Lost in Hollywood

by Cindy Callaghan

  “Bless you.”

  “No, these are Jimmy Choo.” She showed me the label on the shoes.

  I’d heard of Jimmy Choo, but I’d never actually seen a pair in person. From Payton’s reaction, I’m guessing she hadn’t either. After eying the sparkling heel for another second, Payton gasped again. “Oh no!”

  “What now?” I asked.

  “They’re a size EIGHT!” Payton and I were both a size eight.

  ABJ sat on a chaise lounge and curled her legs under herself. “Try them on,” she said.

  “Really?” Payton asked.

  “Truly?” I asked.

  “Have fun.”

  And try them on we did.

  Everything.

  “Which dress would your wear to the ceremony for your new star?” I asked her.

  “Oh, none of these. I would get something designed special.” She added, “Probably I would find some new up-and-coming designer and give him or her a boost in their career.”

  “So, you’ve thought about it?” Payton asked.

  “Of course. I’m an actress, after all.” She watched us trying on all her fancy clothes and jewels. “I remember your mother doing the same thing when she was your age, only her feet were already a size nine, so all the shoes hurt her.”

  We modeled the outfits, took pictures, and most importantly, kept a list of the brand names. ABJ put a tick mark after the ones that had multiple articles of clothing. She had a system of making four vertical tick marks and then a fifth one diagonally across, making little batches of fives. My brain tingled: the batches looked just like the little hay bales on the ripped paper clue. I filed that deet in my mentalus storageum, I definitely needed to think about it later, but right now I was playing dress-up—big girl style.

  Not five minutes later we were dressed to the nines. I was ready for a black-tie ball, while Payton donned cruise wear. Complete with a visor and tennis racquet.

  “You look like a million bucks,” Payton said, flipping the label of the dress I was wearing. “Literally.”

  “Who ever thought that collecting raw data could be so glam?” I asked.

  “And the fun is just beginning,” Payton said. “We still get to do the analysis.”

  “Maybe not—” I held our hay bales of raw data. “I don’t think we’re gonna need to chart to show us which store.”

  The winner was clear: Dior.

  “D,” Payton said. “I think I just gave myself chills.”

  I asked ABJ, “What do you think about Dior?”

  She was staring in her mirror again. “Think? I think it’s good. Easter is good, too.”

  “Easter? What?” Payton asked.

  I looked at her closely. “I think she’s tired.”

  “I guess hours of dress-up, I mean research, will do that,” Payton said.

  “You want to lie down?”

  “As beautiful as an Easter lily,” ABJ mumbled. “I went to the Derby on Easter.”

  She must have some wonderful memories of the Brown Derby. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was closed.

  19

  We got into our pajamas. All the while we could hear Grant say, “Eeew! Gross!” Then take a break. Then, “Eeew! Ugh! Yuck!”

  “What do you think he’s doing?” Payton asked.

  I barged in without knocking, and Payton followed. He had an iPad on his lap, eyes covered, but watching something through the cracks of his fingers. He clicked his fingers back together and said, “Oh man. Gross.”

  “What on earth are you watching?” Payton asked.

  “It’s not from Earth. It’s an alien autopsy. Dr. Evans is removing each body part.”

  “Really?” I asked, and took the iPad from him.

  “Hey!”

  “Oh puh-lease. You were hardly watching it,” Payton said. “Besides, this could be important research for the Science Olympics, which we have to get cranking on, Ging.”

  “I know. I know.”

  Payton and I watched Dr. Evans saw the alien skull and remove the brain.

  My medulla oblongata tingled. “I just got an idea of how our project can be ooh la la.”

  “A model of an alien brain?” Payton asked.

  “Not exactly, but that’s good too.” I filed that idea.

  “Give it back.” Grant grabbed the iPad.

  “I’ll get the supplies,” Payton said, “and you can fill me in.”

  “Now?” I asked. “It’s late. What about the five a.m. schedule?”

