The Fight for Kidsboro (20 page)

Auditions continued for the next couple of hours. The boys all came desiring the role of Rock and had their hopes dashed. But the best girl's part was still up for grabs. It was the role of Ginger, Rock's love interest and leading lady. Pete got to live out the dreams of pretty much every teenage boy in Odyssey—to choose from a long line of girls exactly who got to be his love interest.

At 1:13 that afternoon, the girls who were still standing in line realized they had no hope of being Ginger when they saw Valerie Swanson take her place in the audition chair. Like most of the guys in town, Pete was secretly in love with Valerie. She sat down and read for the part, but he never heard a word she said. He just stared at her with his chin resting sloppily in his hand. After she was done he said, “Wonderful.” She smiled, flipped her hair back, and left.

After the main characters were cast, Pete held auditions for stuntmen. A dozen boys lined up to do whatever Pete asked, unconcerned with the danger. To refuse a challenge in front of a crowd of other boys would be unthinkable.

At one point Pete said, “All right, line up and jump off this cliff.” The drop was about 10 feet. The landing didn't appear to be terribly dangerous, but no one knew if there were rocks beneath the surface of the dirt. “Who's first?” Pete asked as he took his chair and notebook down to the bottom of the cliff. Everyone casually shuffled backwards to allow someone else to go first. “Come on, people!” Pete shouted. “You can't be a stuntman if you're afraid to do what I tell you.”

The boys looked at each other. They were hoping to find a hint of fear in one another's eyes so that they knew they were not alone. Finally, Scott, whom everyone knew didn't have a courageous bone in his body, asked a question that everyone would love him for. “Can we have some pillows down there?”

“Pillows?” Pete said.

“Yeah,” Scott went on. “Whenever stuntmen jump off buildings and stuff, they always get one of those big balloon things to land on. I figured at least we could get some pillows.” Some of the others nodded in agreement, casually shrugging their shoulders. No one wanted to admit that they needed pillows.

Pete rolled his eyes and sent a boy to get pillows. “Does anybody want to really impress me and do it without the pillows?” Pete challenged. But everyone collectively agreed to wait for the pillows.

The boy came back with a pile of laundry. “My mom wouldn't let me have pillows, but she gave me some old beach towels.”

Towels? I didn't think towels would absorb much of the shock. It was, after all, a 10-foot drop. Pete laid the towels out on the ground, covering a fairly wide area at the bottom of the cliff. All in all, the towels appeared to provide about an inch and a half of padding.

Pete patted the towels, showing the prospective jumpers just how nice and soft the ground was now. He looked up at them, then backed into his director's chair. “All right. Who's first?”

They all looked at each other. “Scott,” Pete said, “you got your padding. Why don't you give it a try?” Scott scratched the back of his neck and took a step forward to look over the cliff. He licked his lips and clenched his teeth.

“All right, everybody back up,” Scott said. They obeyed. He backed up 20 feet and took a deep breath. The other boys were in awe. He closed his eyes, took a running start, and hurled himself off the cliff. He let out a small squeal and landed on the edge of the towels, fell awkwardly, and took a violent turn to the right, rolling into the bushes. He screamed in pain. Pete ran over to him, and the other boys peered over the top of the cliff to see what damage had been done.

“Are you okay?” Pete asked. Scott's eyes were closed. He grunted a bit and gingerly pulled a branch away from his face. He wiggled his toes as if to test for paralysis. Pete scanned his body for blood, but saw none. “Do you want me to help you up?”

Scott said with difficulty, “I'm okay.”

“Anything broken?” Pete asked.

“I don't think so.”

“Here. Let me help you,” Pete said, grabbing his arm.

“No!” Scott shouted. “I got the wind knocked out of me. I'll just stay here for now.”

“Under the bush?”

“Sure.”

“You want me to just leave you here?”

“Yeah. I'll be fine.”

Pete looked up at the boys at the top of the cliff. He walked to his chair. “Okay, good. Who's next?”

The boys looked at each other, waved a group good-bye, and went home. Pete went back over to Scott, who hadn't moved. “Congratulations, Scott. You're our stuntman.”

On the way back into town the next morning, I noticed something very odd and disturbing. Jake's new house was not made of tarp, as I thought it would be. It was made of wood, just like everyone else's. Why would somebody pay top dollar to buy wood from Max when he could have a perfectly good house made of tarp for much less?

I got my answer seconds later. Max came up from be-hind me.

“Hey, Ryan. I met your buddy Jake.” I practically bit my tongue in half. “I hear you guys go way back,” he said.

