The Zucchini Warriors (21 page)

The young star shrugged. “I’m fine, Goose. It didn’t even touch me.”

“Cut!
Cut!
” Dinkman glared at the little man in white. “Get off my set, you lunatic!”

Goose Golden bristled. “As Jordie’s personal manager, I formally protest this unnecessary risk to his well-being!”

Dinkman looked disgusted. “It was a baseball, not a hand grenade. Beat it, Goose, before your face breaks the cameras.”

Golden put a protective arm around Jordie. “My client refuses to work until safety conditions have improved on this set.”

The director reddened. “You’re the most annoying idiot in Hollywood! You haven’t changed since you represented Waldo the Waltzing Alley Cat!”

“I still don’t think catnip breaks are unreasonable,” the manager said righteously. He reached into his white warm-up jacket and produced a thick legal document. “Now, if you’ll refer to the ‘Dangers to Person’ clause of J.J.’s contract, page 31, subsection 19C, paragraph (ii) —”

Dinkman sighed heavily and turned to Sidney. “Sorry, kid. You’re history.” Golden looked triumphant. “Okay, we need another ballplayer. You.” His finger was pointing at Bruno and Boots. Bruno jumped forward eagerly. “No, not you, Casanova. The blond kid beside you.”

“Aw, come on!” cried Bruno in exasperation. Tossing a sideways grin over his shoulder, Boots took over Sidney’s glove. By this time, the reflecting walls were back in place, and the filming began again. Sidney jogged over to Bruno. “I washed out,” he said sadly.

But Bruno was already sauntering casually past the sawhorses, edging ever closer to camera range. “Pssst! Bruno!” This from Boots between catches. “Get out of here!”

Bruno grinned blissfully and continued his stroll. An excited murmur passed through the ranks of the Macdonald Hall students.

“Hey, check out Bruno!” exclaimed Larry. “He’s putting himself in the movie!”

His hands clasped behind his back, Bruno promenaded like a retired millionaire surveying his estate. By this time, all the boys had noticed him and were watching in fascination. He walked right up to Jordie Jones, murmured, “Hey, how ya doin’?” and kept on going.

“Cut!
Cut!
” Seth Dinkman’s face was approaching the colour of Bruno’s jacket. “Kid —” he began.

An all-too-familiar voice interrupted. “Walton,” it said, “perhaps you can spare me a minute of your valuable time.”

Everyone wheeled. William R. Sturgeon, alias The Fish, Headmaster of Macdonald Hall, stood behind the sawhorses, arms folded.

Boots put his hand over his eyes.

“Good morning, Mr. Sturgeon,” said Bruno brightly. “We’ve started
Academy Blues
. I’m a typical student walking across the campus.”

“And that, no doubt, is the new school uniform,” said the Headmaster. He turned to Dinkman. “I trust you can shoot around him for the next little while?”

“Please,” said the director gratefully.

“Come along, Walton,” said Mr. Sturgeon, “and we shall discuss last Friday’s assembly, and how I rarely speak just to hear the sound of my own voice.”

Reluctantly Bruno trailed off after the Headmaster. Soon he was seated on the hard wooden bench in the main office of the Faculty Building, facing Mr. Sturgeon across his massive oak desk.

“Now, Walton, bearing in mind that I know you were not selected as an extra for that scene, I require an explanation as to why you were right in the thick of the action.”

“Well, sir,” said Bruno, “you know how it is.”

“Enlighten me.”

“They just needed a bunch of guys goofing around,” Bruno explained, a little shamefaced. “They picked five, and I figured what’s the difference between six and five? I didn’t think they’d even notice me.”

Mr. Sturgeon’s thin lips twitched, but the smile never quite surfaced. “What disturbs me is that my rules were disobeyed — on the very first day, in the very first scene, before breakfast! That must be some sort of record, Walton, even for you.”

Bruno studied the carpet. “I’m sorry, sir.”

