Nick and Tesla's Special Effects Spectacular

by Bob Pflugfelder

  Nick managed to slide the container behind his back as he turned around to face Matt. He found the man staring back at him quizzically.

  An icy chill ran down Nick’s spine.

  They’d been caught! What was Matt going to do?

  But then Nick noticed that Matt wasn’t staring at him. He was staring at somebody behind him. Namely, Silas.

  Who was still holding the robo-arm.

  Over his head.

  Surely Matt could see that Silas had grabbed something off the shelf. Nick braced himself to make a mad dash out of the trailer.

  But then Silas said: “Cool bonus feature with this—it makes a great back scratcher.” And then he began rubbing the fingers against his back. A couple pop sticks snapped off and fell to the floor, but Matt didn’t seem to notice.

  “Well,” Tesla said suddenly, “you’ve been extremely generous with your time, Mr. Gore, and we know you’re a busy man. So we should probably be toddling along.”

  “Yes,” agreed Nick. “Definitely time to toddle.” Although he was thinking: Toddle? Is that a word? But there was no time to figure that out, because at any moment Matt would start wondering what Nick was holding behind his back.

  “Bye!” Nick said as he sidled away, keeping his face turned to Matt the whole while.

  “Bye!” said Tesla and Silas and DeMarco as they, too, moved toward the ramp leading out of the trailer.

  Matt looked a little disappointed to see them go.

  “Thanks for showing me your special effects stuff, you guys,” he said. “Tell Zoe to bring you back when we blow up Lord Computron.”

  “Totally! Will do! Can’t wait!” said Nick.

  “Whew,” Nick added. But not until they had safely left the trailer and were on the other side of a nearby van, well out of earshot.

  When all four had found a sheltered spot between two trailers, they sat on the ground in a circle and Nick brought out the plastic container.

  Silas tossed the robo-arm back in the box of props DeMarco was holding.

  “So, what is that?” Silas said.

  “Proof,” DeMarco said.

  Silas stared at it.

  “Some Tupperware full of sand is proof?”

  “Not sand,” said DeMarco. “Itching powder.”

  “Maybe,” Nick said. He set the container down, took hold of the rubbery lid, and slowly and ever so gently peeled it back.

  All four kids leaned in to peer down at the granular, pumpkin-colored substance inside.

  “Still looks like sand to me,” Silas said.

  “From an orange beach?” said DeMarco.

  “I’m sure there are orange beaches.”

  “Where?”

  “Somewhere.”

  “Why keep sand from one on your shelf?”

  Silas shrugged. “Because it’s pretty?”

  DeMarco shook his head. “It’s not sand,” he muttered.

  Nick looked over at his sister.

  “But is it itching powder?”

  “Well, it doesn’t look exactly like the kind I made,” Tesla said. “It’s smoother. Finer. And the color’s not quite—hey!”

  DeMarco had snatched the container away from Nick and stalked off a few paces.

  “I’ll tell you if it’s itching powder right now.”

  “No, DeMarco!” Tesla cried.

  “Don’t do it!” said Nick.

  But it was too late. DeMarco was already tilting the container to pour some of its contents onto the back of his left hand. Once he had a little heap of the orange-brown powder on his skin, he straightened the container and waited.

  “Does it itch?” asked Nick.

  “No.”

  “Does it burn?” asked Silas.

  “No.”

  “Does it tingle?” asked Tesla.

  “No. It doesn’t do anything.” DeMarco brought his left hand up to his face and sniffed. “Except smell like Tang.”

  “Tang?” said Nick.

  “Yeah. It’s got that sweet fake-citrus smell. Like Tang or Kool-Aid.”

  “Really?” said Silas.

  He walked over to DeMarco, licked the tip of an index finger, and then plunged it into the container. When he pulled it out, his fingertip was coated in orange-brown powder.

  Silas was about to stick the finger in his mouth when Nick grabbed his arm to stop him. “Come on!” Nick said with a groan. “Can we please be more careful with unknown substances?”

  “It’s not unknown,” said Silas. “I know exactly what it is.”

  “What is it?” said Tesla.

