Sylvia looked like she was going to make another smart-aleck comment, but she decided not to. Probably because she knew I would have grabbed her elbow skin and twisted it if she had. Have you ever grabbed someone’s elbow skin? It’s actually a good thing to do, because it hurts a little, but not a lot. So it’s a good way to get a message across to someone, without causing any real damage.
Bella, our dog, started barking her head off. Which meant one of two things: Either we were about to get robbed by burglars, or Mom was home. I heard a key in the door. Most burglars don’t have keys.
“Mom’s home,” I told my little sister.
“I hope she brought dinner,” Syl said. “I’m starving.” Remember earlier when I said we never eat out? Well, the good news was that we usually got whatever was on special at the restaurant, and it was delicious. (And I’m not just saying that.)
We both charged down the hall. Sylvia was ahead of me for the first three steps, until I shoved her aside and took the lead.
“Ow!” she howled. “You made me bang my head.”
“Tell it to the judge,” I said, which was a phrase I picked up from my dad, even though I had no idea what it meant.
When my mom opened the door, a lot of things happened at the same time: Bella jumped into my mom’s arms, my sister smacked me on the butt, a pizza box went flying, and I yelled at the top of my lungs.
“MOM! YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE IT! I’M GONNA BE A MOVIE STAR!”
My mom petted Bella and hugged Sylvia. Or maybe it was the other way around.
“That’s terrific,” she said. “But can we eat dinner first?”
5
HELLO? IS THIS HOLLYWOOD ON THE PHONE?
WHEN I TOLD MY MOM THE STORY, she interrupted me as soon as I got to the part about the pom-poms.
“Did you apologize to Eliza and her mother?”
“Not yet.”
“Well, you need to call them.”
“I will! Just let me finish the story!”
When I got to the part about the lady named Iris and me becoming a movie star, my mom interrupted again.
“Did this person offer you a part in the movie?”
“No,” I said.
“Did she tell you about any other movies she’s ever produced?”
“No,” I said.
“Did you Google her company to make sure it was real?”
This time I just shook my head.
My mom let out one of those mom sighs. You know, the kind that says Will these crazy kids ever learn?
“Let me see the card,” she said.
I ran to my room and got Iris’s business card out of my shoe box where I keep all my valuable things, including the blue ribbon I won for drawing, my third grade report card where I got my first—and so far only—A, and the picture of my dad standing in a tub of shaving cream after I nailed the bull’s-eye to dunk him at the school carnival.
I ran back to my mom. “See? It’s real!”
“A business card doesn’t make it real,” my mom said.
“It has a pretty nice website,” said my sister, who was sitting at the computer.
“Anyone can make a website,” said my mom. She had an answer for everything.
I stared at her. “Well?”
She stared back. “Well what?”
“Are you gonna call?”
“You want me to call now?”
“Yes, I want you to call now! I need to set up my audition and stuff!”
My mom didn’t move.
“MOM!” I yelled. Then, softer, I added, “She said I had relate-ability.”
Sylvia was nodding. “Do it, Mom,” she said.
I hugged my sister. “I take back everything bad I ever said about you, and every time I ever pinned your arms behind your back and sat on you until you couldn’t breathe.”
“Fine,” my mom said, letting out another long sigh. “But if this turns out to be one of those fly-by-night companies that wants us to pay for ten weeks of acting lessons to get you ready for some audition for some big movie that doesn’t actually exist, I’m going to send you kids to bed without any dessert.”
“MOM!” my sister and I wailed.
“All right, all right,” said my mom. “Get me my phone, it’s in my purse.”
“YAY!” my sister and I cheered.
Sylvia ran to get the phone, and we both watched as my mom dialed the number.
“Stop staring,” said my mom. We stopped, for a second. Then we started staring again.
We heard a voice come on the line. “Hello,” said my mom, “this is Anna Milano, Peter Milano’s mother. Is this…”—she looked at the card—“Pudding Productions?” Then she whispered to us, “What kind of a name is Pudding Productions?”
“A delicious one,” I whispered back.
“Yes?” my mom said, back into the phone. “Yes, I can hold, but only for a minute. I’m very busy.” Then she whispered to us, “You can’t let these people push you around.”
“Definitely not,” I whispered back.
We waited for about three minutes.
“Ugh,” said my mom.
We waited two more minutes.
“I’m hanging up,” said my mom.
“DON’T!” my sister and I wailed.
Finally, about thirty seconds later, I heard a voice come on the other end of the line.
“Hello? Yes, this is she,” my mom said into the phone. She listened for about a minute. Then she said, “Oh, my, yes, of course I know who you are. Nice to speak with you, too.” Then she listened for another thirty seconds, and said, “Yes.” After fifteen more seconds, she said. “Absolutely, yes. Thank you very much.” And she hung up the phone.
We waited for what seemed like twenty days, while my mom just sat there, not saying anything.
“WELL?” I hollered.
“YEAH, WELL?” Sylvia hollered.
My mom turned to me. “Do you know who that was on the phone?”
We stared at her, because we obviously didn’t know.
“That was Sheldon Felden,” she said.
“Who?”
