Lost in Hollywood
Page 12
Payton pushed the button and half of the Christmas lights went out.
We paused.
I noticed Mrs. Walsh write something down.
I said, “This affects all of the brain’s functions.”
Payton said, “People afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease will suffer nerve cell death and tissue loss, causing the organ to shrink dramatically.”
And now, for the kapow.
Payton lifted a veil that covered the second brain of our project. It looked very different from the first one.
I said, “This is what a brain affected by Alzheimer’s disease looks like.”
There were oohs and aahs. Hello, kapow.
Payton said, “You will see the cortex has shriveled up, and the hippocampus has shrunk.”
I used a laser pointer to direct the audience’s eyes to our final poster. “You will see here in pictures from a doctor in California, various images of the brain in varying states of decomposition.”
Payton said, “The speed of progression of Alzheimer’s disease varies greatly. In addition to medications, individuals can help slow the development of the disease by doing these four things: maintaining physical activity; eating healthy; continually having mental challenges; and frequently socializing with other people.”
“Alzheimer’s disease has a devastating effect on individuals and families,” I said. “As the disease gets worse, people may not recognize loved ones, or be able to take care of themselves.”
Together Payton and I both said, “Thank you for looking at our presentation of how Alzheimer’s disease affects a healthy brain and what people can do to slow the progression.”
Our friends, teachers, family, and competitors clapped and we bowed.
Mrs. Walsh didn’t say anything. She simply nodded, wrote on her clipboard, and progressed to the next project.
Payton whispered to me, “Two words: kapow.”
Finally Mrs. Walsh reached the DeMarcos.
Victor DeMarco explained how they’d made a robot out of parts from a Roomba vacuum cleaner, a blender, and an old record player.
His twin, Wyatt DeMarco, pushed a button to show how their robot could dance. A figure made out of Play-Doh, dressed in a tuxedo, bow tie, and top hat, spun around on the record player’s turntable. Then it rode around on the Roomba, which Wyatt controlled with a remote.
“And now for the big finale,” Victor said. He tossed a tomato, an onion, and a clove of garlic into the robot’s top hat, where they were blended up.
Wyatt returned the robot to its starting place, opened a bag of tortilla chips, and dipped one into the top hat. “Salsa,” he said.
The kids clapped and cheered and helped themselves to chips and dip.
“Appetizers?!” I asked Payton as we waited for the winner to be announced.
“Seriously?” Payton asked. “How can we compete with appetizers?”
“You know what we should have given away?” I asked.
“Kittens!” we both said.
Mrs. Walsh stood at the microphone at the front of the gymnasium. “Clearly science can be fun; and I encourage fun.”
Mrs. Walsh was about the most un-fun teacher at our school, but whatever.
“But I applaud the team that took this Science Olympics to a seriously personal level and educated us all on the devastating effects of an all-too-common illness,” she said as she rested her clipboard on her thighs. “I have no doubt that this year’s first place winners are Payton Paterson and Ginger Carlson. Great job, girls.”
We won!
We bumped our hips together.
“Get to it, twins,” Payton said.
“A bet’s a bet,” I added.
We followed the DeMarcos to the front of the school, where they tossed their jeans and oxfords into a pile and ran around the football field in their boxer shorts.
I took a picture of the pile of clothes and—swoop—posted it on QuickPik, because if it wasn’t on QuickPik, it was like it never really happened.
35
“We won,” I told ABJ over the phone. I filled her in on all the details. “Are you ready for the big ceremony?”
She said, “I don’t know if I can do it.”
“What? Why? You’ve waited forever for this.”
“I know. But I am so nervous. I haven’t done a big event in such a long time. Maybe it would be different if you were here.”
On the way to the luggage carousel at LAX, I passed a TV in the airport. The commercial caught my eye. “Payt, check it out.”
It was a commercial for my dad’s latest gadget. The official spokesperson was Harry, from the Dolby. Once he and Dad started working on the prototype, he resigned and now he works full-time for Dad.
