by Linda Johns
“Good to know,” Mom said, looking suitably impressed.
“But be forewarned that midday the number 25 comes only once an hour,” I said.
“You’ll have to plan ahead,” Mom said. “Or take another bus.” She wrapped an arm around my shoulders, which I knew was her cornball-Mom way of saying that she was proud of my independence. At least that’s what I choose to think it meant. We walked back on the opposite side of the street, passing our dock and continuing on past the sprawling St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church. Street after street of brick houses with pointy roofs and immaculate gardens welcomed us as we meandered past the Emerald City Yacht Club and the Montlake Community Center, where I first learned to play ultimate Frisbee, and into the arboretum. I’ve been to the Washington Park Arboretum (its official name) dozens of times on school field trips or with out-of-town relatives, but I’d never lived so close. I couldn’t believe we could walk to so many things.
By the time we got back to our houseboat more than an hour later, the sun was out in full force. Mom and I decided to go out on the lake. Mango watched us from the living room window as we pushed off in Jake’s double kayak.
“This is the life!” I said from the front seat. “We just walk out our door, put our boat in the water, and start paddling.”
“I could definitely get used to this,” Mom said.
We headed around the corner to Lake Union. We’d passed several other houseboat docks, but there was a certain houseboat Mom was determined we see.
I had a feeling she was taking me to see the houseboat from Sleepless in Seattle, a movie we’d watched about eleven times already. I’d also gone past the boat on a tour with Grandma earlier in the summer.
Mom pulled her paddle hard on the starboard side for the next two strokes so that we took a sharp turn to the left. “Let’s hug the shore on this side,” she said. “As you can see, we’re on the opposite side of the lake from the Sleepless house, in case you were worried I was going to make you go by it. There are some other things I want to show you.” She’d recently read a book about floating homes in Seattle and was hot to show off her new knowledge. Mom was always reading all these random books and articles, which, she said, made her an expert on absolutely nothing but a darn good Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy! player. Her arsenal of knowledge (or random facts) could sometimes be interesting, when it wasn’t annoying. This time it was pretty interesting, as she pointed out a houseboat that actually had a basement with a fitness center and a wine cellar. As I struggled to wrap my head around the idea of a houseboat with a basement, we went by small, tidy floating homes that looked similar to the ones on our Portage Bay dock. We also went by some floating homes that were more like floating mansions, kind of like the huge beige houses you see out in the suburbs. Mom and her friend Mary Perez call them McMansions. It seemed odd and out of scale to see a McMansion next to a tiny wood cottage.
“I feel like we’re a million miles away from our real life,” I said to Mom. “Almost like we’re in a different country or something.”
“That, my dear daughter, is exactly where we’re about to be.”
“Does that mean you’re going to make me keep paddling until we get to Canada? Yikes! Hey, what’s that?” I’d just spied a houseboat with colorful art and sculptures surrounding it. A flag with a white background flew at full mast from a large pole. The upper left corner of the flag had diagonal yellow and orange stripes; floating off center in the white area were some light blue stripes. The flag, the house, and the dock looked so colorful and chaotic compared to the tidy houses at the neighboring docks. I loved it immediately.
“That’s the Archipelago of Tui Tui,” Mom said excitedly.
“Huh?” My mind was combing back over the vocabulary lists and geography lessons from sixth grade. Archipelago, archipelago. Right! Archipelago: A group of islands in a large body of water.
But that didn’t make any sense.
“Where’s the island?” I asked.
“The house itself is an island nation,” Mom said. “The owner seceded from the United States. He even has his own currency and postage stamps.” As if on cue, when Mom said “owner,” a man walked out on the dock and waved to us. At least I thought he was waving to us. I waved back, but then he seemed to be glaring at us, as if he’d just noticed us.
