Drama, page 2
“Sounds great,” I snapped, wishing the ground could just open up and swallow me whole.
Logan had the grace to change the subject. “You been working out?” He nodded toward Daniel’s sweaty attire.
“Running,” Daniel said. “Gotta watch the weight. Beautiful property. You should come with me tomorrow.”
Logan waved him off. “No way. Only place I’m running is after a football.”
That’s when I lost him to the world of sports talk with Daniel. I doubt either of them even noticed when I walked away.
I think he did not know, my friend Zoe texted when I told her about how Logan stood me up that morning. To Nikos, I must explain what I say very carefully. Boys often do not understand.
Nikos was Zoe’s boyfriend. I had managed to set them up when Nikos and I were filming a special in Greece. Sadly, I couldn’t do the same for myself with Logan. We were supposed to meet to watch the sun come up, I answered. What’s not to understand?
You must explain to him why you want to meet to watch the sun, she typed. To you, this meeting was important. To him, he is tired, so he sleeps.
She was right, of course. I never did tell Logan the reason I wanted us to meet. I didn’t tell him that early morning was the only time we could talk alone (in theory, anyway). The rest of the time, we’d be wired with mics and the cameras would be rolling, and I wouldn’t be able to tell him how much I liked him. There. I said it. Only not to him. For that, I wanted the moment to be just right. A quiet spot, a romantic sunrise. But, like I said, there would be other sunrises. I could find the perfect time.
How hard could it be?
“Are you ready, Cassie Bug?” Dad called through the bathroom door. “We should be at the mess hall by now.”
I frowned at myself in the mirror and ran my hand through my very wet blonde hair. The voltage in Australia, I discovered, was too high for my little American-made blow dryer. I had used an adapter, but it still got fried. Which would make Daniel happy—he’s always going on about “how natural is my friend” and he doesn’t like my using blow dryers and straighteners on my hair—but it left me with dripping locks and not enough time to do anything with them. “Go on,” I yelled. “I’ll meet you there.”
My mom and dad argued about that for a minute, but they probably knew they wouldn’t win, so they gave in. Which is how I found myself later, standing at the wide double doors of the mess hall alone, suddenly feeling very intimidated.
The place was huge. And loud. It reminded me of the middle school lunchroom at my school back in Ohio. I went there for only a couple of months, but I’ll never forget that awkward moment when I walked through the door for the first time, staring at the long rows of tables, searching for a familiar face.
“Cass! Over here!”
Bayani stood by one of the back tables, waving me over. I let out the breath I’d been holding, and rushed back to where he sat with Daniel and Logan and some of the other crew members.
Cavin and Liz—the network exec in charge of Logan’s and my minisodes—sat with Victoria and the rest of our team at another table. Mom and Dad stood between the two tables, shaking hands, patting backs, and checking in with the crew. It’s like that whenever we come back from a break: like one big family reunion with a lot of loud catching up and telling of stories from our time away.
Liz had only just joined us in Costa Rica, so she’d never been with us after a break before and she obviously didn’t get the whole reunion thing. She kept pinging her spoon against her water glass, trying to call the group to some kind of order.
“I’ll go talk to her,” Mom offered, and slipped away. Dad veered off to talk with Cavin.
I slid onto the bench next to Logan. He gave me a quick smile and then went back to talking with Bayani. Completely clueless. How was I ever going to tell him how much I liked him? Explain carefully, Zoe had said. I took a deep breath and tapped him on the arm. “Hey,” I said in a low voice. “Can we talk? I need to tell you why I wanted—”
“Ooh, what’s this? Gossip?” Daniel leaned forward onto his elbows. “Spill it. What did we miss?”
“Nothing,” I said too quickly.
“Hmm.” Daniel pressed his lips together and gave me a look that said we’d most definitely be talking about it later. Then he took a sip from his coffee, and his eyes strayed to the other table. “Hey, did you notice that Jack’s back?” He pointed with his chin. “First time since he missed that shoot in Spain.”