Harry on the TV was saying, “If you’re anything like me, you like to wear your pants up high.” Harry hiked up his pants and secured them there by tightening his belt. “But this can cause discomfort.” He turned to show the audience his wedgie.
Then Patel Poplawski from Bounce Land walked into the commercial and said, “You know what you need, my main man? The Anti-Wedgie Pad.” P. Pop held up Dad’s invention. It was a soft plastic mold in the shape of a butt. He said, “I’m wearing one right now, which is why I don’t have a wedgie.” P. Pop turned around and showed the viewers the seat of his pants: no wedgie.
The next frame of the commercial showed Harry’s smooth butt. “I love the Anti-Wedgie Pad.”
Leo and Mitch loaded our luggage into their cars. They’d brought the Wiener Mobile, which had been redesigned to look just like the Burrito Taxi, and the Caddy. Dad, Mom, and Grant drove in the Caddy with Mitch, whose police bicycle hung off a rack attached to the trunk. Payton and me went with Leo and Margot.
“You wanna?” Margot indicated the Wiener Mobile’s plexiglass sidecar.
I asked, “Really?”
She nodded.
I climbed in. As she was sliding the door shut, she said, “If you feel like you are going to suffocate, just think about rainbows.”
“Good advice.” I smiled at the sight of palm trees, Sunset Boulevard, and Sunset Tower.
“ABJ should be home about the same time as us.”
I heard Leo through the headphones. “Where is she?” I asked into the little wire microphone that I had bent in front of my mouth.
“Getting her hair done with Mrs. Poplawski for the big event. Since you suggested that they go dancing together, they’ve become best friends. Now ABJ is giving her acting lessons.”
“That’s great,” I said. “I’m so glad that she’s socializing with friends.”
“And exercising,” Payton said.
“Oh, she loves it,” Leo said. “She’s also been helping me with my new healthy menu and with advertising.” He pointed out the front window at a billboard. It was a picture of the burrito fleet: the original Burrito Taxi, the Wiener Mobile, and the Caddy. The Caddy wasn’t dressed up like a burrito, but it was covered with magnetic advertisements on every side. ABJ was the customer on the billboard. She looked just like Marilyn Monroe would have if she were thirty years older and biting into a vegetarian, whole-wheat burrito.
“I love it,” I said.
“I know. Right?” Payton said.
Margot said, “The new line of healthy burritos has really taken off.”
“Awesome,” I said about the increased burrito business, and also about my first glimpse of the Hollywood sign. “How has ABJ been feeling?” I asked Leo.
“She takes her medicine and follows the routine that you worked out with her doctor. Harry installed an alarm, and now he’s renting a room upstairs. We got him a walkie too, so she has a whole network of people available to her at the push of a button.”
“Great news,” Payton said.
“That’s right. All rainbows in Hollywood,” Margot said. “With just a touch of smog, not enough to cause a cough or wheeze. You hardly notice it because it’s really all about the rainbows.”
Margot had made a lot of prog
ress, and I was proud of her.
Leo asked, “Do you girls want to pick up ABJ’s dress?”
Payton said, “You know it.”
Leo drove past the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, down Rodeo Drive to Dior. Thanks to Grace Taggart, the mannequins in the windows were modeling the Anti-Wedgie Pad.
Grace had ABJ’s dress waiting for us at the counter.
“Cheer-io,” she said to us.
“Cheerios to you,” I said. “How’ve you been?”
“All your precautions in order?” Margot asked with a laugh.
“Wait. Your accents! You’re not British!” Grace said. “I didn’t think so.”
“Nope,” I said.
“And I figured you made up the whole SIREN thing too.”
“And you still let us snoop around?”
“Sure,” she said. “I thought it was all pretty funny.”
“You’re a good sport,” I said. “Well, do you have it?”
“Ta-da!” Grace held up the dress she had designed especially for Betty-Jean Bergan.
“She’ll love it!” Payton said.
“It’s perfect,” Margot added.
Grace handed us the dress. “See you tonight.”
