Action! (4 page)

“No, thanks,” George said. “I had to help Mom stuff all that food into the car this morning. I never want to even smell another spinach quiche again. It took forty minutes to get it all packed.”

I knew I should take George’s complaint with a grain of salt. Really, she was thrilled when she got her mother’s catering company hired to make all the food for the shoot. The old caterer had been fired after a big food-poisoning incident—one more example of Herman Houseman’s sabotage.

“Count me out too. I have to get over to the
Rackhams’ cabin set,” Bess said. “As soon as they finish the office scenes, they’re going to move on to the cabin scenes. And I still haven’t finished fixing the slanty wall on that set.”

Before I knew it, my friends had hurried off to their jobs, leaving me alone with my stage fright. Harold Safer walked toward me, a plaid robe covering his Ethan Mahoney costume. He looked kind of silly, but I had gotten used to seeing people in robes. The costumers paid so much attention to every smudge of dirt and loose button on the clothes, and they didn’t want anything to ruin the effect. Even something as simple as walking twenty yards from a trailer to a set could damage the costume. So we all wore robes over our costumes to protect them.

“Wish me luck, Nancy,” he said once he was close. “I’ve never acted before.”

“Break a leg, Mr. Safer,” I told him.

“Please, Nancy—we’ve been friends for a while. Call me Harold.”

He gave me a huge smile and hurried toward the soundstage. Now why couldn’t I be more like him, cool and composed? Harold and I were in the same situation; neither of us had any experience as actors, and both of us had roles in the movie. But when I was afraid, he was excited.

What was his secret? I decided to follow him. I
had a while before my scenes. I thought maybe it would ease my mind to watch Harold’s introduction to the acting world.

When I got to the soundstage, one of the production assistants was just about to close the door. I just made it into the darkness inside. The soundstage was a big empty warehouse that had been turned into a movie set. The two locations constructed here were called standing sets. That meant that these sets stayed up throughout the duration of the shoot. When filming took place “on location”—out in actual buildings and places around River Heights—the construction crew built a set around whatever was there already. Then, when we were done filming, the crew tore down everything they had built, leaving the place just as they had found it. But the sets for the places we were going to use the most, the Mahoney Anvil office and the Rackham Gang’s cabin, had been created here, inside the soundstage. It was pretty impressive. Every time I walked into either place, I felt as if I was in a real building. Every last detail was perfect.

When the crew was filming a scene, everyone inside the giant warehouse had to be completely silent. The sophisticated microphones used by the sound crew could pick up even the smallest noise. So whenever the director called “Action,” everyone stopped what they were doing and waited until they
heard “Cut!” In the time in between, no one was allowed to talk. In fact, people weren’t even allowed to walk because their footsteps might echo too loudly inside the big building. I had just enough time to make it to the Mahoney Anvil office set before I heard Morris’s distinctive, gravelly voice yell, “Mahoney work scene, take one. Action!”

I caught my breath, afraid to move. What if I knocked into something or stumbled over one of the thick electrical cables on the floor? I’ve been known to be a klutz from time to time. But soon enough my fear of making noise was forgotten. I couldn’t think of anything except how amazing Harold was! He was a natural. I’d seen this scene before, when it was shot with the famous Herman Houseman in the role. And Harold Safer was better!

From the second the scene began, he seemed like a different person. His usual nervous mannerisms were gone. He walked with a swagger and he spoke with the booming, commanding voice of a man who created an empire out of making anvils. I was looking at Harold’s familiar face, but all I saw was Ethan Mahoney.

Without moving, I took a look around at all the other people watching. There were at least twenty people standing nearby—all the camera and sound crew members, the makeup and hair people, an assistant director, and lots of production assistants. And on
each face I saw the same astonished expression. Nobody had expected it, but Harold was a terrific actor.

“That payment had better be here in two days,” Harold-as-Ethan said, ending the scene.

“And … cut!” Morris called.

Instantly the whole group burst into applause. Even Morris was clapping. Harold looked confused for a moment, until he realized the cheering was for him. He took a deep, theatrical bow.

“That was wonderful,” Morris said when the clapping died down. “Now we’ll do another take so we can shoot close-ups of your expressions, Harold. Everyone, back to your first marks.”

Harold and the other actors hurried back to where they were supposed to stand at the beginning of the scene. “Action,” called Morris.

The scene began again, and it was every bit as good as the first time. I wished George and Bess were here to see Harold’s triumph. I was so wrapped up in the scene that I didn’t notice Julie Blattberg, the sound chief, leave her post at the giant sound board. But suddenly I spotted her pushing her way toward Morris. She lifted one of his earphones and said something to him.

“Cut!” Morris yelled immediately.

The camera operators stopped filming and the actors relaxed. Everyone looked at Morris to see why
he’d made them pause, but I already knew. As soon as the actors had stopped talking, I’d heard sirens wailing in the distance. They weren’t very loud, but I knew that Julie had caught them. She must have been worried that the microphones would pick up the sound, and sirens like those would be completely out of place in a movie that was set almost a hundred years ago.

“Let’s wait for the sirens to pass,” Julie called out.

The makeup artist, Pam, rushed over to Harold and began powdering his face while her associate, a muscular guy named Degas, smoothed down a few strands of Harold’s thick dark hair. I smiled. Harold obviously loved all the attention.

A second siren joined the first one. I stepped away from the small crowd around the set and listened more closely. The sirens droned on, each of them giving a little
whoop
before starting up again. “It’s not the police, it’s the fire squad,” I whispered. The sirens were similar, but I had a knack for noticing little details. And I definitely knew the difference between police sirens and fire sirens.