Logan watched the other table for a moment. “Yeah, I wondered what happened to him. Where’s he been?”
“Family emergency,” Daniel said. “I heard—”
“He took some personal time,” Bayani cut in, emphasizing the word personal.
“What about the ones who came with Liz?” Logan asked, shifting gears seamlessly. “Looks like we have a whole new crew with our group this time around.”
“Don’t I know it.” Daniel curled his upper lip like the words had gone sour in his mouth. “See the girl?” He pointed, as if we couldn’t tell which one of the crew sitting at the far table wasn’t a guy. Not that we could have missed her with her pink hair. “That’s Deena. She’s your new makeup artist.”
“Aw.” Logan fake-pouted. “You mean you won’t be powdering our noses for us?”
“No,” Daniel sniffed. “I will not.”
“Maybe you’re too indispensible to the When in Rome group,” I told him. “They can’t spare you, so Liz had to bring a backup along.”
“I could have done both.”
Bayani leaned back in his chair, shaking his head. “How many times do I hafta tell you? With this kind of scenery, we’re trying out those panoramic cameras, so we need all the hands we can get. You should be glad she brought an extra helper so you can fill in on the shoots. Good job security.”
It was true. Since we travel with a small crew, almost everyone has two or three jobs to do at a given time. In Costa Rica, Daniel filled in as a boom operator. In Spain, he was our photographer. He was versatile. He didn’t have to feel threatened by some girl with a makeup kit. Even though she did look kind of cool with her bright hair and even brighter smile. As I watched her, she said something to the group at the table then threw her head back and laughed, high-fiving the guy next to her. A guy I’d never seen before.
“Who’s that with her?” I asked.
“New cameraman-slash-tech guy,” Bayani said. “Name’s Ty something or other. Want me to introduce you? He’s going to be your shadow for the next week.”
Bayani started to raise his arm, but Daniel pushed it back down. “Don’t you dare wave them over,” he hissed.
“I wasn’t going to wave them over, just Ty.” Bayani shook Daniel’s hand from his arm. “What is your problem?”
“She’d come, too,” Daniel said, glaring in Deena’s direction. “They’re like a matched set. Tweedledum and Tweedledee.”
“Dude, you need to get a grip,” Bayani said in a low voice. “Seriously.”
Daniel sputtered, and Logan grabbed the chance to change the subject once again.
“Mmm. I smell bacon,” he said. He craned his neck to watch a couple of servers in white chef aprons setting up the breakfast on an old carved-wood sideboard. “When are we going to eat?”
“Soon, I hope,” Bayani said. “I’m so hungry I could eat a—”
“Don’t say it,” I warned him.
“—lot of bacon,” he said.
Just then, Victoria tapped me on the shoulder. “Sorry to interrupt, but your parents request that you join them. You, too, Logan.”
“Aw, man,” Bayani fake-whined. “You guys always get to sit at the big shots’ table.”
“Don’t fret,” Daniel told him. “I’ve sat there before. It’s very boring.”
I shot them both a dirty look, but I couldn’t hide my smile as I stood up to walk to the other table. And that’s when I saw a guy from one of the other groups staring right at me. I think. I wasn’t going to stare back to be sure. I turned away quickly and followed Victoria. This was going to be a long week if the other guests were already gawking. Just wait until the cameras came out. Then we’d really get their attention.
Unfortunately for Victoria, she wasn’t able to make her getaway quick enough after depositing Logan and me at the boring table, and she got stuck sitting with us.
“Stay,” Liz invited her. “You’ll want to join us for a discussion of the day’s itinerary so we can determine when to fit in their school time.”
As our tutor, Victoria was responsible for making sure Logan and I got three hours of schooling each day. Though honestly? Liz didn’t have to worry that Victoria wouldn’t be able to fit those hours into the schedule. Victoria never stopped teaching. I swear she could turn anything into a lesson. I was about to tell this to Liz when she shushed me.
“Quiet now. Here come our hosts.”