  “We have”—Payton looked at the app—“seventy-nine hours. And we’ll probably spend about twenty-four of those sleeping and twenty-one of them searching for a hidden treasure, that might be hidden, might not. We don’t really know. All we have to go on is a half chewed-up paper clue, that might be a clue, but might not. We’re not sure.”

  “I’m sure,” I said.

  “But we really don’t know. ABJ doesn’t even know for sure,” Payton said.

  “Whoa,” Grant said. “Are you guys bickering?”

  I yelled at Payton, “If you don’t want to look for the money, you don’t have to!”

  Grant said, “You are so bickering.”

  “If we were Olympic figure skaters who were treasure hunting, or whatever, during the day, do you think we would practice at night?” Payton yelled back.

  Grant turned on his iPad’s camera. “I’m gonna record this.”

  “No, you’re not.” I snatched it out of his hand. “And we are not bickering.” I asked Payton, “Are we?”

  “No.” She sighed. “I’m just tired and I’m worried about the Olympics.” Then she added, “You know how the DeMarcos get under my skin.”

  “I’m tired too,” I assured her. “You think I want to lose to the DeMarcos?”

  Grant said, “DeFart-Os.” Then he started watching the alien autopsy again.

  “No. I know you don’t want to lose.”

  “But this thing with ABJ is really important too. I mean, she could lose her house!”

  “I get it. I get it,” Payton said. “But it’s frustrating to be grasping at straws.”

  “Now we have Dior, maybe that won’t be a straw.”

  “Maybe,” she agreed.

  “And if we drink espresso and eat chocolate, we’ll get energy to work on the project tonight,” I assured her.

  “Good plan.”

  20

  As expected, a Burrito Taxi with a sidecar fringed with plastic shredded lettuce didn’t blend in at the intersection of Rodeo Drive and Wilshire Boulevard. Leo dropped me, Payton, and Margot off in front of a grand hotel displaying multiple flags on its front facade: the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. My mom knew it well from the famous movie Pretty Woman. It’s what she calls “a modern classic.”

  The clean sidewalk bustled with shoppers in high heels and big purses.

  “Pickpockets make a fortune on streets like this,” Margot said. “Tuck your money deep down and don’t let anyone bump into you.”

  She is usually a pessimist, but in this case she had a point, so I pushed my thirteen dollars to the bottom of my front pocket.

  Margot scanned the street again. “Tsk,” she said.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Just that there aren’t enough fire hydrants. I mean, there are the required amounts, but on crowded streets like this, there really should be extra, in case there are two fires at the same time, you know?” Margot asked.

  I thought that the Los Angeles Fire Department probably had all their bases covered, but I had no knowledge of fire preparedness, so I just said, “Uh-huh.”

  Leo handed out business cards to the uniformed bellhops guarding the front entrance as if it was Buckingham Palace. They politely declined the offer. “Not my target market,” Leo said to us.

  “Indeed, I should think not,” Payton said in a hoity-toity British accent that captured the tone of the fancy-pants people and cars around us.

  “Yes, dahling, let’s talk like that on Rodeo Drive,�
� I said.

  “Brilliant plan,” Payton said.

  Then Margot tried, “And we can send the butler to the carriage house for some porridge.” It was a good first try.

  Dior wouldn’t be hard to find since the luxury shopping area was only about three blocks long. The street was lined in palm trees, and people carried large paper shopping bags.

  Dior had an elegant storefront with dangerously skinny mannequins in the windows. Their hair was long and poker straight, their sunglasses huge and round. What caught my eye more than the life-size Barbies were the white lights woven throughout the display. It gave me an idea for our project that I tucked among the other stuff cluttering my mentalus storageum.

  Payton opened the door and held it for us. “After you, dahlings.”

  “Why, thank you. You are too kind,” I said.

  “Why yes . . . you are . . . you are . . . sweet as an English meadow with . . . with . . . porridge.” Margot broke character. “I’m running out of ideas.”

  “It happens,” I said. “Keep trying. It gets easier.”

