Hollywood 101 Read online

  You probably already figured that Losers Corner is where I sit. Anyway, this particular day I had decided I was going to speak to Kristen no matter what. I just had to wait for the right time.

  I waited.

  And waited.

  And waited. It wasn’t me, you understand? That right time just didn’t happen.

  And then I got my chance.

  Vice Principal Stonecase was making her security rounds when she spotted a rip in Kristen Doe’s jeans. Now, nothing floats Stonecase’s boat more than some eeny-weeny, teeny-tiny school clothing violation.

  “Doe!” roared Stonecase, rearing up onto her hind legs and breathing fire through her ears. “Those jeans are in clear violation of Hills Village Middle School clothing code forty-three, subsection three, paragraph two!”

  Kristen remained seated, shocked, helpless. And adorable.

  “I…I…” she stuttered.

  There was a long silence and then, as Stonecase Rex was about to hit Kristen with everything she had, I stood up and shouted:

  “I am Spartacus!” Everyone looked at me.

  “You’re not Spartacus,” said Stonecase. “You’re Rafe Khatchadorian.”

  “It’s from a movie,” I said. “Spartacus. He’s a slave and…”

  She looked at me blankly. So did everyone else. In the movie I was talking about, once someone stands up and says “I am Spartacus,” everyone else does the same. Kind of like everyone sticking up for each other.

  Except now, no one was doing anything. There were no other Spartacuses. Spartaci?

  “Oh, forget it,” I said. I reached down and grabbed the pocket of my own jeans, which had a little tear in one corner, and gave it an almighty pull.

  What was supposed to happen was that my pocket would rip off and I would be standing shoulder to shoulder with Kristen, two clothing-code violators side by side. She could look at me with those blue eyes and we’d be BFF.

  But I’d clearly misjudged the strength of my jeans.

  The pocket did come off. That bit worked just fine.

  But so did everything else north of my knees. I stood there in my boxer shorts—the ones with pictures of Buzz and Woody from Toy Story on them that Grandma Dotty gave me last Christmas. The only clean ones in my drawer that morning.

  I caught a glimpse of Jeanne Galletta staring at me from behind her bag—the one with the photo of Trey Kernigan on the front. Kernigan’s perfect face seemed to be smiling at me.

  I’d been embarrassed by The Fart To End All Farts, but this took things to a whole new level.

  “THAT WAS REAL kind of you,” said a voice.

  “Thanks, Spartacus.”

  I looked up. It was Kristen.

  I was sitting way off in the corner of the football field, out of sight of anyone and anything connected to Hills Village Middle School. If I could’ve I’d have relocated to Mars. I was wearing a pair of what can only be described as “slacks” that Stonecase had dug up from some Lost Property coffin she kept somewhere in the back of her dungeon. They’d been fashionable once. Say, around 1990.

  “Nice threads,” said Kristen, nodding at my slacks. “Hipster.”

  I was about to say something sarcastic when I realized Kristen meant it. She really thought the pants were cool. I looked at them again. Nope. They were still things even Mr. Fanucci would have turned his nose up at. Maybe that was Kristen’s point.

  “This girl’s standing there and you’re thinking about pants?” said Leo. He shook his head sadly and then faded out of view.

  “You the only sane kid in this place?” said Kristen.

  “Er, yeah,” I said. “There was this one other kid, but he left. Since then it’s just been me.” I had to admit, that wasn’t a bad comeback for me. Considering.

  Kristen laughed. The sound was like the tinkle of a sun-dappled woodland stream across smooth rocks. Or something poetic, anyway.

  “You wanna hang out?” said Kristen. “Go see a movie?”

  “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!” I laughed, but Kristen wasn’t joking. I gave myself a mental slap across my mental face. Get real, Khatchadorian! This was an actual girl with actual Icelandic-glacier eyes actually asking me to the movies.

  “Sure,” I said. “Only, we don’t have no movie theater round these parts.”

  I had no idea why I was speaking like some hick from a bad TV show. Round these parts? Where did that come from?

