Chapter 1
The End of the Stick Dogs
Amanda Lester was so tired of hearing about the great Sherlock Holmes she could scream. Mr. La-di-da boring detective, whoop-de-doo. Night and day, day and night, he was all her parents talked about. “It’s time to get serious, Amanda. When I was your age, I had already memorized Sherlock Holmes’s complete memoirs.” “Darling, that will never work. You must do it like Sherlock Holmes.” “Did I tell you what Mergatroyd Thumbwhistle said about Sherlock Holmes?” She loved her parents but they were so clueless.
Why couldn’t they see that she wasn’t interested in becoming a detective and never would be? Just because the profession ran in her family, so what? Sure, her dad was descended from Inspector G. Lestrade of Scotland Yard—the police detective who worked with Holmes—but that didn’t mean she had to be like him. Genes weren’t destiny. At least she hoped they weren’t. The man was a disaster, an inconvenient fact that seemed to escape the Lesters, who fervently believed that Holmes and Lestrade were equals.
No, she had more important things to think about. She was a filmmaker. She’d discovered her passion at the age of three, which meant she’d been at it for nine years. That was practically a decade! “Lunchpail,” the film she’d written and directed when she was seven, was her masterpiece, although “Mynah Bird,” which she’d produced at ten, came in at a close second. Of course “A Distant Snail” was good too, but she should have animated it rather than trying to film actual snails, which hadn’t been very cooperative, especially during the racing scenes.
Now, at twelve, all that was behind her. She was practically an adult. It was time to get down to business—if she could just clear a few teensy eensy hurdles, like the fact that no one would work with her anymore because she was too bossy, and that thing about her parents threatening to send her to boarding school if she didn’t drop that “frivolous hobby.” So she had to keep her meetings with the Stick Dog Filmmakers Club and Production Company a secret. If Herb and Lila Lester found out she was still making movies they’d ruin everything.
Of course there was another minor problem. The Stick Dogs weren’t actually producing anything. They’d been meeting for months and had got nowhere. It seemed that even after all this time, Amanda and her friends Laurie Wong and Jill Javor couldn’t agree on a concept. With the deadline for entering the Kangaroo Egg Film Festival rapidly approaching, they were headed for disaster and she was as nervous as could be. If they didn’t make it this time, they’d have to admit defeat and disband. Amanda had already lost everyone else she’d worked with. Without Jill and Laurie she’d have no actors, no crew, and no help, and her career would be over.
She glanced at the time. Three-fifty. Only a few minutes till the meeting so she’d better scoot.
She turned back to the email she couldn’t believe she’d received and had already read seventy-three times. Darius Plover, her favorite director, had actually answered her! It had taken a couple of months, but here the message was, in all its glory—three short but dazzling paragraphs from the man who’d made “Scaffold,” “Night of the Turkey,” and “Dirigible.” She’d never expected him to get back to her. She was in heaven.
Dear Miss Lester,
Thank you for your lovely note. I am honored that you’ve enjoyed my films.
Regarding your question about the best way for directors to work with actors, the most important thing is to respect them. They are artists, just like you. Don’t try to micromanage them. That way they will enjoy working with you and your films will shine.
Please keep me posted on your work. I’d love to hear from you anytime.
Sincerely,
Darius Plover.
He was so nice! Maybe geniuses weren’t all nasty and weird. And his advice was perfect. Now that she thought about it, it was obvious she’d been doing it wrong. She’d let her ambition get in the way and had driven her actors crazy. No wonder they’d all quit. From now on she’d be more patient.
But what if being patient didn’t fix the problem? Maybe she was just no good, or too weird, and that was why they had all left her. Maybe the culprit was those Lestrade genes. Not that Holmes was any better. In fact in some ways he was worse. Sure, he was smart, but he was creepy and didn’t have any friends. Detectives never did. Actually, she might be well suited to being one after all. She didn’t have any friends either. Jill and Laurie were just colleagues.
Amanda clutched her phone to her chest and held it tight. If she weren’t so afraid of her parents’ reaction, she’d print the email, frame it, and accord it a place of honor over her desk, right between her pictures of Ang Lee and Charlie Kaufman. Unfortunately she’d have to keep it to herself. She could never tell anyone about it for fear that it would get back to them. If that happened she’d never hear the end of it, especially from her mom.
She threw the phone in her bag and walked the two long, shady blocks from Ysidro Middle School to Laurie’s big white colonial house. The formal structure looked out of place among the warm, inviting hacienda-style homes that surrounded it. Not that most people cared. She did, though. It made the street look like the set designer had goofed.
When she arrived the girls were hanging around in Laurie’s lemon yellow room with the emerald green carpet (not good for shooting scenes—the light was awful—but okay for planning them) with cups of cocoa, talking animatedly. That wasn’t new, but the subject was.
“We’ve got it,” said Jill, her braces reflecting the afternoon light and flashing patterns on the wall. With those green eyes and purple-streaked blonde hair she looked like a human color wheel.
“Got what?” said Amanda, slurping a marshmallow.
“The best idea for the film,” said Jill.
Amanda was excited to hear this. Maybe their problems were finally behind them. She leaned forward, which was not such a wise idea when you were trying to manage a hot drink.
Jill beamed at her and Amanda could see bits of cookie between her teeth. Apparently the girls had already been partaking. “Let’s forget all about the psychological thriller. We’ll make a detective story!” She sat back and waited for a response.