“You’re making this all up, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Good afternoon, neighbors!” I looked behind us and saw another kayak coming up quickly. It was Alice Campbell. “Small world, isn’t it? I’m just on my way to Tui Tui. I’ll be back in the United States soon enough.” She pulled up alongside the island nation of Tui Tui and put a soft-side Polar Bear thermal bag on the dock. It was one of those coolers that holds only about a six-pack of soda. She was talking to the man on the dock, who was gesturing and pointing out in the water. Who was he? The king of Tui Tui? The prime minister? Or just Mr. Tui Tui? And how did a houseboat in the middle of Seattle become an independent state? I still couldn’t believe this was true, and I intended to do some research as soon as I got back to my laptop.
Mr. Tui Tui held up a glass jar filled with liquid and showed it to Alice before putting it in the cooler. He put two more jars in the cooler, which she then stowed in her kayak’s cargo area. He helped her push off from the dock and waved her on her way.
I watched as Alice paddled east toward Portage Bay. Mom steered us over to Aqua Verde Café, the restaurant that Jake had given us the gift certificate for. We could pull right up in our kayak, and the dockhand would help us out and pull our boat out—sort of like valet parking for kayaks. It’s my absolute favorite restaurant in Seattle, and even though I’ve been kayaking since I was in kindergarten, it was the first time I’d pulled up in my own boat. Yeah, I know, it’s not really my kayak. But I was feeling pretty richie-rich right about then.
CHAPTER 4
I WOKE UP the next morning to some obnoxious knocking. I waited for Mom to answer, but she must have been in the bathroom getting ready to go to work.
“Hello! Anyone in there?” A voice now accompanied the knocking. Mango answered the question with a series of barks.
“Oh great. Just my luck. No one’s home but they left a dog in here. Joshua is going to go ballistic about this,” a woman’s voice muttered. She started rapping on the door again, a little more aggressively, as if her noise would make someone—other than a barking dog—appear.
Mom doesn’t like me to answer the door when she’s in the shower, but this knocking and barking had to stop. “Mango! Quiet! Good boy,” I cooed. “Who’s there on the other side of the door? Because there’s about a dozen of us on this side.”
“A dozen? Just my luck that there’d be twelve people in the way,” the voice on the other side whined. “Wait. You’re kidding, right?”
I didn’t reply. Let her sweat it out, with me and my eleven friends on the Extreme Quiet Team. “Listen, I’m with the film crew, and we’ve got to make sure that everyone’s out before we start filming today. Didn’t they leave you a production schedule?”
“No, I don’t have a production schedule,” I said, trying to sound like an annoyed adult executive. “Let me check with my mom.” That last comment kind of blew my cover.
I stuck my head into the bathroom and asked my mom if she had any idea what was going on.
“I completely forgot about the filming schedule,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have said I’d work this morning. Let’s see if Lily’s family can come get you.”
“I can take care of myself,” I said. “I’m used to spending time alone.”
“I know, I know. But this is different. You won’t have anywhere to go.”
I could see her point. I didn’t much like the idea of Mango and me hanging out on a park bench all day.
I went back to the woman who was waiting at the door. “Can’t I just stay inside if we don’t make any noise? I won’t be any trouble,” I tried one last time, trying to stand tall and look older.
/> “Sorry, but no,” said the young woman with the clipboard. “You don’t look like the troublemaking type. It’s just that Joshua, the continuity guy, will have a total freak-out if any little thing changes from scene to scene.”
“Okay, I’ll leave, but it’s my opinion that an occasional background noise, such as a dog bark, could add a little authenticity to your show.” I started pulling my sandals on and tossing keys, dog treats, poop bags, a water bottle, my camera, and my cell phone into my messenger bag.
“I agree completely. But my boss won’t. I’m just the P.A.,” she said.
I looked at her blankly.
“Production assistant. I’m just the production assistant. My name is Celeste, by the way. This is only my second P.A. gig. But I learned the hard way earlier this year that even if you think everything is the same, Joshua can spot the teensiest detail changing from shot to shot. You could open a window a crack, or change the blinds. And then I’ll hear about it. Like that leaf.” She was off whisking a leaf off the dock. I watched her with fascination, until something else caught my eye.