  Kristen looked shocked, and not just by my accent. She lifted her dark bangs out of her eyes and looked at me. “You’re kidding, right? Tell me you’re kidding. No movie theater? None?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. Not kidding.”

  “Man,” muttered Kristen. “What do you guys do out here?”

  I made a decision. I felt like I was one of those guys in the movies who has to defuse a bomb. Red wire or blue wire? One wrong move and I’d have blown my chance with Kristen.

  “We could always watch something round at my shack. We gotten a TV that works, mostly. Color one and everything. I think Momma’s even got one a them VCR kay-ssette tape ma-chines.”

  This time I was deliberately speaking like that. Just so you know.

  “A TV and a VCR?” said Kristen. “Wow, you Hills Village guys really know how to live.” She smiled. “Okay, Spartacus, we got a deal.”

  AND JUST LIKE that, me and Kristen started hanging out.

  We watched movies round at my house and Mom only scored a seven on the EMQS (Embarrassing Mom Questions Scale). Even if Mom had hit a ten it would still have been worth it.

  Because Kristen was waaay cool.

  I felt like I’d known her all my life. Or at least for a while. I don’t buy all that previous-life stuff, but with Kristen it sure felt like I’d known her before I actually knew her.

  And, unbelievably, I was pretty sure she liked me. I know! Go figure.

  We liked the same movies, mostly, and the same TV shows.

  She really knew about all that stuff, too. She talked about them in an interesting way.

  Then, just when I thought she couldn’t get any more perfect, I discovered that Kristen also hated Trey Kernigan.

  “Man, I hate that guy,” she said one day when she caught sight of Kernigan’s face on Jeanne’s lunch box. “I hate his big dumb perfect teeth and his big dumb perfect hair. I hate his voice, his movies, everything. Yeuuch! What a total creep.”

  Even without her Icelandic eyes, hating Trey Kernigan would have made her Number One in my book. With Kristen it almost sounded personal. I mean, I couldn’t stand the guy, but Kristen really sounded like she didn’t like the dude.

  Everything was great.

  It couldn’t last.

  IT DIDN’T LAST.

  The “everything being great,” I mean. It never does.

  For a week or so we went to school, hung out, watched movies, ate nachos. But I noticed that I actually wasn’t getting to know much about Kristen. Not really.

  We never went to her place. I hadn’t met her mom or dad…I didn’t even know if she had a mom or dad. I could have asked, but the right time for that never really came around. It would have felt too much like I was some kind of detective.

  I didn’t know where she was from. If things came up in conversation, she’d sometimes say she’d been to someplace or other. Weird places, too, like Paris or Hawaii. I mean, not that those places are weirder than anywhere else, just that it was weird she seemed to know a lot of stuff about them. Hawaii in particular.

  I guess she could have been from Hawaii. People do live there. It’s just that Kristen didn’t look like she was from Hawaii. She just didn’t seem the Hawaii type.

  “Like you know what the Hawaii type is,” said Leo. “You ain’t even sure where Hawaii is. Chill, bro. Relax. Kristen’s cool. Don’t blow it.”

  I’m not sure why Leo was talking like a rapper, but since he was in my imagination I guess that was my fault. Either way, he was right.

  I needed to relax. Not. Blow. It.

  “Kriste
n,” I said one Saturday. We were sprawled all over the couch playing a computer game—one of the ones your parents don’t like, but Mom was at work so that was okay. “How come you know so much about Hawaii?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” said Kristen. She stared at the screen, concentrating.

  A few minutes went by. We fought our way out of an alien incubation pod. The only sounds were of laser cannons and exploding aliens. I could feel another question bubbling just under the surface. I forced it back down.

  “But where are you from?” I blurted out suddenly.

  Kristen put down her controller and walked out without saying another word.

  I’d blown it.

  I DIDN’T SEE Kristen all week. I mean, I saw her at school, in class, scribbling away in that black notebook, eating lunch in Losers Corner, but I didn’t hang with her, we didn’t have fun like we used to.