  Once in the store, I admired the sparkling metal of the racks and the shine on the white floor. “Now, start looking. And act natural.”

  Within a minute of starting our serious hunting mode, the only customer left the store, leaving it practically silent. A saleswoman in a tight black dress and an equally tight updo asked, “May I help you?”

  “Oh. You see it’s Mum’s birthday.” Payton looked at her name tag. “Ms. Taggart, is it? Would it be improper if I were to refer to you as Grace?”

  “That would be fine.”

  “Lovely. Well, I thought a wee bit of perfume or a grand scarf would be brilliant. Do you think she would fancy that?” Payton asked.

  Grace led Payton to the perfume counter while Margot and I continued to sleuth. I hunted for a box, a closet, a space of any kind that might be suitable for safekeeping a treasure, but the store was sparse, with only a few round racks and wall hangers.

  I patted the wall space behind each of the hangers to feel for a door, but there was only wall. Then, I thought, maybe it only looks like a wall. I’ve watched enough episodes of classic Batman to know that all it takes is one lever to open a secret door with poles that you slide down to get to a cave. I started touching anything I could get my hands on.

  Grace sprayed a ribbon with fragrance and held it out for Payton to sniff.

  While Payton considered her options, Grace bent down to where Margot was crawling under some cocktail dresses. “Looking for something?”

  I held my breath. Is Margot going to be able to think fast?

  “Indeed I am.” Margot started out strong. “If I may be quite frank with you, Miss Taggart. There’s a problem.”

  There is?

  “There is?”

  “Yes, ma’am, madam, m’dam.” Margot stumbled a little. “The problem is that I don’t see what I am looking for.” And she recovered.

  “I am sure I can find anything we have in this store.”

  Even a hidden treasure?

  “Precautions,” Margot said. “Pre-cau-tions. Do you know what I mean?”

  Huh?

  “Pre . . . No. I don’t,” Grace said.

  Where is Margot going with this?

  Margot slid her headphones on and bent the microphone in front of her mouth. “Hello? Cheerio. Are you there?”

  She pretended to listen to someone in her headset.

  “I am at the location.” She listened again. “I will, and I will undoubtedly resume this conversation with you after tea and biscuits.”

  Tea and biscuits? Not bad, Margot.

  To Grace she explained, “I . . . we . . . are undercover inspectors with the Office of Safety Inspections for Retail Establishments National.”

  “SIREN,” Payton confirmed, coming up behind us.

  I added, “You have most certainly heard SIREN’s work in the area of precautions.”

  “No.” Grace put her hands on her hips. “What are you girls, thirteen? And you’re British. I don’t believe you’re working with any US office of any kind. Are you trying to steal something? I can call the police right now.”

  Oh, that would be just great! The LAPD probably already has a complaint from the Dolby Theatre about girls pretending to be paranormal investigators.

  Margot laughed with a snort. “Steal?” She laughed again. “You see, my fair maiden . . . there is . . . umm . . . porridge . . . and the carriage house . . .”

  Porridge signaled that things were heading south.

  “Precisely correct,” I helped her. “The US office is in a carriage house in Washington, DC, which is where teens are trained to be undercover operatives over school breaks. They quite fancy teens because they go undetected.”

  Margot added, “Easier to be undercover if you’re undetected. Don’t you fancy?”

  “Seems foreign teens are even more undetectable,” Payton said. “Now, let us tend to the matter at hand, which is the precautions.” To Margot she asked, “Are you going to explain the problem, Lady Buckingham?”

  Margot tossed her hands up. “There aren’t any! There are no safety precautions anywhere that I can see. And without such measures in place to protect your customers from fires, hurricanes, tsunamis, tarantulas, monsoons, sandstorms, floods—”

  “We’re in California,” Grace complained. “Floods are unlikely.”

  “My good lady,” Payton explained. “The precaution epidemic is nationwide.”

  “Fine.” Grace rolled her eyes. “So what happens without the precautions?”

  “You get a ticket, a fine, and a strongly worded letter,” Margot said.

