Taffy Sinclair 010 - Taffy Sinclair Goes to Hollywood Read Online Free Page B

FOUR
    "G ood morning, Miss Sinclair. "
    Taffy jumped, startled at the formal greeting. She had been walking along, practicing her lines under her breath and looking nervously toward the set where the grips were moving the equipment around and the gaffers were setting up the lights.
    " Good morning, " she said, and smiled at the cameraman who had spoken to her. Just ahead was the gray stone school building. As she got closer, she could see that it was really just a fake front made of plywood painted to look like gray stone.
    Before she had gone much farther, Marie and Tony swooped down on her, checking her makeup and hair. Marie dabbed a little powder on her face to cut the shine, and Tony pulled a can of hairspray out of what resembled a carpenter ' s tool belt and shot a couple of squirts at the curls around her face. When he put the hairspray back, she noticed that the pockets on his belt also contained a butane curling iron and assorted combs and brushes so that he could do major repairs to an actor ' s windblown hair right on the set.
    " Terrific, " he said, giving her a thumbs-up sign. " Break a leg! "
    " Let ' s rehearse the scene now, Taffy, " Jerry called to her from the base of the school steps.
    Taffy started toward him and then stopped, her heart thudding in her chest. Members of the crew were crawling all over the steps, getting the set ready for the shoot. The assistant director was there, too, conferring with the script supervisor while other crew members milled around or stood in small groups. But in the middle of all this commotion, looking totally composed and in control of the situation, stood Paige Kramer, her flame-red hair glinting in the morning sunlight. And on the steps below Paige, glancing up at her as if she were a queen, were Chelsea, Megan, and Raven.
    Taffy took a deep breath and moved forward again. She couldn ' t let Paige see her hesitate or think that she was afraid. She would have to be a real actress and pretend that everything was cool. After all, she reminded herself, in this story my character, Tiffany Stafford, is the heroine, and Paige Kramer ' s character, Jillian Morris, is the villain.
    " Hi, everybody, " she called out as she hurried to join the others on the steps.
    Everyone said hello, including Paige, and Raven gave her a big smile that made her feel he was definitely glad to see her.
    " Okay, kids, let ' s set up the scene, " said the director. " Now, Taffy, remember that Tiffany Stafford is still pretty new in school in this scene, and she doesn ' t realize two important things. One, Jillian Morris and her friends are only pretending to like her when in reality they ' ve started a gossip campaign against her, and two, Tiffany doesn ' t know yet that the boy she has a crush on, Eric Peterson, who ' s played by Raven, is actually Jillian ' s boyfriend. "
    Taffy nodded. She had read the script all the way through and knew also that Tiffany was able to break down the other girls ' hostility against her in the end. It would be easy in the movie because all she would have to do was follow the script. But she had the feeling that dealing with Paige Kramer in real life wasn ' t going to be nearly so simple.
    " Now let ' s get in position, kids, " Jerry went on. " Paige, you and Chelsea and Megan are talking together on the steps when Taffy walks up to you and tries to make friendly conversation. You go along with her and even pretend to like her until Raven walks up and you see by the look on her face that she ' s getting a crush on him. That ' s where we cut. Is everybody ready? "
    Taffy nodded and stepped back out of camera range while the three other girls found their chalk marks on the steps. Raven, too, stepped away from camera range on the other side of the girls. But as she and Raven stepped back, crew members rushed in from all sides, taking readings for the lighting, measuring the distance from the actors to the cameras, and testing the microphone booms, and the director