36
Paparazzi snapped our pictures as white-gloved concierges helped us out of our fleet of vehicles. ABJ was the last to get out. She looked amazing in a long black silk dress and matching boa. She, Payton, Margot, and I all wore the same shoes: pink sneakers!
We followed her down Hollywood Boulevard to an area blocked off with red velvet rope. ABJ paused and smiled for the cameras like the pro that she was.
“Do you have anything you’d like to say?” a French reporter named Murielle DuPluie called to her.
“I would,” she said. “I now consider myself part of Hollywood history. I want to thank the selection committee for choosing me. It is an honor to have my own star on the Walk of Fame.”
• • •
After the ceremony we went to Millions of Milkshakes, where I stole a private minute with ABJ. “You look really happy.”
“I am, Ginger.”
“There’s something I wanted you to know. We have a great bedroom in Delaware just waiting for you, whenever you want it.”
She hugged me.
“Oh, I want one too,” Payton said, rushing over.
“Me too!” Margot said.
ABJ hugged us all.
P. Pop delivered shakes to all of my weird friends and family: my brother in an aluminum foil helmet, two burrito-taxi drivers, an Anti-Wedgie Pad inventor and its official model/spokesperson, a classic movie nut, a Bounce Land manager, and his salsa-dancing mother.
I had a thought. Am I weird too?
Are Payton and I science-y, pink sneaker-y, and maybe paranormal investigator-y impersonating weirdos?
My brain tingled and I smiled at the answer, then I held up my shake. “To ABJ!” I cried, and everyone repeated after me.
Then we all sipped our shakes through Millions of Milkshakes’ new signature straw—a Twizzler!
Turn the page for a sneak peek at Cindy’s next book:
Sydney Mackenzie Knocks ’Em Dead
Even though I hated vampires and just about anything scary, I’d seen Fangs for You five times.
“I loved it more than last week,” my best friend, Leigh, said.
“Me too,” I agreed. “Emiline was amazing. Totally amazing!” I dreamed of being exactly like fifteen-year-old Hollywood sweetheart Emiline Hunt some day. Some day soon. I could see it now: I walk down the red carpet, blinded by camera flashes. My name is in big, bright lights—FANGS FOR ME: STARRING SYDNEY MACKENZIE.
Back in the real world, Leigh and I pushed open the tinted-glass door of the Regal Cinema LA.
“So, what now?” Leigh asked.
“You know what would make this day even more perfect? If we went for some frozi yogi!”
“Yes!” Leigh said. “That is a fab idea. Let’s do it. As in, right now.”
So we walked to Martucci’s, our favorite place for fab frozi yogi. They always had the best flavors. Today it was California Colada, Leigh’s fave, and Satiny Red Velvet Cake, my ultimate. As we walked I checked my phone for messages.
That is when the unthinkable happened. A kid on a skateboard bumped into me and knocked my phone out of my hand. It crashed to the ground and broke in three pieces.
[Pause for dramatic effect.]
“Sorry,” he called as he boarded away. But sorry wasn’t going to help. I’d spent a month secretly cat-sitting to earn enough money for that phone!
“No biggie,” Leigh said. Of course it wasn’t a biggie to Leigh. She had her dad’s gold Amex for “emergencies.” I carried around my mom’s expired card. “We’ll go to the Apple store after this and get you a new one.”
“That’s okay, I want the new iPhone that isn’t out yet,” I lied. “I have to have it.”
“Oh yeah. Me too,” she said. “But what will you use until then?”
I held the three pieces. “This doesn’t look bad. Jim can probably fix it.” Jim is my dad and he is the most un-handy person in the world.
“If he can’t, I think I have my old one in a drawer somewhere. You can totally have it.” Leigh was always sharing her stuff with me.
Leigh forgot about my phone, but I continued to worry that I’d be a social outcast, which was something I couldn’t afford.
We got our yogurt and ate at an outside table and pored over the latest issue of Teen Dream magazine, the one with Emiline Hunt on the cover.
