Star Rider

by Bonnie Bryant

  “You don’t have to help,” Lisa said to Skye.

  “I know,” Skye said. “But, see, people are always wanting to do things for me. I like to help.”

  “Okay, then, check to make sure the padding doesn’t have any wrinkles in it on that side, please.”

  Skye confirmed that it was smooth, and very soon Lisa brought Pepper out to the paddock as well.

  She was careful to notice that the tack was secure and Pepper was ready for mounting. She didn’t notice that quite a few people from the movie company were standing nearby, adjusting lights and microphone booms. She’d become accustomed to the fact that whenever Skye was around, everybody was watching him.

  She reminded Skye how to hold the reins while he was mounting the horse and held Pepper’s bit steadily until she was sure Skye was securely in the saddle. She patted the horse’s neck reassuringly.

  “Now remember,” she told Skye. “You’re the boss. Pepper may be bigger than you are, but he’s looking to you for leadership. If you don’t take the lead, he will, and then you’ll be in big trouble.”

  “This sounds familiar,” Skye said, smiling at her. Pepper took a few steps forward.

  “That’s a cue to you,” she said. “You didn’t tell him to go forward, so now, make him go back to where he was. Pull gently on the reins.”

  Skye followed her instructions. Pepper returned to his original position and then stood peacefully.

  “Congratulations,” Lisa said to him. “You’re now in charge.”

  She took Comanche’s reins in her left hand and prepared to mount the horse.

  “Nice job,” a voice said from behind her. Lisa turned to see a middle-aged man in blue jeans and a polo shirt. He was walking toward her. “Are you going to introduce us?” the man asked Skye.

  “Uh, Lisa, this is the director of the movie. His name is Oliver Mathews. Oliver, meet Lisa Atwood.”

  Lisa shook the man’s hand politely.

  “You handle the horses well,” Oliver said. Lisa blushed a little bit.

  “She’s a great instructor, Oliver,” Skye said. “In fact, she’s the best teacher I ever had.”

  “Oh, come on,” Lisa said. She hadn’t done anything special at all. She’d just helped Skye into the saddle and given him a very small riding tip. She told the two of them as much.

  “Maybe it doesn’t seem like much to you,” Oliver said, “but it was impressive to me. There is a very small part in this movie that we have to cast locally because the boy we cast got sick. It’s a young boy who works in the stable where Gavin rides, but the part could just as well be played by a girl. There are only a few lines, and they’re something like ‘Want me to tack up Dixie for you?’ Would you be interested in playing that part, Lisa?”

  “Me?” she asked. She was so astonished at the question that she looked over her shoulders to see if there was another Lisa behind her that he was actually talking to.

  “Yes, you,” Oliver assured her. “You’d do very nicely, I’m sure.”

  “Of course she would,” said a voice emerging from the stable. It was Stevie coming to her rescue. She walked right up to Oliver, leading her horse, Topside. “She’d be terrific and she’d be glad to do it. You’re going to have to talk to her parents, though. Why don’t you call them while we go on our little trail ride? Max has the number, or I can give it to you.”

  Stevie was talking as fast as she could before Lisa, who was still so astonished she could barely talk, said something else dumb.

  “Yes, I’ll do that,” Oliver agreed. “You’re her agent, I presume?” he teased.

  “That’s me,” Stevie said, liking the joke. She offered her hand. “My name’s Stevie Lake. I represent all the local stars. Let’s do lunch sometime, okay?”

  “Deal,” Oliver said, shaking her hand. Then he waved to the riders. “Now, go on your trail ride and enjoy yourselves. I’m going to work Skye and Lisa hard later on, so have fun now.”

  Carole clicked her tongue at Starlight and nudged him gently in the belly to get him moving. The four riders headed for the trails behind Pine Hollow. Once the trail left the paddock, it doubled back, parallel to the stable. That gave Lisa, Stevie, and Carole the opportunity to watch Veronica, all decked out in her fanciest riding clothes, bring her horse out to the paddock for mounting, clearly hoping that Oliver would notice her great skill and beauty. It gave The Saddle Club no end of pleasure to see that her horse, Garnet, irritated by a wrinkle in his saddle pad, took a small hop while Veronica was in the process of mounting him. It was enough to land her, very unceremoniously, in the mud.