  By Friday I’d decided I was going to say something. Apologize for being a nosy jerk. Make everything cool. Be Spartacus again.

  I’d planned to catch her at the school gate. She’d always made a big deal about walking home from school alone. This time I was going to be there.

  But our class was late getting out. By the time I got to the gate Kristen was almost out of sight. She disappeared round the corner of Laurel Boulevard and I ran after her.

  As I came round the corner, Kristen was standing waiting at the next corner. I was about to call her name when a gleaming black, brand-new, expensive-looking SUV with blacked-out windows slid to a halt next to Kristen. A guy wearing a smart black suit got out and held the back door open for her. She stepped inside and the SUV pulled away.

  “Well, that was weird,” said Leo.

  Leo was dead right. It was weird. And it was about to get a whole lot weirder.

  I DIDN’T GET much sleep that night.

  Thoughts of Kristen and black SUVs swirled around my head. When I got to my Saturday-morning shift at Swifty’s, I was not operating at FRP (Full Rafe Potential).

  About halfway through the morning, I looked up through the serving hatch and saw a shiny black SUV pull up outside.

  Kristen!

  This was my chance. I was gonna fix things. I was not going to do my usual Rafe thing and stand back like a dummy. I was going to act!

  I took off my dishwashing apron (that would not have been a cool look), washed my hands, and slipped out into the diner. Swifty wasn’t around so no one yelled at me for taking a break.

  At first I didn’t see Kristen, but then I caught a glimpse of her wedged into a corner booth with three other people. Lou, one of the Swifty’s waitresses, was taking their breakfast order.

  “Are they her family?” asked Leo. I shrugged.

  To be honest they didn’t look like they’d be anyone’s family.

  Sitting next to Kristen was a big guy who looked like a grizzly bear in a suit. A very expensive suit. This guy had muscles on his muscles. Across the table from Kristen was a nervy-looking guy with a black beard who was tapping a finger on a salt shaker. Next to him was a thin woman with long shiny hair. They were all wearing sunglasses. It was raining outside.

  I waited for Lou to head back to the kitchen.

  “Hey,” I said as I approached the table.

  Grizzly Bear Guy stood up and put a hand the size of Minneapolis on my chest. I looked up. His head was somewhere up by the ceiling. “Back off,” he growled in a voice that sounded like he gargled with nails.

  “Easy, Hector,” said the dude with the beard. He looked up and flashed a smile that wasn’t a smile at me. It was there and gone almost before I had time to register it.

  “What d’you want, kid? We already placed the order.”

  “I, uh, I…er, well, I…” My words seemed to get all stuck in my throat. The thin woman snorted and I could feel myself turning red. I noticed Miller the Killer watching me. “I just wanted to talk to Kristen,” I eventually managed to say.

  “Who?” said the beardy guy. “Oh, right, Kristen.” He smirked and looked out of the window.

  Kristen still hadn’t said anything. She hadn’t even looked up.

  “Hi, Kristen,” I said.

  Now Kristen did look up. She was about to say something when Beardy Guy cut in.

  “Look, kid, Kristen doesn’t want to talk to anyone right now, isn’t that right, Kristen?”

  Kristen put her head down and nodded.

  “So you can just scoot on back to wherever you came from, okay?”

  “Er…” I said.

  “Now,” said Grizzly Bear Guy.

  “I’m leaving Hills Village,” said Kristen quickly. “We won’t be seeing each other again, Spartacus.”

  Beardy Guy laughed. “‘Spartacus’? What kind of a name is ‘Spartacus’?” He shook his head. “Okay, Spartacus, you heard the little lady. Scram. Skedaddle. Vamoose.”

  “Kristen?” I said.

  But she kept her head down and her Icelandic eyes hidden behind her sunglasses. I skulked off back to the kitchen.

  And Miller the Killer had seen the whole thing.

  News of my total, 100 percent humiliation would be round Hills Village Middle School before you could say “loser.”

  I’M GOING TO do one of my famous FRRRRPs now.