An older woman dressed in a black nylon tracksuit peered around the corner of the cottage next to ours. Mom had confirmed last night that no one was home next door to us. It might make sense that house cleaners were there yesterday, but why would someone be back so soon? Or so early in the day? Our eyes met briefly, and then she backed around the corner again. I was tempted to say, “Hey, Celeste, what about that woman? How come you aren’t on her case to leave?” But someone else was demanding the production assistant’s attention.
“Celeste! We’re ready to set up. Everything ready on your end?”
“Just about,” Celeste said. She turned toward me, adding, “I need this place cleared out in ten minutes, okay?” While Celeste’s back was turned, the woman in black did a modified speedwalk down the dock and toward the street. She carried two large white buckets, one in each hand. They must have been empty, because those things were almost two feet tall and they didn’t seem to slow her down.
I closed the door and gave Mom the update. In the few minutes that I had spent talking to Celeste, she had already managed to get in touch with Lily’s dad—who was going to come pick up Mango and me—and was nearly ready to leave for work. Within five minutes, she and I were headed toward the street.
It was like a different world had sprung up while we slept. Large white umbrellas and light boxes were set up along the dock. Three huge white trucks and trailers, the kind without any logos or names, were taking up most of the street. A police officer was directing cars to turn off Boyer and onto side streets. Any doubts I’d had about whether they were really making a legitimate TV show here vanished. These trucks were the real thing. Seattle isn’t exactly New York or L.A., but the city gets a surprising amount of movie, TV, and commercial action. I’ve spent enough time downtown to know that those seemingly nondescript cargo trucks and vans carry lights, metal rigging, cameras, and tons of other equipment. Even the food wagon is usually unmarked. It’s like they’re trying to go all incognito by not drawing attention to themselves, but the mere fact that a series of these vehicles are parked on a street is like a beacon proclaiming, “Hollywood has come to your little town.” It makes me think of a movie star wearing dark sunglasses—inside.
“Hannah!”
“Wow, I can’t believe you made it down here already” I said to Dan, Lily’s dad.
“Well, as soon as Lily heard the words ‘film’ and ‘crew,’ there was no way she was going to miss out on the action,” Dan said. “She practically pushed me out the door as soon as I got off the phone.”
“Let’s go see who’s here,” Lily said, smoothing some watermelon-flavored balm on her lips. We headed back to the dock, leaving my mom and Dan to figure out the game plan for the rest of the day.
“You’re hoping to get picked up as an extra, aren’t you?” I asked.
“Aren’t you?” Lily, the aspiring actress, asked, cocking her right eyebrow. “Check this out! I finally perfected the one-eyebrow-up-at-a-time look! Anyway, we can make some money and get discovered. It will probably just be the first of many film roles for me, but at least you’ll get a little spending money and the joy of seeing your name in credits this one time.”
“Thanks for all the confidence you have in me,” I said. Lily blew me a kiss and put on her sunglasses.
“Look out!” said a bearded guy balancing a six-foot metal contraption on top of his shoulder. He’d just missed a woman in black rain gear who had come off the dock, and then the beam swung toward us. Lily and I jumped to the side. The woman must have had a part in the movie, which would explain why she was wearing a waterproof get up—in black, no less—on a sunny Seattle day.
“So, who’s in this movie anyway?” Lily asked.
“I have no idea,” I said. “I don’t even know what they’re—”
“Aaaaarrrrgggghhhh!” A high-pitched scream interrupted me mid-sentence. Then a splash and …
Another scream. This time louder and shriller, coming from out by the dock where the film crew was.
Maybe it was part of the TV show, but it’s true what they say about heart-stopping, bloodcurdling screams. My heart felt all panicky, and my blood felt weird. That’s some good acting going on.
Only it turns out it wasn’t acting.
“They’re dead!” a woman screamed. “They’re all dead!”