“What did he tell you?” I asked, hoping he didn't notice the tremble in my voice.

“Just that you two have a special bond between you that goes back to your kindergarten days. Nice guy.”

“Sure is.”

“I look forward to getting to know him. In fact, he may just turn out to be one of my best friends.” He winked at me and left. The lump in my throat was so large that I couldn't swallow. Max never wanted to get to know anyone. He didn't care about having friends. Why would he want to be Jake's friend? And why did Jake agree to buy Max's wood? Did Max give him the wood at a special price in exchange for …
information
? I could handle Max most of the time. Jake would be tougher, but I still thought I could deal with him. But the two of them together …

I expected the first day of filming to be like a soccer practice for five year olds—one person trying to organize 10 other people who would rather just kick stuff around. But when I got there, I was amazed to see that Pete had everything under control. In fact, he looked as though he knew exactly what he was doing every step of the way.

He had his lead actors in place. Valerie was standing behind the camera, ready to go on set. A boy named Kirk had won the part of the bad guy. He was wearing a black suit and he had a smirk on his face. His longer hair gave him a convincing bad-guy look.

Pete had put the camera tripod on wheels and bought some plywood from Max so that he could easily roll the camera, making a sort of make shift dolly. He watched through the viewfinder and yelled “Action!”

Kirk was already on the set, sitting at a table in what looked like an outdoor café. Valerie approached him cautiously. She spoke with a hint of fear in her voice. “What do you want?”

“Thanks for coming, Ginger. Have a seat.” She sat down. Pete whispered something to his cameraman and motioned to two production assistants standing nearby. They wheeled the dolly slowly to the left.

“I want the computer disk,” Kirk said.

“What if I don't have it?”

Kirk laughed. Pete had the cameraman move in slowly. “Well, then … I guess I don't have your mother, either.”

Valerie gasped. “What have you done with my mother?”

“The question should be, ‘What will we do to your mother if you don't comply?' And the answer, for now, is that we haven't done anything … yet. She's safe and sound and could remain that way, but that's up to you.”

Pete signaled to a guy who was operating a large fan. A fairly heavy breeze suddenly hit the scene and Valerie's hair fluttered. Then Pete motioned to Patty, who was off-camera. She approached with a tray full of food in one hand, and a plastic pitcher of water in the other.

“The shrimp looks good,” Kirk said, seeing the tray.

Valerie didn't care about the shrimp. “What's to prevent me from going to the police right now?”

“Oh, I don't think you want to deal with the police. Not with
your
past, Ginger … or should I say …
Gretchen
.” Valerie gasped again. She was really good at that. She exhaled, and then pushed her hair back casually as if to mask her fear. Suddenly, she glanced upward. Her eyes widened when she saw Patty, the waitress. The wind from the fan had blown a large oak leaf into her face, and it had stuck there. She was powerless to do anything because both her hands were full. Valerie snickered a little, but quickly looked away. Patty was jerking her head to the left, trying to get the leaf off, but it remained stuck.

Kirk noticed Valerie's snicker and looked up at Patty. He made a funny noise, then grabbed his water glass and drank. Valerie and Kirk tried to regain their composure and continue with the scene. Charlie, the guy holding the microphone, noticed the leaf and tried to stifle his laughter, but the microphone began shaking above Kirk's head. Pete saw the microphone and the sudden change in the actors, and he looked around. He finally noticed the leaf that appeared to be a part of Patty's face. She swung the pitcher up toward her face to scrape it off, but instead the water flew up out of the pitcher and spilled over the front of her shirt. She remained calm. Pete bowed his head and his body shook with laughter.

Heroically, the actors continued on. “You see, Ginger …” Kirk said with a slight smile, “we have many ways of getting that disk, even if you don't give it to us.”

Valerie covered her mouth and was barely able to deliver her line. “What are you talking about?”

“Well … we could … we could …” He was starting to lose it. “We could glue a leaf to your face just like we did to her!”

The entire cast and crew burst into hysterics. Patty grinned, threw the plastic pitcher down, and peeled the leaf off her face. Valerie and Kirk laughed until they cried. Pete fell on the ground headfirst. I had to hold my side to keep it from bursting. Valerie stood up and gave Patty a sympathy hug. Patty laughed at herself.

After five full minutes of utter frenzy, Pete began to get everything set up again. The crew went back to their places, Patty reloaded her tray and pitcher, and no one was upset that they had to do the entire scene over again.

It was one of the nicest moments in the history of Kidsboro.