  Silas raised his powdered finger to his nose and sniffed. Then he handed the jar to Nick and brushed the powder off his finger. “Oh, yeah. No doubt about it,” he said. “It’s Metamucil.”

  “Meta-what?” said DeMarco.

  Silas nodded. “I’d know that smell anywhere. My granddad takes it three times a day. Mixes it up in a big glass of water and guzzles it down.”

  “Why?” DeMarco said. “What does it do?”

  Silas shot Tesla an uncomfortable look.

  “There’s a lady present,” he said.

  Tesla glowered at him.

  “I have a granddad, too,” she said. “I know what Metamucil is.”

  “Well, I still don’t,” DeMarco said.

  Silas stepped closer and whispered in his ear.

  “Ew,” DeMarco said. He put the container on the ground and backed away. “Okay. Enough. I get it.”

  Silas stepped away, too.

  “Boy,” DeMarco said. “Getting old stinks.”

  “No kidding,” said Silas.

  Nick picked up the container and started walking back toward the special effects trailer.

  “Where are you going?” Tesla said.

  “I’m gonna leave this where Matt can find it,” Nick said. “He seems like a nice guy, and I don’t want him having trouble with his, you know, because of us.”

  “All right. But be careful. Just because that wasn’t the itching powder doesn’t mean Matt’s not the culprit.”

  Nick nodded and then crept off.

  “ ‘The culprit,’ ” Silas said with a giggle. “I love it when Tez talks like that.”

  Tesla silenced him with a glare.

  Nick returned a moment later. “Hey, guys,” he said. “I think I saw—”

  “There they are!” blared a familiar high-pitched voice.

  “Yeah!” an even higher-pitched voice chimed in. “There they are!”

  Elesha and Monique came around one of the nearby trailers and pointed at their brother and his friends.

  Aunt Zoe stepped out behind them.

  “I am very disappointed in you, young man,” she said. “I bring you onto an active film set as my guest—under extremely trying circumstances—and you repay me by wandering off as if this was your private playground?”

  “I’m sorry,” DeMarco said, his head hanging low.

  Elesha and Monique beamed.

  “I told you we could find them,” Elesha said.

  “Yeah, we told you we could find them,” Monique added.

  “All right, girls,” Aunt Zoe said.

  “DeMarco was trying to help you,” Tesla said to Aunt Zoe. “It’s obvious something strange is going on around here, and we’re actually pretty good at figuring out—”

  “You,” Aunt Zoe said. “Come here.”

  She wasn’t looking at Tesla.

  It was the production assistant they had seen at the beginning of the day, the young woman in the ASK ME ABOUT MY SCREENPLAY T-shirt. She carried a huge Starbucks cup in each hand.

  “Yes, Ms. Helms?”

  “Abby, I need you to take these children home immediately,” Zoe said.

  “What?” said Tesla and Nick.

  “No!” said DeMarco.

  “Oh, come on,” said Silas.

  “But I have to bring Damon his triple venti no foam soy latte,” Abby said. “And Mr. Ashkinos is waiting for his grande quad nonfat no-whip one-pump
mocha. Then I have to pick up Mr. Ortmann’s dry cleaning and get more pretzels for the craft service table and hand out the call sheets for tomorrow’s shoot and—”

  “I understand, Abby,” Aunt Zoe said. “I started out as a P.A., too.”

  Abby smiled.

  Aunt Zoe reached out and took the coffee cups.

  “I’ll deliver these,” she said. “The rest can wait.”

  Abby’s smile faded.

  “Yes, Ms. Helms.”

  Aunt Zoe turned and started walking away.

  “The one in your right hand is the triple venti no foam soy latte!” Abby called after her. “Whatever you do, don’t give Damon the grande quad nonfat no-whip one-pump mocha!”

  “Got it!” Aunt Zoe called back. “Now, go!”

  When she was gone, Abby heaved a tremendous sigh. “Show biz,” she said sadly.

  “So,” Silas said as Abby herded them all off, “have you written a screenplay?”

  Abby’s smile returned.