A third siren joined in. I gasped in surprise.
Three
fire trucks?

I glanced over at Harold Safer, the only other River Heights local on the set. He didn’t look happy anymore; he looked worried. His gaze met mine.
“Must be a pretty big fire,” he said in a worried tone. I knew what he was thinking. He was worried about his cheese shop and his house. Now that I thought about it, I was worried about
my
house too. From inside this windowless building, it was impossible to tell what direction the sirens were coming from. They could be in any neighborhood in town. It could be Harold’s business on fire. Or George’s house. Or Bess’s.

Or mine.

Burning Down the House

T
he sirens stopped after
another minute or two, but my nervousness continued. Morris called for everyone to start the scene one more time. As the camera operators and the actors scrambled back to their first marks, I took advantage of the noise and confusion to slip out of the soundstage before he ordered quiet again. The delay in filming meant my scene wouldn’t begin shooting for a bit longer than we’d originally planned. I would have time to go into town and check out the fire.

I was anxious to discover where the blaze was, to make sure none of my friends’ houses were in danger. And I thought getting away from the set might ease my stage fright. If I had something else to think about, I wouldn’t be able to spend all my time worrying.

I decided to see if Bess or George wanted to come with me. I knew George was going to be in the editing trailer this morning, working on one of the giant computers that the editors used to process the shots. I headed that way, knocked on the trailer door, and let myself in.

“George?” I called. “Do you have time to investigate the fire with me?”

Right away I knew the answer was no. George was working three computers at once—two laptops, and the big editing machine. I’m pretty good at figuring out how to solve my own basic computer problems, and I can find a lot of stuff online, but George is a true wiz. Once she gets going on a computer problem, her fingers fly across the keyboard and pump out computer language so fast that I can’t even figure out what she’s doing half the time.

This time, she didn’t even hear me. “George?” I repeated.

She glanced up and gave me a fast smile. “Hey, Nance,” she said. “What’s up?”

“I’m going to take a drive and see where the fire is,” I told her.

But George’s eyes had already returned to the screen of the big computer. “What fire?” she mumbled.

“The one that had at least three fire engines rushing to put it out,” I said. “Didn’t you hear all those sirens?”

“Uh, no,” George said slowly. I could tell that her attention was focused on the computers, not our conversation. She probably didn’t even know what she was saying no to!

“Well, it’s a big fire,” I went on. “I’m going to take a drive and make sure it’s not at any of our houses. I think I’ll run past Harold’s cheese shop too. That way I can set his mind at ease so he can concentrate on his acting.”

“Okay, have fun,” George said. I couldn’t help a smile. She really hadn’t heard a word I’d said.

“See you later,” I told her. But George wasn’t even pretending to listen anymore. She was completely wrapped up in solving her computer problems. It was time to try Bess.

I found her in the second soundstage, working on the Rackhams’ cabin set. She was perched high up on a ladder as Luther Eldridge called out instructions. I walked over to join him.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Oh, Nancy, it’s a disaster!” he cried. “When Bess removed the molding around the top of the walls, we discovered that whoever built this set didn’t put anything behind the moldings.”

I glanced around. The cabin set looked just like a real cabin, except that it didn’t have a roof. On one side Bess had taken down the molding at the top of
the wall. Now that wall was about five inches shorter than it had been with the molding. It looked ridiculous. With the carved wooden molding, the walls had given the illusion that there was a ceiling. On camera the room would look like a regular, finished cabin. But now, with the short walls, it would look more like a child’s play fort.

“It looks like we’ll have to put the molding back up,” I said.

“But we can’t!” Luther sounded horrified. “A rustic nineteenth-century cabin wouldn’t have such things. Carved moldings were for the large houses of wealthy people.”

I took a look at Bess. Her cheeks were smudged with dirt, and her jeans and T-shirt were covered in sawdust, but there was a determined gleam in her eyes. “We’ll figure something out,” she said confidently.

Clearly this was not the time to ask Bess to come for a drive with me. “Well, good luck, you two,” I said, backing out of the set.

I was on my own. I made my way to the car and started the ten-minute drive into River Heights. To my surprise, I didn’t even see smoke. I drove through the center of town and glanced at Harold’s cheese shop. It was fine. So were all the other shops and offices nearby. I continued on to my neighborhood,
then drove past George’s house, and Bess’s. There was no fire to be seen.

There was only one place I hadn’t looked yet—Mission Hill. That’s the neighborhood that puts the “heights” in River Heights. The hill rises high over the town, and from the top there are amazing views of the Muskoka River. It’s the most expensive area in the whole city. I started up the winding road that led to the top of the hill. Immediately I could tell I was on the right trail.

Police cars and fire trucks lined the side of the road, and thick brown smoke wafted through the air. The houses in this neighborhood were set far back from the road, and each place was surrounded by a lot of property. I found the flaming house about half a mile from the top of the hill. It was a beautiful old Georgian-style house with tall columns in front of the entrance. And it was being devoured by angry orange flames that leaped high into the sky. Heavy smoke poured from the fire, billowing across the manicured front lawn.

I pulled my car to the side of the street and got out. Three separate teams of firefighters held their powerful hoses on the blaze, but the water didn’t seem to be doing much good.

River Heights Fire Chief Cody Cloud stood near the curb, commanding his firefighters through the
walkie-talkie in his hand. He frowned when he saw me.

“Nancy, what are you doing here?” he asked.