Starring Jules (In Drama-rama)

  This Australian edition first published in 2013

  First published in the United States by Scholastic Press,

  an imprint of Scholastic Inc, in 2013

  Copyright © Text, Beth Ain 2013

  Copyright © Internal illustrations, Scholastic Inc 2013

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland, London

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Fax: (61 2) 9906 2218

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 978 1 74331 455 5

  eISBN 978 1 74343 532 8

  Cover design by Alissa Dinallo

  Copyright © Cover illustration, Anne Keenan Higgins 2013

  Text design by Natalie C. Sousa

  Set in 14.5 pt Electra

  Lights! Camera! Action!

  Read along as Jules Bloom’s star

  continues to rise:

  Starring Jules (as Herself)

  CONTENTS

  take one: spy codes, movie-star bones, and other things that get cracked

  take two: early-morning ailments, un-boring berries, and new career opportunities

  take three: pilots without airplanes, doggie dance-offs, and zipped-up lips

  take four: fake soccer, laundry lists, and how to connect the dots

  take five: dream families, scheduling conflicts, and the other New York City

  take six:playing hooky, dancing on countertops, and other ways to shrug off real life

  take seven: acting your grade, tugging it out, and the right weather for boots

  take eight: lost-and-found voices, two shows for the price of one, and nowadays illnesses

  spy codes, movie-star bones,

  and other things

  that get cracked

  “Six, seven, eight, nine —!” Elinor is counting the seconds until our handstand contest collapses.

  “Jules!” Big Henry slams into the room and crash! Elinor and I are down in a heap.

  “Big Henry!” I shout from our pileup. “I was going for the record! That was going to be my longest handstand ever.” I turn to Elinor. “Right? I think we were going to get to ten seconds.”

  “Definitely,” Elinor says, rubbing her arm. “But now I think I need a hospital. Is it serious?” She holds out her arm for my examination. Elinor is sometimes dramatic about small injuries, which I like very much because she is never dramatic about one other thing. Besides, when she says things like this, in her lovely Elinor of London accent, it sounds like she is the actress and I am the regular person, and I picture my best friend, Elinor, dressed up in a glittery gown and waving to people on a long red carpet, and I am one of those celebrity newscasters asking her about her earrings and her shoes —

  “Jules!” Big Henry has come face-to-face with me, interrupting our imaginary moment. I look my little brother in the eyes and he doesn’t blink. This must be serious.

  I put my hands on his shoulders. “What is it?” I ask.

  “Rick Hinkley cracked his leg,” Big Henry says.

  I gasp.

  “Rick Hinkley cracked his leg?” I say.

  “Is that spy code?” Elinor asks.

  “What does this mean?” I ask Big Henry.

  “Ask Mommy,” he says.

  “Hello?” Elinor asks. “Non-spy here. Please explain.”

  “Rick Hinkley is the star of The Spy in the Attic,” I say.

  Now Elinor gasps.

  I run to the kitchen, where my mom is still on the phone. Today is Monday and tomorrow is supposed to be DAY ONE of being Lucy Lamb, spy-girl in the mega movie The Spy in the Attic, starring Mr. Rick Hinkley, an actor who used to be a professional hockey player, but who is now a big-time movie star. I get to be out of school all morning tomorrow, which is why I am having a Monday afternoon playdate with Elinor when I would usually be sitting at the bar of my dad’s almost-open restaurant, BLOOM!, doing my homework.

  Standing in the kitchen with a phone to her ear, my mom holds up a finger to me before I can even say one word. “Is that Colby Kingston?” I whisper as loud as I can.

  She nods. Colby Kingston has gone from being a primo casting director to being my mom’s best friend. (I say primo partly because she likes the way I make up songs in diner booths and partly because she’s the nicest, coolest tall-icy-drink-drinking person I’ve ever known. And yes, a little bit because she made me into an actress.) They spend a lot of time talking on the phone about things that have nothing to do with The Spy in the Attic, the movie in which I have twenty-two lines that I have been rehearsing every morning and night since the day I did not become the Swish (horrible orange-tasting) Mouthwash for Kids girl, and the movie that is now maybe, probably not going to happen because of Rick Hinkley’s cracked-up leg.

  Finally, my mom hangs up the phone.

  “What?” I say.

  “Well, Rick Hinkley broke his leg,” my mom tells me. “But Jules, this is not the end of the world. Movies get postponed all the time.”

  “Postponed?” I ask. I am hoping postponed means pushed forward.

  “Pushed back,” my mom says.

  I am having so many feelings inside my body that I feel like a pan of shake-over-the stovetop popcorn. I can’t even see my mom’s face. I only see the tinfoil getting bigger and bouncier with all those thousands of kernels popping to life inside until it just explodes.

  “Are you thinking about popcorn?” my mom asks.

  I squint my eyes at her. I have been practicing squinting my eyes at people for my spy-girl role. “How did you know that?” I ask in my spy-girl voice.

  “Because this is the kind of thing that usually makes you feel like you might explode stove-popped popcorn everywhere,” she explains.