“Sheldon Felden,” my mom repeated. “One of the most famous producers in Hollywood. He’s so famous even I’ve heard of him.”
I felt my heart start to thump so loudly it practically drowned out everything around me.
“It turns out this woman Iris works for Mr. Felden,” my mom continued, “and they’d like you to go into New York City to audition for their new movie.”
I don’t really remember much of what happened right after that. I remember all of us screaming our heads off. I remember Sylvia jumping on top of me as I piggybacked her around the house, my mom calling my dad, and Bella diving under the couch because she had no idea what the heck was going on.
And I remember thinking to myself, This can’t really be happening. But it is!
6
REAL FRIENDS
BEFORE I DESCRIBE how everyone at school reacted to the news about my maybe becoming a movie star, let me give you a little bit of background. It will help you understand everything that happened.
I go to Eastport Middle School, where most of the kids are from families a lot richer than mine. Which is fine, I guess. I don’t really care, except when everyone gets all upset when they can’t FaceTime me because I don’t have an iPhone, or when people ask me what I did over Christmas vacation and then look at me funny when I say, “Stayed home.” As if we would go away during one of the busiest times of the year for a restaurant! Anyway, that stuff is really annoying, but for the most part, people are okay.
My best friends at school are Timmy McGibney, Jake Katz, and Charlie Joe Jackson. But I’m not sure they would consider me their best friend, necessarily. Especially Charlie Joe. He’s really pretty nice, I guess, but sometimes I get the feeling he hangs around with me only when no one else is available. It’s not his fault. I just think he likes some other kids a little more than me. Not that I blame him. If I were him, I’d probabl
y feel the same way. I can be a little obnoxious sometimes.
But then, one day, everything changed. And it was all because of Mareli. She grew up in Puerto Rico and moved to Eastport last year. And she was the fanciest, most sophisticated, classiest, best-dressed person I’d ever met. So it made absolutely no sense that she decided to like me. I didn’t believe it at first. I thought everyone was playing a joke on me when they started telling me that she liked me. You know why? Because it’s the kind of joke I would have played on somebody.
Which is why, when Eliza Collins told me at lunch one day that she needed to talk to me, I expected bad news.
“You need to talk to me?” I asked her. “Seriously? About what?”
“Mareli.”
And when she told me that it was true, that Mareli actually thought that underneath all my goofing-around-ness I was a nice, interesting person, I finally believed it myself. This girl actually did like me.
“And one other thing,” Eliza told me. “Mareli saw the picture you drew of your dog, Millie.”
Millie was the dog we had when I was younger. When she died I got really sad, and I missed her a lot, so I drew a picture of her for art class.
“Mareli thinks you have the soul of an artist,” Eliza told me.
“What does that mean?”
Eliza smiled at me. “I think it probably means you should ask her to be your girlfriend.”
So I did. And she said yes. And from that point on, it didn’t matter that I don’t have an iPhone, or that I don’t go to fancy islands on vacation like everyone else. I finally felt like a real part of the gang.
Then came the day I met Iris Galt.
As soon as I got to school the next day, I started telling people about auditioning for the movie. No one believed me.
Timmy McGibney was first. “You’re auditioning for a movie? No way. You’re lying.”
“I never lie,” I reminded him. It was a trait I was very proud of, even though it got me in trouble a lot.
Eric Cunkler chimed in next. Everyone kind of felt bad for Eric, since he had this rash on his neck that he couldn’t seem to get rid of, but he was also super annoying, since he never had anything nice to say about anyone.
“There is absolutely no way that you will ever be in a professional movie,” he said. “But if you want, I can take my phone and shoot a video of you sticking French fries up your nose, and we can put it on YouTube.”
“Quiet, Eric,” said Katie Friedman. Ah, Katie to the rescue, as usual. She was by far the most mature person in our grade. She’d straighten everything out. “So, Pete, are you sure this is a real thing and everything? Because it does seem a little strange that some random person would just ask you to be in a movie.”
“Yeah, it does seem weird,” Charlie Joe added, and then everybody started putting in their two cents about what a loser I was that I could ever even think that I would be in a movie.
Thanks a lot, Katie Friedman.
“Quiet, all of you!” barked Mareli. She had a pretty sharp temper sometimes. It was one of the things I liked most about her. Except when it was directed at me.
Everybody got quiet.
“If Pete says he is auditioning for a movie, he is auditioning for a movie,” Mareli announced. “The one thing we all know is that Pete doesn’t lie. EVER.”
Everyone murmured agreement at that.
“So tell us about this movie,” Charlie Joe said. “What’s it about? Who’s in it? Why are they shooting it in Eastport?”
I hesitated before answering, because I knew it wasn’t going to go well.
“I don’t know, I don’t know, and I have no idea,” I said.
Everyone started howling.
“This is a joke,” said Evan Franco, who was in all the school plays and considered himself the best actor in the school. “Sorry, Mareli, but your boyfriend here is full of it.”
The bell rang for first period, and everyone started gathering up their stuff. I just stood there for a minute, trying to stay calm. These guys were supposed to be my friends; and yet here I was, with the most exciting news of my life, and everyone was basically treating it like a joke.