  “I don’t think that will get her a part in the movie,” Stevie observed.

  “Unless it’s a slapstick comedy,” Skye agreed.

  Lisa couldn’t remember a time when she’d been happier or more excited. She was only vaguely aware of the fact that she was riding a horse. It was more like flying. There she was, horseback riding with Skye Ransom, and she was actually going to be in a movie.

  “Ready to trot?” Carole asked.

  Lisa felt as if she were soaring already.

  THE NEXT MORNING Lisa found things moving a little more slowly than they had on her ride with her friends and Skye the day before. In fact, things had been moving so fast the day before, Lisa’s head was practically spinning. In the space of a few hours, she’d been “hired” to work for the rest of the week. She was actually going to be paid to work with Skye Ransom! Because she was under eighteen she had to have a chaperone on or around the set. Most young performers had their parents there. Skye had an uncle who traveled with him. Both of Lisa’s parents worked and couldn’t take the time off on such short notice. Max had agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to take the responsibility. He’d be around there anyway. Besides, if her parents had been around, they would have been so curious all the time Lisa was sure nothing would have gotten done.

  Not that much was being done now. She had arrived on the set at six A.M. as she’d been instructed. She’d already memorized all of her lines, too. Once she had to say, “Your horse is ready, Gav.” Another of her lines was “Beautiful dog!” Her third line was much easier. All she had to say was “Aww.” Her fourth line was a simple “Thanks.” It hadn’t taken long to learn them.

  At five after six that morning, she’d been whisked into the wardrobe and makeup trailers. She had worn her riding clothes to the set, and it took four adults looking over every inch of her to decide that her own riding clothes would do very nicely for her part. They did get somebody to polish her boots. He was able to make them shine. It didn’t look right to Lisa.

  “If you’re hanging around a stable like my character does,” she explained, “your boots don’t usually shine this way. They get muddy and dirty.”

  “This is a film,” the wardrobe mistress said rather sternly. “Not reality. People can see dirty boots anywhere. In a film like this, they want to see shiny boots.”

  There was no point in arguing. Lisa decided that maybe her character had just gotten a new pair of boots. That was reality and would explain the shiny boots.

  Next, Lisa found herself in a tall chair in front of a mirror, having makeup applied. She liked the makeup woman a lot more than she had the wardrobe woman. The makeup woman had a better idea of reality.

  “My name’s Jeanette,” she said. “I’m going to work my very hardest to make you look exactly like yourself. If I do that, then I’ve done my job,” she explained.

  Jeanette was chatty and friendly and seemed to sense Lisa’s confusion and fears about being a part of the movie. She did everything she could to make Lisa relax and feel at ease. Jeanette told her she could talk as much as she wanted, except when she was working on Lisa’s mouth. As Jeanette worked, Lisa told her all about The Saddle Club.

  There were a lot of steps to the job of applying makeup to Lisa’s face, but when it was done, Lisa agreed she looked pretty much like herself, except she was wearing a pale pink lipstick. Her mother rarely let her wear any lipstick at a
ll, so it made her feel special to have it on.

  “Off you go,” Jeanette said, scooting Lisa out of the chair and welcoming her next actor.

  “Where to?” Lisa asked.

  “If you don’t know the answer to that,” Jeanette replied, “then the answer has to be school.”

  “School? I thought I was supposed to be in a movie.” Lisa was confused.

  “Of course you are, but until they need you on the set, you have to go to classes. Didn’t they tell you that?”

  Lisa shook her head. It was the first she’d heard of it. She had thought she was going to miss a whole week of school just so she could deliver her four lines. Now, it seemed, she was going to have to work and go to school.