  I sit down on the floor and rest my head in my hands. Elinor and Big Henry come and sit next to me.

  “So, what happens now?” Elinor asks. I shrug.

  “What happens now is we wait until Rick Hinkley’s leg heals, and in the meantime, we get back to life as usual,” my mom says.

  “Life as usual is boring,” I say. “Life as usual is all school, playdate, dinner, bed — boring! And then when school is over it will be camp, dinner, bed — boring!” I throw my hands in the air and start stomping back and forth. “And anyway, I’m probably going to forget my lines and then have to learn them again, which is —” I look at Big Henry. “Hank?” I say in a big, loud director voice. Calling him Hank seems like something a director would do.

  “BORING!” he yells.

  “See? Even Big Henry knows,” I say. “I rest my case.”

  “Jules!” my mom says. She looks like she’s going to say something important, or like she might be very mad at me for freaking out like this, so I cover my ears. But instead she just looks at me for an extra-long minute and then she leaves the room.

  “Where’d she go?” Elinor asks.

  “Maaa
aahmmy!” Big Henry yells in his whining four-year-old voice.

  “Coming,” she sings back.

  “She’s mad that I said life as usual is boring,” I say.

  “She doesn’t sound mad,” Elinor says.

  “Trust me,” I say. “She’s mad.”

  “It seems like you’re the one who’s mad,” Elinor says.

  “She’s dramatic,” Big Henry says.

  “Hank!” I say. Then I turn to Elinor, who looks upset. “Why do you look that way?”

  “I don’t like all the yelling,” she says.

  “You don’t ever yell?” I ask.

  “No,” she says.

  “Not ever? Not even in a good way, like a hooting-and-hollering-at-a-Yankees-game way?”

  “Nope,” Elinor says.

  I study my new best friend and wonder why, even though she looks like a regular, happy-on-the-outside person, she seems just the littlest bit sad on the inside.

  Some crashing sounds come from the pantry-studio where my mom works, and we all look around the corner, but it isn’t my mom who comes back through the door. It is her giganto easel, which she pushes all the way through the kitchen and into the living room. Ugly Otis looks up at the ruckus from his big dog bed in the corner and decides to join the sitting-on-the-floor crowd.

  “There!” my mom pants. She seems proud. Elinor and I look at each other. We have been best friends for three full months now and she still forgets that my mom gets mad in different ways than her mom gets mad. Leona Breedlove, Elinor’s mom, gives Elinor time in a naughty chair if she does something bad. And I only know this because Elinor told me, not because Elinor has ever done anything bad enough to actually get her into a naughty chair, since I think she is the best-behaved seven-year-old that has ever lived in New York City.

  “Welcome to the show Who Did That Fabulously Un-Boring Thing?”

  “The what?” Big Henry asks.

  My mom is less of a naughty-chair punisher and more of a game-show punisher.

  “It’s a game, Hank,” my mom says. She has gotten tired of calling my brother Big Henry all the time and now calls him Hank. She thinks it sounds strong and to the point, like Big Henry. She writes in a fat marker on the paper: ROUND ONE. Then she gets a serious expression and says, “Who turns boring old milk into fizzy-ice-cream-cone milk with only a cup and a straw?”

  “Jules does!” Big Henry yells.

  “She does?” my mom — I mean the game-show host — asks. “Well, I don’t know about that. That doesn’t sound very boring at all, but all right, one point for Hank.” She flips the page on the easel and writes ROUND TWO. “Who can turn boring old mud into a dee-luxe, state-of-the-art worm swimming pool?”

  “Jules can!” Elinor says, getting up on her knees. She goes right back to sitting quietly and looking serious, like the shouting never happened. She seemed so, so happy for that little burst of a second that I decide that I am going to make my not-a-movie-star life be about getting Elinor to let out some hoots and hollers. Not just letting them out, but letting them stay out. That’ll get her all cheered up.

  “Are you sure, Elinor?” my mom asks. “Building a worm swimming pool doesn’t sound even a little bit boring.”

  “I’m definitely sure,” Elinor says.

  “Oh, and just one more question — a bonus round,” my mom says. “Which neurotic second grader managed to land herself the un-boring-est new best friend in new-best-friend history?”

  Elinor smiles at this. “I don’t see how anyone could get bored in this house for even one second.” I am frustrated that Elinor thinks this is loads of fun, but at least she seems happy, which is a start.

  “Fine,” I say. “I’m sorry. Life is not boring. Only boring people get bored. I get it.”

  My mom claps and cheers WAY too loud, and all of her crazy behavior is making my face feel hot. I want it to stop. “ANYWAY,” I shout as loud as I can, “I already thought of a new project.”

  “First, watch the tone of your voice, Jules Bloom,” my mom says. “You’re on thin ice after that little display a minute ago.”

  “Sorry,” I say.

  “And second, is your new project boring?” she asks.

  “Not at all,” I say.

  “Well, what is it?” Elinor asks.

  “Nope, not telling. I may not be starting the movie tomorrow, but I am still a super-secret-spy-girl-in-training, you know. You’ll find out soon enough.”