Except Mareli.
“Pete?” she said. “Can I tell you something?”
“What?” I said, without looking at her.
“My mom once told me something really interesting that I never forgot,” Mareli said. “She said, everyone thinks that you can tell who your friends are when things are going badly. But the truth is, you can tell who your real friends are when things are going well.”
I thought about that for a second, then decided I had no idea what Mareli was talking about.
“Huh?”
“When something great happens to somebody, people don’t know how to react,” she explained. “They get really jealous; they can’t help it. So give these guys a little time. If they’re really your friends, then they’ll be happy for you, like I am. I promise.”
“You really think so?”
“I know so.”
And then she smiled at me, got up, and left.
I felt a lot better. Girls are like that.
When I got to my classroom, Timmy, Charlie Joe, and Jake Katz were waiting for me.
“Yo, sorry about before,” Timmy said.
“It is really true?” Charlie Joe asked. “Are you going to be in a movie?”
“I’m going to audition for a movie,” I explained again. “I probably won’t even get it. I’ll probably stink.”
“No way, you’ll be good,” Jake said.
“We’ll help you practice if you want,” Timmy added.
Charlie Joe smacked me on the back. “Hollywood here we come!”
And then my friends and I decided that they’d come over after school and help me become the next Chris Pratt.
7
ACTING
WHEN WE ALL GOT TO MY HOUSE, there was a package waiting for me on the kitchen table.
“What’s this?” I asked my sister. Mom was downstairs at the restaurant, as usual.
Sylvia shrugged. “I have no idea, but it came special delivery.”
Charlie Joe picked up the package and examined the label. “Pudding Productions,” he said.
My heart started to pound. “Let me see that.”
I ripped the thing open and four pages fell out. Three typewritten pages were stapled together, and there was a separate, handwritten note. I read the note first, out loud.
Dear Pete:
Enclosed, please find the pages we’d like you to look at for your audition. This is a scene from the movie entitled Sammy and the Princess, to be produced by Sheldon Felden for Pudding Productions. You will be reading the part of Sammy.
Remember, Pete, the key is to be yourself. That is what we’re looking for. That’s why I wanted you to come in the first place!
We’ll see you in New York next week.
Best,
Iris Galt
Executive Producer
P.S. Hope you returned the pom-poms.
“Sammy and the Princess?” said Timmy.
Charlie Joe snorted. “That sounds like a girly movie.”
I was only half listening, because I was busy looking at the typewritten pages. It looked like it was a conversation between Sammy and some girl named Clarissa.
Then I had an idea.
“I need to practice this, you guys. Can one of you play this girl Clarissa?”
They looked at each other.
“I’ll do it,” Charlie Joe said.
“Cool.”
“I’ll film it,” Jake said, getting out his phone. “That way we can analyze it later.”
“What will we do?” Timmy and Sylvia whined.
I thought for a second. “Can you guys get us some Oreos?”
He grumbled, she grumbled, but off they went.
Charlie Joe and I went over to the kitchen table. I ripped out the staple and spread out the pages.
“What’s the stuff at the top?�
�� I asked.
“Stage directions,” Charlie Joe said. “I recognize them from when I was in Mr. Twipple’s play about the guy who invented paper towels.”
“I remember that!” I said, howling. “You were scared to kiss Hannah!”
“Can we not talk about that?” Jake said, still filming us. Hannah was Jake’s girlfriend, and he was supersensitive about her.
“Headmaster’s office at a prep school,” Charlie Joe read out loud. “Sammy is waiting for the headmaster to arrive. Suddenly the door bursts open and a girl rushes in. She’s the prettiest girl he’s ever seen in his life. And she’s crying.”
Charlie Joe stopped, then looked at me. “Okay, dude, let’s do this.”
I closed my eyes for a second, and took a deep breath.
And then, for the first time in my life, I started acting.
SAMMY AND THE PRINCESS, SCENE 9
INT. HEADMASTER’S OFFICE AT A PREP SCHOOL—DAY
SAMMY IS WAITING FOR THE HEADMASTER TO ARRIVE … SUDDENLY THE DOOR BURSTS OPEN AND A GIRL RUSHES IN. SHE’S THE PRETTIEST GIRL HE’S EVER SEEN IN HIS LIFE. AND SHE’S CRYING.
SAMMY
Whoa, whoa … Is everything okay?
GIRL (With a slight accent)
No … I mean … I … I do not know.
SAMMY
Well, here, have a seat.
GIRL (Sitting)
This is so embarrassing. I do not cry. If I was seen to be crying back home in my country, it would be a national embarrassment.
SAMMY
Wait, what?
GIRL
Nothing.
THEY SIT QUIETLY FOR A MINUTE
SAMMY
So, what are you in for?
GIRL (Not understanding)
I am sorry?
SAMMY
Did you do something wrong? If so, get in line. I’m always the first one at this party. My roommate loves to get me in trouble. Today, for example, he used my iPhone as a Ping-Pong paddle. And of course, I got mad, so I threw his charger in the toilet. And who’s the one that gets caught? Me, of course!
Pete Milano's Guide to Being a Movie Star Page 2