  “Okay,” Grace said. “Just give it to me, and get going.”

  We can’t leave without more searching.

  “And,” I added. “As the lady of the store, your photo will be posted on SIREN’s website, and Dior is required to dismiss you.”

  “What? I lose my job?”

  “It isn’t personal, milady madam,” Margot said. “It is in the statute.”

  “I get a forty percent discount!”

  “That is a fancy percentage. Can’t we help her?” Payton asked Margot.

  “I think perhaps . . .” Margot looked around the store. “We may find some precautions, if we simply look carefully enough.”

  “Oh yes!” I agreed. “We had grand luck at Saks Fifth Avenue when they had their Jimmy Choo precaution problem.”

  “So let’s help her and have a careful look, shall we?” Margot said, “Don’t fret, my good lady, my lass, we are trained for this. With a little luck, we’ll find enough precautions for you to keep your station.”

  “Fine. Look.”

  I felt bad lying to Grace like that, but it really was fun.

  I asked, “Are there storage spaces or hidden chambers? Passageways?”

  “There’s a small closet in the back room where we keep holiday decorations.”

  “Blimey!” Payton exclaimed. “There could be one there. Let’s look.”

  We followed her into a room where it looked like employees could eat lunch. “There.” She pointed to a closet door covered with all types of employment-related signs, IF YOU GET HURT AT WORK . . . , TEN WAYS TO SPOT SHOPLIFTING. And big words said, THINK OF YOURSELF AS A CUSTOMER.

  “Do you have a key to that padlock?”

  “Only the manager does. And she won’t be in today.”

  “Then I suppose our work here is done,” Margot said. She moved the mic to her mouth.

  Payton said, “What a pity to lose that forty percent. Tsk. Tsk.”

  “No!” Grace cried. “Let’s get that lock open.”

  “Brilliant idea,” Payton said.

  The sales clerk dumped out a box of tools that she found under a sink. A pair of bolt cutters was among the pile.

  “This will work lovely,” British Payton said, then she wrapped the cutter around the lock and snap! It came loose.

  I saw a tub at the bottom of the pile
labeled DERBY DAY. I figured they were decorations related to the Kentucky Derby horse race . . . but derby . . . like Brown Derby . . . and a D . . . actually two Ds.

  Hmmm. Maybe we were onto something.

  I moved the boxes labeled CHRISTMAS, VALENTINE’S DAY, and FOURTH OF JULY onto the floor until I got to the dusty Derby Day box.

  I cracked open the lid and peeked inside.

  First I saw feathers.

  Then I saw hats—wide-brimmed hats dressed up with feathers and flowers. The kind worn to the Kentucky Derby. These were probably for mannequins.

  “Not here,” I said to Payton.

  Grace slumped. “No precautions at all?”

  “This happens sometimes. Terribly sorry, my good lady.” Payton moved back toward the front of the store. I followed her.

  Grace sniffled. “Bye-bye, forty percent.”

  “Wait.” Margot looked serious. To Grace she said, “Oh rubbish! I’m not going to call this in. You are a good lady. I cannot bare to see you removed from your station.” To us she said, “I fancy making an exception.”

  We left the store with only a paisley scarf for Mum’s birthday.

  “You just shocked the heck out of me,” I said to Margot.

  “I shocked ME,” she said. “That was so, so, so much fun. Can we do it again?”

  “But of course, dahling.” I dramatically swept the scarf around my neck and lifted my knee, offering it in a knee high-five to both of them.

  21

  Leo asked, “Where to next?”

  I pointed up to the hills to the Hollywood sign snuggled behind a mix of clouds and smog. “That’s the last D on our list.”

  “Oh, well that’s gonna be difficult,” Leo said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I’ll explain in the car,” Leo said. “If we park somewhere else, I can sell a few burritos while we talk. Ain’t nobody on this street buys food from the back of a taxi.”

  I opened the passenger door of the Burrito Taxi and put my arm behind my back.

  “One-two-three-shoot!”

  Payton put out paper.

  I put out rock.