  “Funny you should ask,” she said. “Let me tell you about it …”

  “… then, with a final tortured scream, the last of the bear-dragons crashes into the burning castle, sending shards of stone and flaming fur flying in all directions,” Abby was saying. “Cut to: Goldilocks and Prince Brock watching from the top of Mt. Destiny. Goldilocks, lowering her bow: ‘Your palace is gone, Brock. But at least you know that all in your kingdom are finally free to live in peace.’ Prince Brock, gazing worshipfully at the mighty she-warrior: ‘And free to love, my lady. And free to love.’ They kiss. Fade to black. Roll credits.”

  In the backseat of Abby’s ancient Toyota sedan, Silas slowly clapped his hands together once, twice, three times, four times, five times, the pace and intensity building until he was applauding with all his might.

  No one joined in, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  Monique and Elesha, who were squeezed together in the front passenger seat, just looked at each other and grimaced.

  “Can we get out now?” said Tesla, who was squeezed so tightly between Silas and DeMarco that she could barely breathe.

  They’d been sitting in the driveway in front of Silas’s house for an extra ten minutes so that Abby could finish describing her script.

  Nick opened the door he was squished up against, and he and DeMarco spilled out onto the pavement. Tesla scrambled out after them, and then Monique and Elesha hopped out, too.

  Yet Silas lingered behind to tell Abby to stick with it. He said he was certain it was only a matter of time before one of the studios snatched up Goldilocks Rises.

  “See ya at the Oscars,” Silas said before sliding out of the car with the box of props.

  He put down the box and gave Abby two thumbs-up as she backed out of the driveway and puttered off.

  “That is a surefire blockbuster,” he said.

  “That story was nothing but sword fights and monsters,” countered Elesha.

  “Exactly,” Silas said. “Surefire. Blockbuster.”

  “So … what now?” DeMarco asked.

  “What do you think?” said Tesla.

  DeMarco nodded.

  “Right.”

  Tesla didn’t even have to say it.

  They were going back.

  “What about you know who?” Nick whispered.

  He jerked his head at Elesha and Monique.

  “We know you’re talking about us,” Elesha said.

  “What?” said Monique, looking surprised. “Oh, I mean, yeah. We know you’re talking about us!”

  “You wanna go snoop some more, don’t you?” said Elesha.

  “Yes,” Tesla said. “We want to go snoop some more.”

  Elesha crossed her arms over her chest and grinned an evil grin.

  Monique copied her sister.

  Elesha opened her mouth to speak, but Tesla interrupted her. “Before you run off to tell on us, you should know that your aunt’s movie is in really big trouble. Which means that your aunt is in trouble. This was supposed to be her big break. Her shot at making huge Hollywood hits instead of cheesy straight-to-video action flicks.”

  “Hey! Cash Ashkinos’s movies are not cheesy!” Silas said in protest. “They’re—oh, okay, so they are cheesy. But in a good way!”

  “But someone’s trying to wreck your aunt’s film,” Tesla continued as if Silas hadn’t spoken. “And that could wreck her career. As far as I can tell, we’re the only ones trying to do something about it. So if you want to march off to your mother and tell her we got kicked off the set and ruin any chance we have of going back and helping your aunt, fine. You go right ahead. But when Aunt Zoe is producing TV commercials for the local car wash instead of making blockbuster movies because you let somebody sabotage Metalman, I hope you’ll have the common decency to at least tell her you’re sorry.”

  “Ha!” Elesha barked. “Nice try at a guilt trip, but we’re not falling for it.”

  She turned and started to stomp off toward the house.

  She stopped when she realized that nobody was walking with her.

  “We’re not falling for it,” Elesha repeated. She looked back and saw that not only did Monique not echo her, she wasn’t following her, either. Monique was still standing in front of Tesla and the others.

  “What’s the matter?” Elesha said to Monique.

  “Well …” Monique kicked at a pebble and started to speak again, but then snapped her mouth shut.

  “Don’t you think that,” she began, hesitant, “maybe, just maybe, couldn’t she be … the slightest little bit, well … ?”

  “Couldn’t she be what?” Elesha snapped.

  “Right?” Monique said. “Because if she is and we don’t let them go back and Metalman is ruined and Aunt Zoe can’t make movies anymore, maybe it will kind of be our fault.”