Travel tip: English is the primary language used in Australia, but their accent and slang (“strine”) may take some getting used to.
I twisted around on the bench so I could see the front door. Mr. Calder strode into the room, flanked on one side by Riley and a lady I guessed was Mrs. Calder, and on the other side by Becca and an older boy who looked so much like the others, he must have been a brother. All of them wore jeans and cowboy boots and those Australian cowboy hats with the wide brims. The sides of Becca’s hat brim rolled inward. I had to admit she looked really cute.
The family also looked like a posse, striding into the dining hall like that. I was about to whisper my observation to Logan when Riley caught my eye and gave me a quick smile.
“You know him?” Logan asked.
“Met him this morning,” I whispered.
“He the one you were talking to?”
“Yeah. I saw him and his—”
“G’day, all,” Mr. Calder said in a booming voice. “I’m Landon Calder, and this here’s my family. Welcome to our home in the Back of Beyond.”
“The ‘back of beyond’ is another term for the bush, or the outback,” Victoria whispered to Logan and me. “Clever play on words.”
“I like it,” I whispered back.
Liz gave us both a withering stare and looked pointedly toward Mr. Calder.
“Lots on docket today,” Mr. Calder continued, “so g’head and bog in the brekkie ’cause yer gonna need yer strength.”
I had no idea what he had just said, and I gave Riley a questioning look. He gestured with his head toward the breakfast laid out on the sideboard.
“I think he means we should eat,” I said.
Logan practically shot out of his seat. “Good, ’cause I’m starving.”
I followed Logan to the sideboard, where everyone else was just starting to line up. The man I had noticed earlier had taken a spot in the line behind us. This time he wasn’t staring at me; he was fixated on my mom and dad. As they got closer to him, he quickly raised a camera and fired off a couple shots.
“Oh, great,” I whispered to Logan. “A paparazzo.”
“Could just be a rabid fan,” he whispered back. “Probably just recognized your mum and dad.”
That made sense. Especially when, after he had been bold enough to snap his pictures, several of the other tourists from the other groups grabbed their cameras as well. Poor Mom and Dad got waylaid smiling for the fans and making nice. They even stopped to sign a few autographs. We waited for them until Mom waved us on.
“Go ahead and eat,” she mouthed to me.
I continued to the sideboard, grateful that most of the other guests were older, so they probably didn’t watch the kids’ networks. None of them noticed me, which at that particular moment was kind of nice.
The spread looked like your typical farm breakfast—lots of food to fuel up for the work ahead. There were thick slabs of bacon, sausage, eggs, platters of fruit, a variety of cereal, and a huge basket full of rolls and sliced bread.
By the time we filled our plates and returned to the table, most of the crew was finishing up. I watched them wistfully as they escaped out the door to the green trees and sunshine. We still had a production meeting to sit through with Liz and Cavin.
“Eat quickly,” Liz told us. “We have a lot to cover.”
I spooned some jam on my biscuit, but I was disgusted to notice that both Logan and Victoria were spreading some kind of blackish-brown goo on theirs. Vegemite, I realized. I wrinkled my nose when the smell of it reached me.
“Ugh! How can you guys eat that stuff?”
“What?” Logan asked, taking a big bite of his biscuit. “Reminds me of Marmite, like we eat at home.”
I shuddered and squeezed my eyes shut. “Please. Do not talk with that stuff in your mouth. It’s all over your teeth, and it looks like you’ve been eating—”
“Actually,” Victoria cut in, “you should try it sometime, Cassidy. Vegemite and Marmite are quite good for your health. They’re high in B vitamins and folic acid and are a good source of—”
Liz cleared her throat. “I hate to break up this fascinating discussion, but we do have some business to attend to. Eat. Eat.”
I shoveled in my food as quickly as possible, but I still didn’t finish before Liz declared it was time to start our meeting. I pushed my plate aside as she consulted her tablet computer, tapping at the screen.