Leigh pointed to a dress. “Your strappy Guess sandals would look good with that.”
“Totally.” The sandals weren’t actually Guess. Leigh had assumed they were and I didn’t correct her. They looked like Guess.
I glanced at my watch. (Actually it was my mom’s.) “I have to get home. Our yoga instructor is coming to the house at five.” It was really Roz’s (aka my mom’s) yoga instructor.
I managed to untangle myself from my web of lies to grab a bus home after another day in my sunny, silver-screeny, thrilling, frozi yogi, medium-popular world in Southern California.
I’m not one to exaggerate, but my parents tried to ruin my life. It started after the yogurt.
I ran into the cream-colored stucco house. “Roz! I’m home and I have a serious problem.”
What if someone is trying to text me right now? I don’t know who, but someone might be.
I did a double-take when I saw Roz and Jim Mackenzie hanging out in the living room. Roz sat on the light tan leather couch, her hands in tight fists in her lap. Jim paced across the Oriental rug, back and forth in front of the piano that no one played.
Am I in trouble for something?
I recalled the recent torture I’d inflicted on my twin six-year-old brothers. But I didn’t think it was bad enough to result in a lecture from both Roz and Jim.
“We have to talk to you about something,” Roz said. “Sit down.”
Jim’s forehead wrinkled. “We’ve sold the sporting goods stores.”
“Okay. Why? Where are you gonna work?”
“We were losing money. In fact, we lost a lot of money.” Based on the fact that I had to cat-sit for a month to make enough money for a cell phone, I figured we couldn’t afford to lose a lot of money.
Roz said, “We’re going to make some changes.”
“Like what?” Am I going to be phone-less or homeless?
“Some very difficult, very big changes.” Her tone told me we were heading toward homeless.
“We’re thinking about this family’s future,” Jim continued. “We need to make more money, and spend less—a lot less.”
Roz made an effort to mutter, “And save more.” Like me, Roz preferred spending to saving.
Jim’s expression lightened and he began to look more like the glass-is-half-full kinda guy I knew. “So we’re starting a new business! One that booms regardless of the economy.”
“A yogurt boutique?”
They shook their heads.
“People aren’t always going to buy expensive clothes or go out to eat,” Jim explained. “We want a business that’s ‘recession proof.’” He made air quotes with his fingers.
“What’s ‘recession proof’?” I copied his quotes.
“You see, Sydney,” Roz began. “As sad as it is, people are always going to die. And they need a place . . . er . . . what I mean is, they need to go to a . . .”
Jim jumped in, “What your mother is trying to say is that we’ve inherited a cemetery. That’s going to be our new family business.”
CINDY CALLAGHAN writes stuff tweens love to read. Her books—Just Add Magic (2010), Lost in London (2013), Lost in Ireland (2016; previously titled Lucky Me (2014)), Lost in Paris (2015), Lost in Rome (2015), and Sydney Mackenzie Knocks ’Em Dead (coming in 2017) entertain young book lovers and reluctant readers alike. When asked what it is about her books that tweens love, she said, “The funny! Without a doubt, it’s the funny situations, characters, and dialogue. A few milk shakes and farts don’t hurt either.” Cindy’s first book, the much-loved Just Add Magic, is now a breakout Amazon Original live-action series.
In addition to writing, Cindy’s passions include animal advocacy, exercising, moviegoing, weekends in the mountains, reading, podcasts, and girlfriends, all of which take a backseat to her three children, husband, and menagerie of rescued pets. A Jersey girl at heart, Cindy has also lived in Los Angeles, but now she calls Delaware home.
ALADDIN SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK
CINDYCALLAGHAN.COM
Visit us at simonandschuster.com/kids
authors.simonandschuster.com/Cindy-Callaghan
Also by Cindy Callaghan
Just Add Magic
Lost in London
Lost in Paris
Lost in Rome
Lost in Ireland (formerly titled Lucky Me)
Coming Soon
Sydney Mackenzie Knocks ’Em Dead