The Invisible Day Read Online Free Page A

made two movies. One was
Romeo and Juliet
, and the other one was a really funny story about a girl who gets lost up a chimney into space.
    Sure enough, Dana Clare stepped out of her trailer and came striding over to the bakery door. She was dressed in regular jeans and ajacket, but I could tell she was wearing movie makeup. She and the director had a little powwow with their heads close together, and then she nodded and said, “Okay, Steven.” He stepped back beside the big camera that was mounted on a complicated apparatus with wheels.
    “Quiet on the set. Thank you. Rolling camera. And action …” Dana fumbled in her jacket pocket for a scrap of paper. Then she looked at the bakery and back down to the paper, comparing. She crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it behind her onto the road. Litterbug. Then she reached for the brass handle on the bakery door.
    “Cut!” called the director. “That was fine, Dana. Let’s do it again for good luck. Could someone put the paper back?”
    An assistant jumped forward with a fresh scrap and scooped up the other one from the street.
    “Uh, Steven,” said Dana. “Shouldn’t there be something on the paper? I mean, it’s blank.”
    “Sure, Dana, write anything you want.” The same assistant gave her a pencil. She scribbled for a moment and then handed it back.
    “Quiet on the set, please.”
    That was my cue. I decided I was going to be in the movie with Dana Clare. I leapt the curb and was at her side in one silent motion.
    Just as the boss said “Action!” I turned and waved at the camera. Dana’s fingers fiddled with her pocket while I grinned and did a dance of happiness. I was maybe eight inches away from her. In fact, my flapping hands made her hair shift a little, like there was a breeze. She glanced up to see where it came from. She looked at the bakery. She looked at me. She looked at the paper. She crumpled the paper and this time let it drop out of her hand onto the sidewalk beside her shoe. She reached for the bakery door.
    “Cut. Print. Beautiful moment of confusion, Dana. Ten-minute break.”
    I waited until everyone was moving before I picked up the paper. I watched Dana Clare saunter back to her trailer. My heart was doing somersaults. I tried to peek in the window, but the blinds were pulled down so I could only see her shadow moving across the light.
    I nearly got crushed by the lighting guys as they maneuvered the equipment to set up the shot inside the bakery. I decided to keep moving. As I strolled along the block, I uncurled the ball of paper. I had to lay it down on the sidewalk so that I could see it to read. It said:
Vesuvio Bakery. Dana Clare.
    I smoothed it out and held it flat between my palms. I put it carefully into my back pocket without creasing the edges. Then I did a cartwheel, right in the middle of Prince Street. And then I danced four blocks before I stopped for breath at the corner of Broadway.

8 • Candy Land
    D ean & Deluca was right across the street.
    Dean & Deluca is the fanciest food store in the world. They have 234 different kinds of cheeses from 106 different countries. I know because I asked one time. We usually just buy cream cheese to go on bagels and sometimes a couple of stinky ones if my mother is having a party. I don’t know who really needs 234 kinds of cheese, but they have them—just in case.
    They also have a special person who comes in to arrange the fruits and vegetables. My mom told us that this person is not a fruit expert but an artist, who knows how to enhance the beauty of one thing by placing it next to a certain other thing. I guess it does take a special eye to do that with potatoes and apples.
    Since I was so close, I thought I might as well go in and have a peek at the candy.
    The candy is displayed in huge glass canisters, so big that even the salesperson needs two hands to take the lids off. The gleaming jars hold chocolate-covered raisins, gum balls, sour balls, Jordan Almonds,