“You’ll be pleased to know,” she announced, “that the first minisodes which aired in December earned even higher ratings than we anticipated, especially among eleven-to thirteen-year-old girls.” She glanced up at Logan and didn’t even bother trying to hide her doting smile. “As a result, we’ve had our pick of sponsors and have added several to our lineup. We’ll discuss their requirements as we go along. Meanwhile, Logan, the network would like to see you become more involved in the blog. With your following—”
“The blog?” Logan asked.
“Yes, yes.” Liz glanced up impatiently. “They’d like to see you contribute more to drive up readership on the blog.”
I set down my fork. Contribute more? Logan didn’t contribute at all. And it wasn’t the blog, it was my blog. I’d started it as a sort of long-distance diary of my travels for my grampa, who was sick at the time. The network didn’t even care about it until they noticed how many people were reading what I wrote. Then they offered to host the blog on the When in Rome site, so I could have more features, more bandwidth, and more security. I would never have accepted their help if I had known what would come of it.
When I was in Costa Rica, someone hacked into my blog, so the network added even more security protections, making it so I couldn’t post directly to the blog anymore. I had to write up my entries and send them to the network and someone there would upload them. And approve them. Little by little, I was losing control of my own blog. And now they wanted to completely take it over? No way.
“Um, Liz,” I began.
She held up her hand like a traffic cop. “Hold that thought. I think you’ll want to hear what we have planned for you while you’re in Australia.” She glanced down at her tablet again. “Cassidy, the Hot Spot would like to feature you on their website to answer questions for their readers. We’ll do that tonight before dinner. Later this week, the number one station in Melbourne will be sending their entertainment anchor up for an interview, which will be excellent exposure for the show. And Teen Scene magazine would like to feature the two of you in their Fall Fashion issue.”
“Fall?” Logan asked. “It’s January.”
“The seasons are reversed in Australia,” I told him. “Fall starts in March here.”
He rolled his eyes. “I know. But it’s January.”
“Yes, well,” Liz told him, “these types of publications are laid out months in advance. Their photographer will be up on Saturday.”
And on she went. We’d be going into a town called Mansfield, would go horseback riding around the property, would learn how to work the ranch, and would even go camping in the bush. She was about to tell us more, but just then Bayani burst through the dining hall door and marched up to our table.
“Guys,” he said, “we’ve got a problem.”
“We went to go get set up for the outdoors shoot,” he explained to Liz, “and when we got to the storage room, we found it flooded. We’ve got boxes of equipment in there, half of it ruined. We’re talking computers, prompters, connector cables, the whole nine yards.”
Cavin deserted Mom and Dad and crossed to our end of the table. “Flooded? Whatd’ye mean, flooded?”
Bayani shot him a look that could curdle Vegemite. “I mean water,” he said. “Lots of it. Running down the wall and all over the boxes. Check out this list.” He shoved a clipboard into Cavin’s hands. “All of it ruined.”
“Oy, what’s all the shemozzle?” Mr. Calder pushed out through the kitchen’s swinging doors, wiping his hands on a dish towel.
Cavin and Bayani explained about the flooded storage room and the ruined equipment.
Suddenly, Mr. Calder dropped his swagger and, strangely, a bit of his Australian accent. “I can assure you,” he said in a low voice, “this sort of thing has never happened before. I can’t imagine how—”
“Perhaps a leak,” Mom said. “A burst pipe?”
“Let’s go have a look,” Dad suggested.
“Good oil.” Mr. Calder eyed the curious looks of the remaining diners and added, “We’ll cover any damages, of course.”
“Of course,” Cavin agreed.
“The important thing,” Liz said, “is that we are able to stick to the shooting schedule. We will be able to stick to the schedule, won’t we?”
Bayani looked at her like her hair had turned green. “Half of our equipment is ruined,” he said. “Without it, we can shoot only one group at a time.”
Cavin shook his head. “No good. We have only the one week to get everything in the can.”
“Well, that’s it, then,” Dad said. “We’ll have to find a place to rent replacement equipment, like we did when the airline lost our baggage in Spain.”