The Headmaster sat back in his padded chair. “When I recommended to our Board that it would be good experience for the boys of Macdonald Hall to host a motion picture crew, my only reservation was that our students might not be mature enough to realize that there would be a time and a place for their participation. Your time and place was not today. You will wait until that time comes. And if that time never comes, you will take it like a man. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. However, it is necessary that you be punished.” He looked Bruno over from head to toe. “Actually, the person who truly merits punishment is your tailor. But as
he
is not a registered student of Macdonald Hall,
you
will pick up litter on the campus every afternoon for one week. Dismissed.”

As Bruno scampered off, Mr. Sturgeon heaved a great sigh, unable to shake the feeling that he had left something unsaid. He glanced out the window. Yes, there was Walton, sprinting at top speed, not for the dining hall for breakfast, not for Dormitory 3 to change his clothes, but straight back to the east lawn and the movie set.

* * *

An hour after lights-out that night, Bruno and Boots crouched in the window of room 306 in Dormitory 3, scanning the deserted campus.

Boots stuck his head and shoulders out the window and looked over toward the Housemaster’s room.

“Fudge’s light is still on,” he whispered.

Bruno glanced at his watch in annoyance. “Doesn’t he know what time it is? Anybody up this late has no business being a Housemaster. What a lousy example he’s setting for us students. Okay, he’s got five minutes. Then I’m going, no matter what.”

Boots laughed. “You’re just looking for someone to keep you company on garbage patrol.”

“I hate waiting,” growled Bruno. “It’s almost as thrilling as making a movie! Do you believe those idiots? Thirteen hours of Cutesy Newbar walking around! And tomorrow the shooting schedule calls for thirteen
more
hours of Cutesy Newbar walking around. I mean, what kind of a movie is this — a training film on walking?”

“You heard Mr. Dinkman,” said Boots. “They don’t just film the script scene by scene. They do it out of order and edit it together at the end. They’re not even shooting the whole movie here — just the outside stuff. They’re doing the interiors in California.”

“I think they’re just covering up the fact that they’re not too bright,” grumbled Bruno. “I mean, stupid Cutesy must have changed his clothes twenty times today. And for what? Walking around.”

“Mr. Dinkman explained all that,” said Boots. “They need to get him in every outfit. That way, when they cut from an inside shot to him walking, he’ll be wearing the right stuff. Hey, Fudge’s light just went out.” Now that the coast was clear, the two boys eased themselves over the sill and stepped outside into the cover of the bushes. Then, silently, they darted past the dormitories, scampered across the highway and scaled the wrought-iron fence surrounding Miss Scrimmage’s Finishing School for Young Ladies. “It’s amazing to see the place so quiet,” observed Boots, gazing up at the darkened windows.

“It’s amazing to see the place still standing,” said Bruno in disgust, “after the display they put on every time his Royal Cutesiness blew his nose. I’m going to have something to say to Cathy about that.” He picked up a handful of pebbles and tossed them at a second-floor window.

A shadowy head appeared. “Come on up.”

Boots in the lead, they shinnied up the drainpipe.

“Just don’t start chewing them out until we’ve heard their side of the story,” Boots whispered. “I’m sure Cathy and Diane had nothing to do with that teenybopper stuff. They probably don’t even like Jordie Jones.”

At the window, blonde Diane Grant helped them into the room.

Bruno and Boots stared. The walls were plastered with posters of Jordie Jones movies, with eight-by-ten glossies of the actor himself filling in every available space. Several of the WELCOME, JORDIE signs lay in the corner under a stack of movie magazines that featured the teen idol. Diane wore a Jordie Jones T-shirt and a button featuring three-year-old Jordie’s face as Cutesy Newbar.

At that moment, the door opened and Cathy Burton whirled in. “Great news, Diane! Wilma sold us the mug!” She waved a glass coffee cup with Jordie Jones’s smiling face, then caught sight of Bruno and Boots. “Oh, fantastic, you’re here! What’s he like?”