  Just then, the door opens and my dad walks in. “Hello!” he says.

  “Daddy!” Big Henry and I yell as we run into my dad’s arms.

  “Rick Hinkley has a cracked-up leg and the movie is postponed, and Mommy did a game show to remind me that life is not boring,” I say.

  “And Jules has a new project!” Big Henry says.

  “Elinor,” my dad says seriously, “is all of this true?”

  “Every last word, Mr. Bloom,” Elinor says.

  “Well, I have some news, too,” he says. “The restaurant is in full bloom.” We are all quiet for a minute.

  “More spy codes?” Elinor asks.

  “No!” I say. “Well, yes, it means BLOOM! has passed inspection!”

  My dad hasn’t even gotten to cook in his own restaurant yet because of all the other things a chef needs to do before a restaurant can actually open.

  “Yeth!” Big Henry’s lispy yes makes me laugh, and I start to hoot and holler Yankees-game style. We all do. All except Elinor, who smiles, but does not hoot and holler, or jump up and down. I have to fix this. I feel those butterflies start to flit around in my stomach, because soon enough there will be hooting and hollering coming out of Elinor, and I’m the only one who knows it.

  early-morning ailments,

  un-boring berries, and

  new career opportunities

  I wake up with a giant pain in my stomach. “Mommy!” I yell, which does not bring my mom, but it does bring my brother.

  “What, Jules?” he says with his hands asking the question, like a grown-up. Sometimes I think Big Henry is more like a parent than a little boy. “Tell Mommy I have a Charlotte-ache,” I say.

  Big Henry leaves and I pull the covers over my head and wait.

  “A Charlotte-ache?” my mom says, standing over my head. She has not yet pulled the covers off of me, and I know it’s coming. I nod.

  “So, we’re talking about a stomachache, right?” she asks.

  I nod again.

  “A stomachache because you have to go to school and tell Charlotte that movie rehearsals aren’t starting today after all?”

  I nod again and I can’t believe she hasn’t pulled the covers off yet. I feel like I might suffocate. I picture the ocean in Florida and getting sucked away by the undertow and I start to panic. I sit straight up and throw the covers off of me. “Why didn’t you pull off my covers? I WAS DROWNING!” I say in a very loud voice, louder than my mother is comfortable with.

  “Excuse me?” she says in her about-to-freak-out voice.

  I start to cry. “She is going to make fun of me,” I say. My ex-best friend, Charlotte (Stinkytown) Pinkerton, is just waiting for me to fail at being an actor. “And then she is going to tell me that she knows Hollywood and that this means there will be no movie and that I will never be a movie star and that at least it was nice while it lasted.” I am hiccupping because the tears have turned my stomach upside down.

  “Okay, calm down,” my mom says, sitting on my bed and putting both of her hands on my head. “It sounds like you already know what Charlotte is going to say.”

  “So?”

  “So that means you can prepare what you want to say right now, so you don’t have to feel terrible when she says these things.”

  “What should I say?” I ask, knowing that she will not tell me.

  “What do you want to say?” she asks. I knew it.

  “That the movie is so going to happen and that broken bones heal fast, especially when you are part hockey star and part movie star,�
� I say.

  “Is that it?”

  “And that it gives me time to work on my own secret project,” I say.

  “Okay,” my mom says. “Good then. All set?”

  I think for a minute. The Charlotte-ache seems to be over. I nod. “I guess so,” I say.

  “Great,” she says. “So put on something very un-boring and I will make you an un-boring breakfast parfait of yogurt and granola and blueberries.”

  “Wow, that is very un-boring,” I say, feeling much better.

  I gobble up my parfait and head out into the heat wave, where even the bright, beautiful flowers sitting in their water pots at the deli on the corner look worn-out from holding up all this heavy air. Thankfully, the hot gets knocked right out of me by the blast of freezing-cold air that hits me in the face as I hop up the M104 stairs and find a seat. My mom chats with the bus driver while I stare at my goose bumps and Big Henry rides the bus roller-coaster style the rest of the way down Broadway.

  The inside of my classroom feels more like the inside of an oven and I wonder why there can’t be an in-between temperature during a heat wave. “Hola, Ms. Leon,” I say to the best teacher that has ever taught in any school ever.

  “Hola, Jules,” she says back. I search the room for Elinor, but she isn’t here yet. Even seeing my other friend Teddy would make me feel better, but he is late, as usual.

  “How about an hola to the rest of us, Jules?” Charlotte asks. “You weren’t even supposed to be here today.”

  Charlotte has a way of being mean without actually saying anything mean.

  “Well, movies get postponed all the time,” I say.

  “Is it because of Rick Hinkley’s broken leg?” she asks.

  “How do you know about that?” I say. I am not at all happy that Charlotte knows something about my life that I just found out myself.

  “It was on the news last night, Jules. Everyone knows. They said it could be months until it heals.”

  Months! I think to myself. I try to remain calm. I try to remember what my mom said this morning, but I can’t. I can’t think of anything to say. Not one word.