  “It’s the law,” Jeanette explained. “The AD’s outside. Ask him where you’re supposed to go. See you tomorrow, okay? And, uh, break a leg, Lisa.” Jeanette waved gaily, and Lisa understood she was supposed to go. She just didn’t know where. She opened the door and left the trailer. There were two people standing outside the trailer. One was a man, the other a boy about her own age.

  It was totally overwhelming. Lisa had no idea what an AD was, and she couldn’t imagine why a nice person like Jeanette was telling her to break her leg. This movie world was something else! She just hoped she didn’t make a total fool of herself while she learned all about it.

  “Hi, you must be Lisa,” a man said, greeting her by the door. “My name’s John. I’m the assistant director.”

  That answered Lisa’s question about what an AD was. It stood for assistant director. Lisa shook his hand politely. Then he introduced her to the boy. His name was Jesse Macomber. John said Jesse was Skye’s stand-in.

  “You’re due in class now. School sessions are taking place in Mrs. Reg’s office off the tack room. Do you know where that is?”

  “Of course,” she said.

  “Good, then you can take Jesse here with you. He doesn’t know where it is. We’ll be needing you at about nine o’clock. We’ll call for you then.”

  “Okay,” Lisa agreed. She started to leave, but John stopped her.

  “Oliver tells me you’ve never acted before, is that right?”

  Lisa didn’t like to admit it. It wasn’t that she was ashamed. She was just afraid that if somebody found out she didn’t have the slightest idea of what she was doing, they’d change their minds. Still, it was a direct question and she had to answer.

  “It’s true,” she said.

  John smiled warmly. “Well, then, break a leg, okay?”

  Lisa glanced down at her legs. What was wrong with them that everybody kept talking about them?

  John and Jesse laughed at her obvious confusion.

  “I’ll tell you what, Lisa,” Jesse said. “You tell me what a tack room is, and I’ll tell you why you’re supposed to break your leg.”

  “This way,” Lisa said, relieved. “You explain first.”

  “Break a leg has to do with an old performers’ superstition,” Jesse said. “See, when actors go on stage, there is always the risk that something awful could happen that would mess up the show or be embarrassing. It’s every performer’s nightmare. We try to think about the worst possible thing that could happen, knowing that whatever we’re prepared for is exactly the thing that won’t happen.”

  “I get it,” Lisa said, sort of understanding. “If you tell somebody to break their leg, then they won’t break their leg and the performance will go smoothly.”

  “Right,” Jesse said. “Now tell me about tack rooms.”

  Lisa was in her element. She was glad to be able to talk about something familiar. She told Jesse all about tack and was in the middle of comparing jumping and dressage saddles by the time they walked through the tack room and into Mrs. Reg’s office, which had been converted into a classroom. She had also learned some things from Jesse. Jesse was Skye’s stand-in, meaning that when Skye wasn’t being filmed, Jesse was often used on the set to check things like camera angles and lighting. One day Jesse hoped to be an actor himself, he told Lisa, but for now he was glad to have the work.

  Lisa realized then that, to a lot of the people around the set, movie-making was work. It wasn’t a lark and an opportunity to have a week off from regular school. It was a job.

  Lisa had learned many things in Mrs. Reg’s office at Pine Hollow since she’d begun riding there, but never had she learned earth science there. It was quite a switch for her to be surrounded by saddles and bridles and to be studying school subjects. There was one tutor named Sabina for all the youngsters working on the movie. At first just Lisa and Jesse were there. Skye was working on a scene, and Lisa was scheduled to begin rehearsal in twenty minutes. The tutor didn’t waste any time. Right away she had Lisa begin a chart, locating earthquake epicenters. It surprised Lisa to find that she actually learned something in those twenty minutes.

  Then the AD, John, called for her and brought her to where her first scene was to be shot. The scene was quite a long one, but her part was only a small bit of it. On a cue from John, she was supposed to lead Pepper out of the stable and hold the reins while Skye mounted up.