  No, that’s not another Fart To End All Farts. (I thought I’d explained that was all Miller’s doing?) This FRRRRP is a sound effect and it means I’m fast-forwarding. FRRRRP!…just like that, FRRRRP! past a couple of miserable months.

  There. That’s better. I skipped right past all those boring, non-movie-watching, non-nachos-eating, non-Kristen days and popped out back at Swifty’s on another Saturday morning. I somehow survived the UTTER HUMILIATION of MtK telling everyone about Kristen blanking me, and came out the other side older, wiser, and sadder.

  The reason I’m FRRRRPing through to this particular Saturday is that this was the Saturday that Swifty’s got taken over by aliens.

  At least, that’s what it seemed like.

  They started showing up around eight, and by ten the entire place was stuffed to overflowing with them. They talked loudly, wore strange-looking clothes, had unpronounceable names, and asked for meals that could only have been eaten by people from Saturn or Jupiter: quinoa porridge, pressed wildflower chai risotto, lime-tinged seafoam, buffalo milk. Swifty’s doesn’t cater for aliens so they all had to make do with regular burgers, dogs, fries, and coffee.

  Hills Valley had been invaded.

  By Hollywood.

  YEP, YOU HEARD me.

  Hollywood. As in the movies, Oscars, actors.

  “What’s going on?” I asked Swifty. You could tell how weird a day it was because he didn’t say anything about me being outside the kitchen.

  “They’re filming a movie here.” Swifty shook his head in disbelief. “Right here in Hills Village! Average Joe, it’s called. Some kind of superhero deal.”

  I was about to ask Swifty for more details when he darted off to try and figure out if his strawberry shortcake was gluten-free.

  I looked out of the window. Outside the parking lot was full of all kinds of trailers and lighting rig trucks and cars, most of them with the famous Megalith Movie logo or Average Joe written on the side in a kind of squiggly green writing. Looked as though Swifty’s information was right.

  Before I could digest the MIND-BOGGLING news that Hills Village was now part of Hollywood, I caught a glimpse of a shiny black SUV with tinted windows and, even though I was completely, totally, 100 percent OVER Kristen, I couldn’t help but wonder if she’d shown up too. Then I saw two more SUVs just like the one I’d seen Kristen in and realized that those kind of swanky cars would be common in Hollywood.

  The news about Average Joe spread outwards from Swifty’s across Hills Village like wildfire. I’d never seen a wildfire, but I’m assuming they move pretty quickly. In any case, before you could yell “Action!” people started drifting up to take a look for themselves. Pretty soon, Swifty had to put Big Tony on the door
to make sure only paying customers were allowed in.

  “Rafe!”

  I turned around and saw Swifty at the till, jerking a thumb in the direction of the kitchen. “Back on the suds, kid!” he yelled. “We’re runnin’ outta dishes!”

  I nodded and turned round.

  And bumped straight into someone who’d just come through the doors.

  Indie Starr.

  INDIE STARR!

  Indie Starr, one of the biggest teen movie stars on the planet, was right there in Swifty’s!

  I went hot and then cold and then hot again. For a horrible moment I thought I might faint.

  Indie Starr was wearing a huge pair of sunglasses and her face was framed by her trademark long blond hair. Everything she had on looked like it cost more than Swifty’s Diner. There seemed to be a soft, golden glow around her, like someone was following her round with a spotlight.

  There were a whole bunch of people in sunglasses and suits there too, but all I saw was a kind of blur. I guess if Indie Starr’s around, everyone else is hardly noticeable. While I stood, goggling like an idiot, a woman in white pushed past me. “Out of the way,” she hissed. “Miss Starr wants to sit down.”

  A big dude in a suit with a little phone thing wrapped around his ear pushed me to one side. “Don’t crowd Miss Starr,” he growled, and I stood back. I’d seen the big guy before in Swifty’s. Hector? Was that his name? And if it was Hector and he was now with Indie Starr, what had he been doing with Kristen last time I’d seen him? I couldn’t figure it out.

  Right at that moment, Indie Starr passed me. She lifted a finger, put it under my chin, and closed my mouth.