Absolutely Famous(12)

“C’mon Robbie! You’re being so slow!” My Mommy’s friend Robbie never races me into school. He always tries to walk so carefully, looking around the parking lot all the time. Probably looking for the bad camera people.

“Stay with me, Syd,” he calls out, sounding a little angry, as usual.

“No way slowpoke! You gotta catch me!” I run faster, because I know it makes him go faster to keep up with me.

I’m looking back at Robbie as I run toward the school, so I don’t see the woman until I smash right into her and fall backwards. She grabs my arms tight to keep me from falling down.

“Sydney, baby, I’ve been waiting for you,” she says. Something isn’t right with this lady. She smells bad, and her clothes are really old. She pulls me into a hug and starts dragging me toward an old beat up car.

“Let go of me!” I scream.

“Don’t talk to your mother that way, Sydney,” she says, smiling at me. Her smile is weird, like she’s not really smiling but twisting her mouth up.

“You’re not my mother!” I yell, trying to hit her with my tiny hands.

Suddenly, I’m jerked backwards, my sleeves ripping because her grip on me was so strong.

“Get on the ground, lady!” Robbie is shoving the scary woman to the pavement, pushing me behind him with his other arm.

I see the school policeman, Officer John, running towards us with his hand on his belt. Is he going to shoot this lady? Now I’m scared, like maybe I’m going to pee my pants or something.

Our car screeches to a stop next to me, and our driver Brett jumps out and opens the back door. He picks me up and throws me in as I scream in terror. I look out the window as we speed away and see Officer John kneeling on the crazy lady as she thrashes around on the ground, shrieking for me to come back. Robbie is standing there watching as people from the school office run towards them from the front door of the school.

Shaking, I realize how much trouble I’ll be in for running away from Robbie. My parents won’t let me go back to school after this, and it’s all my fault. Tears run down my face and soak my white uniform blouse. I don’t want to be homeschooled. Mommy talks about it all the time. She says I can be on the movie sets with her all day and have a private teacher. I don’t want a private teacher! I just want to be normal, .like Amber Clayton. Everyone thinks it’s so cool to that my parents are so famous, I hate it! I hate them!



****



I wake up and have no idea where I am. Shit, that dream seemed so real. I didn’t even remember that day until now. I forgot about the woman who kept trying to get on the campus of my school, and eventually tried to take me. I don’t even know what happened to her after that. I was too young to be involved. I’ll have to ask my mom the next time we speak. Or maybe I shouldn’t, it’s better to just forget it.

Disoriented, I realize I’m in Drew’s trailer at the studio. I recall lying down on the bed after taking a couple of ibuprofen for my hangover. I must have fallen asleep. Shaking off the nightmare, I get up and walk into the little kitchen and grab a bottle of water out of the mini-fridge. I drink half of the bottle because my mouth is so dry then dig my phone out of my purse.

I skim through the contacts and dial.

“Syd? What’s up?”

“Hey Leah, you packing for London?” I ask my best friend, trying to hide the stress in my voice.

“A little, I don’t leave until Saturday so I have a few days. Mostly, I’ve been shopping my ass off.”

“Like you need to do more shopping, if they ever make it an Olympic sport, you’re guaranteed a gold medal.”

“Yeah, I know,” she laughs. “So, is everything alright?” Suddenly serious, my best friend can hear the worry in my voice.

“Not really.” I explain the website to Leah, and how since we’ve left New York they always seem to have eerily accurate inside information, even when Drew and I are having conversations alone.

“You need to tell Drew, Sydney. Something’s not right. Someone is spying on you guys. Are you sure it’s not the muscle-head that follows you everywhere?”

“I’m positive, Leah. He’s worked with Drew before and there’s never been a peep in the press about anything. This is new. I don’t want to bother Drew with this, Leah. He’s so unbelievably stressed out that it’s going to affect his film. I can’t bring down a 100 million dollar movie production just because I’m paranoid.”

“Syd, it’s not paranoid if they’re actually spying on you,” she responds sarcastically.

“No, it’s not up for discussion. I’m not telling him until I’m sure that something is going on. I just wanted to see if you thought it was as strange as I think it is.”