  She did as she was told, uttering the immortal line, “Your horse is ready, Gav,” as she did so.

  “Cut, print, thank you,” the director said. That was it. She was done. The scene was over.

  Lisa had read enough about movies to know that most scenes had to be shot at least a couple of times before it was done right. She smiled to herself, proud that her own scene had been done right the first time.

  “I can go now?” she asked John.

  At first he looked surprised. Then he laughed. “No,” he said. “There are a few more things to do.”

  It turned out that there were a lot more things to do. What they had shot the first time was sort of a master. Lisa was right that it had been done well the first time and that was good. What she didn’t realize was that they then wanted to get a number of angles of the same scene so the editor would have a few choices when the final scene was assembled.

  Lisa never had to speak her brilliant line again, but she certainly had to go through the motions of the scene again. Most of the retakes concentrated on Skye. There were close-ups on his face and his hands. They filmed him from every angle climbing into the saddle.

  Then the cameras turned to Lisa and Pepper. They were filmed walking together, standing together, even trotting together. The camera followed Lisa’s hands and then her feet. There was even a shot taken from a dog’s point of view of the whole scene.

  Although the actions were incredibly repetitive, Lisa was fascinated by it all and never even looked at her watch. When Oliver announced that it was time for lunch, she was very surprised to find that it was already one o’clock.

  Skye and Lisa took sandwiches and soda from the buffet table and practically wolfed them down.

  “I don’t know why I’m so hungry,” Lisa said, embarrassed by how much she was eating.

  “It’s because you’re working hard,” Skye said. “And soon you’re going to have to work even harder. See, we’ve got to get back to school now.”

  “Again?”

  “You were there for just twenty minutes this morning, weren’t you? You’ve got to put in a lot more time to satisfy the law. And I heard Oliver say they want to redo a couple of those close-ups on you and on me.”

  Lisa started laughing. Skye was a little surprised. “I don’t need to go to school to learn,” she explained. “I’ve learned more here in a couple of hours than I would have thought possible. I’ve learned that all the people here, including the children, are doing a job. I’ve also learned that the job is often tedious and hard work. If anybody ever tries to tell me that movie acting is a glamour business, I’ll set them straight, okay?”

  “Deal,” Skye said, shaking her hand. “Now, let’s get to class before the tutor sends out the dogs for us.”

  The afternoon session at school was interesting, too. Lisa did some more work on earthquakes, and then al
l four of the students there had a spelling bee. Spelling was one of Lisa’s strengths. She beat everybody else with the word “picnicking.” Jesse and Skye congratulated her. So did Alicia, the stand-in for the girl who played Gavin’s sister. Jesse and Skye sounded as if they meant it. Alicia didn’t. Lisa wasn’t sorry when John called Alicia to the set.

  At three o’clock school was dismissed. According to the schedule that was posted, Lisa was supposed to be done for the day at three-thirty. That suited her well because Stevie and Carole were coming over to Pine Hollow straight from school to do their hour of stable work for Max, and then the three of them were going to the mall to buy things for Colonel Hanson’s birthday party.

  When three-thirty came, however, Lisa found herself back on the set. Oliver and John told Lisa and Skye that they’d checked the first prints of the scene they’d shot in the morning, and the lighting was all wrong. They had misjudged the strength of the natural light. They had to shoot the whole scene completely over.

  Everybody was grumbling about the mistake. Lisa remembered the argument Oliver had had earlier and wondered if it was connected.

  “This better not happen again,” John growled, frowning at the lighting crew.

  Lisa raised her hand until Oliver noticed her. “I think I know something that will help,” she said. Everyone turned to listen, wondering what this newest member of the cast could come up with. “It’s a Pine Hollow tradition,” she explained. “And it’s right here.” She pointed to the doorway where Skye was to mount Pepper. “We call it the good-luck horseshoe. All the Pine Hollow riders touch it before we begin a ride. Nobody who has touched it has ever been seriously hurt in a riding accident. I’m pretty sure it would cover film crews, too. Want to try?”