Bruno knew exactly what she was talking about, but he folded his arms in front of him and set his jaw. “What’s who like?”

“Jordie, of course!”

“Jordie — Jordie —” mused Bruno. “It doesn’t ring a bell.”

Cathy exploded. “You walked right by him! You spoke to him! We saw you!”

“Oh,” said Bruno in sudden recognition. “You must mean Cutesy Newbar. Well, let me think. It’s kind of hard to judge because he had his pants on. But on the whole, all things considered, I would estimate that, on a scale of one to ten, I liked him about negative twelve.”

“Why?” wailed Diane. “What did he say to you?”

“Say?”
repeated Bruno, as though she had suggested the impossible. “Speak to a common peasant? Don’t be ridiculous. He might lose his standing as a conceited jerk.”

“To be fair,” Boots put in, “you were in the middle of where you weren’t supposed to be. They gave out scripts, and I don’t remember any part where a guy in a red velvet jacket comes by for a conversation.”

“You’re just jealous,” added Diane.

“Of Cutesy Newbar?” Bruno exploded. “I feel sorry for the guy. How would you like it if, by your third birthday, everybody on earth with a TV set had already had a good look at your
derrière
? Frankly, I don’t see how he can show his face in public.”

“Cut it out,” pleaded Cathy. “We need your help to figure out some way to get to meet him!”

“Wait a second,” said Boots in annoyance. “What do we look like — marriage brokers?”

“Oh, please!” Diane wheedled. “Just do this one little favour!”

“Seems like we’re doing you a lot of favours this year,” Bruno snapped. “How about all those fireworks we’re hiding for Miss Scrimmage’s golden anniversary celebration?”

“Who can think of a bunch of dumb fireworks when Jordie Jones is right across the road?” squealed Cathy.

“I can,” said Boots feelingly. “Especially if The Fish calls a dorm inspection and finds thirty kilos of dynamite under our beds! Or worse, if they go off and blow us to kingdom come!”

“Now you’re being paranoid,” said Cathy. “See what jealousy does to a person? Look how mad you’re getting.”

Bruno swung a leg over the windowsill. “This isn’t mad at all. This is a friendly disagreement. Mad is when the guy goes home and never comes back again. And if he sees Cutesy Newbar on the way, he gives him a good swift kick in the part that made him so famous.” He heaved himself outside and began to descend.

After a shrug at Cathy and Diane that was half reproach and half apology, Boots followed.

Gordon Korman’s first book,
This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall!
, was published when he was only fourteen. Since then he has written more than seventy teen and middle-grade novels, including six more books about Macdonald Hall. Favourites include the
New York Times
bestselling
The 39 Clues: Cahills vs. Vespers Book One: The Medusa Plot
;
Ungifted
;
Schooled
; and the Hypnotist, Swindle, and Island series. Born and raised in Canada, Gordon now lives with his family on Long Island, New York.

This Can’t Be Happening at Macdonald Hall!

Go Jump in the Pool

Beware The Fish!

The Wizzle War

The Zucchini Warriors

Lights, Camera, Disaster!

The Joke’s on Us

“I love riots.”

—Bruno Walton

Macdonald Hall is a grand old boarding school. Its ivy-covered buildings have housed and educated many fine young Canadians.

But this year there are two students who want to shake things up a little: Bruno Walton and Boots O’Neal. They’re roommates and best friends, and they know how to have fun. To Headmaster Sturgeon — a.k.a. The Fish — they’re nothing but trouble.

Soon they have to face their worst nightmares. Boots is moved in with George Wexford-Smyth III, a rich hypochondriac, and Bruno has to bunk with science geek Elmer Drimsdale.

But they won’t let that spoil their school year, oh no. Whatever it takes — even skunk stunts and an ant stampede — they’ll be together again by the end of the semester.

And this is only the beginning.