smiled wanly and hurried away, while everyone else waited in the Green Room for Jon’s call to assemble in the wings.

  But when they trooped on stage, Jon changed his mind. Cosi seemed to be so very nervous that he decided to put Olivia up first, just to give Cosi some confidence.

  “Actually, let’s get Livy to play the scene when Wendy flies into Never Land and gets shot down by the Lost Boys,” said Jon.

  “But you said I was flying first,” said Cosi, looking stricken. “Please let me fly first.”

  Jon was so surprised to hear Cosima volunteering to fly that he decided to do what she wanted, but then Jasper Wood snarled, “Zip it, Cosi. Watch and learn from that other kid. She actually knows what she’s doing.”

  Jasper, who had made no connection between the girl he’d insulted over supper at the Savoy and the one employed as his daughter’s flying double, had never bothered to learn Olivia’s name, or the names of any of the other children. He kept calling Tom “that boy”. He nodded at Jon. “Don’t listen to my daughter. Do what you want to do, just don’t spend all day doing it. I don’t want to be here at midnight.”

  Jon bit back a reply and nodded at Olivia. “Up you go, Livy. Use Cosi’s harness; it’s all set up.” Cosima went and sat in the front stalls, chewing her front lip furiously.

  “Positions, please,” called Jon. He nodded to the children playing the Lost Boys. “From ‘Did you see the pirates?’, please.”

  “Did you see the pirates?” asked Jonah Nicholls, who was playing the First Twin.

  “No,” said Dom Carrick, who played Nibs, “but I saw a wonderfuller thing. I saw the loveliest great white bird. It is flying this way. It looks so weary, and as it flies it moans ‘Poor Wendy’.”

  “I remember now, there are birds called Wendies,” said another of the Lost Boys as Olivia appeared framed against a sky-blue backdrop, drooping convincingly as if she’d flown thousands of miles through the night and straight on until morning.

  “There’s Tinkerbell. She says that Peter wants us to shoot the Wendy bird,” cried Tootles. He got out his bow and arrow, aimed it at Olivia and let the arrow fly. It hit her and as it did Olivia felt herself slip. The wire jerked sharply and instead of dropping straight to the floor in the controlled manner she was meant to, she was swung violently against the scenery. The noise her head made as it hit the surround made all the adults wince. There were shouts from the stagehands who rushed to help her, but Ali, the little boy playing Slightly, didn’t realise that something had gone badly wrong and went ahead and delivered his line. “That’s no bird. It must be a lady,” he shouted.

  “And I’ve killed her,” cried Cosima as she clambered on to the stage. She kneeled by Olivia, who was out cold. “Oh, Livy, Livy, please wake up. Please don’t be dead.”

  Jack had rushed on to the stage from the wings. He was as white as a ghost. “Someone call an ambulance,” he shouted.

  Olivia began to stir.

  “We’ll take you to hospital, Liv darling,” said Jack, holding her hand and stroking it gently.

  “No!” protested a confused-sounding Olivia very crossly. “I’m not Liv Darling. I’m Wendy Darling and I want to see the mermaids. Peter promised that he’d show me the mermaids.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Olivia was sitting up in bed in exactly the same room she’d been in after she’d fallen off the trapeze the previous term.

  “You do seem to lead an exceptionally dangerous life,” said the ward sister, tutting loudly. “It’s lovely to see you again, Olivia, but I do wish you’d stop hitting your head. It’s not good for it. At least it’s only a touch of concussion this time. We’ll have you out and about again tomorrow but the doctor wants you to stay in overnight so we can keep an eye on you.” She turned to Jack. “Mr Marvell, could I have a word, please?”

  “She’s going to tell him off. She’s got a really stern look in her eye,” whispered Olivia as Jack followed the ward sister looking like a naughty boy being sent to the head teacher.

  “I think she’s only pretending to be stern, I bet she really fancies him,” said Eel, swinging her feet. “She blushes
every time he speaks to her. So does Chloe Bonar. She makes eyes at him but I don’t think he’s noticed.” She looked hard at Olivia. “Do you think Dad might get married again one day? If he did, we’d have a new mother.”

  “Nobody could ever replace Mum,” said Olivia firmly. “Certainly not Chloe Bonar.”

  “I can’t really remember Mum,” said Eel sadly. “I wish I could; she looks so beautiful in Gran’s painting and Dad’s photos. And so young.”

  “She was young; she was only twenty-five when she died,” said Olivia. Then she added thoughtfully, “She’ll always be twenty-five. Dad and you and me, we get older every day, but she always stays the same. Frozen in time. A bit like Peter Pan, the boy who never grows up.” She shivered. “One day we’ll both be older than she was when she died. Isn’t that a strange thought?” She suddenly felt incredibly sad.

  “Are you sure you’re all right, Livy? You don’t think you’re still Wendy, do you?”

  Olivia laughed. “I was just a bit confused after I’d bumped my head, that’s all.”

  “You weren’t the only one. Tom says Cosi got quite hysterical and insisted that it was all her fault that you’d been hurt. She wouldn’t stop crying even when the paramedics said you were going to be fine.”

  “And I am fine. It’s nobody’s fault.”

  “Yes, it is,” said Jack, walking back into the room. “It’s my fault. I know everyone else thinks so too. Even the ward sister. She thinks I’m a negligent father for allowing you to do such dangerous things. Maybe she’s right. I’ve certainly been negligent over this. I am in charge of flying, after all. I’m sorry, Liv. I’ve let you down.” He sighed. “I just don’t understand what went wrong. I checked that wire over and over.” His mobile bleeped.