CHAPTER 5
MANGO YANKED HIS leash and started running toward the dock. I went along, as if I had any choice when a seventy-five-pound dog with the strength of a two-hundred-pound adult was pulling me. Then again, it’s not as if I wasn’t willing. Something big was happening.
“What if we get down there and find out it was part of the script?” Lily said, running alongside Mango and me.
I slowed down a tiny bit and pulled the pooch back, too. “That would be kind of embarrassing,” I admitted.
“You can’t just run toward danger, Hannah,” Lily said. “We could ruin the shot.”
That slowed me down even more. “Shot? We could get shot?”
“No! We could ruin the shot. As in, get in the way of the camera.”
“That definitely could be kind of embarrassing,” I said.
“It’s not just kind of embarrassing. It’s completely and unforgivingly embarrassing,” Lily said.
A bout of embarrassment wasn’t going to stop Mango and me, however. I have a nose for crime, and I could smell something going on. Well, I couldn’t actually smell anything going on, although some sort of aroma had definitely piqued Mango’s interest. There was a lot of commotion and splashing at the end of the dock.
“Let’s just check it out,” I said to Lily.
“No one will notice us.”
“I can’t work in these conditions,” a weepy and extremely wet woman said as two men helped pull her out of Lake Washington. Another woman immediately draped a blanket around the shivering actress. “The original script I approved didn’t have a water shot,” she said. Her teeth chattered, but her voice projected loud and clear. “I agreed to be a good sport today and go along with your changes, Marcus. But there are dead fish in the water! I think I touched them.”
Dead fish? I looked over the edge of the dock where we stood, expecting to see some foot-long salmon belly up or something. But I couldn’t see anything except dark water. I tightened my grip on Mango’s leash.
“Who is that?” I whispered to Lily. I expect her to know the names of famous people since her mom gets People magazine, but Lily just shrugged. She was intently taking in the film scene.
The wet actress was chewing out a man with a baseball cap and black-framed sunglasses. “You’re going to have to call a wrap for today, Marcus. I absolutely cannot work in these conditions. You’ll need to rewrite this scene for me,” she said, shrugging off a second blanket that some woman was trying to drape around her. “And I expect to have my shoes replaced by the time I get to the hotel.” One of the crew members
had just pulled a high-heeled green-and-gold sandal out of the water. He started to hand it to her, but she turned away from him. “Not that one! I want new shoes,” she screeched. “Cynthia! Call the salon at Gene Juarez. Tell them it’s an emergency and they need to get me in for a full Dead Sea salt scrub and wrap. I’ll definitely need a hot stone massage as well.”
“Yes, Miss Heathcliff,” replied a young woman with a clipboard and a cell phone.
“Monica, please,” the baseball cap man said. “It’s just a little lake water. Think of it as getting back to nature.”
“Marcus, I assure you, dead fish are not part of nature.” The actress narrowed her eyes and scowled at the man she’d called Marcus. She tossed aside the blanket she’d been given and teetered toward the street in a left-right and up-down motion, since she had on only one high-heeled shoe.
“Monica,” he called after her. “You’re absolutely right to take the rest of the day off. Get some rest. We’ll talk tonight.”
“So that’s Monica Heathcliff,” Lily said to me. “I didn’t recognize her soaking wet.” The name didn’t mean anything to me, and so far I wasn’t too impressed with this actress’s people skills.
“Okay, everyone, let’s take a break. Be back here in forty-five. We’ll need to get some more shots with this same lighting.”
They were breaking after about fifteen minutes of working? Maybe I could get interested in this Hollywood scene.
“Hey, girls, what are you doing out here?” Mom rushed up behind us.
“That’s exactly what I want to know,” the guy named Marcus said, glaring at us. “What are you doing on my set?”
Mom immediately held out her hand and said, “I’m Maggie West, the house sitter for one of the residents on the dock.”
“Marcus Dartmouth, director, Dockside Blues,” he said, in that fast-clipped way people who think they’re important always introduce themselves on TV shows.
“Nice to meet you,” Mom said. “The girls were just—”