Amanda practically choked. No, no, no! They were going to make a serious drama. They’d already agreed, although it had taken them two months to come to the decision. They’d floated the idea of a horror movie (easy because it didn’t cost much, but not really them), then a comedy (a problem because none of them was that funny), and then a quirky movie about a restaurant, but they could never get the script right. Well, she couldn’t get the script right, since Laurie and Jill didn’t actually write. They kind of hovered. But this time she would nail it. She was absolutely sure. What didn’t they like about the idea all of a sudden?
Of course it wasn’t much of an idea yet, and that was a big problem. They’d settled on the type of movie it would be, but that was all. It didn’t help that everyone was teasing them about it—at least the kids who knew what they were up to.
Of course everyone in L.A. was writing a screenplay. The stick dogs were a cliché. As if Delia Toother in Amanda’s history class weren’t one herself, with her retro clothing and sixties hair. Or Lloyd Supper, that smug kid from algebra, with his eleventy billion apps. They were hardly ones to talk. Well, she didn’t care what people thought. They were going to nail it if it was the last thing they did. Then they’d all go on to exciting careers and leave the naysayers in the dust. Life would be perfect and her parents would forget all about Sherlock Holmes.
Amanda turned back to her fellow stick dogs. She’d have to be diplomatic or they’d bail, just like all the actors and crew members who’d ever worked with her. The director’s words “Don’t micromanage” rattled around in her head. She could do this. I will not butt in, I will not butt in, I will not butt in.
“A detective story?” she said. There. That wasn’t so bad. No flame throwing.
“Yeah,” said Laurie, her wide mouth topped with a neat little cocoa mustache. F
rom where Amanda was sitting she could see her friend’s reflection in the dressing table mirror. She watched as two spectacled girls with long black hair gushed with excitement. “It’s perfect! Everyone loves detective stories. It would be easy to write, and we’d have no trouble getting actors.”
“Right,” said Jill. “We think a drama’s too hard. This will finally get us on track. We’re tired of sitting around trying to think of things. Detective stories are all the same. It’s impossible to mess them up.”
Amanda could feel her blood begin to boil, although she didn’t like to think of blood. It reminded her of Sherlock Holmes. They’d discussed the idea of detective stories before and rejected it. Why were her friends bringing it up again? But when she thought about it, maybe Jill had something. Detective stories were all the same. She’d never thought of them like that before, but Jill’s pronouncement did go a long way toward explaining why she hated everything to do with detectives.
“If they’re all the same, why do you think we could win the festival?” Amanda said, trying to keep her voice calm.
“Because no one else will do one,” said Laurie. “Too obvious.”
“Yeah,” said Jill. “And you could totally do this, Amanda. With your family background and all.”
Argh! Jill couldn’t have said anything worse. To remind Amanda of her heritage, to embarrass and shame her like that, was not the way to convince her of anything. More likely it was a way to get her to fire them. Wait, what was she thinking? She wasn’t that person. Not anymore. Patience.
She wanted to be patient. She wanted to be the director everyone was dying to work with. But it was one thing to think something and another to act on it. Try as she might, Amanda didn’t feel patient. She felt frustrated. Before she knew it she had put the cocoa down (it was a good thing, because her hands were shaking), drawn herself up to her full height of five feet, pushed her thick, dark hair off her face,, and uttered a big, fat “NO.”
“What do you mean ‘no’?” the girls said in unison.
“I said, uh, no?” Her voice was weaker now.
“You can’t just veto our ideas like that,” said Laurie. “You didn’t even think about what I said. You know, we used to like you—you were a lot of fun—but you’re getting too bossy. You’re becoming a big dork.”
“I’m not a dork. You’re a dork,” said Amanda with a face as red as a baboon’s butt, a color—and an image—that did not suit her warm brown eyes. This was not Plover-like behavior but she couldn’t help herself. Why didn’t her friends get it?
“No, you are,” said Jill placing her hands on her hips. “You always try to tell us what to do. Who do you think you are?”
“I’m the director!” yelled Amanda at the top of her lungs. Oops.
“Well you can just boss yourself,” said Laurie, “because I quit.”
“Me too,” said Jill.
“You can’t be a one-man band, Amanda,” said Laurie. “Sometimes you need to be a part of something bigger than yourself. Think about what someone else wants for a change. Come on, Jill. Let’s go.”
“Er, this is your house, Laurie,” said Jill.
“Go away, Amanda,” said Laurie. “You’ll never be a real filmmaker. No one will ever work with you. You’re stuck up, dictatorial, closed-minded, fat, and—”
But Amanda was already out the door and on her way down the steps. She’d heard that part about fat, though. It just added insult to injury. So she was a little overweight. So what? Everybody was these days. Maybe not in L.A., but most other places. She was always seeing fat models on Web sites, and some of those actresses in BBC productions were huge. Anyway Laurie was one to talk.
It was over. That much was clear. But now what would she do? No more stick dogs. She’d have to make the serious drama alone, and she didn’t even have a script. How would she get it together by the deadline? Maybe she should go back to the idea of the horror movie, but ugh. Horror movies never won awards. They were so schlocky! She’d never be able to write a comedy. It took forever to think up jokes. The restaurant idea? She’d have to give it some thought.