  Elesha gasped.

  DeMarco and Silas gasped.

  Nick and Tesla gasped.

  None of them saw it coming: the answer to a mystery that had baffled the neighborhood long before Nick and Tesla had ever arrived in Half Moon Bay.

  One of the Davison girls was indeed capable of feeling something other than spite.

  But were both?

  Elesha stared at her sister in shock. Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, her expression changed. The surprise morphed into something else.

  Nick was hoping for goodwill tinged with remorse for past slights.

  He got a sly smirk instead.

  “All right. We’ll give them their chance to save the day,” Elesha said. “For a price.”

  Monique instantly forgot about feeling something other than spite.

  “Yeah,” she said, copying her sister’s smirk. “For a price.”

  “Name it,” said Tesla.

  “Name it, she says,” DeMarco grumbled as Elesha and Monique walked away half a minute later. “It’s a deal, she says. Haven’t you ever heard of negotiating, Tez?”

  Tesla shrugged.

  “We don’t have time to negotiate.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one who just agreed to do all of your sisters’ chores for the next six months!”

  Tesla put a hand on DeMarco’s shoulder.

  “You’re a wonderful nephew,” she said.

  DeMarco took a deep breath.

  “Yes,” he said, sighing heavily. “I am.”

  Nick put up a hand as if asking to be called on in class.

  “Hey, guys? Aren’t you forgetting something? Elesha and Monique aren’t the only reason we’re going to have trouble getting back on to that set. We’re still going to have to slip past the guards and P.A.s.”

  “Thanks for the reminder, Mr. Worst-Case Scenario,” Tesla said.

  Nick lowered his hand, looking satisfied.

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  “In a situation like this, there’s one question we should be asking ourselves,” Silas pontificated. “W.W.B.E.D.?”

  “ ‘Wuhbed’?” Tesla said.
r />   Silas shook his head.

  “No, no, no. What Would Bald Eagle Do?”

  Nick grinned.

  “Silas, you are truly a visionary,” he said.

  “He is?” said Tesla.

  “Yeah,” said DeMarco. “He is?”

  Silas looked slightly offended by his friends’ obvious skepticism.

  “He is,” Nick said, “because we can get Bald Eagle to help us.”

  “That might be a little tough, considering that he doesn’t exist,” said Tesla.

  Nick’s grin grew larger.

  “He doesn’t?”

  He let his eyes slide, slide, slide slowly to the right.

  The others followed his gaze … and found themselves looking at a feathered figure that, hours earlier, had been left propped up against a tree in DeMarco’s yard. The stunt dummy!

  Tesla smiled approvingly at her brother and, without even knowing it, quoted a line she’d heard in a dozen movies.

  “You know, it’s so crazy that it just might work.”

  NICK AND TESLA’S

  NEARLY HUMAN HOMEMADE

  STUNT DUMMY

  THE STUFF

  • Pair of sweatpants or pajama bottoms

  • Hoodie

  • Old towels, dishtowels, wash cloths, small blankets, pillows of various sizes, and anything else that will make good stuffing

  • Several plastic grocery bags

  • Socks (one pair for the dummy’s feet, plus extras to use as stuffing)

  • Gloves

  • Lots of duct tape

  • Optional: ¾-inch PVC pipes and joints

  NOTE: The materials for this project depend on the size of the stunt dummy you want to make. Since a stunt dummy’s job is to take the place of an actor during dangerous stunts, you should construct your version with clothing that’s roughly the same size as your actor (or, even better, one size smaller, to make it easier to put costumes on it!). Sweatpants or pajamas are good for the dummy’s legs because they have no pockets or belt loops that get snagged on things. A hoodie is a must—you will use the hood to create the dummy’s head. (Unless your movie involves a headless monster, in which case, no head.) Visit a thrift shop to buy the dummy’s clothing. While there, also get old towels, pillows, and small blankets for the stuffing.

  THE SETUP

  1. Start by laying out the dummy’s shirt and pants. Doing so will help you estimate how much stuffing—towels, pillows, etc.—you’ll need.